17

AS THEY WERE all going out the door at the end of the period Janet handed him a book.

“What’s that?” he asked, having forgotten for the moment.

“It’s the Gaelic poetry book,” she said.

Ronny was looking at them quizzically and Janet was looking at Ronny strangely. It was such an odd look that Malcolm was for a moment startled out of his pleasure at receiving the book and the fact that she had remembered at all. He knew by his interception of that look that there was something inconceivably intricate between Ronny and Janet. In the sunlight Ronny looked so handsome and gay, so insouciant, so careless, so negligent, the eyes quizzical, the mouth slightly mocking, the pose that of a kind of Byron. And Janet with her tanned face, a kind of Dido? And then Ronny was gone and where he had been was a shadow moving on. “The news will come to me amid the shades.”

“Was it easy for you to get?” he asked.

“Yes. There was one in the house but I didn’t know. And I never read it.”

“Thank you very much for bringing it. I wondered if you’d remember. You only go home at weekends, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“What’s the Hostel like?”

“All right.”

“Do you get out much at nights?”

“At nights.” She looked at him in a startled way. “No, not really.”

“I thought …”

“What did you think?”

“Nothing. It’s all right. It doesn’t matter.” He had thought she would be going with Ronny.

“What does your father do?”

“My father? Oh he’s a painter. Paints houses, not pictures. We are quite poor.”

Curious, this way she had of making his heart turn over when he looked at her. It was something innocent, something casual. He knew she wasn’t intellectual. It was the careless way in which she carried her beauty, as if she were no one special.

“Well,” she said, “that’s the book.” It was as if she were going to say something else and decided against it.

He didn’t want to leave her.

“Will you go to university, do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I may not be good enough. I may not get enough Highers …”

“Yes, well thank you for the book …” Then casually, half moving away, “I don’t suppose you’d like to come to the cinema with me some night?”

She looked at him for a moment and then said biting her lip:

“I don’t know. I suppose it could be managed. I don’t know.”

It could be managed. His heart leaped with joy. “When?” he said.

“I don’t know yet. I’ll let you know.”

She left and he watched her going. Then he rushed off to the next class all on fire. He would take her to the pictures after all, he would defeat Ronny. She turned the corner in her navy pinafore with the yellow belt.

Let us welcome the morning joyfully and gladly.

Let us welcome the morning.