Muriel Spark - The Complete Short Stories

But in those ten silent days between the middle of the month and the 25th Selwyn Macgregor would sit by his window and contemplate the graves of the dead.

Selwyn’s aunt lived in a tenement flat in the Warrender district of Edinburgh. Those flats were once occupied by people of good substance and still here and there contain a whole lot of wealth behind the lack of show.

‘The district’s going down,’ Selwyn’s aunt was saying for twenty years. But let anyone come and tell her, ‘This quarter’s going down’:

‘Not in my consideration, it isn’t,’ she would say.

It was Selwyn’s Aunt Macgregor who, in view of the fact that his mother had been Welsh, sent him his monthly cheque, for it wasn’t Selwyn’s fault that his mother had been Welsh and mad or at least bone lazy. What’s bred in the bone comes out.

There wouldn’t be much point in going into many details about Aunt Macgregor, what she looked like in her navy blue and how her eyes, nose and mouth were disposed among the broken veins of her fine severe old face, because her features went, as Selwyn said, under the earth where corruption is, and her navy blue went to the nurse.

Well, she died. Some months before, you must know, she visited Selwyn up there in that shack by the graveyard. She wore her brown, for she was careful with the navy. So up she went on the excursion to Selwyn Macgregor. He wasn’t contemplating just then, so the doors were open.

‘Auntie Macgregor! A little drop, Auntie, oh come on, a bit of a drop. That’s the girl.’

‘Selwyn,’ she said, ‘you’re the worse.

‘Worse than what?’ Although Selwyn knew she meant for the drink.

‘Worse than what? Worse than who? Than who-oo-ooo?’ Selwyn kept on chanting, and she started to laugh. She had a soft spot really for Selwyn.

Well, she died and left him a packet. Selwyn travelled to the funeral, a bitter cold day. Bitter cold, and naturally he had his flask in his pocket. For you must know Selwyn entertained a lively faith in the Resurrection; work it out, there was no dishonour meant to Aunt Macgregor by Selwyn’s taking precautions against the cold at the graveside though he tottered and there was talk.

‘Dust to dust…’

‘That’s never Miss Macgregor’s nephew! Surely yon’s never!’

‘That’s the chief mourner, her brother’s boy. What’s he up to for the Lord’s sake?’

Selwyn lifted a handful of earth. But then, then, he stood looking at it with his smile. There was the coffin waiting and all the people waiting. So when the minister nodded as if to say, ‘All right, toss it on the coffin,’ Selwyn flung the earth over his left shoulder out of force of habit, as he did at home with the salt. After that he beamed round at the mourners as much as to say, ‘Here’s health!’ or ‘Cheerio!’ or some similar saying.

‘Poor Miss Macgregor. The only relative, poor soul.’

Shortly afterwards Selwyn received a letter about his aunt’s will from one of the trustees. It was rather complicated, and so Selwyn wrote, ‘Come and see me after the 25th. And he busied himself with contemplation until that date. On the 26th the trustee arrived at Selwyn’s door with his healthy face and dark overcoat. Selwyn thought, what a nice wee trustee, here’s hoping he’s brought some ready.

‘Make yourself at home,’ said Selwyn, getting out another glass.

‘Ta,’ said the man.

‘Here’s hoping,’ Selwyn said.

And eventually this trustee said to Selwyn, ‘You know the provision in Miss Macgregor’s will?’

‘I did notice something,’ Selwyn declared, ‘in that letter you sent me but I was busy at the time.’

So the man read out the will, and when he came to the bit ‘… to my nephew Selwyn Macgregor…’ he stopped and looked at Selwyn, … providing,’ he continued, ‘he looks after his health.’

‘My auntie all over,’ Selwyn said and filled up the glasses. ‘A very fine woman, Mr —?’

‘Brown,’ said the man. ‘My partner Mr Harper is the other trustee. You’ll get on fine with him. When will you be moving from here?’

‘Aw when I’m dead,’ said Selwyn.

‘Now, Mr Macgregor, this is not a healthy spot. The will says —’

‘To hell with the will,’ said Selwyn, and patted Mr Brown on the shoulder, so that Mr Brown couldn’t help warming to him, what with the whisky-tingle inside him, and the pleasant Welsh lilt of the ‘l’s’ when Selwyn had said, ‘To hell with the will.’

‘My work keeps me here,’ Selwyn added.

‘What is your work, Mr Macgregor?’

‘The contemplation of corruption.’

‘Now, Mr Macgregor, that is not a healthy occupation. I don’t wish to be difficult but my partner Mr Harper takes his duty as a trustee very much to heart. Miss Macgregor was an old client of ours and she always worried about your health.’

‘Bung ho, press on!’ said Selwyn.

‘Same to you, Mr Mac. Here’s to you, sir.’

‘You can tell Harper,’ Selwyn pointed out, ‘that you found me in good health and busy working.’

‘You look a bit thin, Mr Macgregor. This doesn’t look a healthy spot to me.

Selwyn played him a tune and sang him a song. ‘O mother, mother,’ he sang, ‘make my bed. O make it soft and narrow …’

‘Very nice,’ said the trustee when he’d finished. ‘That was rare. ‘I’m a musician,’ said Selwyn. ‘You needn’t mention my other work to Harper.’

‘Here, you’re trying to corrupt me, that’ll never do. Didn’t you say corruption was your line?’

‘No, no. I do contemplation of corruption,’ Selwyn explained. ‘A very different thing, very high. Drink up.’

‘Here’s wishing you all you wish yourself;’ said Mr Brown. ‘You don’t corrupt me, mind!’

‘It’s either I corrupt you or you corrupt me,’ Selwyn stated, and he went on to explain himself; and they argued the point while the time became timeless and they got muddled over the word corrupt, calling it cupped.

‘Who’s cupping who?’ said Mr Brown. ‘Who’s cups?’

Eventually Selwyn couldn’t laugh for coughing, and again, he couldn’t cough for laughing. When he recovered he passed the bottle and went deep into the question of cups being a corrupt form of corrupt.

He sang out, ‘Ha, ha, ha. Hee, hee, hee. I’ll cup you or you’ll cup me.

‘Here’s a short life and a merry one!’ said Mr Brown.

Well, it was Selwyn corrupted the trustee. His monthly cheque, bigger than before, continued to come in. All through the winter he carried on his routine, doors open for company on the 25th, and on the 15th doors shut, and Selwyn at his window contemplating the dead graves.

He died the following spring. There had been an X-ray two years back, when Selwyn had said, ‘Aw to hell with my chest, I’ve work to do. Here’s a health!’

Mr Brown said to his partner, ‘He never told me of his chest. If I’d known of it I would have seen him into a warm house and a new suit. I would have seen him with a housekeeper and I would have seen him into medical hands.’

‘These musicians,’ said Mr Harper. ‘Too dedicated. One must admire them, though.’

‘Oh, must one? Oh, must one?’ said Mr Brown irritably, for he couldn’t himself think highly of Selwyn who had been so shabby as to actually die when he had more or less agreed only to contemplate.

‘A sad tale,’ said Mr Harper dreamily. ‘Macgregor was a hero in his way.

‘Oh, was he? Oh, was he?’ At that moment Mr Brown despised his stupid partner almost more than he resented the dead man. Though lately, chancing to be in those parts where Selwyn had lived, even Mr Brown couldn’t help the thought, ‘Oh, Selwyn Macgregor, what a manner you had!’ And when he saw that they had levelled out the old graveyard to make a playground for the children, he contemplated Selwyn’s corruption for a long time.