The Serpent by Neil M. Gunn

would never have risked the offer on his own! She was a fair-haired wisp of a girl carrying her head in the air. Afterwards he found out that she was really more shy than snobbish, with an ardent affectionate nature, very possessive. This possessive quality moved him strongly. It had sudden childlike attributes. It went completely to his head for a time. He would wait at street corners in the dark. Sometimes she would come rushing to see him for a moment, escaping from her home as from a powerful stronghold; sometimes she wouldn’t come at all. She had the dramatic manner that could make small things all alive, she had hands that could clutch him in fear and possession, while yet she was elusive and virginal, as if hunted somewhere in her mind by something or someone else. He felt very tender towards her, and would not have hinted at an offensive word or act for the world. She was extremely conscientious about her studies and had very good passes.
    Then one night she asked him if he loved her. It was not so that they might indulge their love if declared – neither place nor time was propitious – but out of some obscure need of the moment in her to have this assurance from him. He smiled, he tried to laugh, to pass it off. He did not feel it was the right moment. He found he could not make the declaration lightly, could not say it. It was as if by doing so he would make himself forever vulnerable. The reluctance that came upon him was amazingly strong.Something inside him that would not give way or be given away. So he tried to chaff her out of her mood, not lightly so much as affectionately, as if (the old country cunning) words were not needed.
    â€˜But I want to hear you say it.’
    â€˜Not here.’
    â€˜Please! Quick! Please – before I go!’
    â€˜Listen –’
    â€˜Please! I must go! Now! Now!’
    Tom remained silent, smiling in an awkward remote way.
    She tugged and shook the lapels of his coat, her face uplifted in burning impatience. Footsteps came along the darkened street behind them. She dropped her hands. When the figures passed, she did not lift her hands again. She waited, looking at him with a white straining face. He could not speak. Suddenly she turned and walked away.
    He strode quickly after her and walked by her side. ‘Don’t go in yet,’ he said. ‘Wait a bit.’
    But she was not waiting, and she went in without opening her mouth.
    On the way home, he felt almost sick with excitement. He found he could not go inside, and kept walking about lonely side streets for what must have been hours. It seemed to him that life had suddenly come to a point of momentous, almost monstrous, decision; nothing like it could ever conceivably face him again. It was now and here.
    It is impossible to exaggerate his extraordinary state of unrest. His mouth was dry. His legs shaky. Something irrevocable had happened, was about to happen. Winnie’s face, life, time, fate – the night was charged with vast and irresistible circumstance, so that he could not think clearly, could reach to a decision only to slide down from it into despair.
    He came to his lodging at last in a tired, weakened condition. His two room-mates were asleep. As he lit the candle, he saw the parcel of laundry from home. Memory of the scarlet night when he had returned to Bob and Dannie in a queer enough state of mind touched him but without even a flick of a smile. He was too weary to notice thatthe handwriting on the outside of the parcel was not his father’s. He drew the pin out of his mother’s scrap of letter and found inside it a pound note.
    Dear Tom,
Your father had a heart attack the day afore yesterday he is in his bed and will be for a while. The doctor was in at him yesterday he says he must not get up and he must not work for a long time. Theres no need to be alarumd for the meantime though one never knows. Its the harvest thats the worst. The doctor was saying