Authors: William Golding
They have not brought me before them for a long time. When they do that I am cold and frightened but when they do not I am lonely even with people about. I have a great wish to obey them in this journey they talk about. Is my wish to go away from Cornwall a being led by them, I ask myself. Sometimes when the spirits do not appear and I remember my Bible floating away in its wooden covers or sinking down my hair prickles a bit still and I go cold but it is not the same cold. But then I remember I am at the centre of things and must be content to wait no matter how long.
I take up my pen to write that they have not brought me before them for more than a period of three weeks. I know I must wait but worry sometimes in case they do not bring me before them because I have done something that is wrong. Sometimes when I am far down I wish dearly that I had a kind wife and some little children. Sometimes I have a great wish to return to what I may call my home, that is, Greenfield, the town where Foundlings was.
They came again. I said I did not know whether the saying to me that I was to go on a journey was all or that it was right to wait for more instructions. They showed: You are right to wait. You are now to eat and drink more to get up your strength for the journey. You are to go to Curnow’s Store and choose among the second-hand bikes you saw there for one to ride. You are to learn to ride it.
They showed: We are pleased with your progress in strength and in riding the bike. In a little while we shall send you on your journey. We are pleased with you and allow you to ask us any questions you like. Then I was bold to ask something that had been on my mind for several months. When I was at a stand for progress I offered up speaking as a heave-offering. Now I said they allowed me to eat and drink more. Could I perhaps speak more too for in my young days I was a great talker and not ever content with yea and nay but spoke many unsanctified words. When I had said this to them I saw their light dimmed and there was a silence in heaven for a space of half an hour. So I offered myself up on the altar. At last they showed: You are so often in our thoughts familiarly that we do not always remember how naturally wicked you earthly creatures are. Then the spirit dressed in red (I think he is some kind of president) showed: Your tongue was bound so that in the time of the promise which is to come you shall speak words like a sword going out of your mouth. I thanked
them both very much but mostly the spirit in red as he is a higher spirit than the other. Then they showed: Seeing you are a friend of ours in the spiritual kingdom for all your terrible face and earthly wickedness we will allow some relief to your wish to talk. You may if the pain of not talking is past putting up with (and as it is a spiritual pain we know it is three times worse than an earthly pain) you may, in a dark place preach a sermon to the dead. But let no living person hear. I was much comforted by this and thanked them again.
It is easier to drive a car than to learn to ride a bike when you are a grown man but today my knees and elbows seem better and the bruising has gone down. I am much stronger and do not fail on the stair as I did or when carrying boxes in from the yard.
They came and showed: You are to ask Mr Thornbury for a rise and when he refuses it you are to shake the dust of Cornwall off your feet and go to Greenfield to the employment exchange there. You are to take no thought for what kind of work there is but accept what is offered.
Mr Thornbury refused the rise. He said I was worth it but with business as it is he could not afford it. He gave me a testimonial to whom it may concern saying I had worked for him for two years was sober, hard-working and scrupulously honest. I feel bad that he is not a Godly man. What will become of him I ask myself.
Exeter is not a good place to stop. It is better to choose B and B in the country but a woman by herself would not let me in because of my face. My bike stands up to it. If the spirits had not told me to buy the bike I should have gone by train and it would have been cheaper. I am spending money like a rich man. The weather continues fine.
The country is very open between Salisbury and Basingstoke with a great deal of long straight road. All day I saw rainstorms on every side but they did not come nigh me. I take it as a sign that my journey is a hallowed one and the spirit of Abraham encloses it.
Greenfield is much changed. I had a thought to go to Foundlings but of course my dear friend Mr Pedigree would not be there since he was despised and rejected. No one would know what had become of him. I may do so later. There is much new building and crowds of people. There are many more black and brown men and women, the women wear all kinds of costumes but the men not. There is a heathen temple built right next door to the Seventh Day Adventists!! When I saw this and also the mosque I was torn by the spirit. I had a great desire to prophesy Thou Jerusalem that slayest the prophets and sitting on the saddle with one foot on the pavement I had to clap both hands over my mouth to keep it in. But the church is still there. I went in and stayed for a time in the same seat where it happened how many years ago I ask myself. Also looking in Goodchild’s Rare Books but the glass ball is gone and that part is filled with books for children, two of them stories from the Bible. The employment exchange was shut for the day so I found a bed and cycled round a bit. Then I came back here to repeat my portion.
In the employment exchange the man took all my testimonials and read them and thought well of them. He said he thought he had a place for me in a school. I felt very strange at once, thinking of Foundlings and Mr Pedigree and all that sad story, but no. He said it is Wandicott House School which is some way out in the country wait while I ring them. He telephoned the school and read out my references to the man at the other end and they laughed with each other which surprised me for there is nothing in my references to laugh at even by carnal men. But then the man said the bursar
wanted me to come straight away for an interview and bring my references. I rode down the High Street and over the Old Bridge over the canal where there are a lot more boats than there used to be. I rode along through Chipwick then up a bridle path in a deep groove under trees. (I did not ride up, that would be a lie, I pushed my bike up.) Then I went down the other side of the downs into Wandicott village where the school is, and where I am now. It is six miles from Greenfield with the downs in between. Captain O. D. S. Thomson D.S.C. R.N. Rtd. interviewed me. He asked me how much money I wanted. I said enough to keep soul and body together. He mentioned a sum and I said it was too much and would cause me trouble. He was silent for a while and then explained about inflation and that I could leave the spare money with him and think no more of it unless needed. I am to be at every man’s beck and call. When he said that I understood with joy that it was exactly what the spirits wanted and that my task is to be obedient unless asked to do what is wrong.
I have a room with the head gardener but he is gruff and sullen and does not want me to use his toilet as there is one by the harness room about fifty yards away. I do not use a toilet often since I have given up so much of my earthly living.
The spirits have not brought me before them since the night of 11/10/66. They have put it all on me. As they showed it is my responsibility to always remember how I am near the centre of things and all things will be revealed. This evening I spent sewing a patch on my rough trousers (the spare pair of army surplus) where the saddle had worn it.
This school is not at all like Foundlings. I did not know there were schools like this. The boys are rich and noble and have more people looking after them than there are children. You can walk for a mile and still be inside the grounds although some of them
are fields with cattle. You would think that the drive from the gates to the school was an ordinary road it is so long with trees over it. I have nothing to do with the children of course but only with the lowest people. Mr Pierce the head gardener has a down on me. He takes a delight I think in giving me hard things to do and humble things too but it is the only way I may learn what I am for. I have a half-day off every week. Mr Braithwaite says I can have evenings off by arrangement but I would sooner work.
I help the gardeners weeding and picking things. Mr Pierce is still gruff and sullen and gives me jobs to dirty me it is his nature. I have helped Mr Squires in the garages. We have our own pumps.
I have nothing to do with the boys but the masters speak to me sometimes and the headmaster’s wife, Mrs Appleby. She does not seem to mind my face but inside she does and I daresay speaks about it when I am not there.
I fetched a rugby ball for the boys from some bushes and they did not mind me at all but looked and thought me strange I believe but did not mind.
At last I got up my courage even though the spirits had not told me and cycled to Foundlings. I stared through and could see the place where all the hollyhocks used to be and S Henderson fell. All is as it was. While I looked someone opened Mr Pedigree’s window (I mean the one at the top that opens on to the leads and where I saw S Henderson come away after I had followed him and waited). It was a woman I saw by the shape of her arm. Perhaps she was cleaning the room. Of course I could not see my poor friend. But what I did see was the young master who discovered Henderson’s body after he fell. It was Mr Bell and he is much much older. I was
sitting on my bike by the pavement when Mr Bell dressed the same way as he used to be, with his big scarf came out of the front door just by the headmaster’s study then came out of the gate and walked away down the High Street. I was moved to follow him and he went into Sprawson’s by the Old Bridge. It was a great grief to me that he passed me where I sat on my bike without recognizing me that is the truth. It seems I have no part left in Greenfield which was what I came to think of as my home, not supposing my one friend was still there but in my mind seeming to connect him with it.
Tonight while I was waiting for the clock in the Wandicott church to strike twelve (and then some of the masters who have stayed on for the holiday will ring a peal for the New Year it is done not for godliness but in fun) I read through this book from the beginning. I began it as evidence of the spirits visiting me in case I should be thought mad and taken up and put away in a mental hospital as happened to R. S. Jones in Gladstone but I see I have recorded much else as well. Also I find in myself that I have written down words instead of speaking them and it is a little comfort. The spiritual life is a time of trial and without the comfortable words and the spirits telling me I am at the centre of things and all shall be made plain I should be tempted to do as R. S. Jones and do a mischief to myself. For the question that I now ask, what am I and what am I to do is still unanswered and I must
endure
like a man holding up a heavy weight. The peal is ringing and I wish I could weep but it does not seem possible.
A wonderful thing has happened. The weather has been so cold the playing fields are frozen and the boys not playing. They go for walks in the estate instead. I was cleaning out a corner by the harness room (for Mr Pierce will find work for me even when the air is freezing and the earth not to be turned even by a pick) when three boys came by and stopped. It is rare for them to be near me but they stood and watched. Then the biggest who was white asked me why I wore a black hat! I had to think very quickly
because though I do not speak more than is necessary these were children which He said must be suffered etc. I decided that it was a part of obedience to do as they asked and they asked me to reply to them. So I said to keep my hair tidy. This made them laugh and one said I was to take off my hat. I did and they laughed so loud I had to smile and I saw they did not mind my mended face at all but thought someone had had a joke with me. I was a clown for them. So I lifted the hair away from the bald side showing them my bad ear and they were very interested and not a bit frightened or horrified. After they went away I felt more happy than at any other time. I put my hat back on and continued to clean the corner but I thought that if only I could put all right with my friend Mr Pedigree I would then prefer to live among children and in this very school than anywhere else. Can it be that what I am for is something to do with children I ask myself.
I helped the groundsmen taking down the rugby posts. They did not work as hard as they should. One was telling the others how Mr Pierce makes money by selling garden produce on the side when it ought to be used for the school. They also told me about some of the parents of some of the boys but soon stopped talking to me when they found out how little I answered. They said two of the men about the place were detectives and one of the gardeners I wonder which it cannot be Mr Pierce surely. But it is not my business I remind myself. I am much troubled as to whether I should tell Captain Thomson D.S.C. R.N. Rtd. about Mr Pierce and the garden produce.
I have a bad cold and a temperature making all things move about and shake. But when I was repeating my portion the spirits came again they were just the same as ever, the red one and the blue one. They showed: We are pleased with your obedience to Mr Pierce though he is a bad lot. He will be paid out for it. However to comfort you we allow you to ask what you like and if it is lawful we will answer. I asked what had troubled me off and on for a long time, which is why so little effect was visible in Cornwall when I
carried the awful number written in blood through the streets. They showed: Judgement is not the simple thing you think. The number did much good not only in the town but as far afield as Camborne and Launceston. Ask on. Then I thought and asked if my spiritual face was healed or still ugly for them. They then showed: No it is still dreadful to us but we bear it cheerfully for your sake. Ask on. Then I said, hardly knowing what I did, Who am I? What am I? What am I for? Is it to do with children? Then they showed: It is a child. And when you bore the awful number through the streets a spirit that is black with a touch of purple like the pansies Mr Pierce planted under the rowan was cast down and defeated and the child was born sound in wind and limb and with an I.Q. of a hundred and twenty. Ask on. At this I cried out What am I? Am I human? and heard Mr Pierce turn over in bed with a great honk of a snore and the spirits removed me from them but gently. It seems to me that perhaps this night I do not need sleep.