Tom was not concerned then
with a purpose. The world consisted largely of himself, its purpose was to
contain him, and his purpose was to do the things he did. He didn’t think about
it at that stage of his life. There seemed to be no need. In the absence of
knowledge or understanding of death, or change of any kind, or differences from
his own direct experience there was no intellectual possibility of asking why
he had been brought into being. That would come later.
His idea of ‘good’ and ‘bad’
was very incomplete, and had no moral content at all. It was a pair of lists,
one containing what he was allowed to do, the other what would cause
punishment. The items were arbitrary, determined by his parents and his
teachers from motives he did not attempt to evaluate. He was annoyed, even one
could say unhappy, when he was punished, but only by the assault on his
freedom, not from any sense of having voluntarily reduced his humanity. Usually
the penalty was being sent to his room, which he was careful to hide was where
he would have been anyway through choice, or being deprived of some activity he
had not wanted to do in the first place. Adults had a very limited idea of what
he liked to do. They decided what he should like and assumed they were right.
Their observations of him, of his expressions and reactions, were insufficient
to tell them when they were wrong. Nor would they listen if he told them. So
sometimes being ‘bad’ brought a prize, and sometimes a punishment. He had not
developed the ability to guess what the result of incorrect behaviour would be,
and he was not naturally rebellious, not outwardly, and he tried to do what was
expected of him. The opprobrium of either of his parents was unpleasant, in any
case, and to be avoided.
These things bothered him
little. The time had not yet come to seek meaning in it all. At that age he
merely knew that there were aspects of the life they tried to force him to live
that he did not like. He accepted them, as he accepted everything. He had yet
to learn that things need not be as they are.
He spent most of his time on
the lake, and in his room he could go there freely, without explanation.
His parents were Methodists;
both having been brought up in that faith they helped each other to keep it and
to transmit it to Tom. They had met at a church social occasion and felt they
owed it to their religion to keep it alive. They were not strict about it, they
attended service most Sundays and used its teachings as a reference for their
own behaviour and their son’s when they felt they needed guidance. The minister
was quite easy to understand, and Tom was not always bored in church. He did
not always have to visit the lake during service. He found the ideas he heard
clear and fairly sensible, and the moral authority of the minister was most
convincing. Tom could not see how any of it had to do with him, though, nor why
it was really better to behave that way than any other. The ultimate authority
of God was far beyond his experience and the words of the minister on that
subject held no meaning. He could neither love nor fear God. It made no sense.
What he most enjoyed, when he
wasn’t on the lake, was playing with Jeremy at break-times at school, and on
Saturdays when one often went to the other’s house. If the weather was good and
his mother had time to take him they would meet in the park, where the shiny
green grass and the bright blue sky contrasted with the faded reds and yellows
of the swings and the roundabout, and they imagined themselves to be explorers in
the long grass or pirates on ships that swung and rocked beneath them, or
policeman or soldiers, or they imagined nothing, but were just little boys
having fun.
Tom looked forward to all
this, because it made school and the company of his classmates, and the torture
of sitting still and listening to his teacher buzzing in the distance, a little
more bearable. It was something to look forward to, and the importance of this
was not yet fully clear to him, but he liked to think that soon they would be
playing their games. Unless it rained, of course, and they had to stay in
class. Jeremy wasn’t very good at the sort of games that didn’t involve running
about and making noise, and he was no good at all at any pastime that wasn’t a
game.
At times he thought he would
like an older brother- he had seen younger brothers and they were a
considerably nuisance- who would look after him and show him things, like
Jeremy’s brother did. But they weren’t all like that, and he would have to come
second in everything and would be made to do a lot of things he didn’t want to.
He certainly didn’t want a sister, as he had seen enough of those to know they
weren’t worth the trouble. Except perhaps a very small one, a baby one. That
might be fun. A brother he was unsure about. It didn’t seem likely he was ever
going to have one, his parents never spoke of it, but some people had them, and
his mind could have one if it decided to. It just hadn’t made itself up yet,
and probably never would.
º
No comments:
Post a Comment