The Busconductor Hines

by James Kelman

  Fucking rubbish. He watched the door and footered with the empty beer glass, the whisky also being finished, the pie discarded, congealed. There was more than enough for a third pint but he would not be getting one. Three pints and a whisky could be too much. Sometimes not but sometimes yes, it could leave him feeling half drunk. There have been times when he has taken only two pints at a meal-break and then conked out on the rear seat, boots up on the one in front and who the fuck knows how things worked out, how the passengers managed except that he has never been called into the Superintendent’s Office to explain himself on that account.

  The alcohol had definitely affected him. He knew it the way he was feeling. He actually had pains in the belly as well. The shite had turned out to be something approaching diarrhoea. Maybe he really did have an ailment of some kind. Tramping about in a pair of 6 years old boots, getting hit by all manner of temperature shifts, and just generally being run-down, needing a genuine break from the job if any fucking doctor would have had the sense to realise it but no, while cunts like Reilly just have to walk in the fucking surgery door and they get hit with panel lines for a week or a fucking fortnight for christ sake the inconsistencies man really baffling, within the Health Service, the doctors the bastards, having it all their own way on that particular question. They hadnt had a genuine holiday since the year Paul was born. Just a few days away from it all was what was required, a glimpse of different horizons, the chance to be together and alone, by the shore, quiet, a passive method of getting by, and then strolling back to some place afterwards, a rare coal fire burning, Paul asleep for the night, with the two of them there, just playing cards or something, the radio to its minimum volume, and toasting bread with a long fork and upstairs to the attic to bed then waking first thing in the morning to the surprise of it all, being in such a place, the whiff of seaweed and jumping out of bed to rush down to the water’s edge. Sandra’s dream. It is what she wants more than anything. Right away from Glasgow altogether. She doesnt want to be in Glasgow, not Drumchapel and not fucking Knightswood, she wants to be away, right fucking away and out of it, to not worry about the things that make the head cave in, that narrowing, the pain, while it contracts and gets you thin. Hines feels like something – a retch perhaps, being sick maybe; he feels like being sick. The fucking belly. The nerves of course. He should be relaxed. The shoulders have been so fucking tense. And still tense. They get tense immediately, after relaxing. He cannot get them relaxed. Each time he makes the attempt he is having to make a further attempt as though they are just not capable, of being relaxed, not at present.

  At tables nearby the chatting and not chatting, a game of dominoes in progress. All the auld cunts there sitting having their fucking tourny, do not disturb for christ sake we might fucking wake up, shut the door and keep out the blooming draught we’ve no time for the likes of you ya cunt ye I mean what d’you think it is at all coming in here drinking your fucking beer and challenging the lieges to fight.

  Amazing to see them sit there in that eternal manner, fixed in their places, the lives assumed on the strength of it, the sitting, while all around them the fires fucking burning and the stench of it engulfing every fucking thing under the sun, the cries and the screams of the cunts being tortured, the bellies, of the fucking weans there and their grandparents, their fucking ribs for christ sake look at their ribs, jutting out. That mark of distinction, it is all one to him that which may be said about him, it is all too transparent. The sun does go down and the whitely grey sky. One can climb the high-rise and wave down at the auld man, there he is, the healthy 50 years of ager at the parted curtains when the lights are out, bon voyage captain. Hines was rising from the seat and collecting his chattels; if Frank was somewhere it wasnt here. There was no relief but, if it wasnt to be now it would be the next time.

  On the run home from the nursery Hines pretended they were being chased by ghoulish creatures and Paul enjoyed it. Then he roped him into the cleaning and tidying before preparing the grub, and when Sandra arrived everything was fine. He was nonchalant about generalities but she was quiet. She was tired right enough, obviously surprised to find how the house was, glad to see the food set for serving. He didnt tell her he had not been to work but since she wasnt bothering too much about conversation he didnt have to go to any lengths.

  They sat down to eat.

  If Hines had not been hungry he couldnt have stomached the food. And Paul seemed in a similar state, just sitting there bashing his potatoes about with a fork.

  Then she appeared to have been not speaking for quite a long while and the sound of cutlery on crockery more audible than usual, as if some terrible news was set for revelation. Often she chattered throughout the evening meal. The workaday antics of people amused her. She could make Hines laugh when speaking about it all. Occasionally she became self-conscious, effacing herself from it, that making him laugh had nothing to do with her but lay in the actual antics of the people involved. She would be very popular in the office. And obviously she was good at her job, otherwise Mr Buchanan wouldnt have regarded her so highly. If she wanted she could start full-time. This meant if Hines wanted. If he raised no barriers. If he didnt make it hard for her she would be starting full-time, after the New Year perhaps. Things slot into things; it’s the sadness makes it so terrible. Sandra never used to be sad but now she has been sad for ages. He noticed. Why was he not able to do anything about it. He used to make her laugh. He had been good at making her laugh. He still does it. Not so often. Yet this is the thing for a good marriage. Who said that. An uncle of hers, at their wedding. He whispered it to Hines. If you make her laugh you’ll never have anything to worry about. That was Lex McLean’s secret, an audience full of women, all roaring and laughing. That’s the way son, that’s the way to do it. Look at Sandra’s maw, you’d never think to look at her but that lassie used to love a laugh.

  Things were not good. She was definitely not talking. She had been talking when she came in – quiet, but she had been talking. She was talking about what. Drumchapel. She had mentioned about it last night, in terms of today, as an interesting link to the previous day. The petering-out point of the conversation. What was he doing exactly about that. Drumchapel. He was not taking Paul with him because he was wanting to go himself. He would have been taking him to the swimming baths except he couldnt, because he was going to the Drum. He had postponed the swimming because he was going to visit the parents, by himself, going out for a pint with the auld man maybe. He wouldnt be collecting Paul from the nursery either so she would have made arrangements with one of the other mothers. And when she went up to the other mother Paul wouldnt be there, because Hines had collected him from the nursery, instead of being out at Drumchapel. So, then, here she was, sitting facing him.

  He winked at Paul. What would happen to him. It was definitely best he wasnt extrovert, the withdrawn side maybe allowing him to survive that bit more easily.

  He got up from the table, to pour the tea. He laid her cup next to her plate on the table and went to sit on his armchair.

  She was talking to Paul.

  He should be getting up to massage her shoulders, to smooth back her hair. Even the way she had been smiling recently. And then last night.

  On the rear wall in the recess there was a rectangular space where a picture used to be. Hines took it down a couple of days ago. It was a picture he liked. He took it down and crumpled it up and dumped it into the rubbish bin. How come he did that. That was daft. It was a way of getting back at himself but maybe she thought he was getting at her. She also liked the picture.

  Why had she not said anything about it, it being absent. He wasnt getting at her, christ, only himself, it was only himself. He was disgusted, with himself. For telling her something that was not true. He took the picture down from the wall to get back at himself for having told her a stupid piece of nonsense. He had signed-off sick during a late backshift in order to return home.

  But told her something else altoge
ther. That he had landed a shift with a big long meal-break. Why had he done it, it was fucking stupid. He wanted to come home. He had to sign-off sick to get home immediately because it was just not possible to stay there.

  But he should have just fucking told her that instead of the nonsense, the lie. Why did he fucking lie to her about it: it would have been fine. It would have been more than fine. She hates these late late backshifts even more so than he does and she wouldnt have minded at all, his signing-off sick, in order to return home, to be with her.

  He withdrew his hands from his face, they had been covering his face, the fingertips pressing into the corners of the eyes, the lids shut. At first he had covered them with the middle sections of the fingers and was using force, but then this had eased and the fingers moved slowly down, as though he was just rubbing his face, and then the hands being withdrawn altogether.

  Willie was saying eh . . . he lifted a cigarette from the ashtray and put it into his mouth, struck a match and lighted it . . . if we fancied going up to his place, for a meal, a kind of party I suppose, him and Isobel and that – if she’s talking to me – I think they’ve invited a couple of folk from her college or something I’m no too sure. He said we were to bring Paul if we wanted, it’d be okay, if we cant get a babysitter, just to bring him.

  O . . . she nodded. When is it?

  Saturday I think, a week on Saturday. I’ll check tomorrow.

  Is it not your day-off tomorrow?

  Naw. He sniffed and reached for the Evening Times, paused before opening its pages. He glanced across when she rose from the table, pushing her chair back and saying to Paul about not bothering to eat everything if he wasnt feeling up to doing so.

  In the name of christ.

  He shifted in his chair so that he was facing the fire, studying the shapes within it. Their voices in the background. It was like something or other, bad, it was like something bad.

  The clock on the mantelpiece. And the fucking wallpaper: so shabby – even a coat of paint might have done the trick, making things that bit more cheery. He got up to switch on the television.

  At some time in the future Paul would be elsewhere and involved in something totally removed from it all when for no reason whatsoever the memory of the babybath. There are bathrooms in Drumchapel; Hines was never bathed in front of the fire. This experience will remain with the boy for the rest of his days. Maybe of that very evening, the mother and father sitting there and the silence – that tenement silence which encompasses vague bumps and bangs while cisterns empty and refill – and he might wonder about its cause. Had there been an actual row he couldnt quite remember. If not, what. And was this the usual state of affairs. No, for it wasnt always like this. In many respects it felt to have been a happy home. Is this true. Not untrue. Hines maybe a bit quick to strike at times, bad tempered on occasion, and probably inconsistent. But all in all not too bad.

  And surely no worse than his own father; maybe even a bit better when it comes down to it, a deal more honest in many ways, a great many ways.

  The flames are bluey grey. For each of the 3 sections there are 24 miniscule rectangles concealing hundreds and hundreds of toty wee pointed items of the colour white, and that toxic vapour, always seeping.

  Sandra was looking at him. He grinned, then relaxed to be smiling, an encouraging kind of a smile. After a moment he raised the book.

  It was time for his bed. He had an early rise. He had to go to work extremely early tomorrow morning. She could trip while carrying the huge soup-pot. She wouldnt; if she wants to have a bath while he’s out on a backshift, she has to do it on her own and she never trips. He can wait until the thing has been filled. Then he can go to bed. Good christ. The words on the page are very fine, those little tails on individual letters, most pleasing to behold.

  4

  There’s that instant a fraction before the alarm belts out and you’ve grabbed the thing and managing to shove down the stopper just at the warning click, knowing you’re as fit as a fiddle and right up the lot of them; pushing out of bed and dressing in the black yet so swiftly, everything successful – the jersey in particular, seeming to pull itself on, settling round the trunk without even needing a tug. Pointless to eat; far better out on the road and walking. And the quick laying on the lips of lips for christ sake what does that mean—

  kissing one’s wife softly on the lips: that’s what it fucking means. Then swallowing a half pint of milk prior to the silent farewell; an unknown moment of magical togetherness. Poor auld Sandra. Never to have felt these lips at that actual moment. Serves her right for being sound asleep. Women shouldnt go to sleep, it’s a spoiler and we dont want that kind; what we do want is the fragrant aroma and soft flesh to be encircling one that one is pulled back beneath the sheets against one’s will. Come on you I want to go to my work, stop it, stop it! let me get out into the harsh wintry wee hours of this my next moment of doom, that black black black of the

  Jesus christ alfuckingmighty.

  But it was almost halfway to the garage before the staffbus appeared he had been walking so quickly.

  The driver was an imbecile. To talk to such a being is often out of the hands of Hines. And yet it was miraculous to have been there as it slowed to just that point beyond where he was standing that he had to be quickening to be jumping else no chance of getting aboard the thing. The public service omnibus is an amazing article. To be the driver of such a vehicle must certainly be a novel kettle of cabbage. Hines would have liked a buzz at it. Had his overall conduct been less abysmal he would easily have fulfilled the function quite as adequately as anyone.

  He sat down.

  Other members of the green were there. He greeted them cordially albeit with a concealed smile of supercilliousness at the thought of himself there sitting there at this exact moment in the eternal scheme of things. Consolation was his, however, deriving as it did, via his experience, oftimes verified via countless other mornings whence the ragings of a darkly brain had indeed given way to a calm but firm detachment. Had a mirror been handy he could have watched his face. It would have been interesting to witness the outward appearance.

  The staffbus stopped in the garage yard and the greens strolled along into the office with Hines bringing up the rear in company with a driver by the name of Davis who has the fine habit of not talking for shifts at a stretch. It is astonishing how quickly the place could fill with smoke; Hines had been about to prise the lid off the tin but he returned it inside the pocket. An interesting observation: places used to smoke fill up with it more rapidly than other places. Take the topdeck of a bastarn bus where the eyes actually smart – although of course you’ve got the diesel fumes as well as the smoke, plus the extraordinary smells of the cunts farting, sorry jimmy, been on the guinness last night. Smoking is a malpractice. Consider the youthful Paul, how his lungs must resemble the inside of a fucking chimney, and him hardly 4½ years of age. Terrible. And the same goes for one’s spouse. Although, having known of the habit prior to accepting the band of rolled gold, the question of an individual’s freedom to form genuine decisions of an autonomous nature must enter the reckoning. The Deskclerk.

  Davis had just signed for his duty and was walking to look at the duty-sheet on the wall. The Office was almost empty. Hines had taken the pen to sign for his own duty but he kept from pulling the book towards him; at last he looked at the Deskclerk: What’s up?

  The Deskclerk was smiling in a friendly manner.

  Hines grinned.

  Naw. I’m just wondering what you’re here for.

  Eh?

  I mean there’s no point signing the book, it’s your day-off.

  Hines sniffed; raising his right hand he scratched his hair-line which seemed to be containing an enormous quantity of flaking skin nowadays. The Deskclerk continued to smile. He stopped the scratching, passed the hand over his forehead gently, as though not wanting to disturb the skin there lest it also flaked.

  Honest Rab I mean that’s what di
aries were invented for; so folk can mark in their timetables!

  Hh.

  Anyway as it turns out, you’ve knocked it off, I’m short a couple of conductors this morning; you can switch days-off if you like.

  Aw christ Harry ta.

  16 duty; okay?

  Great, aye, ta, thanks a lot.

  The Deskclerk had pushed the book towards him and while Hines was signing he said, How’s the stomach by the way?

  Better.

  The Deskclerk nodded, then he sniffed. Aye, I never heard till later on. You’d been stuck in the toilet for an hour because of it?

  Well no quite . . . Hines grinned.

  Look eh . . . I thought you were chancing it yesterday.

  That’s how I eh . . . He sniffed. I mean I didnt know it was genuine, when you came in to sign-off, otherwise I would-nt’ve eh . . .

  No bother Harry.

  The Deskclerk nodded. Right, day-off the morrow then – or Saturday? To be honest Rab it’d suit me better if you made it Saturday, you know what like Fridays are in this place!

  Hangover day!

  They both grinned.

  Eh . . . Hines was rolling a cigarette.

  Aye?

  Naw, just wondering, I mean yesterday and that eh I dont suppose I mean, changing it; what I mean, to a day-off.

  What?

  Naw I mean yesterday and that, you know how I had to go sick; I was just wondering, if it could be changed to a day-off I mean, so I could work Saturday as well . . .

  O Christ naw, naw Rab, that’s no on, sorry I mean, it’s just no on; it’s through the books and that and you cant go back over it now.

  Aw.

  Aye, Christ, sorry.

  Naw naw, okay Harry honest, no bother I mean I was just eh . . . He sniffed, signed at the space appropriate to 16 duty; he lighted the cigarette and coughed sharply, and added, Thanks again Harry.