by James Kelman
The uniform off he got into bed. He had turned off the television and the music-centre. He could have put on his jeans and a different jersey but he didnt. He was sitting beneath the quilt, on Sandra’s side, with his back to the interior wall. From the recess the kitchen can be a peculiar experience since while being inside the subject is also outside. Should he have witnessed another Hines enter and go about his various bits of business it would have been very scary indeed, and yet also relaxing perhaps. Especially if the event took place during a long hot summer spell and he made straight to the sink to sluice cold water on his face and neck, washing off the sweat.
Steam issued from the kettle. The water was for his feet. He was going to wash his feet. He never bathes in the babybath. It is too small for him. One time he nearly got stuck in the thing. But it was a good buy, no question of that. And another time for fuck sake when Sandra was in it he saw a mouse. He was sitting on his armchair half-reading a book, half-watching her soaping herself and the mouse there, it must have come in beneath the door and it started along towards the tallboy but then stopped and stayed where it was, before returning to the door, and out. It was a bad yin, really, really bad. He didnt tell her; he has never told her: it is something beyond the pale.
He poured the boiling water into the basin, adding cold from the tap. It was as much to heat the feet as clean them, their being really fucking freezing for the past 12 hours or so. Is it 12 hours since he left the house. It must be. Time shifts. That’s the fucking trouble with nowadays; back when Hines was a boy
The water wasnt cold enough for the feet to enter immediately; he would be balancing them on the rim of the basin for the next 10 minutes at least, allowing the steam to get at them while enjoying the anticipation of actually sticking them under. He sat down on the armchair and started to greet. It was a strange thing. His face didnt alter and nor did his eyes redden, and he stopped it right away, balancing the soles of his feet on the rim of the basin, the water far too hot. He always allows the water to cool in the basin rather than adding too much cold to begin with. He likes to just sit there, the soles of his feet on the rim, sometimes with an additional kettle of hot water positioned at the fireplace which he can pour from, to protract the affair. He twisted the chair slightly, his shins having turned red from the heat of the gas-fire. O christ, he said and opened a book.
Hines is of the opinion that men have every right to greet though so far he has been unable to accomplish the practice in public. His most memorable bouts to date occurred after the death of his last surviving grandparent, and after his young brother had left for Australia. During the actual occasions he was the life and soul of the company; it was only a few days later the greeting took place.
He had brought three books from the front room, they covered a period of some 2500 years and spanned three continents. To plop them into the basin would be adjudged unusual. In itself his method of book-reading if not unusual would be adjudged irregular. He used to have a method he regarded as pertinent, as proper for the thing. He would place the book at the bottom of the basin and read the title page while rippling the surface of the water, gently, with a pinkie. If he had worn spectacles he could have placed those beneath the book.
Hines is an honourable fellow; if his wife has decreed the necessity of not being with him then she is entitled to have arrived at such a decision, even though it is to be taken literally i.e. that such a decision is irrevocably bound in with action. But they have survived bad patches in the past. And although he would probably argue that this is the worst yet, it is by no means certain this is true for Sandra. Nor is there anything to suggest that the current situation is a form of climax for it may yet prove nothing more than a further bad patch in a developing relationship. But it must be admitted that certain elements, unique elements, have already appeared. Prior to the other evening she had never stayed away without prior notice or something like it. That was the first time she had ever done that. Why did she do it. She knew he would worry, it was really strange, not like her. Tonight was like her. It was not like her. More, it was not, it was like as if, it was considerate though.
The note was propped against the wall above the mantel-piece, next to the gas-bill. His feet had entered the basin and he jerked them out, they had become red to the ankles.
There was no need to hold the note because he had read it at a distance. She had written 11 a.m. at the top as if this was the kind of information he would need to know at all costs. Maybe he did. What did it tell him. It told him she probably couldnt have managed it out to Knightswood and then got back into town in time for work. Was that anything. She could just have gone in late.
The soles of his feet were touching the water but he allowed them to remain there, the hard skin and so on. He lifted the tin and prised off the lid. Not much tobacco left but he had retained the price of more from the cashbag. Plus she had left £3 beside the note. The £3 for him.
This sort of escapade is beyond belief. Was it to be taken seriously. Of course, shouted a voice. Whose fucking voice was it. Funny how voices come along and shout, just as if they were something or other, knowledgeable fucking parties perhaps, that knew what was going on. Because Hines doesnt. He doesnt fucking know. It is a joke. It is beyond talking about. Yet one obvious factor exists to substantiate the thesis that this is Sandra who’s fucked off. This factor.
Wednesday is the fucking factor. Other women would have waited till wages-day. Not her. There is only one day out every seven she can leave and this day is never to be Thursday. She can only leave that he is to be being fucking okay. He is such an imbecile he cannot be trusted to survive unless he has a full week’s wages in the pocket. Such cash is not necessary for her and Paul. It is him who needs it.
He had the towel in his hands, raising the soles from the water. He dropped the towel to the floor. His feet were yet to steep. But he had been aware of this. It was not a moment of absentmindedness. Quite often he dries his feet without having washed them. Sandra nags at him and no wonder. Imagine being too lazy to wash your feet when you’ve gone and prepared everything, when you’ve sat for quarter of an hour with the cunts suspended above the bastarn basin, only to towel at the bottom portions, and see how the poor auld fucking skin goes skiting off into the basin because you havent washed them right. Terrible.
There ticks the clock; if it hadnt been wound then the ticking etc., it wouldnt be happening. And anyway, he had forgotten to bring the soap so this is a genuine reason not to wash them. Often it is the fresh socks he forgets to bring and sometimes the towel and sometimes more than the one item maybe even the fucking lot so that Sandra, having to get whatever it is, for him. O christ. And he doesnt like having to ask her if he has forgotten, he gets so sick of it, this forgetting, and the dependency. What happened last night. He came home. Things were not as they were. He comes home and things arent as they were. The things that should be fine. He of course did not go out to the Drum because he had been earlier on, christ, having advised her he was going in the evening which was why he couldnt take the wee man to the swimming like he’d been promising, always fucking promising, he had promised, to take him, but then couldnt, he was not able to do it, because he had to go out to the Drum and see wee Frank. Wee Frank was the thing of course. He had had to see him and he didnt turn up which was – fine really, because the next time it would be in the evening, definitely, and it could be sorted out with him. Not wee Frank, just Frank.
What is up in his head. As heads go. He told her a lie, another fucking lie, a non-telling of the truth; and not even to explain, even attempting it, to give something almost, close to it, something as close to what was really the case, something that was the truth.
Yet once upon a time
It should be remembered, however, that Robert Hines has accomplished nought. Even the present circumstances could have been rendered more amenable. A lick of fresh paint for instance, to hide the terrible wallpaper; a bit of polyfilla round the skirting board. He could have
been getting rid of the mice. He could have called out the rodent exterminators. They would have sprayed their stuff. While awaiting their arrival he could have filled in the cracks. The last time they came it was a lassie along with a middle-aged man. The lassie was in charge. She spoke with authority and must have had qualifications in rodent control. She stealthily peered at the plethora of books while in the front room. Perhaps she would return alone: cups of coffee and a doughnut, a quiet conversation, with a brief account of the current problem, how items are not always going properly, becoming a wee bit overpowering at times. You can just go along okay, keeping upsides the world, not doing anything except taking part in a low-key kind of manner; you go to your work and so forth, until getting punched in the fucking mouth. An old story right enough. It happens to everybody now and again, you’ve got the incinerator at the foot of the stairs, a thing to be encountered every so often. The lassie is probably the same herself. Here she is having to chap at the doors of strangers, to wipe out their rodents and the rest of it.
Odd she should have taken Paul so readily.
That is definitely a something. One would have expected such a matter to be worthy of a little discussion.
Why is last night not this evening. She doesnt go last night and isnt here this evening when the actual item, the spur, is of last night. She goes this morning, first thing almost – 11 a.m. She goes to Knightswood, the home of her parents. Imagine going to the home of your parents! She must’ve been upset, otherwise, christ, the home of one’s parents.
She goes to the home of her parents and takes her wee boy, leaving her man to accomplish that which he finds to be necessary in view of the current situation, whose circumstances though astounding are nevertheless not too astounding should one pause to consider the various eventualities. Now, these eventualities, are to be considered. One can consider them. One can sit; one’s lower portions dangling over the hot water, one’s tin etc., by one’s side, and the trio of books, the towel and fresh socks. There are many items. A certain pleasure is to be gained from the world, its items, you have this yin here and a few more over there. Although predisposed toward the speculative musings, one is bound to say, having regard to that which is having gone before. One considers the Busconductor, Hines: now, here we have a fellow, from a spruce district.
How does she leave. How does she even fucking think a thing like that. How can she even think it for christ sake even think the fucking thing. Imagine it. For fuck sake.
It’s beyond belief. It’s actually beyond belief. Sandra makes it worse. This isnt her. She must’ve been really fucking, upset. When it all comes down to it, the way she is, so set in her ways, determined, thinking things out. Not like him. Hines is a fucking idiot: but she isnt, she’s fucking – the way she thinks things out. This is what’s so fucking ridiculous. Then just to grab Paul. Even doing that. The fucking selfishness, that’s not her. Christ.
Hines had grinned. He stopped it, it wasnt right. He had dried the heel of his left foot. He gazed to there for a few moments. Then up to the clock, and then was drying both feet, and across to the tallboy, looking in at the drawers where she kept her stuff but they were always so jampacked it was difficult to know if she had taken extra, except if she had it couldnt have been much.
He was dressed and stuffing the tin and matches into his jerkin pockets. Before leaving he got the £3 from the mantel-piece and dumped the note into the rubbish bin then retrieved it, laid it face down on the mantelpiece.
And the front door key.
There was no point in phoning. You go there and phone and nothing is to be said. Best just having a couple of pints and then going fucking home. You stand there having trouble finishing the first, giving nods now and again to this old cunt standing next to you who keeps on making comments on the weather etc. Finishing it off and ordering another, the natural thing. A load of shite. You grab a hold of his lapels: Here auld yin my wife’s fucked off and left me I mean what’s the fucking game at all, your fucking daft patter, eh, leave us alone ya cunt for fuck sake. This isnt Hines who’s talking. It’s a voice. This is a voice doing talking which he listens to. He doesnt think like it at all. What does he think like. Fuck off. He thinks like anybody else, anybody else in the circumstances, the circumstances which are oddly normal. Here you have a busconductor by the name of Hines Robert whose number is 4729 and whose marital status. What’s the point of fucking about. You leave half of the second pint and get off your mark.
Glasgow’s a big city, all the life etc. The scraggy mongrels, they go moseying along near the inside of the pavement then to the outside and maybe off across the street to sniff other pastures. Hereabouts the district is a melter of sniffs. A myriad of things at your nostrils. The decayed this and the decayed that. A patch of tenements set for the chop. Imagine being drunk one night, as if that which is not to be doubted is on high authority, such that its existence can only be assumed, such that the body is duty bound to endorse that assumption, fine, and sneaking into a derelict block for an illegal pish and tripping over a lump of concrete, cracking one’s head on the floor, not badly, just enough to lope out of consciousness for an hour or so, to awaken in the wee hours, lying in the black, the smells surrounding you, then engulfing you the more aware you become; but not wanting to move in case your noise arouses other noise from a different room or maybe even the same one, that dark bit in the corner – it is your awareness sets it all going because these fucking noises man they were ever present, you just hadnt fucking realized them and now they come crashing in on you, indescribable noises; and how to escape how to escape, without your movement activating other movement. Better off razing the lot to the ground. And renting a team of steamroadrollers to flatten the dump properly, compressing the earth and what is upon and within, crushing every last pore to squeeze out the remaining gaseous elements until at last that one rectangular mass is appearing, all set for sowing. The past century is due burial; it is always been being forgotten.
There is a crack in the pavement a few yards from the close entrance; it has a brave exterior; it is a cheery wee soul; other cracks can be shifty but not this one. Hines will refer to it as Dan in future. Hello there Dan. How’s it going? Cold yin the night eh! This fucking weather wee man. Never mind but, the ice and that, helps you expand. Pity cracks dont wear balaclavas right enough eh! One good thing about these old tenements, however, is the way they refuse to allow snow to hang about. A tough set of bastards so they are. No messing. None of your fucking good king wenceslas rubbish with them. The more mockit the better, where the air stinks and the absent horizons, the backcourts of a sturdy obscenity, these disused fucking washhouses whose brickwalls are liable to collapse on the offspring’s skull at any moment. Fuck off.
Hines dislikes being a laughing-stock. The people he works beside are laughing-stocks. He is a laughing-stock. They are all laughing-stocks. Occasionally this being a laughing-stock is something not to be borne. He can lie awake at night, the head having started to bang. It is strange how they are content to remain objects of derision. Hines can see the faces. He can hear them discuss their children. What else does he do. He does a lot of things. It all gets a bit much. Very little time is left. There isnt the time to accomplish much. Should much be accomplished the time has shrunk. Should little be accomplished the world expands. To accomplish the little demands particular heads. Hines has not got a particular head. In his head the things go scratching against the outer shell. He can lie awake at night and breathe deeply, regularly, for the scratching to cease.
Sandra was in the kitchen. It makes no difference. With the gun in his possession movement will accelerate. The main problem is money. Hines was relying on his knowledge of Frank Sinclair to overcome this. A gun would probably cost 2 or 3 weeks wages but maybe as much as 4. Hines had no way of obtaining such an amount. The sum of £80 lay in the bank but could not be withdrawn by him. Yet no genuine reason exists for this situation. It is as much his money as Sandra’s and Paul’s. He just felt he
should not be withdrawing it for selfish purposes. With £80 in hand he could probably get the gun quite easily, the additional cash to be advanced later on. Frank would arrange that.
Although in an obvious sense the £80 would have to be used for the gun. It belonged to the unit. As a symbol of that unity the money should be used to real purpose. Once Paul was old enough he would understand that. He could understand right now. If rupture within the home was the only alternative the boy would know fine well what had to be done; it would scarcely be a case of understanding or anything like it, just the natural order of things, that which the adult is obliged to do.
Of course Sandra was looking great, the jeans and the jumper, so reminiscent of how she used to look when pushing the pram; she used to push it down by the river to meet him coming home off early shift. If the day was fine they did this rather than him just taking a bus home. He used to run up the road, all the way from the garage, then down through the park. It was still a surprise seeing her shape, her lack of belly, fitting into the old outfits again. She looked really well, and sometimes he felt a bit of a cunt to be meeting her in uniform, an embarrassment, the daft cashbag and hat while she was looking the way she did, and the wee yin babbling away; walking home, along past the old flint mill, the trees and the bushes, the grass: right smack in the heart of the city she had found this place, an amazing spot where you could walk in a valley by the side of a river; an enclosed place, road bridges high overhead, no traffic sounds whatsoever.