Ten Tales Tall and True

by Alasdair Gray

  And suddenly enjoy it! For being with him (only notice this now) is a strain when not loving. Can never forget he is posh English, knows more about everything, is keeping a lot back so must think himself superior. Dance with boys who like dancing, like life without feeling superior. Have no shortage of partners, hooray for the ordinary! But while drinking a lime juice with a girl friend at the bar see him talking to Hunky Harry and laughing in a way that makes him look ordinary too, and much nicer. Stare at him, wanting him. He notices, stops laughing, comes over with his usual little smile and says, “Time to leave.”

  Are delighted. Truly delighted. Feared had lost him.

  But both are quiet in the car as he drives to the Central Hotel, so something is wrong. Both are quiet because he is quiet, for it is always he who directs the talk or deals it out. Is he angry? Have done nothing wrong, unless it was wrong enjoying dancing with someone else. He is probably tired. Nearly midnight, now. Surprised the Central is still open.

  Without a nod to the doorman he leads up broad shallow carpeted stairs to a lounge empty but for an elderly American-looking couple in a far corner. He tells a waiter, “This place seems quiet enough. Could you serve us a meal here?”

  “Certainly sir, I’ll fetch a menu.”

  “No need. This young lady wants nothing but a goodly selection of sandwiches and I will have**********.” (French words.)

  “I’m afraid the last is not available sir. The menu will show you what we can provide just now. We have …”

  “Get me the manager.”

  “The manager is not available sir.”

  “Don’t pretend to be stupid. You know I want whoever is in bloody charge here just now.”

  He has not lost his temper, has not raised his voice, but it has grown so distinct that the Americans look alarmed. The waiter leaves and returns with another man in a black dinner-suit who says, “I’m sorry sir but the situation is this: the day chef retires at 10.45 and the night chef…”

  “I did not come here for instruction in the mysteries of hotel management, I came because this used to be a good hotel, I happen to be hungry, and have a taste for **********, whose ingredients are now dormant in your kitchen. I mean to pay what it costs to have them expertly prepared. There is nothing to discuss. I am not going to explain, plead or bully you, so please don’t use those tactics on me. Understood?”

  He has not lost his temper. He looks at the head-waiter or under-manager or whoever this man is with a fixed half-smile containing no amusement or apology. The head-waiter or under-manager, his face paler than it was, says after a pause, “You are not a resident here sir?”

  “No, nor ever likely to be. I promise this is the last time you will see me here, so do the wise thing and send up what I order?”

  He says this softly, cooingly, teasingly, smiling almost sleepily as if at a joke the man before him is bound to share. The man before him, looking very pale, suddenly nods and walks away.

  “One moment!” cries the Englishman – the head-waiter or under-manager turns – “I will have a bottle of ********** along with it.”

  Keep silent, though he watches sideways now. Was all that done to impress? Are chilled, embarrassed, disgusted, only glad the Americans have stopped staring, are leaving. Sigh. He looks away. A long silence happens. He murmurs as if to himself, “Sometimes one has to be firm.”

  The barman pulls down a grille over the bar, locks it and leaves. He murmurs, “They’ll probably take hours, just to be awkward.”

  The waiter brings the selection of sandwiches. Have no appetite but nibble half of one, then leave it. Later, from boredom, slowly finish it and then all the rest. Eventually the waiter serves him with a plate containing slips of meat half sunk in reddish gravy with a sweet heavy sickly smell. He looks hard at it, murmurs, “I don’t think they’ve spat in it,” and eats. After some forkfuls he says, “Yum yum. Well worth waiting for.”

  Are driven home, arrive about one thirty a.m. bored, tired, disliking him. In the silence when he stops the car and smiles sideways you want not to invite him in tonight but are about to do it as usual when he says, “Listen, I’m sorry about tonight. It started the best yet but ended badly. Nobody was to blame. Perhaps we need a rest from each other. Anyway, tomorrow night I have to see people, and the night after. Suppose we meet the night after that? You choose where.”

  Suggest lounge of the Grosvenor.

  “Fine! Half seven, then.”

  Go upstairs yawning and wondering (without much pain) if tomorrow night he will bed Tall Jenny or Hunky Harry, since obviously he can get anyone, anything he wants. Only wish had called off tomorrow before he did. But next day these ideas become a torment, why? Why care for someone so dislikeable? But he has usually been loving, gentle, pleasant, why dislike him? Is it bad to call out a hotel chef late at night if you pay the hotel enough to compensate for the extra trouble? When the bill came he glanced at it, grimaced slightly, wrote a cheque and gave it to the waiter without looking at him. And the waiter, glancing at it, became less stiff and expressionless, said, “Thank you very much sir,” in a low voice, so he had been well tipped. One dull night after three lovely exciting nights is not bad, though he is far too obsessed with ragged jeans.

  So here in the Grosvenor, ten minutes early, are dressed in a different high-heeled Cinderella way because that excites him, so slightly excited and hopeful too. Buy a lime juice, and for him a Macallan, the first thing you have ever bought him. Sit facing the door, whisky on table beside your lime juice and wait. And wait. And wait.

  He arrives at half past eight, not smiling, and sits beside you muttering, “Detained. Unavoidable.”

  He sips the whisky, pulls a face, says, “What is this?”

  Tell him.

  “Are you sure?”

  Tell him that was what you ordered.

  “They’ve watered it.”

  Silence. Tell him something funny the boss did today. He nods twice and sighs. Silence. Ask him how his own work is going.

  “Rottenly.”

  Say you are sorry.

  “A woman of few words.”

  Ask why things have gone rottenly.

  “I am sick of your unending probing into my personal affairs. If you have not already noticed I dislike that trait in women you are not just stupid, you are a cretin. A cretin may be good for three nights fucking in a filthy hole like Glasgow but three nights is the limit. Remember that.”

  He has not lost his temper. He stands and goes out, leaving the whisky almost untasted.

  Internal Memorandum

  TO : LUMLEY

  FROM : LESLEY

  The following will seem bad-tempered and in fact is. It says what I meant to raise at yesterday’s meeting but my only chance came at the end when Phimister said, “Is there any further business?” and Henry Pitt (looking at me out of the corner of his eye) said, “No, I think that’s everything,” and suddenly I felt too tired. I seem the only manager in this firm who is allowed – indeed expected – to complain about practical everyday details. When I start doing it our directors exchange little smiles, stop listening and retreat into private dreamlands. They think everyday practical details are not their business but the business of Mulgrew the buildings manager and Tramworth the accountant. Nobody, not even Mulgrew, denies that what I ask to be done ought to be done, but only he and Tramworth can authorize it so it is never done. I have raised items on this list at meetings from last month to years ago. You joined us less than two months ago so the first and longest item on the list may strike you as an accident. I assure you that something of the sort happens every winter.

  1. Heat. Monday was bloody cold. I asked Mulgrew to do something about this. He agreed to turn up the thermostat a little but not much because part of upstairs was already warm – the part where he and Tramworth have their office. Soon after 10 a.m. I noticed it was cold. When this happens I know others are freezing, so tried to find Mulgrew with the usual results. He had gone to the Sauchiehall Stre
et depot, but when I phoned there he had just left it and nobody knew where he was supposed to be. By this time people on my floor were asking me to do something about the cold and I actually met people from upstairs who were touring the building in search of heat. I phoned Mulgrew’s office again and got Tramworth. He suggested I tell people to work harder or jump up and down in order to stay warm. I refrained from telling him this should be his job as it was his staff who were touring the building and on whose behalf I was trying to contact Mulgrew. I suppose people ask help from me instead of their own managers because I do not treat everyone with complaints as if they are troublemakers. Mulgrew appeared around lunch time. Either Tramworth did not tell him the problem or he ignored it. I caught him before he left the building a second time. He did go to the thermostat then and discovered it had been turned down from 30 to 16 degrees before he turned it up. Since only he can have turned it down how he made this mistake escapes me. During the afternoon the place slowly warmed. People were and are annoyed about this because:

  (a) The discomfort stops them working properly, making them feel useless as well as frozen.

  (b) Heating is decided by people who are outside the building, or cocooned in an office when in it.

  (c) This has been going on for years.

  2. The route to the emergency exit is as badly blocked as ever. Mulgrew is our fire safety officer as well as buildings manager, so draws an extra salary to stop that kind of thing happening. He can stop it by ordering new storage racks. I wish he was less friendly with the local fire precautions inspector. Mulgrew always knows when a thorough inspection will happen so the inspector never sees the usual state of the place. Sometimes, (like today), the inspector calls in without warning, but in that case (like today) he never looks at the emergency exit. God help us if we have a fire when a thorough inspection has not been scheduled.

  3. The top tread of the stairs is still as loose as when Mrs Macleod tripped and fell down them. You may remember the doctor said she was lucky not to have broken her back. Senior management seem to think a handwritten warning notice has solved the problem for the foreseeable future, but one day we might have a short-sighted visitor. The other treads also need attention.

  4. Nothing has been done about the window behind Helen Scrimgeour’s desk. Its dangerous state was first reported a year ago.

  5. Handrail on the spiral staircase is loose.

  6. Radiators in the ladies’ loo are not turned on.

  7. Heatscreens. (Outstanding for two years.)

  8. A light in the loading bay. (Outstanding for more than two years.)

  Of course you know the reasons for the above. The directors’ offices are in the George Square depot, so they are glad to spend as little as possible on maintaining and keeping comfortable a building never noticed by the general public. Yet most of the firm’s employees work in this dirty old building, which houses the most profitable part of their business. Can Phimister and Henry Pitt not see that every hundred pounds saved on heating means that a hundred people do two thirds of the work they would normally do?

  I realize this letter is not fair to you, Lumley. The directors and senior management have put you here to protect them from this kind of information. It embarrasses them to hear about staff problems from the mouths of the staff, they do not want to know about our problems at all. We are learning to handle the new computer which, properly used, should make us more efficient. While learning we must go on handling orders and dispatches in the old way, which makes us even less efficient. Since the directors and senior management know nothing about computers they thought everything would at once improve, not get worse, as soon as they bought one, so now they are trying to avoid paying for anything else. But why does Henry Pitt insist on handling all incoming mail and send every tiny complaint straight to my staff after marking it top priority – attend to this at once? They spend hours making sure that a garage in Stromness or Brighton gets a single free replacement while factories in the Midlands are kept waiting, though they have ordered 500 and paid for them in advance. Henry Pitt’s grandfather founded this firm, he is a major shareholder and has been with it all his life, but his only management experience is with our depots. He should send all orders and complaints straight to me and Mrs Mcleod, who’ve been working here for fifteen years so know the priorities. The staff here sometimes feel that the directors and senior management are conspiring to STOP us doing the work they employ us to do. The idea is insane but that is what we sometimes feel, though they have probably just lost interest in us.

  Or is it an insane idea? Henry Pitt is over sixty, must soon retire and has no children. Phimister has his Loch Lomond fish farm. It began as a rich man’s hobby because he enjoys messing about in boats, but Mulgrew and Tramworth gave him a lot of help and a recent article in The Scots Magazine said it was now profitable. It also quoted him as saying, “I want a cleaner, fresher life for my children. Modern cities are becoming intolerable.” If Pitt and Phimister sold the business they would make quite a lot. Since it is the only remaining firm of its kind in Scotland the buyers would almost certainly be southerners who would keep the depots but shut this distribution centre. Do you think we are coming to that, Lumley? It has happened with ship building, the car industry, textiles, steel, sanitary engineering et cetera.

  I have had another idea. If they decide to sell us off could not a few of us (me, you, Mrs Macleod, Helen Scrimgeour, Colin Shand and maybe some others) put in an offer for the distribution part – this part – and buy it and run it for ourselves? We know how to do it. I would really like to talk to you about this. You are the only member of the senior management who listens to what I say and knows what I mean. Also, if a sell-out is being planned you will be one of the first to know about it. You also went to the same school as Phimister, so understand these things much better than I do.

  Are You a Lesbian?

  Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.’ – Paul wrote this in his first letter to the Christians of …

  “Excuse me but I want to ask you one question, just one question. Are You a lesbian?”

  “I am not a lesbian.”

  “That answer, if you will pardon me for saying so, is not satisfactory. For the last two Sunday mornings I have watched you stroll in here at five-thirty, wearing jeans. You order a pint of lager, bring it to this corner and sit reading a book and shrugging off every man who tries to start a conversation with you. Why act that way if you arenae a lesbian?”

  “That is your second question. You said you would ask just one.”

  “Aye, all right. I take your point. Fair enough.” Paul wrote this in his first letter to the Christians of Corinth, less than twenty years after Christ was crucified. And now, a question.

  What do we need most in life? What, if we suddenly lost it, would make us both feel, and be, worthless? Some Christians will answer: their religion. They think their lives are given meaning by their faith in God who made and sustains the universe and became Jesus of Nazareth. Well, they are wrong. Faith in God can make us very strong – for centuries it has enabled Christians to suffer and inflict, prolong and endure hideous agonies for the most splendid reasons. But it is not what God wants. Paul tells us why: ‘Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Love, I am nothing.’ ‘Though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.’

  In many (not all) Bibles you will read ‘charity’ where I have written ‘Love’. Paul used Greek word meaning ‘loving respect’ – the deepest affection possible between people. Charity used to mean that in English, but has come to mean ‘goodness to people who a
re badly off.’ This sort of goodness can be a wonderful expression of Love, but is not Love itself. People have founded hospitals…

  “Excuse me, I know I’m butting in again but I have something to say which will do you good if you will only listen to me and not lose your temper. There is only one reason why a man or a woman comes to a pub and it is not the booze. You could easily be drinking cans of lager in the privacy of your ain hame and it would be cheaper, for Christ’s sake. So like everybody who comes to a pub you are here for the company, so why shut me out by sticking your nose in a book? I mean no offence, but you are a very attractive woman, in spite of wearing jeans and no being very young. I cannae be too plebeian nor too old for ye neither. You would have gone to a pub higher up Byres Road if you wanted posher or younger company.”

  “I will tell why I come here if you promise to leave me in peace afterward.”

  “Fair enough. Fire away.”

  “I have two daughters and a son in their late teens, and a homeloving husband who works in the finance department of the district council. They leave all housework to me but I enjoy keeping the house clean and tidy so can honestly say I do not feel exploited. I do voluntary work for Save the Children, and Amnesty International. I have no money worries, family worries, health worries and used to think I was one of the luckiest people alive. Nothing seems to have changed but my life is now almost unbearable. No doubt a doctor would blame the menopause and prescribe Valium. I think I’ve suddenly started seeing myself clearly after eighteen years of looking after other people.

  “You see my father was a Church of Scotland minister and I loved him a lot – he was kind and distant and mysterious. Like most Protestant clergymen he was probably embarrassed by drawing wages to go about looking better than other people. The best clergymen get over their embarrassment by working hard – running soup kitchens, getting decent clothes for families who can’t afford them, visiting the lonely. My father’s church was in a posh suburb. Everybody in the congregation seemed prosperous so we never noticed the poor. He spent most of the time between meals in his study, writing sermons for Sunday. They were no better than other ministers’ sermons but his elocution and manners were perfect, old ladies loved him, everybody admired what they called his unworldliness. I only noticed he was a fraud when I got to university.