Ten Tales Tall and True

by Alasdair Gray

  He walks very far before finding the door. A man of his own sort sits on a bench in front of it staring morosely at the floor between his shoes. He does not look up when our man sits beside him. A long time passes. Our man grows impatient. The corridor is so narrow that his knees are not much more than a foot from the door he faces. There is nothing to look at but brown paintwork. At length he murmurs sarcastically, “So this is our new world.”

  His neighbour glances at him briefly with quick little shake of the head. An equally long time passes before our man says, almost explosively, “They promised me more room! Where is it? Where is it?”

  The door opens, an empty metal trolley is pushed obliquely through and smashes hard into our man’s legs. With a scream he staggers to his feet and hobbles backward away from the trolley, which is pushed by someone in a khaki dust-coat who is so big that his shoulders brush the walls on each side and also the ceiling: the low ceiling makes the trolley-pusher bend his head so far forward that our man, retreating sideways now and stammering words of pain and entreaty, stares up not at a face but at a bloated bald scalp. He cannot see if his pursuer is brutally herding him or merely pushing a trolley. In sheer panic our man is about to yell for help when a voice says, “What’s happening here? Leave the man alone Henry!” and his hand is seized in a comforting grip. The pain in his legs vanishes at once, or is forgotten.

  His hand is held by another man of his own type, but a sympathetic and competent one who is leading him away from the trolley-man. Our man, not yet recovered from a brutal assault of a kind he has only experienced in childhood, is childishly grateful for the pressure of the friendly hand.

  “I’m sure you were doing nothing wrong,” says the stranger pleasantly, “You were probably just complaining. Henry gets cross when he hears one of our sort complain. Class prejudice is the root of it. What were you complaining about? Lack of space, perhaps?”

  Our man looks into the friendly, guileless face beside him and, after a moment, nods: which may be the worst mistake of his life, but for a while he does not notice this. The comforting handclasp, the increasing distance from Henry who falls farther behind with each brisk step they take, is accompanied by a feeling that the corridors are becoming spacious, the walls farther apart, the ceiling higher. His companion also seems larger and for a while this too is a comfort, a return to a time when he could be protected from bullies by bigger people who liked him. But he is shrinking, and the smaller he gets the more desperately he clutches the hand which is reducing his human stature. At last, when his arm is dragged so straight above his head that in another moment it will swing him clear of the floor, his companion releases him, smiles down at him, wags a kindly forefinger and says, “Now you have all the space you need. But remember, God is trapped in you! He will not let you rest until you amount to more than this.’

  The stranger goes through a door, closing it carefully after him. Our man stares up at a knob which is now and forever out of his reach.

  The Trendelenburg Position

  Come in, come in, Mrs Chigwell. Sit down. My partner is sorry he cannot attend to you, as arranged, but there will be no complications. His wife was unexpectedly struck down by something this morning and though (thank goodness) she is not exactly at death’s door he would find it hard to concentrate on your (thank goodness) smaller problem. His mind might wander, his hand tremble, so you are safer with me. His X-rays indicate two fillings, one of them a wee toaty tiddler of a job, and I am so sure of my skill that I promise you will feel no pain if I work without anaesthetic. But maybe you are nervous and want it, even so? No? Splendid. I am starting the motor – which lowers and tilts the chair – so easily and smoothly that your heart and semi-circular canals have suffered no shock or disturbance. The Trendelenburg Position – that is what we call the position you are in, Mrs Chigwell. This chair gets you into it, and out of it, in a manner which ensures you cannot possibly faint. I wonder who Trendelenburg is.

  Or was. Rinse your mouth. Let me – keek – inside. Oho! And if you want to sneeze, gargle, hiccup or blow your nose just raise a finger of your left hand and I will stop what I am doing almost at once but here goes. Chigwell. Chigwell. An English name. Yes there are a lot of your kind in Scotland nowadays, but you’ll never hear me complain. Do I bother you, talking away like this? No? Good. You probably realize I do it to stop your imagination wandering, as it would tend to do if I worked in perfect silence. There is, let us face it, something inherently sinister in lying absolutely passive while a stranger in a white coat – no matter how highly qualified – does things you cannot see to this hole in your head – between your jaw and your brain; inside this wee toaty cavity – I am opening – in a bone of your skull. Even the presence of Miss Mackenzie, my assistant here, might not stop your subconscious mind cooking up weird fantasies if we dentists, like barbers, had not a professional tendency to gossip. Which reminds me of a cartoon I saw in a bound volume of old Punch magazines : a barber says, “How would you like your hair cut sir?” to a bored-looking aristocratic type slumped in his chair who says, “In a silence broken only by the busy snipsnap of the scissors.” Sometimes I hear myself saying ridiculous things, utterly absurd things, just to avoid that deathly silence, but if you prefer silence just raise two fingers of your right hand and silent I will be. But you like the chatter? Good, rinse your mouth again.

  No, my worst enemy could never accuse me of being a Scottish Nationalist. I don’t approve of Scotland or Ireland – both Irelands – or England, Argentina, Pakistan, Bosnia et cetera. In my opinion nations, like religions and political institutions, have been rendered obsolete by modern technology. As Margaret Thatcher once so wisely said, “There is no such thing as society,” and what is a nation but a great big example of our non-existent society? Margaret had the right idea – DENATIONALIZE! PRIVATIZE! When all our national institutions are privatized the British Isles will no longer be a political entity, and good riddance say I. The USSR has vanished. I hope the USA and the UK follow its example. Last week (a little wider please) a man said to me, “If you refuse to call yourself a Scot – or a Briton – or a Tory – or a Socialist – or a Christian what DO you call yourself? What do you believe in?”

  “I am a Partick Thistle supporter,” I told him, “and I believe in Virtual Reality.”

  Do you know about Partick Thistle? It is a non-sectarian Glasgow football club. Rangers FC is overwhelmingly managed and supported by Protestant zealots, Celtic FC by Catholics, but the Partick Thistle supporters anthem goes like this:

  We hate Roman Catholics,

  We hate Protestants too,

  We hate Jews and Muslims,

  Partick Thistle we love you …

  My friend Miss Mackenzie is looking distinctly disapproving. I suspect that Miss Mackenzie dislikes my singing voice. Or maybe she’s religious. Are you religious Miss Mackenzie? No answer. She’s religious.

  Fine. Rinse your mouth. Second filling coming up and I insist on giving you a wee jag, but you won’t feel it. Did you feel it? Of course not.

  My wife disagrees with me. She’s a Scottish Nationalist and a Socialist. Can you imagine a more ridiculous combination? She’s a worrier, that woman. She’s worried about over-population, industrial pollution, nuclear waste, rising unemployment, homelessness, drug abuse, crime, the sea level, the hole in the ozone layer.

  “Only a democratic government responsive to the will of the majority can tackle these problems,” she says.

  “How will it do that?” say I.

  “By seizing the big companies who are polluting and impoverishing and unemploying us,” says she, “and using the profits on public work, education and health care.”

  “You’ll never get that,” I tell her, “because prosperous people don’t want it and poor people can’t imagine it. Only a few in-betweeners like you believe in such nonsense.” (You have probably guessed she is a school teacher.) “By the year 2000,” I tell her, “these problems will have been solved by the right kin
d of head gear. Even a modern hat of the broad-brimmed sort worn by Australians and Texans and Mexicans will protect you from skin cancer. Hatters should advertise them on television. TO HELL WITH THE OZONE LAYER — WEAR A HAT!”

  Hats, Mrs Chigwell, hats. At the start of this century everybody wore them : toppers for upper-class and professional men, bowlers for the middling people, cloth caps for the workers. Bare headed folk were almost thought as shocking as nudists because their place in the social scale was not immediately obvious. I suspect that hats became unfashionable because we passed through a liberty, equality and fraternity phase – or imagined we were in one. But we’re coming out of it again, and by the end of the century everybody will have head gear. Their sanity will depend on if. Am I boring you? Shall I change the subject? Would you like to suggest another topic of conversation? No? Rinse your mouth out all the same.

  The hat of the future – in my opinion – will be a broad-brimmed safety helmet with hinged ear-flaps and a mouth-piece which can be folded down to work as a mobile telephone. It will also have a visor like old suits of armour or modern welders have, but when pulled down over your face the inside works as a telly screen. The energy needed to drive these sets could be tapped straight from the action of the viewer’s heart – it would use up less energy than walking down a flight of stairs. The difference between one hat and another will be the number of channels you can afford. The wealthy will have no limit to them, but the homeless and unemployed will benefit too. I am not one of these heartless people who despise the unemployed for watching television all day. Without some entertainment they would turn to drugs, crime and suicide even more than they’re doing already, but these video helmets will provide richer entertainment than we get nowadays from these old-fashioned box TVs which to my eyes already look prehistoric – relics of the wood and glass age – BVR – Before Virtual Reality. You’ve heard about virtual reality? Yes? No? It’s a helmet of the sort I’ve just described. You wear it with a kind of overall suit equipped with electronic pressure pads so that you not only see and hear, but feel you’re inside the television world you are watching. Miss Mackenzie is pulling faces at me because she knows what I am going to say and thinks it may shock you since it refers to sex. But I promise that not one bad word will pass my lips. These helmet suits not only give sensations of life and movement in beautiful exciting surroundings. They also, if you desire it, give the visual and sensual experience of an amorous encounter with the partner of your choice. Perhaps Clint Eastwood in your case, Mrs Chigwell. Anna Magnani in mine, although it shows how old I am. Any professional person who remembers Anna Magnani in Bitter Rice is obviously on the verge of retirement. Or senility. And so, I am afraid, is she. Not that I ever saw her in Bitter Rice – a film for Adults Only. I only encountered the first love of my life through her posters and publicity photos. I wonder what Anna Magnani looks like nowadays?

  Excuse me while I wash my hands. We are on the verge of completion. You’re still quite comfortable? Good. Here we go again and remember I am talking nonsense, nothing but nonsense.

  The hat of tomorrow – an audio-visual helmet with or without the suit – will not only release you into an exciting world of your own choice; it will shut out the dirty, unpleasant future my wife keeps worrying about. It will give marijuana or heavy drug sensations without damaging the health. Of course intelligent people like you and I, Mrs Chigwell, will use it for more than escapist entertainment. We will use it to talk to friends, and educate ourselves. Children of four will be fitted with helmets giving them the experience of a spacious, friendly classroom where beautiful, wise, playful adults teach them everything their parents want them to know. Schools will become things of the past and teachers too since a few hundred well scripted actors will be able to educate the entire planet. And think of the saving in transport! When the lesson stopped they could take the helmet off and bingo – they’re home again. Unless the parents switch them onto a babysitter channel.

  “All right!” says my wife after hearing me thus far, “What about homelessness? Your helmets can’t shut out foul weather and poisoned air.”

  “They can if combined with the right overalls,” I tell her. “In tropical countries, like India, homeless people live and sleep quite comfortably in the streets. Now, it is a widely known fact that our armed forces have warehouses stacked with suits and respirators designed to help them survive on planet Earth after the last great nuclear war has made everybody homeless. But the last great nuclear war has been indefinitely postponed. Why not add Virtual Reality visors and pressure pads to these suits and give them to our paupers? Tune them into a channel of a warm Samoan beach under the stars with the partner of their choice and they’ll happily pass a rainy night in the rubble of a burnt-out housing scheme and please rinse your mouth out. Don’t chew anything hard for another couple of hours. The chair – is now restoring you – to a less prone position.

  Bye-bye, Mrs Chigwell. The receptionist will give you the bill, and it might be wise to arrange an appointment in – perhaps six months from now.

  Whatever the future of the human race it is not likely to dispense with dentists.

  Time Travel

  I discovered an odd thing about my left foot when about to pull on a sock this morning. In the groove between the second and third toe, reckoning from the big toe, is a small grey pellet of chewing-gum. I do not chew gum, or know or remember meeting anyone who does. I sometimes patter about this room in my dressing-gown and bare feet, but I never go out of it, and nobody comes here nowadays except the one who cares for me, who is Zoë I believe. And hope. Zoë would never play such a sly wee disturbing trick as putting a sticky sweet between the toes of a sleeping man. Her tricks were all bonny and lavish. I once came home to find that a friend had given her back money we had lent him, money we had stopped expecting to get back, though we needed it for food and rent. Zoë had spent half of it on food all right – we had food enough to last a fortnight. She had spent the rest on flowers. The bedroom floor was covered with vases, jugs, bowls, pans, basins, kettles so full of irises, lilacs and carnations that the bed seemed afloat in a small Loch Lomond of blue, purple and crimson petals. The scent nearly knocked me out. I had to be angry. I saw the loving goodness in that gesture, but had I encouraged lavishness we would have ended up homeless. She knew it, too. Once when I chose to be lavish she grew thoughtful, worried, then angry. She wanted me to be careful and mean so that she could be lavish, which does not explain how this chewing-gum arrived between my toes.

  I do not believe in miracles. I believe the human mind can solve, rationally, any problem it recognizes and closely attends to. I decided not to finish dressing before I solved this one, though I usually earn my pocket-money and the right to stay here by working on the problem of time travel. I dropped the left sock on the floor (Zoë would pick it up) and from a sitting posture on the edge of the bed moved to a prone one on top of the quilt, which I must remember to call a doovay. If I do not learn to use the new words people keep inventing I will one day find I am talking a dead language. I decided to tackle the problem of the chewing-gum by a strategy combining Algebra, Euclidean Geometry and Baconian Induction; but feeling slightly cold in my semmit and single sock I first crept under the doovay and wrapped it round me because a snug body allows a clear mind.

  GIVEN: M – Me who sometimes patter barefoot round this room. P – Pellet of gum stuck to the foot of M. UG – Unknown Gumchewer who is the source and prime mover of P.R – Room that M never leaves and UG never enters. W – World containing M, P, UG, R and other items and events.

  REQUIRED: To find the likeliest event or events which could move P from the mouth of UG to the foot of M while preserving these conditions :-

  1. M and UG remain ignorant of each other.

  2. M is ignorant of P before finding P between his toes.

  3. UG is ignorant of P’s movement after it leaves him, but not while it leaves him. (Chewed gum only leaves a mouth by being swallowed or spat o
r removed by fingers and flicked into air or removed by fingers and attached to other item: all of which are conscious acts though soon forgotten.)

  CONSTRUCTION! – Yes, I was now ready and able to set out the problem in geometrical space-time. I needed no pencil, paper, ruler or compasses. The decay of my organs and senses stops me doing or showing much to other people but strengthens my ability to see things inside. When completely dead to the world I expect to see it all perfectly. Without even closing my eyes I now visualize this:

  The circles represent the world, the squares my room, the curved arrow the movement of the pellet into the room. Could I picture a single, simple event able to fire P for Pellet from the world outside onto the dark green mottled linoleum of this floor, from which the pressure and warmth of my foot later detached it? I pictured one easily.

  Outside my window is an ash tree which looks insanely active, even when standing still. Three tall trunks diverge upward from the same root, and a few boughs or long branches fork from these in elegant curves, but most of them grow straight for a yard or more then, as if turning a corner, bend abruptly up or down or sideways, then undulate, zigzag, spiral, turn steep U-bends or suddenly explode outward into a lot of smaller branches, themselves as knotted and twisted as the tentacles of an arthritic squid. On the day I discovered the chewing-gum all these trunks, boughs, branches with their twigs and leaves were swaying, writhing, lashing about and reminding me they were rooted in a space of grass too smooth to be called a field, too rough to be called a lawn. I seemed to remember an asphalt path between the tree and window, but nearer the window than the tree. I easily imagined a stout sturdy man wearing boiler-suit, Wellington boots and cloth cap who strides along that path chewing a piece of gum which gets so flavourless that he fixes it to the ball of his thumb near the tip, bends his strong middle finger until the top edge of the nail touches the crease in the joint of his thumb then, using the thumb as a lock he builds up muscular pressure in the finger until, seeing an open window just ahead he mischievously aims his hand, unlocks his thumb and (without pausing in his stride) flicks slings catapults the pellet through onto the floor of the room, remaining as ignorant of me as I of him, at that moment. But the window is never open, so I must now seek a more complex though equally elegant solution to this problem.