A Disaffection (Vintage Classics)

by James Kelman

  And also another thing

  what the fuck was it? the other thing, it was to do with a relation, the expression of a relationship; it was to do with this and it was very important, crucially so, and for that reason best left alone, not spoken about too much.

  And now, there, that was it, and getting away, getting right away from that terrible stance, that irony; it was good, it was good. Because that was always the fault, that was always the way of it with him, everyfuckingwhere, with the family and all the rest of it this continually seeing the mirror image, casting doubt upon your motives. It was hopeless. Perhaps; perhaps, it was an idea just to go over a great many things and see what and why, what had happened and why it had happened, and what was to be done. Even on a big issue such as post-university existence I mean for fuck sake surely the parents could not be happy with that? Never mind Gavin! A huffy bastard at the best of times. But had he been expecting something? What would a brother expect? Something especially outstanding? Or just another cop-out, somebody else selling themself to the system. All these sentimental questions. The all-important fucking fundamental ones.

  There is no time for sitting about. On the other hand of course it is essential to realise you have all the time it takes. So, then,

  And as well something not good even about that, that fucking So, then, like that, really not good, not good at all, best just.

  He had to curtail it. He really did have to curtail it. He had to stop himself at all costs. It was that important. Because it was no good thing, it was no good thing. A very very bad habit, a very very bad habit and it was fucking what was it like it was like fucking whatever it was it had to stop it had to stop. He had to stop himself from doing it, it was something that was not good, just not good, and he was up from the chair and into the lobby, where the telephone in repose, nestling away, the telephone, its own tiny existence, awaiting its next though not unenforced, its not unwelcome

  He dialled the number of Alison. It was of course unlikely

  And the receiver had been lifted. It was Alison, saying: Hullo?

  Eh, is that Alison?

  Who’s speaking?

  Eh Pat. Pat Doyle. I was just eh wondering, the thing about last night eh the arts centre, about me going away and that; I was wanting to apologise.

  Yeh.

  …

  Pat?

  Aye eh just really, that I’m sorry.

  Good.

  Aye. And what I was thinking, I was wondering, is it alright to speak?

  Of course, yes.

  What I was wondering then eh about whether I could meet ye, about something. To talk to ye about something.

  …

  Just to talk to you about something.

  To meet me ye mean?

  Just to talk to you, about something in particular, and eh

  When were ye thinking of? Things are quite hectic at the minute.

  Fine eh it doesni actually matter.

  When were you thinking of though?

  Eh well

  It’s only because I have things on.

  Fine.

  …

  Eh.

  So it would have to be tomorrow.

  Would tomorrow be okay? I mean what it was I was just actually wanting to talk to you, about something.

  What time?

  Well just to suit you eh maybe what about twelve? Is that too early? A Sunday. If it’s no convenient I mean, is it too early?

  I’ll get used to the idea.

  Pat laughed then. It was just good and a relief. Everything. And her voice sounding really okay as well, and it was making him have to force his head to go sideways and his eyes closed for fuck sake but he opened them again and he was nodding, he held the receiver nearer to his mouth. So eh just about meeting, I was thinking maybe, the People’s Palace?

  The People’s Palace?

  I think it’s open on a Sunday. Maybe I mean if we met at the Barrows we could just walk along and see; if it was shut we could just have a coffee or something, in a cafe. What do you think yourself?

  I think we should go for a coffee at the start, when we meet.

  Of course, aye.

  What about say The Commodore?

  The Commodore?

  We both know it.

  Yeh, fine.

  Is that alright?

  Aye. Fine. What time again?

  Twelve o’clock? That’s what you said.

  Fine. Is it okay I mean?

  I’ll get used to it.

  Pat grinned.

  And his receiver was down. He had managed to get in a cheerio, but only just, before the receiver was down. It was stupid, to put it down so abruptly like that except his heart, not being able to cope with it, daft; too much. What was going on for fuck sake he was not

  He strode ben the parlour. And to the windows, hands clasped behind his back, surveying the pedestrians below of whose existence Descartes had once required to doubt; quite rightly, the walking coathangers and so on. Descartes used to settle down for the night with his little garret extremely snug, getting everything aright prior to the evening’s doubt – and what about the dancing shadows on the wall, cast by the glow from the fire, the guy who’s been lying on his back all his days and thinks a person is a shadow on the ceiling; these are a different type of questioning. Shadows on the wall are different. They are distinct, from actual people.

  Alison was fine. Much more in control of the world.

  Patrick inhaled a lungful of fresh air but did it too quickly and had failed to empty his lungs first so he did a wee exhalation and then a wee inhalation and began again. The idea of not even being able to breathe properly was just a fucking joke really and he smiled, and then chuckled, before exhaling as much breath as he could from his body; and he paused before inhaling, and he inhaled very slowly and calmly, taking in great wads of new air, sending this fresh oxygen flying through his brain. Then he turned away from the windows and strode back to the kitchen, and back out into the lobby, to the bathroom, because he was now having to empty the bladder at once, if not sooner had he been an elderly chap with prostate problems, not something to joke about touch wood touch wood.

  And a football match a football match! Holm Park and see the good old fucking Yoker! Who were their opponents for christ sake! Did it matter! Not a whit, not a bloody damn whit! Okay. Fine, that’ll do, and let it go, let it go, easy, easy, easy oasy, a nice easy oasiness, scarcely moving at all, like a hibernation, one bit of oxygen lasting ye god knows how long, and just being able to move with as few movements, acting with as few exertions, just biding, biding

  It was a good day, and that was a surprise; and it exemplified much of what was going on. It went side by side with things. There were two things always and just now one of them was this being a good day. Ideally Patrick could have had the two things out in the open so that he could compare them – even just to have seen them side by side, that he could have known he had seen them so that in the future there would be these two things that had happened and he had known and borne witness to them. Perthshire was the opposing team. They came from around the High Possil district and if Patrick minded correctly their own football park had one touchline about six feet higher than the other which was great if your team was hitting in corners but rubbish if it was the other mob. Anyway, Holm Park was not like that. The pitch was really muddy today. It was great. The full-backs came sliding in with mammoth upenders of tackles, leaving deep scoops out the ground and one occasion nearby the touchline a big guy came crunching in on this poor other guy and he goes crashing to the deck, a big shower of mud came flying through the air and the spectators had to fucking all duck in case they got spattered. It was fucking marvellous and made everybody laugh. There too was the sound of the guy peching when he finally got himself onto his feet and trotted back down the field. You could see the gash down his shin, the blood and the muddy streaks, that especial whiteness at the bit where the studs had erased the outer skin. He was a lanky big guy and he rem
inded Patrick of an inside-forward who used to play for Partick Thistle years ago, back when the family lived in Maryhill and the da used to take him and Gavin to some of the home games. It was a teacher he reminded Patrick of. Not any teacher in particular. It was just something about the way he looked when he got himself back onto his feet and trotted back into the fray. And the way he played the game, an attitude to it, as if the playing was just some strange sort of obligation he had, and that absent determination. Patrick felt the kinship. He had felt an awful pity for him at the same time and dreaded the moment the ball was passed to him. He couldnt watch the game because of it, not being able to look away from this man. And he couldni have been more than ten years of age at the time and yet recognising that something. It was something important.

  But was it something good? Probably it was fucking something bad – a stupit fucking self-consciousness. He was probably just a big self-conscious fellow who felt he was just too skinny and lanky to be playing professional football, he was all knees and fucking elbows. And Patrick felt like greeting. My god. Imagine a ten-year-old boy wanting to greet about something like that! How in the name of fuck had he managed to survive the next fucking twenty years. Christ. He was a poor big guy but. And he was out there doing his best. The sort of player who hears every last shout from the crowd:

  Ya big fucking flagpole ya cunt ye! Gone ya big fucking flagpole! Ya big drainpipe! Heh look at the state of that cunt man he’s a fucking drainpipe, look!

  And the poor guy blushing as he attempts to hit the ball round the full-back and ends up tripping over his own two feet.

  Look at the fucking poof! Heh you Hen Broon, ya fucking dickie ye! Your maw’s a fucking shagbag, she’s a darkie ya cunt! Beautiful cries from the heart. Gone ya fucking dumpling ye ya cunt ye couldni score in a barrel of fannies! A what? A barrel of fannies. A barrel of fannies? What in the name of christ!

  It had taken him another couple of years to work that yin out and he would have been best left in ignorance. A barrel of fannies. It was enough to put ye off sex for the rest of your life. A case of the shudders everytime he thought about it. What was it like at all? a barrel of fannies – was it actually a nightmare, a form of male nightmare?

  A man with a hat and a mournful face was standing a couple of yards from Pat. He looked like the stereotype of a hardbitten football journalist. Or a scout. He could have been a scout for one of the senior clubs. But no, definitely more like a journalist. Unless even here you were getting the fucking CIA or the fucking MI5. Dirty bastard. Here he was infiltrating one of the last bastions of ordinary life. Journalists were a lesser breed than teachers. Or were they? maybe they were on a par. They all sold out. What the fuck difference did it make. At least the MI5 were proud of being fascist rightwing bastards.

  He had his hands in his coat pockets, the man, gazing at the play, his head turning to follow the flight of the ball, a cigarette wedged in at the corner of his mouth. And his mouth had a meanness about it. A kind of a crimped look there, in the lips.

  Shocking!

  To say that about somebody. Just because of the physical characteristics of the face you make snap judgments on personality, how the person makes his or her decisions, how they move in the midst of their fellows. Desperate. It is just not fair. It is not good. It is shocking.

  Patrick missed the only goal of the game at this juncture. And serve him right. He was shaking his head and looking in the direction of his shoes, and then the blokes roundabout were cheering and applauding and waving. Yoker had scored. And what a goal as well according to everybody: their winger had cut in from the right and chipped the ball over the heads of the defence and back to the eighteen-yard line where the striker caught it on the volley and bump, straight into the corner of the net, a fucking beauty. And you aye remember goals. It is a fact one does not hesitate in admitting. There was one Patrick scored when he was playing for the BB and it was a real fucking beauty although painful, a header, but him letting the ball bounce that wee bit instead of actually meeting it on the attack, which is the correct way of using the nut, you have to go and meet it and not let it come and crash against ye. Joe Cairns said that as well, about remembering the goals you scored. He didnt talk about football very much but when he did Pat liked to be in the vicinity. There was that good yarn about when he was with Stirling and they were up for a cup game at Ibrox and holding them to a draw right up till the last couple of minutes and then the jammy bastards got their usual last minute Loyalist handshake of a penalty. So typical. So absolutely typical.

  Junior football was much better. Although some of the supporters there were just as bigoted and fascist and some of them were fucking maniacs. Pat was at a game just after Christmas and he was standing down near to the corner flag; up comes a player to take a corner and the entire section of the crowd nearest started clearing their throats at him, dollops of catarrh. They were all men as well, no boys. Frightening. A shower of catarrh. Worse than a storm of hailstones.

  There was one goal and I missed it.

  That would make some fucking epitaph right enough! Missing the only goal of the game. But who cares. Life just cannot be taken as seriously as that. Otherwise it becomes too much. It becomes a total burden. Pat’s life

  Pat’s life! Who the fuck cares. In the name of all that is and is not holy, that becomes as holy.

  The man with the mournful face was looking at Pat. He was actually looking at him. It was funny. No it wasnt. But just as well paranoia was not a problem. No doubt he was an emissary from the education department of Scotland, sent to keep an eye on the chap Doyle who fails to turn up for headmagisterial appointments on top of everything else, these ghastly rumours, the chap’s political beliefs, it seems he’s agin the government. How awful. How absolutely fucking awful and incendiary. Dont tell us the bounder dislikes being a teacher! Dashed uncivil! And he has the dem cheek to stand up in front of children! Old Milne should maybe not have been ignored though. Patrick has probably shown him disrespect. But he deserves disrespect. That is the thing he deserves, disrespect. Him and his fucking flapping MA gown. Auld Clootie come to haunt the weans. The wee first yearers going to the big school for the first time and meeting up with that sort of reality. Middle-aged warders. Middle-class warders – policemen; professional wanks on behalf of institutionalised terror. Institutionalised terror Patrick you tell them! Aye I’ll tell them, dont worry about that. What happens is you want to punch some bastard in the mouth, him with the mournful face for instance. I’ll give him something to be fucking mournful about, him and his crimped fucking lips the bastard.

  Poor old bastards. What have they done to deserve all this, this opprobrium. Children whose parents never got married for whatever reason. And right beside the mournful-faced bloke was this younger guy who looked about ages with Pat, or even slightly younger. How come he hadni noticed him earlier. He actually resembled a polis who had come to the school recently to give a talk on public initiatives with third-year tearaways, for the benefit of the teaching staff. Pat attended. It was really interesting. And if he hadnt gone it would have been noted. But if people were being sent to keep watch on him then they would not have sent somebody he’d seen previously; they would have sent somebody anonymous. That was obvious. And yet was it? Christ but it was easy to become paranoiac. And rationally: rationally one had to admit of certain facts, that certain tenets one held to be true, certain activities that one hoped would take place, that would not endear him

  But surely not in a public place. If they were going to do something to him they would surely choose somewhere private – not an actual football ground. What could be more conspicuous than that! And yet, when you thought about it, this was precisely the type of place an assassin would choose to perform the dirty deed; while the crowd roared on the two teams the poisoned umbrella comes out and is quietly inserted between one’s shoulderblades. Maybe a crowd was the last place to be if safety was sought. Perthshire was about to take a shy. Patrick stepped to the side,
and back a pace, and was on par with the mournful chap in the hat. He smiled at him and nodded. The man looked at him and nodded in reply. And Patrick said, I missed the goal. What d’you make of it? one goal and I missed it!

  We’ll get another yin, said he. He touched the brim of his hat, glanced at his watch: There’s still time yet.

  The younger man was not paying any attention to the interchange. He was straining to follow the play now, the Perthshire forwards moving upfield toward Yoker’s goal area. They had a small boy out on the wing who was really good with the ball at his feet but was tending to slow things down, if he had been that bit more direct Yoker might have been in trouble. And then Yoker attacking out of defence. Exciting stuff and not at all square. Not bad at all. Patrick nodded. It was good. Football could be a direct game. He closed his eyes and stepped backwards.

  Before the end he was making his way to the exit. He paused at the gate and continued out and along the road to where the car was parked. The same road he had driven last night, the route to Dumbarton. Nothing peculiar in that. Unless! The Fates were trying to tell him something! Could his destiny lie in such a direction! West to the Highlands and to the Islands. A Scotsman of the old school. Maybe he was put here on earth to decide the fate of a nation! And that nation was the one of his birth! Patrick Doyle, son of the great Feinn, descendant of that band of mighty warriors who bestrode the northern wastelands in defiance of central authority.