by James Kelman
Mm, it is.
I’m full of interesting facts.
It is interesting though.
Uch fuck it’s no really Alison. He snorted quietly, shaking his head. He spooned coffee granules into the two mugs; clean mugs he had taken from the cupboard and rinsed under the tap, to get rid of any dust inside they had been there that fucking long. They were nice china mugs but had been donated by his Auntie Helen and commemorated an affair of the monarchy which she assumed would fascinate him because he had become a member of the Greatbritish élite. Probably he should have smashed them at birth but he hadnt because he was mean. This was a signifier. It was
Do you take sugar?
No.
That’s because you’re a smoker. Your taste buds are almost out the game completely.
She frowned. He was handing her a mug and gesturing at the armchair. He said: Want to take off your coat now?
She took her coat off. He put his hand out and she gave it to him. His bed hadnt been made. He had been about to put the coat there and it would have lain on his sheets. I’ll hang it in the lobby, he said and he went into the lobby to do so. She had her cigarettes out when he returned:
Do ye mind if I smoke Pat?
Of course no, christ! He grinned. There was an ashtray at the bottom of the cupboard. He passed it to her. I dont think I could afford to smoke, he said.
Alison didnt reply. No fucking wonder either because it was an absolute piece of infantile tollie. Absolutely stupid and fucking mad, it being a downright lie which was the most absolutely important fact about it. He sprinkled the milk powder on his own coffee; he sat down with it, facing her, making a smile for her. He breathed in. Christ. He smiled at her and scratched at his head.
So, said Alison, she exhaled smoke, are you worried about seeing Old Milne?
Naw.
I would be I think.
Would ye!
I think so Pat, yeh.
Hh. I dont think I would. I mean I’m no … he grinned. I just eh, I dont fucking take it seriously.
She sipped at her coffee. She tugged at the cuff of the sleeve of the jumper she was wearing; a fawn and lightish green colour. It probably isnt anything serious, she said.
He grinned.
She looked at him: Do ye think it is?
Eh …
Then she said: Do you know what it’s about?
Pardon?
I was just wondering if you knew what it was he wanted to see you about. And you werent telling. Alison smiled.
Aw! You mean that I might be being a devious shite of the first order!
Yes.
Pat grinned at her. Then he sighed. Ach, I’m a bad teacher Alison, being honest about it. I get too worked up about everything. Then I get too fucking depressed. I just get too fucking depressed. And the classes all know. They can tell. Actually I might be a depressive, and I mean clinically, as an actual condition – not manic, but a depressive all the same.
Did ye know Balzac was a manic depressive? she said after a moment.
Balzac!
Alison nodded.
Christ! He’s a great writer! I’ve no read a great deal by him but eh.
She smiled. Do you know what he did with his coffee, he was a big coffee drinker, he used to make his coffee a fortnight before he drank it. He let it sit and go cold for that fortnight. Alison smiled and inhaled on the cigarette. Then he would reheat it. Apparently it was thick as tar.
He must have got hell of a heartburn!
Yes …!
Pat laughed briefly.
You’re right! Alison frowned.
Dont be so bloody damn surprised Houston! I’m no always wrong ye know!
No but … Alison grinned, It never occurred to me before. Sorry.
Do you actually read him in the French?
Well, I have done.
He nodded. He was waiting for her to continue but it seemed like she wasnt going to continue. On the side of the mug facing him this portrait of the head of the monarchy. He glanced at Alison and indicated the thing.
Mm. I must confess I didnt expect you to have anything like that, she said.
No.
It’s a surprise. She smiled: You’re a secret royalist!
…
A smile.
…
It was funny.
Alison was watching him.
…
Yet as well though
but as well, in her face, in her look this great mixture of worry, care, of also affection maybe for him; a feeling for him, it was just obvious – Pat smiled, he gazed at his kneecaps. If he really was cracking up maybe she would rush to his defence, in the future, whenever his name cropped up in staffroom discussions, nostalgic ones about long-gone colleagues
old Mr McGeechan, who had been there when Patrick first started back in Clydebank – a great auld guy whose attitude was spot on and P. Doyle would aye have emulated him if anybody, if ever he had wanted to emulate anybody, auld McGeechan was the one, he was fucking
Alison was watching him.
He said: I was thinking there about an old guy called McGeechan that I used to work beside. Great he was. A genuine socialist and not one of your fucking typical Fabian shites. Just like a Hollywood movie too, the way the weans related to him. Like fucking Clarence Darrow with Spencer Tracy, d’ye ever see that picture? Sentimental drivel right enough. I thought auld McGeechan was fucking great as well. He used to say, Doyle, you’ve got to tell more jokes in the classroom, you’ll be fine if you tell more jokes, you dont tell enough jokes.
Alison was saying something about sentimentality. What was it she was saying it was about sentimentality. But she was wrong and so was he because the person that was right was fucking Desimondi, he of the cynical eye. The man called Desmond was correct and the man called Patrick was not correct and if you birl these two statements about and then say something about the birling process itself, why then you are on to a mystery that certain parties almost solved but no you arent because it isnt true and dont fucking believe it. Alison was there. She was there. The concept of the magic carpet, it being high time she was not here. That she became elsewhere. Because it was really time to ask her to leave. If facts were to be admitted. If he was to be an honest chap who told the truth for once in his life, he was never fucking cut out for it. No really. As a racket, the teaching game, he was never cut out for it.
I actually used to want to paint, he said. See for instance these guys – women as well, lassies I mean, painters, artists, who paint the gable ends of tenement buildings. Eh? Imagine it! Can you imagine it!
She smiled.
Can ye!
She smiled.
Patrick smiled back at her. And no doubt it was best not to continue the questioning, the entire conversation. She was now inhaling and she expelled the smoke into the fireplace while glancing o so briefly swiftly and fucking the next thing – terrible. He got up at once and shook his head – it was the wristwatch she had glanced at, in her surreptitious manner, her wristwatch, a nicely delicate effort in gold and fucking chintzy shite. Excuse me, he said and he walked out the kitchen and shut the door behind himself; he went to the bathroom.
He was sitting on the lavatory pan, aware that had he a couple of blankets to hand he would have stretched himself out in the bath and had a fucking kip. And by the time he woke up she might have vanished. That was type of stunt that happened in the Arabian Nights. Although there was much more of everyday reality in that work than people gave it credit for. If Pat had been a character in one of these yarns what would his characteristics be? and would
And afterwards he dried them thoroughly and cleared his throat while unsnibbing the lock on the door.
Alison was back standing by the bookshelves, her head craned. She said: I dont read as much as I should. I dont seem to get the time.
That’s what my brother says and he’s on the broo.
She smiled a moment, her head tilting to the other side now as she attempted to deci
pher the title of an elderly volume whose batters were torn and with this hopeless spine which he had sellotaped once but the sellotape did not stick properly down and simply hid the fucking title christ, stupid. You required a diabolic cunning to perform that sort of task in an adequate fashion.
No use talking. There is that stage. He was at it now. He had reached it. He felt, really not good, and no eh
Alison spoke to him. Of a mundanity so startlingly fucking – so banal, so actually banal. He sat down and sighed at the fire, staring at the fire, not too sure of whether it was all a ploy to get her attention, agghhhh agghhh, excrutiating excrutiating, it was
And that just also, laying, laying, the head, on the breast, the lap, onto her breastlap, breastlap
Alison was talking again. He smiled at her. She said, Did you ever consider trying to write?
Naw, no really, did you?
Well, I was actually wondering about you.
Pat shrugged. Just like I says to ye Alison I was aye more interested in painting.
She continued to look at him. She sat back down again.
I’ll tell you what I did do, which I’d forgotten about, it was just after I graduated, I thought it’d be good to rework some of my essays and maybe have a bash at submitting them for publication in a magazine, a political quarterly or a monthly or something. But once I started I found I couldni do it properly. In fact, when I re-read the bloody things it was hard to believe I’d ever passed a fucking exam!
Alison laughed.
Naw no kidding ye it was really terrible. And trying to make them better I made them worse. It was I this and it was I that and the actual sentences kept getting longer and longer and would’ve ended up like that mad German who wrote a treatise with everything bar the verbs, he kept them for the second volume.
Alison grinned.
Naw but the I’s were the worst. Everywhere you looked always this fucking I. I I I. I got really fucking sick of it I mean it was depressing, horrible. I mean that’s exactly what you’re trying to get rid of in the first damn bloody fucking place I mean christ sake, you know what I’m talking about.
She nodded.
What about you?
What about me?
In terms of writing?
O … no, not really. Although before I went to uni … I used to try writing short stories.
She smiled briefly, then dropped her gaze to the fireside. I love Flannery O’Connor.
Christ aye, that one about the murderer where the cat jumps on top of the guy’s neck while he’s driving! That’s an amazing story.
She smiled, nodding, still gazing at the fire and smoking her cigarette. She looked – sad. Fuck! Doyle fucking depresses everybody. God.
Hey Alison, d’ye ever get sick of hearing your own name? I’m no kidding, see when the weans say Mister Doyle, I feel like kicking their arse for them!
She winced.
…
Her eyes had closed. Patrick leaned forwards as though to touch her hand and her eyes opened. He said, Are you okay?
Yes. She smiled.
I apologise.
No. Dont.
It was the word of course, arse, she didnt like it and hadni been able to cope when he had said it. It was an odd word right enough. Arse. There arent many odder words. Arse. I have an arse. I kicked you on the arse. This is a load of arse. Are-s. It was an odd word. But in this life there are many odd things, an infinite multitude of them. It is not as if this life. It is not as if this life.
He smiled at her; but the smile soon petered out and he was just looking at her while she was staring in a downcast way. Would you like another cup of coffee? he asked her.
No thanks.
Ye sure?
Yes.
Are you okay?
Yeh.
Fine then, if you are.
She smiled. I am Pat, really.
I believe you.
She raised her eyebrows, giving him a look that was mysterious.
He smiled, shaking his head. He said: Your trouble is you’re too acute – too eh … christ I’m no sure what it is. You’re to open to, to open to something. You’re too … Sorry, I’ve lost it, whatever it was. O, by the way, just as a matter of interest, that bloke Norman, the temporary English teacher
What was he babbling about? What was this he was babbling about it was not a topic it was fucking hopeless, nothing, nothing at all. What was it
he was trying to say. Trying; to; say. He looked at her: she of course was looking back at him.
She was so totally in control.
She was staring straight at him. What a look! It was straight. It was a straight look she was giving him; it was dislike. She seemed maybe as if really she maybe just disliked him. It wasnt a surprise; ordinary dislike, she just didnt like him, Mary Busby didnt like him either, so it was nothing startling, she just didnt like him. What was he to do now? It was a difficult one. What was he to do. He smiled at her. It was the same with that poor bloke Norman. He should never ever have done it to him.
It was a habit but. It was something he did a lot. He could even be said to do it to his maw and his da, and to Gavin, he did it all the time to Gavin, his brother, and that was how that slight estrangement had happened, because of what Patrick had done and said and made known, he had this habit, of wounding. He wounded people. He actually wounded them. He was the one. It was him. He could fucking destroy people. It wasni Alison that did that it was him, he was the one – not Desmond and not fucking Old Milne or any other bastard, just him.
That was funny that. It made ye feel hopeless.
If Alison hadnt come of course. What would’ve happened then? He had been needing someone to talk to. He was just getting awful lonely these days, sometimes thinking he was the only person in the world who thought about things and worried about them. What he felt was as if everything was going to blow up. Even Alison, when she said that about Northamerica, that’s how he felt. And then fucking the school, all the wee first yearers and the third as well. All of them. Even the fucking sixth years. It was probably best if he wasnt here any longer. Altogether – just away altogether, right out of it. Maybe China, that district somewhere in the north-eastern provinces where they’re supposed to be making incredible advances in the treatment of cancer-related diseases. Just go and fucking see for yourself, if it was all a communist plot or what the fuck, maybe it really was one up for socialism. And maybe get a job in the village itself, as an English-language tutor, or a lorry driver or something. There was a nice kind of life to be led in some of them, the villages, you could be happy in it, a self-containedness. Chiang Kai-Shek was the Greatbritish Hero. That, was the way of it, how things were in reality, the fact to be admitted. Greatbritain, the place to leave. Alison was looking inside a book. What was she looking into the book for. What was it she was to be doing by it, by that manoeuvre. Was
Was?
Was?
Was. It is not to be got beyond. It is not to be got beyond. Here is the moment and it is always out in the open, the palpability. Palpa palpae, a punch in the fucking mouth, feminine.
No. It is not anything; nothing.
The moment. It has lasted for seconds. Seconds. And her; her absorption in the book, not wholly a hundred percent; that fraction of awareness, a reflectiveness, and watching him out the corner of her eye. Yes. Fuck. Fucking terrible.
I know what we can do we can play the pipes.
!!
Alison was looking at her book. Patrick knew its cover. It was a fairy tale about a woman who comes to a sticky end through no fault of her own, but in effect is a victim of society i.e. a world of male manners. Fiona Grindlay, a mother in his sixth-year class. She told them all to fuck off, just like the woman in the story. Fiona Grindlay, a good wee lassie and real and strong and tough and ah christ strong and tough and ready to confront the dark forces, to stand there having said, okay, how far can a person retreat! I’m just going to stand here and brace myself, fair enough, let them do as they
wish but they’ll have to drag me off, they’ll have to knock me down and drag me away.
Great.
Patrick was a teacher
Patrick was a fool
Patrick Patrick Patrick
da da da da school
Patrick sniffed: I think about their parents Alison. The way they just stand back and let their weans’ heids get totally swollen with all that rightwing keech we’ve got to stuff into them so’s we can sit back with the big wagepackets. It’s us that keep the things from falling apart. It’s us. Who else! We’re responsible for it, the present polity.
Alison stared at him.
It is; us.
Is that what ye believe? Her eyes screwed up: genuine puzzlement.
Eh, yes.
Well I think it’s nonsense. She shut the book and returned it up onto its shelf and leaned back on the chair.
Patrick said, Would ye take another coffee?
She nodded slightly. I really do think it’s nonsense Pat and if you honestly believe it to be true then I think you should leave altogether.
Exactly.
Alison muttered, It’s a ridiculous thing to say.
I dont think it is.
Well I do. Also I think it’s damn silly … She shook her head and reached for another fag.
Pat nodded. It was best he wasnt here any longer although having said that of course it was his fucking house and if anybody was not to be here it was her, it was Alison; it was probably best she went away. Unless she started to talk. If she really started to talk. So he could find out what she actually did think about things – her herself, and not just received opinion and conventional bloody fucking wisdom.
There were water biscuits and cheese to go with the coffee if she fancied it, or bread, he could make a couple of sandwiches although he wasnt hungry at all, it wasnt that long since he had had his breakfast.
He stood at the sink with his back to her, the tap turned on and the water gushing, and he would turn to confront her in a moment, eye to eye. Here’s your coffee Alison plus biscuits and cheese if you’ve a mind.
It was so.
The whole thing.
While the truth of the matter what was the truth of the matter was it sex? Is that what it was he was just wanting to have some sex with her yes of course he was he was wanting sex of course, of course he was, but not just that although what else of course he was wanting much else but the sex was so fucking important because of the way it would make him feel just wanted, just wanted by her as an ordinary bloke there in the ring like anybody else, a part of everything. Because he couldni even imagine it really, what like it would be the actual insertion and how she would be in the nude and that moment of insertion the tightening back it was just so disbelievable, the existence of it, the possibility; what would he be doing would he be holding her breasts. Holding her breasts.