by James Kelman
I continue
heads. There are heads at the window. Is that two heads or is it one head?
Pupils! Here you have a chap. This is a chap here. Look at that fucking head there, that is the head of the second head, the master of headsis assistant. Let us open our jotters and discuss the following: time. Time. Matters that be temporal. Time is the healer. Time is a thing, that
One has time and one’s time is not, the time that belongs to one, it is not, it has existed. But not now, not longer. I am formerly one of yous and am always one with yous. That is religious.
Yous are all fidgeting because yous are not liking what I’m fucking talking about in this manner that I’m doing it
Yous dont actually like this. This is that yous dont, yous dont actually like. So be careful. Yous’ll have to fucking be careful. Exercise caution. Be honest and truthful and fucking courageous for christ sake dont be cowardly because that’s what they want, what they demand, they demand cowardice, and when they’ve got that off yous then they might deign to drop ye a wee gratuity. Bastards. My life is just an ordinary life. I drink sometimes too much in the wrong way, my belly not being attuned properly or something maybe to do with a lack of an item, food or milk or what. But time recovers itself time recovers itself, when allowed to get on with it, to march unhindered.
People are fidgeting. I just stand here ye see, rocking back and forth on the balls of the heels of my feet which lurk uncovered beneath the socks and the shoes. I continue, even if some of yous are laughing – what at? at fucking stupit puns – but I continue, I continue. I face my fellows and I face my fellowesses, the lassies and the lassieds. All yous wee bastards, deceivers in embryo.
One has drunk and one has spewed, okay, it might have been a bad pint – it happens, especially at dinnertime when some bar owners get their staff to throw last night’s dregs in along with the good stuff, okay. And the floor has dried the floor has dried. I just continue. I see your faces, your faces are smiling now and again. Yous are good wee weans, to some extent. I dont worry. I dont worry. Time recovers itself. I shall be asleep. I shall be without consciousness. I can rock back and forth and back and forth, back and forth and back and forth, and that will be that, and I am healed, the healing having been taking place. It happened to me as a schoolboy and here it is happening to me as a man who is fully grown and is twenty-nine years of age. I have walked into the classroom and looked upon ye. I am healed. There is a dringing, a dringing. This is the period ended. So what happens now. Dismissal.
The exits are soon to be open and the ways lie ahead, ahead.
Patrick was going to go home because going home is best. To be alone and without gods is death says Hölderlin but Hölderlin was wrong and is a poor bastard. Patrick is not a poor bastard. He strolls. He is lost in thought. He is deep in the province of inner psychomachinations. Weans are puzzled. They do not zoom. They are quietly there, they are awkwardly there, their feet shuffle, but not for long not for long, this being ten minutes to four and liberation is upon them thus their interest wanes. But there are teachers who are looking, whom I am not seeing, being lost in thought etcetera etcetera and I stroll on in fast time, a straight line, down the steps and outside, across the carpark, wherein the motor. But not to get in not to get in not to get in not to get in and the faces all fucking looking and the two polis as well over by the gates and fucking looking what are they fucking looking at the bastards the fucking bastards because the key get the key get the key in the fucking lock and come on now calm down just fucking calm down and insert the long bit in there, and turn it clockwise, click, click click. Doors aye open. That’s what doors are for, to open. Come on now, just take it fucking easy else you’ll bang into the gatepost for christ sake. But his hand was shaking he was so cold, his body having lost so much of its heat and also the actual temperature seeming to have dropped to something approaching zero once more. It was as if Glasgow had become a form of antichthon. Hot water bottles. He was looping the belt and plugging it in to the bit where it goes, the seatbelt lock, shivering but gaining control, getting his arms to stiffen, his hands affixed to the wheel. He would not crash into any fucking gatepost. He switched on the ignition and the engine started first time. He revved it, seeing the clouds of exhaust in the rearview mirror, some elderly weans scowling at it, and there too was Alison. There she was. That was her there, and walking; on her tod and walking, along the driveway, handbag swinging, looking so fine, so fine. She was there. He let down the handbrake, clutch up and the motor was moving, steadily it would have appeared but his hands were clinging onto the steering wheel for dear life. He would be into bed soon. He would be into bed so quickly that maybe even he would be wearing his clothes, maybe not even bothering to get them off, being so tired and not having to worry about what folk might think since there he was alone and not answerable to a soul, to no bastard, he could just get into the house and bang shut the door and throw himself under the blankets. Ah, bliss. His mind shutting, his mind just shutting, his memory, all of it going, a formalised system, a theorem of sleep. A loud screech. A taxi, it nearly crashed right into him. The driver was sticking his middle finger in the air, angry and sarcastic at the same time. Patrick had swerved without warning. The taxi had had to brake, the anchors flung on, an emergency stop. Its nearside wing only about nine inches from him. Patrick waved an apology because he was definitely in the wrong but the taxi driver just glowered at him because of course you’re not allowed to make a silly mistake in this man’s Glasgow. I willni apologise twice!!! thundered Patrick to himself reassuringly. He wound down the side window, getting some icy air in on his face. He was going to give up driving. Driving went with teaching. The idea of stopping it there and then. Just getting out and grabbing the chattels chattelus and running like fuck, or no, just sidling off round the corner, avoiding the curious stares from the passersby passersbeelzebub. And no fucking wonder either for christ sake when you come to think about it because here you have a car that’s fuckt, a vehicle that is no longer sound insofaras motor vehicles are thought to be articles of motion or the term motor vehicle is scarcely to be regarded as valid, as true, as something one can verify by simply walking roundabout its outer bloody damn bastarn fucking perimeter, that’s if you can crawl out the bloody damn door without its fucking metal hinges grinding your eardrums to death, to death, literal death, the head and shoulders stiffly in the coffin as the church shutters close and the fingers of fire come swooping down to clutch you ever inwards, into its all-cleansing flame.
You must continue. You must see it through. You have got to pull oneself together and fight like fuck to arse your way clear of trouble.
Okay?
Yes. Aye. I’m just breathing deeply in an attempt to clear the head. I’m aware that by increasing the intake of oxygen into my skull, my brain – the way it works, the way it carries on without cracking – that the intake of oxygen, the prerequisite
A mammoth queue, at the entrance to a shoe shop. There was a SALE!! BIG REDUCTIONS!! And your man needed a pair of dancers you’re darned tooting. He settled the car at the kerb opposite. He strolled across the road. The last man in the queue looked at him as if to say something. He was dressed in a fawn trenchcoat and a tweedy bunnet or kep as they used to say here in The Land of Heather probably around the time Grandfather Doyle’s old man was toiling at whatever the fuck he was toiling at. And then again, this guy in the trenchcoat with a really thin face, a really thin face. But what the fuck’s up with a thin face!
Thin faces. What do we say about them. Is there something to be said about them, thin faces.
No, there’s eff all to say about them, because maybe I’ve got one myself and if so I’ll report ye ya racist fascist bastirt. Let me see:
the display shoes in the large doorway contained lefts only to thwart the would-be shoe thief. He smiled at those queuing here in case they thought he was trying to skip in past them.
The shoes were cheap efforts. You could ascertain this just by pe
ering at them and bearing witness to the nature of the plastic uppers, also the narrow foot entrance which means your feet just at the ankles would end up constricted and rubbing against the rims, thus sore feet, the big watery blisters and so on, hacked and raw-red skin. No good. No good at all. He pursed his lips, indicating his dissatisfaction with the quality to the rest of the queue but they appeared not to be bothering about his opinions. They had their own opinions. Okay. He frowned but gazed to the floor. How come they were all going to buy such shite. Because they were skint. Because they had no fucking dough. People would buy anything if it was cheap. It would be great to have something to sell. If he had something to sell he could take it out and sell it. He returned to the opposite side of the road but continued on past the motor to a nearby newsagent; the truth of the matter, that he needed to buy something; it didni matter what, just something that could be anything, preferably an item of luxury but, an article sweated over by all the weans of Thailand for the wage of a lollipop, some article whose function they would only be vaguely aware of
da da, da da, da da
da da, da da, da da
da da, da da, da da, da da
you’re in the army now
you’re in the army now
you’re in the army now
you’ll never get rich digging a ditch
you’re in the army now
Cockadoodledoo. Christ was denied three times. This was the sort of stupid conundrum the famous Mirs Houston had left him with. What had she meant by it, calling him that, saying that to him, Judas Iscariot. It was actually Peter who did the denials. Just as well he was a nonbeliever. He smiled, then chuckled. A woman was awaiting his every pleasure behind the counter. She wore a dark brown overall and checkered blouse and in her smile at him, that perfunctory smile which in this case was no such thing but a thing of warmth and great beauty, which in all such cases
I dont want to buy the Guardian because it’s a load of rightwing shite and there’s nothing else.
Yes there is, there’s a whole rack of radical stuff you can go and dig out if ye really want to look except you canni do your looking in here because we dont sell any of it.
I wouldnt want to anyway.
Why not?
Because I find I cannot read such stuff on a regular basis, that I become too quickly scunnered, feelings of nausea in the belly and so forth.
Aw.
Aye eh they dont fucking seem to fit into my everyday existence. I dont know how to explain it. I blame my parents and society, how they bare their arse to The Powers That Be.
The woman nodded. The crest of the newsagent chain on her left breast, her own name in a wee brooch down by her throat.
I blame my parents and society.
The woman nodded.
I’ll take a bag of sweeties. I’ll take these ones there with the marzipancoatedchocolatus-a-um. And do ye have any Andrews Liver Salts?
No. You’ll have to go to the chemist shop along the road.
O well, I’ll just have to drive it to save time.
That’s entirely up to yourself but see if it was me, what I’d do I’d just hoof it and kid on it wasnt mine, that it didni fucking belong to me, that no-longer-good vehicle, that I didnt know it from Adam, these fucking doors rusting to fuck with the grating bastarn hinges, to be honest about it, I dont understand how
You’re right, thanks.
Yet it has to be said there exists something about it, about this motor car, a certain indefatigability, the way the bonnet slopes so chirpily upwards from the rusted wings, the manner in which the lack of adequate mudguarding
No, just leave it. Dump it! Grab the tax disc and run for your life – except it’s fucking out-of-date anyway and if ye dont buy a new yin that big polis’ll come back and get ye done for breaking the law.
Funny how come so many officers-of-the-law crop up these days. Patrick appears to be surrounded by them. Everywhere he looks. Even if they are all jovial big chaps, it doesnt matter. And how come they’re all seven-foot-high I mean I dont want to get paranoiac about it christ though there again the big yin that gave the warning on the tax disc was okay, he was cheery and seemed good-natured for christ sake you could see it in his eyes, the way he was giving Master Doyle the telling-off. It was never a true telling-off, more of a jocular comment, the sort that occurs between good neighbourishly acquaintances. Ergo: not all polismen are bad chaps; not all poliswomen are bad chappesses. Only those who work for the government in such and such a way and do not perform in this that and the other fashion, know what I mean, tap the nose and say nothing, there’s too many clicks on my telephone these days.
Patrick has nothing to worry about. Honest. He’s a fucking okay bloke. The Magisterial forces are not out to nab him. Patrick Doyle your honour. MA (HONS). I got my ‘honours’. My (Honours)! My !!!honours!!! I became a registered civilian on behalf of forces that corrupt. I am the messenger. I have to convey the tidings. I am the means to their end. I perform in public. I am the fellow with the likeable personality who is to influence the weans of the lower orders so that they willni do anything that might upset the people with wealth, power and privilege.
So dont fuck off.
Okay?
Yes.
Aye.
Back you come.
Fine, hullo. I am pleased to meet ye. I truly am. I am a likeable personality. If you are not an unlikeable personality why then, we may converse. Hullo back. I am your alter ego. Alter alteris masculine. When your personality splits I am the back end. I am the ugly bit, the counterforce. In order to release me as a pleasantly docile manifestation you have to resort to instruments of wind – pipes can suffice. What they do they release me, and I am another likeable personality. Thus we have us two and the ugly one. Then as well as you get this other yin, me; I creep in, I creep in while yous all sit about gabbing in that friendly getting-to-know-ye type of way; I creep in and edge closer and closer till I’m so much a part of the company you didnt notice my absence earlier, that a gap had existed, that it has now been filled.
But that motor car! God! Imagine being abandoned at the side of the road! Imagine it, early to mid March, a time of year when wintry chills can flood the eternal watervapourish canopy. I mean to say and all that your man here, P for Patrick Doyle, a good protestant atheist, a good glaswegian protestant of the nonbelieving class, not only a virtual atheist but a literal one, a total and literal one since a wee boy of some twelve summers. Imagine it but, getting abandoned at a pavement towards the latter part of a dismal winter, enlivened only by the absence of Xmatic Pantomimes. I am the Piper Doyle. I pipe. Up piped Doyle to enliven the proceedings. That story of Kafka’s about the nice wee woman who is a vain mouse and who pipes a song of astonishing, of astonishing
Astonishing what for fuck sake I’ve fucking forgotten.
I hate all these arsish fucking banalities I mean they’re so fucking stupit, daft; I prefer to march ever onwards getting bumped by folk rushing to the SALE!! BIG REDUCTIONS!!
That wee lassie Audrey. She’s a wee beauty. She is such a beautiful wee lassie it makes ye want to greet for the rest of your life.
So P. Doyle enters a pub.
P. Doyle enters a pub. Well well well. He strolls to the bar. The smell of wines and spirits and diverse beers, also carbolic soap and incense. The bartender. Your new found resolution Mister Doyle. Could I have a tomato juice please?
A tomato juice?
Yeh, and a half-pint of heavy
(ya fucking coward ye)
As the bartender got the order Patrick yawned and leaned his right elbow on the counter. He yawned once more. He carried his drinks to a side table. The place was almost empty. A middle-aged couple at a table farther along. Two guys about Pat’s age standing at the bar, with the bartender a part of their company. The television set was on, but its volume had been turned completely down.
He unrolled his Evening Times at the football page.
For fuck sake, the two guys and the bar
tender were looking at him. They were looking at him. Imagine that, for christ sake, what to do, he turned a page; he turned the page and flattened it down on the table. Because he had bought the tomato juice and the half-pint of heavy. They would have thought it an unlikely combination therefore worthy of comment, of pointing it out to one another. Glasgow drinker buys tomato juice, you could picture the headlines. What the fuck else could it be was his fucking fly open or something! Maybe he should just bloody go and ask. Excuse me ya trio of fucking halfwits why the fuck are yous staring at me?
Ignore them. Ignore them.
The sickness!! Aaarrgghh!! The slabbery fucking sawdust!! Errcchh errcchh!! Aaarrgghh!! The fucking bottom sections of the boy’s trousers, they’re fucking minging with this green and tan and yellow ochre substance!
It’s no his fault though. He tried to clean them as best he could in the time he had, which wasnt much, he had a class of weans awaiting, and these weans are all perceiving little bastards, persons who are never to doubt, nor to be doubted.
Hang on a minute. It is certainly true the guy’s wearing sick-stained trousers but this should hardly produce such inferences as: the fellow himself is responsible for it, the manner of it, these bottom sections, their current condition. He could easily have been strolling along the fucking road when up pops a sick dog, a drunken vagabond on all-fours. Anything. Anything’s a possibility in this man’s Glasgow. And he’s leaving. He’s left. He’s gone, this very man, he’s away, never to return. He has left school forever. Now that he is a fully developed male adult he has left the halls of education forever.
RANGERS SIGN EIRE WINGER!
Rangers sign Eire winger. Sammy O’Flaherty, a naturally gifted winger. In fact he was a good player. Pat had seen him on the box a couple of times and he showed a lot of neat touches.
But enough of football.
How come these bastards are looking, that’s what I want to know. Probably shites from Special Branch, parties who disagree with truthtelling. Truthtelling is the one word. Truthtelling is a verb. It is a doing thing or a not doing thing. I truthtell, do you.