A Disaffection (Vintage Classics)

by James Kelman

  The others laughed. Arthur said, You’re lucky you never got huckled!

  They didni know what to do with me! Gavin chuckled. They were fucking baffled!

  It’s a wonder they never smelled it off your clothes, said Davie.

  Christ aye, I never thought of that!

  Whereabouts was the actual close where the fire started?

  And Gavin went on to explain. It was a good type of straightforward question Davie had asked: one which Patrick would aye be incapable of making. Why? Because it was fucking boring. Was that particular close near to the such-and-such pub or was it along a bit farther. Naw, it was nearer to that wee post office. Aw aye, and what was the name of that wee post office again. It was the so-and-so. Aw the so-and-so! God sake, I had a mate used to work there. O did ye! That’s fucking really interesting. His wife’s feyther was a pal of my greatgrandpa’s auld man. Was he! Aye christ, they used to play football the gether whenever they werent drawing their fucking supplementary benefit or dying of hypothermia. Yet these questions were so germane to the issue. There were no other questions to be asked. All these other questions and queries derived from another world altogether. Vulcan. Which is the derivation of 24; 22. In fact his questions were abysmal. Bloody abysmal. They werent actual questions at all. They were statements. These statements had been given a going over, until they began to resemble genuine questions of everyday inquiry, such as: How much of a fucking wage do ye earn? Are you getting exploited badly or just ordinarily so? Is your rate for the job fixed by person or persons unknown? Is your union as corrupt as mine? Did your leaders sell ye out that last time as usual? If so at what fucking point in the manoeuvre, before or after being bribed and were they offered promotion and a permanent seat in the front stalls at Scottish fucking Opera with the managing director of the regional planning department for financial dealings, prior to being offered the possibility of a fulltime paid-up job as a labour consultant for the rulers of this wonderful land of the free. In fact, I’ve hated being a teacher. No kidding ye. It fucking stinks. It stinks. A genuine stench, of corruption, everywhere, rotten decomposing flesh being nibbled by a few fat vultures, everywhere you look a genuine stench. Just name a place and ye can be sure of one thing and this one thing is that it fucking stinks. Patrick shook his head.

  Immediately Gavin said: What d’you mean?

  I mean it fucking stinks, it’s rotten, from the outside in and the inside fucking out. Every last fucking thing about it, it stinks. And what goes on in the classroom, it’s a load of dross. This is how I’m fucking chucking it. And all these wee weans christ they think ye know everything, every last thing in the fucking universe – especially about how to change for the good. I’ll tell ye something else, bastards, people think lies are true and even when they know they’re no true they’ll say fuck all because the shitey fucking arse who’s telling the lie holds the position of power. It’s a load of keech Gavin and I’m fucking sick of it. That’s how I’m chucking it.

  Gavin nodded. Right then.

  Okay?

  Aye – fuck all to do with me.

  Pardon?

  Gavin shrugged.

  What d’you mean it’s fuck all to do with you!

  What I mean is it’s up to you what ye fucking do brother.

  If that’s true then how come ye dont allow me the fucking freedom to just pack it in?

  After a moment Gavin replied, Because it doesni fucking matter what I say, you’ll just go and fucking do what ye like anyway!

  Aye but it’s your blessing I’m after, you never give me your blessing!

  What do ye think I’m the fucking Pope!

  Naw but you dont. You never fucking give me your blessing! Pat glanced at Arthur and Davie who were both laughing at the Pope comment, and he said to them: Honest, no kidding ye; see trying to please him that’s sitting in that fucking chair there! You’d be as well fucking … I dont know.

  Gavin jerked his thumb at Pat, saying to the others: He doesni really hate being a teacher at all. If you fucking believe that you’ll believe anything. He fucking loves the bloody job! He loves it! It’s all he ever fucking talks about! Fucking teaching! It does your nut in listening to the cunt! It’s fucking murder! What’s he fucking talked about since he came here! Teaching. That’s all. Nothing else. He doesni talk about nothing else except it.

  Pat stared at him.

  Gavin raised his right hand and started flapping it open and shut while calling: Rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit; rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit. All your teachers and all your fucking students and pupils and all your fucking headmasters and your cronies from the fucking staffroom. Fucking middle-class bunch of wankers ya cunt! Gavin sat back on the chair and drew his feet up onto it, sitting on his heels, and he swallowed the whisky in a gulp and put the tumbler up onto the mantelpiece. He got his packet of fags open and stuck one in his mouth, then threw the packet to Davie a moment later. He glanced at Patrick briefly: I’ll be glad to see you finished with it, dont worry about that.

  What do you mean middle-class wankers? said Pat.

  Gavin shook his head. He replied, I didni mean them all.

  You fucking said it.

  I know I fucking said it.

  Well ye fucking must’ve meant something.

  Aye, I meant something, I meant middle-class wankers; middle-class wankers, that’s what I meant. Okay? Middle-class wankers.

  Who exactly?

  Whoever you fucking like brother.

  Do you mean me? Are you fucking calling me a middle-class wanker?

  Gavin laughed and snapped the spent match into two pieces, dumped them in the ashtray. He stopped laughing, but continued to look at Patrick until Patrick felt he wouldnt be able to stop himself laughing he was going to burst out laughing, right in Gavin’s face, but he fought it without any problem because what was happening was not funny and his own face was become set and grim, set and grim, because here you had a big brother just staring at him now and not saying a word. And Patrick said, Dont come it Gavin.

  Come what? Then Gavin grinned and shook his head, reached for the superlager. After drinking from it he picked the cigarette out of the ashtray and dragged on that. Arthur and Davie were both doing their best not to be involved in the shit. They were just aw christ fuck all, they werent doing fuck all except sitting and drinking and smoking and being alive and doing their best and fucking stupit, Paddy’s glass nearly dropping out his hand. But was he playing for sympathy? is that how come he nearly dropped it? Maybe he was hoping they would step into the fray and fix things so that all would be okay again and they could all be muckers and just sit back and I dont know christ anything, tell stories or something, wee yarns about going over the sea to Skye and Heraclitus and genies. The whisky was finished in the tumbler so he put the tumbler down and lifted the superlager and sipped that, lifted the homebrew and had a wee go on it. The bottle of whisky stood there obviously but he let it stand there, he was not going to drink from it as of this moment, life being too risky.

  I dont want to argue with ye Gavin.

  I dont want to argue with you either Pat.

  Pat looked at him for a moment; Gavin was looking back at him; he lifted the superlager. Gavin lifted his superlager; and he raised it and toasted with it. Slàinte, said Pat.

  Good luck, said Gavin.

  Pat shook his head and spoke to Arthur and Davie: He wisni always a good soup maker ye know. See when he was a boy he was fucking rubbish. Honest, he couldni boil a fucking kettle. It was always me made the supper in our house, just ask my maw. He never fucking done a thing except eat whatever ye laid down in front of him. No shame either!

  Gavin smiled.

  Big brothers, said Davie; what do ye expect! They aye get away with it as well. That’s because mothers always give in to them. They’re notorious for that. All down through the years, it’s ancient history.

  That’s garbage, said Gavin.

  Naw it’s no. You just watch, mothers always bloody let the elde
st boy get away with murder. But see the young yin! He aye catches it. I’ve seen it with my own two. Everybody knows that Gavin it’s bloody common knowledge!

  Ah I wouldni say that was quite true, said Arthur. In our house okay the eldest boy doesni get belted as much as the young yin but that’s because he doesni get up to as much fucking mischief. I mean that young yin’s a fucking ragamuffin I dont know where he gets it from! Her side of the house probably, they’re a bunch of fucking gaolbait. No kidding ye Paddy a bunch of fucking outlaws. That’s my wife, Maureen, her folk. They come from the Garngad. The Simpsons. You heard of them?

  Naw.

  Aye well ye dont want to! Especially with a name like Paddy! Bluenoses. Bitter as fuck.

  Tell him that one about your cousin, at the wedding … Davie said.

  Aw you mean the eh, the auld feyther?

  Aye christ. Davie laughed and glanced at Gavin who nodded and laughed quietly.

  Ah well see … Arthur gazed at Pat, and while he spoke he glanced at the other two from time to time. It was a wedding, one of the cousins, the wife’s team I’m talking about; it’s a big big family there’s fucking stacks of them. And as I say Paddy they’re all fucking Orangemen bitter as fuck. Wouldni let a tim in the house. Aye shouting about how they’re filling the country with their weans – no contraception and all that.

  Well they have got some contraception, said Gavin.

  I’m talking about the pill but Gavin or the coil, how the tims areni allowed to use anything except will-power.

  Free will and contraception, said Patrick.

  The rhythm method, said Davie, me and the wife used to try it. That’s how we’ve got four bloody weans! He chuckled and tugged at the corners of his moustache.

  Pat got the bottle of Grouse and refilled tumblers. Gavin asked for another homebrew to be passed across but Pat gave him another superlager instead: Save your homebrew for later, he said.

  There’s no gonni be a later! Gavin smiled.

  What d’you mean?

  What do I mean … Gavin gestured at the drinks on the table and at the drinks each individual had lying beside him. Patrick gazed at it all and nodded but he didnt quite understand precisely what Gavin was intending. And Davie said:

  Know what I feel like doing, getting the women.

  Getting the women? replied Arthur.

  Aye. Davie put his drink down and took a half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear and got a light from Arthur’s box of matches. I dont mean a party, he said to Gavin.

  Nicola wouldni go for it Davie.

  Naw I mean I’m no talking about that fuck I’m just meaning bring them into it, for a wee night, we could make a wee night of it – just what we’re doing the now, having a crack and that, hearing the music.

  Sounds good to me, said Arthur.

  It sounds good to me and all, said Gavin, obviously. But it’s whether the women’ll go for it I mean christ Nicola’ll walk in that door and she’ll be knacked … Gavin glanced sideways, lifted the can of lager and pulled off the stopper. The electricity I mean that’s gonni annoy her. Being honest about it, I would probably feel like keeping out her road all the gether. See as well there’s the weans to feed and all that, they’ve got to get their tea.

  So’s mine, replied Arthur.

  Well so’s mine too, if it comes to that, Davie said.

  But yours are all fucking grown-up; they can feed themselves man!

  That’s what you bloody think!

  I wouldni have a woman to bring, said Pat suddenly getting up from his chair, requiring a piss desperately; his first since arrival. He paused by the door to say to the effect that there was this woman he was seeing but she wouldni be able to make it if they did have a wee night, but he changed his mind and said nothing. Plus he really did have to get to the bathroom. This very very astonishingly bad habit of waiting and waiting before getting off the arse to go to lavatories was symptomatic of his life. There had to be a connection between it and things of mammoth import. Well of course there was. But maybe he was entering into states of hallucinatory imaginings brought about by urinary dysfunctioning. That would explain the fucking pipes. If he was waiting too long to piss. That was definitely a habit to cultivate, proper bladder emptying because this was stupid, he would just end up with a damaged kidney which demands constant cleansing via the regular drinking of fresh water. Especially those who consume more than sufficient alcohol they require to give their poor auld kidneys every assistance because they are having a difficult enough time without that for christ sake. Gavin was actually very out of order in what he had said I mean you dont call your fucking young brother a middle-class wanker I mean fuck sake. A middle-class wanker! Aye, it’s nice to know who your friends are; and if you dont have friends amongst your relatives then etcetera etcetera, who the fuck are you and so on, supposed to have friends among.

  Patrick waited till the cistern had refilled before leaving the bathroom.

  The other three were laughing at something which did not include Patrick obviously since he had been elsewhere at the yarn’s commencement. He sat on the chair and coughed slightly, looked for his glass of homebrew but couldnt find it, it was not there; he took a swig of the superlager. Then Arthur called, Heh Paddy, wait till I finish what I was telling ye there before ye went to the cludge. It was just eh … he glanced at Gavin and Davie and it was enough to set the pair of them into further laughter, and he smiled and said to Patrick: Naw, it was just there was a wee bit of a contretemps during the reception. Mind it was a wedding I was saying?

  Pat nodded.

  So – actually I never saw it, to be honest, the incident itself but what happened was there was this fucking commotion man, a big fucking rammy; it started ben the main dining room; it was a function suite where it was being held. Me and Maureen were in this lounge room with some other folk, a couple of her auld aunties – when in comes this cunt, fucking shouting and bawling, and we’re all looking at him wondering what the score is with all the noise and that because we’d heard it, the fucking rammy, before he came fucking in shouting and bawling and panicking away; and he screams out to his missis: Hey Sheila your auld’s man’s done a disappearing trick out the window! Arthur laughed. Gavin and Davie also laughed. And Arthur said: Naw Paddy what it was ye see this woman Sheila, her auld man, her feyther, he’d got into an argument with this team – Maureen’s fucking cousins I dont have to tell ye – and what happens but they fucking grabbed the auld cunt and chipped him out the window. Thank fuck it was only one up. It could’ve been a bad yin that if he had landed the wrong way! Arthur grinned, shaking his head. A disappearing trick out the window!

  There was a noise from the lobby. Gavin glanced swiftly to the door.

  Nicola and the kids were home. Arthur turned the volume of the music down and he lifted the cover of the Bo Diddley album, sat back on his chair and started reading the sleeve notes. Davie half turned on the settee; he began talking to Pat about school and how it had changed since he was a boy but Pat didnt pay much attention. He glanced at the door when it opened. Nicola gave a mock look of surprise: My God! I thought I heard voices! And you too Patrick Doyle!

  I was just passing, going home from school.

  Just passing! She grinned. So Gavin Doyle, as soon as I leave the house you invite folk round for a drinking session!

  Not at all!

  Mammy … called John, Pat’s nephew who was coming up for seven years of age. Wee Elizabeth, followed; she was four-and-a-half years of age. Patrick patted them both on the head. The two of them stared at the company. John said, Hullo Uncle Pat?

  Hullo John, said Pat in an exaggerated baritone of a voice, and couldni stop himself from adding: How’s school? Are you getting on with your lessons?

  Aye.

  What about you Elizabeth?

  She doesnt get lessons, said Nicola, dont you no hen?

  Just drawing, said Elizabeth.

  She could be getting reading at that age. Pat said, If they had the r
ight attitude to nursery education. No kidding ye Elizabeth I’d have them on mathematics.

  Slave driver! chuckled Davie.

  Naw but they’d enjoy it. Sure you would Elizabeth?

  Elizabeth smiled from Pat to Nicola and she said to Pat: Did you and daddy fight when you were wee?

  Everybody laughed. Patrick replied: Aye, he used to give me doings all the bloody time!

  Was it clean fighting? said John.

  Naw.

  Was it dirty?

  Aye.

  John grinned.

  Patrick noticed Nicola and Gavin exchanging looks, and it was to do with the alcohol lying on the table; and he spoke at once. It was me responsible for the bevy Nicola, entirely. I bought it.

  She grimaced. It’s an awful lot.

  Aye, eh … he stopped, he was not going to make any daft excuses. He lifted the pile of chocolate and sweetie packets from the sideboard and gave them to the children and while they were holding them and looking at them and grinning at each other, Nicola had stepped nearer to Gavin and she quietly asked him something about the electricity; instead of answering her Gavin rose from his armchair and he said, I was wanting to eh … He sniffed, touching her on the elbow and walking ahead of her to the door. Nicola’s face. Pat glanced away and he winked at John who was asking him about a packet of sweeties, were they the ones with nuts in the middle? Gavin and Nicola left the room.

  I dont know, said Pat, bite into one and see!

  Can I open it? John asked.

  Aye, of course.

  Maybe they’ve to get their tea first? said Davie, winking at Pat.

  Aye, said Arthur and he gave an exaggerated sniff.

  Have you to get your tea? Davie asked John. Does your mammy say you’ve to get your tea?

  We can get it after, said Elizabeth.

  No flies on her, grinned Arthur.

  Ach it’ll be alright, said Pat. Okay kids yous can eat your sweeties. But no them all! Save some for later on.

  Heh by the way, said Davie to Arthur, did I tell ye that lassie of mine’s got the job she was after? It’s in a wee restaurant, he told Patrick, waitressing and that – good tips supposed to be.