A Disaffection (Vintage Classics)

by James Kelman

  Did you climb through it as well? said Nicola.

  Aye but no as far as him. See we were trying to find out how far up we could go, to see who could get nearest the terminals. Gavin folded his arms. Then he unfolded them, he lifted Nicola’s cigarette packet.

  Pat said, Did Jackie have an alsatian dog at any time?

  Nah.

  Mm.

  Gavin struck a match, dragged in the smoke. He chuckled. Jackie was forever falling into the bloody nolly! That was his game. We used to wander for miles along the bank, as far as bloody Kirkintilloch we went. And if there was any locks we could get onto then we would get onto them and see if we could see any fish. There was a lot of perch and roach in the canal – and some big pike as far as I know. D’you mind Jackie Pat?

  Eh …

  Uch I’m sure ye do. He came up the house a lot. A boy with ginger hair, a wee bit bigger than myself. His maw worked in the eh City Bakeries shop down Clarendon Street, the second-day shop. Remember how Jackie used to hand us in a couple of loaves now and again?

  To be honest Gavin I dont really.

  Ye sure?

  Eh … my memories of the Vernon Street house just areni as clear as yours. I’m four years younger than you!

  Aye.

  Three-and-a-half, said Nicola.

  Three years and seven months, said Pat.

  Still but I thought you’d have minded Jackie, said Gavin while handing cups of tea to the other two. He sipped his own standing with his back leaning against the sink. Me and him and Dunky hung about the gether most of the time. He winked at Pat, indicating Nicola: We used to go on big knocking expeditions up the town every Saturday morning, plus any time we dogged school – in fact we used to dog school just for that bloody reason!

  Gavin! said Nicola.

  We used to specialise, pens and pencils and rubbers and bloody whatdyoucallthem pencil sharpeners, and stamps as well, these yins ye stick into books when you’re a wean.

  Pat laughed.

  It’s a wonder ye never get caught! said Nicola.

  Too much savvy!

  Pure luck! said Pat.

  Savvy!

  Luck!

  Gavin chuckled.

  Nicola said, Never ever tell John about that.

  Of course no.

  No even as a bit of fun Gavin.

  Okay.

  Nicola glanced at Pat: You as well Pat.

  Aye.

  Please.

  Never, of course.

  Because it would be terrible if he started thinking it was something good.

  I’ll no say a word.

  Boys glamourise that sort of stuff.

  I wont say a word, nothing.

  She nodded.

  Is it just boys that glamourise it? asked Patrick after a brief pause. I would’ve thought it was both.

  Possibly, said Nicola.

  Patrick nodded, after another brief pause.

  It was close to a downpour. He peered out at it before darting from the close, upturning his jacket collar and hunching his shoulders and although he had fastened up the buttons he gripped the edges of the jacket as if he hadnt. Then he had walked past the motor. He continued. He was definitely not going to drive it. He continued, doing his best not to look back but eventually came the lapse: he gazed at the old thing, how it was looking quite sturdy, with that air of bravura about it, even allowing for the heavy rain drops pattering off its roof and bonnet. But fuck sake, a person had to do what he or she set out to do in this world else where would we be and where would it all end. And it was strange to leave it behind, especially in this weather. He felt totally sober. He was totally sober. But if the polis breathalysed him he wouldnt be. So he was not totally sober at all. But he was close to it. If he hadnt been close to it then this sort of rational decision would have been out the window. Maybe it was bloody daft to leave it.

  Why was he leaving it!

  Fuck sake!

  The trouble was walking concerns elemental factors. Patrick was dressed for driving motor cars or journeying by taxis, he was not dressed for this, for getting fucking soaked to the skin. He did have an overcoat but he never wore the fucking thing because he didnt usually fucking need to. Now here he was a pedestrian and getting bla bla bla drenched. He had passed a bus stop before the end of the street but no point waiting there according to Gavin. People died of exposure waiting there. It was one of these bus stops you find in outer-city housing schemes all over Glasgow, only there for the benefit of the fucking canine population and a few desperate drunks because no buses ever went there. What a shame; the poor old flagellants, having to suffer such iniquities; ach well they’ve got fucking feet havent they so hell mend them, let them fucking use them and them that havent, well, let them climb on some dickie’s shoulders. Patrick for example. If anybody wishes to climb onto his shoulders why, he will let them. Where’s the fucking bus stop but, that’s what I want to know. It was on the main road. It was beyond the pub and across the way from a wee post office and there was a shelter, at which nobody was inside. Bad news. Bad news indeed. Probably a bus had passed very recently and there was going to be a big long wait till the next. Who knew when that would be for christ sake it could be tomorrow fucking morning because you never know with public fucking transport this is the problem that it is so fucking inconsistent unlike your own, your own transport, because you always know when it’s coming I mean cause you’re fucking driving it yourfuckingself for christ sake poor auld Pat’s gonni have to wait till 1999. Shut up and relax for fuck sake.

  Okay.

  Right.

  But the whole notion of standing at bus stops! Awful. The whole notion of a bus even! Because he required the exact sum of money for the fare. If he didni have this exact sum the driver would refuse to give him change, he would just take the entire £1 or £5 or whatever it was and keep it on behalf of the transport company that employed him.

  A situation fraught with awkwardidity.

  But he was definitely not about to take a taxi. No sirree. None of that sort of nonsense. But not one single fucking taxi had passed anyway.

  There was a solid smell of urine in the shelter. A multitude of pishes down through the years – the main problem of erecting a shelter across the road from a pub. Patrick unbuttoned his jacket and gave himself a good shaking, flapping the trousers. His bloody leg was still sore from yesterday. He should have borrowed a raincoat from Gavin. If a taxi came he was fucking grabbing it. Okay! If ye want a fight you’re fucking on. Nor did he have sufficient coins in his pocket to purchase a bus ticket. But that was no excuse because there was a chip shop fifty yards up the road. He could get change from there.

  It was brightly lit inside. In comparison to the Rossi’s place it appeared friendly. The Rossi’s place was not so much unfriendly as dull, the actual walls were yellowing and always the semblance of a bluish fug because of the inferior animals whose fats they used for frying. Plus they continued to use the fat long after it should have been tossed overboard. It is bad how folk continue to use old fat to fry people’s food. But this place, this place appeared to be fine. There was a healthy array of goldenly battered fish and haggis, hamburgers, black pudding and sausage both smoked and unsmoked, lying in neat rows in the warming compartment above the ovens.

  He bought a poke of chips. He wasnt hungry but it was either that or chocolate bars or something.

  Still nobody at the bus stop. The rain didnt seem so heavy. He had started eating the chips but instead of returning to the bus shelter he walked on towards the next stop. Better to walk than stand still. Nor was the idea of eating chips in the middle of that urine stench very appealing: it was so bloody overpowering and thick it would probably solidify and cling onto the chips. And who wants to eat urine-flavoured chips I mean in the name of fuck right enough. He should have bought shoes. He should have bought shoes. The ones he had on were useless. His feet felt as if they were slipping around. Maybe it was blood. What was that story about the guy who is marching
for months and thinks his feet are wet and then discovers they’re saturated with blood. Was it a story at all. Maybe it was to do with Scott and the Foreigner Amundsen? Maybe it wasnt anything at all and he had just fucking invented it. There was this chap who was marching for months, and his feet were wet, and then when he took off his boots he discovers his feet are fucking bleeding. He should have bought shoes. It was to do with a defect in the wee eyes where the laces go, plus right enough it was because they were cheap, they were cheap cheap cheap – cheap fucking efforts, and that was how come he never bought at the sale either because they were all fucking cheap efforts as well. And the poor auld flagellants the silly bastards there they all were waiting to buy them. Ach well, it was their own fault, they only had themselves to blame I mean why didnt they crash in the fucking window and just lift what they wanted. That’s what P for Patrick would have done. Well why didnt he. Because he didni fucking want to, so ha ha ha.

  Round the bend and on to the traffic lights. Another pub over the road. The temptation to enter was quite strong, if only to find a telephone that worked, so he could make contact with a taxi firm. He kept on walking, on past the next stop. The bus situation was truly deplorable though; there was just no getting away from it I mean it really was out the fucking question. Thank christ he was a rich bourgeoisie because it meant you could travel privately and secretively, avoiding all the terrors of being witnessed by the random populace. No doubt he would have to walk it the whole way home, a distance of let us see probably about six miles. Six miles! In the name of the fucking holies right enough. Heh you, less of that fucking whatdyemacallit blasphemy. But does blasphemy exist if the holies dont. These are the types of questioning

  Nor was there any other method of getting home. Neither train nor underground rail lay within a good couple of miles of where he now was striding, having recently dumped the remaining chips in a rubbish bin opposite what looks to have been a former railway station, irony of ironies. And another bus stop, at which precisely none of Glasgow’s denizens was standing so Doyle would also be giving it the go-by. Fuck that for a game, being the only dickie shivering at the fucking stop when you’re trying to get home in the fucking rain and all that when for all ye know there’s a strike on but no bastard’s remembered to tell you. Murder polis. Out the question. A situation fraught with unreal awkwardidity, awkward unreality.

  But there a bus on the other side of the road.

  Patrick stopped and stared at it, hoping the person driving might infer his plight, but no, the rascally evildoer maintained pressure on the accelerator pedal. So there ye are all you believers in telepathy and the diverse forms of telaesthesia, none of it fucking exists. And how come all these tales are Greek and no Roman! Fuck off.

  A wee cafe and another chip shop down by the bingo hall, plus Chinese-style food carry-outs. No pubs. Patrick could buy another load of chips. He had finished with the last lot, and the rain was become a mere trickle. So he could buy another lot and maybe it would cease falling altogether, because here you had a case where there seemed a necessary connection, a contingency, between the purchase of potatoes chipped and fried in the fats of dead animals and the rainfall of a nation albeit a nation who knuckles under to another, and ships them all its freshest fish. But he just wasnt hungry. Not even for the sake of comparing notes for a very large oil painting he was thinking of doing on the whole damn racket, a sort of survey, entitled Chip Shops of Auld Glesgi Toon. With poster sales it would transform him into a dollar billionaire overnight and he could give up the teaching game totally. Northamerican sales and our kith and kin in the colonies would go daft for such a product. He could get old Martin of the Crafts and Arts department to model some examples and really give them their money’s worth: here is a piece of chipped spud, there is a lump of lard. A crowd of teenagers stood laughing and shouting at each other. They could have appeared threatening. Patrick was used to it but and didnt find it especially awful. Although if they discovered he was a teacher they would no doubt murder him. The soaked clothes were a fair disguise. Part of Patrick’s problem and let us face it he does have a problem, is, that he actually looks like a teacher and he dresses like a teacher and he even speaks like a fucking teacher as well for christ sake there is no denying it, there is simply no denying it, and remaining an honest man. And at least he is honest, at least he is an honest man, a man who is honest, at least he

  But would it be classified as murder? bringing about the death of a schoolteacher by violent means, by the actions of young folk of school age. Had Patrick been the judge he would not have found such a case clear-cut. They were also soaked, the teenagers. They didnt care. They didnt give a hoot. His mob was exactly the same. If it was thunderstorming outside in the playground that selfsame playground is the only place where you would find them all standing. And then in they’d stroll, dripping, saturated, soaked through and sitting there at their desks without catching pneumonia – not even a fucking cold! they didni even catch a fucking cold. Thus rendering all of his comments on that probability absolutely fucking ludicrous, the ravings of an aged schoolteacher.

  Remember how auld Doyle used to tell us we’d all die of fucking pneumonia if we werent more careful! And then we fucking didni! Ha ha ha.

  Why in the name of christ had he neglected to buy a new pair of shoes. It was just crazy. There was no other word for it, it was insane – he was insane. He was fucking outsane never mind fucking insane for christ sake this stupit rain as well now getting worse, plastering the cranium craniamus a unt. One requires to bear up stoically. Socrates was a Stoic Socrates was all Stoics therefore exeunt Socrates Socratetus masculine, one who is or was a stoical member of the male sex singular, the woman he fancies being married to a millionaire seller of double-glazed windows who drives a cadillac car with an incredible extravaganza of in-car entertainment. Okay then, fine. Okay then. Fine. No ravings of a lunatic here. An ice-cool rationality. Just a straight fucking perception of the fact.

  The lights had changed. Two women passed him crossing the road. They were chatting about something. Imagine saying to them: Excuse me; what is the nature of the chat? what are yous chatting about? Yous must be chatting about something, so what is it, if ye dont mind me asking.

  Of course we mind ye asking ya fucking sexist prick ye.

  But it was just a simple question.

  Go to fuck ya dickie.

  Which is not fair. If you can no longer get asking members of the sex opposite your own a straight and ordinary question. Because if we canni get doing that where are we! Fucking nowhere! Some of the girls in Pat’s classes refuse to talk to him too – and not just the wee Muslim lassies, other yins as well, they just refuse to talk. But there again some fucking boys refuse to talk so where does that fucking leave ye? nowhere – the fucking usual. How come they dont talk! If these two women had just stopped and tried to guess at the extraordinary neural activity within the skull of that male they just passed – why then, my god! revelation! henceforth they would renounce their lives of dutiful support to their husbands and come to devote themselves to being the bedmates and domestic servants of P for Patrick Doyle MA (Hons). Okay? 10 out of 10. Tick. .

  And here was another bloody damn chip shop at the Cross Of All The Saracens. Youths in doorways. What would happen if shop doorways were declared redundant. If Pat Doyle was to be transformed into a teenage person he would go and sit in a gutter, at a stank, and wait for something to float past on its way to the sewers – preferably a large dod of shite, and he could climb aboard and set sail for pastures new. At the bus stop round from the corner an elderly man was standing in at the mouth of an adjacent close. He was quite grumpy looking, dressed in yellow oilskins, coat and leggings/trousers – going up to him and saying: Excuse me; is it leggings or trousers you’ve actually got on sir?

  He gave Pat a grumpy look when he stepped in alongside him. But Pat replied with a benign smile, not about to get involved in any behavioural power game with him, while wanting at the sam
e time to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, just in case his face was always like this. And he said: Bloody rain eh!

  It was forecast on the wireless this morning.

  Was it, I never heard … Patrick was shaking himself. The fronts of his trousers were completely soaked now. But the backs seemed to be as dry as a bone. Is there a bus due soon? he asked.

  I couldni tell ye son, I’m no actually waiting for one. It’s my missis, she’s in seeing somebody up the stair.

  Aw aye.

  It’s an auld biddy. I just tag along to keep her company. But I dont go in, I just wait outside. Some of them areni too keen on a strange face, the auld yins, they dont like folk coming into their houses. Quite right and all eh?

  Aye christ. Pat peered out the close. Ye didni notice any buses going past?

  Naw son.

  Pat nodded.

  She’s a volunteer worker the wife. The man slapped his hands together and frowned in the direction of the black close which looked to be needing a new lightbulb, it kept blinking.

  Could do with a new bulb eh?

  Aye. Bloody draughty! Ye working?

  Nah … I used to be involved in making shoes – the shoe industry – but then they shut down the factory and transferred all the stuff out to Taiwan or maybe Thailand I’m no sure but I think it was Tai-something, one of these places where they get the same job done by six-year-old weans with the added bonus of only having to pay them a flat rate of three lollipops every second century.

  The man nodded. I took early retiral myself. I’m sixty-two.

  Are ye okay?

  What?

  I was just wondering if you were okay – you and the wife I mean. Yous getting on alright?

  D’you mean like the money and all that?

  Aye.

  Aye okay, I wouldni grumble about it. She does this volunteer work. I tag along and that. Keeps ye away from the telly.

  I’ve no got a telly.