Remedy is None

by William McIlvanney

  ‘Phew. My life with a pagan.’

  Her skirt rode right up her legs, exposing a lush expanse of thigh above her stocking. He let his eyes graze on it. The smile dwindled on her face, thinned into the distance of her eyes. A stillness fell across their jocularity like an adult shadow at a nursery door. Leave your toys and come into the dark. You are summoned.

  Their bodies met in spate. Thoughts churning, eddying together to the drop. The room subsides. A welter of broken pictures. A curtain blown. Soft flesh. Spinning mirror. Cataracted into one submergence. Tidal throb. Words are blown like water-bubbles to the surface. Words of sweet despair. Fists clench. At last relax. Turn, borne by a gentle current. Drift slowly to the surface, wash to land. Lie stranded there. Thoughts unopen slowly. Images bloom like water-lilies on the eye. Window. Hair-brush. Ceiling stain.

  Easy breathing. Sated words. Clothes reassembled in case of intrusion. Find something to fill the vacuum. Cigarettes. The match illumines intimate strangers. Good evening. Who are you? An ornament for an ashtray. A flight of madness ending here, at the glowing end of a cigarette. The evening ends in a cul-de-sac. What now? All right, funny man. Where’s your sense of humour ? Levity turns to lead. And what are you going to do? Because she’s crying. Another success for the bringer of tears.

  ‘What are you crying for?’

  The words come sterilized with hopelessness, cold as surgical instruments in the dark.

  Tears fall. Like millstones. Each one a megalith. Other people’s grief can crush you to death. So this is it, funny man. The illegal marriage produces its offspring. One bastard of a situation. Who is she, anyway? On a bed beside you, crying? How the hell can you help? You don’t know her. What makes Jane Leighton cry? Who the hell’s Jane Leighton?

  ‘Tell me what it is.’

  What difference will it make? Words rattle like buttons in a blind man’s cup. The noise is reassuring.

  ‘It’s just this. Oh, how could I do it?’

  By lying on your back. That’s the conventional way. There are others, of course. But perhaps you wouldn’ t be interested.

  ‘I suppose you think that’s pretty hypocritical.’

  ‘It’s pretty hypocritical.’

  ‘I knew you would think that. I knew you would.’

  ‘You have great foresight.’

  Fresh eruption of tears. Handkerchief aswim. How did you think you could escape down a maze of inconsequential action and talk? It follows you. When you think you are running away you are running towards it. Always you meet with people. They’re alive. They have to be accounted to and for. Everyone has rights. And each one matters.

  ‘How can you be so cruel? You would think you hated me.’

  ‘I don’t hate you. I hate the way we have to pretend that we aren’t anyone. I don’t mean the stupid game we played tonight. I mean all of it. I mean we’re trained to be slick and glib, to laugh things off. “Don’t take yourself too seriously”. “It’s the way of the world.” “Take it with a smile.” Christ! People are rotting away all over the world. They’re nailed to nothing. And no bastard cares. They’re chained to their posts. And for what? There’s only one rule left. No open wounds in public please. Haemorrhage quietly to yourself and die.’

  ‘I can’t understand how it’s happened. I mean I came to this party with Tom. That’s my boy friend. And then I just came up here and... This happened. I mean I wouldn’t even let Tom. . . . And if something happens. My parents. Oh my God! I’m so ashamed.’

  You go your grief, I’ll go mine. We talk in monologues, madam. Our griefs and worries are crossed by the infinite, payable only to our secret selves. Not transferable. For you a boy friend’s rage, a broken taboo, a mother’s shock. Stoned with gossip. For me, a father murdered with a yawn. Society stirs for a moment in its stinking bed. The glib pretence goes on. A dream of idiots. And life narrows to nothing, shrined in a pinewood box. With six feet of earth to hold putrescence down. We part here. I wish you luck with yours, as terrible no doubt to you as mine to me. But I envy you a little. You can fill a handkerchief with yours. You can be sorry and the pain may ease. You want a little forgiveness. It may come. I want a resurrection. But from where? How do you make life mean? I don’t know. But you can’t help me just as I can’t help you. In you I can see only a mirror. Your grief reflects my own, reminds me that it’s real. We see only ourselves. Our divorce is consummated.

  ‘My God! What can I do?’

  ‘You can blow your nose.’

  ‘Why are you being so horrible?’

  ‘I’m not. Believe me, I’m perfectly serious. Make it into wee physical actions. It’ll help. Do practical things. Dry your eyes. Get some make-up on. Powder your nose. Reduce it all to conformity.’

  ‘It’ll take more than make-up.’

  ‘Not much more. Once you’ve got the technique. Tell yourself it was the drink. Tell yourself anything. Say it was rape. It doesn’t matter what you tell yourself. Just keep repeating it and you’ll come to believe it. That’s how it’s done. Everybody does it. It’s a nice arrangement. That way nobody’s to blame for anything. Things just happen.’

  ‘You’re really horrible.’

  ‘That’s it. You’re getting the idea already. Soon you’ll not be able to think of yourself for hating me. I’ll leave you to practise bright faces in the mirror.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Look. I’m going downstairs and out. And I won’t be back. Nobody will know anything. You wait a wee while and compose yourself. And then drift in. Nobody will be any the wiser. They’ll all be too busy at their own wee ploys.’

  Outside the door he made a final check on his appearance and went downstairs slowly. Hercules descending. To the nether gloom. To the place where shadows gibber, pretending to be alive. Where transparent falsehoods pose as truth and pretence is exhaled by the very earth, a convenient mist that hides them from each other. The infernal regions. Where Dis presides. Dis, the negative prefix that attaches to all our living. But how did you overcome it? How could you force things up into the light to acknowledge their own falsity? They were so well protected. By the three-headed Cerberus. Convention, Conformity, Connivance. They all bayed terribly, so that you were afraid to go beyond them. Instead, you always threw them the sop, the small futile action of acceptance.

  As he was getting his coat in the hall, a shadow shaped itself into Andy standing with a girl.

  ‘Here, Charlie. Where are ye goin’, man?’ Andy said.

  ‘To hell outa this.’

  ‘Okay. Just hold on a minute an’ Ah’ll be with you. We’d better tell Jim we’re goin’.’

  Andy turned back to the girl. Her hands hadn’t left his neck.

  ‘You’d better go back in now, Celia. Before Fred comes back in. Ah don’t want him to find out this way. Ah’d rather tell him.’

  ‘I’m going to tell him tonight, Andrew,’ Celia said.

  ‘Do ye want me to come in with you?’

  ‘No. I’ll tell him at the house. But I’ll see you tomorrow, at the cafe? I mean, that’s definite?’

  ‘Ah’ll be there. Waitin’ for it opening.’

  She was fixing herself up and, using Andy as a screen, she reached back surreptitiously to hook up her brassière.

  ‘I must look a mess,’ she said, smoothing her hair.

  ‘You look terrific.’

  ‘Oh, darling,’ she said, snuggling into him again.

  Charlie stood impassively staring at the coats in the hall. Andy prised her gently away and kissed her forehead.

  ‘Go on in, now,’ Andy said. ‘Ah’ll give you a coupla minutes before Ah come in to see Jim.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ she said at the door. ‘They’ll all know about it by tomorrow, anyway. And I’11 be glad.’

  When she had gone in, Andy looked for his coat and put it on.

  ‘Hell,’ he said. ‘Ah feel such a crummy chancer. A room full o’ them, an’ Ah have to pick somebody that’s attached. The thing is A
h like Big Fred, too. But, Ah just can’t help it. How did you make out, Charlie?’

  ‘Ah had a ball. Look, Andy, Ah’m goin’. If ye want to tell Jim, ye’d better do it now.’

  ‘Fair enough. We’ve just got time for one before they shut. Ah’ll tip Eddie the wink as well.’

  In the living-room, Andy couldn’t see Jim. The room was pretty confused. Something had happened to the party. It had aged prematurely. Conviviality had gone sour too soon. Eddie was not to be seen and, looking around, Andy wouldn’t have blamed him if he had gone to bed. A group of boys were sprawled untidily on the floor, moving some matches back and forth, arguing about cannibals and white men. They bickered leadenly, their arms waving as if they were clearing away clouds of smoke from their eyes. Mouths lolled. Their eyes stared dully past each other. They were solemnly passing a whisky bottle among them.

  ‘Burrifyedorat,’ one of them said, ‘ye’ve got two cannobals to the one white man. An’ they’ll eat ’im.’

  Bert Thomas had Jimmy Adams pinned against the wall, threatening him with destruction. Two others were trying to pacify him. A couple were dancing to nothing in a corner. Somebody had sat on Willie McQueen’s records and Bechet lay quartered on the carpet. Willie sat like Ezekiel, forlornly putting him together. Andy saw Celia talking with Alice Evans, and she looked at him soulfully. There was still no sign of Fred. It was rumoured he was looking for his egg.

  Suddenly there was a distinct slapping sound and, following it to the far corner, Andy saw a crimson patch bloom like a late rose on Jim’s left cheek. Andy reached Jim just as Esther Anderson swept past him and across the room, with the eyes of the others following her like train-bearers.

  ‘Heh, Jim,’ Andy said. ‘Charlie an’ me’s leavin’. Ah think ye’d better join us.’

  ‘Ye’ll no’ have to twist ma arm,’Jim said, and was already crossing the room, leaning on his dignity like a walking-stick. He picked up a whisky bottle from the sideboard on his way out.

  In the hall, Charlie was sitting on the stairs. Esther Anderson had retired to the toilet. But the sound that came from there was not one of weeping.

  ‘See’s ma coat,’ Jim said, grabbing it.

  He struggled into it and opened the door in one movement. He turned on the top step, cupping his hands.

  ‘Hoors and comic singers!’ he managed to shout before Andy pushed him and they all clattered outside, closing the door.

  The night air came to their brows like a cold compress on a hangover.

  Chapter 17

  THEY STOOD AT THE BUS STOP LIKE LONELINESS IN triplicate. They did not speak to each other. It was a moment set aside for private masochism and each stood tightening his personal thumbscrew. Charlie was hunched in his coat as if it was a protective shell. Andy stamped his feet absently like a horse impatient to be saddled with tomorrow. Jim stood shaking the pole of the bus stop as if it were Esther Anderson. He was the only one who talked. But he was not speaking to the others. He was simply making sounds of pain towards a cruel cosmos.

  ‘Hell,’ he said. ‘What is it with me, anyway? When Ah’m around, the only thing they bare is their bloody teeth.’

  Andy was retracing the contours of Celia’s body.

  ‘What an effect to have, eh? Ah’m better than a John Knox sermon. They should make me President of the Society for the Prevention of Unmarried Mothers. Lord Jim, the Prude Maker.’

  In Charlie’s mind the night was a kaleidoscope of fragments that formed grotesque meaningless patterns.

  ‘Ah could do somebody out of a job wi’ this. Sell my secret to eager millions. Be your own contraceptive. Don’t get near enough to them to cause any trouble.’

  Andy saw Fred and himself walking towards one another down the long empty street of their rivalry.

  In the cold air their breaths rose faintly like the smoke from three extinguished candles.

  ‘Stuff yese all!’ Jim suddenly bellowed. ‘Stuff yese all!’

  ‘For God’s sake, Jim,’ Andy said, coming out of tomorrow to see what the noise was. ‘It’s the Black Maria we’ll get a seat in, no’ the bus. What the hell did ye do in there anyway, to make Big Esther do her nut like that?’

  The question was thrown out absently, like a bone to a barking dog, and Jim slavered on it bitterly, sharpening his anger.

  ‘Whit did Ah do? Whit do Ah do? Ah’ll tell ye what Ah did. Ah was the perfect gentleman. Ah made Cary Grant look like a corner boy. There we were, necking away like champions. An’ she was lappin’ it up. That’s the bit. An’ then, not surprisingly, a certain part of my anatomy commences to get up to see what’s going on. Well, Ah mean, whose fault’s that? What the hell! Ye canny buck biology. Anyway, Ah senses her going very stiff, as if a stranger had come into the company. So Ah decides Ah’ll have to put her at her ease. Do the introductions sorta thing. “You’ll have to excuse my friend,” I whispered politely in her ear, smooth as honey. “It’s just that he’s so polite. Always stands up in the presence of a lady.” Wouf! A bunch of five right across the chops. Ah mean, why? She must be subject to fits or something. Could Ah have been nicer? But that’s what ye get. Ah’m a bloody martyr.’

  The bus cut across Jim’s careering train of thought like a level-crossing. It was so surprisingly busy that they had to stand downstairs. At this time of night they should have had it pretty much to themselves. They couldn’t understand it at first until they realized from the talk (about prizes and who had won what and how long somebody had gone without winning anything) that they were all coming back from the bingo. There was a popular bingo hall in the village two miles along the road. Half of its clients must have been on the bus. Charlie hung from his rail, watching them bitterly.

  Some swayed back and forth from their straps further up the bus. Like carcases in a butcher’s shop. Only these ones were alive. Alive? Well, euphemistically speaking. For the moment, more or less. Let us say that they are, as it were, en route for the butcher’s shop. And this is a cattle cart. Forward. To the knacker’s yard. Communal euthanasia awaits us. Outside, people walk and talk, look and point, single, in twos, in threes, in groups, bending and leaning, holding and letting go, lying on beds, doing things in houses, screaming, laughing, cutting their fingernails, being sad, being sorry, feeling anger, feeling love, stirring tea in cups. Little boys dreaming virility. Old men spitting rheum. Being born. Dying. And someone dismissing the universe in a hiccough. The newsreels running in silent cinemas, lighting the dumb upturned faces* Television sets shining in darkened rooms. Fingers writing a letter, exuding sweat on to the page. And a woman in the bus sits chewing on her gossip, wearing on her head a hat made from feathers presumably plucked from the living dodo. They might as well have been. Their source is dead. Just as the source of everything we do and have is dead. Where is the point of meaning found? Nowhere. Lost. We simply accept it all like an aimless nursery rhyme we learn as children. This is the house that Jack built. Falling down. Falling down. What can survive it? Nothing. Death means more than we do. We bow down to a dead man. He supersedes us. He is our destination. We hurry towards him. Home is the belly of a worm. An announcement for my people. Friends, we hasten towards nothing. People on this bus, the driver is dead. We travel on time’s driverless bus, zigzagging into the empty dark. The driver is dead. Even if the conductor isn’t. He’s here, with his hand out. They still charge you, just the same. Even when your only destination is No. i, Narrow Place.

  ‘Fares, please.’ The conductor had edged his way towards them, running out tickets and talk. ‘Make a bit o’ room there. Ye wid need a tin-opener tae get into yese. An’ get yer donations ready. Whit dae ye think Ah am? A public servant?’

  Jim reached into his pocket to pay, but Andy had his money out first and got three tickets. As Jim brought his hand out of his pocket, the package Andy had given him in Gowdie’s came out with it and fell on the floor of the bus. Jim picked it up and looked at it wryly.

  ‘Look at that then. Aye, friend,’ he said to it. ‘A
h’ve got about as much use for you as the Venus de Milo has for a pair o’ gloves. Ah think Ah’ll blaw it up an’ give it to ma wee brother for a balloon. Cut ma losses. Or rather cut yours, Andy.’

  As he was putting it back in his pocket, he grimaced and hissed with pain.

  ‘Oh,’ the small man next to him said. ‘Was that your foot Ah stepped on?’

  Jim looked at him incredulously.

  ‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘It’s really ma brother’s. Ah’m just wearin’ it in for him.’

  ‘Ye don’t need tae get narky,’ the small man said, bridling slightly.

  ‘Ah’m no’ narkin’, Mac,’ Jim said. ‘Ah enjoyed it. Anyway, Ah’ve got another one in the hoose. Ah just use this one for walkin’ wi’.’

  ‘A funny man, eh?’

  ‘They have been known to die laughing, friend.’

  ‘Look. It wis an accident.’

  ‘An accident? More of an atrocity, Ah wid say maself.’

  ‘Anybody could step on your foot.’

  ‘It just wouldny be the same, some way. You’ve got that professional touch. What are ye to trade? A foot-powderer?’

  ‘Now, listen, you,’ the small man said, anxious to get back to first principles. ‘Ah just asked ye a civil question. If it was your foot Ah stepped on. All right?’

  ‘Whose bloody foot is it likely to bloody be on the end of my bloody leg?’

  ‘ Ah’ve just about had a bellyful of you.’

  ‘An’ Ah’ve had a footful of you, friend.’

  The small man was beginning to dance slightly, like a ferret on fire. He was thrusting his face as near to Jim’s as he could get it. Jim put his hand flat on the small man’s chest.

  ‘Keep back,’ he said. ‘Ye’re standin’ so close Ah can see the reds of yer eyes. Get away from me. Before Ah do yer dentist out of a job !’

  Their argument had begun to assert itself on the other people in the bus and an insidious silence came just as Jim spoke, so that the volume turned up even further on his remark. The little man looked as if Jim had been trying to crucify him.