by Laura Hird
ME: Nut.
CICELY: He was promoting LSD as about to bring about a world revolution, starting in the streets of Paris in 1968. He was a Marxist, totally separate from Leary and Kesey and that.
ME: Sounds like that, ‘Surrealism in the Service of the Revolution’ but surrealism wouldn’t serve. Wouldn’t serve brussel sprout … Nah the last thing I want to say about hallucinogens is well … I got this science book, Inspection By Torchlight. It’s about spectral analysis which tells that colours have their own rhythms; a blue rhythm is at the opposite end of the spectrum from a red rhythm – every colour in-between has its own rhythm. Andre´ Michaux, the painter, wrote this book called Rhythms of Vision, it’s about his experiments with mescalin. He has these drawings in this book identical to spectral analysis charts. Old Andre´ is just drawing what he sees. Nothing poetic in that.
CICELY: A poetic statement needs must be unscientific?
ME: Well unfortunately that’s what people seem to expect. Eh … when the scientific community want to dismiss someone their thought is called ‘poetic’, Reich for example.
CICELY: Sure we don’t deal with no scientific community, or for that matter any religion.
ME: Fucking right man. Science-religion, religion-science – two cheeks of the same ugly arse.
TAPE ENDS
I remained in Edinburgh while Kelly stayed in Dundee. She was reporting for The Dundee Gazette. I’d go through to Dundee from time to time. Take one or two pictures for the paper. I remember an old guy telling me, ‘Aye the paper used to be all poems. All poems.’ No doubt William McGonagall had been the editor. If I didn’t go up to Dundee I’d get a phone call such as, ‘You better have the money for my driving lessons.’ When I was in Dundee though, a lawyer guy or this South African accountant would knock at the door; they’d be told, ‘No you can’t come in just now, a friend’s here.’ Then to me, ‘Aye right enough that guy’s got a fancy for me.’ Half smiling.
I was being Contact 400ed at this time. She’d say, ‘Got any tips for the horses? Got any jokes? Got any dope? What have you got?’ This was all to pass on to be one of the guys in the office. She started moonlighting on a London-based newspaper and was soon full-time. She loved to boast about the great spoilers that ‘we’ did on their Scottish rivals. ‘You don’t like what I do,’ she said. ‘You’re fucking right.’ I stopped going through to Dundee.
A few weeks later a guy comes up to me when I’m out in Edinburgh and says to me like this, ‘Your fucking mate’s lost me my job. I had a good job there managing that hairdresser’s. She said we were having orgies when it was shut. Pish. Got me the sack.’ A wee lassie comes up to me this other night, ‘Your fucking girlfriend …’
‘She’s no my girlfriend.’
‘Anyway that lassie keeps chapping at my mate’s door. There’s a rumour going round that my mate’s shagged Simon Le Bon. She’s up at her house all the time shouting through the letter box. My mate can’t go out or anything.’
People like to carry news to me about Kelly. To see if I give a fuck. I give less than a fuck. She’s a hack on some English paper last I heard. Saw her byline Davie. Christopher, Brian and Michael Markovsky met her in The City Cafe recently. They were reminiscing about their university days. She said that it was funny how out of all of them she was the only one still doing what she’d studied. Like Brian was a science administrator now. Christopher was a computer guy. Michael was a cab driver. Michael asked her, ‘What was it you did at university again?’ and she said, ‘English Literature.’
Davie that was the biggest laugh. Biggest laugh them three guys ever had anyhow.
Remember Maurice? When you knew him he was one of those fellows always on the phone, shifting money about for a living. I remember he was mad about this Italian girl. People were fed up of him going on about her. He did the whole football bus once, eventually sitting next to me, ‘Italian lassies are the best shag eh?’ And on about how when she’d visit, she be pulling him into public toilets and all this. Well he moved to Verona. Learned Italian so that he’d get on with the lassie’s folks. He got a job editing a newspaper in Verona. He phoned me up the other day from his new job at the Vatican. Aye Maurice edits the newspaper of the Vatican city. He told me how he went to interview Franco Zeffirelli. He’d had these huge hounds at his dinner table and he’d launch steaks at them for them to snap at. When Maurice was on the phone, I asked him what was that weird sound coming through from the background. He said, ‘Bells’.
Young Kenneth still keeps the faith at all times. He gets his three months out for his field study for a masters degree in anthropology. He’s off to study naturists in Sweden and France. Says nudists are a tribe like any other, and will break down into all the disciplines. Speaking of discipline he says he’s writing a vegetarian S & M book called ‘Strict Vegetarians’.
My burns have been getting better over the course of it. I even tried to watch television the other night. I put it on, and what do I hear except, ‘1984: is it the past? or is it the future?’ Aye Davie it’s definitely the past. Thank fuck.
So until my next, I am,
Always,
Your boy.
The Dilating Pupil
LAURA HIRD
HE HATED DRUNKEN teenage parties – even when he’d been a teenager himself he’d hated them. It always elicited a strange mixture of envy and disgust as he watched the adolescent boys perform their juvenile mating rituals and inevitably he would leave feeling wounded, misanthropic and well past his dead-by date. It wasn’t so bad in class where he had some semblance of authority (on a good day) but he found the whole business of having to relate to pupils socially both demeaning and incredibly unnerving. When Jenny Russell had fixed him with that beguiling stare and asked him to her 16th birthday party, however, he’d simply been unable to say no.
Jenny’s parents were on holiday so she’d told him to prepare for an uninhibited evening. Though he intensely disliked uninhibited adolescent boys – they were prone to violence and nausea – he wouldn’t stay long. When the exam results came through, he had intended to take her to the theatre by which time she’d no longer be his pupil. They would see what happened after that.
He’d never really lusted after girls that young until he’d become a teacher. Of course, he didn’t like them too young. Not like Mackay, the Deputy Head, who thought they were past-it by the time they reached their teens. There’d been a stunned silence in the common room when Mackay, fou, had blurted that one out at the Xmas party last year. However, he imagined this was more through its nearness to the bone than any sense of moral indignation.
You just had to hang about the pool when Stevenson was there with his boys. They all slagged Stevenson off because he was still single at 40, had a handlebar moustache and was devoted to the 5th form swimming team, but at least he wasn’t blatant about it. The boys all seemed to like him. All the innuendo emanated from the younger, female staff who were worst of all. They were the ones who would rush in to watch Stevenson give swimming classes after school for what they called the ‘crotch watch’ – women in their thirties almost wetting themselves as the fourteen year old they called Paul ‘The Pole’ Dalzeil came out the changing rooms. But these same women had forced Alan Spencer to hand in his notice after a pupil had made allegations against him. It was rubbish as well, all in the girl’s head. She had lived this fantasy that she was having a relationship with the guy but it was bullshit. Poor bastard! They caused such a hoo-hah about it he’d resigned out of embarrassment although everyone admitted privately it was all bollocks. It appeared to be fashionable amongst the female staff to accuse male teachers of lusting after jail-bait but the truth of the matter was they simply resented the competition.
He polished off a bottle of Claret with his dinner then rushed down several large whiskies in a pub near Jenny’s house to brace himself. Suitably placated, he bought a half bottle from the local Pakis to see him through the next hour or so.
Entering her street, he checked the nu
mber on a postcard she’d scribbled the address on for him with the word ‘PLEASE’ underlined in large letters underneath. As he walked towards her house he contemplated just turning back but in his boozy sense of goodwill didn’t want to disappoint her. He dutifully rung the bell.
She invited him in with a huge smile, looking stunning with a little eye make-up and scarlet lipstick accentuating her already full lips. Looking from her eyes into the hallway he edged past her.
‘Sounds quiet. Many folk here yet?’
The room he followed her upstairs to he somehow expected to be full of pupils having a seance. It was, however, empty except for himself and Jenny. He smiled at her, not quite getting the joke.
‘Am I too early?’
She looked slightly worried.
‘Oh, don’t be angry. I didn’t actually invite anyone else.’
He continued smiling, awaiting elaboration. Turning her back to him she began putting ice into glasses.
‘Have a drink. I just want to talk to you … on your own.’
Fumbling in his pocket for the half bottle he handed it to her.
‘Here, don’t drink your mum and dad’s.’
Pouring two huge tumblerfuls she ushered him over to a lumpy armchair opposite the sink.
‘Are you sure this is OK?’
‘They’re not back till Sunday. David’s been staying at his girlfriend’s.’
David was her brother. He’d taught him four years before but he was the bad and ugly to his sister’s good.
Sitting on the floor cross-legged in front of him she sipped her whisky as he glanced around the room. It was her bedroom. A word processor on a desk by the window sat next to a pile of papers that begged to be asked about. Posters advertising art exhibitions, fringe shows and music festivals covered the walls. The Sylvia Plath, Jack Kerouac and Nancy Friday brigade lay proudly displayed on the top shelf of the bookcase, art and academic books in the middle, degenerating into Jilly Cooper and astrology self-consciously obscured by a straw waste paper bin at the base. The large single bed was covered by an emerald green paisley print duvet. He had a brief vision of her lying naked on it, exploring herself. He took a slug of whisky and smiled at her.
‘Did you fall for any of the teachers when you were at school?’
He took another dram to recover from her forwardness.
‘All the time.’
‘Really!’
‘Oh, I still do. Doesn’t everyone?’
‘What, you still have things about them?’
‘No, I mean it just happens when you spend a lot of time with people in places you’d rather not be …’
She looked puzzled.
‘… y’know – work, school – both if you’re unfortunate enough to teach. A survival mechanism if you like. A nice wee infatuation now and again gives you an incentive to put up with all the bullshit and carry on.’
Uh oh. He was being too cynical. Or was he? She certainly looked very impressed.
‘I sort of see what you mean. A bit depressing though, is it not?’
‘Not as depressing as just going through the motions. Anyway, they’re just harmless delusions to inspire me to do my job properly.’
Watching her sitting deep in thought, he realised what a lying bastard he was. He hadn’t been able to do his job properly since he’d started teaching her. The rest of the class he treated like irritating obstacles in the course of his lust. Her work seemed standards above the rest of them but he wasn’t sure how objective he was managing to be any more. Did it just seem that way because he read depth into any passage that translated in the direction of his ego?
‘Don’t you like teaching?’
‘Not particularly. It’s just something I ended up doing with my mediocre degree. Bear that in mind when you’re faffing through college next year.’
‘What about the pupils?’
‘What about them?’
‘Don’t you like them?’
‘I dunno … it’s nothing personal … they just aren’t really my favourite branch of the species, y’know.’
‘That’s some admission!’
‘Ocht no, y’know … maybe the occasional one like yourself. Individually it’s not so bad but large numbers of the buggers – nah – that’s why I get paid for it. Anyway, I’m getting out of it soon. I might go back to Paris and work in a bar again – far less hassle!’
God, how long had he been kidding himself with that one – five, six years now. He hated Edinburgh – hated the way that before long everybody became a friend of a friend of a friend. It was so fucking incestuous, no wonder AIDS had spread so quickly. But the truth about teaching was that it seemed impossible to get out of it once you were in it. It usually took something drastic and even then there was only a temporary reprieve until he inevitably ended back in some shitty job in some shitty school or another – perhaps he’d become institutionalised. He finished his whisky. Taking the glass from him she poured another huge one.
‘And what do you think of me …’, she said with her back to him, ‘… not as a pupil … as a person, or a woman, whatever?’
As she handed him the drink, he felt her eyes scrutinising him.
‘Well, I don’t know, I …’
‘Do you find me attractive at all?’
‘Well, yes … you’re very beautiful. You’re always being told that though, you don’t have to ask me.’
‘Beautiful though … not sexy?’
He laughed to himself, pleased that she was trying to seduce rather than psychoanalyse him.
‘Do you find me sexy?’ she persisted, impatient for a compliment.
‘I’m beginning to think you’re an egomaniac.’
It was going to finally happen tonight. The air was awash with discarded caution. She seemed content to do all the running which suited him as he didn’t want it to seem like he’d taken advantage of her. Some chance, the pushy cow.
‘So you don’t find me sexy? I’m not exciting you at all?’
‘I’m absolutely underwhelmed!’
She stood up and smiled at him.
‘Stop it. Stop being horrible.’
‘Are we having a tantrum?’
‘No.’
‘… because I won’t say you’re sexy?’
She was embarrassed now. He was behaving like a teacher.
‘Will I put some music on?’
‘I don’t know. Will you!’
‘Stop it, I’m telling you.’
She put on some Aaron Copland. He listened to the first few bars before realising what it was. He remembered a conversation they’d had about that Copland piece at a bus stop last winter. As he finished his whisky his eyes scanned the room for the half bottle. It lay empty on her desk. She traced his gaze and stood up.
‘It’s all right if we drink a bottle of mum’s. She’s expecting it. She’ll just be grateful I haven’t wrecked the place.’
He didn’t argue but told her he’d replace anything they drank the following day. Bringing an ice bucket and bottle of Grouse through from the kitchen, she filled his glass and sat down at his feet again.
‘You’re not married, are you?’
Had it never crossed her mind before?
‘Divorced.’
‘Will you tell me about it?’
‘Tell you what? It’s the usual story. Boy meets girl, girl turns into complete ball-buster, boy loses girl.’
‘Do you still see her?’
‘God, no … well, only very occasionally.’
‘Do you still have sex with her?’
‘And why would you want to know?’
‘Just curious.’
He chuckled.
‘No, we don’t. Happy now?’
They did of course. Didn’t all divorced couples? When they were at a loose end or between lovers. Not through any desire any more, of course. Just for a familiar, no-strings fuck.
‘You’re not planning on doing an Alan Spencer on me are you?’ he sneered.
He smiled and stroked her cheek because she was.
She replenished their glasses. He was feeling pleasantly pissed and in control. Just as long as he kept one step ahead of her.
‘Any more excruciatingly personal questions you feel you must ask me?’
She looked into his eyes.
‘Will you kiss me?’
‘Do you want me to?’
‘What do you think?’
‘Are you going to accuse me of date rape in the morning?’
‘Why, are you going to rape me?’
‘Not if you don’t want me to.’
Laying her glass on the carpet she shuffled closer to him, relieving him of his drink and leaning against his legs. He kissed her lightly on the nose then sat back in the chair, laughing.
‘Will that do?’
‘I thought you were going to date rape me?’
‘I’m still your teacher.’
‘I won’t tell anyone.’
‘We’ll take it slowly and see, will we?’
Her eyes flashed at him.
‘Just one proper kiss and then we’ll walk and take it slowly,’ she mimicked.
‘Just one then. We’re still just friends though.’
He planted a few small kisses on her petulant bottom lip. She grabbed the back of his head, responding, trying to get her tongue in on the act. He pulled away and smiled.
‘That wasn’t very platonic now, was it?’
She blushed at him, her lipstick slightly smudged. Recovering his drink, he drained it and handed her the glass for replenishing. The whiskies she poured were huge. He liked women who poured sensible measures. They learned so young these days. She handed him the glass then brought over a tin from the dresser.
‘I know how I’ll loosen your inhibitions.’
Prising open the lid she shook a large bag of grass in front of him.
‘… since we’re not telling anyone else about this anyway.’
He leaned over to have a look.
‘Whose is that?’
‘David’s. He doesn’t mind me using it though.’