Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012

by Gray, Alasdair

  1. A week after scribbling the first version of “Edison’s Tractatus” a student in my St Andrews class asked how I got ideas for stories. I gave a long confused answer because each novel, short story or play seemed to form differently. What set it going might be a story I had read which I wanted to tell differently, or a day dream, or dream remembered on waking, or a fantasy I had evolved during conversation, or an incident which had befallen someone else but it was unforgettable because of its oddity, humour or injustice. Ideas have sometimes come from commissions to write on a particular subject. Thereafter the idea grew through alternation of writing and deliberate daydreaming. If a narrative drew in many memories, ideas and phrases which had lain unused in my brain it sometimes expanded to a novella, novel or play. All but my first novel came that way. The first came from childhood faith in a long printed story as my surest way of getting attention. I daydreamed and scribbled it for years before accumulating enough ideas and experiences to finish it. I have also developed stories by telling or reading parts to friends before completion. Most authors I know avoid this because displaying unfinished work reduces their enthusiasm for it, but some listeners’ suggestions have expanded my tales in ways I might not have discovered myself.

  The student’s question produced this account of what went into “Edison’s Tractatus”. There is probably more than I am conscious of, but I believe the brainy hero is mainly a caricature of traits which Andrew Sykes and I had in common. We were both inclined to turn sexual urges into clever, sometimes boring monologues. The urge to deliver an uninterrupted monologue is the energy driving most teachers, story-tellers and politicians. “Edison’s Tractatus” is obviously a portrait of someone too wordy for his own good, which also explains the addition of this bit of intellectual afterbirth.

  HUFF HARRINGTON: A Tale Due to Kipling

  OUR COLONEL WAS EVERYTHING such a British officer should be, though not always as clever as he believed. He enjoyed playing chess and had never lost a game before Harrington joined us. Before then his only steady chess partner was near retirement age and kept having to be reminded how the pieces moved. After one game with the Colonel everyone else refused his challenges saying, “No point in playing you Sir! We know the result beforehand.”

  He took that as a compliment. On Harrington’s first night in the mess he was pleased when the young man admitted to enjoying an occasional chess game, while declaring he was a very poor player. The Colonel may not have known that every player who is not a grand master says that before playing a new opponent, because he replied cheerfully, “Then you will probably learn something by playing me.” Those of us who understood chess gathered to watch this game with unusual interest.

  It began as usual with the Colonel recklessly swapping pieces to maintain a very slight advantage, while leaving gaps in his defence that showed he was either a very cunning or very stupid player. Harrington soon decided which. After securing his king behind a small barrier of pawns he gave a polite show of futile resistance while letting his rooks, castles and a bishop be taken. Twice he left openings that would have given an alert opponent immediate victory, but the Colonel was enjoying the game too much to notice these. At last he removed Harrington’s queen and asked pleasantly, “Had enough, Harrington?”

  With a slight sigh Harrington brought his remaining bishop across the board from a far corner and placed it murmuring, “Checkmate.”

  The Colonel stared at the new position, at first in bewilderment, then with gradual understanding. His face reddened. His eyebrows concentrated in a scowl. His underlip protruded further and further beyond his moustache. Harrington said quietly, “Sorry Sir. I should not have done that, especially as I am new here.”

  In the monotonous, distinct growl only used when he was extremely angry the Colonel said, “Are you suggesting that it is etiquette for my junior officers to let me win?”

  After a pause Harrington said, “Surely Sir, a soldier of your standing is entitled to a few privileges in private life, and my victory was probably beginner’s luck.”

  For nearly two minutes the Colonel thought hard about this, then suddenly grinned and clapped Harrington on the shoulder saying, “Right on both counts, my boy! I can see you will go far.”

  From then on he treated Harrington with great affability, but never again challenged him to a chess game.

  That is how Harrington came to be called Had Enough, which was shortened to Huff in case the Colonel overheard us use the longer form and remembered why. Huff did go far because in tricky situations he usually won through at the last minute. When he became a general his men called him Old Huffy, though by then perhaps even he had forgotten why.

  THE WORST TALE

  THIS HAPPENED IN 1971 OR 72 when public education and health were better funded, when British manual workers were better paid, when the middle classes were almost as prosperous but less in debt than today, when the richest classes were (by their own obviously high standards) much poorer. Other tales in this book have sour endings but none as bad as this because the others are fiction. I heard it from Angel Mullane, once a colleague of the teacher who is the story’s most active yet least interesting character.

  A school in the east of Glasgow taught children who could barely read, or found it hard to sit still and concentrate, or had other traits which unsuited them for normal schooling. In times of full employment (and this was in a time of full employment) such children can be prepared for ordinary jobs by teaching them to read, count and talk with greater confidence, but they cannot be taught really well in classes of more than ten. The average class size was twenty-five so the teachers often had to teach badly. Before 1986 this meant threatening and sometimes inflicting physical pain. Deliberately inflicted pain was in those days used by teachers in schools for normally healthy and even wealthy children – why should the damaged children of poor folk suffer less?

  The pupils mostly came from a council housing scheme built for the very poor in the early 1930s. People there felt that the police were more of a threat than a protection, so small weak people believed that a strong male member of their own family was their likeliest defender. In many Scottish schools the most effective-sounding threat a pupil could hurl at a punitive teacher was, “I’ll get my dad to you!” This threat was almost a ritual. Teachers had a stock of equally ritualized replies to it. But many children in the school I speak of had no father or uncle or big brother in their family, and knew that their teachers knew it. A few had mothers with dogs, perhaps for protection. These were able to say, “I’ll get my dug to you.”

  One day at this school a small boy faced a teacher wielding a leather belt designed to strike palms of hands. The boy was either trying to stop himself being beaten or had been beaten already and wished to show he was not completely crushed. Either in fear of pain or in a painful effort to keep some dignity he cried out, “I’ll get my –” and hesitated, then cried, “I’ll get my Alstation to you!” He lived with a granny who could not afford to keep a big dog. The way he pronounced Alsatian proved that his dog was nothing but a badly learned word – a word without power – a word which got the whole class laughing at him.

  THE MARRIAGE FEAST

  I MET JESUS CHRIST only once, in Cana, at some sort of marriage feast. I say “feast” because that word was distinctly printed on the invitation card, though it aroused expectations which were not fulfilled, for the parents of the bride had either pretentions beyond their incomes or were downright stingy. The waiters’ tardiness in refilling our glasses suggested the booze was in short supply, and long before we finished the unappetizing main course there was none to be had. The person most obviously upset about this was a little old Jewish lady who had already (I seem to remember) consumed more than her fair share of the available alcohol.

  “They have no wine!” she hissed in a stage whisper which was heard throughout the room and embarrassed everyone except (apparently) our hosts. I was compelled to admire their equanimity in the face of so audible a
hint. The little lady was addressing a man who looked like – and actually was – both her son and a carpenter wearing his best suit. Like many mothers she was blaming her offspring for other people’s faults, but his reaction surprised me.

  “Woman!” he declared, “My time is not yet come!”

  This struck us all as a meaningless remark, though I later realized it was advance publicity for his brief, disastrous career as a faith healer. However, a moment afterwards he beckoned the head of the catering staff, and whispered something which resulted in more wine being served.

  At the time I assumed Christ had himself paid for extra booze so was almost inclined to feel grateful, but Freddie Tattersal (who is also Jewish) told me, “Remember that Christ belonged to the self-employed tradesman class, and that sort don’t lash out money in acts of reckless generosity. There must still have been a lot of wine at that feast, but the waiters were saving it for themselves and the guests at the main table. Christ put the fear of God into the caterers by threatening to make a stink if they did not serve everyone equally, especially him – and he would have done it! They probably watered the plonk to make it go round.” I still find this hard to believe. The plonk they served later was nothing to boast of but it was genuine plonk. I now believe I met Christ in one of his better moods. He was an unpleasant person who went about persuading very ordinary fishmongers and petty civil servants to abandon their jobs and wives and children and go about imitating him! There were a great many such self-appointed gurus in the sixties. Who cares about them nowadays?

  MORAL PHILOSOPHY EXAM

  A BIG TELEVISION COMPANY regularly broadcast a news programme informing the viewers of bad deeds: not the bad deeds of corporations who might withdraw advertising revenues, or the bad deeds of big businessmen and government officials who could afford to bring strong libel actions, but the exploitive practices of private tradesmen. This did some social good and entertained viewers, who were also encouraged to help the programme by supplying it with evidence of scandalous instances. The broadcasters heard of a man who liked horses but had become so poor that the few he owned were badly fed and stabled. The broadcasters tried to contact the man but he hid from them. A camera crew besieged his house until he emerged and was filmed fleeing from an interviewer who ran after him shouting unanswered questions. This was broadcast along with distant views of the horses, the faces and voices of concerned neighbours, the comments of a qualified animal doctor. The owner was subsequently charged with cruelty to animals by the Royal Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, was found guilty and jailed for several months as he could not afford to pay a fine. The horses were humanely killed because nobody else wanted them.

  Which of the following cared most for the horses?

  1 Their owner.

  2 The RSPCA.

  3 The broadcasters.

  Who gained most by these events?

  1 Lawyers conducting the trial.

  2 The broadcasters.

  3 Other horses with incompetent owners.

  Who lost most by these events?

  1 The owner.

  2 The horses.

  DECISION

  I WAS IGNORANT when I was young. I didnae know that sex and children were connected – they seemed to belong to different worlds. My Mammy and her pals talked about sex in a queer oblique kind of way but they were quite open and direct when they spoke about children: “She’s decided not to have a child yet,” they said about a girl who had just married. I was sixteen when I married and I decided not to have a child either. I talked it over with my husband – he was a year older than me – and he entirely agreed. “Time enough for us to have children when we’ve a home of our own,” he said, “and that won’t be for a few years yet.”

  My Mammy thought it was a wise decision too. We were living with her.

  Imagine my astonishment when my stomach swole up and the doctor told me I was pregnant. I said, “I can’t be! I’ve decided not to have a child.”

  He said, “What precautions did you take?”

  I didnae answer him. I don’t take precautions when I decide not to have a cigarette, why take precautions when I decide not to have a baby? A woman in the bed beside me at the maternity hospital told me about birth control, but a week after I came out I was pregnant again.

  A REALITY SHOW

  NOWADAYS THE DANISH CROWN PRINCE is a keen amateur actor who only talks to friends, members of his family, civil servants and journalists in Copenhagen’s Theatre Royal, on a stage set for the last act of Hamlet. Admission is free. On Tuesday and Thursday afternoons the front stalls are full of children brought by teachers from primary schools all over Scandinavia, as part of their social science education. At other times the audience is seldom more than eight or nine adults, mainly American tourists. Broadcasters agree that the prince’s performances are lifelike and convincing but too dull to be recorded or televised. The prince believes that as standards of living and decency deteriorate throughout the world, many will start to enjoy watching what he calls “the banality of virtue”.

  AUTHORITY

  I DID NOT STRUGGLE FOR IT. By accident alone five older brothers died before I took the crown of a thousand-mile-long kingdom, founded by our grandfather, when the T’ang dynasty could not hold China together. My handwriting was excellent. I was not blatantly unfaithful to my wife. Like a true philosopher I eschewed ambition and let landlords and merchants run the country. The Sung empire swallowed us whole. When ordered, I killed myself. Never mind. I once wrote my name on a famous painting. I am remembered, though my people are not.

  TRANSLATION

  THE ELDER GRANDMOTHER, or stipendiary magistrate, or rich farmer’s prodigal son scratches, or ignores, or perhaps greedily enjoys the young slave-girls of the harem, or the petitioners from an unimportant suburb, or the white feathered-longnecked-furiously-hissing denizens of the poultry yard: while in another continent and century and civilization I turn a vertical row of pictograms into a horizontal sentence of phonetic type, without spilling a nuance.

  HUMANITY

  And one mild midsummer day, high among the rocky and heathery summits of Ben Venue, we found a small hollow brimful of perfectly smooth untrodden snow, and shouting “See the lovely white snow!” jumped into the middle of it with our great big boots.

  ENOUGH MONEY

  MY CEILING ADMITS NO RAIN. I admire the movement of clouds over the city. Every weather, every season has its unique beauty.

  GLASWEGIANS

  LONDON 1990

  ONE FOR THE ALBUM

  JUNE is intelligent, and honest, and very lonely. She is also strikingly good looking, which does not help much. She likes admiration but most men’s admiration becomes resentment when she refuses to let them bring it to a very ordinary sexual conclusion. She thinks slightly plainer women have an easier time. She was married once and that also ended for ordinary reasons. Her husband could not forgive her for earning more than he earned yet did not want her to stop work and have a child. At the time she was sorry. Now she is glad. Too many women, she thinks, use children to distract them from unsatisfying lives. Her salary from the civil service is now too big for her to risk losing the job, the job too unsatisfying to let her rest in it. She often dreams of taking a long break and finding work that pleases her, but perhaps (says her honesty) no such work exists. People who know what they want in life are guided to it by an obsession. June’s only obsession is commonplace – she likes dressing well. When buying a garment which suits her rare kind of handsomeness she feels that life, after all, might become an exciting adventure. She has a large wardrobe of clothes to remind her of that wonderful, shortlived feeling. It does not stop her usually feeling like a Mercedes Benz forced to work as a taxi.

  Her job has an advantage apart from the wage. By working overtime she can make Friday a holiday and walk about assessing fashions in shop windows and on the bodies of passers-by. Her favourite styles are those of the thirties and forties which flirt elegantly or luxuriousl
y with the human outline. On this clear summer afternoon nearly everything she sees annoys her, the prevailing styles shout aloud that times are tough. Young men with money wear floppy suits and stubble on their chins. Jackets, waistcoats, woollens, shirts and skirts are worn in eccentric layers as if put on fast in an emergency. The commonest fabric is denim; the commonest garment a shapeless jacket with huge pockets suggesting a labour camp. This has been popular for years and makers have given it a new lease of life by dyeing it to appear dirtied by rough usage. Jeans and skirts are also made from this denim. Some young people (June is no longer young) wear jeans they have deliberately ripped; why? The only elegant garment she glimpsed is made of the toughest fabric of all. Someone slim and neat passes in a suit of gleaming black leather with silver zips. June has never worn leather but some shops sell nothing else. She experiences a faint, familiar thrill: she will hunt down an exciting new thing to wear. The leather shop welcomes her with a scent she finds comforting yet exotic – she has forgotten how good leather smells. But the skirts and jackets don’t appeal to her and she does not even look at the trousers – trousers are not her style. An assistant asks what she is looking for.