Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012

by Gray, Alasdair

  “I loved Hjordis too, Harry. I loved ha as passionately as you did, though she despised me fo it. The bum garden is ha monument, Harry! You must not keep it from the world. You and I a the last of the gang, Harry, the twins don’t matta now. It can’t be mia coincidence that you and I a coming togetha on this thing. If I was religious I would say God wants us to do it. I’m not, so I say fate wants us to do it. You and I was once very good friends, Harry. Oh what went wrong?”

  “Don’t know,” whispers Harry, surprised by how wet her face is getting. “What does Harvey say?”

  All phone calls to Harry pass through her agent’s office to stop her being pestered by unprofitable business.

  “He says he’s enthusiastic about it if you a, Harry! The Scottish Museum of Modern Art in Edinburgh has nothing of yaws, Harry, which is ridiculous! Neitha has Glasgow or Abadeen. If you do this fo Scotland yaw bound to sell at least one may-ja-piece. We provide the venue and will pay fo transpawt and publicity, and aftawad the show can return to London and appia in a really important gallery like the Warwick or the Serpentine. Please say yes!”

  “Yes excuse me headache,” whispers Judy putting the phone down.

  Since the separation from her nursemaid nothing shocks Harry as much as news that Hjordis is dead. Hjordis is the centre of Harry’s love life. Basking drowsily in a deep bath of warm water after a hard day’s work, Harry imagines erotic adventures with Hjordis in a shrubbery as big as a jungle at first, but in later years it enlarges to a planet. Harry is queen of this world, the most adored and desired person on it and also the weakest. Hjordis is the strongest and most feared. Hjordis is a wicked prime minister who has organized all the men into a cruel army and used it to seize power; but among wild scenery dwell bands of outlaws – cow girls and swamp women and pirate whores who rescue Harry from Hjordis or capture her for reasons of their own. The politics of this world appears in Four Sisters, the smallest but most popular of Harry’s works.4 Four women’s shoes stand toe to heel in a square, each one cast or cut in a different almost colourless material: glass, maplewood, stainless steel and white leather. The leather shoe is real, the others modelled on it. Each stiletto heel pierces the toecap of the shoe behind it. Every work of art Harry made shows part of her imaginary world’s enigmatic furniture, scenery or architecture. It is a world where imaginary pains produce some real ecstasy. Everyone recovers immediately from injuries, everyone is ravishingly beautiful, nobody grows old or sick or dies, and certainly not Hjordis. Always glorious and cruel, always plotting to satisfy herself but forever incapable of satisfaction, Hjordis keeps this dream world working. Harry has not seen or heard of Hjordis for over twenty years. There is no obvious reason for imaginary Hjordis to vanish because the real one dies, but it happens. The dream world becomes a reminder of death and of absence, then vanishes also. Harry cannot now imagine anyone who adores or desires her, cannot imagine anything at all.

  She locks the studio door and squats on a small stool, hugging her body and rocking it to and fro. Sometimes she masturbates, but it is joyless exercise. She listens to a clear childish voice chanting Give me somebody. Give me somebody. It is her own voice. It is not praying to anyone, but is certainly praying. She feels nothing in the world can be done but rock and pray till she dies of exhaustion. Sleep is impossible. After several hours she hears voices mingling with her own. A muffled man’s voice says her art is a childish game, like doodling or masturbation. Another slightly louder voice argues that the burn garden is a monument to Hjordis which must not be kept from the world.

  Shortly after midnight she hears a voice calling faintly from a great distance. She stops praying to hear better. It falls silent, but sounds slightly nearer when she prays more quietly. Eventually she can make out the words Harry Shetland followed by a burst of hectic pleading. As the sun starts to rise her prayer has sunk to a whisper and the pleading is distinct, though as if shouted upward from a ground far below her:

  Harry Shetland come down to me please yaw motha and my motha wa friends! Wia the only two in this stinking hell-hole who need each otha! Oh please come down and visit me in my fortress! We’ll shut everybody else out – even the twins! I’ve a lovely tin of delicious biscuits and all sorts of gorgeous things fo you! Chocolate and scent and a silk scarf and a little hampster in a cage shaped like a doll’s house who’s called Limpy Dan because one of his feet doesn’t work but you can call him anything you like please come down! Please I’m so lonely!

  Harry remembers a time when this pleading made her feel aloof, smug and powerful, but now the pain in it is a pain she feels through her whole body. She groans, sways dizzily and nearly faints, but is roused by a loud, commanding voice which sounds right beside her: I want a huge bum to go in the middle, a bum as big as me!

  “Yes, I can give you that now,” says Harry, suddenly knowing what to do. “Thank you Hjordis.”

  She yawns hugely, unlocks her door, phones an order for sandwiches and a glass of milk. She eats, drinks, then sleeps soundly. A day later, before phoning to arrange a meeting with her dealer and Linda, she stares hard into a mirror. Her appearance does not interest her, usually, but today she wants to appear as well as feel like a different woman. Her hair is cut like the fur of a sleek animal, for she hates brushing and combing. Abruptly she summons her hairdresser and tells him to shave her completely bald.

  A FREE MAN WITH A PIPE

  PHONE rings. Ella patiently lifts the receiver. Most of the calls she answers are for a friend who is seldom in. She says quickly, “Hello.”

  “Hello Jean!” says a loud eager voice, “I’m a free man.”

  “I’m sorry, Jean is out. She won’t be back till quite late. Can I give her a message?”

  She hears a sigh, then silence, then a sad little voice asks hesitantly, “Is that you, Elaine?”

  “I’m Ella Warner, Jean’s flatmate.”

  “Of course you are!” says the voice loudly, “You are Ella Warner, Jean’s flatmate. We met at Jean’s housewarming party and had an interesting chat. You think modern mothers allow their daughters too much freedom –”

  “I don’t think I said that.”

  “You wore a blue trousersuit –”

  “A blue dress.”

  “I got the colour right. I’m Leo Brown and you don’t remember a single thing about me.”

  The voice is triumphant and accusing. She says defensively, “I remember hardly anyone from that party. Why should I? It wasn’t my party.”

  “You’ll remember me when you see me, Ella. I’m coming round.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “I’m taking you out for a meal.”

  “I’ve just eaten.”

  “I’m taking you out for a drink.”

  “I don’t like drinking, usually, and just now I’m studying. I’ve an exam on Monday. I don’t know you and I don’t think you know me.”

  The voice turns hard and ugly.

  “All work and no play makes Jill a very dull girl indeed, Ella! What you need is a break from your routines, Ella! It will help your studies so I’ll knock your door half an hour from now, right.”

  “I won’t open it if you do.”

  Ella is firm about this but does not put the receiver down. She hears another sigh, and silence, and once again the sad little hesitant voice.

  “Do you ... know the lounge bar of The Lome?”

  “Well?”

  “In half an hour I’ll be having a drink there. I’ll be smoking a rather unusual pipe. The bowl is carved to look like the head of a bull –”

  “Oh!”

  “Now you remember me?”

  “No, but I remember your pipe.”

  After four seconds the voice says dully, “If you want a drink you know where to come,” and the line goes dead.

  Ella returns to her books but cannot concentrate on them. Why should the voice of a lonely, foolish man who wants company upset her so much? She too is lonely but likes loneliness, usually. Most people, she thi
nks, pay too high a price for company, married people especially. That is why she admires Jean, who for two or three years has avoided matrimony by something like promiscuity, and now talks of having a single-parent family. But Ella, who likes children, knows they are usually happier with a couple of married parents. These thoughts interfere with her studies. It is a warm evening, she needs a breath of open air, maybe a walk will freshen her. The way to the park passes the Lorne Hotel. Curiosity leads her into the lounge bar, which at that hour is almost empty. She buys a half-pint glass of cider and looks cautiously round. The only single man sits in a corner, seemingly lost in thought. Ella is long-sighted. Removing her spectacles she sees on the table before him the unusual pipe beside an untouched half-pint glass of light ale. Though not young he is not elderly. His well-cut tweed suit is neither shabby nor ostentatiously fashionable. None of his features is notably strong or weak, but they and the whole slump of his body suggest a sad perplexity she finds attractive. His lips move slightly as if repeating past conversations.

  She replaces the spectacles, takes her glass to his table and sits quietly opposite. He stares at her in a confused way, then says without enthusiasm, “Oh hullo. You made it,” and adds reproachfully, “You should not have bought that drink. The treat must be on me. Waiter!” With a sweep of the arm he summons one of the bar staff and orders two whisky liqueurs.

  “But –” says Ella, who dislikes whisky in any form.

  “No buts tonight! This calls for a celebration. You must be wondering why I asked you here.”

  “No.”

  “Surely almost total strangers don’t ask you out every night of the week?”

  “On the phone you sounded as if you needed to talk to someone. I thought you were lonely.”

  “Ella! How can you think so little of yourself? Ella, we hardly exchanged two words at that party but you havequalities men – some men – find unforgettable.”

  “What qualities?” asks Ella, interested but not overwhelmed. She knows most men see her as a nice young aunt.

  “Oh your hair, your voice, your ... the bits matter less than the way they fit together.”

  The waiter brings two glasses of liqueur. Leo pays him, lifts one then frowns into it as though it is far too deep. After a moment he puts it down and drinks the beer instead. It occurs to Ella that he too dislikes whisky liqueur. She says, “Is something wrong?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “One moment you’re excited, the next you’re flat and dull.”

  “I keep remembering a dream I had last night.”

  Ella, highly excited, cries, “I had a dream last night! Can I tell you about it?”

  “Go ahead.”

  As Ella talks her mild face grows vivacious. He watches it closely, without pleasure.

  “I was walking along a road in the country, it was a dull ordinary day and I was worrying about my exams when I suddenly felt this warm golden light shining down on me from behind. I didn’t dare turn and look but I knew, I knew that a huge golden aeroplane was sweeping after me in the sky and the warm happy feeling came from that. I knew the aeroplane was the Concorde.”

  Leo drinks the last of his beer and says, “Well?”

  “That’s all but it left me feeling happy all day. What did you dream?”

  “There was a stone head on my sitting-room floor, about six feet high, a piece of a statue of an Egyptian king. It should have been hollow but it was stuffed full of dirty rags and I was trying to pull them out through the mouth with my hands and then I realized there was ... the corpse of some animal in the middle. I couldn’t go on. I tried to cram the rest of the dirt back in but it wouldn’t go in.”

  He pauses then says with vast indignation, “The whole room was an utter mess!”

  She shudders and says, “No wonder you’re depressed.”

  There is a change of feeling between them. Her sympathy has cheered him and she, seeing this, relaxes and murmurs, “I wonder if it means I’ll pass the exams.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “My dream.”

  “Your dream means sex.”

  “Oh no!”

  “Wait a bit!” he says, raising a forefinger. “You’re walking along a dismal ordinary road worrying about exams. That’s ordinary life, right? Then you feel something warm and beautiful coming after you, something you’re afraid to face. It’s called the Concorde and you know what Concorde is French for, don’t you?”

  “Concorde is a place in America,” says Ella, seeing a way out, but he smiles and talks over her like a firm but patient teacher: “Concorde is the French for togetherness, Ella. That dream is prophetic, Ella. It tells what the future holds if you have the courage to face it. I think that coming here tonight shows you have the courage to face it.”

  She is unwilling to be impressed by this and says, “What does your dream mean? Is it about sex too?”

  “Let’s change the subject,” he suggests briskly. “What do you do? Are you a student?”

  “A nurse. But I’m studying to be a physiotherapist.”

  “I know about that. Deep breathing. Physical jerks.”

  “The main thing is relaxation,” says Ella, and adds dreamily, “Deep, controlled relaxation ... I think I may be good at it.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, we have a little boy with really bad asthma. It’s so bad he’s afraid to sleep at night. The doctors put him on steroids, but of course they couldn’t keep him on these for ever – they destroy certain glands if you do – and now he’s as bad as he was before. Do you know, even in his worst panics I can almost get him to breath perfectly easily? I make him lie down flat – it’s almost impossible to get asthmatics to do that – and with a little light massage I get him breathing slowly and evenly and deeply, and in ten minutes he’s in a perfectly normal sleep. I’ve tried to teach the boy’s mother to do this for him but she can’t. She loves him, she’d do anything to make him well, but when she talks to him or touches him his muscles tighten. He doesn’t trust her – doesn’t trust her physically.”

  After a moment Leo says defensively, “I’m quite good at my job too.”

  “Yes?”

  “Sales representative for Quality Fabrics. I realize that means nothing to you. I suppose you think travelling salesmen are a dying breed.”

  “No! Why should they be?”

  “Because of chainstores, supermarkets, new shopping centres. Well let me tell you, we are NOT a dying breed. That sort of competition has done nothing but weed out weaklings. Survivors like me are travelling further and earning more than ever. When I took on this job Quality Fabrics gave me the central lowlands. Now all Scotland is my province.”

  He stares at her challengingly. She responds with a small smile which becomes bright when she thinks of something to say.

  “You must pass through some lovely scenery.”

  “So I am told.”

  “But surely –”

  “Ella, I am the best driver I know. In ten years I have not once had an accident that could be traced to my negligence. While driving I keep my eyes on the road and my mind on – not just the car ahead of me – but the car in front of the car ahead of me. I travel north to Thurso, east to St Andrews, south to Berwick, and for all the scenery I see I might be driving backwards and forwards through the Clyde Tunnel.”

  “That’s terrible!”

  “It never struck you that driving should be enjoyed for its own sake?”

  “Never.”

  “Well, I enjoy driving for its own sake. That’s why I’m good at it. Using a highly sophisticated implement which every year slaughters thousands, I am constantly achieving and reconciling two different things, maximum safety and maximum speed. This achievement absorbs my whole personality, I am glad to say. Too many folk nowadays do nothing with their personalities but flaunt them.”

  After a pause she says, “I agree.”

  Again they notice he has impressed her and again he grows more cheerful, c
linking his glass against hers and saying “Skol!”

  She smiles and sips as little as possible to avoid grimacing. He gulps his fast, perhaps for the same reason, and she feels inside her a definite tickle of amusement. She finds him entertaining, though perhaps not in the way he wants to be.