Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012

by Gray, Alasdair

  “You see,” he says, with an air of reckless expansion, “I’m a free man. I choose my own hours and my own itineries, nobody sets me a routine. A routine job must be hell on earth. You must know that, working where you do.” “But I like my work. Hospitals are the best places in the world.”

  “They’re terrible places!”

  “They are not!” says Ella, angered into boldness, “If anyone throws paper on a hospital floor a cleaner picks it up. If an old man wets his bed there’s somebody to wash him and change the sheets. If somebody is in pain and dying we have drugs to make them comfortable. Outside hospitals the only safe people are the rich people, but in hospitals nobody is neglected or starved or made to do work they’re not fit for. There’s always someone on duty, someone responsible in charge.”

  “How old do you think I am?”

  “... Forty?”

  “Thirty-five,” says Leo in an injured voice, “And I have never once set foot in a hospital or visited a doctor. Yes, I’m fit.”

  “But not relaxed.”

  “Of course I’m relaxed.”

  “Why do you breathe like that?”

  “Like what?”

  “Quick and shallow instead of deep and slow.”

  He looks at her in a haunted way and does not reply. She says conversationally, “You’ve gone dull and flat again.”

  “Do you talk like this to everybody?” he asks in his ugliest voice.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “You must find it hard to keep a boyfriend.”

  “I do. Yes.”

  “I’m trying to help you, Ella, but my God you’re making it hard for me ... My divorce came through today.”

  After a moment she pushes her glass towards him saying gently, “Would you mind finishing this drink?”

  “Don’t you like it?”

  “I’m sorry. I’ve tried to. I’m sure it will do you more good.” He looks at it, drains it like medicine, coughs a little then says, “Ask me anything you like.”

  “But –”

  “Don’t worry, you won’t be probing a wound. We’ve been separated for years.”

  “I see. Did you –”

  “If you want to know if I was unfaithful to her or she to me the answer is no. In both cases. As far as I am aware. But we were incompatible. She kept telling me I got on her nerves and after a while this got on my nerves.”

  “How did you get on her nerves?”

  “Well, when I got home from work in the evening I was exhausted. I’ve told you why. I was holding down more and more of Scotland for Quality Fabrics. I drove an average of 350 miles per day. Her office job must have left her with plenty energy for as soon as she saw me she started to talk. Telling me things. Asking questions. And she insisted on being answered. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or ‘that’s nice’ wasn’t good enough. She wanted detailed discussions when all I wanted was a quiet meal then an hour by the fire with the newspaper followed by a spot of television. What did I know about hats, shoes and the neighbour’s dog? Why should I care about whether new wallpaper should be pink to harmonize with the carpet or green to contrast with it? Life is too short.”

  “She sounds as if she loved you. Or wanted to.”

  “If she’d shut her mouth for a couple of hours I could have loved her back, or sounded as if I did. But she kept driving me out of the house. To pubs like this, as a matter of fact, though I am definitely not a drinking man. A half-pint of lager is my normal limit.”

  “Did you talk to people in the pubs you visited?”

  “Yes of course. Talk is easy in a pub, it happens without thinking. Before I married I talked to the wife all the time in pubs. But home should be different, it should let a couple enjoy silence for a change. I once read an article on how to make a success of your marriage, and one thing it said was never let your wife feel you take her for granted. That made me laugh. If you can’t take your wife for granted who can you take for granted? Everybody else you meet – especially the women – you’ve got to be polite and entertaining, you’ve got to show yourself and sell yourself to them like I show fabrics to a potential buyer. Like I’m showing myself to you just now. But surely a wife should grow out of needing that treatment.”

  Ella frowns, purses her lips like a doctor considering a case then says, “No children?”

  “None.”

  “You should have adopted one.”

  “Ella, I notice you are keen in the mercy and kindness approach to existence which makes you hard and insensitive at times. I know there are many helpless, unloved children in the world but would it be fair to get one in like a paperweight to stop an unlucky marriage blowing away?”

  Ella says stubbornly, “Children are dying from lack of love and your wife had more of it than you could take.”

  “You’re a hard woman, Ella,” he says sadly, “A hard, hard woman.”

  “I’m sorry, Leo,” she says with real regret, “I don’t mean to be.”

  “That is the first time you’ve spoken my name.”

  “Oh?”

  Her hand rests on the table. He places his own on it, saying softly, “Come home with me, Ella. We’re on the verge of saying important things to each other. A hotel is no place for genuine ... concord.”

  “Oh. Well ... all right, just for an hour, but it mustn’t be any longer, Leo.”

  Her voice has the comradely sound of a private soldier in the great sex war talking to another. Unluckily Leo, being a man, thinks he belongs to the officer class.

  He stands, waves to the bar and shouts, “Waiter! Two more whisky liqueurs!”

  She stares at him. He snarls, “You pity me, don’t you? That’s why you’re ready to come back with me. I’m one of your orphans.”

  She whispers fiercely, “Sit down! People are looking at us and I don’t want a whisky liqueur.”

  “Then give it to me out of the kindness of your heart like you gave the last one.

  “Why do you sneer at kindness?”

  “It is insulting to man’s essential nature.”

  “What is man’s essential nature?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You want me to be nice to you as if you were doing me a favour.”

  “I want to be admired!” cries Leo wildly, “Is that too much to ask?”

  “Admired for what?”

  “If you see nothing else in me you might at least notice I am made in the image of God!”

  After this outcry he slumps into gloom again, adding lamely, “If you had a religion you might.”

  “Have you a religion?” asks Ella, who now has no idea of what they are discussing.

  “No.”

  “Excuse me, sir, you have to leave,” says the waiter. Leo is astonished.

  “Why?”

  “You’re making too much noise. And swearing upsets the ladies.”

  “I didn’t swear! We were discussing religion.”

  “That can lead to trouble sir. You’d better leave.”

  With quiet dignity Leo takes his pipe from the ashtray and rises saying, “Goodnight. You are not losing a regular customer, but you may be losing someone who might have become a regular customer.”

  Ella, beside him, has a fit of the giggles which her strongest efforts cannot quell before they stand on the pavement outside. He says, “You thought that funny.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Goodnight.”

  “Don’t you want me to come with you?” she asks. He stares amazed into her calm friendly face, then smiles gratefully and seizes her hand.

  He leads her to a terrace overlooking the park, a terrace built for the rich of the previous century. Wealth still resides there. They come to a building like a church with broad steps to a high door. The door is glass. Ella sees through it a refreshingly antiseptic floor of big black and white chequered tiles, a brown clay urn with huge spiky leaves sprouting from it, the door of a lift. Leo takes her in to the lift. Leo’s apartment is a large sitting room with a gl
ossy lavatory and small, well-equipped kitchen. The furnishings are the sort found in expensive modern hotels and fill Ella with a sense of desolation almost greater than poverty would. She thinks a huge stone head on the floor could only improve the place. However, she says, “How clean and tidy everything is.” “I can’t stand mess,” says Leo compacently and busies himself in the kitchen. Ella looks round in a puzzled way, seeking (though she may not be aware of this) a clue to his childhood or to a previous loving connection. A bookstand holds nothing but car manuals and trade journals. The only wall decoration is a large map of Scotland mounted on a board and stuck full of red-headed pins, so she studies that.

  “My territory!” he calls from the kitchen. There are hardly any pins inside the boundaries of the four great cities. Most are stuck in obscure little towns a few miles from these, towns which in recent years have been occupied by prosperous commuters and retired people. In the highlands some pins pierce the main tourist resorts, and there is a denser sprinkling through townships near the English border. One yellow-headed pin occupies a southern patch of brown moorland. She peers closely to discover the reason for its uniqueness.

  “That marks the spot where mother nature once seduced me,” says Leo, bringing in a tray of tea things and placing it on a low table, “I suppose you want to hear all about that.”

  “Oh yes please!” says Ella. For her own amusement as much as his she acts like an eager little girl, sitting on a chair with legs tucked under her, chin on fist and mouth and eyes expectantly open. Leo switches the table light on and the ceiling light off to give the room an intimate atmosphere. He sits on the sofa, pours two cups of tea, hands her one and says, “You see –”

  He finds he cannot talk without referring to the map so rises and goes to it, switching on the ceiling light again. “I was driving along the coast from Stranraer one Saturday, just about here. In those days I got bonuses for weekend work. The day was hot, the road busy, I’d had an exceptionally hard week so instead of driving up to Ayr I turned inland north of Ballantrae. This line marks a thirdclass road. You can see why I thought it might be a short cut. Anyway, I ran up this twisting valley, and passed some old farms and came up onto these moors. There was a gate across the road (it’s not marked) – I suppose to keep sheep from wandering. So I had to leave the car to open it. Otherwise nothing would have happened because the air was not just warm, it had little fresh breezes blowing through it and I could hear two or three of those birds going poo-ee poo-ee in the distance ... What do you call them?”

  “Lapwings,” says Ella.

  “No. Curlews,” says Leo, “That’s the name. Curlews. Anyway, I shut the gate behind me and drove on for a mile or two and reached a second gate, where the yellow pin is. But instead of just opening it and driving through I lay back on a bank of heather for a puff at the old pipe. There was not a human being, or a telegraph pole, or another car than my own in sight, only heather and ferns and this hill opposite, with an old house among some trees at the foot of it. Everything was warm and ... brilliant, and calm. I could hear a cricket near by, in the grass. Do you know what I did?”

  He stares at her accusingly. She shakes her head. He speaks on a note of astonished indignation.

  “I fell asleep! I fell asleep and woke up ninety minutes later with a splitting headache and a fit of the shivers! I was totally behind schedule. I got to Dalmellington all right but I was too late for Kilmarnock and Strathaven.

  That little nap of mine cost Quality Fabrics two hundred pounds’ worth of business. It was a lesson to me.”

  “Were they angry?” asks Ella softly.

  “Who?”

  “Quality Fabrics.”

  “Certainly not! That loss is my estimate, not theirs. And it would need more than one accident of that kind to damage a man with a record like mine. But it showed I was human, like the rest. If I hadn’t pulled myself together I could have gone to pieces entirely. Men do, in my business. Usually through drink. This yellow pin is a warning to me.”

  He sits beside her and sips tea. She murmurs sympathetically, “No wonder you can’t relax.”

  He puts down the cup with a touch of exasperation.

  “Ella, you haven’t understood a word of what I’ve told you. I can relax, but I’ve chosen not to. You like routine but I’m an individualist, a free man, Ella. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. June never understood this. In our three-and-a-half years of married life she never once sympathized with what I was doing for her.”

  “Were you doing it for her?”

  He sighs and does not answer.

  After a while, mainly to fill the silence, she says, “I’m surprised you haven’t an ulcer.”

  “Perhaps I have. I get stomach pains after meals nowadays and ... there’s a swelling.”

  He puts a hand to his stomach. She sits up and says seriously, “You must see a doctor.”

  “I told you. I don’t go to doctors.”

  “Let me look.”

  “There’s nothing to see, but you can feel it I suppose.” He unfastens the waistband of his trousers and leans back. She sits beside him, slips her hand in and palpates his stomach, frowning thoughtfully. She says, “I can’t feel a thing.”

  “Lower down, in the middle.”

  Her fingers touch the swelling and rest on it. He murmurs, “What soft smooth fingers you have, Ella.”

  She murmurs, “Aren’t you cunning?”

  He draws her to him. She talkes her hand from his trousers and removes her spectacles. They clasp and kiss. He is surprised by how easy this is. He says, “You aren’t tense.”

  “Why should I be?”

  “That talk about the suffering masses made me think you were more ... rigid.”

  She smiles. Men are always surprised to find she isn’t rigid. They undress and move to the bed. There is a lack of urgency and embarassment which amazes him. He says, “You’re special.”

  “I’m not.”

  They clasp and kiss again. He murmurs, “Woman ... is the downfall of the weak man but the relaxation of the warrior.”

  “What a silly thing to say.”

  “Napoleon said it.”

  “Then he was silly.”

  “Can I see you tomorrow?”

  “Yes. I might wake up here.”

  “But tomorrow night?” he pleads.

  “I think ... maybe.”

  “And the day after?”

  “I’ve examinations then.”

  A little later he is so delighted that he cries, “June you’re beautiful. You’re so beautiful June.”

  She hits him hard on the side of the head.

  She gets up and starts dressing. He crouches on the bedside, sucking the knuckles of a clenched hand. Her indignation lessens when she has fastened her skirt because what moves her most in this world is pity. She says, “I’m sorry I hit you Leo but you’ve been thinking about another woman all evening.”

  He does not move. She looks at him and says, “I’d better go now, hadn’t I? It’s quite late.”

  He does not move. She finishes dressing and says, “I really am sorry I hit you Leo but I’d better get back to my studies.”

  He does not move. She goes to the door, opens it and hesitates, trying to think of a more encouraging farewell. At last she says, “I admire you Leo. Really I do ...”

  He does not move. Truth and the silence compel her to add, “... in some ways, just a little. Goodnight.”

  She leaves.

  He huddles a long time on the bedside then starts glancing toward the telephone in a furtive way, as if it is an enticing drug with vile after-effects. He stands, pulls his trousers on, sits beside the phone and dials. A little later he hears a woman say, “Hello?”

  He answers in his small, hesitant voice.

  “Hullo June ... I wondered if ... I thought that after the legal business this afternoon perhaps you felt a bit ... lonely?”

  “I can’t help you any more Leo,” says the woman sensibly, “It’s
too late. I’m sorry you feel lonely but it’s too late to talk to me about it. Goodnight Leo.”

  She does not at once put the receiver down. Several seconds pass before he hears the deadening click. He keeps his own receiver pressed to his ear for another minute, slowly replaces it, lifts tobacco tin from mantelpiece, opens it and slowly fills from it the bowl of his rather unusual pipe.

  CULTURE CAPITALISM

  HARRY meets her dealer and Linda, who has come south to discuss Harry’s 1990 exhibition in Glasgow.

  “First tell me about the European Cultcha Capital thing,” says the dealer. “Why Glasgow? How has a notoriously filthy hole become a shining light? Is it an advatising stunt?”

  “Certainly, but we have something to advertise!” says Linda. “It all began when John Betjeman discovad Glasgow in the sixties and found what nobody had eva suspected. The city centa is a mastapiece of Victorian and Edwardian architectcha. But in those days it was unda such a thick coating of soot and grime that only the eye of a masta could penetrate it. Even moa off-putting wa the people. In those days most Scottish impoats and expoats passed through Glasgow, and the good middle bit was squashed up tight against docks and warehouses and the tenements of those who worked in them. What would visitas think of London if Trafalga Squaya was on the Isle of Dogs? If every day hordes of homy-handed men in filthy overalls percolated up and down Regent Street and half filled the Fleet Street pubs? But London is vast, so the classes segregate themselves easily and naturally. They couldn’t do that in Glasgow so respectable Londonas passed through it in fia of thea lives. It is perhaps not logical fo well dressed British people to dread the working classes, but when they flagrantly outnumba us the recoil is instinctive.

  “Anyway, nothing could improve Glasgow befoa all its old industries got taken out, but they have been. And befoa that happened all the people who worked in them got decanted into big housing schemes on the verge of things. So the middle of Glasgow is clean now and will neva be filthy again! The old warehouses and markets and tenements and churches are being turned into luxury flats and shopping malls and a surprising variety of very decent foreign restaurants. Which is wha we come in – I mean the English.