She takes his arm saying, “Nonsense Dave. Women can look how they like and you’re respectable enough for both of us.”
The club is five minutes walk away on Princes Street. Fewer passers-by stare and pass comments than would happen in Glasgow, but enough do it to stimulate Geikie’s adrenal glands. His spine straightens. His face takes on a look of stoical endurance. His noble bearing and her careless one carry them past the doorman, the cloakroom attendants and up a stair to the dining room. Through large windows they see the lit mansions and battlements of the castle standing high in the air between black sky and black rock. At a corner table sit two businessmen with a lawyer who attended the tribunal that day and a Scottish politician who was once a cabinet minister and famous for interesting but unwise press announcements. The first three exchange nods with Geikie. The fourth turns completely round and gazes at June who deliberately sits with her back to him. She and Geikie consult menus.
Then Geikie murmurs, “Oh here comes Lucy.”
“Lucy?”
“Short for Lucifer – that’s what he likes to be called.”
“Excuse me for butting in unasked and unannounced,” says the politician pulling a chair to their table, aiming to sit on it and almost missing.
“Oopsadaisy David! David you MUST introduce me to your charming companion, even though she is staring at me as if I’m a kind of insect. And she should, because I AM a kind of insect. Looper T. Firefly, exiled President of Freedonia at your service Ma’am.”
He blows her a kiss.
“June Tain my Deputy Principal,” says Geikie coldly.
“God’s boots Geikie! You are kicking out in EVERY direction these days. I hear you’ve actually brought a case to arbitration! Remarkable. BUT! The name of Geikie will enter the history of our race through your courage in promoting to senior rank a lady who has destroyed the STUPID old fuddy-duddy notion that our civil service is staffed by desiccated spinsters of BOTH sexes who dress to show they are dedicated, desiccated spinsters. Too few people have realized that a dozen years ago a new age dawned for Britain, HEIL MARGARET. She has given Britain back its testicles by turning government offices and free enterprises into businesses run by the same people. Highly profitable. And now every man with money and initiative can enjoy his woman and his bottle and his woman and his tax-avoidance scam and his woman and his special boyfriend (aids permitting) without having his fun spoiled by hypocritical spoil-sport neighbours and a ghastly spook called PUBLIC OPINION. Because at last at last at last Public Opinion recognizes what poor Fred Sneeze told us a century ago, God is dead. So now we can all do what we like. By the way, when I say God is dead I don’t mean every God is dead – that would be Blasphemy and I am a Believer. I refer only to Mister Nice-Guy in the sky, the wet-eyed, bleeding-heart bastard who told us to love our neighbours and enemies because the scum of the earth are going to inherit it. That God, thank God, is AS DEAD AS SOCIALISM and even the Labour Party is delighted, though it can’t openly admit it yet. You are still looking at me as though I am an insect, my dear. Quite right, quite right. A glow-worm. My little tail is indeed aglow. Your fault, my dear.”
“Lucy,” says Geikie, “we want to eat.”
“Not yet, Geikie!” says Lucy firmly, “Because I have something important to say. Fin de siècle! End of age, start of other and what rough beast, June Tain, shambles toward Bethlehem to be born? I’ll tell you at the end of my next paragraph. I talk in paragraphs. Please remember all I say because tomorrow I won’t recall a word.
“Now a lot of idiots think the British spy system sorry BRITISH INTELLIGENCE system is full of Russian double-agents. Nonsense. We’ve had a lot of these but our relationship with the Yanks ensures that it’s the CIA who know most of our secrets and we have learned quite a few of theirs. Do you remember the Scottish Referendum, June Tain? When it looked like London might let us off the hook, haha? Well, a friend of mine – a fine fellow and a brave soldier – showed me the CIA plans for Scotland if it won some independence for itself, and the astonishing thing was –”
Mr Geikie, who has become restless, mutters, “Better not tell us these things Lucy.”
“Pipe down Geikie you are not in the same LEAGUE as your charming assistant and me, she is a Hells Angel and I am a DRAGONFLY, a bright spark spawned by the burning breath of the Beast of the Bottomless Pit. A fine statesman, Pitt. Do you know, June Tain, that the Yanks were going to be quite kind to independent Scotland? A lot kinder than to Guatemala, Nicaragua etcetera. They were NOT afraid of us becoming a socialist republic because they felt we’d be even easier to manipulate than England – fewer chiefs to bribe was how my friend put it – and no trouble at all compared with Ireland, especially the north bit. And what I want to tell you is this.”
Lucy leans across the table and tells June in a hissing whisper, “The CIA. Scenario for an independent Scotland has not been scrapped and you are filling me with mysterious insights.”
He stands and speaks in a solemn and quiet voice which grows steadily louder.
“I am a Douglas on my mother’s side, a descendant of that Black Douglas who was Stabbed to The Death by The Hand of A Kind. And if you tell me it was some other Douglas who was stabbed to death by Jamie the First or Second or Third or Fourth or Fifth I DON’T CARE! I STILL FEEL PROPHETIC! I PROPHESY THAT JUNE TAIN –”
He points a finger at June and says more intimately, “I prophesy that you, June Tain,” then notices his friends are beckoning him and more people are entering the restaurant. He murmurs, “Forgive me – I’m boring you,” and returns to his friends.
Dear reader, I – your author – cannot imagine how to continue this story. It has contained a strong hint that having been liberated by the work of Senga and Donalda, June the professional career woman, and Harry the inherited wealth person, will cut themselves off from their poorer employees and have fun together. You need not believe that ending but it is how things are normally arranged in Britain, and how they were arranged in 1990’s Glasgow.
TEN TALES TALL AND TRUE
FOR MORAG McALPINE TOM MASCHLER XANDRA HARDIE
LONDON 1993
GETTING STARTED – A PROLOGUE
I AM THE DESCENDANT of a race whose stolid unimaginative decency has, at all times, rendered them the dependable tools of others; yet from my earliest infancy I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, a prey to the most ungovernable passions until bound and weary I thought best to sulk upon my mother’s breast. Too romantic.
Call Me Ishmael. Jesus wept. Reader, I married him. Pithiness prevents flow.
I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong. Far too vague.
A man stood upon a railway bridge in Northern Alabama, looking down into the swift waters twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord.
That’s the style for me.
HOUSES AND SMALL LABOUR PARTIES
EIGHT MEN DUG a trench beside a muddy crossroads, and the mud made two remember Italy where they had fought in a recent war. These two had not known each other in Italy, puffy and swole up like a balloon – I think only his uniform stopped him bursting. The heavy traffic must have kept the rats away. Every time we went that road I but both had seen a dead German who lay at a crossroads near Naples, though one thought it was perhaps nearer Pisa. They discussed the matter when the gang paused for a smoke.
“Not Pisa, no, Pisa was miles away,” said one,
“Naples was the place. He was a handsome big fella. We called him Siegfried.”
“Our lot called him Adolf, because of the fuckin moustache,” said the other, “He wasnae handsome for fuckin long.”
“I don’t remember a moustache, but you’re right, he wasnae handsome for long. He went all white and hoped to God someone had shifted him but no, there he always was, more horrible than ever. Because eventually a truck ran over him and burst him up properly. Do you mind that?”<
br />
“I mind it fuckin fine.”
“Every time we went that road we would say, ‘I wonder how old Siegfried’s doing,’ and look out for him, and there was always something to see, though at last it was only the bones of a foot or a bit of rag with a button on it.”
There was a silence. The older navvies thought about death and the youngest about a motorcycle he wanted to buy. He was known for being the youngest of them and fond of motorcycles. Everybody in the gang was known for something. Mick the ganger was known for being Irish and saying queer things in a solemn voice. One navvy was known for being a Highlander, one for having a hangover every morning, one for being newly married. One of the ex-army men was known for his war stories, the other for his fucking adjectives. One of them was a communist who thought The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists a better book than the Bible and kept trying to lend it; but schooling had given most of them a disgust of books. Only Old Joe borrowed it and he said it was a bit out of date. The communist wanted to argue the point but Old Joe was known for being silent as well as old. The youngest navvy liked working with these folk though he hardly ever listened to what they said. Too many of them wanted his attention. They remembered, or thought they remembered, when they too had been just out of school, sixteen and good-looking, happy because their developing muscles could still enjoy the strain of working overtime, happy because it was great to earn a wage as big as their fathers earned. The worst paid workers reach the peak of their earning power early in life.
“The Signoras!” announced the story teller suddenly, “The Signorinas! They were something else. Am I right? Am I wrong?”
“Aye, the fuckin Signoras were somethin fuckin else,” said the other ex-army man. With both hands he shaped a huge bosom on the air before his chest.
“I’ll give you a bit of advice Ian,” the story-teller told the youngest navvy, “If you ever go to Italy take a few tins of bully beef in your suitcase. There is nothing, I’m telling you nothing you won’t get from the Italian Signorinas in return for a can of bully beef.”
“That advice may be slightly out of date,” said Mick the ganger.
“You’re sticking up for the Tally women because they’re Papes and so are you, ye fuckin Fenian Irish Papal prick ye,” said one of the ex-army men pleasantly.
“He’s right, of course,” the ganger told the youngest navvy, “I am a Papal Fenian. But if these warriors ever return to Italy they may find the ladies less welcoming now the babies have stopped starving.”
He nipped his cigarette, stuck it under his cap brim above the right ear and lifted his pick. The gang began digging again.
Though their work was defined as unskilled by the Department of Labour they worked skilfully in couples, one breaking the ground with a pick, the other shovelling loose earth and stones from under his partner’s feet and flinging it clear. At the front end Mick the ganger set a steady pace for all of them. The youngest navvy was inclined to go too fast, so Mick had paired him with Old Joe who was nearly sixty, but still worked well by pacing himself carefully. The two ex-army men were liable to slow down if paired together, so Mick always paired one of them with himself. The gang belonged to a workforce of labourers, brickies, joiners, plumbers, slaters, electricians, painters, drivers, foremen and site clerks who were enlarging a city by turning a hillside into a housing estate. During the recent war (which had ended seven years before but still seemed recent to all who remembered it) the government had promised there would be no return to unemployment afterward, and every family would eventually have a house with a lavatory and bath inside. The nation’s taxes were now being spent on houses as well as armed forces, motorways, public health et cetera, so public housing was now profitable. Bankers and brokers put money into firms making homes for the class of folk who laboured to build them. To make these fast and cheaply standards of spaciousness and craftsmanship were lowered, makeshifts were used which had been developed during the war. Concrete replaced stonework. Doors were light wooden frames with a hardboard sheet nailed to each side. Inner walls were frames surfaced with plasterboard that dented if a door-knob swung hard against it. A tall man could press his fingers to the ceilings without standing on tiptoe. But every house had a hot water system, a bath and flush lavatory, and nearly everyone was employed. There was so much work that firms advertised for workers overseas and natives of the kingdom were paid extra to work at week-ends and during public holidays. In the building industry the lowest paid were proudest of what they earned by overtime work so most of this gang worked a six-day week. A labourer who refused overtime was not exactly scorned as a weakling, but thought a poor specimen of his calling. Recently married men were notoriously poor specimens, but seldom for more than a fortnight.
A heavily built man called McIvor approached the trench and stood for a while watching the gang with a dour, slightly menacing stare which was a tool of his trade. When his presence was noticed by the ganger, McIvor beckoned him by jerking his head a fraction to the side. Mick laid his pick carefully down, dried his sweating face with a handkerchief, muttered, “No slacking, men, while I confabulate with our commanding officer,” and climbed out of the trench. He did not confabulate. He listened to Mclvor, stroked his chin then shouted, “Ian! Over here a minute!”
The youngest navvy, surprised, dropped his spade, leapt from the trench and hurried to them. McIvor said to him, “Do you want some overtime? Sunday afternoons, one to five.”
“Sure.”
“It’s gardening work but not skilled weeding, cutting grass, that sort of thing. It’s at the house of Mr Stoddart, the boss. He’ll give the orders. The rate is the usual double time. You get the money in your weekly pay packet.”
“I thought Old Joe did that job.”
“He does, but the boss says Joe needs help now.
What do you say? Yes or no?”
“Aye. Sure,” said the youngest navvy.
“Then I’ll give you a word of advice. Mick here has pointed you out as a good worker so you’d better be, because the boss has a sharp eye for slackers – comes down on them like a ton of bricks. He also has a long memory, and a long arm. If you don’t do right by Mr Stoddart you won’t just get yourself in the shit, you’ll make trouble for Mick here who recommended you. Right, Mick?”
“Don’t put the fear of death into the boy,” said the ganger, “Ian will do fine.”
In the bothy where the navvies had their lunch an ex-army man said loudly and cheerfully, “I see the fuckin Catholics are stickin to-fuckin-gether as per fuckin usual.”
“Could that be a hostile remark?” the ganger asked Ian, “Do you think the foul-mouthed warrior is talking about us?”
“Fuckin right I’m talking about yous! You could have gave the fuckin job to a fuckin family man like me with fuckin weans to feed but no, you give it to a fuckin coreligionist who’s a fuckin wean himself.”
“I’m not a Catholic!” said the youngest navvy, astonished. “Well how do you come to be so fuckin thick with Mick the Papal prick here?”
“I recommended the infant of the gang for three reasons,” said the ganger, “One, he is a bloody hard worker who gets on well with Old Joe. Two, some family men enjoy Sunday at home. Three, if one of us starts working around the boss’s house he’ll get the name of being a boss’s man, which is good for nobody’s social life, but Ian is too young to be thought that, just as Joe is too old.” “Blethers!” said the communist, “You are the boss’s man here, like every ganger. You’re no as bad as bastarding McIvor, but he comes to you for advice.”
“Jesus Mary and Joseph!” cried Mick to the youngest navvy, “For the love of God get out of this and apprentice yourself to a decent trade! Go up to the joiners’ bothy and talk to Cameron – they’re wanting apprentice joiners.”
“I’m not a Catholic, I’ve never been a Catholic,” said the youngest navvy, looking around the others in the bothy with a hurt, alarmed and pleading expression. The Highlander (who was also suspected of being Catho
lic because he came from Barra, and someone had said everyone from that island were Catholics) said, “You are absolved – go in peace,” which caused general amusement.
“Did you hear me Ian?” said the ganger sharply,
“I told you to get out of this into a decent trade.” “I might, when I’ve bought my Honda,” said the youngest navvy thoughtfully. He saw the sense in the ganger’s advice. A time-served tradesman was better paid and had more choices of work than a labourer, but during the apprentice years the wage would be a lot less.
“Why did a clever fella like you never serve your time as a tradesman, Mick?” asked the communist.
“Because at sixteen I was a fool, like every one of us here, especially that silly infant. I never wanted a motorbike, I wanted a woman. So here I am, ten years later, at the peak of my profession. I’ve a wife and five children and a job paying me a bit more than the rest of you in return for taking a lot of lip from a foul-mouthed warrior and from a worshipper of Holy Joe Stalin.”
“You havenae reached the peak yet Mick,” said the communist, “In a year or three they’ll give you McIvor’s job.”
“No, I’ll never be a foreman,” said the ganger sombrely, “The wages would be welcome, but not the loneliness. Our dirty tongued Orange friend will get that job – he enjoys being socially obnoxious.”
The foreman had given the youngest navvy a slip of paper on which was written 89 Balmoral Road, Pollokshields, and the route of a bus that would take him past there, and the heavily underlined words 1 a.m. on the dot. The boy’s ignorance of the district got him to the boss’s house seven minutes late and gasping for breath. He lived with his parents on a busy thoroughfare between tenements whose numbers ran into thousands. When the bus entered Balmoral Road he saw number 3 on a pillar by a gate and leapt off at the next stop, sure that 89 must be nearby. He was wrong. After walking fast for what seemed ten minutes he passed another bus stop opposite a gate pillar numbered 43, and broke into a jog-trot. The sidewalk was a gravel path with stone kerb instead of a pavement, the road was as wide and straight as the one where he lived, but seemed wider because of the great gardens on each side. Some had lawns with flower-beds behind hedges, some shrubberies and trees behind high walls, both sorts had driveways leading up to houses which seemed as big as castles. All of well-cut stone, several imitated castles by having turrets, towers and oriel windows crowned with battlements. Signboards at two or three entrances indicated nursing homes, but names carved on gate pillars (Beech Grove, Trafalgar, Victoria Lodge) suggested most houses were private, and so did curtains and ornaments in the windows. Yet all had several rooms big enough to hold the complete two-room flat where he lived with his parents, or one of the three-room-and-kitchen flats being built on the site where he laboured. But the queerest thing about this district was the absence of people. After the back of the bus dwindled to an orange speck in the distance, then vanished, the only moving things he saw were a few birds in the sky and what must have been a cat crossing the road a quarter mile ahead. His brain was baffled by no sight or sign of buildings he thought always went with houses: shops, a post-office, school or church. Down the long length of the road he could not even see a parked car or telephone box. The place was a desert. How could people live here? Where did they buy their food and meet each other? Seeing number 75 on another gate pillar he broke into an almost panic-stricken run.
Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012 Page 50