Or is it an insane idea? Henry Pitt is over sixty, must soon retire and has no children. Phimister has his Loch Lomond fish farm. It began as a rich man’s hobby because he enjoys messing about in boats, but Mulgrew and Tramworth gave him a lot of help and a recent article in The Scots Magazine said it was now profitable. It also quoted him as saying, “I want a cleaner, fresher life for my children. Modern cities are becoming intolerable.” If Pitt and Phimister sold the business they would make quite a lot. Since it is the only remaining firm of its kind in Scotland the buyers would almost certainly be southerners who would keep the depots but shut this distribution centre. Do you think we are coming to that, Lumley? It has happened with ship building, the car industry, textiles, steel, sanitary engineering et cetera.
I have had another idea. If they decide to sell us off could not a few of us (me, you, Mrs Macleod, Helen Scrimgeour, Colin Shand and maybe some others) put in an offer for the distribution part – this part – and buy it and run it for ourselves? We know how to do it. I would really like to talk to you about this. You are the only member of the senior management who listens to what I say and knows what I mean. Also, if a sell-out is being planned you will be one of the first to know about it. You also went to the same school as Phimister, so understand these things much better than I do.
A NEW WORLD
MILLIONS of people lived in rooms joined by long windowless corridors. The work which kept their world going (or seemed to, because they were taught that it did, and nobody can ever be taught the exact truth) their work was done on machines in the rooms where they lived, and the machines rewarded them by telling them how much they earned. Big earners could borrow money which got them better rooms. The machines, the money-lending and most of the rooms belonged to three or four organizations. There was also a government and a method of choosing it which allowed everyone, every five years, to press a button marked STAY or CHANGE. This kept or altered the faces of the politicians. The politicians paid themselves for governing, and also drew incomes from the organizations which owned everything, but governing and owning were regarded as separate activities, so the personal links between them were dismissed as coincidences or accepted as inevitable. Yet many folk – even big earners in comfortable rooms – felt enclosed without knowing exactly what enclosed them. When the government announced that it now governed a wholly new world many people were greatly excited, because their history associated new worlds with freedom and wide spaces.
I imagine a man, not young or especially talented, but intelligent and hopeful, who pays for the privilege of emigrating to the new world. This costs nearly all he has, but on the new world he can win back four times as much in a few years if he works extra hard. He goes to a room full of people like himself. Eventually a door slides open and they filter down a passage to the interior of their transport. It resembles a small cinema. The émigrés sit watching a screen on which appears deep blackness spotted with little lights, the universe they are told they are travelling through. One of the lights grows so big that it is recognizable as a blue and white cloud-swept globe whose surface is mainly sun-reflecting ocean, then all lights are extinguished and, without alarm, our man falls asleep. He has been told that a spell of unconsciousness will ease his arrival in the new world.
He wakens on his feet, facing a clerk across a counter. The clerk hands him a numbered disc, points to a corridor, and tells him to walk down it and wait outside a door with the same number. These instructions are easy to follow. Our man is so stupefied by his recent sleep that he walks a long way before remembering he is supposed to be in a new world. It may be a different world, for the corridor is narrower than the corridors he is used to, and coloured matt brown instead of shiny green, but it has the same lack of windows. The only new thing he notices is a strong smell of fresh paint.
He walks very far before finding the door. A man of his own sort sits on a bench in front of it staring morosely at the floor between his shoes. He does not look up when our man sits beside him. A long time passes. Our man grows impatient. The corridor is so narrow that his knees are not much more than a foot from the door he faces. There is nothing to look at but brown paintwork. At length he murmurs sarcastically, “So this is our new world.”
His neighbour glances at him briefly with quick little shake of the head. An equally long time passes before our man says, almost explosively, “They promised me more room! Where is it? Where is it?”
The door opens, an empty metal trolley is pushed obliquely through and smashes hard into our man’s legs. With a scream he staggers to his feet and hobbles backward away from the trolley, which is pushed by someone in a khaki dust-coat who is so big that his shoulders brush the walls on each side and also the ceiling: the low ceiling makes the trolley-pusher bend his head so far forward that our man, retreating sideways now and stammering words of pain and entreaty, stares up not at a face but at a bloated bald scalp. He cannot see if his pursuer is brutally herding him or merely pushing a trolley. In sheer panic our man is about to yell for help when a voice says, “What’s happening here? Leave the man alone Henry!” and his hand is seized in a comforting grip. The pain in his legs vanishes at once, or is forgotten.
His hand is held by another man of his own type, but a sympathetic and competent one who is leading him away from the trolley-man. Our man, not yet recovered from a brutal assault of a kind he has only experienced in childhood, is childishly grateful for the pressure of the friendly hand.
“I’m sure you were doing nothing wrong,” says the stranger pleasantly, “You were probably just complaining. Henry gets cross when he hears one of our sort complain. Class prejudice is the root of it. What were you complaining about? Lack of space, perhaps?”
Our man looks into the friendly, guileless face beside him and, after a moment, nods: which may be the worst mistake of his life, but for a while he does not notice this. The comforting handclasp, the increasing distance from Henry who falls farther behind with each brisk step they take, is accompanied by a feeling that the corridors are becoming spacious, the walls farther apart, the ceiling higher. His companion also seems larger and for a while this too is a comfort, a return to a time when he could be protected from bullies by bigger people who liked him. But he is shrinking, and the smaller he gets the more desperately he clutches the hand which is reducing his human stature. At last, when his arm is dragged so straight above his head that in another moment it will swing him clear of the floor, his companion releases him, smiles down at him, wags a kindly forefinger and says, “Now you have all the space you need. But remember, God is trapped in you! He will not let you rest until you amount to more than this.”
The stranger goes through a door, closing it carefully after him. Our man stares up at a knob which is now and forever out of his reach.
ARE YOU A LESBIAN?
THOUGH I SPEAK with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.’ – Paul wrote this in his first letter to the Christians of …
“Excuse me but I want to ask you one question, just one question. Are you a lesbian?”
“I am not a lesbian.”
“That answer, if you will pardon me for saying so, is not satisfactory. For the last two Sunday mornings I have watched you stroll in here at five-thirty, wearing jeans. You order a pint of lager, bring it to this corner and sit reading a book and shrugging off every man who tries to start a conversation with you. Why act that way if you arenae a lesbian?”
“That is your second question. You said you would ask just one.”
“Aye, all right. I take your point. Fair enough.” Paul wrote this in his first letter to the Christians of Corinth, less than tw
enty years after Christ was crucified. And now, a question.
What do we need most in life? What, if we suddenly lost it, would make us both feel, and be, worthless? Some Christians will answer: their religion. They think their lives are given meaning by their faith in God who made and sustains the universe and became Jesus of Nazareth. Well, they are wrong. Faith in God can make us very strong – for centuries it has enabled Christians to suffer and inflict, prolong and endure hideous agonies for the most splendid reasons. But it is not what God wants. Paul tells us why: ‘Though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not Love, I am nothing.’ ‘Though I give my body to be burned, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.’
In many (not all) Bibles you will read ‘charity’ where I have written ‘Love’. Paul used a Greek word meaning ‘loving respect’ – the deepest affection possible between people. Charity used to mean that in English, but has come to mean ‘goodness to people who are badly off.’ This sort of goodness can be a wonderful expression of Love, but is not Love itself. People have founded hospitals …
“Excuse me, I know I’m butting in again but I have something to say which will do you good if you will only listen to me and not lose your temper. There is only one reason why a man or a woman comes to a pub and it is not the booze. You could easily be drinking cans of lager in the privacy of your ain hame and it would be cheaper, for Christ’s sake. So like everybody who comes to a pub you are here for the company, so why shut me out by sticking your nose in a book? I mean no offence, but you are a very attractive woman, in spite of wearing jeans and no being very young. I cannae be too plebeian nor too old for ye neither. You would have gone to a pub higher up Byres Road if you wanted posher or younger company.”
“I will tell why I come here if you promise to leave me in peace afterward.”
“Fair enough. Fire away.”
“I have two daughters and a son in their late teens, and a homeloving husband who works in the finance department of the district council. They leave all housework to me but I enjoy keeping the house clean and tidy so can honestly say I do not feel exploited. I do voluntary work for Save the Children, and Amnesty International. I have no money worries, family worries, health worries and used to think I was one of the luckiest people alive. Nothing seems to have changed but my life is now almost unbearable. No doubt a doctor would blame the menopause and prescribe Valium. I think I’ve suddenly started seeing myself clearly after eighteen years of looking after other people.
“You see my father was a Church of Scotland minister and I loved him a lot – he was kind and distant and mysterious. Like most Protestant clergymen he was probably embarrassed by drawing wages to go about looking better than other people. The best clergymen get over their embarrassment by working hard – running soup kitchens, getting decent clothes for families who can’t afford them, visiting the lonely. My father’s church was in a posh suburb. Everybody in the congregation seemed prosperous so we never noticed the poor. He spent most of the time between meals in his study, writing sermons for Sunday. They were no better than other ministers’ sermons but his elocution and manners were perfect, old ladies loved him, everybody admired what they called his unworldliness. I only noticed he was a fraud when I got to university.
“I enjoyed university because I believed I was becoming better – better than him. I took Divinity and was preparing for the ministry …
“Wait a minute! You were studying to be a Church of Scotland minister?”
“Yes.”
“Since when has the Church of Scotland allowed women ministers?”
“Since the sixties. A woman applied for ordination and there was no law against it.”
“Though not a churchgoer or a strict Christian I have strong Protestant sympathies, and women ministers just don’t seem right.”
“Then leave me alone.”
“No no! I’m sorry! I mean go on and tell me what is wrong with your marriage. My own marriage is not what it should be. I will regard it as a great favour if you ignore my interruption and spill the beans.”
“All right. At university I joined a lot of societies – The Students’ Christian Union, The Iona Community and Christians Against the Bomb. I had lots of friends who knew the world should and could be improved, and worked at it. But I began to feel something essential was missing from our lives – God. When I prayed I never felt closer to anyone. When I asked my religious friends how it felt to have God beside them they got embarrassed and changed the subject. Why are you grinning?”
“I know a bloke who feels God is with him all the time. The two of them go along Dumbarton Road together having frantic arguments, though we only hear what poor Jimmy says. ‘I refuse to do it!’ he shouts. ‘You have no right to order me to do it! You’ll get me the jail!’ It seems God keeps telling him to smash the windows of Catholic bookshops.”
“Yes, anybody who hears the voice of God nowadays is deluded. God said everything we need to know through the words of Jesus. But many sane people have felt God’s presence since Jesus died. I used to read their autobiographies, they made me envious – and angry too. Some were saintly junkies, hooked on the Holy Ghost like cocaine addicts to their dealer, passing miserable weeks waiting for the next visitation. I was not so greedy. One wee visit would have satisfied me – I could have lived on the memory ever after. But if I became a minister of God without once feeling God loved and wanted me I knew I would end up a fraud like my father. The nearest I could get to God was in books, which were not enough. I lost interest in Christianity, fell in love with a healthy agnostic and married instead. It was easy.”
“Do you know what I’m going to tell you?”
“Yes – that it was the best thing which could have happened to me. If you shut your mouth and listen as you promised I’ll explain why it was not.
“I’ve always found it easy to give the people nearest me what they want. As a student I worked perfectly with busy, excitable, eccentric Christian Socialists. After marriage I perfectly suited someone who wanted a wife to give him polite well-dressed children and a home where he could entertain his friends and colleagues and their wives. So marriage completely changed my character and maybe destroyed part of it. Nowadays I want to hear people talk about the soul, and God, and how to build bridges between them. I can meet these people in books – nowhere else – but my friends and children and husband give me no peace to read. They can’t stop telling me news and discussing problems which strike me as increasingly trivial. I can’t help listening and smiling and answering with an automatic sympathy I no longer feel. They cannot believe my reading matters. If I locked myself for an hour in the bedroom with a book and a can of lager they would keep knocking on the door and asking what was wrong. Now you know why I come here to read.”
Some have founded hospitals for the poor because they wanted popularity or fame or felt guilty about their wealth. That is why Paul says ‘Though I bestow all my goods to feed …’
“Wait a minute. Have you tried going to church?”
“Often. It was what I usually did on Sundays but the prayers now sound meaningless to me, the hymns like bad community singing, the sermons as dull as my father’s. Two weeks ago, without telling my family, I came here instead. Nobody I know will ever come to this pub, and it doesn’t play loud music. And I like the company, you were right about that.”
“Eh?”
“Yes. I feel less lonely among people who are quietly talking and drinking – as long as they don’t talk to me or lay their hand on my thigh.”
“It won’t happen again.”
“Enjoying a pint and a read here is my Sunday service. Can I go on with it?”
“Aye. Sure. Of course. I meant no offence.”
That is why Paul says, ‘Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and have not Love, it profiteth me nothing.’ Peter says the same: ‘Above all things have fervent love among yourselves.’ John goes further: ‘God is love.’ And Jesus gave us a comma
ndment which makes all laws needless for those who obey it: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and all your soul, and your neighbour as yourself.’ Remembering this, let us return to Paul.
Love suffereth long, and is kind; Love envieth not, and is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked …
“Excuse me for butting in again but I’ve been giving some thought to your problem.”
is not easily provoked …
“I think I see where the solution lies.”
is not easily provoked …
“I know as well as you do that sex is not the reason for everything but …”
“YAAAAEEEE HELP BARMAN HELP!!!!”
“For Christ’s sake …”
“Right, what’s happening here?”
“Barman, this man nipped me.”
“She’s a liar, I never touched her!”
“Yes you touched me. I asked you again and again not to, but for twenty minutes you’ve sat here nip nip nipping my head like, like a bloody husband. Please get him off me, barman.”
“Right you – outside. This is not the first time I’ve seen you at this game. Out you go.”
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving. But let me tell you something: that woman is a nut case – a religious nut case.”
Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1951-2012 Page 55