William McIlvanney - Strange Loyalties

‘You bastards!’ I shouted. ‘Eat money. It’s all you can fucking taste.’

I decanted the money carefully into the biggest Boeuf Bourgignon in the world. As I did so, I shook the pot meticulously along the full length of the dish, as if to make sure the ingredients were properly mixed. The coins rasped against the inside of the pot to shower on to the stew and submerge in it, instantly indistinguishable from the food. The notes fluttered and settled on the surface like some novel topping of yuppy haute cuisine. I stood looking at them, holding the charity pot that contained nothing but verdigris.

Into a vacuum of astonishment rushed a hubbub of shock. I was confronting a hydra of contorted faces. Voices bayed outrage at me. Five or six men, Barry Murdoch among them, started towards me. I wanted them to come ahead. The first one to reach me would be wearing a metal flowerpot for a hat.

‘Stop this!’

The stridency of the voice froze the room.

‘This stops now!’

The voice was Jan’s. Everybody waited, held in their poses.

‘Nobody will touch that man. Nobody. Jack, you leave now. Leave!’

I set down the flowerpot, which was as empty as my sense of myself.

‘Betsy. Let him out. And nobody touch him. Don’t dare.’

I passed through them like somebody walking among statues. Betsy let me out and locked the door behind me. I stood on the cobblestones of the alleyway in the soft rain. And drunkenness, like a false friend who was only there for the wild times, deserted me at once. I felt I had nowhere to go. I felt I had no one to be. I seemed to have consumed myself in my own grand gesture. I stood in a void and was simply a part of it. The rain was more real than I was.

‘Jack.’

It took me some time to locate the voice. It was Jan, standing on her balcony. No place was ever further away or less attainable than that balcony. Once she knew I was seeing her, she threw something down to me. My hands reached out automatically and caught it. It was a plastic bag. It didn’t weigh much.

Romeo in middle age: you won’t have to climb up to the balcony, which is maybe just as well. Juliet will stand there and fire down at you whatever you need, and even what you don’t need.

‘Just in case,’ she said, ‘you ever imagine you’ve got a reason for coming back here.’

She went into the flat. I looked in the bag. There were some of my clothes there. Maybe they were telling me who I was — Tom Docherty’s iron rations of the self. They brought me back from the disorientated wildness of what my mood had been, reminded me that living is a matter of small practicalities. Postures solve nothing. Action, not movement. It was necessary to re-engage with the small practicalities. I decided on the first one.

Taxi-time.

And on the seventh day I rested. It’s exhausting trying to remake the world in your own image.

As I let myself into the flat, carrying my little parcel of rejection from Jan, the phone was ringing. Moving hurriedly through the darkness, I stumbled on something and cursed it. It hadn’t been there when I left. Had the furniture been mating in my absence? I lifted the phone.

‘Where are you?’

It was a good question. I would have to give it some thought. ‘We’re having a slight gay-and-hearty here. You should be the guest of honour.’

It was Brian Harkness. He sounded like a town-crier. I had to hold the ear-piece side-on to my head. There was the sound of merriment in the background.

‘Jack? Is that you? What are you doing there? We’re in the Getaway. Behind closed doors. A mob of us. Marty was great tonight. They’re all asking for you. That doesn’t happen often. You should cash in on it while it lasts. Get over here. We’ve done it, we’ve done it. Mason, Brogan and Walker. How’s that for a half-back line? Signed, sealed and delivered.’

‘That’s good.’

‘Matt Mason still hasn’t believed it, I don’t think. You should have seen his face. When we were bringing him out, he looked as if he’d never seen a street before. As if he didn’t recognise where he lived.’

I thought of Betty Scoular staring out of her doorway. Matt Mason had earned his alienation from himself.

‘So are ye comin’? Even Big Ernie Milligan’s here.’

‘That’s a good enough reason for stayin’ away. I’m having my own wee ceremony here, Brian. Thanks all the same.’

‘Ah can imagine that. Come on, Jack. Get outa there.’

‘Not tonight. I’m tired.’

‘Well, listen. That meal’s still on. This week. Morag says you have been warned. No excuses will be accepted.’

‘No excuses will be made. I’m looking forward to that.’

‘Bob and Margaret as well. We’ll have a night. Listen. Jack. Are you all right?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean, you’ve laid the ghost?’

‘Oh, I think so. I’m not sure where I’ve laid it, right enough. But I’ve laid it somewhere.’

‘No more trips to funny places? I mean, I need the car.’

‘I’ll see you on Monday.’

‘Okay. Take care.’

‘Enjoy.’

‘Oh, Jack. Bob Lilley says you’re the best. You could cobble a solution out of anything.’

But the cobbler’s children, they say, are always the worst shod. I couldn’t solve the problems of my own life. When I put on the light, I saw that I had tripped over my travelling-bag. I hadn’t thanked Brian for delivering it. Scott’s two paintings were leaning against a wall. The Antiquary, sadly diminished, stood on the sideboard along with the green ashtray from David Ewart’s workshop.

I would have liked to give him Michael Preston’s version of how idealism died. I felt I owed it to him. But then it was the story of a criminal act. Some of those involved in it were still alive. If I told David Ewart, it would have to be an anonymous account, with names omitted to protect the guilty.

At least later today I could phone Betty Scoular. Dan Scoular’s death was going to be paid for. That might help her to let the grave settle and go on to wherever her life was taking her. I hoped so. This place needed women like her at full strength, not debilitated by the unjust wounds that had been inflicted on them. I might also phone Fast Frankie White. At the moment he deserved to have whatever fragile peace of mind his nomadic sense of himself was capable of. I hoped his mother was finding a painless way to go. I could still feel the echo of her gentle, dying hand in mine. I wished Melanie well. At least we shouldn’t have to use the tape.

I drew the curtains. The place looked slightly less bleak that way. It didn’t change my mood but it put a blindfold on my loneliness, so that it had nothing to compare itself with. I opened the plastic bag Jan had given me. Two shirts came out, then two pairs of underpants, then three socks. They were unwashed. I could imagine her wrenching them from the laundry-basket in her anger. I smiled wryly to think of that one buried, subversive sock. Parting is never easy. Something of the other will remain against your will. But, in this case, not for long, I could imagine. There was still something that weighed lightly in the plastic bag. I reached in and brought out a packet of cigarettes. I opened it. There were three cigarettes inside. In the pettiness of the gesture I saw the finality of her dismissal. Maybe she would fumigate the place to complete the process.

It was cold. I put on the gas fire. I unzipped my travelling-bag and put away such clothes as weren’t to be washed. Then I took what was for washing and put it in the washing machine. For some sentimental reason I did not care to examine, I included the odd sock. I suspect I was imagining myself as some embarrassing variant of Prince Charming. If I were ever again to match it up with its neighbour, I would be with my own true love. No wonder I hid from my motivation. I took the washing powder from under the sink and filled the white plastic drawer. I closed the machine and started it up. The sudden noise in the stillness reminded me with a shock that we were in the early hours of Sunday morning. I switched the sound off at once, grimacing to myself. I stood in the kitchen and started to worry about what living alone was doing to me. Perhaps I would finish up existing inside a private timescale of impulse and compulsion.