William McIlvanney - The Papers of Tony Veitch

Laidlaw reached Mr Veitch and shook hands with him. They both said, ‘I’m sorry’ simultaneously. It seemed to Laidlaw like the most authentic communication they had had with each other, perhaps the most authentic communication two temporarily honest men could have.

Outside, the sunlight didn’t know Tony was dead. Some groups of people stood on the steps of the crematorium. Gus Hawkins detached himself from one of the groups and came across.

‘Hullo,’ he said. ‘How does it feel to be right?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ Laidlaw said.

‘I mean about Tony.’

‘I wasn’t right. I just didn’t believe anybody else was.’

‘I didn’t know policemen came to the funerals of people who were murdered.’

‘I don’t know if they do. I just came to this one.’

‘Why?’

‘It felt like something I should do. Your girlfriend. What’s her name?’

‘Marie.’

‘She didn’t come?’

‘She couldn’t face it. She went through to see her folks today. She’ll be back tonight.’

‘Where are you going now?’

‘Straight into a depression.’

‘You want to share it?’

‘You not working?’

‘Day off. I’ll stand you lunch.’

Gus looked at him, looked back at the students he had been talking to. His next remark seemed inspired by his identification with them.

‘This business? You get it on expenses?’

‘Okay. I’ll eat on my own.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s just habit. Fair enough. But I want mine mainly liquid.’

‘Don’t worry. I’ll be going to the bottom of a bottle or two myself. I just want some food as a lifeline. The car’s over there.’

They ate in the Lanterna — Sole Goujon and Frascati, mainly Frascati. They were a strange conjunction and they knew it. At first about the only thing they seemed to have in common was their separateness from the others in the room. There was a large group of businessmen at a table near them, full of expense-account bonhomie and the kind of laughter that sounds like the death-rattle of sincerity. One of them, a man about thirty whose smug abstention from proceedings had been suggesting that everything was a joke and he had heard the punch-line, began to talk about how boring travel was. His remarks developed into an account of all the places he had been.

‘He’s made his point well, that fella,’ Laidlaw said.

Gus was looking round a lot as he ate, frequently shaking his head at what he saw.

‘Look at that,’ he said.

Laidlaw saw a middle-aged fat man eating with a young woman. He wondered what Gus was seeing.

‘Jesus Christ,’ Gus said. ‘No wonder old Tony got angry.’

‘How?’

‘Look at him.’

‘It’s a fat man eating his dinner. What’s he supposed to do? Shove the food in his ears?’

‘You don’t see it?’

‘But I’m keen to learn. Tell me what you see, visionary.’

‘He’s just a bag of appetites, isn’t he? He’s lookin’ at her as if she’s next for eating. If he could pickle the world, he would swallow it.’

Laidlaw had to admit to himself he knew what Gus meant. The man had achieved that physical grossness you sometimes see, not just a matter of size. It was as if whatever alchemy it is that transmutes our hungers into an identity had broken down and he was left like a bulk container for all he had taken in. Laidlaw could understand how one of the idealistic young might see him as a slander on the species.

‘You’re not so far from Tony yourself, young Gus.’

‘In what way?’

‘You’re down with the galloping idealism. Your dreams are so pure, reality has no chance. You’ve got a kind of graffiti of the eyes. Most things you look at, you vandalise.’

‘Don’t compare me to Tony. I’m a Marxist.’

‘Is that why you have to sauce your meal with contempt for all the capitalists in the room? To make it edible?’

‘I want to stay true to my ideals.’

‘So did Tony. He was gang-banged by ideals, poor bastard. Mind you, no wonder he fell into their arms. It’s raining shite here every day. Everywhere he looked, he saw lavvies posing as temples. So he tried to idealise them out of existence. But that’s a bad mistake.’

‘So what’s that got to do with me?’

‘Well, I think you’re eventually on the same side. I think there are two main badnesses where we live. One’s kind of total cynicism. Using other people. Reducing them to objects because you can find nothing to believe in but yourself. That’s crime in all its multifarious forms, most of them legal. The other’s the determined ideal that won’t learn from experience. The need to be God’s relative. I think they’re twins. Bastard twins. The only legitimate thing we have is human experience. The possibility of the difference of tomorrow. The unimaginable difference. Unpreconceived. That requires the ability to entertain real doubt. I think Tony wanted certainty. I think maybe he died of the want of it. I hope to go on living. I think the key to that is knowing you don’t know.’

Gus sipped some Frascati.

‘All right,’ he said. ‘But maybe you’re making my point. You quoted Marx there. Or didn’t you know? The reduction of people to objects. That’s capitalism.’

‘That’s true. It’s also Marxism. It’s a wee bit disingenuous of Marx to restrict that definition to capitalism. It’s what he was on about as well. Or didn’t you know? What’s Marxism but ideological capitalism? He’s middle-class, of course. As far as wanting experience goes, more balls on a bumbee.’

‘Come on, polisman. Marx is middle-class?’

‘So was Lenin. Handed the revolution over to a caucus of intellectuals. Freedom involves the right to envision itself.’

Gus sneered over a forkful of fish, dismissing him. Laidlaw was smiling.

But the issues raised gave them a cubicle of preoccupation within the room. Another bottle of Frascati and a lot of argument later, they had achieved that heightened mutual awareness some discussions generate, a sense of the never-to-be repeated specialness of the collision they were having. Without either mentioning it specifically, it seemed natural to go on.

A laughing baby boy

One evening in his play

Disturbed the household with his noisy glee.

Well, I told him to keep quiet

But he soon would disobey.

He needed just a gentle word from me.

‘How often is he gonny play that Hank Snow record?’ Tich asked. ‘Ma gums are bleedin’.’

‘I like it,’ Sandra said.

‘We know that,’ Malkie said. ‘It’s the record we’re talkin’ about. Where’s Simpsy?’

‘Phonin’ again.’

‘Again?’ Malkie was amazed. ‘He holds that phone to his gub like one o’ them oxygen-masks. Whit’s the gemme?’

‘Some bird in Possil. Must be love. He canny play it much more often. How long till his train?’

‘Just over fifty minutes,’ Sandra said.

‘Come on, come on,’ Tich said. ‘Ye think he’s still going to Sammy Dow’s for a drink before he catches it?’

‘He said he is,’ Malkie said. ‘Crazy-cuts, though.’

‘Well. It’s his life.’

‘Might be ours as well, though,’ Malkie said. ‘If any o’ those teams catch up with him in there.’

‘Maybe we should tell ’im tae get a gildy on.’

Having said it, Tich looked at Malkie and Sandra. Nobody was volunteering to act on his suggestion. The music was like a locked door.

Well, I called him to my side

And said, ‘Son, you must go to bed

For your conduct has been very, very poor.’

With trembling lips and tears inside