Alasdair Gray - Unlikely Stories Mostly

Kenneth said, “He looks like a toy dog knocked over on its side.”

“Is he asleep?”

“Don’t fool yourself. He hears every word we say.”

The dog opened its eyes, sneezed and got up. It came over to Gordon and grinned up at him but evaded his hand when he bent down to pat it and trotted up the path and touched the front door with its nose. The door opened and the dog disappeared into a dark hall. Kenneth and Gordon stood on the front step stamping their feet on the mat and clearing their throats. Sounds of female voices and clattering plates came from nearby and the noise of a wireless from elsewhere. Kenneth shouted, “Ahoi!” and Nan came out of a side door. She was a pleasant-faced blonde who would have seemed plump if her waist, wrists and ankles had not been slender. She wore an apron over a blue frock and held a moist plate in one hand. Kenneth said jocularly, “The dog opened the door to us.”

“Did he? That was wicked of him. Hullo, Gordon, why, what nice flowers. You’re always kind to me. Leave them on the hallstand and I’ll put them in water.”

“What sort of dog is he?” said Gordon.

“I’m not sure, but when we were on holiday up at Ardnamurchan the local inhabitants mistook him for a pig.”

A woman’s voice shouted, “Nan! The cake!”

“Oh, I’ll have to rush now, I’ve a cake to ice. Take Gordon into the living room, Kenneth; the others haven’t arrived yet so you’ll have to entertain each other. Pour yourselves a drink if you like.”

The living room was at the back of the house. The curtains, wallpaper and carpets had bright patterns that didn’t harmonize. There was an assortment of chairs and the white dog lay on the most comfortable. There was a big very solid oval table, and a grand piano with two bottles of cider and several tumblers on it. “I see we’re not going to have an orgy anyway,” said Gordon, pouring cider into a tumbler.

“No, no. It’s going to be a nice little family party,” said Kenneth, seating himself at the piano and starting to play. He played badly but with confidence, attempting the best known bits of works by Beethoven and Schumann. If he particularly enjoyed a phrase he repeated it until it bored him; if he made a passage illegible with too many discords he repeated it until it improved. Gordon stood with the tumbler in his hand, looking out the window. It opened on a long narrow lawn which sloped down between hedges to a shrubbery.

“Are you in love with Nan?” said Kenneth, still playing.

“Yes. Mind you, I don’t know her well,” said Gordon.

“Hm. She’s too matronly for me.”

“I don’t think she’s matronly.”

“What do you like about her?”

“Most things. I like her calmness. She’s got a very calm sort of beauty.”

Kenneth stopped playing and sat looking thoughtful. Voices and clattering dishes could be heard from the kitchen, a telephone was ringing and the noise of a wireless still came loudly from somewhere. Kenneth said, “She’s not calm when she’s at home. They’re all very nice folk, pleasant and sincere I mean, but you’ll find all the women of this family — Nan, her mother and grandmother and aunt — all talk too loudly at the same time. It’s never quiet in this house. Either the wireless is on loudly, or the gramophone, or both. I’ve been to one or two parties here. There are never many guests but I’ve always felt there are other parties going on in rooms of the house I don’t know about. Do you want to marry Nan?”

“Of course. I told you I loved her.”

Kenneth laughed and swung from side to side on the piano stool, making it squeak. He said, “Don’t mistake me — there’s nothing disorderly about the house. Nobody drinks anything stronger than cider. Nan’s father and brothers are so quiet as to be socially non-existent. You only see them at mealtimes and not always then. In fact I’m not sure how many brothers she has, or how large this family is. What are you grinning at?”

“I wish I could talk like you,” said Gordon. “You’ve told me nothing surprising about Nan’s family, yet you’ve made it seem downright sinister.”

Kenneth began to fumble out the tune of ‘The Lark in the Clear Air’.

“Anyway,” he said, “you won’t get a chance to be alone with her, which is what you most want, I suppose.”

Nan came in and said, “Gibson and Clare will be here in half an hour … er … would you like to have tea in the garden? It’s a good day for it. Mum doesn’t like the idea much.”

“I think it’s a fine idea,” said Kenneth.

“Oh, good. Perhaps you’ll help us with the table?” Gordon and Kenneth took the legs off the table, carried the pieces on to the back lawn and reassembled it, then put chairs round it and helped to set it. While they did so Nan’s mother, a small gay woman, kept running out and shouting useless directions: “Put that cake in the middle, Gordon! No, nearer the top! Did ye need to plant the table so far from the house? You’ve given yourself a lot of useless work. Well, well, it’s a nice day. Where’s my dog? Where’s my dog? Aha, there he is below the table! Come out, ye bizum! No, don’t tease him, Kenneth! You’ll only drive him mad.”

Gibson and Clare arrived. Gibson was a short thickly built man whose chin always looked swarthy. At first sight he gave a wrong impression of strength and silence, for he was asthmatic and this made his movements slow and deliberate. Though not older than Gordon or Kenneth his hair was getting thin. As soon as he felt at ease in a company he would talk expertly about books, art, politics and anything that was not direct experience. Clare, his girl-friend, was nearly six feet tall and beautiful in a consciously chaste way. Her voice was high-pitched, pure and clear, and she listened to conversation with large wide-open eyes and lustrous lips slightly parted. Her favourite joke was to suspect an indecency in an ordinary remark and to publicize it with a little exclamation and giggle. Kenneth had nicknamed the two Intellect and Spirit. He said there seemed nothing animal between them.

The tea was a pleasant one. Only Nan, her four guests and the dog were present, though. Nan’s mother often ran out with a fresh pot of tea or plate of food. The sun was bright, a slight breeze kept the air from being too warm, and Kenneth amused the company by talking about the dog.

“There’s something heraldic about him,” he said. “It’s easy to imagine him with another head where his tail is. Look, he’s getting excitable! He wants to sit on a chair! Oh, I hope he doesn’t choose mine.” The dog had been trotting round the table in a wide circle, now it came toward Kenneth, wagging its tail and grinning. Kenneth grabbed a plate of meringues and got down under the table with them. “These at least he shall not have!” he cried in a muffled trembling voice. The others laughed, left their chairs and finished the meal sitting on the grass. All but Gordon felt that pleasant drunkenness which comes from being happy in company. Kenneth crawled about the lawn on his knees with a sugar bowl in his hand and when he came to a daisy peered at it benevolently and dropped a small heap of sugar into the flower. Gibson crawled after him, adding drops from the milk jug. Clare sat with the dog on her lap and pretended to cut it up with a knife and fork. Actually she stroked and tickled its stomach gently with the edge of the knife and murmured baby-talk: ”Will I be cruel and eat oo up doggie? No, no, no, doggie, oo is too sweet a doggie to eat up.”