James Kelman - A Disaffection

it didnt actually bear thinking about.

And that temptation! O god. That fucking temptation, that fucking o god and jesus and everything else and everything else; slow down, slow down; just stop and grab up the handbrake nice and snugly and gaze at the pedestrians walking at the CROSS NOW. Nice ordinary beings whose existential awareness comprises an exact perception of all that there is and can conceivably be; that’s the nature of it, that’s the fucking way of it; and inside the close Goya’s unblinkingness, that steady hand and honest vision, a crazy sort of nostalgia. That’s the most sentimental drivel in a long time. Have ye seen his face? The face. Have ye seen it? Patrick squinted into the rearview mirror, seeing the devilish cunning to the set of the eyebrows. The lights gone green. So this was the way ahead. He grinned, letting his foot rise from the clutch pedal. But wait a minute. The temporary English teacher whose name is Norman has a wife and three weans plus there’s the mother-in-law living with them, and then too his wife has missed her period. This is what the guy was blabbing to Alison about, his wife and three weans and that period. So what does that mean, missed a period, is that a pregnancy? Does it mean they’re going to have another kid? Or do mistakes still occur beyond such a point? If not the situation is dire right enough, him being temporary and soon to be back on the broo. That’s the way it goes poor bastard, a Bob Cratchit if ever this was one.

Then that story of Dostoievski’s! Imagine it! Going up and chapping the bloke’s door to see if he’ll come out for a pint. And then getting invited in and finding there’s a wee crowd of relatives and well-wishers gathered inside, all involved in a sort of party to celebrate the forthcoming happy event as implicit in the missed period. And Patrick blundering around trying to apologise for his conduct. Heaping congratulations and thanks onto his wife, praising the other three children and the proud mother-in-law who was probably quite elderly and large, or maybe even thin and frail. Then the ceilidh dancing would begin and he would be invited to remain and enjoy the proceedings; and he would invite the mother-in-law onto the floor and she would wind up fucking collapsing with a stroke because of the way he’s throwing her about during a Dashing White Sergeant for example. Then battling with folk — uncles and brothers and cousins — who’ve taken offence at the bad jokes he’s been cracking; horrible ill-conceived and ill-considered remarks and comments which amount to no more nor less than a very bad insult to Norman’s wife, or his wife’s mother. That kind of blundering stupidity. Just the actual idea of it! Christ. But it really was what you call going to the brink. Right to the very edge. Bending slightly to see over and into it; the precipice; over into the crater — just bending slightly, perched at the very edge, to see over it, into the very depths, right down and into the very depths. Ho. Jesus christ almighty, it was enough to make

something or other.

A fish-and-chip shop at the end of his street and he went there for a bit of grub; he got a fish supper and two buttered rolls. The people behind the counter were an Italian family by the name of Rossi. Four generations of them took turns working the place although the elderly patriarch hadnt been around for several days now. He was maybe ill. The shop stayed open till past midnight most of the week and the old boy was there the same as anybody else. He should probably have retired at least a decade back but kept on because he liked the company; the district itself — he probably liked that as well, having had to move out to a posh place on the south side to please the family but where he never really settled. So he continued putting in the long hours, much to the dismay of the younger folk who secretly must have wanted to see the back of him because when all was said and done he probably was a bit of a tyrant, maybe butting in too often on affairs that were private, telling the young yins whom they were to marry and so on and were they the correct religion and of the right family tree etcetera and if they werent then hard luck and buona sera ya bastard. You couldni blame the auld yin entirely though because it was him built the business up from scratch; slaving over a hot fucking fryer for seventy years only to see all these young whippersnappers and rascals throwing it to the dogs, the fish suppers and so on, all the rest of it! Patrick was chuckling quite loudly while fiddling with the key in the lock of his front door.

And if the truth be told it was these wee yarns he told himself that kept him fucking sane. Without them where would he be? Up a fucking gumpole.

The house was freezing. He kept on his outside clothes till the two bars of the fire glowed orange. He shoved a kettle of water on to boil, flipped the fish and chips onto a plate, used his fingers to eat it all up with. There was hardly a lick of butter on the rolls. One thing about the Rossi family: their total lack of sentimentality; he had been a regular for fucking donkeys but still there was nothing for nothing. The actual fish was not exceptionally white either although fair enough it was at least boneless. But this grey colour meant it had been frozen far too long. It was not unfresh, just not wholly white and new tasting, i.e. in a place like Montrose or fucking Pittenweem they’d have thrown it back in your face.

There was nothing quite like a good piece of bone-free haddock. And that was something else about being a vegetarian; did Mirs Houston actually give up fish as well as all the rest. You would be better off fucking who knows what, no point even considering alternatives. And yet it was one further instance of control, of gaining control over yourself, over your body, your physical well-being. Doctors had shown that vegetarians would generally be in finer health than meat-eaters. There again which doctors are we talking about are we talking about doctors who are vegetarians and therefore biased? Nothing worse than a biased doctor. And how could eating the flesh of dead animals be better than the other thing? The other thing? What other thing? What is this in reference to? Animals fed for the slaughter and those that are trapped in their own environment ergo fish? The distinction between being a cannibal and the straightforward eater of other human beings where these other human beings are bona fide victims of battle as in bygone eras when flesh of the dead brave was consumed by the victors in the belief that a portion of that courage would become part of themselves. In some countries they would kill fierce beasts for the same reason — lions and tigers, and bits of brave fighting bulls in Spain. Nothing wrong with that insofar as reason is regarded as the be-all and end-all. The Pythagoreans had a few wild theories, never touch a white cock for example which is obviously the same as do or dont touch a black cat. Whole lists of superstitious nonsense although it is wrong to describe them as nonsense, simply the common sense of an earlier stage in consciousness, and no more nonsensical than some of our present-day theories. It is always a matter of sifting the good from the bad, the theorems of reality from the shapes of absurdity. Seek and ye shall find. Old Milne’s face when the hands of the clock crept ever on and still the fellow hadnt arrived. Studying the door with that quizzical expression on the fizzog. Confound the fellow, where can he be! How on earth can he have forgotten!!

The very idea he could have forgotten deliberately.

The kettle of water was boiling. His hands were greasy from the fried food and he washed and dried them before sitting back down with a cup of tea. 7.40 p.m. In two hours time he would play the pipes. It wasnt because he had wanted to talk to her about them, it was because he’d had some fanciful notion of playing them with her there as audience, that was it, that was why he had been attempting to manoeuvre things so they would have got away from the idea of the arts centre, to get the temporary English teacher out the road, and then he could have invited her up for a coffee in his place.