James Kelman - A Disaffection

It was high time he had a new motor car altogether. With a new motor car things would be better. Because if Alison had, by some weird stretch of the imagination, agreed to a drive to East Anglia it was fucking all too probable the engine would explode before reaching the damn border. It wasni only the doors that were going bad, so too were these other things, they were going bad as well. Different noises were becoming audible, getting made to become audible, the kind of noises that made you shut your eyes in immediate reaction. You heard them when turning a corner too fast or when sometimes he coasted to a stop with the engine switched off, that distant gentle thudding. Sometimes he wakened in the middle of the night with this really horrible feeling, a cold dankness smothering him, then gradually piecing it all together he would become aware of the motor car, it was that that was causing it, the motor car. Hopeless. A hopeless fucking vehicle. A no-longer-good vehicle. If it ever had been good. He had bought it privately through the newspaper car-sales pages. And if certain facts are indeed admitted, he probably only did it that way to impress the da and big brother. He usually

who cares.

The rain looked to have become a slush. An ice-rain, piling up on the lower parts of the windscreen, getting packed by the wipers. He was sitting forwards on the edge of the seat, head craned near to the windscreen, gaping into the glare. This ice-rain — sleet. It was sleet. Sleet a-falling. Not a night for driving. Definitely. Especially down that deathtrap of an A74 with all these bends and roadworks and these big picketmurdering artic lorries right up your arse. One time Patrick helped Gavin out as co-driver doing a fair-sized flitting for one of his neighbours and they hired an oldish three-ton van from a guy Gavin knew. It was a terrible drive. The van was overloaded and you felt the thing swaying as if about to topple over when the camber was out. And nobody gave you any fucking quarter either. These drivers, some of them are crazy. And then when they’re sitting behind you! having to hit up to eighty just to keep your nose in front. Terrible. And in bad weather even worse.

The sleet storm could mean that the arts centre mob would remain where they were until late, having poked their heads out and seen the state of it.

We’ll give it another half hour, says Desmond, and just see if it goes off.

Good idea, says Alison and back they all trudge, not especially wanting to return but better that than braving the wintry elementals. They will have had enough of each other by this time, stifled yawns and so forth, the occasional surreptitious glance to see if any acquaintances from other walks of life are in the vicinity.

With the new car he would certainly opt for a stereo hi-fi radio and cassette; whizzing along there listening to music or talks or taped radio drama, relaxing, tapping the fingers on the wheel the way you see other folk do when they’re stopped at traffic lights, and that pleasant look of soporicity, soporificity, a Latin root; sopor — sleep. Those drivers whose gazes are aye vacant. Pamp pamp, pamp pamp. Toot toooooot! O pardon me Charlie I was listening to the fucking in-car entertainment. Taking your mind away from itself, allowing the being to relax; thus driving becomes a pleasurable activity, something akin to smoking dope, the pipe of peace, slowly but surely the company lulled into slumber, the eyelids drooping, drooping, them trying o so hard to stay awake but no, they drift, drifting off into sleep, a pleasant soporicity, soporificity. The type of thing he never achieves. His fucking mind is always going this way or that way and he just never is able to get down and relax somewhere. Or even just becoming so totally exhausted that you collapse, that would suit him, just to collapse, after a momentous mental or spiritual task. Such as playing the pipes. Through that sort of act, attaining that sort of peace. But it all sounds so hopeless. It makes you turn from the actual thought; something you do not want to admit of — but it has to be faced, and with a smile! A brave smile. But get rid of the distancing. Stop trying to widen the gulf between yourself and the playing. You must approach it as arranged. Twenty minutes before the hour of ten. That remains the time. For sitting down and playing the pipes. I know, yes, but these things must be faced, the very notion itself being that wee bit, just that toty wee bit somehow well foolish, foolish, aye, that’s it out now, okay:

One grabs a pair of pipes from the rear of an arts centre and proceeds to blow sounds, and these sounds seem so perfectly stated that the pipes themselves are henceforth transformed, they are become transcendental objects, instruments of music! instruments of something greater than anything previously experienced, anything acted upon with you. With you.

What was it about that sound? as a matter of interest just. Was it something in the hollowness of tone? Was it something

What was it?

Such questions but, they cannot be formed in an authentic sense when the actual objects are divorced from the context. In order to realize their nature they have to be blown, the sounds are to be blown, the pipes must be blown. The pipes being the sounds of course. Hold onto that. And so what if you do have to resign. P for Patrick Doyle Esquire, a single man, a bachelor; a chap with little or no responsibilities. A teacher who has become totally sickened, absolutely scunnered. A guy who is all too aware of the malevolent nature of his influence. He is the tool of a dictatorship government. A fellow who receives a greater than average wage for the business of fencing in the children of the suppressed poor.

That’s the way of it, really.

And then you look at fucking auld Goya. Look at Goya for fuck sake, a man and a half. Ten men and a half! Still going strong there at seventy-five years of age, and that twist of the eyebrows. Ah for christ sake good night messrs one and all for this is indeed the way of it, the very essence of it.

The Clyde Expressway.

The sliproad up from Anderson Cross.

He was on the road to England.

Okay, settle down now; stop chortling, although:

Patrick, having opted for the M8, and now being on the road to England but it could be the road to Edinburgh or even Stirling — or even fucking Easterhouse and Barlanark — being not yet beyond the boundary of the city itself; and also

he was going to England.

No he wasnt he was going home, he was returning home. Maybe by way of a local pub, just for the one pint before heading upstairs to bed. He was drained, in a state of exhaustion. Such a long long day. When had this day started. 7 o’clock in the morning? Who could believe in such a devilishly hard thing to believe. It was positively disbelievable. always found such

How to get home. He should immediately snatch at the Fruit-market turn-off, head back down the Castle Street route, along Cathedral Street. That is the escape for someone in his predicament. Then why has he not fucking done it? Because the mental bastard is still on the road to England, and not stopping. How come he’s doing this? Whom is he trying to impress? Alison canni see him. She has no idea. Nor will she ever find out about it, about this great feat of derring-do. Not unless he fucking tells her!

But what is he doing it for?

And there now yes, the road to Stirling on the sweet sinister and there now yes, full steam ahead on the right, he has fucked off, he is making a bid for freedom. He is feart to face Old Milne on Monday morning. And there you have it. The heroic Doyle. Feart to face the fucking headmaster. In case he gets a row!

The Garthamlock turn-off. Are you not taking that either? No. Well, why bother even talking. The road to Edinburgh is soon and he will not be taking that yin too. He has decided to drive south on the road to England. So there you have it. Okay. It can be on his own head. Let it be on your own head. Okay then. Nobody in his right mind would know what to do with him. Let the damn fool stew in his own bloody fucking goose. Draw a veil over it. And so he continued thus, avoiding the road to Edinburgh, and onwards, straight ahead for England — maybe just to see how far this fucking rag tag and bobtail of a motor would take him because maybe it wouldni even get him as far as Ecclefuckingfechan, maybe no even Lesmafuckinghagow! Ha ha ha. So goodnight, buona sera ya fucking donkey.