James Kelman - A Disaffection

One of the two guys glanced at him. Pat stared to the front as he returned to the table. He sipped at his beer when seated. And now they would definitely be looking at him; they would make it plain; it would have to be seen as a challenge. But he had made his point. It was become best to leave. Now. He finished the beer, stuck the crisps into his pocket, got onto his feet again and, taking care not to face the bar, he walked steadily to the exit, the hand grabbing him and birling him roundabout and getting battered by a fist on the jaw — but no, and he stepped somewhat jerkily outside, the door closing behind. He felt like laughing, he had to stop himself from laughing, and he succeeded easily, it not being funny, it being no funny thing, no funny incident. It was deadly serious. Pat glanced back over his shoulder then continued along the road quickly.

Scott was unlucky. He got pipped at the post by The Foreigner Amundsen and received a posthumous knighthood, arise Sir Robert. While plucky old The Foreigner Amundsen kept going until being lost at sea some score of years later, out looking for a missing frigate the Nobile . Imagine being aboard the Nobile , one of its hands, and getting lost. What like would that have been! And was it even a frigate. It could have been a yacht. Out there drifting noiselessly midst the freezing, ice-laden fogs of Kilimanjaro.

What the fuck are ye blethering about ya fucking donkey!

Poor old donkeys.

If prostitutes’ feet are not warm should the client accede to the moral imperative vis-à-vis the bearing of hot water bottles as the universal male obligation? And the corollary:

what is the nature of a contract?

And:

was Kant a frosty auld shite?

Who knows. Who cares. Nowadays people dont even consider such idle controversy.

The serving of steak pie suppers in chip shops, with salt and sauce and vinegar.

An effervescent ending to his life, a sparkling effect — something to fire him straight upwards and outwards, out from the mire. He laughed at the tin of Andrews Liver Salts. He could swallow the whole fucking lot, the entire contents, followed by a bottle of disinfectant. Or maybe the other way about. All he sought was death. Death: purely and simple: simply and pure.

How come he was not able to just be dead like everybody else. Everybody else was dead. They were dead. How come he was not like them, and not able to just be dead. How come he was not able to just be dead and buried and out the road of trouble and strife and all things rotten and putrified and shitey.

Was it his fault? Was he the bloke to blame? The chap at whose feet etcetera.

Without other parties the house is cold. The house is not warm. The house is a cold place to be. To live in such a state in such a house, to not be with parties, to be cold and to be there, a party in such a state, of cold, a numbness, that lack of warmth, all-embracing, that cold clutch

a cold clutch, of something. There is a cold clutch of something. There in the house; a house of coldness, where nobody lives except this solitary, this one, when he has returned.

There can be spectres. Ghosts. Apparitiones. Nightly death-shades. An ethereal shade. Hosts of gloomy spectres.

One is dutybound. One is bound by one’s duty. One has made the contract towards life, the essentiality. Okay? Aye. Fine. So I can fuck off now? Aye, go ahead, I’m fine, fine, everything’s fucking okay.

So how do you do it. Well, you pick them up; but one at a time, obviously. The thinner one. It doesni actually seem as friendly as heretofore, but so what, it is just an instrument and not really anything, until being called into action. He blew the sound, his eyelids shut; then he was looking at the carpet, there was a threadbare patch; he laid down the pipe and knelt to examine it — it was almost a hole it was so thin. His maw had donated this carpet. But back to business. He picked up the pipe, the thinner one again. It was no use going to the other one, that would be wrong and silly, as though it was the pipe’s fault rather than his, for not attending to it properly. And concentration was just fucking there was not anything else; he closed his eyelids, back seated once again, and blew this note, not big enough then big enough and straightforwards, a note that was straightforwards, the sound. He paused for air, keeping his eyelids closed. But he opened them. Okay, it was still fine and he closed them once more and breathed in through his nostrils in a move and started then, there, at the back of the throat, the air expelled by the roof of the mouth fuck it was fine, right, and good also, exact and precise and the thing, just correct, correctly stated. A drone: not exactly, not exactly; no, not

It was rubbish. He dropped it to the floor and left the chair and went to the window. A crassness about it all. And there was that lassie across the way, the tenement across the street facing, the window looking out.

Perhaps he should not have painted the bloody things, that stupid enamel paint. Had he turned them into objects that were just fucking garish? Was he responsible for a quality of garishness? Until he had tampered with them they could not be said to be impure. Now they could be, they could be so designated. The lassie across the street used to stand by the window quite a lot but Pat hadni seen her for several weeks — a good couple of months — maybe back about December. One could construct a fantasy about her but that would be unclean. She could even have been one of his pupils. What age were folk?

What age were folk.

Patrick lifted the thicker pipe and settled himself on the floor, his rear to the settee. But before anything happened the settee shifted back the way on its castors and he needed things to be solid, if things were not solid how could he be expected to play things. This was the worst of it. But it was true. Things had to be solid. If they were not solid, christ.

He sat on the armchair. He very rarely used this armchair for any purpose yet here it was now becoming functional at long last. What did that imply. It implied that a teleological

And when the armchair was pushed back against the cupboard he could sit down on the carpet with his back placed firmly, solidly. That threadbare patch was quite large all things considered so why the fuck had he never noticed it before. How come his mother had never said anything about it. I mean that was distinctly odd. Most not like the Mistress Doyle who was rapidly becoming older than she used to be, the da’s last heart attack probably. She was getting quite absent-minded. She was only in her mid-fifties as well and scarcely to be described as ‘old’; you dont describe somebody in their mid-fifties as ‘old’. Having the wealthy schoolteacher for a son, who fails to remember her birthday till the very last moment, when it is over and in the past, this is the sort of son she has, a son

But that was fine that was fine.

How come him and Sheila Monaghan had never slept together? It was so good getting her bra off and there was that time as well when she let her hand lie on his bollocks and maybe you were thinking she knew more than she was letting on, maybe that was it and just Doyle being too inexperienced to see what was what. But surely if they had truly, if they had truly, if

fuck off

He blew a sound, deep, long; a good sound. He blew another one, the same sounding. He did another one and extended it. These sounds were good sounds. He was pleased with them. He had wanted to prove he could do it and he had been successful. He had achieved it, he had blown them — he was blowing them. He blew another, shortened, a shortened version. He laid down the pipe and got up onto his feet. The lassie had gone from the window.

Sex.

Pat was at the mantelpiece, elbows up on its edge and his chin on the backs of his clasped fingers, staring into the wall. If he stared hard enough he could see this wee toty hole in the wallpaper, it being porous. He