James Kelman - A Disaffection

What was wrong with him there was something wrong with him, with he. Had Alison

What had she

What was the question, the form of questioning.

The transfer was a strange thing except for the most stupit of all explanations, just that he had done it in a fit of pique, maybe while under the influence, but not drunk, just having had a couple, maybe after a Friday’s lunch with the colleagues, and he had got truly browned off, more than usual, and then he had just gone ahead and fucking done it, anything’s fucking possible, for christ sake, probability, that’s all we know about, fucking probability. And these bloody strange damn stupit events. This was a problem with being Doyle pee for Patrick, one was inclined to perform the less weightier feats, the slightly more absurd actions, the grosser deeds. What was wrong with him. What was actually wrong with him! What was actually fucking wrong with him christ you felt like asking such questions with a blanket over your head they were so shameful, so fucking shameful. What he should do is get out the house. He had to get out the house. He had to get

out

the house. Why was he not out the house? Why was this him here? Why was for christ sake and not partaking of the glorious riches of this postindustrialised western capitalisticobliquesocialisticexploitative

How come he wasnt blowing it up? Yessir, that was the first fucking out-in-the-open question he had posed for quite some certain length of the present.

So sentimental but that was the problem.

A motor car arriving down in the street. A man without a hat, on the pavement opposite, entering the close next to the one where the lassie lived. With a blunderbuss etcetera etctera, one could have blown him apart if perhaps he had been a member of the baddies. Pat’s shins burnt: the material of the trousers touching against them, and burning, from where he had been in front of the fire at the mantelpiece; and what a sharp pain when he rubbed the right one! really fucking sore — he raised the trouser leg, the skin being ripped asunder, there on the shin, the skin was torn. Some blood too although dried and hardened. It was from when he had tripped and cracked it on the stairs earlier at school. The image of a splintered shinbone; hopping to the hospital, queuing there with all your health insurance certificates, seeking a good firm glue and the aid of a strong pair of hands. The nurse telling ye to stop behaving like a spoiled brat and to cut out that sobbing. But please miss I’ve got a splintered shinbone! Stop your fucking nonsense and away home at once ya naughty boy. But I’m twenty-nine! I’ll twenty-nine ye!

Imagine finding a nurse like that. And probably she would want to take you home and insist on you hiring an ambulance so ten minutes later there you are home with this nurse, would you care for a coffee while we’re waiting for the glue to set; well okay, if you would; well I actually would so will I just pour you one, or what; aye, just fucking pour it; and her tits soft and supple, in the name of the holies.

When I am dead.

When I am dead I shall be thingwi and there shall be no more problems insofaras the world ceases to exist when I shut the fucking eyelids. Okay! I’m going to fucking wipe yous out ya bastards. One quick blink.

Sex though.

Sex. Erections and fantasies.

Here you have women and men

This is a man

Doyle needs a woman.

What a fucking syllogism that is! A fucking beauty! No wonder the dark ages were so fucking absolutely unregenerative.

Right.

Okay. One could actually make a sign at the window to the lassie. What would be the nature of the sign. In what sense could it be true for her while being true for myself. And if this sign managed to be true for us both what would happen next.

It wouldnt work that way. She would just see me and know straight off what was happening and when I flickered my eyelid a fraction that would be that and ten minutes later she would meet me at the foot of her stairs and off we’d go for a night on the town, and on to a cosy wee restaurant maybe followed by a quiet disco for a wee dance, then home, her head on my shoulder as I drive slowly in that direction:

I had been standing by the window for the past six months awaiting just such a sign Patrick.

For god sake woman how did you no tell me!

I was too bashful.

Too bashful! Aw … I see … But you could just have maybe I dont know, waved or something. But her father of course. The lassie didni want to take any chances in case he spotted her. What a jealous auld guy her da is! Never lets her out his sight. So she has to just stare out the fucking window all the time. Some fucking social life! Almost as bad as Doyle P. MA (Hons). That’s how come the pair of them are so suited. That’s how come

The phrase ‘hollowness of tone’; what did it mean. Why was it in his head. Hollowness of tone. It was a fine and smashing phrase. There is something of it in the work of old Goya. It is a thing that what is it. What is it. I wonder what the fuck it is. An ineffability about such abstractions, these affairs that arent tangible, the slippery yins, and only their names remain, arcana celestiae

Back to the drawing-board! Yet the lassie: still standing there, not too close to the window, so that she can remain unseen from outside. She will have a body. Yes. Legs and torso and arms and all the rest of it. She will have them, she herself. And maybe she isnt a lassie, maybe she just looks young from a distance. She might be a lady of some seventy summers.

The pipes.

This thinner one was the first Patrick encountered and usually it is the first he lifts whenever he begins

it all falls to ashes

he lifted the thicker, raising the top to his mouth, closed the eyes to help compress the lips, inhaling through his nostrils; and then the blow, and he controlled it; the sound from the back of the throat and by the roof of the mouth, the air deriving from the pits of his lungs. He was producing it. It was strange but true, that such a thing could be produced by him. He kept his eyes shut, there was a shiver from his shoulders. What the hell was this act and aye that bloody shiver. Was it actually conceivable what was being produced was a genuine musical art? No. There wasni any point in going as far as that. What was important was just — that here was an act that had an essential quietness about it, a breathing space, it was more like a sort of breathing space, that he was producing.

Jesus christ.

It actually made sense too. Through whatever it was he was doing he was managing to produce this effect of space, a thing that was spatial. That is what it was. That was fucking how it called up such phrases as ‘hollowness of tone’. And these associations with Goya’s wee dog. Fuck. Jesus christ. A calming! He was on his feet. He looked at the pipe. He sat back down on the settee. He was doing it wrong he had to do it right, the playing, before anything else the conceptualising especially especially the fucking conceptualising the bastards, the fusty fucking webs; he blew a note and it was not correct, he blew a note that was not correct; he was not blowing a note that was correct. He laid down the pipe. He had spoiled it, for now. He had had it and he had lost it. He was to see Alison immediately.

But he was to phone firstly. He had to give her warning. He could not simply fucking arrive. The husband and perhaps all her bloody in-laws all sitting having their tea and there he is chapping the door and seeking an interview with her, your woman there the em for mirs. He was just to phone. Torture torture torture. He was just to phone. You lift the receiver, inserting the fingertip, dragging out the opening digit; and the second. And the third! The next and the next

Hullo?