James Kelman - A Disaffection

Pat stared at him.

Gavin raised his right hand and started flapping it open and shut while calling: Rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit; rabbit rabbit rabbit rabbit. All your teachers and all your fucking students and pupils and all your fucking headmasters and your cronies from the fucking staffroom. Fucking middle-class bunch of wankers ya cunt! Gavin sat back on the chair and drew his feet up onto it, sitting on his heels, and he swallowed the whisky in a gulp and put the tumbler up onto the mantelpiece. He got his packet of fags open and stuck one in his mouth, then threw the packet to Davie a moment later. He glanced at Patrick briefly: I’ll be glad to see you finished with it, dont worry about that.

What do you mean middle-class wankers? said Pat.

Gavin shook his head. He replied, I didni mean them all.

You fucking said it.

I know I fucking said it.

Well ye fucking must’ve meant something.

Aye, I meant something, I meant middle-class wankers; middle-class wankers, that’s what I meant. Okay? Middle-class wankers.

Who exactly?

Whoever you fucking like brother.

Do you mean me? Are you fucking calling me a middle-class wanker?

Gavin laughed and snapped the spent match into two pieces, dumped them in the ashtray. He stopped laughing, but continued to look at Patrick until Patrick felt he wouldnt be able to stop himself laughing he was going to burst out laughing, right in Gavin’s face, but he fought it without any problem because what was happening was not funny and his own face was become set and grim, set and grim, because here you had a big brother just staring at him now and not saying a word. And Patrick said, Dont come it Gavin.

Come what? Then Gavin grinned and shook his head, reached for the superlager. After drinking from it he picked the cigarette out of the ashtray and dragged on that. Arthur and Davie were both doing their best not to be involved in the shit. They were just aw christ fuck all, they werent doing fuck all except sitting and drinking and smoking and being alive and doing their best and fucking stupit, Paddy’s glass nearly dropping out his hand. But was he playing for sympathy? is that how come he nearly dropped it? Maybe he was hoping they would step into the fray and fix things so that all would be okay again and they could all be muckers and just sit back and I dont know christ anything, tell stories or something, wee yarns about going over the sea to Skye and Heraclitus and genies. The whisky was finished in the tumbler so he put the tumbler down and lifted the superlager and sipped that, lifted the homebrew and had a wee go on it. The bottle of whisky stood there obviously but he let it stand there, he was not going to drink from it as of this moment, life being too risky.

I dont want to argue with ye Gavin.

I dont want to argue with you either Pat.

Pat looked at him for a moment; Gavin was looking back at him; he lifted the superlager. Gavin lifted his superlager; and he raised it and toasted with it. Slàinte, said Pat.

Good luck, said Gavin.

Pat shook his head and spoke to Arthur and Davie: He wisni always a good soup maker ye know. See when he was a boy he was fucking rubbish. Honest, he couldni boil a fucking kettle. It was always me made the supper in our house, just ask my maw. He never fucking done a thing except eat whatever ye laid down in front of him. No shame either!

Gavin smiled.

Big brothers, said Davie; what do ye expect! They aye get away with it as well. That’s because mothers always give in to them. They’re notorious for that. All down through the years, it’s ancient history.

That’s garbage, said Gavin.

Naw it’s no. You just watch, mothers always bloody let the eldest boy get away with murder. But see the young yin! He aye catches it. I’ve seen it with my own two. Everybody knows that Gavin it’s bloody common knowledge!

Ah I wouldni say that was quite true, said Arthur. In our house okay the eldest boy doesni get belted as much as the young yin but that’s because he doesni get up to as much fucking mischief. I mean that young yin’s a fucking ragamuffin I dont know where he gets it from! Her side of the house probably, they’re a bunch of fucking gaolbait. No kidding ye Paddy a bunch of fucking outlaws. That’s my wife, Maureen, her folk. They come from the Garngad. The Simpsons. You heard of them?

Naw.

Aye well ye dont want to! Especially with a name like Paddy! Bluenoses. Bitter as fuck.

Tell him that one about your cousin, at the wedding … Davie said.

Aw you mean the eh, the auld feyther?

Aye christ. Davie laughed and glanced at Gavin who nodded and laughed quietly.

Ah well see … Arthur gazed at Pat, and while he spoke he glanced at the other two from time to time. It was a wedding, one of the cousins, the wife’s team I’m talking about; it’s a big big family there’s fucking stacks of them. And as I say Paddy they’re all fucking Orangemen bitter as fuck. Wouldni let a tim in the house. Aye shouting about how they’re filling the country with their weans — no contraception and all that.

Well they have got some contraception, said Gavin.

I’m talking about the pill but Gavin or the coil, how the tims areni allowed to use anything except will-power.

Free will and contraception, said Patrick.

The rhythm method, said Davie, me and the wife used to try it. That’s how we’ve got four bloody weans! He chuckled and tugged at the corners of his moustache.

Pat got the bottle of Grouse and refilled tumblers. Gavin asked for another homebrew to be passed across but Pat gave him another superlager instead: Save your homebrew for later, he said.

There’s no gonni be a later! Gavin smiled.

What d’you mean?

What do I mean … Gavin gestured at the drinks on the table and at the drinks each individual had lying beside him. Patrick gazed at it all and nodded but he didnt quite understand precisely what Gavin was intending. And Davie said:

Know what I feel like doing, getting the women.

Getting the women? replied Arthur.

Aye. Davie put his drink down and took a half-smoked cigarette from behind his ear and got a light from Arthur’s box of matches. I dont mean a party, he said to Gavin.

Nicola wouldni go for it Davie.

Naw I mean I’m no talking about that fuck I’m just meaning bring them into it, for a wee night, we could make a wee night of it — just what we’re doing the now, having a crack and that, hearing the music.

Sounds good to me, said Arthur.

It sounds good to me and all, said Gavin, obviously. But it’s whether the women’ll go for it I mean christ Nicola’ll walk in that door and she’ll be knacked … Gavin glanced sideways, lifted the can of lager and pulled off the stopper. The electricity I mean that’s gonni annoy her. Being honest about it, I would probably feel like keeping out her road all the gether. See as well there’s the weans to feed and all that, they’ve got to get their tea.

So’s mine, replied Arthur.

Well so’s mine too, if it comes to that, Davie said.

But yours are all fucking grown-up; they can feed themselves man!

That’s what you bloody think!

I wouldni have a woman to bring, said Pat suddenly getting up from his chair, requiring a piss desperately; his first since arrival. He paused by the door to say to the effect that there was this woman he was seeing but she wouldni be able to make it if they did have a wee night, but he changed his mind and said nothing. Plus he really did have to get to the bathroom. This very very astonishingly bad habit of waiting and waiting before getting off the arse to go to lavatories was symptomatic of his life. There had to be a connection between it and things of mammoth import. Well of course there was. But maybe he was entering into states of hallucinatory imaginings brought about by urinary dysfunctioning. That would explain the fucking pipes. If he was waiting too long to piss. That was definitely a habit to cultivate, proper bladder emptying because this was stupid, he would just end up with a damaged kidney which demands constant cleansing via the regular drinking of fresh water. Especially those who consume more than sufficient alcohol they require to give their poor auld kidneys every assistance because they are having a difficult enough time without that for christ sake. Gavin was actually very out of order in what he had said I mean you dont call your fucking young brother a middle-class wanker I mean fuck sake. A middle-class wanker! Aye, it’s nice to know who your friends are; and if you dont have friends amongst your relatives then etcetera etcetera, who the fuck are you and so on, supposed to have friends among.