James Kelman: A Disaffection

Was it, I never heard … Patrick was shaking himself. The fronts of his trousers were completely soaked now. But the backs seemed to be as dry as a bone. Is there a bus due soon? he asked.

I couldni tell ye son, I’m no actually waiting for one. It’s my missis, she’s in seeing somebody up the stair.

Aw aye.

It’s an auld biddy. I just tag along to keep her company. But I dont go in, I just wait outside. Some of them areni too keen on a strange face, the auld yins, they dont like folk coming into their houses. Quite right and all eh?

Aye christ. Pat peered out the close. Ye didni notice any buses going past?

Naw son.

Pat nodded.

She’s a volunteer worker the wife. The man slapped his hands together and frowned in the direction of the black close which looked to be needing a new lightbulb, it kept blinking.

Could do with a new bulb eh?

Aye. Bloody draughty! Ye working?

Nah … I used to be involved in making shoes — the shoe industry — but then they shut down the factory and transferred all the stuff out to Taiwan or maybe Thailand I’m no sure but I think it was Tai-something, one of these places where they get the same job done by six-year-old weans with the added bonus of only having to pay them a flat rate of three lollipops every second century.

The man nodded. I took early retiral myself. I’m sixty-two.

Are ye okay?

What?

I was just wondering if you were okay — you and the wife I mean. Yous getting on alright?

D’you mean like the money and all that?

Aye.

Aye okay, I wouldni grumble about it. She does this volunteer work. I tag along and that. Keeps ye away from the telly.

I’ve no got a telly.

Have ye no?

Naw. This doctor I know, he says we areni the actual folk who’re watching: we’re actually being watched; they’ve reversed the process on us.

Is that right! The man grinned.

It’s true, aye.

The man nodded. Then he glanced out at the street. Naw, he said, there’s no been any buses since I’ve been here. That’s about quarter of an hour.

Ah well, I better get walking. Patrick smiled: No point just waiting, he said, and he stepped out, still smiling and then chuckling and trying not to guffaw and maybe it was this awareness, that he was about to actually guffaw, that stopped him in his tracks for a couple of seconds. Because it was bad. It was fine and it was okay and proper that he should give himself rows and lectures and sarcastic adjuncts, but no other folk, and especially not to good auld guys like that. He didnt have the right. If things continued like this the bitterness would engulf him completely. It was getting to the point where he could envisage himself lashing out and fucking belting somebody on the mouth.

When does rain cease, or does it carry on forever. Yes. And that is what led old Thales into deciding upon water as the primary element because at that time ancient Greece had been waterlogged for hundreds of years and their islands were only just managing to surface and no more, because of that shift in temperature towards the latter part of that cold and dismal Third Millennium B.C.

The Glaswegian male doesnt ask much in this man’s army, just an umbrella and the occasional fish supper, a nice looking woman and a big win on the fucking football pools. Then one could fuck off to a pleasant and cosy wee hotel in the Inner Hebrides, there to partake of single-malt goldies in the company of one’s partner, thence off upstairs to a large double bed with views of the boisterous Atlantic, waves thrashing the shore but inside your room no, no noise at all apart from the ticking of an antique clock above the peat fireside and then that very slight rustle while she is carelessly undressing sitting on the edge of the eiderdown quilt, one leg drawn up so that the heel of her foot is on the bed near to her curved bottom, as she proceeds to unpeel a tight — unpeel a tight. But the rain was not so heavy as it had been. If neither bus nor taxi appeared he would simply walk it the whole way to Cowcaddens subway station. He stopped walking. He began again. The motor. It was not too late to return for the motor. What in the name of god was all this in aid of? Here he was totally sober and walking it home it was a fucking joke. No it wasnt. Aye it fucking was a fucking joke he was totally fucking stone-cold sober. No he wasnt. Yes he fucking was. A huge meal and then the chips and this bloody forty-five minute walking in a fucking torrential downpour. He was stone-cold sober. He was just needing a pish desperately. How come it was desperately? It just was. Cosy hotel rooms with Alison in soft eiderdowns for christ sake, resulting in minor stirrings, around the fucking groin area, having led to the condition of attendant bladderial flickerings. So damn, that’s him finished with erotica if a pish is all he gets out of it.

To return to Gavin’s or not. Whether it is nobler. He didnt even have to return to the house, he could just sneak back and drive away without telling them. And phone them once he got home so they wouldni have to report it as a theft.

No.

And that is that.

Along at the corner of the street he approached was this national bank from whose topmost windows beamed a nightlight and this was the window Patrick’s brick would smash. If he was about to become seriously engaged in the world then this was the time and this was the place. And as he progressed towards Cowcaddens he could be smashing in the windows of each and every bank he chanced upon. And also those of building societies and insurance offices — anything at all connected with the financial institutions of the Greatbritish Rulers. He should have taken the car. He would’ve been fine. He would’ve been home by now. Where could he pee for christ sake! It was quiet, it was quiet. The weather was keeping everybody indoors, apart from elderly volunteers and teenagers. It was time to put a brick through a window. Come on. Let us be honest and truthful about this, a brick through the window. But he couldnt be bothered doing it. He just couldnt be bothered. He would have to hide up a close after the event and it would be damp and draughty and if he got captured christ it would be so horrendously awful and pathetic: disaffected teacher puts brick through window, embarks on property rampage down the streets of Possil except everybody knows there’s no property in Possil anyhow because they’ve no got fuck all, the rich having stolen it from them. So, the banks of the city and big bricks. At least it would be a bloody start. There was a pair of polis across the street who needless to report were observing him openly and frankly and not giving a fuck about who was noticing. But now they watched him watching them. And he stopped walking to call: You’ve no seen a bus by any chance! And he smiled a big smile, proferring the arse to the aggressors as usual.

No response. They half-turned from him. They had appeared at the very thought of insurrection, the very thought, and there they were. These fucking odd things. Why were there no bloody damn taxis either. Just when a body needed one. Most odd. Most odd indeed. But there again, oddidity was the name of the present. The things that were happening, they were all of that quality. Here he was with a pair of pipes and the woman he thought well of had touched his hand, had taken him by the hand, and applied the pressure of one whose sympathy for the other is overcoming whatever else she may be feeling, may be feeling. Why were there no bloody damn taxis. No bloody damn fucking taxis just when you fucking needed one quite desperately, when you just needed one, and there wasnt one, just like they said about the polis as well, when you wanted one you couldni get one, just like with a bus, when you wanted one of them you couldnt bloody get one, there werent any because they just bla bla bla and he was fucking running, steadily, and not too fast, his right hand gripping the edges of his jacket where it buttoned, shoulders hunched and head bowed. A large and wide expanse of water, huge puddle, ahead, and he splashed straight through the bloody centre rather than attempting to either jump it or skirt roundabout it in case of skidding or something and falling. The polis watching him now in a serious and suspicious manner. About to give chase. Catch the bastard, there he goes. He had started running now instead of later once they were gone and that was daft and really stupid because they would worry as to his veracity or something after that silly fucking comment about the bus, probably calling in on their walkitalki and getting ordered to pick him up on suspicion — daft, fucking daft, but too late, if he was to pause to see what they were doing because them taking that as the sign of guilt, of criminality, of his being suspicious, a suspicious being, that sign of guilt, that assumption of, silly, absolutely fucking silly, and dangerous, these acts he commits on a daily basis, acts of stupidity, stupidity, a daily basis of it. Yes Doyle is dangerous, dangerous to himself. He is dangerous to himself and thus to the weans he teaches on that daily basis. If he skids he will fall and crack his skull and the wheel of a vehicle will run over his neck and kill him. That temptation. What is that temptation. That temptation is aye the same temptation and it is suicide, it is actually suicide. What is that story in the bible about a guy who commits suicide. Is there a story in the bible about a guy who commits suicide. Who is that guy who commits suicide, as a thing to be committed. And there they were is that them there, the polis, the flying rugby-tackle to bring him down, in mid-flight, and him no being able to know because he wouldni be able to hear that heavy pitapat of their boots because of the rain a-falling. That was them there, shouting; they were shouting at him from the other side of the road and just there waiting for the traffic to slow. They must have come running after him, to be shouting. What are they shouting. They’re just shouting they hate him they hate ye we fucking hate ye, that’s what they’re shouting. It was dark and it was wet but not cold; if it had not been so dark you would have seen the sky. Ah fuck off, fuck off.