A History Maker

by Alasdair Gray

  “War fatigue?” she said, looking hard at him.

  “No. I’m afraid of news from Geneva.”

  “Are you feart they’ll disqualify the draw with Northumbria?”

  “No. I hope they disqualify that draw. It will discourage suicidal heroics that have become the bane of honest warfare, especially in Scotland.”

  “Then what are you afraid of?”

  “Did ye see our last battle?”

  “Certainly not. No decent woman who’s borne a son watches battles.”

  Slowly, almost unwillingly, Wat told her that someone he knew had struck a blow which had the appearance of being foul and might be condemned as such.

  “Who was that?” said Nan, looking at Wat more closely still.

  “If Geneva condemns him you’ll soon know,” said Wat drearily, “If it doesnae I’ll try to forget about it. Let me stay here for a fortnight Nan.” She said firmly, “Not possible. An hour from now I become mother and I cannae mother a whole household with you waiting round to be served. Sit up.”

  She placed a closed mug of coffee where his mouth could reach a tube sticking from the top, then she sat on the bedside with a plate on her lap and fed him slices of poached-egg-on-toast. She said, “Go to Annie’s room — she’s mad about you and has no responsibilities. Stay there as long as you like. It will teach her something. Craig Douglas needs more bairns now and I don’t want to carry another.”

  He groaned and said, “I think of Annie as a wee sister.”

  “Aye, because you never look at her. Do it. Dick Megget was her dad. The Meggets havenae fucked with Dryhopes for three generations, there’s no fear of incest.”

  He said wistfully, “With you, in this room, I feel better, more sure of myself than anywhere else in the world.”

  “I doubt it. Annie says you looked bloody sure of yourself in that last battle. She plays it six times a day. She says you’re magnificent. Why are you no magnificent with me?” He scowled. She said, “Cheer up! You were my favourite soldier long before the rest got chopped. I liked you most because you didnae act the big hero. Yet in battle you’re better than others. Why?”

  “Easy told,” said Wat drearily, “I’m usually clumsier than other men because I don’t like life as much, so danger speeds this body without upsetting this brain. Most soldiers only enjoy battles when looking back on them — while fighting they’re too excited to think so do it automatically. I think cooler and hit faster while fighting so I enjoy it at the time. Afterward the memory depresses me. I wish I had another talent.”

  “I remember you six years ago as a queer lanky clever lad who wanted to seed the stars and got accepted for it. Were you useless there?”

  “No, I could do the work but I hated the narrow places in the satellites, hated that every gramme of air we breathed or green thing we looked on had been contrived by human skill. I didnae hate it all, of course. A good thing about satellites is their lack of nourishment for our kind of powerplant, so men and women earn their living room by working together as equals. The men have no time for warfare. They sometimes fight duels, but hardly ever to the death. Many couples live as husband and wife and think of earthmen as lazy lecherous belligerent primitives. I agreed with them but I couldnae stand the enclosed spaces they lived in. Anyway, for me the satellites were just stepping-stones to the universe where immortals are making new worlds — and I hated that universe most of all. I could hardly face the deserts of dead rock and frozen stoor between the domed craters. The stars are fearsome out there, white, steady, and intense. Look at any two of them and if, like me, you’re cursed with good sight, you soon see a hundred between. Look hard at any two of those and the same thing happens no matter how close they seem. I lost all sense of darkness between them. It was not the vast darkness but the endless lights, the millions of starlights that made me feel less than a grain of stoor myself — I felt like zero. I trudged across one of these deserts with Groombridge who was testing my fitness for immortality. He said immortality would madden me unless I had a good reason for it and the only good reason was in the grains of dirt under our boots, the millions of stars over our helmets. He said the silence of these spaces did not appal minds in the network conspiring to bring them to life, but generations of mortals would die and be forgotten before Mars, Venus and the moons of Jupiter and Saturn had the ground and air to support freely evolving plants and intelligences. This was why people who chose immortality must prepare to live almost completely in the future. The main difference between neo-sapience and proto-sapience (that is what immortals call themselves and us) is, that the longer neo-sapiences live the more they know of their future, the longer we live the more we know of our past. Groombridge said mortals cling harder to the past as they age, so our lives have a tragic sweetness neo-sapience lacks, a painful sweetness got from memories of lost childhood, lost love, lost friends, lost opportunities, lost beauty et cetera — lost life, in other words. He said, ‘Our rejuvenation treatment still retains an embarrassing wealth of early memories but in two or three centuries we’ll overcome that. If you become immortal, Mr. Dryhope, by your five thousandth year the first fifty will have been erased by more recent, more urgent, more useful experiences, most of them gained through a virtual keyboard and scanner or their future equivalent. By your five thousandth year it is possible — and by your five millionth inevitable — that you will work in another galaxy in a body whose form we cannot now predict. By then, of course, the planet of your origin, like a myriad other worlds you’ve helped reshape, will have ceased to be even a cipher in your calculations. Perhaps I repel you, Mr. Dryhope?’ Yes, he scunnered me like a creature I once saw in an aquarium. It was harmless but I couldnae watch it because it breathed, ate and ejaculated through holes which, to my mind, were in the wrong places. From feeling zero he had made me feel minus, an absence with an ache inside. I had to return to things as bonny and temporary as you and those.”

  He pointed to the green hilltop and the bird on the branch, then began biting his nails. She stopped that by putting down the plate and kissing him.

  Later she washed, dried and dressed him in clean garments saying, “Don’t play the helpless wean too much with Annie, she’s had none of her own. Your hands will soon heal if you work the fingers.”

  He said, “Nan, is there a kind, experienced body in Craig Douglas who would visit my brother Joe who’s short of an arm and leg? Three of his other limbs are in working order — four if you count the tongue.”

  Nan said she would consider this.

  “And Nan,” he muttered, looking away from her, “There is no kinder or more experienced body in Craig Douglas than you, but please get someone else to go.”

  She stared, laughed then said, “Mibby you would have been happier in the bad old historical days when it was a man’s duty to be jealous, but I doubt it.”

  Survivors of great slaughters knew they must help the women of their clan replace lost comrades so duty, not desire brought Wat to Annie’s room. Apart from a homo-erotic affair in the Warrior house all Wat’s lovers until now had been older than him so the childish furnishing in Annie’s room almost made him walk away. Shelves were crowded with cuddly toys, romantic videos about historical lovers and comic ones about talking animals. A typical young girl’s collage covered the walls; it showed Annie in many moods and dresses from babyhood to teens mingled with pictures of her mother, aunts, grannies, pets, girl friends, boyfriends and popular icons. Wat recognized Donald Duck, Botticelli’s Venus, Robert Burns, Alice in Wonderland, Krishna among the Cowgirls, King Kong, Rodin’s Kiss, Dracula, Marilyn Monroe and modern stills of famous soldiers from their most violent battles. Over her bed was a life-size cut-out of himself on the edge of the cliff shouting “No!” when asked if Ettrick would surrender. His heart lurched — was Scottish Wat now a legend like the African Inongo, American Winesburg, Chinese Pingwu? — then he felt sick. After that shout he had stabbed a man who thought the battle over. It was a filthy way to enter the erotic fanc
ies of a sixteen-year-old girl. However, he let her undress him and entered her bed.

  Before nightfall he was amazed to find he liked Annie better than her mother. Though less experienced in love and coffee-making she had Nan’s sensuality, humour and intelligence in a more slender and playful body. She made him feel powerful and wise. She also liked to sleep with her ceiling clear as glass. He opened his eyes early next morning and looked straight up at a full moon between banks of hurrying cloud. Not quite awake he felt Annie snuggle warm at his side, her arm across his chest. He thought he was lying with her on the floor of a roofless cottage in a wilderness far to the north. He seemed to remember escaping from a shameful disaster which had befallen but at least Annie and he were safe. Glad of this he fell asleep again.

  Later she wakened him by singing, “A hero, a hero, a hero in my bed, the first man to fuck me is a heeeeero.”

  Wat said, “You’ve fucked with others.”

  “Only with laddies. Lads don’t count. Stop interrupting and listen!

  A hero, a hero, a hero in my bed,

  the first man to fuck me is a heeeeero.

  I stole him from my mammy,

  he wanted me instead,

  O the first man to fuck me is a heeeeero.”

  “Your mammy sent me here.”

  “Aye but it’s good to pretend. Try it. You’ve fought three wars, right?”

  “Aye.”

  “And seven battles, right?”

  “Aye. Your bloody uncle Jardine made the last war continue for three.”

  “Seven bloody battles and never once wounded!” shouted Annie, “A miracle!” Wat showed her his hands. She shouted, “Seven bloody battles and never once wounded by the sworrrrrd! UNSCATHED HERO JAGGED BY JEALOUS WHINBUSH AFTER GLORIOUS LAST-MINUTE MIRACLEDRAW AGAINST OVERWHELMING ODDS! That’s how the public eye should have announced it. If I was wee Wattie Dryhope,” she said, kissing him sweetly, “I would pretend somebody was saving me for something gloriouser.”

  “Which somebody? Jesus MacGod or Accident MacDestiny?”

  “MacGod of course. God orders you to conquer the universe for him but you say, ‘No, sorry God, no till I’ve fathered a hundred lads on Annie Craig Douglas.’ But I say, ‘Go! I wilt never embrace thee nae mair until thou hast done God’s will.’ So you go conquering the universe till you’re an old bald done dry withered wee man, and return to find me as sweet and sappy, young and perjink as ever. ‘Nooky time!’ you wheeze, ‘Get them off.’ ‘Avaunt, Snotface!’ I graciously retort, ‘Or Wat or Julius Caesar or whatever you cry yourself. I cannae be thine, I am being shagged continuous by a greater than thou.’

  ‘Who?’ croaks you. ‘God,’ says me, ‘He sent you conquering to get ye out of my short hairs ha ha ha.’ … Is something bothering you Wattie?”

  “Aye — your joke about me being kept for something great. I once used to believe that, Annie, but what great thing could it be? Modern wars arenae great affairs. The only greatness nowadays is in the folk building new satellites and immortals creating new forms of life.”

  She kissed his ear and whispered, “I’ll tell you a great thing you can do. This is my best time of the month, you’ve been deep inside me, I’m sure I’ve got my first bairn — what better new thing can there be than that? And if it’s a lad promise you’ll like him Wattie. And if he joins the Ettrick warriors promise to be kind to him. I’ve heard awful tales about how young laddies get treated by older ones in the Warrior house.” “Don’t believe all ye hear,” said Wat, embracing her, “The old soldiers keep an eye on things. I’ll protect him if I’m still about.”

  They were silent for a while. This was the third day of their honeymoon. Wat feared Annie would soon be bored and want to go and gossip about him with her mother and sisters and cousins. Wat was not bored. His queer dream had given him an idea though he had been shy of mentioning it till now. He said suddenly, “Do you want your son to become a soldier, Annie, and probably die before he’s thirty? Or do you want him to go to the stars and live till he forgets you existed? Or would you rather he joined the public eye and became a glib commentator on other men’s courage? Or left the clean homes of Ettrick and lived dirty with the gangrels?”

  “It isnae a mother’s business to want things for her weans — it’s the weans’ business,” said Annie, puzzled, “Mothers who try to manage their weans’ lives always hurt them. Aunt Mirren tried to stop her sons becoming soldiers after Highlanders killed her first three at Stirling Moss. She tried to make them starmen by cramming them with physics and biology, so they ran to the Warrior house as soon as they could and came home hacked to pieces five days ago. No wonder she’s bitter. What are ye trying to tell me Wat Dryhope?”

  “I’m trying to tell ye about a new way of living which hasnae been tried for centuries, Annie. I want us to pretend there’s nobody alive but you and me …” (Annie sat up looking interested) “… I want us to load a couple of ponies with a tent, food, seeds, a cross-bow, an axe and handy tools. I want us to ride far far to the north where the homes are few and the commons so mountainy that even gangrels seldom pass through. We’ll find a broken old stone house, mibby a hunting-lodge built when there were no commons and the whole land was owned by a few plutocrats. We’ll repair enough rooms to make a wee house of it. I’ll get food by hunting and gardening, you’ll cook it and make and mend our clothes.”

  “Go camping and play husband and wife?” cried Annie, smiling, “I played that game with my first laddie when I was twelve but only for a night. The alfresco shitting scunnered him in spite of the nooky — he called wiping his bum with dockens alfresco shitting. It’ll be more fun with you.”

  “It wouldnae be just fun if you played it with me, Annie, it would be a way of life. I’d contrive a hygienic latrine and hot-water system. We wouldnae come back.”

  “But surely we would feel lonely after a few weeks!”

  “Aye, very. We would hate it at first. Then the hard work of making an old-fashioned house together would teach us to depend on each other and love each other more than other men and women love each nowadays. Then the weans would come.”

  “Who would deliver them?”

  “Me. I’m no stranger to blood and screams, Annie, I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”

  “That’s very cheery news, Wattie, but they’ll be sad wee weans with only me to love — no aunties and grannies — no cousins to play with — no neighbours!”

  “They’ll have me as well as you.”

  “Bairns don’t love dads.”

  “They would have to love me because they’d have nobody else — apart from you. I’d be always sleeping in the same house, bringing in the food you cook for us, teaching them how to hunt and plant and chop firewood and clean the latrine.”

  “But no neighbours, Wattie! The husbands and wives of historic times were so desperate for neighbours that they crowded into big huge ugly cities.”

  “Right!” said Wat, growing heated, “And the cities bred poverty, plagues and greedy governments! So a few brave men and women — pioneers they were called — left the cities for the wild in couples and made clean new lives there like we can make.”

  “Where and when did they do that?”

  “In America three or four centuries ago.”

  “I’m sure they’re no in America now. How long did they last?”

  “I … I don’t exactly know.”

  “Well, Wattie,” said Annie in a friendly voice,

  “I’m sorry we’ve no plagues, poverty or governments to escape from, but I’ll be your pioneer wife as long as you can bear it.”

  She shut her mouth tight to stop the smile at the corners becoming a grin. Wat saw it; she saw him see it, grinned openly and said, “But will wee me be able to content you when you’ve had big Rose of Cappercleuch and those Bowerhope twins and Lizzie of Altrieve and my mammy? Will you never want to see my mammy again? And have you forgot you’ll grow old and die in that wilderness, Wattie? I thought men fought battles a
nd became heroes because they were afraid to grow old.”

  He suddenly saw he had been a fool and the knowledge changed him. His face and neck reddened. With a sudden fixed smile, in a singsong voice unlike his usual gruff one, he asked if she knew why he hated women. Annie, aghast, stared and trembled. He said, “I hate women for their damnable smug security and for always being older than me, always older and wiser! Even a kid like you, Annie Craig Douglas, has stripped me of my self-respect by knowing more about me than I know about myself. And when I’m dead you’ll have lovers and babies and lovers and babies till you’re a great-great-granny telling stories to wee girls. And I’ll be one of your stories, the first warrior who fucked you — a daftie who wanted to run away and live alone with ye forever!”

  Tears streamed from her eyes at this. She tried to embrace him. He pushed her away saying, “Keep your pity! I want the bad old days when wars had no rules and bombs fell on houses and men and women died together like REAL equals! Equal in agony and mutilation!”

  “You’re sick, Wattie. Your head’s sick,” said Annie, weeping, “You’re worse than mad Jardine, your daddy.”

  His rage stopped at once.

  “True!” he said, ruefully touching his brow, “And it’s the only head I have. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”

  “As mad as his father,” she muttered, pressing her hand to her womb, “O I’ll have to ask about this.”