by James Kelman
And the swimming baths here at the foot of Kilbowie Road. This was where he used to go for a swim when he was in the middle of a strong get-healthy period. It was next door to the library. Leave that world of books! Grab your trunks and get out into the real mccoy, the genuine elements. Be a fucking amphibian. Away and swim ya bastard. That’s the way to do it! Night driving is at its worst when the rain falls like this; all the lights on the windscreen, the altered perception, those blobs blob blob blobbing blob and the swish swish, swish swish, lulling you into something or other, that constant yellow all the time having to stare – to gape; gaping while you drive, attempting to see in a normal manner but having to gape to achieve it. He was being forced into the side of the road!
A massive car on the outside cutting his nose off, forcing him to the side so that he had to slow right down to avoid hitting a parked fucking vehicle. Like a big yankee cadillac or something, here in the centre of Clydebank, the bastards are bloody everywhere. Pat thrust the gearstick into neutral, his foot on the brake pedal, and now turning the wheel – the big car now gone – and returning out and continuing as calmly as possible for this type of event is not something to get all het up about. Totally abysmal driving of course, whoever the fuck was responsible. A colonel from the U.S. Navy or something, away down to check out their neutron bombs at the Holy Loch. A high-powered sales executive travelling north to a selling jamboree. But definitely no need to worry over it; no need to let it prey on one’s imaginative faculties. If anything a little sympathy should be extended. That’s the kind of bloke who winds up with a coronary at forty. The car as penis etcetera. I’ve got a bigger one than you. Did such a relationship exist though? In the way people said it did. What sorts of inference were to be drawn on individual cars owned by individual male parties. The bigger the engine the smaller the dick? Perhaps. Perhaps that truly was the way of it. Especially in Glasgow and surrounding environs where maleness was a function of
of what? A function of what for fuck sake! Patrick was slowing again and moving back into the nearside lane, pausing to allow three cars to pass on the offside, then indicating to go right, and moving into a U-turn.
Back to the city. There was no point heading in a northwesterly direction, not at this time of night anyway. And the weather too christ it was just fucking too bad. So the arts centre. But how come? Why go there? Particularly now. There again but, it could appear quite natural, turning up at this moment. They would all stare at him of course and pretend to be interested in a puzzled manner but really they wouldni give a fuck one way or the other. They would just assume he had said cheerio earlier on because his body was demanding food and plus he wanted a quick wash and a shave and so quite naturally he had returned home for just that purpose. And because let’s face it yous fucking married bastirts, unlike yourselves he was only gonni be using this arts centre as a stepping stone. He was going on to someplace else afterwards. When yous were away home to watch the fucking telly he was gonni be going nightclubbing. Nightclubbing. Plus of course he did not want to drink too much and get too damn intoxicated, his being a driver and so on ad infinitum forever. Tomato juice was the new direction. This is where the road lay.
He was supposed to have been playing the pipes at 9.40. At 9.40 p.m.
The whole world was going crazy.
Patrick Doyle was not able to make a decision and stick by it.
Stick by it. He was not able to even remember what it was fucking about. As soon as it was done he forgot all about it. That was him and his decisions, as soon as he fucking made one he forgot all about it. Until some terrible inappropriate time such as this second, the thing turning up to remind you how in extremis pathetic you were, incapable of doing what you had decided to do – facta non verba. Actions speak louder than words. One of those sentimental wee sayings that contain a quotum of truth of huge enormity. Actions speak louder than words. It was the kind of ditty you wanted put on a poster and stuck onto your rear window. From now on no decisions, just go and do it. And aye, fucking stick it on a poster and fasten it to the rear fucking window, and let all these mad drivers get a look at it and maybe derive a wee bit of common sense, a wee bit of understanding, make them maybe stop careering about the streets knocking innocent bystanders for six. Calm down. Patrick’s chest is heaving. The chest is heaving Pat calm down. Letting things get to you. Red light ahead. Wooaa there. Nice and peacefully. Good. And also allowing the shoulders to not be so rigid. Good. That sort of doioioioinggggg up about the bottom of the neck, doioioinnggg. Shudder. A fucking shiver. Death my fine fellow, its recognition intuitive. Now then: if Patrick were to make a left turn at this corner it would lead him to a pub across the bridge of the Forth and Clyde canal into which he used to go with numerous frequency. Into what? The Forth and Clyde canal or the bloody damn fucking pub! Just shut up and drive. Just shut up and drive to there. Indicate and make to shift the wheel. Although right enough to be honest there isni that much point going to this especial boozer. He hasnt been in the place for years. He probably wont know anybody to talk to. And even if he does know that anybody to talk to, what the fuck does he talk about? He is not able to talk. If he could talk he wouldnt be here. Where would he be? He would be someplace else. That’s fucking straightforward. Plus as well it would make him late for the arts centre and he had to get there before they all went home. Being too late would be just too bad to be true. Tonight was a night for company, the company of those to whom Patrick could relate even when, to whom Patrick could relate even in, when
O god. Pause. Stop the car. No; drive, just drive, carry on, carry on, and carry on, carry on and carry on – does Alison have a lap? Does Alison have a lap!! Does Mrs Bryson? What? Have a lap? does Mrs Bryson have a lap? Who the fuck cares if she has a lap for christ sake who wants to nestle in there! Not him anyway. Not fucking Pat Doyle and that’s for fucking definite. And from now on it’s definate. It is definately the case that Patrick Doyle MA (HONS) has definately no plans for nestling in the lap of the married person Mirs Bryson who occasionally seems to be giving him the eye which is absolutely not true the woman just likes him in a maternal sort of big sisterish aunti routine that is hopeless nowadays, hopeless. That rain lashing down. But also a nip in the air this evening; if the rain stops you could imagine it frosting up. It would be very fine to talk Alison into going away with him to somewhere like England, tonight; to walk into the arts centre and get her into a corner and ask if she fancies a drive down to East Anglia, they could spend the night at Eric’s place until come morning with the blue skies they could travel south to Dover. And thence Calais; and on to the Mediterranean for some sun and warm seawater and maybe across to Spain, pausing among the Basques, maybe to Aragon to see where auld Goya was born. But no, it was time to return home, time to return home. The rain is falling and the windscreen wipers swish swish, swish swish, and occasionally, quite occasionally, the sensation that evil entities are abroad, that this very evening is an evening when malevolent creatures stalk the highways. It is a night for the warm fireside and the music playing in a friendly fashion, a nice well-known symphony or a nice homely play on radio. Maybe Alison is in trouble. Maybe she is walking home right at this moment, the bus left her off at the wrong street accidentally and she is having to hasten along, not wanting to go too quickly lest she draws attention to herself but hold; and she isni sure – is that the sound of soft, soft footfalls, the soft foot falling, the lurking evildoer, a sinister shape at the closemouth, in the yellowing glare of the old gaslamp, waiting there, waiting there, and then the echoing clip clip clip of her highheels as she turns the corner. Alison! For fuck sake watch yourself! There’s danger up there for christ sake danger ahead, Alison! And the screeching tyres of the highspeed motor car swerving corners and hitting pavements at ninety-nine miles per hour in his lastditch attempt to get there and fucking rescue the heroine, the hero, Master Patrick Doyle. And yet a lassie like Alison who regards herself as more than a match for anybody, male or female, this can be the k
ind of lassie who ends up in trouble – challenging herself to walk down the darkest alleys at as slow a pace as possible in order to prove the point, just to show she’s got her head screwed on the right way and is well up to taking care of herself which is how come
It was high time he had a new motor car altogether. With a new motor car things would be better. Because if Alison had, by some weird stretch of the imagination, agreed to a drive to East Anglia it was fucking all too probable the engine would explode before reaching the damn border. It wasni only the doors that were going bad, so too were these other things, they were going bad as well. Different noises were becoming audible, getting made to become audible, the kind of noises that made you shut your eyes in immediate reaction. You heard them when turning a corner too fast or when sometimes he coasted to a stop with the engine switched off, that distant gentle thudding. Sometimes he wakened in the middle of the night with this really horrible feeling, a cold dankness smothering him, then gradually piecing it all together he would become aware of the motor car, it was that that was causing it, the motor car. Hopeless. A hopeless fucking vehicle. A no-longer-good vehicle. If it ever had been good. He had bought it privately through the newspaper car-sales pages. And if certain facts are indeed admitted, he probably only did it that way to impress the da and big brother. He usually
who cares.
The rain looked to have become a slush. An ice-rain, piling up on the lower parts of the windscreen, getting packed by the wipers. He was sitting forwards on the edge of the seat, head craned near to the windscreen, gaping into the glare. This ice-rain – sleet. It was sleet. Sleet a-falling. Not a night for driving. Definitely. Especially down that deathtrap of an A74 with all these bends and roadworks and these big picketmurdering artic lorries right up your arse. One time Patrick helped Gavin out as co-driver doing a fair-sized flitting for one of his neighbours and they hired an oldish three-ton van from a guy Gavin knew. It was a terrible drive. The van was overloaded and you felt the thing swaying as if about to topple over when the camber was out. And nobody gave you any fucking quarter either. These drivers, some of them are crazy. And then when they’re sitting behind you! having to hit up to eighty just to keep your nose in front. Terrible. And in bad weather even worse.
The sleet storm could mean that the arts centre mob would remain where they were until late, having poked their heads out and seen the state of it.
We’ll give it another half hour, says Desmond, and just see if it goes off.
Good idea, says Alison and back they all trudge, not especially wanting to return but better that than braving the wintry elementals. They will have had enough of each other by this time, stifled yawns and so forth, the occasional surreptitious glance to see if any acquaintances from other walks of life are in the vicinity.
With the new car he would certainly opt for a stereo hi-fi radio and cassette; whizzing along there listening to music or talks or taped radio drama, relaxing, tapping the fingers on the wheel the way you see other folk do when they’re stopped at traffic lights, and that pleasant look of soporicity, soporificity, a Latin root; sopor – sleep. Those drivers whose gazes are aye vacant. Pamp pamp, pamp pamp. Toot toooooot! O pardon me Charlie I was listening to the fucking in-car entertainment. Taking your mind away from itself, allowing the being to relax; thus driving becomes a pleasurable activity, something akin to smoking dope, the pipe of peace, slowly but surely the company lulled into slumber, the eyelids drooping, drooping, them trying o so hard to stay awake but no, they drift, drifting off into sleep, a pleasant soporicity, soporificity. The type of thing he never achieves. His fucking mind is always going this way or that way and he just never is able to get down and relax somewhere. Or even just becoming so totally exhausted that you collapse, that would suit him, just to collapse, after a momentous mental or spiritual task. Such as playing the pipes. Through that sort of act, attaining that sort of peace. But it all sounds so hopeless. It makes you turn from the actual thought; something you do not want to admit of – but it has to be faced, and with a smile! A brave smile. But get rid of the distancing. Stop trying to widen the gulf between yourself and the playing. You must approach it as arranged. Twenty minutes before the hour of ten. That remains the time. For sitting down and playing the pipes. I know, yes, but these things must be faced, the very notion itself being that wee bit, just that toty wee bit somehow well foolish, foolish, aye, that’s it out now, okay:
One grabs a pair of pipes from the rear of an arts centre and proceeds to blow sounds, and these sounds seem so perfectly stated that the pipes themselves are henceforth transformed, they are become transcendental objects, instruments of music! instruments of something greater than anything previously experienced, anything acted upon with you. With you.
What was it about that sound? as a matter of interest just. Was it something in the hollowness of tone? Was it something
What was it?
Such questions but, they cannot be formed in an authentic sense when the actual objects are divorced from the context. In order to realize their nature they have to be blown, the sounds are to be blown, the pipes must be blown. The pipes being the sounds of course. Hold onto that. And so what if you do have to resign. P for Patrick Doyle Esquire, a single man, a bachelor; a chap with little or no responsibilities. A teacher who has become totally sickened, absolutely scunnered. A guy who is all too aware of the malevolent nature of his influence. He is the tool of a dictatorship government. A fellow who receives a greater than average wage for the business of fencing in the children of the suppressed poor.
That’s the way of it, really.
And then you look at fucking auld Goya. Look at Goya for fuck sake, a man and a half. Ten men and a half! Still going strong there at seventy-five years of age, and that twist of the eyebrows. Ah for christ sake good night messrs one and all for this is indeed the way of it, the very essence of it.
The Clyde Expressway.
The sliproad up from Anderson Cross.
He was on the road to England.
Okay, settle down now; stop chortling, although:
Patrick, having opted for the M8, and now being on the road to England but it could be the road to Edinburgh or even Stirling – or even fucking Easterhouse and Barlanark – being not yet beyond the boundary of the city itself; and also
he was going to England.
No he wasnt he was going home, he was returning home. Maybe by way of a local pub, just for the one pint before heading upstairs to bed. He was drained, in a state of exhaustion. Such a long long day. When had this day started. 7 o’clock in the morning? Who could believe in such a devilishly hard thing to believe. It was positively disbelievable. always found such
How to get home. He should immediately snatch at the Fruit-market turn-off, head back down the Castle Street route, along Cathedral Street. That is the escape for someone in his predicament. Then why has he not fucking done it? Because the mental bastard is still on the road to England, and not stopping. How come he’s doing this? Whom is he trying to impress? Alison canni see him. She has no idea. Nor will she ever find out about it, about this great feat of derring-do. Not unless he fucking tells her!
But what is he doing it for?
And there now yes, the road to Stirling on the sweet sinister and there now yes, full steam ahead on the right, he has fucked off, he is making a bid for freedom. He is feart to face Old Milne on Monday morning. And there you have it. The heroic Doyle. Feart to face the fucking headmaster. In case he gets a row!
The Garthamlock turn-off. Are you not taking that either? No. Well, why bother even talking. The road to Edinburgh is soon and he will not be taking that yin too. He has decided to drive south on the road to England. So there you have it. Okay. It can be on his own head. Let it be on your own head. Okay then. Nobody in his right mind would know what to do with him. Let the damn fool stew in his own bloody fucking goose. Draw a veil over it. And so he continued thus, avoiding the road to Edinburgh, and onwards, straight ahead for
England – maybe just to see how far this fucking rag tag and bobtail of a motor would take him because maybe it wouldni even get him as far as Ecclefuckingfechan, maybe no even Lesmafuckinghagow! Ha ha ha. So goodnight, buona sera ya fucking donkey.
And so he continued on.
Okay.
But his teeth were chattering. Mind you, the sleet had long ago stopped falling and the windscreen was good and clear, the wetness having given it a great clean. And the fucking engine believe it or not although this is definitely disbelievable if anything is, the engine sounded beautiful, of a crazy nostalgia of a sound. And why the fuck shouldnt it be healthy I mean for christ sake he had it fucking serviced less than three months back so’s it would get him through the winter. Regular servicing is one of his better habits. He even used to play squash! Nowadays the occasional game of table tennis. Perhaps after all it really would take him across the border. His teeth chattering once more. A distinct manifestation of the existential leap. Here he goes, into the vast unknown. Hang onto your hat! He will not do it. He’ll never get beyond the outer reaches of greater Glasgow. Such a thing is scarcely possible. He has always lacked a certain bon vivre, a certain affirmatio, a certain
Patrick Doyle, drove right out of Glasgow, late that Friday evening. He had decided to visit his old pal Eric who teaches in a technical college somewhere in the East Neuk of Anglia, not too far from the sea, where he has a boat. And upon awakening tomorrow morning Patrick would knock the fucking boat and bid adieu, continuing ever onwards, south to Dover thence Calais, Paris, Marseilles, Aragon, Barcelona, Pamplona and a quick stop off at Guernica just to see what’s what.
