A Disaffection (Vintage Classics)

by James Kelman

  Mrs Doyle sniffed slightly: Yous’ll end up arguing.

  Patrick nodded. After a pause he swallowed a mouthful of tea and resumed eating. He took another slice of bread and wiped up the sauce at the rim of his plate. His da was looking at him. Pat glanced at him. They both looked away. It was quite sad because it was hitting old nerves or something and shouldni have been causing such a big kerfuffle. He looked at his da again but there was nothing he could give him. He couldnt. He couldnt give him anything. He didnt deserve to be given anything. So how come he should be given it? People get what they deserve in this life. Even parents. Maws and das. They dont have a special dispensation. Except maybe from the queen or the pope or any other of these multibillionaire capitalist bastards. But no from their equals, they dont get any dispensation from them. So fuck off.

  Sauce streaks on the plate. Crockery is a chalk-like substance. Clay, china; china-clay.

  Well: at least he was freshly scrubbed and sweet-smelling. And he had minded to buy the fucking box of chocolates. And then too, also, he could leave soon, as soon as he was ready and it was decently acceptable within this stench of a society. Once that was done, once that was completed, finalised.

  Bringing things from there to here. Moving from one position to the one that comes next. A sprinkle of magic dust and a boisterous abracadabra, the puff of smoke and Pat materialising back in his own kitchen, in front of the fire. He should have gone straight home after the match. He just shouldni have come here. How come he came? He shouldni have fucking came. It was stupid. Guilt probably. His first visit in three weeks – nearer a month in fact. Who cares. No point in worrying over it.

  The fish was a dead animal. It had lain there on the plate open for inspection, eager to impress s/he who is about to partake. Just please devour me. I’m as good as the next thing you’ll catch. Whatever you do dont not do it, dont not devour me, I’m a good wee fish. Courageous and heroic. Its body sliced open for examination by the education authority. Give it a tick. A plus. Five out of ten. Fine for a Glasgow table but dont send it south to the posher restaurants of England.

  Gibberish. Outpourings. People see facial expressions of silence, not seeing, not

  How is it all contained? The heads craned over the plates, the three people eating, this man and woman and man, while within the limits of each an intense caterwaul. We are alone! We are isolate beings! The good Lord alone

  Fucking bastards.

  And of course Patrick, going in for a bath to avoid being alone with his da.

  Pardon?

  And of course Patrick, going in for a bath to avoid being alone with his da.

  Is that possible?

  Fucking right it is ye kidding! The only reason. His maw had to go into the kitchenette to see to the grub and Pat would have been left in the living room with his daddy. And he couldni handle it. The very thought. It is just that he canni quite feel them, the pair of them, his maw and his da, he would like to be able to feel them. He does get urges to cuddle them but that is different, almost the exact opposite.

  Mr John Doyle, a man of 5′ 6½″, with a head that is bald at the crown, having hair round the sides, who used to sport a moustache when Pat was a boy. He still works as a machinesetter in a factory. He is not a deep thinker but so what and go and fuck yourself. Patrick reached for the teapot. He half refilled his cup. His maw was gazing at her plate. She had glanced at him. Anybody want a refill? he said.

  Mrs Doyle held her cup for him.

  Mr Doyle said, Yous pair are too quick. I’ll have mine in a minute. I like to take my time. It’s no good for your digestion either, if you drink your tea while you’re eating.

  He glanced at Pat who nodded, even though he had actually finished eating. There again but he had been eating and drinking together during the meal. There were always problems in this life. Even being more like his da could be worthwhile. A man in his mid-to late-fifties, which is young compared to some folk with sons as old as Gavin and Pat. Charlie Chaplin had been fathering weans into his eighties. If Patrick had been his own father not only would he be a grandfather he would be an ordinary run-of-the-mill sex-performing male.

  Gavin was the lucky one. He took things nice and easy and didnt get upset over trifles and things of mammoth import. No. What he did

  But he did get on with living. He had his wife and his two great wee children, just like his own da; the two of them, the father and the elder son, being involved with the women they’re involved with, the wives and the lovers and the mothers and so on, the sentimental sort of shitey stuff. Patrick

  It is not his fault. He just cannot get on with things. It is a form of living that so far he is unable to encounter in a personally meaningful manner. He is involved with other affairs. He is involved with a pair of electrician’s pipes. He is going to take this pair of electrician’s pipes and create harmony – no he isni, that isnt even what he’s after, he just wants to fucking make music from them. Not exactly music either. Something else. Not anything greater. It isnt to do with that. Something else. Something good. Just something good and fucking new, newish, different anyway, at least. He smiled. He smiled at his maw. She was holding a plate of biscuits to him. And why not? If plates are to be held why not by mothers and why not with biscuits? Delicatus delicatessen. Otherwise he would just end up in bother. If he was no able to play the pipes. Something would happen. Something bad. He knew it. Maybe he would murder Old Milne! Or else be murdered by him. Old Milne would make a good murderer. So would Patrick right enough. The pair have that in common. If nothing else.

  Something was definitely going to happen.

  It was this being alone.

  There’s another biscuit there, said his maw.

  No thanks. He smiled. He didnt have any option, smiling and not smiling.

  I think I’ll open the chocolates …

  Aw maw, said Pat, they’re for you, they’re no for me and da.

  Aye, said his da.

  I just want to open them, she said, if it’s alright with yous. She got up from the table. In the time it took for her return Mr Doyle had nipped across to his armchair and got his cigarette packet and matches, and was back at the table seated, smoking his cigarette. It was comical. Not once did he glance in Pat’s direction and Pat stared at the milk jug, pretending to be lost in the depths of thought. But if only the two of them had been yapping together when she came back in. Even if it had just been about hospitals. Ach well. It was not something to worry about. It related to the dreadful Doyle fucking huffiness. His da was really bad for it. There again but so was his maw. They could both be huffy. And so too could Patrick, when it comes down to it, though maybe not so huffy as Gavin. Gavin was the world’s worst. He still wasni speaking properly to Patrick because of something that happened last summer, nearly nine months ago! Bloody terrible how these unfashionable traits run in families. And you couldnt even blame your parents for it because they were just picking up the habits of the rest of the clan. Probably the whole of Scotland is huffy. This is why their history is so shitey. The English are not huffy, just fucking imperialist bastards. Which ones? Quite right. And that applies to the Northamericans as well. Imperialists cannot be huffy: it would be a contradiction.

  And fuck the tomato juice he was going for a pint. He was going to go home and dump the motor and then come back out. Where was he going to come back out to? Anyfuckingwhere, it doesnt matter. He just required to get out; he just required to get away; if he did not get away he would collapse and die in front of the two of them, right here at the dining table, the nut landing on the sauce-streaked plate. What else could he do? Could he do anything else? He couldni go and have a fucking bath because he’d already had one. I’ll do the dishes. He moved his chair back and started collecting plates while rising onto his feet.

  You will not do the dishes, said his maw.

  I’m doing them, said Mr Doyle. I always do them on Saturday night.

  Naw. Honest. I want to do them … Pat was saying, I re
ally do. Plus it gives me a chance to think as well. Pat chuckled: Hey, no mind when we were wee how I always had to do the drying. Gavin wouldni let me wash, it was always him had to get doing that because the one that did the drying was aye last. No matter how fast you dried them you were aye last! It just wasnt fair!

  Mr and Mrs Doyle chuckled.

  His da was standing beside him. A heavy smell of tobacco and sweaty socks. He had just come in and lifted a teacloth, and he started doing the dish drying without a word. Patrick acknowledged him with a brief nod. What else could he do. He stared into the soapy water in the bowl in the sink and stuck his hands back in to find the washing clout. Poor Hölderlin. In his early thirties he finally succumbed to that insanity which seems to have been threatening him for years. Years he spent fighting it, a form of melancholic schizophrenia. He used to be Hegel’s best pal as a youth. They were exactly the same age and so on.

  Hegel was never near to insanity. He never was. Or so we are given to understand. He had a good cheery lifestyle as a student. He caroused with women and drink. It is best not to talk. What one does is say nothing, one says nothing, especially to parents and to other people. He caroused with women and drink and no doubt that is why Schopenhauer hated him. Kierkegaard didnt fucking like him either.

  And Hölderlin had become involved with this woman, the wife of the guy who employed him to tutor his child. Also of course; she died while he was still in control of his faculties. It was only after she was dead that he succumbed. She wrote him smashing letters.

  Mr Doyle was whistling – not really whistling, his breath way to the back of his mouth; a noise but not a whistle; a more sort of intimate thing, it signified security. A man who had nothing to worry about, standing here in his own kitchen at his own sink with his younger son. It was best as well. What was best as well? Nothing.

  He stands there drying the dishes.

  do de do de do

  whw whw whw whw whw

  di do di do di do

  Blues. A Glasgow working man’s blues.

  do di do di do

  whw whw whw

  do di do di do

  Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Bing Crosby and Doris Day. Do di do di do. Where’s my television weekly programme guide, my carpet slippers and hot water bottle!!

  It was just the way things were, the way things are. Not having anything to talk about. What was there to talk about? Nothing. Fuck all. Pointless worrying about it either. Fathers and sons and brothers. A load of tollie. Plus education and class warfare, revolution and disease and starvation and torture and murder and rape. There is nothing to crack up about. A polis battered him over the fucking head with a cricket bat the naughty picket; well he must have been bloody misbehaving then that’s what I say. And how’s yourself, are you okay, nice as nice, what about you? Getting on fine? Seeing your way clear? No! O dear, that’s a fucking wee pity. It’s really tough. Tough tough tough. And if there’s any truth in afterlives I’m sure yous’ll fucking

  Mr Doyle had his fag balanced on the edge of the worktop to the side of the sink, snatching drags as he went, the quick wee puff, di di di di di di, puff puff puff, a cosy wee smoke and back through to the telly: me and the boy there had this minor fusion while involved with the fucking crockery cleansing.

  Perhaps Patrick could wipe his da’s pate with a brillo pad. That would

  He loves his da, he really does. It’s just that fucking hopeless reactionariness. How do ye pierce it? It’s a fucking tortoiseshell. You would need a Moby Dick harpoon. Father! Daddy! Dad! How are ye doing! How is your drying hand? Okay? Good, that’s good. And have you wiped your gaffer’s arse recently? Last week? Fine. Aye. Consistency is a desirable category. Here you are.

  Patrick dried his hands. He turned from the sink to do it. The towel was damp. Why had he not put on the radio? he could have put on the radio. He walked from the kitchenette to the bathroom although he was nowhere near to tears, just getting into a bit of an emotional state and was wanting a few moments’ peace, in which to calm himself. That was all. And no sooner said than accomplished, the deed, the doing. There was a nice smell in the bathroom and the atmosphere held a warmth, damply so, because of the bath he had had. He stared into the mirror at his fine fizzog. It was true: he did look like a mature twenty-nine-year old chap. With a face like that there was no reason to be as he was. But what about tomorrow! Tomorrow was yet to come! He was fine. Things would yet prove unburdensome.

  No they wouldni. He was down and out. He really was down and out. What he needed

  What did he need?

  Ink exercises! A whole host of them. Why was he not marking ink exercises? a whole host of them. The new rates had just come out and if he got himself down to doing it he would earn good bonuses. And then he could go out and buy a new motor with plenty of in-car entertainment. Christ but the actual work itself would have been okay. He could have purchased himself a couple of flagons of nice red wine, a couple of cans of superlager, a few red biro pens; a blast of music in the background softly. He could have developed new theories on examining the pre-school age-group, just to see if some of them were actually fit to learn because a lot of these wee bastards are so fucking unknowledgeable they shouldni even be allowed in through the primary schoolgates in the first place. Auld Swift had the right idea. Fucking eat them.

  He sat down on the throne. His recurring daymare was the idea of seating yourself down on the outer lid by mistake, and crunching the bollocks to a pulp.

  In the name of fuck!

  And yet, his parents would have been delighted to discover he was meeting a young woman tomorrow. It would really please them. Except of course her being a married woman. That would not please them. It would not upset them, just not please them.

  They wanted him settled down. They didnt think he looked after himself properly. As if being involved with a woman would change all that. Maybe it would. There were things he would have to alter if he was so involved. He would have to get a fridge, for example, so that he could store milk and fresh dairy products. Also a hoover vacuum machine for cleaning carpets.

  He pulled the plug, gazed at the water flushing the pot. He waited until the cistern refilled. As a boy he used to have to wait for the final click before being able to wash and dry the hands. But now such superstitious nonsense could be shoved to one side.

  Time to go for a pint.

  But he had yet to finish the dishes. His da would be waiting.

  But his da wasnt waiting. His da had finished both the washing and the drying and was now sitting on his armchair and watching the telly. Patrick remained by the door and he called: For another pot of tea anybody?

  Now you’re talking! said his da while Mrs Doyle raised her head briefly from the newspaper on her lap, and smiled in reply.

  He almost crashed into a bloody lamppost on his way home. A big patch of black ice on the ground just beyond the turn into his own street. It was bitter cold. He had stayed on at his parents’ home until after midnight, just watching television and yapping about old things from the past.

  He was awake at 3.45 a.m. looking at the ceiling. It was a very very bad dream. He was unable to close his eyes and drift back into a good slumber. The things were all continuing to happen. He was in the middle of it. A crowd of evil phantoms had sprung to existence in the room. Each space he looked to contained someone and they had lives of their own, these phantoms, and they were evil and wearing a dishevelled type of waistcoat with these sort of ankle-length cloth boots like sixteenth-century peasants, or maybe fur yins they were and not cloth, with straps of twine tied round the top uppers to keep them from falling off.

  They were actually there and had big sort of staves or hoes and they just were hovering and when he shifted onto his side and stared into the recess wall with the blankets firmly at his chin there came a couple moving towards him from the rear and he knew exactly where they were and it gave him this sense of weightlessness. He spoke to himself. A method of eradicating it all. H
e spoke distinctly. I have had this very bad nightmare, a very bad one, but only a nightmare; there is no reality to it unless one of insanity, unless, since it is not only a nightmare but here and now, something that is occurring at this moment, while I am awake, it is not a nightmare but a living experience, reality; and a reality of which I am the central part, a central part. But what is to become of me now? Is this the end of my sanity? maybe now I am to be like this for all the time and what will happen to me? If I maybe cannot move out of my bed for all eternity and the nurses will have to break my door down.

  And it was becoming expedient, to turn round the way and look out from the recess wall, now, expedient, to turn, to confront them, because there would be not a thing there, no phantoms, nothing, and it was worthwhile turning just for that very reason and he moved slowly but surely from the hips firstly and the shoulders and head lastly and true to form there was not anything there but the darkness of course and the gloominess, there was a kind of integral gloominess to this room which appeared to be charged from the middle someplace, all related to it, threads, silken and steadfast, threads.

  This sensation of feeling behind the eyelids, an ordinary feeling though in some way, as if he had been scratching there. Maybe it was just a sign of tiredness. But he was not exhausted. Occasionally he did have these terrible mornings when he was exhausted, tired and drained, through lack of sleep – although sometimes it couldnt really be called a lack of sleep.

  In the word itself, ‘sleep’, there was something implying succour: the term required redefining. ‘Sleep’ simply as a word to denote a concrete state of non-reflective consciousness and just fucking leave out all suggestions of mental or physical relaxation, recuperation, and so forth.

  There are times when it is best to play music. And also perform any wee bits of business needing done about the house, the more mechanical the better. One project he did wish to begin at some point was erecting a bedshelf, with a small ladder for climbing up to; a square platform 8′ in length would do it.