by James Kelman
On the sink next to the fucking dishes.
1) When your man enters the office the headmaster screams: Get out ya anarchist fucking bastard or I’ll send for the MI5.
Which is where a knapsack comes in handy and Patrick just happens to have two of these efforts, one for long journeys and one for short yins. So he can fill the latter with a set of emergency goods and chattels. Renew the Youth Hostelling membership card, the passport and so forth, remember the driver’s licence.
2) A posse of polis awaiting his arrival within the grounds of the school, the entire area having being cordoned off. And as soon as he drives into the carpark the barricades come down behind him.
So, he would drive round the back and park in a sidestreet, with a belaying pin and a massive rope coiled over his shoulder, and toss its looped end high round the topmost chimney of the main school building, and swing from an adjacent tenement roof, straight across all their heads, softly alighting in through an open window on the upper floor, surprising the awestruck staff and weans down in assembly as you sneaked ben the corridor and down into the office of the terrorstricken Old Milne. The image of a pair of frogman’s flippers and a black SAS balaclava cum falseface, and crying to Old Milne: Your number’s up auld yin! Say your prayers to the congregation and make your peace with the Christian God whom for the sake of common decency I’m begging the existence of this morning and just awarding the capital, ‘G’, as in ‘God’. Okay okay get off your knees, I hate to see a guy humiliating himself in company.
3) Milne!! Yes you! I’m addressing you. You are an arse. You are a total arse. Aye, you heard alright – capital A R S E arse.
And what about going back to bed and staying there for the rest of the morning. Patrick had also considered that. Then he could sign off sick altogether, go and visit the doctor and maybe find out that his mental state, his nervous disposition, certainly warranted a six-month leave of absence the which he could fill by travel. It would not be difficult. He could make a phonecall to the secretary’s office, at ten to nine, just to give her a fair chance at getting some other bastard to do his registration with poor auld 2e. 2e!! What a poor wee bunch of fucking bastards they were! Never mind. They would have to get along without him. Old Milne might actually be grateful if he went on the panel. Because it could render Friday’s astonishing absence null and void. How can it be otherwise? Here you have a bloke being taken ill and having to sign off sick. So how the hell can you hold him morally responsible for an action, when that selfsame action was governed by the deterministic machinations of a bone-coffin? In other words sir he wasnt really being disrespectful to the forces of law and order in the classroom. He wasni really fucking doing something that was fucking quite upsetting in many ways that at first sight appear unimportant but in actuality, as you and I both are aware, is the very stuff of which the strongest citadel may ultimately crumble and fall into disrepute.
Now,
and after that, Tenerife. Tenerife! Does the sun shine in Tenerife on Marchday mornings! No doubt – these foreign bastards get all the luck, the sunny climes and belly dancers. And afterwards, afterwards
How come these afterwards aye rear their ugly mugs? What about Goya? go there, he lived in Saragossa and they’ve got no a bad football team. Christ it’s great to have money, ye can just fuck off wherever you like and take a fancy to. What about Velasquez and auld fucking Rubens. Where did they dwell? Was the climate luscious. Did oranges fall off the fucking trees. Carlos Williams’s grannie? Handgrenades? And of course El Greco who was a sixteenth-century chap from the isle of Crete.
There is no time that is not the present and if Master Doyle is to break out of his life then this early hour of a Marchday morning is ripe.
A boiled egg, a pot of tea, a couple of water biscuits. Picasso was a multimillionaire communist. So what. And then as well you’ve got Galileo.
Arse.
Patrick was having a bath; it was twice in three days and a new all-comers record. He had a selection of books in with him although he was actually wanting to have an uncluttered think. He knelt in the water. It was quite hot, thus he was not yet able to sit down. He uplifted a knee, it was redly pink. A book setting the limits of geography in a freemarket economy was lying on the floor. It was him responsible for having brought it in here. It was like a form of self-torment. Next to it was this novel he started last night which was so horrendously boring that fuck it, he couldnt be expected to continue any further, not even on behalf of 5b, one of whose members had thrust the yarn upon him. Horrendous books are difficult. Patrick objects to being forced to complete them. There again but it isnt only horrendous fuckers he fails to complete. If facts are to be admitted even while one is bathing then let the following be admitted: that the latter chapters of books are often the more difficult to finish and upon the higher shelves of both the walls of the parlour and kitchen you will find a plethora of works that are yet terminated incompletely. This has nothing to do with existential psychology although, having said that, when he reaches the three score and ten mark perhaps he will bring them all down and get them terminated completely, read all these last chapters, get them all over and done with.
Now there you are about painting. You canni do that with a painting. You canni fucking
Or can ye? Maybe ye can. At some subconscious level. Imagine looking at that one of Goya’s where the wee dog is staring out from the quicksand, and you fail to notice the dog. Or decide not to take it into consideration. But only later, suddenly, you make that decision: let me consider that dog now. Okay, I can see the whole thing in its entirety, the painting, all of it. I’m now in a fit state to actually consider it as a total entity.
Fuck it, he was even going to wear a tie this morning and an ordinary shirt. That would increase his advantage. Because something important about the forthcoming interview: Old Milne had no way of knowing it was set to take place. Patrick hadni been in touch with him. So how could he possibly know. He wasnt a fucking mind-reader. Old bastard, if he wanted to he could just forget all about it, or pretend to forget all about it. Nobody was breathing down his neck. Headmasters are fucking autonomous, just like police commissioners and admirals of the fleet and the foreign office and the fucking aristocracy and all the secret services, the Watchdogs of Greatbritain.
Everything depended upon the nature of the carpeting viz. what it was about. Being so freshly scrubbed and sweet-smelling, dressed in the fresh outfit, maybe a dab of after-shave perfume. It could put him at an enormous advantage. Or disadvantage – Old Milne’s line of reasoning might run along the following track: Ah! So the chap appreciates the seriosity of the situation! Grand. It renders a tough task that wee bit easier.
And then he would proceed to dish out the punishment in man-to-man fashion i.e. you would do it to me if the roles were to be reversed and that sort of keech. The only fly in the ointment that Patrick would do no such thing if he was the headmaster. Not at all. If he was headmaster he would act very differently, very differently indeed. For a fucking kick-off he would abandon the entire practice. No more teaching. None. None whatsoever. Sorry but that’s fucking that. No more okay wages for a bad day’s work. That’s you out on your fucking neck. It’s finished, all over, no more teaching. You’re all bad influences on these weans so good-night and thank you very much, buona sera ya bastards, you assumed the role of judge and warden on behalf of a sick society so fucking hell mend ye, away and read Cicero.
That’s what P. Doyle would do if he was the fucking headmaster, so there, stick that in your pipebowl ya congregationalist person!
An alternative of course might be to go in for a government re-training scheme, and while engaged on that he could be
Fine.
Yes.
P. Doyle.
He also missed out on a couple of evening duties recently. The headmaster is sticky about evening duties. He likes them to be attended to. But it wouldnt be that. Surely not. Unless it was an amalgam of things, one of which was the eveni
ng duties while another
was anything you like. The best advice in the world is just to be calm, be calm, take things easy, easy. Not to worry too much about events over which you exercise no control. Over which you have lost control is more like it. In fact that sums it up. Control has been had and eschewed so fuck it. Really.
And it is just as well in terms of sanity. Many years have come and gone since those far-off days of the sun-drenched uni. Surely high time to be getting ahead of things instead of just what just eh doing things, things that could be better, that could be much better, than what they are, because they could, they could be much better, they could really fucking be better than they are and it all lay in his power for fuck sake he really was in control and even if by some figment of the imagination Old Milne had honestly forgotten all about the stupit fucking interview then Patrick hadnt, and wouldnt, because he was just going to walk in quite the thing in his good clothes, okay, and that was that. Fuck. Okay. No danger at all. Shite. Shite and arse and fucking tollie, keech and so on. But he was doing it now and standing by it, he was standing by it.
Aye, and maybe things would have turned out differently if he had got himself involved in the Christmas Pantomime with the rest of the morons.
Exactly.
And maybe also if he did not procrastinate, if he did not procrastinate, if he went for a pish when he needed a pish, if he finished a book when he started a book, if he
O fuck. Terrible. Terrible terrible terrible. What was Gillian Porter doing just now! And did she ever recollect Patrick with affection! God, was it possible? A really good woman. It would be nice to talk to her. She liked a laugh. That was what was good about her as well, how she liked a laugh. And probably about the difficult things in life, she would laugh them all right up in the sky and away with the wind.
Even Mrs Bryson. It would be nice talking to her. But what would it be nice to talk to her about, anything, anything at all, anything she fancied. The trials and tribulations of being an old maid. She wasni, it was him, she was a married woman with grown-up weans while what was he he was a bachelor, an old maidenly chap, that’s what he was. So what? Who’s fucking bothered about such shite.
Also, he would have a flat tyre. Nothing surer. Auld fucking Zeus, that’s what he would dish out. A flat tyre. So there he would be having to change this mawkit and clattily manky wheel, getting it all on the trousers and jacket and shirtsleeves; the shoes covered in it, plus the dog shit; and then kneeling in the gutter by mistake and having to dive back up the stair for another bath and a new set of clothes! In the name of the deity! Any fucking deity! Please assist a bloke in distress! The son of a pair of Aged P’s. One with no expectations whatsoever. One with just this honest, god-fearing bunch of relatives and forefathers/mothers who have always done their duty by monarch, the rich and the church. Honest! So what’s to be done? Well, an easy approach to the morning was number 1. And number 2: a well-ironed breakfast. Good. Number 3? A sharply brushed sandwich on toast. Okay.
In certain parts of the world licensed establishments open their doors at the back of four a.m. Four fucking a.m. In the fucking forenoon morning jesus christ and here you have a fellow who is not able to acquire a few jars prior to the nine o’clock showdown with a praetorissimo of the congregationalist protestant teacher class. So what is to be done what is to be done aside that is from suicide. Aside from suicide. Although there again, in terms of bon vivre, P for Patrick seldom recollects having felt so fine as at this exact moment. Talk about fucking high spirits! I’m no kidding ye this boy could do a wee jig, a wee jig. And I dont tell lies, no me, I’m straight-down-the-line
Straight-down-the-line must be a football expression, to do with running down the wing with the ball at one’s feet, prior to crossing it to the far post where the striker is just moving in to Bump, that’s another in the back of the net. One of the problems
One of the problems! There arent any problems. None whatsoever.
So what’s to be done? Nothing. Nothing at all.
That temptation.
There is no temptation. None whatsoever.
None whatsoever. On the contrary:
To yield to occasion is the mark of the wise man. That’s what Cicero says and Cicero doesni tell lies. What age was he when they extinguished his life’s blood?
As soon as he stepped out onto the landing he knew it was cold, that it was back as winter once again. His chin always seemed to be the extremity most outreaching of all his parts, and caught the snell wind firstly. And as he battered his way down the stairs, the absolutely cauld dank dankness of these fucking outlandish efforts known as walls, floors and fucking bastarn ceilings of ice-frosted steam and he began shivering in an incredible, exaggerated fashion so that you had to ask is it genuine? is it the mark of a false consciousness? an indication of what’s the fucking French for bad faith! If it had been Norwegian fine, fine, but French! O dear no. Maybe better if the silly fucker had returned upstairs for a more suitable item of apparel – mauvaise foi – the anorak for christ sake and a woolly scarf and a pair of gloves, the Vick Vapour Rub to dab beneath the nostrils and a couple of nice wee hot whisky toddies, with a large straw.
There was frost on the windows of the doors and all down the panels of the doors, and the windscreen of course fucking encrusted by it. The lock had iced up. He breathed hot breath on it, his hands cupped round his mouth and if successful he would needs move rapidly otherwise it would freeze up even worse when the cold got into it. And the windscreen. He used the side of his hand. Once upon a time he was a total idiot and threw hot water on everything and it was all fine for ten seconds until fuck ye and it was all ice again, and occasionally you saw folk still doing that. Okay, the very next time he did he would yell out and halt it, and be friendly for christ sake to his fellow human beings! That’s all it took, just that note of warning, a friendly way of being in this evilish world wherein deities advance the net. And the glove-compartment too, its hinges rusted and cracking by the sound of it. Everything about this motor was absolutely fucking hopeless.
Yes, the ice-scraper was still inside the compartment! If he had tried for it in the first place the side of his hand wouldni fucking be bloody damn fucking numb. Och well, one cannot have everything. But by jesus it was fucking cold. Or was it all his nerves was it all his nerves and the cold was only compounding matters, was that all. He finished scraping the frost and was on the driver’s seat and becoming comfortable and so on prior to testing the horrible starter and so on, trusting that it would connect with the battery and so on in mechanical manner thereby the engine turning satisfactorily this not being a morning for dilly-dallying and push fucking starts please god.
And the Pythagoreans of course, not believing the fire should be stirred by iron. Exactly right as usual. Funny that so it is, how come these fucking ancient bastards hit the nail on the head plus of course peregrinations on the highways to which they were totally opposed, totally opposed, you can walk anywhere you like except the road, otherwise you’d get knocked down by a cart perhaps, or a chariot. Common sense, always common sense, steering clear of beans and the rest of it.
The motor car was moving. Patrick gripping onto the wheel and perched forwards on the very edge of the seat, the shoulders hunched rigid and making loud shivering noises, having to keep the demisters blowing cold air so the windscreen would stay clear. O it was good to be wearing a tie wearing a tie, athwart the adam’s apple, giving this good sense of combating the elements and warding off the ill-omened bad-health inducers such as the flu.
Thoughts are no good. They are not a help, not an assistance; they do not come to the aid of a person in extremis, a person who suffers that others may indeed walk free – because that’s what a fucking teacher is really I mean eh! she or he fucking spends his or her fucking life trying to fucking show people the ropes and the byways to a successful existence, a successful method of manoeuvering yourself through the twists and turns and nooks and crannies of the sinister univers
e, that’s what they do. And then they get punched on the gub! Punchus punche on the fucking gubus.
Okay then, no more of it.
And Patrick, when he was parking the motor in the school parking area, saw some kids gazing at him and he winked, turned the key in the lock, strolled across the playground, skirting round the outsize slide some boys were sliding down. He hadnt been keen on slides as a boy, a couple of bad cracks on the rear of the skull because of them, which was where you aye seemed to land whenever you took the tumble, that terrible jarring crack. How does the cranium cope? And yet it does.
Mister Peters. Auld fucking greeting face the janny. The world was become bleak.
Patrick nodded. Morning.
Mm.
Any luck on Saturday? Patrick smiled. Nottingham Forest beat my da for a right few quid! The fixed odds coupon.
Whh. The janitor shook his head and gazed sideways, moving his chin as though his shirt collar was too tight and it was hampering his larynx. Patrick’s own collar was feeling a bit tight as well and he inserted his index finger, tugging the collar out the way. Mister Peters said: I’m seeing your boss about it.
What?
I’m just bloody sick of it.
D’you mean about the upgrading?
Aye. I was talking to a guy from the Housing Department and he was telling me they’ve all got it. So if they’ve all got it how the hell have we no?
It’s bad.
You’re telling me it’s bad, and if anything we’ve got a damn sight more responsibilities than they’ve got. And yet they give it to them and no to us. You tell me how they work it out.
Aye, bad.
It’s bloody out of order. You look for logic and there isni any. Mister Peters’s attention was distracted by a group of girls which was passing by and talking excitedly about something; and from them to a group of boys, one of them was bouncing a ball on the steps up to the doors at the entrance which was entirely against the laws of the school. The janitor’s hand hovered as though to reach for his whistle. He said to Patrick. It’s been on my mind non-stop, spoiled the whole bloody weekend.
