Remedy is None

by William McIlvanney

  He watched her for a moment, then took out a monogrammed cigarette-case and lit a cigarette with a monogrammed lighter. He fidgeted for a second. He lifted his empty glass and drained the last bead of whisky from it.

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring the car round to here for you. You can powder your nose while you’re waiting. If we’re going up, we’d better go now.’

  She nodded, lifting her handbag.

  Chapter 16

  ‘COULD I SEE YOUR CREDENTIALS PLEASE, GENTLEMEN?’

  The voice came through the letter-box. Three bottles were held up, and the door swung open.

  ‘Come in,’ Eddie said to them. ‘And bring your three friends with you.’

  They took off their coats in the hall. The sitting-room was a medley of sounds, several simultaneous remarks, a stutter of raucous laughter, a shouted name, ‘The Shadows’ plangent in the background, all shaken together into a confused cacophony.

  ‘Listen to the noise,’ Eddie said. ‘You would think they were having a party to listen to them. You’ve arrived in good time, boys. We’ve got so many wall-flowers in here, it’s beginning to look like a conservatory. Forward. To the front line.’

  He ushered them into a room where his command didn’t seem out of place. Backslaps and waving hands and thumbs-up signs and faces smiling in recognition exploded all around them and they were bombarded with phrases like ‘guests of honour’ and ‘Charlie himself’ and ‘the three must-get-beers.’

  ‘No autographs please,’ Jim said, bowing all round the room. ‘Buttons from my jacket may be had on request.’

  ‘Only from your jacket?’ somebody shouted, but it was buried in a ruck of remarks.

  Eddie filled out three generous glassfuls from random bottles and opened three cans of beer.

  ‘Here, you can try to catch up,’ he said. ‘We’re a bit short on the glassware. One each. That’s your issue for the night. If you want to try a different drink, you can lick the glass clean first. I think somebody must be eating them. Beer is drunk k la can.’

  Amid a lot of laughter and cross-talk and mock toasts, the three of them were merged with the rest of the company. Gradually, through nods and repetitive smiles and shouted comments, they began to get their bearings in the room, to see who was where and what the signs were. They were helped by Willie McQueen. When ‘The Shadows’ had twanged to a halt, Willie took over the gramophone for a couple of records. He had brought along a few records from his collection. Willie’s records were a bit like Mary’s lamb. They were what he had instead of a party piece. Every chance he got, he took his records with him and played them to the company. So for a little while conversation dropped a couple of keys while they all more or less listened to Bechet being played by the clarinet and the menacing monotony of Don Ewell, like water on dead leaves.

  In the comparative lull, Charlie and Andy and Jim were able to get the feel of the party. Eddie hadn’t been quite right about the ‘wall-flowers’. The proportion of male to female was about right. It was just that the ingredients hadn’t mixed to the full effect as yet. The boys were still stalking, circling tentatively, scenting possibilities, testing terrain with witticism and too loud comment. The girls were opening out slowly, petal by provocative petal, a knee showing here, a lingering smile there, and bright attention in many places. A general merger was imminent, could be foretold in a hand resting casually on a shoulder, a shared drink, the intimacy of eyes. Already a few had anticipated the trend, especially among those couples who had come to the party together and could curtail the preliminaries.

  And Jim, assessing the opposition, couldn’t help thinking that they increased his chances. He wondered where Eddie had got hold of so many non-starters. He watched Tom Quigley trying to prize his way into one group with his customary crowbar of uninentionally sarcastic humour. The others in the group went awkwardly quiet for a few moments. Poor old Quigley. He was a born fuse, with his wrists always showing two inches under his sleeves like naked filament, short-circuiting every conversation he entered. He noticed Sam Harris embarrassedly footing the bill for another laugh. Somebody had made another joke at his expense. That was the way it was with Sam. The next round of jokes is on me. He was positively philanthropic about it. He was the tongue in everybody else’s cheek. He saw Jimmy Adams padding about with his tongue hanging out, like a newly-appointed eunuch to a harem. He was drifting unobtrusively from group to group with his eyes crawling like ants all over girls. His was a severe case of galloping pornography.

  Andy, talking now in an off-hand way to Bert Thomas, was giving himself a running commentary on the talent on hand. In some back room of his mind, observations were being fed in like ticker-tape and were checked off against past information. Agnes Semple seemed still unattached. Looking most trim in a blue sheath, but somehow uninviting. A bit like Elizabeth Taylor, but definitely a bowdlerized edition. Alice Evans. Oasis in Sahara, topcoat in winter. Some smile. Like a Christmas tree lit up, filling you with corny thoughts of firesides and slippers and protective instincts. Terrific in a dangerous sort of way. Sally. Very nice. And a very smart talker. Sometimes too smart. When she was in the mood, the noise of deflating egos was deafening. But she could be very coy when she wanted it that way. Jessie. Engaged on one of her epic anecdotes. By appointment Romancer to the late King. The usual elaborate gestures and expressions. Like an amateur production of ‘East Lynne’. Out into the snow with her. Celia Meldrum. Strange. No sign of Faithful Fred the watchdog. Might be a chance there. Correction. Fred appearing with recharged glass, all twelve-and-a-half stones of him. Let interest cease. A choice of two, really. Put them both in the hat and let the evening pick one out. One other very attractive nameless one. Somebody new. Very dark, very interesting. But preoccupied in sending out strong signals to Charlie. Get tuned in, Charlie.

  Talking with Eddie and Frank Rogers, Charlie was enjoying the feeling the party gave him. The room was full of that atmosphere that only young people can create, that comes from an ability to take things purely for themselves at this moment, without question or interpretation or complication. Space and time hung in a void of alcohol and high spirits. For the moment, obligations, responsibilities, commitments did not exist. There were just people together. Charlie let his senses lackey to him. He enjoyed the feel of the glass in his hand, the taste of the whisky on his tongue. He listened to the talk of Eddie and Frank and joined in himself, and words were an enjoyable physical experience in themselves beyond anything they might mean or achieve. He watched a pretty, dark-haired girl who was looking at him and it was pleasant to meet and hold her eyes from time to time. And everything was enveloped in a sensation of well-being. These things revolved round him like planets round a sun, fulfilling a natural law that was self-sufficient. They would follow their own course, whatever it was. He might just go on talking to Eddie and Frank. He might go over and talk to the dark-haired girl and see what came of it. He might just sit and have another drink. Whatever he did, he would enjoy it. For the moment he was content to let these things pass pleasantly around him, pulling him in whatever direction they chose, bringing things about.

  When Willie McQueen’s recital by remote control was finished, there were stirrings throughout the room as if the party was stretching itself for action. Bert Thomas came over to Eddie suddenly and asked him for two milk bottles, as if it was the most natural thing to ask for, like two halfpennies for a penny. When he got the bottles, he proceeded to demonstrate how far he could travel on them, using them like stilts for his hands, until his body came close to being parallel with the floor and someone callously kicked away one of his bottles. News of his prowess travelled even to the most isolated neckers and soon pilgrimages were being made from the four corners of the room to see the wonder. Others tried to outdistance him. Voices were raised in encouragement and accusation. Demarcation disputes arose. Only gradually did they manage to evolve the rules for travelling on milk bottles. The interest it aroused lasted for some time, and it brought o
ut the circus performer in all of them, so that by the time its popularity had waned they were searching insatiably for substitutes. They tried lifting matchboxes with their lips, kneeling on the floor like strange devotees with their hands clasped behind their backs. They tried putting matchboxes on the floor beside their feet and lifting them by roundabout routes with their arms curled round their legs. Charlie suggested an egg-breaking contest and was volubly supported by Jim and Andy. But it was immediately vetoed by Eddie as being too messy. Fred Aitken announced that an egg could be thrown over a house and would not break as long as it landed on grass. Cynicism hissed like a hydra around him. In his more sober moments Fred might have let it pass. But riding the crest of the beer, he was adamant.

  ‘I,’ he enunciated defiantly, ‘will throw an egg over a house – over the roof of this house – and it will not break. Provided it lands on grass.’

  It became evident that the honour of Fred and eggs was so far compromised that only a contest could redeem it. Eddie said that he had only two eggs in the house and they were for his breakfast tomorrow. Under pressure, however, he nobly agreed to sacrifice one. The gauntlet was down.

  With his tormentors trailing him, Fred went forth into the darkness of the front garden, his standard a lion rampant on an egg. Fred was taken round to the back of the house and shown the lawn where the egg must land. He walked about testing the grass with his feet, and found it satisfactory. A detachment was left on the back lawn to follow the egg’s flight and check its condition on arrival. The rest came round to the front with Fred.

  Fred went out on to the roadway in front of the house. The lighted windows in the quiet street behind him proclaimed families at their mundane activities of television and talk. Fred gave the invisible waiters a preparatory halloo and set about the throwing of the egg. His arm looped backwards and whipped forward.

  ‘One away!’ somebody shouted.

  There was a small sound in the expectant stillness, such as an egg might make alighting on a roof. Baffled silence was audible from the other side of the house, giving way to discontented mutterings. In the front garden people were leaning on each other, dancing minuets of wheezy laughter. Alone on the roadway, Fred snapped his fingers in irritation and remonstrated silently with himself. A scout came round from the back to see how things were progressing.

  ‘Where’s the egg?’ he asked innocently.

  Jim pointed upwards.

  ‘It’s having a night on the tiles,’ he said.

  When the others followed him to find out what was going on, Fred was subjected to an ignominious barracking. But many still maintained that he should have a second chance to prove himself. Their motives were dubious, but Fred was agreeable. Only Eddie was not. It was put to him that one egg on his plate would be no more than a bitter reminder of that other on the roof, and he was eventually persuaded.

  Act Two: the scene as before. In the middle of the road, Fred holding egg, juggling it in his hand like a fateful die. Others offering sarcastic encouragement. ‘The world awaits, Fred.’ ‘Throw, man, throw.’ The night holding its breath as the moment comes. The egg is cast. Loud cheering as the egg vanishes over the roof. Ejaculations all round, congratulations following.

  ‘Ye did it, Fred.’

  ‘Your country is proud of you.’

  ‘It’s a civic reception you should get. The first egg into space is a Briton, sir.’

  ‘Come on. We’ll join the reception committee.’

  They stampeded round the house to find the others deployed across the garden, quarrelling good-naturedly and striking matches. ‘It definitely musta went to the right. I saw it and then lost sight o’ it.’ ‘Naw. It came straight over.’ ‘Where is it, then?’ ‘Have ye no’ got a torch in the house, Eddie?’ The search continued for a time, refreshing itself with intermittent laughter. But Fred’s fate remained sealed in darkness. People started to drift back into the house. Somebody put on records and dancing became general. Nonsense was done with and business was under way. The place became partitioned with intimacy and conversations occurred in private booths. The party had come of age. The dancers drifted round, a mobile suggestion-box. The dark-haired girl danced past Charlie. Her eyes said S.O.S. At the end of the record, he cut in.

  ‘Thank goodness for that,’ she said, fitting into his arms as if she was made to measure.

  ‘Just call me Penicillin,’ Charlie said. ‘I’ve saved so many lives.’

  ‘I’ve listened to so many commercials about how good he is, I feel like I.T.V.’

  ‘I thought he was your boy friend.’

  ‘So does he.’

  A verbal handkerchief has just been dropped. It is only polite to pick it up.

  ‘You have been chosen, madam, to have demonstrated to you our new Lovermatic. The latest thing in love. No longer need you endure the tedious boredom of wishday. The pointless conversation. The clumsy overtures. It quips as it fascinates as it sweeps you off your feet.’

  ‘Not another commercial.’

  ‘With a difference. My card.’

  A gentle kiss. Very suave. The latest thing in human relationships, right enough. Start in top gear and just keep going till you hit a wall. Any minute now.

  ‘Just my luck. From a bore to a madman. You’re stone mad.’

  Your shock is pure pretence, my sweeting. Your mouth votes noisily. Your eyes abstain.

  ‘A family characteristic. Goes back to my grandfather. Came over from Ireland in a tattie famine – and a boat. With clouts on his feet. Married my grandmother because she had a shebeen in the back door. Had a squatter of weans. Never did a day’s work in his life. Drunk every day God sent and a few he didn’t. They all said he was mad. But he died laughing.’

  ‘And you take after him?’

  ‘I take after the world. The whole thing’s mad. Admit it now. Isn’t it? A Saturday night. A few drinks. A roomful of people. A strange house. And us two gyrating in a clinch, with nothing more in common than Adam and Eve. Yet here we are. And I can feel your body against mine.’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘Well, it’s very simple really.’

  ‘And matched, you hope, by my own simplicity.’

  ‘Aye. That’s right. You learn fast. You see. We forget all about who we usually are. Obligations. Commitments. The lot. And we just take each other as we are for the night. To have and to hold. A kind of pagan marriage ceremony. The marriage of moments. We have the bodies. All we need are the names. You give me your name. I give you mine. And that’s us. And nobody’s your uncle. Or your brother. Or your father. We’re just two people.’

  A pause. What now! A call for the constabulary? A hurried withdrawal? A moment spinning like a coin. Heads or tails? ‘Jane Leighton.’

  ‘Charlie Grant.’

  Two names inscribed on a blank moment like a marriage certificate.

  ‘I now pronounce us you and me.’

  ‘That’s it? A simple marriage.’

  ‘We pagans are a simple people.’

  ‘Just what does this sort of pagan marriage involve?’

  ‘Ah, never mind these practicalities.’

  ‘As your wife, I think I have a right to know.’

  ‘Don’t nag me already. Fear not. Nobody said it had to be consummated. Let’s just enjoy our new status.’

  Dancing very close. Hands, do thy duty. Her hair smelling pleasant. Keep your head up so that you don’t knock off the laurel wreath. Confused images of the party bursting all around like fireworks to celebrate a victory. Dancers with closed eyes. Industrious neckers in corners. You would think they were on bonus. Jim winking like a satyr over a shoulder. Dance over towards the door. It’s ajar. The hall is dark. Shut the door from the outside. Dark as a villain’s moustache.

  ‘Heh. Where are we going?’

  ‘I’m looking for a place to spend the honeymoon.’

  A cabal of giggles. Love in a forest of coats. Teeth parting to admit a tongue. Breasts tauten in their harness. Belly sh
ivers. A handful of silk skin. A mouthful of cold crombie.

  ‘Hell! I thought you had grown a beard.’

  Sweet tenuous moment collapsed with a gust of laughter. Let clowning resume.

  ‘The case of the bearded lady. It’s a very sexy coat that all the same. I could really go for that. My love she’s but a crombie yet.’

  Pulling her towards him in the dark. A grey glint of eyes. Delicious collision.

  ‘Let me show you the rest of the premises. I hope you’re going to like them. I’m afraid the butler’s on holiday. Now this here is a real innovation. We call these things stairs. You put one foot on them like that. That’s right. And your other foot there. My, you do catch on. That’s it. And you find yourself going up.’

  Going up the stairs like Siamese twins. The boundaries of bodies blurring, merging. Sweet progress in unison. Back to nature. The good old fundamentals. Just walking can be wonderful; if you know how to do it. Behind a camouflage of patter, a left hand running quietly amuck.

  ‘And this here is the upper hall. Or in coamming parlance, ra landing. Aha. I nearly forgot. I must carry you over the threshold.’

  Surprisingly difficult to find the right position for the hands.

  ‘And this we call a bedroom. It gets its quaint name from that object over there. The uses of which can be demonstrated at your request. Sometimes even without your request. Its softness is its predominant feature. I’m going to let you fall on it now. Just to show you. And don’t worry. This won’t hurt at all.’

  The rustle of springs. A soft spinnet, whispering of past moments, distant rooms in darkness. This room half-lit from a street-lamp outside. A tumble of bodies. A romp of love. A confetti of giggles. The mirror watching with one cataracted eye. A slap-and-tickle of voices. Laughter. Talk. ‘We should be getting back.’ Rise up from the bed. Stand at the window. Let her prod and push at her hair in the mirror. What a caper! Do I wake or sleep? Who gives a damn? I like it. What was she doing now?

  She went over and sat heavily on the bed again, leaning back on her arms, laughing.