Another mug of tea.
Two or three days, that’s all he would have been able to take of Eric. No more. Then they’d be at each other’s throat. At least Pat would. Eric would just be slightly taken aback then conciliatory. They were all like that, these middle-class bastards, lying fuckers, so absolutely hypocritical it was a way of being, they never even bothered reflecting on it, all these lecturers and students, so smugly satisfied and content to let you say what you wanted to say and do what you wanted to do, just so long as it didnt threaten what they possessed, and what did they possess why fucking everything, the best of health and the best of fucking everything else. It was a joke, just a joke. But it was pointless being bitter. It was pointless being bitter. Being bitter was fucking silly. Patrick had stopped being bitter. What it did was just fucking stopped you from doing things. At uni it stopped him from doing things. If he had stopped being bitter he might have done things. What might he have done? He might have done things. Obviously he canni be expected to say what exactly these things are. But there are things he would definitely have done and that means he would not right at this fucking moment be a fucking damn bloody bastarn schoolteacher, one who does fuck all in the world bar christ almighty nothing at all. It was them wanted him to go to uni and no him, his parents and his fucking big brother. It was all so stupit. Really, so stupid. He had not wanted to go. And even once he was there it was something else he was after. Something else altogether. But how do you explain that to your family. What — explain what? Explain what you had wanted to do. Patrick had wanted to do something. That was fucking definite. But what had it been? What actually had that thing been, the thing he wanted to do. Something massive, that’s all, something massive.
There was no tea left in the mug. He needed another mug, mugful. Or did he? Did he need more? No. What did he need? Nothing.
8 o’clock on a Friday evening. Surely he needed something! No, he didnt need a thing, he did not need an anything, the thing that he did not need was an anything, there was not that anything that he needed in this world, that anything was not there, it was not here.
Alison and the others would still be chatting the night away at the arts centre. Let them.
He could go and get Gavin out for a pint. They had been going through a less than friendly stage this past while but so what. Go and get Gavin out for a pint. But Nicola isni too keen on Gavin going out for pints. Then go and offer to babysit so they can go out for a pint. Or to the pictures or something. Too late. But maybe he could get a couple of cans and a bottle of wine and just go and visit, have a yap — maybe even have a quiet word with Nicola about the certain Mirs Houston because if you canni speak to your sister-in-law who in the name of the holies etcetera.
Or just go down to the pub for a quiet pint on his own, put the initials on the board for a game of pool. Patrick quite enjoyed a game of pool, as long as it didnt last too long because it got hell of a fucking boring seeing that fucking ball go zigzagging about the table all night.
Coffee.
It was pointless spending so much time and effort over Alison. Either he went the whole hog and asked her out or else he fucking let go altogether. She wasnt his last chance. He only acted as if she was.
But that last time he went to a disco was pathetic. He wandered into this place along Sauchiehall Street and it was all kids from the fifth year. O look, there’s auld Doyle in to spoil the fun. A slight exaggeration. But most of them did look around the eighteen-years-of-age mark. The only place to go was a pub. But when he went to pubs he drank and he was sick of bloody dranking because you end up doing things that are most odd indeed and also your brains become deceased.
What about a woman of the streets? Was that something to consider? No.
He could renew his membership for the hostels and go tramping across the highlands once more. That was quite a happy time. That was the thing that made uni a less than hopeless place to be. But what about outdoor clubs, maybe there were outdoor clubs, for adult males and adult females. Where you just went for walks and to be meeting each other. And now that spring approached walks up Goat Fell or The Cobbler or Ben Lomond, just to get back in action again. He and Eric used to do a bit of climbing. It was good. Why not start doing that. Why not indeed, but not just fucking now, 8 o’clock on a Friday fucking night.
What he could do was play the pipes. No! He didnt want to play the pipes! Not just now. Not just now.
He had marked the time out for it already. 9.40. Twenty minutes to ten p.m.
There were also clubs where people went. They existed for single parties, divorced folk and widowed folk but not necessarily older folk. And the beauty of it was that those who went to such clubs went to meet others in a similar situation to themselves which meant the initial hurdle had been jumped, and the woman would be there to give the man every encouragement. She would be well aware of the difficulties men can have in establishing that first contact, that fucking leap you always had to make to begin things. Christ, sometimes it could really fuck you the way that worked. But with the woman there to help you along. It was definitely something to consider seriously. He was sick of wanking. It just made him aware of his age all the time. He did not wish to dwell continually on the passing years. Here he was turning thirty years of age. Thirty years of age is regarded as a landmark, a watershed, a stage of departure. At that age Jesus Christ entered the teaching profession and Joseph K worked out his guilt. So here you have Patrick. But to be honest about it the idea of age doesnt worry him greatly. His brother is thirty-three. His sister-in-law is thirty-one. Desmond is fucking ninety-nine! No he’s not he’s forty or forty-one or something, poor bastard. And the da’s fifty-seven and the maw fifty-six.
And then there’s Goya!
And Hölderlin, poor auld fucking Hölderlin.
But why wait until twenty minutes to ten to play the pipes? Why not whenever he likes? Why not right bloody now? At this exact moment. Because he was not wanting to do it on a full stomach, his lips covered in grease and his belly full of fish and buttered rolls and chips and oceans of tea. He put two hours as the period of proper gestation. The fish would have drowned by then, and the chips would have merged into his very parts, his very being; it would all have become part of his very flesh, forcing its way into his very character, his very psychology and personal traits being heightened by this solid mass of fish and fried potato. And his very breath.
Not to be charged of fried food when the blowing took place, this was the object. He was after a form of purity in the act itself. A clear wind and a freshened breath — unclouded by the fats of dead animals.
He would have to stop thinking like this. This business of the body. Was he becoming fetishistic? That could be Alison’s fault. Before you knew it he would be signing on as a religious convert. It was really unhealthy. This again was bound in with why he wanted out. But did he want out? Really? Did he really want out? It was a jump. It really was. A fucking jump and a half. And one a person had to be sure about christ you really had to be sure about something like that and Patrick was not yet absolutely there on the brink of it, not yet — the pathway perhaps but not the actual brink. Not really. Not at this juncture. He had things to live for.
Things to live for.
These many things.
Alison could of course save him by simply having left the arts centre. She could simply have made her excuses and marched out, head held high and not giving a fuck about the scandalmongers, she just had to see Patrick and didnt care who knew it. Even Desmond.