But it hadnt been too depressing. There had been a nice couple of things. And Fiona Grindlay of course who was in sixth year and given birth to that wee baby then had stayed on at school and without divulging the name of the father. That was good. And a couple of nice arguments with the fourth year that no matter how sentimental gave him a wee glow — a bit like your first sip of whisky when that whisky is a fine single malt, a nice thick one from the Inner Hebrides, and you’ve just come in from a slog across the hills, maybe even a climb. Which is what Patrick would wish for himself just now, right at this moment, he would wish himself into a small friendly hotel whose bar stayed open till the last customer left, and Patrick wouldni leave, he would remain forever. But it would be something very special being in such a place with a woman you really fancied. The thick peats burning in the fireplace, having to avert the face slightly from the fire because it is so hot. And a nice pint of draught beer on tap and maybe a nice sort of late meal to come, with a bottle of cool wine, then upstairs to bed, but even lingering say, if it was with Alison for instance, being relaxed and cheery the way sometimes he could be with her, maybe looking out and seeing the bluishblack of the sea, the solitary lighthouse beam flaring away to the southwesternmost point, a couple of seconds interval, making its own pause, allowing the two folk to settle into it, that kind of tranquillity, that rhythm. She did have the knack of getting him calm, making him calm himself, getting him to calm himself, and become towards his best. And his best could be fairly amusing in not too loud a fashion — quiet asides. They could be sitting up in bed doing it. Doing what? Pat chuckled. He shook his head. He had been sitting back in the normal driving position but he sat forwards now, the rain having begun again, and quickly came streams of it down the windscreen and he had to shove the wipers onto motorway-action, awaiting the next turn-off. There was only one thing worth bothering about and that was the truth of the matter what was the truth of the matter was the truth of the matter ‘love’; love, was that it? Love? Love. That was it out in the open now. He was in love with Alison Houston. And he wanted to grab a hold of her. If he didnt grab a hold of her bad things would happen.
So, what was to do? What was he to do? He laughed — a sniggering kind of guffaw. But no wonder! So, what to do? One of those romantic carry ons? stealing her away from under the nose of everybody — her and her husband sitting there watching the telly and the door goes and when it gets answered, in bursts Patrick and he shouts, Okay Alison. Coats on! That’s us, we’re leaving.
Leaving?
Aye, right now.
What about my husband.
Fuck him.
And she gives Pat a huge smile, but very somehow underplayed at the same time because she is saving the main bulk of it for when they are alone. She rushes out the room to pack her stuff.
Dont waste time, says Patrick, we can hit the department stores first thing in the morning. The department stores. It sounds like something out of a Hollywood picture. Patrick shook his head but he was grinning. He had to remember and concentrate though because the road conditions were abysmal, really abysmal. And sitting hunched forwards like this aye made you stiff and cramped, stiffened shoulders and cramped back muscles, down at the small of it, the back, at the foot of the spine. He felt exhausted. An actual physical sensation of acute tiredness, as if even just shutting the eyelids for ten seconds would genuinely help matters christ just ten seconds. Being able to stretch right out! The legs and the arms and wrists, the fingers — instead of this having to drive nearly pressed right into the windscreen with your face in the glare and getting that cold blast from the demisters somehow hitting the crown of your head, never a good sensation although it can keep you awake and alert when you are driving and you shouldnt be driving because you are too tired to be good at it, too exhausted to actually
Alison’s husband always said nothing. He stood in the background. It was possible he had a deeply rooted inferiority complex. In the company of teachers a great many folk suffer the same problem. Teachers intimidate people. He was a funny sort of bloke in some ways and didnt remind you of a high powered salesman at all; he was more like something else, an undercover detective perhaps, working for the Economic League or Special Branch, or MI5 and the CIA. It was possible. Everybody knew they had all infiltrated the educational establishments of the entire country, and that includes primary schools and nurseries. If Alison
Ah christ.
He dropped the gear from top to third to second, slowing at the roundabout up from the Motherwell sliproad, returning back onto the M74, heading home to Glasgow.
How to progress through the rest of the night. He tried reading, different volumes, and then listening to foreign stations on his shortwave radio. It was all useless. His mind was just too totally crazy. At one stage he thought he was going to burst out greeting. He had been sitting with his toes toasting at the fire and had managed to read nearly two pages of a book, the memoirs of an old politician, and then he had to stop and start and stop and start and at last shut his eyelids so tightly, so tightly, to halt the tears. Now, that was something about Kierkegaard. Patrick had never quite managed to trust him for it; and it was that, it was to do with that; but just leave it there, just leave it; and dont even get it out, what you are thinking, close to thinking, dont even try it.
He shut the book and was fiddling about beneath his chair. What was he doing he was looking for his shoes he was going to go out again. Where was he going, to the boozer probably, he felt like a pint, a last pint, or maybe two, the two pints, if he swallowed that down he’d sleep alright, the sleep of the just. The just fucking knackered. Where’s the shoes. The shoes have walked. The shoes are over next to the bed. But he was fucking knackered. And why shouldnt he be, out fucking teaching all day. It was something that annoyed him, the way a lot of bastards scoffed at the work teachers performed in return for their time off, as if they didni deserve it. Bastards. Fucking bastards. He closed his eyelids and strode the three paces to the sideboard so that when he stopped and opened them and look straight ahead he would be looking into the wall mirror and seeing the two little fuckers there in front of him, his eyes: look into my eyes, especially when they’re fucking your own, look into them, see the sharp lines of light, the way they mock you, the little bastards, your eyes, what the fuck do they look at all the time, what do they see, do they perceive, when they are not honest and not steady, when they are fucking dishonest and always fucking not being steady.
The pipes. In all their majesty of colour. The bright silver and red and black. Shiny and fine. The painting had been a good idea. It was a freshness. Perhaps as well as if he blocked up the ends so that the sound would be more correct, without any too much
There existed very long saxophones from years ago. The player sat on the chair like a cellist; that same sort of feeling to it as well — unlike for example the way a harpist would be: the whole act differing in a very fundamental sense. Although harpists are fine. There is nothing to be said against harpists by any means whatsoever.
Patrick lifted the thinner of the two and he returned it to the floor and he lifted the other and carried it, in leisurely fashion, across to the bow windows, there being a pair of them in this room, the front room, what the old folk referred to as the parlour, what his grandparents had referred to as the parlour, the room wherein nothing occurred but the dusting of irrelevant objects twice weekly or monthly as the case may be, in that of Doyle P., never. Would his grandparents ever have had sexual activity in the parlour? Did this type of query take the form a family would acknowledge as valid or would it be recognised at once as unsound, an inauthentic entity that already proved beyond the shadow of a doubt the massive gulf between on the one hand this university-trained younger son of the household