In juxtaposition to the pipes.
Being sentimental had nothing to do with it. It was just a matter of taking it all seriously. Because let us be frank about something: this is what it involved. It was the issue. He had to take it seriously. If he didni he was finished. And irony could have no part in it. Irony was death. And trying to work things out in advance, that was the last thing to do. He would just be there to do it, to accomplish it, what he was to do. Other folk could discuss the other things. Being a teacher caused people to spend their lives worrying out concepts, postulating this that and the next thing, all manner of hypothesising. The further from activity the better. Please allow us to conceptualise your problem, thus we can attain a sensation of nourishment ergo that your problem, though not yet solved, has been conceptualised, which is tantamount to a solution of course. That kind of shite. Challenges that must always remain academic. Causes you can throw yourself into. The efficacy or otherwise of reprinting the full unexpurgated twenty-four volume edition of Wilson’s TALES OF THE BORDERS. Tremendous. Earthshattering. Existencestopping. Lifebeginning. Getting a bunch of wee first yearers to think you’re the smartest guy in this here universe then off to the staffroom for a brief but earnest discussion with the peers. Great. And onto the local boozer for a quick bout of mutual backslapping and a vegetarian lunch. And a halfbottle of whisky when nobody’s looking. Aye, we’ve all done it. Smashing, great, fine, yes, and now go and enter the various nooks and crannies, take a look at your ceiling and then take another look at auld fucking Goya and relate that to your fucking life and the way you’re quite content to perform the fencing-in job for a society you purport to detest right to the very depth of your being. Sentimental keech, according to Desmond. The kind of comment that always comes from those whose true desire is steadfast inactivity, those whose one lust is for the absolute maintenance of the status quo, and their own wee remunerative numbers within it. They were probably laughing at him last night. He didni give a fuck anyway. But even Alison. When it comes down to it. And this is a fact he must admit of sooner or later, that the delectable Mirs Houston is aye prepared to sit in that company and to not go rushing off when Pat goes rushing off. She doesnt. She is happy to sit on chatting about fucking Xmas Pantomimes when he is not there, when the company comprises Desmond and Diana and fucking Mrs Bryson and the temporary English teacher. His presence is not at all necessary to her enjoyment of the socialising, amongst her cronies of the teaching racket. It is these types of facts that Patrick wishes to be capable of admitting. It is these types of facts he must be capable of admitting, if ever he is to achieve a genuine vision, a genuine honesty in his method of continuing. And let us further admit — and it is a corollary of last night — Patrick Doyle continues only insofar as he desires that he may continue. If he seeks to fucking die then he dies and that’s that. It is the easiest thing in the world to crash the fucking motor at seventy miles per hour. And dont think he doesnt know about that possibility because he does and he has — o christ since way back when he was doing his Christmas Postman as a student and earning the money for that selfsame damn bloody fucking licence. The incidents of last night relate directly to the moment. He was not in a state of befuddlement. He was not of a disorderly brain. A bit neurotic but nothing unusual in that and nothing for fuck sake in the slightest extraordinary about it. Most of yesterday evening could occur at any time of the day or night. And this is important to remember. And last night was a Friday night as well. Thus today being Saturday. Saturday.
Formerly the finest day of the week.
Saturday!
Hurrehh!!
Three cheers for Saturday!!
But not nowadays. Nowadays it is a day for recovery. Nowadays it is a day he could stay in bed and nobody would notice. A day when, if he felt like it,
And what did that Russian poet say about doing things as opposed to having them done to you? But what about Oblomov. Then that auld Cynic who wouldni get out his fucking bath! Quite right. Pat likes having baths as well. But it’s not to do with that. But there again, the whole world is obliged to rise from its place of repose. Patrick is no different. Except that he gets paid a better than average wage, et sumptu publico, which can be said to apply to everyone in one way or another. He has become scunnered by the carry on, that is all. The process has been gradual. Or has it? It hasni really. In some ways it seems to have in other ways no, in other ways it has crept up on him and then let fly with a crack on the fucking jaw.
Is there a party at whose door the blame can be lain. Apart from the fucking obvious. The schoolweans dont seem able to comprehend the obvious. Although no doubt they go rushing straight home each day to inform their parents of the day’s indoctrination who then pass on the information to the proper authorities, the name Doyle P., being filed under something or other which is not very good in terms of promotion e.g. Subversive Blasphemers: One Who Seeks To Overthrow The Present Government And Do Away With Plutocracy And An Hierarchical System Based Upon Monarchy. Plus other things as well of course, not excluding the daily denial of the deities. Which deities? Any fucking deities. When it comes to deities Doyle isni fussy. For christ sake even blowing the pipes could get him listed; an early-warning sign of senile dementia — coupled with that suspicious state of bachelordom while in charge of the nation’s children; a bloke who would probably, if the truth be told, be much more at home sitting in the queue of the local DHSS office. What the fuck was Old Milne wanting to see him about? Whatever it was it would include some paternal advice of course. Old bastards like him seized every possible opportunity for dishing that kind of stuff out. Aye well Patrick has plenty of paternals of his own. That was the last thing he needed, another of the bastards. Plus what he didni need, what he did not need, not at all, was another Alison. In the cold light of day, when sexual gratification has receded into the distant horizon, when he is once more of the disposition
In fact, she is not even what can objectively be described as ‘good looking’. Dark hair and dark eyes. She has been described as ‘beautiful’ but at certain oblique angles at certain times of the day, Patrick has been totally flabbergasted to see
Fuck sake she is just woman and that’s that. No paragon there. Nothing to get all het up about. Also her political stance, it is somewhat innocent — naïve is a better word. She believes the future exists! Unbelievable! So why then does he have this urge? Even in the cold and watery light of a late winter’s morning, a day such as today, he can imagine her speaking, actually imagine her speaking, listening or looking right at this very moment, and that smile she has, which is sentimental tollie, all adding up to the following:
Alison Houston has been available for some long time now but having become scunnered by the procrastinatory nature of potential lover number 1 (Doyle) she has opted for potential lover number 2 (Desmond). And at this moment, at this very moment, while her husband is out of town on a selling jamboree, the two of them, they are sharing a bed maybe, lying beneath the big quilt, her just absent-minded there and smiling at nothing at all, moving slightly, her
When Patrick was a boy
Get out of the house.
The house is not a place to be. Get out of it. There is the great temptation. It is not to be spoken of. Because once stated it has become part of something or other — reality. Patrick stood to his feet, of course, smiling. He turned to face the kitchen door and he began to walk to it, to place his hand on the handle, opening this door, this door that can lead into the parlour wherein lie the pipes, or else the front door if he wishes to don an outer garment and he is continuing beyond it and into the parlour, this room wherein the pipes, in their constant temperature of let it be known roundabout the fifty-six to sixty-two degree mark Fahrenheit and this thinner of the two which he has lifted and seems to be examining is in fact the one his fancy aye leads him to but this morning it is the other, the thicker and the heavier, that is demanding the playing, that is requiring a form of attention. This thicker pipe was more enjoyable to paint, its space being vaster. Patrick now sitting on a dining chair, the pipe propped onto the left toe of his shoe. Once balanced correctly he covered the top opening with both hands, his mouth compressed into the right one, and the barest fraction of a gap only, and if he could stop that up too he was looking to do it, but it