Ya big fucking flagpole ya cunt ye! Gone ya big fucking flagpole! Ya big drainpipe! Heh look at the state of that cunt man he’s a fucking drainpipe, look!
And the poor guy blushing as he attempts to hit the ball round the full-back and ends up tripping over his own two feet.
Look at the fucking poof! Heh you Hen Broon, ya fucking dickie ye! Your maw’s a fucking shagbag, she’s a darkie ya cunt! Beautiful cries from the heart. Gone ya fucking dumpling ye ya cunt ye couldni score in a barrel of fannies! A what? A barrel of fannies. A barrel of fannies? What in the name of christ!
It had taken him another couple of years to work that yin out and he would have been best left in ignorance. A barrel of fannies. It was enough to put ye off sex for the rest of your life. A case of the shudders everytime he thought about it. What was it like at all? a barrel of fannies — was it actually a nightmare, a form of male nightmare?
A man with a hat and a mournful face was standing a couple of yards from Pat. He looked like the stereotype of a hardbitten football journalist. Or a scout. He could have been a scout for one of the senior clubs. But no, definitely more like a journalist. Unless even here you were getting the fucking CIA or the fucking MI5. Dirty bastard. Here he was infiltrating one of the last bastions of ordinary life. Journalists were a lesser breed than teachers. Or were they? maybe they were on a par. They all sold out. What the fuck difference did it make. At least the MI5 were proud of being fascist rightwing bastards.
He had his hands in his coat pockets, the man, gazing at the play, his head turning to follow the flight of the ball, a cigarette wedged in at the corner of his mouth. And his mouth had a meanness about it. A kind of a crimped look there, in the lips.
Shocking!
To say that about somebody. Just because of the physical characteristics of the face you make snap judgments on personality, how the person makes his or her decisions, how they move in the midst of their fellows. Desperate. It is just not fair. It is not good. It is shocking.
Patrick missed the only goal of the game at this juncture. And serve him right. He was shaking his head and looking in the direction of his shoes, and then the blokes roundabout were cheering and applauding and waving. Yoker had scored. And what a goal as well according to everybody: their winger had cut in from the right and chipped the ball over the heads of the defence and back to the eighteen-yard line where the striker caught it on the volley and bump, straight into the corner of the net, a fucking beauty. And you aye remember goals. It is a fact one does not hesitate in admitting. There was one Patrick scored when he was playing for the BB and it was a real fucking beauty although painful, a header, but him letting the ball bounce that wee bit instead of actually meeting it on the attack, which is the correct way of using the nut, you have to go and meet it and not let it come and crash against ye. Joe Cairns said that as well, about remembering the goals you scored. He didnt talk about football very much but when he did Pat liked to be in the vicinity. There was that good yarn about when he was with Stirling and they were up for a cup game at Ibrox and holding them to a draw right up till the last couple of minutes and then the jammy bastards got their usual last minute Loyalist handshake of a penalty. So typical. So absolutely typical.
Junior football was much better. Although some of the supporters there were just as bigoted and fascist and some of them were fucking maniacs. Pat was at a game just after Christmas and he was standing down near to the corner flag; up comes a player to take a corner and the entire section of the crowd nearest started clearing their throats at him, dollops of catarrh. They were all men as well, no boys. Frightening. A shower of catarrh. Worse than a storm of hailstones.
There was one goal and I missed it.
That would make some fucking epitaph right enough! Missing the only goal of the game. But who cares. Life just cannot be taken as seriously as that. Otherwise it becomes too much. It becomes a total burden. Pat’s life
Pat’s life! Who the fuck cares. In the name of all that is and is not holy, that becomes as holy.
The man with the mournful face was looking at Pat. He was actually looking at him. It was funny. No it wasnt. But just as well paranoia was not a problem. No doubt he was an emissary from the education department of Scotland, sent to keep an eye on the chap Doyle who fails to turn up for headmagisterial appointments on top of everything else, these ghastly rumours, the chap’s political beliefs, it seems he’s agin the government. How awful. How absolutely fucking awful and incendiary. Dont tell us the bounder dislikes being a teacher! Dashed uncivil! And he has the dem cheek to stand up in front of children! Old Milne should maybe not have been ignored though. Patrick has probably shown him disrespect. But he deserves disrespect. That is the thing he deserves, disrespect. Him and his fucking flapping MA gown. Auld Clootie come to haunt the weans. The wee first yearers going to the big school for the first time and meeting up with that sort of reality. Middle-aged warders. Middle-class warders — policemen; professional wanks on behalf of institutionalised terror. Institutionalised terror Patrick you tell them! Aye I’ll tell them, dont worry about that. What happens is you want to punch some bastard in the mouth, him with the mournful face for instance. I’ll give him something to be fucking mournful about, him and his crimped fucking lips the bastard.
Poor old bastards. What have they done to deserve all this, this opprobrium. Children whose parents never got married for whatever reason. And right beside the mournful-faced bloke was this younger guy who looked about ages with Pat, or even slightly younger. How come he hadni noticed him earlier. He actually resembled a polis who had come to the school recently to give a talk on public initiatives with third-year tearaways, for the benefit of the teaching staff. Pat attended. It was really interesting. And if he hadnt gone it would have been noted. But if people were being sent to keep watch on him then they would not have sent somebody he’d seen previously; they would have sent somebody anonymous. That was obvious. And yet was it? Christ but it was easy to become paranoiac. And rationally: rationally one had to admit of certain facts, that certain tenets one held to be true, certain activities that one hoped would take place, that would not endear him
But surely not in a public place. If they were going to do something to him they would surely choose somewhere private — not an actual football ground. What could be more conspicuous than that! And yet, when you thought about it, this was precisely the type of place an assassin would choose to perform the dirty deed; while the crowd roared on the two teams the poisoned umbrella comes out and is quietly inserted between one’s shoulderblades. Maybe a crowd was the last place to be if safety was sought. Perthshire was about to take a shy. Patrick stepped to the side, and back a pace, and was on par with the mournful chap in the hat. He smiled at him and nodded. The man looked at him and nodded in reply. And Patrick said, I missed the goal. What d’you make of it? one goal and I missed it!
We’ll get another yin, said he. He touched the brim of his hat, glanced at his watch: There’s still time yet.
The younger man was not paying any attention to the interchange. He was straining to follow the play now, the Perthshire forwards moving upfield toward Yoker’s goal area. They had a small boy out on the wing who was really good with the ball at his feet but was tending to slow things down, if he had been that bit more direct Yoker might have been in trouble. And then Yoker attacking out of defence. Exciting stuff and not at all square. Not bad at all. Patrick nodded. It was good. Football could be a direct game. He closed his eyes and stepped backwards.
Before the end he was making his way to the exit. He paused at the gate and continued out and along the road to where the car was parked. The same road he had driven last night, the route to Dumbarton. Nothing peculiar in that. Unless! The Fates were trying to tell him something! Could his destiny lie in such a direction! West to the Highlands and to the Islands. A Scotsman of the old school. Maybe he was put here on earth to decide the fate of a nation! And that nation was the one of his birth! Patrick Doyle, son of the great Feinn, descendant of that band of mighty warriors who bestrode the northern wastelands in defiance of central authority.