Something was definitely going to happen.
It was this being alone.
There’s another biscuit there, said his maw.
No thanks. He smiled. He didnt have any option, smiling and not smiling.
I think I’ll open the chocolates …
Aw maw, said Pat, they’re for you, they’re no for me and da.
Aye, said his da.
I just want to open them, she said, if it’s alright with yous. She got up from the table. In the time it took for her return Mr Doyle had nipped across to his armchair and got his cigarette packet and matches, and was back at the table seated, smoking his cigarette. It was comical. Not once did he glance in Pat’s direction and Pat stared at the milk jug, pretending to be lost in the depths of thought. But if only the two of them had been yapping together when she came back in. Even if it had just been about hospitals. Ach well. It was not something to worry about. It related to the dreadful Doyle fucking huffiness. His da was really bad for it. There again but so was his maw. They could both be huffy. And so too could Patrick, when it comes down to it, though maybe not so huffy as Gavin. Gavin was the world’s worst. He still wasni speaking properly to Patrick because of something that happened last summer, nearly nine months ago! Bloody terrible how these unfashionable traits run in families. And you couldnt even blame your parents for it because they were just picking up the habits of the rest of the clan. Probably the whole of Scotland is huffy. This is why their history is so shitey. The English are not huffy, just fucking imperialist bastards. Which ones? Quite right. And that applies to the Northamericans as well. Imperialists cannot be huffy: it would be a contradiction.
And fuck the tomato juice he was going for a pint. He was going to go home and dump the motor and then come back out. Where was he going to come back out to? Anyfuckingwhere, it doesnt matter. He just required to get out; he just required to get away; if he did not get away he would collapse and die in front of the two of them, right here at the dining table, the nut landing on the sauce-streaked plate. What else could he do? Could he do anything else? He couldni go and have a fucking bath because he’d already had one. I’ll do the dishes. He moved his chair back and started collecting plates while rising onto his feet.
You will not do the dishes, said his maw.
I’m doing them, said Mr Doyle. I always do them on Saturday night.
Naw. Honest. I want to do them … Pat was saying, I really do. Plus it gives me a chance to think as well. Pat chuckled: Hey, no mind when we were wee how I always had to do the drying. Gavin wouldni let me wash, it was always him had to get doing that because the one that did the drying was aye last. No matter how fast you dried them you were aye last! It just wasnt fair!
Mr and Mrs Doyle chuckled.
His da was standing beside him. A heavy smell of tobacco and sweaty socks. He had just come in and lifted a teacloth, and he started doing the dish drying without a word. Patrick acknowledged him with a brief nod. What else could he do. He stared into the soapy water in the bowl in the sink and stuck his hands back in to find the washing clout. Poor Hölderlin. In his early thirties he finally succumbed to that insanity which seems to have been threatening him for years. Years he spent fighting it, a form of melancholic schizophrenia. He used to be Hegel’s best pal as a youth. They were exactly the same age and so on.
Hegel was never near to insanity. He never was. Or so we are given to understand. He had a good cheery lifestyle as a student. He caroused with women and drink. It is best not to talk. What one does is say nothing, one says nothing, especially to parents and to other people. He caroused with women and drink and no doubt that is why Schopenhauer hated him. Kierkegaard didnt fucking like him either.
And Hölderlin had become involved with this woman, the wife of the guy who employed him to tutor his child. Also of course; she died while he was still in control of his faculties. It was only after she was dead that he succumbed. She wrote him smashing letters.
Mr Doyle was whistling — not really whistling, his breath way to the back of his mouth; a noise but not a whistle; a more sort of intimate thing, it signified security. A man who had nothing to worry about, standing here in his own kitchen at his own sink with his younger son. It was best as well. What was best as well? Nothing.
He stands there drying the dishes.
do de do de do
whw whw whw whw whw
di do di do di do
Blues. A Glasgow working man’s blues.
do di do di do
whw whw whw
do di do di do
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, Bing Crosby and Doris Day. Do di do di do. Where’s my television weekly programme guide, my carpet slippers and hot water bottle!!
It was just the way things were, the way things are. Not having anything to talk about. What was there to talk about? Nothing. Fuck all. Pointless worrying about it either. Fathers and sons and brothers. A load of tollie. Plus education and class warfare, revolution and disease and starvation and torture and murder and rape. There is nothing to crack up about. A polis battered him over the fucking head with a cricket bat the naughty picket; well he must have been bloody misbehaving then that’s what I say. And how’s yourself, are you okay, nice as nice, what about you? Getting on fine? Seeing your way clear? No! O dear, that’s a fucking wee pity. It’s really tough. Tough tough tough. And if there’s any truth in afterlives I’m sure yous’ll fucking
Mr Doyle had his fag balanced on the edge of the worktop to the side of the sink, snatching drags as he went, the quick wee puff, di di di di di di, puff puff puff, a cosy wee smoke and back through to the telly: me and the boy there had this minor fusion while involved with the fucking crockery cleansing.
Perhaps Patrick could wipe his da’s pate with a brillo pad. That would
He loves his da, he really does. It’s just that fucking hopeless reactionariness. How do ye pierce it? It’s a fucking tortoiseshell. You would need a Moby Dick harpoon. Father! Daddy! Dad! How are ye doing! How is your drying hand? Okay? Good, that’s good. And have you wiped your gaffer’s arse recently? Last week? Fine. Aye. Consistency is a desirable category. Here you are.
Patrick dried his hands. He turned from the sink to do it. The towel was damp. Why had he not put on the radio? he could have put on the radio. He walked from the kitchenette to the bathroom although he was nowhere near to tears, just getting into a bit of an emotional state and was wanting a few moments’ peace, in which to calm himself. That was all. And no sooner said than accomplished, the deed, the doing. There was a nice smell in the bathroom and the atmosphere held a warmth, damply so, because of the bath he had had. He stared into the mirror at his fine fizzog. It was true: he did look like a mature twenty-nine-year old chap. With a face like that there was no reason to be as he was. But what about tomorrow! Tomorrow was yet to come! He was fine. Things would yet prove unburdensome.