Without his pair of pipes.
Patrick rose from the dining chair he had been sitting on throughout the afternoon and he stepped across to the armchair opposite Gavin, and he plonked himself down on it and he gave a mammoth grin at the kids, whose visual space he now occupied to about 15° or so. He had thought of something to say. He stuck each forefinger into either corner of his mouth and pulled apart his lips in an eye-catching manner. He grinned. Heh yous two kids, he said, I want to tell ye a story. It’s about a pair of magical pipes. I was out walking about a week ago exactly from today and guess what I found, a pair of magical pipes.
A slight irritation from both, which they dutifully attempted to conceal; they were wanting to watch television
naw listen a minute, honest, it’s quite interesting
while Gavin’s face fixed stonily in that same direction.
So what actually happened was this: I was round the back of this building, down a very dark and shadowy lane, an eerie and danksmelling lane with high moss-covered dykes that kept out the light, where owls were hooting and cats miaowing in a very controlled but semi-scary manner; you should’ve heard these damn owls and cats my fine friends!
naw, no kidding ye, it was quite scary; I mind at one minute I happened to look up, I just happened to look up, and there I saw this lithe grey cat stalking along the very top of the highest wall, its round eyes glistening because it was getting the glare of the moon high up there with its old pockmarked face going back thousands and thousands of years, and this cat, its hairs all bristling like thin wee jaggy spikes
and for one quiet, very very quiet and drawn-out, long, long, solitary solitary majestic moment in time, I thought like running, running fast, running away fast, getting away quick, quick quick quick, quick quick quick, quick quick quick quick quick quick quick!
Then the physically active bit here of the sudden leap off the armchair onto the settee and tickling the two of them in the bellies and they were roaring in laughter. Their gazes returned to the television screen immediately after that but only for a moment:
so, just along a bit down the lane I found these pipes; one was long and thin and the other yin wasni so long and it wasni so thin either, it was more like I dont know, just sort of a wee bit shorter and a wee bit thicker. Okay now what I did I just bent down a wee minute to see them the better, and looked this way and then looked that way, just in case people were watching maybe, a big bad security man from the government that would want to take ye away and put ye into prison!
but nobody was there
so what I did, I just bent down and lifted one up, because do you know this weans, I had a sudden wee think to myself that I wanted to play a tune! Patrick laughed aloud. He looked at the kids and shook his head, then laughed aloud again, but stopped it quickly in case it lasted forever.
Gavin was now gazing over, smiling, not falsely.
Naw kids I’m no kidding, it was an urge, like a magic spell had befallen me. It was as if these two pipes themselves were calling out to me to come on and play me come on and play me, so I lifted one up and what I did I just, okay, blew into it, and out came this long and deep sound that made me think of scores and scores of years, and generations and generations and generations of people all down through the ages, and this tune — not exactly a tune, more of a sound, the one kind of long sound that you could occasionally just pause from doing, then start again as if ye hadni stopped at all except when you came to the very end of it you would know about the pauses you did, they would all be a part of it. It was really really beautiful weans and it made me think of magic. I’m no kidding ye on. Magic. These pipes had something special about them and it was a magical something. So do ye know what I did next?
wide eyes. Elizabeth with her thumb in her mouth and John with his hands holding his chin. And Gavin smiling, watching them both.
Naw I’m no kidding ye, what I did I actually lifted them both up off the ground and after I played them I smuggled them away home with me. And that’s where they’re lying right at this very minute in time, this very second in the universe, in my parlour, that selfsame old parlour where yous pair of weans always sit whenever yous come up to visit your stupit auld uncle Patrick MacDoyle.
Elizabeth and John smiled.
Naw but I’m being serious. The two pipes are in my parlour. And I’ve painted them colours. Says you what colours! Well I’ll tell ye so just be quiet. Bright silver and red and black. All shiny. And whenever I get down in the dumps I just sit back and play these pipes and I get cheered up. I dont always get the tunes right but sometimes I do and it sounds great. Well it sounds great to me; I dont know if it sounds great to anybody else — or is that just being stupit and sentimacbloodymental!
What like is the pipes? asked John.
They’re just ordinary. They’re round and they’re made out of a kind of thick cardboard stuff. And what I do ye see I cover one end up with my hand and and then when I’m blowing into the other end I just let my hand off at the bottom end a wee minute and so the air comes out.
Is it real magic but? John asked.
Just listen to this: I let my hand off the bottom end for one wee minute and the air comes out making a sound. And I’ve got to really concentrate; I’ve got to really concentrate really really hard; I just close my eyes and I switch off my ears and then what I do I just put the brakes onto my brains so they seize up and lie still for a wee minute, and then everything’s fine, all fine, and I start — and I dont know when I’ve started, it’s just as if it’s magic. Honest, I’m no kidding ye.
The weans continued to watch him and he smiled, he winked; then he leant back on the armchair; they smiled. When they knew he had definitely finished they gave their attention back to the television screen. But it had been well worth it and Patrick felt very happy; he would like to have shut his eyes and dozed off but this was not his place and it would not have been a good thing to do and also something at the back of his mind saying: fucking watch yourself Doyle or the game’s a bogey! What did that mean? It meant he better fucking watch himself or the game was a fucking bogey. Okay.
Gavin had looked at him.
No signs of a job? said Pat.
Eh naw, no really.
Nothing doing then?
Naw eh no that I know of. Gavin lifted down the cigarette packet, extracted one and got it alight. No that ye have to bother looking anyway, he said, the way things are in this place if there is anything going there’s aye somebody tells ye. Rumours are on the go all the time.
And nothing in the papers?
Ye kidding! Gavin smiled; he was gazing at the screen, dragging slowly on the cigarette. Plus the fact when you do get the paper you know every other able body in Glasgow’s looking at the same time. Be better in the summer once the building game starts proper. Then I’ll really start worrying if I canni find something.
You think it’ll pick up then?
Bound to.
Pat nodded.
Gavin glanced at him: You dont agree?
Ah well ye never know right enough.
So you dont think it will?
Eh … do you?
Gavin frowned; and grinned: I asked you first.
Aye but I’m biased as ye know; I hate Greatbritain. It was fine before all these selfish and greedy aristocratic capitalist mankindhating landowners started dividing things up between them and saying where ye could walk and where ye couldni walk — it was fine up till then, before these effing boundaries roped you in, when it was just a big chunk of stuff you could just set out and do what you liked on.
Such as?
Such as — such as build yourself a mud hut and feed your effing chickens! Patrick smiled. Course I’m talking about thirty thousand years BC. Seriously but, maybe; maybe things will improve. I dont know. You’ll have a better idea than me. Do you think things’ll improve?