By a strong effort he pulls himself together and announces, “Let us now change the subject.”
The Gael, eager to speak, raises his hand but again finds himself neglected as the regular customer tells the barmaid, “The wife phoned me again last night.”
“Mhm?”
“Said she still passionately loved me. She doesn’t know what passion is. She’s frigid. Never had an orgasm in her life. She was drunk of course. Alcoholic.”
The barmaid says non-commitally, “I heard she’d sorted that out.”
“Alcoholics never change. She sits at home seeing nobody, just boozing and making up her face and polishing her piano.”
“She sees Senga Spotiswood.”
“God knows why. What the hell’s happening out there?” From a great distance but growing swiftly louder and nearer is the sound of a big pipe band playing Wha Daur Meddle Wi’Me? The Gael seizes his claymore crying, “I told you! The Prince has landed!”
The regular customer raises his voice above the music of the pipes to ask, “Why should anyone pipe up for a second-rate no-user like the Prince of Wales?”
“Excuse me!” cries the barmaid. “That language is wholly out of order.”
The Gael brandishes his weapon shouting, “You have been brainwashed, my friend, by the capitalist press which derides a man for loving trees, old architecture and a woman as unglamorous as himself — the only man fit to lead a second-rate nation like modern Britain! Come with me and help the last of the Stuarts redeem his nation!”
He departs, slamming the door behind him as the pipe music is suddenly quenched by torrential gurglings, but these are not loud enough to drown splashes that suggest the Gael is leaving the pub by wading upstream.
The two left behind watch a damp stain in the carpet advance slowly toward them from the foot of the door. The barmaid says sadly, “We’ll have to leave soon.”
“Mhm,” says her last customer, “half the Scottish Lowland will soon be submarine. But let’s have a whisky before our feet get wet. I’ll pay.”
The barmaid fills two tumblers saying, “These are on the house. Will you be moving to the Highlands?”
He says, “If there’s room. The English have been buying houses there for years. I admire them. They’re always a jump or two ahead of us.”
She drinks deeply, choking sometimes but emptying the glass before giggling and saying, “You know, that is the first whisky I ever tasted. Why did our government not build dykes? The Dutch have had dry houses under sea level for centuries and Holland is still” — she hiccups — “safe.”
“Dearie, the Scottish coast,” he explains, distinctly pronouncing each word, to counteract a tendency to slur, “is so intricate that we have a longer coastline than most continents. And for centuries our taxes had to pay for us being the world’s policemen. We could not afford to embank our coasts. Then the Yanks started policing the world and needed our armed forces to help save democracy from terrorists who do not share our values. So less, no I mean let us fish, no I mean finish, yes finish the blot, blot, blottle.”
The lights go out. In total darkness comes a prolonged crash of falling masonry, then nothing is heard but rushing water.
MAISIE AND HENRY
MY PRIMARY SCHOOL TEACHER made every girl in her class knit the same size of socks and when I told her they were far too big for me said sharply, “You’ll grow into them.”
I never caused her trouble but she did not like me, perhaps because I questioned her occasional daftness. In my last primary year I was surprised and embarrassed to be the only one given navy blue wool to knit again more socks that would never fit me. Blue was the colour of the local academy uniform. Girls bound for junior secondary school were given maroon wool, those the teachers were unsure of received grey, so I was certainly going to the academy. This delighted my dad, a Communist shop-steward in the shipyards. He said, “Nowadays only an education for the professions leads to financial independence. Marriage won’t give it.”
Mum, a dependent housewife ever since marriage, agreed with him, so I despised girls who thought attracting men was life’s main aim. Passing exams was more important. I was not very intellectual, so in my first university year missed parties to order to study harder than students who were, yet failed my first German literature test. I wrote that Die Leiden des jungen Werthers was not really tragic, that Der zerbrochene Krug was not much of a comedy. My tutor declared sternly, “These are German classics!” I replied that her exam paper had asked my opinion of these, so I had written what I thought.
“Are you here on an education grant?” she asked, though she knew I was. In those days even children of rich families got education grants, which was supposed to show Britain was now a classless society. The tutor said, “Students of your sort should know you are here to learn, not think.”
This shocked me until I saw that I need not study original texts if I regurgitated what tutors said about them. After that I easily passed exams and had time for parties. Some affairs before graduation taught me that lovemaking is enjoyable but not good for lasting partnerships, and that I could live without. Before the age of thirty I was managing the supplies department of a firm with bookshops in several universities. This meant interviewing folk who applied for jobs, which is how I met Henry.
He was young, tall and bony, thin yet not weak, polite and shy but not nervous, and he usually looked mildly amused. His voice was soft yet deep, his accent (like mine) academy-trained working class. His application form showed he had taught Maths for four years in a secondary school so I asked why he had left. He said, “I don’t hate children but whole classes of them are too many for me. I want an easier job.”
“You won’t get one here,” I told him. “You’ll be constantly unpacking books from big boxes, then repacking them in smaller boxes. You’ll be paid less than half what you earned as a teacher despite your first-class honours in Philosophy. That’s a far better degree than I ever got.”
He shrugged and said, “A philosopher who cannot teach may as well supply people with books.”
“But a first-class degree from a good university should get you something better!”
He said he had been offered an Oxford scholarship but had to stay in Glasgow — his invalid mother needed him to look after her. That was why he had taught for so long, though hating it. He said, “She died last month so here I am. Please employ me.”
He was obviously conscientious and truthful, so I did.
He arrived for work each morning before 8.30 a.m. when our place opened. It was my job to know he was punctual, though I arrived after 10 a.m. because new orders seldom came earlier. To process them properly I worked later than everyone else, being able to concentrate better when my clerical staff were not pestering me with their problems. One evening when nights were growing darker, thinking myself as usual alone in the building, I went to the exit through the loading bay and saw Henry standing beside the door in his overcoat.
“Why are you still here?” I asked and he said, “There was still a lot of tidying to be done.”
“You’re not paid to work overtime,” I pointed out.
“Neither are you.”
“I’m paid a helluva lot more than you are, so it’s worth my while.”
He sighed then spoke slowly as if explaining something obvious to a child or an idiot: “This door leads into a very dark lane. This is a rough neighbourhood after most workers leave. The only people around are from council houses, many of them unemployed, so it is not safe for a woman to be alone here at night. Staying late doesn’t bother me and my workmates leave the place in a disgusting mess. I hate messes and like tidying them up.” I said, “In that case I’ll buy you a drink.”