He smiled and raised his head, straightened his shoulders and clasped his hands on the desk. Well, he says, you’re letting me down now. I didnt expect you to come away with a chestnut like that for fuck sake I mean we’re all literally dying.
Aw aye, very good.
Naw but. . He grinned. I truly believed you had a genuine interest in the whys and wherefores of this game, that’s how I’ve been yapping on. I mean. . He leaned forwards: D’you think I go about offering every cunt a coffee?
You’ve no even fucking gave me it yet!
He frowned slightly.
I mean you offered me one two or three times but you never got round to actually fucking giving me it.
O, sorry.
It doesnt matter I mean I was only fucking taking it for politeness man Christ I wasnt even really bothered. Anyhow, I dont want this to detract from my main point and that is you, lumping me in the same boat as yourself. As far as I’m concerned you’re an elitist wee shite and I fucking resent getting linked to you, to your beliefs. Okay? And the sooner we get a new doctor here the better.
Aye, and so say all of us.
Ah well you would say that wouldnt ye.
Maybe. He shrugged. It doesnt mean it’s no the case. Actually I only came back to this city out a sense of duty. I hate the fucking dump to be perfectly frank about it. It was some sort of filial obligation, I wanted to impress my father — and he’s fucking dead! That’s the joke!
Pardon? What d’you mean?
He was dead. I was wanting to impress him and he was dead. How do you impress somebody that’s dead?
You mean you knew he was dead like?
Aye. Just — one of these daft things you do. Too many fucking Hollywood movies! Naw, Christ. . He got up and strolled to the window. Take a look out there, he says, it’s a fucking disgrace. Here I am trying to run a doctor’s surgery and I can hardly get fucking moving for dirt and dust and dods of garbage man blowing in the fucking door every time it gets opened for something I mean Christ sake man you’re talking about that lot ben there!
And he was gesticulating at the door now with his voice raised quite high: Just tell me this, how come they dont go out there and build a fucking barricade!
What?
A barricade. They could fucking erect a barricade man to stop all the garbage blowing in the door.
I stared at him, then added: You should go and join BUPA ya cunt!
Aw thanks, thanks a lot.
Well no wonder.
Hh! He smiled. You know something? Chekhov didnt even practise medicine; I mean no really.
Aye he did.
Naw he never!
He fucking did.
He didnt, I’m telling you, no really. I mean I dont even envy him because he was a brilliant writer I just fucking envy him because he got engrossed in ideas.
I dont believe you.
You ever counted up the number of doctors who became writers and artists, and musicians? Well there’s been a hell of a lot, a hell of a lot.
Okay, fine, so you think it’s better being one of them than the poor cunt who has to go about curing the sick.
He was about to reply but stopped himself and he says instead: The question doesnt even interest me. At one time it did but no now, no any longer. The way I see it I have to survive as best I can and sometimes that’s bound to mean doing things that upset cunts like you.
Things like sitting about gabbing when you’ve a waiting-room stowed out with patients.
Pardon?
You — when people’re waiting to see you man you dont even fucking bother acknowledging them hardly, their existence, you dont even bother, you’re quite happy just sitting here fucking complaining to me.
Who’s complaining?
You are ya cunt ye. Since I came in here, you’ve done nothing else. You hate your job and you hate the surgery and you hate the fucking city and you wish you could spend the rest of your days just farting about gabbing like a bourgeois fucking intellectual. Well I’ll tell you something, I think you’ve got a big chip on your shoulder and that’s it, end of story.
Aw thanks, thanks a bit.
Naw, no kidding but, you’re wee — at least, weer than the average — and you’re a bit older than your contemporaries, the ones you went to Uni with. And you wear the wrong clothes and you drink too fucking much and your hair’s prematurely white. And your wife’s fucking threw you out the house for messing about with a lassie and you dont get seeing the weans as much as you’d like. And aye, also, from what I read into the situation, your sex life is nil, absolutely nil.
I stopped there but I continued looking at him. I felt it was necessary to do this because I also felt I had gone over the score in what I had said to him. But I couldnt take anything back. It was said, and that was that.
He smiled, then he put his right hand up to cover his face, as if he was trying not to break down in front of me. In fact it wasnt that at all. He looked at me very seriously and he says, I doubt if you’ve truly understood a single thing I’ve said.
Hh — well I think the very opposite. I think I understand only too well, only too fucking well.
Aw well then there’s nothing more to be said.
Exactly.
If you would just tell the next patient to come ben on your way out. .
Naw, will I fuck, do it yourself.
He smiled. I knew you’d say that, this is why I said it; in fact I’ve got a wee light I switch on, so you dont have to say fuck all — okay?
Aye, aye, great, that’s great with me.
Good, glad to hear it. . He nodded then sniffed and glanced down at his desk.
After a moment I says: So what’ve you dismissed me or what? It’s hard to tell.
He looked at me in an odd way, and I knew it was what to do next was the problem.
That Other
The people filed into the Memorial Tower in some consternation for the culprit was still at the gate, still shrieking that horrific blasphemy.
And all the while the foolish inconsistency prevailed.
Of those involved only two individuals could even hope to be aware of its singular significance. Yet the people were now spiralling upwards, blinking.
More complaints from the American
Correspondent
Jesus Christ man this tramping from city to city — terrible. No pavements man just these back gardens like you got to walk right down by the edge of the road man and them big fucking doberman pinchers they’re coming charging straight at you. Then the ghettos for christ sake you got all them mothers lining the streets man they’re tugging at your sleeves, hey you, gies a bite of your cheeseburger. Murder polis.
Where but what
And that chair I had wasnt even comfy. To have tried telling her but. Honest, she wasnt fucking interested. She preferred no to hear. No to hear, that was her game. No to even listen. And she didnt even kid on she was listening. She didnt bother, she didnt even bother. I was fucking browned off I mean, worse; worse than that. I felt like — I dont know. I’m no sure, I’m no really sure. Something but; I felt like something, I’m no sure.
But I just carried right on sitting there, getting more and more uncomfortable. Sometimes I couldnt even be bothered going to the cludgie. I mean sitting there needing, just sitting there needing, saying Fuck it. Fuck the cludgie, I’m no going, cant be annoyed. So I dont know what like a state it is, my belly, inside it, I dont know.
Who cares.
She did in a way I suppose but was it genuine? Naw, I dont think so. I dont think you could really say it was, that it was genuine. It didnt worry me but; no really. It might’ve at one time but that was a long time ago. I’ll tell you something; there was this mate of mine Billy, Billy Adams. No a bad cunt. I’d known him for years. Years! me and him’d been mates for. As long as we knew each other, I would say, we’d been mates. So it was as long as that, but that was a while ago.