Ah. .! So you’ve a fiancée, that’s even better. That shows you’re responsible. I like to see responsibility in a young fellow. What’s your name?
. .
You’re no going to tell me eh?
I told you before.
Did you?
Yeh, it’s Edward Pritchard, I dont mind you knowing at all.
The invalid nodded, and he said slowly, Edward Pritchard. He pursed his lips. My name’s Robert Parker, Bobbie — like the boy who used to play for Falkirk or was it the Hearts? — big right back if you remember, I think he got a cap for the Scottish League team, maybe even the full national one.
Edward shook his head.
Before your time I dare say. The invalid continued speaking: There’s a confession I need to make you see. I need to make it because I’ve got a feeling something impending is going to happen. . I dont know like it’s as if maybe you think you’re about to get knocked down by a lorry or a bus or a taxi –
Pardon?
Well you see sometimes they go careering down the road and they dont see you if you’re an invalid, you’re walking that slow they fail to take you in on their line of vision. And you cant but take a stride without doing so with that very reckoning and you’re darting a look this way and that or else trying no to, you just keep your face fixed to the front and try no even to listen for the roar of the engine — the thing that’s coming to mow you down.
My God!
Yeh.
That sounds like an awful nightmare. Edward’s left hand went to his face and he covered then rubbed at his left eye.
It’s like they think you’re a pillar or a post.
Surely no!
Aye! The invalid waved his hand, then signalled the need for silence and he whispered, Come here till I tell you. You’re no a religious young chap, are you?
I believe in God if that’s what you mean.
Do you? The invalid sat back on his chair and he studied Edward.
Well I hope I do I mean I hope I do. . And I’m no ashamed of it. I used to be an agnostic. But no now, I’m back to believing. Edward gazed at the invalid and suddenly felt very sad. His parents were getting old and no doubt they would be dead eventually, just like everybody else, his good old grandpa as well. And it wasnt long since Deborah’s grannie had died, he remembered the funeral quite vividly, the two sisters taking charge of doing the food, and they did it really terrific, rolls and different scones and things, bowls of nuts and crisps — better than if they had gone for a meal in a hotel.
My parents are churchgoers, he told the invalid. But I’m no. When I was a boy I was, but I’ve no been for years apart from when my fiancée’s grannie died last March. I felt a hypocrite. . Edward stopped and frowned: Did I though? Maybe I didnt. Maybe I just thought I should have felt a hypocrite, because that’s. . He glanced at the invalid: I’ve been involved in some things recently that I think really are sins, to be honest, I dont mind telling you Mister Parker and I can only hope I’ll be forgiven, I hope nothing’s going to get held against me although if it does I’ll no complain, if I’ve to suffer a chastisement. If I can only make up for it, maybe by doing my test properly tomorrow, if I can only manage that.
He punched his right fist into his left palm and cried: That’s all, that’s all I want!
You will pass it, the invalid said.
What!
You will. You’ll pass your test and you’ll get your promotion.
Edward stared at him and was immediately suspicious. Somewhere there was a line between making a slight fool of somebody and genuine fellowship and good company like the way at the fortnightly sales-team talks when the guys made jokes about one another and you didnt quite were sure, you never quite
You just couldnt laugh. But the jokes always seemed to be so damn unfunny. How was it possible to laugh? Edward could hardly even smile let alone throw the head back. It was terrible. He hated it.
The invalid was speaking:
Somebody that’s as diligent a studier as you, he’s the kind that deserves to succeed. And you will succeed. I’m convinced of that.
Edward coughed to clear his throat. Ah but I’m no that diligent, he said, my concentration’s nil. . He wet his lips and swallowed, his mouth seemed to have gone dry; then he glanced sideways for some reason but everything was fine, fine.
The invalid was frowning at him: Although with me mind you there’s aye the wish that a young fellow like yourself could one day take up the cudgels where me and the muckers left off. But these battles have finished, just like the days they happened in are finished, and the kind of future that sorts itself out on the past isnt the kind of future we fought for — and I’m no a supporter of such things — none of us were, no in the slightest. You understand me?
Edward hesitated.
Ah you will young fellow you will. And now if you’ll no come to me then I’ll come to you.
And so saying the old invalid got himself up onto his feet with the aid of the contraption and he made his way over to sit down on the chair next to Edward and Edward hoped so strongly that he wouldnt put his hand on his knee because he hated that being done he just couldnt stand it, couldnt cope with it and knew his face would just get so crimson, so awful crimson
And the invalid whispered: Now young fellow, my confession, afore Catherine comes back; when I worked in whatever you call it, Gross National — which is twelve years ago now — the country was in a state of economic decline, everything was to pot. You’re a bit young to remember that eh?
Edward felt nauseous, he felt sick sick sick, he needed to vomit, he needed to spew, to spew. He clamped shut his nose by squeezing it with his right thumb and forefinger. He breathed out loudly, clearly, to prepare for the refreshment of his lungs, breathed deeply in; he opened his eyes and stared at the frayed carpet on the floor. His room was better than this, it was bad, but not this bad. But maybe the old couple had something special that made it better and evened things out, although the light was terrible, and the walls and ceiling were just as crappy looking and it was so heavy an atmosphere — that dull yellow everywhere and it all so damn unhealthy and just damn bloody ungood.
But Lord Lord Lord was it a smell of shite right enough? Ohhh. But it might just have been sweat, the old invalid male having been using such tremendous exertions in merely getting to B from A about the room, even toing and froing re the cludgie. So he was bound to get sweaty.
Always he had to think the worst about folk, that was his problem; even with Deborah for heaven’s sake how come he was always blaming her for everything? And he was. No matter what it was he blamed her. It was just so uncharitable and wrong. Pride. That’s all it was. Conceited buggar. Pride.
but the pong from this old bloke sitting next to him he felt like he was going to keel over off the chair, he would topple over onto his doom and he would just die here in this room with an ancient stranger as a companion, somebody who could have devised an unheard-of method for removing fresh limbs from a young person’s body in order to weld them onto an elderly sick person, an invalid — spare-part surgery, and here he was about to become a human trunk with no limbs like that horrible story he had once read about a man getting mutilated by evil slavers for some purpose he couldnt remember, set in the Sahara region, and these armless and legless beggars in third-world countries who have to get wheeled about in bogies in an effort to pay off loans to the IMF and the World Bank. God he was so cold now, cold, he was so cold. No bloody fire, why was there no bloody fire, rabbiting on like this about all these factory incidents from a forgotten past and all his gesticulations it was so difficult to even listen because of it.