Those had been good days, dead dogs aside. Only thirty now, he was feeling that it was downhill all the way nevertheless. Mary brightened his life to an extent, but sometimes, when soulful, he would think that he was getting old and had nothing before him but the schoolteacher’s life of Sisyphus. He watched the process unfold before him. When given a class of thirteen-year-olds, fresh enough from primary school, there was still a spark there, both of creative drive and of trust. As the years grew with them, however, the mistrust formed, the interest died, and the values — debilitating homely values — of the parents and elders took over, dragging them down into safe mediocrity. He saw some of them occasionally after they had finished with their schooling. Other teachers, friends, said that it was the mark of a good teacher that his or her kids kept coming back for a chat. If that were true, then he was a good teacher. He could certainly feel the distaste of some of the school’s older, disciplinarian teachers towards him.
‘It doesn’t pay, Mr Wallace, to become too familiar with the children, or at least to be seen to be familiar with them. It causes unrest, a breaking down of the authority by which we keep them in check.’ That from the assistant headmaster, a stocky, balding man who had won some kind of medal in the Second World War and wore it to church on Sundays and who terrorised the children by showing them what he could do with his tawse to a stick of chalk. It was pathetic. It was worse than that. Authority could have no hold over ninety per cent of the kids. With the belt now banned, the disciplinarians saw chaos descending and had nothing to fall back on, too late to make friends with their pupils. The pupils these days were definitely out to break weak teachers. It was a war, but one which could be won, to a large extent, through arbitration. There had to be talking. He was not like George McNair, the History master, who challenged unruly pupils to fights after school on the playing field behind the main building. That was one way to earn respect, but what price failure? One day McNair would be beaten in one of his bouts. Where would he stand then? He had put himself up against a wall in an alley of his own making.
Andy bent down to wash the hubcaps and felt his stomach straining over his waistband. He did little exercise, though he helped out during football practice sometimes. This afternoon Mary and he might go for a drive, then a walk, depending on the weather. God, he wanted her. He wanted her badly. There had not been a woman in his life for many months. He needed more from Mary than her company and conversation. He needed to have her silver-black hair loose and hanging across his bared chest. He knew that there were real complications. It was one thing to see a pupil’s mother, though even that was fraught, but to be her lover... Ah, if only Sandy were leaving school at summer. If only there wasn’t the wait till Christmas. Still, now that the boy had finished with exams there could be no more accusations of grade-rigging. At least no one could threaten Andy’s relationship with Mary via that device. All the same, it was a problem until Christmas.
The sun pressed its weight upon him. He squinted up into the sky. It was as blue as a sky could be, bluer than the sea outside Kirkcaldy. He smiled into it and hoped that it was a good omen. He straightened up and cracked his spine. He was way out of condition. He studied the house, his house.
There were no chimneys on the houses in this estate. They looked like rows of Lego buildings. He was cleaning his car in Legoland on a sunny Saturday morning. He shook his head and chuckled. He was not going to let anything get him down today. Not anything.
When the bus pulled away, its new cargo rattled their way up the winding stairwell and sauntered to the very back of the upper deck. They slumped into their seats and turned their heads to watch Main Street disappear behind them. Old people, staggering under the weight of bags, looked distantly at the roaring vehicle. Children stared up at the upper deck. The boys made gestures from the window. They were going to Kirkcaldy for the day. They were the most important people in the world.
Sandy, though he would not let it be known, was not keen on going upstairs. For one thing, all the smokers were there, and the smell of cigarettes made him queasy. For another thing, he could not be sure what gangs would board the bus between Carsden and Kirkcaldy to challenge his right to be sitting at the very back of the bus. He kept one hand in the pocket which contained his money. He examined the dying and unhealthy faces around him, faces which stared from the grimy windows as if fixed to a television screen. These people were lost, as hollow as the most brittle seashells. Sandy thought of days when he had been taken to Kirkcaldy beach by his grandmother. They might go there today, but it would be in a different guise. Today he was part of a group, a gang. He would walk differently and talk differently and act altogether differently. Walking to the bus stop, they had fed from each other as if studying older men. They aped those they wished to be. They strained towards manhood like little waggy-tailed dogs towards bigger bitches in heat. Sandy smiled wickedly.
He wanted to escape all of this, yet he did not even know what “this” was.
Mark had brought along ten cigarettes. He offered them round as if they were cigars at his daughter’s wedding. Sandy couldn’t not take one. He lit it, but sucked on the cylinder only feebly, exhaling without really having inhaled in the first place. Still his mouth tasted horrible. His stomach began to do its little travelling dance. It was always worst on buses. When he was a child his grandmother used to stand with him at the door of any bus he travelled on, telling him that he would not be sick, and he never was.
He examined the faces along the edge of the bus, studying their reflections in the glass. The sun streamed in, and the tiny openings of the windows caused the passengers to broil. One old man looked on to the countryside as if surprised by it. His head shook like a clockwork toy. Sandy thought to himself that this man must have seen a lot of things — the war, the hunger of the Twenties and Thirties, death, decay, a quickly changing world. What good had it done him? He looked as if he might die at any moment, not having comprehended half of what he had seen in his life. Waste. That was the keyword. Perhaps Sandy would write a story about it all when he returned home. It seemed an important enough thing to write about. He wrote a lot of stories and poems in his room.
He tossed the stub of cigarette on to the dirty floor and crushed it underfoot. The others puffed slowly, drawing in the smoke as if it were life, holding it until their lungs demanded new oxygen, exhaling slowly, their eyes intent on the stream of blue. They were dragons. That was why they smoked. Sandy smiled again. Colin’s mouth had broken out. Severe red patches of acne curved around his lips and chin. A few of the lumps had yellow heads. It was disgusting. Sandy had had the occasional spot, but the lotions his mother now bought for him ensured that he was not, as she had put it, scarred for life. He fingered his face now. He wet the tip of one fingernail and scratched around his nose. He examined the fingernail. A tiny rind of grey was trapped beneath it. He scooped it out with another nail and flicked it on to the floor. Clark and Mark, who sat between Colin and Sandy, discussed records they might buy. There seemed so many. Mark kept the cigarette packet on his lap, as if showing it off to anyone who cared to look. He shook the matchbox against his ear and hummed a pop song to its rhythm. Sandy looked at him and saw that Colin was looking too. They smiled at each other, and Colin put his finger to his skull. Sandy nodded.