Mavis Belfrage

A Night Off

In 1986 the British government abolished physical punishment in the schools it controlled. This story is from the dark age before that happened.

1

One Friday afternoon at fifty-nine minutes and several seconds past three o’clock a no longer young, slightly plump teacher stood in an open doorway gazing at the dial of his wristwatch. He concentrated on the second hand to avoid facing a chattering queue of twelve-year-old boys who chattered and jostled each other in ways he despaired of preventing.

“Control yourselves, keep in line,” he told them, “no need for impatience. Every one stand still beside your neighbour. If you aren’t standing by your neighbour when the bell rings I’ll make you …”

An electric bell rang and the queue charged from the room. As the boys poured past he muttered, “All right, off you go,” then closed the door behind them.

“Well McGrotty,” he said striding briskly to his desk, “this is the end of the week and no doubt you’re as keen to leave as I am. Let’s get rid of the painful business fast. Put out your hand.”

He took from the desk a leather belt which forked at the end like a snake’s tongue. Raising it till the thongs fell behind his right shoulder he approached a small poorly dressed boy who stood with shoulders hunched close to ears, hands thrust deep in pockets of shorts.

“Hand out!” said the teacher again.

“Naw sir,” muttered McGrotty, thrusting his hands in deeper.

“Why not?”

“I was just picknup a pencil.”

The teacher sighed and said, “All right, McGrotty, since you seem in no hurry to leave we’ll review your case once more. Did you hear me tell the class — the whole class — that nobody must leave their seat without first putting up their hand and asking my permission?”

“Yes sir.”

“Did I also say that whoever left their seat without permission would get three of the belt?”

“Yes sir.”

“And then you left your seat without permission. Yes or no?”

“Yes sir.”

“So put out your hand.”

“Naw sir.”

“Why not?”

“Cos I was just picknup a pencil.”

The teacher sighed again, sat at his desk and spoke with the belt draped over his knee.

“McGrotty, I realize as well as you do that there is nothing wicked — nothing antisocial — nothing criminal in leaving a seat to pick up a dropped pencil. But we had anarchy in the classroom today. Anarchy! Pellets were fired, someone threw a book while I was getting rulers from the cupboard, whenever I turned my back somebody did something horrible to someone else. I heard you squeal loud enough. Who kicked you? You didn’t have that when you came to my classroom this afternoon.”

The teacher pointed to a livid bruise below McGrotty’s dirty left knee cap. McGrotty glowered silently at the floor.

“Did Sludden do that?”

McGrotty said nothing.

“Did McPake?”

“I didnae do anything.”

“I am perfectly aware, McGrotty, that you are neither a troublemaker nor a bully. But I cannot protect you from troublemakers and bullies in a class where nobody sits still and nobody does what I say. That is why I announced that I would give three of the belt to the first boy who left his seat without permission. Sludden and McPake knew I meant it. Why, McGrotty, why in the name of goodness didn’t you?”

“I was just picknup a …”

The teacher struck a crashing blow on the desklid with the belt, sprang up and roared, “Hand out McGrotty! We’ve no witnesses here! If you don’t take this belt on your hand you’ll feel it where it lands on you!”

He advanced wielding the belt over his head. McGrotty backed into a corner, shut his eyes tight and stuck a hand supported by the other hand as far out as possible. His face, screwed into agonized expectation of worse agony, upset the teacher who paused and pleaded, “Be a man, McGrotty!”

McGrotty stood still with outstretched hands and tears sliding down his cheeks. The teacher flung the belt onto his desk and sat down holding his head as if it ached. He said wearily, “Go away. Leave me alone. For God’s sake leave me alone McGrotty.”

Though not looking straight at the boy the teacher knew what happened next. McGrotty lowered hands, wiped cheeks with jacket sleeve, walked to the door. McGrotty opened it, stepped out, hesitated, yelled, “Ye big fat stupit wet plaster ye!” slammed the door and ran away. The teacher had no wish to run after him. His depression was not much deepened by McGrotty’s parting words. He thought, “I could have belted him if I’d wanted to. He knows it and that’s why he’s mad at me.” A minute later the teacher got up, locked the classroom cupboards, locked the classroom door behind him, followed McGrotty downstairs and gave the keys to the headmaster’s secretary.

2

He was not the last teacher to leave school that Friday. At the playground gate a small three-wheeled vehicle propelled by a rear engine overtook him. This braked and the driver asked if he wanted a lift into town. He did and climbed in beside a grey-haired woman with a leg in a metal brace. She said, “You’re usually away a lot earlier.”

“Yes, I had someone to sort out. One-B-nine got out of hand and I had to keep the ringleader behind for extra discipline — three of the best — wham wham wham. I think he got the message.”

“Was it Sludden?”

“No.”

“McPake?”

“No.”

“Who was it?”

“McGrotty.”

“I’ve always found McGrotty a poor spiritless creature. It’s Sludden and McPake I keep my eye on in one-B-nine.”

“They never bother me.”

“Which shows you can’t generalize about children from one class to the next. You live in town?”

“No, out Carntyne way.”

“Meeting your wife in town?”

“No, Friday is my night off.”

“Your night off what?”

He frowned because her terse questions made him feel uncomfortably childish. At last he said, “Have you noticed how almost everything we do becomes a habit?”

“It’s inevitable at our age.”

“It may be inevitable but it worries me. I can stand it at work — teaching would be impossible without routines — but surely private life should be different? Yet on Sunday we have the usual long lie, late breakfast and afternoon stroll in the park. On Monday or Tuesday I change my library book, on Wednesday or Thursday a babysitter comes and we go out to a film or visit friends. And when we visit friends our conversations are much the same as last time. Never any new ideas. Never any new … behaviour. So on Fridays I have a night off. I go into town and let the unexpected happen.”

“Does your wife take nights off?”

“She doesn’t want them. Our son isn’t quite two yet. But she doesn’t mind me enjoying some freedom. She knows I won’t get drunk, or waste money, or do anything stupid. My wife,” said the teacher as if making a puzzling discovery, “is a very intelligent woman.”

“It would seem so. Where will I drop you?”

“Anywhere near Sauchiehall Street. I’m going to the Delta tearoom.”

“I can easily drop you there. Several of our staff usually meet there after school don’t they? Don’t Jean and Tom Forbes?”

“Yes,” said the teacher defensively, “but others go there too — art students, and people who work in television and … journalists and … unconventional people like that. Interesting people.”

“Then it’s very wise of you to go there too.”

He looked at her suspiciously. She said, “On your night off, I mean. I was an art student once. I felt wonderfully interesting in those days.”

3

In the Delta tearoom three of his colleagues sat round a table in silence punctuated by occasional remarks. They had talked hard to children all day so were partly resting their voices, partly easing them back into adult conversation. As the teacher approached he heard a bearded man called Plenderleith say, “and he never starts anything.”

“Mhm,” said Jean, a young woman who was pleasantly vivacious most of the day but not at quarter to five on Friday afternoons. Nearby her husband Tom swiftly, steadily corrected a stack of exercise books, underlining words, scribbling marginal comments and marks out of twenty. The teacher ordered a coffee, brooded for a while then asked Plenderleith, “Who were you talking about when I came in?”

“Jack Golspie.”

“Why did you say he never starts anything?”

“It’s true. He waits until someone else suggests something then hangs about looking pathetic until he’s included.”

“Mind you it isn’t easy to start something, is it? When did you last do it?”

“I don’t remember. I don’t care. I was just telling Jean why Jack Golspie bored me.”

A waitress brought coffee. The teacher drank most of it before saying gloomily, “He bores me too.”

Tom Forbes marked his last essay, put the exercise books in a briefcase and sat back with a sigh of relief. “It beats me how you can do that first thing after school on Friday,” said the teacher on his gloomy note. “Last thing on Sunday evening is as soon as I can manage.”

“From now onward no memory of schoolwork will disturb the evening’s joy,” said Tom, yawning slightly.

“It’s our wedding anniversary,” Jean explained.

“Congratulations!” said the teacher, truly pleased. “The first?”

“The first.”

“Splendid. How will you celebrate?”

“A dinner for two in the Rogano first,” said Tom, “then a party.”

“Definitely a party,” said Jean. The teacher looked hopefully from one to the other but they were exchanging smiles in a way which excluded him. He lapsed into mild depression again.

Suddenly Plenderleith muttered, “Hell.”

They looked at him.

“Tony McCrimmon,” he added.

“Has he seen us?” asked Jean looking down at her cup. “No doubt of it,” said Plenderleith grimly. “Here he comes, flaunting his regalia.”

The teacher saw a big black-moustached man with close-cropped hair approach. His bulk was emphasized by a thick overcoat with square shoulders from which shiny camera cases hung on straps.

“Hullo hullo hullo! Still here in the customary corner?” he said, sitting with them. “I was passing the old Delta tearoom and thought, five o’clock on Friday! Why not drop in and see if the old gang are in the customary corner? So in I come and here you are.”

“That’s nice of you, Tony,” said Jean gently.

“I think I know you. Or do I?” McCrimmon asked the teacher who found the question confusing.

“You don’t,” Tom told McCrimmon jovially. “You went to London months before he joined us. But he’s bound to know you. Who hasn’t heard the name of Tony McCrimmon?”

The teacher, embarrassed, said, “Yes, I’m sure I’ve heard it but I can’t exactly remember where or why.”

“Ahaw! Such is fame. I’m better known in Fleet Street and Soho than I’ll ever be in my native land. Waitress, a coffee! Very hot, very black, very strong.”

“You’re a journalist?” asked the teacher, interested.

“You’re getting warm, son. Yes, I wield the old plume from time to time but my forte is the pictorial genre. You may have seen something of mine in the Sunday Times colour supplement a wee while ago: Britain’s Forgotten Royalty. My work.”

“All of it, Tony?” Jean softly asked.

“The pictures. The idea was mine too but the writer got the credit for it. That sort of thing happens all the time. I’m used to it.”

“What brings you north of Soho?” asked Plenderleith.

“Exhaustion, Plendy-boy, sheer exhaustion. I can work myself into the ground like a pig when the mood is on me but periodically I’ve got to stop. I throw up whatever I’m in the middle of and go somewhere quiet and … just let my mind go totally blank. Like the yogis. A bit of eastern mysticism is a great antidote to the commercial rat race. Willie Maugham taught me that. Ever read him?”

Again McCrimmon was looking at the teacher who replied that his field was maths and he hadn’t much time for reading nowadays.

“So you’re back in Glasgow for the eastern mysticism?” said Plenderleith drily.

“I know what you people think of me,” McCrimmon said in a voice so quietly sincere that the three who knew him glanced uneasily at each other but relaxed when he said, “You think I’m a cynic. You think I’m a cynic because I’m dynamic and who ever heard of a dynamo with a heart? Well, this dynamo has a heart.” (He clapped a hand to his chest.) “No matter how far I travel I’ll always return to auld Scotia. A man needs roots. But,” he concluded, becoming less solemn and turning to the teacher again, “you ought to read Maugham. He was a great writer but a greater human being. I got on well with him, before the end.”

“You knew him?” said the teacher.

“Where’s that coffee of mine?” said McCrimmon looking round. “I keep forgetting how rotten the service is here. Yes, I knew old Willie Maugham. Beaverbrook introduced us.”

The photographer concentrated on the teacher with the instinct of a performer finding an audience. The quiet departure of Jean, Tom and Plenderleith was hardly noticed by the two who remained, one spouting fluent monologues, the other inciting them with exclamations and questions.

4

Four coffees later McCrimmon said, “And that is the true story of my last and worst encounter with Beaverbrook.”

The teacher was excited and appalled. He had suspected great press barons were greedy, selfish and unscrupulous, but had not thought them petty, vindictive and superstitious.

“Amazing — really amazing,” he murmured, “but I think the lassie wants us to leave.”

The room was empty but for them and a bored waitress lounging near the till.

“Forget her — she kept me waiting for my coffee. I’m surprised that you haven’t asked why I’m back in Scotland.”

“You told us you were here to relax and meditate.”

“Did I? So I did. I wasn’t being strictly accurate. There are better places to relax than smoky old Glasgow. No laddie. I’m here with a purpose.”

McCrimmon pressed his lips together and nodded heavily.

“If you’d rather not tell me —” said the teacher after a silence.

“Know something? I like you. There’s not many I would waste my sweetness on but I think you’re what I would call trustworthy. Notice how many new buildings are going up nowadays?”

“Yes.”

“And a lot more are going to go up which means even more old stuff will be hammered down. It’s inevitable. All progress is inevitable. But when these filthy old tenements and warehouses and cinemas are replaced by motorways and multistorey flats and shopping centres folk are going to miss them, hence this little toy —” (McCrimmon tapped a camera case with his finger) “— I paid two hundred quid down for it and it’ll make my fortune. I will emerge as the Recording Angel of Glasgow’s recent past.”

“You won’t believe this,” said the teacher excitedly, “but I’ve thought of doing that!”

McCrimmon seemed not to believe it or found it a negligible idea in others. He said, “I’ll show more than the buildings of course, I’ll show the people. We don’t just have smooth characterless buildings going up, we’ve smooth characterless people taking over. Like the three who’ve just left.”

The teacher could not help showing surprise because he liked the three who had just left and did not think them very different from himself. McCrimmon said quickly, “Don’t get me wrong — they’re nice enough folk but speaking as an artist you cannae beat the hard dour folk formed by the First World War, the General Strike, the Thirties’ Depression and the single-room flat — the faces of folk who took abject poverty for granted. Closet-on-the-stair faces. Jawbox-with-one-brass-swan-neck-cold-water-tap faces. Black-leaded-kitchen-range-with-polished-steel-trim faces. There aren’t many left.”

“A lot of folk still live like that,” said the teacher with a faint smile.

“I wish I knew where. All the single-end flats I’ve seen this week had a tiled fireplace and modern sink unit with gas water-heater. What’s wrong with you?” he asked, for the teacher, gripped by a strong idea, stared at him like an equal and said, “Are you free just now Tony? Because if you are I can take you to exactly the place you want — recess bed, jawbox, polished fire range, wally dugs, the lot.”

“Who does it belong to?”

“My granny and grampa — my father’s folk.”

“What sort of faces have they?”

“Good faces. Kind faces. Lots of character in them.”

“Wrinkles?”

“They’re in their eighties. They live overby in the Cowcaddens. I’d love a record of them. I’d pay you for it.” McCrimmon stood up and slung his cases round him saying, “I suppose they may have some sociological value. Let’s go.”

McCrimmon held aloof while the teacher paid for the coffees but walked beside him up Sauchiehall Street and over Rose Street in the dusk of an autumn evening. The teacher explained he must first buy some presents as he had not visited his grandparents for over a year. “Coloured beads to keep the natives happy, eh?” said McCrimmon. The teacher did not answer. He supposed that McCrimmon’s talent had destroyed normal sympathies by raising him into a bad-mannered class which must be tolerated because it knows no better.

5

They crossed New City Road into a district which two years before had been lively with people and bright with small shops. An advancing motorway now threatened it with demolition so nothing was being replaced or repaired and people with plans for the future had moved out. Pavements were cracked, road surfaces potholed, some tenements obviously derelict. Not every shop was boarded up. In a small general store the teacher bought bread, butter, jam, cheese, eggs, potatoes, tinned corned beef, sardines, beans and stewed pears. The Pakistani owner put all this in a cardboard box which the teacher hoisted upon his shoulder.

He led McCrimmon into a gaslit close and up narrow stairs with the door of a communal lavatory on each half landing. On the third landing he tapped a door with signs of former working-class dignity: a shiningly polished brass door-knob, letter-box and name-plate engraved with the name ROSS.

“Who’s there?” asked an old voice from within.

“It’s me, Granny — Jimmy.”

“O my boy!”

A small neat timidly smiling woman opened the door. She wore spectacles, flower-patterned wrap-round apron and old cloth slippers. She looked much older than the teacher remembered. One reason why he visited her so seldom was that she looked older every time he did so. He said, “I’ve brought a friend, Granny.”

“I’m sure he’s welcome.”

“Hullo hullo Mrs Ross. McCrimmon is the name but you just call me Tony.”

“Fancy that. Come in Mr McCrimmon.”

They entered a small neat room with a recess bed in which the teacher’s father’s father lay perfectly still on his back. A wedge of pillows propped him at a straight angle from waist to head. His eyes were shut, mouth slightly open, spectacles pushed onto brow, hands folded on book on coverlet over stomach.

“How’s Grampa?” the teacher murmured placing the box on a sideboard.

“O don’t ask me,” she sighed, “I’ve given up worrying about him. Just be a bit quiet and we’ll have a sip of tea without being bothered by his nonsense. Or do you want me to make you a meal?” she asked, staring at the groceries.

“No Granny, I’m afraid we can’t stay long. A cup of tea will do.”

“You’re a good wee boy to play Santa Claus with your old folk.”

At the side of the range was a kettle of water which she shifted onto the fire saying, “Take off your coat and sit down Mr McCrimmon.”

Her grandson had already done so.

“Don’t worry about me Mrs Ross,” said McCrimmon strolling to the wooden sink before the window. He stood there with his back to the room. The teacher felt dominated by his grandfather’s lean, Caesar-like profile and whispered, “Is his back still bad?”

“Yes but he never speaks about it now.”

“Can’t you get a doctor to him?”

“You know what he thinks about doctors. Come to the fire, Mr McCrimmon. Make yourself at home.”

“Just don’t worry about me Mrs Ross,” said McCrimmon without turning round.

The kettle simmered. Mrs Ross brewed a pot of tea asking, “How’s the family?”

“Not bad. All right. You should visit us. You’d like the wee boy.”

“It’s difficult getting away from here without a babysitter.”

She nodded to the bed.

“Aye. She means me,” said his grandfather opening his eyes. “She needna. I can manage without her.”

His distinct low-keyed voice seemed to fill the room. His wife gave an incredulous “Hm!” and laid on the table a plate of biscuits and tea things. Mr Ross adjusted his spectacles with careful arm movements which left the trunk of his body perfectly still, and appeared to resume reading his library book. Mrs Ross poured tea into a mug and three cups. To the mug she added sugar, milk, a long straw, then placed it by the bed on a cabinet holding a chamberpot. The teacher and his grandmother sat at the table drinking tea as McCrimmon, ignoring another invitation to join them, examined something in his hand.

Abruptly Mr Ross said, “How’s the teaching going?”

“On,” said the teacher. “And on. And on.”

“Aye! It’s secure.”

“Secure, yes. Only a sex crime will get me out of it now.”

“And well paid, compared with what most manual workers earn. And worthwhile. Children’s minds need feeding as much as their bodies. A conscientious teacher has every right to respect himself.”

“I would if I was any good at it.”

“If you are bad at it only two explanations are possible: you have not yet learned how to do it properly or you are teaching the wrong thing. What is your pal playing at?”

“This is a light meter Mr Ross,” said McCrimmon watching the instrument in his hand. The teacher said hurriedly, “Tony’s a famous photographer Grampa —”

“Does he meter light from force of habit?”

“Your grandson invited me because I am making a pictorial social survey, Mr Ross, a record of the life of Glasgow. And by life I mean more than the shape of the buildings. I want the world to know how decent, hardworking people live in Glasgow Anno Domini nineteen sixty-five. I doubt I’ll ever find a more decent working-class home than this.”

“You cannae photograph in here Mr McCrimmon!” cried Mrs Ross. “The place is like a midden and I’m no dressed right.”

“Your place is as neat as a new pin Mrs Ross and so are you.”

“I havenae dusted since this morning!”

“I see no dust and what I don’t see my camera won’t show.”

“Don’t let him do it, John!” the woman begged her husband who said as if to himself, “A pictorial social survey. What good will it do?”

“Have you heard of Matthew Brady, Mr Ross?”

“No.”

“Have you heard of the Depression and the American dust bowl and the New Deal?”

“Aye.”

“Well, President Roosevelt was persuaded to set up the New Deal by Matthew Brady’s photographs of how decent honest American working-class families had to live in the American dust bowl. Now, I don’t claim to be another Matthew Brady, but I believe that a photographer without a social conscience is an enemy of the human race. You know as well as I do that thousands of working people — some of them bedridden like you — live in single rooms with an outside lavatory they cannae reach because of the stairs. Not everyone in Britain knows that. Some very well-off folk prefer not to know it. Harold Wilson says he’s going to improve the quality of British life but has anyone shown him what life is like in Glasgow? Harold Macmillan said the British worker has never had it so good. But is it good enough?”

After a pause Mr Ross said firmly, “It is NOT good enough.”

“Then you’ll let me try to do something about it?”

After a pause Mr Ross picked up his book, appeared to read it again and muttered, “Go ahead.”

Swiftly McCrimmon unpacked his camera, clipped on a flash mechanism and snapped the still figure in the bed from several angles. Then he said, “You next Mrs Ross.”

“No. On no,” she said firmly, “I’m not going to have a lot of total strangers staring at me. It wouldnae be right.”

“You never told me to expect anything like this,” muttered McCrimmon, scowling at the teacher. Ten minutes passed before Mrs Ross was persuaded to sit.

“Don’t let them make me do it, John,” she begged her husband. He said, “You might as well, Beth. The pictures won’t appear in any papers sold in this area. If they’re printed in a book Glasgow libraries won’t stock it. Snap her quick, McCrimmon.”

“Hector’s photographed the queen, Granny!” said the teacher. “You’re as important as the queen is. If the queen gets photographed by Tony McCrimmon why shouldn’t you?”

At last she consented to sit in her rocking-chair with the tea things beside her, both hands thrust out of sight in her apron pocket and the kettle on the range blowing a faint cloud of steam behind. She gasped each time the flash exploded but kept the unyielding expression of a martyred stoic.

“Your tea will be cold now,” said Mr Ross, shakily putting down the mug with the straw which he had sucked a little. “Drink it up Mr McCrimmon and she’ll make another pot while you tell me more about this Matthew Brady and his impact on the American dust bowl.”

“No tea for me,” said McCrimmon swiftly packing, “I’m already late for my next appointment. But my time has not been wasted. You have both added to the fruitfulness of what promises to have been a rewarding evening … Coming?” he asked the teacher.

“I’m afraid I must go, Granny. Tony and me have this appointment. But I’ll be back soon, probably with Lorna and the boy. Good night Grandad.”

“Aye,” said Mr Ross.

As Mrs Ross helped the teacher on with his coat she murmured, “Yes, bring Lorna and the laddie soon — but don’t bring him.”

“I won’t.”

“Will we be paid anything for all that fuss?”

“I don’t know Granny.”

“A bit of extra money would be a help now he never leaves his bed.”

“I’m not rushing you! Stay here if you like,” called McCrimmon from the landing. The teacher followed McCrimmon downstairs. Though admiring how the photographer had managed his grandfather the visit had not left him happier. He also wished he had not suggested he would soon return with his wife and child. That would never happen. Lorna hated slums and the Cowcaddens had become one. At the close mouth McCrimmon said, “A very punishing session. For God’s sake lead me to a pub.”

6

Two hours later they sat in a noisy overcrowded lounge bar, the teacher brooding over the visit to his grandparents and trouble with McGrotty. He wondered why they worried him equally. The money he was spending on drink for McCrimmon also worried him. The photographer kept ordering pints of Guinness with large malt whiskies. This sacrifice to Bohemian good-fellowship had brought the teacher no greater liveliness, no brighter sense of social existence. He felt feeble and dull and oppressed by loud voices from adjacent conversations.

“So this big blonde with the huge tits walks straight up to me and says, ‘Is there anything you would like sir?’ HAW HAW HAW.”

“Thistle is a rotten team. The Thistle hasnae a chance. Our lot will walk over them. Our lot will walk right over them and trample them into the ground.”

“And that is the true story of my last and worst encounter with Beaverbrook, but I confess to pangs of injured vanity laddie. I seem to be casting pearls of wisdom into unreceptive ears.”

A barmaid placed a Guinness and a Macallan before McCrimmon. The teacher reached into his pocket saying gloomily, “I’ll pay.”

“You’ll have to, laddie. The McCrimmon wallet is not in the best of health.”

There was silence between them for many minutes.

“Queer about that old woman,” said McCrimmon suddenly.

“What old woman?”

“That old-age-pensioner. Your granny. Did you notice her primitive reaction to this?” (McCrimmon touched his camera.) “She definitely did not want to be photographed.”

“She was shy. A lot of people hate being stared at by strangers.”

“What is shyness? Irrational terror. Your granny is like African blacks who think anyone who takes their picture has captured their souls. And we find the same superstition in the wife of a Glaswegian industrial serf! We have not advanced as far above the ape as our atom-splitting technology suggests.”

“You annoy me sometimes.”

“Tell me more, laddie.”

“You keep changing your story. You told me you wanted a record of folk in the old tenements because there was something fine and artistic about them. You told my grandad …”

“I know what I told your grandad. Did I contradict myself? Very well, I contradicted myself. I am vast. I contain multitudes. Don’t try to shut Tony McCrimmon into your toty-wee mental filing cabinet, laddie. He won’t fit. He’s too big.”

With an appearance of great satisfaction McCrimmon swallowed his Macallan. The teacher, crushed by the toper’s superior intellect, heard a bell ring and the bar manager shout, “Last orders ladies and gentlemen. Your last chance of a drink before closing time.”

“What use is life Tony?” asked the teacher desperately. “Is there a purpose in it, a way to make it better, or should we just suffer and survive? I’m asking you because I know you won’t give a religious answer. I don’t like religion. My mother was a Catholic who had to leave the church because she married a Protestant. She died thinking she would go to hell because of that. I know she didn’t go to hell. I know there’s no afterlife so I can’t be religious. But I want to believe something.”

“Quite right, religion’s just pie in the sky, OVER HERE DEARIE!” roared McCrimmon waving imperiously to the barmaid. “Purpose of life et cetera? In two words? Get me the same again and I will give you … the entire scenario and destination of our existence … in a coupla words.”

The teacher bought the same again and waited while McCrimmon, frowning deeply, refreshed himself with thoughtful swallows.

“Feel good,” he announced abruptly. “Feel good is what the life-force in each one of us decrees. Hemingway said it. Agree with him.”

“I can’t!” cried the teacher, exasperated. “I only feel good by accident. Nothing I plan to do or try to do makes me feel good and the harder I try the worse I feel. But what I most hate is that nobody respects me. Why should they? What is there in me to respect? Yet look at my grandad and granny. They’ve had rotten lives compared with mine, overworked and underpaid when not downright unemployed. Their most prosperous times were during two world wars. They never expected to feel good but they’re still better people than me. They have dignity. I think my grandad will be dead in a year or less, and knows it, but is dying with dignity because he respects himself. I think my granny knows it too and is helping him, though God knows what will become of her when she’s left with nobody. No wonder I hate visiting them. They make me ashamed of myself.”

“I can explain all that,” said McCrimmon with a slight hiccup. “You see there are always two main types in this world of ours, always have been, always will be: aristocrats and serfs. The aristocrats are the feel-goods — the five per cent born into the dolce vita. Eating, drinking, clothing, housing, fucking is no problem to that class because they have everything money can buy. Their only work is issuing orders and pulling off money deals. They enjoy that because it proves how important they are. The other class are the serfs whose only satisfaction in life — if they can get it — is doing a job that thousands of others would do just as well if they dropped down dead. Religion was once the opium of the serfs but nowadays it’s socialism. Is your grandad a socialist?”

“Yes — Independent Labour Party. He knew Jimmy Maxton.”

“I thought so. An industrial serf who wants to abolish the aristocracy. He probably thought Utopia was dawning after the war when Attlee nationalized the mines and transport and health services.”

“What about me?” cried the teacher. “What about you, for that matter?”

“We are the God-damned bourgeoisie — the middle or muddle class, son. The aristos, you see, don’t know how to talk to serfs because they speak a different language. So they pay folk from serf backgrounds a bit extra to help them manage the rest. So we get foremen and sergeant majors and policemen and lawyers and civil servants and teachers like you. And since aristos hate entertaining each other with anything but sex they pay big money to folk who can manufacture the dolce vita for them: chefs and clothes designers and models and prostitutes and artists and talented photographers like me. You need talent to enjoy the dolce vita if you arenae an aristocrat. For the rest it isnae so easy.”

“Does all that … waffle … mean I cannae enjoy myself because I’ve no special talent?”

“If the cap fits wear it, son. And if you’re one of the majority who would rather not face facts then all I can advise is nil desperandum and soldier on with the fixed grin of an idiot.”

The teacher shook his head hopelessly. McCrimmon’s speech reminded him of a Marxist uncle whose speeches had bored him when he was small, yet McCrimmon was certainly no Marxist.

Then he heard the bell ring again and the bar manager shout, “Time up ladies and gentlemen! Drink up and clear out! You’ve had your fun so hurry along! Some of us have beds to go to!”

“Christ,” groaned McCrimmon between swigs of porter, “why am I in a city … largest in a so-called country … where pubs shut at half past nine? Scotland is afflicted by three plagues. The first … ignorance of life. Third … envy of success. Second is … God it’s hot in here. What did I say third was?”

“Envy of success.”

“I was right. Let’s clear out. Where,” McCrimmon demanded on the pavement outside, “where can we go? Where’s the party? There’s always a party somewhere.”

The teacher had drunk very little compared with McCrimmon. The cool night air restored his mental clarity. He knew that the comfort of home was the best he would get but longing for one sip of unfamiliar social pleasure made him linger and murmur that Tom and Jean Forbes were having a party to celebrate their first wedding anniversary — they had told him so without inviting him to it; he might not be welcome.

“Forget Tom and Jean Forbes,” cried McCrimmon, putting an arm round the teacher’s shoulder and marching him westward, “I’ll be your entrance ticket, son. Nobody can shut out The Vivid Scotchman. That’s what they call me in Soho — The Vivid Scotchman. Over breakfast this morning I promised myself a wank or a woman before another day dawned. With a party looming up the latter option becomes a practical certainty.”

7

The Forbes lived in the top flat of a spacious nineteenth-century tenement. Tom opened the front door and said pleasantly, “Hullo! So you both found your way here after all.”

“Time has not blunted your acute powers of observation Tommy,” said McCrimmon strolling in with the teacher behind him.

“Drop you coats in there,” said Tom pointing to a bedroom. “If you’re hungry there’s plenty to eat in the kitchen but I’m afraid the booze is running out.”

“I’ve heard that one before,” said McCrimmon grimly. A slender girl in jeans, checked blouse and open sheepskin coat stood within the bedroom door. McCrimmon paused and said to her on a note of gentle astonishment, “Hullo, long time no see. How are you getting on? Someone told me you were engaged. Who’s the lucky fellow?”

“I’m not engaged and I’m getting on quite well.”

“You don’t remember me?”

“I don’t. I’m sorry,” said the girl. The teacher dropped his coat on a pile of coats on the bed, regretting his connection with McCrimmon. He was embarrassed by hearing him say, “Don’t apologize, I feel the same way. As soon as I saw your face I realized I’d known it for years though I’ve never met you before in my life. That gives us something to celebrate, eh? Let’s find where they’ve hidden the booze. I think you can help me with a couple of Sunday Times articles I’m taking pictures for.”

“I can’t, I’m waiting for a friend.”

“Bring her too. Bring him if he’s a boyfriend. Romance, not sex is what I’m after. Romance and glamour are the raw materials of my profession. Sex is a distraction. You are perfectly safe with me.”

The teacher hurried into the lobby.

Only a husband and wife who both earned professional wages could afford such a flat, thought the teacher enviously. The ceilings were over twice the height of those in his semi-detached council house. He peeped into a living-room which could have held his own living-room and the kitchen beside it and the two bedrooms and bathroom above. Politely chatting well-dressed people showed this was not a suddenly improvised party but one whose guests had been invited days, perhaps weeks before. The crippled teacher who had given him a lift sat by the fire talking with Jean so he recoiled into the lobby. Friday night is my night off, he had told her, I go into town and let the unexpected happen. If she saw him she would know he had gatecrashed. At the end of a short corridor he found a kitchen where chatting couples and trios were so tightly packed that a lonely man was not noticeable. Filling a plate with salad and cold meat he stood eating with a fork in a corner by a refrigerator. Again voices pressed painfully in on him.

“It’s a good wee car. It’s not a great wee car but it’s not a bad wee car. Anyway it suits me.”

“Take it easy. Let yourself go. What use is worrying? That’s my philosophy.”

“I said you’ve stopped trying. You’ve let yourself go. You’re sliding to the bottom I told him, but you aren’t going to take me with you.”

These did not shut out earlier voices.

“You need talent to enjoy the dolce vita.”

“He never starts anything. He waits until someone else suggests something then hangs about hoping to be included.”

“Ye big fat stupit wet plaster ye!”

“I could have belted him if I’d wanted to,” thought the teacher unhappily then a sound recalled him wholly to the present. Through a lull in surrounding talk came the pure voice of a singer: “I never will marry, I’ll be no man’s wife, I have vowed to be single, All the days of my life.” He set down the plate and went toward the music.

In a dim room next door a dozen people sat or squatted on the carpet listening to a plain stout woman of forty or fifty who sat on a sofa under a standard lamp. With hands folded on lap she sang of hopeless love, sudden death and failed endeavour, sang so sweetly, quietly and firmly that the teacher felt her singing was the one truly good thing he had met that day and for many days. He was grateful. He was even grateful to Plenderleith who sat by the singer striking quiet harmonious chords on a guitar. She sang Barbara Allan, The Bonnie Earl of Murray, Henry Martin then coughed, blew out her cheeks and said, “That’s all tonight folks.”

The audience did not move. A girl begged, “One more?”

“Right, a short one. Bonnie George Campbell … Don’t try to accompany this,” she told Plenderleith and sang,

“High in the Highlands and low upon Tay,

Bonnie George Campbell rode out on a day,

Saddled and bridled and gallant rade he,

Hame cam his guid horse, but never cam he.”

During the last verse the teacher was gripped by an audacious notion which made him tremble with excitement.

“Doon cam his auld mither greetin’ fu sair,

Doon cam his bonny bride rivin’ her hair —

‘My meadow’s unreaped and uncut is my corn,

My barn is unfilled and my babe is unborn.’ Now give me something to drink because my belly thinks my throat’s cut,” said the singer. There was a murmur of laughter and applause and someone handed her a glass of wine. The teacher hurried over to Plenderleith and said urgently, “Do you remember On Duty, Plendy?”

“Eh?”

“On Duty — A Tale of the Crimea. I sang it on the staff outing to Largs.”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to sing it now. Vamp along with me will you? It’s an easy tune — dee dum dum dum dumpty, dee dum dum dum dum — you can do it.”

Plenderleith looked thoughtfully at the teacher for a moment then shrugged and said, “All right.”

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!” cried the teacher loudly, “ladies and gentlemen I don’t know who the last singer was but we must all agree she was splendid! Wonderful! Sublime! But she sang nothing very patriotic, did she? So it is now both my duty and my pleasure to give you a rendition of that popular patriotic ballad, On Duty — A Tale of the Crimea. Would someone near the door switch on the ceiling light? This ballad goes better without moody lighting. Thank you! Here it comes — On Duty — A Tale of the Crimea.”

Standing to attention like a soldier on parade he sang,

“The place was the Crimea, the year fifty-four,

When passions had unleashed the demon of war…”

Most of the audience were rising to leave when he made his announcement but paused to hear the start of the song. It glorified the charge of the Light Brigade, in such melodramatic clichés that the teacher’s Marxist uncle had amused family gatherings by singing it with an appearance of solemnity. Nobody here seemed to understand the joke, no matter how rigidly the teacher stood and how loudly he sang in the dialect of an English officer, so he changed to a London cockney dialect. Halfway through the second verse his only audience was an old smiling man in an easy chair and the former singer. When the teacher faltered into silence the old man said, “Go on! You’re doing fine!”

Nursing the glass of wine on her lap the singer said kindly, “Don’t worry son, it happens to all of us sometimes. It’s happened to me.”

“Sorry. I’m sorry,” said the teacher, “I’m very sorry.” He went to a sideboard and stood with hands in pockets staring at a framed print of van Gogh sunflowers. He would have liked to flee through the lobby and out of the house but dreaded coming face to face with another human being. Noticing Plenderleith beside him he muttered, “Sorry about that. I’m no use, you know.”

“Have a nut,” said Plenderleith offering a dish of salted peanuts. The teacher took and nibbled some.

“What are you no use at?” asked Plenderleith. The teacher brooded on this, sighed and said, “I envy Tony McCrimmon.”

“Why?”

“He enjoys life. He appreciates himself.”

“I doubt it.”

“Why?”

“He talks too loud.”

“I know what you mean. Yes, he blusters and bullies and ignores people’s feelings but, well, I think he’s entitled to do that. He’s made something of himself. He’s a talented photographer.”

“He’s a rotten photographer.”

“But he works for the Sunday Times!”

“A year ago they used one or two of his photographs, that’s all,” said Plenderleith between crunching on peanuts. “When he first landed in London he bluffed his way into one or two worthwhile commissions — they were never renewed. People soon saw through him. Of course he drinks like a fish, which doesn’t help. Have another nut.”

The teacher stared at him blankly then nodded and hurried from the room.

He found McCrimmon in the crowded living-room talking to a blonde girl in a very short black dress and fish-net stockings. He had backed her into a corner and was saying in exasperated tones, “I am not asking you to do it nude. You wouldn’t need to wear less than, shall we say, the briefest of brief bikinis!”

“I’m not interested!” said the girl. “Get it into your head that I don’t want to talk about it, let alone do it!”

“Tony,” said the teacher.

“But there’s money in it,” cried McCrimmon, “big money! You’re the type they go for…”

“Excuse us Tony,” said Jean walking round him and placing an arm on the girl’s shoulder. “Rita, there’s somebody over here who wants a private word with you. Sorry Tony.”

She led the girl away.

“My God,” said McCrimmon turning and surveying the room with disgust, “what a party. Cheap food, no booze and the most frigid women I’ve met in my life.”

“Tony,” said the teacher.

“What do you want?”

“I want to buy that film from you.”

“What film?”

“The film in that camera —” (McCrimmon still wore his overcoat with the gear of his profession hung from the shoulders) “— the film with the photos of my granny and grampa in it.”

“You do not understand photography, son. I own the copyright of everything I take. In the course of time I will send you a sheet of contact prints from which you may select those you would like which I will then enlarge. But remember this, it won’t be cheap.”

“That’s not what I asked you to do. I said I would pay you to photograph my granny and grampa. You did it and now I want the film.”

“I don’t get this!” said McCrimmon shaking his head. “You make me photograph your old folk — make them sit for me — then without a word of explanation you ask for the undeveloped film!”

“No. I’m telling you to sell me the undeveloped film. Here and now! At once!”

McCrimmon turned his back and shouldered his way into the lobby saying, “Sorry son, you cannae afford it.”

“Hand that film over Tony,” cried the teacher, following.

“I get it! You’re jealous!” said McCrimmon facing him again. “You’re jealous like all the others. You cannae see someone do something original and artistic without wanting to throw your own miserable wee brick at it. Your trouble, Jimmy, is your totally third-rate mind …”

“You’re a liar McCrimmon,” said the teacher feeling his face get hot and speaking with a voice which grew suddenly huge, “a liar, a bully, a boaster, a phony and a failure! What could be more third-rate than you? — You drunken idiot!”

He glared at McCrimmon and in the silence which followed knew many were watching him and that he had never spoken so nastily to a human being before, not even to the worst of his pupils. His muscles were tensed for a fight but McCrimmon replied with unexpected dignity.

“You’re wrong. I may be a failure and drunkard and … and other things but I am not third-rate. Second-rate yes, all right, but not third-rate. At least I’ve tried to get out of the rut. I failed, true. You havenae even tried.”

“The film Tony,” said the teacher implacably. “Give it me.”

“No.”

McCrimmon moved away. The teacher seized and jerked the strap of the camera case. It broke. With the case swinging from the strap in one hand the teacher hurried down the lobby fumbling for the lid with the other. Roaring horribly McCrimmon leapt after him and grabbed him low from behind in a rugby tackle. The camera slid out of the case and hit the floor with a sharp crack as the teacher fell face down behind it with McCrimmon on top. There was a hubbub of voices. The weight on the teacher’s back was removed. Kneeling up he saw McCrimmon also kneeling, held back by men grasping each arm. Without lifting the camera the teacher opened it, pulled out the film, exposed it, dropped it and stood up, breathing heavily. Everyone looked at McCrimmon. He seemed so horrified that his captors, feeling him harmless, let him go. He crawled to the camera and lifted it with something like the unbelief of a mother lifting a dead baby. In a faint female falsetto he crooned, “Broke. My camera. Oh and it wasnae insured, it wasnae insured.” He wept.

The teacher found Tom Forbes beside him saying, “Here’s your coat.”

“Thanks.”

They went to the front door. Tom opened it. The teacher paused a moment and slid his arms into the sleeves saying, “I’m sorry about all this …”

“Just go home to your wife, Jimmy. Good night.”

“Good night. See you on Monday …”

The door closed behind him.

8

The time was eighteen minutes past midnight. At one a.m. buses left Glasgow’s central square for the suburbs but rather than wait for one the teacher walked five or six miles along Sauchiehall Street, Parliamentary Road and Alexandra Parade: thoroughfares of shops and tenements which in twenty years would be reshaped, shrunk or abolished by pedestrianization and a motorway system. But the teacher was thinking of the recent past. Since his last class became unruly that afternoon it had all been disastrous. The only action he did not regret was the exposure of McCrimmon’s film.

“No more nights off for me,” he thought. “No more nights off for me.”

He also resolved to visit his grandparents again tomorrow, or on Sunday, or perhaps the following weekend. There came a fall of rain so slight that he hardly noticed it until he saw privet hedges round the Carntyne gardens glittering under the street lamps. He may not have felt exactly like Ulysses landing on the coast of Ithaca but while turning the key of his front door and quietly entering years seemed to have passed since he left for work that morning.

In the living-room his wife, who disliked going to bed alone, lay dozing on a sofa before the fire. Opening her eyes she smiled and said, “Hullo.”

He tried to smile back. She said, “Bad?”

“Bad.”

“Worse than last week?”

“Aye.”

“What went wrong?”

“The whole day went wrong. I’ll tell you tomorrow. How’s the lad?”

“Not a cheep from him.”

“Next week,” said the teacher watching himself in a mirror above the mantelpiece, “I’ll be thirty-four.”

“You poor pathetic middle-aged soul,” said his wife standing up and laughing and leaning on his shoulder.

“Has that been worrying you?”

“A bit. Let’s have a keek at him.”

They went quietly upstairs to a bedroom holding a child’s cot and switched on a low light in one corner. The cot contained a not quite two-year-old child soundly sleeping. His snub-nosed head with mouth pouting like a bird’s blunt beak was larger than a baby’s head but still babyish. On the coverlet lay a plastic duck, his mother’s hairbrush and a small red motor car. The teacher bent to kiss him but was restrained by his wife’s hand. She switched the light out and they tiptoed to the room next door.

Sitting on the bed he unlaced and removed his shoes saying in a baffled voice, “You … and that wee boy in there … are the only worthwhile things I know.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“A man should have something more in life than his family. I used to think it would be my work but it isn’t my work. I don’t know what it is.”

“I’ll help you look for it tomorrow,” said his wife gently rumpling his hair.

“No use, I’ll never find it now,” he said, smiling at her in a way which showed he felt much better.

“Perhaps wee Jimmy will find it.”

“O yes,” he said yawning, “put it off for another generation.”

“You need your bed my lad,” she said.

They went to bed.