Greyhound for Breakfast (16 page)

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.

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.

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.

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.

What was I on about? Fuck knows. That back of mine too, killing me. I used to say to her. That back of mine’s fucking killing me so it is – murder! All she did but,
nodded her head, nodded her fucking head.

Another thing I did right enough I drank that tea; I drank that tea! Fucking stacks of the stuff. Till it was coming out my ears. I used to drink coffee but then I started
getting this terrible heartburn so I stopped. Funny thing too about it, when I was smoking, I never used to get it; well I did right enough but it was from the actual smoking, the actual smoking I
got it, no the coffee.

Yet how do I know. I dont really. Maybe it was the fucking coffee after all!

Who cares.

And you couldnt tell her anything either neither you could cause she wouldnt listen, she wouldnt listen, she wasnt interested. She could just walk past you sometimes as well,
when you were talking; just fucking walk past you. You could hardly credit it. I would just sit there but, saying nothing. Say nothing, I’d say to myself, just sit there, dont fucking say a
word, cause you’ll regret it, just fucking sit there. And she’d walk past, walk right past, where you were sitting.

Make you laugh so it would.

Then that fucking telly! She’d have it blaring! Fucking blaring. I never watched it. Never! I never fucking watched it. Load of shite. I just used to sit there.

Lassies right enough, sometimes I used to think of lassies. Couldnt help myself. I’d just be sitting there then all of a sudden I’m on a fucking beach! Or maybe
just even walking down the road, a country lane, in the middle of summer. Anything. And there’s this lassie, what’s she doing? she’s just I dont know, just fucking walking maybe
or something like that. And underneath her dress, a frock, underneath it, she’s no wearing fuck all – nothing, just her frock. And that’s no really got anything to do with it
either because what I was thinking about I was just, it was the cloth, the way her skin just touched it, the actual cloth, the dress, you could just imagine it, the way her skin just touched
it.

What I liked but was the minis. She used to get onto me about it, as if I was doing something. But I wasnt doing anything. I was just fucking looking. And even then sometimes
you werent even fucking looking, cause you got used to it. You’d hardly credit that but it’s true; when you think back; the way the minis were, and now they’re gone, and you try
and mind what like it was and you cant, no really, you cant. Sometimes as well you’re seeing them on the box, old news programmes or that, and you sit back on your seat, Fuck sake, but you
still cant mind, no really, what like it was, the way they were, in real life, what they actually looked like, seeing a lassie walking down the street.

Where but what! I would just be sitting there, in a wee daze, a daydream. Where but what? Sudden, I would just think it.

Naw, me and Billy, we were mates for years. Anyhow, aye, I always liked his missus. Nice looking so she was. When the minis were in she used to wear hers halfway up her arse.
It annoyed him as well, it was funny. He kidded on he didnt mind but he fucking did, he did mind, he just kidded on he didnt. Sitting in the boozer maybe and in she’d come looking for him.
See his face! A fucking picture. Made you laugh so it did, just seeing him. A cracking looking wee bird but, his missus. I mind too this fellow telling him that. Heh Bill, he says, quite the thing,
That missus of yours, cracking looking wee bird. And Billy’s face! A fucking picture. The thing about her too, his wife, she never took any fucking notice. I mean the boozer, it’d be
full of cunts, all staring at her, drooling – she never fucking noticed. No like mine. She’d have fucking noticed. Nothing surer. Makes you fucking angry as well, you’ve got to
admit it. It annoys you. I used to, get annoyed; I used to get fucking annoyed, with her, the wife, she made me fucking angry. I used to get really fucking browned off – worse, worse, I mean
worse than that, really fucking angry, it fucking

A gangrenous patch on his right leg had resulted in amputation. The people at the hospital gave him a new one which he got used to quicker than most folk in the same
predicament but something happened to this new limb and now he no longer had it. For a while he moved around as best he could, making do with a walking stick of sorts; but it was not easy and he
was a guy who liked travelling about the place. One morning somebody found a broken crutch and gave him it and somebody else made a cross-spar and nailed it properly down for him. This meant he was
back mobile again and he used to tell folk the crutch was as adequate as anything. But eventually he stopped telling them that and soon he stopped telling them anything at all. From then on,
whenever I caught sight of him, he was carrying a plastic shopper that contained most of his possessions; usually he was trudging to places over stretches of waste ground, although trudging is the
wrong word because of having the crutch and so on he used to move in a rigorous and quite quick swinging motion.

In the ensuing scramble the body will melt into undeciphered tremors, undeciphered in consequence of its having been laid to rest some time prior to the call. And the
‘call’ here must not be regarded as figurative; it will have proceeded from whence great difficulty is experienced in matters of prediction. You must also recall the state of non
well-being which exists beforehand. It is certainly the case that one has to exercise caution in hazarding a judgment but nevertheless, nevertheless, I would say if you feel the need to leap then
by all means leap.

He shouldnt’ve been at school. He was past fifteen, the same age as his da when he started work and he was ready, he knew he was ready. School was so terrible, beyond
talking about, so terrible. In the history class he sat to the side of the room just keeping out of everything, not wanting to be bothered by any of them. None of it was funny at all, none of it,
he just wanted away and out of it. A thing he did was stare at the desk, at a certain bit on the surface, maybe an initial, a drawing, or just a stain or blemish in the wood, just stare at it,
trying to concentrate the mind right out and away. It was supposed to be possible to transfer your mind away to some different place altogether. His da told him criminals could do it, guys in jail,
they could more or less transfer their mind away onto a different level; and old people did it as well, staring back into the past. Maybe some folk did it into the future like they said. Psychic
powers. The line drifts out from your mind and you go onto a different level, another plane. The fourth dimension, you go through a time-warp, enter into a totally new world where
everything’s totally different.