The Burn (18 page)

The lassie came in on her own; she glanced roundabout then continued on past the
Ladies
, heading into the lounge. Minutes later she was back again, squinting this way
and that, as if letting it be known she was only here because she was meeting somebody. When she arrived beside him at the bar there was a frown on her face. She asked the woman serving for a gin
and orangeade, stressing the orangeade, how she didnt want natural fruit juice or the diluting stuff. She was good-looking. She had on a pair of trousers and a wideish style of jersey. Eventually
he spoke to her. He gave her a smile at the same time:

Has he gave you a dizzy?

The lassie ignored him.

Has he stood you up? he said, smiling. Then he drank a mouthful of lager. In some ways he hadnt been expecting any response, even though he was just being friendly, taking her at face value and
trying to ease her feelings; get her to relax a bit. This wasnt the best of pubs for single women, being frank about it – not the worst, but definitely not the best.

Her eyes were smallish, brown, nice. He liked her looks. Okay. What is there to that? There can be strong feelings between the sexes. He was attracted to her. Fine. But even more than that:
probably if something bad was happening he would have been first there, right at her elbow. It was a big brotherish feeling. He used to have a couple of wee sisters. Still has! Just that they are
no longer wee. They are married women, with families of their own. He used to be a married man with a family of his own! Which simply means, to cut the crap, that him and his wife dont see
eye-to-eye anymore. If they ever did. She doesnt live with him. And he doesnt live with her. They separated a year-and-a-half ago. He spent too much time boozing down the pub. Too much time out the
house. That was the problem, he spent too much time out the house. The work did it. The kind of job he had is the kind that puts pressure on you. And what happens but you wind up in the pub
drowning your sorrows.

The lassie with the brown eyes, she was standing beside him. He didnt know what she was maybe she was a student. Although she was older than the usual. But some of the older students came round
here. Even during the day, when you might have expected them to be at their class getting their lessons, here they were, having a wee drink. He thought it livened things up. Other folk didnt. Other
folk didnt think that at all. They thought it was better to have things the opposite of livened up – deadened down – that’s what they thought it was better to have, that was their
preference. When they went into a pub they wanted no people, no noise and no laughter, no music, no life, no bloody fuck all, nothing, that’s what they liked, nothing, to walk into a pub and
get faced by nothing. How come they ever left their place of abode? That was the real question. How come they didnt just stay put, in their bloody house. Then they would give other folk a break. If
they were actually interested in other folk then that’s what they would do, they would stay fucking indoors and give them a bloody break. But they didnt do that. Out they came. He couldnt be
bothered with it, that kind of mentality, he just couldn’t be bothered with it. They were misanthropes. The very last thing he ever wanted to be. No matter how bad it got he would never
resort to that way of behaving. He genuinely thought people should help one another. He did. He genuinely did. Something that was anathema nowadays right enough, the way things were. But so what?
There’s aye room for variety. Who wants everything to be the same? Imagine it: a whole regiment of folk all looking the same and then thinking the same thoughts. That would be terrible,
absolutely bloody horrendous. You see some blokes going about, their faces tripping them. You wonder how come they ever set foot out the door, as if they just left the house to upset folk. A pain
in the neck so they are. The kind that never does somebody a turn unless it’s a bad yin. His wife’s people were like that. They used to talk about him behind his back. They spoke about
him to her, they carried tales. She believed them as well. Plus they did their chattering in front of the wee yins. Bad. If you’ve got to talk about somebody, okay, but no in front of the wee
yins. Bringing somebody down like that. It’s no right. There again but his wife didnt have to listen; nobody was forcing her, she could have ignored them, she could have told them to shut
their bloody mouth.

The lassie was staring across the bar to beneath the gantry, to where all the bottles of beer were stacked, as if she was comparing all the different labels or something. Because she was feeling
self-conscious. You could tell. And there was a mirror up above. She was maybe wanting to look into it to see if she could see somebody but she wasnt able to bring it off in case she wound up
catching somebody else’s eye. That was probably it. He gave her a smile but she ignored it.

He didnt want to feel hurt because it would have been stupid. Not only stupid but ridiculous. She hadnt ignored him at all. She had just no seen him. But she was no seeing anybody. Which is what
lassies have to do in pubs. It’s part of how they’ve got to act. He had a daughter himself and that’s exactly what he would be telling her next time he saw her. You just cannot
afford to take chances, no nowadays – different to when he was young. Aye, he said, young yins nowadays, they have it that wee bit harder.

And he glanced at her but she kept her stare fixed on the bottles beneath the gantry. Which was okay really because he had said it in such a way she would be able to do exactly that, ignore him,
without feeling like she was giving him an insult at the same time. That kind of point was important between the sexes, between men and women, if ever they were to manage things together. He gave
her another smile and she responded. She did. Her head looked up and she nodded. That was the irony. If you’re looking for irony that’s it. Plus as well the way things operate in
conversation it was really up to her to make the next move, whatever it was, it was up to her.

The woman serving behind the bar was watching him. She was rinsing the glasses out at the sink. Her head was bent over as if she was attending totally to the job in hand but she wasnt, it was
obvious. Probably because she knew he was married, thinking to herself: So he’s like that is he; chatting up the young lassies, I might’ve bloody guessed, they’re all the bloody
same!

And that would make you laugh because he wasnt like that at all. No even just now when he was separated, when he was away living on his own. It was a total guess on her part and she was wrong.
But women like to guess about men. They get their theories. And then they get surprised when the theories dont work out. She had seen him talk to the lassie and she just assumed he was trying to
chat her up. It can be bad the way folk jump in and make their assumptions about you. And apart from his age what made her so sure he was married anyway? He had gave up wearing the band of gold a
while ago and she was new in the job, still feeling her way; she was still finding out about folk and as far as he was concerned what could she know? almost nothing, it was just guesswork.

The woman was wearing a ring herself but that didnt even mean
she
was married. As far as a lot of females are concerned a band of gold’s a handy thing to have pure and simple for
the way it can ward off unwelcome attention. There again but let’s be honest, most men dont even see a ring, and even if they do, so what? they just bloody ignore it.

The woman stopped rinsing glasses now to serve an auld bloke at the far end of the bar. He said something to her and she said something back and the two of them smiled. She had a quiet style
with the customers, but she could crack funny wee jokes as well, the kind you never seem to hear at first – no till after the person that’s told you has went away and you’re left
standing there and suddenly you think: Aye, right enough . . . This is the way it was with her. And then when you looked for her once it had dawned on you she was off and pouring the next
guy’s pint, she had forgot all about it. It was actually quite annoying. Although at the same time you’ve got to appreciate about women working in a pub, how they’ve got to
develop an exterior else they’ll no be able to cope. This one for example had a distracted appearance like she was always away thinking about bloody gas bills or something. Mind you
that’s probably what she was thinking about. Everything’s so damn dear nowadays. He said it to the lassie. He frowned at her and added: Still and all, it wasnt that much better afore
they got in, the tories.

She looked at him quite surprised. It was maybe the first time she had genuinely acknowledged he was a person. And it made him think it confirmed she was a student, but at the same time about
her politics, that she was good and left-wing. He jerked his head in the direction of the woman serving behind the bar. Her there, he said, I think she’s a single parent; she looks like she
goes about worried out of her skull because of the bills coming in – she’ll have a tough time of it.

The lassie raised her eyebrows just; and that was that, she dropped her gaze. In fact she looked like she was tired, she did look like she was tired. But it was a certain kind of tiredness. The
kind you dont like to see in young people – lassies maybe in particular, though maybe no.

I’m forty going on fifty, he said and he smiled, forty going on fifty. Naw but what I mean is I feel like I’m fifty instead of forty. No kidding. In fact I felt like I was fifty when
I was thirty! It was one of the major bones of contention between me and the wife. She used to accuse me about it, being middle-aged. She used to say I was an auld man afore my time. No very nice
eh? Accusing your husband of that.

He smiled as he shook his head, swigged a mouthful of beer. Mate of mine, he said, when I turned forty, at my birthday, I was asking him what like it was, turning it I mean, forty, and what he
telled me was it took him till he was past fifty to bloody get over it!

He smiled again, took his fags out for another smoke although he was trying to cut down. The lassie already was smoking. He lit one for himself. I noticed you come in, he said, the way you
walked ben the lounge and then came back here, like you were looking for somebody. I’m no being nosy, it’s just an observation, I thought you were looking for somebody.

She had two brown moles on her cheek, just down from her right eye. They were funny, pretty and beautiful. It made him smile.

That was how I spoke to you, he went on, because I thought you were in looking for somebody and they hadnt showed up. I’m no meaning to be nosy, it was just I thought the way you looked,
when you came in . . . He finished by giving a nod then inhaled deeply on his cigarette. He was beginning to blab and it was making her uncomfortable. He wasnt saying it right, what he was meaning
to say, he was coming out with it wrong, as if it was a line he was giving her, a bit of patter.

She was just no wanting to talk. That was it. You could tell it a mile away. Then at the same time she wasnt wanting to be bloody rude. It was like she maybe didnt quite know how to handle the
situation, as if she was under pressure. Maybe she would have handled things better if it had been a normal day, but for some reason the day wasnt normal. Maybe something bad had happened earlier
on, at one of her classes, and she was still feeling the effects, the emotional upset. He wanted to tell her no to worry. She wasnt at her classes now.

Unless she thought he was acting too forward or something because he was talking to her – though as far as pubs go surely no, it was just what comes under the heading of being sociable.
And we have to live with one another. Come on, if we arent even allowed to talk! Nowadays right enough you cant even take that for granted; it’s as if you’re supposed to go about
kicking everybody in the teeth; you’re no supposed to be friendly, if you’re friendly they go and tell the polis and you wind up getting huckled for indecent assault. There again but
folk have
had
to get that wee bit tougher nowadays, just to survive. He said to the lassie: Do you know what the trouble is? I’m talking about how things have got harder and tougher
these past couple of years.

She kept her head lowered. It made him smile. He glanced over the counter but the woman was off serving other folk. He smiled again: You obviously dont want to know what the trouble is! And
that’s your privilege, that’s your right. But I’m going to tell you anyhow!

Naw but seriously, he said, the way things are – society I’m meaning – it’s just like auld Joxer says in that play by Sean O’Casey, the world’s in a state of
chassis. I’m talking about how capitalism and the right wing has got it all cornered, so selfishness is running amok, everywhere you look, it’s rampant – no just here in Scotland
but right across the whole of the western world. It’s bloody disgusting. Everybody clawing at one another. Nobody gives a shit. We just dont care anymore about what the neighbour next door
might be suffering. It’s true. They can be suffering. That auld woman up the stair for example, take her, you’ve no seen her for how long? a week? a fortnight? a bloody month? So what
do you do do you go up and keek through the letterbox? naw, do you hell; nothing as simple that, what you do is go and phone the bloody polis and get them to come and do it for you. That’s
the way it is. So you come to rely on people like the polis as if they were angels of mercy – instead of what they are, the forces of law and order for the rich and the wealthy, the upper
class.

The lassie frowned.

Sorry, he said, am I talking too loud? I know you’re no supposed to nowadays. When you talk about something you’re really interested in you’re supposed to bloody keep it down,
the noise level I mean. So so much for your interest, if it happens to be bloody genuine . . . He shook his head, sighing; he drank from his pint of lager, glancing at her over the rim of the
glass, but she was managing not to look at him. Funny how that happened. He could never have managed it himself, to not speak to somebody who was speaking to you. He would have found it extremely
difficult, to achieve, he would have found it really difficult. Maybe some folk were mentally equipped to carry that kind of thing off but he wasnt, he just didnt happen to be one of them –
not that he would have wanted to be anyhow. Mind you, if he had been a lassie . . . But lassies are trained for it, in a manner of speaking; it’s part of the growing-up process for them,
young females. It doesnt happen with boys, just if you’re a lassie, you’ve got to learn how not to talk; plus how not to look, you get trained how not to look. How not to look and how
not to talk. You get trained how not to do things.