The Burn (27 page)

I’m no patronising ye come on! It’s just you’ve been away so long man – there’s a common ground missing.

Yeh well so what?

It takes a while.

What takes a while?

Fin shrugged. Talking. Getting the basics sorted out. Takes fucking ages.

So what?

Fin smiled. We’ll just fucking argue.

I dont care if we argue. That’s what ye miss christ a good-going debate; I dont get it down there, it’s all one-way traffic, naybody to fucking communicate with, no properly, no
unless ye bump into a black guy or something, maybe an Irishman. Apart from that . . . It’s hard to open yer mouth.

Fin nodded.

Dont just fucking nod.

Well what am I supposed to do? Fin spoke quietly.

I dont know. Carry on talking about what ye’re talking.

There’s too much.

Ye are patronising me ye know.

I dont mean to.

Well ye are.

Fin shook his head. I dont mean to.

After a moment Derek replied, Okay.

Fin lifted his pint tumbler, drank some beer. They sat in silence for several moments. Fin spoke first: How long ye staying for?

Coupla days. Derek rubbed at his forehead, his eyes closed; Till I get the business done.

Is there a lot?

Yeh. Uch well naw, no really, the undertaker does most of it. Aw ye do’s pay the bills. There’s the lawyer right enough. She never left a will, my mother, she had her insurance and
that but it’s one of these fucking mickey-mouse efforts; this great big certificate; it looks like the kind ye get at the carnival, if ye win a fucking coconut. It just about pays the cost of
the wreath and the reception, the wake or whatever ye call it. She had her bank book. Thirteen hundred quid. No a lot eh?

Fin said nothing.

There’s furniture and linen and all that; tablecloths, teatowels; that sort of stuff, sheets and pillowcases. It’s a case of the sisters taking what they want, then flogging the
rest. Or I dont know, giving it away, Oxfam or something; they can figure that yin out. It’s sad but. Ye’ve just got to batter on. Fuck aw else ye can do. That’s how I didni want
the girlfriend here. I wasni sure how I’d handle it. It’s a bit sad, know what I mean.

How was the service?

Aw fine, fine; better than I was expecting, the actual thing itself, quite moving. Some auld biddies turned up I hadni seen for years. An auld auntie! Derek grinned. Ye want to have seen her,
christ, beautiful. The ancient of days. Related to my da. I thought it was good, her turning up, I mean . . . Derek grinned again, shook his head. Brooches and fucking . . . ye know, hats and
fucking chiffon and all that. I last saw her when I was eight. Stern, christ. Travelled up from Ballantrae or some place. Like an auld Covenanter; ye could imagine her voice booming out in a psalm
when the troops were arriving. Fuck sake.

Fin chuckled.

But they aw seemed to be church people. My maw’s side too. I mean ye forget people still go to church.

Aw they still go alright!

Yeh . . . Tell ye what I have been doing Fin, sketching, I’ve been sketching. Myself . . .! I’m sitting staring into mirrors. Catharsis eh?

Maybe it’s necessary.

Yeh, maybe. Listen but I’m glad ye phoned. Sitting up in the house man ye know . . . Good ye made contact.

It wasni a chore.

Uch naw I know but thanks I mean anyway.

Fuck sake man.

Derek grinned. It’s just the past, the past; something to fucking hang onti – so’s ye can fucking dump it Fin know what I mean, I want the world, the world, capital double-u.
Tell ye a plan I’ve had for a coupla years, saving the dough and going to South America. Getting one of these Volkswagen vans. Getting it kitted out and that.

Mm. Dangerous country. Guy I know was in Nicaragua.

Right.

He was there a year, schoolteacher, says it was fucking amazing, fucking yankee bastards. Central America right enough, no the South . . . Ye did know that eh!

Yeh.

Thought ye did! Fin smiled. Sorry.

Dont mention it.

Fin lifted the beer to his mouth, but paused. Give Sammy a phone. He’ll be glad to hear from ye. Dont fucking mind me, I’m biased.

Maybe later. Hey did I ever tell ye when I blew outa here?

Ye hitched across Europe.

Yeh, I was gonni show you bastards, I was really gonni show ye. Art, ye didni know the meaning of the word! Derek stopped and frowned: I wonder what I done it for? That fucking stupid video
equipment. It was just lying there. I really fucking done it man eh! Fucking . . . He shrugged, smiled. I went chasing the light. Purity! A certain sky! At a certain time of the morning! With
certain cloud formations! Who was I looking at then? I dont know – I think it was Corot. Then that classical stuff, these landscapes with bits of architecture, light breaking through the
clouds. What I was really doing was looking for ideal sex! as well as cracking up, because I had disgraced the family

Aw fuck.

Naw, just turned nineteen. The auld man dead five years. I really fucking done it man. I really fucking let them down, my maw and ah christ Fin the lot, ye know, that canni be helped, it’s
just a fact.

Ah come on.

It’s true but, a fact of life. I accept it. The Great White Hope of the Family.

Fin sighed.

I also had this vision right enough; meeting up with a woman at the side of a lonely country road, a shepherdess, or else the runaway daughter of an Arabian potentate, we would disappear into
the horizon the gether, knapsacks on our backs.

Fin smiled.

Romantic young fuckers. A misspent youth. It was all these glossy nude prints, that’s what I blame . . .

Aye . . . Fin laid his pint on the table: D’ye mind the first time ye slept with a woman?

Yeh.

So do I. I was twenty at the time; quite auld eh?

It’s no that auld.

Fin smiled. Aye it is.

I was eighteen.

Better than twenty.

No much.

Still better but.

Derek shrugged.

I mean twenty’s auld.

No really.

Anyway, anyway, wait till I tell ye. See it was strange, ye know, I mean it was. It was peculiar, a kind of metamorphosis.

What?

Aye, a kind of metamorphosis, the female’s head, when it was on the pillow.

Derek smiled.

Naw, honest, it changed right in front of my eyes, she became a hag, an auld crone. It was like a horror movie. I’m no joking, it was frightening. She had fell asleep and I was looking at
her, I was lying up on my elbow, drawing her with my tongue, ye know, on the roof of my mouth – the way us art students are aye supposed to be practising – it musta been roundabout
dawn, no quite dark, but no light either. It was after we’d done the business. I think I was still trying to ingrain it in my mind that it’d fucking happened ye know: couldni fucking
take it in man. A wonderful experience, ye know, I was trying to capture it forever. That lovely wee feeling when ye press up and ye actually get inside for the first time, all snug.

Shut up!

Naw . . . Fin smiled: Honest.

Derek shook his head. Who was it anyway? do I know her?

Nah.

Ye sure?

Nah. Wait till I tell ye but. She’s lying there, right; but see after a wee while, she turns on her back, ye know, her mouth open; I’m just studying her, dead self-conscious man,
thinking to myself how it was a magical moment I was gonni have to treasure forever. And then her face changes! Honest! Fin whispered: It had fucking changed! There were all these lines round her
mouth and her eyes. And her hair man it was all straggly, and thin like it was really thin. No kidding ye it was fucking frightening. I was wanting to wake her up; cause I was getting scared ye
know, but I was waiting for my mind to clear. I knew it was me ye see I knew it wasni her. I shut my eyes a few times but it didni work, I just couldni get myself out it, whatever it was, it just
stayed.

The hallucination . . .

Aye.

Ye musta been dreaming.

Naw. A hallucination; ye’re right; I was fucking wide awake.

Wow. So what happened?

Nothing. I just musta fell asleep.

Well well.

Naw but fuck sake Derek I mean christ almighty man ye’ve got to admit . . . ye know, fuck sake.

Did ye tell the lassie?

Naw . . . !

Dont blame ye.

How could ye tell her!

D’ye ever analyse it?

All the fucking time. See back then but Derek I used to think there was something up with any female that liked me, I mean if she didni get bored with my company, there had to be something up
with her. Otherwise how come she wasni with somebody else? If she was normal she would be. Ergo she had to have a personality problem. That was how I had it sussed anyhow. I suppose because
I’d been waiting so long for the first go it put me off. The longer it went the harder it got. Even after the first yin. It took me fucking ages for the next. Ye used to wonder if it was a
figment of the imagination. It was that experience made it real! Maybe if it had all went normal I would still’ve been fucking waiting! Fin laughed. Naw, no kidding ye. My fucking sanity was
saved. Without that brain seizure who knows what woulda happened.

Ach everybody’s got problems with women.

Dont spoil it christ.

Naw but they do, everybody.

Aye but they never
saw
me. Know what I mean? I was the type of guy, if I was at a disco, they’d trip over my feet on the way to the cludgie. In conversation or that man whenever one
of them was talking to me I knew she was wanting to talk to somebody else. I could aye see her eye roving the company.

It’s called sex-appeal.

Thanks.

The spark. Either ye’ve got it or ye havni.

Aye, thanks a lot.

Hasta la vista, it’s true.

That’s a boost to my ego that.

It’s true but.

You had it I suppose?

Naw did I fuck, I was Mister Hang-Up as well.

No like me ye wereni.

I was – how d’ye think I hung about with Sammy! The cast-offs. I blamed my home-life, being brought up in a houseful of women. I was too aware of the species. See like in the
bathroom when I was a wee boy it was always tampons and stick-on towels; perfumes and deodorants; bottles of this and bottles of that; everywhere ye looked – ye went to wash yer hands in the
washhand basin and guaranteed ye knocked something flying, guaranteed. Plus all the knickers and bras lying about.

Fin chuckled.

Honest, it’s the wrong experience, it throws ye in on yerself. Talking with yer wee mates at school, ye had to kid on ye didni know anything, ye didni want to be disloyal. Maybe if
I’d had a brother . . .

I had two of them; we fought like fuck.

Yeh but at least it prepared ye for the outside world, the mysteries of the other sex.

I had a sister too.

Aw, ye were a well-balanced bastard then?

Aye.

So that’s that analysis fucked. Naw but seriously, I’m sure it musta had some effect.

In what way?

Who knows? Probably I shoulda turned out gay.

That’s what Freud would tell ye.

Would he?

Fin smiled.

It wouldni surprise me. Relationships have all been bad.

Ye still listen to Dylan! Fin laughed.

I thought everybody still listened to Dylan.

I mind the one time I was up in yer house, in yer bedroom, we had the records on; bottles of Newcastle Brown, Dylan blasting it out – Idiot Wind, yer maw brought us up toast and scrambled
egg.

That’s right.

Me you Sammy, Toby, Vic Edwards . . .

Yeh.

Noisy bastards we were; yer maw musta had some patience.

She was just deaf.

Aw. Was she?

Naw. Derek shrugged, Like ye say, she had a lota patience. A while ago that.

Ten year.

More like twelve.

Twelve . . . aye.

Aw dear. Derek sighed. Fuck. It was good ye phoned.

Give us a break.

Naw, fuck, it was. I mean come on, if you hadni phoned that was that christ, nothing. And that’s my life ye’re talking about, Glasgow, that’s it, that’s fucking it.

Fin was silent.

That’s fucking it.

Fin had begun playing an imaginary violin. And Derek smiled: Yeh, I know. See I dont want to belabour the point but I’m no in touch with any cunt. When I was up the hill it was all wee
cliques. It was like they all knew each other already. As if they’d all went to the same primary school the gether. Honest, that’s what like it was.

Derek, it’s natural feeling that.

Yeh well. But that’s how I fell back on Sammy.

Cause everybody else was avoiding him?

Come on, he was popular. And in comparison to the rest of them I mean fuck sake.

Right enough, he could aye talk a good painting.

At least he had his own ideas, and he was interested.

Fin sighed.

He used to trip up McAllister.

Big deal.

Fuck sake Fin.

Well McAllister: one more chronic ego – fucking tripping him up, that isni much.

Christ what ye expecting off a first-year student?

Sammy’s a pseudo bastard. Always was and always will be. Still thinks he’s Modigliani for fuck sake. How the hell Isobel stands for it I dont know.

Derek smiled. Ah he’s alright.

He’s no alright at all.

Derek shrugged.

He isni.

I think ye’re expecting too much.

It’s no a case of that Derek, ye just spot a pseud a mile away. Fin sniffed. Anyhow, I dont want to spend time talking about him. What’s the point, ye know, past tense –
it’s what folk’re doing now that interests me, and he’s doing fuck all, fuck all that I’m interested in. Fucking wine-and-cheese parties . . . Fin started rapping his
knuckles on the edge of the table, he kept it going for several seconds before glancing at Derek:

But Derek spoke first; It’s a class thing with you Fin come on.

I know it’s a class thing with me so what?

Ye’re sounding awful bitter.

Aw.

Ye are.

Is that right?

It’s no his fault his parents had money.