The Glasgow Coma Scale (4 page)

Someone threw you a lifeline, you’d have to be stupid or a saint not to grab it. What worried Angus was what might be expected of him in return. More of the same as last time she’d wanted to snare him: a game of footsie beneath the kitchen table, a buss on the cheek before bedtime? He feared not. He feared Lynne had
designs
.

Well, he’d simply have to take his lead from the not inconsiderable number of women from whom he had, in his time, heard variations on the artful brush-off. ‘Let’s see how we feel when I get back from my holiday.’ ‘I’d never go out with anyone I didn’t consider a friend, so why don’t we try being friends first?’ By careful manipulation you might postpone a difficult showdown indefinitely, never quite crushing the other person: unbearable cruelty dressed up as humaneness. In the interests of self-preservation, Angus was not averse to being cruel.

‘The first thing to say – and this is crucial, Lynne, absolutely crucial – is that despite whut embdy else might say, any ay ma former employers or ma students, ah wis absolutely not guilty ay harassing
any
one.’

‘Oh, Angus.’

Affronted, he set his cutlery down on his dinner plate. ‘Now that’s telling. See whut ye jist did? That conclusion ye leapt tae? You heard a word ah nivver said. Soon’s folk hear the word “harassment”, they think the “sexual” is a formality, silent there at the front ay it. Don’t feel bad,’ he fired at her. ‘Ye’re no the first person tae make that mistake and doubtless ye willnae be the last.’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, dropping her gaze.

He waited a good while, apparently expecting her to elaborate, before telling her not to apologize. He collected poached salmon on his knife and drew the blade between his teeth, making Lynne wince. ‘It’s a bit hurtful for me tae hear, is all, if ye can understand that.’

‘Of course I do.’ She strained to show empathy. ‘I didn’t mean . . . But, look, if it wasn’t . . . that, then what did happen?’

‘Year upon year,’ he said, commencing a lecture, ‘ye see the same thing. These kids do not appreciate how insanely difficult it’s gonnae be for them tae get anywhere wi their art. Almost everywan walks in that door in September’s gonnae be disappointit come May. Ah know it and you know it’ – an ironic sidelong glance at Lynne’s drab office clothes already hung out on the bedroom door for Monday morning – ‘but did ye know it back then?’

Yes, Lynne thought: due in no small part to Angus’s critiques, she’d known it almost from the start. ‘Do something with your talent,’ people had kept telling her at high school. ‘It’s a gift, don’t let it go to waste.’ She’d heard it put that way so often – the talent was the important thing, Lynne herself merely its vector – that when ultimately she’d elected to move far from home to
do something
, it had felt to her like rebellion, rather than simply capitulating to what she’d been urged. In time, it had come to seem an act of feckless impetuosity, one more misjudgement to rue.

‘Ah shouldnae even call them kids. If they’re mature enough tae be daein whut they think their future career’ll consist ay, they should be mature enough to take honest criticism from folk that know. Whut’s mair irresponsible anyway, mollycoddling yir students, assuring them they’ve got skills they huvnae, or don’t huv
yet
, or setting them straight: “Look, pal, ye’re a competent draughtsman, but nothing mair. Huv ye considered transferrin tae Illustration?” ’

‘That doesn’t sound,’ Lynne conceded, ‘like harassment, exactly.’

Angus struck the table with his palm. ‘Thank you, Lynne! If ye want to succeed – even if ye want tae fail nobly – then ye huv tae dae the hard yards, and ah see nae point pretendin otherwise. Naebody benefits fae bein lied to, even tae spare their ego.’

‘No, but there are ways, don’t you think? Ways to make your opinion known without being deliberately hurtful. You were quite harsh with me, I remember.’

He blinked. ‘Well, aye. Daresay ah wis.’

‘ “There’s a big chunk gone from the Amazon rainforest where they’ve cut down trees to make the paper you draw on.” Remember that? “Why’re you so determined to ensure they died in vain?” ’

‘The thing is, but—’

‘You used to say I was too posh for art school.’ Somewhere along the way, this maddening condescension had become fondly recollected. ‘And I had to explain a few things about Eastbourne to you.’

‘Suicide Land, aye, ah mind.’

‘And remember that time you made me leave the studio because I’d been drawing with a propelling pencil?’

He laughed. ‘Hey, Lynne? It’s been, whut, five year? Let it go.’

‘It became a sort of contest – who would get the most hurtful crit each week. Who’d be honoured.’

‘But it wis well meant, Lynne, ye see? Ah’m no a total monster. Besides,’ he said slyly, ‘if that wis the worst ah ivver said . . .’

‘Anyway, I’m a case in point, aren’t I?’ No, he had said worse, but Lynne felt it better not to remind him of his crueller remarks. He was right: they had stung, but they had rarely, she could see now, been unwarranted. ‘You told me I wasn’t cut out to be an artist, and I wasn’t. It didn’t deter me. If anything, it freed me. All I pick up a pen for nowadays is to sign off time sheets or authorize letters threatening legal proceedings.’

Angus’s mouth was working, twisting. Some difficult declaration must be on the way. She waited, intrigued, until he inserted his little finger into the side of his mouth and levered free a shred of gristle; he inspected his fingertip before wiping it, with great delicacy, on the edge of his plate.

‘Well, the boot’s on the ither foot now, right enough. All ah wis offerin wis guidance. You understood that – but not everywan did. Sumdy developed a persecution complex.’ He put on a feeble, griping voice: ‘ “Mr Rennie disnae take ma work seriously.” “I suffered psychological damage because Mr Rennie nivver gave me a pass on my final exam.” Wan person complains, then the floodgates open and aw the attacks start in. Before ah know it, ah’m up in front ay the board tae give ma response, and funnily enough, ma honest response disnae go doon so well. Ah shouldnae’ve . . . och, but ah was angry. Ah knew what wis comin, but couldnae move out the road. Ye mind if ah smoke?’ She shook her head, could see he didn’t know whether that meant yes or no, but could not bring herself to refuse him outright.

They’d all gone, one after the other: the income from his job, then his severance, then the pittance he could make selling off his possessions. The paintings were long gone; no way, in his anxious state, he could produce anything new. He told her, as he smoked his cigarette down, as Lynne blocked her nose against the smell and looked with yearning at the shut window, that after a while he’d been able to step outside the process of losing everything – developed the traumatized organism’s coping mechanism, dissociation – and see it as resembling the way a space shuttle increases velocity by jettisoning the stages that have helped it get airborne to start with – only it was aimed downwards, this rocket, piling ever faster, ever deeper into the lightless earth.

‘Of course you tried to find other work.’

An icy pause. ‘Ah don’t know if ye’ve noticed, Lynne, but this isnae a brilliant time tae be buildin a new career. What hing-mies, transferable skills, huv ah got anyway?’ Uncertain, she made no reply. ‘Precisely.’ He stubbed out his cigarette on his plate, then seemed to realize what he’d done. He looked apologetically at the scrunched dowt, the ash amid the food scrapings.

She went to top up his glass, though he’d barely touched his wine, and his hand shot out to cover it. ‘No thanks, doll. White gies me horrific hangovers.’

Oh, right, she thought, feeling stupid. Right. What had her research taught her about the homeless and their dependencies? She withdrew the bottle and replaced the cap without serving herself. She had, now, a sense of what Angus had been describing: a great black chasm yawning beneath the feet, into which only the thinnest, most fragile crust prevented anyone, at any time, plunging. ‘So what do you do next, when all that’s happened?’

‘Sleep in parks.’ He lounged back in his chair, pretending to be at ease, a raconteur. He turned the cigarette packet in his hand like a toy. ‘On the flatted-out cardboard box ye’ve took fae roond the back ay the supermarket. Ye head doon Kelvingrove Park, clamber over the railings, locate a tree naebody else has claimed, and bed doon. Take yir chances among the freaks.

‘There’s three types ay folk frequent parks after hours. Ye’ve the wans wantin a fight, the wans wantin a shag, and the rough sleepers. The shirtlifters ah dinnae mind, they’re jist after company, a wee bit human contact, ye cannae begrudge them that, though you do feel like reminding them it’s the twenty-first century, they dinnae need tae make it sae hard on thirsels. Well, mibbe that’s aw part ay the fun. Anyway, it’s no them ye need tae be watching out fer.’

On his third night out, he told her as he lit another cigarette, he’d risked shutting his eyes. Despite what he’d said, it wasn’t the best idea to actually try and sleep in the park, but he’d been so exhausted that, after a few false starts jerking awake whenever his chin drooped, he’d finally fallen into a restive sleep under his tree.

Goblin voices woke him – a stifled chuckling – and when he opened his eyes he found himself facing something pale, vast, alien. Whatever it was, it was too close to him, and he struck at it, his fist meeting clammy, yielding flesh: this minging bastard, goaded on by his pals, crouching over him, trousers down, trying to shit on the homeless guy, while all around, hands clamped over mouths and noses, the others were bursting out with stray noises of fascination or disgust – ‘Haw, naw way man, check it’ – which were, Angus concluded, in some ways facets of the same thing, didn’t she think?

‘Hey, hey – don’t
cry
, Lynne, Jesus.’

‘I’m sorry. It’s just . . .’ She fell silent, the corners of her mouth tugging down in misery. She wasn’t stupid. She understood his subtext: this is what you’d be abandoning me to if you change your mind – the mawkit sewer that courses, invisible to you, just beneath your frankly cushy life. Why didn’t he believe she was genuine when she said he could stay as long as he wanted?

‘Ignore me,’ she said, and tried to smile, to force the unease down like vomit. But when she stood up, Angus lurched from his chair too, his plate in his hand, and on impulse she went to him and he suffered her to put her arms around him. They stood together, quite still, while Angus’s breath rolled, warm then cooling, against the top of her skull.

Just tell him. She sat at work on Monday dazed with love, sizzling with it, drumming her heels against the floor until Faraz, sitting nearby, prevailed upon her to desist. The worse Angus’s stories got, the greater her urge to fling herself at him. The next time he made the tiniest allusion to five years ago – even referenced the art school – she would just say it. I love you. Sorry, but I do. All this time I’ve loved you. How hard could it be? It was already taking all her power not to blurt the words any time he entered the room.

Or slip them in unnoticed! Did you hear that Elena Papantuano was nominated for the Turner Prize last year? And by the way, talking of that night, you do know I love you?

But Angus, seeming to intuit her scheming, denied her any such opportunity. ‘What ye have tae be,’ he resumed over dinner that night, ‘is visible. The charities send out these sortay scouts at night, roond parks and that, and if they spot ye three or four times in the same week, ye qualify for help – that’s whut they tell ye, ye huv tae be
seen tae be
sleeping rough, so’s they know you’re genuine, no jist too blootered to walk hame that wan time. That’s why ye sit under the same tree each time, lookin out for the scouts, accruing yir points. Same’s ony ither application process,’ he explained, flippant because he’d come through it. He was meting out his disgrace in instalments, making sure she absorbed each fresh indignity before he moved on to the next. ‘After that ye can get a bed at a shelter, a toty bit scran each evening. A wash. And then back oot on the street again during the day, earning yir rent. It gives ye structure—’

‘They
charge
you?’

‘It disnae grow on trees, Lynne.’ A big superior smirk on his face at her naïvety, but how was she to know? ‘Three quid fer a night’s bed and breakfast, anither couple quid for dinner – bargainous. Some days ye kin make that by lunchtime, just sittin wi yir back against a cashpoint. Then ye can take the afternoon aff, treat yirsel – go hing oot in the Wetherspoons, or huv a kip in the bookshop wi all the sofas. Keep a magazine close by ye, say ye’re browsin, they cannae dae nuhin.’

Maybe he honestly didn’t remember sitting at this very table five years ago – not just the last night of term, but her last night as a student. Just like now, he’d automatically sat at the head of the table, taken charge. That night, though, there’d been Elena too – Lynne’s humourless Greek-Australian classmate, to whom she had, with bad grace, extended the invitation to come back to Glendower Street after last orders and share a bottle of vodka. Angus had been deep into one of his monologues, Elena paying intent, unsmiling attention, while Lynne, having surreptitiously checked under the table the position of Angus’s feet, had found herself fighting an almost overwhelming impulse to run her stockinged foot up his leg. And if she did, say she did, and he permitted that much – his eyes flickering momentarily to hers all the permission needed – she might go on to press her foot into his crotch, first gently, feeling against her toes the warmth she fancied she could already sense radiating from him, then more firmly, as he set his own pressure against hers . . .

She’d blushed then and she blushed to recall it. What had possessed her? He was her teacher, and moreover it felt like she’d never given him a second look before, barely even considered him a person; yet earlier that evening in the student union, she’d noticed his shirt collar skew-whiff, adjusted it for him and, at his grateful smile, been seized by sudden, sourceless, inexplicable lust. It was to do with the wild disjuncture between his professional meanness in the studio and his surprising affability outside it – or between the long and fine-boned hands in which he held his drink and the thickly furred forearms his rolled sleeves revealed. The reality of quitting art school seemed suddenly bound up in the idea that she’d never see him again. She had astonished herself by inviting him home, she the shy one or, as Elena had casually called her later on, the sensible one: ‘You don’t rent? You’re twenty-four, with a
mortgage
? Creature, you’re so sensible. I wish I had half your sense.’ Deadpan: you’d swear she genuinely believed she was paying Lynne a compliment.