Ten Tales Tall and True Read online

  TO • THE

  • ONELIE •

  BEGETTERS

  OF • THESE

  • STORIES •

  TOM

  MASCHLER

  •AND •

  XANDRA

  HARDIE

  •AND •

  MORAG

  McALPINE

  Contents

  Getting Started – a Prologue

  Houses and Small Labour Parties

  Homeward Bound

  Loss of the Golden Silence

  You

  Internal Memorandum

  Are You a Lesbian?

  The Marriage Feast

  Fictional Exits

  A New World

  The Trendelenburg Position

  Time Travel

  Near the Driver

  Mister Meikle – An Epilogue

  Notes, Thanks and Critic Fuel

  Novels by A. Gray

  This book contains more tales than ten so the title is a tall tale too. I would spoil my book by shortening it, spoil the title if I made it true.

  Getting Started–a Prologue

  I am the descendant of a race whose stolid unimaginative decency has, at all times, rendered them the dependable tools of others; yet from my earliest infancy I grew self-willed, addicted to the wildest caprices, a prey to the most ungovernable passions until bound and weary I thought best to sulk upon my mother’s breast. Too romantic.

  Call Me Ishmael. Jesus wept. Reader, I married him. Pithiness prevents flow.

  I remember the whole beginning as a succession of flights and drops, a little see-saw of the right throbs and the wrong. Far too vague.

  A man stood upon a railway bridge in Northern Alabama, looking down into the swift waters twenty feet below. The man’s hands were behind his back, the wrists bound with a cord.

  That’s the style for me.

  Houses and Small Labour Parties

  Eight men dug a trench beside a muddy crossroads, and the mud made two remember Italy where they had fought in a recent war. These two had not known each other in Italy, but both had seen a dead German who lay at a crossroads near Naples, though one thought it was perhaps nearer Pisa. They discussed the matter when the gang paused for a smoke.

  “Not Pisa, no, Pisa was miles away,” said one, “Naples was the place. He was a handsome big fella. We called him Siegfried.”

  “Our lot called him Adolf, because of the fuckin moustache,” said the other, “He wasnae handsome for fuckin long.”

  “I don’t remember a moustache, but you’re right, he wasnae handsome for long. He went all white and puffy and swole up like a balloon – I think only his uniform stopped him bursting. The heavy traffic must have kept the rats away. Every time we went that road I hoped to God someone had shifted him but no, there he always was, more horrible than ever. Because eventually a truck ran over him and burst him up properly. Do you mind that?”

  “I mind it fuckin fine.”

  “Every time we went that road we would say, ‘I wonder how old Siegfried’s doing,’ and look out for him, and there was always something to see, though at last it was only the bones of a foot or a bit of rag with a button on it.”

  There was a silence. The older navvies thought about death and the youngest about a motorcycle he wanted to buy. He was known for being the youngest of them and fond of motorcycles. Everybody in the gang was known for something. Mick the ganger was known for being Irish and saying queer things in a solemn voice. One navvy was known for being a Highlander, one for having a hangover every morning, one for being newly married. One of the ex-army men was known for his war stories, the other for his fucking adjectives. One of them was a communist who thought The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists a better book than the Bible and kept trying to lend it; but schooling had given most of them a disgust of books. Only Old Joe borrowed it and he said it was a bit out of date. The communist wanted to argue the point but Old Joe was known for being silent as well as old. The youngest navvy liked working with these folk though he hardly ever listened to what they said. Too many of them wanted his attention. They remembered, or thought they remembered, when they too had been just out of school, sixteen and good-looking, happy because their developing muscles could still enjoy the strain of working overtime, happy because it was great to earn a wage as big as their fathers earned. The worst paid workers reach the peak of their earning power early in life.

  “The Signoras!” announced the story teller suddenly, “The Signorinas! They were something else. Am I right? Am I wrong?”

  “Aye, the fuckin Signoras were somethin fuckin else,” said the other ex-army man. With both hands he shaped a huge bosom on the air before his chest.

  “I’ll give you a bit of advice Ian,” the story-teller told the youngest navvy, “If you ever go to Italy take a few tins of bully beef in your suitcase. There is nothing, I’m telling you nothing you won’t get from the Italian Signorinas in return for a can of bully beef.”

  “That advice may be slightly out of date,” said Mick the ganger.

  “You’re sticking up for the Tally women because they’re Papes and so are you, ye fuckin Fenian Irish Papal prick ye,” said one of the ex-army men pleasantly.

  “He’s right, of course,” the ganger told the youngest navvy, “I am a Papal Fenian. But if these warriors ever return to Italy they may find the ladies less welcoming now the babies have stopped starving.”

  He nipped his cigarette, stuck it under his cap brim above the right ear and lifted his pick. The gang began digging again.

  Though their work was defined as unskilled by the Department of Labour they worked skilfully in couples, one breaking the ground with a pick, the other shovelling loose earth and stones from under his partner’s feet and flinging it clear. At the front end Mick the ganger set a steady pace for all of them. The youngest navvy was inclined to go too fast, so Mick had paired him with Old Joe who was nearly sixty, but still worked well by pacing himself carefully. The two ex-army men were liable to slow down if paired together, so Mick always paired one of them with himself. The gang belonged to a workforce of labourers, brickies, joiners, plumbers, slaters, electricians, painters, drivers, foremen and site clerks who were enlarging a city by turning a hillside into a housing estate. During the recent war (which had ended seven years before but still seemed recent to all who remembered it) the government had promised there would be no return to unemployment afterward, and every family would eventually have a house with a lavatory and bath inside. The nation’s taxes were now being spent on houses as well as armed forces, motorways, public health et cetera, so public housing was now profitable. Bankers and brokers put money into firms making homes for the class of folk who laboured to build them. To make these fast and cheaply standards of spaciousness and craftsmanship were lowered, makeshifts were used which had been developed during the war. Concrete replaced stonework. Doors were light wooden frames with a hardboard sheet nailed to each side. Inner walls were frames surfaced with plasterboard that dented if a door-knob swung hard against it. A tall man could press his fingers to the ceilings without standing on tiptoe. But every house had a hot water system, a bath and flush lavatory, and nearly everyone was employed. There was so much work that firms advertised for workers overseas and natives of the kingdom were paid extra to work at week-ends and during public holidays. In the building industry the lowest paid were proudest of what they earned by overtime work so most of this gang worked a six-day week. A labourer who refused overtime was not exactly scorned as a weakling, but thought a poor specimen of his calling. Recently married men were notoriously poor specimens, but seldom for more than a fortnight.

  A heavily built man called McIvor approached the trench and stood for a
while watching the gang with a dour, slightly menacing stare which was a tool of his trade. When his presence was noticed by the ganger, McIvor beckoned him by jerking his head a fraction to the side. Mick laid his pick carefully down, dried his sweating face with a handkerchief, muttered, “No slacking, men, while I confabulate with our commanding officer,” and climbed out of the trench. He did not confabulate. He listened to McIvor, stroked his chin then shouted, “Ian! Over here a minute!”

  The youngest navvy, surprised, dropped his spade, leapt from the trench and hurried to them. McIvor said to him, “Do you want some overtime? Sunday afternoons, one to five.”

  “Sure.”

  “It’s gardening work but not skilled weeding, cutting grass, that sort of thing. It’s at the house of Mr Stoddart, the boss. He’ll give the orders. The rate is the usual double time. You get the money in your weekly pay packet.”

  “I thought Old Joe did that job.”

  “He does, but the boss says Joe needs help now. What do you say? Yes or no?”

  “Aye. Sure,” said the youngest navvy.

  “Then I’ll give you a word of advice. Mick here has pointed you out as a good worker so you’d better be, because the boss has a sharp eye for slackers – comes down on them like a ton of bricks. He also has a long memory, and a long arm. If you don’t do right by Mr Stoddart you won’t just get yourself in the shit, you’ll make trouble for Mick here who recommended you. Right, Mick?”

  “Don’t put the fear of death into the boy,” said the ganger, “Ian will do fine.”

  In the bothy where the navvies had their lunch an ex-army man said loudly and cheerfully, “I see the fuckin Catholics are stickin to-fuckin-gether as per fuckin usual.”

  “Could that be a hostile remark?” the ganger asked Ian, “Do you think the foul-mouthed warrior is talking about us?”

  “Fuckin right I’m talking about yous! You could have gave the fuckin job to a fuckin family man like me with fuckin weans to feed but no, you give it to a fuckin co-religionist who’s a fuckin wean himself.”

  “I’m not a Catholic!” said the youngest navvy, astonished.

  “Well how do you come to be so fuckin thick with Mick the Papal prick here?”

  “I recommended the infant of the gang for three reasons,” said the ganger, “One, he is a bloody hard worker who gets on well with Old Joe. Two, some family men enjoy Sunday at home. Three, if one of us starts working around the boss’s house he’ll get the name of being a boss’s man, which is good for nobody’s social life, but Ian is too young to be thought that, just as Joe is too old.”

  “Blethers!” said the communist, “You are the boss’s man here, like every ganger. You’re no as bad as bastarding McIvor, but he comes to you for advice.”

  “Jesus Mary and Joseph!” cried Mick to the youngest navvy, “For the love of God get out of this and apprentice yourself to a decent trade! Go up to the joiners’ bothy and talk to Cameron – they’re wanting apprentice joiners.”

  “I’m not a Catholic, I’ve never been a Catholic,” said the youngest navvy, looking around the others in the bothy with a hurt, alarmed and pleading expression. The Highlander (who was also suspected of being Catholic because he came from Barra, and someone had said everyone from that island were Catholics) said, “You are absolved – go in peace,” which caused general amusement.

  “Did you hear me Ian?” said the ganger sharply, “I told you to get out of this into a decent trade.”

  “I might, when I’ve bought my Honda,” said the youngest navvy thoughtfully. He saw the sense in the ganger’s advice. A time-served tradesman was better paid and had more choices of work than a labourer, but during the apprentice years the wage would be a lot less.

  “Why did a clever fella like you never serve your time as a tradesman, Mick?” asked the communist. “Because at sixteen I was a fool, like every one of us here, especially that silly infant. I never wanted a motorbike, I wanted a woman. So here I am, ten years later, at the peak of my profession. I’ve a wife and five children and a job paying me a bit more than the rest of you in return for taking a lot of lip from a foul-mouthed warrior and from a worshipper of Holy Joe Stalin.”

  “You havenae reached the peak yet Mick,” said the communist, “In a year or three they’ll give you McIvor’s job.”

  “No, I’ll never be a foreman,” said the ganger sombrely, “The wages would be welcome, but not the loneliness. Our dirty tongued Orange friend will get that job – he enjoys being socially obnoxious.”

  The foreman had given the youngest navvy a slip of paper on which was written 89 Balmoral Road, Pollokshields, and the route of a bus that would take him past there, and the heavily underlined words 1 a.m. on the dot. The boy’s ignorance of the district got him to the boss’s house seven minutes late and gasping for breath. He lived with his parents on a busy thoroughfare between tenements whose numbers ran into thousands. When the bus entered Balmoral Road he saw number 3 on a pillar by a gate and leapt off at the next stop, sure that 89 must be nearby. He was wrong. After walking fast for what seemed ten minutes he passed another bus stop opposite a gate pillar numbered 43, and broke into a jog-trot. The sidewalk was a gravel path with stone kerb instead of a pavement, the road was as wide and straight as the one where he lived, but seemed wider because of the great gardens on each side. Some had lawns with flower-beds behind hedges, some shrubberies and trees behind high walls, both sorts had driveways leading up to houses which seemed as big as castles. All of well-cut stone, several imitated castles by having turrets, towers and oriel windows crowned with battlements. Signboards at two or three entrances indicated nursing homes, but names carved on gate pillars (Beech Grove, Trafalgar, Victoria Lodge) suggested most houses were private, and so did curtains and ornaments in the windows. Yet all had several rooms big enough to hold the complete two-room flat where he lived with his parents, or one of the three-room-and-kitchen flats being built on the site where he laboured. But the queerest thing about this district was the absence of people. After the back of the bus dwindled to an orange speck in the distance, then vanished, the only moving things he saw were a few birds in the sky and what must have been a cat crossing the road a quarter mile ahead. His brain was baffled by no sight or sign of buildings he thought always went with houses: shops, a post-office, school or church. Down the long length of the road he could not even see a parked car or telephone box. The place was a desert. How could people live here? Where did they buy their food and meet each other? Seeing number 75 on another gate pillar he broke into an almost panic-stricken run.

  Number 89 was not the biggest house he had seen but still impressive. On rising ground at a corner, it was called The Gables and had a lot of them. The front garden was terraced with bright beds of rose bushes which must have been recently tended by a professional gardener. A low, new brick wall in front hid none of this. The young navvy hurried up a drive of clean granite chips which scrunched so loudly underfoot that he wanted to walk on the trim grass verge, but feared his boots would dent it. Fearful of the wide white steps up to the large front door he went crunching round the side to find a more inviting entrance, and discovered Old Joe building a rockery in the angle of two gables.

  “Hullo Joe. Am I late? Is he angry?”

  “I’m your gaffer today so don’t worry. Fetch ower yon barrow and follow me.”

  Behind the house was a kitchen garden, a rhododendron shrubbery and a muddy entry from a back lane. Near the entry lay a pile of small boulders and a mound of earth with a spade in it. Joe said, “Bring me a load of the rocks then a load of the earth and keep going till I tell ye different. And while we’re away from the house I don’t mind telling you ye’re on probation.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “He watches us. He’s seen you already.”

  “How? Why do ye think that?”

  “You’ll know why when he talks to ye later.”

  As they worked on the rockery the young navvy looked cautiou
sly about and gradually grew sure they were the only folk in the garden. The walls of the house where they worked were blank, apart from a wee high-up window that probably ventilated a lavatory. When he wheeled the barrow to the back entry he was in view of larger windows. He kept bringing boulders and earth to Joe who worked kneeling and sometimes said, “Put that there, son,” or “Give a shovelful here.” Nearly an hour passed then Joe sighed, stood slowly up, straightened his shoulders and said, “Five minutes.”

  “I’ll just get another load,” said the young navvy, lifting the shafts of the barrow. He was uneasily aware of the black little lavatory window above and behind him.

  “We’re entitled to five minute spells,” said Old Joe quietly, “We need them.”

  “I don’t need them. And I was late, you werenae.” He went off with the barrow, loaded it and found Joe working when he returned. An hour later a gaunt, smartly dressed lady looked round a corner, called, “Your tea is in the tool-shed,” then vanished behind the corner.

  “Was that his wife?” asked the young navvy.

  “His housekeeper. Are you working through the tea-break too?”

  The young navvy blushed.

  The tool-shed, like the garage, was part of a big newly built outhouse, and windowless, and had a roller shutter door facing the back entry. It smelt of cement, timber and petrol; had shelves and racks of every modern gardening and construction tool, all shiningly new; also a workbench with two mugs of tea and a plate of chocolate biscuits on it; also a motorcycle leaning negligently against a wall, though there were blocks for standing it upright.

  “A Honda!” whispered the young navvy, going straight to it and hunkering down so that his eyes were less than a foot from the surface of the thing he worshipped, “Whose is this?”

  “The boss’s son’s.”

  “But he hasnae been using it,” said the young navvy indignantly, noting flat tyres, dust on seat and metal, dust on a footpump and kit of keys and spanners strewn near the front wheel. What should be shining chromium was dull, with rust spots. “He’s got better things to think of,” said Joe after swallowing a mouthful of tea, “He’s a student at the Uni.”