Mr Alfred, MA Read online

  Minor disorders they noted too.

  ‘Shots hit buses on terror route,’ read Mr Lindsay.

  ‘Bus rowdy jailed for thirty days,’ read Mr Alfred.

  ‘Nine arrests after dance brawl,’ read Mr Lindsay. ‘A gang of youths entered a dance-hall shouting, “We are the little people! We’ve come to rule the world.”’

  ‘I like that,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘The little people.’

  ‘Come to rule the world,’ said Mr Lindsay.

  ‘Surely the Second Coming is at hand,’ said Mr Alfred.

  ‘That’s Yeats, isn’t it?’ said Mr Lindsay. ‘The Second Coming. It’s a poem by Yeats. Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, you’re quite right,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘The blood- dimmed tide is loosed. The ceremony of innocence is drowned.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t remember that,’ said Mr Lindsay. ‘But I know I’ve seen a poem by Yeats called the Second Coming.’

  Mr Alfred was surprised a fellow teacher in a primary school had read Yeats. He began to like Mr Lindsay.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  It was payday again. He was glad. He kept out of debt, but he had no savings. By the time the end of the month came round he was beginning to need money. He had his cheque in his hand by ten o’clock and cashed it locally before lunch. Money was all the armour he took on his nightly tour of dark streets and dingy pubs, in search of a castle perilous and a holy grail.

  Sometimes, as he wandered, there lurked in a forgotten corridor of his mind a twin accusing him that for all his boasted love of literature he hadn’t read a book right through for a long time, that the most modern poets he had read were those in fashion thirty years ago, that he had stopped there and never read anyone younger than himself.

  At those moments he felt his cloak of booklover was as shabby as the old coat he was wearing. He wished he had a quiet corner where he could sit in some comfort at a big desk and resume the studies of his youth. He blamed his truancy on the lack of a house of his own. His lodgings were so cramped he could use them only as a den for eating and sleeping, and even at that he often ate out. But over the years he had put off from day to day the attempt to find a better place. Where he was had one advantage he valued. It allowed him a wide liberty of coming and going as he pleased. To move might limit his freedom and would certainly mean a new routine. The prospect didn’t please him. He was a creature of habit.

  ‘And this is a bad habit,’ he said to his silent face in a bar mirror. ‘This paynight binge.’

  When he had a month’s salary in his pocket he always drank more than usual. The way the world looked then was part of the colour of paynight. So leaving the last pub when the bell went he knew he had enough, if not too much. Out in the street he was aware of being hungry as well as drunk.

  ‘No, not drunk,’ he said, encouraging himself to get past people without colliding. ‘I won’t have that. Just a bit fuddled, that’s all. What I say is, anaesthetised.’

  He passed a new cafeteria with broad uncurtained windows. He saw it was packed with young people shoving a latenight snack down their gullets. The sight of so much esuriency recalled to him a practice of the days when he was only an apprentice in drinking. After a night in a pub he used to go to a cheap restaurant and eat a big plate of fish and chips. His journeyman’s stomach seemed to have lost the capacity for that amount of food at that time of night. For years he had gone to bed without a bite after drinking. But now a youthful craving moved in his belly and he aimed at the Caballero for something to eat.

  He didn’t forget he had a month’s pay in his pocket, and he had taken care as usual never to be seen fumbling with a wad of notes when he paid for a drink. He always kept a few pounds loose for easy access, but the bulk of his money he kept stowed away in a pocket inside the waistband of his trousers. It was a pocket he told the tailor to put in whenever he had a new suit. He had never lost any money, never been dipped. He took great pride in that.

  Outside the Caballero he made sure he had two notes handy and some loose silver. Groping to count the coins by touch alone, his fingers met a thick cylinder. For a moment he didn’t know what it was. Then he remembered it was the felt-tipped pen he had taken from a boy he caught writing gate ya bass on the flyleaf of an atlas. He had put the pen in his pocket and forgotten about it. He slipped it aside and went on trying to add up the money in his pocket. He calculated he had enough silver to pay for anything the Caballero could offer, but he was pleased to feel notes there as well. Rather than put out in small change the exact sum required, especially when he wasn’t sober, he was much given to handing over a note for each new payment and ending up with a dead weight of silver every night.

  The city was full of new eating places open late, Italian, Indian, Chinese. Keen to compete, the Caballero had modernised its front and furnishings, though not its men- us, since he last ate in it. The unfamiliar entrance offended him. The strength needed to push open a heavy glass door threw him off balance and he couldn’t get in without a stumble and a stagger. His clumsiness annoyed him. In the abrupt brightness his eyes were slow to focus, and he took conspicuously long to spot a table to suit him. There was one four yards from him, at fortyfive degrees to his angle of incidence, but he missed it.

  He loitered two steps inside the door, making a survey that was difficult for him because he was suffering from an unexpected diplopia. He blinked. Right where he was dithering a young man and his girlfriend were eating sausage, eggs and chips baptised with HP sauce. The young man was quick-eyed and kind-hearted. He wanted to show his girlfriend he was a gentleman. He put down his knife. With his right hand freed he tapped Mr Alfred’s elbow and thumbed to the vacant table. He looked up. Mr Alfred looked down. The young man smiled. His girlfriend was pleased with him. Mr Alfred bowed to both smiles.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, age respecting youth.

  He heard a thickening in his speech and began to feel self-conscious. He advanced obliquely, swimming against the current of departing customers, anxious to reach the undulating table before he drowned.

  The young man and his girlfriend weren’t the only ones who noticed him come in. A quartet in the back corner stared, watching him all the way till he sat down. Two of the four recognised him.

  ‘That’s big Alfy,’ said Gerald Provan.

  ‘Christ so it is,’ said Smudge.

  ‘Who’s big Alfy?’ said Dianne McElhimmeny.

  ‘He looks squiffed,’ said Yvonne McGudgeon.

  ‘Well away,’ said Dianne. ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Yous know him?’ said Yvonne.

  Gerald told them big Alfy used to be his teacher.

  ‘See! See teachers?’ said Yvonne. ‘Can’t stand them so I can’t.’

  ‘I hated school so I did,’ said Dianne.

  ‘Imagine him coming to a place like this,’ said Smudge.

  ‘A man his age,’ said Gerald. ‘With what he gets paid.’

  ‘He looks a right tramp,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Is he one of yon?’ said Dianne. ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘A query?’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Nut hom,’ said Gerald.

  He told them about Rose Weipers.

  ‘Dirty old man,’ said Dianne.

  ‘Bad wee bitch that one was,’ said Yvonne. ‘Letting a drip like that feel her for a couple of bob.’

  ‘I bet you he’s loaded,’ said Smudge.

  ‘Of course he’s loaded,’ said Dianne. ‘You can see it in his eyes.’

  ‘Not drink, money,’ said Smudge.

  ‘Christ you’re right, pal,’ said Gerald. ‘The enda the month the day. The big bugger’ll have his pay in his pocket. How about rolling him?’

  ‘That’s what I mean,’ said Smudge. ‘You on, chookies?’

  ‘Wadyathink, Dianne?’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Fits okay with you sokay with me,’ said Dianne.

  They plotted while they waited for Mr Alfred to finish his two hamburgers and coffee. They paid after he paid, stalled a moment
more, and followed him out. The girls accosted him on the pavement.

  ‘You a teacher?’ said Dianne pleasantly.

  Mr Alfred was wary. He always distrusted people who stopped him in the street, especially youths who asked familiar questions.

  ‘Gotta fag, mister?’

  ‘Gotta light, mac?’

  ‘Got the right time, Jimmy?’

  The questions were often put to him on his way home at midnight. He didn’t like them. He never liked strangers who tried to speak to him as if they were old friends. He thought it was obvious he wasn’t a man to be spoken to without an introduction. In his opinion youths who asked a man his age for a cigarette or a match, or even the time, were much too egalitarian in their manners, even in a city famous for its democratic way of life, or else they were rascals. He believed if he looked at his watch to tell them the time they would find out what they wanted to know, that he had a watch. Then they would attack him and take it from him. Or if he stopped to take out a box of matches or a packet of cigarettes he would be off guard for just as long as that took, which would be long enough for them to surround him, and rob him. So he never stopped to answer a question.

  But this was different. He was warmed to have two lissom lassies, one at each elbow, hanging on to him and flashing a smile. An old desire stretched in him, so long quiescent it had the thrill of novelty. He couldn’t tell a lie. He had to be chatty to girls so friendly, young and pretty. He had to be gallant. He was. They smiled to his smile.

  ‘And was you ever at Collinsburn?’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Yes, indeed I was,’ he said, and lurched with good will between the pair of them. ‘But I’m sorry I don’t remember either of you. Of course I didn’t have many girls’ classes.’

  He felt sure he had said clashes. He laughed to laugh it off.

  ‘Aw, you’ll no remember me,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Nur me,’ said Dianne.

  ‘We was at Collinsburn,’ said Yvonne. ‘But no in your class.’

  ‘Naw, we never got you,’ said Dianne. ‘Wasn’t we unlucky!’

  She laughed. He laughed. They all laughed.

  Yvonne squeezed Mr Alfred on one arm, Dianne squeezed him on the other. They hung on tight. They made conversation as instructed. They diverted him.

  ‘But ma wee sister knew you,’ said Dianne. ‘She was in your class.’

  ‘Oh yes?’ said Mr Alfred.

  The press of the girls’ hands on his arms, the feel of their hips against him, the brush of their lips at his cheek as they chattered, so soothed and yet aroused him that he didn’t see he was being led astray from the main road into an empty sidestreet of old tenements.

  ‘So was mines,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Mine,’ said Mr Alfred.

  ‘Same class as Rose Weipers,’ said Dianne.

  ‘Dyever see wee Rose now?’ said Yvonne.

  ‘She’s no so wee,’ said Dianne. ‘You should see the boys that’s after her.’

  The thought of boys after Rose made Mr Alfred jealous. He suffered.

  ‘Rose?’ he said. ‘Do you two know Rose?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Of course,’ said Dianne.

  ‘Does she ever,’ said Mr Alfred.

  He didn’t get a chance to say ‘mention my name’. Gerald and Smudge came up behind him and bundled him into a close. They acted quickly and efficiently. Gerald was tall and strong, Smudge was smaller but broad and tough in his teens. Yvonne and Dianne let it go with a muted cry as if they were as surprised as Mr Alfred. They watched at the closemouth while Gerald and Smudge roughed him. His head was forced down, their knees and fists were on him. They shoved him smartly into the back-close where they wouldn’t be seen from the street and went to work on him. They rifled him when they had him flat and got his loose silver and the two pound notes he kept handy. But they missed the rest of his salary hidden in the waistband of his trousers.

  ‘Was sure he’d’ve had more,’ Gerald panted.

  Mr Alfred lay groaning and writhing. He whimpered. He was in pain. The way they had cracked his head against the wall to make him give in left him seeing flashes of lightning in a granular darkness.

  ‘Bastard banks it quick maybe,’ said Smudge. ‘They toffs. Pay by cheque all the time. Fly.’

  ‘Coo-ee,’ called Yvonne.

  Gerald kicked Mr Alfred again and spat on him.

  ‘Quick,’ said Smudge. ‘Somebody coming.’

  ‘He must have more somewhere,’ said Gerald.

  ‘Coo-ee,’ called Dianne. ‘Coo-ee.’

  ‘Ach, leave him,’ said Smudge.

  He pulled Gerald away from starting another search and they joined the ladies. They returned deviously to the main road and took the first bus that came. They didn’t care where it was going. In a shop doorway far from the Caballero they shared the winnings.

  ‘Thought you said he was loaded,’ Yvonne complained at the pittance allotted her.

  ‘Ach, shut your face,’ said Smudge. ‘Wadyedo to earn it anyway?’

  ‘Was us took him,’ said Dianne.

  ‘Wayamoanin aboot noo?’ said Gerald.

  ‘A’m no moanin,’ said Yvonne.

  ‘Well don’t then,’ said Smudge.

  ‘Was worth it,’ said Gerald. ‘Just to get that big bastard. Money’s not everything, you know.’

  Mr Alfred stopped groaning and writhing, stopped whimpering. He lay still in the back-close of the tenement where they left him. Fatigue and alcohol and the crack on the skull and the beating and the kicking were too much for him. He gave in. He was unconscious.

  His twin stood over him saying, ‘I told you so. You asked for it. Going about the way you do.’

  He waited in a dream to be rescued from a nightmare.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Someone shook him, but not roughly, whispered, ‘Are you all right, old man?’

  The voice was gentle.

  Mr Alfred moaned coming round, hearing it lean over him.

  ‘Oh, you poor old soul! How are you feeling?’

  The speaker was not yet distinguished. He helped Mr Alfred up, brushed him down with judicious hands, gave him his pubcrawling cap, tidied his coatcollar, straightened his tie for him, patted his cheeks, put him against the wall. At every touch he exuded sympathy.

  ‘Not know me?’ said the faraway voice.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Alfred.

  He couldn’t see yet, only hear. The close was dim. Everything was dim. He wasn’t sure he was where he seemed to be. His mind seemed someone else’s. So did his feet when he felt himself teetering on them.

  The speaker came closer. There was a slight halation of his face, but Mr Alfred could see white teeth smile. The blurred lips moved in friendly speech.

  ‘You used to teach me. Not remember?’

  ‘Your face I think,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘But your name I don’t know.’

  ‘Tod,’ said the speaker. ‘Not remember?’

  The gentle voice changed to harsh. The speaker was hurt not to be remembered.

  ‘No,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘No, I’m afraid I don’t.’

  He apologised. He was afraid not to. It seemed to be a youth was talking to him, and youths he knew were dangerous. They had to be spoken to respectfully.

  ‘Do forgive me please. I didn’t mean to snub you. Oh no, you mustn’t think that. But see it from my side.’

  The young face turned into darkness, not bothering to listen. But Mr Alfred had to explain.

  ‘When I taught in Collinsburn I had say forty boys in a class, say three classes on my timetable every session. That’sa hundred and twenty boys a year. That’s one thousand two hundred in ten years. Not to mention girls. I had a class of girls once. It’s too many to expect any man to remember. Two thous and fourhundred boys in twentyyears. Plus girls.’

  Tod came into the light again.

  ‘Good at the old mental, eh?’ he said. ‘I thought you was an English teacher.’

  ‘A teacher of Engl
ish,’ said Mr Alfred. ‘I myself am not English. But even a teacher of English can do a little arithmetic.’

  ‘Funny old man, aren’t you?’ said Tod. ‘I’ve been watching you. You’ve got some weird ideas, so you have.’

  The voice changed again. It delivered a sneer. It became aggressive. The illumined face of the speaker moved against the unseen face of the listener.

  ‘For the eye sees not itself,’ said Mr Alfred, ‘but by reflection. Excuse me. I’m too tired to reflect.’

  ‘I know all about you,’ said Tod. ‘I know what you are all right. I know what you’ve been up to.’

  Mr Alfred sagged with guilt. He waited to be accused of corrupting Rose Weipers.

  But Rose wasn’t mentioned.

  By an abrupt transition, without hanging about for transport, he was in the house where Tod lived. It was a place he had heard of but never seen, a three-roomed house on the first floor of an abandoned tenement, condemned as unsafe, where teenagers of both sexes who had left home lived rough and slept together on the bare boards. It was called The Flat.

  Tod pushed him against the kitchen sink.

  ‘Think you’re the great poet, eh?’ he said. ‘It’s not you, it’s me. I’m the one that’s the poet.’

  ‘Have you published anything?’ Mr Alfred enquired. ‘That’s the test.’

  ‘Of course I’ve published something,’ said Tod.

  ‘Where?’ said Mr Alfred.

  ‘Everywhere,’ said Tod.

  ‘What do you mean, everywhere?’ said Mr Alfred. ‘That’s a damn silly answer.’

  ‘Manners,’ said Tod. ‘You’re not talking to one of your pupils now, you know. You’re talking to me. Tod.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Mr Alfred.

  ‘Tell me this,’ said Tod.

  He sat at the derelict kitchen table, elbow on the board, a fingertip on his temple. He made it clear he was thinking.

  ‘Tell you what?’ said Mr Alfred.

  ‘What have you with all your education ever wrote to compare with Ya Bass?’

  ‘Your Ya Bass?’ said Mr Alfred. ‘You mean you wrote Ya Bass?’