The Busconductor Hines (22 page)

He was fitting the scene so well. He had carried his pint to a good place near the rear wall, went back to collect the hot pie and beans. While serving him the bartender had continued a conversation with another customer exactly as if he was acquainted with Hines in some fundamental way. And yet, all he had to do was announce himself and somebody was bound to step up: Aw aye, Boabby Hines' boy. No bother son, he's always talking about you.

O christ.

It is fine. It is a simple matter. Frank! How's it going man! long time no see. So this is where you're drinking then eh! Small world right enough. Hines was to drop the pint of heavy the next time the bartender glanced his way, the crash onto the floor, the instantaneous spread of beer and broken glass. Right you ya handless bastard get to fuck out the door and dont come fucking back either. Heh wait a minute you, heh a wee minute there, heh you that's Boabby Hines' boy, you cant start throwing him out the fucking door! Eh? blooming cheek. Come on son, back to your seat – another pint? Just sit down, you'll be alright in a minute. A bit dizzy there, the head and that, getting thickly. I know son, I know I know I know, the way things go, items on the mind and the rest of it, naw, you just get settled down there a minute, it doesnt do to go rushing into things.

With all the money they make the breweries should at least
be laying on decent heating. To not do so is self-defeating: the hotter you get the thirstier you get.

He was touching the pie, that it might still have been too hot to eat. In fact he just wasnt wanting to eat the thing. His teeth chattered. He stopped it. He can have them chatter at will almost. It is an odd item he had often though of enquiring after. Can everyone make their teeth chatter or is he singular. Then he was yawning and it seemed to indicate a calm. He had enough money for a whisky. He got up and walked to the bar to buy one, and he received it and change from a £1, the bartender nodding when he asked if there was lemonade to go with it. The liquid jerked in the tumbler when he sat down and held it on the table. Were the nerves responsible or just the shivering. And if the latter were the nerves the cause rather than the lack of heating. He appeared to be in a hell of a state. He rolled a cigarette. But before lighting it he swallowed the first drop of whisky. He could have retched at the smell. Yet though the shivering could have appeared uncontrollable he definitely felt better. He shuddered audibly and tasted the beer which had become insipid after the spirit but quite good in that; and he smacked his lips, prepared to enjoy the smoke, and maybe even the pie. He bit a piece. Not so good. The scotch pie is an overrated article. But the whisky isnt. That's one thing we can do ya bastards. Jesus christ he was needing a shite. What a time to pick.

And all the stuff in the carrier bag. He could take it with him, though that kind of thing looks ridiculous, as if one was not trusting strangers.

Incredible: the urge now become irresistible. How in the name of christ does it happen. The Department of Transport must bear much of the blame, the way it fucks about with one's body-clock. For the average greenly member the movement of the bowels is a daily adventure, for here is no 9 to 5 worker
whose amenities are a permanent fixture; on the contrary, one can find oneself performing weighty deeds on the toilet bowl at 0330 hours if one can find a fucking toilet bowl, such items not being part and parcel of an omnibus's furnishings and fittings. Few passengers appreciate the existence of the problem hence the bemused glance – and even the incredulous gape – when one's bus parks outside a public convenience, if you're lucky enough to get one open for business. Nor do they comprehend how the advent of an Inspector fails to expedite matters, and will only occasion a somewhat sheepish encounter between said official and luckless greenly member.

Hines may have gone mad. The state has always been a threat. For the latter while he has been watching his movements, viewing them in relation to faces, in apposition to his method of survival over the previous years. What he has now accomplished is to have become ridiculous. Yet the circumstances are peculiar. Maybe he is just pathetic. Pathetic and a little ridiculous.

Mad. It is truly mad. It is absolutely fucking ridiculous; it is stupid, crazy, he is a crazy cunt, and the second step, it is to not now be no longer be being articulately; it is not any longer, being part and parcel

Reilly's reaction would be total disbelief. Reilly would say: I do not believe it. And at long last the gap between himself and Hines would have become concrete, that the route of the latter can and cannot encompass a thing that may be descried as evil.

Fucking rubbish. He watched the door and footered with the empty beer glass, the whisky also being finished, the pie discarded, congealed. There was more than enough for a third pint but he would not be getting one. Three pints and a whisky
could be too much. Sometimes not but sometimes yes, it could leave him feeling half drunk. There have been times when he has taken only two pints at a meal-break and then conked out on the rear seat, boots up on the one in front and who the fuck knows how things worked out, how the passengers managed except that he has never been called into the Superintendent's Office to explain himself on that account.

The alcohol had definitely affected him. He knew it the way he was feeling. He actually had pains in the belly as well. The shite had turned out to be something approaching diarrhoea. Maybe he really did have an ailment of some kind. Tramping about in a pair of 6 years old boots, getting hit by all manner of temperature shifts, and just generally being run-down, needing a genuine break from the job if any fucking doctor would have had the sense to realise it but no, while cunts like Reilly just have to walk in the fucking surgery door and they get hit with panel lines for a week or a fucking fortnight for christ sake the inconsistencies man really baffling, within the Health Service, the doctors the bastards, having it all their own way on that particular question. They hadnt had a genuine holiday since the year Paul was born. Just a few days away from it all was what was required, a glimpse of different horizons, the chance to be together and alone, by the shore, quiet, a passive method of getting by, and then strolling back to some place afterwards, a rare coal fire burning, Paul asleep for the night, with the two of them there, just playing cards or something, the radio to its minimum volume, and toasting bread with a long fork and upstairs to the attic to bed then waking first thing in the morning to the surprise of it all, being in such a place, the whiff of seaweed and jumping out of bed to rush down to the water's edge. Sandra's dream. It is what she wants more than anything. Right away from Glasgow altogether. She doesnt want to be in Glasgow, not Drumchapel and not fucking
Knightswood, she wants to be away, right fucking away and out of it, to not worry about the things that make the head cave in, that narrowing, the pain, while it contracts and gets you thin. Hines feels like something – a retch perhaps, being sick maybe; he feels like being sick. The fucking belly. The nerves of course. He should be relaxed. The shoulders have been so fucking tense. And still tense. They get tense immediately, after relaxing. He cannot get them relaxed. Each time he makes the attempt he is having to make a further attempt as though they are just not capable, of being relaxed, not at present.

At tables nearby the chatting and not chatting, a game of dominoes in progress. All the auld cunts there sitting having their fucking tourny, do not disturb for christ sake we might fucking wake up, shut the door and keep out the blooming draught we've no time for the likes of you ya cunt ye I mean what d'you think it is at all coming in here drinking your fucking beer and challenging the lieges to fight.

Amazing to see them sit there in that eternal manner, fixed in their places, the lives assumed on the strength of it, the sitting, while all around them the fires fucking burning and the stench of it engulfing every fucking thing under the sun, the cries and the screams of the cunts being tortured, the bellies, of the fucking weans there and their grandparents, their fucking ribs for christ sake look at their ribs, jutting out. That mark of distinction, it is all one to him that which may be said about him, it is all too transparent. The sun does go down and the whitely grey sky. One can climb the high-rise and wave down at the auld man, there he is, the healthy 50 years of ager at the parted curtains when the lights are out, bon voyage captain. Hines was rising from the seat and collecting his chattels; if Frank was somewhere it wasnt here. There was no relief but, if it wasnt to be now it would be the next time.

On the run home from the nursery Hines pretended they were being chased by ghoulish creatures and Paul enjoyed it. Then he roped him into the cleaning and tidying before preparing the grub, and when Sandra arrived everything was fine. He was nonchalant about generalities but she was quiet. She was tired right enough, obviously surprised to find how the house was, glad to see the food set for serving. He didnt tell her he had not been to work but since she wasnt bothering too much about conversation he didnt have to go to any lengths.

They sat down to eat.

If Hines had not been hungry he couldnt have stomached the food. And Paul seemed in a similar state, just sitting there bashing his potatoes about with a fork.

Then she appeared to have been not speaking for quite a long while and the sound of cutlery on crockery more audible than usual, as if some terrible news was set for revelation. Often she chattered throughout the evening meal. The workaday antics of people amused her. She could make Hines laugh when speaking about it all. Occasionally she became self-conscious, effacing herself from it, that making him laugh had nothing to do with her but lay in the actual antics of the people involved. She would be very popular in the office. And obviously she was good at her job, otherwise Mr Buchanan wouldnt have regarded her so highly. If she wanted she could start full-time. This meant if Hines wanted. If he raised no barriers. If he didnt make it hard for her she would be starting full-time, after the New Year
perhaps. Things slot into things; it's the sadness makes it so terrible. Sandra never used to be sad but now she has been sad for ages. He noticed. Why was he not able to do anything about it. He used to make her laugh. He had been good at making her laugh. He still does it. Not so often. Yet this is the thing for a good marriage. Who said that. An uncle of hers, at their wedding. He whispered it to Hines. If you make her laugh you'll never have anything to worry about. That was Lex McLean's secret, an audience full of women, all roaring and laughing. That's the way son, that's the way to do it. Look at Sandra's maw, you'd never think to look at her but that lassie used to love a laugh.

Things were not good. She was definitely not talking. She had been talking when she came in – quiet, but she had been talking. She was talking about what. Drumchapel. She had mentioned about it last night, in terms of today, as an interesting link to the previous day. The petering-out point of the conversation. What was he doing exactly about that. Drumchapel. He was not taking Paul with him because he was wanting to go himself. He would have been taking him to the swimming baths except he couldnt, because he was going to the Drum. He had postponed the swimming because he was going to visit the parents, by himself, going out for a pint with the auld man maybe. He wouldnt be collecting Paul from the nursery either so she would have made arrangements with one of the other mothers. And when she went up to the other mother Paul wouldnt be there, because Hines had collected him from the nursery, instead of being out at Drumchapel. So, then, here she was, sitting facing him.

He winked at Paul. What would happen to him. It was definitely best he wasnt extrovert, the withdrawn side maybe allowing him to survive that bit more easily.

He got up from the table, to pour the tea. He laid her cup next to her plate on the table and went to sit on his armchair.

She was talking to Paul.

He should be getting up to massage her shoulders, to smooth back her hair. Even the way she had been smiling recently. And then last night.

On the rear wall in the recess there was a rectangular space where a picture used to be. Hines took it down a couple of days ago. It was a picture he liked. He took it down and crumpled it up and dumped it into the rubbish bin. How come he did that. That was daft. It was a way of getting back at himself but maybe she thought he was getting at her. She also liked the picture.

Why had she not said anything about it, it being absent. He wasnt getting at her, christ, only himself, it was only himself. He was disgusted, with himself. For telling her something that was not true. He took the picture down from the wall to get back at himself for having told her a stupid piece of nonsense. He had signed-off sick during a late backshift in order to return home.

But told her something else altogether. That he had landed a shift with a big long meal-break. Why had he done it, it was fucking stupid. He wanted to come home. He had to sign-off sick to get home immediately because it was just not possible to stay there.