The Busconductor Hines (26 page)

There is a crack in the pavement a few yards from the close entrance; it has a brave exterior; it is a cheery wee soul; other cracks can be shifty but not this one. Hines will refer to it as Dan in future. Hello there Dan. How's it going? Cold yin the night eh! This fucking weather wee man. Never mind but, the ice and that, helps you expand. Pity cracks dont wear balaclavas
right enough eh! One good thing about these old tenements, however, is the way they refuse to allow snow to hang about. A tough set of bastards so they are. No messing. None of your fucking good king wenceslas rubbish with them. The more mockit the better, where the air stinks and the absent horizons, the backcourts of a sturdy obscenity, these disused fucking washhouses whose brickwalls are liable to collapse on the offspring's skull at any moment. Fuck off.

Hines dislikes being a laughing-stock. The people he works beside are laughing-stocks. He is a laughing-stock. They are all laughing-stocks. Occasionally this being a laughing-stock is something not to be borne. He can lie awake at night, the head having started to bang. It is strange how they are content to remain objects of derision. Hines can see the faces. He can hear them discuss their children. What else does he do. He does a lot of things. It all gets a bit much. Very little time is left. There isnt the time to accomplish much. Should much be accomplished the time has shrunk. Should little be accomplished the world expands. To accomplish the little demands particular heads. Hines has not got a particular head. In his head the things go scratching against the outer shell. He can lie awake at night and breathe deeply, regularly, for the scratching to cease.

Sandra was in the kitchen. It makes no difference. With the gun in his possession movement will accelerate. The main problem is money. Hines was relying on his knowledge of Frank Sinclair to overcome this. A gun would probably cost 2 or 3 weeks wages but maybe as much as 4. Hines had no way of obtaining such an amount. The sum of £80 lay in the bank but could not be
withdrawn by him. Yet no genuine reason exists for this situation. It is as much his money as Sandra's and Paul's. He just felt he should not be withdrawing it for selfish purposes. With £80 in hand he could probably get the gun quite easily, the additional cash to be advanced later on. Frank would arrange that.

Although in an obvious sense the £80 would have to be used for the gun. It belonged to the unit. As a symbol of that unity the money should be used to real purpose. Once Paul was old enough he would understand that. He could understand right now. If rupture within the home was the only alternative the boy would know fine well what had to be done; it would scarcely be a case of understanding or anything like it, just the natural order of things, that which the adult is obliged to do.

Of course Sandra was looking great, the jeans and the jumper, so reminiscent of how she used to look when pushing the pram; she used to push it down by the river to meet him coming home off early shift. If the day was fine they did this rather than him just taking a bus home. He used to run up the road, all the way from the garage, then down through the park. It was still a surprise seeing her shape, her lack of belly, fitting into the old outfits again. She looked really well, and sometimes he felt a bit of a cunt to be meeting her in uniform, an embarrassment, the daft cashbag and hat while she was looking the way she did, and the wee yin babbling away; walking home, along past the old flint mill, the trees and the bushes, the grass: right smack in the heart of the city she had found this place, an amazing spot where you could walk in a valley by the side of a river; an enclosed place, road bridges high overhead, no traffic sounds whatsoever.

Hines grabbed her. He increased his hold of her, he laughed abruptly, relaxing the hold and increasing the hold; again laughing and she began laughing, that chuckling sound; it begins from way deep in her throat and makes a noise like gloogle gloolg. He kissed her on the lips, his tongue along her lower teeth; he felt her relax, returning the kiss with genuine aggression, the kiss mattering in itself. She liked kissing him. This was the great thing; and probably an explanation of why their lips always fitted together so well – a kiss can be really erotic, one kiss and one kiss only, if that kiss is right, is enough to get things moving immediately. Her skin through the jumper; the actual texture of the jumper, lamb's wool maybe or something akin; the size a bit big for her, the upper trunk slenderish; her tits through it as though she had left off her bra altogether but probably because she buys good bras that their material resembles flesh almost or maybe just so thin the skin through it cannot be concealed. She could get him from nothing; just sitting in the same space and it altering, naturally enough, an inter-something-or-other connected with radiation or something giving off from each other that one hand is moving to the other's hand, this drawing together as reaction, then the fitting together so exactly right. All parts of her. Those dances they used to have in just that kind of awareness, playing, dancing towards and dancing away, circling, an occasional touch, the tremble; then another record and sometimes when it was a slow one and they danced holding he got hard and they had to move from the floor, her shielding him.

Paul . . .

Asleep; he was dead-beat.

They kissed again. Over her shoulder he saw the gas burning in its steady flame; the arrangement on the mantelpiece seemed different, the note either not there or lying so flat it couldnt be seen; and the blind drawn at the window. She had maybe given the whole place a going over. She moved and he was aware of
her jumper again, of how slender her body was, or just the jumper being that bit too big for her. But he felt he could put his arms right round her and still be touching the sides of his own body, as though she was eating less than she should be – skinny, not slender. He moved to look at her and they both smiled. He shook his head. Aw Sandra.

I'm sorry Rab.

Jesus christ. He clutched onto her now, his chin on her shoulder, his eyelids shut; she shifted to kiss him, she was beautiful; his hands beneath her jumper and lightly on her skin, his fingertips to that spot at the base of her spine, and moving upwards on her spine, to beneath the strap of her bra, then out and he brought his hands out from her jumper. Fancy going to bed?

She smiled.

What is it?

O . . . She shook her head as she stepped to the armchair and began to undress.

How come you're so beautiful?

She stuck her tongue out at him, chuckling as she released the catch on her bra. Her tits jutted out as she turned to lay the bra on top of the chair.

He undressed and switched off the main light; she switched on the bedlamp. Lying down on his side he cupped his chin in his left hand, gazed at her until she moved nearer to him and he shifted so that she could lie above his left arm, it lying exactly beneath the pillow, within the space between her head and right shoulder, comfortably. She looked at him before they kissed. That can be a strange look. A look to see something or other – as though she isnt a hundred percent certain who he is. And when he broke the kiss she looked at him in the same way, before it continued, now pulling him more closely in to her. Sometimes he was unsure about holding her too tightly in case her breasts got too squashed by him, by his chest – one time
years ago she gave him a kind of punch there, on the chest, and winced and rubbed her knuckles, not having been aware of how hard male chests can be. He manoeuvred her onto her back and they looked at each other. He kissed her throat and down to kiss her nipples, reaching to take down her pants; her head rose a little, her right arm lying over his back, to nibble at the lobe of his ear; she laughed and lay back on the pillow. Her legs parted as he positioned himself to enter. The opening felt so narrow.

God Rab you feel huge.

Hh.

It's because it's a while.

I'm no hurting you?

No.

You sure . . . christ . . . He breathed out and relaxed a moment, then pushed up slowly. He opened his eyelids but hers were closed; he kissed the tip of her nose and settled onto her, but taking his weight on both elbows. He grinned. Dont move or I'll come.

O.

Ssh.

She made as though to speak.

Ssh . . . He was having to smother a laugh. He placed his head on the pillow above her left shoulder. Think of churches. That old lady in the blue skirt walking up the path – Auvers, somewhere in France; where the sun shines. Going down some Rue, in the early evening, just the pair of them, heading for a meal, then onto some café for a chat and maybe a dance or something,
Gaite Parisienne
, the lassies kicking out, wee Toulouse with the sketch pad, the Seine in the moonlight, picked out on the ripples. Careful.

What d'you mean?

Nothing – a twitch, you twitched.

Sorry.

He was suppressing laughter.

Sorry! She began to chuckle.

They kissed now and he was moving and not able to stop, christ and he was having to thrust and come almost without an orgasm but having to cry out all the same.

He lay on her, still taking the weight on both elbows. It's okay, she said but he continued to take it. After a while he grunted and she said, Dont come out yet.

Okay.

God Rab it feels like the Niagara Falls.

He grinned and kissed her.

I forgot to bring in the tissues.

Use the sheet.

. . .

Naw, it'll be okay. Either that or you'll have to walk on your hands to the fucking cludgie.

O God.

They both began laughing until she cried: It's coming out, you're coming out. And he felt himself slipping out then was unsure whether he was maybe still in. He moved onto his side and got out of bed at once and dashed to the tallboy, into the top drawer for the box of tissues. She took a couple. She wasnt rushing. It doesnt matter now, she said. I suppose it's time the sheets were changed anyway.

Aaahh.

She glanced at him.

It's great to be alive.

She smiled.

He stretched, his fingertips to the ceiling, on tiptoes, muscles as tensed as they could be. He relaxed enough to breathe out deeply, prolonging it then breathing out again, the final old air, before gasping in the fresh. Aah. Christ. Fancy a coffee?

She nodded. See that bag over there . . .

He went to the kitchen-cabinet, the pull-down section lying out and the paper bag, containing two chocolate covered doughnuts. Absolutely fucking disgusting. I dont know how you buy this stuff Sandra I really dont.

Cheaper than tobacco.

Aye but christ sake I mean! When the water had boiled he made the coffee and placed the doughnuts and cups on the television set, beside the bed. Back between the sheets he stared at his doughnut and frowned. I have reason to believe that in certain sections of America one daubs one's erogenous zones with honey and one's partner licks it off.

Sounds interesting.

Aye, strange fucking place America; it's a doughnut-loving nation apparently.

It was me told you that.

Very sorry.

They dont have ordinary cakes, just assorted varieties of doughnuts.

Monopoly land, what d'you expect.

No but it's funny . . . She studied the doughnut before taking the first bite. She was aware of him watching but continued as though indifferent, and she was managing to eat without getting any of the chocolate onto her face, except where a spot stuck to her upper lip, then out poked her tongue to ensnare it. It's actually quite tasty, she said. When he grinned she made a face at him.

How much were they?

I'm not telling you.

Dear but?

Yes.

A moment's silence; then he laughed and she grinned. Aye, he went on, life can be a startling item at times – I was just
saying that very thing to a crabbit auld cunt who stepped onto my platform the other morning. Excuse me mrs I said I'm well aware your complaints are justified but in regard to the startling nature of the world, the ascendancy of certain stars and so on . . . He grinned and ate his last mouthful of doughnut. He got out of bed, collected the tin from his jerkin pocket and paused to slap at the soles of his feet before returning. It's great to see you.

Hines had said it while prising the lid off the tin. And he added, I didnt expect it I mean eh.

She handed him her cup and while he leaned to put it on top of the television she put her arm round his back; he closed the tin and placed it next to the cups. How come you're so beautiful?

You're a terrible flatterer Hines.

Hh; cant even get telling the truth nowadays.

She slapped his chest.

Ah! She's beating me next!

They rolled together until she was on top of him and she raised herself, her tits drooping so well and perfect and he craned his neck to meet them, taking each nipple in turn between his lips; she moved onto her side eventually, then onto her back, Hines managing to shift position while keeping mouth to nipple. He came away and they kissed, her hand now between his legs and their tongues touching within the other's mouth; he was attempting the insertion and she moved for him. They were still kissing but his head now rested next to hers on the pillow, and his left foot steadying against the bottom wall of the recess. He began the thrust, she going with it. A rhythm was settled into. Later he was set to climax and halted; she had also halted. He listened to her breathing. A few moments just, then it would be right to resume.