Read Online Remedy is None by William McIlvanney - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: William McIlvanney
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potential. As yet he could form no intention. The feeling was too vast and amorphous to admit of anything as finite as an aim.
He felt unknowingly that still desolation that each feels at some times in his life when he turns from pretending, evades the eyes of others and meets himself. It is as if you have passed through one of the strange concyclic circles of living, one of the secret doorways of the self, moss-grown with trivia so that the legend on the lintel is concealed and the chiselled enduring arch is hidden totally under the personal excrescences of your life so that you do not realize that this is a door through which all men must pass, a door made for all men to come to, mortared out of what all men are, and through which they may pass only one at a time. It may be much later before you realize that you are in a new place, have passed through many gates, and are come nearer to the final door behind which you wait with cup or knife to greet yourself. But from time to time in the press of hurrying intentions and talking friends and intermingling ambitions you glimpse yourself alone, fleshed in a private mystery, set out on a lonely road that none can travel with you. It is the same for all and different for each. In railway waiting-rooms, on late last buses, playing with their children, walking in the street, men find again the knowledge that was lost, hear news, come home to themselves alone. Commitments, demands, intentions, turn, grow, enfold, shut out the light, break suddenly and show, back-turned and deaf to your cries, the distant self, whose face you will only find at the final door. Voices of friend, brother, lover, call, here, there, near, far, this way, that, and suddenly fall silent. And you’re alone, where one footstep makes thunder in the dark.
Chapter 7
MRS WHITMORE GLIMPSED HERSELF IN THE FULL-LENGTH mirror as she passed. She paused automatically, making the ritual gestures of arranging her hair while at the same time being careful not to disturb its lacquered elegance. She noticed a wrinkle in her stocking that was like an omen of age. Putting down the small folder she was carrying, she eased up her dress, held it with her elbows, deftly damped her fingertips, and smoothed her left leg back to nylon youth. She shimmied her dress back into order, strafed herself with a last expert glance, and was about to turn away when she suddenly stopped, staring.
Something about herself arrested her, something indefinable. It was a feeling comparable to knowing that there was something fractionally out of place in her appearance. But she knew that her make-up was immaculate, her clothes in good taste, her jewellery in keeping. Her eyes looked back at her, echoing their own question. Slowly, faced with herself, she came to face the feeling. It had been with her for some time now, prowling the edges of her consciousness, as if waiting for her to admit it. Doing her household duties, she had sensed its presence on the other side of each activity, and she had kept it at bay with preoccupation. But it haunted the small, still moments of her daily life like a patient ghost that longed to be incarnated. It constantly threatened to intrude more positively into her awareness. It was like something she had neglected to do or had mislaid, or like an unlatched window rattling quietly in the night. She might refuse to acknowledge it or to do anything about it, but she could not dismiss it.
Now, sensing its imminence again, she wavered on the verge of trying to force it into consciousness, to see if she could exorcize the ghost by giving it flesh. But she was a little frightenedof admitting it fully to herself because she knew that the substance of its shadow derived somehow from a lack in her life, and she dreaded the extent to which its acknowledgement might undermine her security. And yet, how could anything undermine her security? What was there that she lacked? She looked around the well-furnished bedroom, dwelling
He felt unknowingly that still desolation that each feels at some times in his life when he turns from pretending, evades the eyes of others and meets himself. It is as if you have passed through one of the strange concyclic circles of living, one of the secret doorways of the self, moss-grown with trivia so that the legend on the lintel is concealed and the chiselled enduring arch is hidden totally under the personal excrescences of your life so that you do not realize that this is a door through which all men must pass, a door made for all men to come to, mortared out of what all men are, and through which they may pass only one at a time. It may be much later before you realize that you are in a new place, have passed through many gates, and are come nearer to the final door behind which you wait with cup or knife to greet yourself. But from time to time in the press of hurrying intentions and talking friends and intermingling ambitions you glimpse yourself alone, fleshed in a private mystery, set out on a lonely road that none can travel with you. It is the same for all and different for each. In railway waiting-rooms, on late last buses, playing with their children, walking in the street, men find again the knowledge that was lost, hear news, come home to themselves alone. Commitments, demands, intentions, turn, grow, enfold, shut out the light, break suddenly and show, back-turned and deaf to your cries, the distant self, whose face you will only find at the final door. Voices of friend, brother, lover, call, here, there, near, far, this way, that, and suddenly fall silent. And you’re alone, where one footstep makes thunder in the dark.
Chapter 7
MRS WHITMORE GLIMPSED HERSELF IN THE FULL-LENGTH mirror as she passed. She paused automatically, making the ritual gestures of arranging her hair while at the same time being careful not to disturb its lacquered elegance. She noticed a wrinkle in her stocking that was like an omen of age. Putting down the small folder she was carrying, she eased up her dress, held it with her elbows, deftly damped her fingertips, and smoothed her left leg back to nylon youth. She shimmied her dress back into order, strafed herself with a last expert glance, and was about to turn away when she suddenly stopped, staring.
Something about herself arrested her, something indefinable. It was a feeling comparable to knowing that there was something fractionally out of place in her appearance. But she knew that her make-up was immaculate, her clothes in good taste, her jewellery in keeping. Her eyes looked back at her, echoing their own question. Slowly, faced with herself, she came to face the feeling. It had been with her for some time now, prowling the edges of her consciousness, as if waiting for her to admit it. Doing her household duties, she had sensed its presence on the other side of each activity, and she had kept it at bay with preoccupation. But it haunted the small, still moments of her daily life like a patient ghost that longed to be incarnated. It constantly threatened to intrude more positively into her awareness. It was like something she had neglected to do or had mislaid, or like an unlatched window rattling quietly in the night. She might refuse to acknowledge it or to do anything about it, but she could not dismiss it.
Now, sensing its imminence again, she wavered on the verge of trying to force it into consciousness, to see if she could exorcize the ghost by giving it flesh. But she was a little frightenedof admitting it fully to herself because she knew that the substance of its shadow derived somehow from a lack in her life, and she dreaded the extent to which its acknowledgement might undermine her security. And yet, how could anything undermine her security? What was there that she lacked? She looked around the well-furnished bedroom, dwelling
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