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Authors: William McIlvanney
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preoccupations like so much make-up. I saw her clearly, maybe for the first time. She seemed thoughtful and understanding and slightly tired of it all. Where she had been and what she had gone through came out to settle on her face and the tension in her between her past and her refusal to give in to it gave her a dignity.
âItâs like Mike,â she said. âSo we canât have any children. Whatâs that? Itâs a sad thing you learn to live with. Like a dark place in your head. But you can make brightness round about it. Not him. Itâs like a holy curse to him. The world picked him out specially, it seems. To blight his life. We couldâve adopted years ago. But he had to fight things on his own terms. To prove himself. Itâs too late for us now.â
A door swung gently open on her words. Beyond it was the mustiness of dead dreams, an attic of ghostly aspirations, childrenâs clothes no one would ever wear. I saw her pain and the courage with which she bore it. I thought of Jan and understood her a little more clearly. She would be trying to avoid going where Katie was. She was right to try.
âMike,â Katie said. âDrama, drama. Different plays.â
Mike came into focus for me, all that bleak tenseness in him. He was a silent and furious quarrel with the world, a raging stillness. I sensed him as one of lifeâs obsessive litigants who, isolating one slander on his sense of himself, expendseverything fruitlessly on trying to have it retracted. But I sympathised.
âItâs funny, Katie,â I said. âBut I see it the other way round. I think itâs often women who live among melodrama. Melodrama to meâs effects exaggerated beyond their causes. Iâve known women sing opera because the arse had burned out a pan. Iâm going crazy because my brotherâs dead. Not because thereâs a button off my shirt.â
We looked at each other across the table, as if it was no-manâs-land, acknowledging truce.
âBut I love them just the same,â I said.
Katie smiled and leaned over and touched my hand. âI can tolerate you as well,â she said. âAsk.â
âSo were there any women? With Scott.â
âHe didnât tell you?â
I thought of what he had been trying to say that night in my flat.
âI think maybe once he came close. But I donât know. We had lost touch a bit. For whiles we might as well have been on different continents.â
âThere was somebody,â she said.
The significance of the words materialised before me, solid as a door into a mysterious chamber of Scottâs life where I hadnât been. It was a door I hesitated at, even as his brother. I would be rifling his privacy in his absence. But something in me needed it to open. Only Katie could do that and she wasnât making any moves. I waited. She waited, sipping her coffee. There were rules here, I understood. You didnât just blunder in. There was a ceremony of respect to be performed and Katie would conduct it.
âI think I was the only one he told,â she said.
She was staring at the table, cuddling the secret to her one last time before she would release it. I thought I saw what it must have meant to her. Trying to tell people who you really are is always a kind of love letter. It invests them with importance in your life. Enlarged by Scottâs trust in her, Katie didnât want to betray it. She had to talk herself towards sharing it with me.
âI loved him in some way, you know,â she said. âI think a lot of people did a bit. He could be a pain in the bum could your Scott. But even while he was doing it, you could see how vulnerable he was. I fell out with him very badly a few months back. It wasnât like him. He didnât come in for two weeks. Youâve no idea how much that upset me. I thought a part of my life was gone. When he walked in that door, it felt like
âItâs like Mike,â she said. âSo we canât have any children. Whatâs that? Itâs a sad thing you learn to live with. Like a dark place in your head. But you can make brightness round about it. Not him. Itâs like a holy curse to him. The world picked him out specially, it seems. To blight his life. We couldâve adopted years ago. But he had to fight things on his own terms. To prove himself. Itâs too late for us now.â
A door swung gently open on her words. Beyond it was the mustiness of dead dreams, an attic of ghostly aspirations, childrenâs clothes no one would ever wear. I saw her pain and the courage with which she bore it. I thought of Jan and understood her a little more clearly. She would be trying to avoid going where Katie was. She was right to try.
âMike,â Katie said. âDrama, drama. Different plays.â
Mike came into focus for me, all that bleak tenseness in him. He was a silent and furious quarrel with the world, a raging stillness. I sensed him as one of lifeâs obsessive litigants who, isolating one slander on his sense of himself, expendseverything fruitlessly on trying to have it retracted. But I sympathised.
âItâs funny, Katie,â I said. âBut I see it the other way round. I think itâs often women who live among melodrama. Melodrama to meâs effects exaggerated beyond their causes. Iâve known women sing opera because the arse had burned out a pan. Iâm going crazy because my brotherâs dead. Not because thereâs a button off my shirt.â
We looked at each other across the table, as if it was no-manâs-land, acknowledging truce.
âBut I love them just the same,â I said.
Katie smiled and leaned over and touched my hand. âI can tolerate you as well,â she said. âAsk.â
âSo were there any women? With Scott.â
âHe didnât tell you?â
I thought of what he had been trying to say that night in my flat.
âI think maybe once he came close. But I donât know. We had lost touch a bit. For whiles we might as well have been on different continents.â
âThere was somebody,â she said.
The significance of the words materialised before me, solid as a door into a mysterious chamber of Scottâs life where I hadnât been. It was a door I hesitated at, even as his brother. I would be rifling his privacy in his absence. But something in me needed it to open. Only Katie could do that and she wasnât making any moves. I waited. She waited, sipping her coffee. There were rules here, I understood. You didnât just blunder in. There was a ceremony of respect to be performed and Katie would conduct it.
âI think I was the only one he told,â she said.
She was staring at the table, cuddling the secret to her one last time before she would release it. I thought I saw what it must have meant to her. Trying to tell people who you really are is always a kind of love letter. It invests them with importance in your life. Enlarged by Scottâs trust in her, Katie didnât want to betray it. She had to talk herself towards sharing it with me.
âI loved him in some way, you know,â she said. âI think a lot of people did a bit. He could be a pain in the bum could your Scott. But even while he was doing it, you could see how vulnerable he was. I fell out with him very badly a few months back. It wasnât like him. He didnât come in for two weeks. Youâve no idea how much that upset me. I thought a part of my life was gone. When he walked in that door, it felt like
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