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Authors: William McIlvanney
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mysterious beyond the purpose to which he was putting it. He crossed it as if it was a walk-through painting of someone else's place.
Shit, he thought as he sat back down at the table, I'll have to stop thinking like this. It's just a room in a rented flat. Why see it in any other way? Was that tendency what had been wrong with his life all along? He hoped not. He distrusted romanticism.
But he wondered about that fixation with Margaret Inglis. Was it not partly about his sense of her as being not quite attainable? And Maddie Fitzpatrick. What chance could he ever have imagined he would have with her? And he remembered the girl on the bus, who had haunted him all that summer.
Something Jack Laidlaw had said some years ago came back to him. Four of them - Vic Vernon, Ray Harrison, Jack and himself - had been drinking in the Admiral in Glasgow. Ray had been teasing Jack about not having settled with a woman after his divorce. ‘Philanderer’ was mentioned.
‘I'm not a philanderer,’ Jack said. ‘Several hundred women will testify to that.’
They had all laughed. But the joke bothered him. He didn't believe it was true of Jack. And he knew it wasn't true of himself. He could only remember about a couple of one-night stands. Otherwise he had only made love within a relationship, even if it was a brief one.
But then why was he sitting here alone? It wasn't because he wanted the freedom to be promiscuous. If it had been, why was he living like a hermit? And he had always suspected sexual romanticism in relationships as being for some a means of justifying promiscuity. He had known people like that, both women and men, but mainly men.
They made such demands on the other that she must disappoint. The disappointment recreated a romantic vulnerability that made the man attractive to and attracted by a new woman. She thought she would be the one to give his restlessness a home. But in order to do so she would have to kill the very dynamic of his nature - his searching romanticism. His instinctive realisation of this danger made him dissatisfied with her and critical of her and the only mode of survival was by renewal of the quest. The cycle could begin again. Romanticism could only be in the search. Toaccept that you had found the object of the search was to commit a kind of suicide of the romantic self.
Also, he thought, sexual romanticism often had a very pragmatic method which it could contrive to conceal from itself in order to maintain its faith in its own romanticism - for example, by keeping many apparently innocent social contacts with women, like lines trawling in the sea. If nothing happened, nothing happened. But if the woman gave a hint of romantic interest the romantic was ready to take advantage of it - the bait had been taken. But the romantic could still convince himself that he had been surprised by coincidence, did not contrive his own ambush. Isn't romance wonderfully, undeniably spontaneous? The machinery of seduction had been kept concealed, was ostensibly separate from the seemingly spontaneous result.
Thus, those who profess the purity of their romanticism, their removal from baser motives of self-seeking and pleasure profiteering, are often street traders in emotion, barrow-boys of the affections - magpies pretending to be lovebirds.
He didn't believe he had done that. But then why was he sitting here alone? He couldn't exactly claim that he hadn't met any terrific women. Why wasn't he with one of them now? Or was it that good creates the appetite for best and baffles choice? At least in some people. To seek the impossible ideal was a perfect way of never connecting finally with anyone.
But that wasn't him, he thought. Surely not. Let us pray. Surely not.
But
TE AMO DEL UNO AL NUEVE
IN A CAFÉ IN BUENOS AIRES , near the Plaza de Mayo, he would sit with Cristina Esposito and she would be explaining to him the meaning of that sentence. I love you from one to nine.Without zero. Sin cero. Sincero.
Shit, he thought as he sat back down at the table, I'll have to stop thinking like this. It's just a room in a rented flat. Why see it in any other way? Was that tendency what had been wrong with his life all along? He hoped not. He distrusted romanticism.
But he wondered about that fixation with Margaret Inglis. Was it not partly about his sense of her as being not quite attainable? And Maddie Fitzpatrick. What chance could he ever have imagined he would have with her? And he remembered the girl on the bus, who had haunted him all that summer.
Something Jack Laidlaw had said some years ago came back to him. Four of them - Vic Vernon, Ray Harrison, Jack and himself - had been drinking in the Admiral in Glasgow. Ray had been teasing Jack about not having settled with a woman after his divorce. ‘Philanderer’ was mentioned.
‘I'm not a philanderer,’ Jack said. ‘Several hundred women will testify to that.’
They had all laughed. But the joke bothered him. He didn't believe it was true of Jack. And he knew it wasn't true of himself. He could only remember about a couple of one-night stands. Otherwise he had only made love within a relationship, even if it was a brief one.
But then why was he sitting here alone? It wasn't because he wanted the freedom to be promiscuous. If it had been, why was he living like a hermit? And he had always suspected sexual romanticism in relationships as being for some a means of justifying promiscuity. He had known people like that, both women and men, but mainly men.
They made such demands on the other that she must disappoint. The disappointment recreated a romantic vulnerability that made the man attractive to and attracted by a new woman. She thought she would be the one to give his restlessness a home. But in order to do so she would have to kill the very dynamic of his nature - his searching romanticism. His instinctive realisation of this danger made him dissatisfied with her and critical of her and the only mode of survival was by renewal of the quest. The cycle could begin again. Romanticism could only be in the search. Toaccept that you had found the object of the search was to commit a kind of suicide of the romantic self.
Also, he thought, sexual romanticism often had a very pragmatic method which it could contrive to conceal from itself in order to maintain its faith in its own romanticism - for example, by keeping many apparently innocent social contacts with women, like lines trawling in the sea. If nothing happened, nothing happened. But if the woman gave a hint of romantic interest the romantic was ready to take advantage of it - the bait had been taken. But the romantic could still convince himself that he had been surprised by coincidence, did not contrive his own ambush. Isn't romance wonderfully, undeniably spontaneous? The machinery of seduction had been kept concealed, was ostensibly separate from the seemingly spontaneous result.
Thus, those who profess the purity of their romanticism, their removal from baser motives of self-seeking and pleasure profiteering, are often street traders in emotion, barrow-boys of the affections - magpies pretending to be lovebirds.
He didn't believe he had done that. But then why was he sitting here alone? He couldn't exactly claim that he hadn't met any terrific women. Why wasn't he with one of them now? Or was it that good creates the appetite for best and baffles choice? At least in some people. To seek the impossible ideal was a perfect way of never connecting finally with anyone.
But that wasn't him, he thought. Surely not. Let us pray. Surely not.
But
TE AMO DEL UNO AL NUEVE
IN A CAFÉ IN BUENOS AIRES , near the Plaza de Mayo, he would sit with Cristina Esposito and she would be explaining to him the meaning of that sentence. I love you from one to nine.Without zero. Sin cero. Sincero.
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