Walking Wounded Read Free Page B

you the right to face more and more obscure questions the relevance of which to football wasn’t easy to see. ‘Tell me,’ Frankie had once said to Mick by way of parody. ‘In what Scotland–Englandgame did it rain for four-and-a-half minutes at half-time? And how wet was the rain?’
    Over in the usual corner Gus McPhater was sitting with two cronies. Frankie hated the big words Gus used. That left Big Harry behind the bar, besides three others Frankie didn’t know. Big Harry had finally noticed him and was approaching with the speed of a mirage.
    â€˜Frankie,’ Big Harry said.
    â€˜Harry. I’ll have a drop of the wine of the country.’
    â€˜Whit?’
    â€˜A whisky, Harry. Grouse. And what you’re havin’ yourself?’
    Big Harry turned down the corners of his mouth even further. He looked at Frankie as if dismayed at his insensitivity.
    â€˜Me?’ Big Harry said. ‘Ye kiddin’? Wi’ ma stomach? Ye want a death on yer conscience? Still.’ His face assumed a look of martyred generosity. ‘Tell ye what. Ah’ll take the price of it an’ have it when Ah finish. Probably no’ get a wink of sleep the night. But ye’ve got to get some pleasure.’
    Frankie remembered Harry’s nickname – Harry Kari. He wasn’t sure whether the nickname was because that was what everybody felt like trying after a conversation with Harry or because that was what people thought Harry should do. No wonder Gus McPhater was quoted as saying, ‘Harry does for conversation what lumbago does for dancin’.’ Harry was the kind of barman who told you his problems.
    â€˜Religion?’ Gus McPhater was saying. He was always saying something. ‘Don’t waste ma time. The opium of the masses. It’s done damage worse than a gross of atomic bombs. Chains for the brainbox, that’s religion. Ministers? Press agents for the rulin’ classes. Ye’ll no’ catch me in a church. If Ah could, Ah’d cancel ma christenin’ retrospectively. Take yer stained-glass windaes. Whit’s a windae for? To see through. Right? So what do they do? They cover itin pictures. So that when ye look at the light. The light, mind ye. That’s how ye see, ye know. Light refractin’ on yer pupils. When ye look for the light, it gets translated intae what they want ye tae see. How’s that for slavery? An’ whit d’ye see? A lot of holy mumbo-jumbo. People Ah don’t know from Adam. What’ve a bunch of first-century Jewish fanatics got to do wi’ me? Ah’ll tell ye what. Know when Ah’ll go intae a church? When it’s man’s house. When the stained-glass windaes are full of holy scenes of rivetters in bunnets and women goin’ the messages wi’ two weans hangin’ on to their arse an’ auld folk huddled in at one bar of an electric fire after fifty years o’ slavin’ their guts out for a society that doesny care if they live or die. Those would be windaes worth lookin’ at. That’s what art should be. Holy pictures of the people. Or a mosaic even. How about that? See when they made that daft town centre. The new precinct. The instant slum. See instead o’ that fountain. Why not a big mosaic? Showin’ the lives of the people here an’ now. How about that? The Graithnock mosaic. Why no?’
    Frankie had no desire to join in. He contented himself with a mime of his superior status. Gus McPhater depressed him. People listened to him as if the noises he made with his mouth meant something. He was a balloon. A lot of stories were told about him. He was supposed to have travelled all round the world. He was supposed to be writing a novel or short stories or something. Frankie didn’t believe any of them.
    Gus seemed to Frankie an appropriate patron saint for Graithnock. He was like the town itself – over the hill and sitting in dark pubs