Walking Wounded. William McIlvanney

      First published in 1989 by Hodder and Stoughton

      This digital edition first published in 2014 by Canongate Books, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE

      Copyright © William McIlvanney 1989

      The moral right of the author has been asserted

      All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

      British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

      ISBN 978 1 78211 194 8

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      FOR MY FRIENDS

      ‘Come, come. Did we not all start out with more important matters on our minds?’

       A man I think I overheard in a bar.

      Contents

      And so adrift in unknown selves we lie

      Abandoned to dark plucks of circumstance,

      Not knowing what will come or what we’ll do

      Or where the tides of sleep will wash us and

      Shy from the sculling shapes that feed on mind,

      Feel every certainty drift out of reach

      And sigh and hold each other, tryst with touch

      To share what is not shareable, and know

      The jerking terror of time’s undertow

      And madly try to dream ourselves a beach.