The Ends Of Our Tethers: Thirteen Sorry Stories. Alasdair Gray

      A MILD SEPTEMBER MORNING. A man no longer young strolls thoughtfully on a narrow footpath along a former railway line. Noises tell of a nearby motorway but brambles, elders and hawthorns on each side hide all but the straight empty path ahead until he sees a small clearing among bushes on his right. Two girls sit here at the foot of an old telegraph pole. He pauses, gazing at the top of the cracked grey timber pole. It has cross-pieces with insulators like small white jam pots from which broken wires dangle. He is aware that the girls are in their teens, look surly and depressed, wear clumsy thick-soled boots and baggy military trousers from which rise pleasantly slim bodies. One says crossly, “What are you staring at?”

      “At the wires of that sad sad pole!” says the man without lowering his eyes. “A few years ago they carried messages from this land of ours to a world-wide commercial empire.” “A few years? It was yonks ago,” says the girl scornfully. Without looking straight at her the man glimpses a stud piercing her lower lip and one through the wing of a nostril. He says, “Yonks. Yes. I suppose telegraphs were defunct before you were born.”

      He continues looking up at it until the other girl stands, stretches her arms, pretends to yawn, says, “I’ll better away,” and walks off through the bushes. Her companion still sits as she did before the stroller arrived.

      A minute later he takes a folded newspaper from his coat pocket, unfolds and lays it on the grass where the departed girl was, then sits down with hands folded on the knee of a bent leg. Looking sideways at the girl (who still pretends to ignore him) he says quietly, “I must ask you a difficult question about … about the eff word. Does it shock or annoy you? I don’t mean when used as a swear word, I detest swearing, I mean when used as a word for the thing … the act lovers do together. Eh?”

      After allowing her a moment to reply he speaks briskly as if they had reached an agreement.

      “Now I fully realise that a lovely young woman like you —” (she sneers) “— don’t sneer, has no wish to eff with a boring old fart like me in bushes beside a derelict railway line. But I suppose you are unemployed and need money?”

      “Fucking right I do!” she cries.

      “Don’t swear. This is an unfair world but I am no hypocrite, I am glad I have money you need. We should therefore discuss how much I am willing to pay for what you are prepared to do. I promise that a wee chat will probably give all the stimulus I need. I have never been greatly enamoured by the down-to-earth, flat-out business of effing.”

      “Ten pounds!” says the girl, suddenly facing him at last. He nods and says, “Not unreasonable.”

      “Ten pounds now! Nothing without cash up front,” she says, holding out a hand. From a wallet within his coat he gives her bank notes.

      “Thanks,” she says, pocketing them and standing up, “Cheerio.”

      He looks up at her wistfully. She says, “You’re too weird for me as well as too old and you’re right. This is an unfair world.”

      She goes off through the bushes. He sighs and sits there, brooding.

      Then hears a rustling of leaves. The other girl has returned and stands watching him. He ignores her until she says, “I didnae really go away. I was listening all the time behind that bush.”

      “Mm.”

      “I don’t think you’re weird. Not dangerous-weird. You’re just funny.”

      “Name?” he asks drearily.

      “Davida.”

      “I thought the Scottish custom of making daughters’ names out of fathers’ names had died out.”

      “It came back. What’s your name?”

      “I’m giving nothing else away today Davida. Don’t expect it.”

      But he is looking at her. She grins cheerily back until he shrugs and pats the grass beside him. She hunkers down slightly further away, hugging her legs with both arms and asking brightly, “What were you going to say to Sharon?”

      “You too want cash from me.”

      “Aye, some, but not as much as Sharon. Forget about money. Say what you like, I won’t mind.”

      He stares at her, opens his mouth, swallows, shuts his eyes very tight and mutters,

      “Bigpocketswithbuttonedflaps.”

      “Eh?”

      “Big,” he explains deliberately. “Pockets. With. Buttoned. Flaps. At last I have said it.”

      “They turn you on?” says Davida, looking at her pockets in a puzzled way.

      “Yes,” he says defiantly, “because violence is sexy! These pockets are military pockets with room for ammunition clips and grenades and iron rations. On women they look excitingly … deliciously … unsuitable.”

      “Yes, I suppose that’s

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