REMEDY IS NONE
WILLIAM McILVANNEY
First published 1966 by Eyre & Spottiswoode
This digital edition first published in 2014 by Canongate Books, 14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE
© William McIlvanney 1966
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 192 4
To my Mother
Contents
Since for the Death remeid is none,
Best is that we for Death dispone,
After our death that live may we:
Timor Mortis conturbat me
William Dunbar (1465 – ?1520)
Part One
Chapter 1
‘OF COURSE, GENTLEMEN, AT THE BEGINNING OF THE play you will remember (those of us who have read the text) that Romeo is in love not with Juliet, but with someone called Rosaline. In fact, it might be truer to say that at this point his love is not so much directed at any specific person as at woman in general. The American writer William Saroyan has a short story entitled Seventeen which effectively conveys the state of mind we may assume him to be in. I think we all know it. Do not all young men fall in love first with a chimera . . .?’
‘I am a chimera,’ Andy said, raising his hands like claws, putting on his monster’s face. ‘I was a teenage chimera.’
‘I’m in love with a darling young chimera,’ Jim sang quietly.
‘It is only later that this idealized woman transmigrates to the body of a living person – and the trouble starts. At this point in the male’s life there enters the unknown Max Factor.’
Dutiful laughter was struck up in the lecture-room, disconcerted by a jeering bassoon from the back, closely followed by an operatic facsimile of agonized death.
‘Hey, Charlie,’ Andy said, nudging him. ‘Waken up. Ye’re missing all the riotous fun. We’ve just had a joke.’
‘Ah wondered what the smell wis,’ Charlie said. ‘Hell, Ah wish he would give ye some sign, like dropping a hanky or something. Ah always miss his wee jokes.’
‘Ah know why you missed it, too,’ Jim said. ‘You were off to Mary-land there again.’
Jim’s guess was right. Charlie had been thinking about Mary. Since her last letter his mind had developed a kind of stutter and he couldn’t get past thinking of what she had written. He closed his mind on the lecture-room again, locking out Professor Aird’s insistent voice. He thought again of the sentence that his mind had been pushing out like a mad teleprinter for three days until he had barely room for another thought. ‘It’s five days since “you-know-what” was due and didn’t come and what do I do?’ Well, what did she do? Take up knitting? He liked the euphemism – ‘you-know-what’. He knew what, all right. She had always been very regular, she said. Maybe a day either way. This was five. And now three more. That made it eight – the simple arithmetic of paternity. Five plus three equals daddy. Every day was another step up the aisle. He didn’t object to marrying Mary. He wanted to marry her – eventually. He had calculated on that pleasure coming along in time. But he didn’t want his future express delivery. He couldn’t use it just now. He had two more years of university after this one, if he took honours. It was a good thing it wasn’t a course in premarital relations. He wouldn’t win any medals for that. Even if he told his father – who had enough to worry him without the patter of tiny bastards – and even if he squared it up with Mary’s folks, where was the money to come from? What did you do? Sue the contraceptive makers for the price of the reception? It was hopeless. Why did even the most natural things you did have to pivot on economy? They had you every way. All the good things were either padlocked with morality or tagged with money. Money. Mon-ey! God of our fathers, we worship thee in all thy