A History Maker by Alasdair Gray Read Free Book Online Page A

no till I’ve fathered a hundred lads on Annie Craig Douglas.’ But I say, ‘Go! I wilt never embrace thee nae mair until thou hast done God’s will.’ So you go conquering the universe till you’re an old bald done dry withered wee man, and return to find me as sweet and sappy, young and perjink as ever. ‘Nooky time!’ you wheeze, ‘Get them off.’ ‘Avaunt, Snotface!’ I graciously retort, ‘Or Wat or Julius Caesar or whatever you cry yourself. I cannae be thine, I am being shaggedcontinuous by a greater than thou.’
    â€˜Who?’ croaks you. ‘God,’ says me, ‘He sent you conquering to get ye out of my short hairs ha ha ha.’ … Is something bothering you Wattie?”
    â€œAye — your joke about me being kept for something great. I once used to believe that, Annie, but what great thing could it be? Modern wars arenae great affairs. The only greatness nowadays is in the folk building new satellites and immortals creating new forms of life.”
    She kissed his ear and whispered, “I’ll tell you a great thing you can do. This is my best time of the month, you’ve been deep inside me, I’m sure I’ve got my first bairn — what better new thing can there be than that? And if it’s a lad promise you’ll like him Wattie. And if he joins the Ettrick warriors promise to be kind to him. I’ve heard awful tales about how young laddies get treated by older ones in the Warrior house.” “Don’t believe all ye hear,” said Wat, embracing her, “The old soldiers keep an eye on things. I’ll protect him if I’m still about.”
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    They were silent for a while. This was the third day of their honeymoon. Wat feared Annie would soon be bored and want to go and gossip about him with her mother and sisters andcousins. Wat was not bored. His queer dream had given him an idea though he had been shy of mentioning it till now. He said suddenly, “Do you want your son to become a soldier, Annie, and probably die before he’s thirty? Or do you want him to go to the stars and live till he forgets you existed? Or would you rather he joined the public eye and became a glib commentator on other men’s courage? Or left the clean homes of Ettrick and lived dirty with the gangrels?”
    â€œIt isnae a mother’s business to want things for her weans — it’s the weans’ business,” said Annie, puzzled, “Mothers who try to manage their weans’ lives always hurt them. Aunt Mirren tried to stop her sons becoming soldiers after Highlanders killed her first three at Stirling Moss. She tried to make them starmen by cramming them with physics and biology, so they ran to the Warrior house as soon as they could and came home hacked to pieces five days ago. No wonder she’s bitter. What are ye trying to tell me Wat Dryhope?”
    â€œI’m trying to tell ye about a new way of living which hasnae been tried for centuries, Annie. I want us to pretend there’s nobody alive but you and me …” (Annie sat up looking interested) “… I want us to load a couple of ponies with a tent, food, seeds, a cross-bow,an axe and handy tools. I want us to ride far far to the north where the homes are few and the commons so mountainy that even gangrels seldom pass through. We’ll find a broken old stone house, mibby a hunting-lodge built when there were no commons and the whole land was owned by a few plutocrats. We’ll repair enough rooms to make a wee house of it. I’ll get food by hunting and gardening, you’ll cook it and make and mend our clothes.”
    â€œGo camping and play husband and wife?” cried Annie, smiling, “I played that game with my first laddie when I was twelve but only for a night. The alfresco shitting scunnered him in spite of the nooky — he called wiping his bum with dockens alfresco