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

shitting. It’ll be more fun with you.”
    â€œIt wouldnae be just fun if you played it with me, Annie, it would be a way of life. I’d contrive a hygienic latrine and hot-water system. We wouldnae come back.”
    â€œBut surely we would feel lonely after a few weeks!”
    â€œAye, very. We would hate it at first. Then the hard work of making an old-fashioned house together would teach us to depend on each other and love each other more than other men and women love each nowadays. Then the weans would come.”
    â€œWho would deliver them?”
    â€œMe. I’m no stranger to blood and screams, Annie, I’ll make sure nothing goes wrong.”
    â€œThat’s very cheery news, Wattie, but they’ll be sad wee weans with only me to love — no aunties and grannies — no cousins to play with — no neighbours!”
    â€œThey’ll have me as well as you.”
    â€œBairns don’t love dads.”
    â€œThey would have to love me because they’d have nobody else — apart from you. I’d be always sleeping in the same house, bringing in the food you cook for us, teaching them how to hunt and plant and chop firewood and clean the latrine.”
    â€œBut no neighbours , Wattie! The husbands and wives of historic times were so desperate for neighbours that they crowded into big huge ugly cities.”
    â€œRight!” said Wat, growing heated, “And the cities bred poverty, plagues and greedy governments! So a few brave men and women — pioneers they were called — left the cities for the wild in couples and made clean new lives there like we can make.”
    â€œWhere and when did they do that?”
    â€œIn America three or four centuries ago.”
    â€œI’m sure they’re no in America now. How long did they last?”
    â€œI … I don’t exactly know.”
    â€œWell, Wattie,” said Annie in a friendly voice,
    â€œI’m sorry we’ve no plagues, poverty or governments to escape from, but I’ll be your pioneer wife as long as you can bear it.”
    She shut her mouth tight to stop the smile at the corners becoming a grin. Wat saw it; she saw him see it, grinned openly and said, “But will wee me be able to content you when you’ve had big Rose of Cappercleuch and those Bowerhope twins and Lizzie of Altrieve and my mammy? Will you never want to see my mammy again? And have you forgot you’ll grow old and die in that wilderness, Wattie? I thought men fought battles and became heroes because they were afraid to grow old.”
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    He suddenly saw he had been a fool and the knowledge changed him. His face and neck reddened. With a sudden fixed smile, in a singsong voice unlike his usual gruff one, he asked if she knew why he hated women. Annie, aghast, stared and trembled. He said, “I hate women for their damnable smug security and for always being older than me, always older and wiser! Even a kid like you, Annie Craig Douglas, has stripped me of my self-respect by knowing more about me than I know about myself. And when I’m dead you’ll have loversand babies and lovers and babies till you’re a great-great-granny telling stories to wee girls. And I’ll be one of your stories, the first warrior who fucked you — a daftie who wanted to run away and live alone with ye forever!”
    Tears streamed from her eyes at this. She tried to embrace him. He pushed her away saying, “Keep your pity! I want the bad old days when wars had no rules and bombs fell on houses and men and women died together like REAL equals! Equal in agony and mutilation!”
    â€œYou’re sick, Wattie. Your head’s sick,” said Annie, weeping, “You’re worse than mad Jardine, your daddy.”
    His rage stopped at once.
    â€œTrue!” he said, ruefully touching his brow, “And it’s the only head I have. I’m sorry I lost my temper.”
    â€œAs