The Kiln by William McIlvanney Read Free Book Online

word ‘adumbration’ recently. He likes it. Adumbration. To adumbrate. He had done some adumbrating last night, but nothing more. Only adumbrators need apply was obviously Marilyn Miller's motto. Adumbration. One for the files. He would have to find an excuse for using the word in front of his father.
    (‘Okay, smartarse, so ye've swallied a dictionary. Noo tell us whit ye mean.’
    ‘Look, Feyther, I'm just tryin' to adumbrate this basic idea.')
    Marilyn Miller. She has an auntie who lives in Melbourne and it seems that this auntie once lost a baby. The night before the miscarriage, Marilyn's auntie dreamt that a nun stood at the foot of her bed, sneering and shaking her head. That is amazing, isn't it? A prophetic dream, one that's definitely got the edge on Auntie Bella's dreams about nocturnal visits to the shops. Isn't it strange how two dances with a stranger can open doors on to experiences you never imagined? People are amazing.
    Marilyn Miller. He likes her but he doesn't think they'll be trying it again. He's pretty sure Marilyn would prefer it that way. Everything was fine between them but nothing was more than fine. Nothing really happened, no thunderbolts, no tidal waves in the blood. It was more like a school trip to the seaside where the water remained too cold to do more than paddle and there was shared conversation like stale sandwiches. He is glad she introduced him to her auntie but he and she parted without having really met. Sorry, I thought you were someone else. He doesn't know who she mistook him for. But he suspects that he knows who she wasn't. Margaret Inglis. He sighs and thinks about getting up.
    And Sir Alexander Fleming died this year. Penicillin. It must be wonderful to have discovered something that benefits the whole world. You could really say that Fleming changed theterms of human life. It's enough to make God get fidgety. And Fleming was born just a few miles from here, up the road in Darvel. An Ayrshireman did that. There's hope, there's hope. Tam remembers a newsreel where you saw Fleming in his laboratory. He was pottering about with a cigarette hanging from his mouth, like a man mending a fuse or something. He's seen his father like that when he was fixing a wireless or, in the case of Bryce the Grocer, blowing one up. He loves that image of Fleming. For him it's a symbol of the democracy of achievement. You don't need to have been born in a big estate or talk as if your mouth had piles or act pompously to achieve great things. Maybe it would be good to be a doctor. But would medical science ever discover an antidote to Margaret Inglis?
    He gets up and pulls on a sweater and the trousers he was wearing to the dancing. He pads on bare feet downstairs and into the kitchen, where his mother makes him a cooked breakfast.
    ‘Let ‘im fend for himself! Breakfast's like a Jew's weddin’ in here,' his father is shouting through from the living-room.
    ‘Thank you. Pater,’ Tam calls back. ‘May I have the Bentley today?’
    ‘A kick in the arse. That's what ye can have.’
    Ah, the sweet, domestic sounds of a peaceful Sabbath. He is flicking through the Sunday Post.
    He finishes his breakfast and decides that what he'll do is get the packet of ten Paymaster from his raincoat pocket in the lobby, go upstairs with the paper and have a quiet smoke, like a gentleman in his club. He never smokes in the house. He hardly ever smokes anywhere, mainly just at the dancing and even then only a few. Cigarettes are for him essentially a prop, only appropriate to certain social scenes. You really have to smoke at the dancing, he has decided. It's hard enough trying to camouflage yourself as a tough guy as it is. Go in there without cigarettes and it would be like wearing a blouse.
    He has never smoked at the brickwork, it occurs to him. Would that help? Cran might have to take him seriously then. What could be more manly than giving yourself lung cancer? Anyway, Michael smokes and nobody will