The Ends of Our Tethers by Alasdair Gray

Twain.”
    â€œYes?”
    â€œHave you read his American Claimant ?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œYou should. And don’t blame yourself too much for the things you’ve just said. A couple of them made sense. Think on! I’ll contact you when I need you. Cheerio.”
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    I was left feeling horribly confused. Was he a genius? Was I an idiot? His damned Proem kept repeating in my head when I would have preferred to remember McDiarmid’s The Watergaw or Hardy’s After a Journey or even Lear’s Dong With the Luminous Nose . Did that mean it was better than these? Impossible. But why could I not forget it? He had said he would contact me. A few weeks after seeing him I approached his sociology lecturer. She was chatting with colleagues in the staff club.
    â€œPardon me,” I said, “Can you tell me how Luke Aiblins —”
    â€œI can tell you nothing about Luke Aiblins except that he is mad, stupid, nasty and has, thank God, left this place for good.” She turned her back to me.
    The college changed its creative writing teacher every two years, perhaps to avoid paying a pension contribution due to regularteachers. I found similar jobs elsewhere, then had a book of poems published, then another. With an American friend I visited Edinburgh Castle and saw that an attendant in one of the regimental museums was Ian Gentle. I asked if the job bored him. He shrugged and said, “Not more than teaching, or punching railway tickets, or nursing in a mental hospital, or canning peas, which I have also tried. It’s like reincarnation. You don’t need to die to become somebody else. Have you read Schopenhauer’s The World As Will and Idea ?”
    I had not and asked if he ever saw Aiblins. “Poor Luke,” said Gentle, “I’d rather not say anything about poor Luke.”
    I left the castle with a weird feeling that Aiblins would soon appear again.
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    Yet was unprepared when the phone rang and a voice said, “Luke Aiblins contacting you as arranged. Remember?”
    â€œI remember you but remember no arrangement. It’s years since you said you’d contact me.”
    â€œI’m doing it. I have a job for you. You’re at home?”
    â€œYes, but —”
    â€œI’ll be there in ten minutes.”
    He hung up on me and arrived in four.
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    He was no longer beautiful because his nose was thickened and flattened except at the tip, which bent sideways. He was also haggard, with long bedraggled hair, and wore a shabby duffel coat and carried a duffel bag, articles I had not seen since my own student days. His manner was still eager but more tense. I asked if he would like tea or coffee.
    â€œNo thanks,” he said, settling into an armchair with the bag between his legs. “Let’s get down to business. You are at last able to help me because you are the king.” “What do you mean?”
    â€œPoet Laureate of Dundee!” he said, grinning.
    â€œI was born there.”
    â€œHonorary Doctorate from Saint Andrews University!” he said, chuckling.
    â€œI was a student there.”
    â€œWinner!” he said, almost inarticulate with laughter, “Winner of the Saltire Award and a colossal Arts Council bursary for Antique Nebula! Antique Nebula!! Antique Nebula!!! ”
    â€œHave you read it?”
    â€œEnough of it to see that it’s crap, rubbish, pretentious drivel, an astonishing victory of sound over sense. You won’t mind me saying that because you’re intelligent so must know it’s crap. I bet you often have a quiet wee laugh to yourself about how you’ve fooled the critics. Ours is a comic opera wee country with several comic opera imitations of English establishments. They’re even thinking of giving us our own comic opera parliament! Our old literary crazy gang, MacDiarmid, Goodsir, Garioch, Crichton Smith et cetera were also crap but