Wild Geese Overhead by Neil M. Gunn

when things are not going well with you, when you are a down-andout and live in one room, then life is not a lovely thing. You become suspicious. You trust no one. You are like a cornered animal. You don’t even trust Bill Bailey. He’s getting money, you suspect, from some source to come and do his stuff. You listen to him—if you haven’t the money to be in the pub. You agree with him. And the more your hatred grows, and your rancour, and your madness—the more oh what the hell’s the good of spouting? You have heard all that before. You have heard all about the bursting wealth of the world. You have heard it, and your fathers have heard it, and your sons are hearing it.” Joe paused. “Think of yourself as Jamie Melvin listening to that. Look through Jamie’s eyes at Bill Bailey doing his dramatic stuff. It does not help that Bill Bailey’s stuff may be right. The rightness is merely an added poison. You don’t say, Yes, I’ll help to organize. You hate. You could act, you could throw bombs, but you’re not allowed to act now. What’ll we do? you cry to Bill Bailey. Join the socialist party, answers Bill. Jesus! So you laugh and hate. They have lost faith.” Joe added after a moment, “Not all of them. There’s the continuous trickle that join up and work. But many of these become so ruthless in their logic that they lose their common humanity. They gather the irreconcilables around them. But the great bulk want kindness and decency and humour—the old human nature—and when they don’t get it, they go sour.”
    They found themselves by the river again.
    â€œLet’s get back,” said Joe.
    Will saw the illuminated sign of a pub up a street. “Come on and have a drink.”
    â€œFeel you need one?”
    â€œYes.” Will looked at the glowing red and gold sign in the street’s dark tunnel. “Underground to Fairyland.”
    Joe followed him in.
    There was a crush of men standing deep round a curving mahogany counter, with two young barmen serving, and one older man serving also but quiet and watchful. After the misery of the night outside, the place was a gabble of sound, a crush of warmth, a thick stench of tobacco smoke, beer, and old clothes. Will began to cough, and coughed till the tears came into his eyes. “Damnation!” he said, his face holding its pallor, his eyes glittering. “What’s yours?”
    â€œA lemon squash,” said Joe.
    â€œA lemon squash and a large whisky.”
    Joe began quietly to look around. Will also saw the faces but he couldn’t look at them, couldn’t think about them. They hurt him. Each lineament, the look in an eye, the twist of a mouth, discoloured teeth, a snigger, a laugh, a strong vindictive face, a furtive face, a lost face—instantaneously conveyed the inner story. He did not want the story. His mind felt skinned, sensitive as a raw wound. He knew their lives, how the weaklings amongst them shuffled and slept; even their secret incontinences came at him. It was too much. “Here’s how!” he said to Joe, and drank his whisky in a gulp.
    â€œHe’s not here,” said Joe.
    The general topic of conversation was football. Different teams, different views, different sides. He knew the whole lingo. Hit and come again. But the talk here had an aim, an object. For here was the real home of the football coupon. The penny, the tuppenny bet. Normally he might have seen this as the poor man’s gamble, his pennyworth of fun.
    To-night, Friday night, it had a heat, an earnestness, a wild sarcasm, a lust. Hunger and greed at the core of it.
    They were drinking draught beer with thin frothy bubbles on top. But just behind his right shoulder were three or four fellows drinking wine. Will blew out a long stream of smoke from his newly lit cigarette and gave them a side glance.
    Dark heavy Empire wine, full of alcohol, four-pence a