Strange Loyalties by William McIlvanney Page A

not un-musical jangle of guts. Someone dropped a glass. A woman screamed. Panicked movements took place in the dark, suggestive of the aftermath of a terrorist attack. Someone put on the light. There, nodding benevolently at everyone, was a man who appeared to think he was on the rostrum at a march-past in his honour. He was identified as Scott Laidlaw.
    The fuel for my imagination had come from Anna, through John Strachan by way of Mhairi Strachan. But I suspect my sense of the event isn’t too wildly divergent from the facts. Anna, it seems, outlined the entire evening for Mhairi in vivid detail. The whole thing was, Anna had said, carved on her memory. It must have made a fair impact. Those were dramatic words for Anna, whose normal social discourse seemed to me to have all the authenticity of an air-hostess’s smile. She had also said that the night had been the last straw for her and in that less resonant phrase I thought I recognised her more habitual tone.
    Anna had assiduously collected the contextualising details of Scott’s social philistinism and relayed them at length to more than Mhairi. I thought the reason was perhaps the need for self-justification that tends to come to people prior to the foreseen break-up of a relationship, like an outrider warning them to cover their flanks. I could imagine her going the roundsin that way that I’ve known friends of mine to do, holding a public roup of their former commitment, so that it may become clear that there is no longer any reason for them to stay.
    I had to admit she seemed to have a case. The impossibility of living with Scott appeared to have been caught in flagrante. After John Strachan had told me, we both sat silent for a while, in the lounge of the Bushfield. He sipped his pint, I sipped my whisky. The grandiose folly of Scott’s gesture was both arresting and incomprehensible. It replayed itself endlessly in my mind like some demented fiddle-tune – Laidlaw’s Farewell to the Social Life. But were there any words to it? What did it mean?
    â€˜This Dave Lyons,’ I said. ‘I’ve heard of him. But not from Scott himself. Just sometimes from Scott and Anna together. Had Scott fallen out with him?’
    â€˜I don’t know. I think they knew each other better when they were younger. Maybe it was one of those relationships that just survive on habit. Past any reason that either of them understood any more.’
    â€˜I was wondering why Scott attacked his telly. Was it a resentment of his money? But that seems a pretty pathetic target to go for. Who hasn’t got a TV? It’s not exactly the first thing you’d associate with Rockefeller.’
    â€˜No,’ John Strachan said. ‘You’re not going to get them to man the barricades with that one. Death to the telly-owning oppressors.’
    â€˜Do you know him yourself?
    â€˜Dave Lyons? I’ve seen him. But I don’t know him personally.’
    â€˜So you obviously wouldn’t know his phone number.’
    John Strachan looked at me and started to laugh. He shook his head.
    â€˜You’re a very indirect man, aren’t you? What are you going to do? Phone up and say, “Hullo, it’s about your broken telly”?’
    â€˜No,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t be as abrupt as that. I could phone up and say, “Hullo. It’s nice to meet you. Now it’s about your broken telly.”’
    â€˜Oh, that’s fine,’ he said. ‘Given that reassurance, I can help. I know somebody who should have the number. I’ll try him.’
    He went out to the pay-phone in the hall and I crossed to get us in another drink. Things were picking up at the bar. Gestures were becoming more expansive. Three separate groups had connected up loosely. I was introduced to one of the Danish residents. His name was Søren, which endeared him to me immediately. But unlike Kierkegaard, he seemed never to have experienced