A Slice of Now

A Slice of Now

By Barney Macfarlane

IT all started with two square sausages – or two squerr slice, as termed in their area of Glasgow.

“God, where are they?” he moaned to himself. So he thought, at least. Yet his wife heard him from the living room.

“What’s that you’re complaining about now?” she yelled into the kitchen, where Hughie was leafing fruitlessly through the fridge.

Fruitlessly … not meatlesssly: he pondered the adverb; he still knew it was an adverb, which was comforting to a small degree.

“But it’s not fruit I’m after,” Hughie moaned. “It’s the two squerr slice I bought fae the butcher at the weekend. I was going to make them for our lunch. I have the rolls all ready, toasted and tomato sauce in them. Just waitin’ for the sausages.

“But I cannae find the sausages.”

Hughie closed the fridge door. Seeing his wife approach, he said, “Did you take them? Did you gie them to somebody? A charity wumman at the door or somethin?”

Hilda was displeased - as was her wont these days. “A charity wumman at the door? Lookin’ for squerr sausages? Ur ye daft?”

Hughie conceded he was possibly a little dafter than the day before. He recalled a childhood memory.

“Stoap bitin’ yer nails, ya wee shite,” his loving mother had yelled.

He’d considered his reply for a moment. Then smirked.

“But Maman…” He considered the Renaissance philosopher from Bordeaux whom Hughie had been contemplating of late but could not pronounce his name. “This only goes to prove how wonderfully strong are my pearly whites.”

“Ah’ll mah mong ye,” his mother responded. “We’ll huv nane o’ that bloody French spoke in this hoose.” And muttering as she walked back to the kitchenette, “Aye, we remember that effin’ De Gaulle. Thought he wis the big banana.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

So, what was it he was trying to do again? Oh, lunch, aye.

“Ach well,” he said to Hilda. “We’ll just have to starve to death.”

Hilda groaned in her inimitable manner. “Ya silly auld bugger. There’s cold ham or cheese in the fridge. Surely you remember that.”

After some thoughts – if one could call them thoughts – Hughie began slicing cheese and ham and inserting slices thereof into the rolls he had prepared earlier. Surely he remembered how to do that.

His thoughts returned to his French Renaissance hero, whose name not only could he not pronounce but could not even remember.

“It starts with an M,” he told himself. “I think.”

Then he recalled with some clarity that he had read that the self-same philosopher often forgot things too. And indeed made a positive notion of it, in that more important ideas would vie for prominence in his famous Essays.

Hughie smiled in a satisfied manner. He had to look in the mirror, however, to allow him to believe it. And … oh, God! Was that actually him in the mirror? He didn’t recognise himself.

“Huv you been getting a new man in, Hilda?” he asked mid-mouthful of lunch.

His wife gazed at his reflection in the large mirror on the wall and replied slowly yet sadly, “The wan I’ve got is plenty bad enough.”

She was still reflecting on his adventure the previous week when he had supposedly gone out for a walk in Queen’s Park near their flat in the south side of Glasgow. An hour had passed, then two, then three. She panicked then, phoned their son who lived nearby, and the pair went to the park to hunt for Hughie.

After some time, they found him hunched on a bench near a clump of trees, his head in his hands and weeping. As Hilda and son approached, Hughie’s head shot up and his jaw hung open.

“I couldny find the right path to get back to the hoose,” he moaned. “I think I must be gettin’ old. I’ll be 60 next year, ye know.”

“70, Da. Ye’ll be 70 next year,” their son said quietly. “Mon, let’s get ye hame.”

Next morning when Hilda brought up the previous day’s event, Hughie could remember nothing of it. “Ach, ye’re just trying to scare me,” he said. “Anyway, no worries. I’ve been thinkin’ of what to make us for a lovely dinner tonight as it’s our anniversary.”

Hilda groaned internally. Their anniversary had passed a week previously with no acknowledgement of it from Hughie – despite her giving him a card and a bottle of Grouse. Though she did tell herself that that was probably a bad idea of a gift for him given his worsening condition.

She condescended to his wishes. “Aye, that’ll be nice. I’ll open a nice bottle of wine an hour or so before dinner’s ready.”

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Later, in the kitchen, Hughie sat on a stool at the breakfast bar and tried to remember his walk in the park. By degrees, the adventure took wing: he was climbing a steep hill – was it Ben Lomond? It was something he did often, he seemed to think. Hill-walking they called it. There! Yes! I remember it. He smiled as he saw mountains paths in his mind.

“Och, aye, everything’s just dandy,” he said aloud.

But slowly, as he searched in the cutlery drawer for whatever the items were called, his French Renaissance hero came into his mind.

What immortal thoughts were in the great man’s head? What was his name again?

And in a turmoil, Hughie sat down once more on the high stool. His thoughts drifted. I was going to make us a nice dinner for our anniversary, wasn’t I? What was I going to make?

Oh, Jesus … oh no …

Then Hughie realised he had a Montaigne to climb.

Or was it a Munro ..?

ends

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