‘He’s a revolutionary.’
‘Really? Is that the same revolution as yours?’
‘Nah!’ said Pat in great scorn. ‘Oh, I’m not saying maybe he didn’t put the idea in my head. But no one would take heed of the likes of him. He writes pomes.’
‘I take it that he is a once-born.’
‘Him! He’s not born at all, man. He’s a—a—a egg.’
Grant concluded that the word Pat had sought was amoeba, but that knowledge had not reached so far. The lowest form of life he knew of was the egg.
The ‘egg’ came blithely towards them along the stony beach, swinging the tail of his deplorable petticoat with a fine swagger that went ill with his hirpling movement over the stones. Grant was suddenly convinced that he had corns. Corns on thin pink feet that sweated easily. The kind of feet people were always writing to medical columns in the Press about. (Wash every evening without fail and dry thoroughly, especially between the toes. Dust well with talcum powder and put on fresh socks each morning.)
‘ Cia mar tha si? ’ he called as he came within hailing distance.
Was it just chance, Grant wondered, that all cranky people had that thin bodyless voice? Or was it that thin bodyless voices belonged to the failures and the frustrated and that frustration and failure bred the desire to repudiate the herd?
He had not heard that Gaelic phrase since he was a child, and the affectation of it cooled his welcome. He bade the man good-morning.