That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories

by James Kelman

  The other people in the group smiled and watched for my reaction. They accepted Dan as a phenomenon and appeared to equate it with his North Bringlish origins. But how seriously should he be taken was the key question. Very seriously. Somebody who could write this number of stories? How else should he be taken but seriously?

  Dan had been privy to some exciting military events and incidents during his lifetime, had survived serious wars and violent interventions, been stationed in some of the more devilish outposts of Empire. When Britain was not at war with other business rivals, and Dan was not in the army, he generally was unemployed, along with the usual countless millions. I dont know if he wore a poppy every November. He maybe had one pinned in the dark interior of his bunnet. During one bout of unemployment the Bringlish Government had him interned in a work camp in the Renfrewshire area. His family fended for themselves while he was locked up. The politics of this seemed not to bother him but he was watching me when he let slip the information. I said, Where did it happen?

  I had a feeling ye would ask that son, he said, nudging the specs up his nose, and off he went with an incredible yarn about the time he

  Dan, I said, ssh. Ye’ve got to stop this. If ye talk it out yer system you will never write it.

  Write what?

  Yer story.

  My story? He squinted at me and sniffed, took off his bunnet and pulled out another two manuscripts from inside the lining. These two had that same tiny blue-ink scrawl, handwritten on the kids’ lined exercise pages. That made four this evening. I wasnay goni give ye these till next week, he said.

  Next week? Am I here next week?

  Take them now son in case ye arent.

  Ye keep calling me son. I’m sixty-four years of age.

  Dan blinked, pushing the specs back over the bridge of his nose. The woman who sat opposite smiled. Dan smiled back. Edith, he said, did I ever tell ye how come my nose got broke?

  No, said Edith and leaned forwards a little to hear the yarn.

  My attention was diverted by the extra two stories Dan had passed me. I held them up to the light to examine them.

  Is that a trick? he said.

  It is Dan aye. I can tell a lot from the paper a writer uses.

  He fixed the bunnet back on his head and straightened it. I folded the pages carefully and put them in my folder. Thanks, I said.

  Nay bother son. I’m one of these people who are aye on the spot when momentous occasions are unfolding. That’s why I write so many stories.

  Aw. I grinned.

  I wouldnt scoff, said a young fellow.

  I’m not scoffing, I said.

  Edith was smiling. Dan nudged the glasses up his nose a little. His eyes seemed particularly large whenever she was speaking. She addressed me directly: The genesis of this goes back centuries, she said, and is referred to by an early Roman chronicler; Heraclitus I believe. It may have been Oxon. In those days soothsayers were commonplace. They not only perceived but derived patterns from major human tragedies, horrific calamities; earthquakes, tsunamis, erupting volcanoes. They had noted that among the multitudinous crowds of people who chanced upon these scenes of devastation, were clusters of individuals whose faces were familiar. These people appeared at the scene of these tragic events. Edith continued: There was the girl and the boy; the elderly lady and the middle-aged bearded fellow; there were the two women, the young father with the baby in swaddling clothes, his wife and her lover. The same faces, always the same, spectators, passively there, registering no emotion.

  The rest were enthralled. Me too. I was not so sure about Dan. I couldnay see behind the glasses. When she finished talking I said, Edith, have you handed in a story yet?

  No.

  No?

  I cant write stories to save me. I write poetry, she said.

  I chuckled.

  Sorry, I didnt think to amuse you.

  God sake Edith that was a story! What ye talking about ye dont write stories!

  I have tried, I simply dont understand narrative.

  Nonsense! I said.

  She frowned, but this frown became a smile and light glinted on Dan’s spectacles. It is entirely up to you, I said, but let there be no excuses here. Yours is the anecdote of a born storyteller. I recommend you write, write and write again.

  I glanced at Dan, expecting support. He had begun rolling a cigarette. Extraordinary. We all watched. When I was a cheery smoker I preferred roll-ups, I said. Even as a sad smoker I preferred roll-ups.

  A man laughed.

  You too? I asked.

  Yes.

  Dan glanced at me. I still play football son. Ever hear of that league they have for the over-eighties?

  Pardon?

  It’s in the mountains of Switzerland yodel odel oh. Dan rose from the chair and wandered out the room without waiting for an answer.

  He’s off to the Caretaker’s bothy, said a woman. He smokes too. They smoke out the bothy window. Which is against the law never mind anything else.

  Dan is a law unto himself, said another.

  I said, If it was up to me I would let him smoke out the window right here in the room.

  I have to say I would resent you taking such a liberty, said a man.

  I was shifting my chair near to the window when he said this and didnt answer immediately. Him and the other folk waited for me to settle down, they were also waiting for me to answer the question. The guy who had asked it sat with his arms folded.

  I said, Ye would resent it? Oh well.

  I dont mind making allowances but there has to be a limit.

  You have to remember the guy is hitting eighty, or is it ninety? I glanced at Edith who did not react. He doesnt have decades of writing ahead. What would ye rather find in a dingy cupboard: forty unedited stories by Tzekovitz or two finely hewn efforts?

  Do you think he has others tucked into his cap? asked a younger woman.

  In his bunnet, I said, yes I do. It is my firm conviction Dan Driscoll is a capable exponent of the conjuring arts.

  People smiled.

  A man said, Tutors give him crits but he never does anything.

  What does that matter?

  The man shrugged. What does anything matter?

  No, I said, that’s a non sequitur. Dan does what he wants and writes what he wants and thank fuck for that excuse the language. It’s got nothing to do with us and why the hell anybody thinks otherwise I do not know.

  The members glanced at one another. They thought I was becoming agitated. I wasnt; irritated yes, not agitated.

  Why write at all? said a woman.

  I sighed.

  If it is only for the sake of yourself, she said, why waste breath?

  What I’m saying is paying too much regard to other people’s advice can kill a story. After all, whose bloody story is it?

  Somebody described your books as fuction, she said.

  I grinned. Look, I’m a writer of fiction and writers of fiction enjoy stories. Otherwise we wouldnay write them. That applies to Dan, he likes stories as well. That is why he comes here at the age of a hundred and eight or whatever the hell he is, calling me son, god’s teeth, it is a mistake to assume I take this as a compliment. Dan is a storyteller par excellons and he narrates them here to one and all, right here in this room under your very nose. It is for us he writes them. Us in this room. Dan doesnay care about anybody else. Only us. We are the audience. He doesnay care about any other audience and he couldnay care less what happens to them afterwards. Publishing and all that malarkey, he doesnay give two fucks about that. He just wants us to read them. Me too. I might be a published author but so what, the only important thing for Dan is me here this evening as a member of this writers’ group. That is how he sees me. Nothing more.

  He doesnt read other people’s stories, said a young woman.

  Well we can all get impatient, I said.

  Ssh, whispered somebody.

  Dan was returning from the Caretaker’s office. No one commented
until he sat down. Light reflected on his specs and Edith was smiling.

  I used to smoke roll-ups, I said.

  Ye telled me that already son.

  Did I?

  Ye did son aye.

  Mm. I nodded.

  Silence followed. How come they were waiting, there was so much to do, just so much, depending on how ye define a story, I said in answer to a question that entered existence of its own accord. Does it even occur to her that ye write stories? I said.

  What was that son?

  Apparently ye dont have that kind of relationship.

  What ye saying?

  You and the Missis.

  The Missis? I didnay say a word about the Missis.

  Yeah but she knows ye write stories I mean she must do. Or is she the kind of person that doesnt suffer fools gladly? I expect ye’re glad she doesnay read them in case they concern her.

  Oh they never concern her son. Dan declared this with an air of amusement but the way the bugger managed it allowed me a glimpse of the woman herself, a dark-haired girl from Argyll. This beautiful smile she had too. She didnt smile often but my god when she did! A certain exasperation too about her, that wee intake of breath and turn of the head. Perhaps she did read stories. Just not his. Or did she? When Dan made reference to a personage entitled ‘the Missis’ people assumed it was her he was talking about. But no, and even then. Somebody coughed. I cleared my throat. Much depends on how you define a story, I said.

  Dan shifted on his chair so that he could see me more clearly. My back was now to the window and this caused shadows such that visibility was no concern of mine.

  People come to Creative Writing groups under a variety of misapprehensions, I said. Some believe that these groups are composed of charitable volunteers whose existence is conditional upon committing the personal history of elderly and other nincompoops to the page for the good of mankind. Wanted: literary encounters: no reciprocation. Your interest is our interest. Our gratification is your every whim. Some of them are easy to spot. They only turn up when their own work is under the microscope. So it becomes the case that a mug like me asks the question: who cares about stories? Maybe nobody at all. Even me, yer poor auld fucking tutor. And if I do does it justify why I waste time on such shite? No. Stories are stories and not that important.

  Nobody spoke for several moments.

  Sorry, I said, I’m just blethering.

  Who is Tzekovitz? asked a young woman apropos of something.

  An artist whose letters I studied once upon a time. I used to do that. I gave it up. I was a boy who had learned to distrust translation. No mean feat for an unbearded youth. I regarded Tzekovitz as a form of harassed uncle. Mind you I still do, nearly fifty years later. And he was only forty-five when he died.

  Forty-four, said a young woman who frowned at me in a mild manner, nearly smiling, smiling at me. I almost looked twice at her.

  Okay, I said. What does he think about stories but, what does he think about art. That sort of shite is what I wanted to find out when I was a boy; I wanted to unravel that. What lay behind is what I wanted to know. What is the nub? A fool’s errand. Keep ‘thinking’ out it. Nowadays I dont think much about anything, being honest, it drives my wife nuts. I dont know what other writers think and I dont care. Stories are a wee thing and not for everybody. That is how I see it. We come here because it is a place for stories.

  Dan moved his head in my direction.

  What age are ye anyway Dan, eighty? Ninety? Never published a story either let alone earned a penny from writing one. Am I wrong in that?

  Ye are son aye.

  I’m wrong?

  Ye are.

  Huh! I scratched my head, catching the whiff of old tobacco. It must be these roll-up fags ye smoke. I was warned off them twenty years ago on pain of death!

  Maybe it worked, he said. He nudged his specs up the bridge of his nose. They jammed here and he took them off a moment. He sniffed and said to Edith: The last time I broke my nose was a few years ago hen in a wee town on the eastern coast, one of these places where every second guy ye meet works on the herring fishers, every third guy – well, that is the subject of one of the stories I passed on to the teacher here earlier. He hasnay read it yet I dont think . . .

  Ye only gave me it half an hour ago.

  As long ago as that?

  I smiled.

  You’re the teacher son.

  Ha ha.

  Oh but ye are.

  I’m no a teacher I’m a writer. Anyway, I said, your anecdotal digressions are more labyrinthine than mine. More elegant too but I have to say.

  Thanks son.

  A man said, People enjoy them, they’re droll.

  They are droll, I said. Folk never know if they are being kidded. I have always noted this quality; it happens rarely and always in folk other than myself. They speak of things that are extremely weird in a vague, quizzical manner.

  Yes, said Edith, and that disguises certainty, and one cannot easily respond because one has never encountered such fanciful phenomena theretofore and must accept what is being stated at face value. From this derives the sense of a peculiar freedom, that one may narrate anything about anything.

  It’s true, said a young woman who had spoken earlier and whose name was Marcia and reminded me of somebody. Two weeks ago he challenged us to provide the topic!

  What happened? I said.

  He won, said a man.

  Naybody wins in that situation. Ye got telled a story. And I’ll tell ye another yin if ye give me something to work on. Make it hard but. The harder the better.

  A weird, lengthy silence followed. Not a single person in the room offered a topic in response. I say ‘weird’ but that is what I thought. It connects to a 17th Century notion of art and freedom, liberty and the curtailment of the soul. I thought Edith might raise it there and then but when she didnt I decided against raising it myself. I wasnt keen on the way things were going. I counted sixty. Eventually somebody muttered, Okay then, shoelaces.

  Shoelaces? Dan said to me, cupping his right hand to his ear. I thought ye were made of sterner stuff than that son shoelaces.

  It wasnay me that said it, I said.

  Dan nodded. How much time ye giving me?

  Me?

  You’re the teacher.

  Take as long as you like.

  I’ll do it during the break.

  Aw jesus christ.

  I noticed that he had his tobacco tin out and was already licking the gummed edge of a cigarette paper. He stood away from the table. I’ll away now, he said.

  I watched him leave, and the door close behind him. No one spoke for a moment. A man said, He wont take long.

  He can take as long as he likes.

  A woman sighed. I looked at her. She smiled with that air of resignation.

  What’s wrong?

  He’ll have it finished by the time he returns. He does this each time a newcomer appears. Two weeks ago he offered to write one for me.

  Dont let him, I said. Ye’ve got to write yer own stories in this life.

  You make it sound easy, said Edith. I find that off-putting. I’m sure I’m not alone.

  You arent, remarked a man.

  I dont mean it to be off-putting. I just dont know what it means, to write a story for somebody. I would hate folk writing stories for me. I have enough to do with my own. When people at Writers’ Groups say they will write a story for me it usually means – well, I dont know what it means. Ye need to write it for yerself but. No for somebody else. Keep me out it at all costs.

  What about shoelaces? asked a young fellow with such enthusiasm, such enthusiasm.

  Are you writing yerself son? I said.

  He smiled and nodded.

  What ye must remember is that somebody gave Dan the word ‘shoelaces’ and now he’ll write a shoelaces story. We all know that. By the time he’s finished his smoke, he’ll produce it out his bunnet and we’ll gawp. We will. All of us here. So I’m goni make i
t the second part of this session, speaking as the so-called teacher, and it’ll be a good wee story too; and about himself, at least he will give us to understand it is about himself and he’ll put himself dead centre to it, even in the damn third person, what a guy! he knows the tradition inside out. His Missis will appear in it too. How do we know that? Because we know her, we know her already. How come? Easy, we listen to his stories. That one about the dark-haired lassie from Argyll. What was her name at all? Her with the beautiful smile, the merest hint of exasperation; nay wonder, being married to him, even wee things, minor things, dental hygiene, smelly feet, change yer vest, ye need a new one, change yer socks, ye need a new pair, change yer shoes, that auld pair’s letting in – how many times does she have to tell him! Go and buy a new pair! On and on and on she goes, even when Dan is on the settee relaxing, watching the horse-racing on television, his favourite sport next to Secondary Juvenile Football in the Renfrewshire region of north Bringland. One of these settees ye sink into and think ye will never get out again, but he manages it easy, he got up and strolled into the lobby looking for his boots. She didnay hear him leave. That was deliberate. He tried never to disturb her, not if he could help it, especially fulfilling a command or direct request. The truth is he wasnay looking to buy a new pair of shoes, but a different pair, different from the ones he had, a pair that worked properly is what he was wanting; and he found a pair in an Oxfam shop down High Street, right in the centre of the old town up one of these wee wynds that hardly exist outside the town of – is it Taunton? One of these towns anyway, maybe Bath or Whitby. Dan is an easy-oasy kind of fellow but it aye needs two to serve him. Usually female volunteers. This occasion was typical. As soon he entered the shop and nudged the specs up his nose they came forward to greet him. The first was snobby middle class and she found him a most aggravating character. Ye alright hen? said Dan.