That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories

by James Kelman

  oh God.

  How did I know that she was doing that?

  I just did.

  What was she trying to achieve?

  I do not know and never ever could know, always and always, what she was thinking. She could not see my face and would assume the worst. I smiled. But if smiles have sound this would have been misinterpreted. She was waiting. I shrugged at her whatever it was, a question, yes a question, always a question questions questions.

  Please, she said.

  Surely I was not laughing at her! That is what she was thinking. She thought I was and I was. I was. As though I couldnt laugh at her. Ludicrous idea, if it was possible. But I could. If she thought I could be so so

  I dont care. Fuck that. She thought something, I dont know, what she thought she always did, she always did. It must be so if she thought it. This was her arrogance. A woman’s arrogance.

  What was the question? *robtoforeau* replied. Oh was that the question! I was smiling, I could not stop myself. She wanted to fight me. So I was to her immediately. Immediately. My arms were round her, restraining her.

  Oh, she said, oh . . . and was not able to break free I was clasping her, the sides of her arms, upper arms. Until she calmed, calm, calm, she would not calm. Her breath rasped. She shook her head, not looking at me. Oh never never never never. If not her eyes. I hated her eyes. They could not be trusted. Her eyes made it happen. They were closed when she spoke, what she said, Oh, oh.

  I would have told her honestly. Simply to say and have said it. My right eye was twitching. I could not stop it. She did not push me away. I held her and thought to whisper to her how people may whisper and speak together and nothing need ever be intentional, the act of communication, intending that we might communicate but nothing beyond. Switch off the machine. Nothing else is necessary. She knew that as I did, we both of us. She knew it. And you must, I said. I said it to her, the phone in my hand, you must.

  UNTETHERED

  Then I saw the field.

  How many days had I been here? Now I saw it, and knew that I could walk to it. There was no reason why I couldnt except I couldnt. I might walk to there. But I could not.

  Had I no power? Had they stolen everything? It wasnt a dream. I was taken and I could not move. I could not move. Is that a joke? It seems like a horrible irony.

  I didnt enter that so-called field and I wouldnt enter. Was it mathematical? One day two day, then three, four and coming now to the tenth day, my senses said no, I was not going to be controlled by these damn forces. You know, fuck! It was not to happen. I was not going to allow it to happen.

  What to dominate? Or even me; me to dominate. Okay I know myself and know my capabilities. I can rise to the occasion. Of course I can. If they thought I couldnt, if they thought that man they were wrong, they certainly were wrong. I would have challenged them there and then. I always challenged them anyway, I didnt worry about that.

  Why could I not enter that field? That to me was like a religious question, certainly logical, as though a logical field, therein the key man that is what I was thinking

  You know I didnt have any trust in them. Why ask? No faith, nothing. Of course not. It was only a political position; there is no thing other than that, no morality, no goddam fuck all man so I did challenge them, and challenged them on that. Always. My very existence. There and then at that damn time man right in front of that so-called field, their so-called field, you know, what did they think! Make it a question and I shall answer: Of course, of course I saw it.

  Were I allowed. I am not allowed. Even this, to have challenged them on this very point. Prove it! I shouted at them. Prove it to me. As of right you have got no authority. Any power you have you have stolen, you have stolen from people; peoples, plural. All the people of the world. I shouted that to them.

  But something was spinning. Near to me. What is spinning? My fucking head! I could not discern. Was it near to me? Spinning near to me, if it is near to me.

  I had to search. Then give in to it. If I had to sleep then remain where I was. It was no chair. It was no chair. Damn chair man it was not a chair. I know what a fucking chair looks like.

  My finger too, fitting snugly; into my nostril, my ear, between the fifth and third toes of my right foot. That was my finger, talking about my finger, how come? The point of consciousness. I was not being tortured.

  Where now here now. Such reflection. My feet were bare. I might have laughed at that. Even being there, and that field, what was that field, did I see a field? is this significant? or was it so? I thought Yeah, none of this is by chance.

  A time passed. I rose from my chair. It was a chair!

  My thoughts no longer raced ahead. What is reflection?

  I would not have believed it possible. The place itself, the surroundings, these had changed me. And these long weeds, long long weeds, each time I saw them I wanted to lay me down to sleep, not even to sleep but lying there, with the long stalks, angling above to enclose me. This was a proper field. It had grass rather than symbols, a natural form, if logical.

  I knew what to believe. They told me. It was a command. Believe what you know. Such was their advice. These bastards had no shame. They said to me: You have nothing.

  I didnt seek information. They gave me it, what they wanted me to know. I preferred to discuss death and that other concept, that concept uhh humiliation; humiliation, of a people, peoples the world over.

  I should not have acquiesced. If I did acquiesce. My reaction was if believing what you know was the more important, which surely it was.

  What followed. I cannot remember.

  But my reaction then was less than immediate. I acquiesced. I agreed to my own, my own

  I do not accept ‘degradation’. If the field was there to be entered. What is a field? A simple area, bounded area. I too was bounded, I too am an area. My body is a fucking map of fucking humanity. Who is to deny that? The degradation that I suffer is the degradation of humanity.

  If the affirmative can one deny it? Would one deny it? I put thoughts up to thwart more difficult thoughts you know and mediocrity, mediocrity is not the result.

  Although one may predict the unlikely, as to the nature of it, grasping that, it is not feasible. Or is this also a banality, rooted in tautology. We go back and go back, and again.

  The mind of a human being, this human being.

  The field.

  How many days? I think of days man I dont know and I am here and facing the field and I can enter, I could enter and I fucking do not man it is like the one and only the sole thing man, that area of conflict, ultimate one.

  The brain is also composed, its constituents, each a field, stalks, weeds

  One is commanded not to think but not to think becomes to not think which is activity of a cerebral kind. Thought in itself. My state is secular. And if I am part of a community, of a class or a caste, ethnic or communal division: state of mind. It is a fucking state of mind man I can forget what I am, a fucking human being man part of fucking humanity, of peoples, an individual.

  I smile. I smile at these things. These things; such things. ‘Such things’ is discriminatory. I might have chortled, chortled equalling to laugh aloud in an ironic manner, a manner approaching sarcasism, sarcasism – if not internalized to the extent it had to be. In order to exist it begins from internalization. The challenge is within me. My inner form is logical, not mathematical.

  But what meaning does this have? Something lodged, existing within. A thing of myself, purely of myself.

  The inquisitors. Those who foment

  What is inhumanity? I do not fucking know what it is man I do not know what the fuck it is.

  The gaolers cannot control this, you men of the state. Chortling is to be of humanity. Pushing authority, pushing

  To be alive is the assumption of control, for this is reflection.

  So the place had changed me. This was the fact, how do they say it, these foreigners, they have a way, that the ‘ah’ so
und is ‘ay’, ‘é’.

  I am not a foreigner. They said I was.

  These conundrums. Oh that you are, you are not; contradictions.

  They give me the language.

  These logics, disappearing fields, the shapes, dissolving, disappearing dissolving, battered from my head, so gone, psychological truncheons and hammer blows. French terms for these assaults. I gave them the answer. These are the pillars. They sought the answer and eventually received it, received it from me. I absolve myself. Said with humour. Is there a question? I am no foreigner. Allow me to move. I moved.

  THE TRUTH

  THAT TIMMY

  KNEW

  The storybook about trees was good and the man was looking at it a lot. The one where the children found the biggest tree in the whole world. This tree led into a magical world. The children had to climb or fly to the highest, until they arrived at the very top. It had to be the very top where branches were thin as twigs, the most fragile twigs. The children had to balance there.

  Somehow they managed it. But they had no option. If they didnt what would happen?

  On windy days clouds were chased across the sky. We saw how clouds went. He watched them too. How they merged, changed and shifted. He could not see one for long. We watch as long as we can. Then they are gone. People lived up there; not beyond and not above but within their own strange lands where every manner of thing dwelled, and dwelled by right. His wife did not know this but would learn. No cloud returned. What about him? Could he jump up? Then his wife could see, she would have to see and have to suffer them.

  What if the children did not want to go? Surely they would fall! But they would have to go. They could not float. Not if there were no clouds. So then what would happen? Something bad. He did not know. He had started in on the act and did not want to stop, reading quickly, as quickly as he dared. He found it exciting; sure, but there was something else about it. Just something. He didnt know what, or why; nor why they should have been doing what they were doing, out there and on their own and just relying on whats is name, Timmy.

  The man did not know what his wife thought and was not interested. It was up to her. She went her own way anyway. Good riddance. Her and her family. All the rest of them, they could do what they liked. It was the children, and just uh what, just the children.

  He turned the page. It was exciting, almost excruciating. They were beyond the first layers of cloud and unable to see in front of their noses. How had they managed so far! No one knew. Only that this was the place, and the only place.

  God it was frightening. He almost had to cover the page. There were pictures; did he dare look at them? Yes, and so he did, oh God, all peeking out: that was the kids, just youngsters. He felt like making a coffee and just, just thinking about it, like savouring it, what was happening. Really. He was nearly rubbing his hands.

  A special cloud might come. What if it did? The children waited for it anyway. That was the one they waited for, that special one. There was no other like it. It was a unique cloud.

  A unique cloud.

  But he knew clouds and knew the truth of it. Clouds were unlike human beings. People said they were alike. Clouds are never-ending in their change and transition, or transformation, and this is the way of people, their lives are endless motion and he saw it in his children. He wanted to end it then. Their mother had not appeared. Their mother did not appear. This was characteristic. She did what she wanted. Who cared about her, she hardly cared about anyone anyway and so what. Not about trees either, and storybooks, even the ones belonging to the kids, she cared about nothing except herself.

  There was only one tree. The children waited there and would jump. There were eight in all. Eight of them. Children. How might they jump? Dare to breathe, they held hands as in a chain. Timmy was eldest. The man did not like the name Timmy. Jimmy would have been preferable. But he was Timmy, and was always Timmy. He held the hands of the next two in line and they each held a younger one who each held a younger one and the last one, the little two-year-old whose name was Maggie, she climbed onto Timmy’s shoulders. Wee Maggie, she was great, a wee fighter, and to the bitter end!

  The children settled, awaiting the cloud.

  They wanted to know about this cloud. Were people living on board? Were they hostile? What was the game? Friend or foe! Was it even a game? The man would not have thought so, not if he had been present and with a say in the matter. Timmy held charge and said nothing. Better to bide one’s time. Or was it? The man was uncertain. He would have chosen a different course of action. But boys such as Timmy are not found in storybooks. He was too ordinary. About him was a quietness that reassured the youngsters.

  Some would have risked all for that, for that ordinariness.

  The children watched and waited. No cloud touched close enough. They knew not to make a jump. How did they know! By studying Timmy. The decision was his. The children looked to him. He knew it and accepted it. They would not jump without his lead. Nevertheless they were restless: even nervous. Timmy whispered to them, Hush, you must hush.

  They settled. Not one inch should they move; one solitary inch. One paltry inch.

  No sound, no movement. Sound is movement. Cease whispering, this whispering, ssssssss, oh a breath, a breath and the slightest such may alter a cloud’s formation. If that were to happen the outcome was horrific, too too horrible; unthinkable, almost.

  The man turned a page and shivered. The children would not stop whispering. Surely Timmy knew the dangers! The slightest breath! My God! He was responsible for all these children. Surely he knew what this level of movement might signify! Timmy had answers to most everything but not this. A brave boy but a boy after all. How could he cope with this number of dependants? Ssh, whispering again, he was whispering again.

  It was heartbreaking. And happening in front of or under – so to speak – his breath. Saliva at his mouth. It was true. This story held the man in thrall. He did not ‘enjoy’ being in thrall.

  The cloud itself. The special cloud. But would Timmy even recognise it? What were its distinguishing features? None.

  Are clouds of infinite extension, indefinite extension?

  How could he recognise a cloud, such that this cloud was the cloud? Not via observation. Only from a form of inner operation, an internal process. Timmy would recognise the cloud by means of intuition. But how would he get from ‘a’ to ‘the’? In forming the question one recognises its immateriality. Timmy would know. Simply, clearly. He would. Younger children relied on that. They were correct. Timmy closed his eyes, but only for a moment till once more he was alert as ever a boy could be.

  One saw the picture. This child!

  At last Timmy had impressed this upon them. The children would not move, they could not. If they were to move! Oh no.

  But this story was life itself! The injustice palpable. The very foundation of which is that: injustice.

  What would she have said, his wife? Nothing. Another form of denial, that would have been her. And had she been the boy’s mother would the denial have stood? She might not have been his mother but she was a mother and mothers have that in common.

  An overwhelming injustice. The man hardly dared look. Six children clinging to this one child through hand grips. The seventh was wee Maggie who sat on Timmy’s shoulders. How could he manage? No one could have. How could they allow him to try? They allowed it.

  Contempt surged through him. The actions of people.

  Even these children. Just waiting there. What the hell were they waiting for? The man did not like how they waited. He found it intimidating. Children can be like that. Holy terrors; they can be.

  He didnt know what his wife believed. Perhaps she didnt believe anything. Perhaps she was incapable of belief. Men believe. Women dont. Women dont believe. Women. If she could be called a wife, he would not have called her a wife. What did she believe? Even children. He doubted she ever had. Whoever did she care for? She would never have suffered a child. She had childr
en and did not suffer them. It was him, always him, he suffered the children and watched them. Not her. Never her.

  Oh my God yes and he also waited. What did she know, she did not know, not that he waited. He could have laughed at that. The children would have heard him. He had the children. He also could have laughed. He also, and seeing them and how they were, waiting and just waiting and their reliance.

  Timmy was a good boy. The children relied on him. They relied on his intuition. Yet to rely on the intuition of this one boy required strength. These were resolute children, having a strength of their own. Without this strength they could not have relied on Timmy. This was plain and the man could see that and grasp its significance.

  But why had there only to be one cloud? He could not understand that. Children suffered because of it.

  No one should carry such a burden, yet these children had the obligation. They took care of one another. No adult could help.

  No adult was there. Adults were in their own world and could not help the children, try as they might. And there were those who would have offered support, would have wished to, they would have wished to offer it. He knew that and wished perhaps that somehow he could, somehow enter into their world but that was absurd it was absurd. Oh God and one worries one worries.

  Simply that their way was barred. They hoped to find a way but couldnt, they could not find a way. There was no way. The world of children is its own structure and might not be disturbed on pain of annihilation.

  But it was a nightmare. These were children’s stories and they represented the worst conceivable horror which was their world in-itself. No adult entered there. Any who tried must fail unless on the children’s own terms. And what were these terms?

  He read further and discovered a solution. The solution was revelatory, yet all too apparent. The one source of entry was imagination. Not that of the adult. It was through the children themselves. Of course. He should have realised this. He himself was a parent. Of course there was no other route. We enter through them. Not as figments. We adults had substance, we were a type of being, recognised as such. The man could see the clouds. Some were inhabited by adults alone. Colonisers. There were no children on those clouds. Colourless places; hardly places at all in their vapidity, and were to be guarded against. The children could see them from their vantage point. When one passed they stared with a vague interest, perhaps sullenly.