If it is your life

by James Kelman

  Anyway, she had been asleep when I opened the door. So how come I was home like this? I saw the question. She was frowning and blinking at the alarm clock on the dressing table. Dont worry, I said, it’s no time to get up yet.

  She turned her head from me, her eyes closed. She aye had difficulty getting out of bed. I had difficulty getting in it.

  I leaned across to her, laying my hand on her thigh. She screwed up her eyes, gave a slight shudder instead of a smile then her exaggerated shiver; she should have had that copyrighted – or copywritten, whatever you say.

  She lay further down, pulling over the quilt and snuggling in. I grinned. She was more awake now, squinting at me which meant I was to speak. Explain yourself man! I might have smiled.

  My presence at such an ungodly hour! I could only shrug and tell her the truth, an approximation to the truth. I had a fall-out with the gaffer, there was a bit of bother. Other women might have accepted that. Cath was not other women, and her silence continued. Are you going back to sleep? I said.

  She ignored this. What does ‘ignored’ mean? I do not know. I have to be honest, I was rather weary. I sat down on the bedside chair and unknotted my shoelaces. Oh dear, the shoes. She hated me wearing shoes in the house, especially the bedroom, but anyplace where bare feet were liable to tread. Our lasses had pals and when they brought them into the house they forgot to tell them to take off their shoes. This drove Cath nuts. I did not blame her but it caused emotional mayhem in the highways and byways of our apartment. Then again the lasses did not like telling their pals to take off their shoes. It made them seem stupid, that was what they said. Oh mum nobody else does it.

  I dont care what nobody else does.

  But they tell people in school and they laugh at us!

  I stayed out it. Domestic issues are an awkward reality. Very much so in our house.

  What I was thinking was get my own shoes off and a quick wash and into bed. Tomorrow is a brand-new day. Except literally it was not. It was the exact same day as here and now. It was Friday morning and would be Friday dinnertime when I arose Sir Frederick, arise ye and walk the plank ere doom befall ye.

  Man, what a life.

  She lowered the quilt to beneath her boobs. I was about to say something further but the mammarian physicality beat me. I reached to hold her hand instead. But even that was off-putting. Cath’s hand is a really sort of pleasant thing, it is soft and warm. I always found it pleasing in an aesthetic way. I used to like drawing when I was a boy. I would have drawn her hand. Her fingers were long and seemed to taper, and then if she had a varnish on her nails. It just looked good. Had I been that way inclined I would have varnished my nails.

  And what do I mean ‘that way inclined’! So now when I looked at her, with silly thoughts crossing my mind, I could only smile and this made her suspicious. So how are you doing? I said. Did you sleep?

  She did not answer. I was suddenly tired, most tired, needing to stretch out beside her on the bed here and now, right here and now. I took off my second shoe but continued sitting there. And a song went through my mind. My little nephew sang it to me a week past and it went something like:

  I’m so silly

  silly silly silly.

  Me and him sang it walking up and down the hallway like a pair of demented soldiers:

  I’m so silly

  silly silly silly.

  I would like to have done it with the gaffer. That bastard. I would have goose-stepped him along the factory floor, Groucho Marx and Ginger Rogers:

  I’m so silly

  silly silly silly.

  Aw well. And my neck. Interesting to note that I had developed a nervous condition on the right side of my neck; it entered spasms at the slightest emotional activity in one’s brainbox. All soldiers are demented. All professional ones anyway. Everytime I hear one talking I want to have their parents arrested for child abuse. I mean ordinary soldiers, not these upper-class fuckers who march them as to war.

  I sighed, I was enjoying the seat. So: this was Cath I was talking to. Well well well.

  The truth is me and her were incompatible. On occasion. Was this such an occasion! I guffawed inwardly, and needed to sneeze immediately, grabbed for a tissue from her side of the bed, and gave the snout a hearty blow. I think there is something wrong with my nose, I said.

  Oh that is interesting, muttered one’s missis.

  What is that new-fangled expression, ‘pear-shaped’? I think it might describe my life.

  So what happens now? she said.

  In what respect I thought but said nothing. What happens now? Worth pondering. What does ‘what’ mean? Even before getting to ‘now’ that statement was beyond my intellectual capacity. ‘Happens’ is just a verb, which makes comprehension easy. With verbs concepts are straightforward, it is the actual doing that causes trouble, translating into action, getting from concept to movement.

  Man, how many pints did I not have? This is the last time I would forgo my Friday-morning breakfast booze-up.

  But I felt like a sandwich, a bit of toast or something.

  Cath sighed. I sighed as well. But her sighs were significant. Mine were just sighs.

  Fucked again I thought, but in what way? I did not answer the sigh lest incriminated. Except when Cath sighs one is required to answer. What is troubling you madame?

  No, I did not say that. I did not, in nowise, say that. Fear. Not in so many words. Nor was I sure what to say. I got up from the chair and walked to the window, parted the curtains a little. Your Honour, I cannot deny that that is what occurred on the morning of the fourteenth.

  Maybe she wanted a cup of teh. Her pronunciation of this aye reminded me of her grannie, a lass from Mayo whom I met and loved for one week in the merry month of July, during my courtship of the illustrious Catrine her granddaughter.

  I was about to ask if she wanted a cup but she spoke first. Do you mean you have got the sack?

  Of course not!

  Of course not? Did I actually say that? What a fucking liar man! I would have burst out laughing except she was staring at me, staring me down. I had been about to look out the window. Now I felt like a total tube, like a naughty boy, I said, caught in the act. That is what I feel like.

  So what is it? she said. What happened? Was it a fallout? What actually happened? Do you really mean you got the sack?

  I smiled. You are some woman, telling you, the way ye say stuff.

  So you have not been sacked?

  Sacked! Even the word sounds strange to the ear, to my ear anyway. When the hell was I ever sacked? Have I ever been sacked? I cannot remember. I do not think I was ever sacked, not in my whole life.

  ‘Sacked’. There is something anti-human about that term. I do not care for it. Here you are as an adult human being, a thinking being to use the ppolitical terminology, and then you are to be ‘sacked’, this canvas bag is to be pulled over you, hiding you completely. None can see one. Then one is smuggled publicly from the place of one’s employment, in the erstwhile sense.

  Sacked, I said, what a word!

  Cath looked into my eyes with a steady gaze, her sparkling blue eyes shining as befits a latterday femme fatale, one who is given to ascertaining the thoughts of a mancub by return so to speak; in other words, as soon as one has the thoughts they are transcribed into her nut.

  I hope this makes sense, I said, what happened apparently is that I was sacked.

  She wanted further information. Her continued silence indicated that. The truth is she was an innocent. There are a lot of women like Cath. They know nothing. Cath knew nothing. She had never experienced the actuality of work. Genuine work. Jobs where things like ‘angry gaffer’ and ‘sack’ crop up regularly. In her whole life she had never worked in an ordinary hourly paid job. Office stuff was all she did. That was a thing about women, they were all middle-class. She knew nothing about real life, the kind of job where if ye told a gaffer to eff off you collect yer cards at the end of the week. That was power and that
was powerlessness.

  Would you like a slice of toast? I said.

  She did not answer. Other matters were of moment, weightier than toast.

  No they were not. Come on, I said, let us have a bit of toast, a cup of tea.

  Cath studied me. This was no time for toast and tea. Life was too important. Seriously, I said, I am not powerless, I have it in me to act and here I am not so much acting as in action, I am making toast and tea.

  Cath did not smile. My attitude is more being than assumption of such. She knows this and does not care for it. When we were winching, back in the good old days when choice was probable

  I lost that train of thought.

  Here is the reality: I was an ordinary worker. Power there is none. It did not matter I was a would-be author on matters cultural, ppolitical and historical, to wit my life. None of that mattered. I existed in the world of ‘angry gaffers’, data such as ‘sack’ and other matters of fact.

  Man, I was fucking sick of it. And having to please everybody. That was part of it. That was an essential part of it. Then coming home here and having to do the same in one’s domestic life. It was so fucking – oh man

  Sorry Cath, what did you say? the thought returneth.

  I didnt say anything.

  I thought you did. Because there is no point attacking me like it is my fault, it is not my fault.

  I didnt say anything.

  I am glad because really

  I did not say anything.

  Right.

  I am not attacking you.

  Okay then but in a sense you are, your manner. It is like you are blaming me. That is like what you are doing. You dont say anything except just look but you do look, you look at me, and it means things that are mentally uncomfortable, psychologically I should say.

  I beg your pardon? Cath almost smiled.

  You’re blaming me without even knowing the circumstances.

  I’m not.

  I think you are, you have been. I’m sorry, if I jumped the gun, I’m sorry.

  Cath sniffed softly, continued to study me. She was no longer lying on her back: I should have pointed this out. By now she had raised herself onto her elbows then plumped up a pillow and squeezed it behind her shoulders, and propped herself against the headboard. She did all of that while I was blethering like a dang-blasted nincompoop. Her arms lay in a natural damn position across her lap which lay concealed beneath the quilt. Mind you,

  no, forget that.

  Cath was entitled to stare at me and stare she did. And I was entitled to ask why. There are no bones to be picked.

  What are you talking about?

  I shrugged, coughed to clear my throat.

  Did he honestly sack you?

  No, I said, not at all.

  Honestly?

  Honestly.

  She shook her head. An instant prior to that I realized that my lies were no good: my lies never had been: my lies were of the load-of-shite variety, only fit for a barrel of keech; to have been dropped into such. She said, Oh well, you can always get another one. You’re always saying it’s a rotten job. So, ye can get another one.

  Oh yeh …

  You always say you can.

  Sure. Jobs dont grow on bushes, but I can always get one.

  She drew the cardigan across her shoulders. Can I talk to you or not?

  I wasnt being sarcastic.

  Cath nodded.

  I wasnt.

  Sorry, she said. Now she smiled but it occurred to me that the way to describe this smile was ‘sad’, she ‘smiled sadly’.

  No, I said, I’m sorry.

  I dont know what to say.

  There is nothing to say. I raised my eyebrows and scratched my head in a gesture that used to make her smile, reminding her not so much of Laurel and Hardy but the skinny half of the duo, for I, dear reader, am a wee skinny bastard.

  What? said Cath.

  I shall just have to apologize to the shit, the gaffer.

  She smiled.

  Honestly. I said, That is what I’ll do, I’ll walk in tonight and I shall go up and see him immediately. Excuse me, I shall say, and he shall look at me and …

  It was difficult to utter the next bit because no next bit existed. Cath was waiting.

  I should apologize, I said, really, because it was me that was out of order. I attacked him in front of other people. Like a humiliation nearly. He would have regarded it as such.

  Oh.

  I sat on the edge of the bed, reached for her hand, stared into the palm holding the edge of the tips of her beautiful fingers. I shall tell you your fortune, oh mistress of mine, oh mistress of the flowers, you shall go on a long voyage, you shall be accompanied by a small balding stranger who is

  You are not balding.

  Yes I am, face it, I refer here to your husband, to wit, myself.

  She laughed lightly but was worried. She squeezed my hand. You dont tell fortunes in the right hand, that’s the one you are born with.

  Honestly?

  Yeh.

  I stared into her right palm, now her left, compared the two. Well well well, I said, and I aye thought they were the same. So, perchance, this explains the ill winds that blow always in my direction.

  Cath smiled.

  The truth is … I half smiled.

  What? she said.

  I dont think I can handle working these days my dear. It is all just cowards and bullies. One is surrrounded by them. Ye cannay even talk in case it gets reported.

  They wont all be like that.

  Nearly. Times have changed. I cannot talk to these blokes, I cannay actually talk to them. Except about football maybe, I can join in then, fucking football. I closed my eyes, speaking rapidly: Sometimes I want to do him damage. I’m talking physical stuff like battering him across the skull, that is what I’m talking about, dirty evil bastard – telling ye Cath I’m working away and my head’s full of scenarios, I’ll be down the stores and way at the back and he comes along, he doesnt know I’m there, I hide behind the stacks of platforms, then when he appears I jump out and smack, across the back of the skull, a shifting spanner or something, a big file maybe, I hit him with it, crunch.

  That is horrible.

  I smiled.

  It’s the way animals behave.

  I nodded.

  You wouldnt stoop to that?

  Not at all, I said, and couldnay hide the grin which must have lit up my entire fizzog as they say in US detective stories. But that is how it gets ye and ye wind up as cowardly as the rest of them, little shit that he is – I mean metaphorically – he is not little at all. Nowadays ye do not get little gaffers. Physical intimidation is part of the job. Honest. I dont even think he is a coward. They say bullies are cowards at heart. I’m unconvinced by that. I think we just like to think it is the case, it cheers us up. I hate even looking at the guy, if he is talking to me, I cannot bear it, honestly, I cannay; I just cannay fucking bear it. It is like I might vomit over him as we converse.

  Physical intimidation! I wish he would try that, I said, fucking ratbag, then we would find out. Seriously though, I am going to take him on. This time he is not getting away with it.

  I stopped, the way Cath was looking at me.

  I know what ye’re thinking, I said.

  Then I’ll not say it.

  I nodded, studying the lines in the palm of her hand. Abracabranksi!

  I said that to make her smile. I used it with my lasses when they were wee. That is the one magic word above all. Abracabranski. The lasses thought I was kidding. But I wasnt, like the best magic it was secret; nobody else knew it, just us, us.

  Cath was unsmiling. Yes, she said, I shall say it, because I have to. Why does it have to be you? Why does it have to be you? Are you the only one? Why is it you? Why does it have to be you?

  Why does what have to be me?

  You know what.

  I dont.

  She stared at me.

  I dont. I dont. Eh …

 
Why are ye smiling?

  Smiling?

  But I had smiled. What she said was true. Even as we spoke I was smiling. Two reasons:

  1] She thought nice things about me concerning the opposite of moral cowardice

  2] She performed a movement of her shoulders that was characteristic.

  Naybody else in the whole world did it. Except her grannie. But she had died ten years back. Cath was alone. Unless the lasses maintained the tradition. Still and all I found it weird how this one solitary manoeuvre might force me into saying things I did not want to say. I refer to commitments. I did not want to commit myself to a single damn thing!

  What is it? she said.

  What is what?

  You shook your head.

  Oh did I?

  She sighed.

  Cath, it doesnay matter.

  What doesnt?

  I unclasped my wristwatch, laid it on the mantelpiece. I reached to switch on the radio but paused, and asked first. Mind if I put on the radio?

  I would prefer if ye didnt.

  Aw.

  If ye dont mind.

  Of course

  I’m going to lie down, she said.

  She had taken the cardigan from her shoulders, she laid it along the foot of the bed. She did this to keep her feet warm. I lifted the cardigan and returned it to her bedside chair, and replaced it with a smallish blanket.

  Thanks, she said without smiling, and added, Did ye go to the pub?

  I told you I didnt.

  You were a bit late home.

  Yeh.

  She continued watching me.

  I shrugged. She was waiting. I just walked up and down, I said. I got off the bus and just eh, I walked up and down for a wee bit; coming to terms with things I suppose.

  So you did get sacked.

  I returned her look then glanced at the radio. No fancy a bit of music?