Greyhound for Breakfast

by Kelman, James

  But now here I was. And could it be described as good, this lack of damp, not being chilled to the bone; even a sensation of warmth. All in all I was wishing I had kept a hold of the shells and that striped one of a crab, and I would then have been very content indeed, simply to remain there in the cave, knowing I would only have to travel such and such a distance back to the cottage.

  The one with the dog

  What I fucking do is wander about the place, just going here and there. I’ve got my pitches. A few other cunts use them as well. They keep out my road cause I lose my temper. I’ve got two mates I sometimes meet up with to split for a drink and the rest of it. Their pitches are out the road of mine. One of them’s quiet. That suits me. The other yin’s a gab. I’m no that bothered. What I do I just nod. If anybody’s skint it’ll be him. He’s fucking hopeless. The quiet yin’s no bad. I quite like the way he does it. He goes up and stares into their eyes. That’s a bit like me except I’ll say something. Give us a couple of bob. The busfare home. That kind of thing. It doesnt fucking matter. All they have to do is look at you and they know the score. What I do I just stand waiting at the space by the shops. Sometimes you get them with change in their hands; they’ve no had time to stick it back into their purses or pockets. Men’s the best. Going up to women’s no so hot because they’ll look scared. The men are scared as well but it’s no sexual and there’s no the same risks with the polis if you get clocked doing it. Sometimes I feel like saying to them give us your jacket ya bastard. It makes me laugh. I’ve never said it yet. I dont like the cunts and I get annoyed. Sometimes I think ya bastard ye I’m fucking skint and you’re no. It’s a mistake. It shouldnt fucking matter cause you cant stop it. There’s this dog started following me. It used to go with that other yin, the quiet cunt. It tagged behind him across in the park one morning and me and the gab told him to fucking dump it cause it must belong to somebody but he didnt fucking bother, just shrugs. One thing I’m finding but it makes it a wee bit easier getting a turn. But I dont like it following me about. I dont like that kind of company. I used to have a mate like that as well, followed me about and that and I didnt like it. I used to tell him to fuck off. That’s what I sometimes do with the dog. Then sometimes they see you doing it and you can see them fucking they dont like it, they dont like it and it makes them scared at the same time. I’d tell them to fuck off as well. That’s what I feel like doing but what I do I just ignore them. That’s what I do with the dog too, cause it’s best. Anything else is daft, it’s just getting angry and that’s a mistake. I try no to get angry; it’s just the trouble is I’ve got a temper. That’s what the gab says as well, your trouble he says you’ve got a fucking temper, you’re better off just taking it easy. But I do take it easy. If they weigh you in then good and if they dont then there’s always the next yin along. And even if you dont get a turn the whole fucking day then there’s always the other two and usually one of them’s managed to get something. That’s the good thing about it, having mates. What I dont understand I dont understand how you get a few of the cunts going about in wee teams, maybe four or five to a pitch, one trying for the dough while the rest hang about in the background. That’s fucking hopeless cause it just puts them off giving you anything and sometimes you can even see them away crossing the street just to keep out the way, as if they’re fucking scared they’re going to get set about if they dont cough up. It’s stupid as well cause there’s always some cunt sees what you’re up to and next thing the polis is there and you’re in fucking bother. What I think I think these yins that hang about in the background it’s cause they’re depressed. They’ve had too many knockbacks and they cant fucking take it so what they do they start hanging about with some cunt that doesnt care and they just take whatever they can get. If it was me I’d just tell them to fuck off; away and fuck I’d tell them, that’s what I’d say if it was me.

  of the spirit

  I sit here you know I just sit here wondering what to do and my belly goes and my nerves are really on edge and I dont know what the fuck I’m to do it’s something to think about I try to think about it while my head is going and sometimes this brings it back but only for a spell then suddenly I’m aware again of the feeling like a knife in the pit of my guts it’s a worry I get worried about it because I know I should be doing things there are things needing doing I know I know I know it well but cant just bring myself to do them it isnt even as though there is that something that I can bring myself to do for if that was true it would be there I would be there and not having to worry about it at this stage my muscles go altogether and there’s aches down the sides of my body they are actual aches and also under my arms at the shoulder my armpits there are aches and I think what I know about early-warning signs the early-warning signal of the dickey heart it feels like that is what it is the warning about impending strokes and death because also my chest is like that the pains at each side and stretching from there down the sides of my body as if I’m hunched right over the workbench with a case of snapped digestion the kind that has dissolved from the centre but still is there round the edges and I try to take myself out of it I think about a hundred and one things all different things different sorts of things the sorts of things you can think about as an average adult human being with an ordinary job and family the countless things and doing this can ease the aches for a time it can make me feel calm a bit as though things are coming under control due to thinking it all through as if really I am in control and able to consider things objectively as if I’m going daft or something but this is what it’s like as if just my head’s packed it in and I’m stranded there with this head full of nothing and with all that sort of dithering it’d make you think about you’ve got it so that sometimes I wish my hands were clamps like the kind joiners use and I could fasten them onto the sides of my head and then apply the thumbscrews so everything starts squeezing and squeezing

  I try not to think about it too much because that doesnt pay you dont have to tell me I know it far too well already then I wouldnt be bothering otherwise I wouldnt be bothering but just sitting here and not bothering but just with my head all screwed up and not a single idea or thought but just maybe the aches and the pains, that physicality.

  Renee

  I had landed in a position of some authority offering scope for advancement. A storekeeper. I kept records of food for the stores of food I had authority of. The Foodstore was a fairly large smallroom. I had no assistants. Those in superior positions held little or no authority over me. I was belonging to the few able to match figures on paper with objects on shelves and was left alone to get on with it.

  Members of the kitchenstaff came to obtain grub and it was down to me to check they were due this grub. If so I marked it all in a wee notebook I kept hidden in a concealed spot. The chap I succeeded was at that moment serving a bit of time as an effect of his failure to conceal said notebook. He left the fucker lying around for any mug to find. And eventually someone pulled a stroke with cases of strong drink, and this predecessor of mine wound up taking the blame.

  The kitchenstaff consisted of females most of whom were Portuguese but though I found them really desirable they seemed to regard Scotchmen with disfavour. And the rest of the British for that matter. They spoke very little English. I could manage La Muchacha Hermosa in their own language but it got me nowhere. Alongside them worked a pair of girls from somewhere on the southeastern tip of England, one in particular I was disposed towards. The other was not bad. I had to carry on the chat with both however because generally speaking this always transpires in such circumstances viz when you are on your tod and have nobody to help out in 4somes. Obviously I had no desire to escort both on a night out. But neither did I wish to ask one lest the other was hurt. What a mug! Never mind. It could have gone on for ages but for the intervention of the Portuguese. At long last they successfully conveyed to me that a certain girl from the southeastern tip of England wouldnt take it amiss if I was to dive in with the head down. Joan
was her name; she seemed surprised when I asked her out but she was pleased. We walked down to the local pictures after work. The Odeon. People considered it a dump but I didnt; it showed two full-length feature films while the flash joints up west were charging a fortune for the privilege of seeing one.

  My relations with the other girl declined palpably which was a bit of a pity because I quite liked her. She began visiting the Foodstore only when absolutely necessary. Then soon after this Joan was becoming irritated all the time. To some extent I couldnt blame her. My financial situation was hopeless and the very ideas of equality and going dutch were anathema to her. The upshot was the Odeon three weeks running. She hated it. That last conversation was totally ridiculous, me standing about humming and hawing and trying to assume a woebegone countenance. She said nothing but her face inflamed, she was quite passionate in some ways. The bloody Odeon again, she muttered and set off marching down the Gray’s Inn Road.

  I strode after her. But not too quickly because I was having to figure out a speech. By the time I had counted through the last of my coins and paid for the two tickets she was through in the foyer at the end of the sweeties queue. She paid a fortune for chocolate but the thought of assisting me with the tickets never crossed her mind. And neither did the thought of walking off and leaving me – anything was better than spending the night indoors back at the female hostel where she stayed with her pal.

  I waited for her to stick the sweeties and so on into her handbag then paused as she stepped past me and into the hall, where I handed the tickets to the aged usherette who was also from Scotland and occasionally gave me a cheery smile.

  It was supposed to be hazardous for single women alone in the Odeon but to me that was extremely doubtful, perhaps if they’d had a halfbottle of rum sticking out their coat pockets. I never saw any bother. Just sometimes it was less than straightforward distinguishing the soundtrack from the racket caused by a few dozen snoring dossers. By the time we reached the seats the speech was forgotten about and we settled down to watch the movie. Later I slipped my arm about her shoulders and that was that, and we nestled in for a cuddle. On the road home afterwards we continued on past the local pub, straight to the female hostel. We stood in at the entrance out from the worst of the wind. There was no chance of her smuggling me inside. The place was very strict about that. Men were not wanted at all costs. She had hinted once or twice about my getting her into my own quarters. But it was not possible. In fact – well, the rumour circulating amongst the kitchenstaff at that precise moment concerned myself; they were saying I used the Foodstore as a sort of home-from-home to the extent that I actually slept in it. It was the main joke and I helped it along, telling them I was having a coloured television installed, plus a four-poster bed and a small portable bar, the usual sort of nonsense. The truth of the matter is that I was sleeping in the place; but nobody knew for sure and none had the authority to enter the Foodstore unless I was with them, this last being a new condition of the post because of the plight of my predecessor. Two keys only existed: one was held by myself while the other was kept in the office of the security staff. That was in case of emergencies. But I reckoned that with me being there on the premises most of the time there would be very little scope for ‘emergencies’. I had overheard a couple of those in superior positions refer to the plight of my predecessor as an ‘emergency’. The idea of becoming one myself was not appealing. But as long as the Foodstore remained under my control I had grounds for optimism; for the first time in a long while I was beginning to feel confident about the future. Even so, just occasionally, I could suddenly become inveighed by a sense of panic and if outside of the Foodstore I had to rush straight back to ensure everything was okay, that I hadnt forgotten to lock the bloody door. That Saturday night I started getting fidgety with Joan.

  It was getting on for midnight according to her watch and I had visions of folk stealing in and filling swagbags full of grub and strong drink. And also there was an underlying suspicion that all was not well between Joan and myself, a sort of coldness, even a slight impatience. Eventually I asked her if anything was up but she said there wasnt then told me she had been invited to a good party the following night and would it be okay if she went. Of course it was okay. I quite fancied going myself. Good parties are uncommon. Especially in London. Things have a habit of going badly. I told Joan that but she said it would probably be alright, it was taking place in the home of the big brother of a former boyfriend. That sounds great, I said.

  What d’you mean jock? she said.

  Nothing.

  Joan was good at kidding on she didnt notice things, my sarcasm was one of them. And five minutes later I was striding back down the road and sneaking in past the security office and down the long dark corridors to the Foodstore.

  *

  I didnt see her the next day but she sent a note via one of the Portuguese women, just to say she would meet me at the lounge door of the local pub at 8 that evening. It was after 9 when she arrived and I was into my third pint. She apologized. She was looking really great as well and there was a perfume she had on that was something special. Then too the material of her dress; I touched the side of her arm and there seemed to be a kind of heat radiated from it. Or else the Guinness was stronger than usual. And I kept having to stop myself from touching the nape of her neck. I noticed the landlord of the pub glancing at me in a surreptitious fashion as if fearing I might do something that would embarrass us all.

  Joan kept looking at her watch until I swallowed down the last of the beer and collected my tobacco tin and matches. It was cold and blowy, and nobody was about. Nor were there any buses in view. It was as well to start walking. Joan wasnt too pleased; each time a taxi passed she made a show of looking to see if it was for hire. Eventually we reached Chancery Lane tube station.

  As it transpired the party was not too bad at all, plenty of food and stuff. Joan’s pal was there too but she seemed to be ignoring us. I lost sight of her amid the people who were bustling about dancing and the rest of it. Joan as well, eventually I lost sight of her. I went into a wee side room next to the kitchen, opened a can of beer and sat on a dining chair. A fellow came in who was involved with another of the girls from the hostel; he supported Charlton Athletic and we spoke about football for a time, then women. His girlfriend was older than him and it was causing problems with her parents or her roommates or something. His voice grated on me and it was as if he was just kidding on he was a Londoner. He kept on yapping. I began to wonder if maybe it was a plot of some sort to detain me.

  *

  Shortly before midnight a girl told me to go along to the end bedroom on the first floor. Joan was there. She nodded me inside but bypassed me, shutting the door behind me; and there was her pal, Renee was her name, she was sitting on the edge of the bed crying her eyes out. I took my tin out to roll a smoke then put it away again. She knew I was there. I stepped across and touched her shoulder. Okay? I said.

  She shook the hand off. She had stopped crying but was trembling a little. I rolled a smoke now and offered her it but she didnt smoke. She dried her nose with a tissue. I laid my hand on her arm and asked if she was feeling any better. When she didnt answer I said: Will I tell Joan to come in?

  No, she replied. She sniffed and dried her nose again. I stood smoking while she continued to sit there staring at the floor.

  Do you want me to leave? I said.

  Yes.

  Joan had gone. Downstairs in the main dancing room I found her doing a slow one with this monkey dressed in a cravat and strange trousers. Over she came, she was frowning. Jock, she said, how’s Renee? is she alright?

  I think so. What was up with her?

  She paused a moment then shrugged briefly, glanced away from me. Look jock, she said, I better finish the dance with David.

  Oh good. Ask him if he’s selling that cravat.

  It wouldnt suit you, she muttered, and off she went. A loud dancing record started and other people got up o
nto the floor. I returned to the wee side room. The Charlton Athletic supporter was sitting on the floor with another guy; they both watched me enter. That was enough. Cheerio, I said.

  It was time to get back to the Foodstore. I went into the kitchen first though and lifted a handful of cocktail sausages, wrapped them in a napkin and stuck them into my pocket and also as well a halfbottle of gin. Out in the hall I bumped into a couple at the foot of the stairs. I asked them if Renee was still in the end bedroom but they didnt seem to understand what I said.