by James Kelman
Oh God, if it was Brian, why had he come to London? To disappear. People disappear. But Liverpool was a place, that was where he was, you disappeared there too, why would he come here?
There was no more to see in the photographs. A lanky boy, and quiet. What was she looking for? If he was unaggressive. That was like a criticism. Except he was. To the point of timidity. Quite meek really. Although that wasnt in the photographs. There wasnt much there at all, not if you searched and it was Brian you searched for. Quite a few of Mum and Dad and Helen herself, but Brian was like a shadowy figure, not hiding but not there either, like he hadnt connected properly with the camera or was keeping out the way. Trying not to be seen. But that was silliness. And wrong, that was so so wrong. Very very wrong. Like seeking ways not to help.
Helen was not doing that, she really wasnt. If she could help she would help. Of course she would if it was Brian; she wanted to help him and she would help him. If it was him she would. She just needed to know, if it was him.
And she didnt. It was so so – what? She couldnt even think. She had gone over and over and over it all, every last detail, again and again and again until her head was numb, and her brains, if she had any left. If there was something, she didnt know it. She didnt. It might have been him and it might not have been him. It was like watching a taped movie and you get interrupted by somebody and miss something important, so you have to rewind. Helen had to rewind. No she didnt. The whole day long my God rewinding, what else had she been doing? replaying and replaying, replaying or rewinding, doing both.
To find it. To find it.
The truth of it. She needed to. And she couldnt. Really, she couldnt. Even had she ‘rewound’ to the moment of recognition she could not do more than she had at the moment itself. A rewound moment is not the actual moment. That is a moment in time. She could only think about things and these things were in the past. The only way to find out if the man she had seen was her brother was to see him again, she had to see him, the same man. She had to, to be seeing him. That was the
Oh well.
Helen stopped what she was doing, although she smiled. Actually she felt quite – strange. It was like a – what? a decision. She had made a decision, she knew she had, a massive one, although that was silly, saying that, like it was a sort of
But it was a major thing like it was just so so – it was life-changing. She would have to see him, the tall skinny guy; she would.
Goodness, it was true. Oh well.
She glanced at the clock. Sophie was engrossed. She followed the stories now. Good. Children develop, their mind.
Goodness.
Helen felt quite weird really but okay too like she was just like – okay, really.
This was a moment she did not break and did not want to break. She sat by Sophie and gazed at the television. Soon Azizah had arrived and Helen was in the front room. When she opened the front door for the girl she was already pulling on her coat and ready to leave; she had been getting ready, so now she was, or nearly; everything she was doing she was still doing like still having to do. She didnt need to do anything more, only what she always did, same clothes same everything, same going to work. Not the same going to work. This was not the same. What was ‘same’?
Relax and consider, take a moment. These thoughts were important, so not to rush them either. It was important not to. Helen felt this strongly: and not worry about time. She had plenty time, she allowed this for the journey to work. Helen could miss two trains and like manage in on the third; she could. It was completely fine.
Yes Azizah had arrived, she was in the front room with Sophie. Sophie didnt look at her. Poor Azizah. But it was hurtful. Helen would have felt it. Children are the tough ones. They learn not to be, not to be too tough. Helen had to and so do they all, including Sophie.
Bag, money, travel-cards; keys, wallet, no phone, brolly. That was her, ready to leave and set to leave, now in the hallway, crouching to pull on her boots. It was sad nevertheless, but true. What else to consider? Nothing really. Azizah was a great girl. Helen trusted her with Sophie. She was nothing like Helen. A completely different personality. Her books and her books and her books! She had a definite strength about her and Helen lacked that, she did. She was just a different kind of person. That was that. It didnt make her any the less. People are different.
Sophie relaxed with Azizah. She did. Wouldnt it have been nice if she relaxed with her own mother! Oh but of course she did. What a silly thing to say! Foolishness. Mrs Foolish, Mrs Fool. She was a fool; this is what she was. Mo said she was quirky but it was more than quirky.
She had her coat on, her boots on, bag, money, travel-cards; her hand on the outside door handle. That’s me going! she called, then waited.
Mummy! Sophie came rushing to her. Mummy! she reached her arms round Helen.
A big cuddle, said Helen and winked to Azizah: She’s to be in bed by nine o’clock at the very very very very latest.
Yes, said Azizah.
Helen smiled. Sophie stepped back staring at her, then the blink. Oh Sophie, you’re not going to start crying?
Well you always go.
Yes but it’s work, I have to go to work!
Why?
To earn money.
Yes but Mummy
So we can eat food and pay for things.
Sophie stared at her.
Oh honey! Helen leaned to kiss her. Azizah smiled in the background. A good girl, a nice girl. Helen wanted to say something, pass on to Mo, a message, because it was Mo, if she had told him about Brian. Why didnt she? She should have. She hadnt told Mo because she knew what he would say. I’ll see you in the morning, she said to Sophie.
Oh Mum. Sophie smiled.
That’s better. Helen saw that Azizah had taken Sophie’s hand and she winked to Azizah while opening the door. She waved: Byyeeee, and stepped outside, closing the door behind her, and she called: Love you.
Sophie answered: Love you Mummy.
Then Helen was downstairs and out onto the pavement. It was raining. When had it started? Helen had looked earlier and it was dry. Anyway, the brolly was in the bag.
The old settee was still lying on the pavement near her house. Caroline and Jill would have noticed it this morning. How could they miss the damn thing? It had been there for three days and was saturated and horrible. Her street was an embarrassment. The old fridge there too, with the door hanging off my God. People just dumped things. They said it was for poor people, asylum-seekers or like whoever, just leave your old furniture. People who need it will come and take it. But that was an excuse. Sometimes it was true but not always. Who would have taken that settee?
Except like a homeless person. But where would they take it to? if there was no place, if they had no place, not if they were homeless. That was homeless, you had no place, just like here there and everywhere, you just wandered.
Sophie was at the window, waving. She was up on a chair. Azizah wasnt to be seen but must have been behind her. She must have been, making sure Sophie didnt fall. But it was true, children got excited and if she fell it would have been through the window. She didnt need to stand on a chair. She just did it because – why did she do it? Because she did.
And old fridges either. Who would take them? Nobody. They were useless. You would have to be daft. People were not daft, they just were from other countries. They had nothing. That was life, it was so unfair, really. Not always but often. Some had millions others had nothing.
She passed the fast-food kebab shop towards the corner of the street. It was busy. Evening trade. People did use it. Mo said the owners should have been arrested for serving gravy under false pretences but he was a food-snob. They served their ‘specialty gravy’ with chips. Children liked it. Why not? Once in a while. Nothing wrong with that.
Helen paused and half turned to wave once more. She couldnt see Sophie but she would still have been standing there, still waving until the last. Helen as a child. Who did Sophie take after! It was tr
ue but the wee soul, she so took after her mother. Never mind.
She enjoyed this part of the journey to work. She even looked forward to it! Walking. Yes! And she so hated it as a girl my God she did, really really, she did. And now, well, she quite liked it.
About fourteen minutes to the station. Twenty-three on the train, depending, a leisurely journey and really, a time to relax, it was, for her anyway it was, for other people perhaps not, not if whatever.
It was lazy. She liked that. The older stations too, she preferred them. There was something nice about them. You got on the train and that was that. Nothing you had to do. You just sat down and the window was there if you could get a seat and just stare out. She stared out. People worked on their laptops, or were on their phones, else texting, reading books or newspapers. Helen didnt, she was one of those who just whatever – stared, dreamed, who closed her eyes. She might have dozed. It was a private world, almost like a secret world, being in the middle of a city but not visible, in the back of the city, being behind. A peace descended. A ‘peace descended’ was her words for it.
So many railtracks and all the names, strange names, hundreds of wee towns and villages all filling the map, it was so unlike Scotland. How people lived! Their lives were so so different; quiet places and streets, little shops and beyond that too green pastures and bridges, canals and their boats. This was England. Helen didnt know England. South London wasnt ‘England’. Caroline said that; her family came from ‘the Cotswolds’. The Cotswolds. Where was that? Their trains must have been the fast ones. Trains to the back of beyond. Helen’s was an old thing that took its time and had to sit at the side until the fast ones passed. Helen imagined them full of businessmen in their bowlers and thick coats all being rushed into the city and the houses where they lived like the ones you saw on television with bedrooms and lounges, kitchens and gardens, patios, a ‘patio’, imagine a patio and the sun is shining and the seat is there in the garden and just sitting there and a glass of lemonade, where the murder takes place, the Chief Inspector arrives to take down the details and the housekeeper is there too, Yes milady, and the servant girl back in the shadows, at the kitchen door, and the ‘young master’ – what? what would he be doing? It is all men anyway.
The train moved through one area Helen knew from weekend visits. This was an old factory and warehouse area where a couple of the less dilapidated buildings housed market stalls at the weekend. Each time they went somebody would tell them next week was the last because the council was closing it down. You could find so many bits and pieces, all bits and bobs, anything and everything. A dream for Mo. When they went they took turns rummaging while the other watched Sophie. You needed two hands at the clothes-stalls in the main market areas, especially if some of these women with big elbows were about and trying to reach something in front of you. Manners didnt exist. If you let a child out your hand for one second she would be off wandering, lost in the crush.
It was like from a bygone age. The Russian man Lenin, from the politics of that time, the Russian Revolution. He visited with his wife to give talks to people. Lenin and the Russian Revolution. It reminded Helen of the Barrows back in Glasgow; the ideal place to find a z-bed. One stall specialised in computer relics, old cables and gadgets. Mo knew the stall holder by name. Most of the junk he brought home came from here. No wonder the man was friendly. Mo was his best customer. One old place they called the ‘warren’. If you disappeared in here you got ‘lost forever’. Mo told her this with a glint in his eye but the very last time here they had a row because of it. He got ‘lost’. It wasnt funny. Yes Helen was nervous. Of course she was nervous. Who wouldnt have been? He knew she didnt have her phone and yet he still disappeared, like for ages. He said he was only looking at things but my God. Eventually she and Sophie had to go inside to find him and men looking at her too. Even with a child beside you men ‘looked’. He didnt think about that. No, because men dont, they dont have to. Then when he did come back my God like sauntering, just sauntering, hands in his pockets, and winking at her. He hadnt even bought anything. He called her a born worrier. Yes, and not ashamed to admit it. If she was a worrier; if she was then he was a dreamer. He so didnt think. Imagine her ex. If he had known about Mo and was stalking them, and just waiting his chance. Mo was defenceless. Against him he was. He would have beaten Mo up. He was just like – he was horrible.
Even if he had told her he would be gone a while. Her and Sophie could have gone to a café or into the place with the good toy-stall. There was one where the guy did demonstrations and it was like entertainment; a young guy too but thickset and with a baldy head and a wispy beard. His patter was hilarious and he made everybody laugh, picking out individual children and winking at the mothers. The last time he had big sort of space-truck things that he operated by remote control but they kept dropping off the stall, making everybody laugh. He had a bowl of boiled sweets and threw them to the children. He reminded Helen of somebody. Some conjuror on television. Now you see it now you dont. Then it came to selling them. I’m not going to ask for this and I’m not going to ask for that. He always had a crowd round his stall for the demonstrations.
A few people were poor. Really really poor. Immigrants and asylum-seekers, bags of old clothes and whatever. Men in small groups, and women with babies and toddlers. You had to be careful with your bag and purse. People said that, if it was true, probably it was but you had to watch your purse anywhere.
It was the kind of old place where she might have seen Brian. The people hereabouts wouldnt have looked twice at him or the one with the limp. Guys were standing about, leaning on rails and against the wall. Tough-looking men, drinkers and junkies, the younger ones arguing, laughing and horsing about, then looking when you passed. You would have had to be tough to survive, so so tough. Would Brian have managed? You heard these stories. Not just men but women too. Unimaginable. What sort of life was it? hell on earth. You would have to keep moving. You might be healthy at first but the more you were on the street the worse it would get. The worse you would get. And if you were mentally ill. It was the worst nightmare. Poor Brian. People looking at you all the time. When do you sleep? When do you get a seat? Are you allowed to sit down? Washing yourself. You heard stories about people using lavatory pans, men shaving themselves out the toilet bowl water, women washing themselves underneath. What diseases would they catch? Contaminated water and contaminated blood. It was like nightmarish zombie stories, just horrific. And the constant constant hassle. Not just the police but people shouting at you all the time and doing dirty tricks, even like beating you up, setting you on fire; there were stories about boys burning people alive, old tramps; it was horrific to think people would do that, and videoing it too, just brutalised, people were brutalised, children, they were, horrible. That was Brian having to cope with it. My God
It would be strange him and Mo. How he would react, if he was racist, probably he was. But perhaps not. But it happened anywhere. People looked twice. It didnt mean they were racist. Only she got so sick of it, having to think about it and always you did and if you didnt you soon had to because something happened. It put you off going places, even entire districts. Although she handled it better. It was true that most people were. Even without knowing it, the very words they used. They didnt like Muslims, even hated them. And without knowing any my God that made you smile, if you didnt cry, how bad that was, how just sick; really, it was; so prejudiced and shocking, so so shocking. His mates who came to the house, she saw them looking at her too; not in a sexualised way but like they were wondering about her and wondering about Mo; how come here they were together? But surely that was all couples and not just white and Asian? People get together. How on earth do they manage that my God it is just my God it is just like so amazing. And sleep together, just literally sleep together! The trust in that alone! Imagine! Lying beside another human being and asleep, and them beside you and you just lying, and you have that trust because just anything they could do and you are
powerless, you are so so powerless, so like all you can do, only trust them, you have to, just so have to – and get beyond it if you can, you have to, because then if you do, if you manage it comes the peace, peace comes, you close your eyes, that is the trust, you can close your eyes and trust the person. Helen trusted Mo; she knew she did, and she had to, that was the other thing.
London was so old. She felt that looking out the window too. The line passed through London Bridge station where they had the scary exhibition. Mo fancied seeing it. Helen did quite and would, but not with Sophie, definitely not with Sophie. That sense of ‘plague’, plague victims. It wasnt scary, it was sad, like zombies, zombies were sad, locked into their disease, the contamination, never satisfied until they infect everybody, if one has to die they all must die.
But it wouldnt be like that, people werent so evil, they were generous, they would want you to survive like with their bell too, people had a bell and rang it; that was like leprosy, they walked the street but kept to the shadows, and how their flesh was eaten away by it, just ravaged faces, and that was the old streets in London too like Jack the Ripper days, evil-smelling and foggy shadows, you would never leave the house, what a nightmare, the olden days, my God but then if it was like Asia or Africa, that was them right now; people were angry, no wonder; Mo was right when he said it.
