That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories

by James Kelman

  The big fellow was self-conscious. I was aware of his flesh. I smiled. Do you mind, I have something to say.

  Pardon? he said.

  Look around, look at the faces and bodies, the intelligences. I see elderly folk spin like tops.

  I dont know what you’re talking about, he said.

  Are you sure about that?

  The man frowned. I smiled. Listen to me, I said, individuals who suffer or grasp fully the nature of burn-out rarely commit murder and do you know why?

  But that word ‘rarely’ is wrong, completely wrong. I mean never, never never never, never never ever ever ever do they commit murder for that understanding implies a unity of the qualities, and murder cannot surmount unity, it can never do that. For that is to end, that is inserting an end, that is putting an end to it and how can that be, it cannot be because unity because unity, including the end.

  People must only be destroyed.

  The big guy, the heavy fellow, the man sitting next to me; I smiled because I knew it already. He would rise from beside me and I would touch the coldness his absence would bring. I did. He struggled along the aisle. He did not look back. He must have wondered what I was doing, was I following? He may have been fearful. When I communicate thus the lieges are so.

  I see faces in profile. I look at them. Human beings. I might shiver. Certainly one shivers. In their own dreams, uniquely singular dreams, inhuman dreams, as anything uniquely singular must be. They stagger along.

  The bus stops. The big fellow. The busdriver allows him an extra five seconds: one, two, three, four, five. He alights safely.

  This returning, to have returned, one more time, picking oneself up, up off the floor, a remnant of strength, continuing the struggle, enduring. That was him. Every day of his life, picking himself up and staggering along; lifting himself up, easing himself along. His wife at the door: ‘You made it?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘Well done.’

  Movement alone, ourselves alone. Support is rarely forthcoming. Those closest to us are ill-equipped. They know nothing of escape. Yet each of us has the need.

  always returning, attempting to, dragging ourselves. What is our condition? We cannot recognise our condition.

  First the understanding. Unplanned events relax us. Moments of calm are vital. The calm allows us to remain in the prime, the prime, and to recognise what it means, if this be a moment. We use the bus. We travel to a destination. A bus is community.

  Persons escape to a destination. They hold out their hands. They do not smile. They cannot be distinguished easily. They were in and they were out. I could be amongst them. And our collective head! nodding, aware that we are.

  I had to turn my own head, I was needing to cry out. It was a need I could not perform. Needs have a requirement, implementation. This need I could not implement, which to me was a sign, just like the head-nodding was a sign. I saw it in others. I say ‘head’, thinking of the back of the head but is it the chin? the effort in holding aloft the head, the skull. Skulls are heavy. We hold them aloft, we succeed for as long as we live. I saw the head of the woman in front, how it too nodded, it too. It disturbed the hairs on the back of her neck causing their collision.

  Hairs that collide.

  Life is a function of that, that success, that we can hold up our heads. And what we discover is banality.

  The poor busdriver and his stupidity. Persons know it. Individuals do not hide from the truth. Some shield the truth. If it is not an easy truth. Persons have no desire to realise this truth. It is a difficult reality. They shield it from others. And those who recognise their condition for what it is they will not lead people toward an understanding lest they themselves suffer. This happens, it is their expectation. It is too late. Already it has happened. Already they have suffered. Understanding derives from that. We talk about truth being conditional, but more precisely, it derives from a condition.

  I saw out the window now. I stopped it. I do not like staring. I looked around me, seeing persons in their various stages, and their agitation. The woman in the red coat whose lips moved. I looked and saw and I know that they moved, her eyelids flickering. Was she praying? What was in her mind? The words of a song? Part song of a song? She had heard me speak to the man. There is a phrase ‘nineteen to the dozen’. Was she about to bite a fingernail? If so whose? Hands come reaching.

  One fingernail. A hand reaches from below. It could have been mine.

  Who could stop such a hand?

  My jaw ached; I had been smiling. That sense of futility. We persons, and doing our best. I, therefore, was glad to be on this bus, to be returning alongside them,

  and then

  THE STATE OF

  ELIXIRISM

  Near the hut where I slept that night there was a brick-built barn. A tap fixed into the wall supplied drinking water. I drank then washed, collected a certain bag of possessions and departed swiftly, hoofing it along a narrow winding road banked by thick bushes and occasional small woods designed that the mansions and castles of superior persons be concealed from the gaze of the yokelled minionry of whom I was one, yea yea yea; three times wit’ the yea. A bird whistled. I answered the call. My answer went unheeded. Unheeded! Hey Mister Bird, why dont you fuck yourself! I looked to find this culprit with a view to killing it stone dead, and partaking of breakfast, instead discovering a lane. One cannot eat a lane and I was fucking hungry man I was fucking hungry. Pulling out the feathers, one pulls out the feathers. The hunger affects one. Such that pain, more of a discomfort, the stomach kind of – that like – what kind of pain is that? ach well who knows, one walks, though the road be weary. Down this lane and beyond a cluster of white-washed cottages a sudden flash signified a mirror, positioned that drivers might identify danger before exiting the blind-spot driveway. I was blinded a moment and blundered into a ditch

  even blundering, what an act! I blundered. So human, so human. I am a human he screamed, prior to choking on his tongue, mistaking it for a slab of ox liver

  where I spied a bottle of strong cider. A spectacular but by no means extraordinary turn of events: I once found two bottles of a not-inferior fortified wine.

  But strong cider?

  Nice.

  I twisted open the cork and swigged, swigged and again swigged. Le cidre le cidre ’twas elixiric. I sat on the bank of the ditch. Whew. Man, but what a hit. Really, fuck, wow; the insides exalteth.

  Prior to then my state had been somnambulistic, barely considering my life, not as a retrospective concern but as to how good it had become. It had become good. Really. This was incontrovertible, not given that one starves but as an effect of it.

  I had to grin, sitting there on the grassy bank, the dampness a reminder. My bum is damp! ergo sum.

  This area was devoid of lushgris which is my only name for these God-bestowed long stalks of grass that one tugs individually, and out each comes, the lower ends so so juicy.

  I continued along the lane. Soon I found myself returned onto the narrow, winding road, pausing now and again for a swig of le stoof. How had that happened? This was magic man, fucking magic. The experience. Yea, and thrice yea.

  Yet a gap existed somewhere or other at the back of my mind while also a developing anticipation of finding a place for a genuine sleep, one of lying-down proportions. I refer here, for sociological purposes, to the notion of phased sleep. We have singular sleeps, magical sleeps, natural sleeps and honest sleeps, fitful sleeps, and false sleeps. A genuine sleep is one of lying-down proportions, and I stand by that. And when one refers to ‘finding a place’ one, in general, refers to the place. There is only one. This is located, perhaps, on the grassy bank of a little fortified stream sited providentially for the weary wayfarer.

  A strange land. Once upon a time I was familiar here, a familiar, familiar here and within. I needed a seat, oh God, a seat is equal to, is equal

  The hedge at the side of the road had become less big and less thick while the tarred surface of the road softened beneath the strong sun, the sm
ell reminding me of childhood days in cramped city streets. My feet had become hot, hot, very very hot and I had to sit quickly, again by the ditch, unloosening the laces and taking off my boots. Bare feet. I massaged my toes, Oh God in Whose Existence I do so believe. All of this. Existence. In toto. Conveyed by a sigh. Serenity has a place here, finds its niche.

  I walked a few paces and entered a bower. Here were trees but sun rays entered. I had by then taken off my T-shirt and brought out the bottle. I sat down on the good earth and swigged the last of le cidre.

  Oh.

  The sounds of the country, the silences too, and the fragrance. I became aware of one sound, similar to the slow movement of a stream and turning to peer through the near bush I saw its glint a hundred yards off in a gully, the sun on the ripples, mild ripples. I gathered the empty bottle and stuff into the bag, knotted the laces of the boots together round my neck, and walked towards the gully. On the bank of the stream I spread the contents of my bag on the grass, awarding each article its own space. I was pleased and made to do something, whatever it was, maybe just sit down beside them and examine them or something, I dont really know, my stomach seemed to have risen, the internal diaphanous bag, the cider gurgling, bubbles up further, the gullet. Oh dear. Now I lay me down to sleep.

  I did indeed, I lay myself down closing my eyes but spun off someplace and quickly reopened them. The spinning resumed. I braved it out, clinging on

  The sense of late summer, a peaceful quality, days yet to come. Raising myself up, lying on my front, staring into the water. It was deep in places. Clear brackeny water; pebbles and rocks on the bottom, weeds moving gently in the current. So there was a current; these waters were not stagnant. Obviously I had to go in. There was no question about that. I needed to move within the water, whether to swim or not was irrelevant, I just had to walk in it, stand still in it. I picked a dozen of the juiciest docken leaves and laid them along the bank. I could use them instead of soap because of course I needed to wash, and seeing my feet, my toes in sore need of a wash, not just the feet man I was a smelly bastard, the undersides of my arms – what my granny called ‘tidemarks’, Get rid of these tidemarks son, you will have to, sooner or later, later. Life’s tidemarks, marks of the tide, of life itself. Life life life. Yet the undersides of these arms of mine! More than tidemarks. Dirty white streaks. Leftovers from my last job. What had that been? Jesus! What the hell was it? My last job! I had had to leave in a rush the day before yesterday, two days before yesterday, or was it three? Through no fault of my own it might be said, given one’s temper can be frayed, frayed and these gaffers, managers and foremen. Farms may be factories, but I aint no fucking chicken.

  Who cares.

  I drapt the jeans and stepped to the edge, dipped in the right side toes. Freezing cold water. I submerged a foot. This foot, old pal of mine, I submerged it, seeing the hairs on my lower leg rise in protest. Old pal or not this gnarled extremity required the cold water treatment. I forced the foot down onto a flat rock amid the pebbly bottom then stepped in the other. The water rose to that knuckly bone beneath the knee. Cold, yes; freezing? I do not know except there was little feeling in these lower limbs of mine and the feet could have been cut and leaking blood, for all I knew, piranha too, plentiful in the land of Angles. These feet were numb and deadly white in colour. Too cold for comfort this water. I returned to the grassy bank, pulled on the jeans and sat, using the docken leaves on my feet, pressing the sap into them. I stretched out on the grass. I am a vegetable. Sap or blood. The sun had been hidden by a cloud of many layers but the last of these evaporated. I watched the sun revealed. The heat from it was quite amazing. I got an erection immediately in a most natural manner. The vegetable aspect of one’s body. I sat up. This was no time for erections. Yet it maintained itself in spite of certain mental efforts. ‘Think of churches.’ Who gave such advice? Unless I dreamt it.

  Guzzy, is there a word ‘guzzy’?

  When I wakened

  Thus had I dozed.

  Was the heat greater now? Yes. Past midday too, and the sweat on my body! I slid down to the water’s edge and onto my hunkers, resting there. I submerged my hands, my arms, ohhhh breathe in breathe in. I could sluice the water up under my oxters, over my shoulders, onto my chest, I cleansed my face and neck. My eyes closed; my eyes had closed. I was crouched there and motionless I was motionless I must have been motionless, but then gazing at the water, the lady’s reflection, my eyes no longer closed. She was sitting on the other side of the stream, close by clumps of ferns, this lady. The bank rose higher here and the line of the stream slanted strangely that almost she lay out of my field of vision and may have assumed I did not see her. A stately and majestic country home or castle was located in the immediate vicinity. ’Twas her abode. ’Twas my conviction, wearing a summer dress of a kind favoured by all, having two little thin straps across the shoulders, Oh my Lady. Those straps may be thin but but for them the dress would collapse onto the ground, falling or crumpling in a heap at her feet and these feet might step out of such a garment. She was sitting with her knees raised, her elbows resting upon them, hands cupping her chin. And I did see her, truly I did and now of course pretending that I had not and again dropped my jeans, dipped both feet into the water until touching the pebbles, then I rose, pushing myself up from the bank. The water was cold and necessarily so, creeping over my knees, but not so cold as before; I stared into the water, concentrating on this, and waded a third of the way across. It was a little deeper now and I might have swam. Instead I returned to my own side and stepped out onto the grass maintaining the pretence that I was alone, leaving my jeans where they were and lying stretched out on my original place halfway up the grass slope, shielding my eyes from the sharp ray of sun. She perhaps would have thought my eyes closed but they were not and I could see her clearly enough, this beautiful beautiful lady, of indeterminate age. My legs had dried but the chopper was rigid and it would not go down and I thought to cover it with my T-shirt, yet seeing her shift position, her legs now outstretched and her hands underneath her thighs. I shifted my own position, laying my arms alongside the length of my body, closing my eyelids. I was waiting, I waited. A rustling movement, as of her rising and entering the stream, lifting her dress clear of the water, carefully stepping her way across, focused on the water alone as though in ignorance of me, then approaching from the stream, passing where my jeans were lying. She lowered herself down to kneel on the grass oh so carefully, lifting her dress that it flopped to cover her legs entirely, her hands lightly on my ankles, rustling the hairs over my knees and upwards to where the hair stopped on my upper thighs and they moved to each other, her hands, meeting together round my chopper, gently, but increasing the pressure until I had to flex strongly to withstand the firmness of her grip. When she released it imprints of her hands would remain on the skin. I stopped flexing. A mild draught, the wafting of her dress; she had risen and was standing, or had moved, kneeling closer to me. I needed to look at her, needed to see her, and if she had arisen her knees would have crisscross marks from the grass. Had she settled back, sitting on her heels? Perhaps I think perhaps, the unzip of her dress, it falling from her onto my feet, and her hands returned to my legs, moving upwards again but where they had come together previously they now parted, off from my body and onto the grass on either side of me, her wrists set firmly against the sides of my chest. She lowered her body until the top of my chopper touched the insides of her thighs, she moving forwards again until her face rested against my cheek, her tongue touching my lips, now her hands propping herself, manoeuvring herself, enclosing me, taking the weight of her body on her hands and moving slowly upwards, and down and now I thrusted and thrusted again but then was able to stop. Neither of us moved for several moments and when eventually we did we did together. I had raised my arms and placed them round her. We were moving together, we were. I marvelled at this. On it went and I knew I was smiling a true and honest smile. There are many types of smile and this was
one such, there by the stream, my bag of possessions, thoughts of food.

  (TZEKOVITZ

  WAS ANOTHER)

  Mind you, I said, some writers can write a story about any damn thing in the world. Choose an object and tell me what that object is, I shall write you a story about it, I shall hand you that story as a finished piece by tomorrow morning. This is what they tell ye. Tzekovitz was one such writer and John Harvey was another. You too, I said. Dan . . . ?

  Dan.

  Dan Driscoll?

  That’s right son.

  Dan Driscoll; how could I have forgotten? I was chairing this Writers’ Group. Dan was wee and skinny and who knows what age; deaf when necessary, wore a bunnet and specs with thick round lenses. National Health specs they used to call them, granny specs. The auld bugger sat to my left side with his chair pushed back. He could see me clearly but I could not see him without shifting my own chair. What a tactic!

  Dan had no interest in what I described as the practicalities, none at all. He did not disrespect them, just had no interest in them. Nevertheless he listened politely when I was advocating precision, exactitude and the miracles of meticulousnessnous, such that draft after draft after draft should be produced toward that end. He waited to ensure that I was finished talking then handed me two stories he had written earlier that same day.