by James Kelman
Oh, I thought you were.
Well I’m not.
Sorry.
Was she being sarcastic? How could she have said that? Not to me! Surely not. Now she was smiling. I might have predicted it. Such a strange phenomenon. She had that ability to smile her way out of trouble. Women do. Not only women. Mainly women. And politicians. Smile smile smile. It was a sickening spectacle.
You asked me for another word for psychological, said Jenny.
Oh I did?
Dont be angry with me.
I’m not.
You are.
Never.
She sighed.
But dont act like I havent got an interest, that’s all. You hurt me when you broke it off between us. Because you did not find me sexually attractive dont assume it was mutual.
I did find you sexually attractive. I did. I did find you sexually attractive.
There’s no point saying that.
I did.
Dont say it if it’s not true.
Oh Mike, you have such a low opinion of yourself. You do. Eventually it rubs off on people.
Oh does it?
You dont want me to say it because you dont want to know it. You dont want to believe it. You dont want to hear the truth. Sorry, but you dont. I wish you would stop doing it to yourself; there are too many martyrs in this world.
I smiled. She ignored it, she continued: It’s all right being a martyr if people know. But why do it in secrecy, it’ll only make you bitter; you are bitter anyway, you dont need other factors to help it along.
Mm.
Yes. She nodded.
I finished my beer. Her orange juice lay untouched. I pointed at it. I asked if you wanted a different drink earlier on, I said, I was talking about tea or coffee, not alcohol.
I beg your pardon?
I was not talking about alcohol.
Yes you were.
I wasnt
You said gin.
I didnt at all say gin.
You did.
I didnt.
Sorry but you did.
I didnt.
You did.
Well I dont remember saying it.
Well sorry but you did.
Do you want a cup of tea?
Tea? Will they do that for you?
They’ll do it for anybody.
They’ll do it for you because you’re a good customer. What kind of tea do they have?
Any kind. Ordinary tea. What is it you’re looking for, lemon green tea with a peppermint twist or something, frogs’ legs and mint julep and burdock dandelions or some damn thing, vanilla with fudge flavouring, or one brought from the heights of the Andes mountains! Will I run round to the deli and get you a pack of special-flavoured tea-bags?
She smiled. I also smiled. I saw her hand now on the table and imagined it reaching to mine in that measured way she had.
I thought you might have changed, she said,
Jees, you really know how to hurt people!
That is what I am talking about. You are so sarcastic.
I nodded.
So sarcastic. You are.
What can I say? Do you not think the very act of coming to tell me your troubles is sarcastic? I mean if that is not sarcastic I dont know what is, coming to my place like that, my home, and knowing what I’ll do is anything, anything, I’ll do anything, just whatever. Whatever. God, life is so fucking horrible fucking crap Jenny, so crap.
She could never have believed how much crap, never never, only just the worst, how life takes charge, takes a grip, and Jenny had a napkin in her hand. She was twisting it, looking at me. It was like a wetness about her eyes, dabbing the napkin there. Did I make her feel that way? No, it was mister married bastard.
Is that guy really hurting you? I said. Eh? Jees oh Jenny dont let him get you like that, a guy like him, it’s not like you to let that happen. It really is not like you, know what I mean, a fucking shit like that, goddam rat.
She shook her head. I reached to touch her on the shoulder. She moved her shoulder slightly. He isnt a rat, she said.
Of course he is. Otherwise you wouldnt be here at all, never mind
Are you crying? You’re not crying are you? Are you crying?
She shook her head. She didnt knock my hand from her shoulder. I left it there. Then she got up to go for a smoke. I went to the bar. Thirty-eight bellies waited. I saw your empty glass, he said, I wondered how long!
I smiled. He also smiled. I asked for two teas.
Teas?
Okay?
Sure.
One with milk and sugar and the other without, un solo.
I got some cookies, you want some cookies? English digestives.
Great, that’s exactly it. Could I have a brandy as well please, and a glass of water on the side.
With ice?
I shrugged. Brandy was a good afternoon drink in my opinion. Neither one thing nor the other. It would go down well today. When I got the brandy I returned to the table. He would bring across the teas. Mr and Mrs Duponzer were looking across. I exchanged waves with them. They were a good old couple. So what if they were nosy? People were entitled to be nosy.
Anyway, they werent all that nosy. I have known nosier.
And what else is life? Life is nosy, nosiness. Everybody is nosy. I sat down. I felt very relaxed although she could have gone for good. If she had, okay, if not, still okay. Life was like that, okay, an okay life. Soon enough the big guy brought us the teas and the English digestives. It was a time for English digestives. They lay on a small plate next to the jug of milk and bowl of sugar. Better than okay. Thanks man, I said, that is it.
Later Jenny returned. I could smell the smoke. When she was seated she smiled at the tea and so forth. I proffered the small plate: Have an English digestive.
She grinned.
Go ahead, I said and could not stop smiling. That was big fucking thirty-nine bellies. What a wonderful goddam bartender!
Jenny lifted one and bit into it, nudged a crumb from the corner of her mouth. She saw me watching. Tasty, she said and chuckled.
English digestives are no laughing matter. And tell me this, I said, while we’re on the subject, how come you are now the sort of woman who dons a yellow cardigan to visit her ex-lover, sharer of your bed and all the passions, and so on and so forth?
Jenny smiled.
Do you realize I get erections just taking part in this sort of what-do-you-call-it, conversation?
Ssh.
I do.
Dont say that.
But I do. Jenny …
Dont say it.
I stopped, I had been smiling but no longer. I saw the wetness round her eyes again and wanted to kiss them, only on her eyelids, where the fragility
Oh no, I said, you’re going to make me cry.
Her head was bowed.
You are. Because here am I but it is him your tears are for. You’re crying over him and here you are with me.
When I said this last she was blowing her nose into the napkin. I dreaded looking at her.
No I didnt.
Man to Man
That guy eh – what d’ye call him, I can never remember his name. He was giving her a row right in the middle of the floor. Ranting and raving. Her sitting there with the head bowed, maybe embarrassed or what, I dont know, ashamed maybe. She knew folk there and they were hearing it all. How come they were letting it happen, all just standing there? No just the barstaff. Everybody. Me too, I was one of them, what I mean, cowards, we were just I suppose well cowards really, we were cowards. So yeh, ashamed, she must have been.
But I felt like getting a grip of him, know what I mean, dirty bastard. But the best one to do it was another woman. See if she had done it! That really would have been the best. But there was nay other woman there.
There were women but no for that, taking on a guy like him I mean, fucking hell, ye wouldnay want to take on him. No even the likes of – well, no me anyway. Naw, I wouldnay.
> Unless just batter him with something, that is what ye would have to do. Dont wait. Pick up something. Fucking heavy ashtray or what. A chair man know what I mean, a solid effort, fucking hit him with it.
On and on he went jesus christ and my hand started shaking. I was holding my pint, and so tight man gripping it, I had to let go. Breaking the glass, know what I mean, we’re stronger than we think.
Dont tell me he is gony hit her, dont tell me. That is what I was thinking. Because if he hit her man see if he hit her …
I shut my eyes.
Then guys near me, I heard them talking, about the Celtic and Hearts game. What was it a draw or some fucking thing, a disputed penalty? They were talking loud, loud. No just to drown out the angry guy’s ranting. It wasnay just that.
What it was, to make it seem like it didnay mean nothing, no anything special. It was normal behaviour.
I noticed that before about guys, how when something awful was happening they started talking. Even just the telly, Ulster or Palestine or what, Iraq. Away they go about the football. Oh aye Celtic’s got a hard game on Saturday, Rangers have it easy, what about the Liverpool game. Meanwhile it is carnage. No everybody. Some watch or else dont watch. Maybe they listen.
And it all goes on roundabout. Ye cannay shut up yer ears.
Dreams and hallucinations. I even get them when I’m sitting myself. Other folk will be the same although I havenay asked anybody, no even the wife. If I said it to her she would tell me to stop talking shite – well, rubbish; she doesnay swear, no that shite is swearing.
But fair enough, ye dont want to end up a babbler. Ye see these poor auld sods. In the pub they sit out the road. People leave them alone. They babble away to themself like somebody else is there and taking part in the conversation.
Well in a way there is somebody else. Them. They talk to themself as if they are another person, an actual other person. So there they are. So fair enough, one equals two; two parts make a whole and ye cant have the one and not the other. So then they give the answers to their own questions.
We all do that. But inside wur own head. That is the difference. Imagine we done it out loud! The guys in the white coats would come and take us away ha ha. Senile, an advanced case. Or just plain ordinary mad.
Human beings are near the surface. Just scratch and that is us.
Ranting and raving. It was excruciating, it really was. Ye felt like stuffing up the ears. I was gripping that pint of mine, so tight, jesus, needing to quell the thoughts quell the thoughts and all that racket going on it drove ye fucking nuts man it drove ye fucking nuts, that male-female fandango.
All kinds of mental stuff happens when ye are in for a pint. Couples! Hoh, fuck. I swallowed a mouthful of beer, keeping my face fixed. But no for long no for long and I was like Aw for fuck sake, landing my pint on the bar and pushing clear to the fresh air.
Ohhh man yeh.
That dampness in the air. I was so glad of that. I breathed deep, really deep. I imagined it all misty and ye were out in the country. Farms and fields. Aw aye. Even the way mist comes down ower the Clyde.
It does. The Clyde is country too, ye forget that.
And what about when ye look up and it is all grey patches of mist and through them ye see the night sky, maybe even the stars? I like that too.
Now was the sound of boys, teenage little cunts, that hee-haw voice they have, gon up and down. But cheery. Probably they were scouting about for lassies. Little did they know the lassies would be scouting about for them. Great to be young! Hoh! and I dont think, I was glad to be gon hame.
The Gate
I paid them the money and hoisted the bicycle onto my left shoulder, set off down the path. Quite an awkward path. The ground seemed very knotty; I worried about stubbing my toes and tripping. Nor could I see down properly. Owing to the bicycle my actual vision was obscured. On the other hand a natural deterioration takes place in the body and the eyes are not excluded from this. I understand that my sight fails but have been less aware of it in practice than some have predicted. My wife as an obvious factor. Christine, ah Christine.
My feet retain their sensitivity; along the path I was conscious of the twisted roots and branches. Also occasional slates, roof slates; I heard them fracture under my heels. Many were broken before I went trampling across. It was unavoidable. I wondered if the slates had been placed there by intention: broken pieces would embed in the earth between the roots, making the passage easier. It was reassuring to think this the case.
All in all a difficult terrain. I found it so anyway. The shrubbery itself was overgrown, if one could call it shrubbery. I say ‘shrubbery’: one might call it vegetation. In our marriage my wife was the gardener. Always, even if I could garden she was the gardener, and if one senses an antagonism one is not misguided.
It was thick and became thicker, this vegetation; a density. Manoeuvring became hazardous. One had to avoid shoulder-height obstacles such as branches and those jaggy, long-stemmed entities. I recollect them from childhood, horrible things that stabbed one’s limbs. I was colliding and having to force a way through, and then also what felt like mesh, and perhaps was mesh, or meshes, shuddering – cobwebs! of course – I felt them across my head, the scalp and what remains of my hair, a sort of wafting touch, a dragged thread, scaly thin indices, skeletal. None of those exaggerations amused me. I termed them ‘observations’, tempered by the bicycle frame cutting into my shoulder.
On my initial entry into the garden I failed to notice how awkward it was along the pathway. I must have been sleepwalking. My head was so full of the potential bargain, the bicycle itself which I wanted for my grandson. He needed a bike and his birthday approached. Children need bikes. Children are expensive. Bicycles, I meant to say, are expensive.
Some received and some did not. Mine did not. Eventually they would, they too, they would, they would get one.
I would surprise the family with my purchase. It is true that I wanted to win my grandson’s affection. My son-in-law was a difficult young man. If truth be told he was an awkward bugger. I believe that intellectually he was not my equal but in terms of cunning was, and of decision-making. He was forthright too. That annoyed me. One might praise forthrightness as a quality but only in those whose actions are tempered by good sense. I would never have accused my son-in-law of sense, certainly not of the worthy variety. My grandson favoured him, over myself, which is entirely normal. Fathers and grandfathers are not in competition. If only he might have remembered that.
My daughter was sympathetic but finally had made her bed. I did not begrudge her this. This world offers limited potential; one takes where one can. She told me she loved him. I found it excruciating.
I dare say her chosen partner would have found me difficult. Outwith the presence of a third party we did not communicate. My grandson offered that possibility. He was a cheery boy; he and I seemed to hit it off.
On the whole I thought it better to skip a generation and make my peace with my children’s children. Christine and I found it too disagreeable for discussion. She lacked patience. In earlier times it was the root cause of our problems. Now she refused to discuss the situation which was ironic, given that the problems themselves had disappeared. Through age I imagine. Nevertheless, it was an unpleasant situation. Occasionally I yearned for earlier times, older times, when she and I fought like cat and dog, but later came together, as lovers often do. Nowadays her impatience overwhelmed me. Always it was directed against myself. Why was that? This morning I had seen the advertisement in the morning newspaper but when I read it out she would not listen. She refused to discuss ‘the matter’.
I replied, It is not ‘a matter’ it is a bicycle. I wish to acquire a bicycle for our grandson. What is wrong in that? Is there something wrong in that?
No.
Well then?
I refuse to discuss it with you.
On second thoughts thank God, thank God. It was heartfelt! I had nothing to discuss with her. The rela
tionship between myself and my son-in-law was not a subject for discussion.
Anyway, I would not describe it as a relationship. Arrogant bugger. Astonishing, that he could have considered himself the equal
The bicycle cut into my shoulder. Perhaps it was not a good bicycle. Good ones were lightweight. Or used to be. Nowadays – well, nowadays. Statements that begin in such fashion denote age, and anti-social odours.
The atmosphere in the garden seemed to have altered. It was almost peculiar. Certainly it was chilly. Once again I had been fooled by weather forecasters. I was wearing only a tee-shirt, a thin tee-shirt at that. Of course all tee-shirts are thin. I was not foolish. Elderly yes foolish no, at least not by nature. Nor by inclination, through the nurturing process, part and parcel of ageing.
It is true that I was a grandfather and this bicycle had been purchased for my grandson, a boy that I liked. I could imagine a grandson whom I did not like. I had two granddaughters also, by my son. Of course I liked them. Obviously I loved them. But in like fashion? Perhaps, given that we saw them so rarely. Difficult terrain altogether, gender and one’s response. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps, but proximity and habit bring greater rewards.
It was entirely possible, in fact probable, that my grandson would not want the bike. He held his own opinions, personal opinions. He was seven years of age but most independent. In this day and age such sensibility was crucial not simply for personal but for social development. The key to survival lay in communality. The present generation of adults neglected this.
Salutary, that my granddaughters would not have wanted the bicycle, had they been here to receive it. Nothing I acquired for them was treated seriously. They allowed me to tickle them and give them money. I occupied that typical elderly-male role; the ridiculous figure of fun, undiagnosed victim to early dementia. I only suffered the deteriorating condition: the rest of the family were its victims. Oh God.
But I needed to pause a moment. The damn bike. A certain discomfort, a certain – pain, I was experiencing pain, effected by the cycle frame, the crossbar itself, it seemed so heavy, or awkward somehow because how could it be so heavy, not so heavy. That was the stuff of delusion. Surely?
