If it is your life

by James Kelman

  These relationships Celia had could not be sexual. She had the same with men, intense relationships. She had them with everybody. Why could she not say hullo to people! Surely that was enough? You do not have to have conversations with them all, asking after everybody’s parents and brothers and sisters, who cares about all that, not for everybody, everybody in the whole world it is just impossible, so why even try, it just kills you.

  That was old people. Why were they always so interested? It could be irritating.

  I felt that about Celia, without being critical. I got angry at myself too. She said these things, stupid things, and I should not have taken them seriously. It was my fault. Everybody is working class. She said it to me. We all have to work.

  Imagine my dad hearing that. Just silly stuff. She must have thought that about me, that I was silly.

  Maybe I was. I asked her and she did that thing, looking into my eyes. For the ‘real me’. Maybe that is what she was looking for. It was just silly. What is a human being?

  Okay she did not have to like me but she slept with me. Why? Was it because I was Scottish? Scottish working class?

  Did she like me?

  There was a way of looking at Scotland from English people. I caught it from Rob Anderson. He was cautious when he said things; he watched to see my response. That was funny. What did he think!

  I did not know. Not Celia either. I know she did not ‘love’ me. That big word. I know she did not.

  Because.

  I knew it.

  I asked her about liking me and she could not say it. She was honest. She would never lie.

  Maybe we were finished forever. It was my fault. I would have been better not speaking. I did not speak. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I did anything, whatever I wanted, and if I did not go back, maybe I would never go back. Really, in a way I did not want to.

  The rain pouring down. It was noisy. Beating off the window. Smacking off the window. I looked like a wee person, my reflection, a wee worried face. I smiled to see it, and was glad. Then the woman beside me shifted on her seat to see out. That is heavy, she said, my God. You always know when you cross the border. It is always raining.

  I smiled. I maybe said ‘yes’.

  It was interesting too how women’s secrets, you know all your life about women but really you know nothing. This woman did not know about me and would think I knew nothing but it was not true.

  I could even think things! Seeing her, I could! I did not. But I could have, even her age, she was like what age – I do not know. Near to mum.

  That was Eric, he was just any woman, that was a joke, he was just like any woman at all and talking about it all the time, usually he was, sex, just all the time. Except now Celia. Maybe he was jealous. I thought he was. Things had changed. I had changed.

  The woman closed the book and settled back in her seat, probably closing her eyes. I did not look to see in case she was awake. She had been reading for hours! If you could read text books for hours you would be a genius. Sometimes if it was philosophy it took hours for one sentence; everytime I opened the book I had to go back to the same place.

  One thing though, I was starving. I had not thought about food until now. There is something in our subconscious world. Something said by the woman sparked it off, or was it myself, how I responded to her? Something in me. It was hours since I ate. I wondered if she had brought food with her, maybe sandwiches; people brought sandwiches for long bus journeys. Usually I forgot and just bought a bar of chocolate. Perhaps if she had sandwiches she would offer me one!

  Why did I even think of that? Because she was a woman. It was sexist. The woman takes care of the food.

  But women do. Not all women. Celia did fancy stuff sometimes, not often, hardly at all. She went for hours without eating; if I had waited for her I would have starved to death. Anything I made she ate; cheese on toast, anything, scrambled eggs and beans, pilchards or sardines, fried onions and veggie sausages, rolls and potato crisps: anything at all, I had to do it because she would not, a sausage sandwich even. So much so you wondered if she was actually lazy. Why did she not cook? Yet she ate anything! She gave you the idea she was fussy but she was not. She had a big appetite but pretended not to have. She did not have to pretend. I did not care. Even I liked her appetite. Only I did not notice it at first. If I bought food when we were out she just laughed but she ate it and if it was fish and chips walking home from the movies, she loved it. Just the whole thing. But I loved it more because it was sexy. I thought it was. Sex and food. People say that and you get movies about it; I saw a great Japanese one with Celia. Another one too and it was erotic, I did not think it would be, I did not think of Japanese people having erotic movies. I thought it was the ‘degenerate West’. I was not a movie buff but she was. But it was good being with her there and usually it was quiet when we went. She liked me stroking her. One time after it we returned to her place and people were there and all talking together. They all seemed to know each other except me but it was like they knew who I was. But they did not talk to me and I thought they excluded me. And Celia said something and it was like she excluded me too. Maybe I misheard. I do not even know what it was and have forgotten about it almost completely, it was just a wee comment, just something whatever it was and it was to do with ‘people from the north’. Yet when she made it her hand was on my wrist and was stroking. That was a funny thing to do. How could she do that at the same time? What did that make me to her? I was just like a body. That was the dichotomy. You got it in philosophy about mind and body but this was out the sociology books where people were treated as bodies without a mind. She was taking me to her room anyway and we were trying to escape, that was what I thought. I did not know why we waited in that company or why we joined it in the first place. She must have liked them. That was her. It was up to her, it was her place and her friends. I was a stranger. I was a foreigner, a visitor from another planet, an alien, maybe I was invisible. Sometimes I was but not to her, and it was to her, I did not care about them, saying that or whatever they did, it was her, her doing it and at the same time stroking my wrist, she was, just stroking me, and it was just jeesoh if she wanted sex, the way she was stroking, people would have seen her, the way she was doing it to me. It was following from me, how I had stroked her, that was why she was doing it, she loved me stroking her and there in the cinema lying into me, she loved me doing it and just it was like hypnotizing and if she did it to me jeesoh it was just so – really it was amazing. There was not anything to say it was sex, really and what was there to say I just felt sometimes I was lost. I did not expect any woman to enjoy sex, not like the way a man does, it was a way the woman had of getting the man. If she set her sights on somebody that was how she done it, she used her body. We got seats away from people and did it to each other.

  But she really did enjoy it. She said she really did, she laughed at me.

  Maybe it was an acting thing. People say what they think. You just do not get liars, not like in the everyday world: that was what she said. I did not believe her. Actors were people and people were people, either they were liars, or they were not liars; and some were both. That applied to most people. Everybody, sometimes they lie and sometimes they tell the truth.

  I read the play she showed me, just heavy and dark but to her it was the greatest. She was the first woman I knew who just wanted to have it, and like how I did, if we were sitting someplace like the tube or a bus or even in a supermarket or going along the street and she would touch me and what she wanted to do, just whispering jeesoh it made you shiver and if she touched me sometimes not even knowing it just touching me or brushing against me, her actual hand. She held it in her hand and just looked at my face; she did that. It was like a specimen. She did not know how I would react because she was a female and did not know about males, so if she touched it, seeing what I would do. Faint! That is what! She was seeing my face for the reaction. She was doing psychology and biology and it was like a biological find
ing, she said it for fun, if you squeeze him there what changes will occur in his facial movements, that was it, how will the male react.

  But really I think it was girlish. I could see my sister doing that, and giggling. I thought of Celia as a woman but she was weeks younger than me. Really she was a girl. Was I good-looking? Maybe I was. Once my aunt called me a handsome boy. That was great. My mum scolded her for it. We do not want him swell-headed. But that would not have made me swell-headed, your auntie. I used to think I might be handsome, but then saw that I was not, not in comparison to other guys. They had better looks, or more popular ones. People would call them handsome without much thought whereas not me, if they called me anything, it would not be that but just you hoped they would look twice.

  And I worried about stuff. Not that but other things, and if I was gay, sometimes I thought that. I did not like being at the same urinal and if guys washed their hands beside me I was just self-conscious all the time and did not know what they were doing and then if I blushed, just blushing all the time. It was just a nightmare. Celia called me a worrier. She was dead right. I worried all the time about stuff. A lot of it was nonsensical, absolute stupidity, just diabolical nonsense. Why did I worry about stupid crap! But I did, and looking for signs about everything. If you say that it means you are that. If you think that then it is a sign about really you are this. I was glad doing philosophy. I felt it was like ‘oh calm down, calm down’: that was philosophy. Rob Anderson saying about Socrates. Now, would you say that this was the case? Yes. And you would say further that this is the case? Yes. And would you also say that this too is the case? Yes. Then you are fine absolutely and must not worry, cannot worry, not about that, not about any of it.

  I used to think I was happy-go-lucky but I was not at all happy-go-lucky.

  But I had not thought I was a worrier until Celia said it. I was. Obviously. It was not a good thing to be. Worriers were geeky kind of guys. I never thought I was geeky. Maybe I was.

  But she would never have gone out with me.

  It was all just stupid. So what, if I was a geek.

  Why trust her judgement? She was not always right. In relation to me I used to think she was but I was wrong. The trouble with me was I put her on a pedestal and you should never do that with any human being. My dad said that. He had been let down too many times, especially with union officials and people, politicians. It was something to watch for. They start off good guys then become right-wing bastards, selling out to the bosses, cowardly shits and money-grubbers, just careerists. It was like academics, how Rob spoke about them.

  But it was not her judgement. She did not know every thing. I knew she did not. The idea was ridiculous. It was me, my fault. I thought that stuff. Nonsensical nonsense. Because I lacked experience. I was a naive idiot. That is the truth. It was just Celia, she had her own ideas, she went her own way. She did. That was a thing about her, it was a strong thing, she just made you smile, that was her. She was just I do not know except you were smiling, she made me smile because too of what she did, even thinking she knew everything. I was very very glad, very very glad, smiling to myself not even thinking about it, so I could smile, I could smile and I did, alone and in my own head, and it was an answer to her, so I was smiling and it was good I was smiling. I did not care, even about the future, if I got beyond it, I would, because it was the future, and how could you get beyond the future, it was impossible; the future becomes the present and the present is the past, the tortoise and the hare. I was the tortoise. I did not care, the tortoise is never beat and that was how I felt.

  And the woman beside me, she was sleeping. That was trust. She trusted me.

  I did not sleep. If only I could! I sat awake for hours. Unless sex, if it was after sex, I was always asleep until then I awoke, but I was ready, that was how I woke up, and if she turned into me it was just like hard again, it just made you shiver.

  Out the window I recognized the skyline. So that was us, Glasgow in ten minutes.

  The rain was not so bad now. It might even have gone off by the time we arrived in the bus station. It had to. I was not sure how to get home except by walking. I did not have enough for a taxi. Buses went from somewhere through the night but you waited for ages and you got trouble, especially on your own. Really, you were quite vulnerable. I felt that. I had not been home for a while. Probably it was just silly. Walking was okay if you went the main route. I thought that. Maybe I could have called my parents but that was a hopeless thing to do. My dad would have picked me up but I did not want him to. Anyway, I wanted to surprise them. They knew I was coming but not the actual day. I was going to do something like ring the bell and hide behind the wall. Boo!

  But I was looking forward to seeing them. They would be the same. I appreciated my parents because of this. Things change. They did not. Other things in the world, relationships. I was coming home but where had I come from? It was strange. I felt very very strange. Not like at Christmas it was just a wee break, hurry home and hurry back. Not this time. Who was I coming to see anyway. Nobody. Parents and sister. Eric was a pal but at the same time, maybe I would not see him. There were other pals. Maybe I would see them. Maybe not. And who had I left behind. Nobody. It did not matter. It was my fault anyway. She did want to see me. She said she did. She said that to me. Although I did not believe her. Why should I? I was only one, one male. She had others. She had others. How could she have others? She did. But how could she have sex with other men if it was supposed to be me, if I was supposed to be her – not boyfriend, boyfriend was silly, if I had said the word to her, she would have thought it ridiculous and so very naive, and it would have been.

  Maybe she was not having sex with them, any of them. Imagine I asked her. I could not.

  I knew I was not special. I did not care. People said life was too short: did they even know what it was? It was like some of them never lived.

  The bus was late into the station. I sat on while the other passengers got off. There was a queue for luggage. When I stepped down I saw my backpack, the driver had dumped it out and it was on a wet spot. Thanks very much. I lifted it and got it on and started walking, stepping my feet down hard because of tiredness and a kind of cramp.

  Rain. Surely not. Yes. Although sometimes close in to a building you got drops falling. That was Glasgow, just walking along the street and you felt spots. It was like somebody was doing it on purpose, maybe out a window they saw you passing and sprinkled water down on your head. You could not believe they would do it, not to a stranger. Surely people would not throw water at strangers! Yes, they like a laugh. Even good people. Although how could they be good if they did bad things. Because they are people; people are people.

  A strange thing about Celia was how she had a special name for herself to do with destiny and the stars. She got it from someplace and changed herself to it. She did not tell me what it was but it was how she saw herself. Something special lay ahead of her. It was there and she could reach out. She believed that. And for me too. I did not believe it. Well I did, but not for all people. She thought it was all people but how could it be, it was just stupid saying that. Maybe for her, not for everybody. Not me either, although maybe it could be. But not others, not ones I knew, like my parents and my sister. My family was not special except if something I did because it was me. If you asked them probably they would have said it was me, I was going to do something. But I did not think so. Only because I was at university but everybody was if they were middle class so did that mean they were all special? It was stupid thinking that. I was not special either, not extra special. I was not. I was just me, it was my life, and my life was ordinary, just nothing special at all. I knew that. Because I watched other ones and saw them. Maybe I would be a writer. I would like to be a writer because you could just be free and do what you wanted.

  It was my life. Celia believed in other ones like in other religions people had all different lives, some better than others; it depended what you did in each; the be
tter you did in one life the better the next would be. If you did bad things you became worse progressively, until you were not even a human being, perhaps you were a slug. Rob Anderson spoke about an ancient belief that was similar. Maybe it was the Egyptian epoch. There was good stuff to study next year. I quite fancied it, logic and stuff that took you to science, like physics, like how Aristotle was a scientist, that was what I thought brilliant, and I did not care.

  Rain now definitely. A drizzle. The longer it went the heavier it would get. That was my luck, and I needed a piss. I did. That was stupid. I should have gone in the bus station. I just did not want to. And I thought it would make me walk quicker, if I did not, I would walk faster.

  I had never been lucky with buses.

  Our house was miles away and you could not get buses easily. Not in the evening never mind through the night. People took taxis or walked.