by James Kelman
If you were married it would be different.
There were steps up to the entrance lobby. I could not remember them from the last time. But they must have been there, and were definitely there now. I walked up and into the lobby and along, and tapped the door into Reception firmly, but no one answered. I saw a sign that said ENTER. So I did. I was disappointed to find a different person at work behind the desk. A woman of indeterminate age, except older by a long chalk. I stated my business, that my presence had been sought by an indeterminate bureaucratic structure pertaining to officialdom. She scanned the diary entries for the morning, hitting a button below her desk in the process.
They all have these buttons, especially for use in emergencies. They think we dont know! Almost at once a door opened and my woman came out to get me, came out to get me.
I smiled. Yet I was disappointed, which was unexpected.
She was surprised to see me. Now that too was unexpected. At this point I realized I was not who she thought. She had my name and details and now here was I in person. I had emerged from the brackets. She recognized my person but not as a function of my clerical position, and I refer here to office rather than pastoral matters.
This was becoming a tricky encounter. She was studying me, not in a direct confrontational manner but I could see that my presence engulfed her. Or was it the other way about? No, how could it have been? But maybe. Bureaucrat women exercise a control on your very life spirit. You expect the dead hand from a male but when a women does it you are doubly dead. Really, that is what I believe. But it is also contradictory. You get left in that limbolular position. You want to improve, you want to do your best, you want to impress and stand up for yourself, and show that you can do it too; you can be a proper person and enter into your rightful station within society.
You do want to improve yourself. I did and would, if given the opportunity. All I needed was a chance! I think she appreciated that.
She returned behind her desk and I sat opposite. She was tapping the keyboard before having settled on the chair. My details would have appeared on the screen. The thought pleased me. I lowered my gaze modestly. But it was enough. She glanced up from the keyboard. The power of my fancy had entered her inner psyche. What a smile she gave me! Was it a smile? Yes, and I would say glorious. If smile it was then that is the word. What is that exchelsis stuff or does that only apply to celestial creatures? This woman was just really I dont know man I would say beautiful or even better than that, and a slightly peculiar thing about all this was how the smile, if smile it was, occurred at an early stage in these proceedings, or is that relating to wish-fulfilment? I had hoped to make her smile. Was she doing it of her own volition? I had to look twice, and a third time. Seeing her smile made me look over my shoulder before allowing myself the luxury of smiling back. Luxury is the wrong word because I did it in a furtive way, and furtive things are not a luxury. Luxury is out in the open. Who smiles out in the open? People who smile out in the open are the ones we should all try to be. Yet she smiled to see me, she did, she was overpowered by the vision, this wonderful-looking guy with the clean feet and the new shave. Lips and her nipples, lips and nipples, hands and satiny breasts. No wonder you shiver. I could feel her beneath me now raising herself; and me raising myself onto my elbows; her gaze upwards studying me and me smiling down at her, moving slowly man I had to relax, relax. Especially here, especially with her, here with her, and how my life had been. This was not the past.
Although there was something. Yes I liked her; but this was more than that. And from a recent occasion. It was not the first time I had been in her presence. Not at all, otherwise I would not have been anticipating actions and reactions. Yes I liked her but there was a subtlety here that demanded of acquaintance. Of acquaintance?
Was this déjà vu? No. I had been here before. When was I last here?
But I knew I had been here before.
Because I expected to see her. I had been here before and had been expecting to see her.
Now I was remembering. It was no comfort. If I thought it might have been I was wrong. Not badly wrong. It was only a thought after all. Not even a thought, more the glimmer of one.
And then the short-term memory, or memory span. Why in Heaven’s name was she working in this Godforsaken den of bureaucracy? Maybe over late-night supper and a nightcap I could ask her and she could relax and explain herself. There was a place I knew, located less than two miles from the Agency; I could stretch to two cartons of soup and tea. But even her smile. What was it about her smile? that way people smile; men or women.
Because they know something. They know something you dont know. That is the fucking truth, horrific truth. That is how people smile, they are putting one over you, over on you.
Here was this woman, Clerical Officer, not to beat about the bush, and I was to have done something. I should have. What should I have done? My mind clenched in its effort to recall.
Something.
What the hell was it? Was I to have returned to this very Agency and forgotten? This struck the chord. Last Tuesday. My God. That is the horrific truth I had to face. No wonder officialdom had sought my presence. My memory had let me down again and quite badly this time, not short term but mid term. Although I was too young for Alzheimer’s. As far as I know. Plus that other thing that relates to the effects of heavy intoxicants, the one with the Russian name, what the fuck do you call it – Kolnikovs or something. Probably it had to do with vitamins. I didnt eat enough fruit and vegetables. That was a simple fact of my life. An old guy I knew swore by used tea-bags; for some reason he regarded ‘recycled tea-bags’ as a close relative of fruit and vegetables. If you said to him, Have you had your daily apple yet? He would point at the used tea-bag and say, No, but I am going to eh ah …
He ended the sentence with a meaningful nod of the head.
But an interesting snippet arises here: a side of me that was not surprised by what had and was happening. I was not surprised. Why not? Because there was the vague expection of bad news. Me. I was expecting it. I now realized that and it explains my sense of disappointment at finding the woman in the office when at the same time it was my wildest hope.
Because she was the very woman. It was her! I had given it to her, the contract, bond or promise! I said that I would come along for a job interview and forgot all about the damn thing – life had intervened. It was she to whom I had rendered the promise, for Tuesday last.
Although I would not go so far as ‘promise’. I would not call it an actual promise. I know when I promise and that was not a promise. I just said it. I shall come for the interview. That is what I told her. I did tell her that. So it was an interview! Yes!
I had to confess. The quicker the better. This ties in with the situation that obtained. She was no longer smiling but perusing my details on the computer and it was as if I had not existed, me personally: she had me conceptualized on a flat screen and was neglecting the very being that gave rise to the conceptualization.
I interrupted her when I spoke. But I had to. My memory is not great but it does work. I need to apologize, I said, because of last Tuesday.
She studied the screen as though I had not spoken.
I was trying hard to keep that appointment and I just failed. It was for a probable job of work and I want such a job, especially one that offers a pay. I need to clear off my debts and return to the fold. I require to get back on my feet and that job would have been ideal.
Now she replied: You gave me to understand that you would be here. I didnt expect you to let me down.
But I didnt let you down.
You didnt return.
Yes but I didnt let you down.
To not return is to let me down. For two days I kept this job alive. Others might have conceded but I thought it suitable for you, for you alone. The Office Manager spoke to me about it, she called me into Central Office. It was by way of a reprimand. I said you would be here and you were not.
She
looked at me when she spoke. I found that difficult, and to distinguish her verbal utterances required a concentration beyond my own.
I was not used to being looked at. I dont want to be unfair to people of the female gender but this is my personal experience.
She was talking to me again. What in God’s name was she saying? She was a forthright lady. Aged thirty-three. I knew she was. Thirty-three is an age I regard positively. She had a small face. Women I go for usually dont have small faces although I have got nothing against them, it is circumstances. But it may operate in reverse, that women who dont have small faces tend to be more interested in me. I am as putty in their hands. Women with small faces tend to go for other fellows, they go for obvious lookers. I am not an obvious looker. I would say for most women I am barely on the planet until if ever there comes a time, when that time arrives I shall be everywhere; look into my eyes and quiver ye lowly mortals. I shall have passed over but this is a form of transcendence and not a metaphorical reference to death man when I refer to death I make no bones and although I am being facetious that is truly what I believe, I hate all that fucking stuff; let us be honest between people, and more especially ones to whom we are attracted, and that includes male to male, I would never be exclusive about matters existentially crucial. It is what I am talking about.
She had finished and was waiting for me to respond. I nodded. What happened is I was actually robbed, I said. I had my bag, I said, it was the day after I left here. I was walking up by Roebuck Terrace and that little park they have there, they use it as an occasional music venue.
She frowned.
You dont like it there? I do. It is quiet; office workers and shop workers take in their sandwiches at lunch-time. Some feed the birds. They see the birds flying off into the blue sky and they have to return to the office. I was in the little park and I sat down on a bench, man I was tired, it was a while since I had slept. You know my circumstances. I think you do.
I waited for a comment. Instead she resumed from where she left off the last time.
That took me by surprise: I hadnt finished what I was going to say about how I hoisted up the old legs and fell asleep on that damn bench, so that is how the robbery took place, when I was asleep the dirty cowardly scoundrels: at least do the loathsome deed face to face etcetera etcetera. Except if the robber had been some poor bastard down on his luck, I suppose you could make a case for him. How was he to know I was in a bad way? in an even worse way than him. He would not have known. Why the hell didnt he ask! Especially if I was sleeping on a bench. Benches are not hotels. Then too the apparel, one tries to keep up but fashion tends to pass one fucking bye bye, the old catwalk and so on. Then if music is playing, music seems to play at important stages of my existence; at these times I am doing my utmost to concentrate on moments unconcerned with music, with non-musical moments, and there is a tension in this struggle, and this tension appears to impact psychologically. Normally I hear big extrovert symphonies. Schubert’s Ninth. That is me, that is a day in my life. One actual day! It is like a whole world of human experience, it is just like goodness me!
Instead of me saying all that the bureaucrat woman stole the initiative and was doing the talking in her upper English accent. Maybe she was related to the Queen of Britain. Some of the Queen’s relations are required to earn a crust in blue-chip defence ventures. She referred to important clients. On one’s behalf a client was kept waiting for a period of three hours.
Who was this client?
She tapped the keyboard and I glimpsed a light flickering on my details, imprisoned forever. Certain phrases shimmered upward from the hard drive. I tried to read them before they vanished: clients are impressed by qualifications; promotional opportunities arise; salary scales are pleasing.
I shook my head in wonder. I was observed doing so. Would you be interested in less attractive options? she said, as though these existed. She did not wait for an answer but smiled remotely, tapping the keyboard and studying the screen. Here is one, she said. This is a provisional position. Opportunities for advancement do not exist, which is normal practice. Do you understand that?
Yes, I said, where I come from we take early steps in life.
Even should you indicate a willingness to learn and improve your all-round workskills superiors will not waive normal practice.
We dont begin with giant strides.
She stared at me. I smiled. I was not being sarcastic. My language, however, was a challenge. People use language of this nature rarely. Not unless they themselves are in an advantageous position. Advantageous.
When I left school I attended night classes and was fortunate that one class featured the place of linguistics in theories of economic psychology, being a grey area loosely associated with traditional philosophy: Celtic Continental as opposed to Roman. Roman forms are by nature imperialistic, especially at the personal level where ‘the negation of the other’ is the key to survival if not the ability to learn. The class was an aid to intellectual life and this had a negative impact on my capacity to serve and thereby earn a living in this country where non-thinking automata have been the vogue for for
For nothing. Since the dawn of the Holy Empire, that deadening blanket of wrong reasoning, governed governed and governed again.
I thought the bureaucrat woman intriguing and hoped it was mutual. She gave me the address and interview card, advised me of the bus I could take to get to this place of provisional employment. I stared at this card which was a pale green; lined, numbered and strongly luminal. I brought out my wallet, crushed the moths and blew off the dust, inserted the card into a compartment.
Then it was interview ended.
How had that happened? One minute I was sniffing her perfume the next I was stepping out onto the pavement.
Such is life. I am just so fucking trusting an individual. I always was. There is that bottom line with bureaucrats and some of the tools of their trade are tricks of deception. They get us doing things of which we, as it were, are unconscious. We seem to be unconscious. Yet we walk about and act in the world of other humans. It is not so much depressing as something less so, less depressing. I would have said it was not depressing, not at all, when I left the Agency on this occasion.
And it was this occasion and I was going to have to remember it was this occasion. And not forget.
She had diverted my attention. She had.
Here I was outside the actual building, and I had had plans.
I never leave buildings unless all internal possibility is sealed off. One wanders corridors. One has a look here and there. One makes discoveries. Too late now.
One’s defences are there to be lowered. This problem is singular. It exists for all individuals. The bureaucrat woman and myself were of an age. I had reckoned on a kind of I dont know man honesty. From her. Something. Is ‘solidarity’ too absurd a concept? Even using the word makes me turn my head a little, as though disguising my own naivety.
I shuffled along, then frowned and walked properly.
I felt like a think. There was a little grassy square with benches. I glanced to the sky then sat down.
One could only sigh.
Next thing I woke up! How long had I been sleeping! Who knows! No one. No one but God, and God is not a one, God is a all.
Still daylight. A bus; I spied it trundling round a far corner. On its near-side front window a sign read: ‘World Freedom From Exhaust Day’. Until midnight all bus travel was free. What luck! I took the address and interview card out of my wallet, then flung away the wallet!
Why did I do that. The current proceedings, they induced in me trauma, the nature of luck and divine providence.
I read the address. Yes. This bus was mine! I would ‘take it’. I would take this bus! Schubert’s Ninth. I would visit my future workplace.
There was no necessity of doing this but with time to kill and no money to do it why not make use of the free travel? Woa me hearties. I broke into a trot as the bus hove to.
The driver was a hopeless rascal, I should have known: a fellow of my age, and with someone else’s beard, not so much Lenin as that elderly chap with the full head of the stuff, Morris or Kropotkin, Bakunin. One presumes characters such as he hold revolutionary-grounded politics similar to one’s own. Whenever I board their bus I give a conspiratorial twitch of the head. But it never works man it just never fucking works. An authoritarian right-wing arsehole; that is what he was, somebody who would rather lick the boots of the bosses than join a comrade in acts of liberation. As soon as I boarded the fucking bus he wanted to kick me off. It was no misunderstanding. All I did was seek directions allied to matters temporal. I had a sandwich. There are people in this world who exist in a state of siege. They construct a moat round themselves and are continually raising the drawbridge. He was one of them. Why be a bus driver if one refuses to answer questions concerning time and place? These should be matters of fact, not issues for debate.
One seethes.
Later I alighted. I located the place of provisional employment although it appeared deserted. It was an unprepossessing building altogether. I could not imagine being tethered within such a structure.
Nearby was a building site. It wasnt a massive operation but big enough for its own purposes. This would have suited me. Guys were strolling around with lengths of wood and assorted tools. Building sites were out in the open, unlike factories; desperate places wherein we humans might perish forever. I had been employed in the building industry before. Much the better option. Perhaps there were vacancies. I could cross over the road to ascertain the likelihood. I was about to do this but recognized it as a psychological manoeuvre. Yet again I was trying to escape the true path. There was a path, why avoid it. Such was the mark of the coward. No, I would not run away. I would remain. I would confront the dark forces, perhaps foment a situation, take part in an epoch-changing strike.
