by James Kelman
He looked at me for a laugh but my stomach went bad. That was it now. I was anyplace at all and away thinking about things and stuff was just there filling my head. What would happen to me? I did not know. I did not know. If it was a girl in the class and she was laughing to her pal, just that one wee second. A feeling struck through me just sudden and in my heart or there someplace, down to my stomach, if it was not my heart. Maybe if it was my soul. It was the worst nightmare. I could not do nothing, and just if I could away and just go someplace away someplace and just stay there. I would never just be.
I did not know what to do.
Uncle Billy was going to meet his pal Chick. He got the van from his work when we did the flitting to the scheme. How come we ever went to the scheme, it was just fucking horrible, bloody just horrible. I did not like swearing in my grannie's, even in my head. Swearing in yer head is the same as out loud, if it is you that does it. I liked swearing but no in my grannie's.
Uncle Billy had his good shirt and tie on and his big coat as well. Oh it is freezing out there, he said, it will snow the night. Come on Kierie boy, I will walk ye down to the subway.
Yes, said my grannie, because it passes his pub.
Uncle Billy just laughed, waiting on me to come.
Oh it is okay Uncle Billy, I will stay a wee while yet.
Oh ye will will ye! Are ye sure?
Yes.
My grannie did not say anything. She was glad.
Well
Oh away to the pub, said my grannie.
I will. You are no making me feel guilty.
I did not think I would.
I went to the door and waved to him going down the stairs. But it was quiet when he went. He made grannie laugh and she liked him. He was just always cheery. People smiled, even my maw. Even my da. My da liked him too.
But if Uncle Billy liked my da, he did not see him much. My da said, Tell Billy hullo from me and it is time we went for a pint.
Uncle Billy smiled when I telled him. Say hullo back to him. But he did not come much to our house. My grannie never did. Her and granda only went once to our house. My granda said, Oh it is a wagon train, ye will meet Red Indians over there, it is too faraway.
Auntie May never came either. How come?
People do not do things. Uncle Billy asked how Matt was and said to me quiet, Does he come to visit his grannie?
Aye, I said but I did not think he did. Maybe he did. I did not see him here. I came at daytime as well because with school, I was dogging it a lot, but I did not see Matt.
My grannie just opened the door and let me in. She did not say about me coming. She made me something to eat, boiled eggs or tomatoes and cheese on biscuit things.
She did not buy much bread, but a lot of tomatoes. I went her messages to the dairy and for Mrs Duncan down the stair. She was grannie's pal. If she was not in her house I chapped Mrs Duncan's door and that is where she was, if they were just drinking tea or watching television. Mrs Duncan knitted but my grannie did not, and never watched television in her own house, just in Mrs Duncan's. Sometimes I got her messages too. She gave me money for going. I did not want it but she said to take it. Oh if people give ye things, ye should just take them.
My maw did not think the same. You do not need things from people. You should just smile and say, No thank you.
I liked looking at granda's stuff. My grannie did not mind. She said to take some but I did not. But I would after. I told her. And all his tools, I took them out the box and laid them out on the floor. So if it was an electric plug and ye had to fix it, ye had the wee screwdriver to open it up. I saw my da doing it and now here was the stuff for grannie, if she needed it. Then the axe and the hammers. Some screwdrivers were sharp, ye could stab people with them. I could have took one.
My granda let me go into the box when I was wee. If he was doing a job he brought me into it and gave me a question. We need tools son, what tools do we need? So then we would go and see in the box. It was all a jumble. When he told ye to find a spanner or a hammer or pliers ye had to sort through everything. There was no order, just all stuff on top of each other. Sometimes yer hands jagged into sharp ends and nailpoints or ye caught a bad skelf or else a tiny wee clip went under yer fingernail or ye pulled out a tool from the bottom and something heavy turned over and landed on yer fingers. But it was still great looking and ye aye found stuff ye had never seen before.
I went to my old library down at the park. It was great and all the books ye got. I could see in the adult library if I liked. Some books ye got in the juniors ye got in the adults. Ye were supposed to live roundabout to get their books. If ye lived someplace else ye were to use yer own library. But it was only the mobile one we had in the scheme. I wrote down my grannie's address.
I read books at a table beside the window. The winter was there and it was good looking out. I had books planked on the shelves so I could just read them when I came. I hid them flatways behind ones nobody took out. There was dust on them.
My grannie read magazines and books too. She read her same ones and kept her place with handkerchiefs. The handkerchiefs were ladies' ones. They were small with fancy edges. If ye opened her book they kept the pages. I wished I could stay with her. There was the swimming baths too. I said to grannie about going but she did not want to. Oh maybe sometime, she said.
But there was space for me in the spare bed. Auntie May was in her own flat now and had a boyfriend.
But I did not like walking down to the subway on Saturday nights because if Rangers were playing in the afternoon. Usually there was trouble or ye thought there might be and were watching for gangs. If ye saw any ye went fast but no running, and no looking back till ye got round a corner. Then ye ran. But if they were in front of ye, what now, down another street through the backcourt but what if they came after ye and caught ye, they would give ye a kicking. They would see what religion ye were. Oh what street do ye live in? What team do ye support? What school do ye go to? Are ye a Proddie bastard?
No, I am a RC.
Well ya daft cunt we are Proddie bastards. Most gangs were Proddies. If they caught ye, really, it did not matter what ye were ye were going to get it. Maybe if some of my old pals from Primary were there they would see me, Oh he is one of us, and we would just shake hands. Oh where are ye staying now Smiddy?
But I never saw pals from the old place. I would have went with them. Maybe they were there and I did not know them. They would not look the same. I could not think of their faces.
I was no good at faces. I tried to see them in my head but I could not, they were just all dim and looking the one way. The same with granda. He came into my head a lot. If it was his face usually it was the same one. He had his own wee wave. So saying cheerio to my grannie I done the wave so she would see then went out quick, shutting the door, going down the stairs, water out my eyes. So I was greeting. Sometimes I was.
Hearing him laugh or else his voice to me.
I tried to see his face different, and he was doing the windmill and I was to box inside and hit him, he was just laughing, waggling his fists and showing his chest to punch him. I even got angry when I was wee. Punch punch, that is good son.
I should not have got angry. Imagine getting angry. No with granda. I could not ever hit him, granda was great, he was just great. I was not.
It was bad things, ye done them and should not. If people knew about them. Maybe I would go away. I would have to. If people ever knew.
Dead people watch ye from the other side. Billy MacGregor had ghost comics with tales from beyond the grave. My da had books from the Navy. Him and his pals read them at sea, they swapped them round. He liked science fiction and cowboy stories. Matt read them too. Some of the science fiction was like horror books and one I looked in was sexy and getting into temptation where the man was getting pulled down into the dank and soggy earth but what was happening to him, I did not know, if he was a RC. It just said Christian but really it was RC because he had the Priest th
ere and making the Sign of the Cross on his chest. Oh keep out the Evil One. Oh my Father I have Sinned. Tell me my Son.
I did not know my da would read that. I confess oh Father.
The Priest says, Oh Edouard beware the Dread Ghost, it is a Dread Ghost.
But it is not like a real ghost, only a tempting devil from a horror world beyond and it was the ghost of a departed spirit but it was not a real ghost from a real person, it was a Dread Ghost of an Alien, or like the Evil Spirit of an Alien or maybe a ghost from a long-lost planet in a long-lost universe where it is all evil and they all are Devil-worshippers and all backward prayers and upside-down Holy Mothers of God, but they are not, it is just the Devil. But it was in the body of a girl with a torn dress and one of her legs was bare all the way up and Oh milky-white skin, it is milky-white skin of a soft thigh, oh oh, and it was just the way it was in the story how she was waving to ye. She beckoned. She beckoned ye. But it was from beyond the grave. Where she was leading ye ye did not know if it was murderous deeds except how ye were reading it, if ye got a wee bit randy, that was what happened. I stopped reading it. My maw was there. I was in the kitchenette and she was making the tea. Matt was in the bedroom doing his studies. My da was not home yet so I went ben the living room.
And the man got put behind a walled tomb, Edouard, and it caves in on top of him and he screams and screams but it all falls on deaf ears. He is covered in the dank and soggy earth, filling up his pores, all in his pores, and he cannot breathe, and it is only silence all around and the dank and soggy earth is all in his mouth and up his nose and that is him doomed for ever if he cannot breathe, Oh I cannot breathe I cannot breathe, if he can offer up a prayer. But he cannot. But he does not die but forever and ever he is a living corpse with a waking death doomed unto Eternity. This is his punishment. He did not heed the Priest's warning. And now he hears his friends walking on the carpet of grass above his horrible tomb and he would want to tell them all what happened and to be on the lookout and saying about temptation, Oh if it comes in a cunning disguise, do not fail me old friends, at what befalls us, if it is this, we are as puny men, only pray to God and do not forget me.
But his pals could not hear nothing at all except maybe the wind just whistled a wee bit through the trees and one of them goes, What was that?
Oh it is just the wind.
But into their mind comes a picture of the man and they see his face, Oh it is Edouard, and they know then it is an awful truth, he is passed onto the other side. Except he is not because he is buried alive and just doomed as a Living Corpse. Now it is all silent, not a bird chirping and not a breath of wind and it is just scary, for in that time night had fallen as before their very eyes and there in the gloom is a ghostly figure, if it is a lassie and she has a torn dress, it is, and one of her legs is bare all to the top and her thigh is milky-white plump. Plump. And milky-white breasts, but her red lips are real blood, for all the time she is just the Mask of Temptation. The book was called that. I went through the pages. Then in the library I went to find if the book was there too but it was not but other ones were. I just looked at them, sexy ones too.
I did not believe in dead people walking about. It was just stupid. A boy in the class said it one time and people laughed at him. I listened, but I thought the same. It was all just daft, if people were walking about everywhere and it was all ghosts and spirits. How did they do it? Oh they are invisible. Ye can just walk through them and they walk through you. If ye feel a wee shiver well that is them. People thought that.
But then at nighttime it came into yer head and ye saw the dark outside the curtains, it just came in yer head. If there were spirits, maybe they did not walk. How come they walked. They just would fly. That was all they needed was air because they were not flesh and blood with the thickness of bodies. They were wisps. Spirits were wisps and just in the breeze, floating this way and that, and it did not matter how high up ye stayed.
Spirits of yer loved ones, there was a space in between, after they breathed their last and before they got to up above. They had to spend their time on Earth to see ye were okay. That was Guardian Angels. If ye were going wrong and ye needed a guiding hand, so maybe ye had relatives that passed on, they were there to help ye. Oh see your path ahead it is straight and narrow.
Once they went up to Heaven that was them and ye would not see them again, no even if they were spirits. My grannie said, Oh son ye just pass to the other side.
But if the other side was not Heaven. If it was the bit in between, ye had to go there first, and then pass over after. In that first bit ye saw humans walking about but ye were a spirit and could not touch them. Yer spirit was suspended. So ye were dead and floated about and did good tasks, ye had to. Ye did not get to Heaven until ye finished them. Maybe ye had lived a bad life. No too bad or it was Hell. But just ye were not good enough for Heaven so God gave ye tasks and once ye done them that was you. Maybe if it was Fate or else whatever it was but ye could not get to Heaven till they were done, so yer spirit wandered the land maybe helping people, or if it was bad ones ye were haunting them. Imagine that, it was bad people and ye were to haunt them. Ye would even quite like that, hiding up closes and jumping out. Ye saw that it in ghost pictures. But it would be strict and serious till after a certain time it was okay, another Angel came down to tell ye or whatever it was, ye just knew deep down, if God said it inside yer head. So then yer time had come and now ye done the real pass over and it was up to Heaven. Ye got it in Hymns as well, Oh when we pass over, if we reach the other side, it is the far shore.
Protestants believed it as well as Catholics, then if the spirits talked to ye in Seance meetings where people brought back the dead. My grannie knew an old lady who went to them. Oh who is there, who is there. They all held hands and one person called out to the spirits. Identify yourself. Who are you who are you? Oh I am a spirit of the dearly departed and it is okay it is a beautiful place on the far shore we have guiding lights to lead us
It acted like magic but it was not magic. But there was a lot of fakers about. But some were true and a spirit came back if it was to tell ye something that was going to happen if ye did not watch it. Something horrible. It had to warn ye and was trying so hard to reach ye, if it was a special spirit from beyond the grave, Oh save me save me.
But then if evil ones were watching, just walking beside ye. Sometimes ye felt it going down the street, one was walking beside ye. Oh who is that? If it is a ghastly presence. People said that in books, Oh I felt it, it was a ghastly presence. And ye passed a close, Oh if they grabbed ye and pulled ye in.
But evil spirits do not murder ye. They cannot. Else they always would. If they did then you would be a spirit as well so you could fight them back. They would be scared of that. But when they killed ye they would escape. It is a split second till yer spirit leaves yer body. If ye could just get fast out it would be okay, but ye cannot. So then they escape and ye have to go looking for them. But how do ye find them if it is all just floating in the sky? Ye are doomed until ye do. Oh I am in torment, I cannot pass over until the Evil One is found.
Then ye find him and what do ye do because ye cannot kill him back, no if the two of yez are spirits, because that just makes more spirits, if spirits have spirits, or else if ye tell God on him. Except God knows already.
And if it is your own spirit, is it good or evil. Ye do not know until ye are dead. Have ye done good deeds? Good spirits come and help ye do good deeds so ye will become a good spirit yerself and go to Heaven.
Ye wanted to do good deeds. I thought about it in bed or what, sitting on the train, Oh imagine I am walking down the street and an old blind man is there and cannot cross over for the busy traffic. I will just run and help him. Or a wee wean is lost, so I would go into the woods or round the streets and there I find it and take it home, Oh it is Kieron Smith.
I done it if people locked themselves out, I just climbed the balcony, opened the window and let her in, except if ye got caught it was a
doing off yer da and a row off yer maw. Oh Kieron I do not care if you are helping somebody, they should know better than to ask ye to climb a building, that is just an outright disgrace.
But if the woman was in sore bother cause she could not get in her house. Maybe she had a pot boiling or a frying pan burning. Chip pans caught fire, all the burning oil so then the house burned down. A woman up the next close to my grannie threw a basin of water on the chip pan and the burning oil all came out and went all everywhere and burnt the flesh off her bones. So if it was going to be a fire and ye stopped it, so it would be a good deed. Even if yer maw said it was not one ye would know it was. Then maybe another day ye were walking down the street and ye felt a presence, the wind blowing like a whisper and it is the breath of a good spirit floating beside ye, Oh well done, that was good helping that poor woman, you were brave going up the ronepipe.
Because sometimes it was slippery. I thought that too, if a good spirit was going with ye, maybe if it was granda, he had just passed over and was climbing with ye so it would not go wrong, just helping with yer grips. But what if it was a bad spirit? I used to think that. Oh what if it makes me put my foot in the wrong place. Or else my foot got jammed in between the ronepipe and the wall and I would topple back over, all my body except just my one foot stuck in. And I would be flapping my arms and just seeing my foot come out inch by inch till then I was falling. Maybe a bad spirit would make me do it. Or lift off my fingers if I was going up a tree, one floated up to get me and if it was reaching high and came to my fingertips and just lifted them off one by one by one, or if it was a ronepipe and ye were getting to the very top and the spirit just blew the wind and knocked ye off. So yer granda would be there, his spirit would come to yer rescue, maybe a breath of wind or a hard blowing wind, to stop ye hitting the ground heid first, ye would land one foot at a time, nice and soft, or else in a big pile of sacks and just get up and walk away, Oh that was lucky, and it would be, except if it was him, yer granda.
