James Kelman: The Burn

She stared at him and he got a sudden terrible dread she was going to start screaming it was fucking excruciating it was excruciating you felt like stuffing your fingers into your ears, he took a deep breath.

There wasnt anybody roundabout except an old dear at the far end of the row. That was lucky.

Maybe there was something up with her right enough. Or else maybe she was fucking mental — mentally disturbed — and just didnt have anywhere to go. Genuine. Poor woman. God. But folk were getting chucked out on the street these days; healthy or unhealthy, it didnt matter, the powers-that-be just turfed you out and they didnt care where you landed, the streets were full of cunts needing looked after, folk that should have been in nursing homes getting cared for. She was maybe one of them, just in here out the cold for a couple of hours peace and quiet. And then look at what she has to contend with up on the bloody screen! God sake! In for a couple of hours peace and quiet and you wind up confronting all sorts of terrible stuff in pictures like this one the now. Maybe censors were the answer. Maybe they would safeguard folk like this woman. But how? How would they do it, the censors, how would they manage it? No by sticking the cinemas full of Walt Disney fucking fairyland. Who would go for a start? No him anyway, he hated that kind of shite. Imagine paying the entrance fee for that, fucking cartoons. He leant across:

Ye sure you dont want a coffee?

She shut her eyes, shaking her head for a moment. She wasnt as old as he had thought either. She laid the hand holding the hanky on her lap and the other hand she kept at the side of her chin, her head now tilted at an angle. She kept looking at the screen.

I was going to get one for myself. So I could get one for you while I was at it. .

She turned to face him then; and she said, Could you?

Aye, that’s what I’m saying.

Thanks, you’re a pal.

Milk and sugar?

Just milk.

He hesitated but managed to just get up, giving her a swift smile and not saying anything more, just edging his way along the row. He had to pass by the old dear sitting in the end seat and she gave him a look before holding her shopping bags in to her feet to let him past, and he nodded to her quite briskly. He walked up the aisle and down the steps, pushing his way out into the corridor. Thick carpets and dim lighting. He grinned suddenly, then began chuckling. How come he had nodded at the old dear like that? She was as old as his grannie! God Almighty! But it was to show her he was relaxed. That was how he had done it, that was how he had done it. If he hadnt been relaxed he would never have bloody managed it because it would have been beyond him.

Cinema 2 was showing a comedy. He had seen it a week ago. He wasnt that keen on comedies, they were usually boring. He continued past the corridor entrance. There was an empty ice-cream carton sitting on the floor in such a way you felt somebody had placed it there intentionally. Probably they had. He used to have the selfsame habit when he was a boy — thirteen or something — he used to do things to make them seem like accidental events. If he was smoking and finished with the fag he would stick it upright on the floor to make it look like somebody had just tossed it away and it had landed like that as a fluke.

He used to go about doing all sorts of stupid things. Yet when you looked at them; they werent all that fucking stupid.

What else did he used to do? He used to leave stuff like empty bottles standing on the tops of stones and boulders, but trying to make it look like they had just landed that way accidentally. To make folk imagine alien things were happening here on planet Earth and they were happening for a reason, a purpose.

He was a funny wee cunt when he was a boy. Looking back you had to admit it.

The woman at the kiosk passed him the change from the till; she was in the middle of chatting with the cashier and didnt watch him after she had put the money on the counter so he lifted a bar of chocolate, slid it up his jacket sleeve. One was plenty. He took the two wee containers of milk and the packet of lump sugar for himself.

It was raining outside. He could see folk walking past with the brollies up. And the streetlights were on. It would soon be tea-time.

He didnt take the chocolate bar from his sleeve until along the corridor and beyond the Cinemas 1 and 2, which were the most popular and had the biggest auditoriums — but there were usually cunts talking in them, that was the drawback, when you were trying to listen to the movie, they held fucking conversations. He had to lay the cartons of coffee down on the floor, then he stuck his hand in his side jacket pocket, letting the bar slide straight in from the sleeve. He was going to give it to her, the woman. He wasnt that bothered about chocolate himself. And anyway, in his experience females liked chocolate more than males. They had a sweet tooth.

That was one of these totally incredible expressions, a sweet tooth. What did it actually mean? He used to think it meant something like a soft tooth, that you had a tooth that was literally soft, made of something like soft putty. When he was a boy he had a sweet tooth. But probably all boys had sweet tooths. And all lassies as well. All weans the world over in fact, they all liked sweeties and chocolate, ice-cream and lollipops, popcorn.

She was sitting in a semi-motionless way when he got back to the seat and it was like she was asleep, her eyelids not flickering at all. Here’s your coffee, he said, milk with no sugar, is that right?

Ta.

He sat down in his old seat after an eternity of decision-making to do with whether or not he could just sit down next to her, on the seat next to hers; but he couldnt, it would have been a bit out of order, as if just because he had bought her a fucking coffee it gave him the right of fucking trying to sit next to her and chat her up, as if he was trying to get off with her — which is what women were aye having to put up with. The best people to be women were men because of the way they were, the differences between them, their sexuality, because they could get sex any time they like just about whereas men were usually wanting it all the time but couldnt fucking get it — it was a joke, the way it worked like that, a joke of nature, them that wanted it no getting it and them that didnt want it having to get it all the time. The bar of chocolate. He took it out his pocket and glanced at it; an Aero peppermint; he passed it across, having to tap her elbow because she was staring up at the screen.

Here. It’s a spare one. He shrugged, I’m no needing it. I’m no really a chocolate-lover anyway, to be honest, I’ve no got a sweet tooth, the proverbial sweet tooth. He shrugged again as he held it to her.

Oh I dont want that, she said out loud, her nose wrinkling as she frowned, holding her hand up to stop him. And he glanced sideways to see if folk had heard her and were maybe watching. He whispered:

How no? It’s alright.

Oh naw pal I just dont eat them — Aero peppermints — any kind of bar of chocolate in fact, being honest, I dont eat them.

Is it a diet like?

Aye. Thanks for the coffee but.

That’s alright.

You’re no offended?

Naw. I’ll eat it myself. On second thoughts I’ll no, I’ll keep it for later. He stuck it back into his pocket and studied the screen while sipping the coffee which was far too milky it was like water. Funny, how they said something was coffee and then sold you a cup of fucking water with just a splash — a toty wee splash — of brown stuff, to kid you on. Total con. They did the selfsame thing with tea, they charged you for tea but served you with milk and water and another wee splash of brown, a different tasting one. You couldnt trust them. But it was hard to trust people anyway, even at the best of times. You were actually daft if you trusted them at all. At any time. How could you? You couldnt. Cause they aye turned round and fucked you in some way or another. That was his experience.