James Kelman - The Burn

She looked at him quite surprised. It was maybe the first time she had genuinely acknowledged he was a person. And it made him think it confirmed she was a student, but at the same time about her politics, that she was good and left-wing. He jerked his head in the direction of the woman serving behind the bar. Her there, he said, I think she’s a single parent; she looks like she goes about worried out of her skull because of the bills coming in — she’ll have a tough time of it.

The lassie raised her eyebrows just; and that was that, she dropped her gaze. In fact she looked like she was tired, she did look like she was tired. But it was a certain kind of tiredness. The kind you dont like to see in young people — lassies maybe in particular, though maybe no.

I’m forty going on fifty, he said and he smiled, forty going on fifty. Naw but what I mean is I feel like I’m fifty instead of forty. No kidding. In fact I felt like I was fifty when I was thirty! It was one of the major bones of contention between me and the wife. She used to accuse me about it, being middle-aged. She used to say I was an auld man afore my time. No very nice eh? Accusing your husband of that.

He smiled as he shook his head, swigged a mouthful of beer. Mate of mine, he said, when I turned forty, at my birthday, I was asking him what like it was, turning it I mean, forty, and what he telled me was it took him till he was past fifty to bloody get over it!

He smiled again, took his fags out for another smoke although he was trying to cut down. The lassie already was smoking. He lit one for himself. I noticed you come in, he said, the way you walked ben the lounge and then came back here, like you were looking for somebody. I’m no being nosy, it’s just an observation, I thought you were looking for somebody.

She had two brown moles on her cheek, just down from her right eye. They were funny, pretty and beautiful. It made him smile.

That was how I spoke to you, he went on, because I thought you were in looking for somebody and they hadnt showed up. I’m no meaning to be nosy, it was just I thought the way you looked, when you came in. . He finished by giving a nod then inhaled deeply on his cigarette. He was beginning to blab and it was making her uncomfortable. He wasnt saying it right, what he was meaning to say, he was coming out with it wrong, as if it was a line he was giving her, a bit of patter.

She was just no wanting to talk. That was it. You could tell it a mile away. Then at the same time she wasnt wanting to be bloody rude. It was like she maybe didnt quite know how to handle the situation, as if she was under pressure. Maybe she would have handled things better if it had been a normal day, but for some reason the day wasnt normal. Maybe something bad had happened earlier on, at one of her classes, and she was still feeling the effects, the emotional upset. He wanted to tell her no to worry. She wasnt at her classes now.

Unless she thought he was acting too forward or something because he was talking to her — though as far as pubs go surely no, it was just what comes under the heading of being sociable. And we have to live with one another. Come on, if we arent even allowed to talk! Nowadays right enough you cant even take that for granted; it’s as if you’re supposed to go about kicking everybody in the teeth; you’re no supposed to be friendly, if you’re friendly they go and tell the polis and you wind up getting huckled for indecent assault. There again but folk have had to get that wee bit tougher nowadays, just to survive. He said to the lassie: Do you know what the trouble is? I’m talking about how things have got harder and tougher these past couple of years.

She kept her head lowered. It made him smile. He glanced over the counter but the woman was off serving other folk. He smiled again: You obviously dont want to know what the trouble is! And that’s your privilege, that’s your right. But I’m going to tell you anyhow!

Naw but seriously, he said, the way things are — society I’m meaning — it’s just like auld Joxer says in that play by Sean O’Casey, the world’s in a state of chassis. I’m talking about how capitalism and the right wing has got it all cornered, so selfishness is running amok, everywhere you look, it’s rampant — no just here in Scotland but right across the whole of the western world. It’s bloody disgusting. Everybody clawing at one another. Nobody gives a shit. We just dont care anymore about what the neighbour next door might be suffering. It’s true. They can be suffering. That auld woman up the stair for example, take her, you’ve no seen her for how long? a week? a fortnight? a bloody month? So what do you do do you go up and keek through the letterbox? naw, do you hell; nothing as simple that, what you do is go and phone the bloody polis and get them to come and do it for you. That’s the way it is. So you come to rely on people like the polis as if they were angels of mercy — instead of what they are, the forces of law and order for the rich and the wealthy, the upper class.

The lassie frowned.

Sorry, he said, am I talking too loud? I know you’re no supposed to nowadays. When you talk about something you’re really interested in you’re supposed to bloody keep it down, the noise level I mean. So so much for your interest, if it happens to be bloody genuine. . He shook his head, sighing; he drank from his pint of lager, glancing at her over the rim of the glass, but she was managing not to look at him. Funny how that happened. He could never have managed it himself, to not speak to somebody who was speaking to you. He would have found it extremely difficult, to achieve, he would have found it really difficult. Maybe some folk were mentally equipped to carry that kind of thing off but he wasnt, he just didnt happen to be one of them — not that he would have wanted to be anyhow. Mind you, if he had been a lassie. . But lassies are trained for it, in a manner of speaking; it’s part of the growing-up process for them, young females. It doesnt happen with boys, just if you’re a lassie, you’ve got to learn how not to talk; plus how not to look, you get trained how not to look. How not to look and how not to talk. You get trained how not to do things.

My mother was a talker, he said, God rest her she was a good auld stick. I liked my father but I have to admit it I loved my mother. She used to sing too. She’s been dead for fifteen years. Fifteen years. A long time without your maw eh? I was just turned twenty-five when it happened. A long time ago.

The lassie smiled.

You’re smiling, he said, but it’s true. He tapped ash onto the floor and scraped the heel of his shoe over it, then inhaled deeply. He had loved his mother. It was funny to think that, but he had. And he missed her. Here he was a grown man, forty years of age, and he still missed his mammy. So what but? People do die. It’s the way things are. Nobody can change it. The march of progress.

I dont believe in after-lives, he said, and I dont bloody believe in before-lives. Being honest about it I dont believe in any of your bloody through-the-looking-glass-lives at all. And that includes whatever you call it, Buddhism or Mohammedism or whatever the hell. There’s the here and there’s the now. Mind you, I’m no saying there’s no a God, I’m just no saying there is one. What I will bloody say is I’m no very interested, one way or the other. What about yourself?

O. . She smiled for a moment then she frowned almost immediately; she dragged on her cigarette and let the smoke out in a cloud. Then she dragged on it again but this time inhaled.

He shrugged. It’s alright if you’re no wanting to speak, I know how things are. Dont worry about it. Anyway, I’m doing enough chattering for the two of us! One thing but I will say — correct me if I’m wrong — your politics, they’re like my own, we’re both to the left. Eh?