James Kelman - The Burn

I’m not pitying ye. I’m not.

Aye ye are — just go if you’re bloody going; but dont you fucking pity me. And who are ye going with anyway? Is he waiting down the stair? Is he? Down the fucking stair?

There’s nobody.

Ya liar.

She shook her head.

Ye are, ya bloody liar ye.

Now she frowned at him. I didnt have to wait ye know I could just have went this afternoon when you were out at the E. T. I could’ve.

How come ye never then?

Because it wouldnt have been fair, to just leave.

Okay, he said, thanks. Thanks.

She reached for the remains of her cigarette from the ashtray on the coffee table. There was only a puff left in it. She stubbed it out; her other hand settled onto the handle of the suitcase. He stared at it, grey and green coloured trimmings, he had never seen it before. It looked brand new.

So you’ve decided then, he said, that’s it final? When did ye decide?

Does it matter?

Aye.

For one isolated solitary moment in time she stared straight at him, then she sighed and it was a sigh of pure relief. It was a sigh of pure relief. There she was. That was her. Whatever it was he had said was enough for her; to know she had done right, that the decision she had made was the right one. He frowned because he was puzzled. What had he said? What was it? It should have been there in front of him so clearly but he couldnt bring it to mind. What was it? What had he said, just there, a minute ago, that had set the seal on her leaving?

The door had closed. He studied it and he thought about it, her leaving. But the when didnt make one bit of difference, unfortunately, she had just gone, she was away; he thought of running to the window to maybe shout down at her but what was the point of that, it just wasnt him, it wasnt the sort of thing he did; he looked at the door, he studied it.

The first thing to do is walk slowly and dont look either way, you keep the hands in the pockets, the jerkin pockets, the shoulders hunched a little. Folk watch you. The police are there as well. It’s nasty. There is a thing not good to the mind. But you have to keep going. It is a vice, and the way of all vices, that compulsion. It isnt even of interest. The heads dont turn. They notice though. They notice. They just dont hardly bother because it is so expected. That predictability. Yes, okay, which is a relief. If the predictability did not exist the thing would become the more burdensome, the more destructive to your mind. Not your mind, your soul. Minds are just too uninteresting. But souls. Souls are interesting: they are of interest. Note the irony. Souls are of interest. If you live in an atmosphere that is religious then they are not of interest, but our atmosphere is irreligious, not to say sacrilegious, so, the existence of souls. My own soul. .

Well now, the unfinished thought, the pregnancy of it. We dont know. That is to say, we are unable to tell. But, the duty to the thought: my own soul is, not to beat about the bush, lacking in effervescence. What do we mean by that. We mean that my soul is in a state. The state is one of trauma, though trauma is too harsh. My soul is the soul of a depressive, manic perhaps, even maniacal. A hundred years ago the notion of manic depression was not in play. I banged my eye. I put up my hand to my face, to maybe rub my brow I cannot remember, but my finger went into my eye! It damn well nips and water streams from it. There is a heatwave too. It is three a.m. I was not able to sleep because of the heat. My partner’s body was sweating. Each time we closed we stuck, or I stuck. My partner seemed not to stick. It was me who stuck and had to dislodge myself and I could almost hear the sound of it, the slight smacking noise. A car starts up below. A neighbour is mysterious. I hear the car start on other mornings also. The stickiness of my partner’s body. I went to the wardrobe and got some clothes on. Three a.m. and I needed to get out. I felt like I was sweating severely. I filled the washbasin in the bathroom with cold water and then dunked in my noggin and let the cold water drip down my neck and down the hairs on my chest so that it was slightly uncomfortable underneath the shirt I wore, but it was worth it to get a feeling of freshness. Besides, I like the night, the depth of it — except that at this time of year it only lasts for something like two hours say, half-midnight to about 2.45, and after that you’ve got the navy-blue/charcoal-grey tinting the sky.

It was nice being out, I felt that for my soul. I am fond of my partner but it does my soul the world of good to escape, to escape into the air, the still of the dark part of the night. Solitary motor cars. Where I live a couple of shops open right into the late night so it’s good, especially good having a place to walk to, you can just stroll as slowly as you like, and if the police stop you you’ve got the readymade excuse. But if you have a vice, a compulsion — even just walking the street, if that’s your compulsion — then they stare at you. They are not at all certain. You look so normal and natural an individual, so normal and natural, that they cannot gauge you, what it is, the police, they cannot think that about you. Therefore what happens next is always tinged not by despair but the utmost nervewracking excitement. I know the district you see and in knowing the district it is a fantasy of mine that the police are trying to capture me. I am standing giving answers to certain questions and they look one to the other, suspicious of me, I see it in their very faces, their gestures, the way they stand ready to grab me if I so much as make a move. But that split second prior to them reaching out to get me I sprint suddenly sideways and through a close, down the steps and out by the dunny there or else into the dunny except I hate the idea of being trapped there and them entering with their torches, flashing on my face. I sprint instead beyond the dunny and across the wall, leaping down into the next backcourt and out through the gapsite down Brown Street and to the waterfront, down the steps and rushing headlong, but quiet, controlling my harsh breathing, the moonlight over the ripples of the Clyde, the tremendous elation of that, and maybe hearing the harsh sounding breaths of the chasing policemen, the slap of their boots on the tarmac, the concrete paving. This is my area and there is the old tunnel too and there is bound to be some old forgotten side entrance I can slip through, clattering down and down and down, my knees almost caving with the force of my movement. God.

While she was telling the yarn she kept her eyes away from me, just pausing now and then, her head to one side, trying to work out if I was still listening. Of course I was still listening. But she was beginning to annoy me. It was to do with her humility, not really humility, something else, a kind of Uriah Heep deceit maybe; I felt like she didnt rate me. I listened because I had no real option. Duty called and I was having to be polite. It was the occasion of my first cousin’s wedding and our two sides of the family were supposed to be close. I concentrated hard. She had lines all round her eyes and she was squinting. What the fuck was it? Something about Uncle Boabby and my da. I stood looking at her. I should have taken ice in the cherry brandy. It was a habit I was trying to get into. The ice freshened you up. An old guy in the pub told me that once. He wasnt wrong.

But what the hell was she rabbiting on about? Da was sitting just across the room from us. It was crowded but I could see him, him and the brother, the two of them, having a quiet blether.

And Uncle Boabby; it was strange to think she knew Uncle Boabby at all let alone what she seemed to be implying — carnal improprieties. The last I heard he was somewhere on the west coast of Ireland, and that was years ago. He had been quite an exciting figure for me as a boy and this wee woman wasnt. She looked wizened as well. But Uncle Boabby and his wife used to be continually fighting and splitting up and then getting back together again and then starting to fight again and all that sort of predictable stuff so maybe at a time where they had fallen out and were away from each other this wee woman had appeared on the scene or else it was a time they had got back together again and here it was I was meeting an illicit affair of a former hero. Big deal. Then the da. But who knows with him, he’s aye been a dark horse.