James Kelman - Not Not While the Giro

Young Cecil changed overnight. He got married just before the game anyway and so what with that and the rest of it he dropped out of things. He went on playing I stick for us for a while and still had the odd game down McGinley’s once or twice. But slowly and surely he just stopped and then somebody spoke for him in Fairfield’s and he wound up getting a start in there as a docker or something. But after he retired he started coming in again. Usually he plays billiards nowadays with the one or two of us that are still going about.

Mind you he is still awful good.

This part of the factory had always been full of rats. It was the storeroom. Large piles of boxes were stacked at the bottom end while scattered about the floor was all manner of junk. Here in particular dwelled the rats. They came out at night. During the nightshift one man had charge of the storeroom; he was always pleased when somebody called up with an order and stayed for a chat. His office lay at the opposite end of the storeroom. He would keep all the lights on here but leave the bottom end in darkness, unless being obliged to go down to collect a box from stock, in which case he switched on every light in the entire place to advise the rats of his approach.

One night a gaffer phoned him on the intercom and told him to get such and such a box and deliver it immediately to the machineshop. Now the storeman had been halfway through the first of his cheese sandwiches at the time but the interruption did not annoy him. There was little work to keep his mind occupied during the night; he was always glad of the opportunity to wander round the factory pushing his wheelbarrow.

Once he had all the lights on at the bottom end he found himself to be holding his parcel of cheese sandwiches. Stuffing the remainder of the one he had been eating straight into his mouth he laid the parcel down on a box so that he could manoeuvre the requisitioned box onto the wheelbarrow. He pushed it along to the exit. He switched off the lights as he went. Outside the storeroom he halted. He dashed back inside and switched them on again and quickly went down to retrieve the sandwiches before the rats could gobble them all up. In his office he placed the parcel on top of a filing cabinet.

He enjoyed the wander, stopping off here and there for a smoke or a chat with particular people he was friendly with. Back in the storeroom he brewed a fresh pot of tea and sat down to continue his lunchbreak. He only ate two of the sandwiches.

Later on in the night a gaffer phoned him with another requisition. He phoned back after when again there was no reply. Eventually he came round in person, to discover the storeman lying on the floor in a coma. He had the storeman rushed off to hospital at once.

For a fortnight the storeman remained in this coma. They took out all of his blood and filled him up with other blood. They said that a rat, or rats, had urinated on his sandwiches and thus had his entire blood system been poisoned.

The storeman said he could remember a slight dampness about the sandwiches he had eaten, but that they had definitely not been soggy. He reckoned the warmth of his office may have dried them out a bit. He said when he left them lying on the box he must have forgotten to close the parcel properly. But he was only gone moments. He could not understand it at all. After his period of convalescence they transferred him to a permanent job on the dayshift, across in the machineshop.

The body landed at my feet. A short man with stumpy legs. He was staring up at me but though so wide open those eyes were seeing things from which I was excluded, not only excluded from but irrelevant to; things to which I was nonexistent. He had no knowledge of me, had never had occasion to be aware of me. He did not see me although I was staring at him through his eyeballs. I was possibly seeking some sort of reflection. What the hell was he seeing with his eyelids so widely parted. He was seeing nothing. Blood issued from his mouth. He was dead. A dead man on the pavement beneath me — with stumpy legs; a short man with a longish body. I felt his pulse: there was no pulse. I wasnt feeling his pulse at all. I was grasping the wrist of a short man. No longer a wrist. I was grasping an extension, the extension to the left of a block of matter. This block of matter was a man’s body several moments earlier. Unless he had been dead on leaving the window upstairs, in which case a block of matter landed at my feet and I could scarcely even be referred to in connection with ‘it’, with a block of matter describable as ‘it’ — never mind being nonexistent of, or to. And two policemen had arrived. O Jesus, said one, is he dead?

I was looking at them. The other policeman had knelt to examine the block and was saying: No pulse. Dead. No doubt about it poor bastard. What happened? he addressed me.

A block of matter landed at my feet.

What was that?

The block of matter, it was a man’s body previous to impact unless of course he was out the game prior to that, in which case, in which case a block of matter landed at my feet.

What happened?

This, I said and gestured at the block. This; it was suddenly by my feet. I stared into the objects that had formerly been eyes before doing as you did, I grasped the left extension there to. . see.

What?

The pulse. You were saying there was no pulse, but in a sense — well, right enough I suppose you were quite correct to say there was no pulse. I had grasped what I took to be a wrist to find I was grasping the left extension of a block of matter. Just before you arrived. I found that what was a man’s body was in fact a block and

. . do you live around here?

What, aye, yes. Along the road a bit.

Did you see him falling?

An impossibility.

He was here when you got here?

No. He may have been. He might well have been alive, it I mean. No — he. . unless of course the. . I had taken it for granted that it landed when I arrived but it might possibly. . no, definitely not. I heard the thump. The impact. Of the impact.

Jesus Christ.

The other policeman glanced at him and then at me: What’s your id?

McLeish, Michael. I live along the road a bit.

Where exactly?

Number 3.

And where might you be going at this time of the morning?

Work, I’m going to work. I’m a milkman.

The other policeman began rifling through the garments covering the block. And he brought out a wallet and peered into its contents. Robert McKillop, he said, I think his id’s Robert McKillop. I better go up to his house Geordie, you stay here with. . He indicated me in a vaguely surreptitious manner.

I’m going to my work, I said.

Whereabouts?

Partick.

The milk depot?

Aye, yes.

I know it well. But you better just wait here a minute.

The policeman idd Geordie leaned against the tenement wall while his mate walked into the close. When he had reappeared he said, Mrs McKillop’s upset — I’ll stay with her meantime Geordie, you better report right away.

What about this yin here? I mean we know where he works and that.

Aye. . the other one nodded at me: On your way. You’ll be hearing from us shortly.

At the milk depot I was involved in the stacking of crates of milk onto my lorry. One of the crates fell. Broken glass and milk sloshing about on the floor. The gaffer swore at me. You ya useless bastard: he shouted. Get your lorry loaded and get out of my sight.

I wiped my hands and handed in my notice. Right now, I said, I’m leaving right now.

What d’you mean you’re leaving! Get that fucking wagon loaded and get on your way.

No, I’m not here now. I’m no longer. . I cannot be said to be here as a driver of milk lorries any more. I’ve handed in my notice and wiped my hands of the whole carry on. Morning.