James Kelman - Not Not While the Giro

I walked to the exit. The gaffer coming after me. McArra the checkerman had stopped singing and was gazing at us from behind a row of crates but I could see the cavity between his lips. The gaffer’s hand had grasped my elbow. Listen McLeish, he was saying. You’ve got a job to do. A week’s notice you have to give. Dont think you can just say you’re leaving and then walk out the fucking door.

I am not here now. I am presently walking out the fucking door.

Stop when I’m talking to you!

No. A block of matter landed at my feet an hour ago. I have to be elsewhere. I have to be going now to be elsewhere. Morning.

Fuck you then. Aye, and dont ever show your face back in this depot again. McArra you’re a witness to this! he’s walking off the job.

Cheerio McArra. I called: I am, to be going.

Cheerio McLeish, said the checkerman.

Outside in the street I had to stop. This was not an ordinary kind of carry on. I had to lean against the wall. I closed my eyelids but it was worse. Spinning into a hundred miles of a distance, this speck. Speck. This big cavity I was inside of and also enclosing and when the eyelids had opened something had been presupposed by something. Thank Christ for that, I said, for that, the something.

Are you alright son?

Me. . I. . I was. . I glanced to the side and there was this middle-aged woman standing in a dark coloured raincoat, in a pair of white shoes; a striped headscarf wrapped about her head. And a big pair of glasses, spectacles. She was squinting at me. Dizzy, I said to her, a bit dizzy Mrs — I’m no a drunk man or anything.

O I didnt think you were son I didnt think you were, else I wouldnt’ve stopped. I’m out for my messages.

I looked at her. I said: Too early for messages, no shops open for another couple of hours.

Aye son. But I cant do without a drop of milk in my tea and there was none left when I looked in the cupboard, so here I am. I sometimes get a pint of milk straight from the depot if I’m up early. And I couldnt sleep last night.

First thing this morning you could’ve called me a milk man, I said while easing myself up from the wall.

O aye.

I nodded.

Will you manage alright now?

Aye, thanks, cheerio Mrs.

Cheerio son.

I was home in my room. A tremendous thumping. I was lying face down on the bed. The thumping was happening to the door. McLeish. McLeish. Michael McLeish! A voice calling the id of me from outside of my room. And this tremendous thumping for the door and calling me by id McLeish! Jesus God.

Right you are, I shouted. And I pulled the pillow out from under my chin and pulled it down on the top of the back of my head. The thumping had stopped. I closed my eyelids. I got up after a second of that and opened the door.

We went to the depot, said one, but you’d left by then.

The second policeman was looking at my eyes. I shut the lids on him. I opened my mouth and said something to which neither answered. I repeated it but still no reply.

I told your gaffer what’d happened earlier on, said one. He said to tell you to give him a ring and things would be okay. No wonder you were upset. I told him that, the gaffer. Can we come in?

Can we come in? the other said.

Aye.

Can we come in a minute Michael? said the other.

I opened the door wider and returned to bed. They were standing at the foot of it with their hats in their hands. Then they were lighting cigarettes. A smoke, asked one. Want a smoke?

Aye. I’m not getting things out properly. I’m just not getting out it all the way. The block as well. . it wasnt really the block.

Here. . The other handed me an already burning cigarette.

I had it in my mouth. I was smoking. Fine as the smoke was entering my insides. The manner in which smoke enters an empty milk bottle and curls round the inner walls almost making this kind of shinnying noise while it is doing the curling. The other was saying: Nice place this. You’ve got some good pictures on the wall. I like that one there with the big circles. Is it an original?

Aye, yes. I painted it. I painted it in paint, the ordinary paint. Dulux I mean — that emulsion stuff.

Christ that’s really good. I didnt know you were a painter.

It is good right enough, the other said.

Fingers. I used my pinkies; right and left for the adjacents. You know that way of touching the emulsion. That was what I was doing with the. . I was. . and the milk bottle, the milk bottle I suppose.

But dont let it get you down because the gaffer definitely did say you were to get in touch with him and it would be okay, about the job and that.

Aye, the other said. The thing is we’ll need to go to the station. Our serjeant wants to hear how it happened with Mr McKillop this morning. How you saw it yourself — witnessed it Michael. We can get a refreshment down there, tea or coffee. Okay? — just shove on your clothes and we’ll get going.

In the back seat of the patrol car one of them said: I’m not kidding but that painting of yours Michael, it was really good. Were the rest of them yours as well?

Aye, yes. I was doing painting. I was painting a lot sometimes. On the broo and that, before I started this job. In a sense though. .

The policeman was looking at me, between my eyes; onto the bridge of my nose. I closed the eyelids: reddish grey. I could guess what would be going on. The whole of it. The description. A block of matter wasnt it. It would be no good for them — the serjeant, the details of it, the thump of impact. What I was doing and the rest of it. Jesus God. I was painting a lot sometimes, I said to him.

What’s up?

Nothing. I’m just not getting the things, a hold. . sploshing about.

It had to upset you — dont worry about that.

Not just the block but. Not just the block that I was. . Ach.

I stopped and I was shaking my head. The words werent coming. Nothing at all to come and why the words were never. They cannot come by themselves. They can come by themselves. Without, not without. The anything. They can do it but only with it, the anything. What the fuck is the anything; that something. A particular set of things maybe.

Open the window a bit, the other said. Give him a breath of fresh air. Gets hell of a stuffy in here. And refreshments when we get there.

A wee room inside the station I was walked into. A policeman and a serjeant following. I was to sit at a table with the serjeant to be facing me. And he saying: I just want you to tell me what it was happened earlier on. In your own words Mr McLeish.

A block of matter, it was at my feet. I was. . I glanced at the serjeant to add, I couldnt be said to be there in a sense. A thump of impact and the block of matter.

A block of matter, he replied after a moment. Yes I know what you’re meaning about that. Mr McKillop was dead and so you didnt see him that way; you just saw him as a kind of shape — is that right, is that what you’re meaning?

You could — I mean I could, be said to — no. No, I was walking and the thump, the block.

You were walking to work?

Aye, yes.

And the next thing, wham? the body lands at your feet?

No. In a sense though you. . No, though; I was walking, thump, the block of matter. And yet — he was a short man, stumpy legs, longish body. And less then — less than, less than immediately a block of matter. Eyes. The objects that had been eyes. Jesus no. Not had been eyes at all. They were never eyes. Never ever had been eyes for the block. McKillop’s eyes those objects had been part of. Part of the eyes. And I looked into them and they were not eyes. Just bits — bits of the block.

Look son I’m sorry, I know you’re. . The serjeant was glancing at the policeman. And his eyes!

Your gaze is quizzical: I said.