James Kelman - Kieron Smith, Boy

My granda let me go into the box when I was wee. If he was doing a job he brought me into it and gave me a question. We need tools son, what tools do we need? So then we would go and see in the box. It was all a jumble. When he told ye to find a spanner or a hammer or pliers ye had to sort through everything. There was no order, just all stuff on top of each other. Sometimes yer hands jagged into sharp ends and nailpoints or ye caught a bad skelf or else a tiny wee clip went under yer fingernail or ye pulled out a tool from the bottom and something heavy turned over and landed on yer fingers. But it was still great looking and ye aye found stuff ye had never seen before.

I went to my old library down at the park. It was great and all the books ye got. I could see in the adult library if I liked. Some books ye got in the juniors ye got in the adults. Ye were supposed to live roundabout to get their books. If ye lived someplace else ye were to use yer own library. But it was only the mobile one we had in the scheme. I wrote down my grannie's address.

I read books at a table beside the window. The winter was there and it was good looking out. I had books planked on the shelves so I could just read them when I came. I hid them flatways behind ones nobody took out. There was dust on them.

My grannie read magazines and books too. She read her same ones and kept her place with handkerchiefs. The handkerchiefs were ladies' ones. They were small with fancy edges. If ye opened her book they kept the pages. I wished I could stay with her. There was the swimming baths too. I said to grannie about going but she did not want to. Oh maybe sometime, she said.

But there was space for me in the spare bed. Auntie May was in her own flat now and had a boyfriend.

But I did not like walking down to the subway on Saturday nights because if Rangers were playing in the afternoon. Usually there was trouble or ye thought there might be and were watching for gangs. If ye saw any ye went fast but no running, and no looking back till ye got round a corner. Then ye ran. But if they were in front of ye, what now, down another street through the backcourt but what if they came after ye and caught ye, they would give ye a kicking. They would see what religion ye were. Oh what street do ye live in? What team do ye support? What school do ye go to? Are ye a Proddie bastard?

No, I am a RC.

Well ya daft cunt we are Proddie bastards. Most gangs were Proddies. If they caught ye, really, it did not matter what ye were ye were going to get it. Maybe if some of my old pals from Primary were there they would see me, Oh he is one of us, and we would just shake hands. Oh where are ye staying now Smiddy?

But I never saw pals from the old place. I would have went with them. Maybe they were there and I did not know them. They would not look the same. I could not think of their faces.

I was no good at faces. I tried to see them in my head but I could not, they were just all dim and looking the one way. The same with granda. He came into my head a lot. If it was his face usually it was the same one. He had his own wee wave. So saying cheerio to my grannie I done the wave so she would see then went out quick, shutting the door, going down the stairs, water out my eyes. So I was greeting. Sometimes I was.

Hearing him laugh or else his voice to me.

I tried to see his face different, and he was doing the windmill and I was to box inside and hit him, he was just laughing, waggling his fists and showing his chest to punch him. I even got angry when I was wee. Punch punch, that is good son.

I should not have got angry. Imagine getting angry. No with granda. I could not ever hit him, granda was great, he was just great. I was not.

It was bad things, ye done them and should not. If people knew about them. Maybe I would go away. I would have to. If people ever knew.

Dead people watch ye from the other side. Billy MacGregor had ghost comics with tales from beyond the grave. My da had books from the Navy. Him and his pals read them at sea, they swapped them round. He liked science fiction and cowboy stories. Matt read them too. Some of the science fiction was like horror books and one I looked in was sexy and getting into temptation where the man was getting pulled down into the dank and soggy earth but what was happening to him, I did not know, if he was a RC. It just said Christian but really it was RC because he had the Priest there and making the Sign of the Cross on his chest. Oh keep out the Evil One. Oh my Father I have Sinned. Tell me my Son.

I did not know my da would read that. I confess oh Father.

The Priest says, Oh Edouard beware the Dread Ghost, it is a Dread Ghost.

But it is not like a real ghost, only a tempting devil from a horror world beyond and it was the ghost of a departed spirit but it was not a real ghost from a real person, it was a Dread Ghost of an Alien, or like the Evil Spirit of an Alien or maybe a ghost from a long-lost planet in a long-lost universe where it is all evil and they all are Devil-worshippers and all backward prayers and upside-down Holy Mothers of God, but they are not, it is just the Devil. But it was in the body of a girl with a torn dress and one of her legs was bare all the way up and Oh milky-white skin, it is milky-white skin of a soft thigh, oh oh, and it was just the way it was in the story how she was waving to ye. She beckoned. She beckoned ye. But it was from beyond the grave. Where she was leading ye ye did not know if it was murderous deeds except how ye were reading it, if ye got a wee bit randy, that was what happened. I stopped reading it. My maw was there. I was in the kitchenette and she was making the tea. Matt was in the bedroom doing his studies. My da was not home yet so I went ben the living room.

And the man got put behind a walled tomb, Edouard, and it caves in on top of him and he screams and screams but it all falls on deaf ears. He is covered in the dank and soggy earth, filling up his pores, all in his pores, and he cannot breathe, and it is only silence all around and the dank and soggy earth is all in his mouth and up his nose and that is him doomed for ever if he cannot breathe, Oh I cannot breathe I cannot breathe, if he can offer up a prayer. But he cannot. But he does not die but forever and ever he is a living corpse with a waking death doomed unto Eternity. This is his punishment. He did not heed the Priest's warning. And now he hears his friends walking on the carpet of grass above his horrible tomb and he would want to tell them all what happened and to be on the lookout and saying about temptation, Oh if it comes in a cunning disguise, do not fail me old friends, at what befalls us, if it is this, we are as puny men, only pray to God and do not forget me.

But his pals could not hear nothing at all except maybe the wind just whistled a wee bit through the trees and one of them goes, What was that?

Oh it is just the wind.

But into their mind comes a picture of the man and they see his face, Oh it is Edouard, and they know then it is an awful truth, he is passed onto the other side. Except he is not because he is buried alive and just doomed as a Living Corpse. Now it is all silent, not a bird chirping and not a breath of wind and it is just scary, for in that time night had fallen as before their very eyes and there in the gloom is a ghostly figure, if it is a lassie and she has a torn dress, it is, and one of her legs is bare all to the top and her thigh is milky-white plump. Plump. And milky-white breasts, but her red lips are real blood, for all the time she is just the Mask of Temptation. The book was called that. I went through the pages. Then in the library I went to find if the book was there too but it was not but other ones were. I just looked at them, sexy ones too.

I did not believe in dead people walking about. It was just stupid. A boy in the class said it one time and people laughed at him. I listened, but I thought the same. It was all just daft, if people were walking about everywhere and it was all ghosts and spirits. How did they do it? Oh they are invisible. Ye can just walk through them and they walk through you. If ye feel a wee shiver well that is them. People thought that.