James Kelman - If it is your life

She had a cigarette halfway out the packet.

You are a member of the public, I said, so you do have certain entitlements, certain prerogatives. It’s obviously a surprise seeing you smoke again because you did so well beating the habit in the first place.

Obviously?

Obviously?

You said obviously.

Because it is a surprise. I admired you so much for stopping. I’m talking in the first place, you showed fine determination

It wasnt in the first place, I smoked in the first place.

Nobody smokes in the first place.

My mother and father both smoked. So it was in me from birth, pre-birth. My mother and father were nicotine addicts. Why are you frowning?

I’m not frowning I just, I dont believe you.

But it is true, whether you believe me or not. They gave my mother an ashtray in the delivery room.

That is nonsense.

Jennifer smiled.

Honestly?

Yeh.

What was it a private hospital?

Of course.

I knew your parents were stinking rich. You only pretended they werent.

She chuckled — a laugh more, a quiet laugh, a beautiful laugh. I was expecting her to say something more but she was not, she was not being trapped into it. Never. Never never never.

How come I ever had her as a girlfriend in the first place! She was way way beyond me! Way way beyond! She was just

something. Something else. She was watching me. Sorry.

What?

I do apologize.

For what?

I looked at her when she asked that. Really, it was some question. For what! For smiling, I said, it is just so goddam fucking ironic.

I know.

You know? Yeh, of course you do. Let me tell you something; I felt good this morning. When I woke up, I felt good. Now a massive great shadow is hovering above me. It is you that’s brought it. You’ve created it. I’m talking about you, your presence.

She held the unlit cigarette between the fore and middle fingers of her right hand. Then she winked.

Yes I tried to smile, I did, I failed. I sniffed slightly and drank a little beer. I realized about the wink, why she had winked at me. She had caught me in the act of staring at her. I was staring at her. That was why she winked.

Lines from old movies. Damn you woman! I should have been wearing a Noël Coward smoking-jacket. Damn you woman! James Mason. Damn you woman! She would be in the long black dress, those black silk gloves that come up to the elbow and all wrinkles but intentional wrinkles: silk. And her elbows, her shoulders, and her neck.

Former intimacies. Her body.

I could have thought more things. These were pressing my mind. Memories so solid they were physical. Yes I had been staring. I carried on staring. Simply the fall of her breasts. Once upon a time I would have blushed, the blood coursing, tugging the bra below, my tongue to the nipple. Had she forgotten!

All of it.

How familiar I was with her body. She must have forgotten. I had no sympathy for her and that is the God’s truth. None at all. I wished it were untrue because I did feel for her, something for her. It was undeniable. If I could have been more sympathetic I would have been, but I could not.

Nothing could be done about that.

How had we ever managed to be intimate! Seriously intimate. Yet we had. Not only sex. Sure we had sex, of course we had. Her beautiful body, and mine — my whatever one calls it, body, mess of a body, my body, the inexpressible. Men’s bodies are not so good.

One of life’s sour mysteries.

Women and bodies. Sometimes I gazed at myself in the mirror when I was naked. A gaze is a vacant look. One sees nothing in particular, general traits and appearances. I was all misshapen. My testicles were the strangest-looking objects. My knees and thighs were so thin. Too thin. No woman could fall for me.

Nor had she fallen for me. It was me, I had fallen for her. I won her. I went after her, I broke her down. Everywhere she looked I was there till finally she caved in. Oh if I say yes maybe he’ll go away! That was what she thought. She said yes to get rid of me.

Then I lost her.

Yet she wouldnt have been here unless she needed me. Surely not? Why else? I have to ask, I have to ask, why you’re here and telling me all this? You knew I wouldnt be sympathetic. How could I be? These married men bastards, they’re out-and-out — well, that is what they are, bastards, not to put too fine a point on it. Cant they just leave people alone?

She smiled.

It is not me that is naive, I said, it is you. That is the trouble. You think you are smart but you arent, not really.

She shook her head.

Face the fact, it wasnt you made the first move with this guy. You might think it but you did not. You are kidding yourself about that. It was him. Guaranteed.

She sighed, glanced towards the door.

I’m telling you how it was Jenny. He put himself in your way. He made sure you were aware of him. You would not have made the move if he hadnt set it up. I’m not saying he forced you against your will; what I’m saying is it would not have happened unless he allowed it, it was him made the running. There is a word for that, and I cant think of it. But it has to do with psychological, it is psychological.

A word for psychological?

Excuse me?

Sorry, she said, but is it a word for psychological you’re looking for?

I’m not looking for anything.

Oh, I thought you were.

Well I’m not.

Sorry.

Was she being sarcastic? How could she have said that? Not to me! Surely not. Now she was smiling. I might have predicted it. Such a strange phenomenon. She had that ability to smile her way out of trouble. Women do. Not only women. Mainly women. And politicians. Smile smile smile. It was a sickening spectacle.

You asked me for another word for psychological, said Jenny.

Oh I did?

Dont be angry with me.

I’m not.

You are.

Never.

She sighed.

But dont act like I havent got an interest, that’s all. You hurt me when you broke it off between us. Because you did not find me sexually attractive dont assume it was mutual.

I did find you sexually attractive. I did. I did find you sexually attractive.

There’s no point saying that.

I did.

Dont say it if it’s not true.

Oh Mike, you have such a low opinion of yourself. You do. Eventually it rubs off on people.

Oh does it?

You dont want me to say it because you dont want to know it. You dont want to believe it. You dont want to hear the truth. Sorry, but you dont. I wish you would stop doing it to yourself; there are too many martyrs in this world.

I smiled. She ignored it, she continued: It’s all right being a martyr if people know. But why do it in secrecy, it’ll only make you bitter; you are bitter anyway, you dont need other factors to help it along.

Mm.

Yes. She nodded.

I finished my beer. Her orange juice lay untouched. I pointed at it. I asked if you wanted a different drink earlier on, I said, I was talking about tea or coffee, not alcohol.

I beg your pardon?

I was not talking about alcohol.

Yes you were.

I wasnt

You said gin.

I didnt at all say gin.

You did.

I didnt.

Sorry but you did.

I didnt.

You did.

Well I dont remember saying it.

Well sorry but you did.

Do you want a cup of tea?

Tea? Will they do that for you?

They’ll do it for anybody.

They’ll do it for you because you’re a good customer. What kind of tea do they have?

Any kind. Ordinary tea. What is it you’re looking for, lemon green tea with a peppermint twist or something, frogs’ legs and mint julep and burdock dandelions or some damn thing, vanilla with fudge flavouring, or one brought from the heights of the Andes mountains! Will I run round to the deli and get you a pack of special-flavoured tea-bags?