James Kelman - If it is your life

All kinds of mental stuff happens when ye are in for a pint. Couples! Hoh, fuck. I swallowed a mouthful of beer, keeping my face fixed. But no for long no for long and I was like Aw for fuck sake, landing my pint on the bar and pushing clear to the fresh air.

Ohhh man yeh.

That dampness in the air. I was so glad of that. I breathed deep, really deep. I imagined it all misty and ye were out in the country. Farms and fields. Aw aye. Even the way mist comes down ower the Clyde.

It does. The Clyde is country too, ye forget that.

And what about when ye look up and it is all grey patches of mist and through them ye see the night sky, maybe even the stars? I like that too.

Now was the sound of boys, teenage little cunts, that hee-haw voice they have, gon up and down. But cheery. Probably they were scouting about for lassies. Little did they know the lassies would be scouting about for them. Great to be young! Hoh! and I dont think, I was glad to be gon hame.

I paid them the money and hoisted the bicycle onto my left shoulder, set off down the path. Quite an awkward path. The ground seemed very knotty; I worried about stubbing my toes and tripping. Nor could I see down properly. Owing to the bicycle my actual vision was obscured. On the other hand a natural deterioration takes place in the body and the eyes are not excluded from this. I understand that my sight fails but have been less aware of it in practice than some have predicted. My wife as an obvious factor. Christine, ah Christine.

My feet retain their sensitivity; along the path I was conscious of the twisted roots and branches. Also occasional slates, roof slates; I heard them fracture under my heels. Many were broken before I went trampling across. It was unavoidable. I wondered if the slates had been placed there by intention: broken pieces would embed in the earth between the roots, making the passage easier. It was reassuring to think this the case.

All in all a difficult terrain. I found it so anyway. The shrubbery itself was overgrown, if one could call it shrubbery. I say ‘shrubbery’: one might call it vegetation. In our marriage my wife was the gardener. Always, even if I could garden she was the gardener, and if one senses an antagonism one is not misguided.

It was thick and became thicker, this vegetation; a density. Manoeuvring became hazardous. One had to avoid shoulder-height obstacles such as branches and those jaggy, long-stemmed entities. I recollect them from childhood, horrible things that stabbed one’s limbs. I was colliding and having to force a way through, and then also what felt like mesh, and perhaps was mesh, or meshes, shuddering — cobwebs! of course — I felt them across my head, the scalp and what remains of my hair, a sort of wafting touch, a dragged thread, scaly thin indices, skeletal. None of those exaggerations amused me. I termed them ‘observations’, tempered by the bicycle frame cutting into my shoulder.

On my initial entry into the garden I failed to notice how awkward it was along the pathway. I must have been sleepwalking. My head was so full of the potential bargain, the bicycle itself which I wanted for my grandson. He needed a bike and his birthday approached. Children need bikes. Children are expensive. Bicycles, I meant to say, are expensive.

Some received and some did not. Mine did not. Eventually they would, they too, they would, they would get one.

I would surprise the family with my purchase. It is true that I wanted to win my grandson’s affection. My son-in-law was a difficult young man. If truth be told he was an awkward bugger. I believe that intellectually he was not my equal but in terms of cunning was, and of decision-making. He was forthright too. That annoyed me. One might praise forthrightness as a quality but only in those whose actions are tempered by good sense. I would never have accused my son-in-law of sense, certainly not of the worthy variety. My grandson favoured him, over myself, which is entirely normal. Fathers and grandfathers are not in competition. If only he might have remembered that.

My daughter was sympathetic but finally had made her bed. I did not begrudge her this. This world offers limited potential; one takes where one can. She told me she loved him. I found it excruciating.

I dare say her chosen partner would have found me difficult. Outwith the presence of a third party we did not communicate. My grandson offered that possibility. He was a cheery boy; he and I seemed to hit it off.

On the whole I thought it better to skip a generation and make my peace with my children’s children. Christine and I found it too disagreeable for discussion. She lacked patience. In earlier times it was the root cause of our problems. Now she refused to discuss the situation which was ironic, given that the problems themselves had disappeared. Through age I imagine. Nevertheless, it was an unpleasant situation. Occasionally I yearned for earlier times, older times, when she and I fought like cat and dog, but later came together, as lovers often do. Nowadays her impatience overwhelmed me. Always it was directed against myself. Why was that? This morning I had seen the advertisement in the morning newspaper but when I read it out she would not listen. She refused to discuss ‘the matter’.

I replied, It is not ‘a matter’ it is a bicycle. I wish to acquire a bicycle for our grandson. What is wrong in that? Is there something wrong in that?

No.

Well then?

I refuse to discuss it with you.

On second thoughts thank God, thank God. It was heartfelt! I had nothing to discuss with her. The relationship between myself and my son-in-law was not a subject for discussion.

Anyway, I would not describe it as a relationship. Arrogant bugger. Astonishing, that he could have considered himself the equal

The bicycle cut into my shoulder. Perhaps it was not a good bicycle. Good ones were lightweight. Or used to be. Nowadays — well, nowadays. Statements that begin in such fashion denote age, and anti-social odours.

The atmosphere in the garden seemed to have altered. It was almost peculiar. Certainly it was chilly. Once again I had been fooled by weather forecasters. I was wearing only a tee-shirt, a thin tee-shirt at that. Of course all tee-shirts are thin. I was not foolish. Elderly yes foolish no, at least not by nature. Nor by inclination, through the nurturing process, part and parcel of ageing.

It is true that I was a grandfather and this bicycle had been purchased for my grandson, a boy that I liked. I could imagine a grandson whom I did not like. I had two granddaughters also, by my son. Of course I liked them. Obviously I loved them. But in like fashion? Perhaps, given that we saw them so rarely. Difficult terrain altogether, gender and one’s response. Absence makes the heart grow fonder. Perhaps, but proximity and habit bring greater rewards.

It was entirely possible, in fact probable, that my grandson would not want the bike. He held his own opinions, personal opinions. He was seven years of age but most independent. In this day and age such sensibility was crucial not simply for personal but for social development. The key to survival lay in communality. The present generation of adults neglected this.

Salutary, that my granddaughters would not have wanted the bicycle, had they been here to receive it. Nothing I acquired for them was treated seriously. They allowed me to tickle them and give them money. I occupied that typical elderly-male role; the ridiculous figure of fun, undiagnosed victim to early dementia. I only suffered the deteriorating condition: the rest of the family were its victims. Oh God.

But I needed to pause a moment. The damn bike. A certain discomfort, a certain — pain, I was experiencing pain, effected by the cycle frame, the crossbar itself, it seemed so heavy, or awkward somehow because how could it be so heavy, not so heavy. That was the stuff of delusion. Surely?