James Kelman - If it is your life

So too if she was saying lines. It was the same with other people, they did not all want to be actors. Maybe they did. I doubt it. Probably they enjoyed quoting from plays, books and movies; that was that and nothing more. It could even be dialogue. Imagine doing dialogue out loud, saying different voices, asking questions and answering them, walking along the road by yourself! Some folk must have. If you saw them you would think they were having a real conversation, except it was with themself like in a movie with a psychological plot, maybe if it was a schizophrenic subject, say a guy had different personalities. Or it could be a woman; people trying to control her, and all inside her head all different personalities with all different names. It was quite scary. These personalities did not have to be fighting for supremacy. It could just be an ordinary conversation they were having. Just an ordinary one. And it could be any topic. Except the person whose head it was, the woman with the schizophrenic problem, she could not be the topic, not her herself; that was the one thing the different personalities never discussed, the only taboo topic. Imagine they all discussed the actual person whose head they were in! As soon as they done that the problem became acute, and what next? Madness? It would be a great story to read. That would be like Edgar Allan Poe or else Robert Louis Stevenson. Madness would be next. Although not necessarily, it just depended on the extent of the problem. Even if it was a problem. Maybe it was not or they had yet to discover it was a problem. That condition happens to people and they fail to realize it is happening. Until it does, right out the blue, some traumatic event; a murder usually, the person kills somebody, or one personality tries to kill another. That would be like suicide. But it would not be suicide. That is the amazing thing. It would be the opposite, so what is that, murder, although people would say suicide; they would think it was because it was the one human being. Theoretically no, it would be murder. And they would have to use poison because it would seem like it was happening to somebody else whereas if they used a knife the personalities would know immediately. Jesus Christ I am stabbing myself! Why am I doing it! Why is this happening! You would be murdering yourself except you would not be. You could imagine an actor doing it, a good actor, and all the facial changes.

I was not keen on drama before. We got it at school. To me it was the worst kind of arrogance. Ego, ego. I changed my mind because with Celia. She loved the actual plays. This is why she wanted to do it, not like the other ones. They also acted but it was just stupid; the whole thing was stupid, and nothing to do with great plays and literature. People kidded on it was. It was not serious, just amateur rubbish like you got on television. Celia was in two theatre companies; one at uni and one in the town where her parents lived. The students’ one was Shakespeare and the town one was murders or comedies — they were called comedies. I read a couple and they were diabolical stupidity.

She asked me to do it. The students’ company wanted fresh faces, especially men and if you were macho. I was not macho but it was nice she said it, quite like a compliment. I knew it was the Scottish accent, ‘rough and ready’. She wanted me to go to a practice ‘read-through’. This was one by Henrik Ibsen, the Norwegian author. His plays had great parts for women, Hedda Gabler . I quite wanted to because with her there and just being part of it. The company did practice ‘read-throughs’ by other authors apart from Shakespeare; Arthur Miller was one. Sometimes people did not turn up, especially at exam time. If I came it would be helpful. I nearly did go but then no. I could appreciate the play and it was a laugh doing it. I did the English accent and got it quite good. But why did it have to be the English accent if it was Norwegian, why not Scottish? ‘I am sorry Mrs Hedda, but I fear I must dispel an amiable illusion.’

People would smile when I said it. But why? If it is Norwegian it is Norwegian, so it should be any language.

Because I was the only Scottish person.

That was not much of an argument.

Celia did not care. It was only a read-through anyway.

But what did that mean? If it was an actual play and people were doing proper acting, would it have to be English?

The habit she had was beautiful. She put her hand on the side of my face and stared into my eyes as if looking inside me. She only cared that I said the lines when we were outside and walking down the street.

But I could not, even for fun. ‘I fear I must dispel an amiable illusion.’ I could say the lines in her room quite easily but not outside. I had to not see people’s faces. Oh but surely I could mouth it.

No, I could not. I would have got a red face. I got red faces everywhere. I always got them, just blushing all the time. In tutorials or wherever, it was terrible.

And of course I wanted to be involved because it was obvious because how one thing was how it led to sex, if it was inside or outside. I noticed how she ended up and it was wanting me, wanting sex with me. Ohh. She pinched my arm. We were going along the road and she finished her lines and she did it, maybe just saying Ohh, and then pinching me on the upper arm and turning half on to me as we walked. It made me hard, and walking along the street, I told her, how I was to walk, she laughed. That was a thing how she laughed. She did not laugh at much but me and sex, I made her laugh. She liked me because I got hard. Just thinking about her, jeesoh. Wherever, I could not sit down, or stand up, having to disguise it all the time. She laughed at that and walking along the street and her hand in my pocket, she did that just to get me and she always did, always, she did not care, just her hand.

I got jealous. That was a problem. She did not like jealous people. I did not think I was jealous and when she said I was I thought it a wee bit of a compliment but it was not a compliment. It meant I was naive and ridiculous. Because there had to be other people in her life, the world was full of people and that was freedom, she needed freedom.

It might sound daft but maybe doing philosophy worked against me. I was aware of myself too much and what I thought: what did it matter what I thought; but it did, and in the world too, how my thought mattered in the world; how it mattered to other human beings, and the one source of truth and the absolute base, that was all humanity, and I was part of it and of course Celia herself, what we two thought as separate human beings. She was so honest but if she said something and it was not what I thought I had to say it or else just not talk, better not to talk, so it was better I did not talk.

She never got angry, it was me. But her face went red and she stared right into me seeing what it was, what did I want, it was up to me.

It was up to me. That was right enough. Even if she wanted me to do something, and I knew she did: I did not have to do it.

It was me stopped it. I had not seen her for a while but it was me, my fault. She was with somebody else. I knew she would be. Some rich guy, way out of my league; Oxford or Cambridge or whatever. He would be rich, talking about mummy and daddy all the time; diddums and middums. One did speak like that. Unless she was joking. That was her, diddums and middums. Big mummies’ boys. That was what she said. She might not have been telling the truth. Are you jealous? Why are you jealous? There is nothing to be jealous about.

You could only be jealous if you were the same as somebody else. She said people were all unique and individuals so how could you be jealous, it was nonsensical.

Sometimes she was like a snob. Other times she was the most unsnobbish person you could meet. If she liked people it did not matter lower class or upper class, only if they had a certain view of the world to do with being free and relaxed or all wound up and roped into society’s social spheres. You had to rise above society. The people she admired were above it. It did not matter their background, even royalty. Individuals were unique and could do anything, and not be hidebound. Class did not enter into it, lower or higher.