James Kelman - If it is your life

These relationships Celia had could not be sexual. She had the same with men, intense relationships. She had them with everybody. Why could she not say hullo to people! Surely that was enough? You do not have to have conversations with them all, asking after everybody’s parents and brothers and sisters, who cares about all that, not for everybody, everybody in the whole world it is just impossible, so why even try, it just kills you.

That was old people. Why were they always so interested? It could be irritating.

I felt that about Celia, without being critical. I got angry at myself too. She said these things, stupid things, and I should not have taken them seriously. It was my fault. Everybody is working class. She said it to me. We all have to work.

Imagine my dad hearing that. Just silly stuff. She must have thought that about me, that I was silly.

Maybe I was. I asked her and she did that thing, looking into my eyes. For the ‘real me’. Maybe that is what she was looking for. It was just silly. What is a human being?

Okay she did not have to like me but she slept with me. Why? Was it because I was Scottish? Scottish working class?

Did she like me?

There was a way of looking at Scotland from English people. I caught it from Rob Anderson. He was cautious when he said things; he watched to see my response. That was funny. What did he think!

I did not know. Not Celia either. I know she did not ‘love’ me. That big word. I know she did not.

Because.

I knew it.

I asked her about liking me and she could not say it. She was honest. She would never lie.

Maybe we were finished forever. It was my fault. I would have been better not speaking. I did not speak. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I did anything, whatever I wanted, and if I did not go back, maybe I would never go back. Really, in a way I did not want to.

The rain pouring down. It was noisy. Beating off the window. Smacking off the window. I looked like a wee person, my reflection, a wee worried face. I smiled to see it, and was glad. Then the woman beside me shifted on her seat to see out. That is heavy, she said, my God. You always know when you cross the border. It is always raining.

I smiled. I maybe said ‘yes’.

It was interesting too how women’s secrets, you know all your life about women but really you know nothing. This woman did not know about me and would think I knew nothing but it was not true.

I could even think things! Seeing her, I could! I did not. But I could have, even her age, she was like what age — I do not know. Near to mum.

That was Eric, he was just any woman, that was a joke, he was just like any woman at all and talking about it all the time, usually he was, sex, just all the time. Except now Celia. Maybe he was jealous. I thought he was. Things had changed. I had changed.

The woman closed the book and settled back in her seat, probably closing her eyes. I did not look to see in case she was awake. She had been reading for hours! If you could read text books for hours you would be a genius. Sometimes if it was philosophy it took hours for one sentence; everytime I opened the book I had to go back to the same place.

One thing though, I was starving. I had not thought about food until now. There is something in our subconscious world. Something said by the woman sparked it off, or was it myself, how I responded to her? Something in me. It was hours since I ate. I wondered if she had brought food with her, maybe sandwiches; people brought sandwiches for long bus journeys. Usually I forgot and just bought a bar of chocolate. Perhaps if she had sandwiches she would offer me one!

Why did I even think of that? Because she was a woman. It was sexist. The woman takes care of the food.

But women do. Not all women. Celia did fancy stuff sometimes, not often, hardly at all. She went for hours without eating; if I had waited for her I would have starved to death. Anything I made she ate; cheese on toast, anything, scrambled eggs and beans, pilchards or sardines, fried onions and veggie sausages, rolls and potato crisps: anything at all, I had to do it because she would not, a sausage sandwich even. So much so you wondered if she was actually lazy. Why did she not cook? Yet she ate anything! She gave you the idea she was fussy but she was not. She had a big appetite but pretended not to have. She did not have to pretend. I did not care. Even I liked her appetite. Only I did not notice it at first. If I bought food when we were out she just laughed but she ate it and if it was fish and chips walking home from the movies, she loved it. Just the whole thing. But I loved it more because it was sexy. I thought it was. Sex and food. People say that and you get movies about it; I saw a great Japanese one with Celia. Another one too and it was erotic, I did not think it would be, I did not think of Japanese people having erotic movies. I thought it was the ‘degenerate West’. I was not a movie buff but she was. But it was good being with her there and usually it was quiet when we went. She liked me stroking her. One time after it we returned to her place and people were there and all talking together. They all seemed to know each other except me but it was like they knew who I was. But they did not talk to me and I thought they excluded me. And Celia said something and it was like she excluded me too. Maybe I misheard. I do not even know what it was and have forgotten about it almost completely, it was just a wee comment, just something whatever it was and it was to do with ‘people from the north’. Yet when she made it her hand was on my wrist and was stroking. That was a funny thing to do. How could she do that at the same time? What did that make me to her? I was just like a body. That was the dichotomy. You got it in philosophy about mind and body but this was out the sociology books where people were treated as bodies without a mind. She was taking me to her room anyway and we were trying to escape, that was what I thought. I did not know why we waited in that company or why we joined it in the first place. She must have liked them. That was her. It was up to her, it was her place and her friends. I was a stranger. I was a foreigner, a visitor from another planet, an alien, maybe I was invisible. Sometimes I was but not to her, and it was to her, I did not care about them, saying that or whatever they did, it was her, her doing it and at the same time stroking my wrist, she was, just stroking me, and it was just jeesoh if she wanted sex, the way she was stroking, people would have seen her, the way she was doing it to me. It was following from me, how I had stroked her, that was why she was doing it, she loved me stroking her and there in the cinema lying into me, she loved me doing it and just it was like hypnotizing and if she did it to me jeesoh it was just so — really it was amazing. There was not anything to say it was sex, really and what was there to say I just felt sometimes I was lost. I did not expect any woman to enjoy sex, not like the way a man does, it was a way the woman had of getting the man. If she set her sights on somebody that was how she done it, she used her body. We got seats away from people and did it to each other.

But she really did enjoy it. She said she really did, she laughed at me.

Maybe it was an acting thing. People say what they think. You just do not get liars, not like in the everyday world: that was what she said. I did not believe her. Actors were people and people were people, either they were liars, or they were not liars; and some were both. That applied to most people. Everybody, sometimes they lie and sometimes they tell the truth.

I read the play she showed me, just heavy and dark but to her it was the greatest. She was the first woman I knew who just wanted to have it, and like how I did, if we were sitting someplace like the tube or a bus or even in a supermarket or going along the street and she would touch me and what she wanted to do, just whispering jeesoh it made you shiver and if she touched me sometimes not even knowing it just touching me or brushing against me, her actual hand. She held it in her hand and just looked at my face; she did that. It was like a specimen. She did not know how I would react because she was a female and did not know about males, so if she touched it, seeing what I would do. Faint! That is what! She was seeing my face for the reaction. She was doing psychology and biology and it was like a biological finding, she said it for fun, if you squeeze him there what changes will occur in his facial movements, that was it, how will the male react.