James Kelman - If it is your life

Of course it is: Hate the Homeless week yet again.

Gie us a break.

It was a joke, said Tim.

Aye joke the coalman.

Tim shook his head and dragged on his roll-up, blew out the smoke. He gazed across to the back of the shops. There was a big black dog sniffing about at a pile of bricks. Some size of a dog, he said.

Nicky Parkes was looking at it. I’m fucking starving.

Dont tell me ye’d eat the dog? I said.

Fucking right.

I wonder how come it’s sniffing about there? said Tim. Probably a deid body buried under the ground.

Think so?

Oh aye.

Mind you, said Arthur, it is feasible.

I turned and spat a gob into the fire. It sizzled a moment.

Arthur said, Careful.

What do ye think it’s going to put the fire out?

I didnay mean it like that.

Aw, okay. I nodded, but in a sarcastic way. Arthur annoyed me. He knew he annoyed me. The cunt could-nay make a fire and here he was taking control.

It was me and Nicky Parkes made the fires. Tim helped but no that much. But it didnay matter. I liked making them anyway. I am no saying ye have to be special to make them. But what I will say is: some folk are good at it.

Same when I was a boy. We used to set fire to fields and all sorts, middens and what have ye. We set fires everywhere. There was a rubbish pit no far from our street and we dragged stuff from it. I am talking childhood days, the bygone era. Ye learned about fires. Leather furniture for instance, ye learned about that. Some stuff is dangerous. Motor-car tyres. Rubber. If that lands on yer wrist ye know all about it. Burning rubber; I once got it on my legs. There is more to fires than people think. Nicky Parkes was the same. I knew it the way he built them. And ye have to build them. Fires, I said.

The other three looked at me.

Ye’ve got to build them. I’m talking if ye want them to last.

Oh aye … Tim glanced ower at Arthur.

Nicky Parkes was shaking his head. No at me. He was away thinking about something else. He was even staring in another direction. He was a rude cunt at times. Ye were standing with him but he was away someplace else. How come he palled about with ye? Ye wondered. I liked him but. I dont know why. But I did. He drifted in and out of company. Now ye see him now ye dont.

Like the auld guy, him that died; freezing to death inside a cold tenement building, nay heating or fuck all. What a life. Ye thought ye were doing okay and then ye werenay, ye woke up fucking dead, a block of ice. Poor bastard. Probably he had grandkids too.

The auld yin? said Arthur.

Aye.

Arthur nodded. That’s what I was thinking.

Poor auld cunt.

Heh Tim, what did the headline say?

Man found dead.

Man found dead, it hardly fits the bill. No for something like that, said Arthur, fucking tragedy.

Tragedy’s right, said Tim.

I said: Scandalous. Scandalous is the word I would use.

Nicky Parkes was watching me, he was expecting me to say something more. What? What was I supposed to say? There wasnay a single solitary word. Poor auld cunt, what a way to go. It just wasnay fair. That was the world for ye.

I stepped sideways and edged some burnables into the fire. At least we had a fire. Unlike the auld yin. The truth is I didnay like Tim’s story. I was even half-prepared to know his name. Almost like I knew I would. I asked Tim. Did they gie ye his name?

Him that died?

Aye.

Tim thought about it. Naw, he said.

I shook my head. There was just something about it, some familiar thing.

What do ye think ye knew him?

Naw I mean, nay reason to think that, nay reason at all. Except just

What?

I dont know …

Arthur started speaking about something. The other two listened. I didnay. I rubbed my hands at the fire. Thank fuck it was going good. Sometimes they didnay.

Arthur was on about the time he did in Barlinnie. Ye were sick hearing about it. Some asbestos scare. Burst pipes in the cludgie ceiling. Or Gents’ pisshouse as he called it. Gents’ pisshouse! As if there was another one for Ladies! Barlinnie fucking Prison, know what I mean. The pisshouse was down the back of the block and down a step, and there was a slope there. The plumbers were in working. Ye went for a piss and came out looking like Santa Claus. It was all clouds of asbestos dust, that white fibre stuff. All the bears went on strike, said Arthur. A couple of laggers were in with us, they knew all about it. The screws were feared, they werenay gony do fuck all until we telled them! They were going, Dont worry about white it’s blue that’s the killer! A load of fucking keech. White’s every bit a killer.

Too true, I said, there’s brown, white and blue; each one of them’s deadly.

That was what we said, go for a shite and ye’re a goner. Know what I mean, ye’re in for Breach and wind up it’s a death sentence, mesotheli-whatever-the-fuck.

Christ! said Nicky Parkes.

Stories about the jail aye interested Nicky Parkes. It was obvious he had done time. He wasnay the brightest of cunts but he was crafty. I yawned. It wasnay that jail stories bored me but I had heard this one afore: no just from Arthur.

I stopped listening. He was in full flight. Governors and ministers and priests and fucking royal princes or some shite. What next man the three fucking stooges.

The thing about the asbestos story, I didnay know what it meant. It must have meant something. Otherwise how come guys telled ye about it so much? Was it like solidarity between screws and bears? There was something like that the way Arthur telled it. Fucking shite.

I drifted, looking for stuff.

Ye done time in there ye wanted to forget about it, ye didnay go yapping about it every ten minutes. That was what I thought.

I found a wooden contraption, like a wean’s playpen or an old-fashioned chute for toddlers maybe. I propped it up on a couple of bricks and stuck the heel on the uprights, snapped them easy. I kicked them ower to the side. It definitely wasnay a chute. Nicky Parkes came ower to help and we kicked it nearer the fire. Good wood, I said. All we need is a carton of coffee and we’ll be well away.

What about a wee brandy?

Exactly, smoked salmon and a pound of grapes.

Now Nicky Parkes gave a look in the direction of Arthur. I just shrugged. These two never saw eye to eye. I stayed out it. I didnay get on too well with Arthur either. There wasnay many cunts I did get on with. The wife said that. I was a crabbit auld cunt. That was what she called me. Well, she didnay say cunt, she didnay like swearie-words.

The word for Nicky Parkes was moody. Ye didnay want to do him a bad turn. It was him and me kept the home fires burning.

He had the touch. Ye notice that with fires. Same as a boy, when you and yer mates are building a fire, when it comes to lighting it, getting the thing going, it is usually just the one or two that does that. The other boys stand back. I was quite good. I have to say but something tells me I wasnay in the Nicky Parkes league. Just something about him.

And oily cloots werenay needed either. It wouldnay matter if a galeforce wind was blowing. One match, that was all he needed. He would burn down an entire leisure complex, hotels, fucking restaurants. He was yer man. He was smiling at something. Hey Pat, he said.

What? I said.

A large brandy would be better than a wee yin.

Yeh.

He laughed: A large brandy waiter!

I laughed too. Plus a salmon sandwich!

Arthur looked across at us, wondering what we were laughing about. Meanwhile Tim yakked on about something.

It was about a guy had odeed. Who gives a fuck: that was what I thought. Drugs and dope, I cannay be arsed with it. That many problems in the world. Get us a winner at Cheltenham, that was what I was looking for.