James Kelman - If it is your life

But I knew that was not how it was, I knew it was not, it was only how she did things and got it into her head, if she would just not get things in her head.

There was no sound now.

Of course not. She had been at it all morning and needed a rest, she would want a cup of tea, and could not get one. She could not get one because I was here, in the kitchen, so she could not come in and put on a kettle of water. What a situation. I got up from the table and opened the door, went ben the front room. The hoover was there but she was not.

She was in the bedroom, sitting on the bed. She looked up, surprised to see me. I smiled. Why attack me? I said. I’m the person closest to you in this whole rotten world.

I dont think it’s a rotten world.

Well I do.

I dont.

My world’s rotten.

Well dont drag me into it, she said. She did not look at me when she spoke. I preferred her to look. I was looking at her. She knew I was. Just dont drag me into it, she said.

I’m not going to.

Then dont.

I waited a moment. Now she glanced at me. I knew she would. I just knew she would. I dont want to drag you into anything, I said, and I wish I didnt have to.

Well you dont have to, she said. You dont have to at all. You dont. Go away and drag somebody else. Why are you smiling?

Who me?

Why are you smiling?

I’m not smiling, I said, except at this point I did smile. It was unfair and I knew it was unfair. Blatantly unfair. Yet still I did it. Sometimes I have a thing in me; I know that I am a man. We both do. She is weaker, as a woman. It is just a physical thing. I have the physical strength. I have it in me. She is so much weaker. I could just hit her. I could. I would not like to say what I could do to her. She was staring at me. She did not know what I was thinking. It was inside my head. She did not know what went on. I was glad she did not. I needed her not to. People need their space and their privacy, me too. Sometimes she looked at me. I did not like how she did it.

But it was my fault. It was. I knew it was. If she would just help me, why did she not? I wished she would. I honestly did. But she did not even talk, she did not talk, why did she not talk it drove me actual mad, just straight angry mad that was what she did and she did not have to, she just did it. Did she even know I had her cornered? Of course she did but what did she do about it? Nothing. I wanted to scream. She reached for a pillow; why I do not know. I do not know why. What was a pillow going to do, a piece of flimsy cotton or wool or some stuff. She did not speak. Why did she not speak? That aggravated me. She did aggravate me, she had it in her power and she used that power. She had her power. Women do. She did.

She was looking at me but then was not, just at the carpet floor; if she needed to hoover, maybe she was wondering.

She knew how this would start. The very words that came out my mouth. It did not depress me. Her challenge on reality was the key. I had not replied openly. I pretended to mishear. We might have been watching television for all the difference it would have made. I brought it up out the blue and her heart sank. I was smiling. I was unable to stop myself. Even before saying it I was smiling. At the very idea! She would have been expecting it but not even knowing she was expecting it! Until I did it. Then she would. And she was beat. She knew she was beat. She knew I had beat her, just cornered, she was cornered.

How had I managed it? It was so good I felt like writing it down for future situations. It was a beauty. I could have written it down on an old envelope if I had found one, also a pen, if I could find one of them. But we did not keep them in the bedroom. Bedrooms were not there for that purpose. Envelopes and pens were for the front-room writing-cabinet just like cups and saucers were for the kitchen and vacuum cleaners the walk-in lobby cupboard.

I had no interest in any of that. The present was difficult enough. Just concentration concentration, that was the key, apply the brains, the grey matter. Or so I thought. Only for a moment or two. Who was kidding who?

But what was it? I wondered. Even the way she was looking at me. How come she was looking at me? I looked at her. I stared at her. It was not hard to do.

Date of arrival: April.

Another dream laid waste.

I had prepared my defence but when the time came they gave me no chance to deliver it. I wasnt allowed to shave and my hair was in an unkempt condition. The Accompanying Officer showed me into court, told me where to stand and the proper way of standing. The Court Official read out the bare facts of the charges so rapidly I had little time to mumble your Honour, Lordship or Worship and wondered what term I was supposed to use hereabouts. Different authorities different formalities. The Court Official’s speech consisted of rambling passages that degenerated into confused utterings. Then he added a bit on. I was to be kept in the cell for seven more days, then taken to the port of departure, set on to a boat and returned posthaste to the mainland. A clerk coughed. From local-government coffers a sum was to be settled with the shipping company such that a single fare might be purchased.

I smiled, a reflex action which only antagonized the Accompanying Officer. The fellow gripped my wrist forcibly once they departed the inner area. I allowed it. What else could I have done. I smiled again. I was going to speak, I said, I thought I would have had the chance to speak.

Didnt nobody tell you you’re a piece of shit, pieces of shit dont speak.

I nodded. It sounded sensible.

I had to hold onto my jeans at the waistband, they had taken my belt and my belly had shrunk. Skin and bone. When I lay on my back the skin at the front rested on the skin at the back. The cell entrance was ahead. Now. And I flexed my upper arm in preparation for the push in the back. When it came I went: Aaahhh! to improve the Officer’s temper. Useless being a right-wing sadist bastard if naybody notices. He was a heavy lump of a man and could have knocked the stuffing out me. If he had caught me. What they call a big clumsy ox. I was wiry and slippery and could escape from tight corners. I also packed a punch. The Officer maybe inferred as much and gave me a lengthy stare. Just you try it buddy. Such was the guy’s thought. Yet Accompanying Officers are also human beings. The doors closed solidly, with a juicy kind of thump.

I stepped back and sat on the edge of the palliasse. Here was reality and yes it was grim. A time for reflection, when fellow beings are excused scrutiny.

Later I felt better.

Too soon for a wank. It was to be used for sedation purposes only. Okay. I pondered the past days. My sorry luck; it had been so bad there was nothing to be done, nothing to be said. Bemoan it, then proceed. Life would continue even though I had been absented from it. But if this palliasse had been available to me a few days ago then I would have been okay. I patted it. You should have been mine, I said, I would’ve taken care of you, kept you warm in winter.

So I was talking to a bed, so what.

Yet a sigh was warranted. This was to have been paradise. The only thing better than not working was not working in a land of sunny climes. This was such a land, where young women tourists freely gave of themselves to local young males of unmanacled spirit, suntanned and with healthy limbs.

Why do suntans and healthy limbs enter it? The unmanacled spirit one can understand. Outdoor lives! I was thinking of those, where one could become fit and well, a lithe individual; maybe working as a beachguard. Once upon a time I could swim. If I escaped from the island gaol then certainly I might throw myself into the sea and thresh towards the horizon.