James Kelman - If it is your life

Would you like a slice of toast? I said.

She did not answer. Other matters were of moment, weightier than toast.

No they were not. Come on, I said, let us have a bit of toast, a cup of tea.

Cath studied me. This was no time for toast and tea. Life was too important. Seriously, I said, I am not powerless, I have it in me to act and here I am not so much acting as in action, I am making toast and tea.

Cath did not smile. My attitude is more being than assumption of such. She knows this and does not care for it. When we were winching, back in the good old days when choice was probable

I lost that train of thought.

Here is the reality: I was an ordinary worker. Power there is none. It did not matter I was a would-be author on matters cultural, ppolitical and historical, to wit my life. None of that mattered. I existed in the world of ‘angry gaffers’, data such as ‘sack’ and other matters of fact.

Man, I was fucking sick of it. And having to please everybody. That was part of it. That was an essential part of it. Then coming home here and having to do the same in one’s domestic life. It was so fucking — oh man

Sorry Cath, what did you say? the thought returneth.

I didnt say anything.

I thought you did. Because there is no point attacking me like it is my fault, it is not my fault.

I didnt say anything.

I am glad because really

I did not say anything.

Right.

I am not attacking you.

Okay then but in a sense you are, your manner. It is like you are blaming me. That is like what you are doing. You dont say anything except just look but you do look, you look at me, and it means things that are mentally uncomfortable, psychologically I should say.

I beg your pardon? Cath almost smiled.

You’re blaming me without even knowing the circumstances.

I’m not.

I think you are, you have been. I’m sorry, if I jumped the gun, I’m sorry.

Cath sniffed softly, continued to study me. She was no longer lying on her back: I should have pointed this out. By now she had raised herself onto her elbows then plumped up a pillow and squeezed it behind her shoulders, and propped herself against the headboard. She did all of that while I was blethering like a dang-blasted nincompoop. Her arms lay in a natural damn position across her lap which lay concealed beneath the quilt. Mind you,

no, forget that.

Cath was entitled to stare at me and stare she did. And I was entitled to ask why. There are no bones to be picked.

What are you talking about?

I shrugged, coughed to clear my throat.

Did he honestly sack you?

No, I said, not at all.

Honestly?

Honestly.

She shook her head. An instant prior to that I realized that my lies were no good: my lies never had been: my lies were of the load-of-shite variety, only fit for a barrel of keech; to have been dropped into such. She said, Oh well, you can always get another one. You’re always saying it’s a rotten job. So, ye can get another one.

Oh yeh …

You always say you can.

Sure. Jobs dont grow on bushes, but I can always get one.

She drew the cardigan across her shoulders. Can I talk to you or not?

I wasnt being sarcastic.

Cath nodded.

I wasnt.

Sorry, she said. Now she smiled but it occurred to me that the way to describe this smile was ‘sad’, she ‘smiled sadly’.

No, I said, I’m sorry.

I dont know what to say.

There is nothing to say. I raised my eyebrows and scratched my head in a gesture that used to make her smile, reminding her not so much of Laurel and Hardy but the skinny half of the duo, for I, dear reader, am a wee skinny bastard.

What? said Cath.

I shall just have to apologize to the shit, the gaffer.

She smiled.

Honestly. I said, That is what I’ll do, I’ll walk in tonight and I shall go up and see him immediately. Excuse me, I shall say, and he shall look at me and …

It was difficult to utter the next bit because no next bit existed. Cath was waiting.

I should apologize, I said, really, because it was me that was out of order. I attacked him in front of other people. Like a humiliation nearly. He would have regarded it as such.

Oh.

I sat on the edge of the bed, reached for her hand, stared into the palm holding the edge of the tips of her beautiful fingers. I shall tell you your fortune, oh mistress of mine, oh mistress of the flowers, you shall go on a long voyage, you shall be accompanied by a small balding stranger who is

You are not balding.

Yes I am, face it, I refer here to your husband, to wit, myself.

She laughed lightly but was worried. She squeezed my hand. You dont tell fortunes in the right hand, that’s the one you are born with.

Honestly?

Yeh.

I stared into her right palm, now her left, compared the two. Well well well, I said, and I aye thought they were the same. So, perchance, this explains the ill winds that blow always in my direction.

Cath smiled.

The truth is … I half smiled.

What? she said.

I dont think I can handle working these days my dear. It is all just cowards and bullies. One is surrrounded by them. Ye cannay even talk in case it gets reported.

They wont all be like that.

Nearly. Times have changed. I cannot talk to these blokes, I cannay actually talk to them. Except about football maybe, I can join in then, fucking football. I closed my eyes, speaking rapidly: Sometimes I want to do him damage. I’m talking physical stuff like battering him across the skull, that is what I’m talking about, dirty evil bastard — telling ye Cath I’m working away and my head’s full of scenarios, I’ll be down the stores and way at the back and he comes along, he doesnt know I’m there, I hide behind the stacks of platforms, then when he appears I jump out and smack, across the back of the skull, a shifting spanner or something, a big file maybe, I hit him with it, crunch.

That is horrible.

I smiled.

It’s the way animals behave.

I nodded.

You wouldnt stoop to that?

Not at all, I said, and couldnay hide the grin which must have lit up my entire fizzog as they say in US detective stories. But that is how it gets ye and ye wind up as cowardly as the rest of them, little shit that he is — I mean metaphorically — he is not little at all. Nowadays ye do not get little gaffers. Physical intimidation is part of the job. Honest. I dont even think he is a coward. They say bullies are cowards at heart. I’m unconvinced by that. I think we just like to think it is the case, it cheers us up. I hate even looking at the guy, if he is talking to me, I cannot bear it, honestly, I cannay; I just cannay fucking bear it. It is like I might vomit over him as we converse.

Physical intimidation! I wish he would try that, I said, fucking ratbag, then we would find out. Seriously though, I am going to take him on. This time he is not getting away with it.

I stopped, the way Cath was looking at me.

I know what ye’re thinking, I said.

Then I’ll not say it.

I nodded, studying the lines in the palm of her hand. Abracabranksi!

I said that to make her smile. I used it with my lasses when they were wee. That is the one magic word above all. Abracabranski. The lasses thought I was kidding. But I wasnt, like the best magic it was secret; nobody else knew it, just us, us.

Cath was unsmiling. Yes, she said, I shall say it, because I have to. Why does it have to be you? Why does it have to be you? Are you the only one? Why is it you? Why does it have to be you?

Why does what have to be me?

You know what.

I dont.

She stared at me.

I dont. I dont. Eh …

Why are ye smiling?

Smiling?

But I had smiled. What she said was true. Even as we spoke I was smiling. Two reasons: