If it is your life (3 page)

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:

1] She thought nice things about me concerning the opposite of moral cowardice

2] She performed a movement of her shoulders that was characteristic.

Naybody else in the whole world did it. Except her grannie. But she had died ten years back. Cath was alone. Unless the lasses maintained the tradition. Still and all I found it weird how this one solitary manoeuvre might force me into saying things I did not want to say.
I refer to commitments. I did not want to commit myself to a single damn thing!

What is it? she said.

What is what?

You shook your head.

Oh did I?

She sighed.

Cath, it doesnay matter.

What doesnt?

I unclasped my wristwatch, laid it on the mantelpiece. I reached to switch on the radio but paused, and asked first. Mind if I put on the radio?

I would prefer if ye didnt.

Aw.

If ye dont mind.

Of course

I’m going to lie down, she said.

She had taken the cardigan from her shoulders, she laid it along the foot of the bed. She did this to keep her feet warm. I lifted the cardigan and returned it to her bedside chair, and replaced it with a smallish blanket.

Thanks, she said without smiling, and added, Did ye go to the pub?

I told you I didnt.

You were a bit late home.

Yeh.

She continued watching me.

I shrugged. She was waiting. I just walked up and down, I said. I got off the bus and just eh, I walked up and down for a wee bit; coming to terms with things I suppose.

So you did get sacked.

I returned her look then glanced at the radio. No fancy a bit of music?

But she was not going to give up, gony gie up, she wasnay gony. People are strange. Wives especially; their tenacity makes them doubly so. I wonder if they are like that with other women, or is it just with men. It aint a question. I call it a noggin-shaker, as in ‘one shakes one’s noggin’.

Cath, I said, I need to say something: it was important what happened with that shit. I’m no taking crap off the likes of him. What because he’s my gaffer I’m supposed to shut my mouth! Never. It is not life or death, granted, but we still cannay allow it. I am not going to allow it. Right-wing fucking bastard, I am telling ye, guys like him, Labour Party bastards, they put the Tories to shame, fascist cunts. That is who they put in charge, that is so-called Britain and the fucking ppolitical system.

Cath watched from the safety of the sheets and duvet.

But it is a serious thing, I said, we are talking here about working-class representation. Bloody joke.

Yes well write yer book, she said, ye’ve wasted enough time.

I shall write it.

Fine.

Some of us are not going stand for it any longer. I mean are we supposed to let them walk ower the top of us? Fucking bunch of gangsters. You think I’m past it, well I’m no past it. If you think I am, I’m no.

No what, past what, did I miss something?

I dont actually care, I said, honestly, I dont. I’m forty-two years of age. Do ye know what we talk about during a typical tea-break in one’s typical factory warehouse? How effing glad we shall be to reach one’s seniority; in other words our chief desire is to become old-age pensioners. What happened to all our hopes and dreams! That is what happened to them. This is what I am talking about, give me the happy pills. Great Britain today, the existential nightmare that would have driven my poor old father off his fucking nut if he hadnay had the good sense to die at the advanced age of sixty-one and three quarters. So-called Scotland, be it known, a complete waste of space: I refer here to one’s existence.

I wish I was a pensioner already. I want to go to a green field and just lie down. I want to get put out to graze like these old horses that win the Grand National, nay hustle and bustle, just chewing the cud. Mind you, I said, pausing with one’s hand on the bedroom door handle. I would like to get him. Preferably down the back of the storeroom, thoughts of shifting spanners and skulls, crunch de la crunch.

Cath was looking worried re sanity, her partner’s.

You dont know whether to believe me or not, I said.

He certainly is getting to you.

Oh jees.

He is.

Yeh, I said, I wake up thinking about him, go to sleep thinking about him. Fucking ratbag! Ach well. Want a cup of tea?

Eh …

Hot water with lemon?

How did ye guess?

I smiled. I’m gony have toast, d’ye no want some? Take some toast. The little essentials in life, toast and marmalada madame, eh, you want, you want me I serve you brekadafast ladeee, my leetil dandeelion senorita.

Cath looked at me.

Ye sure? I said.

No thanks.

Sorry about this stupid male shite.

Mm.

I continued into the kitchen, filled the kettle, standing next to the sink. And the window. From here I looked straight upwards, over the tenement roofs facing. It was a flight path. I enjoyed seeing the planes, these long-haul destinations, desert islands and nice hotels. Month holidays. People needed month holidays in foreign domains. No bosses, no gaffers, no Scottishness or Britishness.

There was a sound behind. Her arms were round me while I was dumping the teabag into one’s mug. I stopped what I was doing. She held me tightly. She was wearing only her nightdress. I cannot move, I said.

I’m not letting ye move.

You are so warm and cuddly.

Just relax.

I have to get the milk, I said.

Relax.

I did relax. After a moment I sighed. My shoulders drooped. Man, fuck, I felt it, man, for fuck sake man oh man gaffers and all sorts, out the fucking windi

amazing, how I felt, how it happened. I heard the water approach boiling point and freed my right arm, ready to pour it into the mugs. That is our rightful tradition, I said, to be felt by others as we feel them

You just cannot relax, she said.

I can, I’m just eh preparing to pour the water.

She sighed, irritated. She was, and it was my fault. She walked to collect her cigarettes. They were next to the microwave. We had a wee hi-fi system beside it. Not fancy some music? Put something on, I said.

What?

Anything.

What like?

I scratched down beneath the lobe of my ear then my scalp, watching her light a cigarette. She had a range of nightdresses. They were all kind of silly, with bunny-rabbit patterns, teddy bears. With her figure they were a bit incongruous, thank christ, she didnay have what they call a girlish figure. She skipped through the CDs, barely reading their covers. The Karelia’s a cassette, I said.

Oh I’m not playing a cassette.

Well whatever, whatever ye like.

You always want Sibelius.

I dont always want Sibelius, I’ll take Hazel Dickens.

If you want the cassette go and get it. I can never find anything in there, it’s a complete mess.

I watched her inhale on the cigarette, a really long sort of deep inhalation as befits one who enjoys a smoke, like myself, who wrapped it all in a year ago
and have regretted it ever since, unlike one’s nearest and dearest who has a fancy card pinned on the wall which reads: This belongs to a Happy Smoker!