Читать книгу That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories - James Kelman - Страница 9

THE

CARTWHEELS

OF LIFE

Kids come stoating in the door like ye werenay there. Oh fuck maybe I’ve disappeared! That was how ye felt. Ye dont know whether to laugh or get annoyed like how in my day there was a bit of respect for folk about to hit the eternity trail. Us auld-timers I’m talking about. Okay boy meets girl: I know all that, the cartwheels, jigging about in their shorts and skirts; I understand the scenario, sex everywhere and high spirits, great. One allows for that, growing up nowadays: different to the likes of us. Me I should say. I’m speaking for myself. I dont want to use the plural in that way. I’m no trying to talk for everybody and that’s how it makes it seem. If it happens it isnay intended, and if I have done it I apologise, it wasnay deliberate. I hate that kind of thing. I’m no wanting to be one of these moaning-faced old bastards that hate weans. And I’m no one. Rest assured. I’ve got grandkids, and I love them. But I’m no goni keep my mouth shut if things are wrong and nowadays they are wrong. Ye could start with the ‘us’, using the plural in that sense. That is worse than a bad habit, it is a misguided confusion and it only spreads mental disarray. ‘We’ this and ‘we’ that. Everybody is at it, from top to bottom, all as bad as one another, all falling for the propaganda. My parents were the worst, and that’s going back, my maw’s been deid thirty years. My da? well, who knows. That’s another story. But begin from them, and it’s the education system. Which is obvious. Nothing new about that. Fine, so we all know where the blame lies but so what, if naybody does fuck all. And they dont. Onwards in ignorance. The cartwheels, the shorts and the short skirts: know what I’m talking about. Young folk aye, but they’re no weans, aw flashing their kit. Who cares? And too easy to blame the system. As a kid myself I was a dunce. Inside anyway, if I wasnay one on the outside. The kind of boy that gets lost in the stream. I wasnay even the class clown. That was a pal of mine – Hughie Montgomery; Hughie died twenty years ago. It was a blow to us all. I miss him. It was something to do with community. That was it in the auld days. Weans nowadays know nothing about that. Ye feel sorry for them. Ye see them going about, ye just feel sorry for them, stoating in with all their stupidities. Ye think all sorts when ye see them. They dont seem to worry about stuff. No like how we worried. Ye see them dancing, just dancing; good-looking wee lasses. The boys too. They’re all nice to look at; young folk doing their jigs and polkas, legs flashing; it cheers ye up on a dull day. Nay thoughts of changing the world. No like us, revolution here, revolution there. Nowadays they dont worry about that kind of thing. Only each other, they just go with each other. They dont care about adults. What about adults? Ye want to ask them. Fuck the adults. Reminding them they are going to be adults themselves, they just look at ye. Daft auld bastard. Although some of it could be left for the classroom. That is my opinion. No that we ever got cartwheels. No me anyway. I couldnay do a cartwheel for love nor money. I couldnay. I tried to try it and couldnay. I had this fear of banging my heid on the grun. A cartwheel but what is a cartwheel? Ye spin round in a tight circle, like a somersault. Maybe it is a ‘somersault’. I’m no sure the difference. Did I ever? Maybe I didnay. I thought I did. What I do know is I couldnay do it. And either ye can or ye cannay. There is nay inbetween. Like standing on yer hands. Ye do it or ye dont. Naybody does it for ye. Ye jump to it: allez oop. Nowadays they’re all at it. Ye score a goal and that’s that; ower ye go. It makes life look simple too and that’s the problem. Because life isnay simple. Ye think it is and it isnay. No matter what they tell ye. I’m talking the propaganda. Ye make plans. I did. Same as everybody. All us anyway. Talking my generation, people try to put ye down.

Stopped in my tracks. That’s the song. Dont try to think what we all say. It doesnay work anyway. People die, they drop off; they fall away. One minute ye’re all there, the next ye’re gone. Where did ye go? One day ye notice: Where’s Hughie? I havenay seen Hughie for a while. He’s deid. Hughie? Aye. Hughie’s deid? Fuck sake. That was a blow but Hughie, drapping deid like that. Standing outside the supermarket and ower he went. Talking best mates me and him. The rest of us keep going. Me anyway. The wife too. She liked Hughie. He made her laugh. He had that knack.

Naybody can plan simplicity. It doesnay matter how hard ye try. As hard as ye like. She feels the same, the wife. I telled her, They’re just young people I says. They’re no that young says she, with all their dancing and jiggling about, all shaking this and that, breasts and bollocks, shouting and bawling. That’s just physicalities I says. Their breathing too I says, that is a physicality, listen a minute and ye’ll hear. It’s laboured; their breathing’s laboured.

I noticed that. That was weird. I found it creepy. Jigs and polkas. I used to like jigs and polkas, she said, the wife, and she shook her head at me in that auld way she used to do, looking to see who else was there, if anybody was and if they were were they listening. People listen. She hated that, she was a very private person, just honest privacy for honest stuff. Some want privacy for shady stuff. That wasnay her. She just hated nosy people. I didnay see anybody listening but that didnay mean they werenay. They might have been. Maybe they were there, maybe they were listening, and looking. People do that. People close to ye as well, wherever they are, ghosts flitting about. Ye keep quiet, thinking about other stuff, how it used to be when people were all there, like whoever, the wife, Hughie, my maw and da – except him, forget him, waste of fucking space my da, wherever he is, wherever he was: wherever he went; fuck knows where he went, cowardly bastard. Ye think of that ‘life is plural’ crap. It doesnay work for all ages, not like with generations. Ye are aye in a zoo. Folk like us. Other yins are invisible. If that suits them then fuck them, that is their choice. Zoos and invisibility. I prefer weans anyway, they dont see ye, too engrossed in their own physicalities – ye could even say spiritualities because of how they are in their own head, their own mind; in their own mind in their own body. And it makes ye shiver. Me anyway. The way they dont see anybody. Is that courage? Am I seeing courage? Or stupidity? Are they just deaf, dumb and blind, and without a brain? Ye could be standing there and they would barge their way past. They knock ye ower. I kept out the road. No the wife. Sterner stuff. Ye worried about her. She was never there. No when ye needed her. Where did she go? She disappeared. How come? It was creepy.

Plus the stuff needing to get done. Who did that? I didnay. She did, she just went away and that was that, she did it. Whatever. If it needed doing. I didnay notice. I should have but I didnay. It was like I had forgotten how. I just seemed to go about, and then what, mishaps. Shapes dotted about.

Ye try jigs and polkas. Not on yer tod; ye wouldnay manage that. We all need partners. Me too. Mates. Mine was Hughie Morrison. Hughie died. I miss him. All ye see is them stoating about, through the door in they come, breasts and bollocks, there ye are and ower ye go. Okay but keep it to yourself. Ye want to pretend. Dont. It cannay be helped so it doesnay matter. If it cannay be helped it cannay be helped. Ye keep it to yerself. Yourself, myself, us alone. Nay whispering. I hate that whispering. Whose are the voices, all the voices. Inside my mind it is like tattooed. I was doomed but naybody telled me. On I ploughed. In a golden glaze. I think of that. Golden glaze? What does it mean except it is good. We say these things. What are they? Do they have a meaning? Ye think of a nice malt. I do anyway. Slàinte mhath. People think we know but we dont. The weans understand that. They dont hear us mouthing. Yellow cocoon. What is that? In a yellow cocoon. Is that death? Golden glaze, yellow cocoon. Golden glaze good, yellow cocoon bad.

We dont need no intoxication, talking about my g g generation. The weans make their own, skipping to Maloo, wherever that is. They will dance and they will sing. Balls stoat. So do people. Some are doomed to fail. I saw young ones in the statuesque position. Eastern idols. They reminded me of that: one boy and one lassie. Two in one. So wrapped roundabout one another they were inside as well as out. Snakes and tails, a snake swallowing its own tail. The boy might be up the lassie, her wriggling and him pushing. She would know, the wife. She would look and say, Oh I know what he’s meaning. He is meaning us, that is like me and him. That was us two. Talking me and him, me and him isnay plural, no a woman and a man; we are two separates coming the gether. Oh my, ye see them in shorts and short skirts. See their arms: folded stiffly. Why would that be? Balletic. That was them, that was their attitude. Boys and lassies the gether, that was them; that was them dancing, it was their dance.

I apologise. We are all individuals. An individual is a one and only. We do our handstands and cartwheels but this does not carry us, does not lift us o’er, soaring. We stay on the outside.

That was how they danced. They put on their show. They did that then disappeared. Weans do that. That is what they do. Dont rely on weans. They leave too. Ye sit there and that is you; ye look for the wife, where is she? ye dont see her. Hughie? Where’s Hughie? Next is the weans. In they come through the door, that is what they do, not knowing the ground is hallowed. It is ours. We make it hallowed. We put ourselves into it. Our spirits and all everything and the rest that goes between us. Everything that is and has gone, that went between us.

In seeing them we reach the courage and it is maybe our courage. We dont fool them so not wurselves either. Not anybody. We are not trying to fool anybody. Me too. I would never, not myself. There isnay a tomorrow, what ye mean by tomorrow, there isnay one. It might be high up and you looking down. If this is what ye believe. Gardens of Eden and garlands of leaves. Grapes. Where are the beautiful maidens? Hughie used to say that. Where are the beautiful maidens? There they are there, look at them dance look at them sing. The wife too, laughing, how she laughed, she had that laugh and I try to reach it, so if I find it, if I do, I think I will.