If it is your life by James Kelman Read Free Book Online Page B

who appeared most days. They did. That old man was the most regularly visited party in the entire ward. He must have been a great old fellow. Otherwise why would they all come to see him?
    Because he was about to drop dead. And he was rich, and they all had an eye on the loot.
    Whereas me.
    Who the hell came for me! My sons were in England. And people forget. They do. I pretended indifference to my wife, if the subject arose. What did it matter if one’s visitors, one’s visitors
    Few, very few; few, fewer and fewest, in completion of the sentence, which is life itself, life itself is the sentence
    And I needed to piss to piss. But I couldnt. The need was not serious. The entire piss was psychological. It was one for the doctors’ rounds.
    How are you today mister errrrrr?
    Oh I had a psychological piss you fucking nincompoop.
    Nurse Liddell would smile. I too. Unless I frowned. I had no mirror. I wanted no mirror.
    The idea of seeing oneself!
    The philosophers were wrong.
    If I smiled it was self-consciously done. Otherwise impossible. A horse laugh could have worked.
    Another nurse was there now, alongside Nurse Liddell. Who was she? Merciful heavens. I had never seen her before. A thin skull, high cheekbones, lightly the nose, lower lip; hair – and so reminiscent, reminiscent, she was, my god, I knew this woman
    and tense right shoulder tense right shoulder, I could see it from here, the line of her neck, the line of her tits; her hand rested on the patient, near to my neck. ’Twas the same, the same.
    But the eyes of this nurse! Her eyes could not be drawn. Her eyes were so full of the life the life. In the most remarkable of remarkable ways, so full of life, vigorous and beautiful, moving to the other side of my bed, one wanted to kiss her, just embrace, an embrace, who was this woman
    and beyond there the old fellow, Mister – who was it? – somebody, Mister Somebody, dead to the world, shot full of dope, fucking dope
    The sigh was allowed. I had sighed. I sighed. Okay. Settling back on the pillow now, where the pencil, and notepad, the pencil and notepad. Close to the edge oh so close. Thank god she was not attending me, it was not a time for strange nurses.
    Here lieth I, sometime known as Old I, for whisper it: this indeed is I. In sore need of a breath, perhaps so, if not breathing hardly, hardly
    at all, thus might one sleep, have gone in sleep so far, so far, that the pulse, the old pulse, as when the tiredness hits, and the way such tiredness also affects, has affected, effected, so strange, how it happens, occasionally also when my wife is there, sitting by me, as if from nowhere, the plumped pillows.

Bangs & a Full Moon
     
    A fine Full Moon from the third storey through the red reflection from the city lights: this was the view. I gazed at it, lying outstretched on the bed-settee. I was thinking arrogant thoughts of that, Full Moons, and all those awful fucking writers who present nice images in the presupposition of universal fellowship under the western Stars when all of a sudden: BANG, an object hurtling out through the window facing mine across the street.
    The windows on this side had been in total blackness; the building was soon to be demolished and formally uninhabited.
    BANG. An object hurtled through another window. No lights came on. Nothing could be seen. Nobody was heard. Down below the street was deserted; broken glass glinted. I returned to the bed-settee and when I had rolled the smoke, found I already had one smouldering in the ashtray. I got back up again and closed the curtains. I was writing in pen & ink so not to waken the kids and wife with the banging of this machine I am now using.

A Sour Mystery
     
    The security entrance buzzer sounded. It was somebody who used to be a friend, a firm friend; what they call an ‘intimate’ friend. Obviously I invited her in. Otherwise things would have gone from bad to worse. She was there to give me her troubles. Why else would she come! It