If it is your life by James Kelman

was funny, but not amusing; funny peculiar. Her troubles had nothing to do with me. I was no brother-confessor, if that was what she wanted. I was not in that category. The category included ‘objective bystander’. It was annoying she could think such a thing.
    If she would only not visit me!
    Why did she? I felt like screaming. Maybe she mistook me for a monk. That was her habit, not mine.
    I was looking about for money. No damn money. My God. But the kitchen sink. Yes, there by the draining board. Where else. I was going mad. Oh well.
    She was smiling. Good. But it was nice to see.
    I was not apologizing for a damn thing. That includes the draining board. Why! It was mine. Whose life was it!
    Okay one can have less than positive habits. One of mine was emptying my pockets where ere I happened to be. When one empties one’s damn pockets there are sundry other objects, pieces of wool, old tissue withcracked snotters and God knows what else. Dirty greasy coins. Where had that money been! Look at it! Dirty greasy coins! Do not let it near food, oh keep it away from the food. Especially fresh meat. My God the case for vegetarianism was strong.
    But that was was not her. She never said that. Who the hell did say that?
    My mother!
    Interesting to have mixed Jennifer up with my mother, dear old mum.
    But anyway, I would keep my money where I wanted. It was my bloody money. As also my apartment. Or studio. Nowadays it was a studio. Oh I am buying a studio, I am renting a studio. Everybody said it. Pretentious crap, as if everybody was an artist. I have a loft studio. A studio up in the loft. I need it for the light. That was these middle-class television programmes shot in New York City and featuring all these beautiful young people. A load of shit. In the old days a loft was the attic. Nowadays it was a penthouse suite. Old Mike Gilroy referred to it as a bedsit. We shared a first name. I was young Mike and he was old Mike. He was from Wales and worked in the storeroom. I worked in the office. He called me snooty but he was only kidding.
    A bedsit was a bed-sitting-room. A room with a bed to sit in, a room you sit in that also has a bed. That was the studio, one single room where you had a bed and a sink and a chair, all crammed in together with a single wardrobe, a ward for your robes. If ever we wear robes we store them in this ward.
    Ward!
    One of these days it was the lock-up wing for me, I knew it, nothing more certain. How else to cope? How else!
    The world was going crazy. Did dictionaries even exist any longer? That was old Mike’s position. A typical old-timer. The world has gone to the dogs. Dogs. Was I a dog? I felt like a damn dog, especially with her around. No sex for ten years. What was that about, that was me, slight exaggerations here and there, thank God otherwise I would be out the window, I would have jumped out the window.
    She was waiting for me by the outside door. She knew my habits. Mike, she said.
    What?
    We dont have to go out.
    Yes we do, unless you dont want to.
    I dont mind, I dont mind if we dont.
    I shrugged, not looking at her. Because of course we had to go out. Because I was going mad and could not have coped with her presence, never! Not in isolation. I required the additional anxiety of other people, the life-saving force of other people.
    How’s Marianne? I said.
    Oh, good, she’s doing good.
    School and all that?
    Yeh, thanks for asking.
    But the idea of not asking after her daughter! What did she think of me? That spoke volumes, it really did. Why had she even come!
    Seriously, she might have phoned first. Why not? Did she think I never left the place! Like I had nowhere to go. Work and sleep. That was not the case, not at all. Why would she think it? Was I such a a – what? a wreck? she thought I was a wreck? Probably. Probably she did.
    I followed her downstairs. There was a sense of – a definite sense of – of relief, yes sir, a sense of relief coming from her. It was like a