The Burn (20 page)

What was the meaning of these messages? That was something that used to make her wonder. Sometimes it was like he just dreamt them up to get her. She wondered what she was
doing it for and if it was just him and nothing to do with his actual business at all. To her he was a rascal the way he was needing to have everything. He was like that from the start. He was
never going to be content, he was always going to need everything. Some men rule your life and he was one of them.

It became it wasnt any good just shutting herself in the room because she knew he was hovering about outside the door, and it started preying on her mind if she allowed it.
Every time she let her mind go she would see him, there he was; and with that look on his face like a smirk. It was creepy. Then she found a way of working it so she could get it all into her
stories. That was how she coped. She got it all into her stories. Next thing she started making him feel funny. That was a scary thing for him. A point came when he discovered he was thinking
morbid thoughts all the time. He wanted to tell people. He didnt though because he thought they would think he was daft. That was the kind of folk he knew, that was what like they were. It would
have drove her crazy to know people like that. She would have wanted her own work. Always being stuck with these kinds of people and no space and no time for yourself. That was what he had to put
up with; and she was glad. It was what he deserved. And him being filled with these new anxious feelings, morbid ones. She knew fine what was happening. But she didnt care. She was finished with it
all. Him and his bad thoughts. She didnt care what happened to anybody. She once used to like her nephew. He was a nice boy. But she never saw him now and it didnt matter.

All of that. Nobody could have forced her. She would just have stopped up all her senses. Her eyes and her ears and her smell and her touch, everything. When I was a wee lassie
about ten years old and this after the first war had took place, I went to play with my dolls with a wee boy who was my wee pal I told you about whose daddy was a docker down Charlie
Connell’s yard. This was the night his grannie died. She had got took funny when they were listening to the early wireless and Billy and me didnt notice because we had out his toy soldiers
made of cardboard boxes his daddy had cut up for him and I had my dollies and we were playing at wars, his was the British Army and mine was the Kaiser and all his uncles were there in the house it
was just after my daddy had got killed I mind because my mother’s greeting still hadnt let up and she was down the stairs that was how I was up because I would do anything no to be there with
her it was awful.

She could tell worse things if she wanted. She could. She could have started making it so’s he heard the very very worst things imaginable for him, because it was like he
was just a wee schoolboy who had never been out in the world, as if he had come from a well-off family with a nice big house over in the southside and apple trees in the garden. He was just plain
stupid. When I was a wee lassie and Billy McDevitt’s uncles were there in the house with me just after my own daddy had got killed and my mummy scarcely even wondered where I was was I out or
in and that was me just by myself ten years old, and I just didnt have anywhere to turn and I was so scared with all the noises hiding there behind the coal-bunker with the wind outside howling
round the chimney tops till you thought they were going to come crashing down onto your head through the window.

He listened to her and all the things she told him. He listened to it all, everything. It was like he had never heard anything like what she could tell and never ever thought
anybody he knew could know such things, especially her never mind it was back when she was a wee lassie, as if it was her to blame as well, them being true in reality. You could imagine him there
with his hand on his forehead close to staggering under the news, the burden of that just. It was enough to make her smile but she kept it to herself and just carried on telling him all what she
felt like, she just didnt care. And then as well was the time she never left the room but just stayed there for as long as she liked, and he was outside and she could hear him listening there,
wondering, if she was sitting maybe on the side of the bed staring into the wallpaper and the shapes from the design, a thick wallpaper which caused shadows on itself and you could see the world
there or part of it, the bits that hide underneath where folk are dead and dying, getting killed and there they are all bleeding with their bits and pieces oozing out there on the grass, the dirt,
and nobody to see.

She could have worked in an office and had a career. That was what she should have done, if she had got the chance, a career-woman. She would have been better than him and she
wouldnt only have had terrible folk to know because she would have been different. And she wouldnt have been with him. She wouldnt have been with anybody maybe, maybe no anybody at all. She would
just have kept her own door. She would have had it nice, she wouldnt have had him. Not him and not nobody. If she had wanted one she would have took one, it was easy, men looking at you, that was
easy But she just wouldnt want one, she wouldnt. She would just have had her own friends. She would have made a man up if she wanted one. That’s how she would have done it. All clumsy and
sweating. Her man would have been small, small-boned; he wouldnt have made a noise, he would just have been there when she wanted, and when she didnt he wouldnt, because he would have known. And he
would have respected her. And he would have admired her and maybe liked her and loved her. He wouldnt have thought things. He would have been good to her. You think of men who respect a woman. They
would be there. That was what she always thought, she believed it.

When she told him she was going he stared at her, stupefied. Instead of shouting and bawling he asked her to repeat what she had just said. She did so, stepping back a yard,
though by the set of her face and demeanour generally she wasnt at all scared for any physical reason. He looked at the carpet and frowned. Then while fumbling a cigarette to his mouth he offered
her one but she declined, gesturing at the ashtray on the coffee table where she had one already, it lay smouldering; he stared at it, an Embassy Regal.

She was lifting a suitcase in the direction of the door, a grey suitcase. He was puzzled. Where the hell had she got it from? He had never seen it before. Dark grey it was, with green trimmings
all round the edge.

And she was taking care not to meet his gaze. What did that mean?

But what was she playing at altogether?

She was at the door, hesitating but there, standing the suitcase upright between her feet.

Suddenly he knew what it was. They had turned her head. It’s them, he said, they’ve turned your head. But he was so aware of how doleful he sounded. But he battered on talking to
her. I knew it would happen. You aye said it wouldnt but I knew it would. I knew it, right from the start. I did. I knew it. I mean did I or didnt I?

She nodded slowly. You were right, I was wrong.

Aye but I dont want to be right, I dont want to be right . . .

It’s no your fault, dont think that – it’s me. I’m just . . . I’m just . . .

Naw, he said, dont go blaming yourself because it’s no you it’s them, it’s down to them.

She didnt answer. She was looking at him in a way hard to describe. It was probably a mixture of things, feeling sorry for him was one, feeling disloyal would be another. What else? Oh she was
just fucking probably feeling sick, sick in the belly. He nodded and inhaled on his cigarette. He didnt care if he died of bronchitis, or cancer. If he was going to be alone he was as well dead
anyway because he couldnt live on his own – he would be dead in a week, he would go mad, he had to have people, he needed them, he just needed them. Her. He needed her. So how could he just
stand there staring at her leave, he couldnt, it just wasnt fucking a possibility.

I’ve been growing away from you, she was telling him.

God! She was sounding like she was bloody pleading! He felt like bursting into floods of tears. She was pleading. He could see it in her eyes.

I have been for a while, she said.

Jesus Christ she was going to break his heart at this rate because she was telling what was the whole truth and nothing but the truth and he sucked on his fag once again, getting the smoke and
holding it and sucking on it again and shutting his eyes, clenching the lids shut there for Christ sake. She was talking to him:

I wanted to wait and tell you . . . I could’ve went this afternoon but I decided I wanted to wait and see you face to face.

I appreciate it, he blurted out and meant it, he meant every word.

It wouldnt have been fair otherwise, she said.

Naw.

Just going I mean . . .

How come she had tacked that bit on the end, just going I mean, what had she said it for? Could she no just have shut up? Why did she need to bloody add on these wee bits. Why did she no just
shut up! Her fucking mouth! Why did she no just shut up!

Just going I mean, she said, it wouldnt have been fair to you, to us.

O God. To us! If he was to let her go on still she was going to make it worse and worse and worse and bloody fucking worse again. He shook his head and sighed. He stared at her: Do you expect me
to take ye back if you decide you want to come back? Eh?

The suitcase there between her feet.

Eh? he said, his voice that bit louder.

She just stared at him and the implication was: Have we sunk to this? that you could accuse me of that?

Come on, he said, I’m just trying to be realistic. To be practical. You might want to. It happens. People split up, they walk out on their partners and then decide they want to come back
– the grass turns out to be no so green as they thought . . .

She was already shaking her head but he continued on, okay, a stubborn bastard: No but how do you know? he said, you cant know for sure. And I mean do you expect me to just take ye back if it
does happen?

I dont think it will though.

Aye but how do ye know I mean I like the way you say that as if ye know for sure but how the hell can ye I mean ye bloody cant. He stared at her. Eh? Ye cant for sure.

God, she was getting impatient and he had to play for time Christ because otherwise she was right out the fucking door, she was just right out and away. Look, he said, it’s a simple
question I’m asking.

What is?

It was lost. He stared at her. He couldnt think of it. His mind was blank. She was really truly, really truly, she was leaving. You’re leaving, he said. And he rushed on: All I’m
saying is do you expect me to take ye back if you come back? If ye come back.

What do you mean? she said, and there was terrible sadness and worry all intermingled, he felt like sitting down, so tired right at that moment, the force of what she was doing, of what was
happening right here and now between them for what now seemed to be forever, permanent separation, a permanent separation . . .

The tears were there in her eyes.

But do you? he said loudly, getting angry with her for this and her fucking pity, pitying him. Dont fucking pity me, he said, just dont fucking pity me.

I’m not pitying ye. I’m not.

Aye ye are – just go if you’re bloody going; but dont you fucking pity me. And who are ye going with anyway? Is he waiting down the stair? Is he? Down the fucking stair?

There’s nobody.

Ya liar.

She shook her head.

Ye are, ya bloody liar ye.

Now she frowned at him. I didnt have to wait ye know I could just have went this afternoon when you were out at the E. T. I could’ve.

How come ye never then?

Because it wouldnt have been fair, to just leave.

Okay, he said, thanks. Thanks.

She reached for the remains of her cigarette from the ashtray on the coffee table. There was only a puff left in it. She stubbed it out; her other hand settled onto the handle of the suitcase.
He stared at it, grey and green coloured trimmings, he had never seen it before. It looked brand new.

So you’ve decided then, he said, that’s it final? When did ye decide?

Does it matter?

Aye.

For one isolated solitary moment in time she stared straight at him, then she sighed and it was a sigh of pure relief. It was a sigh of pure relief. There she was. That was her. Whatever it was
he had said was enough for her; to know she had done right, that the decision she had made was the right one. He frowned because he was puzzled. What had he said? What was it? It should have been
there in front of him so clearly but he couldnt bring it to mind. What was it? What had he said, just there, a minute ago, that had set the seal on her leaving?

The door had closed. He studied it and he thought about it, her leaving. But the when didnt make one bit of difference, unfortunately, she had just gone, she was away; he thought of running to
the window to maybe shout down at her but what was the point of that, it just wasnt him, it wasnt the sort of thing he did; he looked at the door, he studied it.

The first thing to do is walk slowly and dont look either way, you keep the hands in the pockets, the jerkin pockets, the shoulders hunched a little. Folk watch you. The police
are there as well. It’s nasty. There is a thing not good to the mind. But you have to keep going. It is a vice, and the way of all vices, that compulsion. It isnt even of interest. The heads
dont turn. They notice though. They notice. They just dont hardly bother because it is so expected. That predictability. Yes, okay, which is a relief. If the predictability did not exist the thing
would become the more burdensome, the more destructive to your mind. Not your mind, your soul. Minds are just too uninteresting. But souls. Souls are interesting: they are of interest. Note the
irony. Souls are of interest. If you live in an atmosphere that is religious then they are not of interest, but our atmosphere is irreligious, not to say sacrilegious, so, the existence of souls.
My own soul . . .