Free If it is your life by James Kelman Page A

they are entitled to their opinion, whatever it is. Even sex, why do we think things about older people?
    Ssh.
    But it is true.
    Yeh but be quieter.
    Okay but if they perform sex acts together. Why not? If they are older, so what?
    Ssh.
    Okay, I whispered, but surely you would not deny it to the elderly?
    Dont be ridiculous.
    It isnt to do with ridiculous, it is natural, human nature. It is a normal need, an everyday part of our life. Even homely, if we think of it in this sense, sex is homely.
    Jennifer grinned.
    This caught me off guard. What I said was stupid. At the same time, you find it funny, I said, but it’s true. Sex is an ordinary everyday experience, every bit as natural as eating or drinking so this is why I said what I did because to me it is homely. Sorry but that is what I think and I am not going to retract it. You are two years younger than me, ergo thirty-four.
    Thirty-three.
    Thirty-three? Yeh …
    She smiled.
    It’s your birthday next month.
    Dont remind me.
    Imagine forgetting your birthday!
    Oh Mike.
    I’m being serious.
    Dont be silly. Anyway, you didnt, you just said it.
    Right … But I had forgotten. I lifted my beer and sipped at it – for only the second time since our arrival. She put me on guard, praise the Lord.
    There was something in her smile that complemented the yellow cardigan. Since the split she had transformed into another being. I thought it unfair. There was a lack of justice in the world that rendered major questions meaningless. ‘Transform’ was not the word, and not ‘transmogrified’ either.
    Blossom! She had blossomed! She had blossomed into a sort of
    What! A flower? What a total and absolute half-baker of a cliché. I felt like roaring in laughter. A flower! Ohpretty little petal. Imagine I said it to her, pretty little petal! My leetle chickadee! I was a wreck. Maybe I was having a breakdown. Not emotional but mental. Intellectual. I had failed to recognize it. Because it was happening to me and not someone else. She would recognize it. She knew me. She was the very person that could tell if I was really me, rather than a mad variation! Am I a mad variation of myself?
    What are you smiling about? she said.
    Pardon?
    You were smiling.
    Was I?
    You were.
    Only being with you I suppose, it is so damn difficult.
    Huh?
    It is. You dont think of that.
    Yes I do.
    You dont.
    Oh of course I do.
    If you did you would have stopped visiting me. You would have stopped visiting me months ago.
    She was smiling. I smiled back at her. I had to. Because what else.
    And why was she smiling. Because I was predictable. Because she did not believe me. She did not believe I thought what I thought. Now she shook her head. But at the table; not at me, she did not shake her head at me. That would have been playful and she was not being playful. The playful days had gone. Now sheavoided looking at me. I was going mad. I had this sensation I had spoken aloud. Did I speak aloud? I must have spoken aloud. Otherwise
    From the moment we sat down at this table. I saw it now. She was avoiding eye-contact.
    Because eye-contact was the very breath, the very breath. She took pleasure in such contact, even in exaggerated forms such as staring people down. It was a game she and her daughter played, and mummy always won.
    So she would not look at me. After what we had endured. Which was sad, that surely was sad. Oh but I wished, I wished …
    She was smiling.
    Why are you smiling?
    I thought you were going to ask if I wanted a drink.
    Pardon?
    The way you looked at me, I thought you were about to ask if I wanted a drink.
    But I bought you a drink.
    Yes I know.
    I pointed to her orange juice which was untouched. Would you like a gin or something?
    No.
    Are you sure? A Cointreau?
    It is two o’clock in the afternoon. Anyway, I dont drink much alcohol, only the odd occasion.
    Could there be a more odd occasion than this, I wondered, but not aloud.
    I was close to abstinent myself nowadays so it was a