An Old Pub Near the Angel (13 page)

The Anchor wis crowded in A saw auld Erchie staunin near the domino table wherr he usually hings aboot if he’s skint, in case emdy waants a drink – he sometimes gits a drink fir gaun. A wint straight tae the bar in assed Sammy fir two gless a whisky in a couple a hauf pints in whin A went tae pey the man A hid fuck aw bit some smash in a note sayin ‘Give you it back tomorrow, Tony’. Forty quid in aw! A’ll gie ye it the morra! Fuckin cheek! Probly oor it Ashfield the noo daen the lot in. Forty notes! Well well well – in it wisny the first time. A mean he disny let me doon, he’s eywis goat it merr ir less whin he says he wid bit – nice tae be nice – know what A mean? See A gave him a sperr key whin we wir daen up the kitchen in let
him hang oan tae it efterwirds kis sometimes he’s nae wherr tae sleep in A let him kip wi me. Moira’s maw his the other sperr yin tae let Moira in tae dae the cleanin up. Bit Tony drapped me right in it therr. Sammy’s staunin therr, sayin nothin while A’m readin the note. The order comes tae aboot seventy pence in A’ve only git six bob in change. A whispers sorry tae Sammy in tells him A’ve come oot wi oot ma money.

Right Stan, it’s aw right, A’ll see ye the morra. Don’t worry aboot it: says Sammy lookin at me.

Well it wisny bad ay him bit then A’ve bin inty him fir plenty wance ir twice before in it’s eywis bin therr whin A said it wid. A mean – nice tae be nice – somebody’s good enough tae gie ye it you be good enough tae gie it back – know whit A mean?

A gave the auld yin his drink in went in sat by massell. Tae be honest A didny feel in the mood fir either Erchie’s patter or the dominoes. Forty sovvies! Naw the merr A thoat aboot it the merr A knew it wis oot i order. Aw he hid tae dae wis wake me up in A’d iv gied him the fuckin money. Mibby kept a haunfill masell bit A’d iv gied him the rest. Bit naw he took it. Still he must iv needed it pretty bad ir he widny iv. Bit the daft bastirt’ll dae somethin stupit tae git it back, if he does it aw in it the dugs. Aw the worries ay the day whit wi big Moira in the weans gittin chucked oot in noo young Tony. Whit happens if they dae git chucked oot bit? Naw A canny see it. Possible bit! Might take a walk up Clyde Hoose masell in see whit it’s aw aboot. A kin talk whin A waant tae bit right enough whin they bastirts up therr git stertit they end up blindin ye wi science. Anywey A git inty Sammy fir a haunfill oan the strength i ma double broo money nix week, in wint hame early wi a hauf boattle in a big screwtap bit A didny tell auld Erchie.

Tony still hidny showed up by the Monday, that wis four days in A knew fine he widny till he hid the forty sovvies. It wis obvious he wid hiv tae go tae the thievin gemms tae, in A
didny waant that bit how dae ye tell thim? A’ve tried tae A’m blue in the face – in anywey it’d be too late kis he wid hiv the money the nix time A saw him.

Big Moira came doon oan Tuesday mornin wi a letter sayin she’d definitely hiv tae be oot the hoose by the thertieth ir else they’d take ‘immediate action’. She wis in a helluva state in so wis her maw kis she couldny take thim, wi her only hivvin a single-end. A offered, bit a room in kitchen isny much better even though A’ve goat an inside toilet. Still A sippose it id dae it a pinch. Anywey A wint roon is minny factors is A could tae try in git her a hoose bit nae luck. Nothin! Nothin at aw. Ach A didny ixpect nothin anywey – A mean a singil wummin wi four weans, ye kiddin? Naw it wis hopeless so A telt her maw A’d go up tae Clyde Hoose in see if they’d offer alternit accomidation, in no tae worry kis they’d never throw thim inty the street. Singil wummin in four weans? Naw the coarpiration widny chance it. A’d ixplain the situation aw right. Imagine ixpectin her tae pey a fiver a week anywey! It’s beyond a joke. In she says the rooms ir damp tae, in whin she cawed in the sanitry they telt her tae open the windaes in let in the err. Open the windaes in let in the err? November? Aye in is soon is she turns her back aw the villains ir in screwin the meters in whit no. A wis ragin in whin A left the hoose in Wedinsday mornin A wis still helliva angry. Moira waantit tae come up wi me bit A telt her naw.

So A wint up tae Clyde Hoose in queued up tae see the manajir bit he wisny available so A saw the same wan Moira saw, a young filla cawed Mr Frederick. A done ma best tae ixplain bit he wisny botherin much in afore A’d finished he butts in sayin that in the furst place he’d ixplained evry thin tae Mrs Donnelly (Moira) in the department hid sent her two letters – in the second place it wis nane i ma business in then he shouted:

Nix please!

Will A loast ma rag it that in the nix thin A know A’m lyin here in that wis yesterday – Thursday – A’d been oot the gemm since A grabbed the snidey wee clerk by the throat. Lucky A didny strangil him tae afore A collapsed.

Dont even know if A’m gittin charged in tae be honest A couldny give two monkeys whither A um ir no. Bit that wis nothin, Moira’s maw comes up tae visit me this mornin in tells me the news. Seems young Tony gits back Wedinsday dinner time lookin fir me bit no finein me goes roon tae Moira’s maw who tells him the story. He says nothin tae her bit he wint away in goes straight up tae Clyde Hoose wherr he hings aboot till he fines oot who Mr Frederick is; then whin Mr Frederick goes hame a gang i thugs ir sipposed tae iv set aboot him in done him up pretty bad bit the polis only manajis tae catch wan i them in it turns oot tae be Tony who disny even run aboot wi emdy sep sometimes wee Shuggy. Anywey seems they’ll lay it heavy oan him kis ‘this type of young ruffian must be kept in check’.

So therr it is in A willny really know the score tae A see young Tony again. Bit it’s Moira in the weans, is far is A know they’ve still nae wherr tae go. A mean – nice tae be nice – know whit A mean?

James Kelman photographed in 1973 for
The Scotsman
newspaper. The caption read: ‘I live in a slum and drink in pubs.’

An interview with James Kelman by Anne Stevenson, originally published in
The Scotsman
, 14 July 1973.

I met Jim Kelman over a pint in a crowded pub near Garioch Mill Road in Glasgow, where he lives with his wife and two small daughters. Jim’s first book of short stories,
An Old Pub Near the Angel
, has just been published in the United States by the Puckerbrush Press of Orono, Maine; so it seemed appropriate to talk to him over a hubbub of voices and the acrid smell of smoke and spilled beer.

Quiet spoken, fair, with large, expressive eyes, Jim considers himself a Glaswegian, although after being brought up in Drumchapel he has lived in California, London, Jersey and Manchester. I asked him if the material for his stories, most of which are about working-class people and written with exceptional depth and tenderness, was provided by his own life.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I want to write about real people, real things. I’m not interested in theories. A story can only be real if written through your own experience.’

We were surrounded by university students, celebrating their release from exams; so I asked him whether he thought a university education would be of much help to his writing.

‘No, not at all. I don’t think anyone should go to university before at least 25.’ (Kelman is 27.)

‘They don’t know enough. It’s training them to be officers before they’ve learned to be men.’

‘But you, yourself? Do you think now you’d like more education? Would you go to the university as a mature student?’

‘Me? No. I don’t write for educated people particularly. Of course I’m interested if they read my books, but I’m also interested in their reasons.’

‘Who do you write for, then?’

‘People,’ he said. ‘Ordinary people who might pick up the book on a news stand. Of course, I don’t expect many people will pick up this book because they don’t know about it. Half the booksellers I’ve approached won’t take it. It’s published in Maine by a small press and is only known by other writers. Writers are classless, or should be.’

‘And yet you write mainly about working-class people.’

‘I write about the working classes because I was brought up in a working-class family. I’m published in America because an American writer, Mary Gray Hughes, liked my stories. She couldn’t have known anything about working-class Glasgow. I feel I have a lot in common with black writers who have to write from the point of view of class. They can’t do otherwise. But that doesn’t mean you write for a class, if you write about it.’

‘I see what you mean,’ I said. ‘Tell me about your family and schooling. What made you want to write stories?’

‘I was born in Govan, but we moved to Drumchapel, Number One Scheme, in 1954. My father is a craftsman, a picture framer known to Glasgow artists, and he taught me to know good workmanship.

‘Drumchapel was a good place for a child to grow up, lots of fresh air and space. My brother was at a school in Hyndland, so I went there too. That was before there was a school in Drumchapel.

‘I left school at 15 to be an apprentice printer and was a member of the printers’ union. Then my father moved with the family to Pasadena, near Los Angeles in California. He
thought there would be opportunities there, but after a while he got to hate the American system – master/slave relationship he called it – so he came back to Glasgow.

‘Two of my brothers stayed in the US, but I returned with my father. We didn’t have much money. The printers’ union wouldn’t have me back, so I went to work for a shoe factory in Govan. Then I was a sales assistant, a storeman and twice a bus conductor.

‘In 1965 I went to Manchester where I worked in factories, occasionally doing 12-hour shifts, six days a week. I remember working a straight 20-hour shift once. It didn’t pay very well.

‘In 1967 I came back to Glasgow and worked on the buses until August of that year, when I headed for London. There I worked as a porter and on building sites and other things. For a while I picked potatoes in Jersey. Eventually I had to do a moonlight from there back to London.’

‘Where you met your wife?’

‘Yes, we met in 1969. Marie’s from Swansea, a secretary. Shortly after we met, we married, and when we found she was going to have a baby we came back to Glasgow.’

‘Why?’

‘Accommodation’s cheaper. We couldn’t have afforded to live in London. I was working on the buses until last year, when I stopped and went on the buroo so as to have more time to write.’

‘And you’ve wanted to be a writer all your life?’

‘Well, no, I wanted to be a painter, but I wasn’t good enough. I must have been 21 or two when I wrote my first stories. One was called “He Knew Him Well”, about an old man who died without anyone knowing him. Another was called “Abject Misery”, about having no money and no job.’

‘Those are included in your book, aren’t they? I’ve noticed quite a number of your stories take place in slums or pubs.’

‘That’s because I live in a slum and drink in pubs.’

‘When did you begin to take your writing seriously?’

‘It was in 1971. Philip Hobsbaum was giving an extra-mural class in creative writing at Glasgow University. I went along. He liked my work and encouraged me. When the American writer Mary Gray Hughes visited Glasgow last year he showed her my work.’

I asked finally about his plans for the future.

‘I’ve no fixed plans. I’ll probably keep writing, though I have to get a job again in January. My wife’s supporting us now, but in January it’ll be my turn. I can’t write for television or radio. I’ll keep writing stories. I began a novel last year and had about 60,000 words down on paper, but it turned out wrong. I’ve started another’

‘Aren’t stories difficult to get printed?’ I suggested. ‘Wouldn’t it make sense to write for the media, since they pay well?’

‘Media isn’t real,’ Jim replied. ‘If I had to write something not real I’d drive buses again. Does that sound ridiculous?’

‘I don’t think so. What writers do you like then?’

‘Mostly contemporary Americans. Mostly American women writers. Especially, I think, Katherine Ann Porter, Flannery O’Connor, Mary Gray Hughes and Tillie Olsen. But of course, men too. Sherwood Anderson, Isaac Singer. The Russian, Isaac Babel.’

‘For somebody without a formal education you seem to have read quite a bit,’ I said.

‘You don’t need a formal education to read,’ Jim said.

We drank to that.

In the spring of 1973 a postman arrived at our door with a big parcel, a cardboard box containing 200 copies of
An Old Pub Near the Angel
. This was payment for my first collection of stories. We were living in a room and kitchen in Garriochmill Road. I ripped the parcel apart and showed the books to Marie and our infant daughters Laura and Emma. They were mightily impressed. At the back of four next morning I resumed paid employment and drove a bus out of Partick Garage. A time-inspector punished me for running six minutes sharp on a 64 bus through Brigton Cross. I explained that I was a writer and showed him a copy of the book. He thought it looked the part. In those days I carried a copy in case somebody wanted to read it.

An Old Pub Near the Angel, and Other Stories
was published by Puckerbrush Press of Orono, Maine, U.S.A. It was a one-woman operation specialising in poetry but open to short fiction. Constance Hunting was the woman. Her publication of my work came about through a sort of fluke. She was shown it by the American poet and short-story writer Mary Gray Hughes whom I had met in Glasgow the year before.