If it is your life Read Free

like telling their pals to take off their shoes. It made them seem stupid, that was what they said. Oh mum nobody else does it.
    I dont care what nobody else does.
    But they tell people in school and they laugh at us!
    I stayed out it. Domestic issues are an awkward reality. Very much so in our house.
    What I was thinking was get my own shoes off and a quick wash and into bed. Tomorrow is a brand-new day. Except literally it was not. It was the exact same day as here and now. It was Friday morning and would be Friday dinnertime when I arose Sir Frederick, arise ye and walk the plank ere doom befall ye.
    Man, what a life.
    She lowered the quilt to beneath her boobs. I was about to say something further but the mammarian physicality beat me. I reached to hold her hand instead. But even that was off-putting. Cath’s hand is a really sort of pleasant thing, it is soft and warm. I always found it pleasing in an aesthetic way. I used to like drawing when I was a boy. I would have drawn her hand. Her fingers were long and seemed to taper, and then if she had a varnish on her nails. It just looked good. Had I been that way inclined I would have varnished my nails.
    And what do I mean ‘that way inclined’! So now when I looked at her, with silly thoughts crossing my mind, I could only smile and this made her suspicious. So how are
you
doing? I said. Did
you
sleep?
    She did not answer. I was suddenly tired, most tired, needing to stretch out beside her on the bed here and now, right here and now. I took off my second shoe but continued sitting there. And a song went through my mind. My little nephew sang it to me a week past and it went something like:
I’m so silly
silly silly silly.
     
    Me and him sang it walking up and down the hallway like a pair of demented soldiers:
I’m so silly
silly silly silly.
     
    I would like to have done it with the gaffer. That bastard. I would have goose-stepped him along the factory floor, Groucho Marx and Ginger Rogers:
I’m so silly
silly silly silly.
     
    Aw well. And my neck. Interesting to note that I had developed a nervous condition on the right side of my neck; it entered spasms at the slightest emotional activity in one’s brainbox. All soldiers are demented. All professional ones anyway. Everytime I hear one talking I want to have their parents arrested for child abuse. I mean ordinary soldiers, not these upper-class fuckers who march them as to war.
    I sighed, I was enjoying the seat. So: this was Cath I was talking to. Well well well.
    The truth is me and her were incompatible. On occasion. Was this such an occasion! I guffawed inwardly, and needed to sneeze immediately, grabbed for a tissue from her side of the bed, and gave the snout a hearty blow. I think there is something wrong with my nose, I said.
    Oh that is interesting, muttered one’s missis.
    What is that new-fangled expression, ‘pear-shaped’? I think it might describe my life.
    So what happens now? she said.
    In what respect I thought but said nothing. What happens now? Worth pondering. What does ‘what’ mean? Even before getting to ‘now’ that statement wasbeyond my intellectual capacity. ‘Happens’ is just a verb, which makes comprehension easy. With verbs concepts are straightforward, it is the actual doing that causes trouble, translating into action, getting from concept to movement.
    Man, how many pints did I not have? This is the last time I would forgo my Friday-morning breakfast booze-up.
    But I felt like a sandwich, a bit of toast or something.
    Cath sighed. I sighed as well. But her sighs were significant. Mine were just sighs.
    Fucked again I thought, but in what way? I did not answer the sigh lest incriminated. Except when Cath sighs one is required to answer. What is troubling you madame?
    No, I did not say that. I did not, in nowise, say that. Fear. Not in so many words. Nor was I sure what to say. I got up from the chair and walked to the window, parted the curtains a little. Your Honour, I