Greyhound for Breakfast by James Kelman

committed – violence, in the home. The sound of violence erupting, below, in the
flat downstairs. She raised the mug to her lips, and sipped; the tea without milk or sugar. She preferred it this way although he preferred milk, but no sugar either, he preferred it with milk and
no sugar. She should be going to the front room. If she didnt go soon he might be wondering what was up. Unless he didnt notice. He would notice. She sipped her tea. He just wouldnt find it
something to be really wondering about. She would be in the bathroom or something, something else, something straightforward. She was walking to the door, and she switched out the light, then
entering the front room and shutting the door after her, and walking to the chair she sat on. He had eaten his sandwich and this left hers on the plate. She would lift it and eat it. She continued
to sip tea from her mug. From the wireless an outbreak of applause, for one of the speakers; and the chairman laughed and asked a question which followed on from the point made by the last speaker.
She glanced to see that he really was listening, and intently – staring at the fireplace, his look somehow quite lively, not a stare, just a look, looking directly to the fireplace to have
his eyes open for the purpose of attention, concentration on the speakers; perhaps had he closed his eyes his attention would wander, he might doze off. He was reaching for the plate, as though
about to eat the sandwich but he paused and he glanced at her; he was drawing her attention to it, indicating it, the sandwich, that it was still there. Why was it still there? What was the meaning
of that? Why was she not eating her sandwich instead of just sitting there sipping tea? Maybe she didnt want it and this was why it was lying there. Unless it was for him. Maybe she had made him
two. She wasnt feeling like eating, or perhaps she ate hers in the kitchen, before coming through to sit down. Why should she have done that? Absent-minded maybe. She had made the one sandwich then
started eating it while doing the next, and had finished it; so she’d had to make herself another one just in case. Just in case. In case of what. In case he thought something. What could he
have thought. He could’ve thought why has she made me one and not made one for herself. Why did she eat that one and not this one. Daft, but the kind of thing people ended up thinking when
something like that happened – a simple event, the eating or not eating of a sandwich. The speaker on the wireless programme was laughing. Why was he laughing. Because he was getting paid a
lot of money. This is why people on the wireless laughed, they were getting paid lots of money. He glanced at her. She wasnt listening to the programme anyway, she never bothered. She found
programmes like this one unbelievable. And although she never said so she was probably always wondering why he did listen, why he did listen. What was the point in it, of listening to them. They
were always unsatisfactory. Nothing was ever said on them that could be taken down and used in evidence because they never gave anything away, nothing; always it got lost amid the general air of
smugness, underlined by the way the presenter was laughing all the time. What was he laughing about. Because they were all in it together and getting paid lots and lots of money. Everything went in
circles. And she could just sit there, not taking part, her mind gone, abstracted miles away – a voyage to unknown parts; only brought back to reality by the occasional sips from her mug of
tea. She had probably just forgotten about the sandwich. And if he reminded her about it, what would she do. She could smile, she could smile and lift it right away. But she wouldnt. She was a bit
annoyed at him. She wouldnt smile therefore. Unless she was so far away that she would’ve forgotten all about it. He glanced at her briefly, she was staring at the fireplace.

Benson’s visitor
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