Jon McGregor - This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You

The sky is clear now, but the rain is coming. He can smell it.

Sometimes when he wakes it’s still only just getting light. It’s good, to stand there and watch the morning creep up on the world, the river a shadow in front of him, the cold air against his skin. It’s a privilege. Sometimes he can just stand there for a whole hour, watching the shapes and colours taking form out of the darkness. The streams and ditches all glinting like silver threads.

It is sometimes a very beautiful world. It’s a shame, what will happen.

It’s rare, though, to spend an hour watching the morning arrive like that. People don’t. It’s rare for people to even spend a moment enjoying their first piss of the day, the way he does. People are so busy. They’ll brush their teeth sitting on the toilet to save a few minutes. Eat breakfast standing up. They don’t have the time to watch the colour bleed into the world each day. They have meetings, schedules, documents. They don’t have time to listen to each other, to be patient with the difficulties of expression. They haven’t got the time to stand and watch a man say nothing except: I can’t explain, or: I don’t know how to say it. There are important things to be done, and a man who will spend a day standing at a window is not a man who can fit into such functional and fulfilling lives.

These are not people with ears to hear or eyes to see. These are not people who will understand, when it comes.

They will say they understand. They will say they know it might take a while to come to terms. But one day there will be shouting, there will be a cracked voice saying: I don’t have time to deal with all this. There will be the banging of objects against hard surfaces, a waving of arms, children standing and crying.

They don’t have time. They have busy and important things to do. They need somebody who can be there for them. They need somebody who can go back to work, even after that. Silence and stillness and contemplation aren’t going to pay the bills.

This is how his days begin, now. He asked me to tell you. He wakes up, he walks across the rough wooden floor, he holds on to the doorframe and he pisses on to the stony ground.

He looks at the height of the river and the colour of the sky. He looks up at the half-built treehouse, and the raft, and he plans his work for the day.

Soon it will rain. And people won’t understand. They’ll just put on their hats and coats, open their umbrellas, and rush out into the middle of whatever it is they need to do. Their busy days. Their successful and important lives.

He thought you should know.

Irby in the Marsh

The fire spread quicker than the little bastard was expecting.

Halton Holegate

She took the tulips from his hands. Let me find something to put those in, she said. His hands were cold. She was surprised that he’d come and she wanted to cover her surprise. She laid the tulips on the kitchen counter and looked around for a pair of scissors. The flower-heads were still tightly closed. The petals were red, with a rim of yellow at the lips. The stems arched, the way that tulip stems always did. She would need a vase tall enough to bear their weight. She picked them up and put them down. She didn’t know where the scissors were. She opened a drawer. She stopped; she’d forgotten to invite him in. He must still be standing on the doorstep, in the snow. She felt the cold air blowing through from the hallway. By the time she got back to him he’d stepped forward as far as the runner and was standing with the door half-closed behind him. Oh come in, of course, come in, she said. You weren’t waiting to be asked were you? He smiled, and shrugged, and snow fell from his shoulders as he crooked up a leg to wrestle off a shoe. She watched. She wanted to brush the snow from him and take his coat, put a hand against his cold cheek. She waited.

She lit the burner and put the kettle on. She wondered what he was doing here. They had a conversation, of sorts, standing there in the kitchen.

‘You didn’t walk, in this weather?’

‘I got the bus. I walked from the end of the village. Where the bus turns.’

‘I’m surprised the bus was running.’

‘I wasn’t sure it would.’

‘And you didn’t think of calling first, to check I’d be here?’

‘I felt like taking a chance. I had the afternoon free.’

‘Well. It is nice to see you. It’s a nice surprise. Tea?’

‘Please. Milk, if you have any.’

She poured the boiling water into a pot and the milk into a jug. She put them on a tray with cups and saucers and the sugar bowl. She carried the tray through to the front room and they sat across from each other while the snow fell past the bright window and the tea steeped and swirled inside the pot.

‘These are nice cups.’

‘Aren’t they? We’ve had them a long time. They were a wedding present.’

‘Really? I don’t remember seeing them before.’

‘Well, no. James never really liked them.’

‘Ah.’

‘So they were put away.’

‘Yes.’

‘But now, I thought, I mean. You know.’

‘Are they French?’

‘Flemish, I think.’

‘They’re very nice.’

‘Yes.’

‘They sit well in your hand, don’t they? They have a nice weight.’

‘Yes. I suppose they do.’

‘I’m sorry. About James.’

‘Yes.’

‘You got my card?’

‘Oh. I don’t think so. No.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry. The post hasn’t been what it was, has it?’

‘No, it really hasn’t. Excuse me.’

She’d forgotten to put the tulips in something. She hadn’t even got as far as cutting the stems. She wondered why he’d come today; what was different about today. She opened a drawer. She found the scissors on the side, by the draining board. She cut the twine and the tulips rolled out across the worktop. She looked for the little sachet of plant-food, but of course there wasn’t one. It was just like him, not to have said he was coming. James would never have done such a thing. But neither would James have thought to bring flowers. She cut the ends off the tulip stems, scooping them up and dropping them in the compost-bin. She remembered where the vases were, and that she couldn’t reach them. She didn’t want to clamber up on a stool to fetch one down. She asked him if he minded and he said not at all. Of course, he could reach the top cupboard without even stretching up on his toes. James would have needed to stretch, at least. It was a nice vase he chose. It was the right one: tall enough to support the arching stems, narrow enough to hold them closely, subtle enough not to detract from their colour.

‘Wherever did you find flowers, anyway?’

‘Oh, you know. You can still find these things, if you look.’

‘It’s a long time since I’ve seen cut flowers.’

‘You just have to know the right people, that’s all.’

‘And you do.’

‘I manage. You’re still getting milk?’

‘Straight from the farm.’

‘There hasn’t been any in town for a time.’

‘You don’t know the right people for milk, then?’

‘I didn’t. But I’ve got you now, haven’t I?’

She didn’t know about that. She didn’t know about that at all. It seemed somehow presumptuous. He must know there was a limited supply. She didn’t say anything, and he seemed to realise that he’d overstepped the mark because he moved towards the window and started talking about the garden, about how difficult it was to start things off with the snows getting later and later like this. She looked at the back of him while he spoke. How very upright he was, even at his age. He’d always been one of the standing-up-straight sort. Proper. It was certainly nice to see him again. But she didn’t know what he thought he was doing here. She carried the vase of tulips into the front room and set them on the coffee table, where they would best hold the light. He followed her through, slightly unexpectedly, and, standing a little too close, asked whether she’d ever considered taking in paying guests. She told him she didn’t really know about that.