Jon McGregor - If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Occasionally, when she was very angry, I would hear echoes of it, a naughty that rhymed with dotty, a rolling of the R in girl, a growl over the K in put away your books, but mostly her voice was plain and carefully flavourless.

Her Scottishness, and the portion of it handed to me, was a secret, something to be concealed and denied, and I have never understood why this was.

I asked her once, and she pretended not to understand me.

She changed the subject, asked me if I had a boyfriend yet, and we had an argument and I forgot what I’d asked her.

She was clever, in that way.

And so I wonder if the mathematics of genealogy will make my child three-quarters Scottish, and I can’t see how that would make sense.

I put my hand to my belly, imagining the knitting together of cells going on inside me, picturing the swelling of flesh and the stretching of skin, the shaping of limbs and fingers.

I imagine my body suddenly hollow again, a crying baby crushed hushingly against my face.

I imagine my baby’s first words, and they’re not spoken with a Scottish accent.

I wonder if perhaps I’ll become guilty about this, if I’ll feel obliged to teach my child about its heritage, if we’ll go to Scotland on holidays.

Perhaps we could live there, up amongst the long nights and hard rain and beautiful land, and I could raise a child with clean air in its lungs, and a broad accent, and a strong sense of place.

Maybe one day we could go to Aberdeen, and track down the waiter-boy, and I could say here, darling, this is where half the cells in your body have come from.

I find myself thinking happy families again, and I’m flooded for a moment with the taste of him, the feel of him, the delicious perfection of our passing moment.

And I scrub the image from my mind, like lipstick from a shirt, like graffiti from a wall.

I’m thinking about all this, sitting in my old living room, watching my dad watch the television, listening to my mother crash things about in the kitchen.

She offered to make a cup of tea, but I think really she just wanted to leave the room because I haven’t heard the kettle boiling for half an hour now.

I told her about him, about the boy in Aberdeen, and her politeness turned inside out like an umbrella in a storm.

Her face flushed hot and red and shiny, and I’m sure I heard the words you dirty wee something come gasping out before she clamped her hand to her mouth, and the words had a sharp accent running through them and she turned her face away.

She said, not looking at me, and have you spoken to him at all since then, has he been in touch?

I told her that he didn’t have my phone number, that I didn’t have his.

She said so that’s all it was then, a fling in the dark, a onenight stand and no precautions? and she made the last word rhyme with oceans.

I said mum, please, I’m not ashamed and I don’t want to apologise to you.

I said, but mum, I do need your help.

She looked at me then, when I said that, and her face softened and I thought I’d got through to her.

Oh but I thought you were an independent woman now she said.

I looked at her, and I realised that my jacket was folded across my lap, like a disguise.

Or like a shield.

I thought you were quite happily making it on your own she said, and her face hardened again as suddenly as a slamming door.

I didn’t know what to say.

I looked at my dad, but he was staring fixedly at the soundless television, his fingers scratching the arm of his chair.

She said how much do you need?

I said mum I’m not talking about money.

Nobody said anything for a while.

I looked at the ceiling and I blinked a lot, I swallowed hard, my eyes felt wet and I didn’t want them to.

I didn’t want my voice to wobble the next time I spoke.

My dad started to turn the volume back up on the television, but he muted it again when my mother gave him a look.

She said and what was he like, this young man, would we like him if we met him?

She said I’m assuming he was a young man was he?

Yes mum I said, he was, he was a bit younger than me I should think.

And then I saw the tight purse of her lips and the puff of her chest and I felt a flush of spite so I said but no I don’t think you’d like him, he wasn’t so very interesting.

He wasn’t so bright I said, he just had a nice voice, and nice eyes, and a great body, and, you know, and I left the end of my sentence hanging in the air like a cloud of cigarette smoke wafting into her face.

She went to make the tea after that, her self-control unwavering, her poise as steady as a gymnast, and my dad waited until he could hear her banging cupboard doors in the kitchen before he turned the sound up on the television.

He’d been watching one of his boxing videos again, I didn’t remember seeing it before but then they all look the same to me, two men in a square of ropes, grainy black and white picture, fists slamming into faces.

My dad, overweight and unexercised, is a great boxing fan, knowledgeable and opinionated and passionate.

He used to spend hours talking to me about it when I was a kid, the stories going straight over my head while I dreamed about being a fashion designer.

I look at him now, his eyes dancing across the screen like a fighter’s footwork, the light from the television making his face shine.

He says look at this, do you know this one, it’s Ali versus Terrell, Terrell’s been calling him Cassius Clay, he said I don’t know no Ali, but you see to Ali the Clay name is a slave name, like a white man’s name, he doesn’t want it he says.

When he talks about boxing his face comes alive, his voice comes from a different part of him.

He says look, here, Ali could have knocked him out ages ago, but he wants Terrell to say his name, look he keeps asking him, hitting him again, asking him, look.

I watch, and I hear Muhammad Ali’s voice ringing out of the television like a song, saying what’s my name? what’s my name? the fury of the question channelled into petrol-bomb punches, holding his fists up like hammers over rocks, singing what’s my name? what’s my name?

I say dad, do you think I’m a bad person as well?

Your mum doesn’t think you’re a bad person he says, she just, she needs a while.

It’s not what she was expecting he says.

It’s not what I was expecting I say.

I look at him, I want to ask him this, I think he’ll be honest with me, I say but what do you think dad?

He breathes heavily, he squeezes his forehead with his thumb and fingers, he says I don’t know love.

He says I think you’ve been very unlucky.

He says I think you need to make some difficult decisions.

He says but I’ll get used to it.

And mum I say, do you think she’ll ever get used to it?

He picks up the remote control and presses the red button and the screen goes blank and I realise I’ve never seen him do that before.

You have to give your mother some leeway he says, she doesn’t always mean to be the way she is.

You’re a clever girl he says, but there are some things you don’t understand.

He’s looking straight at me now, leaning forward, talking quietly.

He says when your grandmother died your mother cried solidly for a week, solidly.

She was crying with relief he says, it was like as if a door had been unlocked and she’d been let outside, she said to me I’m safe now.

He waits, and he says this kid, when it’s born, you mustn’t ever let it think it’s anything other than a gift and a blessing, do you hear me?

I nod, and he sits back in his chair looking tired and old.

He watches the video again, and I watch him, the way the light shines blue and white across his worn-out face.