Jon McGregor - If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

I want to talk to my mother about it, properly.

I want to say mum I’m so scared I feel like puking, I have no idea how to deal with this.

To say mum I don’t even know how to change a nappy, I don’t know what to feed a baby, I don’t know any lullabies.

Mum, I want to say, I don’t even think my breasts are big enough to produce milk, I don’t know how to get it out, I don’t know any of the things you’re supposed to know, I want to say mum will it hurt?

And then I want to ask her if this is how she felt when she was pregnant with me.

I remember the few times I tried to talk to her about anything serious while I still lived at home, boys or schoolwork or friends who didn’t feel like friends.

I remember the way her face used to shrink slightly, her eyes narrowing and looking quickly around the room, her hands fluttering like birds in a pet shop.

I wouldn’t worry about it love she’d say, every time, things’ll be better soon she’d say, and she’d change the subject, or suddenly remember to do something, rush out to the shops before they closed.

I remember the disappointment I used to feel, the comparisons I used to make with other girls’ mums.

I knew girls whose mothers would help them with their homework, buy them new outfits for new boyfriends, kiss them on the cheek whenever they came through the front door.

I knew girls, sometimes the same girls, whose mothers would shout at them when they got home late, or ground them if they didn’t approve of their boyfriends, or make them help with the housework.

My mother did none of these things.

My mother was polite, and responsible, and didn’t always seem to notice I was there.

I think of what my father said, and I think of the grief and rage she must have had stuffed down inside her like a rag in a petrol-filled bottle, and I wonder how she never exploded.

We get closer to home, we come off the motorway and there are lights shining in through the windows, street lights, traffic lights, lights from shop windows and houses and pub doorways, there is music coming from other cars and there are large groups of people talking and shouting and singing.

We go round a mini roundabout, we stop at a green light to let an ambulance through.

He says what’s going on, why’s it so busy?

I don’t know I say, and we drive past the cafe where we had breakfast the other day and I realise we’re almost there.

I say well thanks for driving me all that way, I really appreciate it, and he looks at me and says that’s okay don’t worry.

We stop outside the shop below my flat and he says if there’s anything I can do, if you need anything.

I look at him, and I think about all the things I need.

He gets out of the car, takes my bag from the boot, opens my door, hands me my bag.

We say goodbye, and I go up to my flat and sit by the window without turning the lights on, watching the traffic and thinking about how little I said to him on the way back.

There’s a hooting, outside, and the twins grab a milk crate each and drag their cricket pitch off the road to let a car drive past.

The car is burgundy red, wide and elegant, ten years old but still the boys are impressed and they run to touch it, pressing sticky handprints against the polished bodywork and trying to climb up onto the bonnet. The car stops outside number nineteen, and the driver gets out and says hey boys now, what you doing uh, you making a mess of my car, and they come and stand in front of him, side by side, hands behind their backs and together they say hello uncle how are you we are pleased to see you, and they giggle and hit each other on the backs of their heads.

The uncle takes a handkerchief from his pocket and says rightright, go and tell your mother I’m here okay, and then he turns and polishes the marks of their hands away and they race each other to the front door. The girl with the short blonde hair and the small square glasses, outside number twenty-two, she looks up from a pageful of job adverts and sees the man, he’s a young man and he’s very well dressed, he turns and sees her looking at him and calls out a greeting, how are you he says and he holds the sun out of his eyes with the back of his hand. She is surprised, she smiles, she says fine and rests her chin on her knuckles and looks at him. He looks back, he hesitates and he almost takes a step towards her.

He turns, and he polishes a hand mark on the bonnet, rubbing at the already gleaming metal as though it were an oil lamp.

The girl goes back to her job adverts, she picks up a red pen and scribbles out a circle she drew earlier, the moment has passed and she doesn’t notice the man glancing over his shoulder at her. Another girl comes out of the house and sits beside her, she puts two mugs of tea down on the stone path and she says was there someone round this morning, I thought I heard voices. She looks at the girl with the glasses and the short blonde hair and she says it wasn’t someone who stayed was it? The girl with the glasses laughs and says yeah right, as if, I was talking to the landlord, I was seeing if we could stay a bit longer. The other girl is still wearing her tartan pyjamas, she rubs her eyes and says what did he say? and the girl with the glasses says he said someone’s supposed to be moving in tomorrow night. I can’t pack she says, I’ve got too much stuff, I don’t know what to do with it all. The girl in the pyjamas picks up one of the mugs of tea, decides it’s still too hot, puts it down again. You’ve got to be ruthless she says, looking at the girl with the glasses, get yourself some binbags and throw it all away, landfill it she says, leave it for the archaeologists. You’ve got to travel light she says, start in a new place with empty hands. It’s good for your karmic energy she says, and the other girl looks at her and laughs. Where did that come from she says, and the girl in the pyjamas shrugs, she says I don’t know I read it in a magazine or something and she drinks her tea.

Over the road, the boy with the big hair is squirting more paraffin onto the flaming charcoals, he’s grinning and saying fuckin A, that’s more like it, and the boy in the yellow sunglasses is turning away and saying that’s not how you’re meant to do it, it won’t burn properly now. The boy with the hair says well at least it is burning Baden-Powell, and the other boy says nothing, he goes into the house and loudly closes the door.

In the hallway of number nineteen, the twins’ mother is telling them to please keep out of the way as they run up and down the stairs, into the kitchen, into the front room. Their grandparents are slowly preparing themselves to go out, he is straightening his jacket and placing his small round hat on his head, she is standing behind him and picking small pieces of pale blue fluff from his shoulders, she is pulling her cardigan a little tighter around her. Their daughter-in-law stands and watches, she says is it all okay have you got everything? and she says darling turn that off now your parents are going out. The boys come out of the kitchen with their cheeks squirrel full of pink coconut sweets, they squeeze between the adults and they burst back out of the house.

The young man cleaning his trainers looks up and sees them, sitting in his doorway at number twenty-four, he watches the six of them processing out of number nineteen, the two brothers leading the way, the grandmother and grandfather stepping slowly and carefully, each wincing as they reach the bottom step, and behind them the mother and father, the father still holding a remote control in his hand and he holds it behind his back.

The boy stops scrubbing his trainers, he wipes soap from his hands and he watches the young man by the burgundy car greeting the older couple, shaking the man’s hand, kissing the woman’s cheek, he sees the mother of the twins looking away down the street as though she is expecting someone to appear. He hears her calling a name and then saying something to her husband, he sees the elderly couple getting into the car and having the doors closed after them by the young man. He sees hands being shaken through open windows, the car driving away, the mother and father on their doorstep going back inside the house and closing the door.