Jon McGregor - If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

They sit, and they sip small mouthfuls of steaming tea, and they look at each other. A breeze catches the curtain and it curls into the room.

He says we were there five, six hours before he died, and every breath sounded like his last. He says I thought he was going to go on forever.

The breeze sucks back out of the room, the curtain falls flat against the window, the bathroom door slams shut.

He says he had his head tipped right back, there was a wetness coming out of his mouth that my mother kept dabbing away with a white handkerchief, and when he breathed in it sounded like there was a bag of ball-bearings in his mouth. All rattling and clacking together he says, and the cup jingles against the saucer as he puts it down.

He says he looked so small, squashed flat into those enormous sheets and pillows.

He says he was wearing red and white striped pyjamas and they didn’t fit him properly.

She’s looking at him and wondering where all this has come from. She’s looking at an unfamiliar expression in his face, a hardness of the skin. It is not something she recognises.

He says his whole face shook with it each time he breathed.

He says he made this wheezing sound, all slow and desperate, like a whale on the beach it made me think of.

She looks at him and she doesn’t know what to say.

She says what did he die of, and when he replies oh it doesn’t matter his weary anger surprises them both. He says sorry love but and then he doesn’t finish the sentence and he looks away from her.

The curtain curls into the room again, and a stack of letters falls to the floor from the sideboard. She moves from the table to pick them up and he says he didn’t say a word you know, not a word, he didn’t even open his eyes, he just lay there dying.

He says his hair was so thin and light, like a baby’s, it looked as though it would blow away if anyone opened the window.

He says you couldn’t even see his legs under the bedclothes he was so faded and gone. It seemed like all he had left was his head and his hands he says, and his chest staggering up and down.

And he says but it was funny you know, it didn’t feel like a vigil so much, because of the talking, because after a time we started talking. Little things he says, pleasantries and distractions to ease the tension but by the time he died we were all in full flow.

He says it was strange but it seemed a good thing, that we could do that, just be a family and talk, not spend the whole time staring at him he says, and he stands up and leaves the room.

She watches him go, she listens to the awkwardness of his steps and the squeak of the bathroom door. She looks at his untouched slice of cake and she thinks about his unmentioned visits to the doctor.

He stands by the door and says he looked like a wax sculpture setting into the bed, and when he died he looked beautiful and I was glad to kiss him.

She says come here, come here.

She says what’s all this about?

He looks down at her and settles into the hoop of her arms around his waist, he says oh I don’t know love I was just thinking. She looks at his chest and she doesn’t need to say that she wants him to try again, she looks up at him and she waits.

He says, look, love, it’s.

He says, the thing is.

And after a while he unhooks her arms and moves away from her again, back towards the door. He stands there a moment, biting his lip and squeezing his eyes into sparrowfeet, and then he starts to turn back towards her. She looks at him, and he says the thing is love, when he died it was like he was getting better, do you see, and he’s looking past her now, towards the window.

Each time his breath softened he sounded more comfortable he says, his face got more relaxed. And then he was almost closing his mouth between breaths at the end he says, and everyone stopped talking and stood up. He talks more quietly now, he says and then he just, went. So slow he says, like a bottle filling with water and sinking he says.

She says, love, and it’s a question but she’s not sure what she’s asking.

He says nothing, he looks at the sky through the window, the light darkening a little. He says it looks like rain but she doesn’t turn away from him to look. He says, love, I was just thinking about it, that’s all, really, and he turns again and this time he leaves the room and she watches him go and listens to the hacking wetness of his cough.

On the table, an uneaten slice of cake, a half-empty cup of cold tea, crumbs.

There was no one there when I got to work this morning. My keycard rejected, flicking back like a stuck-out tongue,

and there was no one around to let me in. I was hot and dizzy from the walk, I felt sick again, I needed to sit down.

A security guard came past and said it’s a bank holiday love, and I must have looked like I was going to cry because she stopped grinning and offered me a drink and almost touched my arm.

I went and sat in her little office with her, looking at the closed circuit pictures while she made us both a cup of tea and her kettle was so small she had to boil it twice.

She said if you don’t mind me saying love you don’t look well enough to be at work anyhow.

I smiled and said no I’m okay I’m just pregnant and she said oh congratulations and asked me questions and showed me pictures of her new granddaughter.

She gave me lots of advice, she said drink stout and take folic acid, and mind you take it easy now.

I finished the tea and said thankyou and went home again, and on the way back I was sick by the bins behind the Chinese.

There was a message from Sarah on the answerphone.

It was a long message, so I left it playing while I cleared away the breakfast things.

She said what are you doing are you still in bed where have you been?

She said I’ve been trying to call you what have you been up to all weekend?

She said and so what about that guy, what’s his name, that guy I gave your number to, did he call you, did you see him?

She gasped as though she was suddenly shocked and she giggled and said is that where you’ve been?

Have you been making babies she said, is he still there now?

There were voices in the background, she said look anyway got to go, she said but anyway I’m in your part of town today so call me and we can meet up.

She told me her mobile number, but she said it too fast and I had to listen to the whole message again before I could write it down.

I took my clothes off and got into the shower while I thought about calling her back.

It would be good to talk to her, maybe, but the idea made me nervous somehow.

I remembered the last time I tried to talk to her about it, and I thought that perhaps I just don’t know her well enough anymore.

I filled my hair with shampoo and watched the lather pouring down over me, I looked at my skin and I wondered if anything was different, my breasts heavier, my stomach rounder, my hips wider.

It was hard to tell.

I looked at my body and tried to picture myself as a heavily pregnant woman, I stood with my feet further apart, my hands against the back of my hips, my stomach pushed out.

I felt like a nine-year-old, playing dress-up.

I rinsed off the soap and got out of the shower, and I was just about to brush my teeth when I was sick in the basin.

There was another message on the answerphone, it was Michael, he said just seeing if you’re okay and I wondered if you were doing anything this afternoon and he told me his number.

When I open the door I say oh hello, and I look at him and we’re both embarrassed.

He’s holding a bunch of flowers, thick-stemmed white lilies with bright yellow centres and shiny green leaves.

I look at them, he looks at them, and water drips from the bottom of the wrapping onto his shoe.