Anna Burns - Milkman

As for that official ‘male and female’ territory, and what females could say and what they could never say, I said nothing when the milkman curbed, then slowed, then stopped my run. Once again, least not intentionally, he didn’t seem rude, so I couldn’t be rude and keep on running. Instead I let him slow me, this man I didn’t want near me, and it was at that point he said something about all the walking I did whenever I wasn’t running and these were words I wished he hadn’t spoken or else that I hadn’t heard at all. He said he was concerned, that he wasn’t sure, and all the while still he did not look at me. ‘Not sure,’ he said, ‘about this arunning, about all of that awalking. Too much arunning and awalking.’ With that, and without another word, he went round a corner at the edge of the parks and disappeared. As with last time with the flashy car, this time too – with the sudden appearance, the proximity, the presumption, the click of the camera, his judgement upon my running and walking then once again that abrupt departure – there was confusion, too much of being startled. It seemed a shock, yes, but shock over something that must be too small, unimportant, even too normal to be really truly shocked over. Because of it though, it was only hours later when back home that I was able to take in he knew about my work. I didn’t remember how I got home either because after he left, at first I attempted running again, trying to resume my schedule, to pretend his appearance had not happened or at least had not meant anything. Then, because I was lapsing in attention, because I was confused, because I wasn’t being truthful, I slipped on glossy pages that had worked loose from some discarded magazine. They were a double-page spread of a woman with long dark, unruly hair, wearing stockings, suspenders, something too, black and lacy. She was smiling out at me, leaning back and opening up for me, which was when I skidded and lost balance, catching full view of her monosyllable as I fell down on the path.

The morning after that run session, and earlier than usual, and without telling myself why, I walked out of my way to the other side of the district to catch a different bus into town. Also I got that same bus home. For the first time ever I did not do my reading-while-walking. I did not do my walking. Again I did not tell myself why. Another thing was I missed my next run session. Had to, in case he reappeared in the parks & reservoirs. If you’re a serious runner though, and a distance runner, and of a certain persuasion from a certain part of the city, you pretty much had to incorporate that whole stretch of territory into your schedule. If you didn’t, you were left with a curtailed route owing to religious geography, which meant repeatedly going round a much smaller area in order to get a comparable effect. Although I loved running, the monotony of the wheelrun told me I didn’t love it that much, so no running went on for seven whole days. Seemed too, no running ever again was to go on until my compulsion to do so got the better of me. On the evening of the seventh day of no running, I decided to return to the parks & reservoirs, this time in the company of third brother-in-law.

Third brother-in-law was not first brother-in-law. He was a year older than me and someone I’d known since childhood: a mad exerciser, a mad street fighter, a basic all-round mad person. I liked him. Other people liked him. Once they got used to him they liked him. Other things about him were that he never gossiped, never came out with lewd remarks or sexual sneers or sneers about anything. Nor did he ask manipulative, nosey questions. Rarely, in fact, did he ask questions. As for his fighting, this man fought men. Never did he fight women. Indeed, his mental aberration, as diagnosed by the community, was that he expected women to be doughty, inspirational, even mythical, supernatural figures. We were supposed also to altercate with him, more or less too, to overrule him, which was all very unusual but part of his unshakeable women rules. If a woman wasn’t being mythical and so on, he’d try to nudge things in that direction by himself becoming slightly dictatorial towards her. By this he was discomfited but had faith that once she came to with the help of his improvised despotism, she would remember who she was and indignantly reclaim her something beyond the physical once again. ‘Not particularly balanced then,’ said some men of the area, probably all men of the area. ‘But if he has to have an imbalance,’ said all women of the area, ‘we think it best he proceed in it this way.’ So with his atypical high regard for all things female, he proved himself popular with the females without any awareness he was popular with them – which made him more popular. Of beneficial significance also – I mean for me with my current problem with the milkman – was that all the women of the area viewed brother-in-law this way. So not just one woman, or two women, or three or even four women. Small-numbered women, unless married to, mother of, groupie of, or in some way connected with the men of power in our area – meaning the paramilitaries in our area – would have gotten nowhere in directing communal action, in influencing to their advantage public opinion here. Local women en masse, however, did so command, and on the rare occasions when they rose up against some civic, social or local circumstance, they presented a surprising formidable force of which other forces, usually considered more formidable, had no choice but to take note. Together then, these women were appreciative of their champion which meant they’d be protective of this champion. That was him and the women. As for him and the men of the area – and perhaps to their astonishment – most men liked and respected third brother-in-law too. Given his superb physicality and instinctive understanding of the combative male code of the district he had the proper credentials, even if his behoving to women, in the eyes of the men, had reached extreme bananas stage. In the area therefore, he was all-roundly accepted, as by me too, he was accepted, and in the past I did used to run with him but then one day I stopped. His tyrannous approach to physical exercise overtook my own tyrannous approach to physical exercise. His way proved too intense, too straitened, too offensive of reality. I decided though, to resume running with him, not because the milkman would be intimidated physically by him, harbouring fears of brother-in-law fighting with him. Certainly he wasn’t as young or as fit as brother-in-law, but youth and fitness don’t count for everything, often not even for anything. You don’t need to be young and able to run to fire a gun for example, and I was pretty sure the milkman could do that all right. It was his fanbase – that cross-gender esteem third brother-in-law was held in – that I thought might prove a deterrent to the milkman. Should he take exception to brother-in-law accompanying me, he’d encounter not only the opprobrium of the entire local community, but his reputation in it as one of our highranking, prestigious dissidents would plummet to the point where he’d be put outside any and all safe houses, into the path of any and all passing military patrol vehicles, exactly as if he wasn’t one of our major influential heroes but instead just some enemy state policeman, some enemy soldier from across the water or even one of the enemy state-defending paramilitaries from over the way. As a renouncer heavily reliant upon the local community, my guess was he wouldn’t alienate himself for me. That was the plan then, and it was a good plan, and I took confidence from it, regretting only that it hadn’t occurred to me seven days and six nights earlier. But it had occurred now so next thing was to launch it into action. I put on my running gear and set off for third brother-in-law’s house.