Anna Burns - Milkman

Because of these extra meetings – real ones and made-up ones – and because I was continuing not to reveal anything which was now a full-time, batting-away process with me, longest friend from primary school sent word she wanted to meet for a talk. Shunning telephone communication, she sent a message via one of those scouts, those living telegrams most secret of the area, to arrange with me. I told him to tell her I’d meet her in the lounge of the district’s most popular drinking-club at seven o’clock that night. I loved longest friend; at least used to love her, or loved still what I knew of her. It was that hardly now did I know her; hardly ever did I see her. One of the things about her was that her entire family had been killed in the political problems so far. She was the only one left, living alone too – though soon she was to marry – in the dead family house. As regards our friendship, this was the one person I could speak with, the one person I could listen to, totalling in fact the last trusted-fewest person who wouldn’t drain the life out of me that I had left in the world. Like third brother-in-law she didn’t gossip. Politically she kept her eyes and ears open. This was something she accused me deliberately of never doing, which I couldn’t deny because it was true. I backed myself up by reminding her of my hatred of the twentieth century, adding that the unstoppable gossip in the district – also hateful – was more than enough for me. This was not the way of longest friend. Everything meant something to her. Everything was of use to her, or to be made of use, to be stored away for utility at some future opportunistic date. I would say that her information-acquisition, her silence, this stocking-up of hers – not only on factual reality but also on anecdotal and speculated reality – was questionable, also sinister, not a little scary. She would respond by saying this was a case of the pot calling the kettle black. Especially she told me this when we met up that night in the upstairs lounge of the district’s most popular drinking-club. In case I didn’t know, she said, I was more than a bit questionable, sinister and scary myself. I thought she meant by my not keeping my ears open, by not accruing information and disseminating local commentary, also because of my lifelong stubbornness in refusing to tell nosey bastards what it wasn’t their business to hear. ‘Why should I?’ I said. ‘It’s not to do with them and anyway, I haven’t done anything.’ ‘Lots of people haven’t done anything,’ said longest friend. ‘And still they’re not doing it, will always be not doing it, in their private coffins down at the usual place.’ ‘But I’m always only minding my business,’ I said, ‘doing my things, walking down the street, just walking down the street and—’ ‘Yeah,’ said friend, ‘there’s that as well.’ I asked her what she meant and she said she’d get on to that in a minute. First there was another point to be got through. Before that point, there was another point which was that ever since the end of our schooldays longest friend and I did not meet often. Whenever we did meet, our encounters were increasingly solemn and less and less cheerful. I can’t remember when last they were cheerful. Even at her wedding, which took place four months after this meeting in the lounge, there was that same lack of cheerfulness. Indeed, so strong had been the impression of everyone present attending a joint funeral instead of one marriage that I couldn’t shake it off and in the end had to leave the reception early, go home and lie on my bed, in broad daylight, in celebration clothes, depressed. Another point before the point was that between us there was an unspoken understanding that I did not ask her her business and in return she did not tell me it. We had stuck to this arrangement ever since she had started in on her business. That would be something like four years ago now.

So we were upstairs in the lounge and we ordered our drinks and sat at the back, and after a bit of not talking, which was not unusual in the initial stages between me and longest friend, she said, ‘Knowing you, you’ve probably not done anything, but according to rumour, seems you’ve done everything. Now don’t jump down my throat, longest friend, but tell me, what’s the crack with you and Milkman?’

I noticed she called him Milkman and that she gave him a capital letter. To everybody else he was ‘the milkman’, with only the very youngest in the area believing he was a milkman, though even then, that didn’t last long. If she was calling him ‘Milkman’, I now decided, that must be because he was ‘Milkman’. She’d know more about it than any uninitiated outside influence and so, because of her inside knowledge, and because of our friendship, it was a relief to tell, though I didn’t know how much of a relief until I opened my mouth and out it all came. I knew she’d believe me, because she knew me, because I knew her, or at least used to know her, so there’d be no need for anxiety or for having to decide whether or not to trust her. Nor would I have to make efforts to persuade her. I could just lay it all out exactly as it was. So I did. I told of his quick appearances and of his quiet pronouncements, of his knowledge of my whereabouts, of his knowing everything there was to know about my life. I told about his telling me what to do without openly telling me to do it. Then there were his swift leave-takings as startling as his arrivals, with my overwhelming sensation of falling into a trap. He was trailing me, tracking me, knowing my routines, my movements, also the routines of everyone I met up with. It was that he had some plan, I said, but was in no hurry, was going at his pace, though with the clear intention of one day carrying it out. Also his not touching I spoke of, even though it seemed always he was touching, and all the time the hairs being up – waiting, anticipating, dreading – at the back of my neck. I said then of the flashy cars and of the van, though I knew longest friend would know of those already, telling also of my instinct that warned never to get beaten down enough to step into one of them. I spoke then of the state forces and of their surveillance upon me because of their surveillance upon him. They took photos, I said, not just of me and him, but now of me on my own or me with anyone – persons met by chance or persons I’d arranged to meet up with. These hidden cameras would click, I said, with unconnected people then getting implicated, regardless that nothing was, or had, or was about to, go on. I mentioned then the emergence of the arse-lickers, the lickspittles, given that those individuals had started to appear, pretending that they liked me when of course they didn’t like me. To my surprise, I even mentioned lascivious first brother-in-law. Towards the end there was ma and her sanctities and the holy people she had praying for me, then the elusive rumour-mongers who changed things if they heard things and who made things up when they did not hear things. Finally I ended on some possible future carbomb which just might kill the boyfriend I was in a maybe-relationship with. And that was it. I had said all. I stopped talking, took a big drink and sank back on the velvety cushioned bench, feeling lighter. I had told out to the right person. Definitely, longest friend had been the right person. The fact this had come out organically – even plausibly unchronologically – seemed to me to be proof of this.

So I was heard, and it felt good and respectful to be heard, to be got, not to be interrupted or cut off by opinionated, poorly attuned people. For the longest while longest friend didn’t say anything and I didn’t mind her not saying anything. Indeed I welcomed it. It seemed a sign she was digesting the information, letting it speak to her timely, to authenticate also in its proper moment the right and just response. So she stayed quiet and stayed still and looked ahead and it was then for the first time it struck me that this staring into the middle distance, which often she’d do when we’d meet, was identical to that of Milkman. Apart from the first time in his car when he’d leaned over and looked out at me, never again had he turned towards me. Was this some ‘profile display stance’ then, that they all learn at their paramilitary finishing schools? As I was pondering this, longest friend then did speak. Without turning, she said, ‘I understand your not wanting to talk. That makes sense, and how could it not, now that you’re considered a community beyond-the-pale.’