Anna Burns - Milkman

And now he was doting on it, on the bit that was currently on the living-room carpet. He stood beside it, gazing down, a big smile on his face, beaming away. And that was what he did – the way I’d get turned on, the way he’d turn me on, when he was engrossed, unstudied, unself-conscious, working on the old heaps, his face full of love and concentration, telling himself these were serious dilemmas from which the poor auld car mightn’t recover if he didn’t tinker conscientiously, also when some people might shrug and say in life, about life, ‘Oh well, there’s no point in trying, probably it won’t work so we must just not try and instead prepare ourselves for bitterness and disappointment’ but maybe-boyfriend would say, ‘Well, it might work, I think it will work, so how about we try?’ and even if it didn’t work at least he didn’t downgrade himself to misery before having a go. After he’d weathered his disappointment if it hadn’t worked, once again, with renewed vigour, with that mindset of ‘can’ even when he couldn’t, he’d be straight on to the next thing. Curious and engaged and eager – because of passion, because of plans, because of hope, because of me. And that was it. With me too, he was uncalculated, transparent, free from deception, always was what he was, with none of that coolness, that withholding, that design, those hurtful, sometimes clever, always mean, manipulations. No conniving. No games-playing. He didn’t do it, didn’t care for it, had no interest in it. ‘Those are crazy things,’ he’d say, brushing aside flank movements as protections for his heart. Strong therefore. Chaste too. Uncorrupted in the little things, which held fast for the bigger things. That was singular. That was why I was attracted to him. That was why standing there, looking at him looking at his car, doing his out-loud wondering and pondering, I was getting wet and—

‘Are you listening?’ he said. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Heard everything. You were talking of inside-car.’

I meant the bit on the carpet but he said he’d tell again because it seemed I hadn’t grasped the fundamentals. This was when I learned that this inside bit was an outside bit, that it went at the front of the vehicle. He said too, that the car it had come from had been a complete wreck when it turned up at the garage. ‘Guess what! It was a write-off, a total terrible, due to some idjit blowing up the engine by not putting enough oil in. Vital bits missing, differential missing, pistons through the tappet cover, almost all of it, maybe-girlfriend, a tragedy.’ From what I could gather – because the bit on the floor looked nothing special, just more of the usual – this car had been some coveted, early twentieth-century, cheery, brutish, speedy, noisy, not-good-at-stopping car. ‘Beyond redemption,’ said maybe-boyfriend, meaning beyond repair, yet still he was smiling down at it. He said he and the others, after much arguing, dissension and finally, a casting-of-votes, had decided to disassemble what was left. So they split it up, then they drew lots with maybe-boyfriend ending up with this bit on the carpet, a bit too, that was presently causing him transportations of pure joy.

‘Supercharger,’ he said and I said, ‘Uh-huh,’ and he said, ‘No, you don’t understand, maybe-girlfriend. Few cars were supercharged then so this was advanced technology. It decimated the competition – all because of this’ – he indicated the bit on the floor. ‘Uh-huh,’ I said again, then I had a thought. ‘Who got the car seats?’ which made him laugh and say, ‘That’s not a proper question, darlin’. C’mere’ – and he brought his fingers – oh God – over to the nape of my neck. This was dangerous, always dangerous. Any time the fingers were there – between my neck and my skull – I’d forget everything – not just things that happened moments before the fingers, but everything – who I was, what I was doing, all my memories, everything about anything, except being there, in that moment, with him. Then, when he’d rub them in, into the groove, that crook, the soft bit above the bumpy bone, that was even more dangerous. At that point my mind would fall behind owing to deliciousness and to muddles with chronology. Belatedly I’d think, oh, but what if he begins to rub his fingers there! I’d go to jelly which meant he’d have to put his arms around me to stop me from falling which meant I’d have to let him. Even then though, within moments, we would be crashing to the ground.

‘Forget the seats,’ he murmured. ‘Seats important but not most important. This is what’s important.’ I was unclear if still he was on ‘car’ or had moved his attention now to me. I suspected it was car but at some moments you can’t stop to have an argument, so we kissed and he said he was getting turned on and was I not turned on and I said could he not look how I was looking, then he murmured what’s this and I murmured what’s what and he prodded something in my hand which I’d forgotten which turned out to be Gogol’s ‘The Overcoat’ so he said he’d just set it there, meaning the table, which he did which was okay and we were about maybe to go to the carpet or to the settee or somewhere when there were voices. They were coming up his path and were followed by raps on his door.

On the doorstep were men, his neighbours. They had come to the house because word had spread about the Blower Bentley, with everyone not believing and wanting to see for themselves. Given their number and insistence, this was not one of those ‘Kinda busy, can you not come back later?’ moments. It seemed their excitement was higher, more unbrookable, more intense than ours. As they were explaining their presence, they kept nudging forward on the doorstep, going on tip-toes, trying to juke over maybe-boyfriend’s shoulders to catch a glimpse of the precious motor vehicle. Maybe-boyfriend had to explain – for everybody knew he kept cars on his premises and cars in his premises – that in this case it wasn’t the whole car but the supercharger from the car, but that too, seemed to make for awesome, incredible news. They wanted in definitely then, just for a moment, just for to peek at this amazing, uncommon development. He let them in and their eagerness fell to silence as they filled up the living room, staring in reverence at the bit on the floor.

‘Extraordinary!’ someone then said – which meant it must have been for that was not a word ever to be used in our lexicon. As with others like it – ‘marvellous!’, ‘tremendous!’, ‘stupendous!’, ‘stunning!’, ‘sensational!’, ‘topper!’, ‘super!’, ‘crikey!’, ‘let’s!’, ‘smashing!’, ‘diamondiferous!’, ‘bizarre!’, ‘exceedingly!’ – even ‘however’ and ‘indeed’ though I myself and wee sisters said ‘however’ and ‘indeed’ – it was an emotional word, too much of a colorant, too high-flying, too posturing; basically it was of that quintessential ‘over the water’ language, with ‘ quintessential ’ being another of those words. Almost never were they used here without ruffling or embarrassing or frightening local people, so someone else said, ‘Fuck, who would have thought!’ which toned things down, being more in keeping with societal toleration here. This was followed by further societal tolerations, then there were more raps on windows and further knocks at the door. Soon the house was packed and I was shoved to the corner with the car-nuts talking classic cars, historic cars, enigmatic cars, performance cars, muscle cars, soft-skinned cars, cars with a lot of flash or pretty rough cars that should never be tidied up but always look as they were supposed to look. Then there was horsepower, distinct lines, big bangs, raw acceleration, extra-acceleration, lack of braking (a good thing), fantastic jolts (another good thing) that pinned one with ‘a brilliant cracker feeling!’ back to the back of one’s seat. As this talk continued with no hint of stopping, I looked at the clock and thought, where’s my Gogol? Then, when they moved to the harsh consonants, those number names, the alpha-numerical names – the NYX, the KGB, the ZPH-Zero-9V5-AG – which names maybe-boyfriend himself was partial to, I couldn’t take the overload and had to get myself and ‘The Overcoat’ out of the room. As I was about to make my way through, someone, a young guy, a neighbour of maybe-boyfriend’s, stopped me, stopped all of us, with a comment choicely dropped during a pause in this fight for airspace. ‘It’s all very well, neighbour,’ said this neighbour, ‘having this so-called classic bit and all, and it’s not like I’m trying to be funny or anything but’ – here all breath was held, everyone alert for an attack movement. Then it came – ‘which among you at the garage then, drew the bit with that flag on?’