Anna Burns - Milkman

On the upstairs landing new pains set in, these of a darting, crisscross fashion. Because of them, I was forced to give up crawling somewhere between my bedroom and the bathroom, all the time hearing strange sounds which I thought were voices on a radio made to go slow. I found out later they’d been my groans and, ‘Guess what! They woke up everybody!’ cried my younger sisters. They were speaking with relish, these sisters, and this was four days on from the poisoning when I was in bed, on the mend, recuperating. They recounted these groans to me, demonstrated a selection for me, described also the events of the middle of that night to me, adding that I looked white – ‘but not that awful white you look usually’. ‘More like milk,’ said oldest-youngest sister. ‘A bottle of milk,’ said middle-youngest sister. ‘Like white milk that’s been painted extra white,’ suggested youngest-youngest sister, ‘so that it glows in the dark.’ A three-way fight broke out between wee sisters over whether this ‘glowing in the dark’ aspect had been true or fabricated. Also they fought over when this extra whiteness had materialised. Had it been before our mother and the neighbours purged me or after our mother and the neighbours purged me? For yes, ma and the neighbours purged me, ma being first to reach me on the landing and to put her arms out and around me but, because of what was happening within me, I hadn’t heard her come up. I felt her strong arms though, felt her warm breath, and knew in that moment that it was good beyond God to have my mother near me. Gripping the hem of her nightdress, then crawling along this nightdress, then inching into the belly of this nightdress, I knew I would be safe, that I would not now be alone.

At the same time as saving me, of course she had a go at me. Along with her rapid physical examination and quick-fire questions to me – Was I cut? Was I knifed? What did I eat? What did I drink? Did someone out of the ordinary give me something out of the ordinary? Was I in a fight with someone? Had I been kicked in the head earlier by someone? Were all my trusted friends trustworthy? With what had I been poisoned? – came also her first judgemental remark. ‘Well, what do you expect, wee girl,’ she said, ‘if you go round stealing other people’s husbands? Of course those women are going to try to kill you. For all your so-called knowledge of the world, how come you don’t know that?’ I didn’t know what ma meant by my knowledge of the world. My knowledge of the world consisted of fucking hell, fucking hell, fucking hell, which didn’t lend itself to detail, the detail really being those words themselves. Ma, though, hadn’t finished the husband-and-wife bit. Next came more ‘what do you expect’ only this time with variations on my sometimes having affairs with lots of husbands, sometimes with all husbands, sometimes just with one husband, with Milkman. ‘Fool girl. Oh foolhardy! Foolhardy!’ she cried. ‘You a teenager with him more than twice your age too!’ Here she paused to hoist me up against herself to get me down to the bathroom. Then she continued her accusations and her jumping to conclusions, adding grimly, ‘All the same, when this is done with, daughter, I want you to list me all those wives’ names.’ During this time I was still curled in a ball, unable to straighten, unable to stand, with waves of pain building, then pushing from below, then shooting up – still in that crisscross manner – through me. So she lifted me in this ball, bidding me to keep an arm round her neck whilst holding best I could with the other hand to the banisters, urging me too, to reveal to her the poison – ‘But what did they give you? Do you know what they gave you?’ – with at last my managing, ‘No wives, ma. No husbands. No affair with Milkman. No poison.’ Then – not listening because a new thought was now in her head – she turned herself to stone.

‘In the name of God!’ she cried. ‘Are they correct? Is everybody correct? Have you been fecundated by him, by that renouncer, that “top of wanted list” clever man, the false milkman?’ ‘What?’ I said, for it had been singular, that word she’d used and genuinely for a moment I had not a clue what she meant by it. ‘Imbued by him?’ she elaborated. ‘Engendered in. Breeded in. Fertilised, vexed, embarrassed, sprinkled, caused to feel regret, wished not to have happened – dear God, child, do I have to spell it out?’ Well, why didn’t she spell it out? Why couldn’t she just say pregnant? But this was like ma. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t enough on my plate, without having to take time out from poisoning – which still I hadn’t realised was poisoning – to guess her latest removed remark. She didn’t stay on difficult pregnancies either, for ma could give herself horror stories one right after the other. Next came abortions and I had to guess them also, from ‘vermifuge, squaw mint, Satan’s apple, premature expulsion, being failed in the course of coming into being’ with any doubt dispelled by, ‘Well, daughter, you can’t disappoint me anymore than you’ve already disappointed me, so tell me – what did you procure and which of them drab aunts did you procure it of?’

This was news to me. I hadn’t known there were drab aunts in the area, that the renouncers would permit them or be unable to stop them. Typical too, of ma, the fount of knowledge, to reveal to me, as always she did, astounding detail about the underside whilst at the same time accusing me of knowing it already. Once again, she was showing no faith, didn’t believe I could be true, that I was true, that I might have enough wit of my own not to take up with such a man as Milkman, all of which didn’t inspire me to inspire her with confidence in me, for why should I? Last time I tried she called me a liar, demanding – even though I had been doing it – that I give her the truth. She didn’t want the truth. All she wanted was confirmation of the rumour. What was the use therefore, in trying to settle the attribution, to get her to see that these spasms, this stiffness, this unable to straighten, unable to stand, weren’t down to poison or to any of her imaginings but instead were an intensified version of the usual? I was being sick because of Milkman stalking me, Milkman tracking me, Milkman knowing everything about me, biding his time, closing in on me, and because of the perniciousness of the secrecy, gawking and gossip that existed in this place. So ma and I were at cross purposes, as always we were at cross purposes, but then I did attempt because in that moment, which was a lonely moment, more than ever I longed for her belief in me, for her properly to perceive me. ‘No wives, ma,’ I said. ‘No husbands, no foetus, no drab aunts, no poison, no suicide’ – adding on that last to save her the trouble of adding it on herself. ‘Well, what is it then?’ she said and in the middle of pain, in the middle of poison, gloriously I felt a comfort go through me, a sense of solace descend on me, all because she’d paused in her admonition to consider I might be telling the truth. It could be easy to love her. Sometimes I could see how easy it could be to love her. Then it was gone and she broke off from hesitation, from prodding and hoisting and falsely accusing, to call to wee sisters. The three sisters were out of bed, standing behind us in their nightclothes at this point.

She commanded them to help and of course younger sisters were overjoyed to do this. They loved drama, any drama, just so long as it was sheer and they could be part of it, or at least bear witness to it. They rushed over and took hold exactly where ma instructed and between the four of them, got me along the rest of the landing, down the step at the end of the landing, then into the bathroom where wee sisters let go. They thought they were supposed to let go, so I fell along with ma onto the floor. It was sharp and painful, that fall, and at first I cried out with it. Then I realised this floor was good. It was cold, smooth, welcome, but short-lived also, because my body once again began to assert itself. It got back onto forearms, onto knees, in preparation for some imminence. Ma, meantime, was issuing instructions to wee sisters to go and get the keys of her backyard pharmacy from her bedroom and to bring them to her right away. They rushed off as one, which was how wee sisters did everything, and ma, turning back, kept pressing my middle while ordering me to think! think! If not ‘chagrined’, not ‘vermifuged’, not ‘pennyroyaled’, was there anything of eating? Anything of drinking? Anybody hanging around who shouldn’t have been hanging around, but with me now unable to answer at all. Still contracted, still in that odd shape, stiffly I flung myself towards the bath, towards the floor, towards the toilet, then over the floor again. Something enormous was coming and it seemed my body wasn’t hopeful of getting it out.