Anna Burns - Milkman

This stopped him in his tracks and I think it must have been recently he’d heard that tablets girl’s sister, his ex-girlfriend, had been poisoned but without anticipating the extent of this poisoning, not having been around many poisoned people perhaps at close quarters to have grasped it wasn’t always only the alimentary tract that got destroyed. Tablets girl’s sister, however, by now was well into her stride. ‘You broke my heart,’ she cried. ‘You made me miserable. You made you miserable and any way you look at this, you can’t have made her – whoever she is – not miserable. So go away, go away,’ and again her hands came out. Again his hands came out, and she tried, and he tried, then she tried, then she halted. Then he tried again, then she pushed him off. Generally, there was halting and pushing, hands coming out, arms coming out, hands pushing away and more than one verbal ‘go away’ but with no going-away happening. Then, from him there were further declarations of love, further fools and damn fools and damn idjits. ‘If she’d killed you!’ he cried. ‘What if your sister’d killed you! You could have died and I would never have …’ and though he wasn’t really shaking, not physically, definitely there was turmoil churning up from inside. Not that she could see, but it was unmistakable not to hear what he looked like. It was true, certainly, that he had compromised, that he had settled, become sullied, jaded, so that maybe in less than another year of not following his heart, not allowing his heart, he was to be turned into one of those buried-alive, hundred-per-cent, dulled-to-death, coffined people. But in the middle of this declaration of love and of his innards shaking there came upon him a change in tone. Now there was urgency, a sharpness, an admirable fearlessness, even anger. He asked again what her sister had done to her and had anyone taken her, his beloved, to get help? So now it was the doctor. Had she been taken to one? What had been done to help her? Had anything been done to help her? But tablets girl’s sister interrupted, rebuffed his concern over the trifle of what her sister had done to her. ‘For what care you what’s been done to me when you didn’t care what you did to me yourself!’ There was more somethings here, this time from both, followed by pushing from her, then a taking hold of his shirt, a taking hold of him, an almost laying her head onto— But no! Instead it was rejection of his shirt, rejection of him, then further pushing, but then a taking to the shirt again, stepping close, closer, another closer, more closers. Then she leaned over, leaned in, leaned her head onto her forearms, already at home on his heart. She closed her eyes then and breathed him into her, her lover, ex-lover, her lover, at which point third brother must have thought permission was granted. He brought his arms up – too early! – not granted. With a cry she pushed him off once more.

So there they were. She pushed again, weaker pushing, and already his arms were out – wiser, waiting, alert for the cue, for the subtle indication that this time would be the right time, all of which, of course, was not meant for my ears to hear or my eyes to see. Ordinarily, I would have been shocked, disgusted, at the thought of anyone – especially me – standing feet away from and having a good gawk at two overly wrought, emotional lovers. But I had become glued, couldn’t stop myself, didn’t want to stop myself and besides, they’d started it and were continuing it. And now, permitting him to bring his arms around her, while she herself held on to him while managing at the same time to push away at him, she admonished, saying, ‘I think I hate you,’ which meant she didn’t because ‘I think I hate you’ is the same as ‘probably I hate you’, which is the same as ‘I don’t know if I hate you’, which is the same as ‘I don’t hate you, oh my God, my love, I love you, still love you, always, always have I loved you and never have I stopped loving you’. Then, taking her face out of his chest, to push or not push, both of them ceased activity. There was a second of nothing, a blip of suspension, then they fell – no more talk, no more dramatics – with relief into each other’s arms.

They were kissing now, tightly embracing; he, leaning her over, supporting her by her back, her waist – and her, arms about his neck, letting him hold her, letting him support her, letting him lean her over. Soon indeed, it seemed he was kissing her backwards off her feet. It was one of those ‘you’ll never be kissed like this until you smell like this’ Christmas French perfume advertisements and here too, I noticed – though they didn’t – others had come to view them as well. The majority of these people had broken off from the small crowd which had gathered to observe the strange spectacle of the men fighting down the street. They were still at it, those men, in silence, doing so too, with those cigarettes dangling. Perhaps it had been a fight too quiet, too prolonged, too puzzling, a disconcerting fight, difficult to gauge, one which worked largely perhaps by association of ideas, some modern, stylistic art nouveau encounter. Being a conventional audience, however, used to chronological and traditional realism, the majority began to doubt that those men, indeed, were fighting at all. That was why they lost interest and broke away to come down to us, and most of these neighbours were now nodding, and nodding sagely. The woman beside me nodded sagely to the woman on the other side of me, who acknowledged her sage nod by herself nodding sagely. ‘I knew it was guilt,’ said the first, now talking to me. ‘That explains your brother’s behaviour, his furtiveness in sneaking into the area and the same on his rushing out of the area. Guilt. Only guilt. Nothing to do with the political problems, with renouncership or with any possible suspicion of informership. All guilt – also remorse – and a bad conscience at what he’d done to her. But do you have any idea’ – and at this all of them turned to me – ‘what his wrong wife is going to say about that?’

That was something else. Brothers. My brothers. I had four brothers, three really, and one of them, the second one, was dead. I still counted dead second brother because still he was my brother. I counted fourth brother also, the one who’d never been my brother but who instead had been second brother’s longest friend since their days at the baby school. Always he’d lived with us, this fourth brother, even though he had his own family – two parents, two brothers, seven sisters – still had them too, residing just four streets away. At age fourteen, having left school, he’d continued to live in our house, though by that time he’d joined the renouncers. Second brother also had joined the renouncers. Even now, with second brother gone, fourth brother in theory still lived with us as part of our family, although at present he wasn’t in our house because he was on the run. They said he’d taken motorbike for the border after shooting up that patrol during which deliberately he’d killed four state people and accidentally three ordinary people – one adult and two six-year-olds, standing at their countryside bus-stop waiting for their bus. No longer now did we see him, although it was said he was somewhere down there, in one of those counties in that country ‘over the border’. As for first brother, eldest brother, well, by tradition, it was expected that if anyone in a family here was to go and join the movement, it would be the firstborn son who’d go and join the movement. So much was this believed that when ma’s second son, my second brother, who had joined the movement, got killed while himself in a shootout with the state forces, the policemen, when they came to fetch ma to identify the body, kept getting it wrong and calling him her firstborn instead. In the case of ma’s actual firstborn, my first brother, he didn’t join the renouncers but instead fell over drunk one night in town and broke his arm. He took himself to the hospital and said it had been the fault of a loose paving stone and put in a claim and was believed by those in charge of believing or not believing and was awarded a whack of thousands. He gave a lump sum to ma, then, regarding the country and its political problems, said, ‘Fuck this, I’m outta here,’ and went to the Middle East for a bit of peace and quiet and sunshine instead. Before going, he offered to take the brothers with him, but second brother and fourth brother, deep in their renouncership, said they didn’t want to go, and third brother didn’t want to go because he was in love with tablets girl’s sister. So first brother went alone and no one has heard tell of him since. So this brother, first brother errant, went and did his thing. And second brother, my late brother, he did his thing. Fourth brother was currently doing his thing. As for third brother, jilting his right spouse then marrying the wrong one, then doing nothing about it till now, delineated – least also until now – all that could be said about him.