Anna Burns - Milkman

There were three reasons why I didn’t walk. One was, I was in that overwound, falsely buoyed-up state which I mistook for resolve and happy conviction. Therefore, I was eager to get over to maybe-boyfriend’s as quickly as I could. Two was, that even now, even with this springiness and excitement upon me, my legs, even just for walking – not for running, just for walking – still were not back to their best. Three was, at the back of my decision to make clearance with maybe-boyfriend, I was uneasy still of going out my door and encountering Milkman. It seemed then – though I did not question this – that I did not want my newfound regeneration tested, perhaps defeated, by him once again appearing on the scene.

I got off the bus in maybe-boyfriend’s area, took the cut-through that led round to his street and his big front door was busted. It was leaned-to but it was busted. What did that mean? I pushed it gingerly and slipped round into the tiny hall. From there I went to the living room which was empty of people though car parts were strewn about, scattered, crashed here and there, suggesting the hoarding had taken on some haphazard, noisy, even violent quality rather than maybe-boyfriend’s usual stacking-upon-stacking, or else some disturbance of his normal day-to-day hoarding had taken place. I was about to call his name but then I heard chef’s voice issuing from the kitchen. He was murmuring his usual cooking instructions to his imaginary apprentice. ‘Here. Try it this way. No. Leave off that. This way, this way. There, that’s better. Put the dishcloth to them while I get this together, then I’ll rinse—’ I headed towards the kitchen to interrupt chef to ask what had happened to the front door and to enquire as to the whereabouts of maybe-boyfriend, but then I halted for chef’s imaginary companion at that moment was murmuring back. It was something something , couldn’t make it out, but I made out the voice and it was that of maybe-boyfriend. I made moves to rush in but something in his voice prickled my skin and halted me. Involuntarily, I found myself holding back, going no further than the living-room side of the kitchen door. Maybe-boyfriend then said something something ‘Dammit, fuckit. Fool! Big fool! Buck idjit! Didn’t see that comin’, didn’t know what I was thinking, chef, what I was doing … Stupid … Should have realised they …’ with chef murmuring something about maybe-boyfriend shutting up and turning his head to the right. Gently I pushed the part-open door another bit part-open and looked through the join where I spied maybe-boyfriend sitting at the kitchen table on one of his kitchen chairs. He had his back, not quite, but almost turned towards me and something was wrong for he was holding a dripping-wet dishcloth up to his eyes. He had covered both eyes with this cloth and chef was standing nearby with a bunch of lint or gauze, with other cloths under one arm while pouring some surgical liquid from a bottle into a baking bowl of water sitting on the table. Also on this table, or thrust point downwards into the table so that it stood completely upright from it, was one of chef’s long kitchen knives. It had blood on it. Again my instincts stayed me. I didn’t believe for one moment that this wasn’t human blood, that instead perhaps it was stains from some recently prepared ‘Roasted beetroot and Roma tomatoes’, or ‘Celebration red cabbage in port and red wine’, or ‘Platter of edible red with further red and splashes of more red with extra startling red splatters to follow’. No. This was blood. There was more blood too – a load of it – on chef’s shirt, red streaks on the floor and reddish-brown stains on the table. Little splotches, I then noticed, were dripping from maybe-boyfriend himself. Strangely, still I remained where I was, as if something ever so strong had placed an invisible hand on my arm and firmly was staying me, ordering me, commanding me, warning me. There was none of that expected behaviour of a maybe-girlfriend, supposedly moments before full of regeneration and instant cure, rushing to her maybe-boyfriend’s house, totally resolved to see him, to be upfront with him, explain her newfound freedom from restriction to him. There was no gasp, scream, no concerned dash to take hold of the maybe-beloved with a cry of, ‘What happened? My God! What has happened?’ Instead I remained where I was, with neither chef nor maybe-boyfriend aware I was half in and half out of the room.

Maybe-boyfriend started up again, something about ‘… fucker. Sneaky wee bastard. What a bastard-bastard blasted bastard!’ And now I gathered – for maybe-boyfriend had used those terms before whilst having a go at his ‘no harm like but’ neighbour, the one who’d started off the supercharger-flag rumour which had then led to the informer rumour. ‘We’re going to hospital, longest mate,’ said chef with maybe-boyfriend saying, ‘No way. I’m in enough trouble with this flag-tout thing, supposedly now too, for being cocky enough to elbow in on yon renouncer’s love interest’ – meaning me as the ‘love interest’ – which was shocking for he hadn’t said it kindly – had said it unkindly – had said it derisively. Had things soured that much between us then, that this was my actual maybe-boyfriend before me right now? But hold on, I thought, he’s just been stabbed or beaten up and something’s wrong with his eyes but then I thought, well, I myself have recently been poisoned, then hardly an hour earlier I’d been in the chip shop accused of being an accessory-to-murder, then there was himself on the telephone accusing me too of being mistress, as even now, behind my back, he was accusing me still of being mistress, yet you don’t see me sitting down in a corner with longest friend from primary school criticising and having a go at him. Still, I thought again, he has been injured. Still, I thought again, he hadn’t said it kindly. This, I suppose, was the perfect lesson instantly delivered as to why people shouldn’t listen at doors. ‘No, chef,’ reiterated maybe-boyfriend, for chef again was bringing up the hospital. ‘They’d definitely have me as an informer if they find out I’ve gone to the hospital.’ He said then that his eyes would be fine and for chef to stop fussing, that soon they’d clear and become as they were before. ‘We don’t know that,’ said chef. ‘We don’t know what they threw at you, what he threw at you, and you’re saying it doesn’t hurt but still, you can’t open them so we’re going to the hospital. Who knows,’ he then added, ‘maybe we’ll bump into “no harm like but” down there as well.’ ‘I suppose they weren’t expecting a fight,’ said maybe-boyfriend, not heeding chef’s last remark but instead following his own train of thought completely. As for me, listening to them, it seemed obvious there’d been another fight, and as usual over chef’s fruitiness. But I realised that wasn’t the case by maybe-boyfriend’s next comment. ‘I mean, seein’ as I was on my own like,’ he said, ‘outnumbered, then he chucked that stuff and I couldn’t see, and even after I heard you run up, chef, still we were outnumbered. So how’d you do it? How’d you – the poof, the dolly, never to be taken seriously – how’d you, all by yourself, scare the lot of them away?’ Chef shrugged, which maybe-boyfriend didn’t see, and he said, ‘Ach,’ and it was an evasive ‘ach’ or maybe a dismissive ‘ach,’ indicating this was wearying as a topic of conversation. His gaze though, which also maybe-boyfriend couldn’t see, had wandered to his knife. It was still bloodied, still standing upright, still stuck in the table, but then chef quietly removed it from the table and placed it, still quietly, into the sink. He made moves then to take the wet cloth away from maybe-boyfriend’s eyes but maybe-boyfriend resisted. He scraped his chair round, elbowing chef out of the way. ‘Clear off, chef,’ he said. ‘Leave it. It’s fine. They’re not hurting,’ but chef insisted he have a look for himself. I wanted to see too, because did he need the hospital or did he not need the hospital? Was he my maybe-boyfriend or wasn’t he my maybe-boyfriend? Some invisible presence though, even now, stayed me still.