Anna Burns - Milkman

Mostly so far, during their exchange, my attention had been on maybe-boyfriend because why wouldn’t it be on maybe-boyfriend? But now I glanced at chef and instantly got a shock. The expression on his face – intense, uncouched, for he believed himself unobserved, therefore no reason for couching – was one of love. This was not a ‘best friend’ look of love, or a dispassionate, ‘concerned for all mankind’ look of love. There was no ‘maybe’ category about this look either. I had never – certainly not for my maybe-boyfriend – seen such a look on chef’s face before. Then again, I had not often looked at chef, not at his face, not really. This was just chef, the bent guy, the harmless guy, the one to be protected by the other guys; the one also to be condescended to, amused by, especially during the times he went into one of his food fits. At bottom, I’d supposed that chef was to be felt sorry for, and again not a proper sorry but one of those ‘it must be awful to be him so I’m glad I’m not him’ type of sorries. Not really to be regarded, not perceived as on the same level. Now though, it seemed to me, I was seeing this person for the first time. I understood now that this was why my instincts had stayed me, had prevented me from making my presence known. I’d even had premonition shudders, second time now to have had them without Milkman being involved. And now chef was removing the dishcloth and, as he did so, that look on his face increased and shocked me further. He brought his hand over to maybe-boyfriend’s face – and maybe-boyfriend let him. This was no ‘Let me have a look then’ rough male fumble. Wasn’t even to maybe-boyfriend’s injured eyes that he brought his hand. He had placed it on his cheek. Then he stroked the cheek, once, bringing his hand down, then shifting it gently, slowly, over to the other cheek. Again maybe-boyfriend let him, keeping his own eyes, all the time, closed. I saw then that the blood from earlier, those splotches, hadn’t been from maybe-boyfriend’s eyes but were coming from his nose. He brushed chef’s hand aside at that moment to wipe at them. Then he pushed chef’s hand away again, then again, which was what I would have expected him to have done right away. At this point there was no speaking, just that gentle hand-removing and quiet hand-replacing, one set of eyes closed, the other open, maybe-boyfriend on the chair, chef beside him, leaning over him, standing up.

Maybe-boyfriend then said, ‘Stop. Stop, chef. We can’t do this. We can’t keep doing this.’ Then, in support of his words, his hand came up and again pushed chef’s hand away. So he pushed, but he returned, then maybe-boyfriend pushed again, not strongly. Then he halted. There was no cursing, no ‘Fuck off, chef. What are you doin’? I’m not like that.’ No surprise either between them, the surprise and unexpectedness at what was happening in that kitchen between those men was turning out to be only so for me. And now maybe-boyfriend, after pushing chef off, stopped and he took hold of this other man’s arms and with his own eyes still closed, he held them. He leaned into them, into chef’s middle, with chef bending over till his face was in maybe-boyfriend’s hair. One of them then moaned, then there was, ‘Leave it. It’s over, chef, leave it,’ but when chef released his grip to step away, perhaps to leave it, maybe-boyfriend turned his own face up and pulled him down towards him yet again.

This was when I pulled round into the living room, for no, I thought. I knew what was coming and this was not for my eyes to see or my ears to hear. Hold on, I then thought. What do you mean not for your eyes and ears? This is your maybe-boyfriend, maybe-boyfriend too, of the oh-so-recent ‘you confound me, maybe-girlfriend, always hard to second-guess, impossible to connect with’. But how long? How long have them two …? I seemed to slip into a state of incomprehension whilst fully comprehending at the same time. And now they’d stopped murmuring which I guessed meant, though I dared not look, the second Gaultier kiss of the night was in process. After that, the murmuring started up once more. ‘Wrong person,’ said maybe-boyfriend – again meaning me – and chef said, ‘… for you, all for you, did it for you because …’ ‘Afraid. Risky. Too risky … What an idjit! … What a scared idjit! … If they’d killed you! If those lot … You could have died and never would I have been able—’ This last could have been either chef or maybe-boyfriend. I wondered if my legs would get me to the front door. Meanwhile, I carried on standing, slumping, against the wall to the side of the kitchen in maybe-boyfriend’s living room where the front door had been busted. And why it had been busted, why his compulsive hoarding had been interrupted, I no longer knew nor cared. As for the telephone fight, our recent fight – given that now he and chef … that he and him … that they … – what had that telephone fight really been about? So much for thinking maybe-boyfriend unstudied, uncomplicated, free from deception, the man who eschewed protections for his heart when here he was, confirming to chef, and to myself, that he too, had been a ‘settler’, had chosen some safety-net wrong person instead of the right person. What an idjit me, I thought, and I meant in thinking I’d protected myself, believing myself safe from the wrong-spouse category by staying in the maybe-category when it now turns out a person can be done to death in the maybe-category as well. The truth was dawning on me of how terrifying it was not to be numb, but to be aware, to have facts, retain facts, be present, be adult. It was while in the middle of maybe-boyfriend’s continued declaration of being an idjit and of my berating myself also for being an idjit, that chef returned the three of us to the moment by demanding the hospital once more.

His tone had changed. Sharp, stern, commanding. Even when maybe-boyfriend said, ‘It’s nearly back, nearly normal. See, m’eyes are coming back. I can see a bit already,’ chef still said, ‘We’re going, but give me a minute till I throw on another shirt.’ I panicked, for with chef about to enter the living room to head upstairs – He keeps his shirts here? Well, of course he keeps his shirts here! – he’d discover me, and that frightened me because chef now did frighten me, not being the man I’d thought until now he was. But then, who had I thought him? I hadn’t considered him. Hadn’t found him particularly friendly, but nor had that bothered me because in the whole hierarchy of importance, he hadn’t been in that hierarchy. But not harmless. This man, I could now see, was not harmless. Considering how proprietorial he got around food, what on earth would he be like over rights in a man? Then I thought of the knife, his knife, bloody, in the sink, still bloody. Thought too, that I might faint even though never in my life had I fainted. But I was light-headed, warm, oozy. There was a buzzing, insect-type swarming going on around me or within me, and by now, of course, those new familiars, the shudders, were firmly running up and down my lower spine and legs. There came further sounds then, intimate, from within the kitchen, moans suggestive of, at the very least, further Gaultier behaviour. One of them then said, ‘Husband,’ then there was, ‘Let’s chuck this. Why are we here anyway? Let’s go to South America. We’ll go to Buenos Aires – Cuba! Let’s go to Cuba. I like Cuba. You’ll like Cuba,’ with me thinking, Husband! Cuba! Let’s! – when me and him couldn’t make it beyond a maybe-relationship or get as far as down the road to the red-light street.

I went unseen, across the haphazard room, out the busted door, down the path and away along that meander-cut-through. They never knew I’d been there, though as I went, I played out in my head what would have happened if . What if, to keep this ordinary, to make it normal, to cancel it out, I were to sneak out the front door only to make a noise of going back in again? They’d think I was turning up for the first time. I’d notice the busted door, shout immediately for ex-maybe-boyfriend. Ex-maybe-boyfriend and chef in the kitchen would have time then, physically to draw apart. They’d compose themselves and quickly do couching and editing before I entered. Ex-maybe-boyfriend would shout, ‘In here, in the kitchen, maybe-girlfriend,’ and I’d go in and there they’d be, two friends, knife in sink, out of sight, no longer calling for explanation. Ex-maybe-boyfriend’s eyes and the blood though, would remain as before. Chef would demand hospitals and ex-maybe-boyfriend would reject hospitals. Nothing intimate, nothing tender, none of that intensity of look or of their touching. I would gasp, maybe scream, rush over, take hold of ex-maybe-boyfriend. ‘What happened, maybe-boyfriend? Oh God! What happened?’ and they’d explain, or let me infer, that homophobes in the area had again set upon chef which meant we’d get through it, we’d improvise, we’d keep it vague and dishonest. There’d be nothing of contradictory sentiment, nothing irreconcilable. Just chef getting attacked and then protected as usual. What neither would say, what certainly I would not say, as I hadn’t, would be, ‘Perhaps it’s time we three had a talk.’