Anna Burns - Milkman

Nuclear boy’s ma was also, of course, Somebody McSomebody’s ma, also the mother of the favourite sibling who’d been killed in that bomb explosion, the mother of wee tot too, who’d fallen out the window that time. This woman, however, mostly came to be known as nuclear boy’s ma because nuclear boy had made much more of an impression on people’s consciousness owing to his dramatic if incomprehensible nucleomitophobia – not to mention that suicide letter. None of the others in that family, alive or dead, had drawn anywhere near the same attention to themselves as he had. Indeed, apart from Somebody McSomebody, all remaining family members came to be described solely in reference to him. There were nuclear boy’s remaining six sisters. There were nuclear boy’s various cousins and aunties and uncles, nuclear boy’s etcetera and in this case, I now realised, ma was referring to nuclear boy’s ma. Initially when she started in on this, again I could only stare, not knowing what she was intending by it. Ma said, and as if in conclusion for it seemed already she’d been grappling with this, ‘I suppose I’m going to have to let her have him,’ which was when I asked her to explain. She said the ex-pious women, in friendly unison, had come to our door the day before to appeal to her conscience about poor nuclear boy’s mother. They put it to her reasonably, she said, that given ‘POOR POOR POOR POOR’ (as they stressed it) nuclear boy’s mother had suffered more personal political tragedies in her life quantitatively-speaking than had any of them in the area suffered personal political tragedies in their lives, would it not be more noble, spiritual and altruistic, they said, to stand aside and let real milkman be for her? Well, the penny dropped immediately for me but before I could start in on ‘God’s strength, ma, can’t you see the trick o’them? And anyway, it doesn’t work like that,’ she herself was delineating the facts. Counting off on her fingers, she compared the tragedies, again quantitatively-speaking and in accordance with her hierarchy of suffering, that she herself had undergone with those of nuclear boy’s mother. ‘That POOR POOR POOR POOR woman,’ she said. ‘She’s had a husband and four sons and a daughter die, all of them politically, whereas I’ve had a husband and one son die and no daughters – dead I mean, and yes’ – she held up her hand to stop me – ‘it is true that second son died politically, but your father – good man! oh such a good man! and a good father, and a good husband’ – and here she’d veered off, now into compliments about da rather than her usual criticism, which I guessed meant another bout of guilt had assailed her for having repressed for so long her ‘I’m not in love because I’m already married so how can I be in love!’ love for real milkman so that now she was over-compensating with a feeling badness for marrying the wrong person – ‘your father,’ she said, veering back, ‘died ordinarily from illness, God love him, so that meant he didn’t die politically. So I suppose they’re right and I’m going to have to bow out and do the lofty thing and hand real milkman over to her.’

By this time I was staring and speechless, then I was jumping up and down at ma’s obtuseness in this matter. Could she hear herself? Why couldn’t she see what those wily ex-pious women were intending? If this were the case – if they were correct in their so-called high principles and sound reasoning of ‘only one son dead and a husband, no daughters, therefore don’t qualify’ – if this really were how these things proceeded, how many of us would have to be killed and in our graves politically before she’d consider going out on a date? Even acceding too, to that evaluation – that of her hierarchy of suffering, of her absolutist criteria of who gets most points for the sorrow and the grieving – even then, here she was, misperceiving what she termed ‘the facts’. It was down to me to adopt the pedantic approach and to iron out these misperceptions for her. Firstly, I said, poor nuclear boy’s mother had lost only two of her sons through the political problems, not three sons, only two, even if others in the area were saying that nuclear boy should perhaps – regardless of America and Russia – be counted in there also. I couldn’t afford to count him in as ma by now was heading into critical self-sabotage stage. So I said about the one son, the favourite, the one who’d died politically while crossing the road owing to that bomb in the street going off. And I said about the eldest renouncer son and one renouncer daughter and of course, the husband also dying politically. Then there was that poor dog of theirs that had had its throat cut up the entry by the soldiers that time. Second, I said it could be argued, even if feebly, that ma herself had lost, through banishment – which meant also through the political problems – one of her daughters. And it could be argued, again if feebly, that she was suffering the loss of another son, namely, fourth son, the on-the-run son, even if, though she loved him dearly, he wasn’t her son really, not really – even if, too, he was still alive and living over that border somewhere. I pointed out also, that it was unlikely – given the doomed state of poor nuclear boy’s mother – that that woman would be on the look-out for any sexual romantic interest. ‘Come on, ma,’ I said. ‘You’ve seen her. At least you saw for yourself before she stopped coming out her door how daily that poor woman was deteriorating, how nobody now can do anything for her, how people have become frightened of her and are even considering slotting her, owing to this fear they have of her, into the death-row category of our district’s beyond-the-pales. When did you last see her?’ I asked. ‘When did anybody last see her? They’re saying she doesn’t wash, doesn’t eat, doesn’t get out of bed, has abandoned the rest of her family. Forget nuclear boy’s ma, ma,’ I said, ‘as someone in the running for trysts with men at “dot dot dot” places.’ Ma winced and made a motion of covering her ears with her hands. ‘You’re brutal, child,’ she said. ‘You’re harsh. You’re so cold. There’s always something so terribly cold about you, daughter.’ And you’re slow-off-blocks, ma, was what I thought to say but didn’t otherwise we’d be back to another of those gee-whizz moments, then another fight, with us again in our old angers at each other. Also I didn’t say, least not directly, ‘Are all your friends trustworthy?’, echoing back her reproving words to me during that night when she purged me of the poison. Instead I said the same thing indirectly, by bringing up the sly, devious handiwork of the other party involved.

‘Your pals, ma,’ I said, ‘your praying pals, the ex-pious women. Is it likely, do you think, that they themselves are saying, “Oh, we must, simply must, step back and let her have him,” meaning nuclear boy’s mother? You think they’ll be for giving up real milkman, for handing him over, for renouncing their possibilities with him, for her? Soon as you’re out the road, ma, got out the door, easily too, by their emotional blackmail, that poor woman will be trampled under their first horse and carriage careering by. They’ll regroup too, reconfigure and plot, this time to oust the next amongst them, after you, of real milkman’s affections. But first it’s you, ma,’ I said. ‘You’re the highest in the running for the heart of real milkman, which is why you’ve had this nuclear-boy-mother card played so deftly and almost successfully upon yourself.’ ‘Away you on!’ said ma. ‘It can’t be me that’s first highest—’ And here she broke off, this time making deprecating motions with her hand. ‘It is you, ma,’ I said. ‘It’s you he’s interested in, you he comes to visit for tea, always with extra pints of milk and special dairy products that I’m sure he doesn’t hand out to everybody.’ Again there were disbelieving motions, though less vehement, more half believing, more hopeful, with the hand. Definitely ma was out of practice and dearly needed bolstering. That meant I had to be charitable, no, had to be pragmatic, because in truth I hadn’t noticed whether real milkman was interested in ma or nuclear boy’s ma or in any of them others. They were too old to be paid notice. It was that I didn’t want her giving up right at the very start. Of course there was the possibility that real milkman might decide, in spite of his apparent desire now for personal coupledom, that he didn’t want this coupledom with any of them, or that he might revert back to broad, universal kinship just as soon as he was properly recovered. That was too dispiriting for ma, or for the ex-pious women, or even for me to script into this scenario at this time. So we didn’t. This meant I bolstered with lies which, when all the facts were in, might not have been lies really. I said, ‘You’re the strongest contender, ma. Always sayin’ to me, he is, that he likes you, to tell you he’s askin’ about you.’ ‘Is he? Am I?’ ‘Yes,’ I said, though he’d only ever done this on passing. Then again, in that one proper conversation in his lorry when he took me home and took care of the cat’s head for me, real milkman had been concerned about ma one hundred per cent. So I wasn’t lying really, and I told her this too, about the hundred per cent, to give a boost with high-sounding numbers to her confidence. ‘It’s okay, ma,’ I said. ‘Just keep the nerve, hold the faith, be on your mettle, attend bit by bit and obtain by quiet manoeuvres. Bear in mind too, what those women were like with Peggy. Their appetency and voraciousness that burst forth after Monk Peggy. You said yourself you were angry at them, yet here they are, doing the same again. Cunning women,’ I added, thinking of how they were tricking ma, washing her brain, taking advantage of her inner conflict. It had been a long time, I could see, since she’d involved herself in blindside or flank movements. ‘What canny, manipulative, crafty female men-of-all-seasons—’ ‘Middle daughter!’ cried ma. ‘These are your elders! Do not speak of the ex-sanctities in adjectives like that.’