Anna Burns - Milkman

Toe-rag. Twerp. Pishpot. Spastic. Dickhead. Cunning-boy-ballocks. No offence or anything but. I’m only sayin’ but. No harm to you like but. These were some of the words said by maybe-boyfriend’s friends about his troublesome neighbour after that neighbour and the others had gone. Chef, maybe-boyfriend, three other of maybe-boyfriend’s friends and myself had remained in the room. Chef said, ‘Where’d they go but? Why’d they go? Who are they? Were they expecting me—’ ‘Forget it, chef,’ said maybe-boyfriend, but he spoke distractedly because he was annoyed at the others offering excuses and placations to that neighbour for him. Especially I knew he’d be annoyed at their trying to smooth away the flag comments. In doing so they had played, he would think, right into that neighbour’s hands. The others were saying ‘Forget it’ to chef as well by now, then the impetuous one warned maybe-boyfriend to watch himself. ‘He’s gonna meddle, that scuddy bastard, gonna brew some story.’ The others nodded and maybe-boyfriend at first nodded too. Then he said, ‘All the same, you shouldn’t have hit him, and you three shouldn’t have let him needle you or told him my business. My business isn’t his business. I don’t have to win him over or wheedle to get his approval. Don’t need you either, to convince him of me.’ The others didn’t like this and more likely from hurt, they started an argument, the gist being that maybe-boyfriend needed to catch himself on. Of course he should have explained himself, they said, not so much to yer man for, after all, he’d just been jealous. It was that he should have spoken up for the benefit of the others, to stop rumour being launched big time. Maybe-boyfriend said that as for rumour, words didn’t have to be disputed or undisputed, didn’t even have to be spoken. ‘It’s that you made me lose power,’ he said, and so the argument continued until one of them said, ‘This won’t be the end.’ He meant none of them should be surprised if the issue of the supercharger got dropped amidst the scandal of maybe-boyfriend bringing countless flags from ‘over there’ in. Here they laughed, which didn’t mean they thought such talk wouldn’t happen. He shouldn’t have been stubborn, they said, and I, not included in this, and without saying anything, agreed. Chef meantime, who’d been up in the clouds, checking the inventory of some imaginary pantry, came back with, ‘Who? What?’ and the others began to shove him about. ‘Auld mucker,’ they said. ‘Missed the boat as usual,’ but already no longer listening, chef went upstairs to wash before getting everybody something to eat. After a final few jokey disparagements of it’s all very well but, far be it from me but, no expert am I but, and with more things tribalist left unsaid than probably were said, least in my earshot, the others got busy too, moving bits of car upstairs.

This was business as usual because maybe-boyfriend stored car everywhere – at the garage at work, here at his home, indoors, outdoors, in front, out the back, in cupboards, tops of cupboards, on furniture, on each stair, at the top of the stairs and all along the landing; as doorstops too, in all the rooms too, except for the kitchen and his bedroom – least not on the nights when I stayed there. So his house was less a house and more a beloved work-from-work environment, and now he and his friends were re-arranging, which in translation meant ‘making room for more car’. ‘New car coming?’ I asked. ‘Cars plural, maybe-girl,’ said maybe-boy. ‘Just a few carburettors and cylinders, bumpers, radiators, piston rods, side panels, mudguards, that sort of thing.’ ‘Uh-huh,’ I said. ‘Back in a minute,’ he said, indicating some chunks of car in transit, ‘shifting these for now into one of the brothers’ rooms.’ Maybe-boyfriend had three brothers, none of whom were dead, none either, living in this house with him. They had used to live in it with him but had drifted through the years to living elsewhere. And now maybe-boyfriend and the others got busy, and chef downstairs, from the sound of things, also was busy in the kitchen. He was talking to himself which was not rare. Often he’d do this, I’d hear him do it, because chef stayed over at maybe-boyfriend’s perhaps even more nights than I did myself. As usual I could hear him describing to some imaginary person who appeared to be serving an apprenticeship under him, everything he was doing regarding the making of the meal. Often he’d say something like, ‘Just do it this way. There’s an easier way, you know. And remember, we can develop a unique style and technique without histrionics and drama’ and whenever he did this, he’d sound so soft and much more accommodating than when he was interacting with real people in real life. He liked this acolyte who, from the sound of chef’s praise and encouragement, was a good, attentive learner. ‘We’re just going to add this. No, this. Then we’ll do that, that . We want finesse, remember – clean, precise stacking, so leave off that leaf. Why that leaf? It adds nothing to the texture and dimension or the elements. Here now – taste. Do you want to try some?’ Once I peeked in when he was inviting his invisible apprentice to try some, and there he was, all alone, raising a spoon to his own lips. At that time, which was the first time I’d witnessed chef doing this, he put me in mind of me during the times I did my mental ticking-off of landmarks which I’d do peripherally whilst also doing my reading-while-walking. I’d pause after a page or so, to take stock of my surroundings, also occasionally to be specific and helpful to someone in my head who’d just enquired directions of me. I’d imagine myself pointing and saying, ‘Well, orientation is there,’ meaning the person needed to go round such-and-such a corner. ‘Go there,’ I’d say. ‘Just round that corner. See this corner? Go round it and when you get to the junction by the letterbox at the start of the ten-minute area you head up by the usual place.’ The usual place was our graveyard and this directing would be my way of helping some lost but appreciative person. And here was chef in his kitchen doing much the same thing. No hysterical fits, no tantrums, just meditation, absorption, relaxation. This was playfulness in the company of his very own appreciative person. So I left them to it, not wanting to shame chef out of his imagination, for there was an awful lot of shaming for playing, shaming for letting your guard down that went on in this place. That was why everybody read minds – had to, otherwise things got complicated. Just as most people here chose not to say what they meant in order to protect themselves, they could also, at certain moments when they knew their mind was being read, learn to present their topmost mental level to those who were reading it whilst in the undergrowth of their consciousness, inform themselves privately of what their true thinking was about. So, with maybe-boyfriend and the others upstairs, and with chef and his apprentice out in the kitchen, I stretched out on the settee to consider next steps. What I meant were my living options, for maybe-boyfriend had asked recently if I wanted to move in with him. At the time I had three objections as to why that might not be feasible. One was, I didn’t think ma could cope on her own with rearing wee sisters though I myself took no active role in the rearing of wee sisters. It just seemed I had to be there, on call, as some sort of background buffer to help prevent their precocity, their uncontained curiosity, their sense of readiness for anything spinning way out of control. My second objection was the possible destruction that moving in might pose to my and maybe-boyfriend’s already delicate, easily to be shattered maybe-relationship. And the third objection was, how could I move in, given the state of this place?