by Anna Burns
On the doorstep were men, his neighbours. They had come to the house because word had spread about the Blower Bentley, with everyone not believing and wanting to see for themselves. Given their number and insistence, this was not one of those ‘Kinda busy, can you not come back later?’ moments. It seemed their excitement was higher, more unbrookable, more intense than ours. As they were explaining their presence, they kept nudging forward on the doorstep, going on tip-toes, trying to juke over maybe-boyfriend’s shoulders to catch a glimpse of the precious motor vehicle. Maybe-boyfriend had to explain – for everybody knew he kept cars on his premises and cars in his premises – that in this case it wasn’t the whole car but the supercharger from the car, but that too, seemed to make for awesome, incredible news. They wanted in definitely then, just for a moment, just for to peek at this amazing, uncommon development. He let them in and their eagerness fell to silence as they filled up the living room, staring in reverence at the bit on the floor.
‘Extraordinary!’ someone then said – which meant it must have been for that was not a word ever to be used in our lexicon. As with others like it – ‘marvellous!’, ‘tremendous!’, ‘stupendous!’, ‘stunning!’, ‘sensational!’, ‘topper!’, ‘super!’, ‘crikey!’, ‘let’s!’, ‘smashing!’, ‘diamondiferous!’, ‘bizarre!’, ‘exceedingly!’ – even ‘however’ and ‘indeed’ though I myself and wee sisters said ‘however’ and ‘indeed’ – it was an emotional word, too much of a colorant, too high-flying, too posturing; basically it was of that quintessential ‘over the water’ language, with ‘quintessential’ being another of those words. Almost never were they used here without ruffling or embarrassing or frightening local people, so someone else said, ‘Fuck, who would have thought!’ which toned things down, being more in keeping with societal toleration here. This was followed by further societal tolerations, then there were more raps on windows and further knocks at the door. Soon the house was packed and I was shoved to the corner with the car-nuts talking classic cars, historic cars, enigmatic cars, performance cars, muscle cars, soft-skinned cars, cars with a lot of flash or pretty rough cars that should never be tidied up but always look as they were supposed to look. Then there was horsepower, distinct lines, big bangs, raw acceleration, extra-acceleration, lack of braking (a good thing), fantastic jolts (another good thing) that pinned one with ‘a brilliant cracker feeling!’ back to the back of one’s seat. As this talk continued with no hint of stopping, I looked at the clock and thought, where’s my Gogol? Then, when they moved to the harsh consonants, those number names, the alpha-numerical names – the NYX, the KGB, the ZPH-Zero-9V5-AG – which names maybe-boyfriend himself was partial to, I couldn’t take the overload and had to get myself and ‘The Overcoat’ out of the room. As I was about to make my way through, someone, a young guy, a neighbour of maybe-boyfriend’s, stopped me, stopped all of us, with a comment choicely dropped during a pause in this fight for airspace. ‘It’s all very well, neighbour,’ said this neighbour, ‘having this so-called classic bit and all, and it’s not like I’m trying to be funny or anything but’ – here all breath was held, everyone alert for an attack movement. Then it came – ‘which among you at the garage then, drew the bit with that flag on?’
*
At this time, in this place, when it came to the political problems, which included bombs and guns and death and maiming, ordinary people said ‘their side did it’ or ‘our side did it’, or ‘their religion did it’ or ‘our religion did it’ or ‘they did it’ or ‘we did it’, when what was really meant was ‘defenders-of-the-state did it’ or ‘renouncers-of-the-state did it’ or ‘the state did it’. Now and then we might make an effort and say ‘defender’ or ‘renouncer’, though only when attempting to enlighten outsiders, for mostly we didn’t bother when it was only ourselves. ‘Us’ and ‘them’ was second nature: convenient, familiar, insider, and these words were off-the-cuff, without the strain of having to remember and grapple with massaged phrases or diplomatically correct niceties. By unspoken agreement – which outsiders couldn’t grasp unless it should come to their own private expediencies – it was unanimously understood that when everybody here used the tribal identifiers of ‘us’ or ‘them’, of ‘their religion’ or ‘our religion’, not all of us and not all of them was, it goes without saying, to be taken as read. That summed it up. Naïveté? Tradition? Reality? War going on and people in a hurry? Take your pick though the answer mainly is the last one. In those early days, those darker of the dark days, there wasn’t time for vocabulary watchdogs, for political correctness, for self-conscious notions such as ‘Will I be thought a bad person if’, or ‘Will I be thought bigoted if’, or ‘Am I supporting violence if’ or ‘Will I be seen to be supporting violence if’ and everyone – everyone – understood this. All ordinary people also understood the basics of what was allowed and not allowed, of what was neutral and could be exempted from preferences, from nomenclature, from emblems and from outlooks. One of the best ways to describe these unspoken rules and regulations would be to home in for a second on the subject of names.
The couple who kept the list of names that weren’t allowed in our district didn’t decide themselves on these names. It was the spirit of the community going back in time that deemed which names were allowed and which were not. The keepers of the banned list were two people, a clerk and a clerkess, who catalogued, regulated and updated these names frequently, proving themselves efficient in their clerkiness but viewed by the community as mentally borderline aberrational for all that. Their endeavour was unnecessary because we inhabitants instinctively adhered to the list – abiding by it without going deeply into it. It was also unnecessary because this list, for years before the emergence of the missionary couple, had been excellently capable of perpetuating, updating and data-holding its own information itself. The couple who guarded it were called some ordinary man’s name and some ordinary woman’s name but were referred to in the community as Nigel and Jason, a joke not lost upon the good-natured pair themselves. The names not allowed were not allowed for the reason they were too much of the country ‘over the water’, with it no matter that some of those names hadn’t originated in that country but instead had been appropriated and put to use by the people of that land. The banned names were understood to have become infused with the energy, the power of history, the age-old conflict, enjoinments and resisted impositions as laid down long ago in this country by that country, with the original nationality of the name now not in the running at all. The banned names were: Nigel, Jason, Jasper, Lance, Percival, Wilbur, Wilfred, Peregrine, Norman, Alf, Reginald, Cedric, Ernest, George, Harvey, Arnold, Wilberine, Tristram, Clive, Eustace, Auberon, Felix, Peverill, Winston, Godfrey, Hector, with Hubert, a cousin of Hector, also not allowed. Nor was Lambert or Lawrence or Howard or the other Laurence or Lionel or Randolph because Randolph was like Cyril which was like Lamont which was like Meredith, Harold, Algernon and Beverley. Myles too, was not allowed. Nor was Evelyn, or Ivor, or Mortimer, or Keith, or Rodney or Roger or Earl of Rupert or Willard or Simon or Sir Mary or Zebedee or Quentin, though maybe now Quentin owing to the filmmaker making good in America that time. Or Albert. Or Troy. Or Barclay. Or Eric. Or Marcus. Or Sefton. Or Marmaduke. Or Greville. Or Edgar because all those names were not allowed. Clifford was another name not allowed. Lesley wasn’t either. Peverill was banned twice.
As for girl names, those from ‘over the water’ were tolerated because the name of a girl – unless it should be Pomp and Circumstance – wasn’t politically contentious, therefore it had leeway with no decrees or edicts being drawn up on it at all. Wrong girl names did not connote the same taunting, long-memory, backdated, we-shall-not-forget, historical-distaste reaction as was the case with wrong boy names, but if you were of the opposite persuasion and from ‘over the road’ you would entirely allow yourself all of our banned names. Of course, you would not allow yourself a single name that was in flourishment in our community but given your own community’s equall
y prescribed knee-jerk reaction, it is unlikely you would lose sleep over any of that. So with the names Rudyard, Edwin, Bertram, Lytton, Cuthbert, Roderick and Duke Of being the last of the names, on our side, on our list, which weren’t allowed, all these names were guarded by Nigel and Jason. But there was no list of the names that were allowed. Every resident was supposed to know what was permitted based on what was not permitted. You gave your baby a name and if you were adventurous, avant-garde, bohemian, simply an unforeseen human factor going out on a limb to try a new name that wasn’t an already established, legitimised name even if not on the banned list, then you and your baby would find out in due course whether you had made a mistake or not.
As regards this psycho-political atmosphere, with its rules of allegiance, of tribal identification, of what was allowed and not allowed, matters didn’t stop at ‘their names’ and at ‘our names’, at ‘us’ and ‘them’, at ‘our community’ and ‘their community’, at ‘over the road’, ‘over the water’ and ‘over the border’. Other issues had similar directives attaching as well. There were neutral television programmes which could hail from ‘over the water’ or from ‘over the border’ yet be watched by everyone ‘this side of the road’ as well as ‘that side of the road’ without causing disloyalty in either community. Then there were programmes that could be watched without treason by one side whilst hated and detested ‘across the road’ on the other side. There were television licence inspectors, census collectors, civilians working in non-civilian environments and public servants, all tolerated in one community whilst shot to death if putting a toe into the other community. There was food and drink. The right butter. The wrong butter. The tea of allegiance. The tea of betrayal. There were ‘our shops’ and ‘their shops’. Placenames. What school you went to. What prayers you said. What hymns you sang. How you pronounced your ‘haitch’ or ‘aitch’. Where you went to work. And of course there were bus-stops. There was the fact that you created a political statement everywhere you went, and with everything you did, even if you didn’t want to. There was a person’s appearance also, because it was believed you could tell ‘their sort from over the road’ from ‘your sort this side of the road’ by the very physical form of a person. There was choice of murals, of traditions, of newspapers, of anthems, of ‘special days’, of passport, of coinage, of the police, of civic powers, of the soldiery, the paramilitary. During the era of not letting bygones be bygones there was any number of examples and many nuances of affiliation. Inbetween was the neutral and the exempted and what had happened at maybe-boyfriend’s house was that his neighbour – with all other neighbours present – had homed in on the protocol and inflammatory symbolism of all that.
*
He’d homed in on that flag issue, the flags-and-emblems issue, instinctive and emotional because flags were invented to be instinctive and emotional – often pathologically, narcissistically emotional – and he meant that flag of the country from ‘over the water’ which was also the same flag of the community from ‘over the road’. It was not a flag greatly welcomed in our community. Not a flag at all welcomed in our community. There weren’t any, not any, this side of the road. What I was gathering therefore, for I was not up on cars but was up on flags and emblems, was that those vintage, classic Blower Bentleys made in that country ‘over the water’ came with the flag on from that country ‘over the water’. Reading between the lines therefore, of maybe-boyfriend’s neighbour’s comment – what was maybe-boyfriend doing, he implied, not only partaking in a raffle in which he might have won the bit with the flag on, but what was he doing, partaking in a raffle to win any bit – flag or no flag – of such a patriotic, nation-defining, ‘over the water’ symbol at all? Historical injustice, he said. Repressive legislation, he said. Practice of and pacts for, he said. Artificial boundaries, he said. Propping up of corruption, he said. Arrest without charge, he said. Declaration of curfews, he said. Imprisonment without trial, he said. Proscription of meetings, he said. Prohibition of inquests, he said. Institutionalised violation of sovereignty and territory, he said. Hot and cold treatments, he said. Anything, he said. In the name of law and order. All that was what he said though even then that wasn’t what he meant. What he meant – underneath all the interpretation of that flag business was the driving home of the other business which was that the flag from ‘over the water’ was also that same flag from ‘over the road’. ‘Over the road’ was viewed in our community as more ‘over the water’ than actual ‘over the water’, with the flag perceived to be flown there with more proximity and grandiosity than ever could muster – try as it might – the territory it came from in the first place. To come from this side of the road – our side – and to bring that flag in then, was divisive, indicative too, of a traitorous kowtowing and a betrayal most monstrous over which even informers and those who marry-out would be held in higher esteem. This of course was all part of the political problems here which I, for one, didn’t like to get into. Amazing it was though, how much inflammatory suggestion could be gotten over in a few comments. Even so, yer man hadn’t finished yet.
‘I mean like I mean,’ he said, ‘don’t get me wrong or anything, and obviously I’m saying this from a place of humility, and it’s not that I’ve got experience in desiring to take part in anything disloyal to my own community, something that might involve winning something that had that flag on, then bringing it home, then being proud to have it in my area instead of being ashamed to have it my area. Far be it from me too, to asperse anything or anybody, to sow seeds of rancour. I’m not a stirrer-upper of rules or a summariser of conclusions and no expert am I either, or inciter, or bigot; in fact, ignorant as I am and gingerly as I hesitate to voice an opinion but …’ – then he repeated all that about no matter how famous and coveted was the thing with the flag on, he himself wouldn’t deign to legitimate such an ensign of oppression, of tragedy, of tyranny, not to mention the bad taste left in the mouth of losing face, not so much to the country ‘over the water’ as to that community ‘over the road’. More to the point, he said, someone bringing that flag into a staunchly anti-establishment district could open himself to accusations of traitorship and of informership. So yes, flags were emotional. Primevally so. At least here.
So that was what he was about – that maybe-boyfriend was a traitor – and it was at this point maybe-boyfriend’s friends started in on his defence. ‘He doesn’t have that bit with the flag on,’ they said. ‘Anyone can see that that supercharger has no flag on it.’ They were angry rather than dismissive in that, no matter how unlikely that flag would appear on ‘this side of the road’ on ‘this side of the water’, thing was, these were paranoid times. These were knife-edge times, primal times, with everybody suspicious of everybody. You could have a nice wee conversation with someone here, then go away and think, that was a nice, wee unguarded conversation I just had there – least until you start playing it back in your head later on. At that point you start to worry that you said ‘this’ or ‘that’, not because ‘this’ or ‘that’ were contentious. It was that people were quick to point fingers, to judge, to add on even in peaceful times, so it would be hard to fathom fingers not getting pointed and words not being added, also being judged in these turbulent times, resulting too, not in having your feelings hurt upon discovering others were talking about you, as in having individuals in balaclavas and Halloween masks, guns at the ready, turning up in the middle of the night at your door. By now maybe-boyfriend’s friends were pointing to the supercharger and it was clear there was no flag on it. ‘Anyway,’ they said, ‘those cars didn’t always come with flags on.’ ‘Besides,’ ventured a neighbour – and this was one brave neighbour considering the others, in contrast to their earlier enthusiasm, had now grown silent – ‘would it not be okay, because of what it is and all, of how rare it is, to take it if you won it even if it did come with that flag on, then to bring it home and cover the flag with a bomber aircraft sticker – say, a B29 Superfortress Joltin’ Josie st
icker, or a Superfortress Girl Dressed In Not Very Much sticker, or A Bit o’ Lace B17 Flying Fortress sticker, or a sticker of Minnie Mouse or Olive Oyl or the planet Pluto or even a wee photo of your ma or a bigger one of Marilyn Monroe?’ He was trying hard, this diplomat, stressing reference to the exceptions, to those dispensations, the individuals and situations here that were afforded exemption from bigotry, from prejudice, from exclusion. These would be the rock stars, the film stars, the culture stars, sports people, those of exceptional fame or of some highest personal endeavour. Might it not be the case, he intimated, that this crossover category also include superchargers from Blower Bentleys? Could not desire and rarity, he urged, be sufficient for the supercharger to be granted leeway, or was it to be the case that that flag was too big an impediment for one side of the divide – our side in this instance – to be overlooked and let through?
He didn’t know the answer, and I felt nobody else did except one person. I looked at him. Everyone was looking at him. ‘All I’m saying is,’ he said, ‘is that I’m not sure I’d capitulate, that I’d want a bit of car, no matter how unique, if it sported national self-gratifying connotations, if it meant subsumption of the right to my own sovereign, national and religious identity, even if that particular car didn’t sport those connotations and demands for subsumption on all its models and range. It’s that I’m bewildered,’ he stressed, ‘that anyone from “our side of the road” would let their proclivity for car bits override what should be an instinctual recoil from the other side’s symbolism and badges. And if the local boys should get to hear’ – here he meant the renouncers which meant they would get to hear because he was going to make it his duty to tell them – ‘the one who brought that flag in might find himself facing some hefty street justice. And what of the dead people – all those killed so far in these political problems? Is it to be the case then, that all of them died in vain?’