Milkman

by Anna Burns

  Sisters came back with a jangling of keys and ma jumped up shouting, ‘Back in a minute’ to them. She told them not to leave me, not to take their eyes from me, to make sure I didn’t go on my back or fall asleep and to come and get her if I turned blue or if anything happened except throwing up. She rushed away then and the sisters crowded round and I felt their zeal more than the heat from their bodies. I couldn’t see these bodies because my forehead, in another bout of relief, was pressed again to the cold floor. A respite only, I knew, and I knew too, that I must enjoy this simple pleasure before the onset of more flinging. Immediately though, wee sisters set asquawking. They shook me. Prodded me. ‘Stop that! No sleeping! Mammy says it’s not allowed!’

  Ma returned with an awful-smelling, dreadful-looking, monstrous pint-size concoction. So also appeared neighbours, bearing demijohns, bell-jars, green, brown and yellow warning jars, balsams, philtres, phials, herbs, powders, weighing scales, pestle and mortars, huge pharmacopoeias, plus other ‘keep it in the family’ distillations of their own. They had materialised out of nowhere which was usual with neighbours on occasions of ‘not going to hospital’. Like ma, they were prepared, with nightdress sleeves rolled up. First there was a conference held in the bathroom with the women standing over me, speaking to and fro across me. I heard most everything with wee sisters filling in blanks later on. They were debating the course of action, with the purists among them saying it was not good policy to induce vomiting if it hadn’t been ascertained what it was they were dealing with. Others said to take a look, that it was clear this was no time to be precise and godlike, that a makeshift, slapdash approach would be entirely in order here. ‘Speaking of entirely,’ said one of the neighbours, ‘this is entirely similar to that poor girl who had been poisoned by her sister.’ ‘What poor girl?’ said ma, and tones of voice, according to wee sisters, dropped low at this point.

  ‘Only the other day,’ began the neighbour, ‘and you must keep this quiet, neighbours, those of you who don’t know, for it hasn’t properly been leaked yet into the community, but that wee girl who’s really a woman had another of her fractures. She poisoned her sister, the shiny one. Some of us were in at the purging and take it from us, it looked pretty bad.’ The neighbours nodded because most of them, it seemed, had been in at the purging. But ma hadn’t. And wee sisters hadn’t, and the impact of this news hit them pretty hard. Especially so wee sisters. Much as they loved drama, they loved tablets girl’s sister even more than drama. With this news of her poisoning, and regardless of the excitement at being allowed up in the night to attend the adult equivalent of an Enid Blyton midnight-feast adventure, in this case there was now a blight on the adventure, one being experienced not only by them. In spite of her shininess, her amiable disposition, her all-round goodwill and pretty much asking-for-it openness, tablets girl’s sister was liked by everyone, including everyone in this bathroom. That night then, in the bathroom, wee sisters, on hearing the news, became worried, also did ma look worried. The four of them were shaken. Indeed all the women looked shaken. They paused for an eternity to take in the gravity of what had happened to this radiant young woman, forgetting in eternity’s interim, that another, perhaps not-so-radiant young woman, was lying dying at their feet.

  Then another neighbour said, ‘All that is of note but in truth, the situation here isn’t comparable.’ As she spoke, she brought everyone’s attention back to me on the floor. ‘The other seemed to me,’ she said, ‘far worse than this one.’ And here the neighbours who’d been in at the earlier purging concurred that the state of me wasn’t as bad as the state of the poor other. Owing to their misperception, however – that my condition could only be down to vengeance on the part of the wife of Milkman – they didn’t realise the significance of their own words. Ma didn’t either and, in the moment, unbelievably neither did I. Not even when tablets girl’s sister came into my mind whilst on the floor did I register this obvious trail of breadcrumbs. Of course I’d felt sorry for the girl when longest friend told me of what her mad sibling had done to her, but this had been in the manner of feeling sorry for a person whom you’d heard had undergone some dreadful experience without thinking for a second you were about to undergo the very same experience yourself. So it had been a ‘by the by’, a fairly dismissive feeling sorry on my part for tablets girl’s sister, a heedlessness not badly meant but not an emotion of true understanding or of felt compassion either. As for my view of my condition, it would have been preposterous to consider that this tummy ache was down to poison when it was nerves – even if nerves in a worse state than ever they had been in since Milkman – and it was at this point ma did the unthinkable and mooted the hospital, stating she was not prepared to let her daughter die just because societal convention dictated she was not to call an ambulance. Her words were as a bombshell. The neighbours gasped. ‘Enough! Oh enough!’ and they begged her not to go on.

  ‘Are you mad, dear neighbour!’ they cried. ‘Think upon it. You can’t take her to hospital. Apart from the district mores of not going should there be something wrong that might require a police report, there’s also the fact of your daughter’s reputation preceding her, which most certainly it will do if you take her there. If that police confederation of felons get wind they have mistress of you know who down at the hospital, they’ll think themselves handed best bait to reel in one of the most shadowy renouncers of all.’ ‘Why would they pass up on that?’ another neighbour continued. ‘Your daughter’s only young, easily to be manipulated and intimidated. They’d frighten her, dangle her, implicate her, twist things and – damn their hearts, dogs in the street – not going along with them, as well you know, wouldn’t save her either, the mere hint of informership being more than enough here.’

  ‘Then there’s yourself,’ enjoined another, ‘poor widow, household of girls, husband dead, one son dead, another son on the run, another son gone errant and yet another son creeping in and out of the area as if he was up to something. Then there’s your eldest daughter in unspeakable grief, your second daughter banished by the renouncers, your third daughter perfectly perfect apart from her french which officially is the bluest in the area. And now there’s this daughter possibly to be had up for traitorship. Consider the wee ones’ – they indicated the wee ones, standing beside them, absorbing into themselves every word. ‘No,’ they shook their heads. ‘No hospital. This one will have to pull through. And she will pull through,’ they persisted. ‘Don’t you be worrying, neighbour.’ Here, they patted ma and put their arms around her. ‘Don’t forget,’ they concluded, ‘it’s not as if we don’t know what’s wanted here. We’ve all of us, including yourself, been through these improvisations, these rudiments, these homespun prescripts many, many times before.’

  I agreed with the neighbours, though not from the premise of my reputation preceding me. The only reason such a thing was preceding was because they had made it up and put it there. Mistress of you know who would have been silly if Milkman himself hadn’t been determined on just such a position for me. Also, in a district that thrived on suspicion, supposition and imprecision, where everything was so back-to-front it was impossible to tell a story properly, or not tell it but just remain quiet, nothing could get said here or not said but it was turned into gospel. Given this community then believed this gospel, what chance was there that the state, dealing with the disdain and inflexibility of a no-go area, would not grab at nonsense and photograph it, film it, put it in files, out-context it, and easily believe it as well? As for informership, the police could lift you anyway. Everyone knew they could lift you and try, at any time, to turn you. That would be regardless of whether or not you called an ambulance. Calling an ambulance shouldn’t have been an issue but it was an issue because that had been decided as the way of things then. All the same, I myself didn’t want an ambulance, didn’t want the hospital. Nor did I need them because – how long must I say? – this wasn’t a poisoning. The neighbours, however, weren’t viewing it like that. They
suggested purging, that if I were to have all my guts up and out onto the ground, they said, that would be acting on the safe side. ‘After all,’ they continued, ‘seems her body itself is trying to evict something. We’d only be helping.’ Therefore, purging and guts out it became.

  They intervened on the state of my insides, as well as on my next bout of flinging and whatever high dose of purgative they put in there, it did something which did make me throw up. Over the course of the night I was made to ingest everything, then bring up everything, and in between I went from rigid to rag-doll at least seventeen times. At first I tried counting how many times as a way to distract my mind, to pretend this was an exercise in remoteness. I counted out loud, wee sisters said, then they said that either I lost count or I began to figure my numbers in a muttering fashion. I remembered some tearing sensation at my throat and at my abdomen and at first naively thought all that could happen would be a normal, unpleasant throwing-up. During this vomit session I’d bring up my last meal, then after that all that would be left to come would be bile. No. First there were the stomach contents. Then came many bouts of low-down, intestinal brown contents. Then, when I could no longer cope with the brown contents, only then came the bile. After that, there was more. There was dry heaving. An awful lot of dry heaving. All those stages too, increasingly against gravity, soon had me longing, begging, for the closure of my eyes. As it was, I could hardly keep them open. Got to sleep, I’d think. Got to lie down. Die soon. Why won’t they let me die soon? It seemed really, it was these women with their purging and intermittent praying, and not the poison, that were the cause of my dying in our bathroom that night. There was no let-up. They had split into two groups, one taking on the purging while the other handled the praying. Then they’d swap and only after much prolongation and exhaustion, did the nicer part of the evening bit by bit ensue. This existed in brief lulls, increasingly turning to longer lulls, each occurring after the purgers’ every administration to me followed by my body getting the poison out of me. Only then, when they’d withdraw to convene on next steps, could I remain on the floor, relieved, untampered-with, alone. Here, I’d contemplate the floor – the light dust on it, the odd hair on it, the specks of my recent emesis on it – and I’d consider the only true things in this world were these basic conditions of floor, dust and so on and that they, and only they, could sustain me forever. Sometimes though, I’d change my mind and it would become the panel of the bath, or the toilet bowl or the friendly bathroom wall against which occasionally I’d find myself, that I’d consider just as dependable of sustaining me forever too.

  *

  First time I awoke it was daylight and I was in my bed, mentally conjugating the French verb, être. I was running through the persons, tenses and cases of it in my mind. Second time I awoke, I was still in bed, thinking, well, if that’s the latest effect he’s had on me with his sexual prowling, I don’t know how I’m going to escape from him now. Third time I awoke it was from a dream of Proust, or rather, a nightmare of Proust, in which he turned out to be some reprehensible contemporary Nineteen-Seventies writer passing himself off as a turn-of-the-century writer, which apparently was why he was being sued in court in the dream by, I think, me. At that point again I fell asleep then final time I awoke – for I continued this waking and sleeping many times before waking up properly – I knew I’d turned a corner and was now on the mend. The reason I knew this was because of Fray Bentos. I was doing an elaborate Fray Bentos Steak and Kidney Pie fantasy in my head. I had got the tin out of the cupboard, took off the lid and put it in the oven. Then I set out a plate, knife, fork and mug of tea for myself. Even in bed, in my head, the aroma of that pie was making my mouth water. Thank God then, in the next second, it was done. I got it out of the oven, fainting with anticipation, and was about to tuck in when my bedroom door burst open. It was wee sisters. Again as one, they sprang into the room.

  ‘She’s awake!’ they screamed, and they screamed this in my face as well as to each other. Right away they announced that ma was out and that they had been put in charge. They listed what I wasn’t to do which was to fall out of bed, to try to get out of bed, to eat or drink, also I was not to attempt gallivanting. This was when they spoke of my being sick, also when they enacted for me my groaning. Then they moved on to the state of my skin’s sickly, palely whiteness which was when I interrupted to say I was starving and threw the blankets off to get out of bed. This produced squawking. ‘Not allowed!’ they cried. ‘Mammy says!’ they cried. And I said, ‘Okay. What’s to eat then? Go and see and bring me something.’ But they pushed me back and placed the bedclothes over me. To distract me they said they’d tell the exciting story of the renouncers. That morning while I’d been sleeping, the paramilitary renouncers-of-the-state from our district had called to our house.

  Wee sisters had heard the door. Then ma and wee sisters opened it. Men were on the step. They spoke in low tones, saying something had happened in the area and that they wanted to speak to me about it. Ma said, ‘Well, you can’t speak to her. She’s been sick, in bed too, sleeping, or doing her French languages while recuperating. But what happened? Tell me what happened.’ The men said to send the nippers down the back. Ma told wee sisters to go down to the living room and to close the door and be no part of this conversation. She pushed them along the hallway to start them off. Wee sisters sneaked back, this time into the parlour at the front of the house where they pressed their ears to the curtained windows. The renouncers though, still spoke low.

  ‘So what if she was in the club at the same time?’ they heard ma interrupting. ‘Lots of people go to that club. That drinking-club,’ she said, ‘is the most popular in the area. Doesn’t signify that just because my daughter was in there that she’d know of these things.’ Ma then said that I’d been abed four days, poisoned, and for them to ask the purging-women, with the renouncers replying that they’d leave for now and that certainly they’d speak with the purging-women – also that they’d be back if the testimony of the purgers proved unsatisfactory. Then they went off and ma took herself to the neighbours to find out this new crack. ‘So now we’ve cheered you up,’ said wee sisters – though from my latest anxiety I could not see how they could discern this – ‘it’s your turn, middle sister, to read to us.’ At this they produced storybooks which I hadn’t noticed till that moment they were holding. These were: The Exorcist, taken from ma’s stack of books by her bedside; The Tragicall History of the Life and Death of Doctor Faustus, taken from I didn’t know where; and the children’s adaptation of the adult Call Yourself a Democracy! which began: ‘Which statelet up until five years ago could search homes without a warrant, could arrest without a warrant, could imprison without a charge, could imprison without a trial, could punish by flogging, could deny all prison visits, could prohibit inquests into deaths in prison after arresting without a warrant and imprisoning without a charge and imprisoning without a trial?’ Weird wee sisters, I thought. Too many Shakespeares. Real milkman’s right. Must have a word with ma about them. Meantime, sisters had placed these books on the eiderdown on top of me. After that, they clambered into my single bed under the blankets beside me. Youngest wee sister, at the headboard, wrapped her arm best she could around me, while oldest wee sister and middle wee sister also squeezed in, holding hands, waiting to be read to down at the footboard end.

  Later that day when wee sisters were out on adventures and ma was back, she came upstairs to see me. She looked solemn, which meant more bad news was coming. She said, ‘That poor girl who goes around poisoning people – she’s dead. A sweep-patrol of soldiers found her up an entry with her throat cut so somebody killed her.’ My first reaction was not, as one might expect, ‘What did you say? Unbelievable. How can she be dead when she’s the one trying to kill people?’ Nor was it a plain, ‘Who killed her?’ because although I’d heard ma’s words, my head couldn’t take in the part about somebody having killed her. The mere introduction of her into the conversation had been enough
to set me off. Ach, she’s done it again, I thought. Who’s she poisoned this time? I didn’t want to know though, not really, because these things go on so long that you end up getting listless with them. I was sorry, of course, for whoever it had been, but that was in the way I’d been sorry when longest friend told me of the poisoning of tablets girl’s sister. It was another of those removed sorries, the unconcerned sorries, with no true pull of involvement – least not till I realised with a bolt of lightning that the person poisoned had been me. Then it was, how blind I’ve been! What an idiot I am! For now that it was clear, it was absolutely bloody obvious. She was a poisoner. She’d been in the club. She’d come over to me in the club, pestering me about having killed her plus others whilst in cahoots with Milkman or something. Her new method of working too, as everybody knew, was to talk incessantly her hypnotic, inventive stories at you. That way she got you, her next victim, hooked and involved. Disquieted yet fixated, you focused on her words, meaning – and despite knowledge of her modus operandi and of all of her poisoning history – you didn’t take in what her hands were up to. That was what she wanted. Very deft, very furtive, very making herself invisible, blending into everything, dissolving away to nothing. Some people said she was a cunning wee innate, fierce feminist-tract person, except still she wasn’t a feminist according to the real feminists because the women with the issues here said she was mentally ill.

  They said it was now obvious she was periodically using, not just legitimate issues of gender injustice, but also other legitimate issues of any kind of injustice as a front to cover up her madness. Just the way, they added, anybody can use anything to cover up madness – education, career, homelife, sexlife, religion, physical fitness, stuffing your face, starving your face, child-rearing, freedom-fighting, governmental administration of a country. All this poor woman was doing, they concluded, was her individual rather than collective version of that. The women with the issues had told the renouncers earlier that it was pointless to keep warning tablets girl to stop doing what she was doing because she couldn’t stop what she was doing and that she needed intervention – just not their type of intervention. They then went on to say that as the renouncers had elected themselves rulers of the roost here, how about they leave tablets girl to them, to the issue women, and instead investigate one of their own? They could do something, suggested these women, about that middle-aged letch in their movement who went around preying upon and grooming young women. The renouncers responded by saying they would not be drawn into equivocation, nor would they be dictated to. ‘You had your go with tablets girl,’ they said. ‘And you failed, even ending up, so we heard, with a few of yourselves poisoned. So out of the road, we’ll deal with it’ – meaning, of course, deal with it in their time-proven, unmistakable way.