by Anna Burns
So he was done in by them. Then he was done in by their boyfriends. Then next I heard – without asking, because never I asked, because always I would be minding my business when these things would come at me – he was had up at a kangaroo court. ’Courts happened. They just did. This one had confusion to start with over what exactly to charge him with. Then someone piped up with the charge of one-quarter rape.
And that was what they did. Amongst themselves, and while stringently codifying into a range of pernickety, encyclopaedic, rather impressive though obsessive hierarchies, our renouncers divided and sub-divided all possible crimes and misdemeanours, all anti-social behaviours that could be committed by us as transgressors, miscreants and contemptible scoundrels of the area, until in the end they had what could only be described as an owner and user’s guide. With their preciosity and over-fine distinctions, they proved themselves schoolmasters and fusspots in this area – except when it came to women’s issues. Women’s issues were baffling, demanding, awful bloody annoying, not least because anybody with an ounce of clergy could see that women who had issues – as evidenced by our sample grouping who still met weekly in that backyard shed – were completely off their heads. In those days, however, with times achanging, with the approach of the Eighties, it was getting that women had to be cajoled, had to be kept in with. What with female-orientation and female-amalgamation and women-this and women-that, also with talk of the sexes now being equal – seemed you could easily spark an international incident if you didn’t walk out your door and at least make polite gesture to some of their hairbrained, demented ideas. That was why our renouncers tormented themselves and bent over backwards, trying their damnedest to please and to include into the discourse our beyond-the-pale women. At last they considered they’d done so by coming up with the invention of rape with subsections – meaning that in our district there could now be full rape, three-quarter rape, half rape or one-quarter rape – which our renouncers said was better than rape divided by two – as in ‘rape’ and ‘not rape’ which, they added, were the acceptable categories in most fiefdoms as well as in the burlesque courts of the occupiers. ‘Streaks ahead therefore we are,’ they maintained, and they meant in terms of modernity, of conflict resolution and of gender progressiveness. ‘Look at us,’ they said. ‘We take things seriously.’ Rape and all that jazz was practically what it was called. I’m not making this up. They made it up. Excellent, they said. That’ll do for them, meaning women, meaning justice for the women with the issues as well as for women without issues because not all women had issues. With that, one-quarter rape became our district’s default sexual charge.
And Somebody McSomebody was charged with it, for peeking about in women’s toilets, even though none of the women from the toilets had mentioned rape or demanded to have it admitted that that was what it was. This was serious, declared the renouncers, and they wanted to know what McSomebody had to say for himself. But it was a game – more toy soldiers on toy battlefields, more toy trains in the attic, hard men in their teens, hard men in their twenties, hard men in their thirties, in their forties, with the mentality being toys even if it was far from toys these men were playing with. So with this toys outlook they were steeped in, and with the usual rumours everyone was steeped in, I didn’t care what they charged him with. I didn’t care what they did to him, what they did to each other. I had sought none of this, did not want any of it, had not asked for information or ever wanted to know. In the end I wasn’t vouched to warrant which was fine by me as I wouldn’t have warranted anyway, wouldn’t have gone anyway, would not – least not voluntarily – have taken part. I heard finally that, as none of the women who’d beaten him up seemed bothered, the coterie sitting in judgement upon McSomebody quietly dropped the quarter-rape charge which had had a random ‘oh, how about we just say it was this’ quality to it anyway. Instead they charged him with taking guns unauthorised from dumps to use for getting dates with girls purposes, which was not, they admonished, what guns were supposed to be used for.
*
Never heard, wasn’t interested in what happened to Somebody McSomebody after that kangaroo-court judgement upon him, except that probably it involved him re-jigging his archetype of women’s private rooms and of women. As for me, I went back to walking. Not to reading-while-walking. Also I picked up my running. Coming home from work the day after Milkman’s death to put on my gear to go call on third brother-in-law, I opened the front door and there were wee sisters standing on the stairs, dressed up. They were in my clothes, my shoes, my accessories, my jewellery, my make-up, plus extra makeshift garments made out of our downstairs back-room curtains. Also they had added garlands, daisy-chains, amateur flounces and once more that premature tinsel from the Christmas box, all improvised too, I supposed, by themselves. I was about to start in because I’d warned them before about messing with my belongings. At that moment though, the three of them in their finery – my finery – were busy on the telephone. They were perched together on the staircase, holding the receiver between them and speaking in unison. ‘Yes. Yes. Yes,’ they replied. After a pause they said, ‘She’s here now. We’ll tell her.’ Then came the usual ‘Goodbye’, ‘Goodbye’, ‘Farewell’, ‘Farewell’ – also telephone kisses – until painstakingly the call was concluded and everyone had rung off. ‘That was mammy,’ they said. ‘She says you’re not to go gallivanting until you make us dinner. She can’t because she’s busy with the milkman.’ They meant real milkman, and they didn’t mean either, any innuendo of milkman, though it was evident something other than the platonic was going on round the corner between those two in real milkman’s house. Before he’d discharged himself – again characteristic in his contrariety to the hospital’s wishes – ma had been spending most of her time down at the hospital and now that he was discharged, she was ever in his house, bringing him cakes, feeding him soup, tending his wounds, checking what she looked like in the mirror, also reading books and newspapers to him, all day long – and all night long too.
‘Goodbye,’ sang youngest sister and I lifted her up and said, ‘It’s okay. The telephone call’s over.’ ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I’m just making sure.’ She wrapped her legs round my waist then, touched my black eye and said, ‘Did you get that from waltzing? We got these from waltzing,’ then the three stuck out their limbs to display scratches and bruises, strongly identical scratches and bruises, strongly aligned too, on their bodies, not quite, but almost, in the same place. ‘These contusions were sustained,’ explained eldest of wee sisters, ‘whilst playing the international couple.’ Ah, I thought, so that’s what all that prancing in the street’s about. Here was the answer to a puzzle that had been playing around the fringes of my mind because all the little girls had taken to dressing up and dancing about, not just in our street but in every street of the area – even across the interface road in defender areas, for I’d had a peek in and noticed them one day as I was walking and reading my way into town. All these little girls – ‘our side’, ‘their side’ – were dressed in long clothes and high heels and were falling over as they played the international couple, proving this couple – ex-maybe-boyfriend’s parents – meant very much more here than mere ballroom-dancing champions of the world. They had achieved that outstanding status of straddling the sectarian divide, a feat probably meaning nothing outside the sectarian areas in question, but which inside equated with the most rare and hopeful occurrence in the world. At first I hadn’t paid attention, for the usual reason of wee kids doing wee kid things, but it got to the point where there were so many of them – dressed-up, paired off, dotted about, waltzing, getting in everybody’s way, getting on everybody’s nerves, falling over, getting up, dusting off and waltzing off again – that the phenomenon could not but encroach into the most thickest of thick-skinned minds. And now wee sisters were explaining the joy that was to be had from playing Mr and Mrs International. ‘It’s brilliant,’ they confided, ‘only it nearly was spoilt because of those wee boys.’ They
meant the little boys of the area for the little girls of the area had been trying for ages to complete the aesthetic by roping in the little boys to play ex-maybe-boyfriend’s internationally waltzing father while they themselves played the star of the show, his mother, but that had gone nowhere as the little boys hadn’t wanted to play. Instead they wanted to continue throwing miniature anti-personnel devices at the foreign soldiers from the country ‘over the water’ any time a formation of them appeared on our streets. No matter the scolds, the cajoleries, the tears from the little girls, the little boys stubbornly refused to take part. This left the little girls no choice but to double-up and take turns at being both ex-maybe-boyfriend’s glamorous, super-beautiful mother as well as his not-so-glamorous, or interesting – least not to the little girls – boringly dressed famous father and that had been the procedure until it became clear none of the little girls wanted to be him at all. Every one wanted to be her, to be ex-maybe-boyfriend’s amazing championship mother, so they dispensed with the father, either pairing off themselves as two supremely costumed waltzing women, or else just pretending to have a male prop dancing partner, ‘for that way,’ explained wee sisters, ‘you get to dress up and be her every time’. This explained the colour – for there had been an explosion of colour – plus fabric, accessories, make-up, feathers, plumes, tiaras, beads, sparkles, tassels, lace, ribbons, ruffles, layered petticoats, lipsticks, eyeshadows, even fur – I had glimpsed fringed fur – high heels too, which belonged to the little girls’ big sisters and which didn’t fit which was why periodically the little girls fell over, sustaining injuries. ‘But the thing is,’ reiterated wee sisters, ‘and you don’t seem overjoyed by this, middle sister, you get to be her every time!’ Wee sisters hammered this home, hammering home also, though unconscious of it, that for me this was to be one long getting-over of ex-maybe-boyfriend. Seemed I was to have reminders of him before I even walked out my door. After walking out the door there were further reminders: his parents plastered on billboards, his parents mentioned in every news item, lauded in magazines, praised in newspapers, interviewed on radio stations, imitated by little girls throughout the world and, not least, dancing and looking fabulous on wall murals and on every channel of every TV.
That was why they couldn’t possibly take off my garments, wee sisters said, not till they’d played the international couple. They were all set to go and play too, just as soon as I gave them something to eat. Okay, I said, but after I came back from my run they’d better be home and had taken all my stuff off. As it was, they couldn’t be allowed my high heels. ‘Gimme them,’ I said. ‘You’ll spring them,’ and I took them from them, knowing full well they’d just go get them again as soon as I’d gone from the house. I said then, ‘And you’d better not have been at my underwear drawer.’ ‘That’s not us,’ protested wee sisters. ‘That’s mammy. Mammy goes there heaps now, just as soon as every day you go to work.’
And yeah. She did. I had been through this too, with her, warning that she was not to mess with my stuff, especially not my underwear, warning also that she was to stay completely out of my room. Ever since her turnaround, this falling in love with real milkman – or not pretending anymore not always to have been in love with real milkman – she kept looking in the mirror and not liking what she saw. She had taken to frowning, holding her breath, pulling her stomach in, then letting her stomach out when she had to because she’d needed to breathe again. Then it was sighing and scrutinising every physical detail and I thought, she’s fifty. Far too old to be behaving like that. And there were my clothes. She was rooting in them, though first, said wee sisters, she was rooting in her own belongings, turning every stitch she owned, they said, inside out. She was very sad, they said, because her garments, also every accessory she had, was dowdy, not of the moment, which was why she waited, they said, until after I’d gone to work. That was how the raids started. I caught her at it myself one day just after real milkman came out of hospital. I came home early from work and there she was in my room, sampling away. My wardrobe was open, my chest of drawers was open, my shoe boxes open, my jewellery box open, my make-up case empty with all its contents on her face or else dumped out on my bed. As well as that, she had moved half my stuff into her room and not just my stuff but some of second sister’s stuff because, in her banishment, on having to leave in a hurry, second sister hadn’t had time to pack and take her gear as well. It was not only me and second sister though. Ma had also gone to visit first and third sisters – tellingly at a time when she knew neither of them would be there. With first sister it was on the pretext of wanting to see her grandchildren, and with third sister it was on the pretext of chivvying as to why there weren’t yet grandchildren. In reality though, it was with the intention of raiding their stuff as well. The husbands let her in, and they thought nothing of it, still thinking nothing when she went upstairs ignoring them, coming down later and staggering out their doors with her arms piled high with their wives’ stuff. She came home laden, said wee sisters, so all us sisters were finding this real milkman affair revolutionary. As for her long-term pace-praying, her clock-praying, all that fierce virtuous competitive chapel-praying, according to wee sisters, ‘She puts Leo Sayer and “When I Need You”, and “I Can’t Stop Loving You”, and “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing” on the record-player instead.’ So I came home from work and there she was, fretting over belts, handbags, scarves, mostly though, over how her own body had betrayed her. Without blushing either, or having the grace to look guilty at being caught red-handed, she said, ‘Would you never think, daughter mine, to buy high heels with a lesser heel?’ Right away I intended anger, to point out her violation in rummaging in what didn’t belong to her. How would she like it, I’d ask, if I were to reveal that on setting off for chapel to do her praying, or round to the neighbours to do her gossiping, wee sisters were straight off up to her room? They were in her bed, in her nightclothes, reading her books, doing play-praying, play-gossiping and pretending to make up herbal charmes and harmes and other concoctions, taking turns as often they did, at being her. Because of her panic though, and because she seemed now to have entered some vulnerable, regressed, strange transition period, I found myself handing her a pair of low slingbacks and saying, ‘Try these on, ma’ instead.
Matters had moved on too, it seemed, throughout the whole of the area regarding real milkman. Even I paid attention to the latest talk of the great gang of pious women – now demoted, ex-pious women – and to that old love rivalry between them being once more stirred up. After first entreating God to spare the life of real milkman and then, when this supplication had been granted, imploring God further for the full recovery of real milkman, some of these women discovered that while they were in chapel, eyes closed, hands clasped, wearing out the pew with piety, invocations and kneecaps, others had taken advantage of their fervent, protracted devotions temporarily to minimise their own devotions to rush to the hospital to see real milkman first. Upon this discovery, everyone became in a hurry. Prayers, when they happened, happened on the hop. The ex-pious women apologised beforehand to God, assuring Him that, of course, this was provisional, that it was only ever going to be provisional, that soon they’d get back to full-on, normal-formal praying but meantime, if it was all right with Him, they’d foreshorten and abridge all items on the prayerlisting – this time not to fit in more prayers but to lessen the prayer-duration by temporarily subtracting most of them from it for now. So it wasn’t that they’d completely forgotten the Presence. It was more that they too, like ma, were baking pies, decorating cakes, feeding soup, trying on daughters’ clothes, daughters’ make-up, daughters’ jewellery and springing daughters’ heels as they rushed to and from the hospital. Later, when real milkman was out of hospital, still they rushed and were busy, this time to visit him in his house to see how he was settling in back there.
Ma, however, had got the start on them after receiving the tip-off from Jason. Thanks to Jason, who was in love with Nigel, her own husb
and, so not at all interested in that way in real milkman, ma, on hearing of the shooting, was able to reach the hospital first. Immediately she was pounced upon by the police and taken to some little hospital cupboard-room for questioning. Why did she want to see this man, this terrorist, whom they’d just shot as enemy-of-the-state, they asked? Of course they were seen to be trying their hand, this police, wondering if it might be possible to turn this middle-aged girlfriend of a middle-aged wounded paramilitary into an agent for them. Might they get her to reveal covert renouncer identities for them? planned covert renouncer activities for them? help them displant that diabolical enemy for them? The thing was though, that fast on the heels of ma to the hospital came three further possible middle-aged girlfriends of the same wounded paramilitary. Then another four also turned up. The police ran out of little impromptu hospital cupboard-rooms into which to spirit this potential supergrass demographic. That meant they had to transfer them to the police barracks which, given the growing girlfriend numbers, would no longer keep the situation as stealthy as they, the police, would have liked. This state-security force, stalking the hospital corridors, then intercepted a further two middle-aged girlfriends who also had to be taken in for questioning. By this stage the law must have been scratching its head. ‘How many has he? What sort of philanderer is he? Exactly when, in between these love trysts, does Valentino here manage to fit his terrorist activity in?’ Before they could attempt an answer it happened again, and the number of middle-aged female informers from our small no-go area was rumoured to swell from ten to eighteen. Frankly, it was unworkable, but not just for the police was it unworkable. The renouncers-of-the-state in our district, faced with the prospect of eighteen ex-pious women whom they knew would have to be psycho-evaluated to uncover if any of them had been flipped as informers, also found the situation unworkable. Not just unworkable – ridiculous. Not just ridiculous – perturbing. And not only in terms of the political situation was it unworkable, ridiculous and perturbing, but also on the more private footing of these women being the district’s traditional wives and mothers as well.