by Anna Burns
To stop instant altercation, I launched into my preface as planned. ‘It’s me, eldest sister. This is about ma,’ and immediately I got into explanations. ‘… and so she needs help … That’s right, her friend, the man who doesn’t love anybody … Ach aye yeah … Ach aye no … It turns out, sister, she doesn’t want to be just friends … She thinks she can’t have him because the ex-pious women have sown seeds of guilt, saying— What? … Yeah … Uh-huh … Well, that’s right. That’s what I’ve been telling her but … Ach aye yes, I said that too, but she doesn’t listen to me … I know that, sister, but don’t forget, her nerves are gone and it’s not as if she’s experienced. She hasn’t had doings with any of this since da.’ Here I left out the whole wrong-spouse situation, given first sister herself might be tender in that area. ‘So it’s probably been years and years,’ I hurried on. ‘… What? Oh, I didn’t think of that but it’s no good anyway, because I can’t get through to her … That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her but it’s yes-but and yes-but and getting into dejection over her clothes, her body, some chair she can’t fit into … That’s right, chair. No. Chair! I did say “chair”! … I’m not shouting! And no, sister, I’m not exaggerating. Listen. Cannot you hear her moans and sighs for yourself?’ At this, I held the receiver up the stairs where extreme expressions of mental anguish were issuing down clearly from ma in my bedroom. Also coming were the brave attempts of wee sisters to reassure her, telling ma she looked exactly as she should look which, given ma’s state of mind, was probably not the thing to say at this point. Wee sisters were alternating these attempts at comfort with rushing downstairs to hear what was happening at our end of the telephone conversation, then back up again to re-attempt assurance and to witness the latest insecurity being birthed up there. ‘See?’ I said, placing the receiver back at my ear. ‘So will you come, sister? She needs help. She needs you. You’re the only one who can turn this around and get through to her, talk to her, help her, do something with her confidence and her outfits. I can’t, not me, you can. So will you come? Can you come? Cannot you come? Now?’
So that was what I said, deliberately too, employing ‘the man who didn’t love anybody’ instead of ‘real milkman’. Any mention of ‘milkman’ – any milkman – would definitely have caused frisson at this point. Sister didn’t pause. She said she’d be there in ‘fifteen minutes and ten minutes’ which meant twenty-five minutes which was understandable, the ten-minute area being so bleak and eerie that nobody liked to include it in with their normal time. ‘I’ll tell her,’ I said, then I said, ‘Thanks, sister,’ and we did goodbyes, not as protracted and exhausting as ordinarily they would have been had that underpinning of tension regarding Milkman not still been going on between us. The fact though, we did a few goodbyes more than just one goodbye or no goodbye meant some sign of tentative repair of sisterhood had taken place. So telephone call over, and with no big fight, no slaps in face, no words spoken that both of us would regret but be unable to take back after, she was coming. Thank God, in fifteen minutes and ten minutes she’d be here to sort ma out. I replaced the receiver then, not caring overduly if those ear-wiggers from the state had or had not been listening. I sighed relief also, then braced myself out of habit to face ma again upstairs.
Sister did turn up in fifteen minutes and ten minutes as promised. She had brought clothes and accessories appropriate to person and occasion; also her three youngling twin sons and one daughter, leaving her husband in their house to nurse his rough-justice wounds alone. Immediately she took charge as I knew she would and as it was proper she should, for she was more in accord with ma, had always been of like mind, in harmony, more a soul energiser than I for ma would ever be a soul energiser. Unerringly also, she was accurate as to what was wanted, so she set about roping in me, wee sisters and her own wee tots as gofers while she herself calmed and reassured ma. Yes-but was banished, indeed left of its own accord rather than attempt any battle with sister. The rest of us got involved and fetched and carried and were glad to do so for ma’s sake. Ma, meanwhile, perked up, became relieved and very, very trusting. First sister also perked up, becoming less sad and less grieving. So with ma pleased, first sister pleased, wee sisters pleased, wee tots pleased and me pleased, I said after a bit that while they got on with it, I’d go downstairs and put the teapot on.
And now, two whole weeks on from tablets girl poisoning me, also from her murder, and from ma with her love and insecurity issues kicking in regarding real milkman; two days on too, from chef and ex-maybe-boyfriend and their South American adventure plans, and from Milkman being dead, and from Somebody McSomebody nursing bruises and regretting things, here I was, with ordinary life once again going on. I was in the kitchen, making dinner for the girls. This was before they were to head out to play the international couple and before I was to put on my running gear and, for the first time since being poisoned, go to third brother-in-law’s house down the road. Wee sisters were saying it would be good if I’d hurry up, that they were all set to go, all ready to play, just as soon as they’d eaten and as usual it was Fray Bentos they wanted. ‘With chips,’ they added. ‘Or Paris Buns,’ they added. ‘With chips,’ they added. Or ‘bananas with chips’, or ‘soft-boiled eggs with chips’, or ‘shop-bought pies with chips’, and they carried on, with everything with chips even though already I’d explained they couldn’t have chips, one reason being that I didn’t know how to make them and felt sure that although it had not been proven by actuality, I’d burn the house down if ever I should try so never would I try. Another reason was I couldn’t face returning to the chip shop even though Milkman was dead – probably more so because he was dead. Those shopkeepers who’d capitulated even though I hadn’t made them capitulate would most likely now exhibit their grudges openly, with it only a matter of time before they wanted their money, as well as revenge, back. So it wasn’t over, this business of me and Milkman. Then again, I knew all along it wouldn’t be over. With these sorts of things you have to take each day, each person, each reprisal, at a time. Instead of chips, I said wee sisters could have whatever they liked by way of Fray Bentos, Opal Fruits, liquorice allsorts, ice-cream, those communion wafer flying-saucer confection sweetmeats in edible paper pouched with strong fizz which explode on the tongue which I knew they loved having, and boiled beetroot. ‘Whatever,’ I said. ‘Just not with chips,’ which half delighted and half disappointed but in the end, they settled on variations of those same baby treats I’d daydreamed about whilst recovering from being poisoned. So I prepared their tea, which meant basically getting it out of the cupboards. All the time though, it was, ‘Middle sister! Please hurry. Will not you hurry? Modest amounts please. But cannot you be more instanter than that?’
I gave it to them and they ate up, then rushed out to play the international couple. Looking out the window on my way upstairs to change for running, I could see this international couple had really taken off. Little girls were falling over everywhere. It seemed the whole district of them was out, playing, flouncing, and at first glance they appeared mainly to resemble chandeliers with added lusciousness such as golden brocade and embossed wallpaper. By the time I did go out, all the streets were overrun with them: beribboned, besilked, bevelveted, behighheeled, bescratchy-petticoated and in pairs or else alone but pretending to be in pairs, waltzing and periodically crashing over. Meanwhile, the little boys, oblivious of the little girls, temporarily too, suspending operations against that army from ‘over there’ – owing, probably, to the current absence of that army from ‘over there’ – were taking turns at being good guy in their new play of the latest martyr killed recently in the political problems: Renouncer Hero Milkman, shadowed, set upon, then gunned down in their usual cowardly fashion by that murder squad spawned by a terrorist state.
*
‘Fuckin’. Fuckin’.’
I knew he knew I was there, that it was me, but he carried on with his back turned, in his garden, in his gear, doing his usual mutters while warm
ing up. He didn’t look at me, no acknowledgement as I arrived and leaned over to open his little house’s little gate. Still sulking then, I guessed, and I meant over that telephone call, the one he’d had a while back with ma about my missing our run sessions. Because of this, also because he’d been sceptical of my earlier complaint of legs losing power, body losing coordination, balance tipping, starting to stumble, starting to tumble, I thought it best silently to fall into stretching beside him rather than attempt any further explanation. So that then, was what I did. After a bit he said, still without looking, ‘Thought you’d given up running.’ ‘No,’ I said. ‘That was just poison.’ ‘Well, days and days went by,’ he said, ‘and it didn’t seem to me like you were coming running.’ ‘Attempted murder, brother-in-law.’ ‘That’s what they all say, sister-in-law. It’s one thing to say’ – and here brother-in-law’s voice was tense, edgy, wounded – ‘“No, not twelve miles, thirty miles,” for that would be contrariness. But to say – or to get your mother to say – “No, not running, never again going running,” that’s just bad play, that is.’
Still not looking at me, he moved on to his hip flexors. I knew I had to salvage the situation, acknowledge his grievance, pat down his hurt heart. Best way to do that was to have him goad me into browbeating him, which at least in the moment, for his part, he was attempting to do. It was down to me then to say, ‘Right, that’s it. I’ve had enough. We’re doing twenty miles today.’ But I was in too much doubt of my recovery, of my stamina, to manage twenty miles. I was unsure of ten miles, even five miles, didn’t know really, though my legs were returning, if I was ready at all yet for running. I supposed I could throw out some speculative number of miles we were not running but, ‘We’re doing twelve miles today,’ he announced, opening the bidding before I got a chance. ‘We are not doing twelve miles,’ I said. ‘Not eleven either,’ which did the trick for then he sounded – which was to him, a button – pacified and shocked at the same time. ‘Surely not not eleven,’ he cried. ‘That’s right,’ I said. ‘Not eleven. Not nine either, or eight.’ ‘All right then,’ he said, ‘we’ll do nine.’ ‘No,’ I said, ‘I said not nine. Not seven, or six, maybe five – we’ll do six miles.’ ‘Six miles isn’t much!’ he cried. ‘Six miles! Six miles and not any more than six miles? How about six twice, sister-in-law, or six miles with another three miles or …’ Of course I could have replied, ‘Look listen, brother-in-law. You do more if you like. In fact, why don’t we both just do what we feel like doing?’, for it didn’t matter that we should run together anymore, not now that Milkman was dead. I didn’t admit this openly, I mean to myself, in case it spelled out to me that I had become that traitorous, cold-hearted bad person. But the fact was, after Milkman and his ‘I’m male and you’re female’, and his ‘you don’t need that running’, plus his subsoil ‘I’m going to curtail you and isolate you so that soon you’ll do nothing’; after going from two months too, of stumbling, of legs strangely no longer working to legs soon to be magnificently working, I did feel safe again to run on my own. For the present though, or at least until brother-in-law should again go bananas with his next bout of über-addiction, I decided to keep on running my runs with him. ‘Six miles only,’ I pronounced, which eventually had brother-in-law conceding. ‘All right,’ he said, also saying he was in protestation about the six miles. He supposed he could make up the shortfall with skipping or extra squats and lunges later at the boxing club. So, ‘I’m unhappy with this,’ he said, but he didn’t seem unhappy. He seemed happy, which I think meant we were friends once again. At this moment his wife, my third sister, appeared, along with her gang of mates, all of them with drink taken. They had extra bottles with them, plus shopping, lots of boutique and shopping-mall shopping, all from some retail-barcrawl onslaught they’d been on all day in town.
‘God, we’re plastered,’ they said, and then they, including sister, fell over the ornamental hedge. Sister exploded into advanced asterisks, into percentage marks, crossword symbol signs, ampersands, circumflexes, hash keys, dollar signs, all that ‘If You See Kay’ blue french language. Her friends, picking themselves up off the grass, plus their bottles and shopping, rejoined with, ‘Well, we told you, friend. We warned you. It’s rambunctious, out of control. That hedge is sinister. Get rid of it.’ ‘Can’t,’ said sister. ‘I’m curious to see how it’ll transpire and individualise.’ ‘You can see how it’s transpired and individualised. It’s transpired into day of the triffids. It’s individualising into trying to kill us.’ Then they left off hedge-disparagement and turned their attention to us.
Brother-in-law got it first.
‘Hear you’ve been battering women down at the parks &—’ This particular friend of sister couldn’t finish her observation because brother-in-law fell out of his stretch just on hearing the opening words. ‘What!’ he spluttered. ‘Who’s been puttin’ that about about me?’ ‘Stop,’ said third sister to her friends. ‘There, lamb.’ She turned to him. ‘Pay no heed. They’re dark, dank weeds to your illumined sensitivity.’ Although it would have been difficult to keep a straight face and refer to third brother-in-law as a high-strung ethereality – as seen by her friends bursting into laughter – in some under-the-skin way I did understand what sister meant. If any of us present were to be called forth as the most modest, the most easily shocked amongst us, I would say, and sister would say, even her friends in spite of their laughter would say, ‘Oh well, if it boils down to it, we suppose that would be him.’
‘Here!’ said third sister, and she sprang over to her husband, which had me noticing, as ma had said, how lithe and graceful on her feet – when not falling over hedges – third sister was. ‘You mean that’s not true?’ cried brother-in-law, slightly less shocked but still reeling from the accusation. ‘Of course it’s not true. The idea of you hitting a—’ ‘I don’t mean that,’ said brother-in-law. ‘I mean it’s not true that somebody’s been puttin’ it about about me?’ ‘Nobody’s been puttin’ it about about you.’ And here third sister stretched up to give her husband a smacky, dramatic kiss on the mouth. ‘No, stand off,’ he said. He set her aside. ‘I’m not in the mood to kiss you.’ Then he turned to the others who had ruffled him, rocked him, and with an issue too, that shouldn’t be treated as a joke and which he himself shouldn’t have to put up with, especially not from the very sex from which he’d least expect mockery of such principles to come. ‘Stop that accusing and maligning,’ he said. ‘It isn’t funny. Puttin’ things about about people, ruinin’ good men’s good reputations. You’re not kids anymore, so act your age.’
No impact whatsoever. After that, they started in on me.
‘Aye-aye, lookie here,’ cried one, though all of them were looking already. ‘Snap!’ cried another, pointing back to third brother-in-law. ‘You two off then, to the Annual Black Eye Convention?’ which was when third brother-in-law turned and saw my black eye, also when I saw his.
Black eyes on brother-in-law were not frequent, but they were frequent in comparison with those on me not to be rare items. When I saw my own that morning in the mirror, the only way I could deal with it was by remembering that Somebody McSomebody hadn’t got off lightly himself. Must be counting at least twenty black eyes, I told myself – courtesy of those women, then their men, then the renouncers – all far blacker too, no doubt, than this here. ‘That’ll teach him,’ I reassured my reflection, then I wondered whether to go to work. In the end I did, after patching up the eye with tons of make-up; not though – as I discovered immediately upon going out my door and encountering people – as successfully as first I had thought.
‘So it’s true,’ said third brother-in-law. ‘I heard a rumour but it was issuing from your first brother-in-law so I wasn’t tended to mind it. But that Shitten McShite McSomebody did do that to you?’ I shrugged, which meant, yeah, but it’s old business and anyway, hardly he got away with it himself. ‘Ach,’ was what I did say which, depending on the context, can mean anything at all. In this context it meant,
leave it, brother-in-law. It’s been taken care of. Besides, I thought, relative to everything that had been happening – especially relative to what would have happened to me on the evening before if Milkman hadn’t been killed and instead had had me meet him as he had foreplayed me to meet him – Somebody McSomebody and his whack with his gun hardly rated a consequence at all. ‘Not pointful,’ I said. ‘Pointful to me, sister-in-law,’ said brother-in-law. ‘And what of principles? You’re a woman. He’s a man. You’re a female. He’s a male. You’re my sister-in-law and I don’t care how many of his family got murdered, he’s a bastard and would’ve been a bastard even if they hadn’t got murdered.’ They hadn’t got murdered. Only four had got murdered. The other two had been a suicide and an accidental death.
Brother-in-law was now seriously cross and I was touched by his crossness. Somebody McSomebody was wrong then. People in this place did give a fuck. But there was something else about brother-in-law, something linked to that strange, communally diagnosed mental aberration that he had around women. For all his idolatry, all his belief in the sanctity of femaleness, of women being the higher beings, the mystery of life and so on, he couldn’t grasp any abuse towards them other than what he termed rape. Rape for brother-in-law wasn’t categorised. It wasn’t equivocations, rhetorical stunts, sly debater tricks or a quarter amount of something or a half amount of something or a three-quarter amount of something. It was not a presentation package. Rape was rape. It was also black eyes. It was guns in breasts. Hands, fists, weapons, feet, used by male people, deliberately or accidentally-on-purpose against female people. ‘NEVER LIFT A FINGER TO A WOMAN’ – if ever it had existed – third brother-in-law’s teeshirt, to everyone’s embarrassment, would have said. According to his rulebook – mine too, at least before the predations upon me by the community and by Milkman – the physical-contact aspect could be the only aspect. That meant that what was not of that trespass, not that kind of physical – stalking without touch, tracking without touch, hemming-in, taking over, controlling a person with no flesh on flesh, no bone on bone ensuing – could not then be happening. So it came about that of everybody who had heard of the wooing of me by Milkman, third brother-in-law was the only one who, unquestioningly, hadn’t considered it to have taken place.