If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (16 page)

I say actually can we talk about something else now.

He says sorry, I just, you know, and he fiddles with the air vents in the middle of the dashboard.

He says are you too warm?

I can change the ventilation he says, and he shuffles the sliding control from left to right, clicks another dial around, holds his palm over the vent to feel the air breathing through.

He says it’s just that I’ve never been in that situation, you know, I just wondered, I didn’t mean anything.

I look at him, and his eyes are squeezing and blinking just like his brother’s.

I say what did your brother tell you about me?

He says everything he knew, he says which wasn’t very much I suppose.

He told me what you looked like he says, and what course you were doing, and what clothes you wore.

He says he told me the way you smiled, what your voice sounded like, who you lived with, what flavour crisps you bought when he saw you in the shop, how different you looked when you took your glasses off, what it felt like when you touched his arm.

I say I don’t remember touching his arm.

He says no I didn’t think you would.

We overtake a lorry with its sides rolled back and I look at the fields and the sky through its ribbed frame, there are bales of hay rolled up like slices of carpet, there’s a sprawling V of birds hanging over the horizon.

I don’t know what he means.

He says, my brother, he could, he can be a bit strange sometimes, I say what do you mean.

He says, well, just strange things, like once he sent me a list of all the clothes you’d worn that week, really detailed, colours and fabrics and styles and how they made you look and how you looked as though they made you feel.

He looks at me and says and it wasn’t creepy or anything, he wasn’t being obsessive, it was just, you know, observations.

He was thinking he wanted to buy you a present he says, and he wanted to get it right.

He winds his window down very slightly, and a thin buffet of air blows in across us both.

He sort of collects things as well he says, things he finds in the street, like till receipts and study notes and pages torn from magazines, and one time he took a whole pile of shattered car-window pieces and made a necklace out of them he says.

He said they were urban diamonds he says.

He made a glass case he says, and he mounted a row of used needles he found in an alleyway.

And if he couldn’t take it home he’d take a photo of it he says, he had albums full of stuff.

He says he told me he hated the way everything was ignored and lost and thrown away.

He says he told me he was an archaeologist of the present, and he laughs at this and turns the radio on and I don’t know what to say.

There’s a boy band on, from years ago, singing when will I will I be famous, and I wonder what Craig and Matt and Luke are doing now.

I say, please, what’s your brother’s name?

He doesn’t say anything, he looks over his shoulder, overtakes someone, changes the radio station.

I say he sounds interesting, it’s a shame I didn’t get to talk to him more.

He says but you did, at that party, and he looks at me and a car behind us flares its horn as we drift across into the next lane.

He straightens out and keeps his eyes on the road and says sorry.

I say that’s okay, what do you mean, what party?

He says there was a party you both went to, he told me about it, you spent the evening talking to each other, he walked you home and then you were so drunk you forgot about it.

No I say, no I don’t remember that, and I think and I try and remember, no I say, I really don’t remember.

He doesn’t say anything, he turns the radio up a little and adjusts his seat, he says do you know the way, do you want to look at the map.

I look at the map, I look out of the window and I recognise the landscape, I recognise the way the fields are tipping up towards the first edges of the town, away to the far left, I look at the map again.

I say but I would like to meet him, when he comes back, do you think he’ll want to I say, and he says yes, very quietly, yes I think he would.

We come off the motorway at the next junction, and I start slipping directions into the conversation.

He says do you think it was weird, me saying that about my brother, you know, about him being in love?

I think for a moment, left at this next roundabout I say.

We drive past a retail estate, and I see a line of cars crossing an empty carpark like wagons across a prairie.

I say well yes, I did, it did throw me a bit, it wasn’t really what I was expecting.

Straight over at these lights I say.

It’s a big word I say, love, it seems a bit, you know, clumsy.

He says I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spin you out, I wanted to tell you, I wanted to see what you thought, I say but I don’t really think anything I don’t even know him, I’m sorry.

No he says, I suppose not.

Left at this pub I say, and we swing into my old estate, lunging over battered speed-bumps, and I wind down my window and it all comes rushing in, this place, the smell of it, the feel of it, pieces of things that happened when I was younger.

Right at the mini roundabout I say, and I remember falling off my bike and breaking my glasses, my mum stopping my pocket money until the new pair was paid for, left past the shops I say.

Can I ask you something I say, he says yes, he turns the radio off, I say why are you doing this?

He says you said you couldn’t afford the train fare, no not that I say.

I say why are you here, now, telling me all these things about your brother, asking me how I feel, what are you trying to achieve?

He stops the car, suddenly, he looks at me and says shit I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you.

You haven’t upset me I say, I just, it’s a strange thing to do and I’m interested to know why you’re doing it.

I don’t know he says, he looks atme, I can’t answer that he says.

He says he told me you looked lonely and he couldn’t do anything about it.

We drive past my old junior school, left I say, left again, and then round a corner and we’re outside my parents’ house, my house.

I thank him for the lift, I offer him a cup of tea before he goes.

He says no, thanks, I should probably leave you to it, and he gives me the phone number of where he’s staying, he says call me when you want to go back.

He says, if that’s okay, I mean, if you don’t mind, and I smile and say of course I don’t mind.

He drives away, and I wave, and I stand outside my house and wait.

I look down at my stomach, and I wonder if it shows properly.

It feels different to me already, when I lay my hands across it I can feel the swelling, like a deep breath in a very tight dress, the stretch of it, and I wonder if anyone else can see.

I wonder if my dad will be able to see.

I ring the doorbell.

There’s a thudding sound from a door across the street, from behind the door maybe, and he looks up to see what it is, the man with the burnt hands, he lifts the cracked shell of his face and tries to see what the noise is.

It’s coming from number seventeen, a banging noise of wood against wood, the doorhandle is twitching up and down and the door is pressing outwards with each thud, like the heartbeat of a Bugs Bunny in love, boomba boomba. He thinks to himself, the door must be stuck, it happens, in the heat, in these old houses where the landlords let things slip.

The noise stops. He looks at the door, at the shine of the doorhandle, the metal of the doorhandle warming up in the midday sun.

And then the window next to the door is hauled up suddenly, the sashes squeaking, and a gangly young man clambers out through the opening, the net curtain covering his face briefly like a bridal veil before he emerges into the street and strides away towards the shop. He holds his hand up over his eyes, screws his face up against the glare of the sun, pulls at the collar of his crumpled white shirt. One of the twins stops his bowling run-up and shouts splash sploosh, and the young man ignores him.

The man with the ruined hands sits in a chair in his front garden and looks at the net curtain wafting in and out of the open window.

The veil she wore on their wedding day was white, it was like the curtain. It was smooth, silk maybe, and when she breathed it drifted out from her face like a feather. This was
many years gone now, their wedding day, but it is like no time at all.

The look in her face when she lifted the veil, the delight, the pride, the beautiful in her soul, could be yesterday.

Her face, was beautiful.

Her hands, was beautiful.

Her skin, was smooth and clear and unbroken, when she touched him lightly it felt like water trickling across his body. She would move her hand across his face to see if she wanted him to shave before the evening meal, and when she was done his skin would feel clean of the dust of the day.

She was tall, and strong, and she kept her hair coiled tightly around the back of her head and she had intricate paintings on the secret parts of her body. She was a wonderful woman, but this was not enough to help her. He loved her deeply, but this was not enough to help her. Please, darling, she called out to him, through the door, the closed door. Please darling can’t you help me she called. He could not reach to her, he was not enough.

The door was stuck, in the heat, it was swollen, the wood of the door in the frame, the frame it was too small, like a wedding ring on a very hot day.

It was so very hot.

She said darling I am very hot I cannot breathe please can’t you reach me.

The paint on the door was coming away, it was bubbles, blistering, each time he touched it he felt knives across his skin and into his bones. The metal of the doorhandle, when he touched it, it melted his hand like butter, it sunk into his skin like an axe into a tree and the hot air and the poisonous paint in his lungs, he thought he would die but he did not. He did not die.

She said my God my God what is happening.

He sits in his garden on a folding wooden chair, this man with the burnt hands, and the sun is shining and his daughter is playing with another girl in the street and he is okay but he is not okay.

He watches the young man with the white shirt and the tie loping back along the street with a bag of shopping. The bag is red and white, thin plastic, inside there is a pint of milk, a carton of orange juice, packets of crisps. He watches as the young man clambers back through the open window, he licks a peel of skin on his palm, flattening it, he watches the young man reappear and fiddle with his front-door handle. The young man pushes at the door with his shoulder, he rattles the handle, he kicks the bottom of the frame. He puts his hand through the letterbox and shakes the door.

The man in the chair brings his hand to his lips and thinks of his wife saying my God the door what is happening.

The young man stands back from the door, he looks around. His face is red and he is sweating. He sees the man in the chair, they see each other, the young man makes a face like well what a laugh and the man in the chair replies with a single slow nod.

She said it is too hot I cannot breathe I cannot please my God can’t you help me darling please.

The young man turns and lifts his foot high and kicks into the door, his arms raised and his fists clenched, his body all pointed down the line of his leg in a rush and a tangle and the door swings open and his momentum carries him through into the shade of his hallway and there is a sound like he is falling to the floor.

The man in the chair looks, he does not move. He remembers her, she said what is happening, the door, please, can’t you reach me, please, the door.

His daughter skips past, her shoes are tapping on the pavement, she is singing and she does not look up at him as she passes.

In the kitchen of number seventeen the young man with the creased and sweaty white shirt puts a kettle on to boil. He lines up a row of almost clean mugs and drops a teabag into each one.

The tall girl with the glitter around her eyes comes in and says what was that noise? and her skirt is twisted round almost sideways and there are creases on her cheek from the pillow. He says that was me kicking the door in, oh she says, what for, I couldn’t open it he says. The kettle boils and he fills up the mugs, sniffing the milk before he adds it to the tea, he says how are you feeling, she says like shit. He says are the others awake? She says I don’t know, she says heal my head and she sits down and takes his hands and pulls them onto her scalp. He rubs his fingers through her hair in circles, squeezing and pressing as if kneading warm dough into life and she says mm that’s nice. The short girl with the painted nails comes in and says is that tea for me what was that noise? The boy says the door was jammed, I had to kick it in he says, she says oh, she says where’s he gone? He says he must have gone out, he’s not in his room, she says oh I hope he’s okay he was being a bit weird last night. The tall girl watches the tissue-thin vapours twirling upwards from the mugs of tea, illuminated by the sunlight, she can see each drop of moisture, lighter than air, spiralling together like a flock of birds turning into the sun, like a tiny waterfall reversed, a playful movement, she feels as though if she put her hand in the way it would tickle she says mm oh I feel better now.

The boy says do you want some breakfast then, he sits down again and pushes his fingers through his hair. The tall
girl says no I’m not hungry, my stomach feels a bit, and she hesitates and thinks and says beside the point and she smiles a pale smile. The short girl with the painted nails says I want a chocolate doughnut, let’s go and buy some chocolate doughnuts, we can sit on the wall outside and eat them, is that tea for me she says.

The door crashes open and the boy with the pierced eyebrow comes in and says those fucking kids I’m going to twat one of them soon. Everyone looks at him. Is this tea for me he says, and he sits down and pulls one of the mugs across the table towards him, and for a moment the tall girl’s head is pulled sideways as if by a string as she follows the sight of the spiralling steam. He puts a paper bag down in the middle of the table.