If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things (20 page)

Over the road, the boy with the big hair is squirting more paraffin onto the flaming charcoals, he’s grinning and saying fuckin A, that’s more like it, and the boy in the yellow sunglasses is turning away and saying that’s not how you’re meant to do it, it won’t burn properly now. The boy with the hair says well at least it is burning Baden-Powell, and the other boy says nothing, he goes into the house and loudly closes the door.

In the hallway of number nineteen, the twins’ mother is telling them to please keep out of the way as they run up and down the stairs, into the kitchen, into the front room. Their grandparents are slowly preparing themselves to go out, he is straightening his jacket and placing his small round hat on his head, she is standing behind him and picking small pieces of pale blue fluff from his shoulders, she is pulling her cardigan a little tighter around her. Their daughter-in-law stands and watches, she says is it all okay have you got everything? and she says darling turn that off now your parents are going out. The boys come out of the kitchen with their cheeks squirrel full of pink coconut sweets, they squeeze between the adults and they burst back out of the house.

The young man cleaning his trainers looks up and sees them, sitting in his doorway at number twenty-four, he watches the six of them processing out of number nineteen, the two brothers leading the way, the grandmother and grandfather stepping slowly and carefully, each wincing as they reach the bottom step, and behind them the mother and father, the father still holding a remote control in his hand and he holds it behind his back.

The boy stops scrubbing his trainers, he wipes soap from his hands and he watches the young man by the burgundy car greeting the older couple, shaking the man’s hand, kissing the woman’s cheek, he sees the mother of the twins looking away down the street as though she is expecting someone to appear. He hears her calling a name and then saying something to her husband, he sees the elderly couple getting into the car and having the doors closed after them by the young man. He sees hands being shaken through open windows, the car driving away, the mother and father on their doorstep going back inside the house and closing the door.

He picks up the brush again, he scrubs at the dark stain
curled across the toe of his left shoe, thinking about last night and swearing quietly.

Next door the girl with the short blonde hair and the glasses stands up and says I’m going to the shop do you want anything?

In the hallway of number nineteen, the mother and the father look at each other, not smiling or searching or waiting for the other to speak, they are just looking.

She says, put that back by the television.

She says, I am going upstairs.

And she walks up the stairs, and although she is much older than she has been, and although her body is quicker to become weary than it ever was, she still feels the movement of herself beneath her clothes as a good and special thing.

She feels the soft slide of cotton against her thighs as she walks, the push of her breasts as she breathes, the pinching of the cloth into the turn of her waist as she straightens her back and pauses on the stairs to glance down at her husband.

He looks up at her, and his face is calm and patient, almost solemn, but inside his head he is throwing buckets of water onto burning coals. He looks at her, and he also is aware of his body beneath his clothes, he is aware of the reassuring miracle of manhood, the flesh-and-blood conjuring trick which stirs the slow energies of his ageing body. He follows her up the stairs, he looks at the way her hair falls down her back, the shift and shine of it, they step into their bedroom and he turns to close the door.

And in a moment the door will be locked, and the stillness and quiet will be left on this side of the door. They will both drop their politeness and reserve to the floor with their clothes, he will close the curtains and she will unveil her body, she will stand against the wall with her arms raised high, waiting for him to drink in his fill of the sight of her, she
will lick her fingers, each in turn, as though sharpening them, and then they will be together and the room will fill with movement and laughter and stifled noises.

The rustle and fall of bedclothes.

Murmuring.

A rip of cotton.

A hand clapped over a mouth.

Outside, their twin boys are already playing cricket again, the younger twin hits out and the ball loops high in the air and lands in the garden of number seventeen just as the boy with the white shirt is saying I just wanted to give it a go, I wanted to get in tune with nature and like the cycle of life and stuff, I was reading this thing about reclaiming the masculine hunter and the tall thin girl laughs suddenly and sharply, catching a piece of chocolate doughnut in her throat.

The girl from number twenty-two, short hair and square glasses, she’s walking past, she stops and she says do you want anything from the shop what’s funny? The boy in the white shirt throws the ball back to the older twin, and the boy with the pierced eyebrow says hucklefuckinberry finn. The girl with the glasses looks at him, confused, and she looks at the boy in the white shirt who says I was just telling them about when I went fishing a while ago, that’s all, they think it’s funny, I don’t know why he says, and the tall thin girl bites her lip. Did you catch anything says the girl with the glasses, and he says I did actually, after a couple of hours, a trout or something, and the short girl with the painted nails pulls a face and says did you kill it?

He says I tried to but I dropped it in the grass, it was flapping around and I couldn’t get hold of it, I didn’t know what to do, I thought it would just die anyway but it kept flapping for ages he says and the ball bounces off the wall behind him and lands in front of the boy with the pierced eyebrow.

So I picked up this big stick he says, and he rolls up a magazine to demonstrate, a copy of
Hello!,
and he says I stood there watching it drown, trying to hit it.

The older twin runs up and says give us the ball, and the boy with the pierced eyebrow slides it under his legs. Give us the fucking ball he says, and they look up at him with pretend shock and turn away. The ball’s over there mate says the boy with the pierced eyebrow, and as the child turns to look he throws the ball, over his head, towards the garden of number twelve. The young boy looks back. Your hair’s still wet he says, and he runs away.

So anyway says the boy in the white shirt, I hit it in the end, and he smacks the front step with the rolled-up face of the Duchess of York, twice, to demonstrate, and he says and then it stopped flapping so I took it back up to my mate’s house and dealt with it, like washed it and scaled it and took all the guts and shit out, which was fucking obviously grim he says. And then I cooked it he says, and he sits back and looks away down the street and looks proud of himself.

So was it nice? says the girl with the glasses, and he looks at her and says well it looked nice, I fried it up in little steaks with garlic and black pepper and lemon and stuff, it smelt really good and he looks away and she says but what did it taste like? He says I don’t know I couldn’t eat it.

The boy with the pierced eyebrow takes some money out of his pocket and offers it to the girl with the glasses, he says can you get me some orange juice and she turns and walks down to the shop. The boy in the white shirt adjusts his tie and bites the knuckle of his thumb, he looks at the ground, he stands and goes inside to look for his black shoes.

Upstairs at number twenty, the old couple are busying themselves with the rituals of returning home, the kettle on
the stove, the jackets on pegs, unlocking windows and letting a breeze back into the tightness of the rooms.

She hears the toilet flush, she hears his steps in the hallway and his low voice murmuring out a song again, one of his old church songs.

She catches the words thou mine inheritance, and he breaks off as he comes into the room and goes to the window.

He says did I ever tell you I was there when my grandfather died? Says it not looking at her, looking from the window down the length of the street, watching the boys with their cricket, listening to her clinking and clanking with teacups and plates. She says nothing, she takes off her navy-blue shoes and sits in one of the kitchen chairs, picks up her hat and straightens the ribbon.

He says and it might sound strange but it was a beautiful thing. Just to be there with the rest of the family he says. Watching him breathing, and curling his fingers, and sinking into his sheets he says. And he stands there by the window with his hand up to his face, curling his fingers slowly, like the clutch of a newborn baby. Reminding himself of how it was.

It seemed like the right thing to be doing he says, to be there with him. He turns round to look at his wife, do you think so he says.

She pours a cup of tea and says what do you mean?

Come and sit down she says.

He pulls out a chair and says I mean does it seem like the right thing to you, having all the family there, well of course she says and she cuts him a slice of cake.

He says the room was full of people, crowded.

I was the last to get there he says, and when I walked in everyone was sat around, looking at him, not speaking. It was dreadful hot in there, and stuffy, and there was a sour-sweet smell in the room he says.

She looks at him, still standing behind the chair, and she says sit down love.

She brushes crumbs from her floral dress, sweeps them away with her flesh-knotted hand and they fall to the floor. She says why have you never told me this before, and she’s thinking all these years and there are still things I don’t know, she’s wondering if this is a good thing or a bad thing.

He sits down and says I don’t know I was just thinking about it, you know, and he pours himself a cup of tea.

They sit, and they sip small mouthfuls of steaming tea, and they look at each other. A breeze catches the curtain and it curls into the room.

He says we were there five, six hours before he died, and every breath sounded like his last. He says I thought he was going to go on forever.

The breeze sucks back out of the room, the curtain falls flat against the window, the bathroom door slams shut.

He says he had his head tipped right back, there was a wetness coming out of his mouth that my mother kept dabbing away with a white handkerchief, and when he breathed in it sounded like there was a bag of ball-bearings in his mouth. All rattling and clacking together he says, and the cup jingles against the saucer as he puts it down.

He says he looked so small, squashed flat into those enormous sheets and pillows.

He says he was wearing red and white striped pyjamas and they didn’t fit him properly.

She’s looking at him and wondering where all this has come from. She’s looking at an unfamiliar expression in his face, a hardness of the skin. It is not something she recognises.

He says his whole face shook with it each time he breathed.

He says he made this wheezing sound, all slow and desperate, like a whale on the beach it made me think of.

She looks at him and she doesn’t know what to say.

She says what did he die of, and when he replies oh it doesn’t matter his weary anger surprises them both. He says sorry love but and then he doesn’t finish the sentence and he looks away from her.

The curtain curls into the room again, and a stack of letters falls to the floor from the sideboard. She moves from the table to pick them up and he says he didn’t say a word you know, not a word, he didn’t even open his eyes, he just lay there dying.

He says his hair was so thin and light, like a baby’s, it looked as though it would blow away if anyone opened the window.

He says you couldn’t even see his legs under the bedclothes he was so faded and gone. It seemed like all he had left was his head and his hands he says, and his chest staggering up and down.

And he says but it was funny you know, it didn’t feel like a vigil so much, because of the talking, because after a time we started talking. Little things he says, pleasantries and distractions to ease the tension but by the time he died we were all in full flow.

He says it was strange but it seemed a good thing, that we could do that, just be a family and talk, not spend the whole time staring at him he says, and he stands up and leaves the room.

She watches him go, she listens to the awkwardness of his steps and the squeak of the bathroom door. She looks at his untouched slice of cake and she thinks about his unmentioned visits to the doctor.

He stands by the door and says he looked like a wax sculpture setting into the bed, and when he died he looked beautiful and I was glad to kiss him.

She says come here, come here.

She says what’s all this about?

He looks down at her and settles into the hoop of her arms around his waist, he says oh I don’t know love I was just thinking. She looks at his chest and she doesn’t need to say that she wants him to try again, she looks up at him and she waits.

He says, look, love, it’s.

He says, the thing is.

And after a while he unhooks her arms and moves away from her again, back towards the door. He stands there a moment, biting his lip and squeezing his eyes into sparrowfeet, and then he starts to turn back towards her. She looks at him, and he says the thing is love, when he died it was like he was getting better, do you see, and he’s looking past her now, towards the window.

Each time his breath softened he sounded more comfortable he says, his face got more relaxed. And then he was almost closing his mouth between breaths at the end he says, and everyone stopped talking and stood up. He talks more quietly now, he says and then he just, went. So slow he says, like a bottle filling with water and sinking he says.

She says, love, and it’s a question but she’s not sure what she’s asking.

He says nothing, he looks at the sky through the window, the light darkening a little. He says it looks like rain but she doesn’t turn away from him to look. He says, love, I was just thinking about it, that’s all, really, and he turns again and this time he leaves the room and she watches him go and listens to the hacking wetness of his cough.