If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

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.