If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

She says, he’s still there? it’s not him is it? and then she says

oh no, of course, and she giggles and she says goodbye and I tell her I’ll call her.

He comes in from the kitchen as I put the phone down, he says are you okay and I say I’m fine it’s just, it’s nothing really.

I look at all the things on the table, beside the box, I look inside the box and lift out a stack of polaroids.

I say, it’s my mum, she told Sarah about it, about me being pregnant, and I wasn’t going to tell her yet.

I look at the polaroids, they’re taken from his bedroom window again, a day when it was raining heavily, there are splashes on the lens and the street is shining wet.

He says didn’t you want to tell her at all, I say yes, but not yet, not like this, I wanted to wait until, I don’t know.

The twins are in one of the pictures, their heads tipped back into the rain, their clothes soaked, one of them waving a cricket bat in the air.

He says well at least, you can talk to someone about it now, I mean, you know, I’m not being rude but you need someone to talk to about it, properly I mean he says and I look at him a moment.

I look at the other polaroids, the sister of the twins waving her ribbon in the air, a barbecue billowing smoke outside number twenty-three, the dark sky full of rain, the street shining like glass and I look at them all again, closely.

I look at the picture of the twins, and I recognise the clothes one of them is wearing, the one with the cricket bat, and I realise when the pictures were taken and my stomach turns over, like a vase falling from a windowsill.

He takes the last few things out of the box, a thick bundle of spiral-bound notebooks tied together with string, a polaroid camera, pages cut from magazines, photocopied sheets of text.

I think most of this stuff was for his dissertation he says, and he picks up pictures of coffins and funeral pyres, an article about Graceland, he picks at the blu-tac on the backs of the pages.

He did something about funeral rites he says, comparing historical ones with modern ones, he got really into it he says.

I pick out the last pieces from the box, two broken pieces of a small clay figure, I think that was part of it he says, something oriental I think.

I hold the two pieces together, pressing the smooth round head onto the shoulders, holding it up close to look at it.

It looks elegant, peaceful, it’s very well made, the eyes closed, the nose a delicate pinch, the shoulders and body almost formless.

I turn it over, I put it down, I put the head by its side.

It’s a shame it’s broken I say.

He must have dropped it he says.

He starts putting everything back in the box, stacking and arranging it all carefully so that it fits in.

I say do you want to go somewhere for lunch, he looks up and I say I mean, I haven’t got any food in, I.

He says no no, that would be good, we, I’d like that.

He says actually I’m not doing anything all day, we could maybe go somewhere for the afternoon, it is a bank holiday he says.

He’s looking at me, his hands have stopped moving, I look up and he blinks and I look away, he says I mean that’s if you’re not doing anything.

No I say, quickly, no I’m not doing anything, no that would be nice, some fresh air I say, a bit of exercise.

H

e smiles, he says okay, good, he finishes packing the box, he picks it up and he says well shall we go now?

Okay I say, smiling, I’ll meet you outside, I need to get a few things, and I open the door for him and watch him walking out to his car, I feel strange and lightheaded.

I pick up my purse, I drink a glass of water and fill a bottle, I look at the flowers again and step outside, into the sunshine, heading for the waiting car.