by Jon McGregor
There’s a picture of the boys from number twenty-three, walking down the middle of the road, and on the back they’re all named, it says Jamie, Michael knows him, Rob, skateboarder, Jim and Andy I don’t know much about them except one of them plays guitar.
None of the people in the pictures look as though they know they’re being photographed, they’re all looking away slightly, unconcerned, uninvolved.
All the pictures have something in the corner, a window-frame, a curtain, a part of a front door, and all of the pictures look like secrets.
There’s a picture of me, I’m walking away down the street, I’m turning my head back to look at something, and on the back he’s written my name, he’s written something else and then crossed it out with thick repeated lines.
I look at each card, almost everyone on the street photographed and noted, sometimes a name, sometimes a comment, I look at each one in turn and when I have finished I stack them all in a neat pile.
The woman from over the road, the mum of the twins, standing at an open upstairs window, looking into the street, smiling, looking much younger than she must have been.
The man from next door, holding his hat off and pushing his fingers across his head like a comb, on the back it says I think they have an allotment somewhere but I think only his wife goes there.
I remember seeing her, pulling a shopping-bag trolley with a garden spade waving out of the top, trundling past, already wearing her gardening gloves, turning to us and saying hi-ho.
The man who was always washing his car, an empty bucket in his hand, a wet stripe down the front of his shirt as though he’d been running a race.
The young couple from the top flat opposite, I used to hear them arguing all the time but the picture shows them hand in hand and he is laughing.
There are other photos as well, without people, stuck to the cards without any explanation on the back, an armchair in an alleyway, a lamp-post painted red and green, a pigeon flying past with a twig in its beak.
A picture of a pavement by a bus stop, chickenpoxed with grey spots of spat chewing gum.
But mostly the pictures are of people, and mostly people in the street, the boy with the pierced eyebrow, the thin father of the kid with the tricycle, the man in the shop, standing behind his counter and smiling broadly into the camera.
On the back it says he was the only one I could ask, his name is Mr Rozi.
He says did you know all those people, I say I recognise them, I didn’t really know any of them, he says no.
He takes more things out of the box, a handful of curtain hooks, a jamjar full of cigarette ends.
He looks at the jar, he looks at me and he laughs, he says some of this stuff, it’s a bit, I don’t know, and he picks up the curtain hooks and starts passing them from hand to hand, letting them fall from one to the other like dominoes.
I say if he collects this much stuff while he’s travelling he’ll be driving a lorry by the time he comes back, and he looks up and half-smiles and the phone rings.
I get up and answer it, and Sarah says oh my God I don’t believe it.
I say hi, alright, I got your message, what’s up, what don’t you believe?
She says I just spoke to your mum, I lost your number so I called her to ask for it and she said she was worried about you, she said she thought I knew.
I say knew what, she says what do you think, I close my eyes and swear and turn away from the room, and as I do so I hear Michael picking up the teacups and carrying them through to the kitchen.
I say, oh, so she told you, she says yes I couldn’t believe it, I say I’m sorry I was going to tell you, I was just waiting, I was just waiting for, for a little while.
She says how long have you known when is it due who was the why didn’t you I mean, and her words come out all tangled and rushed, like a corrupted email.
I say Sarah I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about it before, but I really don’t want to talk about it now, not right now.
She says oh, sorry, and her voice sounds punctured.
I don’t want to upset her, I say shall we meet up, soon, do you want to come round?
Okay she says, okay, maybe at the weekend, that would be good I say, there’s a lot to talk about, we’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and she laughs a little, nervously.
She says, but, are you okay?
She says, your mum, she was worried, she seemed really worried about you.
I say I’m okay, I’m fine, Michael’s here, he just came round, I think we’re going somewhere for lunch, I’m okay, thanks for ringing, I do appreciate it, really.
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.
Chapter 28
In the bedroom of number nineteen, the mother of the twins lies awake in bed. Her husband sleeps, undisturbed, and she lies still beside him, locked inside the knowledge of absolute pleasure, thinking about the times when this was not the way of things, the times when there was a shadow over their moments together, the shadow of a thing not happened, the shadow of the family thinking badly of them, of her.
She runs her fingers across the smallness of her stomach, and she remembers when this was a painful thing, a thing to be wept over.
A thing to be prayed over.
She pulls at the slight looseness of the skin around her stomach and hips, runs the side of her thumb along the tiny ridges and turns of the marks left by what was there, by the slow swell and stretch of her body.
She remembers the weight of it, the enormousness, she remembers the miracle of it, her body changing to make room for a new body, for two bodies.
And she thinks about the years of impossibility, the unblessed years, the word her husband’s mother used, saying it is a shame that you are unblessed.
And she didn’t mean shame the way some people say it, like as a small sadness, like as when they say it is a shame it is raining, this is not how she used the word, she used it in the old way, the word shame meaning humiliation and embarrassment and wrongness. Shame meaning lower your head and do not look at me you are a bringer of shame into my son’s household.
She didn’t speak quite this clearly, but the things she said meant these things, bitter, spiteful things, and she only said them when neither of the men were in the house.
It was some years ago now, but she still finds it difficult to find excuses for her, the things she said, the way she was.
Her husband makes a noise in his sleep, moves, turns towards her, lays a blind arm across her breast and nuzzles his mouth into her shoulder. She takes his hand and twists her fingers into his, and it looks the same as when their sons were born, when they were laid down toe to toe and they moved together and tangled their legs.
And when she thinks of that moment, of looking at her two newborn sons, her heart blossoms within her, just as it did at the time. She thinks of what it took for them to be born, of all the procedures and rituals, the medicines and the special diets, the calendars and thermometers and endless tests, blood tests and urine tests, and others.
She thinks of the shame of her husband, having to spill his seed into a plastic bottle, she is glad his mother did not know about that. He was quieter for a time after that, after the doctor had talked to him about that test, he said he felt like he was a smaller man, a lesser man. But she kissed him, and she held him, and she told him he was the same to her as he always was, and after a while he believed her and he talked to her about what the doctor had said, the advice he’d been given.
Even now, seven, eight years later, it makes her smile to remember the things they had to do to make the impossible more possible, to call down their blessings. They were things that seemed too ordinary, too mundane, it felt like looking for treasure by guessing six numbers.
She thinks of the things, she kisses her husband’s hand and smiles.
Warm baths, a run in the park, less fatty food.
Looser-fitting underwear.
It had seemed so useless, such an insignificant action in the face of barrenness, like a small glass of water in the middle of the desert, like knocking on a huge iron door with the knuckle of one finger. And so their hopes had not been raised, and they had continued with everything else, the charts and the calculations, the temperatures and the weighings, the estimations of the most suitable time. Fertile windows is what the doctor had said, she said you must estimate your fertile windows and make full use of them. It had seemed a funny expression to her, it made her think of a derelict cottage with ivy and moss growing through the cracked panes of glass.
But still, they estimated their fertile windows, and they made full use of them. She smiles, and her body swells with pleasure, with the memory of pleasure, and she turns slightly and presses herself against her husband. She remembers him once, feigning reluctance, saying my love do you think perhaps we are over-estimating these so-called fertile windows? And she had said yes, I think so, and they had made full use of it.
She looks at him now, his eyes closed, his mouth open, every detail of his face lit up by the sunlight flooding back into the room. His cheeks, rough and a little loose around the bones, the day’s stubble already itching through the skin, dark points peppered with silver. She thinks of the sound her palm would make as it brushed against those tiny hairs, a rasp like the grating of a nutmeg. She touches his skin, gently, she outlines his eyes and his lips, she follows the furrows of his forehead, pinches the thick hair of his eyebrows between her finger and thumb, tugs it into little tufts. He murmurs something, frowns slightly in his sleep, turns his body away a little, his face wriggling back towards her. She whispers a shush, and trails her middle finger across his forehead, down the length of his nose and onto his lips.
She thinks of his face in that moment, remembers the way it changed so suddenly when she told him, it was like the hugest firework on the darkest night, flashing and sparkling and exploding in front of her, his eyes stretched wide, his mouth lifted open and his teeth flashing white and gold, crackles and hisses of delight bursting out from somewhere deep inside him. Oh is it true? he said, oh really? oh is it true? oh praise be he said, oh I am so happy, oh thankyou thankyou he said, and she’d realised he was saying it to her so she’d laughed and said no thankyou, thankyou Mr Baggypants, and he’d laughed, and they’d held each other, and read the letter from the doctor over and over again, talking with joy and excitement long into the night, talking of who they would tell first and when they would tell them, talking of clothes and cots and prams, of decorating the box-room, of good sleep and good food, of extra money, of names. Talking for hours of a good name, for weeks and months as her body swelled and her steps slowed, as the sickness came and went and the excitement grew, as the visits from relatives and friends increased, always thinking of a name. Writing lists, trying out favourites, looking through books for new ideas.
She remembers those last few weeks, isolated in the house, surrounded by people trying to help, surrounded by stories of how it was for them, advice piling up around her like the gifts in the corner of the room.
She remembers how uncomfortable it was, that time, the pain of moving around, the difficulty of sleep, the overwhelming feeling of such bigness, wanting it to be over and yet so fearful of the finishing. She remembers her husband spreading his broad hands across her belly, thumb against thumb and his little fingers not stretching anywhere near her hip bones. How does it feel he’d said, how does it feel to be so strange and new? and she’d said I feel like a mammal and he’d laughed and said but we are, humans are mammals you know. And she’d said no, I don’t mean, and been unable to explain what she did mean, that she felt like a damn elephant, a whale, huge and stately and balloon-like but also she meant not like a human at all, like an animal, locked into a process much bigger than herself, more than one human being, she meant that she felt part of a species, part of something that nature was doing and she had no control of.
The night before it happened, he’d spread his hands again, pressed them palm flat to her swollen skin, a skin so stretched that it seemed translucent, held his hands there and said my God this is going to be a hell of a big baby.
She remembers him saying this, she smiles and she shakes her head, she wonders how she could have had no idea, how neither of t
hem could have had the thought even pass through their minds.
She remembers his awestruck idiocy when he found out, when it was over and he was brought into the room and all he could do was look at her and say my God there is two of them.
She touches his lips with one finger again, stroking the knuckle against the chapped edges of his upper and lower lip, he moves his mouth, his eyelids lift a little, like papers rustling in a light breeze. She whispers wake up, she leans her face across to kiss his mouth, she rolls the weight of her body onto him, feeling the warmth of the sun on her back, moving her head so that her shadow bounces in and out of his eyes. He wakes up, he opens his eyes and she spreads her fingers flat across his chest, moving her hips so that his belly rolls a little from side to side.
She says have you slept enough now, are you rested?
She says the house is still empty you know.
And he raises his eyebrows, and there is a rolling of bodies, a rustling of tangled bedclothes, a creaking of old bedsprings.
And in a moment’s breathless pause, blinking at each other and already wiping sweat from a forehead, she thinks of their further surprise, a few short months after their doubled blessing, the unexpected planting of a third child they had not been ready for, and she knows they were right to seal off further possibility, to let the doctors take scissors and stitches to her husband and close the shutters on their fertile windows. There is not the money she’d said, my body is tired, and he had not been able to deny her that. We have been given more than we asked for she’d said, this is enough now, and he had agreed.
They had kept it a secret, they were not sure his parents would approve, but his mother had made no more comment about extra brothers and sisters for their children. Perhaps she thinks three is enough after all. Perhaps she thinks that they no longer move together in that way, now there is no need.
