by Jan Carson
Lately my brother has begun a new project. He is building himself a suit of armour which will protect him from all the people who might probably kill him.
The real suit of armour will take months and months, possibly years to be finished. However, my brother is building practise armour out of tinfoil. He tapes the tinfoil to his body with Scotch tape and gathers the ankles and wrists together with elastic bands. He wears mismatched oven mitts on his hands. The thumb is in the wrong place on the left. He wears my father’s old fishing boots on his feet and the motorcycle helmet up top.
‘I wish you could see me,’ he says, whispering into the Campbell’s-soup-can phone, ‘I look just like an astronaut in my armour.’
This is a dumb thing for my brother to say. He has not yet tested out the armour. If someone sees him at this stage he might probably die.
My brother practises on next door’s kitten, which is now a cat.
He stands in the middle of the spare room wearing his tinfoil armour and makes the noise which attracts cats. My mother, before she went up in flames, told me that people in France make a different noise to attract cats. If this is true I find it very intriguing. It means that animals can speak in foreign languages and that is a very interesting idea to consider. However, having known my mother in the years before she went up in flames, it is more than likely bullshit.
My brother practises being seen with next door’s cat. He stands in the middle of the spare room, wearing his tinfoil armour and forces the cat to look straight at him. He does not come out in hives. The tinfoil armour is an all round success, though not very practical, as it rips every time he takes a step.
‘Back to the drawing board,’ my brother mutters down the Campbell’s-soup-can phone, but he sounds happy.
One Sunday afternoon, my brother practised on next door’s cat without his tinfoil armour. Afterwards he told me all about it. The experiment was not a success. My brother only got as far as removing the tinfoil arms and his left leg before the hives started and he began to probably die so quickly he had to hide in the spare-room closet for three hours. It was a close call. It took two weeks for my brother to fully recover. But he did recover. My brother has always been odd and determined, as was my mother who’d been vowing to go up in flames for years before she finally managed it.
Last weekend I saw my brother climbing the fire escape outside the spare-room window, stark naked with only the rooftop pigeons to watch his progress. Pausing halfway up the ladder, he scattered huge handfuls of breadcrumbs into the night sky while the pigeons swooped and dived and saw him in all his milk-white glory. I said nothing, following his logic from a distance. Being seen by a pigeon is a hell of a lot less like being seen by a real person than next door’s cat. There were no repercussions to the whole pigeon experiment. Perhaps my brother is recovering from his very serious condition.
I said nothing. If my brother knew I had seen him stark naked on the fire escape, the chances are he might probably have died.
The real suit of armour is well under way now.
I steal knives and forks for him, fine cutlery from the street cafés outside our apartment. I carry a huge bag every time I leave the apartment. My mother used to keep all her wigs in this bag. It is big enough to hide next door’s cat and two other cats beside, should I ever have the inclination. I steal almost everything that isn’t pinned down.
I am like a magpie. I’m particularly drawn to shiny things.
I steal knives and forks, biscuit-tin lids, hubcaps from the cars which park in the side streets behind our apartment, bicycle chains, scissors, nails and screws right out of peoples’ doors. I steal earrings and necklaces from the department stores in the city centre. I’ll steal anything made of metal. I shrink my lungs down into my stomach and do my youngest, smallest face so no one will notice me. Then I slide things into my enormous bag and run all the way home to our apartment.
I have never been caught.
Perhaps I am very good at stealing and this is why I have never been caught. Perhaps it is because I only steal things which no one else wants.
My brother once said to me, ‘You should read Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens because it is about children who steal things. Maybe you will get some tips.’
What a good idea, I thought. The very next day I stole the Oliver Twist book from the downtown library. It was the only non-metallic thing I’ve ever stolen. I read it cover to cover in less than two days and wished I hadn’t bothered. I learnt nothing new from Oliver Twist. The words were old-fashioned and gave me a migraine headache.
My brother keeps me up late with the banging.
Somewhere on the other side of the trash-bag wall he is building a beautiful thing: a shiny, shiny suit of armour which will keep him safe every time he might probably die. I dream that suit of armour like you would not believe. I dream that all the banging, all the soldering and spoons, hubcaps and bicycle chains will build me a new brother: a seven-foot-tall brother with iron lungs and a silver smile. I dream a brother who might probably never die, who will climb fire escapes late at night and shine like a constellation prize. I dream a golden brother who no longer lives in the spare-room closet, a brother who works properly.
The banging stops. It is 4:30 in the morning.
‘Picture this,’ my real brother says, humming down the Campbell’s-soup-can phone, ‘I have robot arms and robot legs. I sing like a wristwatch when I walk. I am, all but my feet, invincible now.’
I am happy for him in his biscuit-tin suit, smiling over his soldering irons with a seven-inch zip for a mouth. And, I am at the same time sad for his real-boy face, which I can never again see, and his skin, which is halfway freckled on both cheeks, exactly like mine.
Sometimes I am lonely, like a real girl should be. I whisper the loneliness into the Campbell’s-soup-can phone, early in the morning when I am sure my brother will be asleep.
I know all the boys in our apartment block. I bring them home and stick them like Band-Aids on the loneliness.
‘Ignore the cat,’ I say, ‘and the banging. It’s only my brother who might probably die if anyone sees him.’
They think I am crazy, like my mother who went up in flames, leaving a charred spot on the living-room floor. I serve them root beer in tall glasses and turn cartwheels across the floorboards.
‘Ignore the banging,’ I say. ‘Watch my legs make distractions in the air.’
I strip down to my underwear and turn cartwheels up and down the living-room floor while the boys drink root beer and look nervously at the charred place where my mother went up in flames.
I never tell the truth. I have always been more of a handstand girl, but these days it smarts to stand still.
The banging persists, sharking under the trash-bag curtain. The boys get nervous. They look at their watches and check their cell phones for a getaway plan. I take both my arms and tie them to the living-room sofa. I turn more cartwheels and the cartwheels are secret code for, ‘Do not leave me. I am lonely with my brother who cannot be seen and the charred place where my mother went up in flames. Drink my root beer and talk to me like a real boy with a mouth that moves. Watch detective shows on cable. Bitch about the beautiful girls from the year above.’
The banging persists. The boys get nervous. My mouth will not move honestly without a Campbell’s-soup-can phone.
I hold their knees and say, ‘I am very good at doing sex, you know.’
All the boys in our apartment block want to hear this, but none of them know how to respond. They strip down to their underwear and turn cartwheels across the living room floor, avoiding the charred place where my mother went up in flames, and though I am more of a handstand girl, even this is better than silence. When the banging grows too cymbal-sharp to ignore, they leave through the front door.
They stop at every apartment on our floor and say, ‘It’s so sad. Those kids are crazy. We should send round Social Services, or a chicken casserole.’ They do not mention the cartwheels or the
rings, and chains, the belt buckles, braces and earrings they have paid for the privilege of being with me.
I am lonely like a houseplant, practicing my handstands against the bathroom door.
The armour is almost done.
At night my brother wears the motorcycle helmet and we talk. As long as he keeps the motorcycle helmet on, we can have real conversations, pulling our sentences backwards and forwards across our Campbell’s-soup-can phones. We talk about the ever after. We talk about taking a vacation in a dry place; New Mexico is always an option. We talk about asking for help and always agree to talk more at a later date.
God is on our side. We asked him specially and he slept on it for three days, rising on the third to say, ‘Yes, yes and yes again.’ We are still his children and we are glad like you would not believe. We write our gladness in the margarine tub with butter knives and baby fingers, passing the margarine like secret messages backwards and forwards beneath the trash-bag wall. God is on our side, giving us good things: coupons for free fries at McDonald’s, next door’s kitten, the perfect imprint of a dead moth on the bathroom tiles, a mother who left before she could do any real damage.
We do not talk about our mother now. I avoid the charred place in the living room where she went up in flames and her closet, which still smells like hairspray and dime-store soap. I drink her vodka and throw her records from the open windows and pretend like she never asked for children made in her own image. Every morning I watch my face in the bathroom mirror. I am becoming her, woebegone eyebrows and all. I pinch my cheeks and fold my nose. I suck my lips till they bleed carnation pink.
I say, ‘We are not our mother. We will not go up in flames nor disappear with the sadness.’
On very good mornings, the days when we have pancakes, I almost believe myself.
The banging is much slower these days. The armour is almost finished.
I ask my brother when he will be done.
‘Soon,’ he says.
Soon is not a year or months from now. Soon is Tuesday evening at six o’clock, after Quincy and a microwaved lasagne.
‘It works,’ my brother says. Last words and first words, smiling down the Campbell’s-soup-can phone. ‘Even my feet are invincible now. I have practised on next door’s cat and a whole host of unsuspecting pigeons. I am ready to come out of the spare-room closet.’
My brother comes out, ripping the trash-bag curtain from side to side in one huge metallic swoop. He stands before me, seven feet tall in his silver boots. He is an astronaut, a robot, a golden calf waiting to topple over. He is half blind with the glare and accidentally steps in the charred place where our mother went up in flames. I wonder if he can feel her sadness seeping all the way through his robot shoes.
I reach out one finger and trace the outline of a dinner fork across the left side of his belly. He feels nothing. I pin fridge magnets to his back. He feels nothing. I beat him over the head with a fish slice and an industrial-sized whisk. He feels nothing, only registering the dull clunk of metal on insulated metal.
I say, ‘Can you see me seeing you? Do you still think you might probably die if I see you?’
He says nothing.
I push the Campbell’s-soup-can phone against the side of his motorcycle-helmet head and repeat my question, yelling so loud that next door’s cat retreats to the safety of the fire escape.
No response, but I think he’s smiling.
I strip down to my underwear and turn cartwheels all across the living room floor even though I know it’s wrong. My brother stands right there by the coffee table, beaming like a television antenna. He is shiny and useless, safe as cabbage. He might probably never die and I am mad like you would not believe.
I let my brother stand for three weeks straight. He has not yet chanced the world outside our apartment door. He sleeps standing up in his armour and eats through a tiny tube attached to the motorcycle helmet. I liquidise everything, even his root beer, and pour the liquids into his head as if he is a potted plant.
I imagine my brother is disappearing inside his armour and no amount of cartwheels will bring him back.
I am lonely like my lungs are falling out. I have no friends my own age, even the boys from our apartment block no longer believe me when I say, ‘I am very good at doing sex.’ I have nothing left to steal and no one to hold still for. I watch detective shows on cable and sleep with one arm around next door’s kitten, who is now a cat and squeals loudly at my advances, preferring anyone’s arms to mine, even my mechanical brother’s.
When the loneliness gets too loud to swallow, I take a tin opener and slice my brother wide open in his sleep. I see him. He is milk-white under the metal. His arms and legs are the colour of frozen sausages. I see him for thirty minutes, a whole half hour of seeing. I know that he might probably die now, but I cannot quit seeing.
Nothing happens. My brother sleeps like a baby, unaware of the seeing and the wide metal gash splicing him open as if he was a tin of beans. I can almost see his insides.
I go sit in the charred place on the living room floor. I think about going up in flames and my eyebrows are already there.
8.
Contemporary Uses for a Belfast Box Room
Box room: A room or cupboard used for storing miscellaneous articles, too good to be thrown out or given away, which may be useful at some future time.
One: Least-Favourite Child
When the second child arrived – sky-eyed and abundantly blond, with a keen, Northern wit already peaking – the first child lost its appeal.
‘What’s the point of it?’ they asked, turning the first child backwards and forwards like long division on the living room rug. ‘It’s not particularly bonny. It doesn’t speak. It can’t even stand up without the assistance of furniture.’
‘It costs money,’ they agreed and suspected it was not worth the investment.
‘I’d have preferred a boat,’ he admitted. She had thoughts of en-suite bathrooms and Continental holidays, unmentioned.
Though no one, not even the lady doctor, had thought to warn them, they soon discovered it was almost impossible to return a child, once opened.
‘But this isn’t what we ordered,’ they’d explained, hanging on the hospital telephone till the pips dripped feebly into the middle distance. ‘It doesn’t even understand English. Can’t we get a different one?’
The hospital had other things to be getting on with: genuine emergencies and two-car pile-ups, a harrowing bed shortage in the A & E. ‘It could be worse,’ snapped the lady doctor. ‘We might have given you a pair.’ She hung up before they could petition the managing director.
They shrugged their disappointment and installed the first child in the spare bedroom, where it fussed and fell over and could not be coerced into polite conversation, even after several glasses of red.
They were not deliberately cruel. They tolerated the child’s presence at meals and in short, social bursts during the space between one television programme and the next. Three weeks after its arrival they gave it a name. Yet, from time to time, rising in the night to fill and empty the child, they could recall neither its given name nor a single significant feature which might set it apart from other more useful household appliances.
The second child was Christmas in comparison.
She arrived with a name, with a bright academic future and advanced conversational skills. They couldn’t have been more delighted. Their only regret was a niggling suspicion that they should have ordered two. Accustomed to measuring their concern in small, dutiful teaspoons, they were surprised to find themselves capable of spades, buckets and a tremendous landsliding love.
‘Surely,’ they said, setting the first child against its secondary sibling, ‘anyone with an eye in his head would favour the new one.’
The second child beamed back at them, a mirror for their worst and best. The first child, rising in its own defence, reached for a kindly piece of furniture and, finding that even the coffee table
had now turned its wooden back, fell flatly upon its own unremarkable arse.
Thus convinced, they moved the first child into the box room and installed the second in the spare bedroom.
When visitors and close family friends enquired about this odd arrangement, pointing out that surely the first child, by nature of birth, deserved the spare room, they could barely muster a contrite blush.
‘The second one’s our favourite,’ they stated boldly. ‘She deserves plenty of room to grow.’
In time they proved themselves entirely justified, for the first child, constricted by the boots, the suitcases and paperback novels which had accumulated in the box room, never grew long or loud enough to defend its own birthright.
Two: Storing Poets
After six years, he realised that the novel was going nowhere. Where he’d hoped for a final, pointed full stop, self-indulgence had unleashed subplots, appendices and a whole swooning troop of half-boiled sentiments.
At cocktail parties and funerals, he quit calling himself a ‘novelist’, then a ‘writer’ and finally could not think of anything to call himself, and hung like a pair of inconspicuous curtains by the refreshments table. He came to despise words and, having never fully trusted numbers, wondered if there were jobs which might require no constructive thought: professional athletics perhaps, or deep-sea diving. On the night before Halloween, he dreamt himself a plumber’s assistant and woke happier than a hothouse flower.
‘It’s only paper,’ he said and felt confident that it could be made to disappear, individual sheets and sentences disintegrating until it was no longer a mountain but rather the ghost of an avalanche, avoided.
The following morning he confronted his wife over breakfast.
‘Darling,’ he said, and could tell she was immediately suspicious, ‘after the weekend I’m going to get a proper job and no longer be a novelist.’
