If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things

Chapter 21

He changes gear.

He says don’t you ever wonder about him?

I say who, he says that guy, in Scotland, don’t you ever wonder?

I say well no, not really.

I think about it, about him and that night, and an image passes through my mind, all skin and teeth and hands, snagging my stomach like a dress caught in a door, closing my eyes.

I imagine knocking on his door, taking that long walk up the steep side of the city and waiting breathlessly outside his house.

I imagine bemusement on his face, delight, embarrassment.

I imagine him standing with one hand on the door and the other on the frame, his body wedged in between, his uncertainty like a pensioner’s doorchain.

I remember the smell of his neck.

I say well no, you know, it was just a thing.

It wasn’t anything else I say, it was just a thing that happened.

He pushes a little button, and soapy water squirts onto the windscreen, some of it catches in the wind and flails off to either side.

He says but did you never want to go back and do it again?

He turns the windscreen wipers on, and they squeak back and forth until the soapy water has cleared.

He says didn’t you wonder what he was thinking about you?

He says and when you found out did you wonder what he might do if you told him?

I look at him.

I say actually can we talk about something else now.

He says sorry, I just, you know, and he fiddles with the air vents in the middle of the dashboard.

He says are you too warm?

I can change the ventilation he says, and he shuffles the sliding control from left to right, clicks another dial around, holds his palm over the vent to feel the air breathing through.

He says it’s just that I’ve never been in that situation, you know, I just wondered, I didn’t mean anything.

I look at him, and his eyes are squeezing and blinking just like his brother’s.

I say what did your brother tell you about me?

He says everything he knew, he says which wasn’t very much I suppose.

He told me what you looked like he says, and what course you were doing, and what clothes you wore.

He says he told me the way you smiled, what your voice sounded like, who you lived with, what flavour crisps you bought when he saw you in the shop, how different you looked when you took your glasses off, what it felt like when you touched his arm.

I say I don’t remember touching his arm.

He says no I didn’t think you would.

We overtake a lorry with its sides rolled back and I look at the fields and the sky through its ribbed frame, there are bales of hay rolled up like slices of carpet, there’s a sprawling V of birds hanging over the horizon.

I don’t know what he means.

He says, my brother, he could, he can be a bit strange sometimes, I say what do you mean.

He says, well, just strange things, like once he sent me a list of all the clothes you’d worn that week, really detailed, colours and fabrics and styles and how they made you look and how you looked as though they made you feel.

He looks at me and says and it wasn’t creepy or anything, he wasn’t being obsessive, it was just, you know, observations.

He was thinking he wanted to buy you a present he says, and he wanted to get it right.

He winds his window down very slightly, and a thin buffet of air blows in across us both.

He sort of collects things as well he says, things he finds in the street, like till receipts and study notes and pages torn from magazines, and one time he took a whole pile of shattered car-window pieces and made a necklace out of them he says.

He said they were urban diamonds he says.

He made a glass case he says, and he mounted a row of used needles he found in an alleyway.

And if he couldn’t take it home he’d take a photo of it he says, he had albums full of stuff.

He says he told me he hated the way everything was ignored and lost and thrown away.

He says he told me he was an archaeologist of the present, and he laughs at this and turns the radio on and I don’t know what to say.

There’s a boy band on, from years ago, singing when will I will I be famous, and I wonder what Craig and Matt and Luke are doing now.

I say, please, what’s your brother’s name?

He doesn’t say anything, he looks over his shoulder, overtakes someone, changes the radio station.

I say he sounds interesting, it’s a shame I didn’t get to talk to him more.

He says but you did, at that party, and he looks at me and a car behind us flares its horn as we drift across into the next lane.

He straightens out and keeps his eyes on the road and says sorry.

I say that’s okay, what do you mean, what party?

He says there was a party you both went to, he told me about it, you spent the evening talking to each other, he walked you home and then you were so drunk you forgot about it.

No I say, no I don’t remember that, and I think and I try and remember, no I say, I really don’t remember.

He doesn’t say anything, he turns the radio up a little and adjusts his seat, he says do you know the way, do you want to look at the map.

I look at the map, I look out of the window and I recognise the landscape, I recognise the way the fields are tipping up towards the first edges of the town, away to the far left, I look at the map again.

I say but I would like to meet him, when he comes back, do you think he’ll want to I say, and he says yes, very quietly, yes I think he would.

We come off the motorway at the next junction, and I start slipping directions into the conversation.

He says do you think it was weird, me saying that about my brother, you know, about him being in love?

I think for a moment, left at this next roundabout I say.

We drive past a retail estate, and I see a line of cars crossing an empty carpark like wagons across a prairie.

I say well yes, I did, it did throw me a bit, it wasn’t really what I was expecting.

Straight over at these lights I say.

It’s a big word I say, love, it seems a bit, you know, clumsy.

He says I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to spin you out, I wanted to tell you, I wanted to see what you thought, I say but I don’t really think anything I don’t even know him, I’m sorry.

No he says, I suppose not.

Left at this pub I say, and we swing into my old estate, lunging over battered speed-bumps, and I wind down my window and it all comes rushing in, this place, the smell of it, the feel of it, pieces of things that happened when I was younger.

Right at the mini roundabout I say, and I remember falling off my bike and breaking my glasses, my mum stopping my pocket money until the new pair was paid for, left past the shops I say.

Can I ask you something I say, he says yes, he turns the radio off, I say why are you doing this?

He says you said you couldn’t afford the train fare, no not that I say.

I say why are you here, now, telling me all these things about your brother, asking me how I feel, what are you trying to achieve?

He stops the car, suddenly, he looks at me and says shit I’m sorry I didn’t mean to upset you.

You haven’t upset me I say, I just, it’s a strange thing to do and I’m interested to know why you’re doing it.

I don’t know he says, he looks atme, I can’t answer that he says.

He says he told me you looked lonely and he couldn’t do anything about it.

We drive past my old junior school, left I say, left again, and then round a corner and we’re outside my parents’ house, my house.

I thank him for the lift, I offer him a cup of tea before he goes.

He says no, thanks, I should probably leave you to it, and he gives me the phone number of where he’s staying, he says call me when you want to go back.

He says, if that’s okay, I mean, if you don’t mind, and I smile and say of course I don’t mind.

He drives away, and I wave, and I stand outside my house and wait.

I look down at my stomach, and I wonder if it shows properly.

It feels different to me already, when I lay my hands across it I can feel the swelling, like a deep breath in a very tight dress, the stretch of it, and I wonder if anyone else can see.

I wonder if my dad will be able to see.

I ring the doorbell.