Free If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor Page B

pot, fills it with boiling water. He sets out a tray, two cups, two saucers, a small jug of milk, a small pot of sugar, two teaspoons. He breathes heavily as his hands struggle up to the high cupboards, fluttering like the wings of a caged bird.
    His wife doesn’t know, as he has known for weeks now, that any treatment they will be able to offer him will be, as the doctor had said, with a steady gaze and a hand to his arm, only in the form of palliative care. You do understand what that means don’t you she’d said, not even blinking, you do understand? And he’d looked straight back at her, holding her professional eye contact, and said yes, thankyou doctor, I do understand, yes. And he’d coughed, hard, repeatedly, spraying blooded phlegm into his handkerchief as if to prove how much he understood.
    Yes, thankyou doctor, I understand.
    Things are not exactly one hundred percent the way we would like them to be.
    He slips a tea-cosy over the pot and stands by the window a moment.
    He sees a young man sitting on the front garden wall of number seven, one of the foreign students it looks like, holding a pad of large paper, staring at the houses opposite.
    He sees a dog trotting along the middle of the road, a bald patch across one shoulder, an unevenness in its stride.
    He sees a construction crane rising up above the houses away to the right, a few streets away, stretching its neck over the rooftops like an anglepoise lamp.
    He picks up the tray and carries it through to his wife.

Chapter 11
    And so today I’m back on the telephone.
    I’m listening to my mother talking, and I’m waiting for the right moment to interrupt.
    I know that I have to tell her, I know that I will be able to tell her if I use the right words at the right moment.
    I know what the right words are, I’ve been sitting here for hours, choosing and unchoosing.
    And I know that I need help now, that in spite of everything my mother is the person to ask.
    I’m scared, I have always been scared at times like this, waiting to say something, waiting to be told off.
    Falling off the garden wall, and she says what the hell were you doing up there anyhow while she cleans the graze and presses a bandage around it.
    Dropping my dinner on the floor, and she shouts at me and sends me to bed, and when she brings me a sandwich later I throw it out of the window.
    My dad, saying nothing at these times, averting his eyes, folding his hands.
    I remember my dad taking me to school, when I was very young, when my mother was ill.
    The feel of his huge hand wrapped around mine, rough and hard and warm.
    The length of his strides, and having to run to keep up.
    The very cold days when he’d wrap his scarf around my face until it almost covered my eyes, and when I breathed in I could smell him in my mouth, damp cigarettes and bootwax and the same smell as his hair when he said goodnight.
    I remember that once he had to take me early so that hecould get to the shops before work, and I went and hid in the corner of the playground, behind the bins, with the scarf wrapped completely around my head like a mask.
    I remember how safe I felt, wrapped up like that, blinded.
    He didn’t say anything during those walks to school, but I used to look forward to them, I used to be secretly and ashamedly pleased if my mother didn’t appear for breakfast, impatient to leave the house.
    I wonder if he’ll say anything now.
    I wonder if he’ll turn away from the television, come to the phone, say something.
    I listen to her talking, and I remember those times she was ill, those strange blotches on her otherwise busy life.
    I remember the way it would go almost unmentioned, as though nothing out of the ordinary had happened.
    As though there was nothing to be concerned about.
    I remember having to creep into her room to say goodnight, her puffed red face turning to me from amongst the pillows and the blankets, the curtains closed and a desklamp pointing up at her from the bedside