Read Online If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things by Jon McGregor - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jon McGregor
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said ah, bin is over there, pointing to the other side of the road.
And at work I spent the whole day trying to decide how I could tell someone, who I could tell.
I even wrote lists, names, opening lines, all by the way and actually there is something and can I tell you.
I wondered if a conversation could turn that way, if I’d get the chance to say oh well it’s funny you should mention that because.
I wondered if I’d take the chance, even if it were to be offered.
I still had the plasters on my hands, I had to keep them hidden, I kept my fists closed, hid my hands under the desk to peel them off.
They left sticky trails around the edges, like chalk outlines on crime scene pavements, and when I rubbed at them they curled into dark strings and twisted across my skin.
I looked at the wounds for a long time, turning my hands under the desklight, a dozen pink unstitchings already beginning to fade and heal.
The marks are still there now, and I’m worried they might scar, I’m worried what people might think.
If they saw, if they looked at my hands and they noticed.
Chapter 10
He knows. He sits in his kitchen, breathing clearly again, the old man upstairs at number twenty, he listens to the sound of his blood crashing through his ears. He sits, and he looks at the cooling kettle, and he knows. The doctor told him, told him as much as she could, over the course of a few appointments, in between various tests.
I don’t like the sound of those lungs of yours she said, first.
They sound rather unhappy to me she’d said, with the ice-cold searchlight of a stethoscope pressed against his chest, with a concentrated look in her eyes like she was trying to imagine herself inside him.
I’d like to find out some more about that she’d said, do a few tests, make sure it’s nothing untoward. That was what she’d said, untoward, and he remembers thinking it was a strangely old-fashioned word for a young woman like her to be using.
He remembers noticing that she kept the stethoscope in a long black case with polished brass fastenings and an engraved plaque. It had looked like a present from somebody, and he’d thought it was a strange thing to give as a gift, and he’d wondered how long she’d had it, how many unhappy sounds she’d heard through its earpieces.
That was where it started, with unhappy-sounding lungs. I’d like to find out some more about that she’d said. He hadn’t liked the way she’d talked to him, not at first, it had seemed patronising, distant. But now, now that things are how they are, he is glad of her manner. It helps him to hear all that she says, the details, the projections. And he knows.
But his wife, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know a thing.
That first time, when he’d returned from the clinic with a thumb-sized plaster over the puncture in his arm, he’d said everything was fine there was nothing to worry about, he was fit as a fiddle. And he’d gone on to prove it, in a way which surprised them both and made her feel much younger than she was. He’d only lied to stop her worrying, he’d only lied because he didn’t think there was anything to worry about. He’d thought the doctor would call him back in, tell him some things about the blood test that he didn’t understand, and then say he should exercise a little more. Cut down on fried foods. Drink less. And his wife does take to worrying easily and he didn’t want her fretting over something so insignificant.
Next door, the young man with the bloodshot eyes begins his packing by taking down his work from the walls. He is ready to leave this house now, he has left his mark here and he is ready to pack his things and leave, so he takes down the papers and photographs and objects that are blutacked and pinned to the walls.
Most of the papers are to do with his work, notes and plans and quotations to help him structure his dissertation, sketches of burning Viking longboats, of prehistoric burial mounds, of Indian
And at work I spent the whole day trying to decide how I could tell someone, who I could tell.
I even wrote lists, names, opening lines, all by the way and actually there is something and can I tell you.
I wondered if a conversation could turn that way, if I’d get the chance to say oh well it’s funny you should mention that because.
I wondered if I’d take the chance, even if it were to be offered.
I still had the plasters on my hands, I had to keep them hidden, I kept my fists closed, hid my hands under the desk to peel them off.
They left sticky trails around the edges, like chalk outlines on crime scene pavements, and when I rubbed at them they curled into dark strings and twisted across my skin.
I looked at the wounds for a long time, turning my hands under the desklight, a dozen pink unstitchings already beginning to fade and heal.
The marks are still there now, and I’m worried they might scar, I’m worried what people might think.
If they saw, if they looked at my hands and they noticed.
Chapter 10
He knows. He sits in his kitchen, breathing clearly again, the old man upstairs at number twenty, he listens to the sound of his blood crashing through his ears. He sits, and he looks at the cooling kettle, and he knows. The doctor told him, told him as much as she could, over the course of a few appointments, in between various tests.
I don’t like the sound of those lungs of yours she said, first.
They sound rather unhappy to me she’d said, with the ice-cold searchlight of a stethoscope pressed against his chest, with a concentrated look in her eyes like she was trying to imagine herself inside him.
I’d like to find out some more about that she’d said, do a few tests, make sure it’s nothing untoward. That was what she’d said, untoward, and he remembers thinking it was a strangely old-fashioned word for a young woman like her to be using.
He remembers noticing that she kept the stethoscope in a long black case with polished brass fastenings and an engraved plaque. It had looked like a present from somebody, and he’d thought it was a strange thing to give as a gift, and he’d wondered how long she’d had it, how many unhappy sounds she’d heard through its earpieces.
That was where it started, with unhappy-sounding lungs. I’d like to find out some more about that she’d said. He hadn’t liked the way she’d talked to him, not at first, it had seemed patronising, distant. But now, now that things are how they are, he is glad of her manner. It helps him to hear all that she says, the details, the projections. And he knows.
But his wife, she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know a thing.
That first time, when he’d returned from the clinic with a thumb-sized plaster over the puncture in his arm, he’d said everything was fine there was nothing to worry about, he was fit as a fiddle. And he’d gone on to prove it, in a way which surprised them both and made her feel much younger than she was. He’d only lied to stop her worrying, he’d only lied because he didn’t think there was anything to worry about. He’d thought the doctor would call him back in, tell him some things about the blood test that he didn’t understand, and then say he should exercise a little more. Cut down on fried foods. Drink less. And his wife does take to worrying easily and he didn’t want her fretting over something so insignificant.
Next door, the young man with the bloodshot eyes begins his packing by taking down his work from the walls. He is ready to leave this house now, he has left his mark here and he is ready to pack his things and leave, so he takes down the papers and photographs and objects that are blutacked and pinned to the walls.
Most of the papers are to do with his work, notes and plans and quotations to help him structure his dissertation, sketches of burning Viking longboats, of prehistoric burial mounds, of Indian
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