This Isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You. Jon McGregor
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those two children on the bridge, throwing scraps of paper into the water, watching the water rise higher, perhaps they will have the sense to know what is happening, perhaps they will climb a tree and scan the horizon for a place of safety. Or perhaps in desperation they will take their umbrellas and turn them into boats, drop them into the river and ride them wherever the current goes. Or perhaps they’re too big for that now.
And whenever it looks as though the rain will stop, people will come out of their houses and peer up at the sky. They will lift their faces and let themselves be soaked while they stare at the thinning clouds, retreating to the safety of their houses, their upstairs bedrooms, their rooftops.
This will be in the first few weeks. Before they realise.
When it happens there will be people rushing by, the torrential current of the new river sweeping them quickly and terribly past. And he won’t be able to help them. But he’ll look, and if he sees two little ones hurtling along, two red-haired, wide-eyed little ones, he’ll reach out with a big net on the end of a long pole he’s got there ready, and he’ll pull them in, dry them off and wrap them up warm and cook them supper. And they can all stay together in the treehouse for as long as it takes, and if the children get bored there will be paper and crayons for them to draw with, write messages on, make little model boats from. And if they need to leave they’ll have the raft. They’ll be ready.
The sky is clear now, but the rain is coming. He can smell it.
Sometimes when he wakes it’s still only just getting light. It’s good, to stand there and watch the morning creep up on the world, the river a shadow in front of him, the cold air against his skin. It’s a privilege. Sometimes he can just stand there for a whole hour, watching the shapes and colours taking form out of the darkness. The streams and ditches all glinting like silver threads.
It is sometimes a very beautiful world. It’s a shame, what will happen.
It’s rare, though, to spend an hour watching the morning arrive like that. People don’t. It’s rare for people to even spend a moment enjoying their first piss of the day, the way he does. People are so busy. They’ll brush their teeth sitting on the toilet to save a few minutes. Eat breakfast standing up. They don’t have the time to watch the colour bleed into the world each day. They have meetings, schedules, documents. They don’t have time to listen to each other, to be patient with the difficulties of expression. They haven’t got the time to stand and watch a man say nothing except: I can’t explain, or: I don’t know how to say it. There are important things to be done, and a man who will spend a day standing at a window is not a man who can fit into such functional and fulfilling lives.
These are not people with ears to hear or eyes to see. These are not people who will understand, when it comes.
They will say they understand. They will say they know it might take a while to come to terms. But one day there will be shouting, there will be a cracked voice saying: I don’t have time to deal with all this. There will be the banging of objects against hard surfaces, a waving of arms, children standing and crying.
They don’t have time. They have busy and important things to do. They need somebody who can be there for them. They need somebody who can go back to work, even after that. Silence and stillness and contemplation aren’t going to pay the bills.
This is how his days begin, now. He asked me to tell you. He wakes up, he walks across the rough wooden floor, he holds on to the doorframe and he pisses on to the stony ground.
He looks at the height of the river and the colour of the sky. He looks up at the half-built treehouse, and the raft, and he plans his work for the day.
Soon it will rain. And people won’t understand. They’ll just put on their hats and coats, open their umbrellas, and rush out into the middle of whatever it is they need to do. Their busy days. Their successful and important lives.
He thought you should know.
Irby in the Marsh
The fire spread quicker than the little bastard was expecting.
Halton Holegate
She took the tulips from his hands. Let me find something to put those in, she said. His hands were cold. She was surprised that he’d come and she wanted to cover her surprise. She laid the tulips on the kitchen counter and looked around for a pair of scissors. The flower-heads were still tightly closed. The petals were red, with a rim of yellow at the lips. The stems arched, the way that tulip stems always did. She would need a vase tall enough to bear their weight. She picked them up and put them down. She didn’t know where the scissors were. She opened a drawer. She stopped; she’d forgotten to invite him in. He must still be standing on the doorstep, in the snow. She felt the cold air blowing through from the hallway. By the time she got back to him he’d stepped forward as far as the runner and was standing with the door half-closed behind him. Oh come in, of course, come in, she said. You weren’t waiting to be asked were you? He smiled, and shrugged, and snow fell from his shoulders as he crooked up a leg to wrestle off a shoe. She watched. She wanted to brush the snow from him and take his coat, put a hand against his cold cheek. She waited.
She lit the burner and put the kettle on. She wondered what he was doing here. They had a conversation, of sorts, standing there in the kitchen.
‘You didn’t walk, in this weather?’
‘I got the bus. I walked from the end of the village. Where the bus turns.’
‘I’m surprised the bus was running.’
‘I wasn’t sure it would.’
‘And you didn’t think of calling first, to check I’d be here?’
‘I felt like taking a chance. I had the afternoon free.’
‘Well. It is nice to see you. It’s a nice surprise. Tea?’
‘Please. Milk, if you have any.’
She poured the boiling water into a pot and the milk into a jug. She put them on a tray with cups and saucers and the sugar bowl. She carried the tray through to the front room and they sat across from each other while the snow fell past the bright window and the tea steeped and swirled inside the pot.
‘These are nice cups.’
‘Aren’t they? We’ve had them a long time. They were a wedding present.’
‘Really? I don’t remember seeing them before.’
‘Well, no. James never really liked them.’
‘Ah.’
‘So they were put away.’
‘Yes.’
‘But now, I thought, I mean. You know.’
‘Are they French?’
‘Flemish, I think.’
‘They’re very nice.’
‘Yes.’
‘They