The Museum Of Doubt. James Meek
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was necessary to get stuck in to the grammar tables, that was all. An idea existed that he was a guest and Cate’s real lover was about to arrive and at that time it’d be time to be not there.
If Birmingham was full of Mercians and him and Cate were the only English speakers and they were talking about whatever bulk-buy crispy high-fat diet nuggets of conversation they engaged in, operational stuff, it would sound the same as Cate and her dad. They weren’t reciting poetry to each other. They weren’t talking about life and death, the limits of time, the origin and the end of things, the areas that didn’t tolerate words as English had designed them, the very colours, the very sense of the change of season, the very love there was. It just sounded like it. Dryk. He knew what they were talking about. Dead relatives. Mum. Remember Mum? She was great, wasn’t she. Yeah. Remember how she used to make those things, you know, the things she used to make. That was what they were talking about.
He heard Cate say: Y leya tess.
He moved over to the cooker and tipped the sprouts into the boiling water, hoping to blister his hands, not like he was trying, but sometimes a dose of pain and disfigurement was what you needed, that was why people carried needles and razor blades in their pockets, to prick and cut themselves when they needed their mind taking off things. He ballooned his cheeks and rubbed his palms on his jeans, looking round. It was hot. You didn’t tell your dad you loved him like you told a lover you loved him, even in Mercian, not when your husband wasn’t supposed to be listening and you knew he was.
They stopped talking and after a few minutes Cate came through to where he was standing over the pots and embraced him from behind, her hips against his bum, her cheek against his back and her palms on his chest.
OK? she said.
It’s a sauna, a sauna, a steak and kidney sauna, said Adam.
I’m sorry, she whispered. You know.
Aye, I know what I know. Get the knives and forks, eh.
At the beginning of the meal Adam said if they wanted to speak Mercian, that was fine by him, and Cate said no it was OK, and her dad said nothing, and they ate the food and Cate’s dad asked about the job hunting and when they were going up to Fife to see Adam’s family, and they got on to the price of travel, and then television subjects, and Adam asked if they could have on the Cabaret soundtrack, and Cate’s dad put it on and brought a Christmas cake out from the kitchen and Cate sliced it up for them and Adam looked at Cate’s dad, smiled and said: Y tess ley.
Don’t Adam, said Cate.
Y tess ley, said Adam again still looking at Cate’s dad and smiling. Cate’s dad didn’t look surprised any more. He looked as if he’d known this was coming since before he was born, since before the words were lost in libraries and radiowaves and dumped at the school gates, since before his folk starting coming down from the hills to the honeycombs, since before they drove the painted ones from the peaks, since before one of them said: there’s not enough room here, let’s go out west to that big island and fuck the Britons, we’re that much harder than them, the women. He rested his arms on the table on either side of his plate, cocked his head to one side, looked Adam in the eyes and said: I’m sorry son, I don’t understand you.
Y tess ley, said Adam. It means I love you. You know. It’s your language.
It’s not your language, said Cate’s dad. You don’t anyway. You only come at Christmas.
I’m family.
Adam, shut up, you’re not ready, said Cate. It’s the wrong place to start.
What’s the right place to start? said Adam. He doesn’t even answer back when I say thank you.
He’s shy! You don’t know what he went through at school.
Maybe but I know what I go through every time I’m round here, standing in the kitchen for half an hour listening to songs of old Mercia and pretending not to notice.
It’s only once a year. Who do you think you are, telling my dad you love him, Mary Tyler Moore?
I’ll tell your dad I love him if I fucking well like.
You will not.
I fucking will. And Mary Tyler Moore doesn’t speak Mercian.
How do you know?
’Cause if she did she’d be packing sandwiches for Tesco’s in Wolverhampton instead of having her own TV production company and a millionaire lifestyle. Who are you to tell me what I can say to your dad?
Tell him that you love him, then. In English. Go on.
Adam looked at Cate’s dad, focusing on the bridge of his nose. I love you, he said.
I’m not sure I like you, said Cate’s dad.
Adam folded his arms and looked down into the cake. Cate put her hand on her dad’s.
They walked home late after watching a film. Cate was quiet.
It’s true, said Adam. You do never see it in the foreign phrase books. Tell us the way to the bus station, give us five kilos of sun-dried tomatoes, escort my bags to the dental office, and I love you.
It’s something you know already before you go, and you never learn anything else, said Cate.
What I don’t understand is why the TV people never come round and make films about him. You’d think they were waiting for him to die.
They walked side by side through the raw smoky night of small infinite streets and turnings, pattering with the footsteps of the fearful, the drunk and the doubting.
What does dryk mean? said Adam after they had walked for half an hour without saying anything.
It means cancer, said Cate.
It was prostate cancer, advanced, and they would have to operate. There was a high chance Cate’s dad would die. She went to see him most days. Sometimes she stopped overnight. Adam went about once a week. He moved a chair into the kitchen and took a book but he couldn’t concentrate with the uninterrupted flow of Mercian coming from the next room. He tried sitting on the toilet with the door closed but he could still hear them. There was no doubt. Cate was eloquent in Mercian. English was for the moving of objects and the taking of decisions, for plain reason, the turning on and off of a tap. Mercian was a waterfall, interrupted by laughter. He began taking a cassette player with him and with the earphones clamped on his head and music playing he was free for a time.
At home he would open the Mercian book after tea, with a pen and a ruled notepad on the desk in the bedroom. He began by staring out at his reflection in the window that looked out on the darkness of January, a planet Adam half in darkness, half in lamplight. He went to get a coffee and started watching the news. He came back, sat down and looked through the close print. It was not as old as it seemed. It was a reprint of a book published in 1868. On the inside front cover was a stamp in faded crimson ink saying Property of the War Office, Reprinted 1916 By Order, and at the back, after the summit of Mercian language skills demanded fifty years previously, a squire’s speech at a prize-giving for agricultural labourers, was a pamphlet-thick addendum with Serving King and Country written in English and Mercian, followed by lists of vocabulary and phrases. The officers are your friends. They are on your side. Machine gun. Phosphorous shell. Mustard gas. Come on lads, up and at them! Let’s smash the Hun/Johnny Turk/Johnny X! Fix bayonets! This man has trench foot. This man has gangrene. This man is a hero. This man is a deserter. This man is a coward. You will be decorated for this. You will be court-martialled for this. Stretcher party. Dear Mrs X, I regret to tell you that your son was killed in action near X yesterday. He died doing his duty for King and country. He was a brave soldier.
He turned back to the beginning and read the introduction. Sundry gentlemen and men of affairs have turned to me in indignation over the truculence of their Mercian servants and day labourers. Their refusal to understand the simplest instructions in English. Pernicious influence of religious tracts in their own language. Ideas above their station. My answer is invariably the same: in the simplicity of their