This Is All (7 page)

The vision thus presented of her front and back was a sight to ravish the eyes – she really was meltingly beautiful – and Will’s popped as he tracked her with unblinking attention till she disappeared from view, and remained staring fixated at the vanishing point until I said,

‘I thought it was
me
you came to see.’

‘Ah,’ said he, refocusing.

‘Ah, nothing!’ said I.

‘Ah well!’ said he.

Only then did it sink in how he was dressed.

‘Why,’ said I, ‘are you dressed like that?’

‘Like what?’

‘Like in a used black dodo suit and white dodo shirt with a dodo pointy collar and dodo black tie, and, well,
everything
all –
dodo
.’

‘Ah, I see. Well, I’ve just been to a funeral, haven’t I.’

‘Again?’

‘I – have – just – been—’

‘No. I mean, you haven’t come straight here from –
that
– have you?’

‘Yes. In the hearse. It’s outside.’

‘Outside?’

‘Waiting.’

‘Waiting?’

‘A state of inactivity in readiness for further use.’

‘Thank you
so much
. All my life I’ve been desperate to know what “waiting” means.’

‘Glad to be of service.’

‘Waiting,
for what?
’

‘Not what. You.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘And me of course.’

‘Will—?’

‘Cordelia?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘What I’m talking about—’

‘Please do not talk to me like that, thank you.’

‘Like what?’

‘Like you’re talking to your stupid little sister.’

‘I don’t have a little sister, stupid or otherwise.’

‘
You know what I mean
.’

‘Look – let’s start again, okay? I thought – seeing as how—’

‘Your grammar is deplorable.’

‘I let you down – Well – I came straight here—’

‘In a hearse?’

‘Only available transport. The cars were taking the mourners back home.’

‘Sorry I mentioned it.’

‘No problem. I came straight here, thinking I could pick you up—’

‘In a
hearse?
’

‘– and take you home so I could change—’

‘That
was
a good idea. You changing, I mean.’

‘– and then we could – No! –
I
could take
you
—’

At this point Izumi reappeared at the top of the stairs still completely naked and said, ‘Cordelia?’

‘
Yes?
’ I snapped, my eyes still fixed on Will, his now returning to, and consuming, Izumi, dammim.

‘Sorry to interrupt,’ Izumi said.

‘
Yes!
’

‘But you’re wearing my top and—’

This time there was no resisting the mirror.

Picture this: Hair in the kind of derangement that might be considered attractive if wearing a skein of ravelled string on your head ever came into fashion. Face blotched with scales of turd-brown skin as if suffering from some deeply corrosive disease. Body squashed into an armless cotton top so tight it was in danger of splitting at every seam, while my boobs, small though they were, were not as small as Izumi’s and were therefore struggling to get out.

At sight of my audacious image I said something resembling ‘
Spit!
’ ran upstairs to my room, slamming the door behind me, burst into tears, and prostrated myself on the catafalque of my bed. And at that moment I really did wish I were dead and buried.

How could I
– I wrote soon afterwards in my pillow book –
how could I how could I how could I
make such a fool of myself!!! Why did I have to come on so hoity-toity, so nose in the air, so totally dud? Why couldn’t I stay calm? Why did I scrum about like a wild thing instead of taking my time? I mean, where was he going to go, what was he going to do, if I made him wait? Why should I care if he thought Izumi was me? Because Izumi is beautiful and I am not, is why! And why does he make me fall apart just at the sound of his voice? I hate him, I do, I loathe&detest him. But I’m the bombazoon, not him, that’s the fact, I’m the dunk, I’m the panting jerk.
Me!!!
If Izumi hadn’t been there to rescue me it would have ended in disaster, I just know it would.

This tale

When I started making this book for you, I meant to make most of it out of my pillow book, and only write new bits here and there to fill the gaps. But I’m enjoying telling you this tale of William and me so much that I’m using my pillow book mainly as ‘raw material’. Not that it matters. One day you’ll have my pillow book as well, and then you’ll be able to compare the raw material with my retelling of it. More fun, don’t you think? Also I have to admit that a lot of my pillow book embarrasses me now. It’s so gauche and naïve and everything about the way you are in your teens that makes your toes curl once you’re through that phase of life.

Things it helps me to remember

When in a bad mood, keep quiet or still.

Baggy jumpers don’t suit you.

When you’re tired you get doubtful.

Difficulties come in spurts.

Listen to the echo of your own voice. Avoid being strident.

All aeroplanes go through clouds during their journeys. So do people during theirs.

Often greater clarity comes out of confusion. You have to be puzzled before you find a solution.

PMT often brings on a crisis of confidence.

Ordinariness is restful.

If someone is explosive in front of you, be silent. If you feel explosive, be silent.

Wood words

‘Why have you brought me here?’

You
was Will.
Brought
by him on his motor scooter (from hearse to motor scooter, I ask you!).
Me
on the back of his scooter, wearing his brother’s crash helmet, which was two
sizes too big so most of the time it was slumped over my eyes preventing me from seeing where we were going and for the rest of the time, whenever I tried to look up, it was yanked backwards by the wind, almost choking me.
Here
was an arboretum about fifteen miles from home.

After my hissy fit Izumi had sent Will away, telling him to change and come back, then made me, really
made
me, pull myself together and dress – jeans, sweater, no fuss, not even make-up – just in time for Will’s return. When, me thinking we’d play Schumann together, he scooted me away instead, saying, ‘I want to show you something.’ No time for argument. When you’re in the right mood there’s nothing like being dictated to, decided for, commandeered, carried off. By the right person, that is. All I knew was that after my calamity I wanted to be taken, to be
required
by Will. As we puttered along at the top speed of fifty-five an hour, I clung to him, arms round his waist, using fear of falling off as my excuse.

Around us trees, trees, trees, and no one anywhere in sight. We’d hardly exchanged two words since we left the house.

As we ambled along I said, ‘Why have you brought me here?’

‘To show you something.’

‘Weren’t we meant to be practising Schumann?’

‘Thought you’d like to listen to a different kind of woodwind.’

‘What kind?’

‘You must have been here before?’

‘Must have?’

‘Famous. One of the biggest and best arboretums in the world.’

‘Trees trees trees.’

‘That’s what an arboretum is. Many kinds. Specimens. So you can study them in the flesh.’

‘A library of trees.’

‘Nice one! A museum too. Don’t you like them? Trees, I mean.’

For some bloody-minded reason I’d been determined not to give in to him. But a tinge in his voice warned me to go carefully. His question wasn’t idle. I sensed much hung on my answer.

‘Hard
not
to like trees.’

‘But you don’t know much about them?’

Now it felt like a test. And I could only fail. Silly, but tears gathered. I looked up at the surrounding timber, as if for inspiration but really to hold my head back and drain the impending shower.

A few strides on, I said, ‘I read somewhere that someone asked Rupert Brooke – the poet?’

‘Never heard of him.’

‘Doesn’t matter. Asked him what was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.’

‘And?’

‘The sun shining through a new beech leaf in spring.’

It roused me that this put a silence on him.

We walked on, not just wandering, he knew where he was taking me.

And all the lives we ever lived

And all the lives to be,

Are full of trees and changing leaves.

We reached an out-of-the-way area thick with smallish trees and bushes. A path was mown through rangy grass and tangled undergrowth and mini forests of bracken. A sign carved on a strip of wood at knee height said
NATIVE SPECIES COLLECTION.

Will led the way. A few metres along the path we came to a bench, roughly made of a plank of wood stretched across two slices of tree trunk for legs.

Will sat. I sat beside him. In front of us across the path, stilted above the undergrowth, was another wooden sign with
12,000
YEARS AGO
carved on it and painted white. Nothing was said. I knew I was meant to sit and listen. It was what he wanted. And I was still in the mood to be commanded.

Deep heavy silence. Not even a breeze to rustle the autumn leaves. And, I noticed, for it seemed strange at the time, no bird song either. But not a dead silence. Alive. As if we were being watched by the trees. No, not watched but
observed
, for the feeling was not of being spied on but of being an actor on a stage with the trees for audience all around. Before this, I’d never felt that trees were beings, not beings like humans or animals. But I caught a glimpse, heard a whisper of their own
beingness
, their own
thereness
. I don’t know why I felt this right then. Perhaps because of Will, though I didn’t understand this till later, after he explained about him and trees. When you love someone you pick up their perceptions. But this was such a weird feeling I couldn’t keep quiet for long. And perhaps like an actor on a stage, I felt I
had
to say or do something or the audience might get restive.

When I could bear the silence no longer I said, ‘What does it mean, twelve thousand years ago? This part can’t be that old, can it?’

Will chuckled. ‘No,’ he almost-whispered, the way you speak in church. ‘There’s no wildwood left.’

‘Wildwood?’ I almost-whispered too.

‘The way Britain was before human beings. This area is being left to grow wild, and only with the kind of trees and plants that grew here thousands of years ago.’

He swivelled on his bum, lifted a leg over the bench and sat astride, facing me. His body was so rangy and so supple, it roused me again. I stared ahead to avoid giving myself away. For a funny moment I felt we were characters in a Chekhov play (Chekhov being one of my favourite writers ever since I was taken to see
The Seagull
when I was about fourteen). We could have been Nina and Konstantin – before she went off the rails and he shot himself:

Nina
: Oh, Konstantin, Konstantin, wasn’t life so good before! Remember? Everything was so simple and clear and happy. The feelings we had! So beautiful! Delicate as lovely little flowers!

Is life ever
that
simple? Is it ever so clear and nothing but happy? That it isn’t, at least never for very long, is the sadness of the play, I suppose. But it can be for a while, from time to time.
And in short measures life may perfect be
. I was happy at that moment, sitting with Will among the attendant trees, and knew that I was. Happy as you can be happy only at the beginning of being in love. Such a brief happiness, a butterfly time, as beautiful as anything in life, and as delicate and to be as treasured as butterflies themselves.

I whispered lest the moment took fright and flitted away, ‘Is this what you wanted to show me?’

You’ve noticed how boys fiddle with their fingers? Men don’t. Is it a sign that a boy has become a man when he stops fiddling with his fingers? Will fiddled with his fingers now and said,

‘Remember “show and tell” in primary school?’

I nodded.

‘Wanted to show you – wanted to tell you …’

‘What?’

‘Kind of a secret.’

‘A secret?’

He nodded, his eyes on his fiddle-faddling fingers. He might have been nine, or ten at most.

I thought for a moment, aware that something out of the ordinary was happening. Something so private and precious it was a privilege. A declaration. And therefore a danger too. Because every secret told, every declaration made, is a boundary crossed, a step taken into unknown country that can never be unstepped, never reversed, never erased.

I said, ‘Perhaps you shouldn’t.’

He set his palms flat on the bench between us and looked me in the eyes. Not ten now, more like thirty. How he could slip from boy to man, man to boy, between one look and another!

‘Why not?’

‘Might regret it.’

‘I’ve thought about it. I’ll risk it.’

Another pause.

Secrets
. Funny how, when you’re about to be given something precious, something you’ve wanted for a long time, you suddenly feel nervous about taking it.

Everyone wants more than anything to be allowed into someone else’s most secret self. Everyone wants to allow someone into their most secret self. Everyone feels so alone inside that their deepest wish is for someone to know their secret being, because then they are alone no longer. Don’t we all long for this? Yet when it’s offered it’s frightening, because you might not live up to the desires of the one who bestows the gift. And frightening because you know that accepting such a gift means you’ll want – perhaps be expected – to offer a similar gift in return. Which means giving your
self
away. And what’s more frightening than that?