This Is All (43 page)

I’m telling you all this, my child, because no one said it to me before my periods began. Even Doris, who prepared me for my menarche, was brief and matter-of-fact and said nothing much about herself. And because it is something so intimate and personal and so different for every woman, while being just the same too, sharing our experience and celebrating it is surely proper and necessary, at least with those you love most closely and most dearly?

Sayings I like

There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so. – Hamlet in
Hamlet
by Will Shakespeare, 1560–1613, the world’s greatest writer.

I am only myself when I am alone. – Marcel Proust, 1871–1922, French writer of the world’s longest novel, which I have not (yet) read.

Security is mortal’s chiefest enemy. – Hecate in
Macbeth
by Will Shakes.

All religions will pass, but this will remain: simply sitting in a chair and gazing into the distance. – V. V. Rozanov, 1856–1919, Russian critic.

His desire is boundless but his act a slave to limit. –
Troilus and Cressida
by Will Shakes. This applies to every boy and every man I have so far encountered, including my Will.

Two Moral Tales

1. Bad hair day

When I was about eight I had very long auburn hair. Everyone told me how beautiful it was. Dad loved to stroke it. Doris spent hours brushing it. I liked these affectionate and soothing caresses, and I coveted people’s admiration.

At that time, a boy of my age came to live next door to Doris. His name was Karl Svensson, which I thought a

‘Am I one of the people you don’t care about or you do care about?’

‘Do care.’

‘Then I’d be honoured, truly, to be allowed to read one.’

I bent my head to my glass and slurped up a drink.

Ms M. said, ‘How important is poetry to you? Writing poetry, I mean.’

I’d never told anyone except Will. And I’d never explained it to him, never discussed it. Just stated it in return for his telling me about the importance of trees to him. But now I knew I wanted to tell Ms M. Only her. I wanted to hear what saying it sounded like.

I said, ‘It’s difficult to explain.’

‘Want to try? Promise not to interrupt or comment.’

I made myself say, ‘Writing poetry is
the
most important thing to me. The most important thing I can do. Want to do. You know – of all the things I
might
do, like, I dunno, like having a family or a career or – or whatever. Writing poetry is the only thing that –
appeals
to me. The only thing I do that feels it’s me. Well,’ I added, grinning. ‘There is one other thing.’

‘I think I know what you mean.’ She laughed.

‘But poetry is me. Me on my own. I don’t need anybody else to do it. And it’s just, when I’m writing what I hope will become poetry one day, I feel – I feel I’m
me
and I feel I’m at home. Where I belong … I know that sounds silly, poetry not being a place—’

‘Not silly at all. And as a matter of fact, when you come to think about it, poetry
is
a place.’

‘It is?’

‘It’s an object, isn’t it? Made of words. Like a house is made of bricks and a town is made of buildings and a wood is made of trees. You can belong to a house, and to a town, and I’m sure your Will says you can belong to a wood.’

‘I hadn’t thought of it like that.’

glamorous foreign name. He was tall and lithe with large blue eyes and blond hair, and the kind of blond skin that tans so succulently. I adored him at once, and courted him with little gifts and invitations to play. Soon we became inseparable friends.

Late one lovely summer afternoon we were sitting under Doris’s apple tree. We had been playing together all day and now were tired and I think a little bored. We began talking about people we admired. (Our tastes were disappointingly predictable. Karl liked sportsmen and pop stars, I liked actresses and supermodels.) At the time, very short hair was the height of fashion for women as well as men. Only that week Karl had persuaded his doting mother to allow him to have his hair cut so short it was no more than stubble all over. I rather liked it. He had a beautiful round head, which suited such a close crop. I asked if his hair was prickly. He invited me to feel it. It was soft and strangely pleasant. Stroking it made me tingle. This is my first memory of sexual excitement, though I did not know what it was at the time, only that the sensation was very nice and I wanted it to go on.

We remained like this for some time, Karl stock-still, enjoying my caresses and me hypnotised by the pleasure of fondling his head.

After a while, I said how much I wished I had short hair too. Karl said I would look good with very short hair and I should ask my father to let me have it cut. I said I knew he wouldn’t because he loved my long hair so much. But, Karl said, it was my hair, I should be able to do whatever I wanted with it, and anyway, it would grow long again quite soon, so having it cut short was no big deal. Well, I said, I just knew Dad wouldn’t agree.

‘I’ll cut it,’ Karl said. ‘Then your father can’t do anything about it.’

Before I could reply he jumped up and climbed over the

‘Most people haven’t. Is it an option?’

‘What?’

‘Do you feel you have any choice about writing it or not writing it?’

‘No. I have to do it. I just
have
to do it.’

‘I understand.’

‘You do? How?’

‘I’m like that too. But not about writing poetry.’

‘What then?’

‘I’ll tell you another day. Don’t want to complicate things.’

‘No.’

‘But? There is a but coming, isn’t there?’

‘If I were – if I
were
, because I’m not saying I
will
– if I
were
to let you see some of my, well – I call them mopes, because they aren’t good enough to be called poems yet. If I were to show you some of my
mopes
, the trouble is I might feel a bit confused.’

‘Why?’

‘Well, my poems, my
mopes
, are me. They really are
me
. They aren’t school things. I don’t want them to be marked or graded or assessed or discussed like we discuss poems at school, or anything like that. And, well, you’re my English teacher, and I do like you, it’s true, but still.’

Ms M. waited a moment before saying, ‘Let me tell you something and then ask you something. Yes?’

‘Okay.’

‘I keep my private life, my
personal
life separate from my school life. You know that.’

‘Yes.’

‘Because I don’t want my two lives to be confused. I don’t want my private life to be marked and graded and assessed and enquired into by—’ She stopped.

‘By us. By us kids.’

‘Exactly. Or my colleagues either, come to that. But I’ve allowed you to visit. I’ve allowed you into my home. My private place.’

fence into his garden (the route we always used to visit each other, the proper way being much too boring and unadventurous). Soon he reappeared with a pair of scissors and a comb. I felt a nervous twinge of doubt but couldn’t stop him. I was afraid that if I did I’d lose his approval, which mattered much more to me than upsetting Dad.

Without a breath of hesitation Karl took a hank of my hair and began hacking and chopping with buzzy enthusiasm. At first, long strands of my sheared locks fell at my feet like amputated tails. Shorter tresses followed, like fingerfuls of plucked fur. And then, as Karl snipped as close to my head as he dared, a thin drizzle of auburn rain.

As my butchered mane tumbled around me the horrifying enormity of what we were doing engulfed me like a paralysing illness. I wanted Karl to stop but couldn’t speak, I wanted to get up and run away but couldn’t move, I wanted to cry but the tears wouldn’t flow. I stared ahead while Karl continued his dreadful work. Towards the end, I felt his confidence leaking from him. At last he finished and stood behind me without uttering a sound. Not a word and no more laughter. And I, frozen and deadpan, felt like a lamb shorn of its precious fleece and prepared for slaughter.

I never spoke to Karl again. It was as if we had committed some unforgivable crime of which we were both so ashamed that we could never face each other afterwards. His last words to me were, ‘It’s time for my tea.’ I didn’t see him go.

Sometime later, I don’t know how long, Doris found me. By then I had retreated so deeply inside myself that I didn’t see her coming. I became aware of her only when her shadow fell over me as she blocked out the evening sun, and I heard her exclaim, ‘O my darling Cordy, whatever have you done!’

I remember trying to speak and not being able to and shaking my head and Doris kneeling down in front of me and taking me in her arms and both of us bursting into tears.

‘I did wonder why, to be honest.’

‘Another big question for another day, if you don’t mind. It’s more important today to sort out you and your poetry and me.’

‘So why did you tell me?’

‘Because I hope it shows that I’m not talking to you here, now, as your English teacher. Just as someone you like and who likes you. A companion, let’s say. And because I hope it shows you can trust me. Which is what’s worrying you, isn’t it? Whether you can trust me with your secret.’

‘That’s part of it.’

‘Another thing. When you, when anyone, finds the thing they are meant for, the thing that is
you
, the thing that identifies you – which is what I think you’re telling me about you and poetry, yes?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’m quite sure nothing anybody says will put you off. It might upset you for a while. You might never speak to that person again. But it won’t stop you. You’ll go on writing poetry whatever anyone says because it matters so much.’

I knew as she said it that this was true.

‘But keeping your poems to yourself, never letting anyone see them, someone you can trust who can talk to you about them, well, that’s not a wise thing to do.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you won’t grow. You won’t develop. As a poet I mean. And maybe as yourself. Your poetry is you, you say. Which means you’ll grow as much as your poetry grows and your poetry will only grow as much as you grow.’

‘But why? Why won’t I develop?’

‘Because we don’t really know who we are, or what we are, or what we could be, until we see ourselves, and the things that matter to us, through the eyes of someone else. Someone you—’ She looked away as if startled.

Dad was furious. He didn’t speak to me for two days.

There was a post mortem of course. And Doris went to see Karl’s mother, who blamed me, saying her son would never have done such a thing if I had not egged him on.

Doris took me to her hairdresser, who made a good job of what poor Karl had done badly. So I had my short hair, just as I’d wanted, and I hated it.

In the unhappy days that followed, I made a clear decision. Two, in fact. Never again to do anything just because it was the fashion. And never again to allow myself to be hustled into anything in order to gain someone’s approval, no matter how much I liked or fancied or loved them.

My hair never grew long again, nor was ever as beautiful as it had been before that bad hair day.

2. Bad nose day

We had finished exams. Immediately afterwards Will had to go away for a week’s tree-climbing course. This annoyed me. We didn’t have time to celebrate together. I knew he couldn’t help it, but I felt let down, as if he’d abandoned me. (Little C in the ascendant.)

After he’d gone, whisked away by his mother in her black BMW, I felt I just had to do something to mark the end of my days as a schoolgirl. Though I’d still be going to school, the next two years would be different. I’d be a student, not a pupil. I’d be helping run things and not just being run. So I wanted to do something just for me, something I wouldn’t normally do and hadn’t done before, and something that would remain part of me and not be temporary.

Lots of the girls, especially the chavs, were having tattoos. But that didn’t appeal to me (not least because the chavs liked them). I wanted something permanent but also something that I could change or remove – like a ring or a brooch, but those were too obvious.

The thought came in a flash and I said it before I could stop myself. ‘You were going to say love, weren’t you?’

She got up.

‘Let’s have some soup. It’ll be just right now.’

Do mobiles always go off at the wrong moment or do we only notice when they do? Mine went off then. Annoying, because I wanted to know Ms M.’s answer, and embarrassing, because I knew she’d disapprove. I said, Sorry, it’ll be Will, an emergency, d’you mind? and fled to the front room.

But it wasn’t Will.

– Cordelia? Hello? This is Helen Blacklin. –
I’m sorry?
– William’s mother? –
O yes, sorry, wasn’t expecting
– William gave me your number. –
He did?
– Look. Sorry to intrude. But could we meet? –
Meet?
– This afternoon? –
This afternoon?
– Can you manage that? –
Is something wrong?
– No no. –
Is Will okay?
– He’s fine, fine. There’s something … Hell … Hello? –
Hello?
– You’re breaking up. –
Sorry. I’ll move. Is that better?
– That’s better. Look, Cordelia, there’s something I must talk to you about. Something very important. And quite urgent. –
This afternoon?
– If you could. About three? –
Three o’clock?
– At the café in Market Street. Jenny’s. You know it?
– Jenny’s, right
. – At three then, I’ll see you at three at Jenny’s. –
Yes. Okay
. – Bye.

The Venetian blinds were almost closed. Thin daylight filtered through. (What was going on?) The icon looked at me, speaking its déjà vu language. (What did she want to talk about?) The smell of soup lingered in the air, mingling with – what was it? – incense? (Did Ms M. burn joss sticks? Why had Will given my number to his mother?)