Names for Nothingness (6 page)

She was not disarmed by his words because she did not take them as a compliment, they were simply a recognition of a connection that she, too, had felt.

‘Sometimes you meet people and you just know.' He reached for his rucksack on the floor. ‘I brought something that you might be interested in,' and he handed her a brown paper bag containing what appeared to be a book.

She thanked him but did not open it.

‘Do you live near here?' she asked, and he told her that he sometimes stayed in a house near the last stop.

‘I move around,' he said. ‘I'll probably be heading north in a few months. It just depends.'

She asked him what he did, aware of how naive her question might appear to someone who had clearly assessed society and decided not to participate in its version of normality.

His smile was one of amusement, but it was not condescending; it was more as though he were sharing a joke with her. ‘I passively resist,' he told her. ‘There was a time when I was into a more self-destructive form of protest, but I have found that simply choosing not to take part is a far more
powerful weapon.' He tapped the book he had given her. ‘Have a look,' he said. ‘I think you will find it interesting.'

‘I will.' She was surprised by the promise she was making and she waited for him to continue, but he was silent.

When she finally spoke, she was barely able to meet his gaze. ‘I know what you mean,' she said, ‘about not fitting in.'

His eyes were kind as she tried to explain. ‘I don't want what other people want.' She picked at a loose thread on the hem of her uniform. ‘I can't sit and talk about how I'd like to be a lawyer or a doctor or a journalist, or how I want to be married with children, or own a house, or any of those things.' She looked down at the floor. ‘It doesn't make sense to me.' She pulled at the thread. The hem came undone. ‘I can't even pretend.'

He was still looking at her but she could no longer bring herself to face him.

‘It's okay.' The gentleness of his tone made her lift her gaze slowly. She felt ashamed, fearful that he would doubt the sincerity of her words, that he would think she was somehow phoney, trying to please him, but as she looked at him she knew it was all right.

‘You are extraordinary,' he said. ‘Look at you.' When he reached to stroke the side of her face with his finger, she did not pull away. ‘It feels insurmountable when you are one on your own,' and she wanted to sink into the softness of his voice. ‘But it is not so hard.'

They had passed her stop, and she stood up as the bus began to slow again, realising that if she didn't get off here she would have too far to walk.

‘I'm Fraser,' he told her, and she said that her name was Caitlin.

‘There's a number in there,' he tapped the book he had given her, ‘that you can reach me on.'

She smiled at him.

‘So, call me,' he urged. ‘Even if you don't see me for a while.'

And she promised him that she would.

Caitlin did not look at the book until that evening. She opened it, alone in her room, and saw that Fraser had written his name and number just underneath the title:
Emptiness and peace towards a spiritual prosperity: a new world order
;
or the teachings of Satya Deva
.

She turned to the first chapter:

When I am asked how it is that I alone can change this world, I say that you cannot, not alone. And nor can you effect any change if you desire change because the very act of desiring involves a participation in that which we seek to change.

What about enlightenment?

I can only tell you that enlightenment is nothingness; it is bliss, joy, divine acceptance, a new world order; I could give you any number of words and they would all amount to nothingness.

Ah, you say, but how can I achieve this state?

Throw away this notion of achievement, of individual action, for it is only by uniting as one and renouncing all desire that we can take steps towards enlightenment for all. We must not act, we must simply be, giving ourselves over to the munificence of the universe, to the beauty of each given moment as it presents itself.

It is simple, and within this simplicity lies our path.

In nothing is to be found everything.

In absence, presence.

And in passivity, change.

These are tenets by which we choose to live and in doing so to struggle through inaction for action. These are our guiding principles and they inform all that we say, do, think and feel, not as one alone, but as one in many. In abiding by these simple truths
with each breath that we take, no more no less, we can give ourselves over to a new future, a new world order of peace and spiritual prosperity for all.

In the quiet of her room, she wondered at the truth of each word.

It was Margot to whom Caitlin talked about Fraser. Mad Margot, Sharn called her, and neither Caitlin nor Liam ever defended her because, with Sharn, there was simply no point.

She did not talk to Sharn because she did not talk to Sharn. There was an impatience in her mother that always caused her to retreat.

‘Get to the point,' Sharn would say to both Caitlin and Liam when either of them attempted to discuss anything with her. ‘Come on, come on, come on,' and she would tap her fingers in agitation, her entire body poised to walk away as soon as she could possibly make her escape.

They irritated her. Caitlin knew this, and for that reason she kept to herself, making sure she was not the cause of any flare in her mother's temper. Liam was not so successful. Sometimes it seemed that Sharn was irritated by everything Liam said. She fought against who he was on a daily basis, until eventually even she could not bear it any longer. Then she would cry, and she would turn to Liam for comfort, finally allowing herself to express her love for him, still believing that somehow he could fix it all and make everything all right between them. Caitlin knew that her mother's anger came from frustration, a sense that Liam had allowed her to carry too much of the burden in meeting the practical requirements of life. She was right. He had. But there seemed little point in hoping this would change.

If Caitlin wanted to talk she usually went to Liam. Or at least that was what she used to do, before he began to withdraw, a slow retreat into himself that had only become noticeable in the last year or so. He had become so enclosed within his own world that she found it hard just to sit and tell him about Fraser in the way she would once have done.

So, she turned to Margot.

She would catch the bus there sometimes after school and sit in the kitchen while Margot made her jewellery, strange twisted brooches and rings that were striking for their sheer impossibility of form rather than for any kind of beauty.

When she showed Margot the book Fraser had given her,
Emptiness and peace towards a spiritual prosperity: a new world order,
Margot had, as Caitlin knew she would, borrowed it and read it, underlining certain paragraphs and making notes in the margins.

‘What did you think?' Caitlin asked when she eventually returned it.

It reminded her of certain nihilist philosophers she had studied. ‘I can show you who I mean,' Margot offered, looking absent-mindedly at the overcrowded bookshelves behind her.

‘It's how I feel,' Caitlin said. ‘About the world. And when I met him, it was as though we had known each other before. I don't know how else to explain it.'

‘Sometimes it is like that,' Margot said.

Caitlin could see Margot thought the conversation was about a crush, and she wanted to correct her but she didn't know how. Instead, she found herself saying what she had been wanting to articulate for some days now. ‘I don't want to finish school,' and she did not avert her gaze as she spoke. ‘This is what I want.' She tapped the book, there on the table, her voice now lowered to a whisper.

Margot was silent for a moment. ‘Oh,' and she attempted to gather the words she wanted into a cohesive group of sentences. ‘You don't have long to go,' she said. ‘You really don't. And it is so much harder to go back a second time. I have read the statistics, and I saw Sharn trying to do it, when Liam first brought you all back. She exhausted herself. She really did.'

Caitlin looked at the table.

‘I know it seems hard now. But it really is for the best, my darling. And when you've finished you can go off and explore, you can get involved in wonderful new ways of looking at the world, you can be an adventurer of the mind.' Margot reached for her, stroking her arm with a slightly trembling hand.

‘I don't fit in,' Caitlin told her, surprised at the tears that were forming. ‘And it wasn't until I met him that it felt okay to admit it.'

Margot drew her into her arms. Caitlin could smell the sweetness of the perfume Margot always wore, and she was aware of the awkwardness of their embrace because they did not often touch each other.

‘It will get better,' Margot promised, and she wiped Caitlin's eyes for her as she pulled away, slightly embarrassed now. ‘Just try. Just for a little longer.'

And Caitlin promised her she would.

W
HEN
C
AITLIN FIRST STARTED SPEAKING
, she was four years old. Although she had not uttered a word until then, she had a complete vocabulary with an accompanying knowledge of sentence structure stored, secret, waiting until she was ready to use it.

All that day she talked to Liam as though she had always talked to him, telling him what she wanted for lunch, where she wanted to go that afternoon, the books that she wanted him to read to her, and the games she wanted to play.

Her questions were endless. Why was the dog barking, why did the birds live in the trees, why did some houses have chimneys while others didn't, why did he drink coffee, did he like it, why? There was no limit to the knowledge she seemed to want to acquire.

Later, when he tried to relay the wonder of the day to Sharn, she kept asking whether Caitlin had given him any
kind of explanation. She could talk. She had clearly been able to talk for some time, but she had chosen to remain silent, and Sharn did not understand.

‘I wish I had been here,' she said.

Liam had rung her, trying to reach her all morning and afternoon, finally tracking her down as she left the office for night school.

‘Come home,' he said, ‘you have to come home.'

She did not know what had happened. The urgency in his voice alarmed her and she wanted him to tell her, but he would only say that it was a surprise.

‘What is it?' she demanded as she closed the front door behind her, waiting for the announcement of some disaster.

He said nothing.

It was Caitlin who spoke – ‘We've got spaghetti for dinner' – the ordinariness of her words betraying the significance of the moment to such an extent that Sharn did not even skip a beat as she asked Liam, once again, to tell her what was wrong.

‘But I don't like garlic in mine,' Caitlin told her, and it was only then that Sharn stopped, her eyes widening as she realised what it was that she was hearing.

When? She mouthed the word, not able to speak it out loud as she looked at Liam.

‘This morning,' he told her, both of them now staring at Caitlin.

Caitlin just took another mouthful. ‘I helped Liam cook it,' she said, and she nodded towards the pot. ‘We saved some for you.'

Sharn had not expected this. She had grown used to Caitlin's silence. She had been told that whether or not Caitlin talked was, quite simply, up to Caitlin, and she had come to accept that Caitlin could choose to remain silent for
the rest of her life. (
Is it my fault? Is it something I have done?
She had never dared say the words out loud. She had hardly dared to recognise they were there, inside her.)

She knelt on the ground, her hands resting on Caitlin's shoulders, but Caitlin only pulled away.

‘Why?' she asked, looking from Liam to Caitlin, the single word encompassing so many questions. Why had Caitlin never spoken before, why had she chosen now to talk?

Later, Liam would hold her and tell her that it was all right, that this was good, that she should be happy. ‘Why can't you just let yourself rejoice in this?', and she knew that he was right, she had to let go of the guilt.

Now, as she knelt by her daughter's side, she felt only confusion.

Caitlin turned back to her bowl. ‘I've got no garlic in mine. But you've got garlic in yours,' and she nodded once again at the pot, her complete lack of interest in responding evident as she dipped her finger into the sauce and then traced a pattern across the table. ‘Look, a circle,' she said, and they both just stared dumbly at the squiggle she had drawn.

‘Didn't you want to before?' Sharn asked, not able to give up, to be put off, although it was clear her questions were pointless.