This Is All

by Aidan Chambers

  19

  ‘How about a walk along the beach?’ Edward said after breakfast, during which he had hidden behind his newspaper while I watched the traffic on the road outside. ‘We need some air.’

  ‘What I need,’ I said, ‘is to talk about us.’

  ‘Unbelievable, astonishing, mind-boggling as you might find this,’ Edward said, ‘I am so talented I can walk and talk at the same time, even on a beach.’

  ‘Anything you can do I can do better.’

  ‘Really? Let’s find out.’

  We reached the tide-line, that shifting tangy border between land and sea drawn by a jumbled ribbon of seaweed and empty shells and washed-up flotsam. It always seems a little sad. We stood silently side by side, looking across the tumbling waves at the horizon, the border-line between sea and sky. A lone tanker was perched on it, as dinky as a plastic toy out of a packet of cornflakes.

  I love the sea. I love its endless movement, its never-the-same-always-the-sameness. I love its moods. I love its power and its fluidity, its ambivalence, its ambiguity. Most of all I love its total indifference to us silly insignificant human beings. The land is not indifferent to us. People change and shape it. England is just one big market garden really, Will explained to me once, and has been since Mesolithic times ten thousand years ago, when men started clearing the trees and herding animals and cultivating the soil. We leave our mark on the land, but we cannot leave our mark on the sea. We cannot change or shape it. The sea over-rides us. We might, if we go on as we are, poison all the life in it, and by doing so ourselves as well. But the sea will still be the sea, will still ebb and flow, surge and swell, rage and pound, and circle the earth with its beautiful arresting body. Whenever I’m by the sea I feel a truth about myself which is ancient and undeniable. It is that I live on the land but that the sea lives in me. I feel I am made of the sea. I feel that its life, its nature, its way of being, is my life, my nature, my way of being. I even feel my thoughts are like the sea, ebbing and flowing, subject to the same moods and phases and criss-crossed by strange and dangerous currents. I sometimes feel that if I were to walk into the sea and keep going, I would be able to live beneath the waves and that after a while I would be absorbed into the sea again, returning to what I was before I was born.

  As I stood beside Edward on the beach that morning, I felt this more strongly than ever. Perhaps because I sensed that he and I had reached a border between us that separated my unsettled sea from his settled land.

  *

  ‘Remember,’ Edward said after we’d watched the sea long enough for the tide to reach our feet, ‘when you came to the office—’

  ‘The night we—’

  ‘Became lovers. You did mean it to happen? I mean, you wanted it to happen?’

  ‘You know I did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Why did I want it to happen?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Funny – you didn’t ask me then. Why now?’

  ‘It wasn’t that important then. You came in, stood in front of me, an unmistakable look on your face, I held out my hand, to test the water, you took it, I held out my other hand, to be sure, you took it, I drew you to me, you came, no hesitation, I put my arms round you, you reached up—’

  ‘And kissed you.’

  ‘There was no reason to ask why. I knew you wanted me. No one kisses like that if they don’t want you. I knew I wanted you. And that was all that mattered. Then.’

  ‘And now? Why now?’

  ‘I asked first. You go first.’

  ‘A game.’

  ‘No. Not a game. Look, Cordelia, look at me. Please. I’m being serious.’

  I didn’t look, didn’t reply. I knew I’d go weak if I did.

  ‘I want to say something to you. But I want to be sure of – of something – first.’

  ‘Of what?’

  ‘Help me, sweetheart. Don’t be difficult.’

  I took a step back to avoid my feet getting wet, and said, ‘You know why. I’ve told you before.’

  ‘All right.’ He took in a breath of patience again. ‘Because you fancied me, and you’d lost Will – or thought you had. You were upset, unhappy. And you wanted a man, not a boy, who fancied you and treated you the way you wanted to be treated, and I fitted the bill.’

  ‘Was that it?’

  ‘O, for God’s sake, Cordelia! I’m trying my best.’

  ‘Yes, okay, yes, it was something like that.’

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Love.’

  I did glance at him then. What was in his mind? Where was this going?

  Because he was supposed to be on business, he’d not brought any casual clothes. He was wearing a trench coat – one of those long light-brown military-style macs with epaulets and a big collar and big buttons and a wide belt that he’d buckled up all neat and proper. He knew I didn’t like it, too old-fashioned and bossy, but he said it was the kind of thing his customers expected and anyway it was good in wet and cold weather and was equipped with big deep pockets in which to carry his mobile and organiser and wallet and god knows what else so that he didn’t need a bag. He was wearing it over a charcoal business suit with polished black leather tie-up shoes, as old-fashioned as his mac. His brogues and the cuffs of his trousers were covered in wet sand.

  He looked out of fashion and out of place. Seeing him like that on any other day I’d have been amused, and teased him, and he’d have joked about it too, making fun of himself. I’d have liked it that he didn’t fit, that he didn’t care about looking out of place, that he even made a point of it, and made it with panache. But that day I felt embarrassed by him, and because he embarrassed me, suddenly for the first time I saw how old he was. Not handsomely mature, as I’d considered him till now, but old. Old like my father was old.

  I knew what I was feeling would show on my face and I didn’t want him to see it, so I turned away and started walking along the beach.

  Edward came alongside, his mac flapping round his legs.

  I knew what he wanted me to say. That I loved him. And the strange thing, the funny thing is, I might have said it, and believed it too, if it hadn’t been for that hateful mac. All those weeks, all those months, when I’d wanted him, and then in a moment, in a split second in fact, I knew I didn’t want him any longer.

  When we’d walked long enough for it to be obvious I wasn’t going to answer, he said, ‘At first I fancied you. I fancied you and liked you, of course. But it was never just about sex. Was it? It never was for me, anyway. And I’ve always thought it was more than sex for you.’

  He paused, waiting for confirmation.

  I trudged on.

  We reached a stretch of pebbles that shifted and clattered under our feet. Edward’s leather soles slid about. He waved his arms to help keep his balance.

  ‘What I wanted to say,’ he said as he stumbled along, ‘what I wanted to tell you is, I loved you. I mean, I do love you. I have from the start, you see. That’s what I’m saying. You understand?’

  Another pause.

  I plodded on, head down, not wanting to hear this.

  ‘I’m in love with you, Cordelia. That’s what I’m saying. And you know that. Don’t you?’

  I couldn’t say anything. I opened my mouth to try but the breeze filled it and smothered my words.

  ‘I admire you,’ Edward said. ‘I’m proud of you. And what I was going to say—’ He took a breath. ‘What I’m trying to say is – I want us to live together.’

  That stopped me in my tracks. A dead stop.

  ‘What?’ I said, not looking up. Not looking at anything. A blank unbelieving stare.

  ‘I want—’ Edward repeated, stopping two paces ahead and turning to face me and catching his breath, though we hadn’t been walking fast. ‘I want us to live together.’

  This second time was like a starting gun. I took off. Running. Sprinting. Very fast towards the spindly cat’s cradle of the pier’s legs half
a mile away.

  20

  ‘I scared you,’ Edward said.

  ‘You scared me.’

  I was sitting on a bank of sand piled against the sea wall beside the pier.

  I had run there. Edward had trudged after me.

  ‘Walking in soft sand,’ he said as he approached, ‘is like walking in deep snow.’

  ‘It’s easier in bare feet,’ I said as he brushed sand from his shoes and the bottoms of his trousers.

  He gathered his mac round his legs and sat down beside me, looking even more incongruous than when standing up, a city gent washed up by the tide.

  He said, ‘I know I’ve been acting foolishly lately.’

  I didn’t comment.

  ‘Wisdom,’ he went on, ‘runs away from you sometimes when you’re in love.’

  ‘I don’t know about wisdom,’ I said, ‘but I run away from the words “in love”.’

  ‘Because you don’t believe me?’

  ‘Because I do believe you.’

  He scooped up a handful of sand and sieved it through his fingers. He was left with two bleached cockle shells and a soggy cigarette butt, which he tossed away, intending them for the approaching sea, but missed and said, ‘And it scares you that I’m in love with you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So what did?’

  ‘Asking me to live with you.’

  He tried the sieving business again. Sometimes, people don’t learn from their mistakes – perhaps when they’re in crisis. This time he was left with two pebbles and the metal ring of a ring-pull from a can. He tossed the pebbles away, reaching the sea this time, and kept the ring, which he tried on the fingers of his left hand. It fitted the third. I thought, He’s married to a tin can.

  He said, ‘Would living with me be so terrible?’

  I said, ‘No, probably not. I haven’t thought about it.’

  This was a lie. At the beginning of our affair, in the blossoming zinging hyper-excited phase, I had fantasised about what it would be like.

  I’d not only fantasised about living with him, I was so keen to find out what it would really be like that I’d gone so far as to spy on him and his wife at home. I haven’t told you about this before because it’s too embarrassing, but honesty requires it, I suppose, so here goes. I’d found a way into their back garden, which was usefully provided with bushes and a hedge where I could hide. Using Dad’s binoculars I could see into their kitchen and their sitting room, where they watched tv and sat together and where they played with the children. I’d tried to find a viewpoint from which I could see into their bedroom, but hadn’t managed. I won’t tell everything I observed, sometimes late into the night when Edward and his wife were together after putting the children to bed, it’s shameful enough to confess doing it at all. Enough to say I had a very good idea of what Edward was like when on his own at home and when he was with his wife and with his children.

  ‘But would you like to live with me?’ Edward said.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Lie. I did know. I didn’t want to, but I didn’t want to displease him by telling him. Which is a difference between a relationship with an older man and with someone more your own age. I wouldn’t have lied to Will as I lied to Edward that day. You feel you need to please an older man all the time, and feel less sure of yourself because he has more authority and knows more than you do – two of the reasons why you took up with him in the first place.

  Which is something else I learned from my time with Edward: the moment you lie to a lover is the moment the love between you begins to crumble. Every lie is a brick removed from the wall of your love. Every time you remove one the wall is weaker, and soon you’ll remove one that seems unimportant and the wall will collapse and that’ll be the end of it and maybe of you too.

  Edward said, ‘Is that because we haven’t tried it? Haven’t lived together for long enough for you to know? I could fix that. I could arrange for us to go somewhere for a month or more even. We could try it out. Would you like that? Would that help?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ Lie again. The answer was No.

  ‘What then? Tell me. I’ll do anything to help you decide.’

  ‘Thanks, Edward. But …’ I was stumbling on my way to being honest, like he’d stumbled on the slippy pebbles, and I felt as foolish as he’d looked.

  ‘But what?’

  I said, head down, talking to the sand between my knees, ‘You’re married.’

  ‘I’ll get a divorce.’

  ‘So that we can get married?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t want to get married. Not yet. I’m not ready.’

  ‘Then we’ll live together till you are ready.’

  ‘What if I never am?’

  ‘Then we’ll go on living together without getting married. I don’t mind. All I mind about is being with you.’

  ‘You’d divorce your wife just to have me?’

  ‘Yes. And there’s no just about it. Because I’m in love with you. You’re necessary to me.’

  ‘Really? How d’you know?’

  ‘Experience.’

  ‘When you married your wife—’

  ‘Valerie.’

  ‘– were you in love with her?’

  ‘Yes. Or I thought I was.’

  ‘Thought …?’

  ‘By comparison. It’s different with you. How can I put it? There’s more of it. More love. And it goes deeper.’

  We talked about Edward and his wife, how they met, why they married, how things were between them now. But I’m not going to repeat it. It’s nothing to do with you and me, and I’d feel I was betraying a confidence if I told you. Enough to say he wasn’t happy, I felt sorry for him, and began to understand why he thought he was in love with me. I don’t think he was; he was infatuated, and looking for someone who admired him and needed him. It’s the story of quite a few middle-aged men, you’ll discover.

  ‘So,’ I said (to pick up the story from where it’s mine again and not Edward’s), ‘you’re saying you made a mistake marrying your wife?’

  ‘No, I’m not saying that. It was right then.’

  ‘And I’m right now?’

  ‘If you want to put it that way.’

  ‘If we lived together, how do you know someone else won’t come along after a while who’ll be more right than I am? And then you’d leave me to live with her, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose, if I’m honest, I can’t say that won’t happen. But I don’t think it will.’

  ‘And someone else might come along who is more right for me.’

  ‘Yes, that’s possible.’

  ‘Isn’t it a bit of a risk, then? I mean, for both of us.’

  ‘Everything that matters is a risk. Marriage, your job, having children, your health, crossing the street, flying in a plane, even the food you eat. Life is a risk.’

  ‘But some risks can be avoided, wouldn’t you say?’

  ‘Some can.’

  ‘And then you have a choice. Like whether to live with someone or not and whether to get married or not.’

  ‘Correct. Though if you choose against, you might be rejecting something that would make your life better. So there’s a risk even in choosing to avoid a risk. Look, Cordelia, I’m sorry if the way I’ve been behaving lately has put you off. You’ve changed recently. Been less … close. Is that why? You were as keen on me as I am on you, weren’t you? Are you still?’

  I couldn’t answer.

  After glancing at me and waiting for a reply, he went on, ‘Love, being in love, isn’t a constant thing. It doesn’t always flow at the same strength. It’s not always like a river in flood. It’s more like the sea. It has tides, it ebbs and flows. The thing is, when love is real, whether it’s ebbing or flowing, it’s always there, it never goes away. And that’s the only proof you can have that it is real, and not just an infatuation or a crush or a passing fancy.’

  ‘Doesn’t that mean you have to wait for long enough to be su
re?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And how long is long enough?’

  ‘I don’t know. There’s no rule. Every case is different.’

  ‘And you think we’ve been ebbing and flowing long enough to know?’

  ‘For me, yes.’

  ‘What about for me?’

  ‘Only you can answer that.’

  ‘I was told that the first stage of being in love – you know, the romantic zinging part – lasts from six months to thirty months – two and a half years. Then it fades, and you either fall out of love, because you were only infatuated anyway, or you settle into love-love. Real love. D’you think that’s true?’

  He laughed. ‘If it’s true, you still have plenty of time before you can be completely certain one way or the other. I can wait. In fact, it would be better if we did wait. You’ll be finished with school before the time is up and halfway through university if that’s what you decide to do next, or in a job. You’ll be fully grown up. And my kids will be old enough to understand what’s happening between us. Better all round.’

  I didn’t say anything. There was no point in arguing. He’d always find a reason for doing whatever he wanted me to do.

  After a moment he said, ‘Look, Cordelia. I’m only telling you how it is for me, making it as clear as I can, and asking you to accept me, lock, stock and barrel, no conditions.’

  I couldn’t help feeling touched, even wanting to cry. What more could anyone offer?

  I reached over and kissed him on the cheek and said, meaning it, ‘Thanks, Edward. You really are lovely.’

  He returned the kiss and said, ‘You’ve nothing to thank me for. Love isn’t a gift, it’s a condition. It’s there or it’s not. It is what it is. It only exists because of the person you love. The loved person accepts it or rejects it. My love of you is a fact of my life. You take it or you refuse it. That’s your choice.’

  Pause. Stuck.

  ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘You could start by telling me what you feel about me.’

  ‘I don’t know. But I do think I’ve felt what you’re talking about.’

  ‘For me?’

  Edward looked at me. A long waiting look. Wanting me to say. But I couldn’t. Because saying it would remake the spell from which I was trying to free myself. A spell I had to dispel.