This Is All

by Aidan Chambers

  ‘And with a little help from a friend.’

  ‘You only have to ask. You see, dear Cordelia, what I fear is that you’ll go to uni to study literature, find it isn’t what you expected or what you want, and be disheartened or even put off altogether. I’ve seen it happen to other people I’ve taught.’

  ‘But how can I know till I try?’

  ‘Good point.’

  ‘And the answer is?’

  ‘There isn’t one. It’s a catch twenty-two. You can’t know till you try but when you try it’s too late.’

  ‘So what should I do? If I don’t go to uni, I’ll have to get a job, and I don’t know anything I’d really like to do.’

  ‘If you want to go to uni for the sake of it and to give yourself more time to decide how you want to earn your living, study something other than literature.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Another language, perhaps. Your French isn’t bad. It’s important to be fluent in another language. And it would be useful for a career. There are plenty of openings for people with good language skills. Or you could do history, which you like.’

  ‘But I want to study literature. And even if it isn’t exactly what I want at uni, I could use a degree to get a good job, couldn’t I?’

  ‘Like what? Teaching English? Something in journalism? Become a librarian? Those are the usual jobs for people who have a degree in English and nothing else.’

  ‘I don’t think I’m cut out to be a teacher, do you?’

  ‘No, I don’t, to be honest. You’d be annoyed if the kids didn’t want to learn what you want to teach them.’

  ‘Being a librarian would be okay, but I’d want to read the books all the time.’

  ‘And it isn’t about books, mostly, these days. It’s about computers and management systems and dealing with the public, which you’re not too keen on.’

  ‘No. So no go as a librarian. And somehow I don’t see myself as a journalist, do you?’

  ‘No. Not a job for a would-be poet, and anyway you’re too fastidious and too much of a snob. You’d hate writing in newspaper style, and you’re not the type to pry into people’s lives.’

  ‘In other words, you think journalism is the pits.’

  ‘On the whole, I do.’

  ‘So who else is a snob?’

  ‘Birds of a feather, ducky.’

  ‘Well, then, I haven’t a clue what to do.’

  ‘Why not do this? Apply for a place at university. The experience of going through the hoops will be useful. That will give you time to think more about it. You needn’t take up the place when the time comes if you don’t want to. How about that?’

  ‘Sounds good. Thanks, Julie, thanks so much. I’m sorry to be such a bore.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘Well, thanks anyway.’

  Violence

  My heart and my mind throb with panic.

  It seems to me that in life-or-death crises people either shut down as if hypnotised and unconsciously submit to their fate, or find resources within themselves and just as unconsciously – I mean without conscious thought in words they are aware of – conjure a way out of their predicament.

  For a despairing moment, I’m about to give in, but as Cal approaches, naked and erect, something deep inside takes hold of me, I don’t know what, something perhaps as basic, as primitive, as the urge to live rather than die, and I hear myself say with a firmness, a command, that surprises me as much as Cal, ‘Wait! We can’t! Not yet!’

  He stops, and says, ‘Why? What for?’

  ‘We can’t,’ I say, still not knowing what I’m doing. ‘We just can’t.’

  Cal takes another step towards me. I scramble off the other side of the bed. He stops again.

  ‘We can’t just die and leave nothing behind.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Something so people will know.’

  ‘Know what?’

  ‘What we’ve done. Why we’re dead.’

  ‘Who cares? I don’t give a fuck.’

  He comes round the bed. I scramble over it.

  ‘I care. My father. My aunt. They’ll care. Arry will care. He’s your friend, isn’t he? Don’t you care about him? After all he’s done for you. What’ll he think?’

  Cal throws the rope onto the bed and is preparing to chase me.

  I say quickly, ‘Let me write them a note. We can leave it for them beside our bodies. I’ll explain. We died for love. Then I’ll do what you want. I’ll help you. But if you don’t, I’ll fight you. I won’t give in. It’ll not be the way you want. It’ll be rape. And murder. Rape and murder. Is that what you are? A rapist and a murderer? Is that what you want people to think? That you raped me and murdered me. That you’re just a common rotten ugly rapist and murderer.’

  He’s staring at me, uncertain.

  ‘You say you love me. Is that what you mean by love? Well, is it?’

  He comes round the bed. I don’t move, don’t try to get away from him.

  He takes me by the shoulders.

  ‘Right,’ he says. ‘Give us a kiss to prove it.’ He laughs. ‘Seal it with a loving kiss.’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I won’t. Nothing, till you let me write a note.’

  He smiles and drops his hands. Then with a terrible suddenness he strikes me across the face so hard with the flat of his hand that it sends me spinning to the floor. I feel the shock of the blow but not the pain.

  ‘How’s that for a kiss?’ he says, standing over me. ‘Like it, did you? There’s more where that come from if you don’t behave yourself.’

  He grabs my arm and hauls me to my feet.

  Now the pain hits me. It’s so acute my legs give way and I collapse to the ground again as if from a second blow. I taste blood in my mouth and feel the side of my face swelling and my eye closing.

  ‘Get up,’ Cal says. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’

  But I can’t. I don’t even try.

  ‘Anyway,’ he says, ‘there’s nothing to write with.’

  ‘My bag,’ I say. The words sound the way they do after Novocaine at the dentist’s. ‘In the van.’

  He doesn’t move.

  I can see he’s thinking it over. If I wait too long he’ll refuse.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I say and somehow make myself stand up.

  ‘No.’ He goes to the door.

  ‘And I’ll need my glasses.’

  He stops and turns, smiling again. ‘Bloody nuisance, you are,’ he says. ‘More trouble than you’re worth.’

  ‘Love’s always costly,’ I hear myself reply.

  ‘Least I’m not paying for it this time. That’s a nice change.’

  He turns away and opens the door enough for him to edge through.

  I know this is what I’ve been unconsciously aiming for and that it’s my only chance.

  Please, I pray, please don’t let him close the door, let him leave it open.

  He goes out. And doesn’t close the door after him.

  Thank you, thank you!

  I wait, force myself to wait, till I hear him open the van door. And then I run.

  Through the door and past him as he leans into the van, my bare feet soundless.

  The lane is a blurred dappled tunnel through the trees in the moonlight. I run along the grassy middle.

  I hear Cal yell, ‘No!’ an angry howl.

  He’ll be coming after me, but I can’t hear him and know I mustn’t look back in case I trip and fall.

  I run as never before, truly running for my life.

  And then my memory is confused.

  Lights coming towards me fast, bouncing, bobbing. The sound of a speeding car. Both are hazy because my bruised eye has closed and I don’t have my glasses on and I’m panting so hard.

  And then the weight of Cal falling on me, hurling me to the ground (I remember the cold wetness of the grass on my face), squashing the breath out of me, and him pinning me down and punching me viciously on the back again and again. And th
e lights and the engine noise blinding and deafening and stopping almost on top of me. And the weight of Cal leaving me. And my father shouting. And Arry’s voice saying my name.

  And then nothing.

  >> Will >>

  Will

  I only know from Dad and Arry what happened during the twenty-four hours after they rescued me. I seem to have collapsed into a waking coma and I don’t remember anything of that time.

  As they drive up the lane, Dad and Arry see me picked out by the headlights running towards them, naked, waving, screaming, with Cal pounding along behind, catching me up and flooring me with a rugby tackle just as Dad skids to a stop a metre or two from us. Cal is so fixated on me he seems unaware of the car or of Dad and Arry storming out of it, until Dad grabs him round the neck and hauls him off me. Then he seems to take in what’s happening and attacks Dad, smashing a fist into his face, kicking his leg and punching him in the stomach, which floors him. He’s turning to attack me again but Arry throws himself between us and hangs onto Cal until Dad, recovering enough breath and strength, hurls himself at Cal again, flailing at him and shouting at Arry to call the police. This seems to be enough for Cal, who breaks free and sprints off down the lane towards the barn. Dad tries to give chase, though one leg is badly hurt and he’s gasping for breath. But by the time he reaches the barn, Cal has disappeared into the trees. It would be difficult to find him in the dark and Dad is afraid that if he tries, Cal might circle back and grab me and use the car to get away. So he limps back to find that Arry has got me into the back seat of the car. They cover me with the blanket they brought with them and Arry climbs in beside me, his arm round me, holding me to him.

  While Arry helps me to drink some water Dad asks me what happened, whether Cal has ‘done anything’ and if I’m hurt. I keep saying I’m all right but they can get nothing else out of me. Dad says he’ll call the police but I become so agitated, saying no no, he mustn’t, he mustn’t, that Dad says he won’t but that he’d better take me to hospital to be checked over. And again I’m vehement. Take me home, just take me home, I plead, please, please.

  Dad gives in and phones Doris to let her know they’ve found me and are on the way back. He gets out of the car to do this so that I won’t hear him also telling her what happened when they got here and the state I’m in and to call our doctor, a good client and friend of Dad’s, to ask him to come to the house and examine me.

  That done, he has the presence of mind to drive to the barn and disable Cal’s van so that he won’t be able to use it, to retrieve my backpack, and to check the inside of the barn for anything that might be useful as evidence or information, because he means to get on to the police after he’s taken me home.

  On the journey home I fall asleep. But it’s more than sleep, it’s some kind of collapse, because when we arrive they can’t wake me and have to carry me to my room. The doctor comes. He examines me but apart from some bruises to my face and back and the cuts on my thigh (which they don’t know weren’t caused by Cal) he can find no serious injury or any signs that I’ve been sexually assaulted (which is the thing they are really worried about). He says my collapse is normal after a trauma of the kind they guess I’ve been through, and advises that the best treatment is rest in bed till I’m conscious again and recovered enough to talk. If this doesn’t happen in the next twenty-four hours, he’ll have to send me to hospital for treatment and tests. He’ll call again tomorrow (today by now, as it’s 3.30 a.m.).

  Doris and Julie give me a bed bath and agree to Julie’s suggestion to take turns sitting with me till I come to, Doris first, while Julie goes home to collect clean clothes, her toiletries, and some work to do when she relieves Doris for the 4 till 8 a.m. vigil.

  I’m unconscious till late in the evening of that day. When I wake I don’t know where I am at first, then think I’m still in the barn, at which I sit bolt upright and scream, and find both Doris and Julie instantly beside me, Doris holding me round the shoulders, Julie holding my hands. The relief when I realise they are with me and I’m in my room is so overwhelming that I begin to sob uncontrollably. They comfort me till I quieten down.

  My memory of the next few hours is hazy. I remember that as soon as I’d calmed down I couldn’t wait to get into the shower, desperate to clean myself of Cal and the barn, but I was so shaky I could hardly stand and Julie had to be with me to make sure I didn’t fall and injure myself. Doris made scrambled egg for me to eat in bed. When I’d finished we were joined by Arry and Dad, who coaxed me to tell what had happened. By the time I’d done that and answered their questions I conked out and fell asleep. I didn’t wake till nearly twelve next day. Julie was still there. She’d slept beside me that night, and was reading in my chair by the window when I woke. Again, it was a relief to find her there. She didn’t mention the trauma, but treated me as normal, was matter-of-fact and neither falsely cheerful or solicitous, and while I ate a brunch she told me about the book she was reading, and read me passages aloud, which was as restorative as the meal.

  In the afternoon a plain-clothes police detective turned up with a uniformed policewoman. This upset me. Dad hadn’t said he’d told the police. They’d been to the barn, collected evidence, taken Cal’s van away for examination, and put out a wanted notice. They made me tell the story again, wrote it down and made me sign it. They said I’d have to appear in court when they caught Cal. By this time I was angry as well as upset. I said I didn’t want to accuse Cal of anything. I understood why he’d behaved like he did. Treating him like a criminal would only make him worse. Why couldn’t they do something to help him? They said he’d attacked me and the law had to take its course. I said I wouldn’t accuse him of anything. They said that without my testimony there’d be no case against him, they’d have to let him go and he’d be free to attack someone else. Dad and Doris agreed with them. I said he hadn’t attacked me, not in the way they were trying to make out. What he’d done he’d done out of love for me. A funny kind of love, they said. I said, but it was still love, not hate or a liking for violence, and that he wouldn’t behave like that with anyone else. He wasn’t a rapist or a thug, just a hurt and mixed-up person, who life had treated badly and who needed proper help not punishment. I said I wished I could help him but I didn’t know how. They said I’d do well to steer clear of him and to report it to them if he ever showed up. Julie said nothing, I knew she’d agree with me, but not being family she had no standing in the discussion except as my friend and was told from the start that she had to stay silent or leave.

  I began to detest them. I wanted all of them except Julie out of my room. They were a violation of my sacred space, my private sanctuary. I shut up, withdrew into myself, and waited for them to go, which they did as soon as they realised they’d reached an impasse. I suppose they thought they’d got what they came for anyway. I disliked their compartmented arrogance, their certainty that they were right and that this was the only way things could be done. I also felt Dad (and therefore Doris, because she must have known what Dad had done) had betrayed me. He should have talked to me before calling the police. I knew he’d say I’d been in too bad a state to talk to and to think rationally and that the police would have to act quickly if they were to catch Cal, but I didn’t care about that, I felt he’d let me down. Looking back, I know his only intention was to protect me and do the right thing. But that isn’t how I thought at the time.

  For the next few days I stayed at home sunk in depression, not leaving my room, save to go to the bathroom. Other than Dad and Doris, I saw no one except Arry, who brought me little presents to cheer me up (flowers, perfume, a CD, some chocolate, and a new notebook and pencil – hoping they would tempt me to write, which they didn’t), and Julie, who sat with me most of the evening every day. We said very little. I didn’t want to talk, having nothing to say, and she knew better than to chatter. Mostly she spent the time doing her school work while I read or listened to music. And we meditated together, which meant little more for me tha
n staring blankly into space. But the ritual of preparation was a big help and comfort – showering, doing our hair, making ourselves up, putting on clothes that suited our mood, choosing a text to focus our minds, arranging the lights, burning incense candles, playing the right music, setting up the icon, settling ourselves into our meditation posture. It was an oasis in the wilderness of my gloom.

  After a week of this, Julie suggested it would be good if I had a change. Why not a cycle ride, a meal at her place, and stay the night? D&D were only too glad to agree. My immobility and low spirits were beginning to irritate their pragmatic natures. (I didn’t need to hear what they’d be saying. Dad: Everybody has bad experiences. Why doesn’t she just pull herself together and get on with life? Doris: Work is the best cure. She should go to school and put the upset behind her.) I dithered. The more you stay in your shell the less you want to leave it – in fact, the more you fear leaving it. It was Arry who persuaded me. Not with words, but by cleaning my bike and checking the tyres after Dad retrieved it from the police, packing an overnight bag, laying out the clothes I’d need, offering to come with us for the ride if that would make me feel better, but all the time acting like he expected me to go, no discussion, no questions asked. Persuasion by assumption, no doubts acknowledged. Dear dear Arry, what an unselfish friend he has always been.

  And I did feel better in mind and body after the ride, and it was such a pleasure to be with Julie in her place again, and such a relief to be away from the tensions at home. I laughed that day for the first time since Cal. But still, by the time we went to bed the gloom had settled on me again, as night darkens day. And next morning I was so low at the prospect of returning home that Julie phoned Dad and suggested I stay with her. He didn’t object. Before she went to school Julie persuaded me to try writing an essay on Coleridge. By the time she returned that afternoon I’d managed two sentences. She didn’t comment. There was just time for a run round the park before it was closed for the night.