This Is All

by Aidan Chambers

  The Celebration was held on a Saturday evening. Next day George, Doris, Julie, Arry and I drove to the White Horse. You were with us. It was misty, we could hardly see more than twenty metres, everything was wet and icy cold. While George held the wooden casket – the same one he’d used for her mother’s – I scattered Cordelia’s ashes on the eye of the horse. Nothing was said. Doris, Julie, carrying you, and Arry were in tears. As the last of the ashes sifted through my fingers George broke down completely, threw himself full length onto the eye, clawing at the ground, shouting Cordelia’s name, and wouldn’t get up. It was all Arry and I could do to lift him to his feet and by the time we managed it, George was covered with chalk from the eye, doubtless mixed with some of Cordelia’s ashes. We tried to brush him down, but the chalk was wet and sticky and our efforts only smeared it further into his clothes. He looked like a ghost. With one of us either side of him, Arry and I helped him back to the car.

  It is not an occasion I like to think about.

  As an antidote I want to remember a happier time. On Cordelia’s twentieth birthday, two months after you were born and two months before she died, we took you tree climbing. In the morning Arry and I rigged the ropes on the ash tree she and I had climbed and at the top of which we’d nailed the little plaques recording the dates. We drove back home for lunch and to fetch Cordelia and you.

  Arry hauled Cordelia up from the ground. I pulled myself up, with you in a baby harness strapped to my front. At the top we nailed a plaque with your initials and the date inscribed on it underneath ours, took photos, fed you warm milk from a flask and shared a small bottle of beer ourselves, before descending. There was no doubting that you enjoyed it. When we reached the top you smiled and slavered with pleasure. On the way home you celebrated the occasion by spewing up all over your mother. Luckily she was still wearing her waterproof climbing gear.

  Your mother declared the outing a decided success and was as happy as I’d ever seen her.

  There was one thing we didn’t tell her. In the morning, when we were fixing the ropes, Arry found a new plaque nailed under Cordelia’s. On it were the initials CB – Cal’s – and a date two days before – the second anniversary of his abduction of your mother.

  Arry removed the plaque and rubbed some moss into the hole made by the nail, in case your mother noticed it. We decided not to tell her, knowing it would spoil her birthday and revive her fear. Next day I called at the police station, reported what we’d found and handed the plaque over as evidence.

  The week after Cordelia died we heard that Cal had been arrested only a few streets away from us, and was in custody, charged with numerous offences of burglary and assault. He was tried and sent to jail for three years. He wrote to me, saying he was sorry to hear of your mother’s death and how he loved her and never meant to harm her. Had your mother been me she would have replied. I couldn’t because I’m not so forgiving, but also because of a poem I’d found on the table in her room when I was packing her things in the days after her death. She must have been working on it the day she died, and quite clearly it was unfinished. There were eight different versions, each of them dated, with changes written in pencil on the printout. Here is the last one:

  Thank You

  (to Cal)

  I should thank you

  not resent

  your unexpected love.

  I should rejoice.

  Not I but you

  brought him back.

  I should bless

  not wail for

  violence repaid.

  I should cheer.

  Why then do I weep?

  A week has gone by since writing the above. I’ve just read it through for the first time. What a mish-mash! As plain and boring as an ash tree in autumn. (Despite what your mother wrote about it and the importance to us of the one we climbed, the fact is that the ash is not blessed with autumnal colours but deciduates into its winter skeleton with its tired summer green undecorated.) As your mother sometimes pointed out to me, I am not possessed of a metaphoric mind.

  I started off intending to explain about the Pillow Boxes and was tempted off course by other topics. To spare my blushes, let’s call it Improvisation on a Cordelian Theme, which suggests it’s a lot more artful than it is, the term ‘improvisation’ often being used as a cover for their incompetence by those who enjoy a mediocre talent. I wouldn’t have got as far as this without Julie’s help.

  Back to the main tune:

  I hoarded your mother’s boxes for months, poring over their contents secretly at night, like a miser gloating over his money. I wept torrentially when I first opened them, but, as I’ve explained, my tears were as much of joy that Cordelia was alive in them as of grief over her death. The fact is, I had accepted in my mind that she was dead, but not in my heart.

  Then one evening during our meal Julie asked what I had done with your mother’s writings. I said they were safely stored away.

  ‘And what,’ she asked, ‘are you going to do about her book?’

  ‘Which book?’ I asked with alarm.

  ‘The one Cordelia intended for her daughter’s sixteenth birthday. I wondered if you’d let me see it.’

  Until then I was certain that no one knew about it but me. And during the hours and hours of living with Cordelia in the pages of her Pillow Boxes, I had come to think of the book as mine. It was mine because Cordelia was mine and therefore the pages of writing that defied her death and kept her alive must also be mine. I had forgotten it was meant for you. I’m sure I assumed I would show you your mother’s writing when you were old enough to appreciate it, as I would show you photographs and her other possessions, and I also assumed that when I died the book and everything of hers would become yours. But not until then.

  Now I had discovered that someone else knew about the book, and this someone else was reminding me that the book wasn’t mine, and this someone else was the person my daughter was calling Mummy.

  I felt betrayed.

  ‘How do you know about it?’ I asked, spiky as chipped granite.

  ‘Because Cordelia told me,’ Julie said with surprise.

  ‘She told you?’

  ‘Yes. Didn’t you know?’

  It was impossible to say anything more, impossible even to shake my head.

  ‘She told me about it,’ Julie said, anxious now, aware of my reaction. ‘She discussed it with me sometimes. She showed me some of the parts she thought she’d include. I’m sorry, Will. I thought you knew.’

  I told you earlier how the grief I felt when your mother died was mixed with anger. When I wept the night I opened the boxes, I let my grief out and faced it, but my anger was buried deeper than I could dig out of myself. Now it emerged hideous, resentful, and cold as ice.

  Without a word, incapable of speech, I stood up and deliberately, mechanically picked up my plate, still bearing the remnants of my meal, and threw it onto the floor, smashing it to smithereens. And then one thing after another from the table, slowly, with intervals of several seconds between each – every plate, glass, bowl, cup, saucer, a bottle of wine, the salt and pepper shakers. When there was nothing left on the table, I turned to the worktop and started on whatever I could lay hands on, then to the cupboards: the crockery, the glassware, the cooking pots, the ketchup and olive oil and wine vinegar and soy sauce and mustard and marmalade and jam and and and … Smash … smash … smash.

  I knew what I was doing, but had no control. I observed myself with horror as if watching a lunatic.

  I was entirely unaware of Julie. When the fit was over she told me she’d screamed when the first plate hit the floor, then stood up meaning to try and stop me, but I brushed her aside so brusquely and with such an unblinking reptilian look in my eyes she knew she had no hope, and as I went on, smash … smash … smash, she thought of you and what I might do when I’d broken everything in the kitchen, so she ran upstairs and took you from your cot, and carried you down to the front room, where she picked up the phone t
o call the police, intending after that to take you out to the car to wait till the police arrived. But as she was picking up the phone Arry came in. He had heard the noise even before he opened the door. Julie explained that I was in a fit of rage at something she’d said and was wrecking the kitchen and she was going to call the police because I was out of control. But Arry said no, wait till he had a go at calming me. Julie thought that unwise but Arry was already on the way to the kitchen, so she waited by the open door, prepared to make a bolt for it with you if Arry failed.

  Arry says he paused in the kitchen doorway for a few seconds watching me in robot-like slow motion hurling things to the floor with both hands as hard as I could, then staring at the result for a few seconds, before selecting the next object and repeating the process. He called my name loudly three or four times during the silent staring intervals but I showed no sign of hearing him. By now the floor was littered with broken crocks. He crunched and slithered his way over it and stood an arm’s length in front of me. He repeated my name, asked if I was all right (!), waved his hands in front of my eyes. Nothing, no reaction, no response. On I went, smash … smash … smash.

  Later he couldn’t account for what he did next, except that he felt he had joined a naughty child in a playpen. He reached out during one of my intervals of silence, took a glass vase from the cupboard I was in the process of emptying, and mimicking my deliberate robotic action, hurled it to the floor between us. My eyes, already on the ground contemplating the shards of the last item I had demolished, blinked. Blinked again. Then looked up into his eyes. Arry smiled. My face remained impassive. Arry reached out, took a glass jug, lifted it high above his head and hurled it to the floor. My eyes followed this action, observed the splintered glass, looked up and blinked again. At which moment, as if a button had been pressed, I came to, looked round at the carpet of broken crockery and glass, looked at Arry again and said indignantly, ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing!?’

  ‘I’m doing what you’re doing,’ Arry said, mimicking my indignation. ‘What the hell d’you think you’re doing?’

  I looked around once more, puzzled.

  ‘I’ve done this?’ I said. I can remember clearly how astonished I felt and how sure I was that Arry had caused the wreckage.

  ‘You have,’ Arry said gently. ‘Look, Will. Come and sit down. I think you need to sit down.’

  ‘I’ve done this?’ I repeated, appalled now.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ Arry said, and taking me by the arm led me into the front room, where I saw Julie standing by the open door, you in her arms, her mobile and her car keys in her hand, visibly shaking.

  ‘It’s okay,’ Arry said as we came into the room. ‘Just a blip. All over now.’

  He sat me on the sofa as if settling an old man suffering from senile dementia, which at that moment I might well have been.

  Julie didn’t move from the door, still ready to make a dash for it were I to show the slightest sign of regression.

  Arry went into the kitchen and brought some water for me in a small saucepan, there being nothing more suitable to carry it in.

  Reassured, Julie closed the door and took you upstairs to your cot. You’d remained remarkably unconcerned throughout the episode and were asleep again before she laid you down.

  Then the three of us began an hour of what might be called a debriefing. Julie repeated what she’d said that set off my rage. I numerously repeated how sorry and how embarrassed I was for what I’d done. Julie and Arry numerously repeated that I wasn’t to worry, what did a few old crocks matter so long we were all right, no harm done.

  Our nerves calmer, our confidence stronger, we rehearsed the reasons why I’d behaved so disgracefully. I explained that I’d thought I was the only one who knew about Cordelia’s Book, and related what had happened when I opened the boxes.

  Now all was understood. The adrenaline rush wore off and we felt drained.

  ‘Let’s leave it for tonight,’ Julie said. ‘We’ve had enough. Let’s clean up the kitchen, and tomorrow we’ll talk about Cordelia’s book. I think you should decide what you’re going to do with it, otherwise it’ll hang over you and upset you again, don’t you agree?’

  I was in no state to agree or disagree. And she’d called a halt only just in time because as we went into the kitchen to clear up, I started trembling so badly my knees gave way and I sank to the floor as the shock of what I’d done hit me, really did hit me. Arry and Julie helped me to my feet and sat me on a chair at the table for a few minutes, where I trembled as if shivering with cold – and did indeed feel frozen – and made me drink more water. But the shivering continued.

  ‘Let’s get you to bed,’ Julie said, and she and Arry helped me upstairs, one each side, my arms round their shoulders. Remembering this moment next day I thought of George at the White Horse after we’d scattered Cordelia’s ashes, and understood the pain and loss and impotent weakness he must have felt that day. They say the death of a loved one is one of the worst pains a human being can experience and that the death of your own child is the greatest pain of all. I can believe it.

  Arry and Julie undressed me and put me to bed. Wanting to be with me to help if I got worse, Arry lay down beside me. Julie switched off the light and closed the door and went down to clear away the wreckage on her own. I was too far gone to take this in at the time, but next day when I realised it I felt guilty about this too. In the event, I was unconscious before she reached the bottom of the stairs.

  I woke once in the night. Arry was in bed beside me, fast asleep. I looked at the photo of Cordelia on my bedside table and smiled at her. We both knew how Arry felt about me, and we sometimes joked about it, though not to him. ‘Well,’ I said in my mind to her picture, ‘he’s got his way at last. Or part of his way.’ And I knew Cordelia would not only find it funny but also be pleased. She and Arry had been very close, like brother and sister – or rather more like sister and sister. I’m sure she talked to him in a way she never did, or perhaps couldn’t, to me. She always indulged him and he adored her. He was – he is – my closest friend. Our friendship deepens as we share our longing for Cordelia and comfort each other for her loss.

  I was woken in the morning by your arrival in my bed. After such an exhausting upset, we adults wanted to sleep late. But you woke as usual at six. Arry heard you and went to Julie’s room, where she was struggling with her weariness – she hadn’t finished clearing up the kitchen till after three – took you from your cot, allowing Julie to go back to sleep, and put you through your morning routine, and then came back to my bed with you, which woke me up. I felt as if a forty-tonne truck had rolled over me and wanted to stay sleeping. But you were eager for the joys of the day, and to be in bed with both Arry and me was a special delight.

  The way you treated each of us by then – and still do – was quite different. Julie was your mother, was with you most of the time, and you were as close as a mother and daughter can be. In other words, you took her for granted. I was your daddy of course, you flirted and were coy with me, you came to me when there was something special you wanted and wheedled it out of me – a trick you learned very quickly, knowing I’d indulge you in ways Julie wouldn’t. But you were wary of me too; perhaps, as Cordelia used to tell me, there is something about me that frightens people a little, though I have never understood what it is. As for Arry, you treated him as your big brother and your playmate. When you were tetchy or upset, he was the one who could make you smile. As soon as you saw him your face lit up with a look of pleasure and anticipation reserved only for him. You were always from your first days volatile in nature; you had no middle gear, no cruising speed; you approached everything with passion. When your spirits were low, they were low with as much intensity as your highs. Arry could keep up with you better and for longer than Julie or me. Julie said he could do that because there was a childness in him that she and I had lost, and perhaps never had. Neither of us had liked being children, we’d both always wan
ted to grow up. To be honest, I played with you because I’m your dad and that’s what dads do. A kind of natural duty, and I enjoyed it, but couldn’t keep it up for long. But Arry could – still can – spend all day with you and never tire. And whereas I could only talk to you as I talk to an adult – I never learned child-speak or if I did I’ve forgotten it – Arry spoke in a language you and he seemed to understand. And when we bought presents, his were always the ones you liked best.

  Take your second birthday, for instance. Julie bought a set of clothes she knew you needed and thought you would like. I bought a picturebook and a special toy that would help your manual co-ordination and required you to think about how to use it. Arry gave you a cardboard box he’d covered in coloured paper decorated with cut-out shapes and figures, and filled with bits of paper of different colours and sizes that he’d cadged from a printer for nothing – offcuts from printing jobs, waiting to be carted away for recycling; he’d topped it off with a set of six child-safe felt-tip pens bought cheap from a charity shop. Result? Yes, you liked the clothes, which you enjoyed trying on and which were then immediately put away. Yes, you liked the book, which you insisted I read to you at once and which you then put aside to try out your new toy, which you took about half an hour to become proficient at and which you then put aside to open Arry’s present. This produced howls of delight and for the rest of the day you and Arry lay on the floor drawing (you scrawling and scribbling, Arry making outlines for you to colour in), cutting (Arry) and pasting (you, soon resembling a girl made of glue), making (Arry: houses, trees, fish, motor cars, etc.) and unmaking (you), and ending up with the pens being used as make-up on each other’s faces, while talking to each other in Secret Speak without ever seeming to draw breath, and giggling and rolling about and cuddling and demanding food and drink and generally having what passes in childhood for a good time. Need more be said? QED.