Now I Know

by Aidan Chambers

  I hated myself! Dear God, how I hated myself afterwards. You thought I’d gone to sleep, but I hadn’t. All the time we were lying there in the tent, I was loathing myself. Not because I’d wanted you. There’s nothing wrong with that. But because of my deceit.

  I’m sorry for that. For what I did and for hating myself as well. Neither did any good.

  I can tell you this now because I’ve thought and prayed so much about it. What I did and why.

  [Pause.]

  It’s all got to do with love, hasn’t it?

  The more I thought about it, the more it came down to one thing. ‘A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another.’

  She said that at the Last Supper, the night before she died on the cross. She’d broken the bread only a few minutes before, saying, ‘This is my body,’ and she’d passed round the cup of wine, saying, ‘This is my blood,’ and she’d told the disciples, ‘Do this in remembrance of me’.

  You know, to me the Last Supper is the most important part of her story. And being at the Eucharist, at the Last Supper repeated day in day out all down the years since the first time, that’s for me the most important part of my life as a Christian. It heals me. Brings everything into focus. Gives me new energy. Helps me view things in the right perspective.

  So if she gives a new commandment then, at that moment in the Last Supper, it’s just got to be important. And the more I thought about it the more I kept wondering why she calls it the new commandment. What’s so new about it? How is loving one another different from loving your neighbour as yourself, which we’d already been told to do?

  And, after all, Nik, she can’t mean ‘love’ the way you meant it that night. Otherwise, she would mean a kind of everlasting gang-bang. Which you’ve got to admit is impractical, if not impossible.

  Then I realized only St John’s Gospel, my favourite, mentions the new commandment. The others don’t. And in John’s story, it comes after Judas has left the room to go and betray Jesus. Also, she repeats the command three times. You’ll like that. And it’s tangled up with her talking about friendship. ‘You are my friends if you do as I command you,’ she says. ‘I call you servants no longer.’ So this love, this new love, is the love of friendship.

  In the love you wanted of me, Nik, two people come together and make themselves one. Whereas it seems to me the love Jesus is telling us to have for one another is the love of two friends: the love of distinctness, of separateness. Neither wants to dominate. Neither wants to be dominated. The desire in the love of friendship is the desire for the other’s freedom.

  In the love you want, the two people fit themselves together physically because they want to fit together in every way—in their bodies, in their minds, in their spirits. But in the love of friendship you don’t want your friend to become one with you. Just the opposite. You want your friend to be as perfectly herself as she can be.

  [Pause.]

  That’s what I want for you, Nik, and that’s what I hope you most want for me.

  That is what I want you for, and I hope that is what you want me for.

  [Pause.]

  Lying here, at first hating myself, wanting an end to my life, I have slowly learned to love myself as a friend. That has been my cure for my wounded self. Now and in future loving you as a friend is the best of me—is all of me—I can give you.

  All I can give you is the love I give myself.

  The love you’ve been wanting from me—the love that comes from the desire to be one—I’ve already given elsewhere, Nik. What I need is a friend who loves me as a friend, if I am to live up to that other love. Will you be that loving friend?

  ‘She sounds a bit of a fanatic,’ Michelle said, ‘if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘No more than you are,’ Nik said.

  ‘Me? I’m not a fanatic.’

  ‘Yes you are. You’re a fanatic about boys.’

  ‘That’s natural.’

  ‘So? You like doing what comes naturally. Julie likes doing what comes supernaturally.’

  ‘Clever dick!’

  ‘Smartypants!’

  She poked her tongue at him through vulvarine lips.

  Nik blew a raspberry. ‘I’m not saying you aren’t good at it, Michelle, don’t get me wrong. Just the same as Julie’s good at giving her all to God.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why you like her so much.’

  ‘Because I can’t have her, you mean?’

  ‘No. Because she’s good at what she wants. That’s always a bit sexy, isn’t it? I mean, there’s a boy in the swimming team at the Leisure Centre. He’s terrific at swimming and he knows it, the bighead. He’s just gorgeous to watch, I mean he just is. It’s not only his smashing body. It’s everything. I dunno how to say it, but it’s like when he swims he’s the best he ever will be in the whole of his life. If you could have him then, while he’s swimming, you just feel it would be the greatest, the last word . . . Ecstacy!’

  She sighed.

  ‘But then after, when he’s not swimming, even though he’s got this stunning body, it’s like all that—I dunno . . .’

  ‘Concentrated energy?’

  ‘Yes—all that lovely concentrated energy has broken up into awkward little bits all sparking off in different directions and you’re left with this big-headed, ham-fisted idiot that’s about as likely to give anybody ecstacy as a side of beef in a butcher’s shop.’

  ‘I suppose it might, a side of beef, some people being as weird as they are. But it sounds to me like you should choose your meat more carefully.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve been thinking lately. But you know what I’m trying to say.’

  ‘Sure. Ever since I first saw Julie I’ve been hot for her. Not just for sex, but because of her specialness. She knows what she wants and she’s going for it, all or nothing, no side-tracking.’

  ‘Dedicated.’

  Nik glanced at Michelle with surprise. ‘That’s right, that’s what it is.’

  ‘And you want the same. Want it with her.’

  ‘Do I? . . . How do you know?’

  Michelle laughed. ‘Any girl would know that. But if you ask me, she has to be a bit of a fool to turn you down.’

  ‘She hasn’t turned me down.’ Nik pushed himself to his feet and, breathing deeply, took in the sweeping view, early morning mist now shrouding the valley so that he seemed to be standing above the clouds. ‘She’s offered me something else, that’s all.’ His eyes came back to Michelle lying on her side, her head supported on her elbow. ‘Something better.’ He went to his bike and stood it upright. ‘Only I’m not sure I can live up to it.’

  He mounted and hobby-horsed himself alongside Michelle.

  ‘I’m getting cold,’ he said.

  Michelle got to her feet and groomed herself with practised vanity.

  Nik said, ‘Would you do something for me?’

  She smiled at him askance. ‘Don’t say this is going to be my lucky night after all!’

  He grinned back. ‘You never know!’

  Michelle climbed onto his saddle behind him. ‘So what is it?’

  ‘Tell you when we get there.’

  ‘Why? Where are we going?’

  ‘To the dump by the canal.’

  †

  ‘Isn’t this nice?’ Michelle said.

  ‘Nice it is, secluded it isn’t,’ Tom said, coming up behind and slipping his arms round her waist.

  ‘Who said it was?’ Michelle strained against him. ‘But it’s a lovely view. All of the town. And especially of the dump by the canal. Isn’t that where it happened?’

  ‘That’s where it happened,’ Tom said, his hands now exploring under Michelle’s singlet.

  ‘I must say,’ Michelle said, using her elbows to prevent Tom’s hands rising higher, ‘you don’t waste much time.’

  ‘Told you—’ Tom’s breathing was not at all calm, ‘don’t have any to spare.’

  ‘Thought you was after information?’

 
; ‘I am.’ Thwarted in one ambition Tom’s hands set off in pursuit of another.

  ‘Well you won’t find it down there!’ Michelle wriggled free and faced him. ‘So what d’you want to know?’

  Irritation flickered in Tom’s eyes and revived his suspicion. ‘Look, you—what’s your game?’

  ‘Snooker,’ Michelle said. ‘I’m quite partial to a game of snooker.’

  ‘Smart ass!’ Tom said.

  Michelle laughed. ‘How funny! Somebody else called me that only last night. Well, early this morning to be exact. But he was a bit more polite.’

  ‘Said please and thank you, did he?’

  ‘Lots of words you don’t know.’

  ‘All talk but no action, by the sound.’

  ‘Wouldn’t say that.’ Michelle turned away and looked into the valley. A black-leathered figure on a motorbike, like a beetle on a matchbox toy, was circling slowly round a pile of crushed cars in the centre of the dump. She smiled to herself at the sight. ‘Nor would you,’ she went on, ‘if you knew who he was.’

  ‘Why should I give a damn who you were with last night?’

  Michelle shrugged and said, ‘Isn’t that what you want to talk about?’

  The confusion on Tom’s face made her tingle with satisfaction. She had duped him, trapped him, hooked him; he knew it and was smarting.

  A glance into the valley told her that the tiny motorcyclist had driven away. The dump appeared deserted.

  ‘All right,’ Tom said, ‘let’s cut the crap.’

  ‘You must watch the cops on telly a lot,’ Michelle said.

  Tom stepped down the bank to face her, the slope so steep his head came level with hers.

  ‘This is official, okay?’ he said straining for professional neutrality. ‘The guy you were with—he had something to do with the crucifiction?’

  ‘You could say that.’

  ‘Say what?’

  ‘He was the one, of course.’

  ‘The one? Which one? The one on the cross or one of those who put him there?’

  ‘Ah!’ Michelle said. ‘I see what you mean. The one on the cross.’

  Tom’s evident disappointment took her by surprise; she was even more startled by his reply.

  ‘You mean Nicholas Frome?’

  Tom’s turn for satisfaction now. He added with tart pleasure, ‘Tell us something I don’t know.’

  Michelle preened her hair in hope of hiding her sudden panic.

  ‘Like what?’ she said.

  ‘Like who did it.’

  She turned hard eyes on him and said, ‘If you know it was Nik why don’t you ask him?’

  ‘Because I’m asking you.’

  ‘And what makes you think I know?’

  Tom grinned coldly. ‘You know, and you’re going to tell.’

  ‘Who says!’

  ‘Look—you’ve had a nice little game.’ Tom snorted. ‘Snooker!’ He pulled at his nose and sniffed. ‘Well, I can take a joke. And I’m not mean. I’ll be generous. I’ll give you a choice of balls—if you’ll pardon the expression. You tell me what I want to know, all friendly, like a good citizen, or I take you in on suspicion of being accessory to criminal assault and for obstructing a police officer in the course of his duty.’

  ‘All right, all right, don’t go on!’ Michelle regarded him for a moment with undisguised dislike. ‘But only on condition there’s no come-back on Sharkey. He’s got nothing to do with this.’

  ‘Who said anything about Sharkey?’

  ‘Just so long as you remember, that’s all.’

  ‘Sure,’ Tom said, ‘no danger.’

  ‘Promises, promises!’ Michelle said with scorn, and set off in the direction of Tom’s car, saying, ‘Let’s get it over with. Drive me down to the dump.’

  REPORTS

  NIK’S NOTEBOOK: I can write again.

  Not tears, after all.

  The crucifiction was what I needed.

  Who would understand? One person’s need is another person’s bananas. Maybe one day I won’t understand myself. So, for the record:

  Len S. shouldn’t have told me to observe other people. He should have told me to observe myself. I don’t need to look elsewhere. All humanity is in me. All its history, all its quirks, quarks, and (w)holes (black and white). Therefore all its future too.

  When you think about it, this is bound to be so. With all the fathers and mothers it took to make me, going back by compound interest to whothehellever Adam and Eve were, how could it be otherwise? And not only for me but for everybody.

  My life is my specimen. My body is my laboratory. Last week the cross was my test tube.

  Now I know that the only faith I can believe is an experimental faith.

  STOCKSHOT: The eye by which I see God is the same eye by which God sees me.

  But I was barmy to think Michelle would help. When I told her what I was going to do she threw an eppie. I’m not going to help you do THAT! You must be MAD! You’ll KILL yourself! Etc.

  Wouldn’t listen. Don’t blame her. Not that there was time for explanations. Sunrise wasn’t far off. Thought for a minute she would shop me. But she thought I couldn’t do it without help. So I said no, I probably couldn’t and loaned her my bike and she scooted off home.

  I wasn’t so barmy as to tell her I’d already worked out how to do it on my own. Though it would have been easier with somebody to lend a hand and would have saved some of the fash that happened afterwards.

  Nature and conduct of experiment

  Reasons 1. Believers (e.g. Old Vic, Kit, Julie) have been telling me that, if you want to know about belief, you have to behave as if you believed. You don’t think it out, they say, and then believe, like solving a puzzle. You earn it and learn it by living it.

  2. They have been telling me belief is a gift which you have to want. You obtain it by willing it. Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. (Matt. 7,7.)

  3. They all talk about:

  a. The Last Supper / Eucharist / Mass / Holy Communion;

  b. The Crucifiction;

  c. The Resurrection.

  They perform the Last Supper, make pictures and sculptures of the Cross, and argue about what happened at the Resurrection.

  I have taken part in (a), and quite enjoy arguing about (c). Sharing a meal with friends and having a jawbang about the Big Questions is understandable / fun / good / right / natural. But hanging two- and three-d pictures on the walls of your home, never mind in public places, of a man being tortured by the cruellest death known to the human race does not seem quite pukka, old boy, certainly not kosher, cobber.

  Besides, the confessed believers in God’s own religion also talk about the imitation of Christ, of living your belief. They act out (a), hope for (c), not being able to do much about their own resurrections as yet, but, apart from a few of their number that they tend to regard as nutters, none of them has a go at (b) crucifiction, which yet they say is so important to their belief. So what’s all this about living your faith?

  Of course, they talk a lot about the cross as a symbol, and that’s okay. But 1 thought I’d take them at their word, why not? That’s logical, after all. It’s what any scientist would do experimentally, if he wanted to study a form of life closely. And as I am my own specimen, my own laboratory, and my own experiment . . . who else for the cross but me?

  Not that I ever thought of doing the Real Thing. Nails through hands and feet, and a crown of thorns, and a spear up the rip cage, I mean. I’m not a suicidal sado-masochist. What I had in mind was more like a practice version. Besides:

  4. Julie says we are all in everything, and everything is in us. We are the children of God, she says.

  Well, children are composed of their parents. They are their parents while also being themselves. Christ, the son of God, was/is therefore God. God is therefore also in me, and I am in God. The believers tell me this as well as telling me to behave as if I believed. And the irreligious
OBD tells me I must play Christ.

  Okay, I shall take them all at their word. I shall act as if, and practise being Jesus Christ. I shall do some field work, some flesh-and-blood first-hand research, and find out how he-she-it felt, even if only a little bit and not the very worst. After all, I cannot perform miracles, cannot preach to great crowds, cannot invent wise sayings. But I can be crucified.

  NB: This sounds pretty lame now. But at the time, that night, after seeing Julie in hospital and hearing her tape, these seemed good enough reasons. And the only ones. But they weren’t the only ones. Not even the most important. I know that now but hid it from myself then. (Another conclusion from the experiment: people do things more for hidden reasons than for stated ones. Each of us is a galaxy of secret lives.)

  INTERCUT: The shot from outside Nik’s bedroom, as before but this time in slow motion. His face is unbearably tense as he listens to his Walkman. He rises and with studied violence hurls the Bible directly at us. It smashes through the window.

  Shot continues: Shards of glass fly in all directions. The Bible narrowly misses us, leaving a gaping, jagged hole in the windowpane. Nik comes to the window. The hole frames his head and shoulders. He stretches out his arms, cruciform, and grasps the casement. He stares out at us, unseeing, while we hear Julie’s voice-over, as from a tape heard through headphones: (fade up): . . . found this passage which says it for me: ‘Now I know, now I understand, my dear, that in our calling, whether we are writers or actors, what matters most is not fame, nor glory, nor any of the things I used to dream of. What matters most is knowing how to endure. Know how to bear your cross and have faith. I have faith and it doesn’t hurt so much any more.’

  The Place. Golgotha. The place of the skull. A burial place for rubbish. A dump outside the city wall of Jerusalem, a small town on a trade route on the outback edge of the Roman empire in the first century of the Christian era.

  This was easy. The dump on the other (i.e. wrong) side of town, across the railway line and the canal, a burial ground for clapped-out motorcars. That seemed to me a pretty good twentieth-century stand-in for the original setting. Especially as the canal is dead, killed by the railway, which isn’t what it used to be, having been crippled by the automobile, junked pyramids of which rise up as monuments to travel.