So I Am Glad

by A. L. Kennedy

  I don’t know if I grew up with this ferocious need to uncover the ins and outs of everything, or if growing up made me this way. I was an only child and it seems to me now I had nothing to do all day but be too interested. Because I had this odd frustration. My parents were not of the kind to avoid questions, or to slip me the type of tidy fable I would hear more distant adults and schoolteachers palming off on children, or even each other. At home, we had nothing hidden. I could ask my mother and father anything and be answered with something solid and realistic. My problem was, I very rarely knew what they meant. As my years with them passed, I became more and more certain that I had an excellent grasp of the world around me, but that it would never make any sense.

  Climbing the stairs to my room after Martin decided to tell me what he didn’t know about himself, I walked up into a mood I had only associated with my parents’ house. I could smell their furniture, the particular dry, tickling air in their room. I was allowed in their room. Their bedroom. Even when they were there, inside there together behind a closed door, I was allowed to go in. They had a white door, which seemed to be like all the others in the house—flat in the modern way, with a white china handle and one or two long fat drips in the paint if you looked at it very carefully in the right light. I looked at it very carefully, because really it was different from all the other doors, it only appeared to be the same. I knew. It was a big, blind secret—I could stare at it for hours, until my face went numb, or I had to cry, and still I wouldn’t understand it. Children are odd like that, they have an inappropriate determination, no way of identifying a hopeless case.

  “Welcome to our starlight ballroom, ladies and gentlemen. The quartet is playing, your seats are being warmed by Filipino dwarves of your individual choice, and doing your thinking for you tonight will be Martin Wilson.”

  You need to understand here—my parents were a hopeless case. You only had to listen to them, going on again behind their door, and you would know.

  “What?”

  “Specialist in paranoia, pain and perversity, graduate of the Sigmund Freud School of Charm and Social Scarring, your neurons are his playmates—ladies and gentlemen, I give you—guess who?”

  “I wouldn’t even mind if you could bitch without rehearsal. You know the trouble with that little effort? Your enunciation was too good.”

  “Oh dear. My mistake. We’re in detective mode tonight.”

  “Don’t strain yourself, will you. You’re coming dangerously close to improvisation.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Oops, there we go—straight into reality.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just take whatever you came for and fuck off.”

  “But I can’t remember what I came for. Now, was it in the wardrobe, or was it under the bed?”

  “You’re pathetic. Pathetic.”

  “You should think before you say things like that. I might take that to heart and be offended. Darling.”

  “Fuck off.”

  “No.”

  “Fuck off.”

  I didn’t understand the way they talked. Looking at the words now, I work out some of the feeling, but it never was as clear as I would have liked. At the time, I almost thought they were playing, and then when I was older I thought they were fighting, and now I think I may have been right the first time. The way my parents were together was always very like a game, or a dress rehearsal for something that would be quite important when finally it was done.

  Now Martin, like my parents, was a secret, but, unlike my parents, he was a friendly one. He genuinely seemed to find he was as much a mystery to himself as to anyone else and I couldn’t feel threatened by that. There was something that made me believe the way he was. I don’t know why, I’m not particularly gullible. Liars hope to make their lies convincing by adding emotional distractions which, of course, don’t distract me. I once stood behind a sleight-of-hand artist and the effect was much the same—nothing to observe but naked technique, interesting but nowhere near convincing. Martin hadn’t tried anything like that.

  Even better, he was, in a way, my own private secret. No one else knew what we knew—Martin and I. Liz and Arthur didn’t know. That particular night they weren’t even at home. Friday night, we’re all free people, what with work and its many alternatives, it wasn’t especially likely that anyone would be at home. But I was and so was Martin and he had spoken to me. Rather a childish satisfaction, but I don’t mind being easily satisfied—it can mean you’re satisfied quite often and that surely can’t be bad.

  That night I got ready for bed in the usual way, but just a touch quieter than usual. The rain had stopped outside and the house had settled in the dark. There was no sound from Martin’s room. I didn’t know if he was sleeping, or holding sleep away, or just silently glowing in the dark.

  You will already have considered the options I spun through once I was in bed. I have a very comfortable bed, perfect for undisturbed thinking, and designed to keep my back in good condition. It is a double bed because I am an expansive sleeper. I bought it with no one in mind but myself—I was the only person I could think of who deserved the benefit of such an excellent mattress.

  I distributed my weight across the faultlessly engineered springs and imagined Martin with amnesia caused by accidents, chemicals, radiation, experimental gas. I imagined Martin as an experimenter, as an experiment, as an accident that happened on his way here, a random misfortune with delayed effects. I imagined Martin afraid of the dark and of sleeping. I thought of Martin struck by lightning, transported by lightning, as an illusionist, a circus performer, a natural phenomenon. As I eased down towards sleep, I imagined a great many further things I cannot remember now.

  I couldn’t work him out. I don’t know why that didn’t concern me. I can recall wondering if I should be afraid, all on my own and at night, preparing to sleep while no one knew what was only across the landing. As softly as I could, I got up and locked my door. Not because I was fearful, but in case I should act that way.

  “Martin?” I still held the key when I shouted through my door, just checking. “Martin. Martin?”

  There was no reply which may have meant he couldn’t hear me, or that he was sleeping. If he’d had any reason to be guilty, he would have answered to reassure me until his moment was ripe, and I imagined that if he’d been feeling at all apprehensive, he would have been listening, alert. I was glad he didn’t answer. I didn’t want him to be either guilty or apprehensive.

  In the morning, Arthur came home early, wheeling his bicycle into the hall and singing. He woke me up.

  “Jesus loves the atheists

  Loves them for their gnostic twists

  Honest doubt is heaven sent,

  ’Cos Jesus loves an argument.

  Yes, Jesus loves me,

  Yes, Jesus loves me,

  Yes, Jesus loves, the postman tells me so.”

  Arthur makes up songs.

  This was an average start to the day in our household and, although this may seem unlikely, I had moved through washing and dressing and was putting on my shoes before I properly thought about Martin. I have often found myself unable to think of any really sizeable idea until my day has settled into a full beginning. This means that I am not above staving off the return of unpleasant realisations by staying in bed. Not that bad news isn’t above simply snuggling in beside me.

  Martin wasn’t exactly bad news, more like a dull cloud floating behind my eyes until I bent forward to tie my laces and shook him loose. When I crossed the landing to go downstairs I found myself slipping a glance to my right. Martin’s door peeled back and left him to stand in the shadows of his room. He was barefoot under crumpled jeans and a tired maroon sweater he must have found somewhere tight and dusty. Unless he’d brought it with him and then forgotten. I couldn’t accept the idea that anyone arrived suddenly and naked at his age.

  While I considered his costume for that day, Martin dipped his head forward and to the side, looked at me for
a moment and then straightened up into a smile. There was a little glimmer of blue before he covered his mouth and coughed. His door swooped shut again.

  Downstairs in the kitchen Arthur was digging at the butter with his hands.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Seeing if we’ve won.”

  “Won what?”

  “Oh, something.”

  “I’m sorry, I must be having a slow morning. Why are you doing that to our butter?”

  “This is margarine.”

  It was. I call it butter because I use it to butter things, not because it isn’t margarine.

  “Are you going to tell me?”

  “I am looking under the margarine because they write something on the bottom of the tub to tell you what you’ve won. I think it’s money. And they give some of the price you pay for it to orphans abroad, or endangered species.”

  “Same thing, really.”

  “Mmm.”

  “But couldn’t you do that with a spoon, Art?”

  “Sure.”

  He placidly abandoned his quest.

  “We haven’t won. I can’t see anything unusual.”

  Using a teaspoon he scraped off the margarine from his fingers and pressed it back into the tub, slowly smearing the surface approximately flat.

  We ate margarined toast together quietly while the radio told us that our new government was fearlessly adjusting reality’s fabric with swingeing pamphlets. Europe boiled in the distance along killing boundaries, the redefined fundaments of several headline religions were redefined again and at home many bad people committed crimes, some of them being arrested later—reality getting its own back for the pamphlets. I changed the station.

  “Well, of course, in Dominica, the giant frogs are known as Mountain Chicken and they certainly do make good eating.”

  Not long after this I went to work. I will tell you how I earn a living later, for now we’ll move on to Tuesday afternoon when something important happened. I took Martin out.

  “I have never done this.”

  “You must have.”

  “No.”

  “At some point, you must have. To get here—”

  “I fell here. Well, I am sorry, but this is how it happened. I am not in the habit of strolling up naked to the houses of strangers and then, perhaps, tickling their doors open (how did I get in here, do you know how I got in here?), finding a bed for the night, forgetting how I did this.”

  “You’ve barely been outside of your room. That isn’t healthy.”

  “I am a little anxious with things.”

  “A bit of sunshine. Up to the park and back. It’s only round the corner, we can sit there for a while if you want to rest, or come straight back. I mean people notice things, Martin. We have a relaxed household here, but people notice things. In fact, I have to talk to you about that. Liz and Arthur thought I should talk to you.”

  “Why? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing too bad. Don’t worry, I haven’t told them anything about you.”

  “Thank you.”

  “No need. They wouldn’t have believed a word of the truth and I’m no good at lying so I kept my mouth shut. Now, come on. Are those shoes comfortable?”

  “How could they be, they aren’t mine. And all of this, these ...”

  His hands waved in irritation as he stared down at his especially unlucky-looking pair of trainers.

  “What?”

  “I have never liked threading and lacing these things when I dress. I prefer simpleness. Particularly, I prefer to have simple feet.”

  “They’re only shoelaces, for crying out loud.”

  “Hmmn.”

  “You hadn’t forgotten shoelaces.”

  “Eh, not forgotten—lost the trick of them, I would say.” He pinched at his already thin moustache. “We have to go out now, hn?”

  “It might be good to.”

  But naturally it wasn’t good because I’d forgotten that other people are prone to be worried or even terrified by things they don’t understand. By the time we had turned on to the little road that would take us to the park, Martin had stopped walking. He leant one shoulder against the wall, a grey sheen on his face.

  “We’re almost there now.” I had decided to jolly him along. “Nearly there.” A car passed us and he shied, jerking one hand high to cover his face and then softly continuing the movement, almost as if he’d intended to flatten his hair. I thought I should take his hand or just give him a pat on the shoulder, do something tangibly encouraging, but before I could think of the most appropriate gesture, Martin inhaled audibly. He straightened himself and began to walk forward again, carefully, as if he were afraid of overbalancing.

  Once we had passed the park gates, he seemed to move more easily, pulling away from the path and heading for a little area bounded by low trees and a wall. He let himself fall on to the grass as if he had ended a difficult swim and wanted to hold the shore for a while and be certain that it wouldn’t go away. Rather than interrupt, I waited until he flopped over on to his back and then called.

  “Martin?” He made no attempt to rise, but swept up one arm and let his hand wave me over as it followed a sharp curve and hit the turf close by his head. “Martin?”

  “I must make my excuses—I am afraid I feel unable to move from here at the moment.”

  “No, that’s fine.”

  I sat a small distance away, my shadow falling across his face.

  “Thank you.”

  “Sorry?”

  “For the shade.”

  “Oh, no trouble. Hhrrf.” There was a silence during which a pigeon landed and paced away to our left. Martin must have seen it spin down the sky above him, sheathing its wings into angles for descent. He sighed as it dropped, which I took to be a sign of contentment. “Feeling better?”

  “Hauo!”

  I discovered I had drawn myself back while his pigeon and half a dozen others scrambled up the air and beyond the trees. Martin had diluted his original shout into something not unlike laughter. When he opened his eyes, the laughing stopped.

  “I will never feel better.”

  “Good, good.”

  “No.” He snatched hold round one of my ankles. “No. It is not good. I don’t know what’s happened to me. I can’t get up. I can’t walk in this. Dear Lord, surely I must have walked. Was I a prisoner somewhere, that now I’m so . . . I am so afraid.”

  “Martin—”

  “Listen.”

  There was nothing in particular that I could hear.

  “You hear them?”

  “Um . . .”

  “The children. They’re playing over there. I won’t try to look, it will make me dizzy, but I know they are there. They are playing. This is something that a little child is not afraid of, but I can’t be here.”

  “They’re quite big children, really.”

  “Jennifer, please. Listen. You hear things but you don’t listen. I do not think I will be able to get away from here. I will not be fit to face it. Can you help me? If you can’t . . . I have no one else. Do please concentrate on my position.”

  He was tensing his neck to keep his head driven hard into the grass. He rubbed his cheek against his outstretched arm. His eyes looked damp. I didn’t like to notice that.

  “I am listening, Martin, but I don’t know what to do. Look, why don’t you sit up?”

  “I can’t.”

  “I’ll hold your hand.” His fingers were taut. “I’ll hold your hand in both of mine. Just let go. I won’t lose you. That’s it.”

  “I feel I will fall.”

  “I don’t understand. Tell me about that.” This is one thing I can say in my favour—if I have no idea of your mental state, I will ask you for more information. Many people base a lifetime’s personal relations solely on guesswork. “Tell me about that, help yourself calm down.”

  “Oh, I—”

  “Breathe, take some breaths. I’m holding on, don’t worry.” I sounded con
vincingly safe—happy in my own mind that he wouldn’t suddenly up and drift off like a helium funfair balloon, no matter what he thought.

  “You’re okay.” Perhaps a little of the tension left his wrist. Because of me.

  “I believe you, I do. In my mind, I am convinced, but the rest of me is terrified.”

  “Well, think about it. Have you ever seen a man just up and drift bodily away? Do they normally have to weight you down at night?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Okay, bad question. But just because you’re unusual in one way, it doesn’t mean you’re going to be a permanent bag of surprises. Now how do you feel? What’s wrong? Are you ill?”

  “I feel . . . I have the impression . . . as if I were about to fall off the world. So small and so on the surface. I—oh.” His voice suddenly firmed, settled. “I have remembered something.”

  “Well, that’s great.”

  “Yes.” He almost smiled.

  “So what is it?”

  “Eh! Only a very tiny thing, but I am quite sure that when I was a young man I walked at some time between a high wall and some fields. There were dark, even rows of something growing there. Under a sand-coloured summer evening with a ripe, low moon. I had a soft road beneath me and my boots drove the day’s heat up out of the dust as I walked. I was going home. I don’t know where that was but I am quite sure I was going there, only pausing for a space because I was very tired, thirsty . . . when I took off my hat there was the cool of sweat. I looked up.” His hand suddenly snapped tight in mine. His eyes were closed, his face moving, as if he were watching a dream. “That was it. The moon was darkening. I stood and watched a shadow slip over it as easily and quietly as if it had been my hand.