Everything You Need

by A. L. Kennedy

  “And the pictures, well . . .” he waggled his hand at his ranks of snapshots and squeezed himself into an armchair, a very round peg in a square hole, “hardly a soul in them now who isn’t dead. Apart from me.”

  “Oh.” Mary tried to be sympathetic with her mouth full.

  “No, no. Don’t worry. I like to remember—I do it for balance—I love balance. Libran. You are, too, aren’t you?” He giggled as Mary began a frown. “Well, we had to get a tiny head-start on you: name and preferred genres, date of birth, that kind of thing.”

  “You know I don’t live with my parents? They didn’t bring me up.” She didn’t quite know why she’d said that: perhaps because it was a part of her, a part he might not like.

  But Louis only looked at her: delicately, but clearly disappointed that she might have felt it necessary to test him. “The Fellowship was informed. So I know that you’re Libran and that you will probably like this idea. Death and language—each is the opposite and complement of the other. What do you think, hm? If you aren’t going to die, why bother writing? Why else put all that effort into something that stays behind. How do you understand you’re already dying and that others are already dead? Because there is already writing. Extinction and explanation, the theft and the gift.

  “There is more of that cake, if you’d like some.” His eyes dulled by a tiny degree—giving away carbohydrates didn’t sit easily with him.

  Mary had seen the same generously suppressed panic before in Morgan, when he was down to his last wedge or two of cherry Genoa. She knew what to say. “Perhaps I could swap you for this.” She lifted down her jacket and brought out one of her bars of Fruit and Nut. “It might be a bit damp, but I haven’t opened it.”

  Louis Elcho came as close as he ever would to a look of unbridled desire. “Oh.” He almost squeaked. “Item thirty-one. You will think it bad of me, but I did ask that Joe should include it on the list. In case it might mean you brought some. For yourself, of course.” He swallowed softly, “But you’re too kind. I shouldn’t,” while his eyes plainly begged.

  “No. Please. I don’t have that much of a sweet tooth. I prefer cake.”

  So Mary settled herself with another slice, in a kind of tribute to Morgan and other times, and Louis teased away at paper and silver foil in a spasm of almost erotic intensity. For a period, they either didn’t or couldn’t speak.

  Then, “That’s Arthur Llangattock, there.” Louis pointed to his mantelpiece and an image of a slightly younger Louis with his arm attempting to stretch around a tall, broad, serious figure, sporting a tweed cap. “The man who had your place bef—”

  “I know, Mr. Staples told me.”

  “I suppose that Arthur was my best friend here. Yes, I should say that, my best friend.”

  “Was he . . . was he ill?”

  “Ill? No. Doesn’t look ill, does he? No, he was strapping, quite strapping.”

  “Then how . . . ?”

  Louis peered at her roundly for a moment, then understood. “Oh, I see.” He clapped his hands once; they made a small, bruised noise. “He cut his head off. Last year.”

  Mary blinked.

  “Yes, quite an achievement, in a way. In our workshop. With our circular saw. He was found very early in the morning—by Nathan, in fact—just lying, his head and both hands off. So he must have extended his arms to save himself and lost them first—before his head. We suppose he tripped—there were all kinds of treacherous objects on the floor. It must have happened the previous afternoon, because there were no lights on and no one would be likely to wander about in the dark in a cluttered workshop with an unguarded saw, up and running somewhere close. Behaviour like that would be close to suicide. Remarkable accident, all the same.

  “And sad, of course. So sad. I do miss him. I miss them all.”

  He popped a square of chocolate into his mouth, as if it might provide a consolation, but then narrowed his lips, disappointed with himself, and sucked glumly on, turning his saliva guiltily thick and sweet.

  Mary tried not to look surprised, or puzzled, tried not to look anything.

  Poor man. Staying too long on an island . . . I suppose you could get that way.

  Louis gave her a narrow, faltered smile. “I am sorry, that’s not a pleasant story, is it? Not one to tell over tea.”

  The backs of Mary’s calves relaxed. “It’s a story?”

  “Yes.”

  Her feet relaxed, too.

  “A true story.”

  And then both of her legs cramped up their length.

  “His height, you’ll see in the picture, was mainly in his torso— coincidentally meaning that the distance from the bend of his waist to his voice box was almost exactly the same as that from the edge of the saw bed to the blade. Mm.” Louis smiled carefully at the photograph. “He was a big man, Arthur, but terribly fond of being enclosed. He loved your little hut—called it his burrow. Cosy. A sweet, sweet man.”

  Louis laced his fingers under his chin, pressed them to his lips and then touched her with a clear, small glance. Mary found she had reached for his hand, was reading the slight bewilderment, the delicacy in his wrist and the stock of his thumb. He pressed her palm just once and then slipped her hold.

  “The thing is, Mary, when something I love or care about is taken from me, I do want to know exactly how and, if I can, why. And I do always try to make what I learn into something that will last. A story is never a person, but it can be a record of their love. It can let the dead speak. It can let me speak for them, with them.” He clapped his hands again, matronly. “I think you should do something for me now. Change of atmosphere.”

  He levered himself to his feet and dusted his knees for invisible crumbs of chocolate—Mary couldn’t imagine he’d let any fall. She looked up and found him apparently on the verge of giggling, suppressing his expectation by pressing the flat of his hands against his cheeks. He looked like a monstrously inflated, glistening eight-year-old. “Well? Will you?”

  Mary felt she should stand, too. “Will I what?”

  “Hold on, I’ll get it.”

  And he toddled happily to a cupboard, rummaged and emerged with what appeared to be a fair-sized pottery jar with a close-fitting lid. For a surreal moment, she thought it might be a funerary urn—more evidence gathered from one of his former friends. He cradled it like a rabbit or a cat and then offered it to her.

  “Ruth made it. Solid clay.” He gave it a respectful tap with his knuckle and was rewarded with an almost metallic ring. “You can put something in it now—you have the right.”

  Mary continued to stand, puzzled, oddly unwilling to take the jar.

  “Oh, I am silly. Bad explanation. I apologise.” He set down the jar cautiously and walked over to scamper his hands about his desk top. “Here we go.” Again he extended his arms, this time holding a pen and a little square of card. “Each of us writes a prediction on a card and then we seal the cards in a jar on the first of November, El Dia de los Muertos, The Day of the Dead. I personally think of it as an ofrenda, an altar, but possibly more to the Future than the Dead. Then again, the Dead have a great deal to do with our future—balance again.

  “Either way, after seven years, we open the jar and see what we said, who was wrong and who was right and then we make up the next one, carry on. It’s a sort of game, or an exercise in wish-fulfilment, positive thinking, whatever you like. Joe thought it up for us—he likes to keep us entertained. And, of course, if we like, we can use the predictions as something to aim for. The rest of us put our cards in last November and then I . . . naturally, I had to take Arthur’s out. It said that he would always think of me with love.”

  Mary tried to begin an effort at condolence, but he shook his head. “Do write something. For luck—yours and ours. We prefer to have seven cards. Joe does like his sevens. A great believer in numbers—number, anyway—and seven is the luckiest. Then I’ll seal up the lid again and we’ll open it in . . . well, nineteen-ninety-six.”

&nb
sp; “That means I’ll only have waited six years.”

  “Maybe six years will be all you need.” He smiled at her. “Now, I’ll refresh the teapot and you’ll think of something, won’t you? Hm? Won’t you?”

  “I’ll . . . I suppose I’ll try.”

  He punched one fist tenderly into its opposite palm. “Oh, good. Just to confide for a moment, I generally predict that our education system will have declined to new levels of disrespect and disarray. I would like, just once, to be proved wrong.”

  But Mary wasn’t listening. She was thinking of what she would write, deciding to risk it, understanding—in a hot little burst of certainty— precisely what would be the proper thing.

  Not again.

  Mary almost shook her head, considered shouting and then storming out. But she couldn’t think of anything insulting enough to shout. Nathan was asking questions. Again. Sitting in a T-shirt and denim-coloured overalls, a kind of anxiety braced in his arms and chest, hands smoothing the hairless crown of his head, as if he still had something there to neaten.

  “What did you put?”

  “What I wanted to.”

  “Secrets?” His voice was softer today and he did seem calmer, but no more pleasant, no less bullying. “That’s—yes—that’s allowed. If you insist. Although, in the end, it won’t be helpful. Writers are compulsive disclosers, didn’t you know that? No, you didn’t, naturally.”

  I’m not telling you, so just fuck off.

  “If you’re going to be unco-operative, then you can fill me in with more about where you come from. Your Uncles . . . who aren’t actually uncles?”

  She looked at his hands, crouched there on his table. They looked strong, potentially harmful, ingenious.

  “I call them my Uncles.”

  “But you told me they’re not. Who are they, then? And do try to maintain some kind of style.”

  “If you’d wanted me to give you . . . If you’d said you needed style, I could have written this down.”

  “No.” His fingers balled, offended. “You don’t write. You don’t write anything.” He was being violently precise. “You don’t put down a word until I tell you that you’re ready to. No paper, no notes, no jotting, no dear diary last thing at night. Do you understand me? Nothing like that. Now. Your Uncles, come on.”

  Fuck you.

  “My Uncles are homosexual lovers. My mother left me with them when she lost interest in me, but I don’t resent it because she did me a favour. My Uncles love me, they have always loved me. And they love each other. They live together because they want to and they fuck. Bryn is my mother’s brother and Morgan is no relation to me at all. My mother abandoned me with a couple of poofs. Or a couple of perverts. Which word would you prefer?” She wasn’t shouting, she was only being clear, but still, her last word broke open, snagged hard in her throat.

  Nathan—apparently smiling, because nerves sometimes made him smile—pulled at the tufts of hair above his ears. “I wouldn’t be, I wouldn’t be . . . too hard on your mother. Maybe. Not that I would know. But for your sake . . .” He hadn’t looked directly at her since she’d come in and he didn’t now, only let his sentence drift and stared at the sky in the window to Mary’s left. She was filled with a need to slap away his grin.

  She continued to not quite shout at him, “Well? You don’t want to know more secrets? You’re actually satisfied? You don’t want to know how the Uncles took care of me? You don’t want me to tell you all the questions that everyone asked me at school? Why don’t you have a mam and dad, then? Mm? My father died and my mother left me and my Uncles are better than both. They are my parents. They are the best men I’ve ever known. What do you think of that? Or don’t you answer questions?”

  Nathan winced, rubbed at his lips and cleared his throat. He spoke precisely, but he now also seemed tired and almost cautious. “I do answer questions. Of course. I’m supposed to tell you anything you want to know. That’s my job. I will do my job. At the times when I should.

  “Your father is dead.”

  He’d made a statement, rather than a question, spoken quite tenderly, but, by now, she couldn’t help snapping a reply. “Yes. Dead.”

  “I am so very sorry.” His hand pressed his throat. “If you really want to know and you’re not just being angry with me—then, I think poof is an unpleasant word and pervert would be inappropriate. In this context, I would prefer neither. I am extremely happy that you were well taken care of by your Uncles. I can, in fact . . . ah, see that they did a fine job. Actually. I am sorry that you are so angry. But probably I would be, too. And I would rather you weren’t angry with me. There.”

  He pinched at the bridge of his nose and then met and matched her gaze. She realised the hardest part of him was his mouth, that his eyes had a soft look, a flawed defence. He seemed to be quite careful that people shouldn’t notice this.

  Then Nathan blinked away again and, “If I could ask another question, because I would like to know . . . You don’t have to tell me—the predictions are intended to be confidential—but I would like to know what you put on your card. But you don’t have to say.” He frowned, as if a nagging thought had struck him, and set off for his bookshelves, levered down both volumes of his dictionary and started to worry through the Bible-paper pages.

  Mary listened to the rustle of accumulated vocabulary, to Nathan’s breathing and the new calmness of the sea. She allowed herself time to examine his living room: the rugs, the whitewash, the surprisingly meagre collection of books, the slightly more impressive number of CDs and the atmosphere of absence, of lack. Nathan had no ornaments, no clutter, no dust. He seemed to occupy a space determined to furnish no evidence. She started to search out her own word, found it—lonely. He had a lonely house.

  I couldn’t live here. I’m surprised he can. Nathan Staples—funny man.

  “You wouldn’t tell anyone else?”

  “Hm? Oh, no. Of course not. Everything we say to each other is confidential.” He continued to ruffle through successive definitions, page after page, as if he’d forgotten the convention, the alphabetical order for words.

  “I . . . This is embarrassing.”

  “Don’t force it. I don’t mind.”

  “I put—I put Mary Lamb is a writer.”

  Nathan laughed—a sudden, hard crack of sound. He might, conceivably, have laughed because he was delighted, or pleasantly surprised—he could have been amused, or astonished, quite as easily as he could have been moved to mock. And he might have been happy, and perfectly able to tell Mary just what he meant, to erase any possible offence. But he never got the opportunity.

  “Sorry, I—”

  Before he could turn, Mary was leaving, walking away.

  I don’t have to be here. I don’t need him. He doesn’t know anything I want to learn. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck him. Fuck. Him.

  His last sight of her was blurred dangerously across by his own front door as she hauled it shut and sealed him in. The impact of wood against wood flinched through him, while his thinking clattered and fell.

  They both made an effort not to cry and were both not entirely successful.

  You are a fucking nutter. You are off your fucking head.

  No one locked their doors on the island.

  Lunatic—he’ll hear you.

  Open access, everywhere.

  Nathan had been stern with Eckless, left him at home and set out alone in the damp, muffling dark. He’d panted into the echoing fog and stumbled and slithered his way south to the Lighthouse, knowing he would be able to walk right in, unresisted and unannounced. The journey had taken him almost an hour—falling, missing the path, cutting across to the shoreline and risking the rocks to follow it. His ears were still filled with the rush and swill of uneasy water, licking at the foot of unseen drops. He was fighting hot shivers and a sick sweat and bleeding from one ankle, although he could not remember hurting it.

  Mad. You are fucking mad.

  But he remained determined,
creaking and tapping through the darkened hall, up the stairs and onwards.

  Bath. The only fucking bath on the island and I am making it mine tonight. A nice long soak and then we’ll see who’s a madman. Then we’ll fucking see.

  Nathan lit the light and set about drawing himself a deep, hot tub of sherry-coloured water. He shed his boots, socks, coat and sweater, overalls, undershirt and—the usual delicate moment—underpants: he was never entirely happy, entirely naked. Nudity was not his state of nature.

  He stood, let the steam lisp and paw all over him, breathe on the curl of scar at his back. He felt his various bodily hairs lift a little, tinily disturbed. He tried the water, its soft mouth roasting tight around his hand, and then stirred in a glob or two from his private bottle of scented blue foaming stuff. OK.

  Now you get ready. You do what you should have when she came. You play Better Late than Never and hope for the best.

  Nathan parted the water’s surface, slipping quietly in, and then gave himself a thorough going over. He cleaned between toes and under nails, scrubbed his involuntary tonsure and his remaining grey ruff of hair. Soaped his neck, arms, armpits, genitals.

  No more rubbing than is strictly necessary—no need to think of that just now.

  “Nathan?”

  No doors locked on the island.

  “Nathan?”

  Joe Christopher padded in: inquisitive, dressing-gowned. Nathan sat up, slapping his hands into innocent positions at the sides of the bath and lost his soap. “Thought you wouldn’t mind.”

  “Of course I don’t mind. It’s a bit late, though, isn’t it?”

  Nathan knew that, if he looked, Joe would be smiling at him with fatherly concern. He didn’t look. “I know, but I felt like it. And could I borrow your phone?”

  “All right.”

  Nathan let himself subside into the mildly cooling water. He didn’t want to talk to Joe—talking would, he was sure, cause panic in him, unpleasantness and tears.

  “While you’re there, Nathan . . .”

  He could hear Joe, kneeling by the bath, braced himself for the encouraging pat on his shoulder.