Everything You Need

by A. L. Kennedy

  “What’s the matter? What’s wrong?” Nathan had pounced a little too savagely for the phone and sent a lamp skating perilously close to the table’s edge. “Sorry, sorry. That’s not what I should start with. Ah, hello.” Joe had walked across with a message to say that Mary had called from Gofeg and wanted to speak to him.

  She’s ill.

  She’s decided to stay there and not come back.

  She’s coming back early, coming back home to me.

  She wanted to speak to me.

  “Mary?” He had started to shiver with possibly terror and possibly joy, apparently more out of breath since he’d stopped running and had to sit waiting on one of Joe’s creakily leather armchairs while Joe himself tried to hover helpfully and offer hot and then finally alcoholic drinks. The last of the sunset had slipped down behind the horizon before she rang.

  “Yes, hello. Nathan.”

  “Mm . . . that’s, yes, me.”

  “Good. Good.”

  Oh, Christ, she sounds nervous. She’s delaying, working up to saying something bad. I knew it, I fucking knew it. The Bad News Pause.

  He said, “Mary, is everything all right?” when he wanted to say

  I’m sorry, I know I’ve done everything wrong, whatever the problem is, it’s all my fault, which means that I can fix it. Absolutely, that will be my responsibility. I know you appeared to be happy when you left and I managed to totally miss all the signs that should have told me that you weren’t, but I will make you happy, I will make everything the way that it should be and you’ll be great, just fine, and so will I—we’ll be great. We will. I promise you. We will.

  But he only begged, in under his tongue, where no one could hear him.

  Christ. No spine at all.

  “Nathan?”

  “Yes?” Anything, yes.

  “Well, this is silly really. I wanted . . . I love talking to the Uncles, it is wonderful to see them, it is—I just . . . tell me what’s happening there.”

  “I . . . hu, um, I’m afraid mainly the usual things.”

  Fucking magnificent—anyone would guess from that what you do for a living—gifted with words—a born storyteller—in your blood.

  In your arse.

  “Eckless misses you.” Me too, me too. “Ah, very badly.” A pulse had dropped to pummel round his stomach and he thought he might be sick quite soon if he didn’t really concentrate and only swallow carefully, now and then. “That is to say, he misses you very well. He’s the best misser of things I know.” The dog? You have nothing better to tell her about than the bloody dog?

  “Yes, he is, isn’t he? Is it raining?”

  “Is it? . . . Oh, no. It has been, but it’s dry now and I think we’ll have a frost. Did somebody, I mean . . . upset you?” Because, if he has, I will maim and then kill him and eat his bones.

  “No, no. At least, the person I used to know here.”

  Knew it—that fuck. What was he called, Jim? John?

  “Oh?” He tried to clamp the waver out of his voice.

  “He’s gone. It was finished ages ago, I think I said . . . but he’s moved away now, away from Gofeg, and it’s . . . should I write about it?”

  “What?”

  “Should I write about it?”

  “No, you should feel sad like any other normal human being.” You witless moron, show some tact. “If you, if you do feel sad then, then what to do is,” do everything I don’t, “you should talk to people—which you are doing—and, um, be kind, be gentle with yourself, do nice things, eat nice things—except you won’t have any appetite, I suppose, hm?”

  “Not really.”

  “But the Uncles’ll see you right, won’t they?”

  “Oh yes, oh yes—they’re . . .”

  Try not to say wonderful.

  “They’re wonderful.”

  Thanks.

  “That’s good, then. You’re in safe hands.”

  “But I don’t . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to feel this way. So I started to, to put it down, to write it, and it doesn’t make any sense—it’s just no good as a piece of work at all, but it makes me feel . . . it makes it easier. I just, I know that what I’m writing isn’t mine, I know that part of it is him and that’s . . .”

  “Look, if it makes you feel easier in your mind then do it. It’s not as if you’re producing a kiss-and-tell memoir or anything, is it?” He felt her tiny inhalation, far beyond his reach, and he understood that kiss had sprung the trap and tipped her into crying—the silent, private kind of weeping he knew altogether too well. “You’ll work out what you feel comfortable saying, when it’s time. This is about, about,” saying this will only make things worse, “the relief of pain. Everyone has the right to relieve their pain.”

  Congratulations, you have made things worse.

  Nathan listened to Mary’s unsteady breath, jolting in, shaking her, telling her—as if she wouldn’t be aware—that grief had a hold of her now and would—for a while—enjoy moving her as it wished. He wished he could explain that this was a type of rest, the forgiving brand of sadness that would beat itself out of her while it stopped her thinking and made her tired enough to sleep. Instead he closed his eyes and resisted his own tears. He was rewarded with an increase of pressure behind his eyes.

  “Mary. You do whatever you want to, whatever feels right, and you’ll come through. And you can . . . you can call me at—” Any time. “Any time. Any time at all. Joe will get me and I’ll call you right back and then soon you’ll be, well, soon you’ll be here again and I’ll,” not expect you to be delighted that you’re back—although I’ll want you to be—but anyway, “I’ll make you work like a slave and give you no time to think. Ha.” He never was able to reproduce laughter effectively when he especially needed to. “Unless you want to take it easy, in which case, you can. You know? Rest? We’re here for you.”

  No, I’m here for you.

  But I can’t say that, because of so many deficiencies I am too sickened to recite.

  “That’s, that’s good. Thanks, Nathan.”

  She sniffed, perhaps wiped her face, her eyes: that’s what he imagined. Did she carry a handkerchief? He couldn’t remember, which seemed absurd. She would need one, from time to time, obviously—but, really, paper ones were better—disposable, more hygienic.

  She’d be flushed: the emotions of the fair-skinned, always more visible.

  Except at those terrible times when you don’t catch them. With Maura, when it really mattered, I couldn’t tell what she was feeling at all.

  “Mary? Are you OK? You’ve gone all quiet.”

  “I couldn’t think of anything to say.”

  She was steadying up now. Good girl.

  “That’s all right.”

  “I’d better go.”

  “No.” Don’t squeal, you stupid fucker. Think about somebody else, for once in your life. “Unless you want to. I mean, that’s fine. You’ll be back on Saturday, then?” As if you could forget.

  “Yes.”

  “I’ll have the boat ready. If you don’t mind my seamanship.”

  “You’re a good captain—fine.”

  “Not as good as Joe.”

  “But more . . . stimulating.”

  “Yeah, right, OK.” A grin firing up from his knees and rocking him. “I’ll see you then. Bye.”

  “Yes, thanks, Nathan. Really, thanks. Bye.”

  He kept the receiver, rested it on his stomach for a while and thought of nothing, allowing himself to be content.

  “You should tell her.” Joe slipped round the doorway, angled his head an inch or two, enquiring. “Don’t you think?”

  No rest for the wicked.

  “I will. In my own way, in my own time. We’re only just . . . comfortable, don’t make me have to—don’t make me do anything to make it go away.”

  “You’ll never be made to do anything here, Nate. That’s not what we’re for.”

  Nathan replace
d the receiver, officially ended the call. “No, it’s not. So you’ll keep to your business and I’ll keep to mine.”

  I know what I’m doing here. She didn’t call you, she called me.

  When Mary came back to the living room, the Uncles were studiously relaxed. Morgan lay along the sofa, perhaps asleep, his head pillowed on Bryn’s lap, while Bryn read from one of his favourites, The Universal Home Guide.

  “If a husband is detained in an institution for those of unsound mind and becomes a charge of the poor law authority then the wife can be forced to support him.” He loved the sections on Law and Etiquette, especially. “A husband has to pay for his wife’s funeral, but a wife cannot be compelled to pay for his. There’s complicated for you, Mo. Silly old things, marriages.”

  Morgan simply bedded the back of his head a little more firmly against Bryn’s thighs.

  Mary turned off the light by the door and eased over to her seat. She hoped that, in the dimness, no one would notice she’d been crying. They all adjusted to the dim, slightly fleshy light of burning gas, the motionless, patchy red of ember-effect moulding.

  Mary could hear Bryn’s hand slowly stroking at Morgan’s hair. Since she’d left, the two men seemed to touch each other more. Sometimes she thought this was to do with their need for comfort in the face of a diminished family and sometimes she thought that her presence, for all of those years, must have restrained them, kept them apart from the ways they wished to be.

  “Mary?” Bryn’s whisper seemed remarkably loud. “We thought you were over that—we thought the thing with Jonathan was—”

  “I know, so did I.”

  Bryn sighed faintly. “We’re sorry. So sorry. Amor et melle et felle est fecundissimus.”

  “Love is both generously sweet and bitter.” She’d heard that one from Louis, too.

  Morgan cleared his throat carefully, paused in case this sudden movement of his breath would cause him complications and then spoke. Mary tried not to notice that, alone in the dark, his voice was unmistakably older, its melodies stiffening. “We’ve been lucky though, Bryn and me. We always had the sweet of it, really. Not so good before we found each other, but then—then we were dancing.”

  Bryn leaned and kissed Morgan’s forehead, motherly. “Couldn’t have been happier, we thought, and then Maura brought you.”

  “Surprised us.”

  “Surprised me. I hadn’t heard from her in years, didn’t know she was married. And then she calls up, out of nowhere.”

  “Out of up in Scotland somewhere—Perth.”

  “Out of nowhere. And she says she’s bringing you.”

  “And we realise the only thing we’ve ever wanted and never had.”

  “You.”

  “We’ve been happy.” Morgan seemed about to go on, but had to cough. Mary knew that, in the black and blood-coloured shadows of the room, Bryn was concentrating. He would feel each shuddered opening of Morgan’s throat, each retching closure as he held Bryn while he coughed. They both tried to take these things lightly and to wish them over quickly, the peace unbroken.

  “Easy, Mo. Easy.”

  Morgan sat up and swayed, arched, bowed forward and stilled, Bryn still cradling him while his breath was sandbagged, clotted, slashed. Mary wanted to go and kiss them both, but knew this series of sweats and spasms was theirs now—another thing they did together without her.

  “Easy.”

  “Bryn, I think . . .”

  “Don’t you think at all. You go upstairs and take your stuff and I’ll come and annoy your recovery later. Go on.”

  The Uncles cupped each other’s faces, shared a battle-fatigued kiss, and then Morgan edged himself out and upstairs, minding his pace. Bryn patted the sofa and Mary came to join him, to hug him, to hear the panicked rhythm breaking in his heart.

  “Never worked a day down a mine and still he’s like that. Doesn’t make sense really, does it. Not right. Something about it not right.”

  Mary could think of nothing to answer him.

  “Gives me an excuse to walk out with him, arm in arm, though. Happens all the time here—old miners, old cripples, old couples—some mornings the High Street seems like, seems like—I don’t know—a dance hall, a place where you do want to look in love.” He closed his hold on her until a tremor ran in his arms. “And we are.”

  “And you are.”

  “It was National Service, you know. In Palestine. A hotel blew up in ’48 and caught him. After that, he couldn’t breathe right. And they’ve never paid him a penny, they’ve never said it was their fault—making him go there. Like the bloody work camps they made you go to before the war. Trying to keep the boys busy, teaching them how to sing hymns, join choirs, sweat away like bloody slaves. They never say sorry, they never do better. They never help.

  “And they buried my Morgan alive and ruined him.” He cupped her neck with one hand, kissed her forehead and reminded them both of how many times in how many years they’d been in this position, done these things, belonging to each other.

  “Is he? It doesn’t seem too much worse?”

  He swallowed, dropped his arms from her, smoothed both palms across his face. “I don’t know. Sometimes he’s fine, lovely. But when he’s taken badly, then—well, I can see he’s frightened. He has to fight more to get out of it.” He rubbed his forehead again. “I should go up to him, or he’ll be asleep. It makes him tired.” He brushed at her, found her hand and briefly caught it hard in his. “You should be happy. A woman like you: clever, pretty. You should be happy. None of this other nonsense.”

  “I try.”

  “I know. We all do.” He counted along her knuckles with his thumb. “Will you sleep, do you think?”

  “Maybe. I’ve had a cry. That’s meant to be good, isn’t it.”

  “I find so, yes.”

  Something wavered near Mary’s solar plexus at the thought of Bryn ever having to cry. “We’ll manage, won’t we?”

  “No choice, really.” He leaned into her shoulder, attempting a playful bump. “And none of it’s so terrible. Look at you—off doing these wonderful things. There you were on the telephone, just talking to a novelist, a novelist you can cry to. Not something you’d get in Gofeg.”

  “I think he was embarrassed. I know I was.”

  “But he’s good with you? You’ve settled down? The people there are treating you the way they should?”

  “Bryn, I’ve been telling you that since the first day I went.”

  “But you were lying at the start, so we wouldn’t worry.”

  “I was not.” She felt him grin at her. “I was a bit, then. Only a bit.” He grinned more. “They’re OK. I could happily drown Nathan, sometimes. But he’s too good a swimmer. And he’s not so bad. We make a sort of family, I suppose. An odd sort of family.”

  “Oh, you’ll be used to that.”

  “No. I’m used to the best sort of family.”

  He kissed her again. “I feel it best to leave a room on a compliment, if this is ever possible. So I’ll go now. Don’t stay up late.”

  Mary waited until she’d heard him leave the bathroom, open and close the bedroom door, the small hum of conversation, a break of coughing, conversation again. Then she got ready for bed herself, thinking all the time that she hadn’t noticed the point when the skin of Bryn’s hands began to smooth and thin. He had an old man’s touch now, delicate.

  Sleep, when it had made its peace in her, was cloudy and dank. Anxiety flared in randomly unpleasant scenarios: searches for people she’d never met, lost items of immense importance, fatally missed appointments and dumb-struck telephones. Waking with the clear impression that she had been running all night, she then washed through the usual, four-second time lapse of drowsing amnesia, before the full weight of her awareness could stab into place. She was not a happy sleeper, because she was not happy awake. Her bed, the bed where she’d fucked him, burned her skin.

  So once again, she took a clumsy breakfast with the Uncles. Each of t
hem had their own reasons for listlessness, stammering hands, the stupid clatter of a fallen knife. But their lack of rest gave them reasons for tenderness, too. Bryn helped Morgan through the pitfalls of combining water, crockery, milk, sugar, tea, the balance of spoons. Morgan helped Bryn through the carving of bread, toasting, the clutter of possible accompaniments. Mary made them their porridge, almost as thick as she liked it, far thicker than they preferred. And they rubbed each other’s shoulders, kissed ears, exchanged and held slow glances, leading to smiles. They were moving forward, regardless of obstacles, supporting each new moment with the last. Nothing much was said.

  Washing-up completed, Mary stepped out to wander up Charter Road. Later, she would meet the Uncles in Ianetta’s and drink bad coffee and not accept the customary offer of a dairy-smelling meat pie, freshly heated with the steam from the cappuccino nozzle. Now, she would just walk, liking the gentle cold, the sourness of old leaves in the air, the release of even a little exercise. Off the island, she realised, she was increasingly restless—deprived of the scrambling and plodding and dog-walking her body had grown to expect. Her body was like that—constantly fixing habits, asking for more of the same again.

  There.

  She didn’t believe it when she saw him, there was no twist in the stomach, no shock.

  But it is.

  The image was simply not credible.

  Him.

  Jonno, turning the far corner. Jonno, heading directly for her. Jonno, wearing a different jacket but the same old scarf. Jonno, the angle of his shoulders, the whole pitch of him showing that he was thinking, not ignoring her, only preoccupied.

  God, it is him.

  They were, by this time, already too near to take evasive action and then, perhaps, both hypnotised by their simultaneous, unlikely presence, they simply advanced. Jonathan’s expression moved from puzzled to neutral and back to puzzled again, no obvious trace of pleasure showing. About a foot apart, they stopped.

  He looks well, he looks better than me.

  “You look well.”

  He shrugged, slipped a look across her and into the air beside her head. “I’m . . . I think I’m sickening for something actually—fluish. I thought, you know, last night—it’s Friday tomorrow and I’m not well and I’m coming back Saturday in any case—for a visit—so . . .”