Everything You Need

by A. L. Kennedy

  “Take the day off.” She felt the start of a sick shake in her spine, his proximity lighting a sweat on her wrists.

  “Yeah, that’s right. You . . . ? You’re well?”

  “Fine.” It was no good, she could feel it: the whole of the situation, dribbling away. She could hear him speaking with that terrible gentleness of someone who has been closer, but who isn’t, who won’t be now. Her own voice sounded much the same: tired and wary. “I didn’t expect to . . .”

  You should ask him . . .

  Ask him what?

  “I thought you’d be in Cardiff.”

  “I was.”

  Come on. Say something.

  “Do you like it?”

  Christ.

  “No.”

  For an instant, he met her eyes and she could almost believe this was his way of beginning to say that his life was discontented without

  Me. Me?

  “No, I don’t like it.” He looked away, “But it’s better than nothing,” and let his balance shift, getting ready to go.

  “I, Jonno . . .” She needed to touch him, to settle the emptiness in her limbs, to tell him good things, to punch his head for being so quiet and bloody sad and out of her reach.

  “Yes? What?” Now he seemed impatient.

  Slap him, slap him now, see what he does.

  “I just wanted to say goodbye.”

  “You already have.” He moved forward, as if to pass her, but set his hands quickly on her shoulders, tugged her in and brushed his lips near her temple. The scent of him, his recognisable heat, made her close her eyes, made her want to weep, made her turn for him unsteadily when he was already clear and pacing away.

  Minutes later, Mary became aware that she too had started walking, heading off at surprising speed and taking a route of which she was now unsure. She came to rest in a small, modern street on Gofeg’s western edge: part of an aborted development scheme. She found she had no recollection of ever having been there before.

  Eckless was looking disappointed. Someone who didn’t know him well might have missed it, the signs were small: a vague listlessness in the tail, something heavy about the ears, a tendency to stare. But Nathan noticed.

  He’s my dog. So I look out for him. I look out for the things that are mine. If I can.

  He clapped at the dog’s shoulder, ruffled the fur along its back, but got barely a response.

  “It’s no good.” Nathan straightened, faced himself slightly more squarely into the breeze, and shrugged across to Louis.

  “Hm?”

  The sea between them and the Head was chopping and ghosting with spray. The Head itself waited out the race of air and water about it, belligerently solid, spiked with cormorants.

  “Eckless—he really can’t settle around you at all. He just associates you with chocolate and biscuits and not getting them.”

  “You don’t want him to have them. I’d be happy to treat him sometimes. Bearing in mind my own fondness for things that are sweet.” Louis eyed Eckless with the air of a fellow sufferer, another slave to chocolate.

  “I know. It’s my fault, but you get the blame.” At which, the animal flopped down into the wind-snaking grass and moaned briefly, just to underline the point. This marked a move on the Eckless Scale from Huffy to Despairing and meant Nathan was due for an unsettled night full of whines and glowering. Usually he would unload the problem on to Mary, but she wasn’t back yet.

  Soon, though, tomorrow. Off I’ll go and fetch her—just as we agreed. I’ll pick her up from the quay.

  The quay with the Price boy’s shadow still drifting at the edge of vision, still kicking at nothings, still eating chips and letting one fall now and then for the gulls.

  You have to remember every detail, don’t you? Can’t leave anything be.

  Passed the mother in Ancw, last week. It hasn’t left her be.

  “Nathan?” Louis was holding the peak of his cap down, to keep it from taking flight.

  Naturally aerodynamic, caps. And—perhaps more importantly—they make you look a total prick. Although Louis, I have to say, does wear his well—it’s the spherical head, helps to carry it off.

  “Nathan? Can I speak to you?” Louis reached out his hand, palm open, and Nathan took it, held it, a fraction discomfited by the commitment this might imply. Louis turned squarely to face him, while making an effort to seem quite casual. “In confidence?”

  “Always, Louis. You know the way it works—tell your secrets to an antisocial bastard and they’ll never go astray.” He squeezed Louis’s soft, fleshy little fingers, he hoped reassuringly. “What is it?” There would be a point when he should let go and he would miss it. He always made his move just too late or too early, whichever would cause the most offence.

  “I wanted, if it wasn’t an intrusion, to ask you about Mary. I feel she’s progressing well?”

  “I think she could be . . . that is, there’s promising stuff there. Almost.”

  “Proud of her?”

  Nathan’s throat shied at the thought of it, but “Yes” croaked through, nonetheless.

  “Told her?”

  “Told her what?” A gluey defensive edge in that—something grubby about his pronunciation.

  “That you’re proud.”

  “Ah, that. I’ve, I’ve . . . in a way.”

  “Not good at talking, are you?”

  “No.”

  “But you’ll have to talk to Mary eventually, about everything.”

  Nathan nodded, feeling ten again and stupid. Louis could reduce him to this in moments—he had the teacherly knack.

  “She’s working? Progressing? Reading?”

  “She’s doing everything she should. I couldn’t stop her, even if I tried. She wants it—whatever it is. And whyever one should want it.”

  “Maybe it wants her.”

  “Don’t pull that crap on me. Yes, writing is something that happens to us. Fine. Yes, it is quite astonishingly beyond our fucking control and if anyone really knew how little charge we have over our vehicles, they would deprive us of them at once. OK. But don’t read any more into it than that. I type for a living, I’m not on a mission from God.”

  This is ridiculous, I can’t stand hand in hand with someone and argue effectively. Although, God knows, with Maura, I tried.

  “Look, Louis, sorry. But you know the way I am. No offence.”

  “None taken. I’m only saying this because, perhaps later, I will be unable to.” Louis couldn’t help taking a tiny glance down at the sea.

  Nathan struggled for the right, oblique question. It wasn’t done, on the island, to pry into anyone’s plans in the risk-taking area, but even so, “You’re going to try it?”

  He’s too old, he won’t make it. It’s his own choice. But he’s too old. Fuck, by his time of life, you’re risking death just getting up in the morning—trying not to slip in the bath. His own choice, though.

  “I do feel I have limited time in which to make another attempt. And this would still only be my sixth. And seven’s the lucky number, isn’t it?” Louis extracted his hand, leaving an imprint that chilled. “You’ve become a fine swimmer, haven’t you, Nathan?” He smiled to Nathan, an uncharacteristic tick of melancholy in his eyes.

  “I’m adequate.”

  “That cuts down your possibilities, surely? For this kind of thing?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Yes, of course, you’re right. Because you still couldn’t, for example, swim up here between the cliffs and the Head, without expecting to drown? The undertow, the general turbulence is too great. And I speak as one poor in the water and quite elderly.”

  “Don’t.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “I know, I’m not supposed to say it, but,” he re-grasped Louis’s hand, “I would much rather you didn’t try to leave us. Or not that way. Your chances of survival would be almost nil. It would be suicide, not . . . not what we’re meant to do.”

  Louis slipped free
and trotted forward, the harshly downward slope of the hill seeming to trundle him dangerously near an immediate rendezvous with his intent. He sank gently out of sight, and it seemed that, when he finally came to a halt, he had no more to do than pick his time for the final, tiny move into the drop. Louis snatched off his cap, rolled it and put it into his pocket, safe. Something about the gesture, its neat finality, gave Nathan’s stomach a twist and set him running down towards the limit of the slope.

  I’m not supposed to try and stop him, but, then, he’s not supposed to try and make me watch.

  Nathan slithered into Louis and felt a retching horror grip him—he detested heights. His momentum clattered both of them far too close to the uneven line where the slithering grass ended and the greasy sky began. For both their sakes, but primarily for his own, Nathan toppled their already winded bear-hug over into a tangled but minor impact. He realised that he’d wrenched his back, perhaps seriously. Eckless was woofing with alarm and making ready to gallop in, but Nathan yelled at him to sit, to stay away. The last thing he needed today was to find himself shoved off into a watery grave by an over-enthusiastic canine.

  “You know,” Louis shifted under Nathan, extricated one arm with a tiny wheeze, “I think you’re quite correct. Going over this particular cliff would be quite unwise.”

  First, the Christopher Credo: we believe, like a number of lunatics before us, that if we have been in a place beyond the reach of all but divine intervention seven times and if, seven times, we have been kicked back into this existence, then we become special. We become holy, blessed, Grail-keeping, generous to nuns, fairly pleasant, unlikely to spit in the street, who the fuck really knows?

  Nathan’s mind was wandering again. He changed his pen from his writing hand to his arsing-about-and-tapping-the-table-with-it hand.

  If we don’t get seven natural absolute risks, then we’re allowed to make them. This is a wee bit cheeky on our part, but apparently God doesn’t mind. Frankly, it makes Him look better—He’s already admitted that the only way of getting His attention is to die at Him.

  Second, the Actual Credo: we are tired and we are lonely and we don’t want to have to do this any more. If we could, we would chuck it all in today, but we haven’t the balls we were born with, so we’ll play little terminal games with ourselves and, if we’re lucky, they will kill us and, if we’re not, they will at least distract us from all this bloody misery.

  He tapped and settled his stack of paper so that its edges exactly matched. He stared at it. Then changed pen hands again.

  Tomorrow.

  A tight pilot of excitement stretched up into a flame. Mary would be here tomorrow and he would meet her, help her home and then tell her the news, the news he hadn’t passed on to Louis or anyone else—no indeed— because it was theirs, his and Mary’s.

  Slightly unethically, about three months ago, he had posted off two of her stories to a halfway decent magazine. No, actually a fucking good and demanding magazine. And they’d accepted one of them. Because it was a belter and they couldn’t do much else. (In Nathan’s opinion.) And (also in Nathan’s opinion) there was nothing worse than sending things off and then waiting and then maybe getting rejected, so he’d just saved his daughter all of that.

  She’ll have to go through it every other time—this one’s on me.

  He hoped she’d be pleased, delighted, ecstatic, chuffed—something along those lines. She needed cheering up and this would be just the thing. For once in his life, good timing had broken out spontaneously. He would tell her the news and she’d be happy, simple as that.

  I know I am. Christ, I wasn’t this happy with my first acceptance. Even though I’ve been a bit underhanded, not asked permission . . . Even though . . .

  She will be happy, won’t she?

  He was beginning to panic in earnest. He’d tried lying on his floor near the stereo with both its speakers on his chest and playing Bat Out of Hell into his torso until the shadow of his stolen lung ached and banged just as hard as the one they’d left him with. Sadly, this had no particular effect— worry was still fisting in his heart. He’d shelled discs of Gluck, Duke Ellington, Lou Reed in and out of the player to no tangibly quieting end.

  So here he was with pen and paper instead, ready to numb the brain with scribbling. If this didn’t work, he’d have to use the whisky—but he was trying to save this last bottle for a real emergency. He readied the hand, the wrist, the fingers: the black Pilot pen, fine nib, the way he liked them: to make writing small enough for hiding his meaning from everyone but him.

  And the person I might want to read it—Mary has wee writing, too.

  Golgotha

  Think of how high we are—miles. I’d say, at least five. It would take you more than an hour to walk the distance we are currently above ground.

  I want to say this to my fellow passengers. I want to set them straight.

  If, through malign intervention or some innocent mistake, we should find ourselves sucked out through a window breach, or displayed like rows of bleeding seeds in the savagely opened pod that was our fuselage—if we are simply catapulted skyward by explosives, far beyond the shards that, until very recently, constituted our fold-away tables, our lavatory tissue dispensers, our floor—if we lose all those little niceties that cradled our lives aloft and discover ourselves, still conscious and in individual flight—do you realise how many minutes it will take us to fall?

  I want to stand and make my own little safety announcement, one based on common sense.

  In what way do you imagine the illuminated gangway lights will help you as you plummet, still strapped into your seat and neither dead from injury, nor shock, only bracingly conscious of your hurtle towards a kaleidoscope of gross dismemberment? Have you pictured yourself, finally, slowly dying in your personal impact crater—no more than a breathing, thinking pouch of jelly and tubing and grit.You will lift your eyes, perhaps, to nearby trees, garlanded with luggage and unjointed limbs, or maybe you’ll have just the time to blink into the face of a passer-by, ambulance worker, journalist and fill them with a lifelong need for therapy. I mean, have any of you thought of this?

  Every time I board an aircraft now, it’s the same: my compulsion to wander the aisles, playfully squeezing shoulders and tousling youngsters’ hair and saying what I need to, which is—these things used to concern me. Before even the shortest journey I would take superstitious steps: cleaning my house, so that, later, when the policemen came, responding to the sad news that was me, all would be trim and shipshape and suggestive of an exemplary, sorely missed life. I would read no newspapers, for fear of jinxing headlines and articles that mentioned death.As I boarded, I would always peek down through the gap between the gantry and the body of the plane, to glimpse my final, solid horizontal: saying goodbye to my natural home.

  You may have similar rituals, quieting similar fears, but you must know, you really do have to understand—nothing remotely unpleasant is going to happen on this flight.You will be FINE. You are safer right at this moment than you have ever been. Smile, relax, don’t worry—all is well.

  Because I want to die. I want to crash and burn. I want to be hacked to pieces by random metal, reduced to fibres, roseate rain. And let me tell you on the best authority—destruction courted becomes coy. Today there will be no windshear, no sabotage, no trace of turbulence. For as long as you’re in here with me, you need have no fear.

  She needs cheering up, my Mary, something to make her smile. So I suppose I could give her this, if I wasn’t scared to. All very well her handing over work to me, but I can’t realistically contemplate the reverse. I am forced to admit that she is braver now than I have ever been. I would like to feel proud for my genes, but I’m certain my genes have had nothing to do with it.

  And maybe, after all, this wouldn’t amuse her. I suppose the material is, quite fundamentally, unfunny. Suicidal impulses and wholesale death—with me they’d almost always raise a laugh—but not with everyone, I know.
Not with healthy, happy people, I do know.

  So. I should concentrate more on my early days in literature: the touring, one of the perils of the writer’s life, of which Mary ought to be a touch forewarned, being well on the way to writerhood herself.

  The woman who meets me at Ben-Gurion smells of halitosis and depilatory cream. She tunnels a way ahead of me through the airport crowds as if she has done this very often, which—quite probably—she has. She speaks English with an English accent and Hebrew with a Hebrew accent and I am impressed, but also careful to angle myself so as not to face her mouth. I try to think of her with sympathy, as someone condemned to tangential conversations and brief, but smooth-thighed relationships, only flourishing while her partners suffer head colds. Or I imagine she may be suffering with bad teeth. Although she doesn’t look unhappy, or in pain.

  Which I am beginning to detest in people—the unmistakable evidence of general content.

  Nevertheless, I am polite with her and apparently interested: responding to questions and producing anecdotes as civilly as I can, weaving manfully out to her car, still feeling mildly assaulted after the flight.

  She is a jerky driver, concentrating only in spasms on the dangers of the road ahead. I remain tranquil when forced, for the third time, to make a sudden, close inspection of the arse end of the car in front. Giggling inappropriately, she tells me she can’t think what’s wrong with her today.

  I can.

  But do not tell her so.

  I look out of the queasily blue-tinted window at an alien motorway and very familiar sleet and she apologises because the sun is not shining and I tell her this is not her fault and she laughs in a way that lets me understand I am making her very nervous. I am very glad.

  Which isn’t the proper mind-set—not by a long fucking way. Not for coming into Jerusalem. Not for Nathan the prophet, riding into Jerusalem.

  Nathan the cunting prophet. What did I ever know that everyone else hadn’t worked out years ago?

  Nevertheless, the idea of Jerusalem, the density of the word, does strike a light. I let my eyes droop closed while my lungs, my currently untouched pair of lungs, my sleek-in-the-chest-like-twin-pink-oven-mitts-and-never-really-loved-enough lungs, sparkle with a blush of adrenaline. I hear myself sigh and feel an answering jolt in my escort’s steering.