This Is All

by Aidan Chambers

  Next morning I felt I’d been born properly, born that night. I know this sounds weird but don’t know how else to express it.

  After that I had a craze for old trees. Made my father take me to see every one I heard about. The yew at Much Marcle, Gloucestershire, which is hollow for the first two or three metres and has a seat inside. The Fredville Oak in Kent, which is so tall and stately it’s called ‘Majesty’, and the Bowthorpe Oak in Lincolnshire, which is stumpy and contorted and so hollow inside it’s like a cave, where twenty people once sat down to dinner. The ‘Wordsworth’ yews at Borrowdale in the Lake District. (Because yews are poisonous to cattle, they were mainly planted in churchyards, and were looked after because their branches were used to make bows for the English long bowmen who fought at battles like the Battle of Agincourt, which you will know about because of Old Shakes. That’s why yews are some of the oldest trees.) Many more. I photographed them, and read about them, and wrote about them in my ‘Tree File’.

  This craze – only for old trees, not for all trees – went on until my thirteenth birthday, when as a present my father fixed up a special tour of Westonbirt arboretum for me and Dad only. The man who took us round was a student from tree college on work experience. I expected he would show me only the oldest trees in the collection, but he was so keen on some of the others that he insisted on showing them to us as well and telling us about them. And the way he talked about them, as if they were individual people, and the things he told us of their particular personal habits and their history and what they were useful for, their wood and their seeds and their leaves and the hundreds, even sometimes thousands of insects and birds and animals and micro-organisms that lived in them, and the plants that grew on them and around them, none of which could exist without the tree, made me from that day on look at all trees differently. Each tree is a world in itself. He would go up to his favourite trees and touch them as if he were greeting special friends, lovers almost. My dad said, You treat them as if they know you. And he said, They do. I’m sure they do.

  When he said that, my mind went back to the night I sat in the branches of the Tortworth chestnut, and I knew he was right, because I knew I had felt this too. And something clicked inside me, and I knew I wanted to know everything there is to know about trees, and to find out more than is known, and to spend my life among them, working with them and working for them, and helping preserve and conserve them, because they are one of the most precious and strange and wonderful living organisms on our planet. Our planet would not be what it is, and people could not exist without them.

  Before we left the arboretum that day my father bought me a book at the shop, which our guide had suggested. Trees and Woodland in the British Landscape: The Complete History of Britain’s Trees, Woods, and Hedgerows by Oliver Rackham. I started reading it as soon as I got home. For me, it was like a novel. I couldn’t understand all of it or take it all in straight away, being only thirteen, but I couldn’t put it down. From it I learned how fascinating is the history of trees and our countryside. Though I have read all the books I can find about trees since then and everything I can find by Oliver Rackham, this is still my favourite and my bible.

  I suppose trees are my religion. I think I do worship them. And I do want to devote my life to them. I feel like this is what I am meant to do. Does this seem weird to you?

  My creed

  This is my reply, sent in the middle of the night because it took me hours to write.

  *

  Will: Thanks for telling me your secret. I feel honoured.

  I want to tell you my secret that’s like your secret.

  I want to be a poet. That’s the only thing I really want.

  I want to find my own way of writing, my own style.

  I know I haven’t yet. But I am striving to do so.

  How shall I put it? It’s very hard to explain.

  I want to write in a way that the writing is me – is myself.

  I want to write so that what I write and the way I write is me, because of the choice of words and the arrangement of the words, the way I combine them, group them together, orchestrate them. For me, words are music as well as – as much as - they are meanings.

  Also, writing is different from talk. When people listen to talk they hear the speaker’s tone of voice. They look at the speaker’s eyes. They observe the movements of the speaker’s face and hands, which helps them to understand what the speaker means. The listener can question and reply and interrupt. The speaker can change her mind and say so, she can stop and start and huff and puff. And all this helps to make the meaning.

  But in writing there is no voice to listen to, no eyes to exchange looks, no movements of the face and hands and body to assist the words. No interruptions are possible, no questions can be answered. There are only these strange shapes as old as Eve and as new as tomorrow’s baby, and to me they are beautiful and glorious.

  I love the appearance of words on a page. I love their shape and the patterns they make. I feel them like pebbles in my mouth, I hear them like music in my head. When I write, they are sculptures in my hand.

  I think poetry most of all is like this. To me, poetry must be written for reading, and it is the most written of all writing.

  There is nothing like words. I want to live with them, I want to live through them, I want to live because of them. I want to live in them. Really in them. And I want to procreate with them. I want to make and remake the world with them.

  I have thought about this a lot.

  If I have a creed, this is it:

  My god is language, written and read.

  And there is no other god but this.

  My father and shorts

  My father, your grandfather. What are we to make of him? His behaviour certainly doesn’t improve with age. By the time you’re sixteen heaven knows what we’ll have to put up with.

  He knows I try to write poetry, which he pretends to regard as a useless activity. So he sometimes sends me a verse he’s written of a kind intended to annoy me. Of course, we both know it’s only meant as a joke, and I have to admit he can be funny, though usually in a vulgar fashion, but I always try to please him by pretending to be disgusted.

  Today he sent me one by email. Here’s why. It’s so hot I’m wearing shorts, no matter that you are bulging out of them like an escaping balloon. I don’t usually display myself to the public gaze in this fashion, for the sight of others doing so when in my condition always puts me off my food. I know I’m supposed to think it charming and coo about their fecundity and anyway it’s only natural isn’t it, but I don’t. Not that pregnant women in shorts are as bad as the sight of old men in shorts. Or old women either. But even they aren’t so ghastly as the sight of very fat people in Bermuda shorts. That is THE worst.

  Your grandfather knows I think this. Therefore, he dons his shorts whenever he can. This morning I emailed him our latest news and said I was wearing shorts because of the heat. The following has just arrived.

  A poem for my daughter Cordelia

  from her Beloved Dad.

  SHORTIES

  I grow old,

  I grow old,

  I’m wearing shorts,

  Which is rather bold.

  My thighs are wizened,

  My shanks are thin,

  And who can tell

  Where they have bin?

  But never mind,

  Why should I care?

  Let folks complain

  If they really dare.

  I’ll see them off

  With a very tart

  And pretty melodious

  Long-lasting fart.

  – George Kenn.

  Neverage

  The day after my tryst with Will at the arboretum I wrote in my pillow book:

  Seven o’clock and the phone goes. I mean seven o’clock ante-meridian! And Sunday! And it’s him! Luckily, I had the cordless with me just in case, because Dad was out late last night on a binge with his latest amour,
who I hate. HATE with deathly loathing.

  Get up, sleepy head, says he, get up and run with me.

  Run with you? says I.

  Yes, says he. Trot through the trees. Jog. I’ve a thing to say to you.

  Now? says I. Can’t it wait? And running, you want to say a thing to me running?

  Yes, says he, and no it can’t wait, and running will do you good.

  I do not, says I, like good being done to me, and certainly not if the good is exercise. I do not do exercise.

  Well you do now, says he. I’ll be there in ten minutes. Be ready.

  End of call.

  Can you believe it!

  I thought, Well, he can just jog off, because I am not getting up at this time on a Sunday after a day like yesterday with all that carry-on in the wood and my period on, which had started overnight.

  But then after a bit and not getting back to sleep again, I thought he’d come banging on the door and ringing the bell and rapping on windows and shouting in the street, and even worse. I’m quite sure he is entirely capable of such behaviour when his dander is up. And if he did he’d wake the Old Man and his sotted Paramour and then all hell would be let loose. So I upped and pulled on a pair of old jeans and a sweater and a pair of clapped-out trainers – well, what are you supposed to wear to do unprepared running with a boy when you haven’t the right gear because you never do running anyway? I ask you, what are you supposed to wear, school gym togs? My hair was in crisis and uncontrollable without lengthy disciplined attention so I clapped on a beanie. The effect of the ensemble was that I looked like the madwoman from Shiloh, wherever that is, anyway east of Eden. As for my period, nuff said.

  He arrives before I’ve even had time for breckie (turns out he cycled over and hid his bike in our hedge, which was cheating, if you ask me).

  We set off at a clip.

  Can’t believe I’m doing this, says I.

  Everyone has a crisis of faith sometime, says he.

  I was panting before we even reached the cycle path and sweating before we reached the first crossing at Orchard Rise, not much more than half a mile.

  Can’t we walk a bit pant pant and run a bit pant pant and not pant run pant all the pant pant time?

  He flashed a sidelong glance that would have withered a steel girder.

  What are you in training for, says he, an early death?

  At this rate pant yes, says I, pant.

  I wanted to say, Look, it’s too early in the day for this, my period is killing me and all I want to do is lie down and give my tum a gentle stroking. But you don’t say such things to a new boyfriend, do you? – though I don’t know why not. Well, I didn’t say it in this case, (a) because I didn’t want to put him off completely, despite having tried hard enough already by looking like a fright out of a joke shop, and (b) because I didn’t know him well enough to say something like that to him while being sure not to put (a) into effect by doing so. O, but I was hurting hurting hurting. Hurting in the womb and hurting in the heart. Do boys know about this kind of hurting? I honestly don’t think they do. But bless him – he is so gorgeous, dammim – he did break into a walk, which was a relief to my midriff if not to my heart.

  When I’d got my breath back, I said, You have a thing to say to me?

  Not here, he said. There’s a place farther on.

  Which turned out to be off the track, across a field that was a minefield of cowpats, to the river – where else but to where There is a willow grows askant the brook, That shows his hoar leaves in the glassy stream – where he sat us down with our backs propped against the trunk and our faces gazing towards the water, and where we were well out of sight of anyone using the path. And where he took off the mini backpack, which I had wondered why he was wearing, and produced from it a two-cup flask of coffee, two bars of oatmeal biscuit and a banana.

  A banana! – O thank heaven! My periodic provender, my breakfast choice, my dietary peculiarity! I have to admit I did rather grab it and mush it into my mouth in three bites.

  Be my guest, says he.

  Sorry, says I through my mouthful. It’s just – well – I’m cavernously hungry.

  That’s okay, says he. There was only one left or I’d have brought two.

  O lordy! says I. I’m so sorry!

  Your need, says he, grinning that grin I always want to kiss, is greater than mine. And he starts in on a stick of oatmeal and offers the other to me.

  We munch munch for a minute or two, lolling against the timber and eyeing the water, more a stream than a river really, a couple of mallards dabbling about, dipping beaks and upping tails all, the way they do, so companionable, are ducks, and promiscuous too, always at it, regardless of gender sometimes. What is it that makes them so comical? Their bills, their waggy stumps of tails, their sweet sad eyes? So difficult to work out why something is funny.

  Breakfast over, shucked up beside him, I could smell his enticing smell. I wanted to nuzzle up, press my snoz deep into the hair under his arm. And, it suddenly came over me, even into his crotch. His crotch! O lordy! Into the hair of his crotch! Have never EVER wanted to do such a thing to anyone. Never even thought of it before. Unimaginable until now. Calm yourself, I say to myself, get a grip! This boy is turning you bananas.

  So I took a modest breath of him and said matter of fact, What is this thing you wanted to say?

  Without looking at me he says, Can I kiss you first?

  (O my god!)

  Says I, I’ve just eaten a banana.

  So? says he. At least I’ll get a taste of it.

  Well in that case, says I, please help yourself.

  I think it was even better than yesterday. Practice does make perfect, after all. Plus we were both more relaxed, knowing each other’s ways a little bit by now. And O there is something lovely about kissing under a tree by a little river early in the morning on a mildly brisk day. It is perhaps I think one of the happiest blisses of the world. My period pain vanished. Kissing seems to be good for it. And when his hand came up under my sweater (to be honest, I put it there, thinking he never would if I didn’t), his cold eager hand on my warm breast, O dear lordy dear lordy, the pleasure! But I thought at the same time, If he wants to go all the way, what shall I do, what shall I say, do I tell him? I shall be in a pickle. Which rather prevented me from total abandonment.

  But I needn’t have worried because after a while he stopped, not cruelly suddenly, but I felt the flow decrease in him, and his mind return, so to speak, and he became fondly caressing rather than sexually forceful, and I must say fondling did wonders for my periodic well-being. Then after a while, though he was still breathing quite heavily it’s true, and after easing himself inside his jogging pants, as I well understood his need to do because I could feel the swell of him against my thigh, he began a conversation that went like this:

  The thing I wanted to say.

  Yes?

  You know – yesterday – you told me how you fancied—

  Yes.

  me and chose me for—

  Yes.

  and about not wanting to be average—

  Yes.

  and not after the average—

  Yes.

  and that one of the reasons you chose me was—

  Because you had experience.

  Yes.

  Well—

  Yes?

  I’m not—

  Not what?

  And I haven’t—

  Haven’t what?

  Not average and haven’t had it.

  But—!

  Girls lie as well as boys.

  I know that.

  Well, says he. Whatever anyone told you, they’re wrong. Or lying. Because. I haven’t. Ever. Ipso facto, I am not. Experienced. Any more than you really. I feel quite bad about this. I mean. I know I should be. Should have. But aren’t. Haven’t. And that’s it.

  There was one of those cartoon pauses, like when the toon tanks off the cliff and goes on running on the spot in mid air for ages
till it realises what’s happened and only then plunges to the ground, splat! And just like you start laughing when the toon starts falling – why is it only funny then and wouldn’t be funny if the toon never fell? – so I started laughing when it sank in that my chosen one wasn’t in fact completely qualified for the job, and it – Will, me, the situation – just seemed suddenly too ridiculous.

  I mean, fancy being so het up about whether we had or hadn’t had it, and whether before the average or after, or at all ever come to that. All so stupid, so pathetically silly. That was funny enough. But what made it so funny that I couldn’t help collapsing into a heap was that I’d fallen for Will before I knew he wasn’t what I was looking for, and couldn’t now say, So long, it’s been good to know you but I’ll readvertise the post.

  Will laughed too. A flutter of chortles. No more. Then stopped. All of a sudden. Ominously. But I couldn’t. And the more he didn’t the more I did. I was sorry even while doing it. Big C was, at any rate. Little C was rather enjoying herself, feeling she was brewing trouble. But, lordy lordy, he was not best pleased. Everybody has a trip switch. I suppose my laughter tripped his. His face took on a sour look. Which made Little C panic a bit. But I was quite out of control by then.

  Laughter like that is like a storm cloud. It grows and grows till it’s too heavy to go on floating in the sky, when it has to burst, and there’s no stopping the downpour till it’s exhausted itself and all the rain has fallen.

  By the time my downpour spluttered to an end Will had taken shelter inside himself and closed his face against the squall.