This Is All

by Aidan Chambers

  All things come to she who waits.

  All things come to she who no longer wants them.

  (Sign in a shop:) Freshly made sandwiches.

  Freshly made sandwiches are never made.

  Everyone has a right to their own opinion.

  Not everyone’s opinion is worth listening to.

  (Because not everyone’s opinion is well informed.)

  Unusual and amusing words

  Callipygous, callipygian: adj. having beautifully shaped buttocks. (Like Will’s.)

  Galyarde: n. a high-spirited young man. (Will when he’s won a race and is happy.)

  Gorbelly: n. and adj. a protuberant belly. A person with a protuberant belly. (Will’s dad.)

  Noddypoll: n. a fool, a simpleton, a noodle.

  Titubation: n. disordered gait characterised by stumbling or staggering (like Granddad did for a while before he died), often caused by a lesion of the cerebellum (but I think

  other. Not then. I knew that. But what I’ve realised during my audit of the last thirty years is that your dad has been one of the few constants in my life. A constant friend, though he can drive me mad sometimes. A constant helper. Always a support when I needed it. Which I have from time to time, and which you know nothing about. Adults are very good at hiding the bad things in their lives from the children they love the most. I suppose it’s a natural instinct to protect you from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. And what I found out during the last few months, while your eyes have been fixed on Will and your exams, is that your dad feels the same way about me.’

  ‘But that’s not why you decided to get married, is it?’

  ‘It isn’t?’

  ‘You haven’t said anything about love. About being in love with Dad or Dad being in love with you.’

  ‘You know what they say about being in love?’

  ‘No. What do they say?’

  ‘It lasts between six months and three years. Your dad and I had our three years’ worth thirty years ago.’

  ‘I don’t believe in statistics. They’re just figures. They make everybody into a number, which we are not.’

  ‘You believed them about girls and first sex.’

  ‘That was different.’

  ‘O? How?’

  ‘It was just a game. Like reading your horoscope. You don’t really believe it. It’s just a bit of fun. I mean, look at mine today. “You are entering a time of change. All your resources of patience and understanding will be needed to get you through.” Well, it does look as if I’m in for a time of change. But that can’t be true for every Sagittarian in the whole world, can it? And it wasn’t written only for me. Sometimes it seems to be right, but that’s just coincidence. Mostly, it’s wrong. It’s just a silly game. You’re a fool if you believe it.’

  ‘But statistics aren’t like that. They’re based on proper

  Granddad’s titubation was caused by an over-fondness for titubating refreshments).

  On being different

  Why do I feel so different from everybody else?

  Is this a good thing or a bad thing?

  Perhaps everybody feels different. But I don’t think so. Most people seem to do everything they can to be like everybody else. They wear similar clothes, or the clothes that people they admire say they should wear. They wear their hair in the same style, even when it doesn’t suit them. They talk the same way, using the same intonations, as the chavs do, for example. They like, or pretend to like, the same music and the same movies and the same tv programmes, and so on.

  Or no, that isn’t quite true. It’s truer to say that people try to be like the people who are in the groups they want to belong to. I think most people don’t feel happy unless they belong to a group. Why is this? Because it makes them feel safe? Being one of the gang means you feel strong(er), and you feel protected from others who might attack you or misuse you or treat you in ways you’re afraid of. Is that it? Is it all to do with fear and belonging to a group that makes you feel safe?

  Yes, I think it is.

  I want to feel safe. But I don’t want to belong to a gang or any kind of group. Is this bad or is this good? Or doesn’t it matter? Sometimes it feels like it matters. Sometimes I wish I did belong to some strong and interesting group. But whenever I’ve tried, I’ve failed. And this makes me feel miserable. The others in the group always know from the start that I’m not really like them (and that I don’t want to be). And I’ve not felt comfortable, not really myself all the time I’ve tried to be ‘one of the group’.

  research. They don’t foretell the future. All they do is compute people’s experiences.’

  ‘But you don’t have to belong to the statistics, do you? You can always be an exception. And I’m always going to be an exception when I want to be.’

  ‘You can’t help belonging to the statistics because statistics take account of every possibility. They show the exceptions as well as the average. What you mean is, you don’t want to be ordinary.’

  ‘Is that bad?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘And anyway, I’m not ordinary, I’m not normal. I know I’m not. And I’m not going to pretend to be just to please people who are.’

  ‘Fine, great! But be warned. Life has a funny way of showing you you’re like everybody else just when you most want to be different.’

  ‘I don’t see what this has to do with you and Dad.’

  ‘What it’s got to do with us is that we are old enough and experienced enough to know we don’t like living alone. The thing many people fear as much as anything is loneliness. Some even put up with appalling behaviour from those they live with rather than live alone. I’m not saying your dad and I are quite like that. But we do know we prefer living with someone to being on our own.’

  ‘Is that enough reason for getting married?’

  ‘No. There are others.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Like, we know about being passionately in love. We’ve both experienced it. We know how wonderful it is. And we know it doesn’t last for ever. At least, it hasn’t for us. But we also know that we love each other in a way that can last if you want it to.’

  ‘And what kind of love is that?’

  ‘Companionship.’

  For example, I did my best to play hockey, which Ms Steroid, our enchanting games commissar, persuaded me I should attempt (mainly because she was short of a player rather than for my own benefit or because she thought I had any talent for it). The result was dire. I could never get the hang of the rules, my hockey stick seemed to have a life of its own, and the techniques of aggressive tackling were a mystery to me. As for the nature of the social life of the changing room, I’d rather not think of it. I ended up inflicting numerous near-fatal injuries, not only on members of opposing teams, but on my own team-mates, who used this paltry excuse to petition Ms Steroid to retire me, though I knew the real reason was that I just didn’t fit in. When I said my cheerios, they told me they’d known from the start that I’d be no good and just wasn’t ‘one of them’.

  As for groups like the Guides or Sponsored Team Relay Quilting in Aid of Guide Dogs for the Blind or a performance by the Girls’ Massed Hand Bell Ringers Protest Against Starvation in Africa, well, you can forget it as far as I’m concerned. In fact, I’m so bad at groups that I even have difficulty joining a bus queue. As Mr Groucho Marx said, I wouldn’t want to belong to any club which invited me to join it.

  Do I feel different because I feel I’m better than other people? I’m sure some people think so. People at school have called me snobby and stuck-up and stand-offish. I don’t mean to be. In fact, I don’t feel special at all. It’s true that I do feel I’m better than some people sometimes. But isn’t this normal? Doesn’t everybody sometimes? In this, I think I’m no different from everybody else. Just as often, however, I feel worse than most people, less successful than they are because I’m not as good as they are at getting on with people in groups.

  When I go to h
ear Will and his band play, I try to be like the other girls. But it doesn’t work. I just don’t feel like them

  ‘Companionship! Sounds like the boy scouts.’

  ‘Don’t knock it. Your dad and I know each other inside out. We go back to our childhood. We know what we like and what we dislike about each other. We know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. We know how to put up with each other when we have to. We know how to help each other through the bad times, and we know when to leave each other alone to get on with our own thing. We’ve learned to be patient with each other. And these last few weeks we’ve learned how to have fun together in the ways we like to have fun now – which are not the ways we liked when we were your age.’

  ‘Are we talking sex?’

  ‘Partly. But besides sex, which isn’t that important, you might be surprised to hear, we know what each of us does well that the other does badly and we know we complement each other in those ways. We know what each of us values as much as life itself, and respect it. We also still make each other laugh. Which matters a lot in any relationship, believe me.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘And last of all, we’ve realised that if we pool our resources now we’ll have a better chance of coping with the problems of growing old when that time comes. Everything considered, that totals up to a pretty good balance sheet for living together. And it seems to me to be a kind of love that has a chance of lasting till we cock our toes.’

  ‘What you mean is you’ve decided to settle for second best because you know you’re both past it.’

  Doris sprang out of her chair. ‘That is an insulting remark. It’s unworthy of you. And you should apologise.’

  ‘No! Why should I? It’s what I think.’

  ‘You really think I’m past it? You really think no better of me than that I’d settle for second best?’

  ‘Yes! No! I don’t know. I’m confused. I’m upset. I just don’t think you and Dad had any right to decide without asking me.’

  and they know I don’t. In this matter, people are like animals. They have a sixth sense for those who are ‘not one of them’, for those who are different, and especially for those like me who are loners and prefer to be on their own. And if you aren’t careful, they behave like animals and prey on you. And so, to save myself I leave as soon as I can.

  The only group I want to belong to is the group of people who do not want to belong to a group. Izumi is like that, which is another reason why she and I are such good friends.

  More funereal fun

  Yesterday, Will helped with a cremation. When they arrived at the crematorium, they found that the minister who was booked to take the service had suddenly fallen ill. A young man, newly out of training, had been sent to take his place. Though he’d performed a burial service, the fledgling minister had never performed a cremation. And because he’d had no time to prepare himself, he was, Will said, more than a mite nervous.

  The coffin was borne into the chapel and placed at the front on a tomb-like plinth, the mourners took their places in the pews, and the minister began reading out the Service for the Dead. All went well until the moment came when the minister must despatch the coffin. To do this he had to press a button on a control panel on his lectern, which caused the coffin to sink slowly out of sight as into a grave while he pronounced the final words of committal.

  At this point in a burial the minister says, ‘Forasmuch as it has pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take to Himself the soul of our dear brother/sister here departed: we now commit his/her body to the ground; earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust …’

  When he reached these words the young minister’s nerves got the better of him and, Will said, the poor man looked as

  ‘Right! Any right! Your father and I have the right to do whatever we want to with our lives.’

  ‘Well, it isn’t fair.’

  ‘That’s playground talk.’

  ‘It affects me. Don’t I have any rights? It’s not going to be the same, is it? It’ll spoil everything.’

  ‘What? Spoil what?’

  ‘I don’t know! Everything! I mean, which house will you live in?’

  ‘We haven’t decided. Mine, I expect. It’s bigger and has a better garden and is quieter.’

  ‘Weren’t you going to ask me about that either?’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Cordelia, give us a break, will you!’

  ‘So I’m going to lose everything.’

  ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘My dad won’t be my dad any more, he’ll be your husband. You won’t be my aunt any more, you’ll be Dad’s wife. And the house where I was born won’t be mine any more because you’ll sell it.’

  ‘This is silly childish exaggerated talk and I don’t want to hear it.’

  ‘Don’t then. Go! Leave me alone.’

  ‘You disappoint me.’

  ‘And you disappoint me. So the feeling’s mutual.’

  Doris wasn’t as careful when she closed the door behind her on the way out as she had been on the way in. In fact, she slammed it. I’d never seen her so angry with me before.

  When Doris slammed out

  you could think of nothing

  at first, but tears

  tore your soul to tatters.

  When at last

  they’d washed themselves away,

  if he had elutriated in his pants. Apparently, it had suddenly occurred to him that the usual words for burial would not be appropriate here, there being no ground into which to commit the body, no earth to scatter on the coffin, and as yet anyway, no ashes and no dust. Of course, the words he needed for a cremation were clearly printed in his service book, but he was so unnerved by the sudden realisation that he was conducting a cremation that he lost his place.

  At the same time he remembered he had to select the right button on the control panel and press it in order to despatch our dear brother/sister to the place of disposal below. This caused him to panic. He pressed the button he thought was the right one and all the lights went out. The mourners gasped. He pressed another and the dirge of recorded funereal music filled the room. The mourners wailed. He tried another. The lights came on. Everyone let out a sigh of relief, but the dirgeful music continued. In desperation, he tried another button. This time the coffin began to sink slowly into the tomb. The mourners emitted a collective sigh. But now he remembered he must pronounce the words of committal before the coffin disappeared from view. He searched his service book but couldn’t find the words he needed. In desperation he began to improvise, speaking as loudly and clearly as he could so as to be heard above the sombre keening of the canned music whatever came into his head as our dear brother/sister descended into the depths. What he was heard to pronounce were the words:

  ‘For as it has pleased Almighty God of His great mercy to take the soul of our dear sister here departed, we now commit her body to the flames to be burnt to death by fire—’

  At this fearsome incantation the assembled mourners let out distressed howls of horror, while Will and his underbearer colleagues did violence to themselves in unsuccessful attempts to suppress their guffaws behind their hymn books.

  The ensuing calamity required the intervention of Mr

  you stared at the ceiling,

  the mirror of yourself

  in the artificial sky

  you had stencilled there

  two years or more before.

  Moon and stars in the heavens

  Staring back at you. Till the sky fell.

  ‘How could you do this to me?’

  Self pity is a disease

  which doesn’t kill but

  corrodes.

  Your mind played imaginary

  conversations. Dramatic dialogues,

  all of which went your way. Wish

  fulfilment achieved in the theatre

  of your imagination.

  You lashed Doris then,

  loved her, chastised her

  with remembr
ance of times past,

  when she tended your days and

  soothed your nights.

  But what’s the point of

  talking to yourself?

  I think, therefore I am.

  I am, therefore I am observed.

  Being observed,

  you exist.

  Without the Other,

  who are you?

  Every I is a You.

  Every You is an I.

  You looked at Will for rescue,

  Blacklin, using all his professional skill drawn from years of experience of such untoward incidents, to calm everyone down and restore the by now hysterical young minister to sanity before matters could be put right, the coffin recalled from the nether regions, and everybody was sufficiently recovered for the service to be concluded with proper dignity and decorum.

  The Ship of Death

  D. H. Lawrence

  Have you built your ship of death, oh have you?

  Oh build your ship of death, for you will need it.

  Now in the twilight, sit by the invisible sea

  Of peace, and build your little ship

  Of death, that will carry the soul

  On its last journey, on and on, so still

  So beautiful, over the last of seas.

  When the day comes, that will come.

  Oh think of it in the twilight peacefully!