This Is All

by Aidan Chambers

  I was nervous too, though, and did wonder why she was allowing me into her life – her private life, and her inner life. Had she designs on me? The corrosion of gossip gnawed at my mind. It wasn’t only the chavs who wondered whether she was lesbian. An attractive woman living on her own with a private life which she guarded carefully. Not to mention a sternness of character some said was definitely butch. And no one had ever seen her with a man, but she’d been seen with a woman going into a restaurant and another time into a cinema. So? Obvious, innit, said the chavs. What if she made a move on me? I’d be disappointed, painfully let down, crushingly distressed. But why? Not because I minded if she was lesbian; that in itself didn’t bother me at all. Izumi and I had talked about it and ourselves; we’d even conducted what we told each other were ‘only experiments’ to find out

  studying too hard. Then, masturbation relaxes me. I always feel better afterwards. It is a good form of self-help therapy. This is especially so just before my period, when I suppose my hormones are very busy. In my opinion, one of the bullet points in our booklet at school about how to survive exams should read: Masturbation is good for the flow of creative energy.

  When I first discovered about masturbation I’d never heard of it and didn’t know anything about it. To do something you’ve never heard of has a special kind of beauty because it’s your body showing its intelligence without your mind interfering. I’ll never forget my first time. I was lying in the sun one day when I was thirteen. The sun was warm on my back in a calming way that made me sleepy. I began to feel a lovely sensation between my legs and my hand just went to my vagina and began moving on it. I didn’t know what I was doing but the sensation was so pleasant that I didn’t stop. Quite soon this fantastic opening and swelling and bursting happened. I don’t remember anything after that. I suppose I must have fallen asleep. I would never ever say that I’d done an evil or bad thing. At school recently, in a production of Macbeth, the prettiest girls in Year 12 were chosen to play the three witches because Mr Hotshot Drama said that evil often appears in the disguise of beauty. Well, all I can say is that the first time I masturbated and most of the times I’ve done it since have often been beautiful and have never ever been evil. I think evil is a force that mixes things up and confuses everything so you can’t properly distinguish one thing from another, and it destroys whatever it invades. But after masturbating, things have always been clearer to me and it has never destroyed anything. Just the opposite.

  Since that first time I’ve masturbated many times, but I’ve never planned it. I’ve done it when it felt right and when my body called out for it. Sometimes it’s easy and quick and at

  if we were like that, and decided we weren’t, though we liked the ‘experiments’ enough to try them again ‘just to make sure’ from time to time. But, I said to myself as Ms M. combined pictures and text while I watched to make sure she got it right, sexual love was not what I wanted from her, not what I needed from her, not why I needed her. But what did I want, I asked myself, what did I need, and why? Why did I want to be part of her private life? Why did the thought of it thrill me? I knew I did want that. And I wanted our knowing each other to be as hidden, as secret from school life, as she kept the rest of her private life. There was something in the secrecy that mattered to me as well as the knowing.

  But … still … I doubted myself. There was her warm arm and her friendly hand now and then touching mine and her face close to mine as we worked, which I welcomed and wanted. How did that tune with my feelings?

  What was her meaning for me? And, I thought as we reached the end of the program, what was my meaning for her? I wished I knew. And wouldn’t feel comfortable – wouldn’t feel secure with her – until I did. But it wasn’t something you can ask. ‘Please, Ms Martin, what do I mean to you?’ But if I could ask, and she replied, ‘You’re one of my pupils, that’s all. I’m only doing my job,’ would that be as bad as if she said, ‘To be honest, I fancy you’? No, it wouldn’t. But I would feel … What? … Humiliated? Rejected? Belittled? Angry? All of those.

  Whatever was going on between us, I couldn’t fathom it – and something was going on. I’d felt it like charged ions fizzing silently between us from the moment I entered the room. (Was that why she sneezed?) And I felt irresistibly drawn to find out what it was. I could sense the determination to find out coming over me as we played our duet on the computer keyboard. And I said to myself, ‘I want this, whatever it is, and I’m going to hold onto it, whatever it

  other times, when I’m tired for example, it takes longer and then it can be too much effort and I give up. I don’t do it that much these days because I have Will. (Masturbation is something I do sometimes when I feel lonely.) But when I do, I don’t always think of him. This isn’t because I don’t love him. It’s because when this act is performed you automatically discover something about yourself. This is part of it. Perhaps it’s part of why it’s necessary. (And I do believe that almost everybody does it, whether they admit it or not, which means it’s part of being human.)

  While masturbating, I have the weirdest fantasies sometimes, which I would never have thought of before I started. Sometimes I’m shocked by the things that come into my mind and excite me – like, for example, certain older men, and I do mean older men, who turn me on amazingly – and by how saying rude words aloud to myself can have a powerful effect – there are two or three words which, if I repeat them six or seven times when I’m in the right mood, give me an org immediately.

  In my head I now have a repertoire of images and scenes that excite me, a kind of library of arousal. I’ve told Will about them because we tell each other everything. I’m not ashamed because I consider the human brain to be a really weird organ, and I think it’s important for us to know all about it and how it works and what it does. If we don’t share the most weird and secret workings of our minds with those we can trust how will we ever learn and understand all there is to know and understand about what it means to be a human being? Nor does our discussion of masturbation interfere with the way Will and I make love. It actually helps. To me our love-making is sacred. And so is discovering everything about my mind.

  These are the reasons why I think masturbation is good.

  takes.’ ‘Good or bad?’ I asked myself. ‘I’ll cling to the good and fight the bad,’ myself replied.

  What a strange thing to feel, I thought, what a strange thing to decide, what a strange way to think! I’d never felt anything or decided anything or thought like that before. And was so excited, an uncontrollable shiver passed through my body from head to foot, and then another.

  ‘Enough for today,’ said Ms M., getting up from her seat, as if referring to my thoughts rather than the computer. ‘You’ve been a big help, thanks.’

  ‘I could do some more another day, if you’d like.’

  ‘Good, yes, I’ll let you know.’

  We parted at her car.

  That evening I joined Dad and Doris for supper. We tried to behave as if nothing had happened. And like people do at such times, we talked a little bit too loudly, laughed at Dad’s jokes a little bit too heartily, didn’t look at each other unless we had to, didn’t touch each other, were that bit too eager to help with the food and laying the table.

  I knew this couldn’t go on. I’d have to say something. CALM, I thought, calm! But what to say? There seemed not to be a thought in my head.

  But when we sat down, the food in front of us, that sudden silence fell when people are lost for words and tired of pretending.

  Say something, I thought. Anything. Just say something. (How can you know what you think till you hear what you say?)

  ‘Dad?’

  ‘Yes, love?’

  ‘I mean – Doris?’

  ‘Yes, Cordy – Cordelia.’

  ‘Look …’

  ‘Yes?’ they said in unison, and let out in unison the hyena laugh of people who are tense.

  1 Granddad always had a hankering ‘to go to se
a’ as a sailor on a merchant ship and liked to use sailorish expressions. For example, he always used to say, ‘It’s on the deck,’ when he meant something was on the floor, and would say that a room was shipshape when he’d tidied up. He was always reading books about famous seamen. His favourite was Captain Cook, who he regarded as the greatest seaman of all time. But he also had a special liking for Joshua Slocum, who was the first man to sail alone around the world and wrote a very good book about it, which Granddad read many times, wishing, I think, that he could have been Captain S.

  Does everyone have an alternative life they wish they could have lived? My aunt Doris wanted to be an actress. Dad wanted to be a man of leisure with servants to look after him.

  2 Since writing the above I’ve noticed for the first time that Ms F-T is quoting the statement that a poem should not mean but be. When I mentioned this to Ms M. she said, I wondered how long it would take you. The quotation is from a poem by Archibald MacLeish, 1892–1982.

  My requirements of a lover

  1. He must be in charge while I am really without him knowing it.

  2. He must make me laugh.

  3. My heart must beat faster as soon as I see him, whatever mood I am in and whatever mood he is in.

  4. He must be a genius kisser.

  5. He must know lots about lots of things I do not know about, and he must like to explain these things to me, even when I do not want to know anything about them.

  6. He must be passionate about an interest (not another lover) other than me.

  7. He must not always let me have my own way.

  8. He must be very strict with me about things at which I am rubbish when I ought to be better.

  9. He must find sex funny as well as very serious.

  10. He must have eyes that make me melt, hands to die for, a voice that makes me wet between the legs as soon as I hear it, and he must be endowed with callipygous buttocks.

  11. He must like reading, arguing (I mean discussing, not having rows, I hate rows), music, silence, and being alone with me for very long times without needing to say anything.

  12. He must be older than me, both in years and in knowing about ‘out there’ everyday life (like how to do practical things), but I must be older than him in knowing about our life inside us.

  13. He must want to learn from me and I must want to learn from him. (Some people know a lot, but you don’t want to learn anything from them because of the kind of person they are.)

  14. He must have male equipment which I adore to play with and think is beautiful. (From what I have seen in the flesh and in pictures, the equipment of many men is either ugly or just plain silly.)

  Me: ‘I’m sorry—’

  Doris, quickly: ‘It’s all right.’

  Dad, at the same time: ‘Forget it.’

  Me: ‘No, I mean, you see, I don’t really know why I was upset, really – it’ll be nice for you to be married – nice – silly word – sorry – I mean, logical – good for you—’

  Doris: ‘You don’t need to say anything.’

  Dad: ‘Not at all.’

  Me: ‘I want to – we have to get it right – put it right – whatever – I just want to say …’

  Doris: ‘What?’

  Me: ‘Dunno. I’m stuck.’ Tears were imminent. I hated (and still hate) not being able to put feelings into words. I forced the tears back. I hated (and still hate) tears washing out thought.

  Doris and Dad sat as if hypnotised, Dad’s big thick hands on the table either side of his plate, Doris’s dainty hands hidden away on her knees, both of them staring at me with tortured eyes. I couldn’t bear to go on looking at them. I wouldn’t have been able to say anything if I had. So I looked down at my plate and talked to my food.

  ‘It’s just – I think it has something to do with Mum – Mother – even though it’s so long ago and I was only little when – and it’s something to do with this house, and Doris’s house, and something to do with not having you any more, having you to myself, I mean, having you the way you’ve always been, each of you, just for me, separate, but together – o, lordy! – well – because I love you both – and love you, Dad, as my dad because you are my dad of course, and I know how hard it’s been for you since Mum – Mother – and I know you’ve done your best to bring me up well, which can’t have been easy – and I love you, Doris, because you’re my aunt of course but more because you’ve been like a mum, like a mother, to me, and you’ve always been there for me, and helped me, and let me make your house, where you and

  15. He must believe there is more to life than the life we know and he must want to know about the life that is more than the life we know (the spiritual life).

  16. He must want to tell me everything about himself, especially his most secret things, and I must want to tell him everything about myself, especially my most secret things.

  17. He must be more sophisticated than me and have good manners and not embarrass me in public places.

  Nothing that’s everything

  Thirty spokes on a cartwheel

  go towards the hub that is the centre –

  but look, there is nothing at the centre,

  and that is precisely why it works.

  If you mould a cup, you have to make a hollow:

  it is the emptiness within that makes it useful.

  In a house or room, it is the empty spaces –

  the doors, the windows – that make it usable.

  They all use what they are made of

  to do what they do,

  but without their nothingness they would be

  nothing.

  Will has sent me this, which he found in some book or other. It was written by Tao Te Ching. I am adding it to my favourite quotations because it is simple but deep and true.

  It makes me think of my body, that it is like a house, the house of my self, the house of my soul. I too have doors and windows. I have a framework of bones to which are attached walls of flesh and a covering of skin. I have an electrical circuit and I have plumbing. I use what I am made of to do what I do. It is my self who inhabits my house. But no one can see my self. I am a nothingness which is everything.

  Mum – Mother – were born and grew up together – you’ve let me make it my home as well, my second home – but I don’t think of one as first and one as second, they both mean as much as each other – and I love it for that – your house – and I don’t know whether I’ll be able to love you like I have when you’re married and living together all the time – or whether you’ll be able to love me the same as before – it’s bound to be different, isn’t it? – and I’m worried about all of that because – I dunno – I’m getting confused, sorry – you see, so much has happened to me, to us, in our houses – our homes – and now one of them will be got rid of – that sounds bad – I didn’t mean it like that – but one of them will be sold, and other people will live in it, and I’ll have to pass it, whichever one it is, every day, and I can’t bear the thought of seeing other people in it, living in it, using it – and I just feel that everything in my life is changing – because, I mean, Will will leave soon as well, and I love him so much, I mean so much, so much it hurts, it really hurts sometimes – and there’s something else I don’t understand at all that came over me when you said you were getting married, which is that I suddenly thought I won’t be a child any more – I mean, I know I’m not now, already – I knew that the day Will and I – well – anyway, I didn’t seem to mind – I wanted to be grown up in fact – until yesterday – I dunno – I just feel afraid – of being grown up – and, I mean, of losing everything – not being a child any more – losing everyone I love – everything I love – you, Dad, and you, Doris – the way I’ve always loved you – and everything the way I’ve always loved it – our houses, our life, the way we’ve lived – and nothing being the same – and not knowing what will happen to me – nothing seems safe any more – secure, I mean – I just don’t know – and I hate, I really really
HATE not knowing – because as far as I can see, knowing is everything – there’s nothing if you don’t know – and knowing you know – understand – if you see what I mean – d’you see what I mean? – I mean – KNOW.’

  Life etc. …

  Education: that which discloses to the wise and disguises for the foolish their lack of understanding. – Ambrose Bierce, 1842–1914.

  Life is like playing the piano in public and learning the instrument as you go on. – Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1803–1873 (only he said violin instead of piano).

  He must have had a magnificent build before his stomach went in for a career on its own. – Margaret Halsey, 1910–1997.

  A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices. – William James, 1842–1910.

  Brevity is the soul of lingerie. – Dorothy Parker, 1893–1967

  Half a love is better than none. – Helen Rowland, 1875–1950.

  No time like the present

  I’ve just heard someone say, ‘We must live for the present. The past is over, we don’t know what the future holds. Now is all we have. There is no time like the present.’

  I don’t agree. I say there is no present. The present doesn’t exist. There is only the past and the future.

  This is why:

  Suppose there is a ‘present time’. In order to live in it, we have to know we are there, living in the present. To be a human being, you have to know, you have to be aware, you have to be conscious that you are alive. Human beings are different from all other animals because we know we are alive and are human. To be human is to be conscious.

  But the problem is that you can never know you are living now, this minute, this second, this milli-second, this nanosecond until the nanosecond has happened to you. You cannot know about it at the very instant it is happening to

  The last word exploded round the kitchen, ricocheted off the pans, recoiled from the fridge, reflected from the windows, bounced off the floor and cannoned off the ceiling.