Everything and Nothing

by Araminta Hall

  A hole had opened in Agatha’s head. It was bright and white and tasted of pine needles and sounded like a scream.

  The house looked the same. As a child Agatha had found it imposing, but now she saw it was small. She couldn’t help looking first upwards, at the bedroom window in which the curtains had always been drawn, remembering the blackness which lay within. Her legs felt heavy and her mind was too confused to work out the straps to Hal’s buggy. She left it instead at the bottom of the path and picked him up in her arms as a barrier for when she rang the bell. Her hands were shaking but she hadn’t expected anything else and her body was pulsating with heat. But she couldn’t not do it now, so she pressed the utilitarian white buzzer next to the door.

  A woman who looked not unlike Ruth opened the door. It seemed disingenuous that she should have found her way here. The possibility of collusion flicked into Agatha’s mind. Was the whole of her life a set-up? But then a little girl who was not Betty ran between the woman’s legs and it jolted Agatha into the present.

  ‘Can I help you?’ asked the woman. ‘I’m sorry,’ said Agatha. ‘I’m looking for someone. Do you live here?’

  The woman laughed. ‘Yes, I do. Who are you looking for?’

  ‘Harry. Harry Collins.’

  The woman looked puzzled. ‘I’m sorry, I don’t recognise the name. Are you sure you’re in the right place?’

  It didn’t seem possible that Harry could have got away from her. ‘How long have you lived here?’

  ‘Two years, just over. But we didn’t buy it from a Harry Collins. I think their name was Anderson.’

  Agatha stepped backwards and lost her footing. The house that lay within was white and bright, nothing like the one she’d known. Everything had changed. Even Harry hadn’t waited for her. She heard a sob from somewhere. The woman stretched out her hand. ‘Are you okay? Do you want to come in for a minute?’

  ‘No, no,’ said Agatha, and then realised it was she who was crying.

  ‘But your son, he’s upset.’

  Agatha looked at Hal and saw his scared eyes. This had all gone too far. ‘No,’ she said again. ‘We’re fine. Everything’s going to be fine.’ The words tasted as bitter as if she was eating wood.

  Agatha turned and saw the field opposite Harry’s house. She knew that beyond the field would still be the wood and the river. They, at least, would not have moved. As she started to walk, she felt the woman watching her from the door, she might have even called out to her. It didn’t matter any more. All that mattered was that Harry had got away. He would never know what she had been through to get back to him. He would always have the last word.

  As she walked across the rutted ground which peaked and troughed beneath her feet like a dried-up sea, Agatha knew finally that this was why she had come. It hadn’t been about Harry. It had always only been about this moment. It was in fact possible that her whole life had been about nothing more than this moment. She turned just before the darkness of the wood swallowed her up and saw the woman still standing at her door, still looking at her, but now with a phone to her ear. There wasn’t much time, but she needed only a few more minutes.

  The wood was as damp as it had been on her sixteenth birthday before she’d taken the train. She had stood outside Harry’s house with her mother’s kitchen knife, looking upwards, just like she’d done today. But that day she’d lost her nerve and had fallen into the wood, looking for the river and an easier way out. But again she had lost her nerve. Today though things had been different. She’d rung the bell and she’d been ready to hurt Harry. She had spent seven years gathering her courage and now it all came down to this.

  You heard the river before you saw it. It was violent and deadly, Harry always said, which seemed fitting. If you fall in there, you’re a goner, girly, he’d said. Your head would be crushed by all the rocks, your lungs would fill with water, your heart would stop with fear. None of this sounded that bad to Agatha; she already knew all those feelings.

  Agatha stood by the side of the river and knew how easy the step would be. The only impediment was Hal. She had almost forgotten she was carrying him and she wished now she’d left him with the woman at the door. That would have been the right thing to do and it pained her that she should have got this wrong. But there was nothing to be done now. She held him tighter, he would be a comfort at least. The hole in her head was much larger now, it felt larger even than her head. Soon she wouldn’t be able to make her body move and it all had to be done before then. Hal squirmed in her arms and she looked at him. It wasn’t about him. Hal was nothing more than a red herring, which was what Harry always said her age was. Either way though, it didn’t seem fair or right on the little boy. Agatha put Hal down on a rock by the edge. He was crying and she felt sorry for him but not overly so. He was not her child, he had never been, she couldn’t even be sure she loved him now.

  ‘Wait there, Hal,’ she said. ‘Don’t move. Someone will come and get you.’ He nodded and she smiled at him. ‘Everything’s going to be fine, I promise.’

  Agatha turned towards the water. She was grateful to Hal for witnessing this and that was enough of a reason to have brought him. She remembered his little arms and legs and his need for her love, but as she remembered she saw herself, she felt her own littleness, her own need, her own vacuum.

  Agatha stepped forward and off the edge. The water was as cold and hard as Harry had warned. It closed tightly over her head, blocking her senses. It felt as wonderful as a baptism, as new as a rebirth.

  Have you ever been pulled from a burning plane? Have you ever outrun a man wearing a mask? Have you ever given a stranger the kiss of life on a dirty roadside? Have you ever watched your best mate blown up by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan but walked away yourself two days before your wife gives birth? Have you ever been the last person out of the Twin Towers? Have you ever stepped into the road without looking just a second after a lorry rushes past? Have you ever fallen under the water only to be pulled up again by someone stronger than yourself ? Have you ever walked across a desert in search of food for your family to see an aid tent in the distance? Have you ever witnessed the sea rising up over your head and pulling a child out of your hands who you then find alive hours later? Have you ever been taken hostage and had a gun held to your head in front of news cameras with the sick knowledge that governments never give in to demands, just for them to release you on the side of a road three years later? Have you ever been told that your child has been found alive after being snatched from your home by a mad woman who left him on the side of a river while she killed herself ?

  Finally, finally they were alone together in their own bedroom, their children asleep in their bed because none of them had been able to bear the thought of not being in touching distance that night. Or every night for the rest of their lives. Ruth sat on one side of them, still fully clothed, so Christian copied her. Neither of them turned on the light, but the orange glow from the streetlamps lit up the room almost enough to read by, if it had been a normal night, if any night would ever be normal again. Ruth couldn’t cry any more, she doubted her body would be able to produce the tears and Christian felt relieved for this much at least.

  He stole furtive glances at his wife, desperate to ask her some questions. Because, try as he might, Christian couldn’t make sense of what had happened today. It felt to him like trying to get your head round that age-old conundrum concerning the universe and whether or not it went on forever. Surely it must end somewhere, he’d said to his mother at some indeterminable moment of his youth. Well maybe, she’d replied, but then there’d have to be something. If you think about it, even nothing is something, isn’t it?

  Christian leant across the bed and was surprised that Ruth let him take her hand. ‘You must try to sleep. You look exhausted. It’ll all be clearer if we sleep on it.’

  ‘I don’t feel tired,’ she said. ‘I feel more awake than I’ve ever done in my life.’

  They sat holding hands over
their children’s heads until Ruth said, ‘I don’t know what we’re supposed to do now.’

  ‘We’ll do our best,’ he answered.

  ‘Yes, but what if our best isn’t good enough?’

  ‘It has to be good enough. I mean, what more is there?’

  They lapsed into silence again, both listening to the steady breathing of their children. Ruth felt a deep pain in her heart. She didn’t want to imagine what it would have been like to have been told that Hal had died with Agatha in the river, but her mind couldn’t stop playing with the idea, like a cat worrying a mouse. He had needed her. Ruth had realised that when the policeman had handed him over as she had sat with her husband and daughter waiting for the other part which made them all whole. His little body shaking, his cheeks crusty with tears, his hands cold. If she had been able to put him back inside her at that moment she would have done. The preciousness, the precariousness, the delicacy of life stared at her from the bottom of a well of sadness. She wanted to hold on to the memory, but it was already slipping from her grasp. Moments of joy mixed with terror and shame could not be lived through too many times, they would kill you in the end.

  ‘It’s all going to have to change,’ she said, feeling like she was stating the obvious.

  ‘I know,’ answered Christian. ‘I’m going to talk to Sally about having some time off. Maybe I won’t go back. I could go freelance.’

  ‘I’ve been thinking the same thing.’

  ‘Really?’ Ruth looked across at her husband.

  ‘Yes, I can’t get a handle on what this is all about. There has to be something else. It can’t just be this.’

  Ruth and Christian sat in silence. They both knew what they were saying was a fantasy. If there was a way of living out there that allowed you to be all the things you were to yourself and those you loved, then everyone would be living it. It might change for them, but it probably wouldn’t. Maybe the most you could hope for was knowledge, little particles dropping into you like gold found at the bottom of a river bed. Ruth wasn’t even sure that the answer lay outside of themselves. She thought that now they were bound together and that this could be what saw them through. The idea that they were enough filled her.

  Christian squeezed Ruth’s hand and looked over at her. He wanted to know what she thought.

  ‘Ruth,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand. I can’t get my head around it. None of it makes any sense to me.’

  Ruth smiled and he knew he’d been right to ask her because he could see that she was about to tell him something important. Something that had a lot to do with why he loved her so much. Something that would stay with him for a long time. Something that maybe she wouldn’t have been able to articulate unless they had been snared in this moment, which maybe gave it a meaning. Understanding whirled around them like smoke, they could nearly touch it.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about that as well,’ said Ruth. ‘And, you know what, it’s almost comforting. If nothing makes sense, then by default everything must. Don’t you think?’

  Acknowledgements

  Thanks to my MA Creative Writing tutors at Sussex University for teaching me how to edit and, as importantly, to take myself seriously as a writer, especially Sue Roe and Irving Weinman. Thanks also to fellow students, Craig and Richard for their friendship, advice and help. Thanks to Mick Jackson for taking time to help a green writer and for the great advice to get more childcare and ditch the first thirty pages. And thanks to Lucy and Polly for the amazing childcare, which has given me the space to write this book (and for being absolutely nothing like Aggie).

  Thank you Clare Reihill for being the first person to invite me in and for introducing me to my editor, Clare Smith, who has not only taken a chance on me, but has been patient, encouraging and insightful. Thanks also to Carol MacArthur for never seeming annoyed by my incessant questions.

  Thanks to my amazing friends, not just for making life more fun, but also for reading my many attempts and speaking endless words of encouragement; most especially Polly, Emily M, Emily S, Dolly, Shami, Amy, Clare, Bryony, Sophie, Eve and Paula. And thanks to Penny for your help and enthusiasm.

  Also my sisters Posy and Ernestina and my brothers Algy, Ferdy and Silas and their partners Jonny, Ben, Emily and Laura for staying interested and reading.

  A multitude of thanks to my Mum and Dad for bringing me up in a house filled with love, books and conversation and for reading much more than just the numerous drafts of this book.

  Finally thanks to my three amazing children Oscar, Violet and Edith who are too young to have read anything I’ve written, but old enough to make me realise what’s important.

  And thank you Jamie for so much, but especially always helping me find a room of my own.

  Copyright

  Copyright © Araminta Hall 2011

  Araminta Hall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

  Extract from Rebecca reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of Daphne du Maurier

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN 978-0-00-741394-2

  EPub Edition © 2011 ISBN: 9780007413966

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

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