This Is All (11 page)

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.

So now there was another silence, a staring silence, a separated silence, with the mallards paddling by and the sun among the trees shooting glances at the water enough to blind you with ricochets.

I’m thinking hard as I write, trying to sort myself out, Will out, us out, that moment out, and why I did what I did after he suddenly turned and grabbed me, started kissing me again, not just with lust but with some violence, some anger. The devil had risen in him, lordy lordy, and his hands were touring forbidden territory. (I won’t say he didn’t excite me. To be so much wanted is exciting. But he panicked me too.)

I started pushing him away, saying, No no, stop stop!

But he didn’t, and his hand working to undo the top of my jeans.

No
, I said,
no
, Will,
stop!

Why? he said not letting go. Not good enough for you now, is that it?

No no! I said, holding him off. Not that, honest. Just –
My period is on!

I might as well have said I had terminal leprosy or was rampant with AIDS. He was off me and on his feet so fast it was like a jump cut. One second he’s lying half on me, his hand groping my crotch, then
cut
, the next second he’s on his feet in shock-horror, backed against the weeping willow.

And now this is the thing I did that I cannot understand and need to. Plain as plain, I’ll say it to make the meaning plain.

I got up.

I said, Why the face?

Your period, he said, as you might say, Your vomit.

What’s wrong with that?

Nothing.

So? If nothing’s wrong, what’s wrong?

Your period, he repeated again like those were the only words in his vocabulary.

Anger. Is that what hit me? Anger? He was being so wet, so wimpish, so prissy. I thought then that I was angry with him but now I know that really I was angry with myself. But why, what for, what at? I don’t know! Something.

Well, I said, and started stripping off. My sweater, my trainers, my jeans, my panties.