This Is All (41 page)

Thus advised, our love-sick knight fired his arrow with his love note attached. And he was very considerate of the princess’s needs in doing so. Knowing her maid had failed to purchase tampons due to splitting her sides, he had the foresight to attach a tampon to his arrow with his message written upon it, thereby, you might say, despatching two birds with one flight. His message, written after much thought and trouble and inscribed in his best handwriting, read as follows:

Where this should be, I would go
.

Consider my suit and ease my woe
.

Despite its burden the communicative arrow did fly nicely through the princess’s window. Unfortunately, the princess was approaching the aperture at that very second and the speeding projectile pierced her clean through the heart, killing her pronto. Which was just as well really, because I can tell you, knowing the princess as intimately as I do having invented her, she would not have been either moved to love or at all amused by the missive attached to the missile had she lived to read it, for truth to tell she was of a rather sour disposition and a touch prissy into the bargain. Which only goes to show it’s never a good thing to fall
only
for beauty. You also need to see behind the eyes. (There’s always a moral to this kind of story and it usually comes at the end, but as I don’t want to spoil the end with anything so boring I’m placing its moral here.)

I should add that there was one good thing about the princess’s mode of decease. The arrow-borne tampon luckily plugged the hole which the love-bolt drilled in her heart, and absorbed the flow of blood, thus saving the antique carpet on which she expired from irreparable damage by an

I let you down? … Well, have I? … Answer me, Will. Please stop pacing about and
answer me
.’

‘This is no use. It’s getting us nowhere. I’m off.’

‘No, Will. No!
Please! Please stay!
’

But he was gone, cataracting down the stairs, slamming the front door behind him.

Parting is such sweet sorrow
.

Aren’t gifted people a pain! Brainy, good-looking, musical, athletic, and all he can do is sweat himself into a hissy fit over nothing. Why? Because he’d had a drossy night in the sleaze-bin? No. Because he hadn’t been properly paid? No. Because I hadn’t been lovey-dovey enough? No. They were merely excuses. Why, then? Because he was so tongue-tied with macho gut-rot he couldn’t say what his heart craved for and his mind dreaded, that’s why. Because he asked himself so many unanswerable questions about the impenetrable conundrums of life that he couldn’t just
live
, that’s why. Because he loved me and couldn’t cope with what that
meant
, that’s why. The idiot! The bunged-up mind-sotted perfecto-hobbled gorgeous die-for o god I wanted him so much boy-man!

Why why, I asked myself, as the tears tippled yet again, why-o-why had I chosen Will instead of some semi-brained underachieving unquestioning unambitious happy-go-lucky greased-up guy already out in the world, no talk of school, no talk of homework, no talk of college, no talk of the future, just some hunky
man
whose only aim in life was to lay me and give me a good time and lavish his uncomplicated guyness on me? Why hadn’t I? There were plenty to choose from. Football crowds full of them. Why? Because I knew in the tingling soles of my feet though not yet in the oscillations of my brain – it was something I had to teach myself the hard way, as you’ll see – I just knew I’d end up a frump made by marriage into a proxy doxy and a mother of two and one-on-the-way drossy clones, just like the phalanxes of young

unsightly stain that would have considerably reduced its commercial value, much to the relief of the king, who, like all monarchs, was permanently strapped for cash.

The reason, by the way, that the princess was coming to the window at that mortifying moment was that she had heard a commotion outside and being a curious sort of person wanted to know what was going on. Not only that, she lived a very dull life locked up all the time at the top of the tower with no one to talk to or fool around with but her maid, so anything that relieved the boredom was welcome. What she would have seen had she reached the window was the king’s guards arresting our dauntless knight for firing arrows at the king’s castle, an activity which for obvious reasons was strictly against the law.

(Perhaps I should have told you it took him nine tries, using up a packet and a half of tampons and three black felt-tip pens, before he finally succeeded in firing an arrow through the window. Indeed, had our knight hit his target with his first or second or even his third arrow, the princess’s untimely demise would not have occurred, because she hadn’t started towards the window yet, and this story would have ended differently. Who knows, they might have lived happily ever after, some people do. Which only goes to show that you should practise before you perform so that you get it right on the night. It’s not always a good idea to learn on the job. And that makes another moral. Two for the price of one: you can’t say I don’t give value for money.)

I guess I needn’t relate the resulting fate of our benighted knight. But then, all the best stories end with the deaths of the hero and the heroine, don’t they. There’s nothing so romantic and thrilling, you only have to think of Romeo and Juliet, or Hamlet and Ophelia, or indeed of my namesake and her pitiful father to know that. So in the end my story ends as all the best stories do: with a tragic death caused by nothing worse than one of life’s funny little accidents.

mums I saw every morning trooping their offspring to school.
¹

Will would never allow me to become like that. He’d always press me to my limits. Always demand more of me than I wanted to give. Always require me to live clearly. I couldn’t have said it then, to myself or anyone else, but I felt it, felt the pull of Will’s strictness. I rose to his questioning, lusted after his requirement. I wanted him, yes. But I didn’t
just
want him. I
needed
him. Needed the sharpness of his mind. Needed his unrelenting drive. Needed his standards. I needed him to save me from myself.

But, I thought as wrath bubbled up in me, the way he behaved tonight is not good enough. I will
not
allow him to storm out on me, I will
not
allow him to treat me like that, it wasn’t
worthy
of him and it wasn’t worthy of me. He demanded everything of me. In return I’d demand everything of him. He wanted me to live up to his standards; well then, I’d require him to live up to mine. If he loved

Periods

A period is not a full stop. It’s more of a new beginning.

If on the day of my first kiss with Will I’d known as much as I know now about myself and menstruation, I’d have understood the signs of my approaching menses better. Like the extra-sensory high as I lay on my bed with Izumi and seemed to levitate in body and mind borne up by the sound of ancient Japanese music. And the moment when the trees in the arboretum seemed to listen and to observe us as Will and I sat and listened and observed them.

Quite often the day or two before my periods start I feel more acute, more fluent with words. It is as if I have hormones in my brain as well as in my womb and the flow of blood is preceded by a flow of words. I want to write. In my pillow book, in emails. Mopes come streaming out. I’m a river of talk to Izumi on the phone. At the same time there’s a feeling of physical weakness. So I write and phone, lying on my bed.

But there are equal and opposite lows, when I feel confused and need attention and reassurance, such as Izumi gave me that day of my first Will-kiss, and to be commanded, as Will commanded me. All the fling and flip and fly and flop and fun of that day. The only f missing was the one I wanted most. During my premenstrual days I’m flooded with desire for sex, as if I want to make one last passionate attempt to implant the seed that will create new life before the eggs that could be its beginning are discarded.

All this because I’m experiencing one of the 470 times (approximately) in my life, as in the lives of most women, when my body dumps (approximately) three fluid ounces of blood – say, six tablespoonfuls. About half of it mucus-membrane, the other half no longer useful vaginal, cervical and endometrial gunge. Altogether, 45 litres. Ten buckets of blood and guts in my menstrual lifetime. Each month’s discarded eggs carried away in my scarlet flow.

me, I must matter to him, and I should make sure that I did.

I called his mobile. Not on. Called again three minutes later, and three minutes after that, and three minutes after that, and on and on till I could stand it no longer and wanted to smash the phone.

Then thumbed a text message: pse call PSE PSE c

Then rapid-fired an email:

y r u doing this? y r u treating me like this? pse stop. remember what we r. have i upset u? dont cut me off like this pse. call me. em me. come to me. anything. i cant bear this. i love u. i do. i know what that word means. for me anyway. that i want to be with u and never be away from u. that i want to do everything with u. u know that. look how we have been these last few months. i have never been so happy as when i am with u. u said this was the same for u. i believe u. it is true. u know it is true. is it cos u have to go away that u r upset? cos we will be separated? u know i will come with u if u want me to. i will do anything u want that will make u happy. i’ll ditch school and come and live with u. i’ll find a job. it doesn’t matter what. anything to help us be together. really. I mean it. let me come with u. i know u have ambitions. i know u want to do many things. i know i cant be everything to u in yr life. thats ok. i want to help u do everything u want to do. i have no ambition except to be with u and help u and to write some poetry, some real poetry, which no one will read anyway, i know that, and it doesnt matter so long as i try. that is all. i love – yes LOVE – to do all i can for u. lets talk about this. pse pse. if we have meant anything to each other these last few months u will do this for me. if i still mean anything to u talk to me and work this out with me. u were the first person to eff me and u are the only person to have effed me and i want u to remain the only person ever to eff

You, my daughter, wombed in me, have within you right now between six and seven million eggs. You are a protean god, my love. Before I let you out into the world, four million of them will have discharged themselves into your embryonic body. They will have burst open, tens of thousands of them every day, scrambling into your bloodstream, where they will be cleared away by cells specially designed for the job. It’s called
apoptosis
. Of the two or three million eggs that will enter the world with you only 400,000 or so will remain by the time you are the age I was the day of my first kisses with Will. And they will be the most extraordinary cells in the whole of your body. The only spherical cells. Little balls of life. And the largest, though only one tenth of a milli-metre wide. And the rarest. And the most beautiful. Seen through a microscope, they look like glowing silver suns with a halo of white clouds blazing round.

What are we to say, you and I, about our regular renewal, when we spill out ten, fifteen, even maybe as many as twenty-five ripe suns every woman’s month? Hurray! would be a good start. Congratulations! Rejoice!

Without our menses there would be no menschen. Without our periods there would be no papas.

Everyone remembers her first period. I look forward to your first time. We shall celebrate. I wonder what you’ll choose to mark the occasion? Clothes? Make-up? A trip to somewhere special? Music? A book perhaps? And I shall write you a poem.

My first period started when we were on holiday at the seaside, Dad and me, when I was twelve. I was wearing a thin cotton summer dress, cornflower blue, because Dad had promised to take me to a proper afternoon tea at a hotel. It was something I wanted to do after reading an old-fashioned story in which the heroine had tea in a hotel with her wealthy father. I was sitting on a rock waiting for Dad to join me. I saw him coming and stood up. A gang of boys who

me. but i have to be with u for this. and i will be. u only have to ask.

yr c all yr c yr only c

my mobile on all the time. call pse call

I hadn’t meant to plead, and this was pleading. But I sent it anyway. I couldn’t have written it differently. It was how I felt and that was the end of it. I’ve never been any good at pretending. Least of all in writing. I can’t
look like the innocent flower, But be the serpent under’t
. I can’t
smile, and smile, and be a villain!
I’d rather say nothing than lie. The silence of Cordelia. As Doris says, I was well named.

And silence was Will’s reply. He too could never lie. No call, no text message, no em, no show. I mooched about the house till eleven that morning. Waiting. But nothing.

This is stupid, I thought at last. I’m being stupid. Anything could have happened. He’s slept late. His father’s made him help with a funeral. He’s thinking about his reply; he’d never write back impulsively, as I would; he’d wait for the appropriate moment. Choose his time and his place and his means of communication, his way to say what he wanted to say. It might be a piece of music. Music was his way of expressing his feelings more than words. I knew that.

I mustn’t hang around, I thought. It’s bad for me and only makes things worse. I should go somewhere, see somebody. But where and who?

I was rolling Ms M.’s egg in my hands as I thought this. It had become a kind of worry bead, a comfort for my fingers when I couldn’t do anything else. The egg reminded me of the
CALM
card, and the Iris Murdoch novel that was lying on my bedside table where I had left it after trying to read it and discovering that Ms M. was right, I wasn’t ready for it.

Did I dare? Yes. Should I dare? Why not? The worst she would do was send me away.