Robert Rowland Smith - What it Means to be Human

That I was prematurely made a father might have been chance. Except that ‘chance’ is such a non-answer. Given that Anna’s appearance in the world was so positive, was there a benign will that made it happen? In pop terms, was this ‘the universe’ doing me a favour? The practical benefit of Simone’s pregnancy was that it made me realise I should go back to Oxford and finish my degree. It forced me to sober up. If I was to be a father, I should give us as a family the best foundation. An Oxford degree, which luckily enough I was two-thirds of the way to completing, was exactly that. At the very least, I would be pulled out of the hole I had dug. Whether it was chance or the machinations of a spirit, some goodness was abroad, some benefit being dispensed like overnight dew.

Again, it’s hard to know. Powers such as chance or ‘the universe’ are inscrutable. That is partly what it means to be human. We never know for sure the balance of our own agency versus all the other forces operating upon us. The lesson that I draw from Simone falling pregnant is that sometimes it is better to take one’s own hands off the steering wheel. Trust that you’ll be delivered safely to the right destination, even though that destination might not be the one that you punched into the SatNav.

Put another way, knowing can be the enemy of being. Although it is human to want to know, the fact that our knowledge has limits is what keeps us open to experiences we can’t fully understand. That is possibly the moral of the Garden of Eden. In warning Adam and Eve against eating from the tree, God is imparting general advice to us all: keep your knowledge in check, so that you can enjoy the benefit of forces beyond your ken, forces working for your good. Yes, that sounds paternalistic; but then we are talking about God.

The experience of Anna’s birth was one I will never fully know or understand, no matter how many the hindsight miles by which I overtake it. Too many thoughts, feelings and prior events had converged at that point for me to make sense of them. But that is exactly what allowed it to make such an impression. My reasoning couldn’t block out the experience. Some fragments: the grey light filtering in from the courtyard; Simone squeezing my hand to the point of crushing it; the crowning of the baby’s head as slick as an otter’s; the rapidity with which the body slithered out once the shoulders were through; the whole scrunched-up baby held aloft by the midwife, with the umbilicus attached, as though she were lifting an oversized telephone with its cable; the placing of this rubbery alien on Simone’s breast.

Later that day, my oldest friend from school, Charlie, came to visit. He was at the same stage as me, about to start his third year at university. He insisted that we wet the baby’s head. We went for a swift pint of Guinness at a nearby pub. It was there that he told me his girlfriend had fallen pregnant by accident, and that they were going to keep it.

Now the family is rejoined. In a

gold circlet they weep of old fears.

It is warm here, the sycamore

pales at last. His to keep. Amass.

J. H. Prynne

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.