Graham Swift - Out of This World

I should have photographed that couple — and called it for ever afterwards (the blasphemy!) ‘Nuremberg, 1946’. That ecstatic couple, glimpsed (so how could I have photographed them?) in the gilt-framed mirror — miracle of preservation — above the bar.

Your mother and father, Sophie. Anna and me, dancing in Nuremberg.

Dear Paul, dear Tim. You were there at the time, at the very scene. But you never saw, you never knew a thing. When I lay in that hospital all those terrible hours, that thought suddenly occurred to me and I clung to it for safety. You were there but so perfectly ignorant. I was like a black cloak around you; you were like a little warm light.

And that was the first time I felt that you actually existed, that this wasn’t just some condition of mine : ‘being pregnant’. (Except that I was ignorant too, wasn’t I? Because I never imagined — twins!) And when Joe came and sat by my bed that afternoon and I said to him, It’s all right — I mean, that ’s all right, I haven’t miscarried or anything — I knew in a flash (ha! — a flash!) that my whole allegiance had changed. He held my hand and looked at me intently, but he didn’t know where I was. I was in another room. He was like a man who’d opened the wrong door and seen something terrible. But it was okay because you could step out quickly. Quick! Shut the door! Quick! Now he was back, or so he thought, where he belonged. If you just kept to your place the world would fall back together again. But I was still inside that room. I always would be. The only thing was, you would be there with me. And that wishful, wilful innocence of his, it wasn’t a patch on yours, which was the real, pure thing.

You see, my darlings, the way it’s been? Oh yes, I guessed that from early on he knew that I needed you more than I needed him. Saw that; made that sacrifice, and never raised a begrudging murmur. Not that he doesn’t need you too. Maybe you’ve already figured out how those evening fool-arounds in the backyard aren’t just for pure fun. He’s saying: Let me have my turn. Maybe you’ve even worked out — or one day you will — that almost without knowing it, he’s starting to put in bigger claims. You’ll be grown-up soon, after all, real young lads. Using the one damn fact — you’re his own sex! — that works to his advantage. So what’s the harm anyway in kids playing with toy guns?

Maybe he’s got it taped. Just wait. They’ll react, shake off their clinging mother and turn out to be Daddy’s boys through and through. And it’ll be all my own dumb fault.

Except that I know he doesn’t think that far, or that sharp. He’s made the concession. For my sake. Give her time. Bow to circumstances; accept it. Ten years of allowances. I could weep for him sometimes. Though I stopped loving him long ago. That’s the honest truth, my darlings. I think I stopped loving him that time he came and held my hand in the hospital. I think I stopped loving anyone then. Except you.

But I know that he still loves me. As much as he ever did. Loves me so much that he’d never guess, never imagine — How to smash someone’s world, my pets. He looks at me sometimes like a guilty character in a comedy, peering wistfully at a character in a tragedy. Still calls me ‘Goddess’. But don’t get ideas, Joe, there’s nothing noble or sublime about me. And I’d stick to comedy if I were you. It’s more fun. He looks at me as if he’s actually glad, like some willing penitent, to have this chance, this ten-year-long chance, to express his love by looking after me, by being truly considerate towards me.

It’s just that he doesn’t fuck me any more. Or he fucks me gently, reverently, as if he’s fucking some fragile, precious china doll. As if he’s had this notion that I had this nasty shock which changed me back into an innocent little kid. Not a lady you can fuck.

But I’m not a little kid.

(Am I, Doctor K?)

The facts of life, my darlings. Your parents fuck. They don’t fuck. Your Mummy fucks around. Your Dad is good about things. Because he’s good, she fucks. Gets fucked. Is all fucked-up.

Once upon a time, my angels, there used to be this ritual when parents would take their children aside and tell them the facts of life. But nowadays it doesn’t happen so much. It’s not so necessary, because in this well-informed and hyper-communicative world, the facts of life float freely in the air (what do you hear when you walk down the street? — fuckfuckfuck). They just seep in.

I never went through this ritual. Because my mother — And my father — And I think Grandad gave up on the facts of life when he gave up his right arm. I learnt the facts of life from schoolfriends, and from guesswork. And then again from Joe. But even then I never learnt them properly.

Ha! If only the facts of life were like they sound. So essential, so vital, so all-inclusive. As if they were truly all you need to know. But there are other facts of life, besides those much-broadcast ones, my darlings, that your mother has to tell you.

So are you listening? Are you ready …?

You were there at the funeral, but you never knew it. Though without you your mother would never have got through that terrible day. Or those terrible weeks and months. You were there when I said goodbye for the last time to your grandfather, though you never saw him. You were inside your mother’s tummy (fact of life number one: all children come from their mother’s tummy). But your mother was inside her tummy with you, imagining a world where you didn’t have to see or know. And if you’re smart and clued-up, the way kids are these days, you’ll say: Sure, we figured all that — but where were we, where did we come from before we were inside your tummy? That’s what your mother is trying to explain.

You have never seen your grandfather and he has never seen you. Though you have heard me mention from time to time this far-away person, like some character in a story-book, called Harry. But that’s how he always was for me too, a far-away person. Which is strange, because I think now that what he might say, in his own defence, is that he tried to get close to certain things. The things that most people don’t want to get close to. Once upon a time, or so people say, he was a distinguished man, a photographer.

You have never seen England, though that’s where your mother and father are from. But you have seen enough pictures of it in the brochures Joe brings home from work, which makes it look like some high-class Disneyland. And Joe has said from time to time, One day we will all go to England. And I’ve said, Yes. But not yet.

You never saw your great-grandfather, though you were there at the graveside when they buried what was left of him. He was a hero, you see. A real hero. His business was in — But that’s another story.

I haven’t seen Harry since that time I said goodbye to him ten years ago. And he hasn’t seen me. Out of sight, out of — But Doctor Klein (who you’ve never seen either) says that’s the oldest lie in the world. Come here, my darlings. Come close to your mother. He tried to get close to certain things. Certain facts of life. It’s just that he wasn’t much good at closeness. And I wouldn’t have to tell you these things. Why should I ever have to tell you these things? I really meant it, you see: Goodbye for ever. But now he writes me this letter, my angels, and in the letter he says –

She makes me feel — hell, she makes me feel that I’m half my age, that everything is possible. She makes me sing, un-apologetically (Michael and Peter give me tolerant looks) above the noise of the Cessna while we hang like a lark over Wiltshire, waiting for the dormant Bronze Age to emerge with the green flush of spring. She makes me feel that the world is never so black with memories, so grey with age, that it cannot be re-coloured with the magic paint-box of the heart.