This Is All (42 page)

I wrapped the egg in a silk scarf (a cast-off from Doris),

were playing nearby started laughing and pointing and shouting at me. I turned to find out why. And then Dad was hustling me away, saying we had to go back to our hotel for a minute, urgently. He only told me what was the matter when we were in our room. Blood had seeped through my panties and through my lovely blue dress where I’d been sitting on it. I burst into tears. With embarrassment of course rather than anything else. Doris had prepared me but we hadn’t expected my periods to start then. Dad was wonderful. He comforted me and looked after me so gently. And when I’d recovered, he took me out, not to tea for it was too late by then, but to the poshest dinner in the poshest restaurant he could find. Before we started eating, he gave me a small glass of red wine with a splash of water in it. ‘We must have a toast to celebrate the occasion,’ he said. ‘To my beautiful daughter who I love.’ I drank the wine and felt grown-up at last, and will always remember that evening, dining with my handsome father in celebration of my womanhood.

Izumi was thirteen when her periods began. She was playing in the garden with friends on a hot hot day. They were larking about, spraying each other with a hosepipe. For a while she felt ‘the air being sticky’, as she put it, but thought it was only the heat of the day. Then as they played she felt an unusual sensation in her lower abdomen. Like an ache. It came on so strongly that she ran indoors to the bathroom, thinking that perhaps she needed to go to the loo, and found that her period had started. And now the sensation all through her body was of warmth, a quite different warmth from the heat of the day. She felt so pleased, so triumphant that she stripped naked and sang her favourite song as she looked at herself in the mirror.

My friend Rosie didn’t have such a happy time when she started. She was at the hairdressers with her mother to have her hair done in Rasta locks. It was meant to be a treat. It was

slipped the
CALM
card into a protective envelope, packed them both with the novel into my Gucci shoulder bag (another cast-off from Doris) and cycled off to Park Road.

‘Cordelia!’

She was wearing a light blue denim shirt over pale grey three-quarter length jeans.

‘I’m interrupting.’

‘Yes, but come in now you’re here.’

‘Sorry. Thanks.’

She led me into the kitchen. As we walked through the front room I couldn’t help looking at the wooden object on the wall. It was so strange. Haunting. Like nothing I’d ever seen before. And yet it was somehow familiar, not a memory of something seen in the past, but as in déjà vu. It’s such a weird sensation.

I’ve often wondered how much of what we are and what we will become we already know deep in the hidden rooms of our consciousness. And I can’t help feeling, can’t help
believing
, that all we are and everything about us in all the ages and stages of our life is stored inside us from the very instant of our conception. And that our life is a never-finished exploration of one room after another of our
self
. Some people settle down in two or three of their rooms, leaving the others to gather dust and deteriorate, like the unexplored rooms of some vast palace. Other people, of whom I’m one, try to find our way into every room, try to spend time in each of them, though we discover quite early there are far too many to get to know, even in all the years of a very long life. We also learn quite soon there are some rooms that we can’t enter on our own. They seem to be firmly locked against us. We can only get inside with the help of someone else, someone who seems to have the key. Sometimes too, vandals and thieves, arsonists and squatters, break into our rooms and wreck them or steal from them or burn them to cinders or occupy them and live there at our expense.

going to take ages and she’d been looking forward to it for days. But in the middle of the process her period began very painfully. She knew what it was; her mother had prepared her. But she didn’t dare say anything, and couldn’t stop the hair remake. So she sat in agony, looking at herself in the mirror, pale and scared. The pain was so bad, she put her hands under the gown and opened the top of her jeans and held her tummy to soothe it.

Periods, periods! They can cause such embarrassment. One day in my early times when I was using a sanitary towel I was shopping in a department store and needed to go to the loo so went to the one in the shop. There were no sanitary bags left, and I’d been strictly taught not to flush towels down the pan. So I took a blouse I’d just bought out of its plastic packaging and stuffed the soiled towel in the packaging and put everything back into my shoulder bag. Don’t ask me why we do these stupid things, but after I’d finished my shopping, I managed to leave my bag in the shop. Had to go back of course to claim it. I was fourteen at the time. You can imagine how I felt. A woman supervisor, a middle-aged trout of haughty bearing, was called to deal with me. Oh yes, says she, a bag has been found, would you care to describe it? What colour, what shape? And that done: Please list the contents. I did so, but omitted to mention the used sanitary towel. Well, who wouldn’t? Then, whether because she was a woman who strictly followed the letter of the law on all occasions or because she was a vindictive old hag by nature I don’t know, but she proceeded to unpack my bag with the hyper caution of a bomb disposal expert dismantling a booby-trapped mine, laying out each item in regimented order on the counter between us, where everyone, shop assistants and passing customers, could see them. When she reached the sanitary towel clearly visible inside the transparent plastic packet stamped with the shop’s distinctive logo, she lifted it out between finger and thumb as if she had found a parcel of biological

A cosy smell of cooking filled the house, making me feel hungry.

‘Have a seat,’ Ms M. said.

I sat at the kitchen table, facing the window above the sink that looked out onto the strip of garden. Rain was just starting to fall, not heavy, a thin veil; the table and chairs under the apple tree were already glistening as if newly varnished.

Ms M. lifted a large metal pot out of the oven and set it down on top of the stove.

‘Vegetable soup. I make it once a week.’

‘Smells good.’

‘Like to try some?’

‘Yes, please.’

‘Best to let it cool for a while. Tastes better when it’s not bubbling hot. Want something to drink while we wait? There’s some fresh orange juice. Tea or coffee or—’

‘Orange would be good.’

She poured a glass, then poured herself a glass of white wine from an already open bottle, saying, ‘I’d offer you one, but thought you probably shouldn’t?’

‘The orange is fine.’

‘With a touch of wine in it? Just to sharpen it up a bit.’

‘Okay, thanks.’

She sat opposite. We drank. Looked at each other. Smiled. I felt quite shy all of a sudden.

‘Well?’

I opened my bag, took out the egg, the card and the book, and laid them on the table between us.

‘I tried the Murdoch. You were right. I’m not ready for it. I thought you might want the card back, because your pack won’t be complete without it, and if you used it again you couldn’t be told to be calm, which is good advice sometimes – it was for me anyway. And I know you gave me the egg, but I thought I’d better make sure, because, well, just in case.’

‘You like it?’

weaponry of mass destruction sufficient to poison the entire population of the world, and pulled a face of monumentally horrified disgust before uttering in magisterial tones that would not have disgraced Joseph Stalin or Adolf Hitler addressing a mass rally of enemies of the state the words, ‘And WHAT have we HERE?’ To which I made no reply, being by then incapable of speech. There were giggles from the on-looking assistants, and a gasp from a prissy customer poking her nose in – served her right! After holding up the offending article to the public gaze for long enough to make me wish to die by any means she cared to choose so long as it was swift, Ms Joseph Hitler placed the sanitary towel on the counter beside the rest of my belongings, turned on the heels of her court shoes and stalked off, leaving me to repack my bag and exit the shop with more urgency than was wise, because it resulted in more clumsiness than I care to remember. As I did so, I could feel one or two of the shop assistants viewing me with sympathy – which normal woman wouldn’t? – but luckily no one spoke words of reassurance or comfort because if they had I would surely have broken down in tears and hated myself even more.

Periods. Everyone says they are foul, they hurt, are a nuisance, cause accidents, they stink, etc. Men hate talking about them or make rude jokes. But I love my periods. They are my barometer, the weather forecast of my personal climate. They give me a clear indication of the state of my health, mentally as well as physically. When they arrive they bring with them a kind of inner collapse. Something inside me shifts, so that life seems softer and kinder. Even the pain is a relief, a catharsis. Oddly enough, during the pain, I somehow need a kind of violence to cure it. I want someone to hold my feet firmly and push them back, which Doris used to do and your father does for me these days. And sometimes I even want someone to walk on my back as I lie front down on the floor, which

‘It’s lovely. Very soothing. I’ve been using it as a worry bead.’

‘Then why not keep it?’

‘I’d like to.’

‘And I’d like you to have it.’

‘Thanks.’

‘You know what it is?’

‘A pottery egg.’

‘But a special egg. An egg snjófuglsins. Tákn um draum.’ We both laughed. ‘If that’s how you say it! Icelandic. The egg of the snowbird. The symbol of a dream. Or so it said on the box.’

I picked it up, felt again its neat weighty fit in my hand.

‘Given to me by a good friend,’ Ms M. said.

‘But if it was a gift from a friend—’

‘Some gifts are meant for passing on, don’t you think? From friend to friend.’

I looked at her. She looked firmly back.

‘I’ve brought nothing for you,’ I said.

‘There’s no need.’

‘But I’d like to.’

‘Just because I’ve given something to you?’

‘No.’

‘Why then?’

I shrugged, unable to say what I wanted to say. ‘Just because I want to give you something.’

‘All right. In that case. There is something I’d like.’

‘What?’

‘One of your poems. The ones you write only for yourself.’

I was stunned. Really felt as if she’d hit me on the head with a hammer. I had to swallow hard. Wanted to have a drink but couldn’t trust myself to lift the glass without shaking.

‘How,’ I managed to say, ‘d’you know?’

‘Your father told me.’

‘Dad!’ My mouth tightened. ‘He shouldn’t have. It’s private.’

Izumi used to do and your father does for me now, which is better because he is heavier than Izumi was and I want a man’s heaviness on me then, just as during sex a man’s heaviness increases the pleasure. But this physical treatment must be done with deep love and gentleness. Otherwise, it is the worst kind of assault. Also rubbing the lower part of my stomach and the top of my pelvic bone helps me, and then down between my legs very softly, talking out loud all the time. And the pain is not there when I’m being made love to, which surprises me a little, still. I suppose the body is energised during sex in a way that clears away or perhaps anaesthetises the pain.

I love my periods because they make me feel part of nature. Like the seasons. I love their rhythm and their regularity, I love the way my body gives little signs. They also highlight my problems so I can see them more clearly. As I’ve told you, in the few days before, I feel as if all the energy is being sucked out of my brain and as if my body is being revved up. I feel a wide range of things, highs and lows, which are magnifications, extremes of how I am myself, as a person, all the time. Images and crystal-clear thoughts will sometimes come to me that never come at other times, not even in dreams. And when my periods have started I sleep deeply, feel a sense of relief, and that everything will be all right. For me, while they are on, it’s important to eat only what suits my periods. Not too much. Light food. Bananas are a special favourite.

I still wear sanitary towels when I feel like it, rather than use a tampon. I know they are troublesome. But I love the freedom they allow for the blood to flow out of me. I can be walking along a street and,
whoosh!
there it goes, and I smile to myself with pleasure.

Every month is different. And I like that unpredictable element in the predictably regular occurrence. I like to watch it, note it, think about it afterwards.

‘He’s very proud of you. I’m your English teacher. And he knows you like me.’

‘He told you that as well?’

‘Yes, but he didn’t need to. I’ve taught you for five years. I’d be a pretty poor teacher if I didn’t know you well by now. He wanted me to know about your poems because he’s proud that you write them. You know what fathers are like about their daughters. Especially when you’re an only child. There’s nothing more precious to them in all the world.’

‘Still—!’

‘Don’t be cross with him. Or with me.’

‘I’m not cross with you.’

‘I’m just as proud as he is that you write poetry and keep it secret. I think that’s admirable.’

‘They’re not really poems. I wouldn’t call them that.’

‘Why?’

‘They aren’t good enough.’

‘Who says?’

‘I say.’

‘Are you the only one whose opinion matters?’

‘Yes. Till I decide I’ve written one that’s good enough for other people to see.’

‘Are you sure that’s the only reason?’

‘What else?’

‘You might be too afraid to show them to anyone in case they didn’t like them and you’d be so upset it would put you off writing any more.’

She was right. But it’s hard to admit such a thing.

I thought for a while, rolling the snowbird’s egg in my hand and looking at it. Ms M. waited.

I said, ‘I don’t care what
most
people think. I wouldn’t bother showing them anyway. But I do care what
some
people think, and I suppose, yes, if they didn’t like them, it might put me off.’