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Authors: Ruth Dugdall
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a Girl! bounced on the ceiling.
Sally, Cate was secretly pleased to see, looked on the brink of physical exhaustion. The fatigue of the weary explorer, back from some gruelling expedition; Sally’s hair was having a bad day, and she was wearing a shapeless smock. Cate handed Amelia the present and card, which she rushed over to Sally, crawling onto her lap and insisted on opening herself. Sally kissed Amelia then, remembering Cate, blushed before gaping at Cate’s changed hairstyle “how are you, Cate?”
“Fine, ta.”
Minimal words. Sally started sleeping with Tim when he was still living with Cate, Amelia was just six weeks old when he left them. How, Cate would love to ask, would you feel if he left you in four weeks time? Abandoned you with a screaming baby, leaking breasts and a sagging stomach just when you most needed to be loved and cared for? It hadn’t been the best of times for Tim to choose. She hoped Sally felt ashamed though she doubted it. If she had any conscience at all she wouldn’t have slept with another woman’s bloke.
Thank God Amelia was oblivious to all of this. Cate didn’t want to poison her daughter and did her best to hide her feelings. Above all, Amelia came first. It was only after they’d left that Cate realised she’d forgotten to ask the baby’s name.
Ten
You, who have chosen to listen, will understand this: I’ve set up the TV in the darkened lecture theatre, and Cate and I sit, side by side, on the front bench. I press play and the screen blinks to life. On it, I’m facing a room full of students.
‘Keats was no stranger to death,’ I announce as the camera pans the whispering, jostling room. They become still and listen. ‘He cared for his mother when he was only a child and as a youth saw his brother, Tom, fight a long and losing battle with tuberculosis. These experiences were fundamental to his writing. His brother was a young man, in his prime. To Keats, who loved Tom dearly, his death was a loss to the whole world. Young and bright and beautiful. But the grieving Keats had a choice: to rail against God in anger and fury at the injustice of early death, or to transform, to reevaluate, that experience into a blessing. This reaction is not peculiar to artists. We all do it. Take a look in any churchyard at a child’s grave and the stone will invariably tell us that the dead baby was too good for this world, an angel. Death of the old or infirm is expected, a normal rite of passage for us all. But the death of a child, or of a young man, is a terrible happening. An error in the natural order of things. It threatens our understanding of life, of death, of God. This is what happened to Keats. The tragedy of his brother’s death endowed his work with genius. Keats himself only lived until his twenty sixth year.’ The camera pans to the front row where, to the left of the screen, an overseas student takes notes with professional speed.
I enjoy watching my performance, conscious of Cate at my side, also intent on listening to this erudite, articulate person on the screen. My onscreen image is beautiful, slim, clever. To Cate Austin, as to the students sitting enthralled, it must appear as if I have it all.
‘As Keats said,’ I conclude, projecting to the camera, ‘now more than ever seems rich to die. To cease upon the midnight with no pain. A perfect death is a way to cheat the dulling, dumbing effect of time. To die at the height of love is the only way to preserve its purity.’
My voice is louder as I say this, cracked with emotion. I look sideways, wondering if Cate has noticed this.
On the screen there is a moment’s stillness before the students move and chatter, gathering their belongings as they leave the hall. A few of them slow up, milling around the lectern as if to ask me something but I ignore them, intent on collecting my papers, and eventually they drift away. The show is over.
I stand and switch the tape off, turn the lights on.
Cate remains in
Sally, Cate was secretly pleased to see, looked on the brink of physical exhaustion. The fatigue of the weary explorer, back from some gruelling expedition; Sally’s hair was having a bad day, and she was wearing a shapeless smock. Cate handed Amelia the present and card, which she rushed over to Sally, crawling onto her lap and insisted on opening herself. Sally kissed Amelia then, remembering Cate, blushed before gaping at Cate’s changed hairstyle “how are you, Cate?”
“Fine, ta.”
Minimal words. Sally started sleeping with Tim when he was still living with Cate, Amelia was just six weeks old when he left them. How, Cate would love to ask, would you feel if he left you in four weeks time? Abandoned you with a screaming baby, leaking breasts and a sagging stomach just when you most needed to be loved and cared for? It hadn’t been the best of times for Tim to choose. She hoped Sally felt ashamed though she doubted it. If she had any conscience at all she wouldn’t have slept with another woman’s bloke.
Thank God Amelia was oblivious to all of this. Cate didn’t want to poison her daughter and did her best to hide her feelings. Above all, Amelia came first. It was only after they’d left that Cate realised she’d forgotten to ask the baby’s name.
Ten
You, who have chosen to listen, will understand this: I’ve set up the TV in the darkened lecture theatre, and Cate and I sit, side by side, on the front bench. I press play and the screen blinks to life. On it, I’m facing a room full of students.
‘Keats was no stranger to death,’ I announce as the camera pans the whispering, jostling room. They become still and listen. ‘He cared for his mother when he was only a child and as a youth saw his brother, Tom, fight a long and losing battle with tuberculosis. These experiences were fundamental to his writing. His brother was a young man, in his prime. To Keats, who loved Tom dearly, his death was a loss to the whole world. Young and bright and beautiful. But the grieving Keats had a choice: to rail against God in anger and fury at the injustice of early death, or to transform, to reevaluate, that experience into a blessing. This reaction is not peculiar to artists. We all do it. Take a look in any churchyard at a child’s grave and the stone will invariably tell us that the dead baby was too good for this world, an angel. Death of the old or infirm is expected, a normal rite of passage for us all. But the death of a child, or of a young man, is a terrible happening. An error in the natural order of things. It threatens our understanding of life, of death, of God. This is what happened to Keats. The tragedy of his brother’s death endowed his work with genius. Keats himself only lived until his twenty sixth year.’ The camera pans to the front row where, to the left of the screen, an overseas student takes notes with professional speed.
I enjoy watching my performance, conscious of Cate at my side, also intent on listening to this erudite, articulate person on the screen. My onscreen image is beautiful, slim, clever. To Cate Austin, as to the students sitting enthralled, it must appear as if I have it all.
‘As Keats said,’ I conclude, projecting to the camera, ‘now more than ever seems rich to die. To cease upon the midnight with no pain. A perfect death is a way to cheat the dulling, dumbing effect of time. To die at the height of love is the only way to preserve its purity.’
My voice is louder as I say this, cracked with emotion. I look sideways, wondering if Cate has noticed this.
On the screen there is a moment’s stillness before the students move and chatter, gathering their belongings as they leave the hall. A few of them slow up, milling around the lectern as if to ask me something but I ignore them, intent on collecting my papers, and eventually they drift away. The show is over.
I stand and switch the tape off, turn the lights on.
Cate remains in
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