Andrea V – Life Choices

‘So what were you like, as a child?’ she says as I arrive.
‘Oh Gahd, do I have tah?’ I drawl, pretending to collapse with ennui.
‘Not if you don’t want to.’
‘I don’t remember. It was a very long time ago.’ I sit back and think. What was I like? Oh God. The horror!
‘I was useless – always sort of saying stupid things, always sort of wrong somehow, uncomfortable, out of place.’
‘Give me an example.’
‘I don’t know. Errrm.... I know – for a while there, when I was about fifteen I thought I was The Fonze...’
It’s nice to see her laugh at my pain, really it is.
‘I got this fake leather jacket and some sunglasses and a white tee shirt. I thought I looked so cool.’
‘You were finding your identity, identifying with a hero figure’ she says charitably.
‘Nobody else did anything like that though.’
‘What did your friends say?’ She’s still giggling.
‘They mostly ignored me. They were all useless tossers themselves anyway. At least I was trying to look cool. I had a Starsky cardigan too...’
‘Very stylish.’
I look at her smiling at me. It does seem funny now.
‘I take it the other kids didn’t play with you much.’
‘Well, I don’t know which came first – me avoiding them or them avoiding me. It is strange now I come to think about it. I wasn’t unhappy I don’t think, being on my own. It was just, when I did try to play with them or go and see them at home or whatever kids do, it was always somehow difficult. We never just relaxed and had a laugh or even a fight for that matter. I always felt uncomfortable somehow, like I didn’t know how it all worked, what to say, and I didn’t understand their games – I hated football, and I didn’t want to fight, and the girls wouldn’t play with me, so I suppose I was on my own a lot.’
‘So you had to use your imagination, invent things.’
‘I suppose so.’
‘Sounds hard.’
‘I’m not saying this to get sympathy (but thank you anyway), I just never really thought about it before. It’s just like, I didn’t get it. Like I missed something – some vital piece of information.’ I think about it for a while, trying to think of an analogy.
‘I’ve got it’ I say. ‘It’s like, I’ve always been able to draw. I don’t know why, it just comes naturally. I never had any training, I just know how to do it – I understand how perspective works, and how colours combine, and how to put what is in front of me on a piece of paper, or make it in a piece of clay. I’m not saying it’ll be brilliant, but it’ll be recognisable, and I know, if I chose to, I could go to classes and become good. It’s something I always knew I could do. Now, you talk to my sister Amelia – she went to art classes for years and she never really got it. She can follow instructions, copy a picture, but stick her alone in a field with a pad and an easel and she’s lost.’
‘I’d be the same. I can’t draw to save my life.’
‘See that’s what it’s like. But I thought about it a lot back then, tried to work it out – how to be normal. I picked up some tricks. I learned to avoid certain kinds of people – most people actually – “real” men, uptight fussy anxious women, “right-minded” god fearing folk. Children... I learned to appreciate my own company. But it took a long time. Up until I was in my early twenties I just kept on trying, making a twat of myself, over and over again.
‘So, what subjects were you good at, at school I mean?’
‘I don’t think I really stood out at anything. Well, art and writing stories but that all stopped at secondary school really. Once they pointed out that actually my spelling and grammar were abysmal, well, you know... I enjoyed reading though.’
‘What about the art?’
‘I kept that up whether they wanted me to or not. That was the thing that kept me going really, and then actually I really got into languages later, Spanish especially, and my biology and English were ok. My maths was terrible and I always hated sports.’
‘And you took your A levels’
‘I failed my A levels.’
‘But you were entered for them. You can’t have been that useless.’
‘I suppose not...’

The next session, she starts with ‘One thing has been bothering me about your story Gabriel...’
Here we go, I think. I feel like I’m being held for questioning.
‘Given your family background and the fact that you don’t seem to have had a major drink or drugs problem or serious mental illness - well, going on the street seems pretty extreme... as a life choice I mean.’ She’s flicking through some papers on her lap. Evidently I am on file here as well. I’ll ask if I can have a look later. I bet she says no. But, anyway, I think about what she has asked. It’s a good question.
‘Well, it was choice, and at the same time it wasn’t’ I begin. ‘I couldn’t stay at home with my parents all my life. And I do mean “couldn’t”. We’d have ended up hurting each other I’m sure of it. But then, on the other hand I suppose I always knew, if things got too bad... they were there.’
I tail off unconvincingly. It’s not good enough and I know it.
‘But you didn’t have to live on the street is what I’m getting at. You could have stayed in a hostel or something.’
‘And I did. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to give you the impression I was out on the pavement the whole time. I stayed in squats a lot for example. It was just, sometimes... it didn’t work out, or I ran out of money, or I pissed someone off and I had to move out. I don’t know...’
She frowns. I know what she’s thinking. She’s wondering why I put myself through all that... all that brutality, because it was – really brutal at times, when I could have just gone home to Ma and Pa. Was I just too proud? It doesn’t seem enough. What the hell was I thinking? I didn’t really fit in with the other homeless either. It seems stupid but I couldn’t even be a proper homeless person. I couldn’t even get that right.
I look about for inspiration. I notice that the curtains here are the same as at my Auntie Jen’s place. I can’t think what to say.
She looks at me intently. She’s working something out. Here it comes.
‘I just don’t really see why an obviously intelligent person like yourself would let this happen, do you know what I mean? All that dirt and degradation, and humiliation. Why did you put up with it?’
I sit back and think about it briefly. Where to begin?
‘I just never really saw it that way.... I suppose, given the alternatives. People go on about the disgrace of it, signing on, queuing up for hand-outs, being dependent on charity, on your parents, whatever, but then if you get a job you’re still sucking up to the boss, putting up with a lot of arbitrary crap from ignorant customers. You’re still dependent whichever way you look at it. Going in to sign on once a fortnight - it’s not so bad.’
I see Andrea shift irritably, trying to decide which of the many obvious objections to this she wants to begin with. I let her stew for a moment and then say blandly ‘Obviously I’d rather have been doing something worthwhile with my time and I can honestly say, in all the years I spent as a drop-out, I don’t think I ever met anyone who genuinely wanted to just do nothing with their life. They’d have all wanted to do something worthwhile, given the choice. Of course people’s ideas of what counts as worthwhile vary.’
I think back to how I was then and it occurs to me that life would have been a lot easier if I’d been able to just do as I was told once in a while, know my place in life - get a normal job, a tolerable wife, some irritating kids, live somewhere safe. Behold the happy moron...
‘I can’t believe some of the crap I was offered at the job centre’ I muse casually. ‘I mean, the employers don’t put up with just any old employees. I don’t see why we should be expected to put up with just any old job. I don’t think the employers were even trying half the time... just expected it all to be handed to them on a plate...’
I watch for her reaction. Did she see what I just did there? Apparently not. Either that or she doesn’t want to give me the satisfaction.
‘Well I suppose...’ she begins wearily, ‘I suppose it’s about doing what has to be done, fulfilling a role...’
‘So the needs of the individual must be subject to the demands of the economy. Sounds suspiciously like totalitarianism to me.’
She sits back, looks about the room. She’s had enough, and so have I. I suddenly feel terribly tired. I want to stop. I lean back too, shrug, shake my head.
‘I don’t know. I suppose a lot of it was wanting to be independent, get away somewhere, be on my own, not have to deal with all that crap – parents, bosses, landlords, social workers, people in general.’
She stares at me for a while. I can’t imagine what she thinks of me.

‘You seem to be making friends here ok’ she says eventually. ‘What’s different?’
‘I don’t know actually. I have had friends before you know – later on in life. Not usually really close friends, but still, you know, acquaintances. And of course it’s early days still...’
‘You don’t think you’ll stay friends for long?’
‘I don’t know. But it’s different here isn’t it. I can be a normal person here – relatively speaking. No worries about money and status here, or “What do you intend to do with your life sonny Jim?” I can be me here.’
‘You’re happy here.’
‘You know I think I am. What have you got there?’
‘What?’
‘The papers...’
‘Oh, just some notes – to jog my memory – questions I want to ask, things that occur to me between sessions.’
‘Can I have a look?’
‘Be my guest.’ And she hands them to me and I’m flattered to see how much she seems to think about me. I hand them back and she smiles at me knowingly.

Journey V – Birds and bees

I remember the next part of my journey through the afterlife as a good time. Everything was simpler – the paths were easier to find and lead through a lush upland landscape of rolling hills and wooded valleys. Miranda the nymph as I jokingly called her was something of a naturalist it turned out – she had what seemed like ancient memories of a country childhood, running half naked through the meadows, jumping in rivers, climbing trees, riding ponies, playing with dogs and rabbits and ducks. I asked if she’d ever go back but she didn’t seem to think it was possible any more. She pointed out the birds and the bees, the orchids and the trees and told me how they fed, how they grew and reproduced. She told me to put away my papers and pencils. She said they were coming between me and the world – I was always trying to make a picture instead of looking at what was actually happening around me. She said I should just look, then, one day maybe I’d make something truly worth looking at. I knew she was right. I sat and looked. And not just looked – I rolled about in the long grass, jumped in the rivers and ran up the ridges, usually with her on my shoulders, to see what there was to see on the other side. I got cut, stung and bitten and bruised in the process but it was worth it.
We were bashful about our bodies although we had both been naked when we met and she must have seen me before that, washing and so on. Still, it seemed wrong to just not care. She wore a piece of red and orange silk as a sarong, and I kept my shorts on. Still, I watched her surreptitiously, and she knew it too – she told me later – sometimes carelessly letting her little pink boobs pop out as she moved about. She couldn’t help but notice my response, which was more than half as tall as she was, but we played a delicious game of not reacting.

We talked a lot more as time went on – her revealing more about her past as we went along, but swiftly changing the subject when we got to “the nasty bits”- she'd suddenly get excited about some new insect or flower or fish and set off with remarkable speed and agility after it, then she'd tell me something amazing about its ecology. Other times she would just come out with something ridiculous and make me laugh. We spent a lot of time laughing but there was always something else going on with her – you could see that, something in her expression.
‘Dad really changed when my stepmother moved in’ she told me one afternoon. We’d been swimming and were just sunning ourselves on a ledge. She looked at me. I could see from the expression on her face she was going to tell me something important today and I turned on my side to face her. She turned on her back and looked at the sky. I noticed her take trouble to cover herself up properly, which was not like her at all.
‘She didn’t like me being around anyway’ she continued.
‘How old were you?’
‘Sixteen, seventeen maybe.’
‘What about your mum? Didn’t she say anything?’
She never answered that, just stared at the sky. She’d told me before that her mother had been depressed and drank a lot.
‘It wasn’t him incidentally’ she said, turning to me, ‘in case you were wondering. He never actually abused me, physically.’  Up until then it hadn’t occurred to me at all but now all sorts of possibilities came to mind. I knew she’d been a bit of a wild child and her parents had let her do pretty much whatever she wanted, including losing her virginity at thirteen. I suppose I knew that people abused their children but I’d never really given it much thought.
‘He was a very manipulative man. There was always this thing that me and my mother were interchangeable somehow, and then she got older and I got more... “developed” as he put it... It was always a bit weird but I idolised him. All my girlfriends did. He was really good looking, and charming, my father. Everybody said so.’
I wanted to say ‘So what happened?’ but I knew hurrying her would make her change the subject so I had to wait.
‘I was spending a lot of time in a squat in Brighton at the time. It was all pretty mad...’ and she looked at me again, trying to decide whether to go on, whether I’d be too shocked. I made as subtle encouraging noises as I could and she lay down again. ‘I don’t want to go into it’ she said finally, covering her face with her hands, covering her eyes. I lay back and looked at the sky. I knew what was coming. She’d joked about it – messy, badly lit rooms, the dope and speed and vodka going around, and the sex. I’d found it kind of exciting at first – the thought of her doing that... Then, as I got to know her more I felt jealous. Now, I could see how hurt she was. Maybe I was growing up. Who knows? I reached over and touched her arm and she uncovered her eyes and gripped my finger. I could see she’d been crying.
‘What happened then?’
‘Oh they kicked me out. I had to have an abortion. I got sick, blah blah blah. Oh look I just can’t...’
‘It’s ok, it’s alright. Look...’ and I indicated a space in the crook of my arm where she could curl up and she came over and fell asleep on me.

Another time, when we knew each other better, I asked her why she wouldn’t go back and try again, avoiding all that pain. It seemed to me that the nasty parts should be easy to avoid if she knew when to expect them. She said it’s not that simple and you don’t necessarily remember enough, or anything, of your previous existence next time around.
‘I couldn’t take the risk’ she said sadly. ‘I couldn’t put her through all that again.’
It took me a moment to realise she was talking about her younger self.
‘But you could settle somewhere here couldn’t you? Somewhere, I don’t know...’ I look about at the view, avoiding her eyes on me. I don’t understand, I admit that. How can she just give up? She seems so, I don’t know, lively, and clever. How can she just let herself snuff out?

The landscape around us gradually assumed a more cultivated look as the days went by (How many days? I don’t know. It seemed like about four months, but I couldn’t be sure. Time just swelled and flowed about us). Fields and hedges emerged more often from the wilderness as we travelled, overgrown and unkempt to be sure, but undoubtedly fields and hedges. The paths remained rocky and uneven, but wider. At one point we came across a shed, big enough for cows or horses and still with stale straw on the floor. A fat grey dormouse watched us from the rafters with the shiniest little black eyes. I saw her mood drop a little in there. She didn’t want me to notice, but I did. When she turned around it was as if nothing had happened.
The possibility of being seen by people made me a little more inhibited but she carried on as before and urged me not to worry – we had a while yet she said. I didn’t ask.
She asked me about my past, and in particular about the women in my life. I told her there wasn’t much to tell, skimmed over my adolescent infatuations and humiliations and briefly mentioned Naomi and what had happened there. I wasn’t sure this was a good idea but she insisted and didn’t laugh too much. It all seemed a very long time ago and an extremely long way away. All around us insects were swarming about amid the early summer flowers, and sun sparkled in the dew on their hairy stems. Everywhere, the sheer detail of veins in leaves, in the red stain in the leaves behind the blue petals, and a black fly buzzing there, and a blue spider, sitting, like a crab, in the centre, waiting for it.
‘Actually, birds eat bees’ she said suddenly, looking out across the valley. ‘It’s an apposite metaphor for life don’t you think?’
‘Not always’ I said, although I’d like to have eaten her at that moment. She turned and smiled at me. ‘What are you thinking?’
I couldn’t tell her I was thinking about licking her entire body in one mouthful.
‘About who of us is the bird and who is the bee...’ I said, lamely.
‘Maybe we’re both birds’ she suggested.
‘Except we don’t have wings’ I pointed out.
‘I wouldn’t want to be a bee I don’t think – maybe one of those big fuzzy mama bees with all her daughters hidden in a hole in the ground...’ and she asked me how I’d been bitten. I said I wasn’t even sure if it wasn’t all in my imagination, and I explained about what happened with Lucy – how naive I’d been. ‘I know it’s not exactly the end of the world’ I said finally, tailing off.
‘But you’re so young’ she said compassionately. ‘How could you have known?’ and I suddenly felt like crying because she was on my side and I wasn’t used to that. I had assumed it was probably mostly my fault, as usual, but she didn’t think so.
‘I despise her already’ she said ‘and I haven’t even met the woman.’

We sit and look and think for a while. So much birdsong, a lizard on every available rock, as many butterflies as flowers. Maybe this was what England used to be like, before we humans got our hands on it. Miranda points out a stork, sailing over the treetops opposite. I watch a crow swoop down from behind us into the valley. In a few seconds it is over the stream, in another few it is among the trees where the stork was, maybe half a mile away. What a way to get about!
‘I’d never do something like that’ she says. ‘If I took my clothes off for you, no matter what the pretext, you’d know exactly what I was there for’ and she looks momentarily sideways at me with that bad smile of hers, tongue literally in cheek. I smile and look across the valley again.
‘I think I need to cool off’ I say, getting down off the wall and standing to face her.
‘Very sensible’ she says. ‘You do that’ and she lies down in the sun, and I look back just in time to see her tiny nipples ping free over the top of her sarong as she raises her arm to shade her eyes. Its lower edge comes up to expose almost the full length of her thighs as she bends her right leg up. ‘Don’t be long’ she says.
I bound down the valley side, through the long grass, grasshoppers springing merrily aside as I go.
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