Dying to Know You

  I didn’t know what to do. I felt like crying but made myself not. I couldn’t stay lying down. I wanted to move around. But the tent was too small to stand in and the rain put me off from going out.

  I sat up. We sat side by side, cross-legged, not looking at each other.

  After a while he said he hadn’t written the emails.

  Just like that. No warning. Straight out.

  I thought I must have heard wrongly. But he repeated it. “I didn’t write the emails.”

  I said I didn’t understand and asked him what he meant.

  It was then he told me about coming to see you and how you’d written the emails for him.

  It was one of those times when you can’t believe what you’re hearing. One part of you does, but another part doesn’t. You feel confused, half shocked and half numb.

  I said something about how could he do that? How could he deceive me like that? But it was as if someone else inside me was saying this.

  He kept saying he was sorry, he hadn’t meant to deceive me, he’d done it because he was afraid he’d lose me if he didn’t write the answers well enough to please me.

  I kept repeating how could he do that? Why did he think I’d not like what he’d written?

  He didn’t say anything about his dyslexia. He’d never mentioned this and he didn’t then. If he’d told me I would have understood. Of course I would. But he didn’t. And the longer it went on the more upset I became as what he was telling sunk in and all of me, not just a part, was upset so much I couldn’t bear it anymore.

  I pushed my way out of the tent. I was in floods of tears. I ran from the tent till I was far enough away for Karl not to hear me sobbing. Then I stood and let the rain fall on me, soaking me to the skin.

  It was so cold it shocked me out of the shock.

  I liked that it was so cold. I liked that it took the heat out of me. I liked that it was fresh. I liked that it wasn’t people, just water. Unthinking, unfeeling, impersonal and water.

  I don’t know how to put this, but it was the first time in my life that I’d felt the comforting pleasure of dispassion. (Is dispassion a word?)

  Whatever.

  I stood there till I’d come to my senses.

  Then I went back to the tent.

  Inside, it seemed stuffy, smelt of our sweaty bodies, damp sweat from the rainy air.

  Karl was sitting where I’d left him.

  I undressed, towelled myself, and pulled on some clothes.

  I sat facing him this time, and said how upset I was by what he’d told me, and couldn’t understand why he’d done it. There must be something that would explain it.

  I was guessing. It just felt like there must be.

  It was then he told me about being dyslexic. It came out in fits and starts, like someone trying to sick up something stuck in his throat.

  He told me how much he hated it, how it didn’t matter what anyone said, experts saying you’re gifted with dyslexia because it’s supposed to make you able to think in ways people who aren’t dyslexic can’t, how it made you more creative, it was all rubbish. All he knew, he said, was that it had caused him trouble all his life. It had stopped him doing as well as he’d wanted to at school.

  Once he got going it was like he couldn’t stop. It poured out of him without any fits and starts and not even a pause for me to say anything. He told me how they found out that he was dyslexic, and what they did to try and help, and how the other kids treated him, and the whole story up till now. He told me how the only person who understood properly how he felt and who never treated him as odd or different or a worry or like a patient or in any way at all but as himself was his father. Not even his mother, only his father. He said he was getting on well by the time he went to secondary school, because of the support of his father, and how his father had taught him so much and all the things he loved doing, like fishing, chess, rugby, music, handcraft things, even cooking. And how that came to an end when his father died. After that he’d gone back to feeling like he used to. He explained how becoming a plumber had helped because he was good at it and the guy he was apprenticed to, who was his father’s best friend, didn’t care a toss about the dyslexia. He told me how he felt about me, which I won’t repeat here, and how happy he’d been since we got together. Which is why he was worried about my questions and not writing the answers well enough and why he came to you. He said you’d been a bit like his father, you’d treated him as himself and as an equal and that he’d begun to value your friendship, not only because you’d helped him. He’d been happy again, he said, and now he’d wrecked it.

  He didn’t ask me to forgive him, but I knew that was what he meant. How could I not? I was still upset. But now I was annoyed with you, not him. I could see why he’d come to you. He was desperate. But you should have known it was wrong for him to send emails you’d written. You could have persuaded him to tell me about the dyslexia.

  Well, anyway. We talked. I told him I understood. And I could see what he wanted wasn’t words, but for me to show him it was alright between us. So by the end of the morning we were making love again.

  The rest of that day we got back to the way we’d been before. But better. It was as if an invisible barrier between us had been removed. I hadn’t realised it had been there. Now we both felt completely free with each other in a way we hadn’t been before.

  The rain cleared. The sun came out. We cleaned up, had something to eat. That afternoon we went for a long walk by the river. It was bliss.

  When we got back Karl fished for a couple of hours while I read and worked on my essay. But I felt so happy, so relaxed, so in love that I couldn’t do anything really except look at Karl standing in the river casting his line. He caught a couple of nice trout that he cooked and we ate for our evening meal.

  We slept that night better than any before.

  I was woken by Karl at dawn. There was just enough light filtering into the tent for me to see him. I have to explain that he had woken me each day at that time to make love, because he liked it best then. Afterwards we’d go to sleep again. I won’t say I didn’t like it because I did, but for Karl it was a special time and he was always urgent then.

  That morning he was more urgent than I’d ever known him to be. He was, I mean he is, very strong. But he was always tender and thoughtful of me. I liked that. But that morning he was, let’s say vigorous.

  I’m not going to tell you what happened then because it is too private. All I’ll say is I panicked. I was so scared I had to get away.

  Suddenly it was as if he’d been switched off. He sort of slumped. Almost like he’d been knocked out.

  I didn’t know what to do. I said his name but he didn’t respond. I pulled on my clothes. And sat facing him again.

  His eyes were blank.

  I said, I can’t deal with this. I made some breakfast, trying to act normal, but he wouldn’t eat any of it and neither could I. He just sat there like he was paralysed.

  I waited for ages. An hour. Two. I don’t know. All I know is I got more and more upset and more and more worried, him in the tent, me outside feeling cold and damp and horrible.

  And that was it. I felt I couldn’t go on. It was too much for me. So I decided to pack up and go.

  When I told Karl all he said was, Do whatever you want.

  I started putting my things together. Karl got his fishing gear and went off to the river without even saying goodbye or anything. I finished packing, cleared up in the tent and the cooking things, made everything as tidy as I could. And left.

  There wasn’t a mobile signal where we camped. As soon as I got one I phoned home. Luckily, Mum was in. She came and collected me from a pub in the nearest village.

  All I told her and Dad was that it hadn’t gone too well, Karl and I had had a row and I thought it best to break it off. Dad was pleased. He had nothing against Karl personally but thought I could do a lot better and it was too soon to get serious with anyone with university coming up.
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  Mum was more sympathetic. First love, she said, doesn’t usually last, but I’d always remember it with affection. She told me about her first love, and Dad’s. That helped. But didn’t get rid of the hurt and the confusion. I just couldn’t understand why Karl had acted the way he did. But I was too embarrassed to tell even my mother about that part.

  I don’t know why I’ve told you. And I haven’t told you the worst part. I’m trusting you to keep all this to yourself. I hope you won’t let me down this time. Let’s say it’s my gift to you in return for what your books have meant to me. Only there’s a big difference. This isn’t like your stories. It isn’t fiction. It’s fact.

  I DIDN’T THEN AND WON’T NOW INDULGE IN THE POTTED psychology that might explain Karl’s behaviour. What I did spend time brooding about was whether in anything Fiorella had told me there was a clue to how I might get in touch with him, but nothing came to mind.

  I hate being unable to solve a puzzle. It nags like a persistent pain, disabling any other occupation. I tussled with myself all day. I asked myself what I’d do if this were one of my novels. What would I do at this point to push the plot on? But after trying this idea and that and each time being defeated by crumbling logic, every move lacking truth-to-life conviction, I accepted that this real-life problem couldn’t be solved as if it were fiction, because in a novel I’d go back and change the plot so the stalemate would be avoided. But real life evolves its own unpredictable plots over which we characters have little control and only by hindsight, if then, discern the reasons and purposes.

  The plain unwelcome fact is that sometimes life stymies you.

  That day was one of those that seem to pass without the sun. I went to bed in querulous mood and spent another tussled night.

  At eight thirty-five the next morning Mrs. Williamson phoned.

  She wanted to know if Karl was with me. He’d been very low the night before. After she got up, she went to his room to see if he was all right, but his bed hadn’t been slept in. She was worried that he might do something—

  She didn’t finish the sentence and didn’t need to.

  I asked if he might have gone to work.

  She said she’d phoned his boss, but Karl wasn’t with him. Then she thought of me.

  I asked if Karl had taken anything—money, extra clothes, anything.

  She said he hadn’t.

  I asked if she had called the police.

  She said not yet.

  I suggested she should.

  She began to cry.

  I could tell she was desperate and beginning to panic.

  I asked whether it would be any help if I came over.

  She said would I, please.

  The police were helpful but not urgent. Hundreds—thousands—of people go missing every year. Most of them turn up somewhere, if not back at home. Some are never heard of again. A few, comparatively, suffer violent ends inflicted on themselves or by others. Karl, they said, was over eighteen, even though by only a few months, and so was legally an adult, responsible for himself. Even if they found him, they had no power to bring him home or even tell his mother where he was unless he wanted them to. If Mrs. Williamson had any evidence that Karl was a risk to himself or the public, or that he was in danger, in which case they would launch an inquiry, the best they could do was put his name on the missing persons list, and if Mrs. Williamson had a recent photo of Karl they’d add that to the file.

  This did nothing to calm Mrs. Williamson’s nerves. And I must admit I was worried too, though I tried not to show it.

  Best to be practical, to do something.

  I asked Mrs. Williamson to look again for anything Karl might have taken with him. But she said nothing was missing. His mobile phone was in his room. He never went anywhere without it. His keys and his wallet with money in it were there too. I wondered if he might have gone fishing. But his tackle was where he kept it in the spare bedroom.

  Then it occurred to me. Was he on foot or on his bike?

  His bike was kept in the garage. It wasn’t there.

  Mrs. Williamson had had no breakfast. I suggested she eat something while we took stock. She wouldn’t eat but made coffee for us, which we drank while talking over the possibilities.

  Karl had taken his bike but nothing else, nothing that suggested he had anything in mind—like buying something or going somewhere for a day out—nothing except going somewhere farther than even a longish walk. Unless he just wanted to cycle round for a while. But why? For exercise after being sedentary for days? A change of scene, when he hadn’t been out for weeks? To meet someone, when he’d been unwilling to see anyone for months?

  Any or all of those.

  Or to transport himself far enough away to need his bike to get there quicker than by walking, somewhere he needed to go for a purpose brewed up by his self-tormenting melancholia.

  And then a clue.

  I asked Mrs. Williamson to have another look round Karl’s room. This time she noticed that a photo of Karl’s father wasn’t on the table he used as a desk, and wasn’t in any of the drawers or anywhere she looked. “I don’t understand why I didn’t notice it was gone before.”

  I remembered how, during the worst time of depression after Jane died, I’d thought about suicide. During the hours staring at the walls I planned where I would do it, and when, and how, so that there would be as little clearing up to do as possible by whoever found my body. I wrote letters apologising for causing distress.

  Even as I planned this, I knew that thoughts of suicide were normal when you were melancholic. What’s more, the antidepressants caused this as well.

  I also remembered that when I was planning my death, I didn’t want to do it at home because it would have seemed a violation. I chose a favourite haunt of ours. Quiet, off the beaten track, a good place to die, while remembering happy times with the person I loved beyond all description.

  Not everyone would think like that. But if I was right about Karl, about the causes of his behaviour with Fiorella and his depression, I could imagine he might.

  And I knew something else. I’d intended to hold a picture of my wife so that this would be the last thing I’d see while dying.

  Was this what Karl meant to do? It did look frighteningly like it.

  I mentioned none of this to Mrs. Williamson.

  Life is not like a novel, but a novel can be like life. The best ones always are.

  And I thought to myself, if I were writing the story of this moment in Karl’s life, there was one place he’d go, whether planning to kill himself or only to wallow in his own pain.

  It might seem odd to talk of someone wallowing in pain, but I knew from my experience that people obtain a strange pleasure from their suffering. In depression, you’re keenly aware of every shift and shimmer of your body, every flicker and twinge of your feelings, every twist and turn of your thoughts, every fantasising image conjured by your imagination. You are all there is. You are all that matters. No one else, nothing else, has any meaning or importance, only yourself. In the deepest depths you are as high as on the strongest narcotics. And you can loll in that solipsistic paradise for days, months, even years, without requiring unreliable chemicals to keep you there. It’s a self-generated, self-inflicted addiction, the cure of which only you can provide. The cure is called hope.

  I explained to Mrs. Williamson where I thought Karl might be, but not why. As the desperate are, she was ready to cling to any hope of relief.

  While I packed the Rover with the things I might need, she made some sandwiches and a flask of coffee, and insisted on including enough fruit and chocolate to last a week (“Karl loves chocolate”), bottles of soft drinks, a couple of cans of beer, as well as Karl’s medication and a first aid box.

  I made sure she had my mobile number and I hers, agreed with her that she would call me at once if there was any news, as I would her, and after receiving a hug and a tearful litany of thanks, drove off at precisely ten o’clock.

&nb
sp; HE WAS THERE.

  And he was alive.

  I stopped, hidden among the trees a hundred metres or so from him. I could hardly stand for relief.

  The glade by the river where we’d spent the crisp early spring day, and where he’d camped with Fiorella in the heat of summer, was gemmed in cool golden autumn, the trees moulting their leaves.

  I’d parked in the lay-by and walked the ten-minute trek down the wooded valley as quietly as I could. I didn’t want him to hear me in case he did something desperate before I could reach him.

  My first thought was to let Mrs. Williamson know. But I remembered there wasn’t a signal, though I checked to make sure. I didn’t want to go back to the road, where there was one, for fear that Karl might do something untoward or leave before I got back.

  When I first saw him, he was standing, head down, on the edge of the riverbank. Was he preparing to throw himself in? I took off the backpack so I’d be ready to rescue him. But after a few moments he walked a couple of steps, picked up a rock big enough to need two hands to lift it, which he carried a few steps from the river to a pile of stones about knee high. He placed the stone carefully on top, stood back and surveyed the pile, then returned to the river and stood again, head down for a few moments, before picking up another stone from the water’s edge and carrying it to the pile.

  This back-and-forth business went on long enough to build the pile up to his chest height, forming a roughly shaped pyramid-like mound, wide at the bottom, tapering to a flat top. It reminded me of the cairns that mark the highest points and sacred sites on the Yorkshire moors where I’d hiked in my youth.

  I began to worry about what I’d do if this went on all day. I was already feeling cold—the autumn air among the trees in the bottom of the valley was chill with damp. My old man’s settled ways had been upset by the events of the morning, breakfast was four hours ago and I’d not had my mid-morning coffee because I’d driven nonstop from Karl’s house (breaking the speed limit wherever I dared, I have to confess). In the backpack were the coffee and sandwiches Mrs. Williamson had made. But they were intended for Karl more than me.