‘But surely you can explain how you do it just a tiny little bit? I mean, for example, you’ve explained about your icon, but you haven’t explained how you use it.’
She comes over very serious and inward. Her eyes are looking inside herself, not out at me. It’s as though everything except her body has gone somewhere else. I recognise this. It’s her deep intuitive-thinking mood. I’ve seen it before quite often. It never happens at school. She’s always outward there.
I wait.
After a few minutes she comes back into her body and looks at me with a frown and says, ‘All right. Another day.’
I say, ‘I know what “another day” means. Another day never comes. Tell me now. Please. Please, Julie. I really need this.’
‘I know,’ she says. ‘And you’re ready.’
‘Is that what the business with the tea and the cushion was about? A test to check I’m ready?’
‘Kind of.’
‘And I passed?’
She sighs and says, ‘I indulge you too much. Against my better judgement sometimes.’
‘We all make mistakes,’ I say. ‘And I love you too!’
Scene Two
‘All right,’ Julie says, adopting her meditation posture and looking at the floor as if there’s something on it I can’t see. ‘You’re asking me to explain how I meditate.’
‘Please,’ I say, folding myself into meditation mode also.
‘The basis of the method I’ve learned,’ she says in her teacher’s voice, ‘is one used by many religions. As with everything in life, there are basic practices that work for most people. As I’ve taught you to do, I start by choosing a word and a physical image. The word might be from a poem or be one of my pack of word cards. The object might be a picture or anything I like. Or I might choose a word from my icon, like ‘Balance’, while looking at the holly segment – because holly is the wood associated with balance and with personal growth.’
‘And you do that to give your mind something to satisfy it, something to think about?’
‘Yes. To keep it quiet. The mind wanders all over the place and is easily distracted if it hasn’t something to focus on. You know how I sometimes put on music that helps create the right mood.’
‘Like Izumi’s old Japanese music that I use.’
‘And I like to be dressed in things that make me feel right. Now and then, I burn a stick of incense.’
‘I burn oils. To create an atmosphere.’
‘Yes. That’s why people like to meditate in groups. It helps them to be in the right frame of mind and to keep concentrated. And it’s why they like special places where people have meditated for a long time – where they’ve prayed, if you like – such as old churches and holy sites like Stonehenge.’ I think: And the White Horse, where I was conceived and the old church where Will and I first made love.
‘It’s easier,’ Julie says, ‘to meditate in places that are numinous – that are full of spiritual energy accumulated over many years.’
‘So you get everything right and pick a word and something appropriate to look at. I understand that. It’s what I’ve been trying to do. But then what?’
‘I concentrate on the word. The word leads to a thought. The thought leads to a feeling of being interested – of being engaged. I go into the word as if there’s a secret at its heart, which can only be touched if I go carefully. You have to woo the word. Woo the image. You have to hold it, caress it, make love to it. Then the truth behind the word reveals itself. Love is the centre of meditation, the key thing. As it is in life. But to find the truth behind a word takes a great deal of gentle practice and also care for yourself. So while I’m thinking about the word I don’t force myself onto it. I try to treat it gently, with understanding, so that I’m ready to hear what it has to say to me. Just like I would treat a lover. This leads me to the Silence. But that only happens if everything is exactly right.’
‘That’s a big if.’
‘Very big.’
‘This is the part that I want to know about.’
‘It doesn’t happen every time. Nowhere near. I’d meditated for years before it happened at all.’
‘So how did you know it would?’
‘I didn’t.’
‘But you went on trying?’
‘Because I believed it would happen eventually. I knew someone who’d achieved it. She encouraged me and kept me company while I tried.’
‘Like you with me.’
‘I hope so.’
‘So what you’re aiming for is what you call Silence?’
‘Which isn’t just the absence of noise. As I’ve explained to you before, it’s a wordless state of being. If you try to say anything about it, you destroy it. You’ll find out for yourself one day, if you go on meditating regularly. Thinking hard about something, thinking about it deeply from every angle eventually takes you beyond the thought. To its heart, as it were. You have to get to the heart of the matter. There’s no Silence around the edges, only at the centre.’
‘That’s hard to understand.’
‘I know. Which is why I didn’t want to try and explain it. You see, Cordelia, the fact is we’re trying to talk about something that can’t be talked about.’
‘But you’ve reached the Silence?’
‘Now and then. Not often. And you shouldn’t think of it like an ordinary journey from A to Z. It isn’t a road that leads from here to there and takes a certain length of time to travel. It’s a journey you can make in a split second or it can take years.’
‘And when you’ve meditated, what does it do to you? Afterwards, I mean.’
‘After a successful meditation I feel strengthened and refreshed and able to face up to myself and my weaknesses. Everything in my life is more vibrant. Of course, that also means pain is more painful, and love is more intense.’
‘And it stays like that?’
‘Not as strongly all the time. Sometimes I feel awful afterwards because it’s like detoxing the soul. It can bring out a load of bad stuff. And if you don’t keep up your meditation, if you don’t practise regularly, the effects can fade. It was like that when you visited me after your break-up with Edward. Remember?’
‘Can I forget!’
‘You thought I was just run down, a bit depressed from overwork. And I let you think that because it was impossible to explain. You weren’t ready. And yes, too much work was partly to blame, so I wasn’t lying. Because I was overworked I hadn’t been meditating regularly. And so I’d lost touch with my self. With my soul. With the Silence. Remember, you joined me on the bed, because you needed comforting, and fell asleep?’
‘I remember.’
‘Well, while you slept I took your name, Cordelia, for my word, and looked at your face, and meditated. Cordelia, the daughter who would never lie, even if it meant losing the love of her father. Cordelia, who had become a cherished friend. And meditating on truth-telling and love and friendship while looking at you asleep beside me brought me to the Silence, and that put my body back together with my soul, and I felt well again.’
‘You never told me.’
‘Perhaps I shouldn’t now.’
‘No, you should! You should. I’m glad. It explains something I’ve felt ever since I came to see you the first time.’
‘Which is?’
‘I always feel better when I’ve been here. Happier. Even when I’m sad or upset. I always feel more together inside myself. Especially after we’ve meditated together. It’s not the same when I do it at home. Maybe I haven’t done enough meditating there to create the right atmosphere yet. And maybe I need to be with someone else when I’m doing it. At first I thought it was just because I had a crush on you. And then you became a friend. We became friends. And I knew there was something more to it. Something even more than being friends. I mean, Izumi was a good friend, my best friend while she was here. But I didn’t feel the same with her … I don’t know, I can’t quite get it.’
‘Don’t try.
It’s just words.’
‘Just words?’
‘Just words! We love them so much, you and me. But in the end, they fail us. Because there are truths that lie beyond words. What we’re talking about – the love we feel for each other, meditation, the Silence – most of all, the Silence – they’re beyond words. You ask what the Silence is. And that’s the difficulty. No one can tell you. The Silence is the Silence because it’s the truth that is all and everything. But it can’t be said. It’s a story that can’t be told.’
‘A wordless story.’
‘Known only to yourself alone.’
‘And you’re saying meditation is a way of getting to the truth that can’t be reached any other way?’
‘I don’t know whether it can be reached any other way. All I know is it’s the only way that I can reach it. In the end, meditation isn’t about feeling better, or everything being more alive and vibrant. It isn’t therapy. It isn’t a health cure. Or a nice way to calm down. Nothing like that. It’s far far more.’
‘D’you think it’s the same for me? That meditation is the only way for me?’
‘Only you can know that. Only you can decide. That’s why I don’t press you about it, or explain it, or expect anything of you. Everything you need to know is already inside you. How you reach it is something for you to find out for yourself. All I can tell you is that it means stripping down to the bare essentials. It means dropping the layers of thought that come from living off other people and what they expect and what the world wants. It means being truly alone. And that takes courage. Moral courage.’
We remain still, saying nothing. I sense there’s nothing to say because there’s nothing more to be said. Or rather, there’s a lot more to be said but not today.
Scene Three
Later, we’re making a meal and I need to say something so that I hear myself say it and because I want to say it to Julie. I want to declare it to us both. I want to make it clear to myself and to her. I stop what I’m doing and face her, and she stops what’s she’s doing and faces me, and to her eyes I say:
‘There’s one thing I do know. But I only know it now, looking back. Since I made my mistake with Edward and lost Will, meditating has been a big help. I honestly believe it’s kept me sane. I don’t know what I’d have done without it. Which means I don’t know what I’d have done without you. I only half knew it at the time, but I can see it clearly now. And that’s one reason why I want to keep it up. I know you say that’s not what meditation is meant for, but it’s done that for me. And I’m grateful. And maybe if I keep trying, one day I’ll find the Silence. The Silence. I hope so. But honestly, Julie, I’m sure I can only keep trying if I have your help.’
‘You do have it, Cordelia. For as long as you want it. Now, let’s eat.’
Memory
If we had no memory, how would we know who we are, where we have come from, who we belong to? How would we recognise each other? How could we choose between right and wrong? How could we find our way, if we didn’t remember where we’ve been or where we want to go to? How could we know anything about anything, if we couldn’t remember any facts or any ideas?
See also: History. History is a record of what happened and to whom. Therefore, history is memory.
See also: Knowledge. Knowledge is only useful if we remember what we know. Therefore all knowledge is memory.
See also: Writing. We write to record what we have thought and felt and done and known and imagined and everything else we can think of. Therefore, all writing is memory.
See also: Reading. We read what has been written. It has to be written before we can read it. Also: In order to read we have to know the language and how the writing ‘works’. Therefore, all reading is memory.
See also: Me. If I cannot remember anything about myself I cannot know myself. Therefore, I can be only what I remember I am. Unless I only want to be an unknowing beast.
See also: Love. I can only love those I can remember. I love in those that which I remember about them. This is equally true of hate. Therefore, love and hate and all our relationships with others and everything in the world depend on memory.
Therefore, as with language, without memory we are nothing.
Which means that language is a system of memory: a way of remembering.
To live is to remember. To forget is to die.
Mothering
A journey.
How far? How long?
Time and distance are dubious when you’re blindfolded and gagged and trussed up and cold and wet and scared in the back of a windowless van.
Rain lashes down for most of the way. It drums on the roof, obliterating all other sounds.
At the end, but before I know it is the end, we bounce and splash down a rutted track.
We stop, turn, reverse.
Cal gets out.
I hear a heavy door on creaking hinges.
He opens the back door of the van, pulls me by my feet till my bottom is on the edge, drops my feet, lifts me by the shoulders into a sitting position, puts his shoulder into my middle and lifts me like a rolled-up carpet, my head hanging down his back, my legs down his front, and carries me into a building.
I smell hay.
And hear the creaking hinges again as the door is closed.
It’s too much! Still too raw. Can’t be recollected in tranquillity. Not yet. Still felt as now. But at the same time, as long ago. Now and Then. Happening to me, and not happening to me.
Cal takes the blindfold off.
A square room built of brick. A big door. A window open to the sky high up in one wall allows in the grey late-afternoon winter light.
An old barn?
I’m on a chair. It feels like an old kitchen chair. It has a rickety leg, or the floor is uneven; it wobbles if I move. I’m facing the door. To my right, a table made of two planks laid across trestles. I daren’t turn my head because I know Cal is standing behind me. His hands are on my shoulders. Hot hands on my cold shoulders. I want to be sick but stop it because of the gag; I’m afraid I’ll drown in my vomit. I look down and see the dark stain of urine on my jeans, from my crotch to my knees. The floor is dirty flagstones, but there’s hay everywhere and rusty implements and scuffed dust.
Cal unties the gag and takes it away. I gulp air. A scream rises like vomit. I clamp my mouth to hold it in; I’m afraid of what he’ll do if I let it out.
I’m shivering. Not the cold. Terror.
He strokes my hair. The trembling stops instantly. I go rigid. Paralysed.
He bends, and kisses the top of my head.
He walks away.
The shivering starts again, worse than before.
I hear him moving about behind me, shifting things, I can’t make out what.
He comes back. Strokes my hair again. I go rigid again.
He stands in front of me. He’s smiling at me. Smiling. Not leering. Not smirking. What?
He kneels down and unties my legs.
He rests back on his haunches and looks up at me with the same smile. I recognise it now. The smile of a friend who’s doing what you’ve asked him to do. As if he’s rescuing me. Not the captor; the saviour.
But more than that. What?
He says nothing, just looks, smiling. His tongue between his lips. The look of a devoted dog waiting to be taken for a walk. Adoration.
But no, it can’t be!
He bends down again, unties my trainers—
O, god, he’s going to undress me!
– and slips them off. Pulls off my socks.
I want to say, ‘No! No! Please, no!’ But I can’t speak. If I try, I’ll scream. I know I’ll lose it and scream. They tell you to scream, don’t they? To shout. To make as much noise as you can. But what would be the use? Who would hear? We’re nowhere near anywhere, nowhere near anyone. I just know we aren’t.
If I scream, he’ll gag me. Hit me. Worse. Don’t scream! Be calm.
I force myself to breathe out. To calm down.
/>
He stands, picks me up without the slightest trouble, cradling me as if I’m a small child. He turns. I see a bed made of bales of hay pushed together, head end to the wall. An old mattress. A crumpled duvet. Grubby pillows.
He sits me on the bed, feet on the floor. He unties my hands. The relief! But my arms are so weak from being strapped behind me for so long I can’t do anything with them.
He pulls my hoodie and my sweater off in one go, and drops them on the floor. I want to resist and can’t. I’m like a puppet.
He pushes me down, undoes my jeans, pulls them off, and drops them on the floor. I’m in bra and briefs.
I scramble up the bed, try to cover myself with the duvet.
He sees the bandage at the top of my thigh. He takes hold of my leg by the knee and stops me from covering it with the duvet. He unties the bandage and unwinds it. The blood on the wound has clotted. He touches the cuts with his finger. I flinch. Just because he’s touching me, not from pain. He bends and kisses the wound and touches it with his finger again. There’s blood on his lips. He licks it off.
He sits beside me on the edge of the bed, holding my thigh, looking at me with that doggy smile.
I hear myself whimper.
He reaches up and takes my hand from holding the duvet, says, ‘Shhhh!’ as to a fretful child, opens my hand with his other hand, puts my palm to his mouth and kisses it once, twice, looking at me all the time with that doggy smile, then rests my hand in both of his on his thigh.
Silence.
What’s he doing? What does he want?
Scream. Kick. Fight him. Try to run away.
O god, he’ll rape me! Please, no!
He lets my hand go. It grabs the duvet under my chin.
He stands up, pulls off everything in one go over his head.
O god, he’s going to do it!
He’s so big. Muscled. A rope of thick black hair grows up the middle of his body and spreads into a bush across his chest.
He unstraps his boots. Pulls them off. Undoes the belt of his jeans. Pulls them off. Tight Y-fronts. Black. A full big bulge in the crotch between his heavy thighs.
O god! Please help!