How Not to Be a Boy by Robert Webb

Author:Robert Webb
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books

That is what bereavement feels like to me. A wide-eyed rush towards a painful impact.

The good thing about being three years old, I think, stroking A-B’s hair, is that she might be vaguely aware of the impacts happening all around her, but she herself has not crashed. She’s little enough to slip through the gaps in the wreckage. There will be consequences, but the consequences will form her idea of what’s normal, just as it was normal for me to be scared of my father and wake up shivering on those winter mornings.

And the good thing about being a teenager, I further reflect, is that we bounce. We bounce for Britain.

A-B and me, three and seventeen – wow, this could have been worse. Six and ten? Seven and twelve? Bless them and no thanks.

And although this is a reasonable thought, it provides a springboard for a less reasonable thought, and this is where the bouncing goes wrong. A romantic narrative, a story, starts to take shape. The reality is too much to bear, so it has to be turned into a story. It has to be given meaning. The dreadful news has to be balanced by good news, the clouds demand a silver lining, the suffering hero must find a purpose. Death, I believe from the example of Martin, has to give way to new life. My life. And this ‘outspoken’ woman who just fell silent has to be given a voice. The voice of someone with a childhood Messiah complex who used to have twelve imaginary bodyguards. Someone younger, stronger, better educated, male. Someone like her, but with unfair advantages that she didn’t get in this unfair world. Her youngest son.

I’m the good news. I’m the silver lining. I don’t need a meaning: I am the meaning. Me. She’ll sing through me.

It’s an exciting idea and almost completely insane. It would be bad enough if this big-screen self-image had come from a healthy imagination. As it is, it’s a desperate parting shot from emotions that are otherwise busily trying to shut down. Something in my heart just turned to ice. That’s a reasonable self-protective measure in the short term, but will cause a lot of trouble later. Believing that I’m about to conquer the world on someone else’s behalf – someone I think beyond reproach – will cause even more trouble.

I set Anna-Beth down and go back to my room. I’ll finish the essay, I think. I’ll show them. Whoever ‘they’ might be. I sit at my desk, pick up my pen and look out of the window. I’m fascinated by the idea of what a hero I’m going to be.

I do nothing.

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