Fiorella’s Attachment

I’m not sure I want to tell you this. I think I might regret it. I’ve told my parents what happened, well, almost all that happened, not all, but no one else. I’m only telling you because you emotionally blackmailed me. Do I still have feelings for Karl? Of course I do! And I don’t want him to suffer because of anything I’ve done. Also because you were my favourite author. You are not now because of the emails, which, whatever you say, were not his. I still like your books but I don’t like you.

Anyway, this is what happened.

Karl asked me to go away with him for the week of half-term holiday so that we could get to know each other better. He quoted some teacher or other who told him that the best way to find out if you really loved someone and could live with her was to go away with her to a remote cottage in bad weather, and if after a few days you didn’t mind seeing her in her dirty underwear and looking her worst, you’d know it would be alright. He thought this very funny. But he also believed it, I think.

I was amused but didn’t take it seriously. I mean, what sort of girl is going to risk being seen in her dirty knickers when she goes away for the first time with her boyfriend? What off the beam teacher told him this rubbish?

I must admit I’m not that fond of camping. In fact, I’m not all that keen on outdoor activities, full stop. But I put this aside because I wanted to be with Karl for longer than a day on our own, which is all we had had so far. And he was very keen we should camp together, so I did it for him. It crossed my mind to wonder how it would be if ever we set up together, him wanting to camp and fish and play rugby, and me not wanting any of that. But I pushed the thought away.

Anyway, as it happened we had fun and I enjoyed myself.

Until the crisis. I’m quite good at arranging things, I like having everything neat and exactly right, and Karl is the same. Karl isn’t one of those boys, men, who have to be in charge all the time and have their way over everything. He takes pride in what he does, he’s careful, he’s amazing at paring what you need down to the essentials, and packing everything. He knew I’m not an experienced camper (to say the least). He discussed everything with me. And he tried to make sure we took what would make me comfortable, even if he didn’t think it essential. The only thing we almost had a row about was the books I wanted to take and what Karl called my “stationery”—notebooks, pens, pencils, etc.—to which I am addicted and without which my life is unliveable. I countered by pointing out the amount of stuff he was taking for fishing. In the end, we came to an agreement, both of us cutting down to manageable amounts for carrying. But one thing I learned from this was how stubborn he can be. I had to be really firm before he agreed.

Not that we needed to, because my dad drove us to the place we were camping. It was where you spent a day with Karl, he told me. This also annoyed me when I found out, which I didn’t till we were there. We could have taken a lot more stuff, but for Karl, Dad driving us was just luck, and we should only take what we could carry if we had to walk, otherwise, he said, it wasn’t camping, it was setting up house.

As it turned out, it’s just as well we did as he wanted.

We were lucky with the weather. There were showers in the night a couple of times, and a morning of rain. But I didn’t mind the showers because they freshened everything. And though I’m not keen on camping, I have to admit I found there is something relaxing, and romantic as well, about being in a good rainproof tent, and the smell the rain brings out of the earth and the plants, and the feeling of being secure but very close to nature is really beautiful.

During the day Karl fished for hours on end. I knew he had amazing concentration. I’d noticed this when we played chess. But I didn’t know he had such stamina as well. Not that this was a problem, because I’m pretty good at concentrating for longish periods myself. I read a lot while he was fishing and also worked on an essay for school.

The first three days were pretty idyllic. One reason Karl said he wanted us to go away together was that he thought he’d be able to tell me all the things I wanted to know about him, because he’d be relaxed, and we’d have time, and he could do it better by telling me than writing it. I didn’t remind him of this during those first three days. I thought it would be best to let him settle in and enjoy himself.

Now I have to tell you something I’d rather not, but it’s part of what happened. It’s about sex. When Karl and I got together both of us had already lost our virginity. But the first times hadn’t been satisfactory for either of us. And neither of us had done any more. So we weren’t exactly innocent, but we weren’t what you’d call experienced either. Really, we learned about it together. What’s for sure is we never enjoyed it so much as during those first three days and nights. But love isn’t only about someone’s sex, is it? There are more important things about a person than that.

So the first three days went by without us talking about Karl. But on the fourth day, because there was rain in the morning, we stayed in the tent and snuggled together and I decided it was a good time to talk about the things I wanted him to tell me.

I asked him again why he found it so difficult to write answers to my questions. I said I’d liked his emails. Why couldn’t he go on writing them.

He got all tensed up at that, and sat up.

I asked him what was the matter? What had I said that upset him?

He wouldn’t reply. He closed himself off. The sudden contrast with the way he’d been, from relaxed and loving to silent and hard, hurt me and made me nervous.

I knew before that week he could be moody. Sometimes he would be full of fun and energy and playful and all over me. At other times he would be quiet and wanted to be still and serious. I didn’t know why he was like that but was used to it and didn’t mind. But this was different.

I tried to soothe him. I said whatever it was it didn’t matter. We didn’t have to talk about those things that day, if he didn’t want to. But he wouldn’t give, wouldn’t look at me, didn’t want me to hold him. He’d never been like that before.

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.

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.