Beautiful World, Where Are You(88)

me to feel better afterwards, or if I ever will. On one hand, I know the human body can be incredibly resilient. On the other, my sturdy peasant ancestors did little to prepare me for a career as a widely despised celebrity novelist. What do you think? Gradual return to a state of fair-to-moderate physical health? Or gradual acceptance of chronic poor health, perhaps presenting new opportunities for spiritual growth?

Speaking of which: when Felix saw I was writing you an email, he said, ‘You should tell her you’re Catholic now.’ This is because he recently asked me if I believed in God, and I said I didn’t know. He went around shaking his head all day after that, and then told me that if I go off and join a convent, I shouldn’t expect any visits from him.

Needless to say, I am not going to join a convent, nor am I even Catholic, as far as I know. I only feel, rightly or wrongly, that there is something underneath everything.

When one person kills or harms another person, then there is ‘something’ – isn’t there?

Not simply atoms flying around in various configurations through empty space. I don’t know how to explain myself, really. But I feel that it does matter – not to hurt other people, even in one’s own self-interest. Felix of course agrees with this sentiment as far as it goes, and he points out (quite reasonably) that nobody goes around committing mass murders just because they don’t believe in God. But increasingly I think it’s because, in one way or another, they do believe in God – they believe in the God that is the deep buried principle of goodness and love underneath everything. Goodness regardless of reward, regardless of our own desires, regardless of whether anyone is watching or anyone will know. If that’s God, then Felix says fine, it’s just a word, it means nothing. And of course it doesn’t mean heaven and angels and the resurrection of Christ – but maybe those things can help in some way to put us in touch with what it does mean. That most of our attempts throughout human history to describe the

difference between right and wrong have been feeble and cruel and unjust, but that the difference still remains – beyond ourselves, beyond each specific culture, beyond every individual person who has ever lived or died. And we spend our lives trying to know that difference and to live by it, trying to love other people instead of hating them, and there is nothing else that matters on the earth.

The book was proceeding by leaps before, but has now slowed to a kind of intermittent trickle. Naturally my sanguine temperament has prevented me from reading anything ominous into this turn of events. Haha! But really, I am trying not to go down that rabbit hole again this time – worrying that my brain has stopped working and that I’ll never write another novel. One day I’ll be right, and then I can’t imagine I’ll be glad that I spent so much time feeling anxious in advance. I know I am lucky in so many ways. And when I forget that, I just remind myself of the fact that Felix is alive, and you are, and Simon is, and then I feel wonderfully and almost frighteningly lucky, and I pray that nothing bad will ever happen to any of you. Now write back and tell me how you are.





30


Alice – thank you so much for your notes – and the birthday gift, which arrived in a timely fashion and was characteristically generous! – and sorry for the short delay. I know you’ll forgive me, because I am writing with important and confidential news.

Confidential for the moment, though, as you’ll soon figure out, not for long. The news is this: I’m pregnant. I found out for certain a few days ago by cutting a test out of its plastic packaging using a kitchen scissors and then urinating on it in the bathroom before Simon got home from a committee hearing he had to attend in person. When the test was positive I sat down at the kitchen table and started crying. I’m not really sure why. I can’t say I was shocked, because my doctor had taken me off the pill months ago, and my period was three weeks late. I won’t bore or embarrass you with any more specific details about how I came to be pregnant – I’m sure you cannot at this stage in our friendship be surprised by any irresponsible behaviours on my part, but suffice it to say that even Simon is only human. Anyway, I had no idea when he was going to get home from this hearing – in an hour, two hours, or maybe he would be really late and I’d be sitting there alone all evening in the apartment – and then just as I was thinking that, I heard his keys in the door. He came inside and saw me sitting at the table, doing nothing, and I asked him to sit with me. He stood there looking at me for what seemed like a long time, and then without speaking he came over and sat down. Even before I said anything, I knew that he knew. I told him I was pregnant, and he asked me what I wanted to do. As strange as this might sound, I hadn’t thought about that at all until he asked me. But only a few minutes had passed, really, and all I had thought about in that time was where he was – whether he was still at work or on his way back, whether he had stopped in a pharmacy or a supermarket – and how long it would take him to get

home. When he asked me, I found it was easy to answer, I didn’t have to think about it.

I told him I wanted to have the baby. He cried then and said he was very happy. And I believed him, because I was very happy too.

Alice, is this the worst idea I’ve ever had? In one sense, maybe yes. If everything goes right with the pregnancy, the baby will probably be due around the start of July next year, at which point we may still be in lockdown, and I would have to give birth alone in a hospital ward during a global pandemic. Even shelving that more immediate concern, neither you nor I have any confidence that human civilisation as we know it is going to persist beyond our lifetimes. But then again, no matter what I do, hundreds of thousands of babies will be born on the same day as this hypothetical baby of mine.