Subject: Quotes from 'After you'd gone' by Maggie O' Farrell;
Quotes from ‘After you’d gone’ by Maggie O’Farrell
I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in cushioning your insecurities with a system of belief that tells you, ‘Don’t worry. This may be your life but you’re not in control. There is something or someone looking out for you – it’s already organized.’ It’s all chance and choice, which is far more frightening.
I’d like to think that as the lift swooped up the floors I sensed that something important was about to take place, that my life was about to split away from my expectation of it. But, of course, I didn’t. Who ever does? Life’s cruel like that – it gives you no clues.
‘You must come. Please. We need to talk about things and I think we should both get out of London. It’s all arranged. It’s the most beautiful hotel ever. You’ll love it. It’s completely vegetarian.’
‘How did you know I’m vegetarian?’
‘You told me in the canteen when we did the interview.’
‘Did I? I don’t remember that.’
‘Well, I do. Alice, please come. What do I have to do to convince you? Tell me and I’ll do it.’
‘You are the most arrogant person I have ever met. Give me one reason, one good reason, why I should cancel all my plans this weekend to spend a weekend, where it will most probably rain, with a man with a…a…dubious secret.’
‘Because,’ he says softly, ‘I don’t know how I’m going to bear it if you don’t.’
The office is quiet today, everyone’s back bent over their computer screens, and their ears, Alice imagines, turned into her conversation.
‘John, what’s that thing?’
‘What thing?’
‘That thing in the tank upstairs.’
‘Oh,’ he laughs, ‘it’s an axolotl.’
‘A what?’
‘An axolotl. They originate from South America. One of my cousins breeds them. It’s amazing, isn’t it?’
‘But is it a reptile or an amphibian or what?’
‘They’re the larval form of salamanders. If I let him get used to being out of water, he’d become a salamander. They’re the only larval form in existence that can breed.’
‘So he’s stuck in constant adolescence?’ She shudders. ‘What a horrific thought. That’s so cruel. You should let him grow up into a fully fledged salamander and put him out of his misery.’
‘Didn’t you like being an adolescent?’
‘No! I hated it. I couldn’t wait to grow up and leave home.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I was an awful teenager – horrible to live with and horrible to look at.’
‘I don’t believe you.’
‘It’s true. I wore black all the time, did nasty things to my hair and didn’t talk to my parents properly for five years.’
‘Have you got any photos?’
‘None that I’d show you. Anyway, don’t avoid the issue: you’re trapping that poor creature in that terrible no man’s land.’
‘Not really. It’s more like he’s permanently in his twenties – he can breed, he can have relationships, he can lead a happy, normal axolotl life. He never grows old, which is a pretty good deal, I think. The Dorian Grays of the amphibian world.’
‘He doesn’t look very happy.’
‘Not at the moment, but wait and see. He’s nocturnal. He’s sleeping just now. In a few hours he’ll have woken up and will be zipping round his tank, churning up the gravel. Just wait and see.’
What are you supposed to do with all the love you have for somebody if that person is no longer there? What happens to all that leftover love? Do you suppress it? Do you ignore it? Are you supposed to give it to someone else?
At that point where Alice’s clothes meet John’s, a red slip dress hangs next to a blue cotton shirt, slightly crumpled. It makes Ann cry, their clothes hanging together like this, it makes her cry a lot. And she’s not sure who she’s crying for: for her daughter, yes, the thought of whose death makes her feel like a glove pulled inside out on itself; for John who should never ever have died when Alice loved him so; and a part of her cries for herself, whose clothes would never hang like this with anyone’s.
