All At Sea is a memoir of grief and the trauma of sudden loss, a genre that has seldom (if ever) featured in my reading to date. I wouldn’t have read Aitkenhead’s book but for the fact it was selected for this month’s book club.
Decca Aitkenhead is an award-winning journalist who has carved out a career in the UK national press by getting other people to share their stories. in May 2014 however, it was her own story that became headline news.
Decca was on holiday in Jamaica at the time, together with her partner Tony Wilkinson and their two young sons. The four-year old was paddling along the shoreline when he was pulled out to sea. Though Tony was able to rescue the child, he couldn’t make his own way back to safety because of a strong undercurrent. Local fishermen went to his aid and dragged him onto land but it was too late.
After an opening chapter which recounts that day in heartbreaking details, Aitkenhead devotes the majority of her book to describing the partner she lost so suddenly, and the aftermath of his death.
There’s no attempt to romanticise Tony’s character or to idealise him —far from it. When the pair met they were both married. She was a journalist for The Guardian. He was addicted to crack, ran a network of cocaine sellers, had served time in prison and had a history of violence. But his “geezerish air of mischief” and charismatic personality proved irresistible.
They were such an implausible couple, no-one believed the relationship could last. Tony and Decca confounded those expectations and Tony turned his life around, gaining a degree and becoming a youth worker for a children’s charity.
All At Sea is strongest when Aitkenhead turns her attention to the emotions triggered by Tony’s death. Remorse — the holiday had been her idea. Guilt — she could /should have prevented the tragedy. Fear for the effect on her children, particularly the oldest boy who believes it was his fault. All are described with the detached eye of a journalist yet we never lose sight of the fact that Aitkenhead is recounting a very personal experience.
She has the natural gift of a storyteller, particularly when it comes to sharing examples of how friends, colleagues and acquaintances react when they hear of Tony’s death. One so-called “friend” claims Tony owed him money and demands Decca pays up while another complains that only the family attended his burial. Some people see the newly widowed woman as a threat to their own relationship — as if only weeks after Tony’s death, Decca would be on the prowl for a new partner.
I appreciated her candour — she can be very hard on herself at times — and also her reflections on the power of friendship and family in moments of crisis. But I did struggle to fully engage with the book despite all its passion and emotion. That makes it sound as if I’m totally without compassion and empathy; it was in fact impossible to feel unmoved by her tale. And yet, there was something about All at Sea that didn’t work for me.
It took me a while to put my finger on the issue. I’m still not sure that I’ve identified it but part of the problem lay in Decca Aitkenhead’s motivation. It seemed to me that she was writing not for readers like me but for her sons and for herself, so that they never forget the man they loved.
As she says in the introduction:
The thing to remember about this story is that every word is true. If I never told it to a soul, and this book did not exist, it would not cease to be true. I don’t mind at all if you forget this. The important thing is that I don’t.’
I completely understand her need to remember Tony and to ensure that the newspaper accounts of his death are not the only record. But does that make it interesting for people who didn’t know the man? The answer for me is “not really.”
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