Towards Another Summer (12 page)

She had not been so sure, then, about Isy’s whereabouts. It was all very well to be ‘with God’ but it was a vague locality which described nowhere, and Grace had known that when her mother was faced with difficult questions which had frightening answers she was apt to reply vaguely. People going ‘away’ were often revealed to be dead. ‘Holidays’ were prison. ‘Nervous breakdowns’ were madness, thinking you were the King of the Solomon Islanders. Grace learned so early the deceptions of words that she regarded every statement with suspicion. ‘With God’ indeed! Where else would Isy be when she had been threatened so often with the Industrial School? Where else but at the Industrial School?

 

It was almost twelve o’clock. The faint blue light in the sky had disappeared. The world was depressingly grey. An ice-edged wind had sprung from the moor and was shuffling the old brittle leaves along the pavement and so transforming the air that it seemed on the verge of turning to ice. Grace found breathing an effort. She slowed her footsteps to gather courage before she arrived at the Industrial School. Again she consulted the map, compared it with her own position in the street. Yes, the Industrial School should be here, here, she said firmly, turning her eyes bravely to the right. There was no Industrial school. Again she consulted the map, making sure of her position. Again she looked about her; there was no Industrial school.

It’s an old map, yes, it’s an old map, she said, shivering. The sun had gone. Am I dreaming? she said to herself. She imagined the conversation when she returned to the Thirkettle house,

—Where did you walk?

—I walked to the Industrial School.

They would look at her in bewilderment.—Industrial School?

But it was here, printed on the map, labelled, with the
buildings heavily outlined in black.

Procne. Philomela. The summer swallow. ‘So perish the old Gods but out of the sea of time-’

Her father, who was always impatient with Gods, would have shouted at this Northern sky,—It’s a freezing-chamber in here, Can’t you shut the blasted door!

Grace turned up her coat-collar and walked slowly back towards Holly Road.

 

How had she ever become used to living in Great Britain, she wondered. How had she ever been able to exchange the sun, the beach, the shimmering tent of light, the dramatic landscape, mountains, rivers, gullies, glaciers, for the brick bleeding wound that seemed so much a part of this country; for the spindly winter trees, so tired, growing out of the squalor, as if a slovenly god, leaning down to try to clean the wound, had seized a few twigs to probe it, and amused by the sight, had left them sticking out of the wound. Great Britain was so full of waste paper, sooty paper, bus tickets, bus tickets - once when Grace was alighting from a bus and dutifully putting her used ticket in the ‘receptacle provided’ she had been too energetic and before she realised what was happening she had emptied the bin over the steps of the bus and into the road; a snowstorm of tickets with Grace Cleave, apologising as usual, marooned in it. It was a dismal grey wintry land with too many people; it was people who made the squalor; if you must have snow let it be out of sight of the human race; no; for every contamination there is a poem.

She came to the park. The poverty of the north made her feel near to weeping; it was not material poverty, not lack of money or work, but the drab world and its poor supply of sun and warmth; people in Winchley would never sit drinking wine at little tables under the sky; when rich times came again (and why should they not?) they would banquet in vast northern halls, sipping from goblets of poison, and surviving it.

She had almost reached the street when a woman emerged from one of the terraced houses facing the park. Her dress was patched in black and white, outlined sharply against the grey day. To Grace’s astonishment the woman suddenly flapped her arms then opening her mouth she screeched three times and then was silent. Then she began screeching again. Grace stared at her black and white patched dress, listened to the screeching, and thought,—She’s a magpie, she’s not a woman, she’s a bird. As she watched the woman more closely she saw the final change taking place in her - she had surprised her in private metamorphosis - she saw the arms mould themselves to wings, the black and white patched dress change to feathers about her body, her nose extend sharply to form a beak. There was no need for her voice to change. She began screeching once more; she was calling someone, her children. She flapped her wings belligerently as Grace passed her, she turned her bright fierce eyes towards her, then she dropped one wing limply at her side and fluttering the other as if clearing an obstacle from the air, she resumed her screeching.

No, it’s not the call of the magpie, Grace considered. Perhaps she is a marsh bird; a plover, peewit; why should I see her here, now? Does she know that I too have changed to a bird? That it is time for me to fly towards another summer?

—See anything interesting on your walk?

—I was walking in the park when I saw a woman changed to a bird-

Why should she not speak the truth at least once in her life? The need to tell Philip and Anne, to stand in the big untidy kitchen and say, aloud, I saw a woman change to a bird, was so desperate that Grace did not know how she would be able to prevent herself from telling. She knew there would be embarrassing consequences. Hasty Reassurances. The subject switched to one more harmless. Her limited social experience made her feel certain of the response to her news; she did not question the accuracy of her forecast, although she knew she was
being unfair to Philip and Anne. Perhaps for the first time in her life she was among people whose imagination was not housed in a small dark room with no windows, whose understanding and sympathy were liberal, adventurous.

Why not tell them, why not explain? she said to herself. I don’t wish to inhabit the human world under false pretences. I’m relieved to have discovered my identity after being so confused about it for so many years. Why should people be afraid if I confide in them? Yet people will always be afraid and jealous of those who finally establish their identity; it leads them to consider their own, to seclude it, cosset it, for fear it may be borrowed or interfered with, and when they are in the act of protecting it they suffer the shock of realising that their identity is nothing, it is something they dreamed and never knew; and then begins the painstaking search - what shall they choose - beast? another human being? insect? bird?

If I confide that I have become a bird, others may want to change in the same way; or the shock may be so great that even Philip and Anne, who have qualities of mind to deal with unexpected situations, may not be able to adapt themselves in time, to accept the truth of my identity. The strain of constant adaptation to so many fearful events and discoveries is already too much to bear with sanity; one has to keep pretending to slip successfully into the new mould; a time will come when the tailored and camouflaged mind breaks beneath the burden; the stick insect in our brains no longer cares to resemble a twig on the same habitual human tree in the mere hope that it may survive extinction.

Walking slowly because she was still too early for lunch and she dreaded the extra half-hour of conversation, Grace at last came to Holly Road and the Thirkettles’ house. She knocked lightly on the back door and went in.

—Hello. Had a good walk?

—Yes thank you.

—I’m just getting the lunch ready.

Anne’s face was flushed with the heat of the stove and the cooking and with feeding and calming Noel and Sarah who were both claiming attention from Philip. He sat on one chair with his feet on another and Sarah was crouched on his knees, her hands in his, being pulled to and fro.

Grace laughed unexpectedly and happily.

—That’s trolley works, she said, and instantly regretted saying it; they would ask her to explain.

Philip was looking attentively at her, waiting. Anne paused in her serving of the meal to listen. Grace felt trapped.

—Yes, she said clumsily—that, I mean the way you and Sarah are holding hands like that and pulling . . . that’s trolley works . . .

Still they waited for an explanation. A deep despair filled Grace’s mind as she watched Philip, Anne, Noel, Sarah, so far away, wanting to understand her language, in this case an ordinary family word - surely they themselves had a family language which they would find difficult to explain to others! What if she were to turn towards Anne and say, smiling,—How like Shelley’s first wife you are!

Anne would not realise the significance. How often Grace and her sisters had exclaimed to one another,—I’m getting to be like Shelley’s wife, you’re like Shelley’s wife! Meaning that
the material vain affairs of the world were intruding on their imaginative concerns; remembering, from a shared reading of the life of Shelley, that he had complained of Harriet,—When I’m thinking of poetry she’s thinking of buying hats!

—Trolley works?

Grace longed to lean her head on the table and weep and weep; her mouth felt dry.

—Trolley works, she repeated.—We used to play like that, as if we were trolleys on the railway, you know how the gangers work the trolleys?

Gangers, trolleys: they did not understand her railway vocabulary.

—Yes, the gangers were always going up and down in their trolleys. When we were children the area near the railway was our playground - the engine sheds, goods sheds, the piles of sleepers, the old turntables, disused huts . . .

Philip’s eyes showed a worried expression and when he spoke she was dismayed to realise that he seemed to regard her as a small child who is playing near the railway line and in danger of being killed by the trains,

—But it’s dangerous for you to play near the railway line, he said sharply.

There was a note in his voice which said,—You mustn’t do it again, understand? What on earth are your parents thinking of to let you play near the trains?

Feeling at once proud, bold, orphaned, in need of being ‘taken into care’, Grace said innocently,

—I suppose it was a risk. We didn’t think about it at the time.

Philip looked sternly at her, as if to say,—Don’t play there again!

Chastened, but pleased that his concern for her reached so far backwards in time, Grace made scraping movements with her chair, in response to the scraping movements the others were making, drawing their chairs to the table for the meal.

—The sun’s gone, Anne said.—We’ll go into Winchley as soon as we’ve had lunch.

—Anything interesting on your walk?

—I saw an old people’s housing estate. I didn’t like it. Like a travel agency with the old people waiting to be despatched.

—Well they are, aren’t they?

Philip’s mind was so clear. He could walk the straight white line from beginning to end without stumbling.

—Yes, perhaps they are.

Then trying to sound calm, Grace said,

—Isn’t there an Industrial School somewhere near?

—Industrial School? I don’t know of any. Why?

—I thought I saw one on the map.

She wanted to say - Do you know about Industrial Schools, how you can be sent there for disobeying or poking a face at your father or stealing or not coming when you’re called or playing with boys in the plantations, I mean the pine plantations where they’ve been felling the trees and they’re still lying covered with pine-needles and there are corker places there, only I mustn’t say ‘corker’ because Mrs Biddy says it, she’s always saying it, and I get tired of saying words which other people are always using. When I say ‘corker’ I’m irritated with myself and my mother says quite sharply,—You’re like Mrs Biddy saying that word over and over. Say something different. You don’t know Mrs Biddy, do you, Philip and Anne? She used to live over the road with her husband who was a ganger (ganger, trolley, turntable, engine-shed), but they ‘shifted’ down south, and their eldest daughter was married and came to our place for a honeymoon and we giggled and giggled and followed the couple everywhere, waiting for them to do it, and for us to watch, and they went home sooner than they’d expected, but they’re quite old now, and though you might think I’m still a child in danger from the trains, I’m quite old too, I’ve
mellowed
, everyone’s
mellowed
, the human race turns at last into a tree of ripe pears. What a fate! And to think that we were worried over our survival!

—There
may
be an Industrial School near. The map is out-of-date, I think.

Noticing Anne’s flushed face and the special care she was taking with serving the meal, Grace thought, Now is the time to
praise her cooking.

—I like this pie very much.

—Do you? I didn’t make the pastry myself. It’s packet pastry.

—The people at the flat left some packet pastry. I can’t manage to bake it. This is so light and tasty.

—It’s only steak and kidney, Anne said, pleased, yet determined not to accept more praise than she felt was due. —I bought it yesterday at the butcher’s. The woman in front of me (what do you think of these English queues?) was buying some too, and we agreed it looked worth buying. ‘I think I’ll get some,’ I said to the woman. ‘I don’t often buy it,’ she told me, ‘but I can’t resist it today. My dog will love it. This shop is quite good for dog-meat . . .’—You know, Anne said,—the English and their dogs!

Her voice showed a strong New Zealand accent. There was general laughter, Sarah joining in and exclaiming,—The English and their dogs!

—You’re a little hybrid, aren’t you? Philip said fondly.—You’re English and New Zealand.

He turned to Grace,

—We’re going again this year to the far North-West of Scotland. It’s wild, remote, it’s as like the West Coast of New Zealand as any place I’ve seen. You know the West Coast?

—No.

Grace remembered, ashamed, that when Philip sent her a card from Scotland she had answered with knowing references to ‘the wild wet West Coast of New Zealand’, and now she had to confess that she’d never seen it!