The Summer Before the Dark

  Kate felt that Maureen was beside her: she turned and saw her. Together they watched the seals, and then, without speaking, drifted on.

  Ahead was a girl who might have been Maureen’s sister. She was about thirteen. Her yellow hair was done like Alice’s and she wore jeans and a bright blouse. She was rather plump: was in that stage where a girl’s body and her clothes are at odds. The jeans were too tight; the blouse looked as if it had come from her mother’s cupboard. She was in herself beautiful, a Renoir girl, all plumpness and sunshine, but her face was desperate. She trailed after a boy of fifteen or so. He was a tall, lithe boy, and his face was very attractive; everything about him was appealing and the two women understood why the girl had to follow him. But he, too, was desperate about something, in a turmoil of some kind. Maureen followed the couple. Kate went with her: the four people went on through the thin crowd.

  Outside a monkey’s cage the boy stopped and stood frowning in. The girl was just behind him.

  Food had recently been pushed through a hatch, and a young monkey lay on a shelf on its back, lolling there in the most attractive relaxation, eating a hunk of fresh cabbage. The monkey was the picture of indolent enjoyment, and the boy smiled. It was not a self-conscious smile, he did not know he was being charmed by the monkey. The three females were watching him and the monkey, and an anxiety which he made them all feel was relieved, as if they had been able to put their arms around him. As the monkey lolled there, eating, another on a shelf across the cage sat up and saw it: the enjoyment of his fellow inflamed the watching beast, and it sprang into the air to reach the other shelf. Apparently the lolling monkey had seen nothing, but while the one which had jumped was still in the air, it was off its back and in the air on its way to a third shelf. The monkey who had ousted the other now picked among bits of cabbage and carrot and orange, but it was not hungry: it had envied the other’s enjoyment, not its food. This one, the envious one, had an erection: a long spike of red stuck out. The one who had had to jump away from its enjoyment watched the usurper, and, as it watched, its own penis lengthened, and it began to masturbate. Now the boy frowned and went white. He had not seemed conscious of the little girl, but he turned and abruptly led her away, disapproving of her seeing the masturbating monkey. The little girl turned her head once, to stare at what she was being forbidden; then, obedient, she shot the boy lovely glances under her golden brows. But the boy was already forgetting her, his arm had fallen away, and in a moment he had gone on ahead. The little girl came behind, then the two women.

  Next he stopped at an enclosure in which there were three gnus. The boy had peanuts in his pockets, and ignoring the notice forbidding feeding, he held out nuts to an animal smaller than the other two. At once one of the larger ones knocked it aside and took the food from the boy’s fingers. The boy waited, patient and long-suffering, until the big ones had moved off. Again he held out some nuts to the smaller gnu. But the same thing happened: again and again the boy scooped nuts from his pockets and tried to give them to the smallest of the animals; again and again, the strong ones knocked it aside and took the food. The boy was in a rage of misery, but he persisted. The two big animals had had all the nuts, the smallest one nothing. He was crouching against the wire of the cage now, looking in a passion of protectiveness at the little gnu. The women knew that if there had been no wire, he would have embraced the gnu, might even have put his face on the animal’s rough hide and wept. By now Maureen and Kate loved him too, as much as the little girl, who was in an anguish of love. She could not look away from him, and she hovered just behind him, longing for him to notice her, and to give her credit for her wanting to help him in his hopeless task of letting the smaller animal get the food.

  The boy took no notice of her. He broke away from the pain of his frustration and strode off. The girl went after him. He was running—to shake her off? She ran too. He turned off into a bird house. When the women arrived there he was looking at a cage not larger than a small packing case which had a bright bird in it, and was reading a notice which said the bird had been donated to the zoo in 1925. His face was now all red and swollen: like the slapped face of the little boy on the pavement. He went from cage to cage reading the notices which said how long the birds had been in them. A keeper or attendant came into the room, and the boy went up to him and said, “That parrot, do you ever let him out?”

  “We couldn’t have them flying away now, could we?” said the man.

  “But never? They never get out?”

  The man reacted to his emotion and walked away, saying, “No, they stay where they are.”

  “But do you realise that bird has been in that cage for half a century? Fifty years?” he said, forgetting himself, tugging at the man’s uniformed sleeve.

  “That’s their lives, isn’t it?” said the man. He took a brush broom from the wall, and swept the floor, his back to the boy.

  Who was in a transport of suffering. The little girl stood near him, but not daring to touch him, and offered him smiles that said they could bathe away all the pain in the world. But the boy was ill with what he felt, his face was peaked; it was lined and shadowed; all the substance had gone out of it.

  “Do you realise, Jane? Some of these birds have been here for years? Decades? Longer than our parents have been alive?”

  Her face offered him nothing but consolation: he brushed her aside and walked out.

  On the side of the walk stood a machine of some kind: perhaps for cutting grass.

  It was deserted, was just standing there. The boy stood looking at it. Behind him was Jane, who loved him. Behind her stood Maureen. Kate was to one side. She was looking at the three—she saw them like that, a unit of three, and herself excluded. The handsome miserable boy, who could not stand the world, the pretty little girl who knew he was excessive in everything but would get over it, the beautiful young woman who was examining her future.

  The boy pulled some peanuts in a transparent bag from his other pocket and held them out, as they were, inside the bag, to the machine. As—in his imagination—the machine reached out for them, he pulled back the nuts, with a clowning grin.

  This self-consciousness made Kate wonder if he had seen Maureen, knew that more than one female trailed him.

  But it did not seem to be so.

  Again he held out the little packet, through which could be seen the tempting nuts: again, as the machine responded, he snatched them back.

  He was laughing now, and theatrical, so Kate knew he must be aware at least of Maureen: and so it was, for he whirled around and held out the closed packet to Maureen, as he had to the machine, laughing aggressively at her. Maureen did not shrink back, or smile, or frown. She stood looking into his face. He quieted. Now he saw her, a beautiful young woman with her bright pigtails over the dark thin dress. She dazzled in the low thick light. His face, which had been contorted with the pain of having to be his age, began to soften. He ripped off the top of his packet, and held it out. Maureen put her open hand, at the end of an outstretched arm, close to him. He had to pull back the packet to shake the nuts into her palm: it looked as if he were shaking the nuts against his own chest. He laughed. She smiled, and threw the nuts into her mouth, showing a dazzle of teeth. The two walked off side by side. Behind them went a woebegone little girl. Behind the girl, the middle-aged woman.

  The two who followed could not see the faces of the couple. They seemed to be animated. They seemed to laugh. They walked past the snake house and into the aquarium.

  Behind them went Jane, then Kate.

  In the half dark of the aquarium the four moved along the brightly lit walls crammed with fishes. The two who led did not talk. They moved sedately on, giving, it seemed, equal attention to each tank. But outside a wall of water into which a gush of bubbling water came from a pipe they stopped a long time. In this aerated water was a skate. It was playing. It held itself in the fresh stream and it waved and rippled and seemed to dance: it was intoxicated with the air coming in
from the world outside the tank.

  Maureen, laughing, kissed the boy.

  Fiercely, he kissed her.

  Hand in hand, they moved on.

  Behind them went Jane, watching them, only them, seeing nothing else, not seeing the fishes, not seeing the skate playing in the bubbles.

  Kate left the aquarium meaning to go away, but, like Jane, she had to see, to be in at the death, to be nailed on her cross. She waited. Then she saw Maureen come out still hand in hand with the boy. Behind them was Jane.

  Maureen, laughing again, kissed the boy, in a hard fierce triumph, a challenge to everything, a slap in the world’s face. She saw Kate and did it again. But now the boy had withdrawn from her; he felt used. He stood watching Maureen move away. Then, although it seemed that he had not noticed Jane, he went to the girl, put his arm around her, and said, irritable but patient, “Oh don’t, Jane, don’t, why do you have to make such a fuss all the time?”

  “I can’t help it!” She burst into tears, and put her face on his shoulder. He put his arms around her, and sunk his cheek on her head. But he was watching Maureen walk away.

  Kate joined her, and Maureen said, “Very well then, I shall marry Philip.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not? Stanley? They care, don’t they. About beasts and birds and fishes. Not to mention people.”

  “Oh don’t be so bloody …” Kate was furious. She was in a blaze of anger. She walked fast away from Maureen, who came after her and said, “I’m sorry, Kate.”

  After some moments Kate cooled and said, “Not at all, I am sorry.” She sounded pompous.

  When they reached the flat Maureen said, “We keep apologising to each other.”

  “Yes, like families.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it won’t be long now.”

  That night Kate dreamed as soon as she fell asleep. It was still a thick cold dark. The seal was so heavy now she was not able to do more than drag it over the snow. She was no longer anxious about the seal, that it might be dead or dying: she knew that it was full of life, and, like her, of hope.

  A strong breath of salt air came to her; she was breathing in salty sea air. The snow had stopped falling. The light touches she felt on her face were not snow, but a fresh warm breeze.

  She saw that the snow had gone from underfoot: she was walking over spring grass, a bright thin green with soil showing dark and wet between. The grass was full of spring flowers. Ahead the ground rose sharply. She climbed it, and stood, the seal in her arms, on a small promontory, looking down into a sea that reflected a sunlight sky, blue deepening on blue. On the rocks seals lay basking.

  Using the last of her strength, she lifted the seal well off the earth, so that its tail would not be made sore by dragging it, and she staggered down a little path that led to the sea’s edge. There, on a flat rock, she let the seal slide into the water. It sank out of sight, then came up, and rested its head for the last time on the edge of the rock: its dark soft eyes looked at her, then it closed its nostrils and dived. The sea was full of seals swimming beside each other, turning over to swim on their backs, swerving and diving, playing. A seal swam past that had scars on its flanks and its back, and Kate thought that this must be her seal, whom she had carried through so many perils. But it did not look at her now.

  Her journey was over.

  She saw that the sun was in front of her, not behind, not far far behind, under the curve of the earth, which was where it had been for so long. She looked at it, a large, light, brilliant, buoyant, tumultuous sun that seemed to sing.

  She turned, knowing that she had finished the dream. She woke.

  She told Maureen, who said, “That’s all right then, isn’t it.”

  “I suppose so.”

  “I mean, it’s all right for you.”

  Maureen was sitting at the kitchen table, and she sounded critical.

  “Do you think dreams are just for the person who dreams them? Perhaps they aren’t?”

  “I didn’t dream it,” said Maureen. “Did I?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “That’s not the sort of thing I dream. Cages and being shut in are much more my style, you were quite right.”

  She would not say any more, so Kate went to the telephone and rang her home to say that she would return next day. It was Eileen she spoke to. Eileen had been running the house all this time. “Oh it’s all right mother, we have been managing perfectly well.”

  Kate went back into the kitchen and said, “Do you know what? I’m unemployed! There’s nothing for me to do. What do you advise? Social work? Soup kitchens? Global Food—that’s soup kitchens, I suppose.”

  Maureen made an irritable movement, and Kate left her again.

  Later she came into Kate’s room to say, “I’m going to have a party.”

  “Why sound like that?”

  “It’s frivolous to have a party, wouldn’t you say so, Kate? Heartless? Mean?”

  “When?”

  “Tonight. Please come. No, I’d like you to, I really would.”

  She spent the rest of the afternoon on the telephone, while delivery men arrived one after the other with drink and food.

  She came into Kate’s room, where Kate was lying on her bed, like a traveller ready to depart, her suitcase filled, her possessions neatly stacked, and she said, “It doesn’t matter a damn what you do. Or what I do. That is the whole point of everything. It’s what no one can face up to.”

  “I don’t believe it,” said Kate.

  “I don’t care whether you believe it or not.” She went out and came back. “Your seal is safe, isn’t he? He’s been rescued and he’s safe.”

  “I don’t see it as my seal.”

  “Yes. So if you dropped dead tomorrow it wouldn’t matter, would it?”

  She was hysterical. Kate stopped herself in the middle of the thought that she should do something about it—what? Offer aspirin? Good advice? A cup of tea? The telephone started again and Maureen went out saying, “Whatever it is that is important, if it is, if anything is, then no one has told me about it.”

  Kate hovered, waiting for the telephone call to end. Various arrangements of words suggested themselves, probably from newspaper leaders, or the religious hour on television. For instance, “The world has often been in a bad state before, and people have despaired.” “It doesn’t help to get morbid.”

  Then there was what she was thinking herself: “Millions of people are dying, will die, perhaps you and me among them, but there’s got to be some around with cool heads to carry on.” “But the history of this planet has never been anything but catastrophe, war, misery; it’s a bit worse this time.” “What you are really looking for is a man who knows all the answers and can say, Do this, Do that. There’s no such animal.”

  She heard Maureen saying, “Yes, a party. It’s short notice. I only thought of it today. Yes, do, good.” She was emphasising the voice of her upbringing.

  Kate could not do anything for Maureen. But she had children: it would be nice to take them home presents: she had quite a lot of the Global Food money left. She shopped. She saw herself in windows; her body was back in recognisable shape. Her face had aged. Noticeably. They could hardly fail to notice it. What would they say? Pretend it hadn’t happened: you look marvellous mother! The light that is the desire to please had gone out. And about time too … Her hair—well, no one could overlook that!

  Her experiences of the last months, her discoveries, her self-definition; what she hoped were now strengths, were concentrated here—that she would walk into her home with her hair undressed, with her hair tied straight back for utility; rough and streaky, and the widening grey band showing like a statement of intent. It was as if the rest of her—body, feet, even face, which was aging but amenable—belonged to everyone else. But her hair—no! No one was going to lay hands on that. All her adult life, or, to be precise, since she had left her grandfather’s house in Lourenço Marques, she had been in an atm
osphere where everything was said: thoughts, feelings, impulses, were things which had to be recognised quickly, both by herself and by others—delay or ambiguity here being possibly dangerous—and then classified, catalogued, allotted their places on shelves. Or, if you like, in a computer. She had lived among words, and people bred to use and be used by words. But now that it was important to her, a matter of self-preservation, that she should be able to make a statement, that she should be understood, then she would, and would not, do certain things to her hair: substance squeezed slowly out through holes in her scalp like spaghetti out of a machine, the only part of her that felt nothing if it was stroked, pinched, or handled. The clothes, hair style, manners, posture, voice of Mrs. Brown (or of Jolie Madame, as the trade put it) had been a reproduction the slightest deviation from which had caused her as much discomfort as the scientist’s rat feels when the appropriate levers are pushed. But now she was saying no: no, no, no, NO: a statement which would be concentrated into her hair.

  She found Maureen sitting on her, Kate’s, bed, doing nothing. It was now seven. Arrangements for the party had been made, but Maureen had not changed. Maureen did not get off the bed. She was reclaiming it for herself, her friends? Kate said, “I’ve made a discovery. Going back home, the way I’m going to make statements—though I’m not sure what about; but my area of choice—do you know what I mean?—well, it’s narrowed down to how I do my hair. Isn’t that extraordinary?”

  Maureen shrugged.

  “I was thinking. I’ve said absolutely anything I’ve felt to you. About everything. But for years I’ve been doling out what I’ve thought and felt in small rations. I say to myself, I shouldn’t say this to so and so, I can say this to Eileen, but I can’t to Tim. Mary won’t understand this: for instance, I couldn’t ever tell Mary about the seal. But I could tell Tim. Of course I tell things to Michael, but it’s as if he listens to something such a long way off it has nothing to do with him. I wonder if he feels that that is how I listen to what he tells me. Of course he doesn’t dream, he says. What happens to him is always from the outside. It’s impossible that I should be such a distance from him? When we’ve lived together for so long? It’s not that he would be shocked or surprised by anything I ever said, but quite obviously he’s always listening to news from another continent. And he’s never visited it nor intends to. But it seems to me as if little bits of me are distributed among my family, Tim’s bit, Michael’s bit, Eileen’s piece—and so on. Or rather, were distributed. Were. That’s over. But to you I can say anything.”