Angelica's Grotto

19 The Quarry

‘It’s a jungle out here in cyberspace,’ said Klein to himself. He was looking across the river at the building that said OXO. ‘I’m remembering the quarry in Wendell’s Woods. So deep and green and cold that water was.’ He saw it closing over his head as he went down, down into the chill and the darkness. ‘I can’t remember the name of the dog. I was with Bill Muller and Freddie Schulz. Freddie’s dog was with us. I must have been nine or so. We went to the old quarry — I don’t know what they’d quarried there but it was deep and full of water. The side where we were was a sort of clifftop twenty feet above the water but you could climb down if you were careful. There was no cliff on the other side, just flat rocks. The dog went down to a little ledge just above the water and he wouldn’t come back up when Freddie called him. ‘I’ll get him,’ I said. I don’t know why I didn’t leave it to Freddie. I climbed down but I slipped and fell into the water with all my clothes on.

‘I could dog-paddle a little, and I swam back to the steep side where I’d fallen in. I could have swum across to the flat side but I was too panicked to think of that. I clung to the cliffside while Bill and Freddie went for help. There were two tramps living in a shack made of corrugated iron and signs that said PURINA CHOWS and RED MAN CHEWING TOBACCO. They came with a tow chain and let it down to me and pulled me back up. Why didn’t I swim across to the flat place? The dog got back up by itself. The next day my father brought the two tramps a hamper of food. I wonder if Wendell’s Woods and the quarry are still there. Maybe the quarry’s been filled in, the woods cleared and developed. How strange it is that places where I was young still exist! Can this time really be a continuation of that time?’

OXO, said the building across the river, backwards and forwards the same. ‘E621VGD,’ he’d written in his notebook as the van pulled away. ‘Ford Transit.’ He stood looking at the lights on the river, the boats coming and going. ‘Why did I get off my horse?’