Turtle Diary

27 William G

Sermons in stones. The other day coming home from work I noticed for the first time a manhole cover near my corner. Square plate in the pavement, K257 on it. All right, I thought as I stepped on it, go ahead, play Mozart. It didn’t. When I got home I looked up K257 in the Köchel listing in my Mozart Companion. It was the Credo Mass in C. Credo. I believe. What does the manhole cover believe, or what’s being believed down in the hole? I don’t like getting too many messages from the things around me, it confuses me. Now whenever I walk on that manhole cover it’ll say ‘I believe’. When Mozart was my age he’d already been dead for eight years. I don’t think I’ve ever heard the music.

Having slept together Harriet and I woke up together. I woke up first actually. Dora had always looked angry in her sleep. Harriet was calm and beautiful, better-looking than when awake. Lineaments of satisfied desire. I was impressed, pleased with myself as well. Maybe not a bad chap after all. Harriet kept looking beautiful when she woke up. She has quite an elegant figure too, long and graceful. Breakfast was cosy, we didn’t talk much, mostly looked at each other.

That evening we had dinner together, went to my place and Harriet spent the night there. Sandor stuck his head out of his door and opened his eyes wide as she passed on her way to the bathroom. ‘I believe,’ said K257 as we walked over it together the next morning.

All right, I thought, I’ll get through this turtle business and that’ll be out of the way. I’d been giving some thought to turtle-shifting and I’d decided they could best be handled in crates. I rang up George Fairbairn and he gave me the measurements I needed. The big day would probably be in a fortnight or so, he thought. A fortnight. Right. If I’d drop off the crates first he’d have the turtles boxed and ready for pick-up. Wonderful.

Harriet was emanating weekend availability and I was more than willing but I wanted to make the turtle crates on Saturday and I wanted to keep her and the turtles separate. I told her I had things to do at home all day and evening and couldn’t get over to her place until late Saturday night.

On Saturday afternoon when I finished at the shop I bought the wood for the three crates and I bought six ringbolts and a hundred feet of half-inch rope. The ringbolts and the rope are for lowering the crates or dragging them up steps or whatever. Should I have got one-inch rope I wondered. I also bought a five-gallon container for extra petrol.

Mrs Inchcliff was very pleased to see me active in the lumber-room. As soon as she heard me sawing she brought me a cup of tea. ‘What’re you making?’ she said.

‘Turtle crates,’ I said. ‘I’m going to steal three sea turtles from the London Zoo and put them into the sea.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘That’s a good thing to do.’

I’d started with a hand-saw but she went to the cupboard and got out Charlie’s Black & Decker power drill with a circular-saw attachment. Marvellous, the things men leave behind. Of course she’d paid for it.

‘I don’t know why he didn’t take it with him,’ she said.

‘Yes you do,’ I said.

‘I expect I do at that,’ she said. ‘But he’d have been welcome to it.’

I’ve always been afraid of power tools. Castration complex. Castration complexes are reasonable though. More and more chances these days to have one’s members lopped off by labour-saving devices as civilization progresses. All right, I thought, be a man, be powerful with a saw. So I used Charlie’s Black & Decker and I didn’t cut anything off after all. I was quite proud of myself. An afternoon and evening’s work and there they were, three turtle crates with two ringbolts each. They were just plain open boxes, no lids, four feet long, twenty-eight inches wide, one foot deep. The turtles would lie on their backs with their flippers pressed to their sides.

‘Tools,’ I said. ‘With tools you can do anything.’

‘With tools and a man,’ said Mrs Inchcliff. ‘It takes both.’ She’d kept me company the whole time I was working, couldn’t stay away. Gave me supper too. Odd how young she looks. As far as I know she’s never done anything special to keep herself young except not smoke. Maybe it’s because she’s never been able to get through all the stages of her life. Her youth is still in her, not lived out.

Miss Neap, back from an evening out, came down to look in on us. ‘What goes in those?’ she said when she saw the crates.

‘Turtles,’ I said. ‘I’m going to put some sea turtles into the sea.’

She was standing outside the circle of the green-shaded light, her pince-nez glittered in the shadows. She had a theatre programme in her hand, fresh air and perfume had come in with her. Her blonde hair and leopardskin coat looked as if they’d go out even if she stayed at home. ‘The sea,’ she said. ‘It always seems so far away even though the Thames goes to it.’ She smiled and went upstairs.

I hadn’t expected to create a sensation but I was a little surprised that Mrs Inchcliff and Miss Neap were so incurious about the turtle project. Speaking of turtles and the sea seemed to make their thoughts turn inwards.

Mr Sandor came home while Mrs Inchcliff and I were still sitting in the lumber-room admiring the crates and drinking tea. He had several foreign newspapers under his arm, was carrying his briefcase as always and smelt of his regular restaurant. ‘Not strong joints,’ he said looking at the corners of the crates. ‘Dovetail joints better.’

‘They’re as strong as they need to be,’ I said. I didn’t say anything about turtles.

I must try to remember my first impression of Harriet, how she looked to me when I first started at the shop. Reproachful, that’s what I thought. I’d said to myself quite recently that her face was a constant reproach. I mustn’t forget that, however cuddly she seems now. The reproach is waiting to appear again I’m sure. I think it’s always like that. Dora looked angry when I first met her and the angry look was what her face came back to in the end. And I’m sure whatever look gave Harriet her first impression of me is waiting to return to my face.

I ought to give some thought to what I’m getting into. Casual affairs with people one works with are probably best avoided. And if this isn’t a casual affair what is it? I’m not in love with Harriet. I feel good being with her, like sleeping with her, don’t want to think beyond that.

It was cosy going to her place on Saturday night, walking under the street lamps looking up at lighted windows and knowing that I too had a lighted window waiting where I shouldn’t be alone.

In bed we lay looking up at the patterns of light, the shapes of the windows thrown on the ceiling by the street lamps.

‘What were you so busy with all afternoon and evening?’ Harriet said.

‘Odd jobs I’d been putting off,’ I said. I thought of the first time we’d made love in this room with the terror in it, wondered if the room would slide away, the light patterns on the ceiling and the clothes on the chair, and leave only the terror. It didn’t. The room stayed. Harriet was there, warm and smooth along the whole length of me. Tomorrow we’d wake up together but I couldn’t tell her about the turtles.

‘A penny for your thoughts,’ said Harriet.

I hate it when people ask me what I’m thinking.