Turtle Diary

30 Neaera H

I hadn’t posted the letter to Harry Rush, it was still in my bag. I wasn’t going to do the book but nothing else was happening. Madame Beetle’s good for companionship and philosophy lessons but nothing in the way of commercial profit, and Gillian Vole and that lot seem to be a thing of the past. So I wasn’t completely ready to let go of the £1,000. Wasn’t ready to let go of the idea of the £1,000. I could no more write the book than swim the Channel. Actually, with training I might in time swim the Channel but no amount of training will get that book out of me.

William G. rang up. Thursday would be the day. He spoke as if it was all really real and we were real people who were simply going to go ahead and do what we’d said we’d do. Had I in fact said it? That first day at lunch I’d talked in code, talked about hauling bananas. Had I ever said turtles? Yes, my very first words to him in the shop before we went to lunch. And then that awful Saturday morning when I went to his flat we talked about the turtles before I left. Perhaps I could still back out of it. But there was his voice coming out of the telephone and I said yes, Thursday would be all right. He asked if he could pick me up on his way to the Zoo with the crates and we’d have dinner before setting out. I said that would be lovely, yes of course and I’d be ready at half past six.

I looked at the telephone after I’d put it down. Sly thing, getting words out of me I’d no intention of saying. This was Monday. Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. Oh God, more than two hundred miles each way. I’ll pack sandwiches and a flask of coffee but how much time will eating sandwiches and drinking coffee get us through. The whole thing is quite likely to end in disaster with the van and the turtles and us overturned in a ditch somewhere in the middle of the night, all blood and splintered glass, groans and whimpers. Maybe we’ll be killed outright, and all for some stupid notion long since gone out of my head. Oh shit.

Blankets. We’ll want a bit of a rest before the drive back. Pillows. Surely he won’t book hotel rooms, it isn’t that kind of thing. No, no, just let it be done and out of the way as quickly as possible. Towel and soap, toothbrush, toothpaste. Have a wash in the public lavatory before starting back. Wear jeans and a shirt, take a cardigan. Cigarettes, mustn’t run out. Has he got maps? He looks the sort to have maps, torches, compasses. He’s the anxious type and I know we’ll get lost.

The tide. Will it be in or out. What’s the use of bothering to find out. However it is is the way it’ll be. I wonder if they’re still killing oyster-catchers at Penclawdd. They must be.

I asked Webster de Vere to feed Madame Beetle, left him a key and the remains of the lamb chop she’s been living on for the last week. I still haven’t posted the letter to Harry Rush.

And here’s Thursday.