Turtle Diary

31 William G

Thursday. Grey and rainy. That was a help, sunny blue-sky days always look like bad luck to me. Harriet wanted to know where I was going but all I said was that I had things to do.

‘There’s no need to make a mystery of it,’ she said.

‘And there’s no need to ask me either,’ I said.

‘Look,’ said Harriet, ‘you’re perfectly free to do whatever you like …’

‘Thanks very much,’ I said.

‘Oh, you know what I mean,’ said Harriet. ‘You don’t have to treat me like a stranger just because you’re going to be with someone else.’

‘Everything isn’t sex,’ I said. ‘There are other things that are private.’ I hadn’t minded telling Mrs Inchcliff and Miss Neap but I just wasn’t willing for Harriet to know everything about me. She walked away looking reproachful, had very little to say to me for the rest of the day.

After work I went to pick up the van. It was a Ford Transit 90, 18 Cwt, huge, smooth, bulgy and white, not a dent or scratch on it. I couldn’t believe I’d get it there and back intact. They gave it to me with no hesitation whatever. VANS 4-U Van Hire in big black letters on both sides.

The man at VANS 4-U said the petrol tank held thirteen gallons and the van would do from fifteen to twenty miles to the gallon. I thought fifteen more likely than twenty although the engine certainly sounded economical, I wondered if it would go up hills with two people and three turtles. I filled the tank, later I’d fill my five-gallon container as well. On the map our route looked like about two hundred and fifty miles, and at night I couldn’t count on petrol stations being open. If the van did fifteen miles to the gallon that was one hundred and ninety-five miles on a full tank and seventy-five miles more on the extra five gallons in the container, so we ought to be all right even if there were no stations open.

It felt strange sitting up so high with all that van around me. The gearbox was at least an ordinary four-speed one. The width of the thing was appalling. I was behind a bus when I first pulled out into the street and I was only about six inches narrower than it. I kept going up on the kerb with my left front wheel when I thought I was a foot away from it.

The rain was still coming down gently and steadily. I drove to my place, loaded on the crates, the trolley, the petrol container, the rope, torch, map, road atlas, an eiderdown to lie down on, an old blanket to put under it, a couple of blankets to cover us. Us? I didn’t think either of us had any hanky-panky in mind and we’d have our clothes on. Couple of pillows. Thermos flask, we could probably fill it and get some sandwiches at one of the services on the M4. I felt very jumpy the whole time. Cigarettes. I took four packets. I couldn’t think of anything else. I went to the loo twice, got into the van and drove off, mounting the kerb from time to time when I made left turns and getting angry looks from pedestrians. I stopped to fill the petrol container, then headed for Neaera’s place.

She was waiting by the front steps when I drove up. She looked doubtful. Her basic look, I realized. Dora had looked angry, Harriet reproachful, Neaera doubtful. Not that it mattered in a permanent way, there was nothing between us except the turtles and there wasn’t likely to be anything. Why not? I don’t know, I think we have too much in common. We’re not complementary, she doesn’t fill in the blanks in me nor I in her. Both afraid of the same things maybe. We don’t fit together. What if we did? There’s a cheap little toy one sees at various shops, a little flat wooden clown hanging from strings between two sticks. You squeeze the sticks and the clown somersaults. His body and face are in profile and he’s made so economically that one cut shapes the back of him and the front of the next clown to come from the same piece of wood. There he is with the back of his head indented by a nose-and-chin-shaped space. Looking at him one wants to fit the one behind into him and him into the one ahead. And if one fitted fifty flat wooden clowns together in a line the one at each end would still be out in the cold, one with his back and the other with his front. Fitting them together in a circle solves the problem I suppose. Then they’d just keep going round in circles.

Neaera had sandwiches and a flask of coffee in a carrier bag, pillows and blankets as well. She seemed about as nervous as I was.

‘I’m not used to the width of this thing,’ I said. ‘It would be a help if you’d tell me when we’re too close to the parked cars or the kerb.’ We started off for the Zoo.

‘Too close,’ she said about every two minutes. I nodded and swung away, trying to think of anything I might have forgotten. There were meant to be a spare tyre, tools and a jack somewhere in the van but I hadn’t thought to ask where they were. Never mind. The rain was a nice little bonus, just enough of it to make the windscreen wipers work smoothly. I liked that, it was cosy.

George Fairbairn was on the lookout for us at the works gate, we left the crates with him and drove to a kebab house on the Finchley Road. They always play Greek music there but not too loud, just a pleasant background sound that gives privacy. I hate those places where there’s a shouting kind of silence in which people make display conversation for the people listening at the other tables.

It was still light outside, the rain was coming down nicely and it was shadowy enough in the restaurant for the candle at our table to have some effect. I felt all right. Atoms speeding to infinity aren’t necessarily lost, are they. They’re just going where they’re going. There’s a thing that happens in my mind, a foreshadow of a waiting thought. Sometimes I know it’s a thought that’ll fill me with dread and then the dread comes before the thought. Sometimes I sense round the corner an easy thought and the ease comes. What was it, I wanted to hold on to it. Going where they’re going, that was it. Things and people are as they are, where they are. Dora and Ariadne and Cyndie are where they are, Neaera and I and the turtles. That’s all, nothing to be afraid of. One needn’t even hold on to that, no holding on. Just let go of the terror, don’t hold on to the terror. Simple if only I could remember that.

‘Where is it on the menu?’ said Neaera, and she laughed. I’d said I was going to have the doner kebab.

‘What’s funny about doner kebab?’ I said.

‘I was laughing because I asked you where it was on the menu,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those odd things people always do.’

I showed it to her on the menu. We ordered a carafe of red and we both had doner kebab. Did the waiter think we were married, I wondered. I was feeling all right, smoking a cigarette and craving another cigarette at the same time but holding on to nothing else. Comfortable in a way. I’ll never cease to be amazed by the fact that people uncomfortable in themselves can give comfort to other people. Even I have given comfort, Ariadne and Cyndie used to feel cosy with me. Neaera was an uncomfortable person, I could feel that. But I felt comfortable with her.

‘Do you know anything?’ I said.

‘Not a bloody thing,’ she said.

‘Don’t know what’s best for anybody?’

‘Not even for myself. Especially not for myself.’

‘Wonderful,’ I said. I raised my glass. ‘Here’s to not knowing anything.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ she said, and raised her glass. We both laughed, it just came out.

‘Except the turtles,’ I said, ‘We know what’s best for the turtles, eh?’

‘Oh shit,’ she said. No laughter. ‘It seemed to want to happen, didn’t it.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It seemed to want to happen.’ Her face was sad. I felt at home with her face. Maybe it was a beautiful face, I don’t know. It looked as tired as my own, dark circles under her eyes. Very black eyebrows, no grey in her long black hair. Harriet. Well, yes. We’d subscribed to a series of recitals but that wasn’t a lifetime contract. I’d never seen Neaera’s flat but I could imagine books, drawing-table, typewriter. I could imagine being there with her in the evening reading, writing maybe.

‘You haven’t got a cat, have you?’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Do I look as if I’ve got a cat?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I have a water-beetle,’ she said.

‘Why not,’ I said. ‘Nothing wrong with water-beetles.’

‘It started as insect exploitation,’ she said. ‘I thought there might be a story in her.’

‘Don’t reproach yourself,’ I said. ‘If I had anything to exploit I’d exploit it. Why should insects have special privileges, they’re no better than the rest of us. We can take the beetle to Polperro as well if you like.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘she’s a fresh-water beetle and she’s stuck with me, we’re in it together.’

‘How do you know it’s a she?’ I said.

‘Ridged wing covers instead of smooth,’ she said, ‘and she doesn’t have the same kind of front legs as the male. No suction pads for holding on whilst mating.’

‘Male turtles have an extra claw for that,’ I said.

‘Nature provides,’ said Neaera.

It was dark and still raining when we came out of the restaurant. We got back to the Zoo a little after eight. George Fairbairn wheeled out the crated turtles on the trolley. The turtles lay on their backs with their flippers pressed against their sides, their mouths open. I could hear them sighing, they knew they had fallen among fools. They had a fresh ocean smell.

‘Got the champagne?’ he said.

‘Champagne,’ I said.

‘For the launching,’ he said.

‘I’ll get some on the way,’ I said. I hadn’t thought of such a thing as gaiety and celebration in connection with the turtles. If I can possibly miss the fun in life I’ll do it.

Neaera was standing behind me and she kicked me. At the same time I realized I’d said the wrong thing. I hadn’t even thought of including him. What a stupid lout I am, it’s marvellous.

‘I took the liberty of laying on a bottle,’ he said. ‘Give you and the lady a little send-off. And it’s not every day I send my turtles out into the world, you know. Something of an occasion.’

Why do I always end up feeling like a child? I’m the big turtle humanitarian but he thinks of people as well. We left the turtles sighing in the van and went into the Aquarium, through the green-lit hall to the STAFF ONLY room near the entrance. We sat down at the table and he brought out the champagne. Moët et Chandon it was too. He popped the cork, it hit a photo of a lady with great big boobs that was pinned up by the duty-roster. He’d brought stemmed glasses as well and as the champagne foamed into them it did feel something of an occasion.

George Fairbairn raised his glass. We stood up with him, raised ours. ‘Here’s to launching,’ he said. ‘Anything, anywhere, any time.’

And I’d scarcely given him a thought! I felt like crying. ‘Here’s to you,’ I said. ‘Here’s to the man who made this launch possible.’

‘Here’s to the man who pays attention to what needs to have attention paid to it,’ said Neaera.

There wasn’t a great deal said after that, we got through the champagne quickly, shook hands all round, promised to let him know how it had gone as soon as we got back.

How does that part in Moby Dick go:

Ship and boat diverged; the cold, damp night breeze blew between: a screaming gull flew overhead; the two hulls wildly rolled; we gave three heavy-hearted cheers, and blindly plunged like fate into the lone Atlantic.

Blindly plunged like fate into the lone M4.