“All the tea in China,” Grandma said. “Yes siree bob. There was a lot of it, too.”
THE PORTOBELLO ROAD
by Muriel Spark
“The incredible we believe immediately. The impossible takes a bit longer.”
We live in an age of what we casually — without embarrassment — call “scientific miracles.” And if the innate paradox no longer grates on the literate ear, I suppose it is because the contradiction in terms is no longer a contradiction in attitude. The quickening pace of scientific progress has so far outrun the capacity of most of us to comprehend, that we are now in the absurd position of accepting science on faith: prepared to believe almost any statement from almost any source cloaked in the vestments of that same “science” which is the discipline of skepticism, the attitude that accepts nothing without evidence, and credits no effect without a cause.
This very scientific spirit has destroyed, for most of us, the capacity to believe in the witches, elves, demons, fairies, and angels that frightened and delighted our forerunners. Now, more and more of our new scientific knowledge rests on proofs as abstruse and mysterious as the motives of godlets and demons once were.
In any case, the modern mind can achieve the “willing suspension of disbelief” much more readily for a spaceship than a flying carpet, for an equation than an incantation. Concomitantly, the field of “pure fantasy” is out of favor, and its practitioners are few.
Among these, two of the most competent are Mr. Bretnor and Miss Spark. Perhaps there is some significance in the fact that the one was raised In the Orient and has lived since in the pragmatic United States; and that the other was born and raised in commonsense Edinburgh, and then went to live in Africa?
One day in my young youth at high summer, lolling with my lovely companions upon a haystack, I found a needle. Already and privately for some years I had been guessing that I was set apart from the common run, but this of the needle attested the fact to my whole public, George, Kathleen, and Skinny. I sucked my thumb, for when I had thrust my idle hand deep into the hay, the thumb was where the needle had stuck.
When everyone had recovered, George said, “She put in her thumb and pulled out a plum.” Then we were into our merciless hacking-hecking laughter again.
The needle had gone fairly deep into the thumby cushion and a small red river flowed and spread from this tiny puncture. So that nothing of our joy should lag, George put in quickly, “Mind your bloody thumb on my shirt.”
Then hac-hec-hoo, we shrieked into the hot Borderland afternoon. Really I should not care to be so young of heart again. That is my thought every time I turn over my old papers and come across the photograph. Skinny, Kathleen, and myself are in the photo atop the haystack. Skinny had just finished analyzing the inwards of my find.
“It couldn’t have been done by brains. You haven’t much brains, but you’re a lucky wee thing.”
Everyone agreed that the needle betokened extraordinary luck. As it was becoming a serious conversation, George said, “I’ll take a photo.”
I wrapped my hanky round my thumb and got myself organized. George pointed up from his camera and shouted, “Look, there’s a mouse!”
Kathleen screamed and I screamed, although I think we knew there was no mouse. But this gave us an extra session of squalling hee-hoo’s. Finally we three composed ourselves for George’s picture. We look lovely and it was a great day at the time, but I would not care for it all over again. From that day, I was known as Needle.
One Saturday in recent years, I was mooching down the Portobello Road, threading among the crowds of marketers on the narrow pavement, when I saw a woman. She had a haggard, careworn, wealthy look, thin but for the breasts forced up high like a pigeon’s. I had not seen her for nearly five years. How changed she was! But I recognized Kathleen, my friend; her features had already begun to sink and protrude in the way that mouths and noses do in people destined always to be old for their years. When I had last seen her, nearly five years ago, Kathleen, barely thirty, had said, “I’ve lost all my looks; it’s in the family. All the women are handsome as girls, but we go off early, we go brown and nosey.”
I stood silently among the people, watching. As you will see, I wasn’t in a position to speak to Kathleen. I saw her shoving in her avid manner from stall to stall. She was always fond of antique jewelry and of bargains. I wondered that I had not seen her before on the Portobello Road on my Saturday morning ambles. Her long, stiff-crooked fingers pounced to select a jade ring from amongst the jumble of brooches and pendants, onyx, moonstone, and gold, set out on the stall.
“What d’you think of this?” she said.
I saw then who was with her. I had been half-conscious of the huge man following several paces behind her, and now I noticed him.
“It looks all right,” he said. “How much is it?”
“How much is it?” Kathleen asked the vendor.
I took a good look at this man accompanying Kathleen. It was her husband. The beard was unfamiliar, but I recognized beneath it his enormous mouth, the bright, sensuous lips, the large brown eyes forever brimming with pathos.
It was not for me to speak to Kathleen, but I had a sudden inspiration which caused me to say quietly, “Hallo, George.”
The giant of a man turned round to face the direction of my voice. There were so many people — but at length he saw me.
“Hallo, George,” I said again.
Kathleen had started to haggle with the stall owner, in her old way, over the price of the jade ring. George continued to stare at me, his big mouth slightly parted so that I could see a wide slit of red lips and white teeth between the fair, grassy growths of beard and mustache.
“My God,” he said.
“What’s the matter?” said Kathleen.
“Hallo, George!” I said again, quite loud this time, and cheerfully.
“Look!” said George. “Look who’s standing there, over beside the fruit stall.”
Kathleen looked but didn’t see. “Who is it?” she said impatiently.
“It’s Needle,” he said. “She said, ‘Hallo George.’”
“Needle,” said Kathleen. “Who do you mean? You don’t mean our old friend Needle who—”
“Yes. There she is. My God!” He looked very ill, although when I had said, “Hallo, George,” I had spoken friendly enough.
“I don’t see anyone faintly resembling poor Needle,” said Kathleen, looking at him. She was worried.
George pointed straight at me. “Look there. I tell you that is Needle.”
“You’re ill, George. Heavens, you must be seeing things. Come on home. Needle isn’t there. You know as well as I do, Needle is dead.”
I must explain that I departed this life nearly five years ago. But I did not altogether depart this world. There were those odd things still to be done which one’s executors can never do properly. Papers to be looked over, even after the executors have torn them up. Lots of business except, of course, on Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation, plenty to take an interest in for the time being. I take my recreation on Saturday mornings. If it is a wet Saturday, I wander up and down the substantial lanes of Woolworth’s as I did when I was young and visible. There is a pleasurable spread of objects on the counters which I now perceive and exploit with a certain detachment, since it suits with my condition of life. Creams, toothpastes, combs and hankies, cotton gloves, flimsy flowering scarves, writing-paper and crayons, ice-cream cones and orangeade, screwdrivers, boxes of tacks, tins of paint, of glue, of marmalade; I always liked them but far more now that I have no need of any. When Saturdays are fine, I go instead to the Portobello Road where formerly I would jaunt with Kathleen in our grownup days. The barrow-loads do not change much, of apples and rayon vests in common blues and low-taste mauve, of silver plate, trays and teapots long since changed hands from the bygone citizens to dealers, from shops to the new flats and breakable homes, and then over to the barrow-stalls and the dealers again: Georgian spoons, rings, earrings of turquoise and opal set in the butterfly pattern of true-lovers’ knot, patch-boxes with miniature paintings of ladies on ivory, snuff-boxes of silver with Scotch pebbles inset.