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.
32 Neaera H
On our way to the M4 William stopped at an off-licence and bought a bottle of champagne. ‘We owe it to the turtles,’ he said. Before we started off again he showed me our route on the map. ‘We stay on the M4 until after Swindon,’ he said, ‘then we go through Chippenham, Trowbridge, Frome, Shepton Mallet, Glastonbury, Taunton, Exeter, Plymouth, cross the Tamar, go through Looe and there’s Polperro.’ The rain was running down the windscreen, our heads were close together as we bent over the map, the light of the torch playing on the red and blue and green roads made me feel young again, daring the illicit after bedtime. But it was difficult to make out the place names without my reading-glasses, the map was only a beautiful abstraction.
We drove off, the windscreen wipers took up their steady beat. We were still missing kerbs and cars by scant inches on my side. ‘Too close,’ I kept saying as I leant away from anticipated scrapes, always expecting to hear the rending of metal. William’s head was held in such a way that I knew his neck would ache before he’d been driving an hour. I don’t drive, couldn’t relieve him, he’d have to do it all himself.
I was determined to be alert, to take in everything and not miss anything. I continued alert on the Hammersmith Fly-over and past the Chiswick Roundabout but soon it was like concerts where I vowed to listen carefully but drifted off and dozed. I didn’t actually doze in the van but fell into a sort of travel trance that alternated with an intense uneasiness about the too-closeness of everything on my side. Whatever William used to drive must have been about two feet narrower than this van. If he was still sitting in a car that wasn’t there any more, was he still in his mind sitting with whoever had been in it with him? There was a long stretch of yellow lights, utterly placeless. The road seemed to come from nowhere and lead to nowhere, it seemed wholly outside of time. I listened to the hum of the engine, the hiss of the tyres, the swish of the windscreen wipers. William had said that he’d worked in advertising but he hadn’t told me much else about himself.