Turtle Diary

by Russell Hoban

  Mrs Inchcliff was out scavenging as usual. I believe Sunday was her building-site day, she tended to bring home new-looking timber and sometimes clean bricks, all to be hoarded in the lumber-room, perhaps against the advent of a new friend handy with tools.

  So I had the place to myself, and from my window looked out across the common where the trains clattered by and the shining rails maintained their perspective vanishing towards Putney. On the common, people smiled and strolled on the paths and on the grass stepping round and over the dogshit while other people smiled and strolled as their dogs shitted on the paths and on the grass. The paddling pool was full of children. The sandbox, the roundabout, the swings, the rocking-horses and mums and dads were active on the playground. The washers of cars on our street were at it looking at the same time virtuous and given over to sensuality. The Greyhound Widow passed, her phantom husband dragging a silent foot. The trees had not so many leaves now, one day soon a heavy rain would leave them bare and winter would be here. ‘Ah,’ I said aloud standing at the window.

  The Sunday papers were too many for me, they’d not get read today, I wasn’t up to any intellectual activity. The turtles would be swimming, swimming and it occurred to me for the first time that for me they’d always be swimming. I’d never know whether they’d got to where they were going. At first I’d been obsessed with setting them free. Then it had become a heavy task I was committed to. Then we did it and afterwards it seemed a blank and empty thing. Now it felt a good thing again. The turtles were swimming to where they wanted to be. But that was their swimming, they couldn’t do mine.

  What was my swimming then? To go on working at the bookshop or somewhere else? To live alone or with someone? To stop smoking or not? To go on getting up in the morning or perhaps not? If I walked round the corner K257 would say ‘I believe’. Believe what? I picked up the stone from Antibes. Look, Dad, here’s a good one. Gone, gone, everything gone. Don’t cry, Willy. I didn’t. On the other hand, do cry, why not. I did.

  I went downstairs. Miss Neap’s News of the World was still lying in the hall by the front door, perhaps she’d decided to sleep in and let Sunday look after itself for once. I went over to the paddling pool. The children and the noise suddenly moved into close-up focus. A little boy punched a smaller one and seemed satisfied. Two little girls pranced splashing by, all flashing legs and flying hair. I dropped the stone from Antibes into the shallow water. It lay on the bottom looking up at me until the water glazed with light and I couldn’t see the stone any more.

  In the sunlight I went for a little walk down the New King’s Road towards the Putney Bridge. They’d been resurfacing the road. Here and there were little huddles of air-compressors, asphalt-spreaders and rollers, red wooden tripods, yellow blinker lamps drawn up and bivouacked until Monday. At a zebra-crossing all the Belisha beacons were bagged in black plastic. I felt that one was never really alone while there was someone to bag the Belisha beacons in black plastic.

  I went back to my room. Evening was gathering in. The day hadn’t been at all bad and this was the easy part, the downhill run. I didn’t turn the lights on, let the room fill up with twilight and silence.

  Mrs Inchcliff came back, unloaded her plunder and put it in the lumber-room, rattled about in the downstairs kitchen. I went out for fish and chips, brought it back to my room, ate by the light of the street lamps, had a beer.

  There was a knock at the door. Mrs Inchcliff. ‘Have you seen Miss Neap today?’ she said.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t seen her since yesterday evening.’

  ‘Neither have I,’ she said. ‘And I always do see her sometime on Sunday, either when she picks up her paper or when she goes out.’

  ‘Perhaps she’s gone to Leeds,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Mrs Inchcliff. ‘She was here last night when I went to bed, I saw her coming out of the bathroom. And if she’d left this morning she’d have taken the paper with her. I’ve just gone up to her room with it and knocked on the door but there was no answer. The door’s on the latch but I didn’t open it.’

  We went down to Miss Neap’s room on the first floor at the end of the hall. Mr Sandor coming in just then saw us and paused at the foot of the stairs. I opened the door, turned on the light.

  Miss Neap had hanged herself. The window in her room was a tall one and at the top of it behind the pelmet there was a stout old iron hook screwed into the window-frame. It had been put there a long time ago for a curtain rod and drapes much heavier than the present ones. She’d stood on a chair and used several bright-coloured silk scarves knotted together. The chair lay on the floor where she’d kicked it over. She was dressed for the street in her tightly belted leopardskin coat and her newest purple suede boots. Her pince-nez had fallen off her nose and dangled from its ribbon. She must have been hanging there for some time, her face had gone quite dark and her powder and rouge and shiny blue eye-makeup looked ghastly. When the police doctor came he said the time of death had been between three and four on Sunday morning.

  The room was in good order. She’d been there ten years, had done the place over and bought new furniture just as I’d done. The wallpaper and the drapes had a floral pattern. The bed was made up smartly into a green couch, colourful pillows carefully arranged on it and a large cloth Snoopy dog. Some paperback thrillers, some P. G. Wodehouse. A paperback Four Quartets. A copy of The Book of Common Prayer open at At the Burial of the Dead at Sea.

  On the dresser were her Postal Savings books, a funeral directors’ card and a receipt showing payment of £130. A note told us that arrangements had been made for cremation, that she wanted no funeral service of any kind whatsoever and that it was her wish that the cremation be completely unattended. Her mother in Leeds was not to be notified until after the cremation and her savings were then to be sent to her. The book showed a balance of £936.27. Next to it was a framed photograph of her mother and father and Miss Neap as a girl. No more than nine or ten years old but you could recognize the face as being the same one.

  50

  Neaera H.

  I didn’t know how lonely I’d been until the loneliness stopped. Now when I looked at my flat it seemed to have been cleared of invisible wires criss-crossed in patterns of pain that had been there for years. I saw myself in days past, years past, stepping carefully and trying to keep my balance. There were the kitchen, the bathroom, the sitting-room, the bedroom, the spare room. There were the books, the drawing-table, the typewriter, Madame Beetle, the clutter, all the spaces and places where I stood or sat or lay down, all the things that I touched and used in my daily effort to piece together an eggshell life from broken fragments.

  George had given me so much that even if there came a time without George I could bear it now and not step carefully nor build my broken eggshell with mad patience. He hadn’t done anything special, it was simply his way of being. Like him I found that I no longer minded being alive. And the turtles were swimming, there was always that to fall back on.

  It was extraordinary, the whole turtle affair. Nothing was ever said about it in the press, there was no furore at the Zoological Society, George wasn’t sacked. He let it be known that he’d set the large turtles free and would be replacing them with smaller specimens and that he would do the same again when the two remaining turtles were larger. That was all there was to it, he wasn’t even reprimanded.

  The two turtles in the tank looked different to me now, seemed less dozy, and more as if they had something to look forward to:

  And every one said, ‘If we only live,

  We too will go to sea in a Sieve, –

  To the hills of the Chankly Bore!’

  I went to the British Museum again with my envelope full of blank paper. I felt friendly towards the coaches, cars and motorcycles in the forecourt, the people and the pigeons. I sat on the porch with the paper in my lap, sunlight again on my closed eyes.

  I was waiting for something now and the waiting was pleasant. I was w
aiting for the self inside me to come forward to the boundaries from which it had long ago withdrawn. Life would be less quiet and more dangerous, life is risky on the borders. Gillian Vole and Delia Swallow live in safer places.

  Come, I said to the self inside me. Come out and take your chance. After staring at the blank paper for a very long time I wrote:

  The fountain in the square

  Isn’t there.

  Well, I thought, it’s not much but it’s a beginning.

  51

  William G.

  The Coroner’s Court was a tall tight box with the lid always on it. Whatever was said in that room would not expand much laterally, would not move forward or back. It would stand and grow tall until its head touched the ceiling in the clear grey light.

  The room seemed fully as tall as it was long. The dark green ceiling must have been at least twenty-five feet from the floor, deeply bevelled, with handsome white beams and braces. The walls were pale lemony green, there were tall windows, proper courtroom furniture: witness box, judge’s bench, jury box. Just below the bench were red leather settees and a table with a red leather top for PRESS. Another such table for COUNSEL. A little plain narrow writing-stand for POLICE at the front of the spectators’ pews. Ten Bibles in the jury box, two more by the witness box. There was a poor box by the door.

  Three knocks. ‘Rise, please, to Her Majesty’s Coroner,’ said the Coroner’s Officer. We rose as the Coroner came in. ‘Oyez, oyez, oyez,’ said the Coroner’s Officer as the Coroner passed to the bench, ‘all manner of persons who have anything to do at this court before the Queen’s Coroner touching upon the death of Flora Angelica Neap draw near and give your attendance. Pray be seated.’

  We sat down. Behind the Coroner the royal arms said DIEU ET MON DROIT. I counted the people in the room: the Coroner, the Coroner’s Officer, the Police Pathologist and the constable who’d come to the house, a lady from the ticket agency where Miss Neap had worked, a lady from the funeral directors, Mrs Inchcliff, Mr Sandor and me. Nine altogether. I wondered how long it had been since Miss Neap had had nine people pay attention to her all at once.

  A frightening thought had been growing in me. I’d always assumed that I was the central character in my own story but now it occurred to me that I might in fact be only a minor character in someone else’s. Miss Neap’s perhaps. And I didn’t even know the story. Draw near and give your attendance. Yes, we were doing that now. No one had done it when she was alive.

  The constable testified that he had come to the house at a quarter to eight on Sunday evening and found the deceased lying on the couch where we’d put her. The pathologist testified that death had been from asphyxia due to hanging and had occurred between three and four that morning.

  The lady from the ticket agency testified that Miss Neap had seemed in good spirits when she last saw her on Saturday and that she’d said she might go home at the weekend, she wasn’t sure.

  The lady from the funeral directors testified that Miss Neap had been last month to pay for her cremation, had said that she lived alone and it was something she wanted to take care of. Lived alone. I think Mrs Inchcliff, Mr Sandor and I all felt our faces go red at that.

  Mrs Inchcliff, Mr Sandor and I swore in turn that we would speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth but there was little more to be said than that Miss Neap had lodged at the house for ten years, that we had last seen her alive on Saturday evening looking much as usual and had found her dead on Sunday evening with the note, the Postal Savings book, the receipt and the funeral directors’ card. Those were shown in evidence. The empty jury box seemed to fill up with blank-faced phantoms shaking their heads: Not the whole truth. But it was all we knew and all we could say. It stood there like a blind dumb thing and grew tall until its head touched the ceiling. The Coroner returned a verdict that Miss Neap had taken her own life and the court was adjourned.

  The funeral directors were only a few minutes’ walk down the street from the Coroner’s Court. I wonder if Miss Neap had at some time taken the same walk. The lady who’d been at the inquest was a Mrs Mortimer. She was a handsome brown-haired woman who looked more like a theatrical wardrobe-mistress than a funeral director, she looked jolly and as if she ought to be in and out of actresses’ dressing-rooms with pins in her mouth. Here was the place, a few urns and vases in the window. Inside was a plain little reception room.

  ‘Everything’s in order,’ said Mrs Mortimer. ‘She’s having the “Ely”, which is a standard cremation coffin with good class fittings. It’ll be covered in purple dommett with a pink lining and she’ll be wearing a pink robe. Plate of inscription on the lid with her name, age, date of death. It isn’t right to send her off without a service, poor lady, and alone.’

  ‘It’s what she wanted,’ I said. Sandor nodded emphatically.

  ‘Do it how she wanted,’ he said.

  ‘That at least,’ said Mrs Inchcliff.

  ‘There’s just one more thing,’ said Mrs Mortimer. ‘I hate to mention it but our prices went up last week. The “Ely” is now £121.50 instead of £109.50. The rest of it’s the same: £7.00 for sanitizing and robing, £13.00 for the crematorium which includes the minister but I don’t think I can get a rebate even if there’s no service, 50p gratuity for the chappie at the crem. That comes to £142.00 instead of £130.00, so there’s £12.00 owing.’

  I wrote a cheque for the additional £12.00 for the ‘Ely’. So many things have names: wedding cakes, babies’ prams, cars and coffins.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Mortimer. ‘We’ll have the body brought over from the mortuary. Cremation will be on Tuesday and she’ll be here at the chapel of rest until then. In her instructions she said no viewing and no flowers please.’

  No viewing, no flowers, no funeral service and no one at the cremation. Well, funerals are for the living. For good or ill one sees the dead removed from the scene and the departure is final. Miss Neap having been cheated of companionship while living wished to remain an undeparted presence when dead. Fair enough.

  Miss Neap had died on Sunday, this was Thursday. That made four days running Sandor’d left the bath and cooker clean.

  52

  Neaera H.

  It used to be that I stayed up till all hours and still felt time-starved, none of the day seemed to be metabolized into living. Now the minutes make me strong.

  Frost this morning. Sharp it was, the air rang with it. I got up early and walked down the New King’s Road to Parsons Green. Near where William lives there was a dead cat by a bus stop, pretty well flattened out. He looked as if he’d been run over by a lorry. A grey stripy tom he was with a head like a Roman senator, one eye open, one eye shut. His whole corpse seemed expressive of the WHAM! when his life met his death. He looked as if he’d been one hundred per cent alive until the lorry closed his account in the flower of his tomcathood and his mortal remains were cheerful rather than depressing. To live with a yowl and die with a WHAM! Thinking about him whilst walking back I stopped and wrote:

  Stiff but not formal

  A dead cat says hello

  This winter morning.

  Later I’d be having lunch with George at the Aquarium: sandwiches by the salt-water tanks, the poshest spot in town. Between now and then were all kinds of minutes, all of them good. Who knew what might happen at the typewriter?

  Before going up to the flat I went into the square, played hop-scotch in it just as it was, with no fountain.

  53

  William G.

  Autumn kept going with fewer and fewer brown and yellow leaves until a big rain came just as it always does. Wham! Bare trees, winter, black mornings, people walking fast.

  This morning near the bus stop by a tree a dead cat said hello to me. There he was, he too had gone into winter with a wham. He looked as if he’d been flying high until he was brought down. I’ve never seen such a lively-looking dead cat.

  The morning had nothing special to recommend it, the shop was full of people
wanting biros and greeting cards, neither of which we sell. But I felt good.

  At lunch-time I bought a bottle of Moët et Chandon and went up to the Zoo. In the tube I thought about Miss Neap and Mr Sandor and Mrs Inchcliff. With no funeral to go to we’d found ourselves drawn together somehow and remembering her but not altogether mournfully. In fact we all got drunk and Sandor sang gypsy songs. Rather well too. Odd but not really. If Flora Angelica Neap was going to be an undeparted presence she’d have to share the good times as well as the bad. And I could imagine good times, why I don’t know. Nothing was different or better and I didn’t think I was either but I didn’t mind being alive at the moment. After all who knew what might happen?

  Camden Town is the windiest tube station I know. Coming up on the escalator with my hair flying I felt as if I was coming out of a dark place and into the light, then I laughed because that’s what I was actually doing.

  At the Aquarium I said hello to the two turtles, then opened various PRIVATE doors until I found George Fairbairn. Neaera was with him and they were eating sandwiches by the salt-water tanks. I gave George the champagne.

  ‘I was just passing by,’ I said, ‘and I thought I’d drop this off.’

  ‘Lovely,’ said George. ‘Cheers! What’s the occasion?’

  ‘Just that I was passing by,’ I said.

  They wanted me to stay and drink it with them but I couldn’t stop. I took a taxi back to the shop, it was that kind of day.

  A Note on the Author

  Russell Hoban (1925-2011) was the author of many extraordinary novels including Turtle Diary, Angelica Lost and Found and his masterpiece, Riddley Walker. He also wrote some classic books for children including The Mouse and his Child and the Frances books. Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, USA, he lived in London from 1969 until his death.