They had a bed free for Alice in a room down the hall, but she stayed in the chair by her daughter’s bed and didn’t sleep much. Awake when Kim’s temperature rose again and she swallowed her tongue. The doctors drew the curtain round the bed and the fitting girl while they worked. So Alice couldn’t see what they were doing any longer but still she didn’t move. Stayed put, listening, while they made the hole for the tube in her daughter’s neck, and took her temperature down with wet sheets around her legs. No one asked Alice to leave and she sat in the chair, shoes off, coat on, pulled tight around her chest.
—
Kim has headaches, too.
Joseph watches while his sister ties the belt round her head. One of Granddad’s old ones. Big buckle, cracked leather, round her forehead, over her temples. He pulls it tight for her and then she lies down, head under the blankets, nose showing. Brows pulled into a frown by the belt, jaw clenching, neck held taut against the pain.
Kim’s drinks have to be warm because her teeth feel everything, and she is clumsy. Legs bruised from falls and corners, clothes stained colourful by spills. Kim has no sense of edges these days; where a glass can be placed safely, where her body can pass without damage. She creates noise and mess and the mumbling speech that the doctor said should improve quickly takes weeks to go away.
—
The school calls Alice in again. No parents’ everting this time: a meeting with Kim’s class teacher and headmistress, attendance register open on the desk between them.
– When does Kim leave the house, Mrs Bell?
– Quarter to nine. With her brother.
– Every morning?
Alice nods, doesn’t tell them that she leaves the house at eight twenty to open the salon. Thinks they are doubtless capable of working that one out. She reminds them.
– My daughter has been very ill.
– Yes.
They are writing things down and Alice is remembering again. That Kim couldn’t stop herself looking at her tracheotomy wound. That the peeled ends of the dressing curled up off her neck, giving her away, gathering dust like magnets, tacky traces on her skin turning black. Alice visited her at visiting time, whispered: it’ll get infected. She smiled when she said it. Didn’t want to tell her daughter off, just to tell her. Let her know that she had noticed. That she understood it, her curiosity.
Kim looked at her. Skin under her eyes flushing. Hands moving up to cover the dressing. Alice didn’t know what that meant: whether her daughter was surprised or pleased or angry.
– Kim is what we call On Report now, Mrs Bell.
– She could have died.
– Yes.
They blink at her across the desk. Sympathetic, insistent.
– I’m afraid her attendance record has to improve.
—
Kim finds different places to spend her days. Sometimes the coast path over the headland where the wind cuts into her legs. Sometimes the burnt stubble of the fields inland, where she flies her kites made out of plastic bags. Most days it is the beach, though, where she lies down under the old pier. On her back on the cracking shingle, waves at her feet, sea wall behind her. Sodden wood, salt, seaweed and litter.
Above her, she can see the gulls’ flapping battles through the gappy planks of the old walkway. Lies still, watching the starlings fly their swooping arcs around the splintered columns and rails. Cloud and wind over the water. Storm of black beak and wing reeling above her head.
—
Alice shuts the salon early and is home before her children. Joseph acts as though it is normal for his mother to open the door for him; Kim steps into the hallway, clutching her school bag as if it were proof of something, tell-tale damp of the day in her clothes and hair. Joseph slips upstairs to his bedroom, Kim stays silent, eyes on the wallpaper white Alice asks her where she has been, and why. She watches Kim’s face for a reaction but cannot read anything from her daughter’s expression.
– Whatever. You’ll be leaving the house with me from now on.
– No.
Later Alice goes over the scene again. In bed, light out, eyes open. Feels something closing down, tight around her ribs. Remembers the screaming battles they had when Kim was three, four, five. Doesn’t want to repeat those years again. Her daughter smelled of sea and air this afternoon, it filled the corridor. Alice didn’t know what to do, what to say, so she said nothing. An almost eight-year-old stranger standing in front of her. Mouth open, breath passing audibly over her small, wet teeth.
—
Kim doesn’t know it, but the school keeps close tabs on her. Her teachers know she comes for registration and then dodges out of the gate behind the playing fields. They don’t confront her; instead they call her mother and then Alice hangs up the phone in the back room of the salon, behind the closed curtain, under the noise of the dryers, and cries.
Alice doesn’t know it, but some mornings her daughter comes down to the front. The smell leads her there: hot air, warm skin and hair, shampoo. She doesn’t go in; instead she watches her mother’s face at the salon window. Eyes and cheekbones amongst the reflections. Blank sky, cold sea, ragged palms. Her mother’s eyes blinking, face not moving. Lamp-posts with lights strung between, rocking in the breeze.
—
Another Wednesday, another week or two later, and Kim stands in the salon doorway. Alice has had the phone call already. Knows her daughter hasn’t been to school, didn’t expect her to show up here. The rain slides down the windowpane and, through the open shop door, she can hear it singing in the drains.
Alice takes her daughter’s coat from her, sits her down in an empty chair. The salon is quiet and Kim spends the next few minutes watching her mother working in the mirror. She sees that Alice doesn’t look at her, only out of the window, or down at her fingers, turning grey hair around the pastel shades of the plastic rollers, pink and yellow and green. Her mother’s cheeks are flushed, lips drawn in, and the skin around her eyes pulled taut.
When Alice steps over to her, Kim looks away. Sees the old lady’s eyes on them, under the dryer. Alice knows she is watching them, too. Has felt her customers observing her ever since Kim was ill, has grown accustomed to the scrutiny. She stands behind her daughter now. A second or two passes, and she finds herself still there. Not shouting, not angry. Just looking at the slope of her daughter’s shoulders, the nape of her neck, her sodden hair.
Alice gets a clean towel from the shelves at the back and then plugs in a dryer, sets to work. At first Kim watches the rain, the gulls fighting on the rail outside, but soon she closes her eyes. Feels the pressure of her mother’s fingers, how strong her hands are, how warm the air is, the low noise of the dryer.
Field Study
Rachel Seiffert
Rachel Seiffert (b. 1971) is a British novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, The Dark Room, was shortlisted for the 2001 Man Booker Prize, and won the LA Times Prize for First Fiction. Her collection of short stories, Field Study, received an award from International PEN in 2004 and her novel, Afterwards, was longlisted for the 2007 Orange Prize.
Summer and the third day of Martin’s field study. Morning, and he is parked at the side of the track, looking out over the rye he will walk through shortly to reach the river. For two days he has been alone, gathering his mud and water samples, but not today.
A boy shouts and sings in the field. His young mother carries him piggyback through the rye. Martin hears their voices, thin through the open window of his car. He keeps still. Watching, waiting for them to pass.
The woman’s legs are hidden in the tall stalks of the crop and the boy’s legs are skinny. He is too big to be carried comfortably, and mother and son giggle as she struggles on through the rye. The boy wears too-large trainers, huge and white, and they hang heavy at his mother’s sides. Brushing the ears of rye as she walks, bumping at her thighs as she jogs an unsteady step or two. Then swinging out wide as she spins on the spot: whirling, stumbling around and around.
Twice, three times, four times, laughing, lurching as the boy screams delight on her back.
They fall to the ground and Martin can’t see them any more. Just the rye and the tops of the trees beyond: where the field slopes down and the river starts its wide arc around the town. Three days Martin has been here. Only another four days to cover the area, pull enough data together for his semester paper, already overdue. The young woman and her child have gone. Martin climbs out of the car, gathers his bags and locks the doors.
This river begins in the high mountains Martin cannot see but knows lie due south of where he stands. Once it passes the coal and industry of the foothills, it runs almost due west into these flat, farming lands, cutting a course through the shallow valley on which his PhD studies are centred. Past the town where he is staying and on through the provincial capital, until it finally mouths in the wide flows which mark the border between Martin’s country and the one he is now in. Not a significant stretch of water historically, commercially, not even especially pretty. But a cause for concern nonetheless: here, and even more so in Martin’s country, linking as it does a chemical plant on the eastern side of the border with a major population centre to the west.
Martin has a camera, notebooks and vials. Some for river water, others for river mud. Back in the town, in his room at the guesthouse, he has chemicals and a micro-scope. More vials and dishes. The first two days’ samples, still to be analysed, a laptop on which to record his results.
The dark, uneven arc of the trees is visible for miles, marking the course of the river through the yellow-dry countryside. The harvest this year will be early and poor. Drought, and so the water level of the river is low, but the trees along its banks are still full of new growth, thick with leaves, the air beneath them moist.
Martin drinks the first coffee of the day from his flask by the water’s edge. The river has steep banks, and roots grow in twisted detours down its rocky sides. He has moved steadily west along the river since the beginning of the week, covering about a kilometre each day, with a two-kilometre gap in between. Up until now, the water has been clear, but here it is thick with long fronds of weed. Martin spreads a waterproof liner on the flat rock, lays out vials and spoons in rows. He writes up the labels while he drinks his second coffee, then pulls on his long waterproof gloves. Beyond the branches, the field shimmers yellow-white and the sun is strong; under the trees, Martin is cool. Counting, measuring, writing, photo-graphing. Long sample spoon scratching river grit against the glass of the vials.
Late morning and hot now, even under the trees. The water at this point in the river is almost deep enough to swim. Martin lays out his vials, spoons and labels for the third time that morning. Wonders a moment or two what it would be like to lie down in the lazy current, the soft weed. Touches his gloved fingertips to the surface and counts up all the toxic substances he will test his samples for later. He rolls up his trouser legs as high as they will go before he pulls on the waders, enjoys the cool pressure of the water against the rubber against his skin as he moves carefully out to about mid-stream. The weed here is at its thickest, and Martin decides to take a sample of that, too. The protective gauntlets make it difficult to get a grip, but Martin manages to pull one plant from the river bed with its root system still reasonably intact. He stands a while, feeling the current tug its way around his legs, watching the fingers of weed slowly folding over the gap he has made. Ahead is a sudden dip, a small waterfall that Martin had noted yesterday evening on the map. The noise of the cascade is loud, held in close by the dense green avenue of trees. Martin wades forward and when he stops again, he hears voices, a laugh-scream.
The bushes grow dense across the top of the drop, but Martin can just see through the leaves: young mother and son, swimming in the pool hollowed out by the waterfall. They are close. He can see the boy take a mouthful of water and spray it at his mother as she swims around the small pool. Can see the mud between her toes when she climbs out and stands on the rock at the water’s edge. The long black-green weed stuck to her thigh. She is not naked, but her underwear is pale, pink-white like her skin, and Martin can also see the darker wet of nipples and pubic hair. He turns quickly and wades back to the bank, weed sample held carefully in gauntleted hands.
He stands for a moment by his bags, then pulls off the waders, pulls on his shoes again. He will walk round them, take a detour across the fields and they will have no cause to see him. He has gathered enough here already, after all. The pool and waterfall need not fall within his every 100 metres remit. No problem.
—
Martin sleeps an hour when he gets back to the guesthouse. Open window providing an occasional breeze from the small back court and a smell of bread from the kitchen. When he wakes the sun has passed over the top of the building and his room is pleasantly cool and dim.
He works for an hour or two on the first day’s mud and water vials, and what he finds confirms his hypothesis. Everything within normal boundaries, except one particular metal, present in far higher concentrations than one should expect.
His fingers start to itch as he parcels up a selection of samples to send back to the university lab for confirmation. He knows this is psychosomatic, that he has always been careful to wear protection: doesn’t even think that poisoning with this metal is likely to produce such a reaction. He includes the weed sample in his parcel, with instructions that a section be sent on to botany, and a photocopy of the map, with the collection sites clearly marked. In the post office, his lips and the skin around his nostrils burn, and so, despite his reasoning, he allows himself another shower before he goes down to eat an early dinner in the guesthouse café.
—
The boy from the stream is sitting on one of the high stools at the bar doing his homework, and the waitress who brings Martin his soup is his mother. She wishes him a good appetite in one of the few phrases he understands in this country, and when Martin thanks her using a couple of words picked up on his last visit, he thinks she looks pleased.
Martin watches her son while he eats. Remembers the fountain of river-water the boy aimed at his mother, wonders how much he swallowed, if they swim there regularly, how many years they might have done this for. Martin thinks he looks healthy enough, perhaps a little underweight.
His mother brings Martin a glass of wine with his main course, and when he tries to explain that he didn’t order it, she just puts her finger to her lips and winks. She is thin, too, but she looks strong; broad shoulders and palms, long fingers, wide nails. She pulls her hands behind her back, and Martin is aware now that he has been staring. He lowers his eyes to his plate, watches her through his lashes as she moves on to the next table. Notes: good posture, thick hair. But Martin reasons while he eats that such poisons can take years to make their presence felt; nothing for a decade or two, then suddenly tumours and shortness of breath in middle age.
The woman is sitting at the bar with her son when Martin finishes his meal. She is smoking a cigarette and checking through his maths. The boy watches, kicking his trainers against the high legs of his barstool, as Martin walks towards them.
– I’m sorry. I don’t really speak enough of your language. But I wanted to tell you something.
The woman looks up from her son’s exercise book and blinks as Martin speaks. He stops a moment, waits to see if she understands, if she will say something, but after a small smile and a small frown, she just nods and turns away from him, back to her son. At first Martin thinks they are talking about him, and that they might still respond, but the seconds pass and the boy and his mother keep talking, and then Martin can’t remember how long he has been standing there looking at the back of her head, so he looks away. Sees his tall reflection in the mirror behind the bar. One hand, left, no right, moving up to cover his large forehead, sunburnt, and red hair.
– What you want to say to my mother?
The boy speaks Martin’s language. He shrugs when Martin looks at him. Martin lets his hand drop back dow
n to his side.
– Oh, okay. Okay, good. Can you translate for me then?
The boy shrugs again, which Martin takes to be assent, and so he starts to explain. About the river, how he saw them swimming in the morning and he didn’t want to disturb them, but that he has been thinking about it again this evening. And then Martin stops talking because he sees that the boy is frowning.
– Should I start again?
– You were watching my mother swimming.
– No.
The boy whispers to his mother, who flushes and then puts her hand over her mouth and laughs.
– No. No, that’s not right.
Martin shakes his head again, holds both hands up, but it is loud, the woman’s laughter in the quiet café, and the other two customers look up from their meals.
– I was not watching. Tell her I was not watching. I was taking samples from the river, that’ s all. I’m a scientist. And I think you should know that it is polluted. The river is dirty and you really shouldn’t swim there. That’s all. Now please tell your mother.
The young woman keeps laughing while Martin speaks, and though he avoids looking in the mirror again, he can feel the blush making his sunburn itch, the pulse in his throat. The boy watches him a second or two, lips moving, not speaking. Martin thinks the boy doesn’t believe him.
– You could get sick. The river will make you sick. I just thought you should know. Okay?
The Story: Love, Loss and the Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories Page 32