The Story: Love, Loss and the Lives of Women: 100 Great Short Stories

by Victoria Hislop

  Then he asked me a curious thing, did I never feel lonely? In the depth of winter, say, when the snow fills up all the pathways.

  I told him I never did. But this was akin to a lie.

  Teague said he could not believe I was such a hard man. I gave him no answer, for my thoughts were all confounded. Then he said at any rate he would not part with me on bad terms, and came up to me and held on to me, and his leg lay against my leg.

  All that was last night. And today charges were laid by my information against Teague Joanes for an attempt at sodomy.

  These are bitter times. The wind of opposition blows full in my face, but I must not turn aside, for fear of my soul.

  At last our court found Sarah Norman guilty of lewd behavior with Mary Hammon, but sentenced her merely to make a public acknowledgment on the Lord’s day following. She lives now in a mud hut on the edge of our plantation, and her children with her, as Hugh Norman has taken ship back to England. With my own eyes I have seen some of the brethren stop to speak with her on the road. I ask why she has not been exiled, and there is none will answer me.

  The case against Teague Joanes has not yet been heard. He is well liked among those who are deceived by a show of friendliness and the Tempter’s own sweet smile. Many whisper that the charges should be struck out as unfounded. No one says a word to me these days. But I know what I know.

  Our paths crossed on the Lord’s day, and he spat on my back.

  I am not a dreaming man, but last night the most dreadful sight was shown to me. I saw Teague Joanes and Sarah Norman consorting uncleanly on a bed, the man behind the woman, turning the natural use to that which is against nature, and laughing all the while.

  And when I woke I knew this was no fancy but a true vision, granted me by the Lord, so that with the eyes of sleep I could witness what is hidden in the light of day. So I walked to the court and laid charges against them both for sodomy.

  The clerk did not want to write down my dream. So I took him by the collar and I asked, would he wrestle with God’s own angel?

  In the whole town there is none who will greet me. I hear the slurs they cast upon me as I go down the street.

  I work in my own field, though these days my bones creak like dead trees. I keep my head down if ever someone passes by. I wait for the court to hear my evidence. I must stand fast.

  Today I was called to the court. I stepped out my door, and over my head were hanging icicles as thick as my fist and sharp like swords of glass.

  There in the court were Teague Jones and Sarah Norman and Benjamin Hammon and his wife Mary together with many others, the whole people of Plymouth. And I read on their faces that they were my enemies and God’s.

  At first I spoke up stoutly and told of the wickedness that is spreading through this plantation, and of the secrets that hide in the folds of men’s hearts. And then Teague Joanes stood up and shouted out that I was a madman and that I had no heart.

  It was quiet for a moment, a quietness I have never heard before.

  Then I was asked over and over again about what I had seen, and what I had imagined, and what I knew for sure. But I could not answer. I felt a terrible spinning. All I could think on was the evening Teague Joanes walked in my door. Not of the words he spoke, but the way he stood there, looking in my eyes as few know how to in these times. The way he laid his arms around me, fearless, and pressed me to him, as one brother to another. And all of a sudden I remembered the treacherous stirring between us, the swelling of evil, and I knew whose body began it.

  So I said out very loud in front of the whole court that I had perjured myself and that I withdrew the charges and that I was damned for all time. And when I walked to the door, the people moved out of my way so as not to touch me.

  I went across the fields for fear of meeting any human creature on the road. And it seemed to me the snow was like a face, for its crust is an image of perfection, but underneath is all darkness and slime. And I wept, a thing I have not done since I was a child, and the water turned to ice on my cheeks.

  The Turtle

  Roshi Fernando

  Roshi Fernando was born in London. She was awarded the Impress Prize for New Writers in 2009 for her composite novel Homesick, which portrays a community of Sri Lankan immigrants in London through a series of interlinked short stories. In 2011, her story, ‘The Fluorescent Jacket’, was shortlisted for the Sunday Times EFG Private Bank Short Story Award.

  In the dark they are back to the people they always were, Jenny and Mike with their son Lucas. They are three stumbling human beings, walking in black air, with multitudinous stars above them, and Jenny and Mike, with Lucas in between, can just be people on holiday.

  With her pashmina wrapped about her, and Mike holding Lucas’s other hand, she feels safer in their family, stronger in her belief in it. The guide with the torch is far ahead, and a group of worthy Germans and Italians walk his invisible footsteps in the sand one step behind. Mike and Jenny and Lucas take their time because Lucas is only four and Lucas does not like the feel of the sand as it enters the holes of his Crocs. ‘I like wet sand,’ he says to Jenny, ‘but not this sand.’

  ‘That’s funny, because I would have thought it would be the other way round,’ Mike says.

  ‘No, no, Daddy. It is this way round,’ Lucas says. ‘I think this sand is yucky,’ he says to Jenny, conspiratorially. She nods in the dark. ‘I SAID…’ Lucas shouts –

  ‘Yes, sorry, I heard you,’ Jenny whispers. ‘Remember the deal, Lucas? We whisper, and then the turtles will come out. Do you remember?’ she asks urgently. Up ahead, she has seen a few of the Germans’ heads turning towards them.

  ‘Would you like a carry, littley?’ Mike says.

  ‘No, Daddy,’ Lucas says. He has developed a habit of calling Mike ‘Daddy’ in a formal manner, as if addressing a newly bought dog that needs to learn his name. It is done kindly, but Jenny hears it every time as an admonishment to them both.

  ‘Let me carry you,’ Mike continues. ‘We could catch up, and see the turtles sooner.’ Jenny feels the change in the air as he stoops to pick his son up. She stiffens as she feels the child’s hand become rigid in her own.

  ‘No, Mike, don’t…’ she says sharply, and it is nearly too late, but he has learnt, from her emails and her sobbing phone calls in the middle of the night, to stop as soon as she says no, to do as she says, at least where Lucas is concerned. They walk on, but she feels she is dragging Lucas, and she realises he has let go of Mike’s hand.

  There are dips in the sand, great hollows where her foot thinks there will be ground and instead there is air and she unbalances two or three times, giggling embarrassedly, without humour. She pulls Lucas down with her once, and he shouts again. Mike lags behind, then comes up unexpectedly at her shoulder, holding her arm with his hand. She wants to shake him off, but she contains the anger.

  They reach the group, and the group acknowledge them, Jenny is sure, with stares and disapprobation, but she can’t see; it is so dark she cannot see her own hand. She looks down at Lucas; his face reflects the guide’s red light and is an ecstasy of expectation. She only notices now that the guide is still waiting for a group of Japanese who straggle up behind them.

  ‘Where is the turtle?’ Lucas asks, quite reasonably, she thinks. It is a rational request in this circumstance. It is fine for him to ask that, at that pitch of voice. The guide does not reply, simply looks ahead towards the older Japanese couple still struggling towards them. Lucas steps forward and tugs at the guide’s dish dasha. ‘I said,’ he says louder, ‘where is the turtle?’ The guide flicks Lucas’s hand away. Jenny hushes him, takes Lucas’s hand, leads him off into the dark. Mike follows.

  ‘Can I have attention, please?’ the guide says. ‘My assistant is now looking for turtle. There is turtle nearby, but we have to wait, so please to sit. Sit…’ He gestures expansively. He has wide eyes, a broad smile, satanic in the red-bulbed torch he uses to search out the laying turtles. Mike and Jenny take
Lucas up a dune, behind the rest of the group, and kneel gingerly. Lucas does not want to sit.

  ‘The sand is yucky,’ he repeats.

  ‘Look,’ Mike says, ‘look at the stars,’ and slowly he coaxes Lucas into sitting between his knees, with stories about Hercules and Orion. Stars shoot across the wide sky, as Mike’s story takes hold. Jenny imagines this as ordinary, imagines they could live here, as Mike wants them to, and she could take for granted stars that transverse the sky.

  Twenty minutes later, when they are starting to cramp and Lucas is beginning to shiver, there is sudden movement, an exchange of texts and the guide says, ‘Please! Please! Quiet! There is a turtle very near here! She is in process of laying eggs, please!’

  ‘Did you hear that, Lucas? We’re going to see a turtle now,’ Mike says. Lucas is still with the stars.

  ‘Lukey, did you hear?’ Jenny whispers. ‘A real turtle!’

  He is dreamy, tired perhaps. They get up, Mike lifting Lucas to his feet, and Jenny notices he is careful not to do more. She is grateful. The group all stand and murmur. Suddenly Lucas shouts, ‘We’re going to see a turtle!’ and Mike and Jenny gasp, shush him, tell him no. Some of the group laugh.

  The guide says ‘Quiet! Quiet…’ He tells them facts and figures about the turtle, how she will not lay until she is between thirty-six and forty-two years old. She is two metres long. She swims back to the same beach every year, and the turtles that are born on this beach will return to lay their eggs. He says the turtle lays, then she covers them in a large mound and goes back to the water. Jenny takes the information and speaks it into Lucas’s ear. Lucas interrupts her sometimes, to ask her to repeat the words; she knows he is encapsulating the knowledge. She knows these words will stay now, that each kick of a turtle’s flipper is a neural pathway opened and connected to another in her son’s brain. She is an enabler, that is all, helpless in this assimilation of facts, lacking courage to deny it and make him play as any other child. She fills him up, day after day, and it seems to make him stronger, seems to make him more.

  ‘Come now,’ the guide says. ‘Let us go. But when we approach, be calm and quiet please. The mother lays eggs now! Now!’ They follow his torchlight down on to the main beach, falling in and out of holes which Jenny now realises must be old nests. The assistant is squatting next to a hole containing a dark green, hexagonally patterned rock. The rock has a head, which moves from side to side like a toy. Lucas has started to tremble.

  ‘See, it’s a turtle, Lukey, can you see it?’ Mike and Jenny and Lucas stand back, away from the rest of the group, letting Lucas understand.

  ‘I need to see,’ he whispers. He allows Mike to pick him up. Jenny watches him crane forward, his arm carelessly about Mike’s neck. She does not look at the turtle, only at that arm, the skin in full contact with Mike’s skin. It is simply there, and she is nearly faint with not breathing.

  ‘Come!’ the guide whispers to them. ‘Come and see the eggs!’ As they approach, the guide asks others to stand and move away. He kneels again, shows them where they should sit. He takes Lucas’s chin in his hand and points it, just so, like a midwife. ‘Look!’ he says, and Lucas does not object to his touch, simply looks and there are large pearls dropping from the turtle’s tail, precise and round, a pile of luminescent blobs of matter, perfect in their potential.

  ‘Oohhhh!’ Lucas says wildly. The guide nods, pats Lucas’s head. He does not move them away:

  It was the hottest night of the year, the night Lucas was born. He was stuck in her birth canal, his English head too wide for her. ‘You are made for round-headed Sri Lankan babies,’ the Chinese midwife said. ‘We need to unhook him. Episiotomy… forceps.’ Words mentioned, not understood: she was feral with fear and pain and anxiety for the child. Mike stood between her and the doctor, stood with his eyes to hers, cradling her head as cuts were made, holding her hands as tight as she clung to his, while cold metal plunged high into her abdomen to retrieve the tiny man stuck inside.

  ‘It hurts, Mike!’ she screamed, and he held her, telling her she was the bravest, telling her the baby was nearly there. ‘Ohhhh!’ she screamed.

  And it was this noise she heard, when Lucas cried out. It was this red-hot anguish she thought of, the white light, the blackness inside her skull.

  Jenny looks down at the turtle: there are tears rolling from the creature’s eyes. ‘She’s crying,’ she says to the guide.

  ‘Yes, tears. But she is secreting excess salt, nothing more. It is not pain. It is not sadness!’ He laughs, as if it were a joke. His phone beeps, and he reads the message. ‘Oh! My goodness! You are lucky group! There is baby here! Baby!’ He turns to Lucas. ‘Come! You see baby?’ Mike and Lucas stand and follow the others. But Jenny stays there, in the dark with the turtle, in fellowship.

  Much later, in bed finally, Lucas’s limbs are still, and he settles into her. She holds him close, as if he were a normal child. ‘My egg,’ he says. His T-shirt is damp with sweat in the closeness of the night room.

  ‘You’re a little egg, all tucked up and safe in our bed,’ she coos.

  ‘No. My egg.’ He struggles awake. ‘Be careful with it. It’s in my pocket.’

  When he’s asleep, she looks in his trouser pockets. There is an egg there, dented, worn by the world it seems, still pale but its skin dull, dead. Mike is making tea in the kitchen of their suite. She shows him, and he reverently washes out a yoghurt pot, places tissues inside, and puts the egg in, tucking more tissues around it. Its value to Lucas somehow brings them together. Yet, when they go to bed, they say goodnight, nothing more, and stares at the ceiling, listening to the waves outside their window, knowing the sky above them is still full of stars.

  The egg focuses Lucas, Mike thinks. There are fewer scenes than in England. Perhaps Lucas is growing out of it, he thinks, but he knows it is a foolish thought. He has always chosen to ignore the worst of Lucas’s foibles: the way he crawled back and forth on top of the patch that was burnt by a falling iron in the carpet in their sitting room, running his hand along its texture, then crawling, then backing up and doing the whole procedure over and over, as they both watched helplessly. His mouth dribbling from a sticking-out tongue. Jenny’s anxiety made Mike ashamed – of himself, of his family.

  ‘You were the same,’ his mother said, when he broached the subject. Had he been? He asked his eldest sister, who was ten when he was born. Had he been madly obsessive, too bright, easily upset? She was part of the problem – she had the same symptoms, so could not provide the solution. ‘But we did OK, didn’t we?’ she emailed back. Did we, he wonders? Did we? Jenny and he on this cusp – and his brothers and sisters all divorced or near enough. Lucas is going to be happy, he decides. This holiday, this childhood, this life.

  They wake up early every morning, and Lucas is awake before them, singing in his bed, as if in answer to the call to prayer at five.

  His egg sits by his bed: it is the first thing he sees when he wakes. He has replaced the tissue with sand from the beach at Ras Al Jinz: he brought it back in his jacket pocket. Lucas had taken in everything. The guide said, ‘The sand of this beach is the mother of these turtles, and it is to their mother they return when they too become mothers!’ Lucas’s egg is at the bottom of the yoghurt cup, weighed down by sand. Sometimes he tops the sand up from other beaches, but he is careful not to allow the cup to tip so that the ‘Mummy sand’, as he calls it, stays integral to the egg.

  ‘How can you tell the difference?’ Mike asks.

  ‘Oh, I can,’ Lucas says, showing the fineness of the Ras Al Jinz sand compared to the rice-like desiccated shells of the Ras Al Haad sand. He is now an expert on turtles and an expert on sand.

  As they have travelled about, Lucas has held the egg in its carton, with its clingfilm (with holes) lid, on his lap in the back of the car. He has refused air conditioning, preferring the temperature of the car to be the temperature of the warm dry air of Oman. As they drive past mountain after mountain of pinky orange
rock and plains of sandy earth, Lucas looks steadily and calmly about him, understanding little, ‘not engaging’ as Jenny puts it, but holding his yoghurt pot. Mike is fine with this. It is fine, he thinks. It is perfectly ordinary for a four-year-old child to behave in this way.

  The driving makes Jenny talk to him, and Mike is grateful and quick to reply, so that the friendship that began their relationship is rekindled soon enough. They do not laugh yet, as they used to, but the interest shown and given is enough for Mike to be encouraged.

  ‘I used to love stick insects when I was his age, you know.’

  ‘Really?’ she smiles. She is the most beautiful of women, pale brown, with her long black hair making her seem paler in this deeply coloured, heavily sunned country. He cannot see her eyes under her over-large sunglasses, but he has noticed that she has steadily lost weight since Lucas was born, and her wrists are tiny, her cheekbones too prominent. He dares not look at her breasts, her waist. He looks at the empty road as he drives and they speak. He does not dare imagine making love to her.

  When he was offered the job in Oman, he expected her to be negative. The vehemence, though, her downright refusal to contemplate a move, disquieted them both. But the break away from the family, from the pity, from the routine visits to various caring professions: all would be banished, he argued, and we could do it ourselves. It would be just us, he said, bringing up our child. She had not considered it. Had not thought it through, he realised. He took the job. He knew it was the right moment, the right opportunity, and she would follow or she would not. And with the extra money Oman offered, he would be able to pay for Lucas and Jenny to have the life they needed, in Oman or England. There were no other choices. He came to Oman.