In Another Country

by David Constantine

  The man in the kitchen garden was watering his beans. The water showed pure silver in the lowering sun. Plainly the job contented him, he took his time over it, so much time he had. Mr. Carlton felt he had never before witnessed such leisurely and contenting work. Three times the man went to fill the can again. The sound of it filling, the changing tone of water filling a can, lifted like a memory of itself as far as Mr. Carlton at the barrier. And the man in the garden stood with his hands on his hips watching the water leave the green tub through the black tap and enter the green can. He watched; it entranced him. The deserted fat man offered Mr. Carlton a cigarette. No thank you, said Mr. Carlton. The fat man lit one for himself. I’ll toddle over and see what’s doing, he said. And he added, leaving, Before she left me I wasn’t this bad. I didn’t always look as bad as this.

  The woman came out of the house and walked through the close into the kitchen garden. Now she wore a dark shawl over her shoulders. She stood with her husband. If they spoke it was too softly for anyone on the motorway to hear. The swallows came and went, at speed, intently, with a clean skill and grace. A blackbird sang from the apex of the roof. Was it so or similar, changing with the seasons but in essence just so, all fitting, all in place, all pleasing, was it always so even under the usual traffic?

  A helicopter flew away south. Did that mean anything? Mr. Carlton wondered whether the swing meant grandchildren visited now and then. The colours were bright, the seat and the ropes looked strong. Would children mind about the noisy motorway? Was there anything to interest them outside the house and its bit of land? Mr. Carlton began to look for paths. Towards the south, where the moss widened, he thought he could make out a way which, like the carriageable track, advanced in right angles, perhaps to find bridges over ditches. He saw a couple of trees that did not have the appearance of birches. They might be ash or sycamore and a house had stood there once. If the children had been his grandchildren he would have taken them looking for frogspawn in the ditches. Surely the man and his wife knew where to find whortleberries and mushrooms. A moss was a rich place if you were born there or if you came in as a stranger and got to know it.

  The old man had finished watering. He put the can back by the water-butt and the hoe back in the shed. The light coming over out of the west was golden now and almost level. All visible things partook of it and became truly themselves. Most astonishing, from under the motorway itself, the route the swallows were familiar with, half a dozen fallow deer appeared. They paused and were illumined; then moved sedately in single file around the north edge of the close and at greater speed bore away south. The old man and woman, her arm in his, watched them out of view and continued standing there in no hurry to leave the light.

  A young woman came up to Mr. Carlton at the barrier and said, You wouldn’t lend me your phone, would you? I’m very sorry, said Mr. Carlton. I don’t have a phone. Oh, said the young woman, so you haven’t told anybody you’re stuck, you’ll be late, they needn’t worry? I had already told them, Mr. Carlton replied, that I’d be out of touch for a few days. I was speaking to my husband, the young woman said. Then my phone gave out. It frightens me being stopped up here. My husband was telling me not to worry. But what if we’re here all night? I’ve never left him for a night before. Perhaps that helicopter was a good sign, Mr. Carlton said.

  The old man and woman had left the kitchen garden. They were crossing the dandelion lawn towards the house. They halted, looked up, the old man pointed. Bats, said Mr. Carlton. It’s not us he’s looking at. He has seen the bats. The swallows have roosted, the deer have gone to where the moss is wider and perhaps there is still woodland for them to hide in. Did you see the deer? I’ve been watching the swallows. And now the bats. All those creatures have come out from under the motorway. I’m pregnant, the young woman said. I only found out yesterday. I went to tell my mum and dad. I wanted to tell them face to face. And now I’m stuck here. I don’t want to be away from home in the night.

  The old man and woman went into their house. In rooms to the left and right of the door the lights came on. Oh they’ve gone in, said the young woman next to Mr. Carlton at the barrier. They’ve shut the door. In the room on the left, on view, the old woman busied herself for a while. Then that light went out. She appeared at the window of the room on the right, stood there for a moment, now without her shawl, then drew the curtains.

  The young woman at the barrier took Mr. Carlton’s arm. I’m frightened, she said. You don’t mind, do you? What do you think has happened? It must be very serious to close both carriageways. I heard a man say it was a fire. And somebody else said ten minutes earlier we’d have been in it. My husband said not to worry, they’ll clear it eventually, if we’re here much longer they’ll bring food and water round. He’s right, said Mr. Carlton, patting her hand that was gripping his arm. We’re quite safe here. How still it is. I was wondering do they have grandchildren who visit occasionally. I hate it when you’re on a train, the young woman said, and you stop in the middle of nowhere and after a long time they tell you there’s a fatality on the line. Yes, said Mr. Carlton, that is a horrible expression. And everybody’s only wanting to get home, the young woman continued, and they don’t care about the fatality in person. But it’s horrible sitting there knowing that someone is chopped to pieces further up. And this is worse than that. It has blocked both carriageways.

  The after-lingerings of a midsummer sunset last forever. Infinitely slowly pallor passes towards blackness. The vanishing light edges north, smoulders on earth long after the source of it has gone below. But with an utter abruptness the light went out in the old couple’s downstairs room. They’re going to bed, the young woman at the barrier said. Mr. Carlton shuddered. The bedroom light came on. The old woman in her floral dress stood at the window illumined and looking out. Perhaps she stood there every night, every soft summer night at least, and looked down on the close and the kitchen garden for a minute or two, taking it in. She drew the curtains. You’re crying, said the young woman holding Mr. Carlton’s arm. What is it? You’re crying? What’s the matter? No, no, Mr. Carlton replied. I have two grown-up daughters, older than you, with children, a great joy, as yours will be. No, no, all is well. The light in the bedroom went out. They’re going to sleep, the young woman said. Is it that? Is that why you’re crying? Yes, said Mr. Carlton. It’s that.

  The southbound carriageway opened. Down it in a flickering torrent of blue lights the police cars and the ambulances screamed. After them, bulkier but quietly, came the fire engines. Carnage, said Mr. Carlton. A few minutes later the normal traffic followed, three lanes of it, headlong, heedless. Now we’ll be moving soon, said Mr. Carlton. Do you want to go back to your car? I’ll stay here, if you don’t mind, until it starts, said the young woman still gripping Mr. Carlton’s arm.

  David Constantine is an award-winning short story writer, poet, and translator. He has published four collections of short stories in the UK: Back at the Spike, Under the Dam, The Shieling, and the winner of the 2013 Frank O’Connor Award, Tea at the Midland and Other Stories. Constantine is also the author of the novel Davies, and a work of biography, Fields of Fire: A Life of Sir William Hamilton. His collections of poetry include Caspar Hauser, The Pelt of Wasps, Collected Poems, Nine Fathom Deep, Elder, and Something for the Ghosts, which was shortlisted for the Whitbread Poetry Prize. He has translated Hölderlin, Goethe, and Kleist, as well as Bertolt Brecht’s Love Poems (with Tom Kuhn; Liveright, 2014). In 2003, his translation of Hans Magnus Enzensberger’s Lighter Than Air won the Corneliu M Popescu Prize for European Poetry Translation. He lives in Oxford and on Bryher, Isles of Scilly. Until 2012 he edited Modern Poetry in Translation with his wife Helen.

 

 

 
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