Spiderweb

by Penelope Lively

Stella replied that she herself had never worked in New Guinea but that the pig culture is a famous instance of complex and initially puzzling social behaviour and for that reason she had wished to use it as an example. ‘And now we’d better move on to the next slide …’

  The pigs were replaced by a display of shell ornaments – bracelets made from a single curved slice of shell with some fibre fronds hanging from it, long strings of small pink shell discs with shell pendants and further shell strings attached. Once again, she asked the audience what they saw.

  The responses were now more cautious. ‘Jewellery,’ someone ventured. ‘Primitive jewellery? Sort of local craft things – that they’d sell to tourists?’

  Actually, no, said Stella. What you see is not for personal ornamentation at all. These pieces are never worn. They are the physical manifestation of a complex system of political and economic relationships. Shells – yes. The armbands are made from trochus shells – the necklaces are strings of pink spondylus shell discs. Quite pretty, to our eye, but worthless. To the Trobriand islanders, however, they are each entirely distinctive, of inestimable value and loaded with implications.’ She went on to describe the Trobriand ceremonial exchange system called Kula, whereby such objects are passed around between island clans in a byzantine process of receipt and obligation, the function of which is variously interpreted as the confirmation of political hierarchies or the safeguarding of trade relationships by way of an established network.

  ‘The EEC springs to mind,’ said Richard Faraday thoughtfully. ‘Or, to go further back, the Hanseatic League. A long-established concept. Very shrewd of them.’

  ‘They must be the devil to thread, those tiny shells,’ said the lady from the newsagent. ‘Would they have needles?’

  Stella allowed the comment and discussion to continue until it once more showed signs of getting out of hand and then called for the next slide. ‘New Guinea again – a most instructive place, New Guinea, anthropologically speaking. Now what do you think all this is about?’

  They were now looking at a log-constructed building, the entrance to which was hung with shield-shaped objects brightly painted in black, ochre, red and white, with what might be stylized human features – grotesque eyes and mouths set amid swirling lines and patterns. In front stood a group of tribesmen, naked except for feather head-dresses, shell and feather necklaces, and curved yellow protuberances attached to their pemses. These phallic adornments were so long and unwieldy that the ends had to be supported by lengths of twine attached to the shell necklaces.

  Stella’s audience considered this slide with caution. They were all conditioned by long exposure to television documentaries and knew that such sights are not a matter for ill-bred and ill-informed derision or merriment. At least most of them did. There were one or two pockets of resistance which became apparent when Stella said, ‘Any comments?’

  ‘Not in front of the ladies, I’d say.’ This came from a bluff middle-aged man who had made little contribution hitherto but was now chortling with appreciation.

  The woman from the plant nursery said, ‘To be quite honest, those shield things with faces look like what you see pinned up on the classroom wall in the primary school.’

  Stella stepped in. ‘The phallic decor is much as you might expect – a statement of virility. A threat, possibly, to rival tribal groups. The shield-like objects at the hut entrance are tamburans and represent the ancestors. They are respectful references to the abiding power of the tribe’s ancestral past. They remind the tribesmen of their mortality and set them within the context of time. They are icons consecrated to the collective memory.’

  ‘Is that how they think about it?’ enquired the Quantock farming lady.

  ‘Good question,’ said Stella. ‘No. It’s how I – we – think about it. We interpret their perception in terms of our own.’

  This statement had a rather silencing effect on the group. Stella decided to produce her trump card.

  The screen now showed an aerial view of a row of suburban semi-detached houses, several with satellite dishes and three with garden gnomes on the front lawn.

  The audience stared. There was some laughter.

  ‘Acacia Drive, Surbiton,’ said the potter from the craft centre. ‘I know it well.’

  ‘Look at it with an alien eye,’ said Stella. ‘What is there that is puzzling?’

  Someone proposed the satellite dishes. ‘Personally I don’t think Sky is worth the candle. Nothing but sport and bad films.’

  ‘May I have a shot?’ said Richard. ‘I suppose that if I were a visiting Trobriander – or Bushman or Inuit or …’

  The woman from the plant nursery interrupted. ‘Those are Eskimos and they’d have Sky. I know because there was a programme on the Arctic, about how they’re losing their traditional skills, and you saw the concrete bungalows they live in now, all with TV aerials and dishes.’

  Richard waited with strained courtesy until she had finished. ‘Or anyone with an untutored eye, I’d say that what we have here is a culture given to the display of totemic objects related to a form of sun worship.’

  This idea caught on. It was pointed out that the gnomes, too, could be religious ‘ … like Catholics having Christ on the cross in their living-room’ (a rustle of protest here – this was perhaps a bit near the knuckle for some).

  ‘Quite,’ said Stella briskly. ‘Anyway, you take the point – interpretation is through the eye of the beholder, with all the inevitable accompanying distortions. We see only what we already understand.’

  She had struck just the right note, Richard assured her as they sat down for dinner later. Informative without being patronizing, stimulating without being impenetrable. ‘You went down very well. I shall bask in reflected glory.’

  She had already noted the menu with disapproval. She did not like pricey restaurants. Not that she didn’t enjoy a quality meal from time to time, but a bill the size of someone else’s weekly income was offensive. This part of the evening had prompted her strongest reservations. ‘You must let me take you out for a meal after as a due reward. I insist.’

  So there they were, amid the soft lighting and pale pink napery of some establishment with all the airs and graces induced by frequent Sunday newspaper coverage.

  ‘I don’t come here often,’ said Richard. ‘Only when a decent excuse appears. So … what have they got today? Their fish items are usually pretty good. The scallops are probably worth going for. Snails I’ve always drawn the line at, I must say.’ He shot a glance at Stella. ‘Which will seem very wimpish to you, I dare say. You must have eaten a fair gastronomic range, in the course of duty. It is de rigueurto adopt the local diet?’

  ‘It can be expedient. Often there’s nothing else. I’ve not been exposed to the more esoteric menus. The Australian aboriginal repertoire … Grubs can take some getting used to, I’m told. They twitch. Sorry … don’t let me put you off. All this sounds delicious.’

  And a terrible waste of money, she thought, but never mind. His privilege, if he so wishes. And I have always been rather too ascetic in my tastes. Which is just as well, or I could never have done what I’ve done or been where I’ve been. But it’s congenital, I suspect. I was ever thus. Couldn’t be bothered much about clothes and prinking, either. Not like Nadine. Great prinker and clothes connoisseur, Nadine.

  And Nadine swims into vision, towing Stella round Elliston & Cavell, hoicking garments off rails, hustling her into changing cubicles. ‘You’ve got to have it, you look amazing in it.’ ‘But I don’t need it. Anyway, I can’t afford it.’ ‘Well, I think you’re mad not to,’ says Nadine. ‘But of course you look amazing anyway, blast you, when you want to. It’s always the people who try least… it’s not fair.’

  Looking up, Stella caught sight of Richard Faraday in the wall mirror, suffused in flattering strawberry-gold light – the well-preserved older man, one would think, like a tanned actor in some commercial for insurance policies – and with him this woman, thin-faced, c
oppery hair flecked with grey, who is also given some subtle cosmetic treatment and appears for an instant like an elegant stranger with some haunting familiar echo.

  If you have been a beauty, ageing must be intolerable, Stella thought. The process is bad enough as it is – the ebbing away of possibilities, the awful tyranny of the body – but for those who lose their very trade mark, it is savage. No wonder so many elderly actresses take to the bottle. I should count myself lucky, who have never set much store by my own face.

  ‘So how are things going?’ said Richard.

  She was taken aback for a moment. Tm sorry?’

  ‘Acclimatization.’

  ‘Oh, that…’ Concentrate, she told herself. The man is not a mind-reader. And he is paying for your dinner. ‘Fine. I know my way around. I have a dog, for better or for worse. Time does not hang heavy, so far – by no means. I say – you were right about the scallops. Perfect. The sauce tastes faintly scented.’

  Richard smiled complacently. And I sound gushing, thought Stella. Uncharacteristic behaviour induced by this place, which is not really my cup of tea. And I still have to get through the fricassee of chicken breasts, chorizo, peas and thyme, not to mention an operatic selection of puddings.

  ‘Food is always more than meets the eye, of course.’

  ‘You mean there’s no such thing as a free lunch?’ said Richard. ‘This dinner is quite without strings, I assure you.’

  ‘No, no – I mean that it usually has ritual significance, the world over. Restaurants not least. The McDonald’s ritual is quite different from the ritual of a place like this.’

  ‘Well, so I should hope. Not that I’ve set foot in a McDonald’s since the girls grew up. So what is the hidden agenda here?’

  ‘Reassurance,’ said Stella. ‘The customer is being told that he is indeed in the depths of the countryside but, never fear, the resources of civilization are available. Mud and muck there may be, but immunity is available for those with discrimination.’ And a credit card, she was about to add, and then remembered that she was a guest.

  ‘Hmn.’ Richard eyed her. ‘I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Another could be that the customer is flattered by special effects – ‘ he waved a hand at the swagged chintz curtains, the beamed ceiling, the displays of lustreware – ‘and grandiose cuisine. He feels that this sort of thing is his natural due and decides to come again.’

  ‘Does it have that effect on you?’

  ‘No, but I’m a hard-headed civil servant, impervious to corruption. I simply come because it’s the best place within twenty miles for a good meal. I bring the daughters here when they visit.’

  ‘I hope that’s often,’ said Stella, feeling that she had perhaps been rather too combative a companion. ‘I mean, I hope they’re able to visit you a lot.’

  ‘They’re busy, but they come when they can. And I retaliate, of course. Laura is in London now …’ There was a fragmentary pause and then he started to talk rather deliberately about an exhibition at the county arts centre. Stella realized that he had felt himself to be treading on dangerous ground, in the presence of one who was childless.

  ‘Nadine always knew she wanted children,’ she said. ‘That surprised me, when we were young – that she could be so sure. She knew even when she was twenty. By the time I was thirty, I knew for certain that I didn’t.’

  He was relieved that he had not been tactless, she saw, but with the relief came a cool look. He found this declaration unnatural, or unwomanly, or just plain selfish. He probably knew something of her sexual history from Nadine. On which I have no intention of expanding, thought Stella. Nothing to do with him, really, any of this. But he’s a decent enough chap and one confidence deserves another, I suppose. If confidence is the right word.

  ‘Nadine envied you,’ said Richard abruptly.

  Stella was almost shocked. She stared at him, momentarily thrown.

  He qualified. ‘Not in the absolute sense. And not that she was in any way dissatisfied with her own lot. She just saw you as having something she didn’t – experience, opportunity …’ He let the sentence trail away.

  Yes, thought Stella. That fits. And somehow I never noticed at the time.

  There’s a man, says Nadine. This is not a question but a statement. She looks at Stella across a table in the cafeteria of the Royal Academy after the exhibition visit which has been the pretext for their meeting. They have not seen each other for over a year.

  ‘Well… yes,’ says Stella. She would rather not go into the matter, but sees that there is no escape.

  Nadine contemplates her. ‘I’ve known for the last hour. It’s written all over you. You’ve got that sort of feverish look.’ She sounds almost grumpy, and if Stella was not in this state of floating detachment, she would have detected then the whiff of envy. Nadine feels sidelined, high and dry on her island of marriage and maternity, while Stella is still out there in the world – free, in love. But Stella is for once blinkered, she is barely seeing or hearing Nadine. She is indeed in love. This means that she is self-absorbed, unobservant and not herself at all.

  ‘Is he an anthropologist?’

  ‘No … no, he’s a journalist.’

  Nadine is even more put out. An anthropologist would have staid, pedestrian connotations. To her ears journalist sounds racy, even glamorous. She is thinking that Stella always had more dashing men than she did. But Stella has not got the Georgian farmhouse in Sevenoaks and the two gorgeous children. And probably this man won’t last.

  ‘Where did you meet him?’

  ‘Oh … in Malta. I did a field study there this summer.’

  Malta. Sun, brown skin, hot nights. Beaches. Damn her, thinks Nadine, who is no longer enjoying her day out.

  Feeling disagreeably bloated, Stella watched Richard attend to the bill, which was delivered discreetly disguised as a leather notepad.

  ‘Thank you for a splendid meal,’ she said. ‘A treat.’

  ‘It’s for me to thank you. You did us proud.’

  I do not know how this has come about, thought Stella. How can it be that by some diabolical trick I am sixty-five and sitting in a sugar pink restaurant with the husband of my old friend Nadine, who is not anywhere at all. How has it come to this?

  ‘You will be the talk of the local history group for months. Our meetings are seldom so colourful.’

  And how did I come to be trying to explain the seminal matter of cultural difference to fifteen oddly assorted people in something called a village hall?

  ‘A pleasure,’ she said. ‘Rather cursory treatment of a hefty subject, I’m afraid. I did try to beef up the travel aspect, as you suggested.’

  They rose from the table. A waiter eased Stella into her coat as though he were robing a bishop. Outside the restaurant, she turned to Richard.

  ‘I don’t think Nadine envied me, exactly. We shot off in different directions. Having shared a starting-line, as it were. The thought could be unsettling.’

  He shrugged, smiled. ‘Maybe. Whatever … she came to see you as a symbol of lost promise, I think. Her lost promise.’

  ‘She would have hated to live as I have. What she had was what she always wanted.’

  ‘Oh, undoubtedly,’ said Richard. ‘But that doesn’t necessarily induce absolute satisfaction, does it?’

  Stella drove home through a black velvet night, under a sky crackling with stars. The night sky was clear in these parts, quite unlike the orange pall that hangs over cities. The weather was more vivid, you were more acutely aware of sun and rain, of the theatrical range of cloud effects, from incandescent back-lit masses to the delicate Wedgwood veil of summer cirrus. The car’s headlights made a golden tunnel of the lanes down which she drove; when she came out into the open the hills were a long flank against the sparkling sky. Darkness everywhere, except for the flare of some vehicle on a road. An uninhabited landscape, you would think, if you did not know of its intricate, intimate layers of community.

  And invisible popu
lace. She thought of the force-lines out there – of tacit understanding, of mutual incomprehension, of tolerance, of hostility. Those who operated in shiftless isolation, those locked into networks of mutual aid and dependence. An untidy place, she thought. An African village is a miracle of cohesion, by comparison.

  North Somerset Herald

  Tarantulas on Show

  The South West Tarantula Society’s summer show at Tropical World near Taunton on Sunday attracted around 100 entries in seven categories.

  Hoccombe Market

  17 July’s Hoccombe Market saw 391 fat lambs meet an easier trade to average 109.4 pence, selling to a top price of 48.50, 123.00 pence a kilo. 59 killing ewes sold to a steadier trade, half-meat ewes to 34.00, plain to 25.50, killing rams to 45.00.

  Puppy Show, Clapperton

  The Clapperton Foxhounds Puppy Show was held on 10 July at the Kennels, West Oxton, by invitation of the Joint Master. Five couples of doghounds and two couples of bitches were then judged. After the Puppy Show everyone adjourned to enjoy a splendid tea, most kindly provided by the Masters, who then presented prizes to the puppy walkers.

  Minehead Rubbish-Bin Fire

  Firefighters were called out to a blaze in a rubbish-bin on the esplanade. The fire had spread to a neighbouring seat and lamp-post, which were badly damaged.

  Local History Group Meeting a Success

  The West Somerset local history group was entertained by slides and a talk given by Miss Stella Brentwood, who recalled her days as an anthropologist. A lively discussion followed. The group’s next meeting will be on 9 September.

  Chapter Eight

  Stella had named the dog. A dog must be summoned, therefore it needs a name. She found the choice exasperatingly difficult, seeking to avoid both the arch and the mundane. Persistent guilt about the creature’s desperate devotion made her feel that she owed him at the least a carefully considered handle. Eventually she called him Bracken, remembering that her parents had a dog of that name, long ago in her adolescence. That animal was now reduced to a vaguely distasteful memory of something square and brown perpetually slumped on the hearthrug, but never mind. To bestow upon this new dog a name with ancestral overtones was a compliment and confirmation of status. She felt a mite less guilty.