by Tim Pears
‘It’s called Solaris, James.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘I haven’t a clue; I couldn’t understand a single moment,’ she told him. ‘I was just hypnotized. I thought it must have been some kind of trick. I mean, it’s meant to be science fiction but it’s not. That night I couldn’t sleep. Images from the film kept running through my brain.’ She shook her head deliberately, as if trying to realign the pictures in her mind’s eye. ‘So,’ Zoe continued, ‘I went back the next day and saw it again.’
‘And?’ James whispered.
‘Well, the veil was lifted. Like Siddhartha at the river. I felt like I was watching my own life. Or, to be more precise, my own dreams. It was uncanny, James. I always thought I was running an entertainment arcade, a penny peep-show. I didn’t realize films could show the human soul. I’ll book it for the cinema. And more like it. You just wait and see.’
Over the following months and years Zoe would become what she’d been only pretending to be: a connoisseuse of world cinema. She varied the programme with an ever widening variety of films, some of which she was the first to bring into Britain. She not only showed them at the Electra but, in order to cover the costs, also sold them to other cinemas around the country. Within a short time Electra Pictures would become a significant distributor and Zoe an expert in Japanese masters, the banned masterpieces of the Soviet Union, and the new South American cinema. The ciné buffs greeted her films as if they’d been sent from El Dorado, with gold in the piles of round cans.
‘Instead of travelling, I’m going to bring the world to me, James,’ she told him by the pond. ‘I’m sorry, honey, but I’m afraid photography’s been outgrown by its bastard child. You ought to get rid of that outdated box around your neck and buy yourself a movie camera.’ James smiled. He lacked the wit to argue with Zoe, even if he didn’t agree.
‘The thing is,’ she continued, ‘cinema can show time, James. You can only take snapshots, little moments, glimpses. Films can describe the movement of the soul, think of it, they could show bilocation on a split-screen, or by using cross-cutting effects.’
‘Maybe you should be a film-maker yourself,’ James whispered.
‘Don’t be absurd, sweetheart,’ she said, brushing the suggestion aside. ‘It’s hard enough to watch a film properly. You must need to be a genius to make one. Anyway, I’ve got other things on my mind: did I tell you about my new teacher?’
‘Gurdjieff’s godson?’
‘That was months ago.’
‘You mean the chanting group?’
‘No, James, we had a row. No, my new teacher. He’s a hundred years old. Maybe even older. He’s visiting England for the first time, and he’s teaching us Dream Yoga. It’s a technique for learning to stay in the state between being awake and sleeping, and directing the course of your dreams.’ Zoe glanced at her watch. ‘I’ll tell you all about it when you get back, sweetheart, I’ve got to go and get ready for this evening’s screenings. I can only afford to pay a part-timer.’ She got up with the tea-tray. ‘Tell me when you’re going. I’ve got lots of maps and stuff you can have. Here, start with this. It’s a Teach Yourself Italian tape.’
Charles had organized a family holiday in the Dordogne for a fortnight in August, but James excused himself and was allowed to stay behind.
Stanley and Edna and Laura went away with Stanley’s sister Pauline and her family – Garfield, Lewis and Gloria – to adjoining B&Bs in Weymouth.
‘He’ll be all on his own here,’ Edna worried. ‘Who’ll make sure he eats properly?’
‘I’ll be all right,’ James whispered. ‘I’m going to stay out at the farm.’
‘You can always come with us, I’m sure,’ Laura suggested when they were on their own. ‘I bet Lewis would like that. I don’t think he’s looking forward to it.’
‘Forget it, Laura,’ James told her. She looked hurt. ‘I’m sorry,’ he whispered. ‘I know you’re only trying to be helpful.’
Fortunately Margaret and Sarah never took a holiday. James went back to the farm with a rucksack and a new, long lens on his camera. After Sarah showed him the guest room Margaret and the girls embarrassed him back in the kitchen by adjusting the zoom back and forth.
‘It’s obscene,’ Margaret declared.
‘Typical men’s invention,’ Hilary agreed. She pointed it out of the window and zoomed in. ‘Shoot!’ she cried.
‘Don’t you take any notice of them,’ Sarah told him. ‘They don’t know anything about photography, dear. Here, James, have another mug of tea.’
‘It’s so I can take wildlife pictures,’ James whispered, blushing.
James kept the zoom lens on his camera most of the time: he took a number of shots of small birds, one or two of rabbits, a heron, and even a fox, crawling after it through the pear orchard one hot blue afternoon. Mostly, though, he used it as a telescope to spy on Joanna, pretending to himself that he was studying her physiognomy in preparation for a portrait of a human being, the next projected stage in his photographic development. He watched her push the sheep’s heads under in the dip, he watched her forking straw when they burned the stubble (and wondered whether he was ready to make the jump back to colour film), he watched her swilling out the milk churns.
‘Looks like Mr Snoopy Lens has found his subject,’ said Hilary loudly behind him. James abruptly lowered the camera.
‘There’s a sparrow flapping around in the milking shed,’ he whispered, flustered. ‘It’s looking for a way out.’
‘It’s not the only thing, then,’ said Hilary curtly. Then she looked over at Joanna and they both laughed.
The weeks went by and James forgot about going home. One Friday in the middle of September Joanna and Hilary brought in the last of the hay. They set up a conveyor belt from the trailer up to the hayloft: Hilary heaved the bales onto the belt and Joanna took them off at the other end, grabbing their twine and swinging them round with her knee. Hilary had to stop loading the conveyor belt every once in a while to let Joanna stack the bales further back in the loft, but the last few Joanna just let pile up around her. When Hilary had emptied the trailer she drove away, leaving Joanna to finish stacking.
James watched her from the kitchen, where Sarah had enticed him in to taste the Parkin cake she’d made for tea.
‘It’s too soggy, isn’t it?’ she asked worriedly from the sink.
‘It’s scrumptious, Sarah,’ he reassured her with his mouth full, looking out of the window.
‘No, it’s all claggy,’ she maintained.
‘It’s delicious, Sarah,’ he whispered, cleaning sticky bits off his teeth with his tongue, gazing across the yard. He lifted his camera to his eye and zoomed in on Joanna, a shadowy figure inside the hay loft, stacking the last of the bales. It couldn’t have been a great year: there was a lot of space between them and the loft door.
‘Photographing the geese again, are you, dear?’ he heard Sarah ask. He could tell from the sound of her voice that she’d turned to face him. His heart jumped, but he quickly realized that she couldn’t see what he saw, from where she stood on the other side of the kitchen.
‘There’s a couple of, er, redwings outside,’ he said.
‘That’s nice,’ Sarah replied distractedly. He could hear her slapping dough on the work surface. ‘We don’t usually see them around here at this time of year,’ she continued. ‘They don’t usually arrive for another month or two, I believe.’
It was eerie to look at something on the full zoom, with your other eye squeezed tight shut: it was because the image was, despite being apparently so close, silent. Of course he could hear things – like Sarah’s voice – but he couldn’t hear the swish of the hay sweeping across the wooden boards or the gasping breath of Joanna’s exertions. She was isolated and unreal. She must have finished then because she stepped forward and leaned her forearms against the top frame of the loft doorway and, bent, peered out from beneath them. She looked around abstractedly. For a few seconds her ga
ze seemed to fix on James; again his heart thumped but he remained still, looking at her, gambling that she couldn’t make him out with her naked eye. Or perhaps hoping that she could. And then she pushed herself off the door-frame and walked backwards a languorous pace or two, paused … and then she just fell back into the dark.
James stared, unable to believe his own eyes. Had she really just done that? Fallen, spreadeagled, backwards? Was she right now lying flat out on the dusty floorboards?
There was no movement there whatsoever. She’s fainted, James thought. He lowered the camera and scurried to the door, besocked feet sliding across the tiled floor.
‘Sure you’ve had enough, dear?’ Sarah called after him, but he didn’t reply. ‘No,’ she said to herself. ‘Too much honey.’
James yanked his wellies on in the porch and swayed across the yard. One sock was already slipping down over his heel as he entered the barn and slowed down. He stopped and listened, and breathed silently. He couldn’t hear anything from the hayloft above. He stepped over to the ladder, paused, and then began to climb it.
Shafts of light poked through the patchy roof. Particles of chaff and dust corruscated in the sunrays. James’ skin prickled. There was complete silence, not broken but rather accentuated by the distant sound of Margaret’s gruff commands to her sheepdogs. His eyes became accustomed to the light and he clambered up onto the wooden boards and stepped around the side of the newly stacked hay: Joanna lay on her back with her eyes closed, breathing peacefully. If she had fainted, then a scrappy carpet of loose bits of hay, scattered across the boards, had cushioned her fall a little. But she didn’t look uncomfortable, she looked relaxed, as if she were sleeping.
James stood over her. She was dressed in scuffed short riding-boots, blue jeans and a dirty white shirt. Her short blonde hair was streaked blonder from the sun; there were flecks of mud on her tanned face. Her mouth was open slightly and her cheeks were slack with puppy-fat she hadn’t lost. She was tall – as tall as James – and big-boned.
It was hot up there in the hayloft, hot and itchy. James stared at Joanna’s spreadeagled body and back at her face. He could hear his blood thumping. He raised his camera to his right eye, closed his left eye, and felt himself calm down, distanced from the reality of her body. He lowered himself onto one knee, framing her all the while, closing in on her face. A thin stem of hay, he saw now, lay across her bottom lip, adhered to her saliva. He adjusted the focus, having to withdraw an inch or two because he’d been too close for the zoom lens’s focal length. And then, without a conscious order from his mind, the index finger of his right hand clicked the shutter release.
Joanna’s eyes opened slowly, blinked, and widened through comprehension, surprise, anger. James was petrified. And because he could only see, through the viewfinder, her face, he never saw her hands coming: they grabbed his collar and he found himself being flung across her twisting body. He let go of the camera: he landed on his back and the camera – attached to its strap around his neck – swung after him, missed his face and struck the floor beside him.
‘What the bloody hell you think you’re doing?!’ Joanna shouted at him. ‘Sneaking up on people like that! You little bloody perv! Jesus Christ!’ She was getting up as she shouted, glaring at him with raging eyes. James stared startled as a rabbit back at her.
‘Jesus Christ!’ she said, and turned away. She looked out of the loft door, not at anything, just away, calming herself. ‘Jesus Christ!’
James recovered himself, became aware of his body: his dry mouth, his coldly sweating armpits, his trembling fingers. Then he felt the strap around his neck and lifted it over and looked at the camera: the force of its impact with the boards had sprung it open, twisting the door on the back and denting the zoom lens, as well as wiping out that roll of film which had included his first proper portrait of a human being.
‘You’ve broken the camera,’ James whispered, bewildered.
Joanna spun round.
‘Fuck the camera,’ she said. She came over to him, and stood above him as he’d just stood above her. ‘Fuck the bloody camera, James,’ she said. And then she kicked his foot. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt, it was just a gesture of annoyance. She was standing with the open loft door behind her, James had to scrunch up his eyes to look at her. He was leaning back on his forearms and elbows. She stared at him.
‘Just keep away from me,’ she said. She didn’t move. Instead she kicked his foot again, harder, and James grimaced.
‘All right?’ she demanded.
James raised his torso up to a sitting position, drawing his feet in at the same time, but Joanna quickly kicked again before he’d got them out of range.
‘All right!?’ she yelled, and he yelled back:
‘Yes!’
‘All right, then,’ Joanna said. ‘Just keep away from me, that’s all,’ she said, and she turned slowly and started to move towards the ladder in the far corner of the loft, looking about her as if searching for something she might have dropped, and brushing bits of hay off her shirt.
James watched her. And what then infuriated him, what seized him with sudden rage at that moment, was how slowly she was moving away from him. He pushed himself up and was at her in two or three strides and she only had time to half-turn before he caught her waist, and they both fell.
‘Urgh!’ Joanna grunted when she hit the boards. James landed with his face on her stomach and he clambered up her body, his hands grabbing her shirt for leverage, which ripped loudly apart.
She smelled of milk and sweat, and her hot breath came on his. At first she rolled from side to side to get him off her, but he clung on like a limpet and then he felt her wet tongue in his dry mouth. She undid her bra and her breasts spilled out and he gnawed one with his lips. Her fingers were undoing his jeans, his groin was bursting. He attacked her mouth. They were both silent and furious and overwhelmed. Joanna’s jeans and pants were round her ankles. His prick came out too late, he felt it hot and surging, and, groaning, saw his spunk come shooting onto her thigh and onto the dust and strands of hay on the wooden boards.
They didn’t say anything. Joanna pulled her jeans up, James zipped up his. They sat there, recovering as if from a sudden accident. Joanna gave James a quick, fierce hug, then climbed down the loft ladder.
James took his battered camera to his room in an unsure mood of despair and elation. He didn’t know whether Joanna was frustrated or satisfied; whether she liked him or thought he was an idiot. He hoped that whatever it was that had happened things would go further, and that he was safe in Joanna’s hands. It didn’t occur to him that she had little more idea what she was doing than he did.
The next day, Saturday, the district agricultural show took place in a large village a few miles deeper into the wolds. James produced from his rucksack a pair of framed photographs of Margaret’s favourite sow.
‘Just a small thank you,’ he said quietly.
‘What a marvellous boy you are!’ Margaret proclaimed. ‘Look at these, Sarah, aren’t they beautiful?’
‘Indeed they are, Mig,’ Sarah replied, glancing at them. She was filling a hamper with sandwiches and other things. ‘We need more ice, Hilary,’ she said, ‘it’s going to be sweltering today.’ She was clearly anxious, she had other things on her mind: Sarah had a big day ahead.
‘Could we have them on the wall in the dining-room, do you think, dear?’ Margaret asked her.
‘Of course we can, Mig.’
‘I’ll put them up when we get back, if you like,’ Hilary volunteered. ‘So you were snooping on the pigs after all, you wily fox,’ she told James.
‘Not bad, James, not bad,’ Joanna told him. He stared at the tablecloth, overcome with modesty – and also embarrassment: he could hardly bear to look at Joanna, his body hummed with desire, he was convinced the others could hear it. He sat with his legs crossed, praying that she would leave the room.
‘I’ll fetch the car up to the front door, Sarah,’ Joanna suggested
, nodding at the hamper and bottles on the table, answering James’ prayers.
The show was held in a huge, sloping recreation field below the village hall. Sarah went straight to the produce tent and stayed there all day: she’d entered jars of jam, marmalade, chutney, pickles, home-made wine, cakes, scones and biscuits, as well as vegetables from her garden in any category where they were judged not for their size but their taste. All were now wilting in the heat of the tent. She inspected her rivals’ superior wares and decided that this year she wouldn’t win a single rosette.
Margaret hadn’t entered any of her animals in competition: she knew she didn’t have a prize bull or ram or even bantam among her motley assortment of animals.
‘They ought to have a prize for the biggest number of different animals from the same farm you can fit in one pen,’ said Hilary. ‘You’d have no competition, Marge.’
Margaret wasn’t bothered. She roamed among the other farmers’ pens and joined them in the beer tent.
James found himself following Joanna around, trailing in her wake: she was being dragged by Hilary through the crowded field, through the attentions of young farmers all bigger and stronger than he was. She glanced over her shoulder at him but Hilary’s influence was greater than his, and when James saw his Uncle Jack and Aunt Clare with their two sons, Edward and Thomas, he went over to say hello and tagged along with them. Jack and Clare kept stopping to greet people and the boys were restless in the hot sun.
‘Leave them with me,’ James volunteered. ‘I’ll look after them if you want.’
There were stalls all around the edge of the field and James was glad of the excuse of chaperoning the two boys to have a go at everything on offer: trying to get three darts in the same playing card; guessing the weight of a pig (which he made a note of to tell Margaret, sure she’d win it); skittles; a coconut shy; passing a ring over a twisting, electric wire without it buzzing; a white elephant stall at which he bought an ancient wide-angle lens for fifteen pence; a bran tub and a tombola; a bottle stall at which he bought six tickets, one after another, to win the champagne or whisky there but succeeded only in encumbering himself with jars of piccalilli and tomato ketchup and a bottle of lime squash; and an air-rifle shooting range. James mistrusted guns, but Edward wanted a go and then Thomas had to follow, and in the end James decided he didn’t want to be left out either. He found his aim was steady and enjoyed the soft thud of the trigger, and his six pellets all hit the square paper targets: he went back three times during the day, improving his score each time, and won the third prize of a five-pound note.