Her Living Image

by Jane Rogers

She tried to hide her feelings by concentrating, as she had done at the Red House, on the children. The younger ones needed looking after while the mothers were busy, and the distress of the children, although more naked than that of their mothers, was less terrible. Because they could still be comforted or distracted, by a sweet and a story. She could try, with them.

  She hated going to the Refuge and she dreaded letting Clare know that. She felt she could no longer trust her own ideas, the disagreements she had had with Clare, Bryony and Sue must be due to her own ignorance. How could she presume to argue with them when she knew nothing – nothing – and they lived and worked in situations like this? She was humiliated by her own ignorance, felt herself losing control completely over the ideas she had begun to hammer out and grasp. Either side of the Refuge, time closed in, with meetings, the children to be looked after, books to be read, until she felt light-headed with the sense of not coming to grips with anything, of being forced to spin like a top.

  In between feeling guilty and inferior to the other women, she felt resentful. Her resentment saved her. She had been forced to go to the Refuge. They expected her to do it. She knew she didn’t want to. And she had made a choice; she had chosen not to go home, she had chosen to live here and cope with sharks between the furniture and Bryony’s contempt, in order to purchase a freedom . . . to choose what she would do next. At times this was crystal clear. At others, she despised herself for being selfish, even wicked, for not being able to help people who needed her support so much.

  Her discontent came to a head with the beginning of spring. During the winter there had been near-continual snow and rain, then in late March there was a week of mad blustering winds, with racing cloud and fitful sun.

  “March showers bring April flowers,” Carolyn recited to herself. Or was it April showers that brought May flowers? She was restless, full of ineffectual undirected anger. After being at the Refuge on Saturday she woke early on Sunday morning, head crowded with things that needed thinking about and sorting out. Her windows were rattling in the wind, patches of sunlight and shade sped across the view. Up in the hills it was like a searchlight, like the revolving beam from a lighthouse moving on then reappearing, light, shade, light. The hugeness of the world out there only served to increase her sense of confinement and frustration.

  She went down to make a drink, and as she turned the light on in the dingy kitchen a dark thing shot across the floor to disappear under the dresser. Mice. Carolyn froze. Then she stepped quickly on to the nearest chair and stood there, listening. Silence. It was waiting for her to go. She jumped down and ran out of the kitchen, shutting the door carefully behind her. Why should they stay in the kitchen, though? They’re probably in all the rooms. Running over our beds at night. She remembered the mousetrap Clare had given her. She’d thought it was a joke! Hurriedly she unbolted the french windows and pushed them open. The sun was shining brilliantly, for a moment, and the wind rushed full in her face. She ran to the hall for her coat, then went out, crossing the poor battered garden. The wind and sun seemed to make everything race, to make her excited about something she didn’t know, like a child.

  The winter rain and snow had beaten down the weeds to a mulch of sodden brown stems, through which the bricks and rubbish on the ground protruded. Striding away from the house, Carolyn stubbed her toe badly on a brick end and had to sit down to nurse it. There was a log beside the blackened site of an old bonfire. As she sat rubbing her foot a sense of the ground around her intruded on her anger; a sense of the garden as a place, with its own shape and past. How had it got like this? There were bricks and stones everywhere. Something must have been demolished. An old outhouse, perhaps. Bits of broken glass sparkled in the sunlight. She picked up a piece of pottery and turned it over. It was a long sharp fragment of a willow-pattern saucer, three little blue figures crossing the hump-backed bridge. Idly she began to stab at the wet ground with it, but it struck something hard straight away. She scraped the earth back and saw something very dark blue – china or glass, buried there.

  The wind in her face was good. As sunlight moved over she closed her eyes and put her head back. What am I going to do? She felt as if she never wanted to go back into the house, as if it had tied her with a million cobweb fine lines, as the Lilliputians had trapped Gulliver, and that she could not get free. The piece of saucer, scratting and scraping, had cleared a length of blue glass. It was an unusually deep blue. Abandoning the saucer, she scrabbled at the moist earth with her fingers. The gritty soil filled the cracks behind her fingernails, and the smell of newly uncovered earth reminded her of her father. It was a bottle, an old-fashioned one. She prised it out of its little grave and wiped it clean. It was very dark blue, quite perfect, about six inches long. The soil clung to one side, stuck in the roughness of the design. Letters, “NOT . . . TO . . . BE . . . TAKEN .” She cradled it between her palms with satisfaction. How nice to discover. How long has it been here? Twenty years? Fifty? It was full of earth. She turned it upside-down and shook it. But it was packed, “NOT TO BE TAKEN .” Like Alice in Wonderland. Why should they sell bottles of “NOT TO BE TAKEN”? It must be for murderers, she thought, and smiled at the house. Three spoonfuls in everybody’s tea. There’s probably more under the soil.

  She started to scrape again with the shard of pottery. The feeble sun was almost warm when it came out. I’ll gouge the soil out of it with a knitting needle, when I go in. I don’t want to go in.

  The clear day stretched before her; when she walked back into the house her day would be filled. Stay here, then. Stay here. Stay here and dig the garden. Make a place to plant those seedlings. It was such a good idea that she couldn’t think anything for a moment – as if someone else had suggested it to her, and she needed to digest it.

  I could stay out all day. I’d have an excuse. It’s worth doing – it needs doing. I could grow more things. I could stay here. They’ll laugh at you.

  Well let them. She flung the fragment of saucer as far as she could, watching it spinning against the sky. Then she balanced the bottle on the log, and went to the greenhouse.

  Taking up the big garden fork in the corner, she went straight out again. Where to begin? Instinctively she headed for the fence at the far end, wanting to be as far away from the house as possible. Selecting a clear-looking spot she jabbed the fork into the earth and stood on the crossbar. It stuck, shivering in the ground, the prongs buried to a depth of about three inches. Then it wobbled under her weight and tilted forwards. She jumped off and tried again – same effect. It felt as if the prongs were meeting solid stone. Using the fork like a pick she chipped away at the soil. Brick. She scraped away trails of earth to reveal the dark orange rectangle of a whole brick. She knelt and prised it from its bed. In the damp earth its indentation was like a casting mould, clear and sharp-cornered, composed of earth and living things, tiny translucent snails and a pale slug. She threw the brick over to the bonfire site and attacked with the fork again. Again, it struck something solid.

  After unearthing four bricks, a milk bottle, and an unidentifiable piece of metal, it was possible to turn over a forkful of earth on that spot. If the whole garden was covered in such a layer of rubbish, she would be mad to dig it. She walked a few feet and stabbed at the earth with the fork. It hit something hard. A few yards further – again. Each random spot she tried was the same. The ground was solid with rubble.

  Bitterly disappointed, she sat on the log. It would take weeks of back-breaking work. Crawling round on your hands and knees, prising up brick ends. Mad. There are enough bricks to build a house. And the soil’s probably useless anyway. The french windows banged and Clare came out into the garden, holding a piece of toast. She walked quickly over the uneven ground.

  “Hello. Nice day. Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  Carolyn nodded.

  “How long’ve you been up?”

  “Don’t know. Since eight.”

  “Two hours. Well, at that rate –” she i
ndicated the square foot of dug earth, and the fork abandoned beside it, “I guess it’ll take you – ooh – three years?”

  “Ha ha,” said Carolyn sourly. “Look, I found this.” She passed the bottle to Clare.

  “That’s nice. Victorian blue. Lovely. Want some toast?” She handed it to Carolyn, who ate in silence.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know.” Carolyn chewed a mouthful of toast, then said, “There’s mice in the kitchen.”

  “I like mice,” said Clare.

  “They’re dirty. They carry diseases.”

  “No more than a dog or cat.” Clare watched her eating for a moment. “I’m going to clean up this morning. I’ve been busy.”

  “I know.” Carolyn was consumed with guilt.

  Silence. “What’s the matter?”

  Carolyn gouged some earth out from under her nails. “I don’t know what to do.”

  “I can suggest lots of things.”

  Suddenly, unaccountably, Clare reminded her of her mother.

  “But I don’t want to do what you suggest.”

  Clare blew a raspberry and stood up. “Dig the garden then.” She went back into the house.

  Carolyn worked in the garden all that day. It was slow, back-breaking work, but it gave her great satisfaction. She enjoyed uncovering a corner of brick enough to insert the trowel blade beneath it and twist, and prise it slowly out of its bed. She enjoyed picking the loosened brick up and weighing it in her right hand before swinging her arm to sling it on to the rubble pile. She liked scraping the dirt away from unknown objects, trying to guess what they would be. She worked like an automaton, and her mind was as drowned out by it as her speech would have been in a noisy factory. Scratch, clear, scrape; stick, twist, heave; lift, weigh, sling. A large blister came on the heel of her right palm, from forcing the trowel handle down to prise bricks up. Her spine, neck and shoulders ached dully, but after a while she could almost relish the aches, as if each physical pain was another blotter for the press of ideas in her head. She worked crouching down, and the infinitesimal pace of her labours made her feel like an ant, toiling away earnestly at a microscopic task. It was satisfying to be an ant. She wasn’t thinking at all; hands preoccupied with textures, grainy soil and rough brick, smooth stone, slimy wetness of the odd slug or worm.

  By the evening there were two damp heaps of rubble and a cleared row of just over five yards. A sharp cold wind had sprung up with the fading light, removing the sweaty warmth of her exertions and letting her know that she was cold and exhausted. Her back ached, her hand was blistered. She was starving. She felt light-headedly happy. She had escaped – for a whole day she had escaped even the thought of the Refuge.

  Next morning she was up at seven. She wasn’t expected at the Refuge till lunch time. She could busy herself in the garden till then. She’d been digging for a while when she looked up to swing the stone in her hand on to the pile, and saw Clare standing there.

  “Smells nice.”

  “Yes – it’s the soil.”

  “Aren’t you cold?”

  Carolyn shook her head. “You get warm working.”

  “Are you coming to the Refuge today?” Clare asked quietly.

  Carolyn watched Clare’s feet. It hadn’t occurred to her that she had a choice. “Don’t you need me?”

  “Yes.” Clare grimaced. “But if you’d rather do this –”

  There was a silence.

  “You don’t like coming to the Refuge do you.” It was a statement.

  Carolyn shook her head, still not looking up.

  “Well –”

  “I would rather do this. If you don’t mind.”

  Clare laughed. “You must really hate the Refuge!”

  “No – no – I mean –”

  “Why are you doing this? Isn’t it an awful waste of energy?”

  “I – no.” Again she felt that stubborn anger. “Perhaps I want to waste energy.”

  Clare watched her in silence, then asked, “Why?”

  “I don’t know.” She scraped at the earth covering a brick.

  “OK,” said Clare briskly. “Shall we go for a drink tonight?”

  “Who?”

  “You and me.”

  Carolyn just stopped herself from saying why. “I – yes, that would be nice.”

  “OK. I’m at the Refuge for tea. Meet you at the pub on the corner, at nine?”

  Carolyn nodded.

  “See you then.” Clare walked quickly back to the house.

  Carolyn wanted to leap with joy. You don’t have to go! You don’t have to go to the Refuge! The reprieve had been so quick and sudden and she had been dreading the conversation so much. . . . She was afraid that Clare would try to make her feel guilty that evening. But it was done. She’d told her she didn’t like going. She’d escaped.

  She worked in the garden every day, from then on, unless the rain was torrential. She cleared the sills in the greenhouse and planted more seeds in flowerpots, repairing the holes in the glass with sheets of polythene. With the bricks she had unearthed she started to build a path around the perimeter of the garden. The slowly growing clear patch, the sprouting seeds in the greenhouse, the peace of the garden and spring unfolding around her were all marvellous.

  And the miserable hotchpotch of confused ideas and pressures was quietly buried in the depths of her mind, just as a wilderness of plants dies down and goes underground for the winter.

  On July 7th the sun was already hot by seven-thirty, shining through veils of mist rising like steam from the drying earth. Carolyn let herself out of the french windows and made her way along the trodden track to her garden, now a dug rectangle of some eight by twelve yards, backing on to the wall of Keswick’s warehouse. The low sun made the street wall cast a long black shadow over half the garden, but it stopped just to the right of her patch. The morning air was vibrant with memories of similar mornings. She stood still, savouring the accumulation of days of her life behind her like beads on a string, something tangible. The wet garden was alive with smells: damp earth, the dry smell of bricks, faint smoke from yesterday’s bonfire. Drops of dew shone in the weeds and grass, and sparkled like diamonds in the centres of the dark green upturned palms of her nasturtium leaves. The nasturtiums were flowering, brilliant and ragged across the soil, orange as flames. All their trumpets tilted up from the ground, as if together they were sounding a blast to the sky. She squatted at the edge of the dug soil, experiencing pleasure in her own body’s supple movement and the warmth of the sun on her skin, and looked along the rows of plants. Pale lettuce seedlings, dark pansies, sweet peas, hopeless carrots, runner beans showing two blood-bright flowers today. Across the earth between rows shone dry silver trails, sticky to sight, where the slugs had been. Behind the beans, onions, no lupins (it must be two months now – they must be dead) and love-in-a-mists on impossibly frail stems curved and gyrated toward the ground, bearing slender eyelid-blue buds. She had not planted very sensibly, she thought. The tall beans should have gone at the back. Trowel in hand Carolyn stooped over the dense lettuce seedlings and carefully removed a clump of them. The leaves were cool and wet. She picked off two pale sticky little slugs and flicked them away into the weeds, then crouched over a clear patch of soil and started to pull apart their tangled cotton-thread roots. Working quickly, she planted out the lettuces at ten-inch intervals, abandoning the trowel in favour of her fingers for hole boring and soil patting.

  Her mousy hair had been bleached by the sun to a more nearly-blonde than it had been since her childhood, and her skin was very brown. Squatting in the soil, knees bent double either side of her head, intent on her hands working between her legs, Carolyn could have been taken for only half her age. She was painfully thin.

  The road behind the tall wall was still quiet, but the birds were making up for it, their incessant repeated sounds rising to sudden random crescendos as they all chirped fiercely together. She kept noticing the birds, here; always befor
e she had thought of them as “singing”. They didn’t sing, they squawked and chattered like a jungle. June had been a lush warm month, drawing her seeds from the ground with charmed fingers, stretching the runner beans a full four feet from their first green sprouts, and winding them neatly up their bamboo canes. Do beans always curl around sticks in the same direction? she wondered. Or are there rebels? And can you fool them, by planting them back to front?

  The soil was dark and friable between her fingers. She had commented on its goodness to Clare, who guessed at how many years it had lain fallow; five – six? Long enough to gather fertility from the winters of dead leaves, the rotting vegetation and the passage of cats, birds and dogs, shrews and voles, caterpillars and slugs.

  Suddenly she heard Sue calling her name.

  “Yes!” she shouted. “Here. At the bottom.” She straightened, looking towards the house.

  From among the grass and high weeds appeared her father. She was so surprised she couldn’t think of anything to say and just stood for a moment staring at him.

  “Hello Carolyn.”

  She put down her trowel and went towards him. He kissed her awkwardly on the head, and patted her shoulder.

  “Is Mum – ?” She could think of no other reason for his appearance.

  “Don’t worry.” He nodded gravely. “No one’s dead.”

  “Oh. D’you – d’you want to come in and have a cup of tea?”

  He glanced back at the house and she wondered who was in the kitchen. Sue and Sylvia – too early for Bryony. How strange the place must look, to him.

  “No,” he said, “let’s stay out here. I’d like to have a little talk with you.”

  Automatically she turned back towards her garden, and he followed her.

  “This is very good,” he said, as they stopped at the edge of the bare earth. “Is this your handiwork?”

  “I – yes. It was an awful job to clear the ground.”

  He walked along the edge of the plot, naming her plants to himself. “Well done,” he said. “Those beans are further on than mine. You’ve an ideal spot here, haven’t you? Sunny and sheltered – ideal.” He crouched, and picking up a handful of soil, rubbed it through his fingers.