Towards Another Summer

by Janet Frame

  Now sing it in Maori. Come on, open your mouths.

  ‘E pare ra . . .’

  We were poor, there were wage-cuts, talk of the dole; the food bill went up and up, and my mother put on her best costume to go down to pacify the rent-man, and suddenly my clothes were too small and there was no more room for them to be let out and the Petone aunt sent a dark brown dress smelling of sweat, an old lady’s dress with gathered sleeves and the front rucked and tucked where old ladies put their titties. The geraniums were dead. And Fluffy the cat was sick. Jimmy was sick too, in the middle of the night, and my mother ran through the house in her nightie, crying,

  —A convulsion, a convulsion! saying the middle syllable like a rush of warning, and we got out of bed, in the middle of the night, as if it were day-time; yawning, blinking, rubbing our eyes; huddled together with nowhere to go, no room was safe; the convulsion went rushing past our ears, like a wind; and no one knew why, no one could explain.

  —Ready, one, two. Open your mouths, sing up!

  ‘Like to the tide moaning in grief by the shore,

  mourn I for friends captured and warriors slain.

  Here let me weep . . .’

  The sun, shining so brightly in the classroom, was withdrawn. The brown desks and floors and walls with no light to mellow them, turned a dark dreary colour like furniture in passages where people walk in and out and along, but never stay. A wind coming from under the door clamped cold on my feet in their laceless gymshoes with the holey toes.

  Is Grandad dead? Yes, Grandad is dead and he has left behind his spectacles in their velvet purple case, and his pipe, and his razor with the polished black handle.

  Fluffy the cat died. I ran round the corner, I could not bear the terrible doom, the chill in the classroom, the song, the lonely beach with the sea sighing in every breath unable to stop or help; and no people, the warriors drowned or slain.

  I ran home. Isy sprang out at me with a cry of triumph,

  —Fluffy’s dead! Look, a Red Admirable Butterfly!

  —Dead?

  —Poisoned. A Red Admirable. Catch it!

  —It’s Admiral.

  —That’s the Navy, silly. She’s dead. We put her in a sugar-bag and buried her down the garden near the hedge.

  But this is Winchley, this is not Oamaru. I am a migratory bird.

  23

  Grace went down to the kitchen for her coffee. Philip had returned from church and was leaning against the mantelpiece, smoking, drinking coffee, his light-hearted mood apparent in the occasional way he made a grab at Sarah or Noel, flung them on his shoulders or swung them from hand to hand like water-buckets aimed to extinguish the generally still-smouldering mood of Sunday. The kitchen had grown warmer with the meal now cooking, and Anne’s face was flushed and streaked with red. She sat down, sighing with weariness, at the end of the table to finish her coffee. Sarah, in a sudden rediscovery of the delights of looking from a window, and with the demand that the pleasure be hers alone, was pushing and pinching the tearfully persistent Noel who wanted to share the view although he was not high enough to see.

  —Let me see, let me see! was the interpretation of his dribbly moans and wails.

  —Sarah, now Sarah! Anne’s voice was calm, gentle.

  —He wants to look out, Sarah said, with equal placidity, pushing deftly at Noel.

  —Let me see, let me!

  —Have you read your library book, Sarah?

  —I can’t find the picnic in it.

  —The picnic one’s back in the library. This is your new one. Have you read it?

  —It’s gabbidy, gabbidy, gabbidy, Sarah said vehemently. —Very gabbidy.

  She left the window and went to Philip who pulled her on his knee and sat on one chair with his feet on the other.

  —I’ve been telling Grace about my friend who burps, Anne said.

  —Fine. Did you tell her about Wallace?

  —Yes, I told her about Wallace and her bedsitter and the cooking.

  —Do you always call her by her surname? Grace asked.

  —Yes. It’s a habit from college days. The roll-call.

  Philip turned to Grace. His eyes were like stones with yellow and brown water flowing upon them and flecks of darkness within them.

  —In May, he said,—we go to a croft in the far North-West of Scotland where they talk of the rebellion of the forty-five as if it were recent history - (Oh, not again Philip, Anne was murmuring, smiling.)

  —There’s Old Dugald -

  Philip lifted Sarah from his knee, put down his cup of coffee, stubbed his cigarette in a tray, and stood, facing his audience, to become Old Dugald.

  —You should hear him, he said. Changing to a far North-West accent, wagging his arm up and down with his fingers extended, he quavered,

  —The Enterrrrprrrise was hopeless from the starrrrt! Aye, Aye!

  Everyone laughed appreciatively. Grace remembered that when he interviewed her he had made the same imitation with the same words

  —The Enterrrrprrise was hopeless from the starrrt!

  Old Dugald had so struck Philip’s imagination that, Grace supposed, when he was an old man, baby-bald, his fair skin threaded with veins like ends of scarlet wool, his memories deepened, narrowed, refined, the thought of Old Dugald and the ‘hopeless enterrprrise’ would remain as a treasure to Philip, a bore to his family or his fellow-inmates at the Old People’s Home . . . Grace was frightened, then, at the block vision of time, salt-block, the compression of infancy, manhood, old-age - it was Philip who looked out of Noel’s pale peevish snotty little face; she saw Philip glance suddenly at Noel, see himself there, look startled, then pleased, then proud. Grace remembered his words in the taxi,

  —I’m getting to be a proud parent. The kids are just at the age when they’re developing personalities of their own.

  She saw his glance of satisfaction at being judged worthy enough to be copied, stamped, re-issued for public scrutiny; also his trembling shock of pride and love as if, staring at Noel, and seeing himself there, he had torn away the necessary insulation of the current of life and touched something deadly. Arrested in his Dugald imitation (the Enterrrrprise was hopeless from the starrrt!) he looked at Anne; Grace saw him experiencing a different kind of shock - slight, almost pleasurable; one which caused no injury but which, like the electrified fences used to control wandering animals, persuaded him to stay within the boundaries of living.

  He didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to die.

  Watching him closely, Grace felt his plea, a commonplace human breakfast-plea which changed to a proclamation of Name Rank Number; a sifting and ticketing of his identity; he spoke clearly; there was to be no mistake; he was not this person or that person; name, rank, number; it was clear, wasn’t it?

  Now the enemy moved in, but there was no capture nor wound, not this time.

  —The Enterrprrrise was hopeless frrrom the starrt!

  Grace was astonished to realise that the war which began with Philip’s chance contemplation of Noel’s face had lasted one second or less.

  I must be careful, she thought. My mind is spread with a quick-growing substance, a kind of compost favourable to discarded moments which blossom so tall and suddenly like fairy trees, and before I can blink my eyes once or twice there’s a forest - birds, animals, people, houses, all sprouted from the carelessly dropped moment; it is quick and slow motion. When people say to me,

  —What are you thinking?

  I see out of the corner of my eye a flash of light; an arrested flash, a cloud, and stepping from the cloud like kings and queens from a carriage, the honoured thoughts, attired for the occasion.

  —The North-West Highlands are so like the West Coast of New Zealand!

  Again, again, talking of New Zealand!

  —Oh Philip, you know how you felt when you were there!

  —All the same, I-

  Suddenly remembering that he was wearing his best, perhaps his only good suit, Philip began brush
ing the remains of children and ashes from his clothes,

  —I must change.

  When he had gone Grace said, breathlessly,

  —Oh you are both so wonderful with children! So many parents - you know - so many parents have no idea how to manage their children.

  (Speaking as if she had much experience with many parents and many children; speaking wisely, in a tone of—I have studied it, you know.)

  Grace was conscious of the relief of moving from the consideration of people to the plane (or ‘plain’, treeless, windswept, without shelter) of impersonal hints and suggestions for parents; not as an inhabitant, oh no; merely ‘passing through’. She was up there, waving maxims about like large clean-bladed windmills when Philip returned dressed again in his checked shirt and the corduroy pants with the split pocket.

  —Oh, he said.—What is this, a woman to woman chat?

  Grace looked embarrassed.

  —I was saying, she told him nervously,—that you know how to deal with children - I mean - so many parents - you know what some parents are like - don’t know how to approach their own children - I mean-

  —Treat ’em as furriners, Philip said.—Exactly as furriners.

  —Oh no, not exactly, Anne argued.

  Grace marvelled at the way Anne dared, without fear, to contradict her husband.

  (No contradictions! Don’t you contradict me!)

  When Anne said,—Oh not exactly, Grace shivered with dread, as if she herself were Anne, and yet Anne was not herself but was Grace’s mother, oh there was no discipline of identities, why did people forever exceed their proper boundaries? What terrible theft has there been in my life, Grace thought, which has removed the power of setting up boundaries, of knowing how to distinguish between person and person; people are like the sea; I can’t be the Dutch boy all my life, surely!

  Grace looked fearfully at Anne and Philip, waiting for the blow, the shouted,—Don’t you contradict me, I know what I’m talking about!

  She wanted to run, to hide - in the bedroom, under the bed, inside the wardrobe.

  —Let me tell you I know what I’m talking about! Make no mistake about that.

  —Yes, yes, of course, you’re right. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God.’

  Yet listening to her mother and father Grace could not feel that by agreeing with everything their father said, her mother was acting as a child of God with a stake in the Resurrection and first call for being noticed at the Second Coming and given eternal life. Grace felt ashamed of her mother, she wanted to go to her and push her, not with words but with her hands, push and hit her; she hated her for being so spineless, and she hated herself for being so much in sympathy; she wanted at last to abolish all confusion of feeling by striking, perhaps killing her.

  —Maybe you’re right, love. A bit of both treatments, I should say, would be the answer for kids.

  Maybe you’re right! In Grace’s home you never admitted that anyone but yourself was right!

  —Yes; on the one hand -

  They were a text-book couple. Now let’s sit down and discuss this like sane human beings.

  Grace was suddenly afraid of their seriousness, of the way they believed. If she had said,

  —I’m a migratory bird. You think I’m Grace Cleave visiting you for the weekend, but in fact I’m a migratory bird; distance looks my way,

  Philip and Anne would have replied,

  —You haven’t the outward appearance of a bird. What is the basis for your belief? What proof have you?

  It would be useless for her to raise her voice and cry,

  —I’m a migratory bird, I tell you. I am, I am! Don’t contradict me!

  They would never answer,—Of course we agree with you, yes yes of course.

  That is, not unless they thought her insane.

  —I mean, Grace put in,—so many children are treated as if they were babies. All the time. I mean-

  Oh who did she think she was, to go talking in this way? Unable to help herself she gave a sudden cry at the thought of having been so bold and foolish, and the cry carried itself by some unexpected trick of air in her throat or perhaps of the feeling in her heart, to her next sentence, making it sound more a lament than a statement,

  —I’m speaking as one who’s strictly outside the circle!

  Philip and Anne looked at her, acknowledging that she was outside the circle, then they looked at each other, within it, then looked again at Grace who turned to stone thinking There’s no fullness, they are scientifically dividing their time, nothing is overflowing.

  —Yes, she said, adding to her own horror,—I’ve studied it . . . well we all have . . . haven’t we?

  Including them in her knowledge.

  She tried not to think of the evening she had arrived to stay; how Sarah had wanted to climb on her knee, and how, when Philip and Anne apologised for the behaviour of their children Grace had said,

  —I used to look after babies, you know . . . for years I looked after young children. And of course there was teaching . . .

  Teaching? A swollen sickening memory which some day must be lanced, cleaned, reduced to its normal size; an old memory now, it was so many years ago, but it was carried everywhere, free, resembling, though more malignant than, those curious, embarrassing outcrops of flesh which you see on old people usually, inexplicably, on old people getting on or off buses.

  Teaching had been a mistake, Grace knew, remembering the Selection Committee from the College and their questions during the Interview,

  —What made you decide to take up teaching?

  And her false false reply,

  —Oh I’ve always wanted to be a teacher!

  (Disregarding the secret diary which recorded - I have told no one, I’m never going to tell anyone, but when I grow up I’m going to be a poet.)

  It seemed that she was not grown up yet, nor was she a poet, and if she ever became a poet it was likely that she would never have the name poet - it would be ‘poetess’, the word which is sprayed like a weedkiller about the person and work of a woman who writes poetry - many have thus been ‘put to sleep’; we are assured it is painless, there is no cause to worry then - is there? An absence of pain whether or not it is accompanied by an approved death is a goal to be achieved . . .

  —We know where we are, Philip said.

  It was a remark of comfort and of warning.

  —Yes, time for dinner, if Grace is to catch her train-

  —First, Philip said.—Listen. Sit down and listen.

  Grace sat where the table had been mysteriously laid for dinner, and while Anne prepared to serve the meal Philip went to the sitting room, and suddenly organ music sounded through the loud-speaker above the kitchen door.

  Obediently Grace listened. How could she explain that she preferred to be alone if music were being played? As each note surged within her ear gathering force and resonance like music blown into the secret spiral of a shell, Grace could feel the skin and flesh being gradually removed from her body until only the skeleton

  (What is a skeleton? The bony framework of the body, the bony framework of the body) remained; then a new force from beyond the music, admitting itself in its perpetual disguise, set to work upon the human bones (the image of bones so familiar and frequent in the human mind - the horrified sympathetic contemplation - I shall be thus, buried, jutting out like a cliff of calcium, gleaming in my phosphorous; a pound of bones please for the dog, marrow-bones; my marrow a mixture of sunflower-coloured lard and mutton-fat . . .) Grace felt her bones changing in material, direction, shape, moulded by the music to one of those metal twists of sculpture set to revolve dancing gleaming in the wind, except that the gallery has forgotten to provide the life-wind; the sculpture is suspended immobile but for the occasional influence of heavy human breathing.

  Grace drew her arms close to her body, hunching them, like thin green metal frog’s feet with her hands drooping webbed, in front - bird, frog, woman
. Leaning her head on the table she began to cry.

  —I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This happens when I hear music.

  She controlled her tears; she was trembling.

  —How thoughtless of us! Anne exclaimed.—If only you’d told us!

  Philip came to the door.

  —Like it?

  He saw her confusion.

  —Turn it off, Philip. It upsets Grace.

  —Oh I like it, I like it! Grace assured them.—But I need to be alone to listen to music. I need to be alone!

  Suddenly with a wail, bursting into sobs, Sarah ran to her mother,

  —Mummy, Grace-Cleave’s crying, Grace-Cleave’s crying!

  Sarah clung sobbing to Anne who took her in her arms, rocking her,

  —Sh-shh, it’s all right love, Grace is crying because she likes the music.

  Philip had gone to the sitting room to switch off the music.

  —It’s Bach isn’t it? Anne said.

  —Yes . . . I’m not sure . . . I think so, Grace said.

  —Philip will be pleased, Anne said.—We’ve never had a visitor who’s wept.

  Recovered, the centre of attention, proud now, ashamed, successful, Grace murmured,

  —I’m sorry to make such an exhibition. I do like Bach though.

  —I’m afraid I don’t seem to be able to appreciate the music Philip plays; it just goes on and on.

  —Oh I do like Bach, Grace said quickly, enthusiastically. —He’s, his music’s, he’s . . .

  (She remembered how as a schoolgirl, before she ever heard the music of Bach, she had walked for days listening, listening, in the dream of ‘the well-tempered Clavier, the well-tempered Clavier’, comforted by the ambiguity of ‘well-tempered’.)

  Philip came in.

  —So you liked our Handel Concerto?

  He was smiling at her.

  —Handel? I thought it was Bach, Anne said.

  Grace made a small sound of agreement, conscious that her prestige was lowered. Perhaps in the best of circles one did not weep at Handel, good old plodding Handel less known for this moving organ concerto than remembered from the Town Hall Days when the combined Male Voice Choir and Women’s Institute Choir dressed in their evening clothes to sing the Messiah; when the soprano (who later went overseas and was arrested for shoplifting - was it a quarter of a pound of tea or a pair of nylons?) swelled her voice to the plaster-peeling Town Hall roof assuring the citizens of Oamaru that her Redeemer Lived.