Among Others

by Jo Walton

  TUESDAY 4TH DECEMBER 1979

  Of course no letter from Daniel with the signed form. It’s unfair to even expect it, because the post would hardly have had time to get the form there and back. But it’s my karass, and it’s happening without me tonight, and they’re going to be talking about The Dispossessed, so I can’t help feeling cross. I suppose it’s been happening every Tuesday all the time I’ve been here, but I didn’t know, and now I do. That is unless the magic made it happen, instead of just making him ask me. The more I think about magic, what it does and how it influences things, the less I think I ought to mess with it.

  School is being particularly tedious. I’m used to the girls calling me names, but some of them have started singing a little song about “Jake the Peg” when I pass by, or just humming it if there are teachers near. They want to infuriate me, so I just ignore them, which is much easier to do outwardly than inwardly. They do the same to Deirdre with “Danny Boy” and sometimes reduce her to tears. The awful thing about Deirdre is that she’s such a cliche. She’s Irish, and she’s not the brightest bulb in the box. Karen gave her a bite of a muesli bar and she said it tasted like uncooked Christmas tree. She meant to say cake, of course, because that is what they taste like, but now everyone makes jokes about them cooking Christmas trees in Ireland. I had to laugh when I heard it, just because it’s so surreal. I mean she laughed herself. That wasn’t unkind. It’s going on and on about it that’s unkind, and of course that’s what they’re doing, because they see it hurts her. I have to make sure they don’t see that I care about the stupid “Jake the Peg with his extra leg” nonsense.

  I still can’t forgive Lewis for his allegory. I understand now why Tolkien said in the prologue that he hated them. You can’t take something that’s itself and make it stand for something else. Or you can, but you shouldn’t push it. If I try to think of it as a retelling of the gospels, that diminishes Narnia. I think I’m going to have trouble re-reading them without thinking about it. That’s so annoying! However, Carpenter says Lewis wrote some books directly about Christianity—overtly about it, I mean. Maybe I should try them. I have to say I feel horribly mixed up about religion. And RE is no help. We’re droning through the Journeys of Paul, and I’m reading my way slowly through the Bible. There are some good stories in it, in between all the tedium. But most of it is history, not so much theology, and I’d be very interested to know if Lewis says anything about fairies—because he has the maenads in Prince Caspian and they always remind me of fairies a bit. There’s nothing here but the Interplanetary books, but I’ll see if they have Mere Christianity in the town library, and if not, well, that’s what interlibrary loan is for.

  Just as I was writing that, Miss Carroll came over.

  “Has your father signed the form for the book club?” she asked.

  “Not yet,” I said. “I’m sure he will, but there hasn’t been time yet.”

  “If you like, I could take you tonight. If I’m there the whole time, in loco parentis, that would be all right. It would be like taking girls to the theatre. I’ve checked with Miss Ellis, and she says it would be fine.” She smiled at me.

  “But do you want to go?” I asked. I can’t help being such an ungracious lump when people are nice to me. It isn’t what I mean, it just comes out before I think.

  “It should be interesting,” she said.

  “Do you even read SF?”

  “I try to read a sample of what’s in my library, so I can recommend things to people. I’ve certainly read some SF. It isn’t my favourite, like it is yours, but I have read some. I’ve even read some Ursula Le Guin; I’ve read A Wizard of Earthsea.”

  “Did you like it?” I asked.

  “I thought it was excellent.” Miss Carroll sat down opposite me across the wooden table and looked at me quizzically. “What is this? I didn’t expect to be interrogated on my suitability for the book club, I thought you’d be pleased.”

  “I am pleased,” I said. “Thank you. I really want to go. I’m just not used—I mean I can’t quite believe you’re giving up your evening for me.” She’s quite young really. She must have boyfriends, or at least somewhere she lives and cooks herself dinner and reads her book without being disturbed. To be honest, I find it quite hard to imagine her life away from the school. But whatever it is, she could be doing it tonight, and instead she’s going to the SF book club because I want to. Why would she do that? I didn’t know magic worked this well. It’s frightening.

  “It’ll be an interesting experience,” she said. “It’ll be nice to see how they do these things at the town library. And I always like hearing about books. Maybe we could start a book club here. Some of the older girls might be interested. Besides,” she leaned forward and lowered her voice, even though we were the only people in the library, as usual. “One of the things they tell you in library school is that you have to consider the needs of the clients and keep them happy. Now you’re definitely my best client, and one of the few people who is really using this library, so keeping you happy is important.”

  I laughed. “Thank you,” I said. “Thank you very much.”

  So I am going to the book club tonight! Miss Carroll is going to pick me up after supper.

  WEDNESDAY 5TH DECEMBER 1979

  Of course they didn’t instantly decide they were my karass and welcome me to their bosoms. That would be too much to expect. But it was brill anyway.

  I was so afraid we were going to be late that we were actually early. The library was just closing when we got there. The librarian looked quite surprised to see me coming in with Miss Carroll. “Ah, Miss Markova,” he said, which is literally the first time anyone has ever called me that. I’ve been called Miss Phelps before occasionally, but never Miss Markova. It felt weird. “You made it after all.”

  “This is Miss Carroll, she’s the librarian at the school. And this is, um . . .” I floundered.

  “Greg Mansell, but do call me Greg.”

  “Then I’m Alison,” Miss Carroll said, to my total surprise, and they shook hands. I’d stupidly never thought of her as having a first name, maybe because Carol is a first name.

  I knew that I should have said my name, that they were both looking at me waiting for me to say it, but my tongue clotted in my mouth and I couldn’t get it out. It wasn’t that I’d forgotten my name, so much as I wasn’t sure what form of it to use. “Mori,” I said, after way too long. “My friends call me Mori.”

  Then two other people arrived, both middle-aged guys but one tall, Brian, and one short and stout, Keith. Greg took out his key and let us into a room at the back of the library.

  The library must have been built about a hundred years ago. It’s Victorian, with stone windows in brick walls. The room where they have the meetings was once a reading room, but now the reading room is the reference library upstairs and this is kept locked. It has wood panels to about elbow height, and above that it’s painted cream between the windows—there are lots of windows on one side, but I couldn’t see what was outside because it was dark. On the other long wall there’s a huge dark Victorian painting of people sitting in a library reading, looking down at their backs as they sit at little tables among rows of bookshelves. This room isn’t like that at all—there’s one big old table in the middle with old wooden chairs around it. There are two busts, one at each end of the rectangular room. One is Descartes, who I don’t know but who has a wonderful face, and the other is Plato, yes!

  I sat on the side of the table facing the picture, with my back to the windows, and Miss Carroll sat down next to me. The men, who all knew each other of course, were standing up talking. Some more men came in, some of them younger, but none of them much under thirty. Then two boys came in, wearing the purple school blazers of the local comprehensive school. I’d guess they were sixteen or seventeen. I was starting to think there weren’t going to be any women when a stout grey-haired woman bustled in and sat at the head of the table. She had a big pile of Le Guin books in ha
rdcover editions and she put them down next to her in a businesslike way. Seeing this, the others started to take seats. I was wishing I’d brought copies, but of course I didn’t have any except my dear old Wind’s Twelve Quarters, Volume 2. My mother still has all my books, but books are replaceable.

  Miss Carroll was looking at the pile of books a bit nervously. “Have you read all those,” she asked me quietly.

  I looked at them properly, and I had, all except one called The Eye of the Heron. “All but one,” I said. “And I’ve read one that isn’t there, The Word For World is Forest.”

  “You really do read a lot of sci fi,” she said.

  Just then the grey-haired woman took a deep breath as if she were about to begin, and as she did the door opened and a boy—a young man—practically fell in to the room. He’s the most gorgeous thing I ever saw, with longish blond hair flopping about his head, extremely blue eyes, a passionately intense gaze, though I didn’t see that at once, and a kind of casual grace of movement even when tripping over his own feet. “I’m sorry I’m late, Harriet,” he said, favouring the woman with a dazzling smile. “The bike had a puncture.”

  It seemed a cruel trick of the gods that such a glorious creature should have to go about on a bicycle. He sat down directly opposite me, so close that I could see the raindrops beading on his hair. He must be eighteen or nineteen. I wonder why he isn’t in university? He has somewhat the look of a lion, or of a young Alexander the Great.

  “I was just going to start, but you’re not late,” Harriet said, smiling at him. (Harriet! I’ve never met anyone called Harriet in real life. I had a brief fantasy about her being Harriet Vane, because she’d be about the right age for that, except that Harriet Vane would be addressed as Lady Peter, and anyway she’s fictional. I can tell the difference, really I can.)

  The door banged open again and a teenage girl came in. She was wearing a purple blazer, which looked appalling with her ginger hair. She sat with the two boys in blazers, who, I saw now, had kept a seat for her between them. I felt . . . not exactly jealous, but I felt a sort of pang when I saw that.

  Then Harriet started to talk about Le Guin. She talked for about fifteen or twenty minutes. After that the talk became general. I talked far more than I should have. I knew it even at the time. I just couldn’t stop myself. I didn’t actually interrupt anyone, which would be unforgivable, I just didn’t hold back enough to give other people a turn. Miss Carroll didn’t say anything the whole time. The gorgeous boy said some very perceptive things about The Lathe of Heaven. One of the men, Keith I think, said it was like Philip K. Dick, which is nonsense, and the gorgeous boy said that while there were certain superficial similarities you can’t compare Le Guin to Dick because her characters are like people in ways his just aren’t, which is exactly what I’d have said. There’s also apparently a film of it, which nobody has seen.

  He also said that maybe she writes about the scientific process so well in The Dispossessed, despite not being a scientist, because she understands that creativity isn’t all that different across fields. He and Brian agreed that she did get the scientific process right, and everyone deferred to them about that, so they must be something scientific. I didn’t like to ask what. I’d already been talking too much, as I said. I kept thinking of things to say and ask, and thinking I’d said too much and should let other people speak, and then thinking of more things I just had to say, and saying them. I hope I didn’t totally bore everyone.

  The gorgeous boy—I must find out his name next time!—kept his eyes fixed on me when I was talking. It was quite disconcerting.

  The most interesting thing anyone said though was said by one of the boys in purple blazers. I had said that Le Guin’s worlds were real because her people were so real, and he said yes, but the people were so real because they were the people the worlds would have produced. If you put Ged to grow up on Anarres or Shevek in Earthsea, they wouldn’t be the same people, the backgrounds made the people, which of course you see all the time in mainstream fiction, but it’s rare in SF. That’s absolutely true, and it’s very interesting, and I couldn’t help jumping in again to say that it fit back with The Lathe of Heaven and what happens to people in the different worlds, and whether a grey person in a world of grey people was inherently a different person from a brown one in a mixed race world.

  I don’t know when I had such a good time, and if it wasn’t for worrying that I talked too much I’d say it was a total success. There’s a thing—I’ve noticed it often. When I first say something, it’s as if people don’t hear me, they can’t believe I’m saying it. Then they start to actually pay attention, they stop noticing that a teenage girl is talking and start to believe that it’s worth listening to what I’m saying. With these people, it was much less effort than normal. Pretty much from the second time I opened my mouth their expressions weren’t indulgent but attentive. I liked that.

  Afterwards, Keith asked who was coming to the pub. The gorgeous boy went, and Harriet, and Greg, but not the teenagers in school blazers, and not me, because I had to go back to school. Everyone said goodbye to me, but I got all awkward and tongue-tied again saying goodbye and hoping to see them next week.

  Miss Carroll had a word with Greg, and then we got back into her car and she drove back to school. “You don’t get a lot of chance to talk to people about things that matter to you, do you?” she asked.

  I stared out at the night and the dark. In between the traffic lights at the bottom of town and the school, there’s nothing to make light but the occasional farmhouse, which means car headlights seem an intrusion of brightness. I saw mice and rabbits and the occasional fairy scurrying off as the beams lit them. “No,” I said. “I don’t get a lot of chance to talk to people at all.”

  “Arlinghurst is a very good school in its way,” she said.

  “Not for people like me,” I said.

  “The last bus that runs past the school leaves at eight-fifteen,” she said. “They finished closer to nine tonight. I asked Greg as one librarian to another if he’d be able to give you a lift back regularly, and he said he would. As long as you’re in bed by lights out, that should be all right.”

  “It’s very nice of him. He’s very kind to ask me at all. You don’t think I talked too much?”

  Miss Carroll laughed, as the car swung between the elms into the school drive. “Maybe a little too much. But they certainly seemed interested in what you had to say. I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  I do worry about it though.

  THURSDAY 6TH DECEMBER 1979

  The days are getting awfully short. It seems to be dark all the time. It’s dark until well after nine, which keeps me inside in the morning. I had been in the habit of going outside for a moment before breakfast, just to breathe. I didn’t go anywhere, just stepped outside by the cloakrooms and breathed for a moment before coming back into the din of breakfast. Breakfast is bread and margarine, as much as you want, and overcooked watery English scrambled eggs, with tinned tomatoes, which I don’t eat. On Sundays, and just occasionally on other days, we also have sausages, which seem like ambrosia. The staff don’t attend breakfast, so everyone always talks at the top of their voice, and of course that means everyone has to if they want to be heard. It sounds like a bear-pit, but more high-pitched. Sometimes I stand outside the cloakroom and I can hear it down the corridor, like those Eighteenth-century madhouses where people would go for entertainment to hear the lunatics howl. Bedlam.

  It’s also dark, or almost, by the time we’ve finished lessons. The lights are on, and the sun is well down. There’s still a little light in the sky, but there’s no doubt it’s night rather than day. I like to walk away from the school building and turn around and look at the lights, which seem orange in the twilight. It reminds me somehow of coming home from school with Gramma and Mor on some special day near Christmas, one of us holding each of her hands. Maybe her school had finished a day before ours and she’d come to meet us. We were still in the
Infants, I expect we were about six. I just remember holding her hand and looking back at the lights with the sky not quite dark.

  It makes me melancholy to remember, but a little bit of the security and excitement comes through from the way I was feeling in the memory. Memories are like a big pile of carpets, I keep them piled up in one big pile in my head and don’t pay much attention to them separately, but if I want to, I can get back in and walk on them and remember. I’m not really there, not like an elf might be, of course. It’s just that if I remember being sad or angry or chagrined, a little of that feeling comes back. And the same goes for happy, of course, though I can easily wear out the happy memories by thinking about them too much. If I do, when I’m old all the bad memories will still be sharp, because of pushing them away, but all the good ones will be worn out. I won’t really remember that day with Gramma, which I already don’t remember properly, I’ll just remember all these short winter days in school, walking out alone and looking back at the lit windows.

  I’m sick of the dark. I know the turning year is part of life. I like seasons and seasonal fruit. The apples must be nearly done, and I expect there are bright orange tangerines in their fascinating purple wrappings with Spanish writing in Mrs. Lewis’s shop even now. (If I could smell a tangerine! Maybe on Saturday.) But I’m getting to hate the darkness at this time of year. I’m not allowed outside at lunchtime, which is the one time it is reliably light, even if it’s always grey and usually raining.

  The days will get longer again. Spring will come. But it seems a long time to wait.

  FRIDAY 7TH DECEMBER 1979

  Letter back from my father with the book club permission, and about time too! So I can go next week.

  I was thinking about the book club, and wondering who among them is in my karass, really. The gorgeous boy? (Must find out his name!) He looked at me seriously with his beautiful eyes. And even if he’s wrong about some fairly fundamental things, he is prepared to listen. I feel a little shiver when I think about him looking at me. How about those three with the purple blazers, who are my own age? (Must find out their names too, but with a less burning urgency.) I’d certainly like to get to know them better, and they are interested in books. I’ll try to talk to them next time. Harriet? I didn’t connect with her much, but she’s very intelligent. Brian? Keith? I don’t know. The others, who I didn’t really meet properly? Too early to tell. Greg? Maybe. Miss Carroll? (Alison . . .)