by Jo Walton
The problem with Rosebud and her really talking was that our other dolls could pretend talk, and that was better. Our collection of dolls (who mostly had some disadvantage like one arm or leg, or were animals rather than being humanoid) had epic adventures surviving after nuclear wars or rescuing dragons from evil princesses. Battered old Pippa, with her one arm and her ragged hair (Mor cut it when she was disguising herself as a soldier) could stand there vowing defiance and revenge against the evil Dog Overlord (the toy dog had a moustache which could be twirled, so he often got the bad-guy parts) and Rosebud couldn’t compete when all she could say was “Let’s play schoo-ul.”
I don’t want a karass like Rosebud.
I mean I don’t want a karass like Pippa and Dog and Jr. and the others either, so this isn’t a very good analogy. (I do not miss my toys. I wouldn’t play with them anyway. I am fifteen. I miss my childhood.) Jr. was a plastic boy on a motorbike, one of our few human male toys. His name came from Ward Moore’s “Lot.” I thought it daring and American to have an odd name like that with no vowels. We pronounced it Jirr. I was mortified for whole minutes when I found out what it really meant.
When Hugh mentioned that Wim had done a session on Delany, my first thought, my very first thought, though I know I didn’t write this down yesterday but that’s because I was ashamed, was that I could do a magic to make that not have happened yet. I could do a magic that would mean he’d do it so I could be there for it. I didn’t do the magic, or even really mean to, but I thought it. If I did it, I’d be making them into Rosebud. I’d also be risking what happened to George Orr, because so far, I might have made it all happen but I might not. I didn’t see it without. It could have been there all the time. If I didn’t exist, or if I had died with Mor, they could still have had a session on Delany. Maybe all the magic did was make me see the group was there and find them. I can’t tell. I won’t ever be able to tell. Deniable magic. If I did that, I really would be treating them as Rosebud, to say the same things when I pulled a string. And that’s if I even could do that. I think actually I couldn’t, it would do that thing Glory talked about where too many people create too much weight and you can’t change what’s happened.
But even thinking about it.
I don’t want to be evil, I really don’t. The worst of anything she could do to me would be to make me like her. That’s why I ran away. That’s why the Children’s Home was better, why this is better.
I hereby solemnly swear to renounce the doing of magic for my own benefit, or for anything but protection against harm.
Morganna Rachel Phelps Markova, 16th December 1979.
MONDAY 17TH DECEMBER 1979
I hadn’t realised that with the exams over this week would be given over relentlessly to fun.
In English, I played Scrabble with Deirdre. I beat her by 600 points, but it wasn’t any fun. It would be a good game with someone who could spell and had some vocabulary. I made “torc,” Celtic necklace. She suggested shyly that it should be spelled “talk.” Then we played Snakes and Ladders, which she won.
Apart from that, I’ve been reading pretty much all day, generally in the middle of complete pandemonium.
I’m onto The Grey King.
There’s a thing in The Dark Is Rising, the Christmas one, which is definitely the best of them, where Will does magic in a church, and the vicar asks about the magic crosses and they say they’re before Christ, and he says “But not before God.” The magic generally is pretty well written but conventional, the battle of Dark and Light, and you learn it from grimoires and then you can fly and time travel and whatever you want. Nothing like magic really is, much less confusing. In children’s books with magic everything is always very black and white, though not of course in Tolkien. But “not before God” made me think.
TUESDAY 18TH DECEMBER 1979
Exam results, Winter Term 1979
Chemistry: 96%—2nd
English Literature: 94%—1st
English Language: 92%—1st
History: 91%—1st
Physics: 89%—1st
Religious Education: 89%—1st
Latin: 82%—1st
French: 79%—2nd
Mathematics: 54%—19th
Gym: excused
Games: excused
Dancing: excused
Average: 85%—3rd
I just don’t have a mathematical brain, I never have. But at least I scraped a pass. I was afraid they were going to give me a zero for gym and games and dancing and then count them into my average. Gill beat me in chem. Good. And Claudine beat me in French, which isn’t surprising as her mother is French. She pronounces it, which none of the rest of us know how to do. They should have Claudine teach the class. The maths brought me down more than I was expecting, so Claudine and Karen are both ahead of me overall. But it’s otherwise pretty good.
I wish I could show it to Gramma. Grampar will be pleased, I expect everyone will be pleased, but it isn’t the same.
I had a letter from Auntie Teg this morning. She’s very upset indeed about me not coming home for Christmas. I did already say it wasn’t my fault. I wish I could go.
Deirdre rushed out of the room when she saw her marks. I’m assuming they’re terrible. Shagger’s fourth. She deigned to say “Well done,” to me, which is the first thing she’s said to me for ages.
WEDNESDAY 19TH DECEMBER 1979
Pretty good meeting last night. Everyone was there. Hugh did very well at leading it, gently getting people back on topic when they wandered away. We had a great talk about the seasonal nature of the books, and about their very specific locations. Greg’s been to North Wales and walked on Cadfan’s Way and says that Craig yr Aderyn is just like that. Everyone agreed that the end of Silver on the Tree is a cop-out and we’d all hate it if that happened to us. It’s funny, the younger people were, the more vehement they were about how much they’d hate it. Harriet almost thought the children ought to have their memories wiped, but Hugh and I would rather have died, with everyone else falling on a spectrum by age. Hugh’s nice. And I did like the feeling of being vehemently in agreement. Harriet, who really could be Harriet Vane grown up, I keep seeing her that way, stopped saying “I can see it might be kinder,” and came around to our point of view as far as “I do understand what a loss it would be.”
We finished early and all went to the pub. “I’ll buy you an orange juice,” Greg said to me. I didn’t say I hate Britvic orange, I said “Thank you.” Who says I have no social graces?
The pub is called the White Hart, which I said had a very Narnian sound. We’d been talking about Narnia a bit, in comparison, so it wasn’t just out of the blue. We’d been comparing the ends. It really is odd how two children’s fantasy series should both have such problematic ends. It isn’t an inherent genre problem, because look at The Farthest Shore! Maybe it’s a problem with books about children from our world, or British writers—but no, there’s Garner. He doesn’t exactly write series, but he certainly has no problem with ends! That reminds me, I never went back and got Red Shift.
The White Hart is an old pub with beams and horse-brasses hanging up on leather belts and a big oak bar with pumps for different beers. It stinks of smoke, like all pubs, and the supposedly white plaster between the beams is yellow because of it. I had an orange juice, and gave Greg his chocolates. He opened them right away and handed them around. I got a Viennese truffle, which felt a little mean as they were my present. Delicious though.
I found myself sitting next to Wim. Honestly, I didn’t do anything to arrange it! He remains disconcertingly gorgeous close up. It’s not just the long blond hair or the very blue eyes, it’s something about the way he holds himself. I like Hugh much better, but Hugh is like a solid piece of treetrunk, while Wim is like new branches of blossom waving in the breeze, or a rare butterfly that lands near you and you hold your breath watching it in case it flies away. It’s the same sort of breathlessness.
“So, you like Susan Cooper a
s well as Le Guin?” he said.
“I’d never read them before this week,” I said. “I borrowed Janine’s, and I’ve just given them back.”
“You read all five books this week?” he said, tossing his head a little so his hair fell back out of his eyes. “You must have a lot of free time.”
“I do,” I said, quite coldly.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I hate it when people imply that people only read because they have nothing better to do, and here I am doing it.”
I liked that. “What could be better?” I asked.
He laughed. He has a nice laugh, very natural. When he laughed, I could imagine doing all the stupid things girls do when they have a crush on someone, keeping a stub of pencil and a piece of sticking plaster like Harriet Smith in Emma, or kissing a photograph before bed like Shagger and Harrison Ford.
“How about films?” he suggested, and instantly just like that the whole group was involved in a passionate discussion about Star Wars.
Everyone either loves it or hates it. Middle ground is not permitted. My general feeling that it was fun to see actual robots and spaceships but that it was a bit childish compared to real SF didn’t seem like a possible position.
A bit later, when people had stopped shooting fish in a barrel or passionately defending, I turned to Wim again. “I heard you did a meeting about Delany.”
“Do you like Delany?” he said. “You have very broad-ranging tastes.”
“I love Delany,” I said, pleased that he had not said I had broad-ranging tastes for my age, the way so many people always do. “But there’s something I’ve been wondering about the end of Triton.”
“Do you think Triton was intended as a response to The Dispossessed?” he asked, interrupting me. I hadn’t thought about it, but I did then, and I could sort of see it.
“Because The Dispossessed is an ambiguous utopia and Triton is an ambiguous heterotopia?” I asked.
“I wonder if he looked at Anarres and said, why does it have to be so poor, why does it have to be in famine, why is their sexuality so constrained, what other sorts of anarchy could you have?”
“What a fascinating thought,” I said. “And also how brilliant of him to show all that complexity of choice through the eyes of someone who isn’t happy with it.”
“There would be people who drifted about like that even in paradise,” Wim said. “Bron’s always looking for something he can’t have, sort of by definition.”
“Why did Bron—” I started.
“Time to go now, Mori,” Greg said.
“See you after Christmas,” Wim said as I got up, carefully.
On the other side of the table, Keith and Hussein were still arguing about Princess Leia.
THURSDAY 20TH DECEMBER 1979
I can’t believe I’m leaving here tomorrow. Suddenly it seems so soon. We had to clear out our lockers this morning. I wasn’t expecting that. In addition to my bag and the satchel and the neat anonymous case I came with, I have six carrier bags of books and two of Christmas presents. I had to go down to the laundry, the first time I’ve ever been there. The school employs someone full time to wash and iron our stupid uniforms. Usually they’re delivered back to our dorms and put on the ends of our beds, and I’d scarcely thought about it before. But today Deirdre didn’t have all her shirts, and we need to take everything home. She wanted me to come with her, so off we went to the bowels of the building to a room with six heaving washing machines and four roaring tumble-dryers and a girl only a year or two older than we are pulling the clothes out of one machine and tossing them into the other. I’d hate us if I were her. It was hot in there today; I can’t imagine it in June.
Deirdre’s going to Limerick for Christmas. There’s really a place called Limerick! Of course, as soon as she said, I couldn’t help saying “There was a young lady from . . .” but I stopped as soon as I saw her face.
I’m all ready to go as soon as Daniel comes for me tomorrow. I can’t wait.
FRIDAY 21ST DECEMBER 1979
First thing this morning was the Prizegiving. I won a copy of W. H. Auden’s Selected Poems for English, and Isaac Asimov’s Guide to Science for chem, and Winston Churchill’s A History of the English-Speaking Peoples for history. As everyone who got over ninety in anything got a book for it, it rather dragged on. I suspect Miss Carroll’s hand in the choice of books, which may mean that the Churchill isn’t as dire as it looks. Then the sports prizes were handed out, at even greater length. They let me sit down for assemblies, which is nice, but as everyone else is standing it does mean I can’t see, not that I especially want to. The teachers, who are lined up at the sides of the hall, can see me quite easily if they look, so I don’t dare read. Looking at everyone’s backs in their identical uniforms I can compare heights and wrinkles and how their hair falls down their backs, but that’s about all. It’s surprising how much variety there is in something that’s at first glance identical, a row of uniformed backs. I gave the girls in the row ahead marks for posture and neatness, and mentally rearranged them by height and by hair colour.
Scott won the cup, in a narrow victory over Wordsworth. I’m supposed to be very excited about this but as far as I’m concerned it’s right up there with arranging people by the shades of their hair.
I went to the library afterwards to give Miss Carroll her chocolates. She seemed very touched to have them. She gave me what I’m sure is a book, wrapped.
I found Deirdre and gave her the soap box. I hadn’t wrapped it because I hadn’t thought to buy wrapping paper, but I put it in a pretty bag from the shop where I bought the scarves and things. She didn’t open it, but she thanked me very nicely. She gave me a thin wrapped present. It also feels like a book. I wonder what on earth it could be? I’ll have to read it and say I like it whatever it is.
Then it was all down to waiting for cars. Some girls weren’t being picked up until this evening, poor dabs, but Daniel came for me just at one, not the first, but quite early in the process. Everyone was rushing about and shrieking even worse than normal. I’m sure he thought it was Bedlam.
Daniel drove me back to the Old Hall in time for tea—very dry mince pies, almost as bad as school food. His sisters were delighted about Scott winning the cup. They opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate. I thought it was horrible, and the bubbles got up my nose. I’d had it before, at Cousin Nicola’s wedding, and I didn’t like it then either. Daniel offered to mix mine with orange juice and make something called a Buck’s Fizz, but I declined. If there was one thing that was going to make it worse it was horrible orange juice. Really, I only like to drink water. Why do people have such a problem with that? It comes out of the tap for free.
It’s the solstice, the shortest day. After today the darkness starts to roll back a bit. I won’t be sorry.
It’s nice to have a door I can shut and a bit of privacy. I went to bed early. I thought about thinking about Wim while I masturbated, because that breathless feeling is definitely sexual, but it felt intrusive, as well as hard to imagine. There’s also the Ruthie thing, which, whatever the ins and outs of it, gets in the way. So I just thought about Lessa and F’lar and Nicholas in the sea. It’s funny that Triton has so much sex in it but is so unerotic. And—because I’m still thinking about connections between them—there’s sex in The Dispossessed too, but not the sort that makes you feel breathless. I wonder why that is? Is there a way Fowles wrote Nicholas in the sea that’s essentially different from the way Delany wrote Bron and the Spike having exhibition sex? I think there is, but I don’t know what it is.
SATURDAY 22ND DECEMBER 1979
The aunts took me shopping in Shrewsbury. They wanted me to get something nice for Daniel. I told them I’d already bought him The Mote in God’s Eye, but they just laughed and said they were sure he’d like it. They bought him—in my name—a charcoal-grey jacket with lots of pockets. It looks like the kind of thing he wears, but honestly I’d never have bought it, and he’ll know that. At least I g
ot some wrapping paper. They took me for lunch in a posh department store called Owen Owens. The food was overcooked and slimy.
When we got home, I offered to make scones, in as deferential and polite a way as I could. They really didn’t want me to, I could see that, but I can’t quite see why. I can cook, I’ve been able to cook for years. I can cook a lot better than they can. They can’t think it’s beneath me, because they do it themselves. Maybe they don’t want to let me into their kitchen, but I wouldn’t mess it up.
I hardly saw Daniel today. He was working at something. I’ve borrowed a great pile of his books and am working my way through them. I wish the light in here was better.
I don’t think I am like other people. I mean on some deep fundamental level. It’s not just being half a twin and reading a lot and seeing fairies. It’s not just being outside when they’re all inside. I used to be inside. I think there’s a way I stand aside and look backwards at things when they’re happening which isn’t normal. It’s a thing you need to do for doing magic. But as I’m not going to do any magic, it’s rather wasted.
SUNDAY 23RD DECEMBER 1979
Church. The aunts inspected me when I got up as if I’d be on display, and one of them suggested that I should find something a little smarter. I was wearing a navy blue skirt and a pale blue t-shirt, with my school coat on top. It wasn’t a cold day, though it was raining. I thought I was fine. I gave in though, and went up and put on a grey pullover. I don’t have many clothes that aren’t uniform. I left most of my clothes when I ran away, obviously.