Among Others (32 page)

“It’s a story about hope,” I said. “We don’t know what happened at the end of the year.”

“If the horse had learned to sing, we’d know.”

“It might have become the origin of the Centaur legend. It might have gone to Narnia, taking the man with it. It might have become the ancestor of Caligula’s horse Incitatus who he made a senator. There might have been a whole tribe of singing horses and Incitatus was their bid for equality, only it all went wrong.”

Daniel gave me a very strange look, and I wished I’d saved this for people who would appreciate it.

“Thursdays, then,” he said. “I’ll call and arrange it when we get home.”

If it was a story about procrastination, it would have a solid moral about the man dying at the end of the year. I like to imagine their survival.

And at year’s end they broke the stable door.

The man and horse, together, gallop yet

Beyond the sunset’s end, the pounding hooves,

Both harmony and beat for their duet.

W
EDNESDAY
23
^RD
J
ANUARY
1980

A tiny sprinkle of snow this morning, not enough to wet a Hobbit’s toes, and melted before breakfast.

I am back in school, which is noisier than ever, so noisy it echoes.

The Dream Master
turns out to be a novel version of “He Who Shapes,” which is a variation on, or the other way around, Brunner’s
Telepathist
. I don’t know which was written first, but I read the Brunner first. The very idea of working with dreams is odd.
The Dream Master
is a good book, but a very unsettling one. You wouldn’t guess it was written by the same person who wrote the Amber books, which are such fun.

People seem a lot friendlier to me than before. Sharon said hello and welcome back when I went into English after lunch. Daniel insisted on seeing how I was after I woke up, and didn’t drive me back until mid-morning. I’m still the same. The cold made my leg do its rusty weathercock thing, but that’s so much better than it was before the acupuncture that I almost don’t care.

I haven’t forgiven Sharon for turning her back on me. I’ll be polite and nice, but I won’t go out of my way not to call her Shagger when everyone else does. Deirdre, however, who stuck by me, gets my everlasting loyalty, and the word “Dreary” will never pass my lips. Oddly, though I am limping worse than ever, everyone seems to be calling me Commie today. Maybe going into hospital had given them a new respect for me. Nobody has come around gushing though, thank goodness.

It’s really nice to see Miss Carroll again. She doesn’t bother me when I’m reading, or writing in here, but she always has a few kind words when I pass her desk. I’d got almost used to this library, all the wood, and the lovely bookshelves, but seeing it now I am struck again with how brill it is. I’d like to have a room like this in my own house, when I have a house one day, when I’m grown up.

Isle of the Dead
is very odd. I love the idea of making worlds, and the alien gods, and the aliens, and the whole setup. I’m just not sure about the actual story.

T
HURSDAY
24
^TH
J
ANUARY
1980

Tonight we are going to see
The Tempest
in Theatre Clwyd in Mold. Nobody else seems the faintest bit excited about this, so I act as if I don’t care either. Deirdre says she hates Shakespeare. She has seen
The Winter’s Tale
and
Richard II
, when they were set plays, and she hated both of them. This makes me think the company might be awful, because
Richard II
at least should be terrific acted. “Sit upon the ground and tell sad stories of the death of kings.”

The new friendliness seems to be lasting. Did they think I was faking it with the leg before? Or has something else happened? I deal with it in an offhand way, as if it’s normal, but always cool to them, because if I give away anything they could throw it in my face.

I am reading
The Lord of the Rings
. I suddenly wanted to. I almost know it by heart, but I can still sink right into it. I know no other book that is so much like going on a journey. When I put it down to write this, I feel as if I am also waiting with Pippin for the echoes of that stone down the well.

F
RIDAY
25
^TH
J
ANUARY
1980

The first thing that was wrong with the Touring Shakespeare Company’s production of
The Tempest
was that they cast a woman as Prospero. She was very good, but the play just doesn’t work with a mother. The whole thing is set up with male in opposition to female: Prospero and Sycorax, Caliban and Ariel, Caliban and Miranda, Ferdinand and Miranda. Though I suppose doing it that way made Prospero and Antonio a male/female thing. I suppose the way it really didn’t work was in Prospero and Miranda’s relationship. It didn’t work as mother and daughter to me, at least, not and keep Prospero sympathetic. I read him as a man who is remote, and good to bother with a toddler, but a woman like that would be too unnatural for sympathy. Which isn’t to say I think women should be stuck with childrearing, but—how interesting that what comes out as doing the best he could in a man looks like neglect in a woman.

Though Prospero was in fact neglectful however you look at it. He must have been the world’s most crap Duke of Milan, and he would be again. I can certainly sympathise with spending your whole time in the library reading your book instead of bothering with what you’re supposed to be doing. But there’s absolutely no indication that he won’t do the exact same thing once they get back. In fact, he’ll be worse, because he’ll want to catch up on everything his favourite authors have written while he was stuck on the island. Antonio was probably a much better Duke. Sure, he was a conniving bastard, but he’d keep everyone happy because it would be to his own advantage. The people were probably horrified to see Prospero back, drowned books or not.

Very little of this will be going into my formal response essay on seeing the play. But what’s really not going in is what I thought about the fairies, which is that they were brilliant, and surprisingly lifelike.

Ariel did not speak, she sang all her lines. She was wearing something white, maybe a bodystocking, with veils all around that drifted about when she moved or gestured. She had a shaved head, also with a veil. When she went free at the end, all the veils fell away and we saw her face for the first time, and her expression was most convincingly like a fairy. I wonder if the actress knows any? Singing was a good way of getting across how oddly they communicate, well done Shakespeare, well done Touring Company. Shakespeare must have known fairies, probably quite well. He just did what I do and translated the things they say into the things they would have said.

Caliban, well, what is Caliban? I read it thinking he was a fairy, fishy and warty and odd. But seeing it made me think. His mother, Sycorax, was a witch. We don’t know about his father. We don’t see Sycorax at all. Was Prospero his father? Is he Miranda’s half-brother? Or was he there when they got there, as he says, offering welcome, to be made into a servant? He wants to rape Miranda (“I had peopled else this isle with Calibans”), but that doesn’t make him human, or his mother either, necessarily. He could be human, or half human, he’s pokable and hittable in a way fairies aren’t. There was a lot of hitting and cringing last night. What I believed about that particular Caliban, about (I have the programme) Peter Lewis’s Caliban, was that he was between worlds. He didn’t know where he belonged.

Shakespeare must have known some fairies. I know I said this about Tolkien, and actually I do still think Tolkien did as well. I think lots of people do.

What I love about Shakespeare is the language. I came home on the coach quite drunk on it, and had to ask Deirdre to repeat everything she was saying because I hadn’t caught it the first time. I don’t know what she thought. We had a conversation about what Miranda and Ferdinand’s married life would be like, and how she would cope with Italy after an island. Would it keep on seeming a brave new world? Deirdre thought it would as long as she was in love. Can you imagine though, confronting a whole world when you have only known three people, two of them not quite people and one of them remote Prospero? Imagine coping with fashion and servants and courtiers! Deirdre thought Prospero very cruel not to teach her. But maybe teaching her magic would have been more cruel.

Prospero breaks his staff and drowns his books because you can’t bring magic back home with you. If he had brought it back, would he have become like Saruman? Is it power that corrupts? Is it always? It would be nice if I knew some people who weren’t evil and used magic. Well, there’s Glorfindel, but I’m not sure fairies count. Fairies are different. The other interesting contrast with Prospero is Faust.

Letter from Daniel saying the acupuncture is arranged for Thursdays and paid for, saying he’d written to the school asking for me to be allowed to go, and enclosing ten pounds for trainfare and lunches. When I get change, I’ll put half of it into my running away/emergency fund.

S
ATURDAY
26
^TH
J
ANUARY
1980

I made it to the library, but Greg wasn’t there. It isn’t his Saturday to work. I took my huge pile of books back and collected what was waiting for me. I was wishing I’d arranged to meet someone, but of course I hadn’t because I wasn’t here on Tuesday. I was hoping I’d be able to see Greg and ask him the subject of this Tuesday’s meeting.

I wandered down to the bookshop, where there was no sign of anyone. I didn’t buy any books. It was drizzling in a very discouraging way. I sat in the cafe and ate a honey bun and read, looking up now and then to watch the rain. They always say it’s lovely weather for ducks, but the mallards on the pond looked as miserable as anyone. The drakes are starting to get their spring colours though. Maybe it’s spring rain. They’d have been glad of it in the Dead Marches, I thought. I bought a couple of buns for me and Deirdre—there’s really no point wasting money on Sharon, even though she is speaking to me again.

The junk shop was open, and I looked through their books. I didn’t see anything appealing except a folding cloth (canvas I think) map of Europe, with Germany huge and no Czechoslovakia. I think it must be from the war, or right before. Somebody had drawn a pink line on it in felt pen, but otherwise it’s in really good condition. The country colours are sort of pastels, not hard colours like they would be now. I couldn’t resist it, as it was only 5p. I don’t know what I’m going to do with it. But maps are brill.

I walked slowly back up into town, looked through Smiths, which is usually a total waste of time, but today I was rewarded with a copy of
Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine
! I wonder where that came from. I do hope they’ll start getting it regularly. I bought it, and also a packet of Rollos, which I would happily share with Frodo and Sam if I could, but I can’t. I also bought a card for Grampar, one with the sea and a sandcastle that reminds me of summer holidays, and will remind him too.

Gill was at the bus stop. “No boyfriend today?” she asked.

I looked her straight in the eye. “Not that it’s any concern of yours, but Hugh’s just a friend, not a boy friend. He goes to the book club.”

“Oh. Sorry,” she said. I was amazed that she believed me. It’s a good thing it wasn’t Wim she’d seen me with, or I wouldn’t have been able to say that with such conviction, even though it would have been equally true.

S
UNDAY
27
^TH
J
ANUARY
1980

The way to be popular in this school is to go into hospital and come out again. Or maybe it’s to have someone say you’re brave—I know Deirdre’s been saying that. Maybe they didn’t actually believe there was anything wrong with my leg before? Or maybe they feel sorry for me? I hope not. I’d hate that. But anyway, seven buns today, counting my honey bun. Two iced buns, two Chelsea buns, an iced cupcake and an eclair. I couldn’t eat them all, and gave one of the Chelsea buns to Deirdre. I hadn’t done anything to make this happen, not just no magic but nothing at all. It’s very peculiar. I asked Miss Carroll about it and she said it was probably just that I’d been in hospital and come out and hadn’t made a fuss, and I’d been mentioned in Prayers and now was there and was in people’s minds when they went bun-buying. Maybe. It seems very odd to me.