A Few Days in the Country (20 page)

Animals should beware of humans. How tempting, evidently, to play God and play games with little puppets for the sake of testing your skills…Sophie shivered and shook her head. Some humans should beware of others. All should learn early the safety limits of love and trust. But what a pity! How could you? How could you? she thought. And how could I? Some other day, if there was another day, she would think about these rights and wrongs.

Glancing again at the cat, who was still awaiting command, Sophie said, ‘Be independent,' and feeling itself without instruction the cat prowled in a circle, curled up, and slept.

Caroline had stolen a remarkable pink rock from a faraway beach, a golden-pink rock worn into a chaise longue by the Pacific. Now Sophie lay on its sea-washed curves, supported and warmed, grateful to the rock. She closed her eyes and a single line creased her forehead. Minutes passed, and she opened her eyes. In the whole sky there were only three small clouds, three of Dalí's small, premonitory clouds, looking as unreal as his. It was possible that this time tomorrow, this time tomorrow, she would be dead.

Of whom, Sophie debated with herself coldly, might that not be said?

She made no response. It was unanswerably true that she had placed herself in the hands of death; she was in the airy halls of death now, with all formalities complete except the last one. Everywhere there was the certainty, the expectation, that she would make the final move at any moment. And it was so clear that the alternative to death was something worse.

If she lived, sooner or later this sorrow would go, and then she would change and be a different person and a worse one, dead in truth. For the sorrow was all that was left of the best she had had it in her to be, the best she had been able to offer the world, the result of the experiment that she was. So it was bound to seem of some importance, just now, while she could still understand it.

She gave a shallow sigh and shifted her position on the rock. In its frame of leaves the cat dozed. Everything altered minutely. The small painted clouds had disappeared. And, of course, it was foolish to complain. In a way, she had been quite surpassingly lucky; and there was a great deal left. The only thing that seemed to have vanished entirely, now that she had time to search among the ruins, was hope.

‘Hope…' she said aloud, in a toneless voice. ‘It's amazing what a difference it makes.'

The two women sat drinking coffee and glancing at their watches in the minutes to spare before leaving for the station and the Sydney train. For the twentieth time without success, Sophie sought to thank Caroline. ‘Rubbish! I'm only sorry you're going so soon.' And they both smiled and rose from their chairs, glancing about to verify that Sophie's luggage was where she had placed it ten minutes earlier.

‘Say goodbye to Cat,' Caroline ordered. ‘You've made a friend there!' She swooped down on her pet and juggled it into Sophie's arms, before hurrying off to bring the car round to the front door.

For seconds Sophie held it against her chest, saying nothing whatever, feeling comforted by the weight, the warmth, the dumb communion, by the something like forbearance towards her of Caroline's cat. She let it leap down from the nest of her arms.

Lifting her bag, Sophie cast a final look at the silent room and its furnishings, and went to the door. As she turned the handle, with nothing in her mind but cars and trains and Caroline and, just beyond them all, the city looming, it occurred to her that, regardless of what was past, or what she now knew, she herself might still have the capacity to love. Need not, under some immutable compulsion, merely react. The idea presented itself in so many words. A telegram.

Like a soldier who, perhaps mortally wounded and lying in blood, hears a distant voice that means either death or survival, and unable to care, still half-lifts his head, Sophie listened.

Love…That poor debased word. Poor love. Oh, poor love, she thought. It was the core and essence of her nature, and a force in her compared with which any other was slight indeed. Still alive? Even yet? Ever again? More illusions? Good feeling? The psychic knives had finished all that. Surely? It only remained for her to follow. Surely?

Yet in the car, while she and Caroline exchanged remarks, Sophie's mind considered her chances. Now and then it condensed its findings and threw her a monosyllabic report, like a simple computer. Her changes were exactly that—a chance. And the sorrow…Only yesterday, the other day, she had believed that if she lived the sorrow would go and that she would then know a worse death than that of her body. But as it seemed
now
the sorrow would never go, could never leave her; like all else in life it had become an aspect of her person. As her love had. How strange, she thought, that nothing ever goes.

Nevertheless, detailing as they did the unconditional terms of her existence, these thoughts were in themselves a death. Had she been consulted, she would have chosen none of this, none of these steely thorns, inconceivable relinquishments. But no one had asked her; she had had no choice. One or two strengths and the love were what she had, and all she had, and what she would always have. And that was that.

Caroline said, ‘Hear that clanking? I need a new car.'

Pedestrians cut through the tangle of traffic near the railway station. A dog pranced by looking for adventure. Sophie stared at shopping baskets, at boys on bikes, while debating the merits of this car over that with Caroline. ‘Small ones are easier to park.'

Suicide produced just then, like a super-salesman, a picture of the very place. She knew it! Ideal, ideal. A hidden clearing off the track where you wouldn't be found too soon…

And the instruction resumed its endless cries of surprise, trying to save her. How could you, how could you, it said. The psychic knife went in, it said. The psychic blood came out.

Yes, yes, Sophie agreed. She had heard this many times before, and could only suppose the reiteration had once served a useful purpose. But how like a human organisation! Even at the place of instruction, the right hand did not know what the left was doing. Someone down the line had not yet been informed that times had changed; the long-expected message had been received and was under the deepest consideration.

Walking up the station ramp with Caroline, Sophie took no notice, letting the two sides battle it out. They would learn, they would learn. She had learned.

Acknowledgments

‘The Fun of the Fair' was previously unpublished.

‘Alice' was published in the
New Yorker
, 2015.

‘The City at Night' was previously unpublished.

‘Summertime' was published on
Literary Hub
, 2015.

‘The North Sea' was published in
Canary Press
, 2015.

An abridged version of ‘The Cornucopia' was published in
Harper's Magazine
, 2015.

‘The Beautiful Climate' was published in
Kill Your Darlings
, 2015, and an earlier version was published in anthologies from the 1960s onwards.

An earlier version of ‘Lance Harper, His Story' was published in
Australian Letters
, 1962, and in anthologies from the 1960s onwards.

An earlier version of ‘The Cost of Things' was published in anthologies from the 1960s onwards.

An earlier version of ‘English Lesson' was published in anthologies from the 1960s onwards.

‘It Is Margaret' was published in
Australian Book Review
, 2015.

An earlier version of ‘A Few Days in the Country' was published in
Overland
, 1977.

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