Russell Hoban - Turtle Diary

It was only five past nine when I got to the bookshop, and I spent the next twenty minutes looking at the books in the window. I observed that Taura Strong continues to be productive, ecology was enjoying a rising market, sex was holding its own but a little more quietly than formerly: there were glossy books with photographs of naked people kneading each other thoughtfully. Gangsterism in government was under examination in America and government in gangsterism was being looked at as well. The backs of things are getting into print more and more these days and heterosexuality is increasingly thin on the ground in biographies. Fallopia Bothways, smiling a virile smile on the showcard for her new novel, has changed her haircut. Through the glass doors I could see the books on tables and shelves resting quietly and holding themselves in reserve until opening time. I found myself mentally turning away from the too-muchness of them.

At 9.25 a girl who seemed to have bought Hard Slog arrived with keys and unlocked one of the glass doors top and bottom. She smiled briefly, went in and locked the door behind her. I waited while she picked up the morning post, turned on the lights, went to the office at the rear of the shop, came back with brown paper bags and put money into the till. Then she looked up, seemed gratified by my patience, smiled and opened the door.

‘Good morning,’ I said.

‘Good morning,’ she said. ‘Can I help you?’

‘Will Mr G. be here today?’ I said.

She shook her head. ‘It’s his Saturday off.’

‘Can you tell me where to reach him, his phone number?’ I said. ‘It’s rather urgent.’

She looked at me carefully. Did I look like an old girl friend who rings up and breathes into the telephone, I wondered. I didn’t think so. She shook her head with some reluctance I thought but still she shook it.

‘Our manager, Mr Meager, is quite firm about that,’ she said. ‘Best thing is to come in again on Monday, Mr G.’ll be here then.’

‘I think he might not be,’ I said. I watched a bus go past the door, first the front then the back. ‘I think he may be quite ill. Would you mind ringing him up yourself just to make sure he’s all right? I think it really is urgent.’ By then I was quite possessed by my fixed idea and feeling a little demented about it.

‘He looked perfectly well yesterday,’ she said. ‘He’s probably not up yet. It’s early for a Saturday off.’

I didn’t say anything. I must have looked a fright.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll ring him. It’s a little odd, you know. After all if you’re a friend of his you’d have his number, wouldn’t you?’

I couldn’t think of anything to say, just looked at her dumbly.

‘All right,’ she said again. ‘Who shall I say it is?’

‘Neaera H.,’ I said.

Her face changed, her manner as well. Little softenings and flutters. ‘The one who does the Gillian Vole books?’ she said. ‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Well,’ she said with a fleeting smile, ‘I’ll see if I can raise him.’ She went back to the office and closed the door. Through the little office window I saw her look up the number on a list she took from a drawer. She dialled, waited, spoke while watching me through the window. I couldn’t hear what she said.

‘I’ve rung the house where he lives,’ she said when she came out. ‘They say he doesn’t answer his door. He doesn’t seem to be at home.’

‘This isn’t anything personal,’ I said. ‘It’s nothing personal at all really.’ I could feel my face not knowing what to do with itself.

An American lady came in. ‘Have you anything on Staffordshire figures?’ she said.

The girl went to the shelves, took out three books.

‘I have all of those,’ said the American lady. ‘Is there anything else?’

‘That’s all there is just now,’ said the girl.

‘Oh, dear,’ said the American lady. ‘Thank you.’ She left.

An intense-looking young man with long hair, a beard, an immense mackintosh and a large shoulder-bag came in and headed for the Occult section.

‘Would you leave your bag at the counter, please,’ said the girl. The young man flashed her a dark look, left the shoulder-bag with her, went to the shelves and appeared to be deeply interested in alchemy.

‘Keep your eye on him for a moment,’ said the girl. ‘He pinches books.’ She went back to the office, returned quickly and handed me a slip of paper with William G.’s address and telephone number on it.

‘Here,’ she said. ‘You look as if it’s important.’

‘Thank you,’ I said, and hurried away.

Someone got out of a taxi and I got in. Just like a film, I thought. People never have to wait for taxis in films. Old films, that is. They never used to get change when they paid for anything either, they just left notes or coins and walked away. Now they get change. Perhaps they sometimes have to wait for taxis too. I gave the driver the address, it was in SW6.

‘Do you know the street?’ he said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Don’t you?’

‘I’m a suburban driver,’ he said as he turned down the Brompton Road. ‘I don’t know London all that well. Most of the lads graduate to London after a while, go about on a moped getting the knowledge but I haven’t bothered. I’m a Jehovah’s Witness and we think God’s going to step in and put things to right in a couple of years. There won’t be any taxis then.’

‘What will there be?’ I said looking in my A to Z . ‘I think it’s off the Fulham Road.’

‘The Lord will take care of the righteous,’ he said as we came to the Brompton Oratory and turned left into the Fulham Road. ‘We’ve been interested in the year 1975 for some time.’

‘You go to Fulham Broadway and turn left into Harwood Road,’ I said. ‘What’ll you do if nothing happens in 1975?’

‘A lot of people ask that question,’ said the driver. ‘We’ll…’ We’d come to a place where they were tearing up the street and I couldn’t hear what he said.

‘Sorry,’ I said, leaning close to the opening in the glass partition. ‘I couldn’t hear you.’

‘We’ll …’ he said as a plane screamed low overhead.

I sank back in the seat, didn’t ask again.

The house was on a crescent opposite a football pitch, a paddling pool and a playground. The far end of the crescent looked more posh, the houses a little grander and overlooking the common. William G.’s end was Georgian terraced houses, three storeys, quite plain. I paid the driver and as he drove off I wished I’d asked him about 1975 again. I really did want to know what he’d do if it came and went without the Lord’s taking a stand either way. Too late, the chance was gone.

There were no nameplates, only one bell. I rang it. A fiery-looking foreign-looking man with a violent moustache answered the door. He was wearing a Middle-Eastern sort of dressing-gown that had more colour and pattern than one really cared to see in a single garment. Red velvet slippers, very white feet and ankles with very black hair. He looked as if he had strong political convictions.

‘I’ve come to see Mr G.,’ I said.

‘Top,’ said the man and stood aside.

I went up, stood outside William G.’s door waiting for my heart to stop pounding. Too many cigarettes. The violent-moustached man had come upstairs too and was producing violent smells in a tiny kitchen on the landing. I could ask him to force the door if necessary. I tried not to think of what we might find. I knocked.

William G. opened the door, looked startled. ‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

I gasped, found nothing to say. The room was not as I had imagined it, had white walls, an orange Japanese paper lamp. Modern furniture, mail-order Danish.