Russell Hoban - Turtle Diary

‘You look quite done up,’ he said. ‘I’ll get you some coffee.’

It was absolutely uncanny, gave me the creeps. That woman actually thought I’d been thinking of suicide.

I had been thinking of it right enough, I often do, always have the idea of it huddled like a sick ape in a corner of my mind. But I’d never do it. At least I don’t think I’d do it, can’t imagine a state of mind in which I’d do it. Well, that’s not true either. I can imagine the state of mind, I’ve been in it often enough. No place for the self to sit down and catch its breath. Just being hurried, hurried out of existence. When I feel like that even such a thing as posting a letter or going to the launderette wears me out. The mind moves ahead of every action making me tired in advance of whatever I do. Even a thing as simple as changing trains in the Underground becomes terribly heavy. I think ahead to the sign on the platform at the next station, think of getting out of the train, going through the corridor, up the escalator, waiting on the platform. I think of how many trains will come before mine, think of getting on when it comes, think of the signs that will appear, think of getting out, going up the steps, out into the street. As the mind moves forward the self is pushed back, everything multiplies itself like mirrors receding laboriously to infinity, repeating endlessly even the earwax in the ears, the silence in the eyes.

When I was a child there was a mirror in the hallway and at some point I became aware that the mirror saw more than what was simply right in front of it. It privately reflected a good deal of hallway on both sides out of the corner of its eye so to speak. By putting my nose right up against the glass I could almost see round those corners, could almost see what the mirror was keeping to itself, the whole hallway perhaps. All of it, everything, things I couldn’t see. Spiders in webs in the shadows, the other side of the light through the coloured leaded glass of the door. The shadow of the postman today, tomorrow, the day after tomorrow.

My father did, I think. Commit suicide. Although they called it an accident. His car went over a cliff into the sea. On to some rocks that you can see at low tide but not high water. No collision, no skid marks or anything. My mother kept the newspaper cutting, I still have it somewhere. Who knows what might have appeared in the road coming towards him. The rest of his life maybe. At Paddington I’ve seen pigeons on the tube platform walk into a train and out again while the doors were still open, knowing where they didn’t want to go.

Neaera H. can’t be in very good shape either if her mind is running on that sort of thing. She was deathly pale when she turned up at my door. It took her a while to come out with it, then she said in a half-whisper looking down at her coffee cup that she’d had all this green water in her mind and a white shark coming up from below. Well of course they’re always in me I suppose, coming up from the darkness and the deep-water chill. But I wouldn’t say I’m broadcasting sharks, and if she’s pulling them in out of the air she must be pretty well round the bend.

She told me a little about herself, and her kind of life isn’t much better than mine. At least in the shop I’m out in the world, get out of myself a little. She goes for days sometimes without seeing anyone, staying up till all hours. No wonder she gets morbid. And now it seems she’s on my wavelength. That’s all I need. My mind isn’t much of a comfort to me but at least I thought it was private. She’s going to wear herself out if she keeps tuning in like that. The inside of my head is a pretty tiresome place for someone whose own head isn’t all that jolly.

I must find out about a van. It’s well over two hundred miles to Polperro, closer to three hundred I should think. Night driving. I’d rather drive at night than during the day but either way the thought of it fills me with dread. And I’m scared of the turtles. That big male loggerhead could take your hand off with one bite. I could ask George Fairbairn to come with us and he might do it but that’s no good. Whatever this awful thing is that I’ve got myself into, it’s my thing and I’ve got to do it alone with that weird lady.

I can’t imagine that it’ll come off without some sort of disaster. If we drive all night we’ll have to sleep part of the next day before starting back. I’ll be away from the shop one whole day, maybe more. I can always say I’m sick. Things are pretty slow now, Mr Meager and Harriet can get along without me for a day or two. I won’t say I’m sick but I won’t say turtles either. I need the time off for personal reasons.

Good God, is she going to become some sort of responsibility now? Have I got to keep happy thoughts singing and dancing in my mind so as not to plunge her into a suicidal depression? How much do I know about her actually when it comes right down to it? She lives alone, writes and illustrates children’s books, doesn’t seem very happy. She’s not interested in me romantically, I’d have felt it if she were. But we’ve fallen into something together whatever it might be. I don’t think I want to know any more about it just now.

Oh, dear. What have I done now? Where are my bees? Suddenly I feel a stranger in my own flat. The clutter on the drawing table, the books and papers on the desk, the typewriter, Madame Beetle in her tank and the plants in the window have all gone blank and baffling.

Caister men never turn back. But I’m not a Caister man. My Caister two-stone confers no magic, it’s only a touchstone for the terrors that I try to cover up with books and papers and plants in the window. My mind feels as if it’s gone into hiding from me and is reflecting privately on matters of its own. Identity is a shaky thing. This is my place, my work, my water-beetle. Silly. Water-beetles can’t be owned any more than bees can. Nothing can be owned for that matter. A typewriter? Not really. You pay for the machine, keep it in your flat, use it. But I might go out one day and never come back and the typewriter would remain, belonging only to itself. When a ewe licks a new-born lamb all over I believe that’s called owning it but the ewe never really owns the lamb. That awful gathering-up feeling is in me again. My life can’t be drawing to a close yet. I’m not greedy but it can’t be ending so soon. Who will tell my bees and will they make honey for their next mistress? Same bees, different people, over and over.

If I could see an oyster-catcher … No, it isn’t just the bird, it’s the distance, the wideness. I am so unquiet. What have I done? Making a fool of myself is the least of it. What’s happening to my mind? The green water, the white glimmer and the open jaws: my ocean and shark, not his? Mine as well as his, that certainly. I wish I’d never seen those turtles, never seen Polperro. Could someone tell the turtles, give them a bit of crape to stream behind them in the water? If it hadn’t been the turtles I suppose it would have been something else.

I can’t get it out of my mind, how I must have looked sitting there with the cup clattering in the saucer. ‘Are you all right?’ he said. ‘Is anything the matter? You don’t look well.’

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘You must think I’m insane, I’ve never done anything like this before, I had such a dreadful feeling, I thought you might be … They gave me your address at the shop, I said it was urgent, possibly a matter of… There was all that green water and a shark coming up from below, terrible, terrible.’ I actually went on like that, blurted out all those things.