Russell Hoban - Turtle Diary

It felt strange sitting up so high with all that van around me. The gearbox was at least an ordinary four-speed one. The width of the thing was appalling. I was behind a bus when I first pulled out into the street and I was only about six inches narrower than it. I kept going up on the kerb with my left front wheel when I thought I was a foot away from it.

The rain was still coming down gently and steadily. I drove to my place, loaded on the crates, the trolley, the petrol container, the rope, torch, map, road atlas, an eiderdown to lie down on, an old blanket to put under it, a couple of blankets to cover us. Us? I didn’t think either of us had any hanky-panky in mind and we’d have our clothes on. Couple of pillows. Thermos flask, we could probably fill it and get some sandwiches at one of the services on the M4. I felt very jumpy the whole time. Cigarettes. I took four packets. I couldn’t think of anything else. I went to the loo twice, got into the van and drove off, mounting the kerb from time to time when I made left turns and getting angry looks from pedestrians. I stopped to fill the petrol container, then headed for Neaera’s place.

She was waiting by the front steps when I drove up. She looked doubtful. Her basic look, I realized. Dora had looked angry, Harriet reproachful, Neaera doubtful. Not that it mattered in a permanent way, there was nothing between us except the turtles and there wasn’t likely to be anything. Why not? I don’t know, I think we have too much in common. We’re not complementary, she doesn’t fill in the blanks in me nor I in her. Both afraid of the same things maybe. We don’t fit together. What if we did? There’s a cheap little toy one sees at various shops, a little flat wooden clown hanging from strings between two sticks. You squeeze the sticks and the clown somersaults. His body and face are in profile and he’s made so economically that one cut shapes the back of him and the front of the next clown to come from the same piece of wood. There he is with the back of his head indented by a nose-and-chin-shaped space. Looking at him one wants to fit the one behind into him and him into the one ahead. And if one fitted fifty flat wooden clowns together in a line the one at each end would still be out in the cold, one with his back and the other with his front. Fitting them together in a circle solves the problem I suppose. Then they’d just keep going round in circles.

Neaera had sandwiches and a flask of coffee in a carrier bag, pillows and blankets as well. She seemed about as nervous as I was.

‘I’m not used to the width of this thing,’ I said. ‘It would be a help if you’d tell me when we’re too close to the parked cars or the kerb.’ We started off for the Zoo.

‘Too close,’ she said about every two minutes. I nodded and swung away, trying to think of anything I might have forgotten. There were meant to be a spare tyre, tools and a jack somewhere in the van but I hadn’t thought to ask where they were. Never mind. The rain was a nice little bonus, just enough of it to make the windscreen wipers work smoothly. I liked that, it was cosy.

George Fairbairn was on the lookout for us at the works gate, we left the crates with him and drove to a kebab house on the Finchley Road. They always play Greek music there but not too loud, just a pleasant background sound that gives privacy. I hate those places where there’s a shouting kind of silence in which people make display conversation for the people listening at the other tables.

It was still light outside, the rain was coming down nicely and it was shadowy enough in the restaurant for the candle at our table to have some effect. I felt all right. Atoms speeding to infinity aren’t necessarily lost, are they. They’re just going where they’re going. There’s a thing that happens in my mind, a foreshadow of a waiting thought. Sometimes I know it’s a thought that’ll fill me with dread and then the dread comes before the thought. Sometimes I sense round the corner an easy thought and the ease comes. What was it, I wanted to hold on to it. Going where they’re going, that was it. Things and people are as they are, where they are. Dora and Ariadne and Cyndie are where they are, Neaera and I and the turtles. That’s all, nothing to be afraid of. One needn’t even hold on to that, no holding on. Just let go of the terror, don’t hold on to the terror. Simple if only I could remember that.

‘Where is it on the menu?’ said Neaera, and she laughed. I’d said I was going to have the doner kebab.

‘What’s funny about doner kebab?’ I said.

‘I was laughing because I asked you where it was on the menu,’ she said. ‘It’s one of those odd things people always do.’

I showed it to her on the menu. We ordered a carafe of red and we both had doner kebab. Did the waiter think we were married, I wondered. I was feeling all right, smoking a cigarette and craving another cigarette at the same time but holding on to nothing else. Comfortable in a way. I’ll never cease to be amazed by the fact that people uncomfortable in themselves can give comfort to other people. Even I have given comfort, Ariadne and Cyndie used to feel cosy with me. Neaera was an uncomfortable person, I could feel that. But I felt comfortable with her.

‘Do you know anything?’ I said.

‘Not a bloody thing,’ she said.

‘Don’t know what’s best for anybody?’

‘Not even for myself. Especially not for myself.’

‘Wonderful,’ I said. I raised my glass. ‘Here’s to not knowing anything.’

‘I’ll drink to that,’ she said, and raised her glass. We both laughed, it just came out.

‘Except the turtles,’ I said, ‘We know what’s best for the turtles, eh?’

‘Oh shit,’ she said. No laughter. ‘It seemed to want to happen, didn’t it.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It seemed to want to happen.’ Her face was sad. I felt at home with her face. Maybe it was a beautiful face, I don’t know. It looked as tired as my own, dark circles under her eyes. Very black eyebrows, no grey in her long black hair. Harriet. Well, yes. We’d subscribed to a series of recitals but that wasn’t a lifetime contract. I’d never seen Neaera’s flat but I could imagine books, drawing-table, typewriter. I could imagine being there with her in the evening reading, writing maybe.

‘You haven’t got a cat, have you?’ I said.

‘No,’ she said. ‘Do I look as if I’ve got a cat?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘I have a water-beetle,’ she said.

‘Why not,’ I said. ‘Nothing wrong with water-beetles.’

‘It started as insect exploitation,’ she said. ‘I thought there might be a story in her.’

‘Don’t reproach yourself,’ I said. ‘If I had anything to exploit I’d exploit it. Why should insects have special privileges, they’re no better than the rest of us. We can take the beetle to Polperro as well if you like.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘she’s a fresh-water beetle and she’s stuck with me, we’re in it together.’

‘How do you know it’s a she?’ I said.

‘Ridged wing covers instead of smooth,’ she said, ‘and she doesn’t have the same kind of front legs as the male. No suction pads for holding on whilst mating.’

‘Male turtles have an extra claw for that,’ I said.

‘Nature provides,’ said Neaera.

It was dark and still raining when we came out of the restaurant. We got back to the Zoo a little after eight. George Fairbairn wheeled out the crated turtles on the trolley. The turtles lay on their backs with their flippers pressed against their sides, their mouths open. I could hear them sighing, they knew they had fallen among fools. They had a fresh ocean smell.

‘Got the champagne?’ he said.

‘Champagne,’ I said.