Nicholas Mosley - Hopeful Monsters

the clearing. It was as if I might be waiting for — what? — something from the past? The future?

The girl came out from the cottage. She carried a saw in her hand. The saw was one of those that are shaped like a bow. She went to the end of the large branch that had fallen across the cottage, to where the lesser branches of the tree rested on the ground. She began to climb up into the branches. She wore a dress with a short yellow skirt. I had the impression that she might have seen me where I was standing at the edge of the clearing. She climbed till she reached the main branch of the tree then crawled along this and sat astride the ridge of the roof of the cottage. Then she began to saw at the thick branch. After a time her saw got stuck. She pulled, but failed to get it loose. Then she looked at me.

I said 'Can I help you?'

She said 'Can you?'

I walked across the glade. I said 'You may have to saw from underneath, since the pressure from the branches on the ground is such that if you saw from the top the saw may always get stuck.'

She said 'How can I saw from underneath when the saw is now stuck and, anyway, the tree is resting on the roof?'

I said 'That's true.'

When I got close I saw that there was a second saw stuck in the main trunk of the tree close to the first.

The girl said 'What I should have done, I see now, after the first saw had got stuck, was to saw further away from the roof from underneath with the second, but I did not see this at the time.'

I said'Yes.'

She said 'So what shall we do now?'

I looked round on the ground. I thought — She said 'we'. I said 'What we can do is to look for a suitable lever which we can put under the branch where it's on the roof, then I can raise the tree so that the pressure will be taken off the saws and you can free them, and then we can use them to cut the branches which are on the ground and the pressure will be such that we may not even have to cut the main branch from underneath.'

She said 'But can you find a suitable lever?'

I said 'I don't know.' Then — 'And anyway, the lever might go through the roof.'

She said 'So what are you going to do?'

I climbed up the branches of the tree. I pulled at the saws but they would not come out. I sat facing the girl on the ridge of the roof. I

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thought — It is as if we are on the back of an elephant, which is on the back of a tortoise, which is on the back of the sea.

I said 'What I will do is to try to get my back underneath the tree and raise it so that like this the pressure is taken off and then you can free the saws.'

She said 'Like Atlas.'

I said'Yes, like Atlas.'

She said 'But what if you go through the roof?'

I said 'That is the sort of risk you have to take in this business.'

I got my back underneath the main branch of the tree. I was on my hands and knees on the sloping roof; I was like some strange female animal. I thought — You see, perhaps I am giving birth.

— To what? At least, to some sort of language like that of those people who were building a tower to heaven?

I said 'Now!'

She said 'There!'

I said 'And now the other saw.'

She said 'Got it!'

I lowered the branch of the tree and crawled backwards. We sat side by side, the girl and I, facing the same way, on the ridge of the roof, our legs hanging down.

She said 'I've seen you at the house.'

I said 'Yes, I've seen you.'

She said 'What work are you supposed to be doing?'

I said 'We're not supposed to tell.'

She said 'Well, I'm supposed not to tell what I'm doing here.'

I said 'The work I've been doing up to now, which is not secret, has been to do with discovering what might be a suitable moderator for the irradiation of uranium so that a nucleus might split and produce further neutrons.'

She said 'I just couldn't bear to see this cottage with its back broken.'

I said 'I see.'

She said 'Is that all you're doing?'

I said 'The rest is difficult to explain.'

She said 'Yes, the rest is difficult to explain.'

Holding one of the saws, she slid down the sloping thatch of the roof and landed on the ground. She was like a child going down a slide at a fairground. Then she walked with the saw round the branches of the tree that were pressed against the ground.

She said 'Did you say we should cut these branches?'

I said'Yes.'

'And then we can saw more easily the main bit on the roof?'

'Yes/

She said 'Isn't it lucky then that we have two saws.'

I took the other saw and slid down to the ground. I went to the far side of the tree from where she stood. We both began sawing the minor branches.

I wanted to describe this to you: to say — This scene is to do with those who might be our children.

She said 'I wanted to build a home. But, of course, I know I'll never live here.'

I said 'Why won't you live here?'

She said 'Of course I can't!' Then — 'But you don't think it's odd, that I want to build such a home?'

I said 'I once did an experiment with salamanders. I wanted to produce a perfect environment for them so that they would produce an offspring, a mutation, that would be different.'

I could see her face peering at me through the branches. She had stopped sawing. We had cut through quite a lot of the branches that had been resting on the ground, so that the main branch of the tree was becoming cleared.

She said 'How did you know?'

I said 'How did I know what?'

She came round to my side of the tree. Together we looked at what were left of the smaller branches.

I said 'We can now try cutting it again at the top.'

She said 'And was it?'

I said 'What?'

She said'Different.'

I said 'Oh yes. But I couldn't really tell. I had to go back to school.'

She said 'And didn't you have anyone to help you?'

I said'No.'

She said 'Then aren't I lucky.'

At first I didn't know what she meant. Then I thought I might cry.

She had begun to climb up again on to the roof of the cottage.

I went and looked in through the doorway. The floor of the cottage seemed to have been swept and the walls and ceiling brushed down; the grate was clean with sticks in it ready for a fire. There was a table with one leg almost off and two rickety chairs; these had

been scrubbed; there was a pile of bracken as if for a bed in one corner, and on a table a vase of exotic-looking lilies.

It was quite like something I might have made for my salamanders; or like that room, perhaps, where you and I sat in front of the fire.

There was the sound of sawing from the roof. Bits of dust and rubble drifted down.

I went out of the cottage and round to the back where there was the heaviest part of the fallen branch. The girl on the roof was sawing just past the ridge, so that the top part of the tree would fall at the front of the cottage and the heaviest part at the back. I said Til catch this part at the back, then it won't damage the cottage.'

She said 'Thank you.'

When the branch where she was sawing cracked it was difficult to support the heavy end of the branch and swing it round; I got it somehow into my hands; I staggered about like someone tossing a caber.

The girl watched me from the roof. She said 'Do you often do things like this?'

I said Tm practising.'

She said 'For what?' Then — 'Would you like a cup of tea?'

I said 'Yes, please.'

She slid off the roof. I got rid of the branch of the tree, and went into the cottage. She was lighting the fire. I took a chair and sat in it.

She said 'I'm pregnant. Did you know?'

I said'No.'

She left the fire and went through to the back where there seemed to be a larder. From there came the sounds of utensils and crockery being moved about.