Nadine Gordimer - The Conservationist

Jacobus has a bucket and mop and is sloshing water over the windscreen but he waves him off. He must get into town. — What about the lucerne? —

— That far one, there by the pump? I’m going cut today. Is very good day. —

There could be other opinions on that. The weather report on the radio had predicted thunder storms in the afternoon. How big is that field? — it could be cut and then drenched before it’s dry enough to bale — say, two hundred bales lost. Instead of driving towards the farm gate, which is open for the day (the nightwatchman is drinking tea out of a syrup tin in the yard, and has touched his hand to his red-and-white tea-cosy cap in respectful greeting) he’ll take a quick look at that lucerne first. The road is really bad; there’s not time to see to everything. Children run ahead of the car to open the camp gates but they don’t follow him as he heaves through the last one.

Oh my God. What a crime to wake up morning after morning in that flat. Never mind the huge firm bed and the good coffee. The car door shuts under the slow swing of its own weight behind him. The mechanical two-syllable sound disappears instantly as the substance of the morning closes over it, heavy and clear as the sea. Oh my God. The field dips away before it rises again towards the river. It has drifted into flower since the sun rose two hours ago — yesterday afternoon it was still green, with only a hint of sage to show the bloom was coming. Just touching, floating over its contours, is a nap of blue that brushes across the grain to mauve. There is no wind but the air itself is a constant welling. It is the element of this lush summer. He has plunged down past the pump-house where a big pipe makes a hidden foot-bridge buried in bowed grasses and bulrushes over an irrigation furrow. His shoes and the pale grey pants are wiped by wet muzzles of grasses, his hands, that he lets hang at his sides, are trailed over by the tips of a million delicate tongues. Look at the willows. The height of the grass. Look at the reeds. Everything bends, blends, folds. Everything is continually swaying, flowing rippling waving surging streaming fingering. He is standing there with his damn shoes all wet with the dew and he feels he himself is swaying, the pulsation of his blood is moving him on his own axis (that’s the sensation) as it seems to do to accommodate the human body to the movement of a ship. A high earth running beneath his feet. All this softness of grasses is the susurration of a slight dizziness, hissing in the head.

Fair and lovely place. From where does the phrase come to him? It comes back, tum-te-tum-te-tum, as only something learned by rote survives. It’s not his vocabulary. Fair and lovely. A place in a child’s primer where nothing ugly could possibly be imagined to happen: as if such places exist. No wound to be seen; and simply shovelled under. He looks out over this domain almost with fascination, to think that, somewhere, that particular spot exists, overgrown. No one’ll remember where you are buried.

The shoes are a mess.

There ought to be a yellow duster on the glove shelf — but an old company report serves. He smears off the wet and scraps of grass. There are some early grass-seeds, too. Once on the main road, there’s heavy traffic at this time in the morning. Truck-loads of builders’ supplies, road-making equipment mounted on huge, slow trailers marked ‘Abnormal Load’, haulage of all kinds, although he calculated that factory workers would have gone to work already and the office and shop people would be going a little later. Overtaking and being overtaken, the tread of these vehicles and his Mercedes criss-cross again and again the experience he has just left behind him (half an hour he wandered, stood in the field, or maybe not more than ten minutes): quickly it is covered by a kind of grid. On its tracks are laid down many automatic responses to everyday situations of no importance and one of these is that he does not see people who thumb lifts; he would certainly not have been aware of the pair (even though the old man was dressed so peculiarly) who take courage to come right to the car while he is held up behind two crawling trailers just before the entrance to the freeway. An elderly man in commissionaire’s uniform and a girl or young woman. Difficult to say no, when you can’t drive off, and there’s a whole great empty car. He has told them, shortly, to get in, then. They have both scrambled humbly into the back, just time to bang the door too hard behind them the way people do who are not used to these big cars that respond to the lightest touch, while he suddenly sees the opportunity to get past the trailers, in a fast manoeuvre, and work his way into his lane again.

He is up front alone like a chauffeur and would be content to leave it at that. But a face under a gold-braided cap, cut off by the lower limits of the rear view mirror where thin pink wattles are caught into an even more elaborately-braided stand-up collar, determinedly catches his eye, although it must be impossible to tell, from the back of his head, whether this sociable move has been successful or not. The old chap must be sitting forward on the edge of the seat. — No, I was just saying, as a matter of interest, weren’t you at the late show, Trinity Is Still My Name , on Friday? —

— You’re talking about a cinema? —

— That’s right. The Elite 300, Starland City. —

— No, no, I wasn’t at any cinema. —

— Now that’s funny, you know I’ve got an eye for faces, and when I come up just now I said to myself — I’ve seen that one recently. Not Saturday night, then? There was a gentleman with a party of four, nice-looking people, a blonde lady one of them — I could have sworn it was you. Well, I’m not so young as I used to be, old soldiers never die, they say, but I reckon I see three to four thousand people a week going past me, and often I’ll say to one of them, Good evening, sir, and did you enjoy the show last week — giving the name of the picture, whatever it might happen to’ve been, you see, and who was starring — and by George you should see their faces then! What a memory, they’ll say to me! See a face once, in all those thousands, and pick it out again just like that! Not that every face’s a face you’ll remember, you know. There’s some you don’t want to lay eyes on again, I can tell you that. —

— I’m sure. —

— It takes all kinds. You’ll get them that push the tickets under your nose like it was a bone for a dog and you’d think you’re expected to have four hands at once, they can’t stand a moment. A person must take their turn, one man’s as good as the next, and what’s the rush, you’re going in for an evening’s pleasure aren’t you? You want to relax, take it easy, isn’t it so? —

The old face in the mirror is smiling in the bounty of its philosophy. He nods vociferously enough for this to appear, from the back of his head, adequately appreciative.

— But most of the time you meet a nice class of people coming to the shows at Elite 300. Lots of them know me by sight. They’ve got a smile and a good evening for you. You don’t get these young hippies you get in the big cinemas, putting their feet up on the seats and burning the carpets. Some people’ve got no respect for anything. It’s the parents I blame. I’m not prejudiced, I don’t say that every kid with long hair’s a loafer, mind. I’ve had youngsters of my own, and I’ve got grandsons. But what would I do with myself sitting around at home? Dad, my daughter tells me, you’ve done your bit. All through Delville Wood in ’14 — ’18, yes. But I’d go out of my mind sitting doing nothing. I was five years at the old Metro before they pulled it down. But you can’t compare the comfort with a small exclusive cinema like the Elite, no question about it. You’ve been there, of course. Once you get down into one of those seats you’re like in a beautiful armchair in your own home. Just as good. —