Claire-Louise Bennett - Pond - Stories

As it turned out he came and she didn’t. They couldn’t get a babysitter you see. He came on his bicycle and his face was incredibly flushed, which he seemed to be enjoying very much. Indeed, it is nice to be flushed, whatever way it happens. I can’t recall what he brought with him, which surprises me — I’ve a feeling it was something that needed to be kept flat because I seem to remember that the minute he came in the door he was anxious to look inside his rucksack. It was a tart, I remember now. That’s right, he took a tarte normande from his rucksack and it was perfectly intact — and there was a bottle of Austrian white wine too with a distinctive neck which I put in the fridge right away and I don’t think I opened it until much later on— the neck was distinctive you see and I remember putting my hand around it again quite late, it was really chilled, possibly too much. There was lots of wine, more than enough, and I was pleased about that, in addition my friend with tenure brought beer and a bottle of my favourite gin, which was unexpected and very kind because that particular gin is astronomically expensive. Everyone came with something thoughtful in fact and now and then I’d bring some chicken wings out of the kitchen, or one of those pizzas that have such beautifully thin bases some people presume they’re home-made, and everyone already knew each other more or less so I could do whatever I liked and didn’t have to worry about whether so-and-so was enjoying themselves because anytime I looked around there wasn’t anyone who looked left out, but then it’s so small in here it would be pretty difficult for anyone to look left out even if they felt it.

For a long time a man sat on the ottoman, I don’t remember which man and perhaps it alternated. I just remember jeans and boots, and of course that wasn’t at all what I’d had in mind. Quite often I’m terribly disappointed by how things turn out, but that’s usually my own fault for the simple reason that I’m too quick to conclude that things have turned out as fully as it is possible for them to turn, when in fact, quite often, they are still on the turn and have some way to go until they have turned out completely. As my friend who lives nearby frequently reminds me, that part hasn’t been revealed yet. My fascination was short-lived in any case, perhaps it lasted a fortnight, less, and it was only brought about in the first place by a blouse she wore one day — the collar, to be precise. The way her head was bowed, actually, just above the collar. So that I could see the roots of her hair, which was parted and pulled back. She was flipping through a very thick fashion magazine. One hand flipped through the magazine and the other hand was up near her face — near her chin — near her collar. What must it be like, I thought, to stand there like that, flipping through a fashion magazine? That shows you how determined I was, how utterly determined, to overhaul everything, to convince myself anything at all was possible — and obviously I must have thought that it must feel really terrific, standing there like that, flipping through a fashion magazine, wearing discreet earrings and a diaphanous collar.

Well really, I get so carried away.

The following day I took my time and returned everything gradually. There were lots of crackers and grapes left over, and some nicely slumped cheese. In fact I discovered all sorts of things here and there. Including a small bag of jelly babies on the windowsill. There’s bed linen inside the ottoman by the way — some of which I’ve had for years.

When I moved in here all three control knobs on the cooker were intact and working just fine. Three control knobs on a cooker probably doesn’t sound like very many to most people because, nowadays, in addition to hardly anyone ever saying nowadays, very few people own what’s known as a mini-kitchen, and those people who do are probably the same people who continue to unfurl the phrase nowadays. This domestic throwback comprises two electric rings, which are managed by the top and second control knobs, and an oven-grill, which is activated by the bottom control knob. Easy-peasy. I was informed when I first looked around the cottage that my culinary ambitions need not be in any way hampered by the diminutive dimensions of this appliance and naturally I believed my future landlady when she assured me she’d roasted whole legs of lamb in that oven for up to eleven people — however, I’d like to know where they all sat. I get the impression though that she prepared huge hearty spreads which were subsequently passed out through the window and taken off down the garden — I think outdoor feasting was the sort of thing that frequently went on here for a while. I have no complaints anyhow about the oven’s performance; despite the fact that its wattage output is so modest it’s a technical impossibility to switch on the larger ring when the oven or grill is in use, it generates a snug heat, and the meat is always impressively tender. In fact, in fairness to it, birds, shanks, potatoes, squash, all do very nicely in there, and of course it’s cheap, economical, to run. I’ve even got round its démodé appearance which smacks so unpleasantly of digs and hot knives; I’ve propped a mirror along the back edge of it so that now to all appearances it has four rings too, just like anyone else’s hob. People said the mirror would get hot and crack and of course the mirror got very hot and cracked but once the glass had cracked three times it didn’t crack again. Perhaps that was all the tension it had in it to be got rid of, because those three cracks occurred in quick succession right at the beginning and, as I’ve said, there’s been not a splinter since.

I have never bought an oven and I don’t know how long one can expect an oven to keep going before the time has come to replace it but I’m beginning to suspect mine is very old and its days numbered. Not that there’s anything wrong with it— it still functions very effectively in fact — the difficulty is with getting it to function; the control knobs are deteriorating you see. When the first one goes it’s no big deal, it’s easy enough to slide off one of the other control knobs connected to a part of the oven not in current use, but, when the second control knob split, things got trickier. Added to which, the remaining control knob is doing three times the work it used to so it is under considerable pressure and will itself fracture any minute I should think. It’s a nuisance anyhow sliding the one remaining control knob back and forth between the three metal prongs— yet, as impracticable as it sounds, there is just no alternative way of turning them. Obviously I’ve attempted to twist the metal prongs with my bare hands, but they don’t budge a millimetre.

I’ve been down to the last control knob for quite some time now, several months I should think, and it’s only lately that I have begun to see that this deceptively trivial defect is in fact no minor thing. Full cognisance of how grave the consequences will be when it finally snaps was probably brought home to me by that book I read recently and the specific moment when the narrator realises she has only a thousand matches left. Actually I think there may have been more matches than that and the total was not a rounded estimate but a very precise figure on account of the fact the narrator had sat down at a table and counted out the matches carefully, one by one. This scenario might not sound like much of a catastrophe but in fact the woman slowly counting out matches is already negotiating a much bigger and completely silent catastrophe that has rendered her the last person left. Furthermore, it is not possible for her to wander wherever she likes to procure whatever she needs because of an invisible wall that occurred late one evening when she remained at the hunting lodge while her two friends went out to a restaurant. Everything on the other side of the invisible wall is, she discovers, completely motionless; birds, cats, people, her two friends, everyone — yet somehow a small area has been left out, which is where she is. And so she is the lone survivor of this impenetrable catastrophe, and has only a very restricted area within which to work out the rest of her existence.