Claire-Louise Bennett - Pond - Stories

Well I can’t believe my eyes! I unscrewed the pen so as to check that what I’d put into it was what I thought I’d put into it, and yes, sure enough, there it was, quite quite green — and draining fast! A good fifth already spent and still no sign of it yet. The reason in the first place I came by this cartridge of unforthcoming green ink is because the shopping bag it was at the bottom of was itself out on the driveway quite suddenly, and without my say-so, along with some other bits and pieces of mine that are not in current use. Funnily enough I can’t recall if I spotted my displaced belongings from somewhere outside or while standing at the kitchen sink doing the usual— furthermore, I did not feel any sort of anxiety or affront when, wherever it was I stood, I noticed some of my belongings had been shifted without my say-so from the outbuilding to the driveway.

Up until that moment I had more or less accepted that I was the sort of person who didn’t feel at all easy about having any of her belongings interfered with — and by interfered with I mean anything so much as looked at actually. I’m terribly secretive you see so that kind of attention just doesn’t suit me. Nevertheless, right there in front of me were many of my personal effects, moved by someone or other, quite suddenly, and without my say-so, yet I had half a mind to pretend I hadn’t noticed a thing. So despite what I thought about myself it turned out my concern for these outlying possessions of mine was really quite scant and I think in all honesty the chief reason why I went out there at all was because I was wearing a new sweater.

There was in fact nothing at all untoward about parts of my stash being put out onto the driveway like this; my landlady and her sister have been making frequent visits recently and from what I have observed from the kitchen window they are very much taken up with putting things in order. Three days ago, for example, she came to my door and asked me about two large bags of empty bottles which have nothing to do with me, but of course one has to be very careful about how one communicates that something has nothing to do with one so as not to get the people it has everything to do with into hot water. And so now they’ve made a start on the outbuilding, and why not. After all it’s become a dumping ground for every sort of discoloured tat, blighted clutter and things that are just too damn awkward to get rid of; it seems perfectly reasonable that they should wish to reinstate it as a repository for those things that aren’t needed day-to-day yet can’t quite be given up.

Indeed, when I first came here the outbuilding was like a sort of lumber room, and sometimes, when I was at a loose end, I’d go across and stand in its delicate gloom for a while and wait to see what caught my eye. And then, when I’d been living here a little longer, I might go ahead and pick something up and look at it that way, and then, when I’d begun to feel really quite at home, I’d occasionally appraise something or other rather favourably and thereupon take whatever it was back into the cottage with me. I won’t go as far as to say the outbuilding contained unimagined treasures, indeed at first glance it all looked rather humdrum, nonetheless, for a while each time I went in there I wouldn’t leave without bringing something back with me and I remember thinking what a soft touch I must be that even old things on a shelf can somehow win me over and impel me to return them to where they used to be. Because I was quite aware that that was what I was doing; carting castaways right back to the very places they used to be.

We’ve been to the tip four times already, she told me, after saying something pleasant but slightly erroneous about my new jumper. We stood on the driveway and talked about stuff and the way it mounts up, and we talked a little bit about France and Italy — I must say she looked very well. Then we both went on over to the outbuilding where indeed more and more things had been piling up to the extent that it had become pretty well impossible to get the door open and I saw that in fact a considerable amount of stuff had already been got rid of or was out on the driveway in a kind of awkward limbo awaiting a final verdict and whatever remained had been stacked together very neatly, with my stereo as a rather impressive centrepiece. That doesn’t work, I said, you can get rid of it. I saw my tent was there too — rolled into its proper bag — forming a sort of mantel, or lintel actually — and catching sight of my tent is always bracing and so there was no doubt at all in my mind about whether it was going or staying. Outside, on the other hand, were things that were not so easy to know what to do with — including, for example, many thousands of words I produced during the three years I spent working on a doctoral thesis. Many of the pages were loose and I knew very well they weren’t in any order. There were quite a few of those frumpy ring binders that I could never quite bring myself to use because they are just so heart-sinking and severe and I recall I had to hunt high and low, which is actually quite a difficult activity to carry off in just two available stationery shops, for folders that were not black or red or blue. This is all a preamble really, of course it is, going on and on, as much as possible, so as not to ever get to what it was I really came across. There was an envelope, a white envelope — the sort which can easily accommodate an A4 sheet of paper or two if they’ve been neatly folded across-ways twice. And on the white envelope was somebody else’s name crossed out and above that was my name and on the back was a small strip of sticking tape, that was still, actually, quite sticky, so I had to pull at it a bit in order to get the envelope opened. And there it was, from him, in my hand again.

It was my understanding that the letter had been in the house the whole time in the inner pocket of a clutch bag I no longer use, because that was in fact where it was kept for a long time, and I can’t imagine what the reason for me moving it was at all. I had not anticipated standing with it today on the driveway, of course I hadn’t, and so I stood on the driveway and just held it with both hands for a while, enjoying the occurrence of something I had not expected and feeling terrifically self-conscious in the process. I came right out of myself as a matter of fact; I could see my new sweater and the bright colours of its haphazard design, and I could even see around to the back of my neck and the loop of hair that had come loose from my ponytail and hung there. Then I realised I was waiting for the feelings to come; that same arrangement of feeling which always runs its course whenever I hold this envelope. But those feelings did not come, and, in any case, those feelings had never quite been natural — the fact that this letter existed at all was something of a miracle you see, there had been a great deal put in the way of it, it always felt so hot and vertiginous in my hands; nothing in relation to it could ever be fresh and voluntary. Yet that was all so far away now and today, this afternoon, the letter stood alone, unhindered, free from all the panic and recrimination that had followed and obscured it. I took it from its envelope and the feeling that came to me was that I was about to read something I had not read before.

The type was small and the font unfamiliar — the whole format was kind of strange actually — but I knew they were his words only, coming from him. And unlike those first times previously I did not plunge through it headlong but took it word by word, moving steadily, from one word to the next, without once slipping. Consequently every line I came across seemed different beneath my eyes — closer, much closer. Closer than how they had appeared to me the first times I’d read it years ago. Looking at it then with hungry rapid eyes I remember the same unconnected words would rear up forcing other words in between to recede and it was always as if I stood out on a small doweling perch above a loaded and churning landscape. I would see a thick black storm always, and colossal phosphorous waves, and amongst all the tumult and electric tints something firm yet recoiling would call out to me, but of course I could not hear what it was. And so I would just stand there, shaking perforce on my small doweling perch, feeling helpless and culpable and vicious for reasons I could not really examine nor wholly accept. Today on the driveway in my bold new sweater I went right along with him.