Claire-Louise Bennett: Pond: Stories

It seemed to me actually that it was high time I cleaned off the old leaves from the main steps so I went into the kitchen and got the broom and took it up to the top step. Now, I do not know if my method for clearing off the leaves was the best approach since it involved sweeping the leaves from the top step down to the next step and then sweeping both lots of leaves onto the following step, and so on. Probably it would have been better to have used a pan to collect the leaves from each step, but it wasn’t that important to me to do it the best way and I quite liked how the heap spilled and prospered like a big tumbling ogre as I made my way down the steps with the broom. I was almost at the last step when my friend came out and just stood there. Did you have a nice shower, I said. Yeah, he said. About time, I said, and then I told him to go and get a wheelbarrow, which he didn’t look altogether pleased about. Briefly I had thought that perhaps a little concerted effort might shake us out of our ennui but in this respect our natures are quite distinct and I knew he’d demonstrate no enthusiasm or initiative whatsoever so I gave up the idea that this might be an invigorating endeavour and simply continued to tell him what to do instead. I don’t like gardening, he said, we’re not gardening, I said. What are we doing then, he said. Tidying up, I said. Soon as that was done I nudged the broom over the large rock to loosen leaves caught up in a contorted tangle of grappling stems — what is this anyway, I said — it seemed dead, whatever it was, so I yanked at it until it leapt loose and the rock became completely clear and was something naked and impressive. I could tell my friend could see no point to what I was doing — I bundled what I’d ripped up into the wheelbarrow and told him to empty it then I went off to find tools — he would be going soon and I wanted to know how it would be to go on doing what I was doing without anyone around.

I found secateurs and shears and since I was in the business of sprucing things up I was thrilled with both — particularly the secateurs because although I’d seen the shears here and there — in quite hazardous places it must be said — I hadn’t known anything about the secateurs so they were a real bonus. There were a lot of rampant brambles, and other things on the wane. It had never before occurred to me to do anything about them, it didn’t seem to be any of my business to tell you the truth — interfering is something I really loathe in almost all its applications. So, I was trimming — pruning you might call it— and pulling up weeds and patting the soil back down, and I soon felt like one of those ladies I’d see from the car window on the way to my grandparents’ house with their ample backsides and baggy gardening gloves when I was much smaller. This is mindless, I thought, and very unflattering — stop it at once. But I didn’t stop because I was so curious to find out what changed if I carried on. I had an uneasy relationship with my task, that is for sure, and I had to go on telling myself things like everything will grow back, it helps the little plants come forth, all the big stuff is almost dead anyway — you don’t ever have to do this again was the final assurance I offered myself— but if you don’t do something today, now, how will you find anything out about how you feel? I couldn’t continue with the tools so put them down and carried on with my hands, which were ungloved, and very soon they were stinging, which was fair. Come on then, I thought, and watched as my hands tore around indiscriminately. Is this kind of frenzied pulling and wrenching what happens once you begin? Perhaps I really hate all this stuff and it is a very normal and human thing to wish to crush it. But no, not that, I wasn’t pitting myself against nature or anything as hammy as that — I was suddenly desperate to get rid of all this dishevelled foliage, it’s true, but the reason I soon realised was because I wanted to get to bare soil — I missed it — it was all covered over and I wanted so much to push everything aside and see the earth. I’d had quite enough of leaves and flowers, all that rustling and blooming and liquid light, it was time for all that to pack itself off really. Except of course it doesn’t go anywhere it just lies around like a lot of burst things and shrivels and withers and becomes very soggy and swamp-like. Oh, fuck the leaves and fuck the flowers! I want to see naked trees and hear the earth gasp and settle into a warm and tender mass of radiant darkness. I want to see the marks of hooves, not eleventh hour disposable barbeques. I want most of all to get inside there. That’s right, that’s always been true. It’s the first thing I can remember. Standing at the back window, looking at the lawn, and knowing exactly everything beneath it and wanting to get back there. You don’t know how passionate it is down there.

I believe that’s where I lost my heart.

Out beyond and way back and further past that still. And such was it since. But after all appearances and some afternoons misspent it came to pass not all was done and over with. No, no. None shally shally on that here hill. Ah, but that was idle then and change was not an old hand. No, no. None shilly shilly on that here first rung. So, much girded and with new multitudes, a sun came purple and the hail turned in a year or two. And that was not all. No, no. None ganny ganny on that here moon loose. Turns were taken and time put in, so much heft and grimace, there, with callouses, all along the diagonal. Like no other time and the time taken back, that too like none other that can be compared to a bovine heap raising steam, or the eye-cast of a flailing comet. Back and forth, examining the egg spill and the cord fray and the clowning barnacle. And all day with no break to unwrap or unscrew or squint and flex or soak the brush. No, no. None flim flim on that here cavorting mainstay. From tree to tree and the pond there deepening and some small holes appearing and any number of cornstalks twisting into a thing far from corn. That being the case there was some wretched plotting, turned to stone, holding nothing. No, no. None rubby rubby on that here yardstick. Came then from the region of silt and aster, all along the horse trammel and fire velvet, first these sounds and then their makers. When passed betwixt and entered fully, pails were swung and notches considered. There was no light. No, none. None wzm wzm on that here piss crater. And it being the day, still considered. Oh, all things considered and not one mentioned, since all names had turned in and handed back. Knowing this the hounds disbanded and knowing that the ground muddled headstones and milestones and gallows and the almond-shaped buds of freshest honeysuckle. And among this chafing tumult fates were scrambled and mortality made untidy and pithy vows took themselves a breather. This being the way and irreversible homewards now was a lifted skeletal thing of the past, without due application or undue meaning. No, no. None shap shap on that here domicile shank. From right foot to left, first by the firs, then by the river, hung and loitered, and the blaze there slow to come. All night waking with no benefit of sleeping and the breath cranking and the heart-place levering and the kerosene pervading but failing to jerk a flame from out any one thing. No, none. None whoosh whoosh on that here burnished cunt. Oh, the earth, the earth and the women there, inside the simpering huts, stamped and spiritless, blowing on the coals. Not far away, but beyond the way of return.

The winds hereabouts had worked up such a remarkable storm it made the news in the neighbouring country and so one morning I awoke to enquiries from my family, my father to be precise, about how I was faring. I said I was very snug indeed, which was no exaggeration, and I added that since my house is tucked into a hollow it is reasonably sheltered and altogether quite safe. Then I said sometimes I worried that a tree might fall upon it because I didn’t want to reassure my father too much and thereby dispense with his concern entirely. I asked him of course what it was like there and he said it had just been very windy, just that. I’ve been up since five thirty, he said, which was no great surprise to either of us because his new children are supremely young and he told me in fact that the girl just then was eating a gingerbread man. Later on that day, or perhaps it was the following afternoon, I went out onto the driveway and not unlike the method by which an oystercatcher grazes the shoreline I bent down here and there to collect the many sticks and branches that had broken off during the storm — which kept up, on and off, for about a week I should think.