Read Online Sugar and Other Stories by A. S. Byatt - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: A. S. Byatt
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practical and continue to live because one must, and there was Noel …
“I got it wrong, you see, I was so
sensible
, and then I was so shocked because I couldn’t get to want anything — I couldn’t
talk
to Noel — I — I — made Noel take away, destroy, all the photos, I — didn’t dream, you can will not to dream, I didn’t … visit a grave, flowers, there isn’t any point. I was so sensible. Only my body wouldn’t stop waiting and all it wants is to — to see that boy.
That
boy. That boy you — saw.”
He did not say that he might have seen another boy, maybe even a boy who had been given the tee shirts and jeans afterwards. He did not say, though the idea crossed his mind, that maybe what hehad seen was some kind of impression from her terrible desire to see a boy where nothing was. The boy had had nothing terrible, no aura of pain about him: he had been, his memory insisted, such a pleasant, courteous, self-contained boy, with his own purposes. And in fact the woman herself almost immediately raised the possibility that what he had seen was what she desired to see, a kind of mix-up of radio waves, like when you overheard police messages on the radio, or got BBC I on a switch that said ITV . She was thinking fast, and went on almost immediately to say that perhaps his sense of loss, his loss of Anne, which was what had led her to feel she could bear his presence in her house, was what had brought them — dare she say — near enough, for their wavelengths to mingle, perhaps, had made him susceptible … You mean, he had said, we are a kind of emotional vacuum, between us, that must be filled. Something like that, she had said, and had added, “But I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Anne, he thought, could not be a ghost, because she was elsewhere, with someone else, doing for someone else those little things she had done so gaily for him, tasty little suppers, bits of research, a sudden vase of unusual flowers, a new bold shirt, unlike his own cautious taste, but suiting him, suiting him. In a sense, Anne was worse lost because voluntarily absent, an absence that could not be loved because love was at an end, for Anne.
“I don’t suppose you will, now,” the woman was saying. “I think talking would probably stop any — mixing of messages, if that’s what it is, don’t you? But — if —
if
he comes again” — and here for the first time her eyes were full of tears — “if — you must promise, you will
tell
me, you must promise.”
He had promised, easily enough, because he was fairly sure she was right, the boy would not be seen again. But the next day he was on the lawn, nearer than ever, sitting on the grass beside the deck-chair, his arms clasping his bent, warm brown knees, the thick, pale hair glittering in the sun. He was wearing a footballshirt, this time, Chelsea’s colours. Sitting down in the deck-chair, the man could have put out a hand and touched him, but did not: it was not, it seemed, a possible gesture to make. But the boy looked up and smiled, with a pleasant complicity, as though they now understood each other very well. The man tried speech: he said, “It’s nice to see you again,” and the boy nodded acknowledgement of this remark, without speaking himself. This was the beginning of communication between them, or what the man supposed to be communication. He did not think of fetching the woman. He became aware that he was in some strange way
enjoying the boy’s company.
His pleasant stillness — and he sat there all morning, occasionally lying back on the grass, occasionally staring thoughtfully at the house — was calming and comfortable. The man did quite a lot of work — wrote about three reasonable pages on Hardy’s original air-blue gown — and looked up now and then to make sure the boy was still there and happy.
He went to report to the woman — as he had after all promised to do — that evening. She had obviously been waiting and hoping —
“I got it wrong, you see, I was so
sensible
, and then I was so shocked because I couldn’t get to want anything — I couldn’t
talk
to Noel — I — I — made Noel take away, destroy, all the photos, I — didn’t dream, you can will not to dream, I didn’t … visit a grave, flowers, there isn’t any point. I was so sensible. Only my body wouldn’t stop waiting and all it wants is to — to see that boy.
That
boy. That boy you — saw.”
He did not say that he might have seen another boy, maybe even a boy who had been given the tee shirts and jeans afterwards. He did not say, though the idea crossed his mind, that maybe what hehad seen was some kind of impression from her terrible desire to see a boy where nothing was. The boy had had nothing terrible, no aura of pain about him: he had been, his memory insisted, such a pleasant, courteous, self-contained boy, with his own purposes. And in fact the woman herself almost immediately raised the possibility that what he had seen was what she desired to see, a kind of mix-up of radio waves, like when you overheard police messages on the radio, or got BBC I on a switch that said ITV . She was thinking fast, and went on almost immediately to say that perhaps his sense of loss, his loss of Anne, which was what had led her to feel she could bear his presence in her house, was what had brought them — dare she say — near enough, for their wavelengths to mingle, perhaps, had made him susceptible … You mean, he had said, we are a kind of emotional vacuum, between us, that must be filled. Something like that, she had said, and had added, “But I don’t believe in ghosts.”
Anne, he thought, could not be a ghost, because she was elsewhere, with someone else, doing for someone else those little things she had done so gaily for him, tasty little suppers, bits of research, a sudden vase of unusual flowers, a new bold shirt, unlike his own cautious taste, but suiting him, suiting him. In a sense, Anne was worse lost because voluntarily absent, an absence that could not be loved because love was at an end, for Anne.
“I don’t suppose you will, now,” the woman was saying. “I think talking would probably stop any — mixing of messages, if that’s what it is, don’t you? But — if —
if
he comes again” — and here for the first time her eyes were full of tears — “if — you must promise, you will
tell
me, you must promise.”
He had promised, easily enough, because he was fairly sure she was right, the boy would not be seen again. But the next day he was on the lawn, nearer than ever, sitting on the grass beside the deck-chair, his arms clasping his bent, warm brown knees, the thick, pale hair glittering in the sun. He was wearing a footballshirt, this time, Chelsea’s colours. Sitting down in the deck-chair, the man could have put out a hand and touched him, but did not: it was not, it seemed, a possible gesture to make. But the boy looked up and smiled, with a pleasant complicity, as though they now understood each other very well. The man tried speech: he said, “It’s nice to see you again,” and the boy nodded acknowledgement of this remark, without speaking himself. This was the beginning of communication between them, or what the man supposed to be communication. He did not think of fetching the woman. He became aware that he was in some strange way
enjoying the boy’s company.
His pleasant stillness — and he sat there all morning, occasionally lying back on the grass, occasionally staring thoughtfully at the house — was calming and comfortable. The man did quite a lot of work — wrote about three reasonable pages on Hardy’s original air-blue gown — and looked up now and then to make sure the boy was still there and happy.
He went to report to the woman — as he had after all promised to do — that evening. She had obviously been waiting and hoping —
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