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Authors: Philip Hensher
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tragic.”
“No, wait, because they go down, they go down in their parachutes, I mean, and then at the bottom, when they get to the bottom, there’s baby bear anyway.”
“I’ve heard this before,” Jane said. “It’s crap.”
“And they say, ‘Oh, baby bear oh, kissy kissy, how did you get down safe and everything?’ And the baby bear says, ‘Me not stupid, me not silly. Me hold on to daddy’s willy.’”
There was a lengthy silence. Daniel and Jane exchanged a sorrowing look.
“That’s it, that’s the joke,” Tim said. “It was funny, I mean, it’s funny if you don’t ask stupid questions all the time.”
“What I don’t understand,” Jane said, “is why they have to be bears. They could be anything. They could be people, or they could be donkeys. It wouldn’t make any difference to the joke.”
“They couldn’t be donkeys, though, could they?” Daniel said pensively. “If you think about it.”
“Why couldn’t they be donkeys?” Jane said.
“Well, you couldn’t hold a cock with your hooves,” Daniel said. “If you were a donkey. Have some sense, woman.”
“You could try,” Jane said.
Tim was crying now, fat tears amassing at his already reddened lids. The other two watched the familiar phenomenon. “It’s not fair,” he finally said. “No one ever listens to anything I say. I don’t want to talk to you any more.”
“I wish,” Jane said, in her mother’s posh or telephone voice, “I wish you two would stop making Timothy cry. It’s not kind or clever.”
“Do you want to go and watch Why Don’t You?” Daniel said. “I’m bored of this.”
It was at least another hour after Leicester Forest East before the car felt normal again. It felt to Francis like a bubble of discomfort taking its time to rise upwards in him and burst. It was no one’s fault; whatever Sandra had done or said, it had been forgiven by the family without inquiry. Bernie’s affability towards the men had not crumbled, but his posture had stiffened, a protective, resentful attitude with which there was no argument. But in time the atmosphere cleared; in an hour Francis thought only he was trembling with that strange Francis-dread, the sort of fear that could be stirred in him by what had happened to someone else, or by events that were not about to transpire, that, imagined,could end in some catastrophe, none worse to contemplate than being shouted at. Sandra had been shouted at, in some way, yet she, his mother and father had passed from a stiff front of bravery to a real sense of being in the right. If, indeed, they hadn’t forgotten about it.
That Francis-dread came with a smell, a taste in his mouth as of sour clashing metals; it came from inside, and took time to go. He wondered sometimes if he gave off the smell of fear; animals, they said, always knew when you were frightened. Aunt Judith with her dog, making a beeline for him, making him cringe, because the dog could smell the emotion in his mouth. Yes.
But that smell and taste, so strong to him but unnoticeable, he guessed, to the other three in the car, was now being beaten down by a smell of the earth. The landscape had been changing, presenting familiar sights in unfamiliar arrangements—those bald, hopeful trees—as well as the unfamiliar, the monstrous. Hills were rising up, black and softly yielding, the great dunes of a black Sahara; and here, a building, a huge black box on sort of was it stilts , there were windows—were they?—but white, opaque, just a grid of white squares. It looked like something you would draw if you couldn’t draw, the idea of a big house but just a big black and white square. And out of the side, like a giant lolling arm, an immense conveyor belt. You could see the wheels running, carrying something, some kind of rubble up or down. The most terrible thing: there were no men. It was just a huge machine, a factory—a factory?—like a big black flimsy box, a black hill both flimsy and vast,
“No, wait, because they go down, they go down in their parachutes, I mean, and then at the bottom, when they get to the bottom, there’s baby bear anyway.”
“I’ve heard this before,” Jane said. “It’s crap.”
“And they say, ‘Oh, baby bear oh, kissy kissy, how did you get down safe and everything?’ And the baby bear says, ‘Me not stupid, me not silly. Me hold on to daddy’s willy.’”
There was a lengthy silence. Daniel and Jane exchanged a sorrowing look.
“That’s it, that’s the joke,” Tim said. “It was funny, I mean, it’s funny if you don’t ask stupid questions all the time.”
“What I don’t understand,” Jane said, “is why they have to be bears. They could be anything. They could be people, or they could be donkeys. It wouldn’t make any difference to the joke.”
“They couldn’t be donkeys, though, could they?” Daniel said pensively. “If you think about it.”
“Why couldn’t they be donkeys?” Jane said.
“Well, you couldn’t hold a cock with your hooves,” Daniel said. “If you were a donkey. Have some sense, woman.”
“You could try,” Jane said.
Tim was crying now, fat tears amassing at his already reddened lids. The other two watched the familiar phenomenon. “It’s not fair,” he finally said. “No one ever listens to anything I say. I don’t want to talk to you any more.”
“I wish,” Jane said, in her mother’s posh or telephone voice, “I wish you two would stop making Timothy cry. It’s not kind or clever.”
“Do you want to go and watch Why Don’t You?” Daniel said. “I’m bored of this.”
It was at least another hour after Leicester Forest East before the car felt normal again. It felt to Francis like a bubble of discomfort taking its time to rise upwards in him and burst. It was no one’s fault; whatever Sandra had done or said, it had been forgiven by the family without inquiry. Bernie’s affability towards the men had not crumbled, but his posture had stiffened, a protective, resentful attitude with which there was no argument. But in time the atmosphere cleared; in an hour Francis thought only he was trembling with that strange Francis-dread, the sort of fear that could be stirred in him by what had happened to someone else, or by events that were not about to transpire, that, imagined,could end in some catastrophe, none worse to contemplate than being shouted at. Sandra had been shouted at, in some way, yet she, his mother and father had passed from a stiff front of bravery to a real sense of being in the right. If, indeed, they hadn’t forgotten about it.
That Francis-dread came with a smell, a taste in his mouth as of sour clashing metals; it came from inside, and took time to go. He wondered sometimes if he gave off the smell of fear; animals, they said, always knew when you were frightened. Aunt Judith with her dog, making a beeline for him, making him cringe, because the dog could smell the emotion in his mouth. Yes.
But that smell and taste, so strong to him but unnoticeable, he guessed, to the other three in the car, was now being beaten down by a smell of the earth. The landscape had been changing, presenting familiar sights in unfamiliar arrangements—those bald, hopeful trees—as well as the unfamiliar, the monstrous. Hills were rising up, black and softly yielding, the great dunes of a black Sahara; and here, a building, a huge black box on sort of was it stilts , there were windows—were they?—but white, opaque, just a grid of white squares. It looked like something you would draw if you couldn’t draw, the idea of a big house but just a big black and white square. And out of the side, like a giant lolling arm, an immense conveyor belt. You could see the wheels running, carrying something, some kind of rubble up or down. The most terrible thing: there were no men. It was just a huge machine, a factory—a factory?—like a big black flimsy box, a black hill both flimsy and vast,
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