It was the day they went to the local swimming-pool:
Mary, Alan, Russ, Ray, Paris, Vera, Alfred, Wendy and Jeremy. Mary was nervous about the scheme to begin with, particularly about what she should wear, but Wendy reassured her. Wendy had become a good friend to Mary, explaining to her, for instance, about contraception. Mary thought for some reason that only people in books had babies. But Wendy had a baby, didn’t she? Mary thought about what she had risked—having a baby, Alan’s baby. Ay! And to think that the act of pain or sadness was also the act that peopled the world.
‘Can you swim, Mary?’ asked Wendy as they splashed their way down the tunnel with Jeremy and Vera, heading for the booming echoes of the pool.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mary, pleased with her hired costume. Mary looked good in black.
‘What you mean, you don’t know?’ said Vera.
‘I mean, I may have forgotten how,’ said Mary in confusion, stepping out into the high arena.
‘Come down the shallow end then,’ said Wendy.
‘I think I’ll just sit down first,’ said Mary.
Mary didn’t know where to turn. Never had the brazen present thronged so mightily. Look, look, look, look at this, look at that, look at him, look at her, all in such liquid lucidity. The water sent out ribboned oceans along the high walls. The raw, tangled, stinging forms thrashed and leapt in chaos, ignited by the light … Black Ray flashed past, thumped both feet on the pool’s corky edge, and climbed in a failing arc through the air to topple as his arms pierced the water. His face and shoulders shot up again and he yelled at Paris, who bounded up the leaning gangplank, clutched his knees to his chest, and scattered the water with his atomic splash. Even Alan, looking no older than Jeremy in furry grey trunks, ran past waving and dived with his legs spread into the deep end. Jeremy himself stood tensed on the poolside, eight fingers in his mouth, watching his father trying to drown his mother. Wendy seemed to have plenty of appetite for the deed, yodelling lasciviously after each fresh attempt, until Alfred tired and flopped back gratefully into the shallows, where Paris now strode about with Vera on his shoulders.
Do I dare go in? she thought, feeling a great eagerness tearing at her. She watched Alan help lift a thrashing Jeremy into the shallow end. Even Alan seemed at freedom in this glazed and glassy element.
‘Look at those mad coons.’
Russ sat dripping moodily at Mary’s side. He pointed to Paris and Ray, who were obviously destined to distinguish themselves as the true heroes of the afternoon. At present they grappled on the board; Paris hooked Ray’s right leg out from beneath him and together they twirled into the water. Vera and Wendy shouted from the side, Wendy clapping her hands and Vera bouncing up and down.
‘They’re like fucking kids,’ said Russ.
‘Look,’ said Mary.
Ray was back on the board, standing on his head. He opened his legs in a Y. Paris raced up the chute and dived between Ray’s pink quivering feet. Paris tumbled over backwards slightly when he hit the water. Black people always did that when they dived, Mary noted. They couldn’t keep the lines of their vigour straight; their bodies were always busy getting ready for the next thing.
‘Big deal,’ said Russ. ‘So Paris can stand on his head. Brill. “Paris”. Hah! What kind of a name is that? Paris. Call that a name? Call that a name?’
‘It was Ray who stood on his head,’ said Mary.
‘Yeah?’ said Russ boredly. ‘Well what the fuck difference does it make. They all look alike to me.’
Mary had heard this said before. She agreed. They all looked relatively alike to her too. It was self-evident: it was like saying that their teeth all looked alike. The reason that they all looked so alike is that they all looked so alive, so well-made. They just have a better time with their bodies than we do, that’s all, she thought. Whereas nothing could be more monstrously various, so traumatically patched and motley, as the pandemonium of pink dripping and bubbling before her eyes. A man whose swelling, disjointed belly and behind bore the same relation to each other as the Americas on a globe; a woman whose legs were all snakes and ladders; an old man constructed entirely of barbed wire and sheep fur. Even the young shouldered their differences. The business of breasts, for instance: Vera was thin and had big ones, which gave an immediate impression of sly bendiness and athleticism; Wendy, though, was fat and had small ones, a clear and hurtful injustice. Fat but no tits: thanks a lot. And this was before time got to work. Mary saw the work of time everywhere she looked. So this was time’s work …
‘Atta boy, atta monkey,’ said Russ loudly.’… Bitch.’ Paris and Ray now had Vera hammocked between them. Alan stood near by, counting. They swung her once, twice, three times—and let go. Vera sailed up into the air, sailing on her scream, until her frantic body collapsed in the water. Paris dived in and surfaced near her like a giant tadpole wriggling up from the depths.
Later, while the others were having tea at the stall, Mary slipped off alone. She walked down the skiddy poolside to the shallow end. The pool was nearly empty now, but the water still slopped thirstily round its banks. Using the rails, Mary backed her body into the cold medium. Without hesitation she turned and pushed herself forward. Yes. She could do it. She could join in too. Her legs mirroring her arms, she shinnied smoothly through the water, which still lapped loosely, smacking its lips, eager for more. Her head erect and her face shining in the light, Mary made her way up into the deep end.
So when the message came that night she was ready for it. After all, it was a very simple message. She had probably heard it before and not quite recognized it. The message was on television.
Mary was used to television by now, its contests, its suspended worlds, its limitless present of vociferous catastrophes. No one came on (as Mary nightly expected someone to do) and explained what was wrong with Earth and why it was coming to the boil with crisis and rage in this way. Everyone on television seemed to be a little bit mad, which perhaps accounted for it. Mary imagined that the world contained a fizzing knot of flame and metal that wriggled ever outwards from its core. When the pressure became critical, parts of the world’s vast distances would sprout fire in the form of liberty, terror and boredom. Fire chose hot places but the heat was spreading. Earth seemed to be sprouting fire all the time now. There seemed no stopping it now. Perhaps one day soon all the earth would be fire. How strange and lucky it was that she lived in a place where the fire showed only in tiny points that were soon extinguished. How lucky and strange to live on a quietly simmering island.
‘And later on tonight,’ said the television fondly, ‘we’ll also be hearing from Michael Shane, who has just come back from Ethiopia with a two-part report.’
Mary looked up from her book. The screen was filled by the photograph of a smartly posed young man, his chin on his knuckles, gazing out at them with patient, serious eyes. Mary remembered what Prince had told her—the photographs in your old room, think about them. She thought about them, and then she heard Marge say in her mind: ‘That’s Michael. He’s famous now of course … Such a thoughtful boy.’
15
• • •
By Heart
‘Hello, can I speak to Michael Shane?’
‘Moment please,’ said a woman’s voice.
Mary waited. She yawned. She had stayed up late the previous night to see Michael Shane on television. Heralded by a series of brooding guitar chords, the lights had found him nimbly seated on the edge of a squeaky black armchair. To his right, perched on childishly high stools, sat a white man, a black woman and a black man. Behind him was a large screen on which Michael proudly showed his recent exploits.
‘Current Affairs,’ said a male voice with quiet pleasure, as if Current Affairs were his name.
‘Hello, can I speak to Michael Shane?’
‘Ah. Just hang on one moment please.’
Michael’s sun-helmeted adventures had taken place somewhere on fire in Africa. He had visited a coffee factory, a tin mine and a banana plantation. He had crouched in a helicopter. He had stumbled through slums. He had spoken to key black men, some of whose faces and names could not be revealed. Everyone had been very hot, scared and angry, what with all the fire about. And there was one authentically bad moment when Michael had had to go down on his knees while a black soldier approached, sternly unslinging his rifle. Overweight, T-shirted white friends of Michael’s quickly appeared and the soldier had gone off looking very embarrassed. Mary thought that it was clever of Michael to go down on his knees like that.