Listening in the Dusk by Celia Fremlin

Author:Celia Fremlin [Celia Fremlin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780571312818
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2014-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

During her years of teaching Alice had, of course, found herself at times the recipient of confidences from one or another of her pupils, and intractable though the problems could sometimes seem, she had always prided herself on being able to find something helpful or encouraging to say: some suggestion for a possible course of action; an idea, perhaps, for breaking a vicious circle; some new angle from which to view an impasse; a touch of humour, even, to put the problem more in proportion.

But among all the troubles that had been laid before her, there had never been anything like this. Her repertoire of appropriate responses was silenced. To a trouble of these dimensions nothing you could possibly say would be adequate; and yet you must say something. And quickly. A pause for thought, a few moments silence, would come across as embarrassed revulsion, and could close up the floodgates of confidences for ever. It was four o’clock in the morning, the girl’s white exhausted face poised above her thin shoulders looked almost middle-aged under the harsh ceiling light. Maybe it would have been better, less depressing, to have created a softer illumination for their vigil by lighting the candles; the bright, waiting candles newly purchased for a festive occasion which now could never be. But how heartless this could have seemed! Candles! There was no way of getting it right; none at all.

How thin she looked, poor child, in this cruel light, bones sticking up everywhere! How come she hadn’t really noticed this before? And suddenly, without thinking about it at all, Alice found herself speaking, firmly and decisively.

“I’ve got some bacon,” she said, “downstairs in the fridge. I know it’s early, but let’s have some breakfast. With coffee. And toast.”

“But … But …” A suggestion from such an unexpected angle had obviously given Mary a jolt. “I don’t eat breakfast,” was all she could come up with.

“I know you don’t. And you don’t have lunch, either. Or any supper to speak of — Hetty’s been worrying about it for weeks. What are you trying to do? How is starving yourself going to help? Or is that what you’re trying to do? Literally to starve yourself? It won’t work, you know, it takes weeks and weeks to get anywhere remotely like dying, and even then —”

“I’m not trying to starve myself!” Mary protested. “I was just trying to get thin so that I wouldn’t be so recognisable — I used to be quite plump, you know, and it makes a lot of difference to your looks. That’s the important thing, Alice, that no one shall ever, ever recognise me, as long as I live. I’ve cut my hair, I’ve changed my name. I’ve come to live in this grotty place, I’ve got thin and hideous — what more can I do? What can I?”

Well, what could she? What did families do, in this sort of terrible situation? You didn’t hear much about it, really, in the news reports.

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