Turtle Diary (New York Review Books Classics) by Russell Hoban

Author:Russell Hoban [Hoban, Russell]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781590176474
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2013-06-11T04:00:00+00:00

23. William G.

‘Did Miss H. ever reach you?’ Harriet said when I came into the shop on Monday.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she did.’

‘I hope it was all right,’ she said, ‘giving her your address and telephone number.’

‘Perfectly all right,’ I said. ‘Silly of me not to have given it to her before.’

‘I had no idea she was a friend of yours,’ said Harriet.

‘Haven’t known her long actually,’ I said busying myself unwrapping a shipment.

‘Funny when you meet authors,’ said Harriet. ‘Mostly they don’t look as you’d imagine them.’

‘How would you have imagined her?’ I said.

‘Short rather than tall,’ said Harriet, ‘plump rather than thin. Married rather than not. She isn’t married, is she?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘She isn’t.’ I made a lot of noise with the wrapping paper and the conversation lapsed.

Harriet is next in line to Mr Meager and senior to me at the shop. She’s about thirty and I can remember when she did her hair in the style of the Ladies-in-Waiting at the Coronation. She’s a tall thin girl from quite a good family, her father is an MP and her face is a constant reproach even though she’s not at all bad-looking. She used to dress very conservatively, lived at home, walked as if the streets were full of rapists and wore shoes that looked as if they were designed for self-defence.

I don’t recall just when it happened but all of a sudden she came in one day wearing sandals, the kind you get at shops where they sell Arab dresses and incense. There were her white naked startled feet at the bottom of the still conservatively dressed pleated-skirt Harriet and I guessed she’d lost her virginity but little else. Her nervous-looking feet still hadn’t left home. Thank God my feet are in shoes most of the time. They don’t look as if they will ever walk in happy ways and I’m pleased not to see them.

Harriet’s feet walked easier after a time. She took to wearing long full skirts and cheesecloth blouses, her hair came down. She got herself a room, stopped wearing a bra every day and bought Time Out every week.

So there was her copy of Time Out in the kitchen at the shop and I had a look at the Classified adverts. CLAIRVOYANT and HYPNOTISM were available. ANOREXIA NERVOSA, CONSULTATIONS IN CONFIDENCE. Also NUDIST CLUB (Females free), MASSAGE TUITION, RUBBER ENTHUSIASTS, TAROT DIVINATION, NATURAL FOODS, CANDLE-MAKING, ATTRACTIVE ORIENTAL CHICK (Why was she in Miscellaneous instead of Lonely Hearts?), HOMOSEXUAL MEN AND WOMEN. PICNIC—Bring just one ingredient to share, ENCOUNTER, GROWTH CENTRE, QUAESITOR, KALEIDOSCOPE—Bio-Energetic Workshop. I glanced only briefly at Lonely Hearts in which Sensitive sensual male, 23, Handsome Aquarius, 37, and UP TO SIX DATES from only £1 offered themselves.

There are times when I do something and then I say: It’s come to that. That is of course different things at different times. It’s come to a lot of thats in my life and I suppose they’ll keep happening right up to the last and final one when perhaps my last words will be: It’s come to that.

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