Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively

Author:Penelope Lively
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780141902715
Publisher: Grove Press
Published: 1987-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

8

‘Lovely plant,’ says the nurse. ‘Your sister-in-law brought it, didn’t she? Gorgeous colour. It’ll be one of those hothouse species, I expect. I’ll put it nearer the radiator.’

Claudia turns her head. ‘That is a poinsettia,’ she says. ‘Indestructible things. They grow in sand. I should let it take its chance with the rest of us.’

The nurse sticks her finger in the pot and shakes her head. ‘No, dear – some sort of peat this is in.’ She moves it from the windowsill. ‘There – we don’t want it dying on us, do we? Mrs Hampton would be upset.’

No, she wouldn’t. She’d accuse me of slaughtering it. To herself, of course – not out loud. I have heard many of Sylvia’s silent accusations, over the years.

Typical of Sylvia to bring a poinsettia. As though she knew. The congenitally heavy-handed are capable even of unwitting brutalities.

This place has been a tiny seaside settlement. A line of rubble marks what were once small white stucco villas and a café. The café wall survives, with a Schweppes advertisement stuck to it, and the ruined houses are covered with swarming growth – trails of brilliant blue morning glory and a lace-work of scarlet poinsettia flowers. Claudia picks one and her fingers are at once sticky with white sap; she drops it in the sand and wipes them on her slacks. The flowers amaze her. Just now they passed through a camp in which sheets of asphodels and night-scented stocks had sprung up amid the tents; the soldiers walked among them, the air was fragrant.

‘It rained last week,’ says Tom Southern. ‘The seeds must lie dormant, I suppose.’

For months or years, thinks Claudia, what an extraordinary thing. And how even more extraordinary to stand here in this place at this time talking to someone about botany. The coast road is an endless rumbling jostling khaki stream of traffic, convoy upon convoy moving west, crawling at the slow remorseless army pace, tank and Bren-gun carriers, ten-tonners, ambulances, armoured cars. Beyond it the Mediterranean sparkles in a great blue curve with the grey outlines of ships perched upon the horizon. The sky echoes to the sound of aircraft.

‘You asked,’ he says, ‘what it is like out here. For purposes of your article, I suppose?’

They are sitting, now, on the low wall that once marked the forecourt of the café. Jim Chambers and the New Zealander have departed for the front, having wangled a lift. Tom Southern will hand Claudia over to an RAF chap who is going to the air field and has offered to put her on to a transport plane going back to Cairo. The chap is just seeing someone at the Command Post and will be back shortly. And Tom will move on, to collect his tank, rejoin his squadron, move forward again.

‘No,’ she says. ‘I wanted to know for myself.’

He hesitates. ‘It’s so many different things. Boring, uncomfortable, terrifying, exhilarating. In rapid succession. Pretty well impossible to convey.’ He looks intently at her. ‘Sorry – I’m not doing very well.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.