“No” she said at last. “You wouldn’t either, would you. Not me. But, you know what Derek? The feeling is mutual. And I, I would always put the needs of a child before the selfish and the wilful.” She stood up and gathered her things together. Her pens. Her books. Her notepad. She put on her coat and placed her things in a plastic shopping bag. She was sure she would not cry. Not yet. She turned her back on the tutor. She said, “And I’m going now. So goodbye everyone. And thank you,very much… for everything.”
* * * * *
Christine Verity walked out of the gallery onto the snow-covered campus. No one followed her. She did not look back. The snow blew onto her face and melted into the tears blinked from her eyes. Snow and tears mingled inside her mouth and she swallowed their water. Her mouth was no longer dry. She walked alone and steadily over the snow to the bus stop. It was, at least, over for her and they could all think what they liked. Diana and Derek could do what they liked. She had said what she needed to say for herself. It was a form of atonement which reading Great Books had given her. There would be new steps to take. Christine considered, as she waited for the bus to take her to town, where she would shop for her mother’s Tea, and what those next steps might be. First, there would indeed be her mother to sort out. She would finally then, she concluded do that. And maybe there were two or three letters to write. To Dr Lewry. To Mrs Holdsworth. Unsigned those, and typed. A handwritten one to the University’s Vice Chancellor. That would be signed in blue ink.Not in the Great Books manual, she knew now, but then she had spent a lifetime reading other books. The banal had its uses, after all. And she would ask to be re-assigned to another class. She fancied “The Romantics: from Wordsworth to Keats” with Professor Idwal Jones (retd), B.A (Wales). Fewer letters after his name, and an older man clearly but with more in-depth maturity and substance perhaps. Christine decided she could, at least, picture ‘Wales’ more readily than ‘Cantab’ or ‘Oxon’.
A pillar-box red Routemaster loomed up out of the whirling snow and pulled in at the kerb. Its doors sighed, and opened for her. Christine stepped gingerly up onto the bus and showed the driver her Senior Citizen’s free pass. She decided, unusually for her, to go upstairs. For a better view, she thought, as the bus lurched off, and why not. There was not much left, though, to see of the town spread haphazardly below and alongside the curve of the bay. Snow had blanketed all discernible shapes and was still relentlessly smothering the town from roof tops to gutters. Christine looked out of the window and, seeing nothing that was familiar, tensed with the sudden exhilaration of the righteous.
When the bus stopped outside the indoor market hall where she would buy savouries for tea at home, Christine was lost in her sense of well-being, and in the prospect of the well-doing that was to come in the Great Book that was now to be her life. It was with a start of alarm that she realised the sign for the market had been there, on the opposite side of the wide four lane road, for more than a minute, and that soon the bus would move off. She rose abruptly from her seat, her bag of books wobbling in her one-handed grasp as she grabbed the rail on the stairs and clambered down them. The driver, annoyed at her late decision, opened the doors for her and she half-fell onto the pavement where feet had already softened some of the snow into slush. Christine walked into the blowing snow towards the back-end of the bus as it pulled away, and she stepped out from behind it onto the road which she needed to cross to reach the market. In the blinding snow, she did not see, as it overtook the bus, the car which hit her with a force which was hard enough to send her sprawling up, over, and off its bonnet. Her head smacked onto the snow pillow of the road. Her neck was broken with the sound of a book’s spine being cracked open. The falling snow, snow onto snow, muffled the terrible sound. Christine’s books had been sent flying up from her flimsy bag as she dropped it. They half-opened themselves and fluttered in the air like ungainly birds before they fell to earth around her. Their pages flapped in the wind and the snow, and then began to curl up, wet and blurred, alongside her prone body as the blood trickled from her head and stained the snow on which she lay.
**************************************
When the bus stopped outside the indoor market hall where she would buy savouries for teatime at home, Christine was lost in her new sense of well-being, and in the prospect of the well-doing that was to come in a life transformed by the Great Books which she knew she would continue to read. It was with a start of alarm that she realised the sign for the market had been there, on the opposite side of the wide four lane road, for more than a minute, and that soon the bus would move off. She rose abruptly from her seat, her bag of books wobbling in her one-handed grasp as she grabbed at the rail on the stairs and clambered down them. The driver, annoyed at her late decision, opened the doors for her and she half-fell onto the pavement where feet had already softened some of the snow into slush. Christine walked into the slanting snow towards the back-end of the bus as it pulled away, and she stepped out from behind it onto the road which she needed to cross to reach the entrance to the market. In the blinding fall of snow, she did not see ,until the last instant, a car overtaking the bus. Her arms jerked out in protest as her body half-turned, and her books flew up and out of her flimsy bag as the car squealed and skidded before it hit her. She fell backwards in a twist. First her shoulders and then the side of her head crumpled into the snow pillow of the road. Her books had fluttered,half-opened like the ungainly wings of stricken birds, and now lay around her on the ground, their pages soaked and their print blurred by the snow that had not stopped falling.
Christine felt someone lift her so that she could sit up. And someone else, the car driver perhaps, was saying over and over: “Are you all right, love? Are you all right? You just stepped out. I didn’t see you. I couldn’t see you, all the snow and that. The snow, see , love”. Then there were more people around her. She heard other voices. She said she was fine, that it was Ok. And she thought to herself that she’d have to buy some more books to read now, wouldn’t she.
Parthian, Cardigan SA43 1ED
www.parthianbooks.com
First published in 2016
© Dai Smith 2016
All Rights Reserved
ISBN: e-pub: 9781912109630, mobi: 9781012109623
Cover images: Ozi Rhys Osmond, The Meeting / Study for the Meeting
Cover design: Robert Harries
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
All That Lies Beneath Page 14
