Among Others

by Jo Walton

  We’re also going to be reading The Tempest and some Keats. I’ve already read both. The good bit about The Tempest is that we’ll be going to see it in Theatre Clwyd in Mold, a school trip. I expect everyone will giggle and be annoying, but a real play in a theatre! I’ve never seen The Tempest. I’ve only seen Romeo and Juliet, in the Sherman Theatre, with Auntie Teg, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream with school, in the New Theatre. I expect Mold theatre won’t be at the level of Cardiff theatre, but who cares. I wonder how they’ll do Caliban? I always see him like the first fairy I saw here, all warty and spider-webby. I wonder how they’ll do Ariel?

  In history we’re doing more of the boring old Nineteenth Century, ugh, all Acts and Ireland and unions. Give me history with some fun in it! In French we’re going to learn the subjunctive. People say it’s hard, but it isn’t in Latin. In Latin we’re starting on Book I of Virgil’s Aeneid. I love it so far.

  A nation hostile to me

  Is sailing the Tyrrhenian sea

  Carrying to Italy Troy and her conquered gods!

  Though I think “Etruscan sea” scans better?

  WEDNESDAY 9TH JANUARY 1980

  Book club last night. I got there a little late because the bus wasn’t on time, but they hadn’t started, and Janine had saved a seat for me opposite the bust of Plato.

  Great meeting, led by Mark, who’s a tubby middle-aged guy with huge thick glasses and a little beard. We talked about the Foundation Trilogy. The best bit was where we all really got into psychohistory, whether it’s possible. I don’t think it is, because of chaos. I don’t think it would take a mutation like the Mule, or rather, I think ordinary people are just as unlikely to keep on track. (You could do it with magic, maybe. But not to the level Hari Selden supposedly did it. I didn’t say that.) Then Wim compared it to The Lathe of Heaven and some Dick books with manipulated history. Then I wondered if you could write a story where a secret society have been manipulating history all along for mysterious ends?

  “Who’s been around long enough?” Greg asked.

  “The Catholic Church?” Janine offered.

  Pete snorted. “If so, they haven’t been doing a very good job of it. They controlled half the world, and they lost control.”

  (Janine and Pete are back together. They were holding hands under the table. I don’t know if she’s forgiven him for supporting Wim or whether she’s come around to Hugh’s view of things. I couldn’t ask, even when we were just chatting at the end, because Wim was there.)

  “Unless it’s actually a secret inner cabal whose goals are not the church’s ostensible goals,” I said.

  “Templars?” Keith suggested.

  “Secret alien technologist Templars!” Wim put in.

  We were a long way off the Foundation books. But that was all right, that was how it bounces. It’s so nice to be with people who have read the things I’ve read and whose minds go to those sort of places. The idea of secret alien technologist Templars manipulating all of history for mysterious ends—maybe to get people to go to the moon, where they have a cache or something, as in The Sirens of Titan?—is just so wonderful.

  At the end, I told everyone about The Sign of the Unicorn, but couldn’t lend it to anyone because Daniel still has it. I’ll ask him to send it. Almost everyone was excited, and the two or three people who hadn’t read the first two—and they’re in for a treat—got told about them. Only Brian doesn’t like Zelazny. Greg says he’ll order it for the library, but not until April because they’re out of money for book purchase until the new financial year. If I was rich, I’d donate lots of money to libraries.

  “Meanwhile, people can get it through interlibrary loan,” Greg said, and smiled at me.

  “That reminds me,” I said. “What else has Zelazny written?”

  Tons, apparently, but almost none of it in print. Greg’s going to put ILL for it all through for me. He’s one of the nicest people I know. You can’t tell at first because he’s very closed down, but underneath he’s lovely.

  Next week, Cordwainer Smith! Terrific.

  Wim came up to me as we were all leaving. “Did you say you hadn’t read The Dream Master?” he asked.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “I could lend you that, if you don’t want to wait for it to come. If you like, I could meet you here with it on Saturday.”

  So I’m meeting Wim in the library at half past eleven on Saturday for him to lend it to me.

  Nobody who offers to lend me Zelazny could be as black as he’s been painted.

  THURSDAY 10TH JANUARY 1980

  In hospital, in bed, in traction, in terrible pain, excuse appalling handwriting. This had better help.

  FRIDAY 11TH JANUARY 1980

  I feel kidnapped. I came to the hospital yesterday morning for an outpatient appointment. The doctor, Dr. Abdul, looked at my x-rays for five minutes, poked at my leg for two minutes, and said I needed a week in traction. He told his assistant to make a date for it, found there was a bed available right now, telephoned Daniel and the school, and the next thing I knew here I was on the rack. It really feels like being on the rack. It’s hard to do anything. Writing is very hard. I’m doing it forwards, because backwards is just too difficult, even with all the practice I get. I keep pouring water on myself when I drink. Even reading is hard. My leg is held out on this thing, elevated on white metal bars, strapped in place, stretched agonisingly so it hurts like hell every second, and the rest of me is forced flat. I can hardly move at all. I have read all three books I had in my bag, one of them twice. (Clement’s Mission of Gravity.) I should have brought more, but I only had three because I know about hospital waiting times.

  Pain, pain, more pain, and the indignity of bedpans. I have to press a button for a nurse when I want a drink or a bedpan, and sometimes they don’t come for ages, but if I count on that and call early, they seem to come right away. To add insult to injury there’s a television at the end of the ward. It’s unavoidable, and even more unbearable than usual as it’s constantly tuned to ITV, so there are adverts. I wonder if hell is like this? I’d definitely prefer lakes of sulphur and at least being able to swim about in them.

  All the other patients have visitors between two and three, or six and seven, which are visiting hours. This is the second day I’ve watched them all troop in with flowers and grapes and odd expressions. I watch them compulsively, as well as I can watch anyone from this angle. I’m not expecting anyone, and indeed, I don’t get anyone. Daniel could come. It’s not all that far, and he knows I’m here. I don’t expect they’ll let him though.

  I won’t be able to meet Wim tomorrow and he’ll think I didn’t show because I have heard bad things about him.

  A woman at the end of the ward has started to scream, short staccato cutoff screams. They’re putting screens around her bed so the rest of us can’t see what they’re doing to her. This is definitely much worse than the way most people describe hell.

  SATURDAY 12TH JANUARY 1980

  Still on the rack.

  Miss Carroll came in towards the end of visiting time last night with a pile of light paperbacks. They’re from the school library and therefore not ordinarily terribly exciting, but right now they seemed like manna. She couldn’t stay long. Nobody told her I was here, but when she hadn’t seen me she went to find out what had happened. She came as soon as she knew. I almost cried when she told me that. I had no idea how hard it is to blow my nose in this position. She promised to tell Greg where I was, and he can tell Wim and the others. She’s coming back tonight with more books.

  Dear God, if you are there and care and can bless people, please bless Alison Carroll with your very best blessing.

  She brought me three books by Piers Anthony, the first books in two different series. I think she chose them because they’re at the beginning of the alphabet and she was in a hurry. I hadn’t read them, because, frankly, they looked like crap. I’m beyond the stage of reading the whole library in alphabetical order, though
I’m glad to have done it once. I’m enjoying these anyway. So far I’ve read Vicinity Cluster, and Chaining the Lady, and I’m about to start A Spell for Chameleon which is fantasy. I was right, they are crap really, but they hold my attention and don’t require all my brain, which when half of my brain is sending me messages like “Ow, Ow, Ow” or “Remove leg from rack soonest,” is actually an advantage. I had weird “hosts” universe dreams last night, about transferring into alien bodies. All of them had bad legs, though; even when I was in a ballerina’s body she had to dance with a walking stick. I suppose that was the pain coming through even when I was asleep. Last night I read myself to sleep and then they woke me up to give me a sleeping pill.

  SUNDAY 13TH JANUARY 1980

  Miss Carroll came back last night with more books and a bunch of grapes, and Greg came this afternoon, bringing Janine and Pete, and more books. Also, while they were here and we were talking about Piers Anthony, who Pete likes, and Greg compared to Chaucer (!), Daniel turned up. I didn’t notice him at first, because I wasn’t obsessively looking over at the door at other people’s visitors because I had three of my own for a change. He came sidling up to the bed looking embarrassed. I could see that he wasn’t sure if he should kiss me or not, and in the end he didn’t. He had also brought books, and a big card from his sisters, and more grapes, little red ones. I don’t know why people bring grapes. Are they supposed to be specially healing? Janine brought a Mars Bar, which was rather more welcome, though messy to eat. The food in here is just beyond horrible.

  At first, conversation was awkward. I introduced Daniel to the others, and it was clear nobody knew what to say. Greg even said that maybe they ought to go. Then, fortunately, Daniel said he’d brought my Sign of the Unicorn, and it was a case of deciding who got it first, and we all talked about books until the end of visiting time when the nurse rang the bell and everyone all had to go. I didn’t ask Daniel if he was able to wait for another hour at visiting time tonight, but he evidently didn’t as it has come and gone with no more sign of him. Still, it was very nice of him to spare me his Sunday afternoon.

  The books Greg brought are all my this week’s ILL arrivals, which he stamped out to me in my absence without my cards. He was joking that this was a standard library service, but of course it isn’t. Unfortunately, they’re all hardcovers and terribly difficult to read at this angle. I can hold a paperback above my head sideways in one hand, but not a hardback. I have Mary Renault’s Return to Night and I can’t even read it. Still, just looking at the spine on my table is something.

  A week would be until Wednesday. That would be three more days of agony and hell.

  A nurse comes round and offers me painkillers every four hours. “Only take them if you’re in pain,” she says. How could anybody be hooked up like this and not be in pain? I take them, but they barely take the edge off.

  I’m sleeping really badly, weird dreams and waking up often because of the pain and disturbances in the ward. The sleeping pills, which they insist I take, make me fall asleep but don’t make me stay asleep.

  MONDAY 14TH JANUARY 1980

  Last night, or early this morning, my mother tried the night attack again. I woke up and could not move, and I knew she was in the room, hovering above me. It’s never dark in the ward, there’s always a light at the nurses’ station and little lights along the floor, and someone had their reading light on down at the end. There was enough light that I should have been able to see her, but I couldn’t, only feel her presence very strongly. There was so much pain that I couldn’t think what to do. I tried to remember what had worked last time, and of course it was the Litany Against Fear, so I did that, and it worked again. As I calmed down and got control of myself, I could move, as much as I can anyway on the rack, and then she was gone.

  How did she know I was here and vulnerable? Why didn’t my protection spell hold? It shouldn’t make any difference where I am.

  I saw Dr. Abdul this morning, for the first time since he hooked me into this contraption last Thursday. He poked at my leg, making me scream, dammit, and said I was coming along well. Then he moved off down the ward to his next patient. I am nothing like so confident that I am coming along well. It feels as if it is making everything worse.

  I suppose it might feel like that anyway and be working. He’s a doctor. You have to get three As at A Level to even start to train to be a doctor. (Do they have A Levels in Pakistan? I suppose they might, because they used to be British, they were part of British India when Grampar’s grandmother left there. But did they have A Levels then? Nasreen would know, because her father must have done them.) Well anyway, Dr. Abdul would have had to have got the Pakistani equivalent of three As at A Level before he even started training. He’d have to be clever and diligent and know what he was doing. He wouldn’t strap someone to a contraption just for nothing.

  Why does the Litany Against Fear work?

  Miss Carroll came in at evening visiting time, with books. They’re more Josephine Tey mysteries, which seem just about right, and paperbacks thank goodness. She says she misses me in the library, and that they mentioned my name in Prayers.

  TUESDAY 15TH JANUARY 1980

  Still on the rack, and feeling really down.

  I’m missing book club, and because I know everyone is there, and Miss Carroll came yesterday, I know I won’t get any visitors.

  Grampar and Auntie Teg don’t even know I’m here, or they’d have at least sent a card. So how does my mother know? There’s no magic here. There are no fairies, there’s nothing—I thought school was purged and neutral, but it’s nothing to this hell ward.

  I’ve read all the Tey. Brat Farrar is especially good. But what is a pit in Dothan? Is it from the Joseph story?

  Only one more day on the rack. I’m starting to wonder if sadists could get three As at A Level, but if Dr. Abdul was a sadist he’d come around and gloat more. It’s clear he’s entirely indifferent. He didn’t look at my face at all, and barely even at my leg, it’s just the x-rays that interested him. I’m trying to see this as a good thing. Three As at A Level is starting to seem like a very small thing to hold so much weight of trust.

  WEDNESDAY 16TH JANUARY 1980

  They’re not letting me out until Dr. Abdul sees me, and he doesn’t come in until tomorrow.

  At afternoon visiting, Wim came. He brought The Dream Master and Isle of the Dead. He came in wearing a leather jacket and looking really awkward, even more awkward than Daniel did. I was suddenly very aware that I was wearing a stupid hospital gown with stains on it where I’d spilled my food (it’s very hard to eat neatly when horizontal) and that my hair hadn’t been washed for more than a week. I felt touched that he’d come all the way out here to see me, even more so than with the others.

  “Greg mentioned last night you were here,” he said. “I thought I’d bring these. Though it looks as if you don’t need them.” He gestured to the piles of books on the bedside table.

  “I’ve read most of these,” I said.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “There is nothing else at all to do in here,” I said.

  “Looks pretty grim,” he agreed. “How’s the food?”

  “Awful.”

  He laughed. “My mother’s one of the cooks here.”

  “I’m sure her food at home is much better,” I said.

  “No it isn’t,” he said. “She’s not much of a cook. Though she says herself the food here is appalling, so it must be really bad. That’s why I was asking.”

  “It’s not all that different from school food,” I said.

  “I’d have thought they’d have fed you well at Arlinghurst, from what they’re charging,” he said.

  “So would I, but it’s all awful. Spam and custard.”

  “I’ve brought you some NASA astronaut ice cream,” he said, and produced a packet from his pocket.

  I held it up where I could see it properly. It was black with a picture of a rocket ship and it did claim to be ast
ronaut ice cream, just like that eaten on the Apollo missions. I looked at Wim in awe. “Everyone else brought grapes. Where did you get this?”

  He looked a bit shy, if such a thing is possible. “My cousin brought some back from Florida. He brought quite a few packets, this is the last one. It isn’t that nice, it’s more the idea. I was saving it for an appropriate occasion.”

  I stopped turning the packet over and looked right at him. “You have a cousin who went to America?”

  He smiled at me, and I got that breathless feeling again. “America’s real, you know, it’s not just in science fiction. Greg’s been there. He went to a Worldcon in Phoenix. He met Harlan Ellison!”

  “What’s a Worldcon?”

  “A world science fiction convention. It’s five days where people get together and talk about SF. Last year it was in Brighton and I went. It was brill. It was beyond brill. You can’t imagine.”

  I thought I could imagine. “Like book club multiplied?”

  “Multiplied geometrically. Robert Silverberg was there. I talked to him! And Vonda McIntyre!”

  I could hardly believe I was sitting in the same room as someone who had talked to Robert Silverberg. “Where is it this year?”

  “Boston. It’s usually America. Goodness knows when we’ll ever have one in Britain again. But there are British cons. There’s one at Easter in Glasgow. They don’t have all the American writers, of course. But it’s not just the writers. It’s the fans as well. You wouldn’t believe the conversations I had in Brighton.”