英语短篇小说欣赏--The Calm Before
The Calm Before by Denise MinaI remember that time as if I am living itnow, the days before. Not the afterwards, not the noise and the headlines and
the wails of the women. It’s just before that I remember. Calm. It was one of
those amazing moments when things seem like they were meant, there seemed to be
signs everywhere, and I read the signs and knew what they meant. The world made
a kind of sense. All that summer the sea had been spewing up German bombs. They
were old, and made a damp phut and sizzle on the water but the lights were
beautiful.They explained on the telly: during the war a German submarine was hit
and dumped the bombs just outside the harbour. The bombs tumbled down the side
of a deep dark valley, nestling there in their cast iron coats, waiting for
their time to come. The when the summer storms came up it sucked them out of
their nest, pulled them along the valley so they shirked their casings and rose
like bubbles in ginger, up up to the surface, bursting when they reached the air
and drew their first breath, sending flashes and splutters of blue and red and
orange fire over the water.They’d been sitting down there for sixty years. All
that time they’d been under the water, waiting for the salt to eat through the
casing. I know what it takes to wait.It’s dark down there. And cold: They sent
an MOD unit to have a look at them and one of the divers got his equipment
caught. We watched them drag him onto the boat from the loading bay doors. They
arrived in the town just when I did. How could that happen? Both coming to the
town at the same time? A tiny, tiny chance. I thought they were beautiful. You’d
be looking out at this grey water and then see a rip, a bob and bright sudden
fire defying that broad, grey consensus. The fishermen hated the bombs. They had
to steer around them in the water and didn’t know when they were coming and the
town was loosing money. In the soap factory they all gathered around the loading
doors every lunchtime, looking out to sea and watching, moaning about the
tourists not coming and the bed and breakfasts empty and the seal boat trips
making no money. I didn’t say I liked them. I just watched with the others and
tried not to smile. I’m a private person. Being private came to be a precious
thing to me. Small spaces that no one else went into. My room, my head and so
on. Especially then.The calm time stays with me. Even now, years later, when
anyone says ‘soap’ I have that sore smell in my nose. The walls smelled, the
doors smelled, if you touched any surface it got on your hands and then anything
you touched got the smell on it. A stab of smell. When I blew my nose the hankie
was full of stinking silver trails. You could tell who worked there if you
passed them in the street because they gave it off, sweated it.
Disgusting.Highland. Kelp. Authentic. Traditional. Organic. I don’t even know
what those words mean. They mean six quid a bar. They mean you’re a tourist and
don’t want to buy a tea towel with a picture of a cow on it.Remorse. Sorry.
Apology. Families left behind. They’re all just words.The village had big hills
behind, small white cottages, fishermen going broke and jagging up on smack and
being lost at sea. Nothing special. Quite a nice place. You can buy postcards of
the sea front in Edinburgh they tell me. They sent me there because my people
were from there. My gran. She’d just died so they offered me her house. It was
too big, had two bedrooms and a garden and neighbours. There would have been
plumbing needing done and the roof to fix, they said I’d even get a new kitchen
but I didn’t want to have people to deal with, to have to talk to people. I’m
only used to a cell. I took digs. A small room in a house with old Mr Mackay: he
used the front door and I used the back. I’m not mental, I’m just private and
that’s not wrong.What I remember most about the time is the driving test, before
the driving test. I’d been eating beans and second day bread, smoking rollies,
saving all my money for the lessons and the deposit. They learn to drive young
up there, the instructor said. I was the oldest student he had. I remember
before the test. Calm.I talk about the driving dreams a lot, I know, but it
means so much to me. When I have that dream I’m happy all day, even now even
when the other meaning is so clear. I can’t help it. In the dream I’m driving my
van. There’s a space in the back where you could sleep if you got tired and no
one could see you, bother you. You could go where you want. I’m driving my van
through a summer valley, and my hand is resting on the wheel, warm in the
sunshine and my arm’s bent, like I’ve been driving for a long time and I’m tired
or something, I don’t know. The window’s open and maybe the radio’s on, I don’t
know. I feel happy all day when I have that dream. In the soap factory I just
kept my eyes down. To them I was a big city mystery, taken by his dad to live in
Glasgow when he was ten and my mother left behind, shamed that her man left and
never mentioned me. The factory people asked me about the fashions and the night
clubs and the football. I cut it all short. Everyone knew I was sitting my test
soon. I had a deposit down on a van as well but they didn’t know that. That was
private. One of the supervisors came over to me one day and said even if I did
pass the test he’d never let me drive for him, because I’d been in prison. He
said it in front of everyone, to shame me because some of them didn’t know. I
said nothing. When he left I went to the toilet. Locked the door before I let
myself smile. He didn’t know what I’d been in for. He was the kind of man who’d
have said if he knew. That’s the kind of man he was. They knew I went to the
police station every week but they must have thought it was just a parole thing.
They didn’t see me sign and the polis never told anyone. Cause of my gran I
suppose. Out of respect.Come out of there, someone knocked on the toilet door.
He kept talking and talking so I told him I’d been done for armed robbery. Next
day they were all nice to me. Some of the women tried to talk to me. The women
didn’t drive the truck or anything, they wrapped the bars and making bows on
them, they kept them kind of separate and I was glad. It was so long since I’d
met a woman, I don’t know what to say to them. It’s been so long now I don’t
know if I’ll ever meet another one.Sandra, she didn’t talk to me. She blushed
when she saw me. I thought she hated me, actually, I‘ve never been good at
reading women. I’d heard that her man died on the boats and she didn’t go with
loads of guys so she wasn’t a slag or anything. I never thought I’d miss the
group but I did, not the team leaders that ran it, just the other guys. We had
our own group. We had our own everything actually because we couldn’t mix with
the other prisoners. They’d kill you if they got you alone. They killed one old
guy, found him in a garden and stabbed him with a shovel. They hated us but I
didn’t see how we were different. We all took things we shouldn’t.In the calm,
the signs made me feel that things would be okay, that I’d pass and things would
become clear. And then they did.It was a week before the driving test. We were
standing at the factory doors, lunch time, a storm the night before had sucked
some bombs up and they were bursting once in a while and we were all watching
while we ate soap sandwiches. I saw her looking at me. Sandra, yellow hair, no
ear rings, no holes, I liked that. She kept her face to the sea but her red eyes
were sliding to the side, looking at me. She likes you, one of them said, you
should come to the pub tonight, we’re all going. She’ll be there. I didn’t go. I
don’t know what to say. I’m not a confident talker. They made me talk in the
group. I learned how they teach you to talk and I can do it but I’d rather sit
in my room or listen to the radio or watch through the window for the bombs on
the water. Next day Sandra’s friend came over. Come to the pictures with her. I
thought that was good because it would be dark and we wouldn’t need to talk. We
could just sit. We saw a film about a pig. After we went back to the her house
and she made us chips. She had two sons and a daughter and her name was Morag. I
walked home. Smoking. Feeling heavy. We hadn’t talked too much and that was
good. She was good looking. Not flash but tidy looking. Wore brown, but still I
wasn’t right about it. And when I stopped I looked out over the harbour wall and
saw the next sign. As I watched that exact spot two bombs came out of the water
at the exact same time and went off, their flames touching in the dark. I knew
then. It would be okay.Once in the group, we had a laugh. Jamie started telling
his story. He got the words in that they liked: remorse, damage, impulse. We
knew before they did that he was telling it the wrong way, we were all smiling
at each other, hands hiding mouths. He went a long way into it before they
stopped him It was a story about creeping through houses, moving in the dark,
about smells from hair.Mum left the village when she heard I was coming. She
left. I don’t even know why I’m surprised, to be honest. I should have known.
That’s exactly the sort of women she was. She didn’t write to me, not once. She
came to see only came to see me once when I was in prison before and she didn’t
bring me smokes or anything. It was all sobbing and god-forgive - wicked -
wicked man, that child that child. I know she was going to takes sides but if
she was going to take anyone’s side it should have been mine. I mean I
understand better now, since being in the group but I’m her only son. Other guys
in the group had family. They sent letters. One guy raped his wife and battered
her to death with a brick and his sisters came every month, for christ sakes.
Brought his kids. I passed my driving test. I went home and cried. A man.
Crying. Sitting on the end of my bed and crying. I couldn’t stop, I just
couldn’t make the breath get into my lungs. When I looked up, eventually, it was
dark outside. The wind was up. I heard shutters slamming all over the village.
Rain was sheeting down over the water and the streets emptied. It was the
biggest storm of the summer. I left my digs. I climbed up the hill over looking
the harbour, higher than where you’d walk, up to where I was scrabbling on scree
and I sat down, sweating from the walk. Bombs were bursting all over the water,
as far as the eye could see, like a million viking funerals and I was out of
denial now. I undid my flies and slipped my hand inside. I was Jamie now.I was
driving through the summer valley, with my space in the back where no one can
see. The window is open, a breeze coming in, and the sun is warming my hand. And
on the seat next to me is Morag, not yet crying, not yet afraid, and the smell
of soap is far far behind us both.
页:
[1]