Towards Another Summer (24 page)

The schoolgirl fantasy depressed Grace. The sight of Anne through the bus window was depressing too - plodding along, pram-wheeling, dowdily dressed, on the far side of the road, being waved to, condescendingly, then turning the corner into the grey gloom of the wintry afternoon with no hope of rescue now whether she walked towards darkness or the fires of heaven or of hell; she could be waylaid by bandits, highwaymen; her husband would not be there to help her, oh no, he was riding with Grace Cleave in the Corporation Bus to Relham.

—You’ve another book coming out soon?

—Yes, in summer. It’s hopeless. And there are some stories.

—You’ve had some in the
New Yorker
?

—Yes. I’ve been living on the proceeds for the last year. They pay - they pay a huge sum, quite out of proportion -

She could see that Philip was waiting for her to name the
sum, but she was shy of doing so - how could she explain that she had been ashamed and embarrassed (pleased too) at being paid so much for a few hours’ work when a complete book was rewarded by a tiny spurt of royalties as useful as toothpaste forced from the end of an almost empty tube.

—Yes, out of all proportion.

The bus stopped. Conductor and driver were going off duty. Grace smiled to herself as she thought of the London buses and their individual exasperating behaviour - of the buses behind schedule which sped recklessly along when one had set out to make a leisurely journey, of the buses ahead of schedule which dawdled and finally stopped in quiet streets when one was in a hurry; of the drivers and conductors who went off duty and were not replaced; how an urgently summoned inspector arrived to call to the restless passengers,

—Everybody off and on to the bus behind!

Trampling, shuffling, having tickets endorsed; complaining, complaining -

—Strange things happen in London, Grace confided, —when the driver and conductor leave the bus.

She was used to making wild statements which were not questioned but were taken for granted, therefore she was startled and confused when Philip, alert, sensing that at last she might have some interesting, intelligent, imaginative communication, turned eagerly to her,

—What happens?

Grace felt a surge of despair. It was true that in her life she had converted conversation for her own ends, that when she spoke to anyone it was less from a desire to communicate an observation or idea than from a personal need to allay her own fears. She was so unused to conversation in the accepted sense that most of her spoken words were almost meaningless. They were a gesture, like that of a hostess arranging loose covers on the furniture of her room in order to assure herself that everything was prepared for her guests. Grace worked so much with words that her prostitution of them made her ashamed and depressed - but were they not so
convenient
a way of saying nothing, of
sounding, without inviting too much ridicule or enmity, a self-confident bleating of one’s identity, which, put forth at the appropriate time and place could even be disguised to resemble a
fanfare of importance
?

—Well?

This is Northern obstinacy, Grace felt, as she sensed Philip’s determined waiting for her reply.

—Oh, nothing happens . . . I mean, not much. The driver and conductor get off the bus and don’t return and the bus is stranded.

—I see, Philip said politely in a tone of disappointment.

I don’t really care for the front of the bus, Grace thought angrily as she felt the shuddering engines and the throbbing warmth and moved her feet in the cramped space, resting them against the sloping floor as if she were in a shoe-shop trying on shoes.

—It’s an observation hardly worth making, she said.

—Oh I don’t know, I don’t know, Philip said.

—But mysterious things do happen.

For a moment he looked concerned.

—Of course.

 

They walked towards the station. (You needn’t come, really; I can find the station and the train.) Philip noted, identified the architecture. Wearily Grace said

—Yes, yes.

—I’m not boring you with all this? You
are
interested?

—Oh yes, yes.

Yes: an ugly shorn affirmative; prison treatment for ideas crowding behind the bars.

On the station platform.

—Like something to read?

—No, no thank you.

With sudden gaiety Philip laughed aloud,

—See? I promised you wouldn’t miss the train!

She was used to being laughed at for arriving early for appointments, trains, buses. She prided herself on her habit as a personal possession which she had earned and paid for; it was at least some means of proclaiming herself to the world

—Oh I’m always early for everything. I’m
fearfully
early! She enjoyed Philip’s laughter. His swift expression of gaiety had reached her and touched her, had retrieved a part of her which she could not offer in speech (yes and no having so few pockets); his laughter had been like one of those instruments like extended arms which shopkeepers use to reach, clasp, and bring within bargaining distance, the packets of dusty old-fashioned goods placed on remote high shelves.

They walked along the platform.

—You won’t want to go in an open carriage?

—Yes, I do.

He looked puzzled, almost annoyed, as if her choice of a closed carriage should have been inevitable. (Hadn’t she said, —I don’t go to places where there are many people, not to concert halls, crowded theatres . . . ?)

—Very well.

He was disappointed. He liked consistency.

He found her a corner seat facing the engine, and he stood long enough to satisfy his conscience that he had delivered her to a seat worthy and safe for travelling, then he disengaged himself - it was a physical act, like the falling away of the outer
casing of a rocket as soon as the rocket enters another stage of its journey into space. She felt suddenly alone, unprotected.

—You will come again, anytime, no need to give warning?

—Yes I will.

—Bye-Bye.

The absurd farewell irritated her; she could never grow used to the English ‘Bye-Bye’ spoken with such seriousness by grown men and women.

—Goodbye, she said firmly.

He was gone then. She did not wave from the carriage window, but leaned over in her seat, pretending to pick up something from the floor, and when she sat upright again he had left the platform. Quickly she got up, hurried to the lavatory, defied all rules about ‘only when the train is in motion’, returned to her seat, unfastened the ribbon of the chocolate box which Anne had filled with chocolate coconut-sprinkled squares, and began to eat. By the time she had eaten the top layer the train was moving from Relham. She replaced the lid on the box, retied the ribbon, and was about to lean back to doze when she realised that the upholstery seemed more luxurious than usual, also that there were few passengers in the carriage. Suspiciously, anxiously, Grace addressed a man sitting at the opposite window.

—Excuse me, this is a
Second Class
carriage isn’t it?

The man looked up from his Sunday newspaper.

—Yes, he said.

With a sense of relief out of all proportion to the occasion, Grace sighed.

—Thank goodness, she said.—For a moment, just for a moment I thought it was
First Class
.

 

She dozed. The train moved through blizzards; coke fires glowed through the haze of powdery flakes; the landscape, all ugliness concealed, was smooth and soft as a pillow. Once, opening her eyes with a start, Grace thought she saw blood on the snow, but it was only the shadow of the burning braziers.

The little stations passed in quick gulps, then all was smooth and secret and Grace saw nothing through the window but the
carriage lights and her own reflection. Then the train jerked, swung from side to side, leapt across an unseen gulf, slowed down, dragging its burden towards London.

 

 

 

 

Grace inhaled the smoky stuffy atmosphere of her flat, frowned at the one letter, an electric light bill, lying on the carpet, switched everything on - lights, hot water, fires; bathed, extravagant, lonely; prepared her typewriter and papers for the next day’s work, flipped through the unfinished typescript, shuddered at her inability to compose one beautiful dignified sentence; and, trying to establish in her mind the events of the next day, the day after, the day after, which would make living endurable, and finding it difficult to think of any events beyond food, the possible completion of one perfect sentence, the once-weekly visit to the psychiatrist,

(—I went away for the weekend. I’m a migratory bird), she crept between the sheets of her innersprung First Class bed, headboard extra, and slept, turning sometimes and moaning, seeing Noel, Sarah, Philip, Anne - Anne saying—I thought I’d get some sheeting, I thought I’d get some Parmesan; and then flying to Philip’s wild wet West Coast, ‘The Enterrrprrise was hopeless from the start’, then home, Cheerio Mum and Dad, in the white stone city, Fifty-six Eden Street, with flies in the room and flypapers hanging from the ceiling, and flies, swarms of frantic buzzing flies in Grace’s hair; and then panic, First Class or Second Class? - but does it matter, for
Distance looks our way; the godwits vanish towards another summer and none knows where he will lie down at night
.

Many thanks are due to the following: Harriet Allan and the whole team at Random House New Zealand for their painstaking care over this project; Jane Parkin and Claire Gummer for their editing skills; the English Department of the University of Otago for practical assistance; Michelle Bennie for making the digital transcription; the Community Trust of Otago for a grant to the Janet Frame Literary Trust enabling background research to be undertaken in archive collections; curators at the Hocken Library, Dunedin, NZ, the Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, NZ, and Pennsylvania State University Special Collections Library, USA, for their cooperation; June and Wilson Gordon for their encouragement; Charles Brasch’s literary executor Alan Roddick, for kindly approving Janet Frame’s use of the Charles Brasch poem ‘The Islands’ as a central theme for this novel; the Janet Frame Estate’s literary agent Andrew Wylie and the staff of The Wylie Agency for their expert handling of the sale of English language and foreign rights; Lawrence and Marion Jones for wise advice and moral support.

 

My deepest gratitude goes to my fellow Board members Denis Harold and Lawrence Jones for sharing the responsibility for the decision to offer this manuscript for publication. Janet Frame entrusted the care of her literary estate and charitable trust to us, but left no specific instructions about
Towards Another Summer
. She made it clear that it was too personal to publish in her lifetime, but since she bound two copies of the typescript and preserved them in separate locations, and made no secret of the novel’s existence, we have concluded that she anticipated posthumous publication. Thanks also to Denis and Lawrence for helping to set protocols and oversee the copy edit and proof correction process.

 

Pamela Gordon
Chair
Janet Frame Literary Trust

 

 

Every effort has been made to identify and contact copyright holders of quoted material; the publishers and the Janet Frame Literary Trust would be grateful to hear from any copyright holders of material that we may have inadvertently missed. Acknowledgement is made to the following for kind permission to reproduce the listed extracts:

 

 

Charles Brasch, extracts from ‘The Islands’ (epigraph, pages 61 and 63), ‘Waianakarua’ (page 53) and ‘A View of Rangitoto’ (page 62), reproduced by kind permission of the Estate of Charles Brasch; the words from ‘The Islands’ on pages 197 and 203 have been reordered by Janet Frame.

 

 

Allen Curnow, extracts from ‘Time’ (pages 44 and 58) and ‘Landfall in Unknown Seas’ (pages 132-133, 134 and 152), reproduced with kind permission of Jenifer Curnow, Auckland.

 

 

John Masefield, extract from ‘Tewkesbury Road’ (page 179), reproduced by kind permission of The Society of Authors as the Literary Representative of the Estate of John Masefield.

 

C.K. Stead, extract from ‘Pictures in a Gallery Undersea’ (page 137), reproduced by kind permission of C.K. Stead.

Janet Frame was born in Dunedin in 1924. She was the author of twelve novels, five collections of stories, two volumes of poetry, a children’s book and a three-volumed autobiography. She was a Burns Scholar, a Katherine Mansfield Fellow, a Sargeson Fellow, and won numerous awards, including the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book, the Hubert Church Award for Prose, the New Zealand Book Awards for both fiction and non-fiction (each one twice) and two Wattie Book of the Year awards. She was made a CBE in 1983 for services to literature, awarded an honorary doctorate of literature from The University of Otago in 1978, and one from The University of Waikato in 1992. Additionally, she was an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. She received New Zealand’s highest civil honour in 1990 when she was made a Member of the Order of New Zealand. In 2003 she was among inaugural recipients of a Prime Minister’s Award for Literary Achievement and was named an Arts Foundation of New Zealand Icon Artist. Janet Frame died in January 2004.