it that makes it icky. And the whole sex-change thing in Triton , there must be a sort of spectrum of sexuality, with most people somewhere in the middle, drawn to men and women, and some off on the ends—me at one end and Ralph and Laurie at the other. One of the things I’ve always liked about science fiction is the way it makes you think about things, and look at things from angles you’d never have thought about before.
From now on, I’m going to be positive about sex.
W EDNESDAY 10 TH O CTOBER 1979
If the school was going out of their way to try to detach us from magic, they couldn’t organize things better. I wonder if that was someone’s original intention. I’m sure nobody here now knows a thing about it, but Arlinghurst has been running like this for more than a hundred years.
We do no cooking, we’re completely cut off from the food we eat, and the food is incredibly awful. Yesterday, for instance, dinner was spam fritters, totally tasteless mashed potatoes, over-boiled cabbage. For pudding, we had a dish of set custard with a half walnut in the middle, between six people. That’s called Hawaiian Delight. There’s a similar one we have at least once a week called Hawaiian Surprise, which is set custard with a half glace cherry. I don’t like glace cherries or walnuts, so I’m marginally popular for a moment whenever it’s served for not joining in the squabble over who gets it. I don’t like custard either, but sometimes I’m hungry enough to eat it. You couldn’t get worse food, or food more detached from nature, if you tried. If you have an apple, you’re connected to an apple tree. If you have a dish of set custard and half a glace cherry you’re not connected to anything.
Still on the subject of eating, we don’t have our own plates, or our own knives and forks or cups. Like most of what we use, they’re communal, they’re handed out at random. There’s no chance for anything to become imbued, to come alive through fondness. Nothing here is aware, no chair, no cup. Nobody can get fond of anything.
At home I walked through a haze of belongings that knew, at least vaguely, who they belonged to. Grampar’s chair resented anyone else sitting on it as much as he did himself. Gramma’s shirts and jumpers adjusted themselves to hide her missing breast. My mother’s shoes positively vibrated with consciousness. Our toys looked out for us. There was a potato knife in the kitchen that Gramma couldn’t use. It was an ordinary enough brown-handled thing, but she’d cut herself with it once, and ever after it wanted more of her blood. If I rummaged through the kitchen drawer, I could feel it brooding. After she died, that faded. Then there were the coffee spoons, rarely used, tiny, a wedding present. They were made of silver, and they knew themselves superior to everything else and special.
None of these things did anything. The coffee spoons didn’t stir the coffee without being held or anything. They didn’t have conversations with the sugar tongs about who was the most cherished. (We always felt they might at any moment.) I suppose what they really did was psychological. They confirmed the past, they connected everything, they were threads in a tapestry. Here there is no tapestry, we jangle about separately.
Another letter. I haven’t opened it. I really notice it though, because of this stuff. It’s pulsing with significance—malign significance, but significance all the same. Everything else is muted around it.
T HURSDAY 11 TH O CTOBER 1979
Miss Carroll agreed to write a library letter without any hesitation. “I saw you were reduced to reading Arthur Ransome,” she said.
Actually, I like Arthur Ransome. I wouldn’t call it reduced. I’ve read them all before, of course, years ago, but I’ve been enjoying them. There’s something nice about out-and-out children’s books with no sex and a happy ending—Ransome, Streatfeild, that kind of thing. It isn’t very challenging,
From now on, I’m going to be positive about sex.
W EDNESDAY 10 TH O CTOBER 1979
If the school was going out of their way to try to detach us from magic, they couldn’t organize things better. I wonder if that was someone’s original intention. I’m sure nobody here now knows a thing about it, but Arlinghurst has been running like this for more than a hundred years.
We do no cooking, we’re completely cut off from the food we eat, and the food is incredibly awful. Yesterday, for instance, dinner was spam fritters, totally tasteless mashed potatoes, over-boiled cabbage. For pudding, we had a dish of set custard with a half walnut in the middle, between six people. That’s called Hawaiian Delight. There’s a similar one we have at least once a week called Hawaiian Surprise, which is set custard with a half glace cherry. I don’t like glace cherries or walnuts, so I’m marginally popular for a moment whenever it’s served for not joining in the squabble over who gets it. I don’t like custard either, but sometimes I’m hungry enough to eat it. You couldn’t get worse food, or food more detached from nature, if you tried. If you have an apple, you’re connected to an apple tree. If you have a dish of set custard and half a glace cherry you’re not connected to anything.
Still on the subject of eating, we don’t have our own plates, or our own knives and forks or cups. Like most of what we use, they’re communal, they’re handed out at random. There’s no chance for anything to become imbued, to come alive through fondness. Nothing here is aware, no chair, no cup. Nobody can get fond of anything.
At home I walked through a haze of belongings that knew, at least vaguely, who they belonged to. Grampar’s chair resented anyone else sitting on it as much as he did himself. Gramma’s shirts and jumpers adjusted themselves to hide her missing breast. My mother’s shoes positively vibrated with consciousness. Our toys looked out for us. There was a potato knife in the kitchen that Gramma couldn’t use. It was an ordinary enough brown-handled thing, but she’d cut herself with it once, and ever after it wanted more of her blood. If I rummaged through the kitchen drawer, I could feel it brooding. After she died, that faded. Then there were the coffee spoons, rarely used, tiny, a wedding present. They were made of silver, and they knew themselves superior to everything else and special.
None of these things did anything. The coffee spoons didn’t stir the coffee without being held or anything. They didn’t have conversations with the sugar tongs about who was the most cherished. (We always felt they might at any moment.) I suppose what they really did was psychological. They confirmed the past, they connected everything, they were threads in a tapestry. Here there is no tapestry, we jangle about separately.
Another letter. I haven’t opened it. I really notice it though, because of this stuff. It’s pulsing with significance—malign significance, but significance all the same. Everything else is muted around it.
T HURSDAY 11 TH O CTOBER 1979
Miss Carroll agreed to write a library letter without any hesitation. “I saw you were reduced to reading Arthur Ransome,” she said.
Actually, I like Arthur Ransome. I wouldn’t call it reduced. I’ve read them all before, of course, years ago, but I’ve been enjoying them. There’s something nice about out-and-out children’s books with no sex and a happy ending—Ransome, Streatfeild, that kind of thing. It isn’t very challenging,
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