than he ever did as a young man, he is also feeling the glow of comfort and registering the sensation that this life need not be solitary because there is now someone out there. This is what brings him here every night, this feeling of connection, of having made first contact with a world beyond his own, of having discovered a way of being in the world that wasn’t there before Miss Carroll’s light appeared. And when he thinks of it like this, part of him suspects that he might have spent too many years living alone and that those solitary years in which he, Skinner, likely as not, spoke only to Skinner about the things that mattered have done this to him. Made him imagine things, and just a bit too dramatically. Perhaps.
And so the light in Miss Carroll’s old canvas tent brings him back every night. As it has for months now. Brings him back here to the back veranda, where he stands, an inexplicable connection between him and the light in Miss Carroll’s tent bringing comfort, unfailingly, at the end of each day.
But if he goes too close to the light in the tent, if he responds to it as if it were an announcement, even an invitation (as a solitary light in the dark night is), and is not invited in, will the light lose its power to comfort because it will have lost its potential? And will this time that he has come to look forward to at the end of each day be lost to him?
It is then that the light dims. With this thought still in his mind, and which he has mulled over now for some time without resolution, he steps back into the house, no longer able to ignore the cold because the energy and the strength that resisted the weather and gave him his productive years are now gone and will not be back.
6.
Inside Miss Carroll’s Tent
K atherine (for she is Katherine, even if it is only her sisters who call her that, and even if it rings strangely in her ears on those rare occasions she hears her name) has had the oil lamp for over half her life now. It throws out a good, mellow light. Not too bright, harsh or dull. Soft is the word that comes to mind. She is a woman, however hard the years may have made her, who likes soft things. And this light is the softest thing she has ever owned. Soft enough to touch. Not in the way you can touch an object but in the way you can touch a shower of rain or a heavy fog. And she’s found more comfort in that light over the years than she’s found in people. Or animals, for that matter. She’s not sentimental about them either. But she is about this light. And for that reason she’ll never give it up. Not even when her sleep-out is built on the space that the tent now occupies. Certainly not for electric bulbs. She can turn it low to rest or turn it up to read, as she does now. For she has read allher life. She can barely remember not reading and one of the few concessions she has made to the passing of the years is a pair of reading glasses. The glasses and a small kerosene heater that currently warms her.
But as much as she draws comfort from the lamp and as much as she is warmed by it whenever she lights it, she is not dwelling on the quality of its light at the moment. She is brooding on the disruption to her morning.
How did it unfold? What precisely was the sequence of events? She was reading. She had a warm cup of tea beside her. The heater was lit. She had her book, she had her solitude, she had her quiet. Happy, the way she has always been, happy to be alone. Then there was a sound. From out there. Intrusive. A voice. Someone was calling out. And she had no idea how long they had been calling or to whom. Then the voice and the calling became louder and she realised it was calling for her. Furthermore, from the clarity and the volume, she knew that whoever was calling was quite near. On her property, in fact. And that was when she rose, threw down the book and marched outside to find a cheery young man and a glum-looking older one standing no more than ten yards away in
And so the light in Miss Carroll’s old canvas tent brings him back every night. As it has for months now. Brings him back here to the back veranda, where he stands, an inexplicable connection between him and the light in Miss Carroll’s tent bringing comfort, unfailingly, at the end of each day.
But if he goes too close to the light in the tent, if he responds to it as if it were an announcement, even an invitation (as a solitary light in the dark night is), and is not invited in, will the light lose its power to comfort because it will have lost its potential? And will this time that he has come to look forward to at the end of each day be lost to him?
It is then that the light dims. With this thought still in his mind, and which he has mulled over now for some time without resolution, he steps back into the house, no longer able to ignore the cold because the energy and the strength that resisted the weather and gave him his productive years are now gone and will not be back.
6.
Inside Miss Carroll’s Tent
K atherine (for she is Katherine, even if it is only her sisters who call her that, and even if it rings strangely in her ears on those rare occasions she hears her name) has had the oil lamp for over half her life now. It throws out a good, mellow light. Not too bright, harsh or dull. Soft is the word that comes to mind. She is a woman, however hard the years may have made her, who likes soft things. And this light is the softest thing she has ever owned. Soft enough to touch. Not in the way you can touch an object but in the way you can touch a shower of rain or a heavy fog. And she’s found more comfort in that light over the years than she’s found in people. Or animals, for that matter. She’s not sentimental about them either. But she is about this light. And for that reason she’ll never give it up. Not even when her sleep-out is built on the space that the tent now occupies. Certainly not for electric bulbs. She can turn it low to rest or turn it up to read, as she does now. For she has read allher life. She can barely remember not reading and one of the few concessions she has made to the passing of the years is a pair of reading glasses. The glasses and a small kerosene heater that currently warms her.
But as much as she draws comfort from the lamp and as much as she is warmed by it whenever she lights it, she is not dwelling on the quality of its light at the moment. She is brooding on the disruption to her morning.
How did it unfold? What precisely was the sequence of events? She was reading. She had a warm cup of tea beside her. The heater was lit. She had her book, she had her solitude, she had her quiet. Happy, the way she has always been, happy to be alone. Then there was a sound. From out there. Intrusive. A voice. Someone was calling out. And she had no idea how long they had been calling or to whom. Then the voice and the calling became louder and she realised it was calling for her. Furthermore, from the clarity and the volume, she knew that whoever was calling was quite near. On her property, in fact. And that was when she rose, threw down the book and marched outside to find a cheery young man and a glum-looking older one standing no more than ten yards away in
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