MORNING SERIAL
SMALL quarries were chased down corridors and stripped, doused in cold water. Back to bed! a wearily angry voice ranted. Get back to your beds, and, you, put your clothes on, who has done this, what do you mean by it?
How could any of them know what was meant by it? They expressed their devotion to British civilisation by turning on the most vulnerable, harrying those who could least stand up for themselves. Isolde heard heels thud as they fled to their dormitories. She felt now, listening to the scuffles and rebukes, as if she were still travelling. So her belly had churned as the ferry hit the swells; as the train had crawled across the plateau of the Liineberg Heath, and she had consumed a dry Welsh cake out of greaseproof paper, its floury dryness coating her palate. Disembarking from the train at Plon Station, she had stumbled, seeing the vast lake at her feet, a few metres from the platform, as if the sea had followed her. A momentum of displacement continued.
All seemed provisional, in this world of transients. Her narrow room suggested an antechamber to somewhere else, supervised by the young Queen wearing star and garter over turquoise satin. Her upper arms were bare and one pale-gloved hand rested on the other.
Where we are now, Jerry was once. Mr Patterson’s gloating. But I am Jerry, Isolde thought. In the open wardrobe, full skirts hung limp, like items on a rail in a second-hand shop, waiting for someone hard-up enough to claim them.
I can always go home.
But she couldn’t. The thought of Renate waving her off on the train, eyes blurred with tears, her rictus smile, was enough to put her off that. Goodbyes had been said, and goodbyes were costly rituals. You worked up to them, putting your affairs in order, like a little death. You went round all the antis, mamgu, tadcu and the neighbours, making speeches and avowals, and completed a last walk along the front, seeing it all for the last time, committing its detailed beauty to heart.
> The Element of Water by Stevie Davies is published by Parthian in the Library of Wales series www.parthianbooks.com