Read by Patsy Prince
‘Isn’t she quiet?,’ the woman says, voice booming over the communal breakfast table. She has the eager-faced appearance of the team-sport player, her fleece bright, manner brisk. For the last twenty minutes she has talked nonstop, while simultaneously consuming vast amounts of cereal and fry-up.
Aren’t you noisy? I’d like to say.
Chloe adopts her closing-in look, eyes downcast, shoulders hunched as if she’d like to climb inside and disappear. Quiet morphs into blushing mortification at being herself.
Outside the deep-set windows of the farmhouse, mist clings to the fells, blurring the world in shifting greys. Why come to Borrowdale if you don’t appreciate quiet?
Today is Chloe’s tenth birthday.
‘I don’t want a party,’ she said, voice low and firm.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Quite sure.’
She doesn’t enjoy parties. Not that she gets invited to many. I know that the whole process of deciding who to invite, handing out invitations and being the centre of attention would be agony.
Chloe’s father looked at me with exasperation when I explained. ‘Don’t you think we should be encouraging her to be ... well, a bit more normal. Can’t always give in to what kids say they want.’
‘Quiet is normal. For her.’
‘Sure ... but.’
Patrick has never been the reserved type. For a while the two of us thought our contrasting styles complemented one another, but he has since reverted to kind. His girlfriend, Magda, is more like him and comes with a pair of chatterbox daughters. Chloe hates staying there.
She wanted to spend her birthday just the two of us. We couldn’t have known that the farmhouse B&B would be booked up with rumbustious families. Four talk-a-lot adults plus a collection of rowdy boys.
We forgo extra toast and return to our room where we pack our rucksacks and pull on outer layers. Down in the lobby, I collect the packed lunches I ordered carefully. Cheese with no butter on the bread. Ready salted crisps. Apple juice, not orange.
Chloe is precise in her requirements. Shouldn’t we be teaching her to be more robust?, my ex-husband demands. Echoing her teachers.
She feels sick sometimes before going to school. Pleads for downtime, not play-dates, after the ordeal of being there. Comes home from access weekends drained and unwilling to talk.
It is far from easy figuring what’s best to do.
Outside the air smells of green and loam. We’ve planned the walk together and Chloe has control of directions. We head along a country lane, before a stile takes us into dew-fresh fields. Sheep baa to and fro with mewing lambs. A tractor chugs. Wind rustles in the leaves and our boots rattle the loose slates of the path.
Chloe stops as we reach the river, peering intently at the map, checking and rechecking her compass. I know the way, but I let her figure it out.
‘We could go over the stepping stones,’ she says. ‘But there’s a bridge further along.’
‘Which d’you think?’
She opts for the solidity of the humpbacked bridge.
The path deviates from the river and starts to climb. Through the trees, the mist is beginning to separate. Wisps drift downwards, opening a gap with the upper bands still shrouding the high peaks. We walk companionably, settling into a silence that is open to be broken, but only if we choose. We point out the things we see. Blue patches amongst the cloud. A wobble-legged, black-faced lamb. An oddly shaped, solitary oak. I promised Patrick that I’d consider his idea of Chloe seeing a child psychiatrist. That I’d try to talk her into joining after-school clubs; Madga runs some drama group apparently and it might be just the thing. But it’s her birthday and I want us to simply enjoy the present moment, immersing ourselves in the hazed beauty.
Peace. Calm. Hush. Stillness. Soft. Contemplative. Quiet. These are not negative traits. It’s through the power of quiet reflection that people achieve extraordinary things.
Shakespeare was an introvert. Isaac Newton was. Tchaikovsky. Lincoln. To name but a few. Group- think does not produce leaps of innovation; general relativity was not the result of teamwork; Beethoven did not co-write his symphonies. Without modern day introverts there’d be no personal computers, no Facebook, no internet.
Quiet is good.
Arguments run through my mind; they never sound convincing said out loud.
The path rises to a peak, then falls back towards the river. We pause on the riverbank.
‘Shall we break?’ Pale sun dances through the trees. Water rushes over rocks. Ducks quack and waddle up to us, demanding bread. ‘D’you remember last time?,’ I ask. ‘Skimming stones?’
She nods.
‘Want to try?’
‘OK.’
I pick out flat-based stones, then choose one to demonstrate. I remember Dad teaching me when I was Chloe’s age. It took forever, a process of trial and error, but eventually something clicked and I acquired the knack. People labelled me as chronically shy back then, because so many things that others took to easily seemed overwhelming to me.
My first attempt sinks. The second I manage better:, once, twice it skims the surface, temporarily defying gravity.
Only slowly – painfully – did I learn the skills necessary to negotiate an unquiet world. And it was Dad’s patient acceptance which helped much more than Mum’s anxious desire to throw me in at deep ends, to push me further and faster than felt comfortable. Just let my daughter be; she’ll be fine.
I pass a stone to Chloe.
She takes her time choosing where to stand, then hesitates, cautious in everything she does. Just have a go, I want to say. But she learns better when allowed to find her own way.
Finally, she works up to it. She swivels one way then unfurls, her arm moving in a flowing arc, face tight with concentration. The stone plops straight to the bottom, the ripples undulating out before dissipating in the general flow.
I laugh gently, but her face remains serious.
We take turns. I don’t patronise her by deliberately fluffing it, though I’m out of practice and my aim is hit and miss anyway. I think how I only have one shot at raising my child; I don’t get to practise till I get it right.
What if I’m getting everything wrong? What if Patrick’s right and she needs specialised help? What if an introvert mother is a bad mother?
We’ve been doing this for several minutes when I hear noise behind us. I turn to see those families from breakfast, polluting the magic with their clashing colours and loud prattle.
‘Shall we move on?’ I ask.
‘Just a few more.’
‘Well hello there!’ that woman shouts, imagining we’re deaf. ‘How’re you getting on?’
My heart sinks like those stones. I fix my smile and say a frigid, ‘Hello.’
The boys see what we’re doing and collect great handfuls of rocks. One after another their stones hit the water and sink. They snigger, insult and jostle one another, quickly getting bored. Chloe moves away and spends an age sifting through the shingle. She picks a stone up and drifts further. Her feet are nimble over the rocks that jut out, until she is standing part way in the river, her back to us as she focuses on the task, shutting out the world. She rehearses her arm movement. The boys have stopped to look. ‘Get on with it!,’ one of them shouts.
I turn and give them my sternest frown and raise a finger to my lips. I don’t expect them to take notice, but for some reason they do. Everyone watches. Chloe bends her knees a little. She swings her arm and slender body back and forth like a ballet dancer. Light catches in her hair. Her toe-curled ungainliness is gone and she’s beautiful to watch, my elfin girl whose thoughts I only ever skim the surface of. On the third swing, she lets go. The stone sweeps the line of the river. It bounces off the bright edge of water, skipping once, twice, thrice.
Skipping four then five then six times.
Her face is alive with joy and triumph. And just for the moment, everyone is quiet.
(c) Sarah Evans, 2015
Sarah Evans has had over a hundred stories published in competition anthologies, magazines and online, including by: the Bridport Prize, Unthank Books, Bloomsbury and Fiction Desk. Recently her story ‘Acclimatising’ won the inaugural Winston Fletcher prize. She has also had work performed in London, Hong Kong and New York.
Patsy Prince trained at RADA and King's College London. Most recently she appeared in Culture Shock, a feature film directed by Steve Balderson which premiered at Raindance 2012. Theatre credits include: Voices From September 11th (The Old Vic), Like Being Killed (Actors’Centre NYC) and Hidden Voices (Paradoxos Theatre Co., National Tour). Her website is www.patsyprince.com
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