Z for Zachariah

He kept this up, a sort of inconsequential chatter, and I joined in as well as I could. I even told him about the eight new chickens. And I did feel a little more relaxed as a result, which I suppose was what he intended.

After dinner I washed the dishes as usual, and swept the floor. I was yawning, feeling quite tired, having worked hard all day and scarcely slept the night before. When I came out of the kitchen I saw that he had not gone back to the bedroom; he had decided that he was no longer sick, so he had sat in a chair in the living room, the big chair my father used to sit in in the evenings. He had even lighted two lamps, though it was not really dark out, but still dusk.

He said: “Do you remember when I was sick—something you did?”

I was immediately alarmed, thinking he was coming back to the hand-holding.

“What do you mean?”

“You read to me. At least once, for quite a long time.”

I was relieved. I did not mind discussing reading. “I remember.”

“Could you do it again?”

“You mean now?”

“Yes.”

“Read what?” I was not very eager to do it, only partly because I was tired. It seemed strange and unnatural. I thought, why should he want me to read to him when he knew how to read himself? Still, I knew of families who did read to one another as a regular pastime; perhaps it was not so strange.

“Whatever you like,” he said. “Maybe what you read before?”

“That was poetry.”

“I don’t mind. I’d like to hear it. Or anything else you want to read.”

I did not want to read anything, but the fact is I did not know how to refuse, which I suppose he knew.

So I ended up reading to him for more than an hour. I read Gray’s “Elegy” again, and when I finished that he asked me not to stop, so I read the beginning of Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. (I could almost have recited that by heart.)

As I said, it was not such a startling thing, but one part of it bothered me, and also puzzled me. After the first half hour or so I realized that he was not listening at all. I discovered this while reading Jane Austen. I was so tired by that time that I accidentally turned two pages at once, skipping from page seventeen to page twenty. I read on for half a page before I realized that I had left out the whole episode telling about Mr Bonaventure and his money, so that what I was reading made no sense. I started to explain and go back to page eighteen when it came to me that he had not even noticed. So I just read on.

But why should he ask me to read to him if he did not want to listen?

The more I thought about it the more the feeling grew in me that it was wrong; it was as if he were playing some kind of a trick on me. And that idea made me feel more nervous than ever—in fact, afraid. Then I got quite angry with myself for feeling that way. I told myself I was making up problems. There was no reason to believe that he did not really want to be read to, even though he did not pay close attention. The sound of a voice can be soothing; he had been mortally ill, and perhaps was still restless; surely he must be bored all through the day. I reminded myself that that, at least, was sure to get better as he was able to walk farther and do more. Meanwhile if I could help him I should.

Chapter Eighteen

Still June 3oth

That was my self-lecture, but it did not work perfectly. I continued to feel uneasy; in fact the next night was slightly worse. He asked me to play the piano.

Again he was sitting in the living-room in my father’s chair, with two lamps lit. Playing the piano should have been, in a way, better than reading, since I was reasonably sure that he would at least listen—I knew he had liked it before. The difficulties were mechanical and (again) probably not really important. First, I was tired, and piano playing is harder than reading. Second, I had to sit with my back to him, and I felt unreasonably wary about that.

Did I expect that he would come creeping up on me from behind? I did not really think he would, and yet as I played the first piece, a Clementi Sonatina, I had a terrible urge to look over my shoulder, and I kept trying to play softly so I could hear if he moved. As a result I played very badly, hitting more wrong notes than right ones. I resolved to do better on the next one, so I picked a very slow and easy Andante by Heller (from the “Easy Pieces”), one I knew almost from memory, and I concentrated on it. It was quite long; I did the repeats, and it was going well—when all at once I heard his cane tapping behind me. It tapped twice, clearly and sharply, and I could not control myself. I whirled around on the bench. He was still sitting in the chair. He had not moved at all.

He said: “Is something wrong?”

“Your cane,” I said. “It startled me. I thought—' I stopped, not wanting to say what I had thought.

“My cane slipped,” he said, “but I caught it.”

I turned and tried to play again, but by now my hands were shaking so badly I could not really do it. His cane did not look as if it had slipped. It was hooked over the arm of his chair and his hand was resting on it. I was really nervous. I tried a hymn, but half way through it I had to stop. I turned around again.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t play any more. I think I’m just too tired.”

“Tired so soon?” he said.

“I’ve been working all day,” I said. “I suppose that’s why.” Of course that was not why at all, and I was pretty sure he knew it. I thought he had tapped the cane purposely, just to see what I would do. I do not know what he expected. I even thought: maybe he is trying to frighten me. But why should he? That was making up trouble again.

He said: “There is too much work. But quite soon now I will be able to do some of it. Then you must show me how to operate the tractor.”

But when I went to bed, even that thought kept me from sleeping. It was ironic; as a child, and even right up to the time Mr Loomis had come, I hadn’t particularly liked working in the fields. I preferred to cook, or feed the animals. Yet in the last few days the times I felt best were when I was out alone, working in the garden or running the tractor.

The next night he did not ask me either to read or play the piano. I was a little surprised, since I had got the dinner a bit earlier than usual, but I decided it must be because the night before, I had said I was tired. In fact, after dinner he did not sit in my father’s chair at all but disappeared into his room. So, since it was still light after I had cleaned up the kitchen, and the evening was pleasant, I went with Faro for a walk. There was no breath of wind; everything was quiet; it was the time of the long twilight that valleys have while the sun is still setting outside. We walked slowly down the road to the church, and I felt glad and almost peaceful again at being away from the house. Faro seemed to feel the same way—at least he did not scurry around and sniff, but just plodded along quietly, his toenails clicking on the tarmac. When we reached the church I did not go in, but sat on the edge of the small white porch outside the front door; Faro lay on the step and rested his chin on my feet as he sometimes does. Up above in the belfry I could hear the two crows in their nest clucking themselves down for the night, sounding like chickens; I could also hear the higher twittering of at least two or three babies, one of which I had found behind the altar.

When they had quietened down and the air was turning grey I stood up and started back to the house. At this time of evening at this season, in the old days, the whippoorwills would have flown in from the south and we could hear them singing in the pine trees, sometimes so loudly they kept us awake. But now all I heard was a beetle buzzing past; up the hillside I saw a few fireflies blinking, the first I had seen this year. I was glad there were some of them left, at least.

About half way back the house came into view, rather vague in the dim light. I was level with the pond and was just looking to see if there were any fish-ripples on the surface when a movement straight ahead caught my