We found the Eggy Stone that first afternoon of the school camp. As soon as we had dumped our things in the big khaki canvas tents, each with eight metal bedsteads in two rows, the teacher took us down to the sea. We crunched in socks and sandals across a rim of crisped black seaweed and bone and sea-washed plastic: the tide was in, the long grey line of the waves curled and sucked at the cramped remainder of the beach, a narrow strip of pebbles. For the moment we weren't allowed to go near the water. Under our sandals the big pale pebbles rattled and shifted awkwardly. The boys began throwing them in the sea; we felt between them for treasures, the creamy spirals from old shells, bits of washed-soft glass.
Her hand and mine found the Eggy Stone at the same moment, our fingers touched, and somehow that sealed it: I was hers and she was mine for the duration of the holiday. We had never been friends before. I didn't deserve her; she had only been in the school for a few months, but her status was clear, she had been put to sit the very first day on the table where the charming girls sat. I was clever: but she was blond and daintily neat, with that fine pink skin the light almost seems to shine through. She had a pencil case full of the right kind of felts and danced with the other favoured girls in the country dancing team that did "Puppet on a String" instead of "Trip to the Cottage". Even her name was pretty: Madeleine. I was ready to adore her.
She was fragile but firm. It was she who named the stone and held it out on her palm for me to share. It was small and egg-shaped and dull black, with a ring of white crystal teeth around it at one end, just where you would cut the top off an egg to eat it. If it hadn't become, the moment we chose it, "the Eggy Stone", it would have been nothing special: there were hundreds and thousands more pebbles just as interesting. Madeleine began the cult, but I elaborated it. We took it in turns to hold the Eggy Stone, and the turns were decided by various ritualised competitions, including folded-paper fortune-tellers, knocking the heads off plantains, and a kind of wrestling we invented, kneeling opposite each other with the stone placed between us and swaying in each other's arms, trying to force our opponent to touch ground on one side or another. Before each competition there was a form of words: something like "Eggy Stone / On your own / All alone / Inaccessible light". I was probably the one who made it up (although it owed something to a hymn we sang at school). I had a bit of a reputation as a poet; whereas Madeleine was the kind of girl who chanted things by rote and knew all the skipping rhymes and all the variations for games like "Please Jack may we cross the water?"
Whoever possessed the stone felt privileged and secure for as long as it lasted. The sensation of it, smooth and warmed and resistant in the hand, came to be an end in itself, a real pleasure; and whoever didn't possess it yearned for it, until the moment arrived for another challenge. Once or twice Madeleine cheated, pushing her hand into my pocket and filching the stone without any contest, showing me with her quick brilliant smile that any appearance of fair play was only ever granted by her favour. I was outraged and helpless then, thrown back upon a self no longer complete without her. But mostly the passing of the stone was kind between us, an extraordinary bond. We went about with arms draped round one another's necks, and all Madeleine's usual friends included me tolerantly in their circle. We took it in turns to hold the stone at night, in the dark, in our sleeping bags (we slept in different tents).
The cult of the Eggy Stone didn't seem any stranger than all the other strangenesses, in a week away from home. Misery and wonder were flooded together: gargantuan preparations in the kitchen where we took our turn at helping cater for the children from seven schools;
Madeleine and I trailing hand in hand, ankle-deep in tepid sea-foam; cocoa made with water and served in tin mugs; dread of the publicity of the toilets and consequent constipation. Some of the girls (Madeleine, but not me) crept out at night to kiss the boys in their tents. We learnt new obscenities: "min" and "omo" among them (or at least that's how I heard them), which mystifyingly were also the names of cleaning products. On the last night the teachers made a campfire and taught us songs with accompanying actions. Indians are high-minded, / Bless my soul they're double-jointed, /They climb hills and don't mind it, /All day long. Madeleine beside me touched toes and reached her arms in the air with a pretty equanimity, as if whatever she was doing at a given moment was the only graceful thing possible.
I asked her the next morning, on the beach, before we got on the coach to go home, what we were going to do with the Eggy Stone. She took the stone out from her pocket, holding it out reflectively on her hand for a moment; her pretty face was quite clear of either malice or tenderness. I had a proposal ready, that we should keep the thing for a week each, changing over every Monday, dividing up the holidays. I was not foolish enough to imagine that the magical game was going to carry on between us, once school camp was over. But before I could speak, Madeleine turned and threw the Eggy Stone, hard and far, with a confidence that made it clear she would one day be captain of the netball team. I heard it land with a rattle among all the other pebbles and knew that even if I went to look I would never, ever be able to be able to find exactly the same stone again.
Short stories
The Eggy Stone by Tessa Hadley
Because The Night by Tessa Hadley
Phosphorescence by Tessa Hadley
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