The Last Samurai

I decided to do something Hugh Carey would not have done at age 11. I thought if I worked through the Schaum Outline series on Fourier analysis that would be safe enough because according to Sib it is not taught in schools. HC had probably never studied it at all. I thought maybe I would do Lagrangians just to be on the safe side. Maybe I would do some Laplace transforms too.

Sibylla was typing Tropical Fish Hobbyist. No one was going to take me galloping across the Mongolian steppe. No one was going to take me to the North Pole any time soon.

One day I went with Sibylla to Tesco’s.

A brilliant white light beat pitilessly down, like the fierce desert sun at midday on the French Foreign Legion; the glittering floor dazzled the eye with the cruel desert glare.

We walked slowly through the cereals.

Vast boxes of cornflakes and bran flakes rose on either side; as we reached the muesli a cart turned the corner and turned into the aisle, propelled by a fat woman and followed by three fat children. One was crying into a fat fist, and two were arguing about Frosties and Breakfast Boulders, and the woman was smiling.

She came down the aisle and Sibylla stopped and stood by the cart, motionless as the boxes of cornflakes on their shelves. Her eyes were like black coals, and her skin like pale dirty thick clay. From her absolute silence, from her black staring eyes, I knew that this mild fat woman was someone she had hoped never to see again.

The cart, and the woman, and the children came forward, and suddenly the woman’s eyes shifted from the boxes of cereal, and across the mildness spread a look of pleased surprise.

Sybil! she exclaimed. Is it really you?

This was obviously someone who knew Sib about as well as she knew her name. No one who knew Sibylla well would have opened a conversation with a remark of such unparalleled fatuity.

Sib stared at her dumbly.

It’s me! said the woman. I suppose I’ve changed a lot, she added grimacing comically. Kids! she added.

The little wet fist fell, and small eyes gazed at a box on which brightly coloured cartoon characters consumed representations of the product.

I want the Honey Monster, howled the child.

You picked last time, said one of the others, with unmistakable Schadenfreude, and an argument broke out concerning the respective claims of the remaining two to choose this week.

Now two of the children wept into pudgy fingers, one screaming.

The woman tried, with small success, to restore order.

And is this your little boy? she asked brightly.

Sibylla was still silent, and now her lips were pressed tightly together.

If the woman opposite was capable of thought, something for which we had as yet no evidence, her thoughts were certainly opaque to her companions. I could see Sibylla’s thoughts circling her mind like goldfish in a bowl. At last she spoke.

To be or not to be, that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing, end them. To die, to sleep—

No more and by a sleep to say we end

The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks

That flesh is heir to; ’tis a consummation

The woman glanced aghast at the small fat crew and was at once relieved, for it was clear enough that they had not understood a word of this.

Well, of course we all have our cross to bear, she said cheerily.

Sibylla gazed down, eyes blazing, at a tin of baked beans.

What is your little boy’s name? asked the woman.

His name is Stephen, said Sib, after a moment’s hesitation.

He looks very bright, said the woman. No, Felicity, no! Micky, what did I say?

He is capable of logical thought, said Sib. It makes him appear exceptionally intelligent. The fact is that most people are illogical out of habit rather than stupidity; they could probably be rational quite easily if they were properly taught.

So it has all worked out for the best! said the woman. You know, however bad things look, something good may be just around the corner.

Or vice versa, said Sib.

We must always look on the bright side.

Again Sibylla was silent.

The children burst into quarrel again. The woman urged them mildly to stop. They paid no attention.

She looked at them mildly, her mouth crumpling a little.

Sib looked at her with terrible pity, as if wondering what death could be worse than the life which had led her to this cardboard canyon of cornflakes. She said to me in a low voice:

Ludo, take the Little Prince away.

And do what? I said.

Buy him some chocolate, said Sib, digging into her bag and giving me a pound. Buy them all some chocolate. Take them all away.

I led them away down the aisle. As we turned the corner I saw Sib put an arm around one fat shaking shoulder; now it was the fat woman who wept on a wet fist.