Free Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban

said.
    He looked at me strangely. ‘Yes,’ he said.
    On the way out I went over to the Tantric moon and read the nameplate on it. INSECT-O-CUTOR, it said.
    ‘I’ll ring you up when I hear from George Fairbairn,’ said the bookshop man.
    I gave him my name and telephone number.
    ‘Neaera,’ he read. ‘Eldest daughter?’
    I nodded.
    ‘My name’s William G.,’ he said.
    We shook hands and parted. Going home on the tube I was astonished at the number of paint- and ink-stains on the shirt I was wearing.

17

William G.
    Neaera H. The penny didn’t drop until a few minutes after we’d parted, then I remembered the Gillian Vole books, Delia Swallow, Geoffrey Mouse and all the others I used to read to the girls.
Delia Swallow’s Housewarming
was Cyndie’s favourite for a long time, she never tired of it. This must be the same Neaera H., she looked too much like a writer-illustrator not to be one.
    Back at the shop I went to Picture Books in the Juvenile section and looked at a copy of
Delia Swallow’s Housewarming.
No photograph or biographical details on the back flap. All it said was that Delia Swallow, though the stories were written for children, had long been a favourite with readers of all ages, as had Gillian Vole etc. I looked at the first page:
    ‘Just any eaves won’t do,’ said Delia Swallow to her husband John when they were looking for a nest.
    ‘I’d like eaves on the sunny side and with a view.’
‘Field or forest?’ said John.
‘Field with forest at the edge I think,’ said Delia.
‘Riverside or hill?’ said John.
‘Riverside with a hill behind,’ said Delia.
‘Right,’ said John, and went to sleep.
He always kipped after lunch.
    Ariadne and Cyndie always liked it that John Swallow kipped after lunch. In the evenings he usually dropped in for a pintor two and a game of darts at the
Birds of a Feather,
after which:
    He sometimes flew a little wobbly going home.
    Strange. While I was married to Dora and living in Hampstead and working at the agency Neaera H. was writing those books. Now here we are, both of us alone and thinking turtle thoughts. At least I assume she’s alone. She looks as if she’s always been alone. Of course I’m seeing her out of alone eyes, I could well be wrong.
    The turtles share a tank at the Zoo. I share a bath at Mrs Inchcliff’s. Hairy Mr Sandor. I taped a little sign to the bathroom wall:
    PLEASE CLEAN BATH AFTER USING
    Not that it’ll do much good. It’s not too bad really, he only baths a couple of times a week. Miss Neap baths daily and when she’s been before me the bathroom smells very blonde and militantly fragrant, as if mortality could be kept at bay by lavender in the same way that garlic repels vampires. If Dracula and Miss Neap were to have a go I think he’d be the one to come away with teeth marks in his throat.
    When I had a bathroom of my own. I think about that sometimes. When I was an account executive. When I owned a house. When my daughters sat on my lap and I read to them. When they collected pebbles with me on the beach. Ariadne’s twenty now, Cyndie’s eighteen. I haven’t seen them for three years. I don’t know where they are.
    The past isn’t connected to the future any more. When I lived with Dora and the girls the time I lived in, the time of me was still the same piece of time that had unrolled like a forward road under my feet from the day of my birth. That road and all the scenes along it belonged to me, my mind moved freely up and down it. Walking on it I was still connected to my youth and strength, the time of me was of one piece with that time. Notnow. I can’t walk on my own time past. It doesn’t belong to me any more.
    There’s no road here. Every step away from Dora and the girls leads only to old age and death whatever I do. No one I sleep with now has known me young with long long time and all the world before me. Rubbish. I remember how it was lying beside Dora in the night. O God, I used to think, this