Close
to Nature
Clara-Moon was three
years old before she realised that she should have a father somewhere. Her mother
Lucilla had never referred to him, and spoke of men in such withering tones
that she sensed that any question about him would rebound badly in some way.
"We don’t need any
man to help us, do we, Clara-Moon?" her mother would say, as together they
hoed and weeded the vegetable garden on their farm just outside the town.
“We’re self-sufficient. That means we grow everything for ourselves. Aren’t you
glad we don’t have to go to the shop to buy nasty tinned food like other
people?”
Lucilla, committed to
being at one with the Earth, passionately renounced anything that smacked of
convenience. She milked the cow, she hoed the soil,
and scrubbed the clothes with soap she made herself from soda, ash and mutton
fat. She didn’t just weave the cloth from which she made their clothes, she
sheared the sheep herself, spun the wool and dyed it with tea. Clara’s
badly-fitting garments, in dingy shades of brown, satisfied Lucilla, who
believed that only natural, organic products should touch her daughter’s skin.
Clara- Moon, scratching at the coarse weave, wasn’t so sure.
Her mother had ripped out
the electricity when she came to live on the farm and with no radio, music or
television, Clara-Moon learned to read at an early age. During the long evenings, while her mother
wove lengths of cloth or knitted lumpy sweaters from home spun wool, she would
read aloud from a catholic collection of books provided by her mother: legends
and fairy stories, botanic texts, Enid Blyton adventures and women’s
literature.
Once, impressed by the
fun everyone had in The Third Form at
“Because they’d fill your head with a lot of
rubbish, “ answered Lucilla shortly. “You’re
home-schooled and much the better for it.”
Lucilla was a vegetarian
and so, of course, was Clara-Moon. They ate eggs, but when the hen died of old
age, Lucilla would bury the carcase under the steaming compost heap. “Good
nutrients are returning to the earth,” she’d say, and it never occurred to Clara-Moon
that other people might actually cook and eat the fowl. Lucilla did not
consider cooking a skill worth mastering and her daughter was accustomed to
wildly differing meals, depending on what was in season. Her mother served
piles of spinach, platefuls of carrots or boiled onions and Clara-Moon ate
these uncritically until she was old enough to enjoy experimenting. Then she
discovered herbs that vastly improved plain boiled fare and started growing her
own coriander, oregano, and mint for flavouring.
Meal times, such as they
were, were spent improving her grasp of Lucille’s favourite subject: the Rhythm
of Life. Every sprouting seed or wandering insect was an opportunity to teach
her daughter something meaningful about the wonders of nature. Before she could write her name, Clara-Moon
knew all about the usefulness of dung-beetles and the symbiotic relationship
between aphids and ants.
Lucilla rejected
story-books in which the animals talked or wore clothes, but encouraged her
daughter to read from National Geographic, discussing the pictures.
“This is real life, far
more meaningful,” she said, “See this thin old lion all by himself” He’s been
chased out of the pride by a younger male and he’s probably going to starve to
death because he’s almost toothless.”
Clara-Moon shuddered. “I
don’t like animals like that, they’re cruel.” “Nonsense, that’s simply nature,”
said Lucilla briskly, picking up the compost bucket and leading the way
outside, “It’s called survival of the fittest. If people could also die when
they had outlived their usefulness, we’d all be better off.”
“But people might enjoy
being old,” muttered Clara-Moon.
“Look at this stalk, sweetie,” said Lucilla,
ignoring her. “See the green insects on it” Clever old Nature has disguised them
so birds won’t see them and eat them. They’re called Praying Mantis.”
“What’s that Praying
Mantis doing?” asked Clara-Moon curiously. “It’s climbing on top of the other
one.”
“He’s mating with the
female Mantis,” said Lucilla, glad of the opportunity to introduce the facts of
life, given the absence of a bull on the farm.
“He’s fertilising tiny eggs inside her. Soon she’ll lay those eggs and
later a whole lot of baby Praying Mantis will hatch out.”
“Now what’s she doing?”
Clara-Moon peered closer. “She’s chewing his head off! Mother! Stop her!”
“He’s served his
purpose,” said Lucilla calmly, “She needed a male to fertilise her eggs and now
he’s no use to her any more. I expect her body needs the protein.”
“Oh.”
At five years old,
Clara-Moon was a thoughtful child. That night, before her mother blew out the
lamp, she asked, “Mother, which male did you mate with to get me?” Lucilla
smiled at her fondly. “He was just a man who seemed right at the time. When we
mated - only with people we call it having sex - we lay on the sweet-smelling
hay outside the barn with the beautiful light of a full moon shining down on
us. That’s why you’re called Clara-Moon. Clara means pure and the moon that
night was wonderfully bright.”
“So where is he now? My father?“ Clara-Moon savoured the word. She loved the legends of King Arthur and
pictured a smiling man with long golden hair, his silvery-white horse whinnying
and stamping its hooves in the moonlight.
“He wasn’t someone I
needed to have around, and you wouldn’t have liked him at all. He drove a noisy
motor bike and had horrible black hair on his arms. But he was young and very
vigorous.” Her mother sighed
nostalgically at the recollection.
That night Clara-Moon had
a nightmare for the first time in her life. In it, her mother reared up from
the haystack and bit off a man’s head, ripping at the flesh and snorting in
satisfaction as blood streamed from her mouth. Her eyes turned into little
black faceted mirrors as she brayed, “The protein is good for me.” Clara-Moon
woke up screaming.
Until she was fourteen,
life for Clara-Moon went on according to the rhythms of the seasons: planting,
weeding and harvesting. A small, unsmiling girl with pale skin and fine blond
hair that belied her strength, she was nervous of strangers and spent her free
time reading or making finely observed drawings of insects.
Lucilla, whose hair was
streaked with grey, had grown gaunt and stringy with the harsh outdoor work and
had started muttering to herself as she worked.
For the essentials the farm could not provide, she cycled infrequently
down the hill into town, returning with paraffin, matches or sugar and primed
with scathing comments about the teenagers she saw there.
“Such terrible music they
play, and so loud! And the clothes some of them wear! They’re practically
naked. Thank heavens you’re not an ordinary person, my darling.”
Clara-Moon wondered what
it would be like to be an ordinary person. She was vaguely aware that her
upbringing had been somewhat different to others’, but she was quite content
with her life so far. She knew she would have to leave the farm one day and
study something, probably botany, although Lucilla said she already knew as
much as was useful.
But one day the
Ventersdorp Education Officer, red-faced and officious, arrived unannounced at
the farm, his little blue sedan braking to a stop outside the house in a cloud
of dust. He and Lucilla exchanged loud and angry words behind the closed door
of the dining room. When he departed, revving his engine triumphantly, Lucilla
was flushed with rage and holding an official document in her shaking hand.
“My poor baby, you have
to go to school I’m afraid,” she said tremulously, “or they’ll send me to jail.
But it’s only for two years. You’re allowed to leave when you’re sixteen.”
Clara-Moon’s heart leapt
with excitement but she tried to look as miserable as her mother seemed to
expect.
It didn’t take longer
than a day at school for Clara-Moon to realise she could just as well have been
living on another planet for fourteen years.
She knew nothing at all
about the essentials: pop groups, films and fashions and when she spoke she
didn’t use the slang of the other confident, noisy teenagers. In the Enid
Blyton books she’d read, the girls said things like ripping and I say, what
fun! But when she innocently used these phrases they snorted with laughter and
chanted “Clara-Loony! Clara-Moony!” But in any case she was automatically
banished to the outer edges of school society because she was the daughter of
that crazy woman who cycled around town on an ancient bicycle and shouted at
people. With a growing resentment
towards her mother’s oddities festering inside her, Clara-Moon resigned herself
to two years of hell.
It was while she was
sitting silently in the furthest corner of the playground, eating a sliced
turnip sandwich and studying a column of red ants, that Flippie approached her,
drawn by her fine blonde hair and air of calm. His father was the town drunk and
Flippie, three years older than Clara but a fellow-outcast, sported a shaved
head and several defiant tattoos to show he didn’t care. He was tall and well
built and Clara, who had dropped the Moon after the first day, fell instantly
in love with him.
“Whatja doing after
school?” he mumbled.
“Nothing.”
“Wanta come with me for a
burger‘n’coke?”
Clara knew this was the
first step on the road to hell, but it was the only offer of friendship she’d
had, and she wasn’t going to refuse.
“That would be ripping.”
“You speak funny, you
know that?”
As they approached the
Burger Shack the smell that wafted out to Clara made her almost sick with
desire. So this was meat. When the hamburger arrived, adorned with fried
onions, it tasted as good as it smelled, and although the coke was unpleasantly
fizzy, Clara felt this meal had somehow ordained her into a higher level of the
human race. She realised exactly why other people were meat-eaters and felt a
sudden rush of pure rage against her mother who had denied her this basic
pleasure of life for so long.
“Good stuff, hey?”
mumbled Flippie with his mouth full.
“Yeah,
too right.” Clara was happily picking up the slang.
Before the first month
was out, Lucilla knew that her worst fears had come true. The dross of the
middle classes, with whom she was forced to mix, was polluting Clara-Moon’s
mind. Lucilla noticed with alarm that money was missing from her purse. (Clara
couldn’t rely on Flippie to buy her a hamburger every afternoon and she needed money
to feed her new addiction). Her conversation had started to include
incomprehensible phrases and daily, she became more of a stranger to her
mother.
Lucilla consoled herself
by adopting a small white-haired dog, the first on the farm. Until now, every
animal had been expected to earn its keep by providing wool, milk or eggs, but
aware that she had somehow lost Clara-Moon’s uncritical affection, she allowed
herself this single fluffy indulgence. Muffy followed her everywhere, jumping
onto her lap as soon as she sat down and sleeping on her bed. Clara disliked
this yapping little animal and the feeling was mutual. Muffy, sensing her hostility, snarled under her breath and cowered whenever
Clara came near.
“You never let me have a
dog, mother,” Clara said coldly, “You said they were no practical use,
remember?”
Lucilla looked at her in silent reproach,
stroking Muffy’s white curls.
“I need someone to talk
to,” she said pointedly, but Clara slammed the door of her room.
One afternoon, Clara
invited Flippie back to the farm. Lucilla was in town, and they wandered about
hand-in-hand picking late strawberries and blackberries. Flippie was fascinated
with the barn and all the rusty farm implements standing unused.
“Check the wheels on this
old tractor!” he exclaimed admiringly, entranced by machinery of any kind. He
was saving up for a motorbike. “Hey, what’s this?” He’d spotted a large wooden
cover on the floor of the barn and lifted it up. “Cool, looks like a proper
inspection pit for servicing a car.”
They peered down into the
darkness. Lying on its side was a red motorbike, the keys still in the lock.
“A Harley Davidson!”
breathed Flippie.
Clara felt a sickening
jolt in the pit of her stomach. She knew instantly whose motorbike this was and
backed away from the pit, feeling slightly faint.
“Give me a hand; let’s
see if we can get this out. There’s a block and tackle here.” Flippie was
flushed with excitement. “Jeez, what a find! I wonder
whose it was? Ours now, I reckon.”
Together, with great
difficulty, they lifted it. Clara wasn’t really surprised to see a crushed
skull and a scattering of yellowed bones on the floor of the pit.
“Hey, the poor bugger
must have fallen off his bike. Long ago though, I reckon this model’s at least
twenty years old.”
She made no reply,
staring down at the bones as if in a trance.
“I bet this could still
go,” muttered Flippie, ignoring the skeleton, insignificant in the face of the
bike’s dusty magnificence. “I could fix
it up.”
“Okay, take the bike and
try to get it going at your house. Just don’t let my mother see you.”
“Then we can go places, baby!” Flippie
grinned. “You ever been to
“No, but that’d be cool.
You fix the bike and we’ll go!”
When he’d left, slowly
pushing the heavy machine, Clara shovelled sand over the bones. She felt she
owed her father some sort of burial so went outside and picked some lemon
blossom, which she scattered into the pit. That night she glowered across the
table without speaking, watching in revulsion as her mother slowly masticated
her food, making small wet noises of satisfaction. Lately she’d started to chew
very slowly as she’d lost several of her teeth, making her look like an old
woman.
A couple of weeks later,
Flippie looked for her after school and said, “All fixed up. You still on for
“Yes, of course.” Clara
thought quickly. “Come out to the farm for supper this evening. There’s a full moon. We can drive through the
night.”
“Dead romantic, you are.”
Lucilla was picking beans
when Clara got home, her faded homespun dress hanging loosely over her scrawny
frame. Lucilla hadn’t been well for some time but refused to think of a doctor,
preferring to dose herself with a concoction of herbs.
“I know you killed my
father,” said Clara quietly. “I found his motor bike. And his
bones. In the garage.”
“Well, that’s ancient
history.” Lucilla seemed genuinely puzzled at her concern. “I told you, we
didn’t need him. His was a very unenlightened
soul.”
With both hands, Clara
reached for her mother’s throat and with surprisingly little effort, snapped
her neck. Lucille’s last coherent
thought was how like her father she looked and wished she could remember his
name.
“Well, mother, what did
you expect?” Clara giggled slightly hysterically at the inert form at her feet,
“You’ve served your purpose.”
She dragged the body
across the yard to the compost heap, forked it to one side and pushed her
mother underneath. Then she shovelled the muck on top, estimating it would take
several months for the nutrients to be absorbed. As she did so, she heard a whimper of
distress behind her. There was only one practical way to deal with Muffy and
although he tried to escape, Clara was too quick for him.
Flippie arrived as the
sun was setting, heralded by the throaty roar of the Harley Davidson. There was
a delicious smell coming from the kitchen.
“All set?” He was dressed
in black leather and a Nazi-style helmet sat aggressively on his shaven head.
“Let’s just have a quick
supper first,” said Clara, ladling the stew onto two plates.
“Is your Ma okay about
this trip?”
“She’s cool.”
Well, actually she’s
considerably warmer now than she was this morning, thought Clara, smiling to herself. She felt light as air and delightfully free. Flippie grinned happily and picked some small
bones from the stew, placing them neatly on the side of his plate.
“Not just a pretty face,
you can cook too, hey?”
“Never mind the
compliments, finish up and let’s go,” she said.
Ginny Swart
COMMENTS:
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Ginny, this is an excellent story with a very unexpected turn at the end. I think it captures the characters brilliantly and one can feel the resentment in Clara Moon for her mother who is depriving her of the worldly pleasures. The small town mentality is also brilliantly portrayed. I was captivated from start to finish. - MANDY |
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I was completely taken in by the story... very well developed characters, but I was confused about the father a little bit? Maybe clarify? Also Flippie is a little underdeveloped. – KEREN |
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Very Roald Dahl! Well done. Your ideas are captivating... Maybe rewrite the story (make it longer, add more substance), and try to develop your characters further. Deepen your reader's empathy toward your characters, especially the mother. – JOE |
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Ginny, I allowed your story to
simmer for a couple of days. The characters, Clara Moon and Lucilla are real,
definitely not stereotypical. Lucilla's motivation,
her hatred of all things MAN, is drawn logically and is necessary for the
story to evolve. Are we meant to identify with the characters? I hope not
(LOL), but I was drawn to Clara's dilemma. The dialogue moved the story
forward, but so did the narrative. The main setting, on a farm without
radio, TV and music, seemed surreal to me but is an essential part of the
story so the setting is convincing and alive. I was able to
visualise each scene. Written from Clara's POV I was able to get a clear
picture of her inner turmoil. I must say that the story development jarred me
a little. The narrative leaps but is never stagnant or confusing.
Too fast over too few pages, perhaps, but nonetheless captive. Your ability
to express fiction in words is royal and I really
enjoyed this work of a young girl who takes the law into her own hands in
order to survive a cruel childhood. Some points I found that stopped
the pace: In the 11th paragraph dialogue should be separated. Paragraph
13 has an apostrophe after it, no reason, perhaps a typo. At the end it
wasn't clear to me if they ate the dog. I would have hoped that Clara did not
become a shadow of her mother. I found Flippie to be well characterized
in his role of confidant and romantic lead and no further work required on
his character. (Not to linger on secondary characters too long, the story is
not about him). If you let go of some detail, this story could be
shorter and sharper, but I guess this work is part of a bigger story, and
would make a wonderful novella. Excellent writing. Thank you for this.
– LOUIS |
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Barbara |
Excellent story, I enjoyed it a
lot. The dialogue is good and your brief sketches of the main characters are,
to my mind, all that is necessary to set the scene.
Loved the way your introduced the Praying Mantis into the story as the focus for
the mother, Lucilla's obsession with 'getting rid
of men' and the subsequent dénouement. T thought it was excellent. |
2007-12-10 |
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James Tobias |
Thoroughly enjoyed this story. | |