Laethanta Saoire summer reads: Who's There?, by Clara Kumagai
Clara Kumagai, author. Picture: Moya Nolan
I search the sea for whales but every time I think I see one it turns out to be a rock. A girl with a shaved head leans on the ferry railing and asks if I’ve been to the island before and I say no.
“I met some incredible people there,” she says.
I also want to meet some incredible people, though the whole point of this holiday is to be by myself. An escape from the city and all those glass buildings on the brink of falling on my head.
“You want some fruit?” She offers me a sticky roll that resembles red electrical tape. “It’s dried and pressed.” I take some and it clings to the roof of my mouth. “Nngh,” I say.
“My friend on the island gave it to me because he’s a quarter alien and can’t eat fruit.” I try to form a rational question. I ask, “On his mother’s side or his father’s side?” The girl pauses. “That’s a really good question. Don’t know.” If that was a good question then I had some other fantastic, spectacular ones.
“So… his grandparent’s planet has the same food as us, apart from fruit?” I ask.
“Maybe he’s still evolving to eat earth food and hasn’t adjusted to fruit yet,” she says.
I want to ask more but the girl goes below deck to get some herbal tea.
Imagine having the excuse that you can’t do something because you are only three-quarters human.
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“Just you?” the campground manager asks.
“Yup. This weekend, just me.” This makes it sound like it is vastly different from other weekends.
She nods sympathetically. “I got a nice spot for you. Shady.”
I like the sun but it’s always good to try new things.
Most of the campground is filled with gleaming campervans owned by retirees. My spot is at the very edge and the very back, surrounded on three sides by the forest.
“Very shady,” I say.
“That’s good with you, right?” the manager asks anxiously.
“Of course. Just me,” I say, and then realise there’s no need to repeat that again.
When it gets dark I see that the blazing stars are at a different wattage out here. In the city they’re dull, on energy-saving mode.
Did the quarter-alien’s grandparents have a summer romance or a one night stand? A long-term relationship heading towards an engagement or an affair if it hadn’t been broken off, even though one of them hadn’t wanted it, even though the relief afterwards was almost dizzying?
There is a scratching and creaking outside my tent. Wood and leaves are silhouetted on the other side of an unspeakably thin barrier of fabric. It feels like something is about to exhale.
I whisper, “Who’s there?” My voice can be so quiet that sometimes even I’m not sure if I’ve spoken, but it must be enough because the tension spreads out and dissolves in the night air.
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“You sleep okay?” the manager asks me the next morning.
“Oh yes. A deep sleep,” I say, “and normal. I’m going to get breakfast.”
“There’s a farmer’s market today!” she shouts. She’s more anxiously jolly than yesterday.
There is an overwhelming amount of handmade jewellery at the farmer’s market. I eat some local cheese and then some local cookies. It’s a nice time.
When I return to the campground there are less campervans. The manager asks me if I enjoyed the market. “I loved it,” I assure her.
She beams forcefully. “That’s what they all say: I love it.”
Who is all? I’m tempted to ask but I’m afraid I’ll sound jealous if I do.
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In my sleeping bag that night I lie, as still as I can, and listen. There’s the wind, the trees’ sway, the small creatures rushing about their business, business as incomprehensible to me as consulting or finance. And the feeling of the world breathing deeper. My fingers fumble as I unzip the tent. The dark is vast and heaving; it’s the ocean, now a stone’s throw from me. It rolls in and out, out and in. It’s too dark to spot a whale.
I duck back inside and crouch, blood pumping around my body in frightened laps. I don’t know if my tent will float. I peer out again and of course there is no ocean, no waves; only the gravelly path that leads from my patch of ground to the rest of the campsite. The trees are stoic and still.
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“How you doing today, hon?” the manager asks me.
“I’m a little tired.”
“Sometimes people find it hard to sleep there,” she says.
“Why?”
“Not everybody likes the shade,” she replies.
I search her face and am not sure what I find. It’s hot and I’m sleepy but it’s too early to lie down and wait for weird things to happen. I’ve been doing that all my life. I walk down quiet roads, following the glints of water through the trees, like snatches of a song being played on a radio. A trail leads to a narrow dock on a still lake. There is a herd of naked men sprawled on towels, various shades of pink and tan.
“Nice day huh,” says one. His purple bucket hat reads CHILL OUT OR DIE.
My vision clears and I see that it’s about seven men, average age of sixty. They ignore me in a reassuring way.
“All welcome here,” says CHILL OUT OR DIE.
I weave my way to the end of the dock, where I face away from the nudity. Nobody tries to talk to me so I take off my clothes and sink in.
The water is cool and beautiful and deep. A heron swoops as if to pick me up but then balks through the air clumsily, dragging its wings to get away from me. It reminds me of a boyfriend I had once.
I haul myself back onto the dock. A small dog, light and fluffy as a dandelion, jumps on me.
“That’s Daphne,” CHILL OUT OR DIE says. “She belongs to one of my girlfriends.” I pat Daphne, who is sweet and desperate and panting.
A woman enters the scene, wearing underwear covered in yellow smiley faces. She sits exactly opposite me and grins in an uncomfortably genuine way. I dry myself off as quickly as possible.
“You need some shade, Daphne.” CHILL OUT OR DIE tucks her under his arm and goes off. He returns as I finish putting my clothes on.
“I’ve got to go,” I say.
“Tell the dog this riddle,” the woman says. She leans close. “Knock knock.”
“Who’s there?” I reply dutifully, like a guard that asks this because it is protocol but whose hand is already lifting the latch, swinging the door open.
“Olive,” she answers.
“Olive who?”
“Olive you.” Her smile is wide and sticky.
“Great,” I say. “I’ll pass that on.”
I follow another trail to a leafy clearing with a few cars but can’t see Daphne’s cottony head and don’t want to start peering into nudists’ cars, so I leave.
I’m almost back at the campsite when I’m suddenly stricken by guilt. I should have told Daphne the riddle. Then I realise it wasn’t a riddle. It was a joke.
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Before I go to bed I do a circuit of the campground and look around for any ocean that might be lurking in the corners.
“Watcha do today, dear?” the camp manager asks.
“I met,” I say, “some incredible people.”
“Wonderful!” She has become as close and inscrutable to me as a mother.
“Do you think,” I ask, “that very different beings can love each other? For example, a human and an alien.”
“A human woman or a human man?”
“I don’t know. But some beings are very adaptable. An alien’s grandchild could be here on earth and the only thing they can’t eat now is fruit. Isn’t evolution amazing?”
“Maybe,” she suggests, “the alien was partly fruit.”
“I never thought of that. I’d never have thought of that in a hundred years,” I say.
She moves away. “It’s your last night,” she says.
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I lie in my tent, wondering who has stayed in this shade before me. There is a sound, like silence expanding. The sky is lightening. Something huge is breathing out. I love you. It probably was a riddle, after all. But there are no doors to knock on. I get out of my tent.
There are no trees and there is no ocean. There is only sky and stars, and more stars. They’re bright and getting brighter.
Where is the camp manager? She should be here for this. I still want to see a whale. An orca. They are so beautiful and frightening, with those white patches that you could mistake for eyes.
The stars are coming closer, surrounding me, and I wonder if I should tell them that joke, that riddle. There are doors but I just can’t see them. Knock knock, I want to say, knock knock.
- With a Japanese father and Irish mother, Clara Kumagai was born in Canada but was raised in Ireland - partly in Minane Bridge, Co Cork. She recently published her debut YA novel, Catfish Rolling.
