‘I haven’t the faintest idea. I think it’s in South America somewhere.’
‘Who wrote Boswell’s Life of Johnson?’
‘Oh, Calvin, I’m not any good at English.’
Calvin groaned and turned to Mrs Murry. ‘I see what you mean. Her I wouldn’t want to teach.’
‘She’s a little one-sided, I grant you,’ Mrs Murry said, ‘though I blame her father and myself for that. She still enjoys playing with her doll’s house, though.’
‘Mother!’ Meg shrieked in agony.
‘Oh, darling, I’m sorry,’ Mrs Murry said swiftly. ‘But I’m sure Calvin understands what I mean.’
With a sudden enthusiastic gesture Calvin flung his arms out wide, as though he were embracing Meg and her mother, the whole house. ‘How did all this happen? Isn’t it wonderful? I feel as though I were just being born! I’m not alone any more! Do you realize what that means to me?’
‘But you’re good at basketball and things,’ Meg protested. ‘You’re good in school. Everybody likes you.’
‘For all the most unimportant reasons,’ Calvin said. ‘There hasn’t been anybody, anybody in the world I could talk to. Sure, I can function on the same level as everybody else, I can hold myself down, but it isn’t me.’
Meg took a batch of forks from the drawer and turned them over and over, looking at them. ‘I’m all confused again.’
‘Oh, so ’m I,’ Calvin said gaily. ‘But now at least I know we’re going somewhere.’
Meg was pleased and a little surprised when the twins were excited at having Calvin for supper. They knew more about his athletic record and were far more impressed by it than she. Calvin ate five bowls of stew, three saucers of strawberry jelly and a dozen cookies, and then Charles Wallace insisted that Calvin should take him up to bed and read to him. The twins, who had finished their homework, were allowed to watch half an hour of TV. Meg helped her mother with the dishes and then sat at the table and struggled with her homework. But she could not concentrate.
‘Mother, are you upset?’ she asked suddenly.
Mrs Murry looked up from a copy of an English scientific magazine through which she was leafing. For a moment she did not speak. Then, ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
Again Mrs Murry paused. She held her hands out and looked at them. They were long and strong and beautiful. She touched with the fingers of her right hand the broad gold band on the third finger of her left hand. ‘I’m still quite a young woman, you know,’ she said finally, ‘though I realize that that’s difficult for you children to conceive. And I’m still very much in love with your father. I miss him quite dreadfully.’
‘And you think all this has something to do with father?’
‘I think it must have.’
‘But what?’
‘That I don’t know. But it seems the only explanation.’
‘Do you think things always have an explanation?’
‘Yes. I believe that they do. But I think that with our human limitations we’re not always able to understand the explanations. But you see, Meg, just because we don’t understand doesn’t mean that the explanation doesn’t exist.’
‘I like to understand things,’ Meg said.
‘We all do. But it isn’t always possible.’
‘Charles Wallace understands more than the rest of us, doesn’t he?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘I suppose because he’s – well, because he’s different, Meg.’
‘Different how?’
‘I’m not quite sure. You know yourself he’s not like anybody else.’
‘No. And I wouldn’t want him to be,’ Meg said defensively.
‘Wanting doesn’t have anything to do with it. Charles Wallace is what he is. Different. New.’
‘New?’
‘Yes. That’s what your father and I feel.’
Meg twisted her pencil so hard that it broke. She laughed. ‘I’m sorry. I’m really not being destructive. I’m just trying to get things straight.’
‘I know.’
‘But Charles Wallace doesn’t look different from anybody else.’
‘No, Meg, but people are more than just the way they look. Charles Wallace’s difference isn’t physical. It’s in essence.’
Meg sighed heavily, took off her glasses and twirled them, put them back on again. ‘Well, I know Charles Wallace is different, and I know he’s something more. I guess I’ll just have to accept it without understanding it.’
Mrs Murry smiled at her. ‘Maybe that’s really the point I was trying to put across.’
‘Yah,’ Meg said dubiously.
Her mother smiled again. ‘Maybe that’s why our visitor last night didn’t surprise me. Maybe that’s why I’m able to have a – a willing suspension of disbelief. Because of Charles Wallace.’
‘Are you like Charles?’ Meg asked.
‘I? Heavens no. I’m blessed with more brains and opportunities than many people, but there’s nothing about me that breaks out of the ordinary mould.’
‘Your looks do,’ Meg said.
Mrs Murry laughed. ‘You just haven’t had enough basis for comparison, Meg. I’m very ordinary, really.’
Calvin O’Keefe, coming in then, said, ‘Ha ha.’
‘Charles all settled?’ Mrs Murry asked.
‘Yes.’
‘What did you read to him?’
‘Genesis. His choice. By the way, what kind of an experiment were you working on this afternoon, Mrs Murry?’
‘Oh, something my husband and I were cooking up together. I don’t want to be too far behind him when he gets back.’
‘Mother,’ Meg pursued. ‘Charles says I’m not one thing or the other, nor flesh nor fowl nor good red herring.’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ Calvin said, ‘you’re Meg, aren’t you? Come on and let’s go for a walk.’
But Meg was still not satisfied. ‘And what do you make of Calvin?’ she demanded of her mother.
Mrs Murry laughed. ‘I don’t want to make anything of Calvin. I like him very much, and I’m delighted he’s found his way here.’
‘Mother, you were going to tell me about a tesseract.’
‘Yes.’ A troubled look came into Mrs Murry’s eyes. ‘But not now, Meg. Not now. Go on out for that walk with Calvin. I’m going up to kiss Charles and then I have to see that the twins get to bed.’
Out of doors the grass was wet with dew. The moon was halfway up and dimmed the stars for a great arc. Calvin reached out and took Meg’s hand with a gesture as simple and friendly as Charles Wallace’s. ‘Were you upsetting your mother?’ he asked gently.
‘I don’t think I was. But she’s upset.’
‘What about?’
‘Father.’