In the Middle of the Wood by Iain Crichton Smith

inhabit.
    He watched as the two of them came towards him along the promenade, Linda holding her mother by the arm. The latter had changed into sandals and was carrying a small parcel which contained, probably, the shoes she had removed.
    When they sat down beside him, Linda said, “It was a big shop but their stuff isn’t all that good, and quite expensive. Mother doesn’t like her sandals either.”
    â€œThey’re not right,” said her mother. “I wish I hadn’t come here. You young people should be enjoying yourselves.”
    Here in Yugoslavia she looked old and shrunken, not at all the dominant figure which she was in her own house. She seemed threatened by the nakedness of youth, the sun, the alien languages. There was nothing more threatening than people bent exclusively on pleasure, Ralph thought.
    â€œShe thought this German we saw was speaking English,” said Linda laughing, “and talked to him about her life as a nurse. But he shook his head at her, waved his hands, and finally she had to give up.”
    â€œWell, it did sound like English,” said her mother protestingly.
    â€œAnd anyway,” said Linda, “why should he be interested in your nursing career?”
    â€œWhat’s that?” said Ralph suddenly seeing a quick flicker along the wall of the pier, and the disappearance of it among the hot stones.
    â€œProbably a lizard,” said Linda. “I’ve seen a few of them.”
    Ralph kept his eye on the fissure but the lizard, if lizard it had been, didn’t appear again. Confused by the sun and by the variety of things, he wished to be back in his study, remote and cool. The tourist seemed to him to be like the ordinary person, living on what the world supplied from moment to moment, having no central obsession, drifting, seeing now and again a castle or a harbour, which illuminated his day, like a bird which fed on the crumbs scattered for him, not wondering where they came from. How could people live like that? How could people live with no pattern, coming across by chance a new experience, a new incident, accident about which they might talk. His own ghostly figure in his study was more substantial.
    Yes, the whole world was a tourist centre, people seeking the final view, the final picturesque castle, the final experience. But as soon as one was seen, tasted, there was another waiting to be investigated, each in its lumpy dumbness, a question-mark waiting to be illuminated. So too was history. The light of brisk consciousness lit Rome, Greece, for a moment then passed on elsewhere.
    His mother was removing fragments of stone, sand, from her sandals, and had already loosened them. And Linda was gazing with serene profile towards the water where some youths were swimming.
    After a while they ate some food which Linda had bought when looking for the shoe shop. There was an unusual kind of jam which neither Ralph nor his mother-in-law liked. The food tasted different, foreign, unappetizing.
    The two of them decided to take their mother back to the hotel and then they themselves would walk among the shops. They left her lying on the bed, the Woman’s Realm beside her, the pigeons chasing each other on the balcony. They felt guilty leaving her but she insisted that that was what she wanted, she would be all right. Her legs were swelling again. “You young ones must see the place. Don’t mind me.”
    And they went out into the blinding sunlight which was as direct and powerful as a drawn sword, bouncing back from the water and the stone. A primitive place this, old houses with flaking balconies, women sitting on them, perhaps a rose flowering here and there, in a bright flash of red. The walls of the houses were cracked as if the sun had been chewing them for years. Washing hung from some of the balconies. Poor country, how much poorer it was than Britain.
    â€œI wish I had something to read,” Ralph said to Linda.