The Eggy Stone, by Tessa Hadley

 

SUMMARY, by Begoña Devis

This is a story about two girls who are spending a week in a camp school. The first afternoon, boys and girls go to the beach looking for treasures, like old shells or curious stones. At a certain moment, one of them pick up an eggy stone, just at the same moment that another girl, Madeleine, does too. This fortuitous fact creates a special relationship with them. During the week, they invented different games and challengers to possess the stone, and they took turns to hold it at night in their sleeping bags (they slept in different tends), because whoever possessed the stone felt privileged and safe.

The narrator feels happy, because she thinks that she doesn’t deserve a friend like Madeleine, a girl who, the very first day, has been directed to sit on the table where the charming girls sat. In addition, Madeleine’s usual friends included her tolerantly in her circle.

When the week is over, the narrator wonders what they will do with the stone from that moment: keep the stone for a week each other, and dividing up the holidays, perhaps?  But before she could speak, Madeleine turned and threw the Eggy Stone hard and far. The sound of the stone falling among the pebbles made our protagonist feel that she will never be able to find a stone like that again.

PERSONAL OPINION

I think the author uses the stone as a symbol of the feelings that the protagonist has when, through it, she makes friends with Madeleine.
She is surely a girl who goes unnoticed, she is not in the popular group of girls, and that is why she admires Madeleine. «I’m smart but she’s blonde», she says at one point, feeling adoration for her.
She admires too how Madeleine dances, sings, and even how she cheats her, stealing the Eggy Stone from her pocket. Surely he also admires her courage when she goes out at night to the boys’ tents to kiss them, when she is incapable of doing such a thing. Being friends with Madeleine makes her feel special, deserving of being in the group of the lovely girls.
That is why, when he sees Madeleine throwing the Eggy Stone, his plans to keep their friendship go up in smoke. When she says she’ll never be able to find a stone like that, what she really means is that she’ll never feel again like the special girl that she has been for that one week.

TESSA HADLEY

She was born in 1956 in Bristol, on the East Coast of England.

Her father was a teacher and an amateur jazz trumpeter, and her mother, an amateur artist.

She studied to be a teacher and worked as a teacher until she decided to form a family. Then she had three children.

When she was 37 she decided to study for a Master of Arts at the Bath Spa University, where she dedicated her time specially to the works of Katherine Mansfield, Elisabeth Bowen and Jean Rhys. Then, at 41, she started to teach creative writing at the same university.

Her first novel, Accidents in the Home, written while she was bringing up a family, was published when she was 46.

As a part of her studies, he wrote a book about Henry James. So, James, together with the authoress mentioned above, are her principal influences.

From the issue of her first novel, she has gone on publishing novels and short stories collections. Her last novel is Free Love.

Her stories are usually realistic, situated away from London, and her characters belong to the middle classes. She tends to focus the plots on the family relationships and on women. It’s remarkable her psychological insight.

She has won several awards and she is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

QUESTIONS

What do you remember of your camps / holiday homes?

The boys began throwing pebbles in the sea; the girls looked for treasures. Is there something biological in our constitutions that make boys to do different things from girls? Or is it sociological?

They touched fingers: Is physical contact always a prelude of something?

Situations can change friendships: do you have a literary or personal example?

When you were at school, where did you use to sit down? Were the ranks in alphabetical order or the teacher gave you your places, or you could choose your desk?

When can an object be a special thing (souvenir, memory, idol, talisman…)?

Do you remember any curious / invented rhyme from your childhood?

What do you know about Gargantua and Pantagruel?

Why do you thing Madeline wouldn’t go on with the narrator’s friendship?

 

VOCABULARY

rim, seaweed, sealed, daintily, felts, plantains, by rote, skipping rhymes, yearned, filching, bond, trailing, tepid, foam, publicity, constipation, netball