by Sue Gee
but the windows were open: it was warm, but not as it felt up here in the afternoons, heavy and still. It was fresh and airy, and she lay beneath the covers listening to the start of the day, to people calling to each other down in the village street, to the gate of the threshing barn swinging open, sackfuls of maize being dragged across the yard and up the steps, and after a little while the steady thud thud as the long dry stalks were beaten.
Every now and then sounds of activity drifted up through the house itself: Jack running indoors calling for Claire, and running out again; footsteps crossing the sitting-room floor; taps turned on and the pipes banging; Robert’s voice, mildly exasperated, as he searched for the foot pump. She could smell coffee; she turned to look at her watch on the table beside her. Half-past nine.
Half-past nine, and everyone up and about, getting on with things. I could lie here for ever, she thought, but she knew that she must not, that on holiday with other people you must do your bit, and that she, on a holiday which was almost over, had done far too little. She pushed back the bedclothes and sat on the edge of the bed, shocked by how utterly drained she felt: as if she had been ill and were trying to go back to work too soon. And then, as she stood up, thinking: Today is going to be different, the events of the night, kept at bay by these pleasurably ordinary domestic noises, came flooding back with such power that she sank down and pulled up the covers again, and turned her face to the pillow.
Footsteps along the corridor, heavy and flat; funny noises, a knock at the door. She did not answer, her face pressed down, down, willing him to go away. The handle was turned and the door was opened, cautiously.
‘Frances? Mum?’
Not now – please, not now. Later I’ll come down, later I’ll be all the things I should be.
‘Mum?’
‘What?’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Resting.’
Silence, a shifting of feet.
‘When are you coming downstairs?’
‘Soon. I’ve got a bit of a headache.’
He came closer, breathing heavily.
‘Why’ve you got a headache?’
‘Tom,’ she said, hating herself, ‘please go away. Please. I’ll be down in just a little while.’
Silence. More breathing.
I should be taking him in my arms. I should be bringing him into bed with me, reading to him, talking about the day ahead. Or I should be up and about, playing, doing things with him, making him happy. Instead I cannot even bear to look at his face: it’s too much. Just at the moment it’s too much.
‘Please,’ she said again. ‘Go on.’
And he went, trailing off, she could feel he was trailing, leaving the door wide open.
‘Close the door!’ she snapped, and he came back and closed it, walking slowly away.
They left her a note to say they’d be back for lunch; they put it under a stone on the marble table, and they all went down to the river, taking the dinghy. Claire and Jack walked holding hands, swinging their arms up and down and laughing at elephant jokes; Robert and Tom made a detour to look at the pig, and Jessica carried the dinghy with Oliver, he in front and she behind, keeping in step with him, watching him, willing him to stop and say he was tired after yesterday, and perhaps they should have a rest and a talk, just the two of them.
‘Oliver?’
‘Mmm?’
‘My arms are aching.’ Well, they were.
‘Dear, dear. Must be all that pea-shelling.’ He slowed down, and turned to look over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow, and she laughed.
‘What’s so funny?’
‘You.’
‘I’m funny?’
‘Yes.’ It was just like before, they were happy and easy together, it was lovely. And the others were almost out of the way, Robert and Tom well behind them, safe with the smelly pig, Claire and Jack striding ahead, going along the nice soft path beneath the vines. There. She would tell him there. She’d wait until those two were well into the maize field, and then she and Oliver would stand in that lovely romantic place, and … And Robert and Tom might catch them up and interrupt and ruin it all. Out on the river. That was much better, no chance of anyone catching them up, or seeing, they’d be out of reach of all of them.
‘Come on,’ he was saying, turning round again, following Claire. The dinghy bumped against her side and the nylon rope in her hand was beginning to rub; she changed hands for a moment, and wiped all the sweat off on her shorts, and he had to stop to let her do that, and waited, raising an eyebrow again, and he looked so wonderful she almost told him then, almost blurted it out, feeling the words well up inside her, but she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t, she’d wait like a grown-up, until the right moment had come.
‘He’s a funny old thing,’ said Robert, getting to his feet. He brushed dirt and a few bits of straw from his knees, which hurt after being down there on the step. ‘Okay, then? Shall we go?’ It was much too hot already, especially after yesterday, spent in the car and the town, and his head was swimming a bit from standing up too quickly. He wanted to get to the river: he’d missed it, and now there were only two or three days left to enjoy it, with much of day three, no doubt, spent packing and loading the car. ‘Come on, Tom.’
Tom didn’t answer, still crouched on the step, still peering. Robert was about to start laying down the law when he saw Guida, coming out of the house with a basket, on her way round to the shop.
‘Bom dia!’
‘Bom dia, Guida. Como estás?’
‘Bem, obrigado. Eo senhor?’
‘Hot,’ he said, gesturing at the sky, wiping his forehead. He imitated a wilting plant, and she laughed. Nice girl, easy to talk to. Well, not talk to exactly, but get along with. And they stood there, getting along in the sunshine, while Tom, shifting along on the worn stone step, sent messages in to the pig.
‘I’ve got a lid in my head,’ he told it, speaking in animal language. ‘Have you got a lid?’
Did pigs have lids? Did other animals? He knew that people did – well, they must do, mustn’t they, otherwise he wouldn’t have one, would he, and he was a person. But animals. He wasn’t sure. Did they have the same kind of feelings? Did they sort of come and go?
The pale wet nose was moving along the gap, the two dark holes in it opening and closing. All those bristles. Yes, it had a lid, the pig was saying, in animal language, pig language. What was it like? Well, it was a great big pink thing, bony but pink, and when it lifted, which it did very slowly, inside you could see … Ugh. Ugh. He didn’t want to go on with this, animal lids were even worse, it was making him feel sick. And he got to his feet, and even just doing that made him feel funny.
‘Tom?’
He wanted to answer, but he couldn’t, not yet. In a minute, just a minute.
‘Tom? You okay?’
He nodded.
‘You look a bit …’ Robert got down in front of him and put his hands on his shoulders. He had that grey look, beneath the suntan; he looked a bit under the weather. ‘Not going to be sick, are you?’ he asked.
‘No.’ Tom gave a little shiver. ‘I’m all right. I just felt funny, that’s all.’
‘Probably the heat, and getting up too quickly – I go like that sometimes.’
‘Do you?’ They walked down the street hand in hand.
‘Sometimes. I did just now, when I got up. All the blood goes to your head, and then if you stand up suddenly it makes your head swim.’
‘Oh.’ Oh. So that’s what it was. Blood. Blood in your head. He hadn’t known it was that. ‘I thought it was a –’ he began, and then he stopped. Everyone must have one, but no one he knew had ever talked about theirs, and perhaps you weren’t supposed to. Or perhaps when you grew up it went away – that would be nice. He hoped his would go away, he was getting fed up with it, feeling so odd all the time. He tried to imagine a time when he was much older, and could look back on now and heave a great sigh of relief that it had gone. But even that made h
im feel funny, imagining going back and forth like that.
‘What did you think?’ Robert asked kindly, and Tom almost told him about it anyway, but then he remembered that Robert and Frances were … Well. He took his hand away. He didn’t know what it was about them together which didn’t feel right, but it didn’t, and how could he have forgotten? He couldn’t possibly tell him.
In the end, Jack came out on the river with them. She was furious. Furious.
‘Oh, come on, Jess,’ said Claire, making ready to push them off from the bank. ‘Don’t look so grumpy. Why shouldn’t he come too?’
‘I’m not grumpy.’
‘You look pretty grumpy to me,’ said Oliver, and she made herself smile. ‘That’s better. Good – thank you, Claire.’
Claire, leaning over, gave a shove, and he dug one of the paddles into the soft grey sand to give them leverage. Then they were off, moving slowly out of the shallows, and Jessica leaned back against the rounded rim and tried to enjoy the swish of the paddles through the water, the silvery fall of it as he raised them, rowing so smoothly, so well, but it wasn’t the same.
‘Move up,’ she said to Jack, getting squashed. ‘Move up.’
‘I can’t move up any further, it’s your great big bottom that’s taking up all the room.’
‘Shut up!’ How dare he, how dare he?
‘Children, children,’ said Oliver, and she flushed, looking away, gazing intently at the cliff face and then the yellow hayfield, with its loosely made stacks piled up around long poles like witches’ hats; she tried to detach herself, to rise above Jack and his horrible babyish teasing.
‘Why do you think they make them like that?’ she asked, because that kind of conversation seemed to interest Oliver, when the other grown-ups were around. ‘The haystacks.’
‘Stooks,’ said Jack, making himself comfortable. ‘Dad said they were stooks, not stacks.’
‘I meant stooks.’
‘I don’t know if there’s any particular reason.’ Oliver rested on the paddles and looked across the water. ‘It probably dries the hay quite effectively, but I expect it’s just a tradition.’
‘Oh.’ Who cared, anyway?
They drifted for a little while then, watching the fish pop up.
‘You know those dogs,’ Jack said, as they moved on again, slowly passing the trees at the water’s edge, leaving the hayfields behind. ‘The ones you met in the mountains.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, are you sure they weren’t wolves?’
‘Pretty sure.’
‘How could you tell? I mean, if it all sort of happened at once, like you said, and you were very frightened, I mean they might’ve been wolves, really, but you just weren’t sure.’
What was he on about? She didn’t want him discussing it, it was her story, it was for her to discuss with Oliver later. And anyway –
‘He wasn’t frightened,’ she said,
‘Oh, but I was,’ Oliver said seriously. ‘I can assure you I was more afraid than I’ve ever been in my life.’
And she didn’t know what to say to that. Of course, she’d known he must have been, but he’d made such light of it, calling it an adventure, and anyway, it was his being so quick-thinking, so, well, so fearless, that was the word, that was the kind of word which was used about heroes in books, which she realised now she’d been thinking of. To think of him frightened, to actually hear him say he was frightened – well, it felt odd.
They were rounding the bend; she turned, hearing splashing, to see Tom and her parents entering the water, all making a fuss, she could see, about how cold it was. Well, at least Tom wasn’t out here with them, that was something. God, he was peculiar, how could Oliver possibly have had a child like him? When she grew up, she’d have – what would she have? She closed her eyes, turning back again, letting Jack go wittering on about wolves, and how amazing it would have been if they actually had been wolves, all hairy and grey, and allowed herself, just once, to imagine a future where Frances and Tom had somehow disappeared, and Oliver was waiting for her.
‘Come on, Tom, that’s it, well done, that’s very good.’
Between them, Tom was swimming hard, churning through the water, panting, his eyes fixed on the rocks ahead.
‘Almost there, we’re almost there … good boy!’
They had made it, right across the river. Above them rose the face of the cliff, so high that they could not see the top of it; breathing hard, they clasped the smooth round sunbathing rocks, whose roots sank deep into the water.
‘Well done,’ Claire said again, and with one hand wiped the water from her face. ‘You’re a really strong swimmer now, aren’t you?’
Tom nodded. ‘I think so.’ He tried to haul himself up on to the sloping, sun-warmed surface of the rock he was holding on to, to use his feet as a lever against it, under the water. Claire watched him: under the water these rocks were covered in smooth brown weed and algae, they became slippery and treacherous, and seeing a flicker of panic cross his face as he tried to rise and sank back again, she put her hand on his shoulder.
‘Careful.’
‘I can’t get out.’
‘Yes you can, it’s all right, we’ll help you.’
‘There’s a lower bit over there,’ said Robert, from the other side, nodding towards it, and they edged round.
This was the trickiest part, clambering out: you could slip, you could bang your knee quite painfully, as Robert had done once last year, bruising it badly. And once you were out it was too hot, really, to stay there for long: the rocks were completely exposed, the pines which grew up the slope behind set too far back to give any shade. You lay there and you baked, and although that suited the rest of the family it did not suit Robert; nor, he could see, would it really suit Tom, who every now and then seemed to find the heat a bit much. Nonetheless, there was always a feeling of satisfaction at having made the crossing, and he felt it now, particularly for Tom, as they finally heaved themselves out of the water and climbed up to a good place to sit, settling down on the smooth grey surface to drip and dry off and survey the river.
The others were out of sight in the dinghy. Later, perhaps, the village teenagers and older children would appear for a swim; sometimes an ancient tractor and trailer bumped along the stony path between the low wall and the field, chugging blue smoke through a rusting funnel, carrying fallen branches from the trees, or heaps of maize to be taken back to the drying huts. This morning there were no children, there was no tractor, and the river, now they were out, was smooth and undisturbed again, moving slowly, gleaming.
‘I wish we could see another kingfisher,’ said Tom, beside Robert.
‘So do I. It was good that time with Jack, wasn’t it?’ Robert turned to look at him. ‘Better now we’re out? Pleased you’ve done it?’
He nodded. ‘When’s Frances coming?’
‘Soon, I expect. You’ll be able to tell her how far you can swim now, won’t you?’
‘Mmm.’ He was running a little stone along a groove in the rock, up and down, up and down, thoughtful and slow. It was the kind of movement Robert associated more with Jack, who could concentrate, and be still. Tom, with his noises and his animals, his restlessness, his sudden withdrawals, was never still, though he did look a bit fresher now, his skin a better colour: the swim, and the achievement, had probably done him good. But where was Frances?
Robert shaded his eyes and looked out across the river to the sloping sandbank on the other side and the yellow fields beyond, searching for a slight fair figure coming slowly along, lost in a dream, miles away from any of them. Where did she go? The maize fields were empty, and no one came walking along past the low stone wall.
‘What time do you think she’ll be here?’
‘Soon.’ But it had been after eleven when he took off his watch on the other side of the river: where was she? What was she doing, up there at the house?
‘We’ll see her at lunchtime, anyway,’ said Claire, so
aking up the sun. ‘Don’t worry, Tom.’ She was watching the dragonflies above the mossy rocks in the shallows, listening to the steady drone of an aeroplane, far above them, flying north.
Only another few days. The river, after a day spent away from it, was more beautiful than ever; everything, after a day spent away from it, felt calmer now, the night of the power cut and its terrors something so nightmarish it was hard to believe it had ever happened. Certainly all the foreboding she had felt then seemed now simply the stuff of the small hours, the kind of thing which anyone might be excused for dwelling on at a time of crisis but which, thankfully, dissolved like mist on a lake as the sun rose.
‘Here they come,’ said Robert, and she propped herself up and looked round. Oliver and the children were rounding the bend, he with his back to them, wearing his old straw hat, rowing slowly, looking relaxed, Jack with his shirt off, waving. Jessica was sitting hunched up with her arms round her knees, much as Robert was sitting now, gazing out over the water.
‘Had a good time?’ called Claire, as they drew near, and Oliver brought the dinghy up close beneath them.
‘Very good, thanks.’ He lowered the paddles, and Jack came scrambling out and up over the rocks towards her. Very deliberately, he put himself between Claire and Tom, moving about so that Tom had to edge right away from him, and put his arms round her neck and kissed her.
‘Steady,’ said Robert, almost pushed off the edge as Tom moved clumsily up against him. ‘Steady on.’ He got to his feet. Already, to do so felt uncomfortably hot, his soles burning on the rocks.
‘Ouch.’ He lifted one foot and then the other, and beneath him Jessica laughed, stopping herself quickly.
‘Sorry, Dad.’
Well, it was quite funny, he supposed, but still. It would be nice just for once to feel more than a figure of fun. God, it was hot; even out on the river might be too much, they’d have to keep in the shade. ‘Right then – who’s for a row?’
‘Me,’ said Claire.
‘Me,’ said Jack.
‘Tom?’
Say yes, prayed Jessica, down in the dinghy, scooping a humbug beetle out of a pool of water at the bottom. She put it on the rim, and watched to see if it would come to life again. Say yes, and then Oliver and I …
