‘I wanted to show you something,’ he said. He hadn’t even asked if she was all right.
‘I don’t feel well,’ she said, and she did feel nauseous and weak. She had an urge to sit down but there was nothing to lean on except the bike and she couldn’t trust that machine. She closed her eyes and waited for the moment to pass. The nausea passed but, coming out of her daze, she was leaning against him and he was holding her up. She could smell Brylcreem underneath the tang of the cologne. Verity pulled back sharply and looked around her. The sun that had seemed so bright minutes ago had disappeared behind grey clouds, tinging them gold. Rain clouds. Deep shadows came across the marshes, turning them a dark blue. The dull light, the dizziness and the loss of control made her panic. How would she get home?
‘Come on, I’ve got something to show you.’ He was indicating across the marsh towards the sea. But she was afraid.
‘I need to go home now, you promised me only a few minutes, and it’s getting late.’ She took off the scarf from her hair, tied it back round her neck and started walking away in the direction of the town.
‘You’re not even going to ask me what it is?’
He sounded young then, and it pulled at something inside her. She almost felt sorry for him. But she sensed this slight power that she had over him could easily be lost. Not on any account could she get back on that bike.
‘Maybe you can show me another time,’ she called and she was pleased with herself. Tired, aching, two miles from the town, she nonetheless felt a grim satisfaction as she walked. And even when he came up behind her on the road and asked if she was sure she didn’t want a ride back to town, she shook her head.
‘Another time then, I guess,’ he said, looking straight at her in the disconcerting way he had, and she shrugged. ‘I come here every week. Sundays usually.’ He roared off. As his figure disappeared into the distance, already the incident with the bike was in the past and could be laughed at. She’d had a lucky escape.
‘Where on earth have you been?’ Mrs Timms had said, through a cloud of flour in the kitchen, when Verity sneaked in the back entrance at home. ‘Your father wants a word with you.’
‘Just for a walk,’ she said.
*
The train came into Norwich station and she caught the connection for the line to Wells. She was supposed to be meeting Arthur at the hollow tree in the woods, but she didn’t want to see him.
At the partridge shoot lunch the other week, Jack had sat next to her telling stories of hunting jackals in the desert. They sounded outlandish, unreal. But she liked listening to his stories anyway. Arthur had been sulky and she found herself wanting to punish him for his downturned mouth and the deep, ingrained ridge between his thick eyebrows. She wanted to make Arthur jealous, to say: I’m not yours. I can do anything.
She decided that she would tell Jack, the next time he asked if she’d meet him, that she’d go on the bike again.
3.
November
Verity sat at her mother’s dressing table and played with the glittering treasures inside her mother’s make-up box. She tried on a Chanel lipstick, a slick of deep red, the colour of glamour. Her lips startled her. Pouting in the glass, she marvelled at how much thicker they appeared, how very bright in her pale face. Joan Crawford in Sudden Fear. She didn’t look like herself. In the mirror, as she tilted her head slightly to the side, there was a glimmer of her mother. She had grown up thinking they were nothing alike and she could never live up to her mother’s delicate beauty. She smiled and it was gone, but it was still not her old self looking back in the glass. What exactly had changed? Perhaps it was failure. Hidden beneath her underwear was the letter from the college. At some point she would have to tell everyone but her shame wouldn’t allow it, not yet. Her reflection scowled back. I shall just have to be beautiful, she thought, and that at least made her laugh. But the laugh turned to a sob and she had to gulp back tears. She had put everything into being clever and now she had nothing – no friends, no mother, no one to talk to. Grief came on her quickly. It would hit her on the back of the head and she was powerless to stop it gutting her from the inside out. But she was practised at fighting it back. There was nowhere for the grief to go – she might as well push it down. She soaked the tears up with her handkerchief, wiped her face and reapplied a dab of rouge to hide the blotchy pink patches on her cheeks. She had to get out.
In the long death of the afternoon, her father napped by the fire, drained brandy glass by his side, and Peter was God-knows-where, probably hurling wood onto the bonfire for later that evening, so no one noticed her slipping out. She’d primed them anyway by casually mentioning that she was taking Gyps for a ride. She led her horse out of the paddock as a deterrent against getting on Jack’s machine, and was therefore irritatingly early. He was not there and she had a moment of doubt. He’d said two o’clock, Sunday, hadn’t he? She was sure he had. Now she thought of it, the actual arrangement of this… rendezvous had been made in such haste she wasn’t entirely sure what he’d said. In her post-interview funk, she’d contrived to speak to him one time he was down at the paddock with Peter.
‘I’ve decided I’d like to have a go on your motorcycle after all,’ she’d said under her breath. ‘But not a word to anyone or they won’t let me.’
He’d nodded, grinning, and said a time and day. But her heart had been beating so hard in her ears she wasn’t certain of any of what he’d said now.
It was so quiet out on the Holkham Road. The only sounds, the caw of distant gulls and Gypsy’s quiet snorts and tapping of his hooves. No sign of human life. And then the hush of the grey Sunday afternoon was rent by the screeching engine of Jack’s motorbike. It came quickly and she only just had time to compose her features into a look of unconcern. She was very aware of the deep, pinky-red smear on her mouth.
He stopped in front of her and she was struck anew by the compelling, animal beauty of his face. He was smiling with wry amusement and his eyes glittered, his hair as bright and coppery as ever, even in the dullness of the day. On the left side of his face the trace of the scar.
‘I knew you’d come,’ he said, turning off the engine.
It was almost enough for her to spin on her heels and escape back up the lane. ‘I wasn’t going to…’ she spluttered.
‘I’m glad you came. You brought your horse? You’re not going to be able to outride me on it.’ He was understandably surprised. After all, she’d said she wanted to go on the bike. But his shock seemed out of place. It didn’t square with his supposed familiarity and ease with horses.
‘Him. I’m quite fast, actually,’ she said.
‘I bet you are,’ he said, and an electric pulse ran through her. She wanted to be angry but she had no time to react as he had already started up the engine and was off down the street with a wave and a shout. ‘Come on, I’ve got something to show you!’
She had to work poor Gyps hard to keep up with the figure disappearing into the distance but then gave in and slowed to a canter. It would be better to arrive unruffled than sweaty and red-faced. Away from the town, the sky opened up, a bleached-out, oppressive white-grey, wide over the flat, bare fields, the only colour the rust-brown rippling across distant trees. It made her temples ache to look at the sky. She hadn’t ridden out in this direction for an age and she wondered why. There had not been enough of anything since her mother died. They were suspended, stuck. Despite the melancholy of the autumn landscape, it was good to feel the horse’s flanks. The ache in her thighs from gripping Gyps, the sting on her cheeks and even the endless nothing of the land – it didn’t matter. There was movement, towards something. Above her, a flock of migrant geese swooped, curved and disappeared out to sea.
When she saw him in the distance she almost didn’t want to stop. She could have ridden on until the Wash and the sea and on forever across it. But he was lounging against the bike. He was waiting for her. For her. There was no point denying that this was a thrill. And the very fact
of his existence, there in living flesh, was a pulsing beacon to which she was drawn. For a second she was reminded of Arthur, waiting for her by the woods back in the spring, and she gripped the reins hard. She wouldn’t think about him.
‘You look good on your horse,’ he said. ‘Like you belong together.’
She frowned at him. ‘What is it you wanted to show me then? I can’t imagine what there is out here.’
They crossed the road, he walking his motorbike, she leading Gyps, and they took a rough path by the side of a line of trees, flaring red. In the shade of the path, recent rain had turned the fallen leaves into a slippery mush and she was grateful she had her horse to hold on to to stop her sliding.
‘Where are we going?’
‘You’ll see.’
The trees ended and he propped his bike where the path met the beginning of the saltmarsh. She tied Gyps up and patted his side. The line of the path headed straight ahead, soon dwindling and then disappearing on the horizon, and across the expanse of grasses, rushes and bog, and the glitter of creeks like veins on the skin of the marsh. As they walked, she thought he must be taking her to the beach, but as the grey sea grew closer, she saw a small thicket of stunted trees to the left of the path and she knew he was taking her there. Sprouting up from the marsh, the clump of trees was gnarled and twisted from years of seastorms. The track was barely wide enough for their feet. He walked ahead and she followed. It was impossible not to observe him, not to be snared by the way he moved, even here in a foreign place, on land that was hardly land, as if it was easy and natural to him. She kept her eyes on his sauntering figure ahead of her and could not have stopped her feet.
Behind the little copse was a rickety wooden shack, hidden from the road by the lone outcrop of old hawthorn trees.
‘Is this it? Why have you brought me here?’ A wave of panic shivered through her, an image of herself alone in the dark flashed into her head. It was silly and irrational but no one knew she was there.
‘Hey, it’s not that bad. It’s not what you think…’ He started to laugh and she realised she must look horrified.
‘What are you laughing at? It’s not funny. You don’t know what I think.’
‘You should see your face.’ His laugh slowed and stopped. He came up to her and, in a swift movement that caught her out, touched her hair.
She froze, her scalp vibrating from the touch.
He took her gloved hand. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘this is the place I wanted to show you in the summer.’
She wondered, later that evening, safe at home in bed, why she went in. She could have stopped it right there and walked away. But she wanted to see what would happen. It was a strange little place, a marsher’s shack she supposed, but it felt more like an abandoned beach house in a funny way and she always thought of it like that. It had pale blue paint peeling off its old wooden windowsills, a sign of brighter days. Weeds grew up to the grimy windows. Jack opened the door, holding back the tentacles of an overgrown climber that fell down in front of it. It was a gaping dark hole beyond the door and she hesitated. She had the sudden, terrible sensation of a tear in the fabric of her life, that she had already forsaken Arthur by coming here, and the dizzying sense that Jack had been promising this all along. She must have known, and yet now she was at the threshold of betrayal, it was shocking.
‘Go on, go through.’
His voice was behind her, and she felt the presence of his body at her back. She wanted to go in. In any case, she couldn’t go back. It smelled of old dust and damp and decay, but at the far end of the hallway was a chink of pale light. Picking her way down the narrow passage, she pushed open the door and beyond it was a bare room that overlooked the marsh, and beyond that, the silvery line of the sea. The soft autumn light filled the space. Her eyes were drawn outside at first, to the flat expanse of the marsh, but then she looked around. Jack had come into the room too and was watching her. On the right-hand side of the room was a heavy-looking old wardrobe and opposite it there was a low single bed and side table.
Her mouth was dry. There was a bed. ‘I need to go back.’ Her voice was hoarse and ragged.
‘Just stay for a minute. There’s a kitchen. I can make coffee. Warm us up. Or tea?’
‘No… thank you. I need to go.’ Her head ached. She pushed past him out of the room. He stood at the door in partial silhouette, with a slightly lost look on his face.
‘Let me make you a drink. It’s cold.’
It was cold. Her fingers were numb, even in her leather riding gloves. She would quite like a drink.
‘Come on, it’ll warm you up.’
‘All right then,’ she said, ‘just for a minute,’ and he led her through to the so-called kitchen, a little room next to the bedroom.
It was a hob on a Primus stove and a chipped old earthenware sink. It too looked out over the marsh, slightly west, towards Holkham Bay, but the thin light threw only faint shadows. She drew a finger through the dust on the Formica table and watched him make coffee on the stove. His hands were almost delicate and belied the strong handshake he’d given her the first time she’d met him. She was reminded of the way he’d handled her mother’s miniature camera – the way his long fingers worked quickly and deftly. It struck her as odd that he kept coffee here. The domesticity of it didn’t fit. Had he brought other girls here? There were many things about him that didn’t fit. A memory of Arthur and Jack facing each other in the courtyard last month sprang into her mind.
‘What is this place? Doesn’t anyone live here?’ She had her breath back now and her control. It was obvious no one did live there, but she wanted him to explain it, to make it normal.
‘I found it not long after I got here, on one of my rides on the bike. I get a bit stir crazy round here. It’s the flatness, the lack of hills. All that sky, it drives a man nuts. And the goddamn base. All the rows and rows of Quonset huts and concrete and nothing else but barley and sugar beet fields. And the waiting. I get sick of that too. I saw the roof from the road, and I just wanted to see what it was.’ He passed her an enamel cup of dark brown liquid. ‘I shouldn’t have taken you to that room, I wasn’t thinking. I just wanted you to see this place. I think it’s kind of special.’
The coffee was bitter but hot. He was pouring something from a bottle into his. ‘Some of this?’ He held up a bottle of bourbon, its liquid a deep, glossy black.
‘All right. Just a little.’
It was hard to understand why an old shack would be special to him but she liked the way he was talking, as if he thought she understood him. It made her want to.
‘But you get to fly. Isn’t that an escape?’ The drink was hot but she swallowed it down, blinking.
He laughed. ‘Yeah, I guess, but that’s work. Here, it’s a kind of escape from people. I always liked that. I never had that at home, always a house full of family, people coming and going all times of the day. I always wanted space.’
‘But I thought you grew up on a ranch. Surely there was lots of space.’
‘Yeah – sure. And I miss that, finding a piece of land that could be yours, where you can see stuff from, where you can get a view of where you are. I miss it, you know, having that to myself.’ He wasn’t really looking at her but beyond her. Then he saw her watching him. ‘I guess it’s just me.’
‘No, it’s not. I think I understand. It’s about having something of your own.’
‘Yeah.’ He was focused back on her now.
‘I’d like that.’ She told him about the farm, about how it didn’t feel like hers any more because neither her father nor brother ever told her anything. How she wanted to get out of Norfolk. He put his head slightly to one side and she felt the impact of his gaze. ‘When I was riding here, I thought I could just carry on riding…’ She faltered and stopped.
‘If you rode west and kept going you’d get to the Atlantic. And then you could go right on and get a boat. To America. Land of opportunity.’ He was smiling but he seemed only half jokin
g. It was as if he was offering it to her. She had a vision of cowboys on horseback, neon lights, rockets shooting through the sky. He drained his cup and put it in the sink. ‘Listen, Verity – Vee – I can call you that, right?’ She shrugged. No one had called her that before. It felt strange, like a code between them. ‘I think you got the wrong impression of me. I joke around all the time, you think I’m messing with you. But I’m not.’
He came and sat down next to her, licked his lips and ran his tongue along the line of his teeth. She held tight to her cup. He looked straight at her and she felt skewered right through.
‘I’d better get back now,’ she said.
‘Will you come again? I mean, just to talk. Have a cigarette, a drink, you know.’
‘Maybe.’ She got up quickly but stood in the kitchen doorway, not knowing how to say goodbye.
‘You could paint here,’ he said from his chair.
‘Paint?’ She wondered how he knew that she painted.
‘Sketch, draw. I’ve seen you in your garden. You could do that here.’
‘Oh.’ It was as if he had opened up her rib cage and was poking around inside the flesh and the blood. She imagined him watching her in the private act of drawing. Her whole body prickled with heat. ‘I barely… I just sketch sometimes.’
‘Would you show me?’
‘I really have hardly anything to show.’
‘Just an idea. I don’t want to pry. Hey, listen, wait a second.’ He jumped up and plunged a hand into his Air-Force issue canvas bag that she now noticed was dumped in the corner. When he rose again, he’d drawn a black box out of the bag. It was a clunky, square camera, the kind you saw the press carrying about. His fingers began opening, flicking, turning and adjusting and he glanced up at her.
‘Mind if I take your photograph?’
The Night of the Flood Page 10
