From the kitchen window she looks out at the garden. A concrete path, halving a closely mown and well-watered lawn, leads to a small wooden shed, and beyond the shed a fence is covered by a creeper, which rises an even inch or two above the top of the wood. In the garden of the house opposite, a hand is pegging white bed sheets on a washing line. Moving like a robot’s claw, the hand dispenses bright red pegs at regular intervals on top of the sheets. On the peat-brown roofs the television aerials all point in precisely the same direction, like gigantic compass needles. She stares into the blank blue sky and soon ceases to see it, becoming conscious only of blueness. She is conscious of blueness, brownness, whiteness, greenness, and of a moving shape, an arm. There is a woman waving to her, in front of the sheets.
She takes a glass from the cabinet and fills it with water. The water tastes of brass but she drinks it all and fills the glass again. She sits at the table and draws the sheet of paper towards her. She performs the act of studying the picture of the oak tree. Her eyes trace a track through the labyrinth of the leaves and branches, but the tree becomes a cloud. Beneath the tree there is writing. She stares at the undulating lines of dark blue ink, and a drop falls onto the paper. Under the minuscule dome of water the ink blurs and blooms. Its resemblance to a tiny paperweight of blue-veined glass makes her smile. There is another drop, and another word begins to dissolve. She puts a finger to her cheek and finds it wet beneath her eye. The surface of the water in the glass is trembling, she notices. As if watching somebody else’s hand, she watches her hand tipping the tumbler, turning it very gradually, until the water begins to fall. She sees small flares and tails extending from the words on the saturated page, turning from blue-black to aquamarine. The paper begins to buckle in the water and she cannot think why she has done what she can see she has done. She is aware that she is looking around the room, but does not know why she is doing it. She cannot think; she does not feel enough. Her fingers tighten on the glass, grasping it like a rescuer’s hand, tighter and tighter. Flung from the table, it cracks against the wall and splits on the floor. Spinning pieces come to rest by her feet. She lifts the largest, a slender thorn of glass. Its point, pressed into the base of her thumb, creates a pain that rises and grows into her palm and into her arm as she presses harder, until the skin gives way. She removes the point, releasing a runnel of blood that carries a sugar-sized crystal of glass towards her wrist. She puts the point against her flesh, close to the wound, and again she pushes, making the pain rise to its climax with the bite of the glass. Again she does it, and again, until her hand is filled with a pulsing ache, and then she draws the sharpest edge across her forearm, inside the elbow. The pain is surprisingly small and there is no blood immediately, but then a maroon bud begins to swell beneath the translucent fringe of skin, and the sensation changes, becoming warmer, deeper. She cuts again. The glass bites the skin and the pain rises, resolving everything while it lasts.
Again, for the third time, Edward makes the computer read Claudia’s message. ‘You talk about us as we are, but what are we now? It won’t go to sleep, the monster. It is too late for that. We have changed, because of this,’ states the machine and it seems to be true that they have changed. Dictated in a mechanical monotone, the words sound like the script of a bad play about the failure of an affair. ‘You do not feel what I feel. We mean a different thing when we say love. This is what I must conclude,’ the complaint continues and it continues after he has closed the computer down. ‘You do not feel what I feel. We mean a different thing,’ he hears, over and over again. One minute he is almost convinced that she does not mean what she has written, that she is protesting at their situation rather than at him, then he is sure that she means precisely what she says and he begins to think that she is right, that he has presumed too much in thinking that they understand each other. ‘You do not feel what I feel,’ she has written, and perhaps she is right. Perhaps he is not capable of loving her as she wants to be loved.
When he leaves the room an hour later, having written no reply, the words are still chiming in his head: ‘We mean a different thing. It is too late.’ He hobbles down the stairs, barely making use of the walking stick. In flight from himself, he hurries across the hall. His feet on the gravel raise a noise that eliminates all thoughts, like the sound of surf, but beyond the gate, in the quietness of the hill, the chime resumes: ‘too late; too late; too late’. He walks down the hill, all the way into the town, into the obscuring din of the traffic. Up the High Street he strides, banging the walking stick on the ground, sweeping the pavement with his cane, conscious of a gathering bleakness, a bleakness that will submerge him should he stop. At a newsagent’s he buys some chocolate, solely in order to talk to someone. In the doorway of a betting shop he pauses, distracting himself for a while with the commentary on a horse race. He walks back to the hotel, rapping the cane on the road as he strides up the hill, as though the immanent gloom were a dog to be kept at bay.
In the garden he wanders from flower bed to flower bed, allowing himself to be detained at each one, to touch the petals and leaves, to take his fill of their perfume. He happens upon the brick-paved path, which conducts him onto a path he has not explored before, which ends at the garden wall. Retracing his steps, he at last comes to the bench beneath the oak tree. He sits down and at once succumbs to a maudlin little fiction that had begun to form when he was in the town, in which he and Claudia pass in the street, inches apart, and she chooses not to speak to him, so he would never know that they had almost met again. Envying the happy accidents of the sighted, the chance meetings that are denied to the blind, he recalls himself to where he is, in the garden of the Oak, on a bench in the shade of an oak tree. In long breaths he gathers the garden’s air, savouring its scent of roses, vivifying his mind, preparing for the day’s work. Yet again the phrase ‘Garzoncello scherzoso’ obtrudes. Under his breath he repeats it, then recites in a whisper the lines that follow. ‘This blossoming time of yours,’ he proposes to himself. ‘This springtime of yours.’ Behind him a squirrel’s claws scratch against bark, ascending at a run. From the inside pocket of his jacket he takes the recorder and places it on the arm of the bench.
Hearing what might be a riffle of book pages, to his right, he listens for other indications that someone else is in this part of the garden, but there is only the soft noise of traffic from across the valley, and the fountain’s trickle. He works the jacket off his shoulders and as he leans forward to extract an arm his elbow strikes the recorder, knocking it onto the ground. He eases himself forward and slips off the bench. Patting the grass, he crawls around the space between the seat and the tree. His hands find crumbs of soil, a leaf, the bulge of a root beneath the turf, the creviced bark of the oak. He turns and creeps back, sweeping wider arcs to each side, and at last locates the recorder by a leg of the bench. The battery compartment is open and one of the batteries has fallen out. He skims the grass with a flattened hand, and is reaching beneath the bench when he hears cloth flapping in a walking rhythm, a sound he remembers from yesterday, and when the person stops beside him he detects a familiar perfume in which the scents of sandalwood and grapefruit are prominent.
‘Stephanie?’ says Mr Morton, twisting to direct towards her a smile which does not entirely reassure her that she has not embarrassed him by coming over.
‘Yes,’ she replies. Mr Morton’s cheek is pressing hard against the arm of the bench as his right hand gropes underneath the seat. ‘Can I help you?’ she asks.
Extricating his hand, he rubs his chin ruefully. ‘Help may be required,’ he says. He stands up and, brushing the knees of his trousers, moves his head as though searching the ground with his eyes. ‘I’ve lost a battery. Small one. For this,’ he explains, holding up the recorder. ‘It’s somewhere in the vicinity.’
The battery lies on the grass behind him, close to a sprig of daisies. ‘I can see it,’ she tells him. ‘If you just –’ she begins, stepping back to allow him to edge past her and sit dow
n. She collects the battery from behind the bench and stands in front of him, her hands a few inches from his eyes, which seem to be trained on the object she is holding. Furtively she examines the bruise; below the same eye, a narrow arc of blond stubble shows a razor’s track across his skin. ‘Shall I put it back for you?’ she asks.
‘No,’ he replies, softly. ‘No, thank you. I can manage,’ he says, putting out an open hand. Adroitly his fingers slot the battery into its compartment and clip the little plastic hatch shut. ‘Voilà,’ he smiles, placing the recorder on the bench beside him, but his eyes tell her nothing and she does not know if she should leave him now. He wipes a drop of sweat from the bruised side of his brow. ‘Do you like this weather?’ he asks her, perhaps obliged to say something because she has lingered.
‘I do,’ she says. The beginning of a smile appears in the corner of his mouth, prompting the idea that her father has told him about her getting sunburned. ‘Do you?’ she asks him.
‘It’s a bit too much for me. Tropical conditions don’t suit my delicate complexion,’ he says, giving his forearm a stroke. ‘I lurk in the shade until the sun goes down.’ He lifts his face towards the leaves and closes his eyes, with the expression of someone relishing the touch of a refreshing drizzle.
‘And I lurk in the sun until my skin goes red,’ she replies.
He smiles, and it is clear he would rather be on his own. ‘What time is it, do you know?’ he asks.
‘Nearly three.’
‘Later than I thought,’ he comments. He presses a button on the recorder, three or four times. She is choosing her reason for leaving when he remarks, ‘This is a very pleasant spot.’
She surveys the garden before replying. ‘It’s lovely,’ she says.
Mr Morton seems to copy her sweeping look, as if he can discern the extent of the garden and the shapes of the trees and bushes, but when he turns back his eyes aim wide of her face. ‘It is,’ he says, and then, in a lightly inquisitive tone, he asks her: ‘Were you sitting over there?’
‘I was,’ she says, looking at the bench to which he is pointing.
‘Reading a book?’
‘Yes.’
‘What is it?’
‘Dostoyevsky.’
‘Oh yes,’ he says, as if he could have guessed this answer. ‘Which one?’
‘The Idiot.’
‘Oh yes,’ he repeats and suddenly, as though reminded of her presence, he scoops his rolled-up jacket towards him. ‘Do sit down,’ he says. ‘If you’d like.’
She puts her bag on the ground and sits.
‘You’re how old?’ he asks her.
‘Sixteen.’
‘And are you enjoying it?’ he asks. ‘The Idiot, I mean. Not being sixteen.’
‘It’s fantastic. The Idiot. Not being sixteen. Being sixteen is not fantastic,’ she says. On the point of asking him if he has read the book, she bites her lip.
And then he says, as an ordinary person might, ‘I’ve never read it.’
Confused by the casualness of his remark, she does not know whether she should say something more or wait for him to lead them into a change of subject. Slowly she turns her head to look at him, but nothing in his face suggests that he can sense her scrutiny.
‘I don’t think I understand it,’ she volunteers. ‘Half the time I don’t get what the characters are doing. And I love the prince, but I don’t know why. He’s really irritating, but I love him. Does that make sense?’
Mr Morton pauses, blinking in the dapples. ‘Well, I couldn’t rightly say, not in this particular instance,’ he replies, targeting her eyes exactly.
‘No.’
‘But I shouldn’t worry about not understanding,’ he says, rubbing a thumb along the thin crest of stubble. ‘Beware the complacency of understanding, I’d say. Perplexity is good. Perplexity is healthy,’ he insists, seeming to mimic the specious sincerity of a management guru. His head turns smoothly to the left and back towards her, as though tracking the movements of someone wandering across the lawn. ‘I’m often perplexed myself,’ he tells her, with an ambiguous, sidelong grin.
Not knowing if she should laugh, she produces a muted snort, which might be taken as an expression of either compassion or amusement. Again Mr Morton follows the pacing of the invisible stroller, all the way to the edge of the lawn and all the way back again. It is obvious that she should leave him alone now, but before she can speak, as if he had heard the parting of her lips, he asks, turning to address her directly: ‘And are you enjoying your stay?’
‘Yes,’ she replies, pulling down her sleeve to hide the plaster that covers the wound on her arm. A barely visible movement of a muscle in the corner of Mr Morton’s mouth implies a degree of doubt. ‘Yes,’ she repeats, ‘I am.’
‘So am I,’ he says. ‘It’s an unusual place, isn’t it?’
‘Another world.’
‘Indeed. Another world.’ He smiles at the garden as if some sort of performance were going on there, a dance or a play for which they are the only audience. ‘You’ve seen the pool? In the basement?’
‘I have.’
‘Very atmospheric.’
‘It’s amazing.’
‘It sounds amazing,’ he agrees. ‘Your father gave me a tour.’
‘Same here.’
‘You saw the copper tubs?’
‘I did.’
‘And the marble fountain?’
‘The tubs, the fountain, everything. He’s very thorough.’
Clasping his hands together, Mr Morton bends forward to rest his elbows on his knees and cradle his chin on his thumbs. He seems to ponder something, perhaps her choice of words, then, as if prompted by an afterthought, he asks, ‘What does he look like? Your father.’
Suspecting that this is intended more as a question about herself than about her father, and disappointed by her own suspiciousness, which is justified by nothing in Mr Morton’s expression or voice, she hesitates before answering. ‘Average height, average weight,’ she says.
‘That doesn’t tell me much,’ he responds firmly, but like a friendly teacher. ‘Dark, fair? Glasses or not? He’s what – early forties?’
‘Dark, thinning hair. No glasses. Early forties.’
‘OK. Any more details you could give me?’
She tries to think if there’s a famous face that resembles her father’s in some way, then realises that such a comparison would be useless. ‘He has a long face,’ she goes on. ‘A long jaw and a nice nose – strong, slightly curved. He’s quite gaunt around the cheekbones. He looks preoccupied. His hands are very graceful. He stoops a bit when he walks. He wears old-fashioned brogues and dark three-piece suits.’
‘Perhaps a requirement of the job.’
‘Might be. At home it’s chinos and a polo shirt. Neatly ironed chinos, neatly ironed shirt.’ Overhead, a squirrel scrabbles along a branch, making the leaves shake at the farthest tip, where the overhanging foliage partly hides the roof of the hotel. Mr Morton raises his face towards the source of the noise. A scrap of bark, the size of a coat button, spirals out of the leaves and falls onto the back of his hand, at which he starts, as though at a pinprick. With his other hand he feels for the object that has touched him, which has slipped through the bars of the bench. His fingers tiptoe across his skin and across the wooden slats. She almost tells him what it was, and that it’s gone, but then he gives up and brings his hands together on the tape recorder. The squirrel is bounding across the grass, performing steep little leaps between tiny sprints. She cannot think of anything else to say about her father, and she cannot imagine how she might raise the subject of the Italian poet, but then she hears herself say: ‘He told me what you do.’
Turning, Mr Morton gives her a quizzical frown.
‘My father,’ she explains. ‘He mentioned your Italian writer.’
‘Ah,’ says Mr Morton, pretending to mop his brow, relieved. ‘I thought I was being accused of something disreputable.’
What she wants is to
hear Mr Morton talk about his work, as he has talked to her father. She wants to hear about his poet and she wants, even more, to listen to Mr Morton, because there is a seriousness and a sense of knowledge in his voice, even in the briefest phrases, and his voice has a good effect on her, a calming, simplifying effect, like the smell of incense smoke. She would be happy to sit with him for another hour, but she has taken up too much of his time. She looks from Mr Morton to the leaves above his head. Each leaf is its own shape and its own shade of green, yet this morning, when she looked out of the window of her father’s kitchen, everything was blurred and smeared and drab. That was this morning, only two or three hours past, she tells herself, touching the bandage through her sleeve, then she asks, before she can stop herself: ‘Is that your notebook?’
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