River Boy

by Tim Bowler

  And the pictures in her mind seemed to tumble with them, onward and away to a place beyond thought.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  In the night she stood at her bedroom window and looked for the river boy again. But all she saw was the dark shoulder of the hill, and the trees, and the stream, sparkling under the stars.

  Perhaps she would not see him tonight; perhaps she would never see him again. That might not be a bad thing: his appearances were too uncanny to be comforting, yet she knew she was deluding herself in this and that, deep down, for some reason she did not comprehend, she yearned to see him. He was part of the mystery of this place.

  Perhaps the whole mystery.

  She listened to the ripple of water outside, then, after a moment’s thought, tiptoed downstairs, brought Grandpa’s picture up from the sitting room, and held it to the moonlight by the window.

  It seemed more unfathomable than ever, this unfinished river scene: without the boy it was but half a picture, half a dream; and destined surely to remain only that. He wouldn’t finish it now. He could barely lift a spoon to his mouth. He wouldn’t manage more than a stroke of the brush.

  If that.

  Somehow she felt it was her fault. If she’d only stayed with him instead of running along the riverbank. Just because he’d told her to leave him and go swimming didn’t mean it was the right thing for her to do, and if she’d stayed, maybe she could have stopped him hobbling off at the sight of Alfred and draining further the meager reserves of strength that now dribbled from him like sands through an hourglass.

  She frowned.

  This was stupid, blaming herself when it couldn’t make things better. She looked over the picture again, straining to see all the details yet not wanting to switch on the light; and, for a strange moment, the painted image of the river seemed almost to merge in her mind with the real river flowing outside her window.

  She felt a gust of cool air and shivered.

  What was happening to her? Everything she saw, heard, felt, now seemed but an illusion, a play of senses and impressions, interwoven like a tapestry of visions —pictures unfinished, like the one she now held with such desperate tenderness.

  She caught a movement outside the window and stiffened.

  Once more a figure was moving in the stream.

  She clutched the painting to her and stared, her eyes fixed upon the shadowy form. It was him. There was no doubt about it. Who else could it be, out there, alone in the night? It was almost as though he was wading down the stream purposely for her to witness it.

  He stopped, and his face turned toward her, and moonlight fell upon it; and, in that instant, she felt he saw her. Yet the face turned quickly away before she could collect herself, leaving her with only a confused memory of it.

  He was moving again, always in the stream, wearing, as before, only the same black shorts. The next moment, he had passed from view around the side of the house.

  She leaned against the windowsill, clutching the painting, trying to build up courage; then she put it down and hurried from the room.

  This time no one must hear her leave the cottage — especially not the river boy, wherever he was now. She reached the foot of the stairs, stopped for a moment, and listened. There was no sound of footsteps, no voices calling after her. She took her coat from the peg and pulled it on over her nightgown, turned the key —this time without difficulty —and stepped into the night.

  The air was balmy, the breeze light, and the treetops seemed barely to move against the sky. A few feet from her the river ran on, cutting its relentless path through the land, oblivious to day or night, or to her. She gazed about her, searching for the river boy.

  He was nowhere to be seen.

  She pulled her nightgown up a few inches and ran lightly to the edge of the clearing, where the car stood, gleaming in the moonlight. There was no sign of him here. He must have passed on to the wider stretch of the river.

  She ran down, following the canopy of trees until she reached the larger clearing where the lane twisted off up the valley and the river broadened; where, only this afternoon, Grandpa had tried —and failed —to paint.

  And she stiffened again.

  There, in the middle of the river, was the boy, swimming down on the current, with slow, leisurely strokes. He was some distance from her and moving away fast, but she hurried into the trees for further concealment, and watched.

  It was difficult not to feel envy at his swimming ability. Every movement he made seemed to have authority, yet there was a wildness, too. He wasn’t a trained swimmer, that was obvious —just a natural swimmer, a swimmer of such power and grace, she could only stand and admire.

  He turned suddenly and, to her consternation, started to swim back toward her, a strong, steady crawl, cutting easily through the adverse current. She drew back, keeping close to the nearest tree and trying to decide what she would do if he swam all the way to her and started to wade back up the stream. She had intended to try and speak to him but knew now that she wasn’t ready.

  But he did not swim all the way to her. He stopped about fifty feet down, stood up in the middle of the river, and gazed toward her.

  She started to tremble. He must have seen her, the way he was just standing there, watching. Yet her body was behind the tree, and only her face could be visible, and that was surrounded by foliage. She forced herself not to make any sudden movement and gazed back at the figure.

  Still, he stared in her direction, and still, she strained to see his features. She saw the thick black hair she had noticed before, but the face was dark with shadow, and he was just too far for her to see him well enough.

  And still he did not move. She had stopped trembling now, but her eyes remained fixed upon him as she waited for him to do something. But all he did was gaze toward the tree behind which she stood.

  He could not see her. She told herself he could not see her. Yet, as she watched, the conviction grew that he was waiting.

  For her.

  Still motionless, he stood there, staring toward her, and motionless she stared back, keeping behind the tree.

  Then, with a strange, almost reluctant suddenness, he turned, swam away toward the first bend in the river, and disappeared from view.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the morning Grandpa was the color of death.

  Dr. Fairweather arrived from Braymouth, a young man Jess liked and trusted at once, though she suspected Grandpa would eat him alive. Dad took him through to Grandpa, left him there, and came back to join her and Mom in the kitchen.

  The doctor soon reappeared. “Your father’s gravely ill, ” he said to Dad. “What on earth’s he doing here? He should be taken to the hospital at once. ”

  “I hope you told him that, ” said Dad.

  “Yes, but I couldn’t seem to get a reply out of him. ”

  Dad frowned. “He’s refused to go into the hospital. ”

  “Well, we must persuade him. He’s doing himself no good here. He needs proper treatment and constant observation. ”

  “We’ve tried to talk him into it, but he just refuses. We can’t force him to go. ”

  “No, we can’t, but we must try and make him see reason. ” To Jess’s surprise, he turned to her. “Can you come with us? The only thing he did say as I was leaving the room was that he wants you there. ”

  She caught Dad’s eye and looked down. “OK, ” she said.

  But talking drew only one response from Grandpa. He wasn’t going, and that was final —and further argument merely served to make that response more colorful.

  Dr. Fairweather came every day after that. He would arrive around midday and examine Grandpa, then come out and make sure they all understood what they had to do.

  To Jess, the hours of caring seemed to merge into a single day, a day of endless wakefulness. What sleep she had she barely noticed, any more than she noticed the effect that lack of rest produced in her. She noticed only Grandpa and the welling cloud of despair tha
t had grown around him.

  Mom and Dad, she knew, noticed it, too, but none of them spoke much; and Grandpa barely a word. He remained in bed, locked in his thoughts, fading by the minute, it seemed, even as they fed him, washed him, helped him to the toilet, gave him his medication; and waited.

  She understood his pride but wondered why he still resisted the greater comfort of the hospital. What had he to stay for now? The picture would never be finished. He had so little strength in his hands, he would never be able to keep the brush in the air. Besides, he had made no mention of the painting.

  Dad, too, was suffering, but in another way, and it gave her pain to see it. She knew how much he needed Grandpa’s love, but it had always been withheld from him in a way that it wasn’t with her. She watched as he rushed around, doing more work than everybody else, taking care of the difficult things Grandpa was too embarrassed for her or Mom to see.

  Yet, still, Grandpa seemed unable to give him the words or the look she knew he craved. This had always hurt her and, although she’d never heard Dad complain about it or speak ill of Grandpa, she knew he took it badly.

  She didn’t see the river boy at all now, but then, she didn’t go near the river either. She put on her swimsuit every morning, but it was more out of habit than anything else. When she managed to snatch some moments away from looking after Grandpa, it was not to swim but to grab what rest she could. Somehow, in the pressing immediacy of his condition and her father’s distress, she’d ceased almost to think about the river, or swimming, or the strange boy.

  Only the discarded painting drew her mind back from time to time, and then not to its riddle but to its creator, lying stricken on the bed and sighing out his life.

  Alfred, too, came every day now, sometimes with Mr. and Mrs. Gray but usually by himself, and she found him a curiously welcome visitor. His mannerisms no longer irritated her, and he took his turn to sit with Grandpa and keep him company. But keeping company with Grandpa was no easy matter.

  He had lapsed into a world of almost total silence.

  Then, to her surprise, on the seventh day he called to her. She went in, alone, and drew a chair close to the bed.

  “Are you going to talk to me today, Grandpa? ” she said, brightly. “Or just carry on being a miserable old buzzard? ”

  “Miserable old buzzard. ”

  “Oh, that’s OK. I thought something was wrong for a moment. ”

  She heard him chuckle, and it was a good sound —the first she had heard for many days. But it did not last, and the darkness fell quickly upon him once more. She leaned closer. “Grandpa, tell me what it is. ”

  He looked away and was silent for so long she thought he was not going to answer. But finally he spoke, though in a voice so low, she could barely catch the words.

  “It’s no good. I’ll never do it now. I’d thought . . . hoped . . . maybe if I just rested a bit, my strength would come back and . . . ” He looked back at her. “You might as well take me to the slaughterhouse at Braymouth. I’m not going to finish the picture now. ”

  She stroked his hand, wanting to squeeze it and somehow infuse some of her own strength into him; but she let go, anxious lest she hurt him.

  She had not thought it would come to this; and, to him, she knew it must be unbearable. Defeat —for that was how he would see it —would cost him more than any physical pain. To be wheeled away into some hospital ward, frustrated, resentful, and thus to die, his work uncompleted, was an end she could never have envisaged for him.

  Not that she saw him as she knew he saw himself. To her, the more she contemplated this proud, old man at the bitter climax of his life and considered all that he had achieved, so much of it so beautiful, the more she found to admire.

  The failings she saw, too, clearly enough. But this man, this man she loved, worshiped almost, now lying here wretched in spirit —this man should not be feeling what she knew was in his heart.

  “You’re not a failure, Grandpa. You’re not. ”

  “I know what I am. ” His voice dropped. “Tell your dad I’ll be ready for the hospital tomorrow morning. ”

  His face grew impassive, and she knew it was a sign of dismissal. She wanted to touch him so much now, touch him, hold him, kiss him; but she knew he would not accept sympathy at any cost.

  But the cost to herself, to her unexpressed feelings, was great, too.

  She ran from the room, choking back the tears. Mom and Dad were coming in, and she brushed past them out of the cottage, ran over to the stream, and knelt by the water’s edge.

  This was the end. He was, indeed, truly broken —something she had never thought she would witness. The painting, so near to completion, might as well never have been started. Indeed, it would have been better for Grandpa if this had been so: every painting he’d ever started had been an obsession with him until he’d managed to tear it out of himself, and now this unfulfilled part of his soul would rot away inside him, coloring the last hours of his life.

  She kicked off her shoes, tore off the T-shirt she had put on over her swimsuit, and stepped into the stream. The water was cool and bracing against the noonday heat, but she found little joy in it today.

  She waded down to where the river flattened out and stood there, the water up to her waist, gazing over the shimmering body of the river. It was such a perfect day for swimming, warm and windless, and it felt so long since she had been in the river; the water seemed almost to yearn for her.

  But her yearning was for tears, and they mastered her now. And, as she sobbed, she thought of Grandpa, and his life and his dream flickering away.

  Then, to her surprise, she heard a quiet voice behind her.

  “Why are you crying? ”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The river boy was standing in the stream, just a few yards away, silently watching her.

  She drew breath. She had not heard or felt his approach, but then the racing waters and her own sorrows had so overwhelmed her, she had known little else. She felt a rush of embarrassment at being so unprepared.

  He stood there, still in silence, taking in not just her, it seemed, but everything about them as well. She studied the face that watched her from within that shock of black hair.

  It was not conventionally good-looking, but it was striking, especially in the way the eyes moved. There was an electric intensity about them that she felt should have been frightening; but there was a tenderness there, too, and he seemed greatly concerned about her.

  “Why are you crying? ” he said again.

  She ran a hand against the driving current and, not ready to open her heart to a stranger, put her own question instead. “Who are you? ”

  He opened his mouth to answer; but something inside her —something urgent, something incomprehensible — made her call out to stop him.

  “No. ” She looked down, more embarrassed than ever. “Don’t tell me who you are. ” She dropped her voice to a murmur and spoke again, to herself alone. “Stay a mystery a little longer. I can’t take any more truth right now. ”

  She looked up and saw he was moving forward. Instinctively she took a step back, but he was only making his way past her toward the deeper water.

  She watched, ashamed at having betrayed her nervousness. He was clearly no threat and, if anything, seemed more lost in his own thoughts than in contemplation of hers. He waded to the end of the tree-cover, then turned and called back to her. “Ask me anything you want. ”

  She stared down at the water, still struggling with her feelings. She had so many questions she wanted to ask: who he was, where he lived, how he’d learned to swim like this, how he’d suddenly appeared in her life.

  And why.

  But she knew she wasn’t ready for questions; or, at least, she wasn’t ready for answers. Deep down she knew this boy was linked to the destiny of Grandpa; and answers meant revelation.

  And she was suddenly frightened of that.

  He seemed unconcerned by her reluctance to talk, and simp
ly eased himself into the water, swam a short way down with the current, then turned onto his back and floated, as she’d seen him do that day she’d watched him in secret from the bank.

  How long ago that seemed and how anxious she had been to glimpse him again. Yet here he was, and clearly in no hurry to leave her. She watched him as he lay there in the water, calm and relaxed. He seemed so independent, as though he needed no one in the world, yet when she had been struggling with tears, he had looked at her almost like a brother.

  She waded to the edge of the tree-cover and stood there. “It’s . . . ” She hesitated. “It’s because of my grandpa. Why I was crying, I mean. ”

  He said nothing, but she sensed an attentive stillness in him.

  “He’s dying, ” she went on. “There’s nothing anyone can do about it, and . . . and he’s going to die unfulfilled. ”

  She gazed away down the river. “He’s trying to paint a picture. It’s an important picture. It really matters to him, and he can’t finish it. His hands and arms are too weak. ”

  She felt the tears coming back and quickly wiped her eyes. The boy rolled onto his front and swam toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. A few feet from her, he stopped and stood up. They faced each other in the rushing stream.

  “You finish the picture, ” he said.

  “But I can’t paint. ”

  “He can. ”

  His eyes seemed to burn like fire. She stared back, confused and a little frightened. “But I told you, his hands aren’t strong enough. ”

  The fire grew stronger still. “ You be his hands, ” he said.

  She looked away, unable to bear the intensity of his gaze and, without quite knowing why, dived. The smack of water on her face was a welcome shock. She surfaced quickly, a few feet past him, and started a fast crawl downstream, keeping her face buried in the water as much as she could.

  She didn’t look back to see what he was doing, but kept on, driving herself down with the current. This was all getting too much: Grandpa close to death, and now the boy with his strange talk. She had to get away, had to swim, had to do something other than talk and think.