A group of teenage girls pranced self-consciously along the jetty which led into the water and started pushing each other off, their exaggerated shrieks alarming a pair of moorhens, which had been perching on a buoy. As the birds skittered away, the largest girl, in a striking black bikini, grabbed the buoy herself and tried to do a handstand on it, to the wild cheers of her friends. Daniel watched them larking around in the murky grey-brown water, their hair like seaweed, streaming out in long dark strands. Then his eyes strayed back to the couple on his right. The woman was topless and had now turned over on her back, exposing her voluptuous breasts, which were made still more conspicuous by their glistening sheen of oil. Her partner was immersed in the Sunday Sport (its pages splodged with grease from his hands) and seemed more engrossed in its full-frontal photographs than in her flesh-and-blood attractions.
Daniel unfolded his own Observer, but reading wasn’t easy. The girls were still shouting and splashing, when suddenly a punk lad in his twenties dashed along the jetty completely palely naked, and caused a minor sensation by diving into the pool. The lifeguard and another man struck out in pursuit and, when he ignored their remonstrations, removed him bodily. There were also further distractions from the bank. The guitarist had begun to sing in a soft and rather mournful voice, perhaps trying to evoke some sense of Latin melancholy. Daniel found it quite extraordinary to think that he was less than a dozen miles from home. No one played guitars on Wandsworth Common, or sunbathed topless, or tried to swim stark naked. North Londoners were clearly more uninhibited. In fact, Juliet had told him that she had actually seen a couple making love in public on this very stretch of grass.
It was Juliet who had persuaded him of the delights of Hampstead Heath, suggesting that he come and relax here by the Mixed Bathing Pond, or watch people flying kites on Parliament Hill. She was due at her mother’s for a spell of Sunday duty, which apparently she couldn’t cancel without causing deep offence. Daniel blessed the mother’s tetchiness, since it afforded him a chance to think things out on his own before he met Juliet again at five. He was definitely feeling better than he had done in the early hours, though he attributed his lighter mood partly to champagne. Instead of an ascetic breakfast at the flat, they had gone out for an indulgent brunch: Buck’s Fizz and coddled eggs, with chilled mangos as an appetizer and pain au chocolat to follow. He had ignored the mangos and concentrated on the Fizz; each successive mouthful helping to put things in proportion. Afterwards, they had returned to the flat to make love – and with the emphasis on love this time. At first he’d had to struggle with his conscience, though his usual guilt about Penny had been diluted by the champagne. He had also feared he wouldn’t get an erection (as punishment for last night), but his fears proved quite unfounded. Both guilt and fear had dissipated in the tangled heat of the bed, and, despite his mounting excitement, he had made a special point of being as gentle and considerate as he’d been rough and relentless before – a recompense and peace-offering to Juliet.
She had responded not just physically – though he had never known her so abandoned – but with her own gesture of forgiveness: inviting him to accompany her to Paris. She was going there in three days’ time, to attend an international conference on Third World education. It was too late to register him as well, but he could share her hotel room, and if he flew out with her on Wednesday, they could spend the evenings together and the whole of next weekend. The invitation had thrown him into a quandary, and he had found it quite impossible to say either yes or no. He still hadn’t come to a decision – and was hardly likely to, distracted as he was by the squeals and giggles of those frolicking Lolitas and the strains of the Spanish Romanza.
Awkwardly, he got up from the grass and picked his way between the sun-worshippers, then walked on past the changing-huts in the direction of Parliament Hill. It would be easier to think up there, and the sense of height and space might help resolve the conflicts in his mind. If only Juliet’s destination wasn’t Paris (with all its traitorous memories of Penny and Pippa), and yet Paris was his favourite city, and one he hadn’t visited for years. Ever since he’d met her, he’d been hoping – vainly – to go away with Juliet, but now he had the perfect opportunity. No one need even know. He would be back on Sunday evening and could return to Wales on the Monday; the official story being that he had merely spent two weeks at home. After all, it was Penny who had urged him not to hurry back to the camp, so she could hardly blame him if he took her at her word.
He slowed his pace, as if in direct response to her advice, strolling along between thickly wooded hedgerows overgrown with ivy. All the foliage looked luxuriant and lush; even weeds and stinging-nettles in their green and thrusting prime. Squirrels darted across the grass, their coiled tails forming question-marks; birds chattered overhead, and a pair of tortoiseshell butterflies were courting in the sun. Although still hot, the air was no longer humid, and the trees provided welcome shade. He was beginning to feel elated just by imagining next weekend: he and Juliet walking by the moonlit Seine, or revisiting his favourite haunts, or making love again – again – as passionately as they had this morning. He couldn’t stop thinking about her body; savouring things he had half-forgotten in the impoverished weeks without her: the way her nipples tautened when he kissed the nape of her neck; the strange strangled noises she made when she was on the point of coming; screwing up her face – and toes – then letting go of everything with one fierce cry of ‘Daniel!’ That ‘Daniel!’ always thrilled him. It was so different from her usual cool composure; seemed to fuse them in her climax; make his name a fanfare.
He was so deeply under her spell, he had hardly noticed his surroundings, and was surprised to see that the path had opened out into a wide expanse of green, sloping steeply upwards. This must be Kite Hill. The springy turf made the going easy, and he went striding up the incline, dodging out of the way of two large, boisterous labradors chasing each other downhill. They were followed by their owners – eccentric-looking twenty-somethings in matching fringed suede jerkins; the man’s long hair was bleached blond, while hers was cropped above her ears and dyed an inky black. Daniel watched them saunter arm in arm. When he’d walked on the common yesterday, everyone had been alone, whereas here families or couples appeared to be the norm. He too could be a couple again – with Juliet in Paris – no longer odd man out (shunned for his lack of a womb), or a mere appendage to his wife, resented by Corinna. He could also pay JB back for his terrifying intrusion in the middle of last night by showing him that he could leave things behind – leave his wife and daughter behind, and the whole nonsense of the camp; leave his petty scruples behind, his futile bouts of guilt.
He reached the top of the hill and stood looking down on London spread below: grey roofs and stark white tower-blocks; church-spires dwarfing distant Docklands cranes; glints of lazy river meandering between swathes of trees in every shade from coppery red to the palest yellow-green. The whole was capped with puffs of cloud, like blobs of cream squirted from a giant aerosol by some cosmic pastrycook. Vying with the clouds, brightly coloured kites kicked and bobbed in the wind, straining against their strings and pursued at every twist and turn by their faithful looping tails. He, too, longed to soar that high, to cut all strings and float away to Paris – Juliet beside him, wild scarlet to his blue.
Instead, he stretched out on the grass, still mesmerized by the view. Children were racketing all around him, dogs yelping in excitement, but the noise was somehow exhilarating rather than annoying. He lit a cigarette and sat watching the blue kite perform a series of impressive stunts: somersaulting, spiralling, swooping down, then up again. He blew out a perfect smoke-ring, glad to see that he hadn’t lost the knack. Smoking no longer seemed so heinous. Juliet had told him that even Sigmund Freud had found it impossible to quit, so at least he was in eminent company.
As the noisiest of the dogs ceased its frenzied barking, he caught a snatch of music drifting up from the other side of the hill: the plink-plunk sound
of a steel band, faint but unmistakable. Spurred by curiosity, he scrambled to his feet and hurried downhill to investigate. He had always had a sneaking fondness for steel bands – not shared by Juliet, alas, but certainly by the enthusiastic crowd who had gathered by the bandstand and were clapping, stomping, swaying to the beat. The carnival mood was heightened by the brightly coloured costumes of the players: emerald satin shirts and patterned waistcoats in vibrant green and purple. As they launched into a Beatles tune, they were cheered on by the audience, who started linking arms and dancing on the grass, some kicking off their shoes and jigging around barefoot. A high-spirited West Indian boy even clambered up on the bandstand and wove his way between the players, doing a comic conga-for-one.
Daniel’s feet were soon tapping to the rhythm, and when he finally left the bandstand, he found he was still marching in time to ‘Sergeant Pepper’. The path led him past a café, and then a bowling green and tennis courts. Wherever he looked, people were enjoying themselves: tucking in to tea and cakes, rolling balls along velvety greens, darting to and fro returning powerful serves, or simply soaking up the sun. It was time he, too, relaxed and allowed himself some pleasure in life; learned that fun was not a dirty word, to be atoned for with a storm of self-reproach. That was the message he would extract from JB’s words – not more guilt, but less – a break with his past habit of punching himself for every small transgression. He would go to Paris with Juliet, and he’d bloody well enjoy it; relish every minute with her; make love night and morning – even in the lunch-hour if she could escape the conference then.
He already felt aroused, remembering her as she’d been this morning: avid and responsive, even uncharacteristically flushed; the bed itself expressing their abandon – duvet humped and tumbled, pillows on the floor. The enticing pictures stopped him in his tracks. Instinctively, he turned round and set off back the way he’d come, in the direction of her flat. Whatever happened, he didn’t want her arriving home to find he wasn’t there. He must get in well before her, buy some wine en route and chill it in the fridge, so that they could drink to his decision; drink to the new, hedonistic Daniel. Perhaps he’d play the true romantic and buy her flowers as well – sensuous red roses to match his sensuous mood.
The idyllic summer’s day did indeed seem to be fostering romance. Even in the car-park he found a couple locked in an embrace; the pimply but impassioned youth kissing his under-age girlfriend in full view of all and sundry.
He drove out of the exit and took the road which skirted the Heath. A flock of wood-pigeons suddenly exploded from a clump of trees and flapped across the road, startled by the backfiring of a car. For a disorientating moment his vision was obscured, then one of the panicked birds slammed straight into his windscreen with a heavy, sickening thud. Glancing in his mirror, he saw the helpless body spinning over and over and over before it hit the tarmac. He jammed on the brakes and jumped out. The bird lay floundering in the gutter, while he stood watching impotently, praying for it to die. The thought of having to put it out of its misery was utterly repellent. The topaz eyes were still open, and fixed on him unnervingly. He knelt down by the kerb, ignoring the hoots of passing motorists angered by the obstruction of his car. The bird continued to gaze at him, clinging to its feeble spark of life. Torn between pity and annoyance, he scooped it from the gutter, feeling the faint heartbeat flickering through his hands. What now? Did he stay with it till it died, or leave it to suffer alone – perhaps right on through the night?
He decided on a third course: fetched his jacket from the car and wrapped it firmly round the bird, to prevent it from injuring itself any further. Then he placed the bundle on the passenger seat and drove to Woodleigh Chase. He parked outside the wrought iron gates and opened the car door, but remained sitting there, immobile, eyes flicking from the drab stunned bird to the ostentatious building. Juliet wouldn’t welcome a dying wood-pigeon messing up her flat. He shut the door again. He wasn’t going to Juliet’s – he wasn’t even going home. He couldn’t explain, not even to himself, why he was suddenly so certain of what he had to do; he simply knew he had no choice.
He drove swiftly down the street, turned left, then left again and into the Finchley Road, heading for the North Circular and eventually the motorway. There wasn’t time to collect his stuff from Wandsworth, or phone Juliet and embark on a long argument.
However fanciful it might sound, he had a deep unerring conviction that he was being summoned back to Wales. He was needed there – at once.
Chapter Thirty Two
Daniel ran towards the tents, still propelled by the adrenalin which had kept him roaring down the M4 at eighty miles an hour, in his dramatic dash from London. Even after the motorway, when the roads had narrowed and he’d been slowed by zigzag bends, he’d continued to feel that he was speeding; his mind and body so revved up, it had proved impossible to relax. Yet now he’d actually arrived, he was beginning to wonder if he had fabricated the crisis. The camp looked just the same – in fact, remarkably serene in the perfect summer’s evening; no sign of any disturbance, nor anything out of the ordinary. Lazy smoke was curling from a fire, and the usual reassuring things were littered on the grass: sturdy saucepans, bright enamel mugs, Tim’s sweater with the soldiers on, a box of purple plums. The only unfamiliar sight was a smart new camper-van parked beside the field (and shaming the other scruffier vehicles). Some well-heeled newcomers, presumably, who had come in search of a cure, but had no intention of roughing it.
A minute later he spotted them: an attractive girl in her twenties and two slightly older men, standing by the Big Tepee with Dylan, Gerard, Pat and Megan, all talking volubly. The taller man held a mobile phone, which looked incongruous in these primitive surroundings. Penny and Pippa were nowhere to be seen, nor Corinna, Claire or Happy. Were they busy with some female rite, or doing something more mundane like preparing supper in the tepee? He decided to check his own tent first, unwilling to join the noisy group, who were so involved in their discussion they hadn’t even noticed him.
He crawled inside and was greeted by a cry from Penny – almost a howl of pain and relief. She rushed towards him, clutched him in a fierce embrace.
‘Daniel, thank God you’re here! I thought you’d never come.’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘Well, I left the message hours ago.’
‘What message?’
‘Oh, Daniel, don’t be stupid. The message about Rick – on the answerphone. Three messages, in fact.’
He stared at her pale face and swollen eyes. He had not been home since Saturday afternoon, but he could hardly tell her that. ‘Rick?’ he prompted, still completely mystified.
‘But I explained it all on the phone. Did the dratted thing cut out?’
He gave a noncommittal grunt; watched in horror as tears streamed down her face.
‘He’s … he’s …’ She was struggling to get the words out; tried again, her voice distorted, harsh. ‘He … he drowned.’
‘What?’
‘This morning – in that lake you’re so fond of. It’s been absolutely terrible. You just can’t imagine, Daniel! And these reporters got on to the story. Of course, to them it was the most fantastic scoop. They were practically drooling over it. God, I’d like to kill them!’ She clenched her fists, tears giving way to anger. ‘We didn’t know they were reporters, or we’d have sent them packing straight away. They pretended they’d come for healing, you see, but …’
‘Penny, wait, for Christ’s sake! Never mind the reporters. I must know what’s happened to Rick. Are you telling me he’s … he’s …’ Now he was the one finding it difficult to speak. ‘… dead?’ he whispered, the word knelling through the tent.
‘No.’ She shook her head, then nodded. ‘Well, maybe now he is. No one knows for certain. They rushed him off to hospital and he’s all wired up to drips and things.’
Daniel sank down in despair. He could see the life-support machine with its incessant whines and bleeps;
its battery of hardware; Rick’s restless fidgety body unnaturally still. He concealed his face from Penny. He too was drowning in a tidal wave of rage: fury at the treacherous lake which he’d regarded as a sanctuary; fury at so hideous a disaster; fury with himself for being in bed with Juliet through all this grief and horror. And what of Claire? What must she be feeling as she waited by the hospital bed, not knowing whether her only child would survive?
‘Claire’s with him, I assume?’ His voice was still unsteady, each word requiring effort.
‘Yes. And Happy and Corinna. And Stephen, of course.’ She pronounced the healer’s name with indignant emphasis, almost as if blaming him for the tragedy. ‘I stayed here with Pippa. She’s in the most appalling state. Well, I told you that on the phone. You did get the messages, didn’t you, Daniel? Well, yes, of course you must have done, or you wouldn’t have come back.’
Relieved that she didn’t pursue the matter further, he drew her down beside him on the groundsheet. ‘Pippa?’ he repeated, already feeling a sense of foreboding.
‘I’ve never seen her so distraught. Of course it was a ghastly shock, so you’d expect her to be upset. But not as bad as this. I just can’t understand it. I mean, she detested Rick – we know that – yet she’s completely gone to pieces.’
‘Where is she?’
‘In the cottage on the hill – you know, where you were sleeping the first week. She went up there to be alone. We’ve all been trying to comfort her and talk to her, but she just doesn’t want to know. I tried again a few minutes ago, but she told me to go away. I thought I’d leave her for a little while, and then go up with Pat, perhaps, or …’
Breaking and Entering Page 44
