by Chris Power
Liam looked at the dirty glasses and crumpled napkins on the table. He snatched up a bottle of tequila, poured the dregs into a dirty glass and clapped loudly as the song finished. The pavilion lurched as if struck by a gust of wind. He looked at Nuria as she smiled and wiped tears from her eyes, giving small bows that were both joking and serious. Self-revulsion welled inside him. He pulled the letter from his pocket, took out his lighter and held it to one corner. The flame swelled around the paper. Liam rotated his wrist, the pages disappearing, until all that was left was the corner he held. He dropped it to the matted floor, let it burn a moment longer, then stamped it out.
Liam saw Miguel standing in a group, talking and smiling. He looked immaculate. Unsteadily Liam walked towards him, reached out and took his elbow. Miguel turned. He frowned, but tilted his head politely. ‘I’m sorry about earlier,’ Liam said, gesturing outside. ‘I’m very sorry.’
Miguel took a moment to speak. ‘There is nothing to apologise for,’ he said. The people around Miguel looked at Liam curiously. Miguel smiled at them, inclined his head towards Liam and shrugged. They laughed at him as he swayed from side to side.
He tried to think of something else to say. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, hearing the sloppiness of his speech. He turned away hopelessly. He concentrated on walking in a straight line as he shambled outside. Leaving the broad shore of light that spilled from the pavilion onto the grass, he stepped into the darkness. Shapes separated from the night as his eyes adjusted: trees and benches, clumps of drained glasses and bottles nestling in the grass. Behind him a chaos of music and voices. Ahead, empty space. He walked up the long grass slope that climbed away from the pavilion. The gradient was gentle but he was walking so fast that his calves quickly began to burn. He turned around and was surprised to see how distant the pavilion already was; he could have cupped it in his hand, or flattened it. Little sounds bled from its sides, chatter and dancing feet and drums knotted together, cut through by shrill cries and, sometimes, breaking glass. He could see some couples sitting on the grass just outside the pavilion, and waiters moving to and from the kitchen tent.
The world churned as he sat down heavily on the sloping ground. Tomorrow he would go back to London, to the book it was impossible to write and the TV and the silence. He lay flat and looked up at the stars. They spelled a message: burning fragments of his letter swept up from the lighter’s flame and scattered across the black. The moon was a severed head. He knew he should go back to the wedding but he didn’t want to move. He closed his eyes and passed in and out of sleep. He thought he heard Cameron and a woman’s voice calling his name, but he ignored them. His phone rang and he pulled it out of his pocket and threw it away from him. Later, he didn’t know how much later, he saw a figure in white walking slowly up the slope. He hoped it was Miguel but knew it wasn’t. He hoped it wasn’t Nuria, knowing that it was. As she drew near he heard her dress rasping against the grass.
She stood over him. ‘Here you are,’ she said, sounding tired. ‘The star of the show.’
‘Sorry,’ Liam said. ‘I didn’t mean to cause any trouble.’
‘Oh-ho,’ Nuria said, ‘and how do you think you are doing?’
Liam tried to see the expression on Nuria’s face, but she had her back to the distant lights of the pavilion. It was too dark to see.
‘You have made me sad tonight, Liam.’
He wanted to stand but lacked the strength. ‘I shouldn’t have come,’ he said.
‘I love your brother, Liam. He is a special person for me. It was very important for him that you be here, but I think maybe it would have been better if you weren’t.’
Realisation unfurled in Liam, like a flag catching the wind. ‘You and Cameron.’
‘A guest should behave better. Like Cameron, he knows how to behave.’
Liam wanted this to end. He worried about what she would say next. Still she stood before him, her dress glowing, her face dark.
‘Do you think this is the way to repay your brother’s kindness?’ Her voice was low, calm.
Liam said nothing. Voices could be heard drifting up the hill, calling Nuria’s name.
‘I have watched you, Liam,’ she continued, implacable. ‘You think only of yourself.’ She turned away. ‘You will stay here?’ she said over her shoulder. It sounded more like a command than a question.
Liam watched her walk down the slope, waving to the search party. He did not move. More time passed. The noise of music and voices became cars and voices, and dwindled to silence. He thought about walking back to Cuautla, about how far it was. He didn’t know the way. He knew he could not see Miguel again. He needed to leave. Now. Tonight. But he could not move. He would obey Nuria. Insufficient as it was, it would be his apology. He lay flat on the grass and imagined he was hanging above the night. The trees pointed down into a gulf where the moon rolled like a ball and the stars wheeled, shooting light in spokes and spirals. The sky was a shattered pane of glass. He slept and woke and slept and woke to rabbits all around him, clinging to the grass with hunched intensity, their coats splashed silver. His eye ached. He heard a xylophone play – saw the light of his phone, dim in the distance – and fell back asleep. When he woke the air was crowded with birdsong, and he lay shivering in a net of dew. He saw red fingers slip around the edge of the sky. Dawn destroyed the stars.
THE CROSSING
Descending from Hawkridge, Ann and Jim came to the River Barle and what was marked on their map as a ford. The path ran to the water’s edge and continued on the opposite bank some way downstream. The river wasn’t more than thirty feet wide at this point, and the tea-coloured water didn’t look deep, but it was impossible to go straight across and climb the opposite bank: a split-rail fence ran close to the water, with a barrier of alders and sedge crowded behind it. They needed to wade downstream to the continuation of the path. The river was moving rapidly, noisily sloshing over the jumbled rocks of its bed. Jim pointed out they were carrying everything they had brought with them for four days’ hiking, and they didn’t want to risk getting it soaked, did they? It was late September, and the first chill of autumn veined the air.
Ann was warmed now by a day’s walking, but she remembered how frigid it had been when they left Dulverton early that morning. They woke before dawn, clutching each other tightly in the warm centre of the bed. The storage heater they fiddled with the previous evening had proved utterly ineffective: everything beyond their bodies lay frozen. They had only met a few weeks before, and Ann giggled nervously when she slipped out of bed and trotted, naked in the blue half-light, to the bathroom. She had lifted her feet exaggeratedly high and yelped at the floor’s scathing coldness.
‘We can go around,’ she said, reading the map, ‘but it’s all the way back to that farmhouse.’
‘Where those dogs were?’
She nodded.
‘Miles back,’ Jim said. He started taking off his boots. ‘I’ll go in without my pack first. See how slippery it is.’ He stepped into the water, arms held out for balance. He sucked air through clenched teeth. ‘Freezing,’ he said.
Ann watched the river water wrinkle at his ankles, then his shins, then his knees. It darkened the folds of his trousers and pushed up to his thighs. He slipped, but recovered his balance.
‘I’m all right, I’m all right,’ he said hurriedly.
He sounded irritated, Ann thought. She watched him stop to survey.
‘Looks like it gets deeper ahead,’ he said, turning; then he reeled backwards. His arms thrashed and his hands grasped the air as he went over. His hand found a rock in the water and he froze in position, one side of his torso submerged.
‘Oh!’ Ann cried.
Still frozen in place, he looked back at her. His eyes were wide with surprise. His position made Ann think of a breakdancer mid-move, and she smiled.
‘What’s funny?’ he said.
She laughed, thinking he wasn’t serious. ‘Your wounded pride.’
Back on the ri
verbank Jim took off his fleece and T-shirt and wrung them out. Ann watched as he jumped up and down to warm himself, admiring the bullish curve of his chest. ‘I still think we can make it,’ he said. ‘Just need to be careful.’
She eyed the water dubiously. ‘You said it gets deeper. I’ll be in up to my waist at least.’
Rolling a cigarette, Jim shrugged agreement. He looked past her, back up the hill. ‘Maybe the cavalry’s arrived,’ he said.
Ann turned and saw a man and a woman wearing matching red fleeces and black canvas trousers moving fast, their walking poles striking the ground with every step.
They were called John and Christine, and Ann guessed they were around fifty. They had the ruddy look of people who spent every weekend exposed to the elements. Jim explained about the map and the ford.
‘Maps,’ John said, with happy derision.
‘We’re not sure about it,’ Ann said. ‘Don’t want our stuff getting drenched.’ She felt this was too flimsy a reason for people like Christine and John, and was irritated that she had been the one to voice Jim’s concern.
‘What do you think?’ Christine said to John.
‘I’m not going back up that hill,’ he said, grinning. ‘No chance.’
‘Well,’ Christine said, looking between Ann and Jim, ‘shall we all go together?’
‘Yes!’ Ann said with enthusiasm, masking the disappointment she felt that they wouldn’t be crossing the river alone: it would be a lesser achievement now. She reached for Jim’s arm. ‘Will you be all right? Your pack’s much heavier than mine.’
‘Course I will,’ said Jim, moving his arm away from her and adjusting the straps of his backpack, his eyes fixed on the ground. He jogged his pack up and down on his shoulders to straighten it.
They bagged their shoes and socks and rolled up their trouser legs. The mud of the riverbank was burningly cold against Ann’s feet. Christine and John went in, ploughing through the water at speed. Jim stepped into the water carefully. When he was about halfway across Ann followed him, the first shock of the cold leaving her frozen in place.
The water’s flow wasn’t strong enough to tug, but some of the stones on the riverbed were sharp, and others slick with moss. Ann felt her feet slide a little beneath her. It was like walking on seaweed. She waited as Jim tested his footing. ‘Bit tricky here,’ he muttered over his shoulder.
‘Move a little faster if you can, Jim,’ she said. ‘It’ll be harder when your feet get numb.’ She looked up at the grey sky. A bird call, a series of digital-sounding beeps, travelled over the water and received a reply from the opposite bank.
Up ahead, she saw Christine passing one of her poles back to Jim. John was on the far bank, fifteen feet downstream. ‘You want this?’ he called, holding a pole in the air.
‘Yes please!’ Ann said. John launched it into the air. To catch it she had to lean over so far that she almost fell. She yanked her body upright, willing herself to stay standing. Jim laughed; John and Christine clapped.
‘Nice catch,’ Jim said.
Pleased with herself, Ann pumped the air with the pole.
Now the crossing was simple. Beyond the river, in a field of close-cropped pasture, Ann and Jim took off their packs and sat on grass that seemed to radiate heat after the coldness of the water.
‘Where are you guys headed?’ Jim asked.
‘Nepal,’ John and Christine said, almost in unison. ‘In a few weeks, that is,’ John said. ‘Just Winsford for now.’
‘We’re getting our walking legs into shape,’ Christine said.
‘Nepal, fantastic!’ said Ann. She thought of how they had plunged into the water and saw them dropping, in matching outfits, into a crevasse.
The two couples set off in opposite directions. ‘Make sure you take those poles with you,’ Jim called after them, ‘they’re lifesavers.’
The walking that day had been all climbs and descents. It was a pleasure now to amble through flat pasture beside the chattering river. The clouds seemed to be thinning, and Ann felt warm after being immersed in the cold water. The strangled-sounding croaks of cock pheasants came from clumps of bilberry and heather edging the pasture. From time to time the birds’ plump copper bodies could be seen scurrying from one patch of cover to another.
‘Only a week till the shooting season starts,’ Jim said.
‘I didn’t know you shot,’ said Ann.
‘I don’t much,’ Jim said.
‘What do you shoot? Not animals, right?’
Jim paused and looked at her. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Would you shoot an animal?’
He looked away. ‘No,’ he said.
He was lying. She knew he was lying. Several times, in the weeks since she met him, Ann had thought Jim was telling her what she wanted to hear. Even before she agreed to this weekend away the trait had been irritating her. Now she regretted having come. She had wanted to sleep with him as soon as she saw him, leaning against the kitchen counter at a party in a big, dilapidated house in Chalk Farm. And she had slept with him, but now she wished she had left it at that.
The sky continued to lighten. Wisps of cloud blew across a moon-white sun. A walking trip had been Jim’s idea, and Ann had loved the thought of exploring a landscape, but she saw now that for him the pleasure lay in reaching a goal – twelve miles in a day, tick – while she was more interested in seeing things she might otherwise not. Earlier in the day, having established that Jim didn’t know the names of most trees and flowers, she had tried to teach him some as they walked – hazel, alder, balsam – but it soon became clear he wasn’t interested. Now she did it obstinately, pointing to a clump of clover-like leaves beside a kissing gate. ‘Wood sorrel,’ she said.
Jim barely looked where she had pointed. He pushed the gate open for her. Earlier in the day they had made an event of these gates, puckering their lips exaggeratedly. On a quiet woodland path just before the climb up to Hawkridge, their kiss had developed into something more serious as they passed through the gate – she was here anyway, she thought, and he was sexy even if he was annoying. Ann had backed against a tree, tugging Jim after her. She was gripping his erection through his trousers when she heard the clinking of camping gear, and they were still arranging themselves when a pair of older, silver-haired walkers strode past, packs swaying. Breezily they said hello, then fell laughing against each other after the strangers had passed. Now, angry at the lie, Ann still lifted her face as they passed through the gate but kept her mouth closed against the thrust of Jim’s tongue. She made a joke of it. ‘Wait till we’re in Withypool,’ she said, swatting his chest.
‘Ah, Withypool,’ Jim said with mock awe, ‘the Paris of Somerset.’
They continued moving upriver. The rushing water flashed blackly beside them. Jim was looking at something as they passed, and Ann turned to see a short metal ladder and a small cage affixed to the side of an oak.
‘For hunting?’ she said.
‘Guess so,’ he said.
Ann shook her head. Looking away, towards the water, she saw an uneven path of stepping stones running across the river. They stood from its surface like the vertebrae of a giant animal. ‘Look!’ she said. She reached into the thigh pocket of Jim’s combat trousers for the map. She spread the map on the ground and traced her finger across it. Withypool lay on the other side of a steep ridge. ‘If we cut across,’ she said, ‘we’ll avoid the climb completely.’
Jim crouched down beside the river, his back to Ann.
‘Jim, what d’you think? It knocks about a mile off. We could be in Withypool in less than half an hour.’
He still didn’t answer. Ann stood and walked over to him. The river was deeper here, and running fast. The large, irregularly shaped stones standing proud of the water were a mottled grey, their corners furred with dark green moss. The ones that sat lower in the flow were black and glossy like a killer whale’s skin.
An arrow of sun pierced the cloud and struck the running water, sending sparks s
kidding over its surface. It turned the foam fringing the stones gold, and for a moment the water became too brilliant to look at. It roared like a crowd in Ann’s ears. Jim stood.
‘Well?’ Ann said, shrugging. ‘Man or mouse?’
Jim smiled at her and looked away. ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘Let’s stick to the plan.’
‘Really?’ said Ann. She kept her voice light, but disappointment yawned in her. ‘Could be fun?’ she said.
‘Yeah.’ Jim sounded unconvinced. ‘I think we had our fun for the day back there. It looks easy, I know, but the water’s deeper here. One slip and it’s goodbye dry gear. Tomorrow’d be a joke in wet clothes.’ He picked up the map and folded it away as he started walking, then turned around and took a few steps backwards. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘Guinness on me when we get there.’
Ann forced a smile and gave him a thumbs up. She looked from one stepping stone to the next, to a cluster of white flowers nodding just above the water on the far bank. Seventeen stones. She threw a handful of plucked grass into the current and watched as the blades were snatched rapidly away.
Jim was already a good distance ahead, ascending the ridge; above him a group of sheep moved away at his approach. Keep going, you arsehole, Ann thought. She climbed after him. She wanted to be on her own, but didn’t know how Jim would react if she crossed the river without him. She couldn’t be bothered dealing with his anger, or worse, his sulking. At the top of the field, she turned just as the sun broke out again. The river ran white with light. She saw herself halfway across it, jumping from stone to stone towards the bright, empty fields beyond.
The path climbed into a wood. Ann stepped up old stone steps with risers more than a foot tall. Rivulets streaked the steep hillside. Some of them held no more than a trickle, while in others the water gushed down to join the river that now lay far below. Ann couldn’t see Jim, but she could smell his acrid tobacco smoke on the air. She swatted the air and rubbed her eyes. She felt tired, and angry with herself for being here at all. Why did she always prolong things when she knew they weren’t going to work? She fought an urge to stop walking and lie down beside the path. She passed another field of sheep, their coats marked with sprays of blue dye. Most of them were shambling away from the fence: Jim’s living wake. Only one sheep stood its ground, a black-faced animal that held Ann’s gaze as she passed, its jaw working on a hank of grass. ‘Good afternoon, Mr Sheep,’ she called, saluting the way her mum had taught her to greet magpies. The sheep blinked, and its tail flickered from side to side as it pushed a sequence of turds onto the ground behind it.
