Writ in Water

by Natasha Mostert

  ‘Hmm. I found it in the library. It used to be my favourite book as a boy.’ His voice was muffled.

  She picked up the book. The pages were yellowed and on the title page were red crayon marks. The spine was broken and the book fell open in her hands.

  And when, on the still cold nights, he pointed his nose at a star and howled long and wolf-like, it was his ancestors, dead and dust, pointing nose at star and howling down through the centuries and through him. And his cadences were their cadences, the cadences which voiced their woe and what to them was the meaning of the stillness, and the cold, and dark…

  Adam had closed his eyes. Maybe he had fallen asleep. His breath was soft and even.

  She looked back at the text in front of her. His favourite book as a boy. She wondered if he had tried to read it himself or if someone had read it to him. He had told her of his dyslexia and how it had bedevilled his childhood. But the desert had allowed him to grapple with his disability. The determination it must have cost him to sit there night after night, patiently worrying the letters until they made sense, still took her breath away.

  …behind him were the shades of all manner of dogs, half-wolves and wild wolves, urgent and prompting, tasting the savour of the meat he ate, thirsting for the water he drank, scenting the wind with him…

  He was definitely in the land of nod. His hand, resting on the pillow, twitched involuntarily. He was probably dreaming.

  Very quietly she reached over for the camera bag and drew the Leica from its protective glove. She brought the camera to her eye.

  For just a moment it was as though she was looking at his face for the first time. Tight black curls, strong jaw, wide sensuous mouth. She watched him, the lens trained on his face, and wondered what dream was lurking behind his eyelids, what impulses hid deep within the neural pathways of his brain.

  The Leica was quiet; it was one of the reasons she liked it so much. He wouldn’t even know. Slowly she pressed the shutter.

  He stirred, mumbled something. Quickly she pushed the camera into the folds of the bedclothes and picked up the book once again.

  The strain of the primitive… remained alive and active. Faithfulness and devotion, things born of fire and roof, were his; yet he retained his wildness and wiliness… Deep in the forest a call was sounding…

  THIRTY-ONE

  HE WANDERED through the house and was amazed at how detached he felt from it. In the desert he had dreamed of Paradine Park and had desperately longed to walk through its rooms again. But it was no longer the house of his imagination. Without furniture, the place seemed alien and the few memories entering his mind were pallid. The oil painting of the family hanging in the main living room could as well have depicted any other family. Even the yellowed shirts and pieces of underwear, still waiting in the closet in his old room, felt to him as though they belonged to a stranger. As he walked through the house, Justine at his side, he sensed no echo of anguish or pain. Even the mirrors throwing back his image at him in room after room had lost the power to disturb. This was no haunted house, he thought. It was only a shell.

  Until the day he was left alone.

  The big freezer was empty and the larder bare. They were running out of food and a foray into the village was called for. They sat together at the kitchen table, drawing up a list, filling it with items extravagant and fanciful. Chocolate ice cream. Champagne. Foie gras. Stilton. Marshmallows.

  ‘Everything you missed having over the past nine years,’ she said, ‘we’ll get. Let’s go wild.’ After twenty minutes she looked at their wish list with satisfaction. ‘I probably won’t find half this stuff in Ainstey. I’ll have to look further afield.’ She picked up her bag and slipped into her coat. ‘But I’ll hurry back.’

  From inside the hallway he watched through the window as she ran out to the car in the sifting rain, her head bowed, her face shadowed by the brim of her hat. As the car turned into the avenue of trees, she leaned out the window and blew him a kiss.

  He wandered into the library and stopped at the desk. For a while he lingered over the pictures she had taken of the house, his hands reverently touching the surface of the prints. They were so amazing. The phantom animal in the photographs looked exactly like Dante. He knew Justine was still trying to make logical sense of these pictures but he accepted them unquestioningly.

  Sighing, he turned away from the prints on the desk. He wondered how long she would be away for. He missed her already. Without her the silence in the house felt oppressive. Maybe he should take a walk outside, clear his head.

  Long tendrils of mist hung in the silent air; the artificial lake seemed to drift inches above the ground. He entered the maze of hedges, his hand brushing against the prickly leaves and twigs, barely able to see half a metre in front of him. But his feet still knew the way, his brain was still able to map the twists and turns.

  He heard something scratch in the undergrowth—a bird? He stood quietly, moving his head slowly from side to side, but he could not spot it. He placed his hands around his mouth and tried to emulate the warble of a wood pigeon, but his voice had no echo, the sound deadened by the fog, and he let his arms fall to his side.

  His shoes were becoming soaked, with his socks clinging damply to his feet. He should return to the house.

  There was one room he had avoided up till now. His mother’s bedroom had the door shut tight and he had no wish to open it. But now he walked up the stairs purposefully and placed his hand on the knob. The door opened silently.

  The room was empty, the light in here milky as though filtered through water. The only object in the room was an Oriental vase on the mantelpiece. He remembered it well. Vanilla porcelain tinged with paradisal blue, the curve of the vase as perfect as the curve of a woman’s hip. On the wall above the bed had hung a heavy mirror encrusted with cherubs and cornucopia overflowing. It was no longer there. It used to be one of his mother’s favourite pieces and he wondered what had happened to it. In contrast to the ornateness of the mirror, the bed itself had always been dressed austerely, a simple off-white linen spread draped over its massive frame. The room had reflected that strange mixture of piety and deep sensualism which had personified his mother. On the bedside table had stood a tiny statuette of a pot-bellied cupid, next to it a leather-bound Bible with polished buckles made of brass.

  Over there, in front of the window, had been her dressing table. If he shut his eyes he could picture it. The polished mahogany surface, the tall, tilting mirror. His mother’s silver-backed brushes in a neat row and next to them the veined alabaster urn holding her hairclips and pins. His mother’s hands moving deftly to secure the low chignon in her neck; removing a tissue from its box to blot her lips. The tissue with its red kiss fluttering to the floor.

  He had fled to Ireland that night nine years ago and it was there he had learned of his mother’s suicide, standing in the shelter of the striped awning of a tiny corner shop, the rain sluicing down in fluorescent rivers, his fingers black from the newsprint of the paper gripped within his hands.

  He looked around the empty room and suddenly his heart was racing. The white wall in front of him was all at once red with blood—large, extravagant splashes spattered across its entire breadth. Did she place the shotgun in her mouth? Against her head? Was she lying down? Shivers were running over his scalp. His thoughts were a swarm of black bats blocking out the light.

  ‘Adam?’ Justine’s lilting voice floated up the staircase as bright as a promise of salvation. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m here,’ he shouted, stumbling out of the room and slamming the door shut with clumsy hands. ‘Wait for me, I’m coming. Wait for me.’

  • • •

  THAT NIGHT they lit long tapering candles for their feast and retrieved the paper-thin gold-rimmed plates and dishes stacked away in a dusty corner of the china closet. For the first time since his arrival, they sat down for dinner in the dining room at the formal mahogany table. Outside, thick clouds were rolling acros
s the sky and the trees swayed in the wind.

  She looked across at him. The light from the candles threw dramatic shadows on his face. His eyes were fixed on the stem of the champagne glass he was turning between his fingers.

  Something wasn’t right. She had sensed in him a disquiet ever since her return from the shops. He hadn’t said anything and had smiled at her, touching her face, her hands. They had even danced together, but she wasn’t fooled.

  The windowpanes behind him gleamed red in the flickering light as though a fire was burning on the other side. She shivered and got to her feet. Walking over to the window, she stood for a moment, staring out.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  She glanced at him over her shoulder. ‘I don’t know. I keep having the feeling that there are eyes outside watching us.’ She rubbed her shoulders. ‘I’m being ridiculous.’ But she unhooked the tasselled restrainers and pulled the heavy velvet curtains together.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’ She looked at him steadily.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something happened this morning while I was away.’

  He shrugged. ‘Earlier today I was reminded that the past cannot be undone. No matter what, it will always seep through into the present.’

  ‘We can put the past behind us.’

  He smiled and she knew it was because of the ease with which the cliché had sprung from her lips. ‘The Himba people see time as a river,’ he answered. ‘The past is not behind you, but in front of you. You have already lived through it and therefore it is ahead and visible. The future lies behind you where you cannot see it. If it was ahead of you, you would know what will happen in the days to come and that, of course, cannot be. So it is simply not possible to look ahead—this is a peculiarly Western delusion. And you also cannot put the past behind you. If you could put the past behind you where it cannot be seen, it would be dangerous, as you might forget it and the past should never be forgotten.’

  ‘Why not?’ Her voice was fierce. ‘Why can’t it be forgotten, put aside? Why can we not reinvent ourselves and start afresh? It is possible. We will make it so.’

  ‘We can try.’

  ‘We can fight. Warriors, remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Live life ecstatically. Our promise to each other.’

  ‘Yes.’ He smiled. ‘It’s the only way we can progress, the only way the next door will open into a reality that is better than the one we’re living in at present.’

  ‘Now that I’ve found you I’m perfectly happy with the reality we live in now, Adam. I don’t need another, better life after this one.’

  He shook his head. ‘The connections between our lives are in place. Some lie in the past, some are forming now and the rest are in the future.’

  She was silent.

  ‘Justine? You do believe that, don’t you?’

  She hesitated.

  ‘Say you believe it.’ He brought his head close to hers, his eyes very dark. ‘Say you do.’

  ‘Adam…’

  ‘If you don’t believe it, it may be a long time before we meet up again. Not in the next life, or even the one after. I know it in my heart. You have to believe.’

  He grasped her hand so strongly, the champagne slopped over the edge of her glass. The intensity in his eyes made her feel afraid.

  ‘I do,’ she said quickly. ‘I believe.’

  • • •

  BUT OF COURSE, she did not—not really. It was miracle enough that they had found each other in this life and under these circumstances. To wish for more was tempting fate. You were given one life only. If you squandered it, there was no second time around. She and Adam were given this one chance. They had to make it work for them now, not in other lives yet to come.

  She turned her head on the pillow. Adam was sleeping. He was lying on his back, his head to one side, his one hand clutched in a loose fist. She placed her hand on his shoulder, felt the powerful mesh of muscle and bone.

  For the first time since he had stepped out of her dream and into her room, she had difficulty falling asleep. She was wearing a long-sleeved nightdress, but she couldn’t seem to get warm. She lay awake, blanket clutched to her chin, watching through the thin lace curtains the ghostly shadow of a trailing bough of creeper. Maybe it was time for them to leave Paradine Park. They had talked about the new life they would have together, but only in the vaguest terms. It was like building a castle in the sky, opening windows set into airy walls, walking down passages and staircases made of glass. The idea that she would have to leave this country for good had not really sunk in at all. But at some point she would have to square up to what her new life was going to be like. Every day Adam stayed in England was a day he was in danger. They had been together for seventeen days now. Soon they would have to come to a decision. But not yet. Maybe they had a few more days of grace left.

  She was just about to slide into sleep when she heard a high whimpering sound. She rolled over on her side and looked at him. He was weeping. He was asleep but there were tears rolling down his cheeks.

  ‘Adam,’ she said urgently and shook his shoulder.

  His eyes jerked open. ‘What is it?’ His voice sounded perfectly normal, neither sleepy nor confused.

  ‘You were dreaming.’

  He turned away from her and sighed. ‘I don’t think so.’

  • • •

  HE TURNED OVER and almost immediately drifted off again. One moment Justine’s hand was on his shoulder, her voice urging him into wakefulness, the next moment he had stepped back into the world of slumber. He wasn’t dreaming; he wished he were. He was trapped in a no-man’s land between consciousness and sleep. He could feel his eyeballs jerking as images so fleeting that they were impossible to remember raced across his retina. He was intensely conscious of his breathing. In, out, laboured. His thoughts liquid and incoherent. Part of his brain still alert.

  He jerked awake into full consciousness, his body suddenly flooded with adrenaline.

  Something was wrong.

  Against his arm he felt Justine’s hand, the fingers relaxed. Her breath against his neck was warm and slow. She was sleeping peacefully. No, whatever it was that had propelled his senses into high alert lay elsewhere.

  Without moving his head, he allowed his eyes to travel slowly around the room. The outline of the chair. The dark shape of the dresser and the curve of the mirror.

  The window was open a tiny crack and the wind gently lifted the curtains. The pictures and newspaper clippings that were taped to the walls were stirring, as though a ghostly hand was leafing through them surreptitiously.

  Click. An alien sound, this. Tiny, but it jerked his attention toward the door as though he was tethered to a leash. He forced his breathing to stay even, closed his eyes until they were mere slits.

  One moment the gap between door and jamb was empty and then, there it was. A figure. Moving quickly.

  The intruder was nervous. He could smell him.

  The figure stopped beside the bed.

  Catapulting his body into an upright position, Adam slammed his hand into the intruder’s throat, his fingers stiff. The gasp of pain that met his action was loud. He pushed himself to his feet, away from the bed, and rammed his shoulder into the body in front of him. The figure collapsed as though it had been cut off at the legs. Without hesitation, Adam straddled the prone figure, putting his weight on the man’s chest. Grabbing the intruder’s windpipe, he squeezed hard.

  He heard Justine shout in confused alarm and the next moment she had switched on the light.

  The face looking up at him was contorted. The eyes were filled with tears of anger and pain. A gurgling sound came from the half-open mouth.

  Adam relaxed his grip slightly. In response, there was a strangled noise and an attempt to hit him.

  ‘Stop that.’ Adam tightened his grip again. ‘Or I’ll keep this up until you pass out.’

  ‘I know him.’

  He looked over his shoulder.
Justine was staring at the man on the ground. ‘I know him,’ she repeated.

  He looked back at the face in front of him. Sharp-chinned, pimply, a straggly moustache clinging to the upper lip. Painfully thin. Very young. A kid, really. But in his belt was a knife, unsheathed, and it was not the kind of knife you slipped into the dishwasher after dinner. Large, with serrated edges, it was a knife with which to intimidate, a knife that could do serious damage. He pulled it out of the waistband and flung it to one side. The kid winced, breathed shallowly through his nose.

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘Timmy somebody. He trespassed once before, he and his girlfriend. I should have called the police then, but the girlfriend stopped me.’

  ‘Take the belt off your robe. Use it to tie his hands.’

  She shook her head. ‘I’ve got something better.’ She reached for a drawer and removed from it a roll of silver duct tape. ‘Standard photographer’s equipment,’ she said as she knelt down beside him.

  When she was finished taping the intruder’s hands, they looked at each other, then at Timmy, who was easing himself into a sitting position, then at each other once again. In her eyes he could see the question that was forming inside his own mind. Now what?

  To make it worse, as they stood there suddenly speechless, he saw the weaselly face look past his shoulder, his expression first turning into puzzlement and then into dawning comprehension.

  Adam turned his head and looked straight into a photograph that was ten years old. His own. The picture Justine had cut out of the newspaper and blown up to several times the original size. The Face of a Killer.

  He looked at Justine. ‘He recognised me.’

  She nodded, her eyes stricken.

  It was so quiet he could hear the trickle of water down a pipe, the soft dragging sound of leaves barely scratching the windowpane. In some part of his brain was the realisation that what happened next could determine the outcome of more than just this night. But he felt paralysed, unable to even pick up his hand.

  ‘Adam.’ Justine’s voice cut through his thoughts. Her face had sharpened. The expression in her eyes was one of such ice-cold determination, he could only stare. ‘Get him to his feet.’