The Swimmer
Roma Tearne
‘The Swimmer’ is a gripping, captivating novel about love, loss and what home really means.Forty-three year old Ria is used to being alone. As a child, her life changed forever with the death of her beloved father and since then, she has struggled to find love.That is, until she discovers the swimmer.Ben is a young illegal immigrant from Sri Lanka who has arrived in Norfolk via Moscow. Awaiting a decision from the Home Office on his asylum application, he is discovered by Ria as he takes a daily swim in the river close to her house. He is twenty years her junior and theirs is an unconventional but deeply moving romance, defying both boundaries and cultures – and the xenophobic residents of Orford. That is, until tragedy occurs.
The Swimmer
Roma Tearne
Barrie
Epigraph (#ulink_5c31de26-65eb-5e69-b645-176a3f97279b)
Years
Later in the same fields
He stood at night when eels
Moved through the grass like hatched fears
Towards the water.
Seamus Heaney
A people does not carry the memory of its humiliations as an individual does.
André Chamson (1940)
SOMEONE HAD PLACED THE CALVES AT (#ulink_6928565b-d2e0-5901-8d53-d3a0f37e0f5c) the entrance to Unthank Farm. The farmer, arriving at his usual early hour, discovered them. All three, pushed up against a barrel of hay, with their throats slit, in the way animals were butchered by the Halal butcher in Ipswich. It was August, hot and with the promise of a golden month ahead. Shocked, the farmer called the vet, who in turn reported the matter to the police, but the calves were already dead. A small item in the local newspaper recorded the incident which otherwise went unnoticed.
Unthank Farm spreads out towards the edge of the city of Ipswich. It is the largest farm in the area. A few days later, a rambler out walking some thirty-two miles away on Dunwich Heath, came across a dog with its throat slit. The dog was a German shepherd and it lay on the edge of the road that runs in a straight line down to Dunwich beach. It was still alive. The rambler bent and examined it. The animal had a collar but no name disc. The nearest house was some distance away, its rooftop just visible. Assuming it must belong there, he picked up the feebly struggling animal and staggered back along the road. But the house, when he reached it, looked empty. It was large, built in red brick and with an abundance of Scotch pines and thick undergrowth in the small copse behind. There were no cars in the drive, no signs of activity, no radio playing. The man hesitated. The dog was obviously cared for, its collar looked new, but the rambler was on his way to meet a group of other walkers and was already late. Placing the animal on the front doorstep, he rang the bell. There was a long pause. Then he rang the bell again, listening out for the sound of footsteps. Still nothing. Moving back, he was about to call out when he noticed one of the windows had been smashed. Clearly someone had broken in. The rambler peered through the jagged glass. He saw a room lined with bookcases and a few pieces of what looked like 1950s furniture. He saw some paintings on the walls but they were too far away and the room was too dark to make them out properly. He stepped back. The place was probably alarmed. It wouldn’t do to be caught like a thief, he thought. Just at that moment the dog made a rattling noise in its throat. Blood gushed out. It struggled, moaning softly. Then it was still. The rambler saw that it had died. Suddenly he did not want to be in this place another second. He had a mobile phone deep in his rucksack, he would call the local police about the break-in and the dog. But first he would get the hell out of here, he thought, his feet crunching hastily on the gravel driveway.
Twenty minutes later the vet from Orford arrived with the police. He was the same one who had examined the calves at Unthank Farm. The marks on the dead dog were similar to those on the calves. A slit across the throat. It was also clear that the house had been broken into. But although the rooms had been ransacked, at first glance nothing appeared to have been taken. The police began the process of lifting fingerprints and contacting the owner, William Letsby. Letsby had left his dog alone in the house for only a few hours while visiting friends in the Ipswich area. When asked his occupation he told the police he worked for the Home Office. The officer, glancing at Letsby’s ID, realised he was fairly high up in the Department of Immigration. He could also see that the man was very distressed about his dog and trying to hide this fact. Apologising, glad that nothing had been stolen, he left as soon as possible. He would be in touch, he said, in the event they caught any suspects. Meanwhile he was sorry about the dog.
Orford is a sleepy village of some beauty abutting the marshlands on one side and the estuary on the other. There are mighty tides that sweep in from the sea. Banks of sludge and silt laid down over the ages by all the marsh rivers lie unnoticed on the riverbed. The wading birds do nicely, as do the eels. Occasionally, when the tide is out and the water in the surrounding inlets appears to drop to almost nothing, you see them: eels, the length of bootlaces and the colour of green glass, twisting in the twilight.
Appearances can, however, be deceptive. People have been known to drown here. Two miles to the east, a matter of minutes by car, is Orford Ness, a one-time MoD establishment used for atomic weapons research. Now it is a benign and deserted haven for wild birds. Visitors in a small but steady stream come to visit it all year round, to walk, and observe the wildlife. This flat land with its extraordinary skies and matchstick forests is steeped in history. It is perfect country for painters, perfect crow country. But it is not a place with a high crime rate, and the vet was puzzled by the two incidents. Nothing like this had happened before. The police wondered if the animals had been the victims of a vixen. The vet knew this was not possible as the incisions looked to have been made with a knife. A local journalist filed copy about the Orford Ness animal killer but the editor did not print it for fear of causing panic amongst his readers. Besides, a circus had just moved into town and there were other, more interesting stories to print. And so the matter was dropped.
Then on the following Thursday two houses on the A1094 out of Aldeburgh were broken into and a large black retriever was found lying in a country lane. It too had been killed with a single cut to the throat. Nothing had been stolen from the houses and although a couple of windows had been broken no one had been seen entering or leaving. By now the circus was in full swing and the editor of the local paper did not run this story either.
The journalist who had filed the report was a married man, bored by the fact that nothing ever happened in Orford. The editor told him to stop complaining, forget the animal killer, and write a feature on the circus instead. But luck was on his side. While he was poking around the caravans, there was a commotion. One of the performing monkeys had been found dead. Its throat had been slit. The journalist’s eyes gleamed.
The day was marked by a warm breeze carrying the smell of ozone and fish, the sea was jewel-like and sparkling with the sun spilling over it. A small plane from RAF Mildenhall droned overhead, children played ball on the shingles. By nightfall the beach would be crowded with people returning from the circus, heading towards the fish-and-chip shop or the pub. But for now Eddie Sharp’s matinee performance was about to begin. Minus one small monkey.
No one would talk to the journalist. His eager, wolfish face made the circus folk wary. The monkey was buried quickly before the flies and the stink took hold, and the unease was quietly papered over.
In the centre of town a book launch was under way. A bestselling crime novelist was discussing his latest novel before a small audience. The journalist poked his head through the door of the bookshop. The launch had been advertised as ‘Fiction Noir’ with a picture of a corpse on a red background on the poster. The shop was packed. Solving a crime was better than Sudoku. There’s nothing here, thought the journalist, and he headed back to the office.
‘Not enough for a story,’ said the editor, shaking his head. ‘Talk to the police, see what they think. They won’t want you alarming anyone while the circus is here.’
The journalist was expecting this response. He had just been trying it on. The editor, who understood him all too well, eyed him speculatively.
‘Take a break, John,’ he said easily. ‘Take your son to see the big top.’
John frowned. He didn’t welcome advice about what to do with his kid, but he decided it mightn’t be a bad idea to take another look at the circus that evening, when it was dark. Something was nagging at him; perhaps a return visit would clear his mind. And what could be more natural than taking his four-year-old son?
‘It won’t finish until after his bedtime,’ his wife protested. ‘And he’ll be bad-tempered tomorrow.’
But the journalist insisted, and as it had been years since she had been to a circus, his wife agreed.
‘I’ll be back in a minute,’ John announced when they were settled in their seats. His son was clutching a balloon, staring solemnly at the empty ring ahead.
Sawdust and bright lights, with a hint of tiger musk. John slipped out. The caravans’ entrances were obscured from view. When he tried to push past the barrier, he was stopped. His press pass was useless against the wall of hostility he encountered. He slipped back into his seat just as the drum rolled.
‘What are you up to?’ his wife hissed.
John shook his head, placing a finger on his lips.
‘Sshh!’ he mumbled as the show began.
The applause was deafening. No one heard the scream. No one inside the tent, anyway. By the time the story was out, it was too late; the show was over, the trapeze artist had folded himself down to the ground, the sawdust was soiled with sweat and the tent had emptied. John Ashby, freelance journalist for the Suffolk Echo, heard nothing until the next morning when his editor informed him of the event.
A circus woman in her mid to late thirties had been attacked in her caravan. A kitchen knife had been held to her throat and the threat of rape whispered in her ear. She had not seen the man’s face but his hands were dark-skinned. Later, she told the police that all her travel documents, including her British passport, had been stolen.
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u852417d1-ce93-51a0-92b2-5839878483fc)
Title Page (#uec904d02-4921-50bb-abe3-bc171d099a86)
Dedication (#u4611ffb7-1440-5dec-a4b2-6c72ef9e4d4e)
Epigraph (#u465c1d8f-2322-5271-8194-e45d7b2870a2)
SOMEONE HAD PLACED THE CALVES (#u4a0969f3-3656-57d9-bd46-afeecd54e358)
Ria (#uf513675e-498e-5dd3-bb0a-1e244f3d44d9)
1 (#uf939d7a9-ed02-5238-884b-f5b6d2d0701c)
2 (#ua83dfaa6-5154-5161-89de-084ab5cd92bf)
3 (#uc9005dfd-0ac5-5cc6-894f-110f4b411439)
4 (#litres_trial_promo)
5 (#litres_trial_promo)
6 (#litres_trial_promo)
7 (#litres_trial_promo)
Anula (#litres_trial_promo)
8 (#litres_trial_promo)
9 (#litres_trial_promo)
10 (#litres_trial_promo)
11 (#litres_trial_promo)
12 (#litres_trial_promo)
13 (#litres_trial_promo)
14 (#litres_trial_promo)
15 (#litres_trial_promo)
16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Lydia (#litres_trial_promo)
17 (#litres_trial_promo)
18 (#litres_trial_promo)
19 (#litres_trial_promo)
20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)
BEHIND THE SCENES (#litres_trial_promo)
A BANDIT OR A REBEL (#litres_trial_promo)
TRUST THE TALE (#litres_trial_promo)
THE PASSIONAL SOUL (#litres_trial_promo)
Also by Roma Tearne (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Ria (#ulink_bc549bea-0699-538e-aa9f-8aa2aa40424e)
1 (#ulink_59fe6469-b5ba-5078-98e1-7b3e6cb7a3b8)
I REMEMBER IT WAS TOWARDS THE middle of August. Thursday the eighteenth, in fact. That I remember so clearly, so painfully still, tells me that I have never for one instant truly forgotten what happened. Great waves of tenderness sweep over me even now, and I am still able to feel within myself the faint, dreadful stirring of what so overwhelmingly and completely engulfed me then. That night the heat held me in a stranglehold. I remember swallowing it in huge gulps and sighs as I listened to the soft gasp of the river. A vast yearning, an unknown expectation was poised to grip me, so that some time later I thought my heart itself would burst. But first came the beginning.
Towards midnight on that evening I woke with a start to the crackle and dance of white static on the television screen. I think I must have fallen asleep with my fingers wrapped around the remote control. It was stiflingly hot, unusual for East Anglia. I remember I wiped small beads of perspiration from my face with the back of my hand, thinking how unlike Britain this was, to feel so hot. I must have been disorientated, confused rather than frightened. No, I wasn’t frightened at all on this perfectly ordinary summer night. Car headlights swept up and down the length of the garden like giant eyelids lighting up parts of the river, dipping into wetland mud before vanishing. The summer renters from Italy had returned after an evening out. I heard them slamming doors in a reckless way, laughing, happy.
‘Si, va bene,’ one of them said, faintly. ‘Capisco, capisco!’ and then they went inside.
I switched off the television without moving from my chair and the surface of the night appeared once more as an undisturbed skin. Except for a small liquid sound, quickly suppressed. So small was it that I continued to sit, glasses in hand, straining my ears, still half asleep, only half listening. Then I padded across towards the open window where the air was filled with summer fragrance. And I heard the sound again quite distinctly. A splash, some movement, then…nothing. The river licking itself, perhaps. Fully awake now, I stood bandaged in the folds of the thin curtain, glad of the high hedge that screened the garden on one side from my neighbours. And I heard it again, that sound, soft and rhythmic, like oars, moving through water. It was coming from below, from the direction of the river. An animal perhaps, cooling off. From where I stood I caught a glimpse of the water. A horned moon cast a dim light over it. In the distance, not quite discernible, was the vast shingle waste of Orford Ness.
One of my tasks that August was to do something about the inlet from the river that lay at the end of the garden. Over time, slowly and due to lack of use, it had become a swamp of leaves and drowned insects. There was no one to swim in it any more; no children escaping from parents, no adolescents messing about in boats. Since I returned to the house it had become merely a thing of untidy beauty. Only Eric came past occasionally in his boat, looking for places to leave his eel-traps. Eric had farmed the land and fished these waters for as long as I could remember. He lived at Fruit Tree Farm. When my Uncle Clifford decided to split his farm and sell it because of ill health it was Eric who saved the land from developers by buying it at a decent price. It all happened long ago, when I was still at school and the house we call Eel House came to be mine.
I was still living with Ant when Clifford died, still hoping I might have a child, still craving for love of sorts. We were in the middle of doing the rounds of the fertility clinics with dreary futility. First Ant was tested, then I. There were months of endless temperature charts ahead of us before I was forced to acknowledge that no technology on earth could help an old uterus. I was told bluntly that the eggs would not stick, whatever that meant. I was thirty-eight and, it would appear, punished by inexplicable infertility. When it sunk in, when at last I said the word barren out loud to myself, staring into a mirror, I began to notice that infertility was on the increase in Britain. Everywhere I went, I met women who could not hold a fertilised egg. There we all were, girls with bodies that still looked young but had grown old internally.
‘It’s always been this way,’ the doctor told me, when I protested. ‘Women’s reproductive rate slows down with age.’
So why hadn’t I realised there was an epidemic of childlessness? The papers wrote about insecticides and too many chemicals in the soil. Women, they told us, were filling up with harmful poisons. It would take years to reverse the current trends. Teenage pregnancies are best, the papers urged, contrary to everything they had been saying for years. If only it were that simple.
Ant left me. He was desperate for a family. If I couldn’t help him then he was sorry but he would be forced to go elsewhere. Who says men don’t have biological clocks? His callousness was breathtaking. In the long, sleepless nights that followed I began to think of Eel House. Throughout what was left of that miserable year the memory of it shifted uneasily within me. Like a tennis ball passed over the net, a plan went backwards and forwards across my mind. Once, many years ago, I had been happy there and now it was as though a fragment from that time had begun working its way to the surface, dislodging the earlier hurt, buried for so long. Suddenly my homesickness could not be contained and I wanted to go back. I remembered East Anglia as a place of both love and betrayal, of far-away summers and family fictions. A place where my beloved father had walked with me in the matchstick woods, and the place where, after his death, I returned to briefly in despair. Eel House belonged to me now, it would be easy to go back. On an impulse I wrote to Eric, who replied with a single word.
‘Come!’
So I turned back towards the east and my past, wanting to see again those wide watercolour skies and soft reed-grey marshes that blended so perfectly with the sea. Hopefully, looking for peace. I was forty-three years old; a poet whose work, even before Ant left me, dealt with emptiness; the colour of it, its smell.
The tug of the water being pushed aside grew louder. It wasn’t an animal; there was too much control, too many regular pauses, as if something, or someone, was taking their time. The moon came out from behind a cigarette-paper cloud and I caught a glimpse of the row of wooden fence-posts rising up like the river’s rotten teeth, and then some spray as an arm rose and fell and turned again in the water. My first thought was that I ought to warn whoever it was that this inlet was dirty and had been stagnant for a long time. Swimming in it would only churn the mud up. My second was that the door into the house was not locked. Whoever was down there could easily come in. I was alone, of course. Earlier that evening Miranda, my sister-in-law, had rung to say they were leaving London the following morning for their annual visit. In the morning, too, the cleaner would arrive, but now, at midnight, I was alone. With the darkness and the soft paddling of human limbs in the water below.
The movement stopped and then resumed, stroke by stroke, rhythmically. Silently, avoiding the furniture, the small occasional tables, the standard lamp, the foot stool, I moved across towards the French windows. I could get a better view from here. By now I was fully awake, breathless with suspense. Like a young girl, alert and taut, interested. Even my dress, caught in the moonlight, scrunched up and white, felt insubstantial, as though worn with the crumpled haste of youth. The moon was so good a liar, I remember thinking fleetingly, as I edged towards the window. Why was I so unafraid?
The man—no woman would have ventured into such filthy water—reached the end of his length and I saw a pair of hands rest against the grass before he heaved himself up on to the bank. I squinted, trying to catch sight of a face, concentrating hard, wishing I knew where my glasses were but not daring to move too much in case I was spotted. The straw-coloured moon was just slipping behind a cloud as I saw with some surprise that he was bare to the waist. He had been swimming in his trousers. In the semi-darkness I could see he was young and as he turned and picked up the shirt that lay on the grass I saw he was very dark and somehow, I felt, even from this distance, foreign. He turned sharply as though he had heard me move, but it was in the wrong direction. I wish you could have seen me in that moment, unafraid and a little astonished by my own calm acceptance of an intruder on my property. An owl hooted and the man looked up at the sky, unhurried, as though he had all the time in the world, as if the garden itself belonged to him. What cheek, I thought in reluctant admiration, as I watched him button his shirt and search for his shoes. The moon disappeared completely and when it reappeared he was moving in long strides through the soft August night. A small, gloved wind stirred the trees. There was a noise downstairs, in the hall perhaps? I could hear my heart beating. What should I do if he was in the house? There was no telephone in my study. To get to the renters next door I would have to go through the front door and down the drive. My feet would crunch on the gravel. I would be heard. Again, the smallest of noises; I was certain it was coming from below. Suddenly I was rooted to the spot; belatedly, I was frightened.
After the business of the will and the house, after the years of animosity, my brother Jack and I were finally on speaking terms. During the years of our disagreement he had pestered me constantly to sell the house. Ostensibly the reason he had given was that I should not live in such isolation in this house.
‘For God’s sake, Ria, sell the bloody place,’ he was always saying. ‘What does a woman in your position want with a mausoleum like that?’
What he meant was, what did a woman of forty-three, an unloved spinster like me, want with a house that by rights should belong to a family like his. Eel House had not been left to him but to me. There had, however, been a clause in the will. If it were sold, he would have half the money from its sale. My brother Jack was a strange, restless man, frequently angry, sometimes a bully. We did not know what to make of each other, so that, ignoring the sub-texts of our disagreements I had inadvertently ignored his warnings about safety. Only yesterday he had told me I needed new locks on the doors and windows.
‘I suppose you’re waiting for me to sort it out,’ he had said.
Bitterness from childhood flashed between us. I was weary of it. I had offered him every access to the house. I told him that he could use it at any time and that I would share everything with him. It was not as if he were poor; he had been left our London home by our mother. All I had was Eel House and the small amount of dwindling savings from my days as a university lecturer. Nonetheless, Jack wanted me to sell up and split the money. But for once I stood up to him. Our mother was no longer there to take his side. Miranda had always, to her credit, stayed neutral, so I told him firmly I would never sell the house. It was the beginning of a feud that was to last for years, until Ant left and Miranda, feeling sorry for me, rang up.
The truth was I hadn’t cared; either about his never-ending resentment, or my own safety. These days I was past caring about anything much, except perhaps for the fact that I had not completed a poem in nearly two years. Everything had dried up inside me.
Now, belatedly, fear stirred within me and I hesitated; tomorrow morning might be too late. Of course, I didn’t think this. When you are frightened all your mind has time for is the fear itself, and by now I admit I was frightened. It took some effort for me to open the door and head for the landing. I held an open penknife in my hand. It was laughable. Everything creaked. All those boards that were usually silent moved with me as I crept downstairs. Several times I froze, straining my ears. The moon was still behind the clouds; there was no light on the marshes. I was convinced someone was in the kitchen. What I needed was to get as far as the hall in order to find the telephone. The phones being portable, none were ever where they should be. Too late to be thinking about this, now.
Slowly I inched my way along the hall, barefoot, skimpily dressed, clutching that ridiculous penknife. What if he was a rapist? Don’t be stupid, Ria, I told myself, you’re too old to interest a rapist! I tried not to think about the incident that had occurred a few days ago in Aldeburgh when a woman had been held at knife-point. The woman had been a circus hand, but still, the police had urged people in the area to lock their doors. I reached the telephone just as the church clock struck the quarter. The only number I could ring at this hour was the police, but I was reluctant to do so. This was a small community; word would get out. People knew my brother Jack. He was bound to hear of it. He would tell me triumphantly, finally, I was losing my nerve! I would play into his hands at last, and the insidious process of ousting me from the house and putting it up for sale would begin. I hesitated. I swear the only reason I didn’t punch in the number was the thought of Jack’s smug face and in that moment, while I stood uncertainly, without warning, the outside light flickered on. I flattened myself against the wall and held my breath. There was the unmistakable sound of gravel and then, footsteps, fading away. I don’t know how long I stood there, rooted to the spot, but eventually the light switched off again. The moon reappeared showing its damaged side, barely above dream level. I blinked and found the switch in the hall.
Nothing, there was nothing. An unmistakable sense of disappointment flooded over me. The penknife was still in my hand. I closed it, turned the key in the back door, (yes, it was unlatched) and pulled down the blinds. Then, getting myself a drink of water from the jug in the fridge, I went upstairs and fell into an exhausted sleep, not realising I was still clutching the telephone.
The following day was Friday and I awoke late. Sarah the cleaner had let herself in and was just finishing downstairs.
‘You’re tired,’ she said when she saw me emerge. ‘Late night?’
‘Yes.’
I went over to make some tea. My weekly organic box was on the work surface. There were the last of the broad beans, field mushrooms and asparagus. There was no fruit. I had asked for cherries, some raspberries, but there was nothing. Not even apples. Sarah was vacuuming the stairs. I could hear her banging the nozzle against the banisters with more vigour than seemed necessary. I knew she had stolen the fruit. Every time she came she stole something, however small. It was a token of…I’m not sure what. Some suppressed rage. I knew she didn’t like me. Once I had confronted her with some CDs I’d found in her bag and she had pretended to be dumbfounded.
‘I’ve no idea how they got there,’ she had said.
As if it was my fault. I know she stole money, too, but I had no way of proving it. Since it wasn’t possible to get another cleaner to come this far out of town, I continued to keep her on, but I didn’t leave anything of value lying around. I was on the point of looking in her bag for the missing fruit when she walked back into the kitchen and glared at me. Sighing, I picked up the paper and went into the dining room. Jack, Miranda and their children would have left London by now. I could hear Sarah going back upstairs to put clean sheets on all the beds. Then she would wash the kitchen floor and then, thank goodness, she would leave. It was almost ten. I sipped my tea and suddenly, without any warning, I remembered the swimmer. My God! How could I have forgotten him?
Solitude creates a peculiar inner life. Unbroken silence, frightening to begin with, soon becomes a way of life. At mealtimes there is only the clatter of one set of crockery, the crunch of your own teeth on food, the sound of yourself swallowing. When Ant was no longer there to bounce my thoughts off those things that had been suppressed for years began to turn endlessly in my head. There was no one to shout, Stop, stop, you’re going crazy. If you are unloved, as I was, husbandless, childless, you develop a way of thinking and being that is haphazard. Life pares down, sex becomes something other people engage in, like dancing. However much you longed for it, all you had was yourself. This was how I was at forty-three. Years before, when Jack first brought Miranda home (Ant had not yet made his brief appearance in my life) I could tell he thought of me as a born spinster.
‘My sister is frigid,’ I imagined him saying, making her giggle.
Hard to think of her giggling now, but in the early days, I used to be able to tell simply by the way Miranda looked at me, she was thinking, Oh yes, frigid. Definitely! I was not frigid. Someone had to suggest sex before they could call you frigid. There was no one to do that then or now.
In some sense life closed down for me after the shock of my father’s death. Until then, I’ve been told I was a chatty, friendly child. Happy, too, I believe. Now and then glimpses of that girlhood flit across my dreams; sunlight on an otherwise shadowed life, insubstantial like light, vanishing as I wake. The woman I am today is still possessed by that invisible child.
Last night’s appearance of the swimmer had the quality of those dreams. I remembered a mosaic I had once seen in the archaeological museum in Naples. That too had been of a swimmer. Thin arms, rising slightly, slim hips, head poised as he bent to retrieve his clothes. What nonsense the night throws up, I thought. In the daylight it was unimaginable that I had been frightened. Stirring myself, I decided to tidy the garden before Jack arrived.
‘I’m off then,’ Sarah said, coming in, making me jump.
She stared at me, her face resentful as she waited for her pay.
What the hell was she angry about? I’m the one whose fruit had been stolen. I hesitated.
‘Sarah,’ I said, handing over her money, ‘I’m afraid…I’m sorry, but I’m not going to need any cleaning for a while. The house is going to be full for a month. It’s a bit pointless trying to tidy up.’
She had a bullish look. She wasn’t going to make it easy for me.
‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll contact you after the summer, shall I?’
‘Are you giving me the sack?’ she asked.
‘No, no, Sarah…’
God! The woman made my flesh creep.
‘I’m just suggesting we have a bit of a break.’
‘You’ll lose me,’ she said threateningly.
‘Yes, I see that.’
‘I’m not going to wait around. There are others who’ll want me.’
I looked at her helplessly.
‘I’ll take a chance,’ I said.
I should have sacked her months ago.
‘Please yourself then,’ she said.
And she left, taking my fruit and who knows what else with her.
It was eleven by now. Jack would be here by four. The house smelt of the eucalyptus polish that Sarah insisted on using. Sunlight poured in through the kitchen window. Relieved to be rid of her, I went upstairs.
In the shower I thought once more of the swimmer. Warm water flowed over me. I felt a spurt of energy, the first in months, and the stirring of a possible poem. The emptiness I carried around within me receded slightly. I felt moulded in wetness and light. When I was younger, during that awkward adolescent stage, Uncle Clifford used to say I had the look of Kate in the novel The Go-Between. What he meant was, I think, I looked a bit like the actress who played the part of Kate in the film version. I can’t remember her name but she had blue eyes (as I do), and fair, wavy hair, like mine. Why am I saying this? What difference can it possibly make, except perhaps to present the picture of what I once was, what I might have been, had the circumstances been right? Tall and willowy, Ant had said, in our moments of passion. With a sensuous mouth. For some reason I thought of this now.
It is important that I describe the fabric of that day and the days that followed. After I dressed, I went outside into the garden and picked some white Japanese anemones. The sky was cloudless. That summer, the heat had built up in layers, slowly, beautifully, like daily washes of transparent colour, hinting at how it would be remembered in years to come. The greengages were luminescent in the light, heavy with juice, golden like the sun. I walked towards the place where my swimmer had stood, beside the willow, just where the bank sloped into the water. Dragonflies skimmed the surface of the water, iridescent beetles looking like prehistoric creatures moved along the riverbank. I stared. I’m not sure what I had expected. There was no trace of any presence. The air buzzed with invisible activity. Some of the long grass looked slightly flattened, although that was probably my imagination. I walked back towards the house thinking, I ought to cut it today.
By lunchtime the garden was beginning to look better. I had cut the lawn closest to the house. Perhaps Jack’s children could be persuaded to help me with the furthest bits where neglect had cultivated weeds. The fish I ordered from the local fishmonger arrived and I made some soup. Then I took my lunch out on to the terrace where the sun lay trapped in its own bubble of heat. From here I could see the inlet glistening and snaking towards the river. And in the distance, if I squinted, I could make out the barbed-wire fence and the tomb-like structure that was all that was left of the military base of Orford Ness. The best view of it was from my first-floor study window, where I would often gaze mesmerised at its melancholy, desert-like bleakness. The sun retreated momentarily behind the Scotch pines, sending sharp pinpoints of lights on to the trellis of roses. I sat finishing off the wine from last night and once again I felt the beginnings of a poem bubble up. I must relax, I decided, closing my eyes. I must not get too anxious, or think of the disruption of the impending visit. Perhaps, I thought hopefully, they would go to the sea every day, leaving me free to work for a few hours. Although the sea was within striking distance, hardly two miles away, there was no view of it from the house. It might just as well not have existed. Eel House had no connection with it. Out of sight, out of mind. Even our gardens had a lushness not usually associated with the coast.
The afternoon moved slowly on. Guiltily, I wanted their car to break down, or the children to fall ill. I resisted an urge to drive out towards the fens and not return, to walk with the wind in my face and the reeds rustling beside the water’s edge. But the soup was almost ready and I had a loaf of bread in the oven. At three I glanced at my watch; they would be here in three-quarters of an hour. Going back out into the garden I cut handfuls of flowers; roses and some tendrils of honeysuckle. Then I filled a vase and went into the sitting room. It was a room I rarely used, except when I had visitors. Because of this the door was nearly always closed and as I approached from the kitchen with my huge jug of flowers, I registered, though with no special significance, that it was now ajar. I placed the jug on the top of the small Bechstein piano I had inherited. As I did so, a piece of sheet music drifted to the floor. I picked it up, stuffing it back into the seat of the piano stool. Then I plumped up the cushions and hurried out, for a car had driven up towards the front door. Jack, Miranda and the children had arrived early.
‘When are you going to have this kitchen refitted?’ were my brother’s first words as he walked in. ‘I can’t understand how you can live like this.’
I took a deep breath.
‘Very easily,’ I said. ‘It’s a nice kitchen. It’s got character!’
Jack snorted. He placed two boxes full of groceries on the table.
‘We didn’t think you’d have anything civilised in your larder, so we’ve brought a contribution,’ he said.
I raised an eyebrow and Miranda frowned.
‘Jack!’ she mumbled.
I thought she might kick him. The children came rushing in, full of some talk of a grass snake. They looked around the kitchen as though I was invisible.
‘I’m starving,’ Zach said.
‘Hello, you two!’
I was determined to keep all irony out of my voice.
‘For goodness’ sake,’ Miranda said, ‘at least give Aunty Ria a kiss.’
She was already sounding harassed; probably she and Jack had been quarrelling on the way here.
‘We should have stopped off for something to eat,’ Jack said. ‘I told you she’d have nothing.’
‘Welcome to Eel House,’ I said.
Two weeks seemed like a long time.
Later we had supper on the terrace overlooking the water. There had been some talk of driving into Snape or even Aldeburgh, but in the end I cooked a mushroom risotto followed by sea bass and fennel. Needless to say, they ate the lot. Afterwards, Jack pushed his plate away and looked speculatively at me. My heart sank as he helped himself to more wine.
‘Well? Have you had any more thoughts on the house?’
I groaned inwardly. I had thought the subject had been dropped.
‘Look, Jack,’ I said, ‘we’ve been round this so many times. I don’t care if this is a good time to sell, I don’t care if the kitchen is antiquated, I don’t care about the money. Please, let’s not start it all up again. I’m simply not going to sell.’
There was a small silence.
‘So you want me to service your boiler,’ my brother said.
‘No, I don’t. That isn’t what I said!’
He looked at me. Perfectly calm, indolent, ready for another argument, loving it. Yes, I thought, here we go. It was what he used to do when we were growing up and he’d return from boarding school wanting something that belonged to me. Later, he used to get money out of me in this way, slowly, draining away my savings, wearing me down, weakening my resolve. Well, he wasn’t going to do that any more. Love might never have existed between us for all the show there was of it now. We were children from the same womb, fathered by the same man, but separated by a shared past.
‘It will probably blow up and kill you,’ he said.
I stared into the distance of the darkening garden, my face tightening. His nastiness always took me by surprise.
‘Sell the house, Ria,’ he said again, softly.
In the twilight I could see his teeth as he spoke. They were small and even, and very white. The children were watching us, fascinated.
‘Who would like some raspberry tart and cream?’ I asked.
‘Yes, please,’ Sophie, my niece, cried. ‘Can we have it while we watch television?’
‘You should cut the grass by the river,’ Zach said. ‘It’s not a good idea to allow it to grow so long. Anyone trying to get out of the water in a hurry might have trouble.’
‘Why would you want to get out in a hurry?’ Sophie asked.
‘Because of the current, stupid!’
‘Stupid yourself.’
‘Zach,’ Miranda said.
‘If you’re planning on swimming,’ I said, ‘perhaps you could clear it for me?’
‘Nah!’ he said.
I wanted to say that a bit of exercise might help him lose some weight. But I’m not his mother. As far as I could see, all they appeared to do in their spare time was watch endless television and play computer games. But this, too, wasn’t my business.
‘Why don’t you fence the river off?’ Miranda asked, slicing up the tart. ‘After all, you don’t swim in it, do you?’
I shrugged. I could have told her that I liked having the river at the bottom of my land. I liked the way it moved, as though it were a sleek animal, lean in high summer, flushed and heavy in spring and autumn, cold and uninviting in winter. If I fenced it off, I would not see the extraordinary birdlife that lived around it, nor would I be able to wave to Eric on his trips upstream, on warm, moist nights, his low battery light encircled by moths as he hunted for pebbleblack eels. I could have told her this, but I didn’t.
‘You’d get a flat in London for half the price of this place,’ my brother reminded me.
Still I said nothing. He wanted a share of the money to fund his political activities.
‘Why are you such a loser?’ he asked. ‘Think what you could make—enough to buy two houses.’
‘Jack!’ Miranda protested. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, turning to me.
‘Look,’ I said, as pleasantly as I could, ‘shall we stop baiting Ria for the duration of this holiday? I’m just not selling, Jack. Get this into your head. I’m not interested in the monetary value of this house, nor am I interested in funding your fascist politics, okay? Now, who wants coffee and who wants tea?’
Jack laughed. How the hell was I going to get through the fort-night? Miranda was looking at me with something like kindness. Lately I had begun to feel a great deal of sympathy for my sister-inlaw. There have been moments, when she was pregnant with the children, for example, when we’d come close to seeing eye to eye.
I went back into the kitchen to fill the kettle.
‘We’re thinking of going to Cromer,’ Miranda announced, coming in after me with the pile of dirty plates. ‘Just for a few days—give the kids a bit of beach. Fancy coming with us?’
I held my breath. When were they thinking of going? We cleared the kitchen together.
‘You need a holiday, too, Ria,’ she said after a while. ‘You work far too much. In that way you’re like Jack.’
I laughed without humour and filled the dishwasher, scraping bits of food off the plates. I would not cry.
‘Actually,’ Miranda continued, lowering her voice, ‘I’m a little worried about him.’
I was surprised. My brother’s marriage had always seemed to me to be run along the lines of a business. Nothing emotional was ever aired. What was she worried about?
‘He’s getting far too involved in politics. We’re spending vast amounts of money and I’m worried. You know how stubborn he is. I was wondering if you might talk to him.’
‘Me! You must be joking!’
‘Yes, I know…’ her voice trailed off.
If Miranda was appealing to me, then things must be desperate.
‘I just want him to take it easy. There are a couple of people who have joined who are…well, a bit extremist, you know what I mean? We’ve had a few odd-looking types visiting. Anyway,’ she glanced around quickly, ‘what d’you think about Cromer?’
‘Ria, I need to use the Internet,’ Jack announced, walking in with the empty wine bottle.
He poured himself a whisky.
‘I presume you did get it installed after last year’s fiasco? Let’s forget Cromer, Miranda. I’m thinking of hiring a boat for a few days.’
The sound of the television drifted out through the open window, mingling with raised voices and the odd thump. The children were fighting.
‘Oh God!’ Miranda cried, wiping her hands, ‘I’d better go and see what they’re up to.’
‘Yes.’
A kind of hollow despair enveloped me. In just a few hours my house had been stripped of its privacy. Alone in the kitchen I poured myself another drink and walked outside, moving swiftly towards the wild part of the garden. Beyond the river, and before you reached Orford Ness, were the matchstick woods. They were hidden now by fingers of dusk. The air was much cooler here and the trees were outlined sharply against a darkening sky. Nothing stirred. I heard the faint sound of traffic from the road beyond the trees, but that was all. The renters next door seemed to have disappeared too and silence enveloped me. I breathed slowly, feeling the tightness in my chest slowly easing.
Every summer of my childhood had been spent in this house. It had belonged to Uncle Clifford, our father’s brother, and his wife Elsa. By the time he was six, Jack was allowed to come with me. Our parents put us on the train at Liverpool Street and Uncle Clifford met us at the other end. There followed a month of blissful neglect when we roamed the fields and helped on the farm. I was meant to look after Jack. I remember how once we had got lost in some field before finally finding our way back to Eric’s farm. I had been scared, but as the eldest it had been my responsibility to get us home. Peggy, Eric’s wife, had given us two fresh eggs each when we reached her kitchen. We had carried them triumphantly back to Eel House. It was the beginning of a ritual that marked all our summers after that. Towards the end of August, before the weather broke and we returned home, our parents would join us. I was delighted, knowing that at last I could have my father all to myself. Even in those days Jack was a bit of a mother’s boy, less interested in the outdoor life. As soon as Mum arrived he stopped trailing around with me and the pair of them would go to the cinema and afterwards to tea in Aldeburgh, or on a long drive to visit friends. Mum was always buying him toys, which he broke almost instantly, whereupon she would promise him more treats. Dad disapproved hugely of such spoiling, but Jack was a precocious, rather bright child, so I suppose he got away with it. Meanwhile, Dad and I would go rambling in the matchstick woods, looking for fossils. We would pack a picnic and leave in the morning, returning at dusk when the light fell differently and the woods took on an air of enchantment. On other days we two would go out in the boat with Eric. Eric was Dad’s great friend. Dad and Uncle Clifford and Eric had all grown up together. They used to call themselves the Three Musketeers. ‘One for all and all for one,’ they used to laugh. After our fishing trips we would return with eels for supper. Later, Jack and I would play board games with my parents and Clifford and Elsa, laughing and cheating, ganging up against each other; Dad, Jack and Uncle Clifford against Mum and me and Aunt Elsa.
Where had all that easy affection gone? I sipped my wine. Once, I had believed that the farm and the fields, and Eric’s eels, would last for ever. Sighing, I closed my eyes and the poem that had been fermenting in me all day turned restlessly. It was getting late. High above the land a harvest moon moved silently while all the stars appeared like germinating seeds in the wide East Anglian sky. As I went back to the house I could hear the television. Clearly no one was tired.
‘Oh, there you are,’ Jack observed. ‘I wondered where you’d got to.’
He sounded subdued. He and Miranda had pulled two chairs out on to the old flagstones and had opened a new bottle of wine.
‘I hope you don’t mind, Ria,’ Miranda said, ‘but we opened one of your whites.’
‘Where are the children?’ I asked.
‘Playing some computer game. They can’t stand being out because of the bugs.’
You’ve brought them up to be townie wimps, I thought, but I didn’t say it. I was more alarmed by the fact they were using my computer.
‘It’s okay,’ Miranda said quickly, seeing my face. ‘They’re using my laptop.’
Thank God, I thought. The poem inside me had begun calling, insistently.
‘What happened about your boat idea?’
‘Oh yes, I forgot. We’ve got one! Tuesday, for a week. Come, if you like. We’re going to sail across the Broads from Wroxham.’
He was looking at me intently.
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled. ‘But I have a poem in my head that I’ll have to attend to.’
I laughed nervously. Jack seemed to accept my excuse.
‘At least you’re working again!’
A momentary benign feeling descended on us.
‘We’ll leave about midday,’ Miranda said. She sounded a little upset. ‘If that’s okay? We’ll leave some of our stuff here, travel light, be back in a couple of days.’
It was a quarter to ten.
‘I’m knackered,’ Jack said at last. He yawned. ‘One thing I must say, the beds are wonderful here, even though the plumbing is antiquated.’
‘Who’s going to prise those two away from the laptop?’ Miranda asked.
‘Moan, moan.’
‘Oh, shut up, Jack. You’re the one who’s been complaining.’
Again the tension was back. We were doing what we always did. Taking small bites out of each other, never addressing anything with honesty. I wanted to scream.
‘I’d like my study back so I’ll tell them, if you like.’
I put on a fake smile.
‘You’re not going to work, are you?’ Miranda asked, amazed.
‘Of course she is. Can’t you see she’s dying to get rid of us? Go on, Ria, go back to your masterpiece!’
‘Well, I haven’t actually done anything today.’
If I wasn’t careful there would be a fight. Jack must have thought the same thing because he rose and took his chair in.
‘I’m off,’ he said. ‘What time’s breakfast?’
My study was a tip. Somehow they had managed to knock over a glass and scatter the cushions. There were books on the floor and paper from the printer was everywhere. My good intentions evaporated completely. Furious, I closed the door. Then I cleared the mess and turned the television off. I no longer felt like working, but I didn’t feel like going to bed either. Upstairs, on the third floor, in the room above my study, the children made thumping sounds as though they were fighting. Taking up the book I had been reading I settled down on the sofa. The poem that had peeped out had taken fright and vanished. I could hear Miranda’s voice followed by Sophie screaming. Then Jack joined in and there was a stampede towards the guest bathroom. Miranda began calling me. Oh God! I thought guiltily. I sat pretending not to hear, feeling trapped. To think I had ever wanted children! Towards midnight things quietened down. The floorboards stopped creaking, the house was settling at last. I sighed and switched off the light. Was it safe to go to my bedroom?
People have said to me that at least I have a brother, at least I have a nephew and niece. Long ago, soon after Sophie had been born, I had volunteered to look after her while Jack took an exhausted Miranda out. It had been a sort of peace-offering on my part. Sophie had been only a few weeks old and I had not long heard I would never have a child of my own. That evening, after they had left, I picked Sophie out of her cot and held her against my cotton T-shirt. Then I put her mouth against me. I had wanted someone to suck my breast. I went into the bathroom with her and locked the door, naked to the waist. I wanted to feel what it was like to nurse her. I wanted to feel the tug and demand of another life. But after a moment I heard a noise and Sophie began to cry. Scared, in case Jack and Miranda had returned, I rushed out. I blushed, recalling the long-forgotten incident. Loneliness expands wherever crowds gather, Eric used to say. Thinking of him, I wished I could have gone over there tonight, but it was too late now.
Closing my book, I went across to the open window. Immediately the scent of late honeysuckle and jasmine came wafting towards me. Somewhere in the depths of the garden a nightjar called. Just after Ant left me, taking all hope I had of love, I had heard a nightingale pour its fluid notes across this garden. I had stood on this very spot, mesmerised by it, wondering for a confused moment who the singer was. I have never heard a nightingale sing since.
A slight breeze moved the muslin and the trees rustled. It had become so muggy that there would probably be a storm soon. I yawned, slowly. If I turned in now, I would wake refreshed. Next Tuesday, when they left, I’d be able to have a clear day to work. The poem would, I hoped, return once peace was restored. Turning, I reached out to close the window in case of rain later, my eyes scanning the garden idly. I froze. There was my swimmer! Good God, I thought, astonished, for there he stood, bold as brass, bare-chested at the water’s edge. What a nerve he had, trespassing in someone else’s garden, again. As I watched, to my amazement, he moved towards the honeysuckle and bent to smell it. He was towelling his hair with his T-shirt; I could see the whiteness of the cloth against the dark garden. Then he pulled it over his head. I shrunk back further into the room, but he wasn’t looking in the direction of the house. I saw him edge towards the water and stare beyond it. Something had obviously caught his attention for he stood perfectly still, looking in the direction of the woods. Almost instantly I heard the nightjar again. An owl flew past and my swimmer jumped. I could have told him the garden was full of nightlife and that over by the trees there were a family of owls, but I did not make a sound.
He turned his head as if he had read my thoughts, but he was still looking in the wrong direction. Then, bending down, he did up first one shoe and then the other with casual indifference and a second later he vanished from view, going presumably around the side of the house. I continued to stare out of the window, unable to move, straining my ears. There was a slight pause and unmistakably, I heard a door open. Could any burglar be this reckless? I hesitated. Damn, I thought, belatedly, the back door was unlocked, again. What if I went downstairs and confronted him? He had looked quite young. Not that it mattered if he was carrying a knife. But would you swim first, before you committed a crime? By now I had moved to the landing and I heard once again an unmistakable creaking of floorboards. There followed another silence. I waited. My study door was shut. I opened it a fraction of an inch, on the verge of going out when I heard a soft step. I was struck with paralysis. He was definitely in the house. I shivered. Something thrilling and fearful passed over me. Holding the empty bottle of wine in my hand I crept downstairs at the same moment as the outside light came on. Instantly I hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen just as the timer plunged the garden back into darkness. In a flash I had switched on the kitchen light. I gasped, there was no one there.
All this had taken only a few minutes, but any thoughts of sleep had vanished. Locking the back door, I checked the windows. Then I filled the kettle and was about to put some tea into the pot when I noticed the lid of the bread bin was slightly open. I closed it, changed my mind and opening it again peered in. It was empty. There had been a freshly baked loaf inside. I knew this because I had baked it myself only this morning.
2 (#ulink_e3eefa0c-5899-557d-8f57-51bf48bfe0f1)
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23RD. ON THE MORNING that Jack and Miranda left for the Broads I awoke to them having breakfast noisily in the garden. I was exhausted. They had now been here for three days. Last night I had again waited up until midnight hoping to catch sight of the swimmer, but the garden had remained undisturbed. Then, just as I dozed off, the outside light came on and woke me. It was him! But by the time I crept downstairs he had vanished. There were damp marks on the kitchen floor.
‘There’s no bread,’ Jack informed me, his mouth full of muesli.
Miranda handed me a cup of tea.
‘You look tired,’ she said.
‘Of course she is!’ my brother said, waving an empty cup in her face. ‘Workaholics usually are!’
He laughed a braying laugh and I wondered how Miranda could bear living with him.
‘More tea, more tea!’ he shouted childishly. Obviously he was in a good mood. I looked at him over the rim of my mug. Ant always maintained that Jack had a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome. It was the only way he could explain my brother’s sudden mood swings. Eric thought otherwise. Jack, he had once said, was disturbed for other reasons. Sunlight glinted through the trees. We had not had such an astonishing summer as this for years and it was going to be another hot day.
‘You need a wash, Miranda,’ Jack said. ‘You’re sweating, already.’
And he laughed.
‘I’ve got seven mosquito bites,’ Sophie complained.
‘Aunty Ria, have you seen how weird the spiders are in this house?’ Zach asked. ‘They’re enormous, like in the Caribbean!’
‘That’s global warming for you,’ Jack said.
He was eating and drinking with an odd, manic speed. Miranda seemed not to notice.
‘I read somewhere that the insects in Britain will become more like Mediterranean ones as the place hots up.’
‘Ugh, how will they get here? By swimming the channel?’
‘No, Sophie, I think they’ll just evolve differently. Like your Aunty Ria has!’
‘Mum!’ wailed Sophie. ‘I hate spiders.’
Go, I thought. Just go. We’ll never get on.
‘Stop winding her up, Jack,’ Miranda said. ‘There was some bacon in the fridge, Ria. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve used it.’
I nodded, not wanting the subject of bread to be brought up again.
‘Of course, help yourself.’
In all, my swimmer had appeared three times. Last night the images of him had played themselves over and over again. His visits were a puzzle, I was becoming mildly obsessed by them. Perhaps, I thought, I ought to write a poem about the mysterious way in which he visited and then vanished. I yawned. I had meant to wake at six, begin working, but not having managed this all I wanted to do now was sit in the sun. Miranda was probably right and I needed a holiday. The coffee was lukewarm. Could it be, I frowned, returning to my earlier train of thought, that I had imagined some of it? The facts were few. At some point in the night the outside light had come on and the bread was missing. That was all. I had no proof the swimmer had taken it. I had no proof that he had come into the house, even. I glanced at Jack, but he was concentrating on the map spread out in front of him. My baby brother has a round, slightly chubby face. Curiously unlined. Empty, Eric always said. Like a man who could not comprehend what was lost. I yawned, again, distracted. Hmm, I thought, but had I actually seen the swimmer?
Miranda was looking at me, quizzically.
‘You’re out of it, aren’t you!’ she said. ‘Would you like me to do the shopping before we go?’
‘Oh no, I shall go into town a bit later on.’
Tonight I would try a small experiment.
‘We could go through Bury,’ Jack was saying. ‘On the A14, that’s probably the quickest way.’
‘Are you sure you won’t come with us, Ria?’ Miranda asked.
I felt a certain desperation on her part. Fleetingly, I was sorry for her. Neither of us understood the preoccupations of the other.
‘My sister lives in a time warp,’ Jack declared, to no one in particular.
I ignored him. There was an electronic beeping and he started searching his pockets wildly. Miranda watched, expressionless. When he finally located his phone it had stopped. The air was filled with transparent light.
‘Damn,’ he said.
I laughed. He was frantically searching through his numbers.
‘Damn!’ he said, once more.
In his pixelated, globally driven life every eventuality depended on electronic devices. His iPhone, his iPod, his chargers, his cables; modern-day worry beads, all of them. Poor Jack. Was this the only way to survive what had happened to us as children? So no, I didn’t want to spend a few days with them on a river.
‘What time are you leaving?’ I asked, instead.
‘We have to pick the boat up by four at the latest, and we’ve got to find moorings before dark…so let’s say we leave around eleven?’
I would go shopping, I decided. A delicious sense of freedom brought on by their imminent departure spread over me. And I would buy bread.
By midday the house was mine again. The silence settled slowly like dust on the sunlit surface of the furniture. I tidied the detritus of the last few days in a desultory, half-hearted way, and went out. Orford is much smaller than Aldeburgh, a village really, with one main street. In reality it is an island, surrounded by marshland and the estuary running into the sea. For the past two years the heavy rains have brought extensive flooding to the area and house prices were going into a decline. Those who could had begun to move away. Others, like me, who chose to live close to the river, kept a supply of sandbags at the ready for the next deluge. As Orford has no tourist attractions it seldom gets crowded even at the height of summer. The smart London visitors come for the festivals and are interested only in Aldeburgh. They hardly ever venture as far as us. Which suits the xenophobic residents of Orford perfectly.
I went to the fishmonger’s and picked up the fresh crab I had ordered. The greengrocer was selling samphire and watercress, so I bought some. Next I went to the bakery. I bought a loaf of bread, hesitated for only a moment and bought some scones.
‘Your family’s arrived, I see,’ Eileen said.
I nodded.
‘How’s the politics?’ she asked.
I frowned. Jack’s semi-right-wing political party was of no interest to me. Eileen’s face was studiedly blank.
‘He thinks we should stop campaigning against the developers building the marina.’
If the marina and the proposed block of flats alongside the riverbank were built, apart from the flood risk they would face, the lanes in Orford would become completely clogged with cars.
‘Oh, does he!’ I said.
So Jack was talking to the locals now, was he? Poking his nose into things that were nothing to do with him.
‘Don’t worry. The builders won’t get permission,’ I said.
I didn’t tell Eileen, but I had written a piece for the local newspaper on the subject. So far, it didn’t look as though they would run it. The circus and the assault that had followed used up all available column inches.
Eileen packed up my scones. She nodded a little grimly, I thought. Then she slipped a pot of cream into the bag. I knew she would talk about me later. Everyone in Orford is like that. The landscape collects conversations as effectively as a bucket. I have known most of the people here since I was a child. They all know what happened to us. They know about our fight over the ownership of the house, and that I had come back to bury my secrets. I knew there were those who thought of me as the woman who had everything; there were others who felt sorry for me, but in either case I no longer encouraged friendship. In my experience, those who extended the hand of friendliness usually gave out private information at the drop of a hat and I trusted no one.
‘The children have grown a lot,’ she ventured, and I agreed, they had.
It was one o’clock. I bought some apples and a small pork pie and drove across the bridge to the other side of the riverbank in the direction of Orford Ness. When I was a teenager I used to sit for hours staring at this shingle desert of military ruin. The horizon remains the same through one hundred and eighty degrees. I used to love its other-worldliness. From here it is possible to catch a glimpse of Eel House as a faint smudge in the distance. Over time, the National Trust volunteers had grown used to seeing me sitting on the edge of its desert-like landscape, lost in thought.
The sun had become very hot while I walked and, because of the lack of rain, the marshland had taken on a brittle aspect. The smell of rotting vegetation in the dykes mingled with a drift of sea-air. All around me the reeds gave off a dry, hollow sound. By now I was lightheaded with hunger and something else. There was a strange suppressed anticipation in the air. At the edge of the marshes, there was a small hollow in the ground where I always sat and slipping into it now I ate my lunch. Silence stretched in every direction across the cloudless East Anglian sky. I watched a couple of waders fishing in the stagnant pools that had spread out from the river. Overhead a few gulls sailed confidently on the air. A fly buzzed in my ear and I could hear the faint sounds of crickets. Slowly, hardly aware of what I was doing, I closed my eyes.
I must have been asleep for ages, for when I woke the sun had moved lower in the sky. My face felt burnt and I suddenly remembered the food in the hot boot of the car. It was three o’clock. Hastily I retraced my steps and drove back. I was beginning to feel slightly sick and hoped I had not got sunstroke. At home I made myself a large mug of tea. Then I went into my study and worked with a solid concentration and an enormous sense of relief. For two years I had been working on a collection of poems. Working and re-working, trying to find the clear stanza that stands for a lorry-load of elaborate prose. The collection was about water and the way memory travels through it. I had wanted a high, pure sound, an elegiac note, of life poised between two states. My past and all it represented was what interested me most, but I had been stuck for months and the collection had got nowhere. This afternoon, as I rewrote some of the clumsier passages, a sense of calm began to break over me. I worked solidly for nearly three hours. When I finished, my headache had gone and it was seven o’clock. Going downstairs I made a salad. At seven thirty Miranda rang. They had arrived to find the boat was as enormous as a double-decker bus.
‘Jack can hardly steer it,’ she laughed. ‘And he’s in a terrible mood, but the kids are pleased because they each have their own bathroom!’
‘How large is it?’ I asked.
‘Well, the only boat available was one that sleeps twelve. So what could we do, having got here!’
‘We’ve only just managed to find a mooring,’ Jack said, taking the phone off her. ‘Miranda is hopeless. What…shut up, Zach, I’m speaking.’
His voice broke up slightly.
‘I can’t hear you,’ I shouted, wanting to laugh with relief that he was so far away.
‘…but unfortunately it’s on the furthest bank with no access to the towpath. So we can’t get off and go to any of the restaurants on the other side. If Eel House wasn’t so uninhabitable we wouldn’t have had to come to this bloody place.’
Suddenly I lost it.
‘What d’you mean, Jack? You didn’t have to come, you know what it’s like here. Why didn’t you have a holiday somewhere else, instead?’
‘Fine,’ Jack said, very clearly. ‘We won’t bother, next year.’
‘Stop it, you two,’ Miranda shouted. ‘We’ve frozen chips, beef burgers, Coke and a bottle of whisky. We could have some fun, if we tried, you know?’
Outside, a spectacular sunset was unfolding and I felt the satisfied tiredness of having done a good day’s work. Miranda’s voice came over faintly.
‘We’ve got the boat for an extra week, if we want it.’
I heard Jack say something in the background. Something in me snapped. I was fed up with his rudeness. He talked to me in the same way my mother used to.
They rang off, with Miranda still trying to smooth things over, and I went back to preparing my supper. In the years since my mother’s death I had become a different kind of person. There had been a time when my mother’s constant stream of boyfriends invading my privacy, and Jack’s pushiness, would have reduced me to a state of desperation. I had wanted a life of my own, then, away from them both. I had wanted someone to share things with, as only my father had done. Now that was all over. I no longer had anything to share and I was relieved to discover that the desire for belonging had finally gone.
The last rays of the sun caught the windowpanes as I cooked my pasta and dressed it lightly with olive oil. A sentence was threading through my head. It ran like music, rising and falling. Suddenly I needed to write it down. Covering the pasta, I quickly went upstairs and sat at my desk. In the last-nights-of-summer darkness that arrived more swiftly each evening, hardly daring to breathe lest I lose it, I sat absorbed for another two hours. The effortless ease with which I worked told me that this poem was going to be perfect, and as I wrote I smelt the drift of roses coming in through the window. A blackbird sang and sang again, the sun set and night descended while I remained absorbed.
When I had finished the rough draft I put on a CD. Then, sitting by the window, listening to Verdi, I fell asleep for the second time that day. I had completely forgotten about my swimmer of course and my plan to catch him in the act of stealing. Once again it was after midnight when I woke. The Verdi had long finished. The garden was completely silent, there was no moon tonight as I opened the window and breathed in the scent of newly opened jasmine flowers. The river glinted now and then. The starless sky made it impossible to distinguish water from garden. Nothing moved, there was no sound. I felt a small nudge of disappointment as the church clock struck one. The house next door was closed. Either the renters were asleep or they were out again. Well, that was that, I thought ruefully, aware of some disappointment. It was a simple enough explanation. A passing youth had decided to cool off by swimming upstream and then had discovered the house. Perhaps he had been on his way back from the pub, perhaps someone had even dared him, so that, in a moment of bravado, he had wandered in and stolen a loaf of bread. As I was the subject of some curiosity in Orford, what could I expect? Lucky he didn’t take anything valuable, I thought, pulling a face. Better lock the back door. The bare skeleton of the poem still glowed inside me. At least the swimmer’s appearance had given me the kick-start I needed. Reaching for the catch, I was about to close the window when I froze in my tracks. Someone was playing the piano downstairs with the soft pedal down.
The back of my neck went cold. I stood confused, staring into the darkness. Jack, the only person I knew who could play the piano, was miles away, moored up on the Broads. And Jack didn’t play jazz. The music went on and on, faint and familiar, jauntily inviting me to move in time to it. There was a small delicious run of notes and then it came to an abrupt end. I heard the lid come down, followed by footsteps going out into the hall. The kitchen door opened and shut gently. Moments later the outside light came on. Instantly I was galvanised and rushed downstairs. But when I reached the back door the garden was in darkness once more. I switched on the light. The kitchen was exactly as I left it, the pasta was still covered, the bread was in the bin and the forgotten bag of scones stood untouched on the work surface. Exasperated I went into the sitting room but the piano remained as it always had and it was then, at that moment, staring at the music on the stand, that I remembered there had been a piece of sheet music on the floor two days before. Without another thought I rushed to the front door and opened it, going swiftly around to the back of the garden. All was silent. No footprints on the grass, no rose petals fallen off the bushes, nothing had been disturbed. I felt sure the swimmer had not used the river path tonight. I waited, uncertain. Suddenly, realising how vulnerable I was, and with my fearlessness now tinged with a vague dissatisfaction, I went indoors. The rest of the night stretched ahead of me. I knew I would not sleep so, making a pot of tea, I sat down to make a plan.
My plans were all in vain. The following evening there was a thunder-storm of spectacular proportions. I suppose it had been building up to this with all the heat. Lightning flashed and rain fell heavily. It went on for hours. Miranda rang during the worst of it.
‘Can you hear it?’ I asked.
‘Sort of. It’s lovely here. We’ve had a busy day. Zach has got the hang of steering and won’t let anyone take a turn! So he and Jack argue all the time.’
She sounded a little drunk.
‘Did you manage to buy food?’
‘Oh yes,’ she said vaguely.
I could hear her sipping her wine.
She rang off and I wandered restlessly around the house, unable to settle to any work. I found myself going towards the piano and staring at the closed lid.
‘What’s wrong with me?’ I muttered.
Maybe I had overworked myself last night. The draft of the poem I had written in an alcoholic haze wasn’t quite right yet. What had seemed luminous and neat in the darkness was a little clumsy. I would have to work on it much more. Perfection did not come without pain, but I wasn’t in the mood tonight.
After about an hour the rain began to ease off and the air cooled slightly. I shivered and threw on a cardigan. It was not the weather for swimming. Pouring myself a generous glass of wine I went back up to my study where force of habit made me drift towards the window. I was still struggling with an idea. This long overdue collection of poems was turning out to be about the absence of parental love. I stared towards the dark point where the water flowed. Bitterness had stopped me from writing objectively, I thought. Then, perhaps because of the peculiar mood I was in, for the first time in many years I began to go over what had happened in that single most significant moment of my life.
I was ten years old and the school summer holidays had arrived. My father was due to have a small operation. Six-year-old Jack and I were sent to Eel House. This very room had been my bedroom, then. In those days, when the farm was at the height of its productivity, an extra pair of hands at harvest was always welcome. We kissed our parents goodbye. My father was going to the hospital the following morning and with us away my mother would be free to nurse him back to health. I remember them standing on the step waving.
‘Look after Jack,’ my mother called, anxious as always about her darling son.
‘Don’t forget to write, Ria,’ my father said, his smile going all the way up to his eyes.
He had the bluest of eyes, like a shimmer of cornflowers. The sunlight on them seemed to sharpen their colour. I have inherited their brightness. Jack has brown eyes like my mother. At Saxmundham station, Uncle Clifford was there to meet us. He was older than Dad, more serious, quieter. Both Jack and I were very fond of him.
All through that long holiday my brother and I played by the river and helped out in the fields. I wrote home twice but was told there was a postal strike so no letter came back. My mother rang several times, but on each occasion we were either out playing or at Eric’s farm for supper. Several times during those weeks he took us out in his boat to set the eel-traps and once or twice, very early in the morning before the sun was up, we went to check the baskets.
There came a night, one that remains very clearly in my memory, when for some unknown reason my uncle and aunt insisted we stay over with Eric and his wife Peggy. They seemed upset. Eric had looked a little subdued too. We could go with him on another early jaunt upriver, he said. Jack was excited but I remember I didn’t want to go, and the next morning I caught a glimpse of our uncle and aunt driving off in the direction of town.
‘Where are they going?’ I asked, puzzled, but Eric had his face turned away and didn’t hear me.
The weather continued to hold, the land grew rosy and then golden in the heat. Jack and I lost our pasty look and turned a gentle nutbrown. We had taken to running around in our bare feet and even Aunt Elsa didn’t try to stop us. Preoccupied with worries of their own, both our uncle and aunt left us to our own devices. From time to time, in the weeks that followed, as we loitered in the overgrown country lanes in search of treasures, or took our kites to the beach, I wondered vaguely what was the matter with them, but then forgot about it. Suddenly one morning my aunt woke me with a grim look on her face.
‘Your mother wants you back,’ she said shortly.
‘When?’ I asked.
‘Why?’ was Jack’s predictable reaction.
Uncle Clifford had brought the car round already. Our aunt, I saw with surprise, had even packed our bags in the night.
‘But I don’t want to go,’ Jack wailed. ‘I don’t want to go back to school.’
I knew school wasn’t for a few more weeks. Something about my aunt’s mood alarmed me.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked, but she shook her head and looked away.
I knew she didn’t like my mother. Probably they had had a row, I decided. We rushed to wash and have some breakfast. By now I was a little uneasy and Jack was in a bad mood. We had arranged to go to Orford that day and have a kite-flying competition with my friend Heather. I remember Jack howling and refusing to put his shoes on. He loved Heather and was bitterly disappointed.
‘Be a good boy, darling,’ my aunt said, bending to do them up.
She mumbled something about growing up, but wouldn’t say more. Then, just as we were getting into the car, she ran out and gave us each a fierce hug, after which she held me at arm’s length and peered hard at me. She looked as if she had been crying.
‘Come back, Ria,’ she told me softly. ‘Whenever you want. This place belongs to you.’
That I hadn’t said goodbye to Eric was all I could think as my uncle drove us to the station to board the train bound for London. Our aunt had packed us sandwiches and some of the delicious home-made lemonade we had been drinking all summer long.
The journey home was tedious and we had to change trains twice. The views from our carriage window went slowly from the flat landscape I loved to a grimy build-up of houses and factories. After what seemed like ages we arrived at Liverpool Street and saw our mother waiting for us on the platform.
‘Where’s Dad?’ Jack asked.
‘Is he still in hospital?’
‘Come on,’ Mum said. ‘The car is in a twenty-minute space.’
‘How’s Dad?’ I asked when we were in the car, but she was busy negotiating the traffic and didn’t answer.
We were home in fifteen minutes.
‘I feel sick,’ Jack said.
‘I told you not to drink all that lemonade,’ I scolded, rushing up to the house.
But once in the front door we both came to an abrupt halt for the sitting room was filled with flowers.
‘Why are there so many flowers?’
‘Where’s Dad?’
‘Mum?’ I asked, suddenly frightened, seeing the look on my mother’s face.
She sat down heavily and looked at us both helplessly. Then she grabbed Jack, who squirmed but allowed her to draw him towards her. She was looking at me, fixing me with a look I took to mean that I was in trouble.
‘What’s wrong, Mum?’ I asked.
The pit of my stomach seemed to be falling away. My legs had begun to shake.
‘Mum?’ I asked again, my voice rising with panic.
There was a fraction of a pause as she drew Jack to her more closely so that he made a small noise of protest.
‘Children,’ she said, ‘I have some bad news. There was a complication with your father’s operation. He got peritonitis.’
She stopped and seemed to choke.
‘Where is he?’ I shouted. ‘Mum? Mum?’
‘He’s dead, Ria,’ she said in a small voice. ‘We had the funeral last week.’ And then she began to cry.
It was how I heard the news of what had happened to my beloved father; on the day that my childhood ended.
The air had become warmer and the scent of stirred-up earth and grass, and dust after rain, filled it. The sky was rosy once more and in the early twilight a sharp fork of geese flew clacking between the trees, silhouetted now by a watery light. Tomorrow the sun would be high in the sky again, the heat would return for a week or two longer, even though a few autumnal minutes were already wiping away the summer. What lingered was a softness of light. I was just about to reach out for the switch of my table lamp when I saw him. My swimmer! He was much earlier than before, moving slowly across the surface of the water. I stood open-mouthed and astonished. Then I turned silently and let myself out of the kitchen door, rounding the corner of the house before I stopped. The swimmer had reached the bank and was clambering up it. He had his back to me as once again he began to dry himself with his shirt. I stood waiting. Under the darkening summer sky I could see that he was not a local boy. I watched as he shook his dark curly hair and water sprayed out. He had been swimming in his trousers again and now he reached for the shoes he had thrown down in the long grass. He was putting them on when something made him turn slightly. I stood rooted to the spot and watched as, lifting his head, he listened. Then slowly he moved his head and saw me. For a whole minute we stared at each other without speaking. Both of us shocked. He was the first to break the silence, surprising me by holding up his hand, one foot in a shoe. He looked ready to run.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, in perfect, though accented, English. ‘I’m very sorry. Please. I won’t do it again.’
I saw he was terrified and in the light fading from the sky I saw that he was also very young.
‘It’s all right.’
There was a silence. The boy, he was surely no older than eighteen, stood waiting as though he had been stunned.
‘I don’t mind you using this stretch of river. It isn’t private or anything,’ I said. ‘Just filthy, that’s all. And your mother might not be so happy with you swimming in it.’
I was talking to keep him from doing a runner. He continued to stare at me and then he smiled with sudden force and I saw he wasn’t so young after all.
‘Are you from around here?’ I asked.
He shook his head and in one swift movement pulled his wet T-shirt on. I hesitated.
‘Did you come into my house last night and play the piano?’
‘No…I…no!’
‘I think you did,’ I said.
My voice sounded unfamiliar, as if I couldn’t breathe properly. I was stalling for time.
‘I might have called the police, you know,’ I said, conscious of trying to sound amused. ‘You might have got into a lot of trouble. Were you going to steal anything?’
What a ridiculous thing to have said! The swimmer shivered. He stood with his head slightly bowed. Silent, reminding me again of the image of the Roman swimmer I had seen in Naples. I hesitated.
‘You play the piano well.’
He didn’t move.
‘Would you like to come in and play it again?’
He said nothing.
‘You can, if you like.’
He looked at me full in the face. In the growing twilight I could not see the expression in his eyes but I had the distinct feeling he was sizing me up.
‘Are you going to ring for the police?’ he asked.
He sounded Indian.
‘No,’ I said. I looked at him in what I hoped was a stern but friendly and motherly manner. ‘Not if you promise you won’t steal anything. Where are you from?’
One part of my mind was amazed at the ridiculous nature of this conversation. The swimmer hesitated as if he too were thinking something along these lines. Then he seemed to make up his mind.
‘I’m not from here. I’m from Jaffna in Sri Lanka,’ he said, and now I could see he was shivering violently and I thought, he’s frightened. ‘You know where that is?’
A single blackbird trilled a long note into the rain-dampened air.
‘Of course,’ I said. ‘Where the tea comes from. Are you on a visit or a holiday?’
‘Neither, miss,’ he answered gravely. ‘I am a refugee.’
Sitting in my kitchen he told me his story in perfect but halting English. He had come to Russia by plane and then overland in a lorry that had been waiting at a pick-up point along an empty stretch of coast road. The conditions had been cramped, the driver had demanded more money than he had and the journey had been terrible. His name was Ben and he was twenty-five years old. He told me this much while he ate the cold chicken I gave him and drank a glass of beer. The driver of the lorry was an aggressive man. Having taken the last of their money he began dropping people off randomly. It had been Ben’s turn halfway along the Unthank Road. It was how he became separated from the people with whom he had travelled from Moscow. Not that they were his friends, but at least he had spent some of the worst hours of the journey with them. Left by the roadside he had walked in circles for five days with no money and no documents, sleeping rough, eating when he could, trying to keep clean. He had been petrified of being picked up by the police. He had heard stories that, if that happened, he would simply be deported. And if he returned to Sri Lanka, he feared he would be killed.
Then he had found a farm and burrowed down in one of the outbuildings. The farmer discovered him one night, but instead of calling the police had offered him the chance to pick sweetcorn. In exchange for a bed and food and, the farmer promised, a work permit. Ben could not believe his luck. This was where he lived for the moment. The work permit hadn’t materialised and he had yet to make contact with his mother to tell her that he was safe.
He finished speaking and drained the glass of beer. He had eaten the small amount of food I had put in front of him with ravenous haste. I wondered when he had last had a proper meal. Under the electric light he looked terribly young and vulnerable. It crossed my mind that he might be lying about his age.
‘I want to get to London,’ he said. ‘I want to find proper work.’
‘What sort of work?’
‘I am a doctor, but because of government restrictions I have never practised…well, hardly at all.’
He moved his head rapidly from side to side. I felt he was withholding something.
‘I began working as a nurse in the hospital in Batticlore. Then an opportunity came for me to leave. It was becoming dangerous for Tamil men of my age to stay. The insurgents were rounding them up for their army.’
He paused, looked around the room, taking in his surroundings for the first time.
‘So I left.’
The light flickered, distracting him.
‘You have a loose connection in your switch,’ he said, finally. ‘I can fix it for you, if you like.’
I had been listening to him, spellbound, and didn’t know what to say.
‘I would like to do that…as payment for this meal.’
I waved my hand.
‘There is no need to pay, it isn’t anything, just a little chicken.’
He stood and picked up his plate awkwardly. I had a feeling he was thinking about the stolen bread. In that moment there was within me a stirring of something exciting, something undefined and exotic. Before he could open his mouth to protest, I took the plate from him and put it in the sink.
‘But if you want to pay me,’ I told him, smiling faintly, ‘you could play a little of the jazz you played last night. Without the soft pedal!’
Instantly he lowered his eyes, embarrassed.
‘I’m sorry!’
‘No, no. I really mean I’d like to hear the piano being played.’
I spoke briskly, turning and leading the way into the sitting room.
When I relive that moment now I am always reminded of a story I once read by Jean Rhys. My swimmer sat gingerly down at the piano. He opened the lid and stared at the notes. Then he placed his hands gently on the keys. I noticed his fingers were long and thin. Confused, there grew in me again the conviction that he was younger than twenty-five. He sat with head bowed, then suddenly he was galvanised into action and he began to play. I am no judge of music, nor have I ever learnt to play the piano, but I was struck by his velvet touch. The piano had not been tuned for years. Apart from the odd occasion when Jack played it, it hadn’t been touched.
For nearly an hour I sat listening, spellbound. Ben played as though he was a blind man who had found sight. He played with no music. I suspected he was going through a memorised repertoire and it made me wonder what journey he had passed through to go from someone who knew this kind of music to become a refugee who carried his trainers on his back. He played on and on, gaining confidence, never looking at me, hardly aware of my presence. Some of the pieces were familiar; pieces like ‘Honeysuckle Rose’ and ‘Maybe’, others were clearly music from his own country. Then, just when I was beginning to think his supply of jazz was inexhaustible, he turned to something else entirely. A piece of music I was familiar with. Schubert, I thought, uncertainly. I remembered Aunt Elsa used to play it. The melody ran on, hesitant and haunting. He was playing differently. In the light from the lamp I could see his face as he stared across the room and now I had the distinct feeling he was playing for someone beyond me, some invisible presence I knew nothing of. The next moment he bent his head and the music came to an abrupt stop.
‘What was that?’ I asked, breaking the silence.
He looked at me as though from a great distance.
‘Schubert’s last sonata,’ he said, tiredly. ‘Your piano needs tuning. I can tune it for you, if you will let me.’
‘In payment!’ I teased and unexpectedly he smiled for the second time.
‘Yes, in payment. For all the times I used your river and your garden, and…I stole a loaf of bread one night.’
I thought of Jack’s family, his children who had everything they wanted. I thought of my own comfortable life. It was not the last time I was to think this way.
‘You are welcome,’ I told him, quietly.
Neither of us knew what to say after that. He stood up and I saw his T-shirt had dried.
‘You know the river is polluted, don’t you? It isn’t what it used to be, years ago.’
‘I can dredge it for you, if you like,’ he said.
‘For payment!’ I teased, and now we were both laughing.
He nodded.
‘I’d better make sure I cook something really good in that case,’ I said.
‘There is no need,’ he said, perfectly seriously.
We were both assuming he would come back tomorrow. And that was when I noticed he was becoming anxious to be gone.
‘I’ll start early,’ he said. ‘Do you have a lawn mower? I could cut the grass by the bank.’
He seemed relieved.
‘I can come while it is light,’ he said and I understood that he had dreaded sneaking into the garden.
He went swiftly after that, the outside light coming on as he left. I watched from the door. At the top of the drive he turned and I saw him raise his hand in a gesture of farewell. I saw his white T-shirt fluttering through the trees and the next instant he was gone. I stood watching a moment longer before I let out the breath that I had not known I had been holding. The garden was still, the outside light went off and once again I smelt the fragrance of honeysuckle and roses. Summer seemed to linger, the storm might never have occurred. Overhead, the Milky Way stretched like an endless satin ribbon across the darkening sky. For no reason at all, I felt inexplicably, deliriously happy.
3 (#ulink_bc7c7b73-50c5-564c-80a5-d8d931a7fdfe)
THURSDAY, AUGUST 25TH. EARLY MORNING SUNLIGHT is best. I wasted it by oversleeping but awoke refreshed and filled with energy. Lying in bed like a hostess planning a dinner party, I decided my day’s activities. First a trip to the fishmonger in Aldeburgh. The sun streamed in through the cracks in the shutters; I knew that when I opened them, they would reveal a blue sky. A seagull called faintly. Today was for work, I decided, with sudden optimism. With a flash of certainty I saw how my collection of poems might shape out. Ideas that seemed to have been unanchored for most of my life floated towards me. Traces of my father’s presence nudged me. I had swum in apathy for years but now possibilities spread their wings. I would begin again. Getting out of bed, humming to myself, I went into the bathroom. From outside the window the green hinge of summer opened, wide and seductive, while beyond the river the fields were a smudge of blue flowers. I showered and went downstairs, drank a coffee swiftly and went to fetch the car.
I drove fast with the smell of the sea threading my thoughts. The circus that had been in town a few days earlier had gone now, leaving a slight sense of unease. There were a couple of policeman walking on the beach which was otherwise empty of people. As yet no one had been charged with the attack on the circus woman. Aldeburgh is a sleepy town caught in a 1940s time warp; there is no pier, no seaside paraphernalia, no marina. Only the shingles, shelving steeply to the water’s edge, a few fishing boats and the seagulls. I stopped the car and walked the length of the beach.
On what was to be the last summer of his life, my father had decided to make both Jack and me better swimmers. That summer he had brought us daily to this spot, to plunge us screaming into the water, laughing and shivering as the waves broke over us. Jack had protested and at one point started to cry, but my father had bribed him with the promise of hot chocolate afterwards at his favourite café. I remember hugging Jack as he clung to me but, thanks to Dad, he was now a much better swimmer than I was. On that last day of summer I remember the pebbles we found. I have them still, on the windowsill. Afterwards we visited the bookshop and Dad bought us each a book. Mine was The Mill on the Floss. I have it still, inscribed with his message: To my darling daughter who reminds me so much of Maggie Tulliver. Today the handwriting remains as fresh as it had looked on the day he wrote the words. In the lonely years that followed I don’t know how many times I stared at those words. Looking back, I see how my literary tastes were formed in that little bookshop. We used to always be laughing. Even when we returned home late and my mother was cross with us, Dad had the knack of jollying her out of her bad mood. Often, after his death, when my mother tried first to find another partner and, when that did not work, turned slowly to alcoholism, when Jack went his own way in silent grief, I used to wonder where that summer had vanished. I did not know then what I know now; that a way of life can disappear in an instant.
On that terrible day, after she had broken the shocking news to us, Jack and I went to our respective bedrooms and stayed there in silence until the following morning. Neither knew what the other was thinking; neither cared. We were sealed in shock. It was the beginning of the end of our family, for by the time we emerged through the wall of silence we had changed, for ever. Jack and I would never hug each other again. From now on he was my little brother only in name. I blamed myself. I was the oldest, I should have taken care of him, should have comforted him on that first night, gone to him when I heard him crying. But I did not. A great, terrible tidal wave of grief had engulfed me. I was drowning in it and I had become mute. I wanted my father so desperately, so inarticulately, my heart was so broken, that I simply closed in on myself. I did not cry for years. Funerals are for crying but we had witnessed no funeral. Mother withdrew. She made matters worse by expecting us to act like adults from then on. She stopped shouting at us, stopped telling us what we should do, letting us go to bed whenever we wanted, quarrel as much as we liked. Suddenly there were no rules. It would be years before I recognised the guilt she felt. By the time we went back to school, a month later, the three of us had formulated a way of circling the empty void of our lives; dead planets around a sun lit by the memory of Dad. There was some money left in a trust fund and a year later, when Jack was seven, my mother used it to send him away to boarding school. Now there was one fewer pair of eyes to reproach her.
It was in that year of living alone with her that I wrote my first poem. Filled with suppressed grief, but also a curious optimism that I now see was more to do with being young than anything else, it reduced my English teacher to tears. She printed it in the school magazine. The headmistress read it and entered it for a national competition where it won second prize. The story was about a fossil that had water poured on it, bringing it back to life to reveal a previous existence. During the writing of the poem I dreamt of my father every night. Mum knew nothing of any of this; even after I won the prize I kept it hidden from her. She had begun to drink and was often drowsy when I got back from school. It was a few more years before I found out that she had fallen out badly with Uncle Clifford, who disapproved of what she had done to us children. She would never visit Eel House again. Meanwhile Jack did well at boarding school. He grew with startling rapidity and took up weightlifting. At the end of his first year he came home for the summer just as we had to have our cat Salt put to sleep. I remember he came with us to the vet. There were dogs being restrained by their owners and cats that howled. Jack and I sat on either side of our mother waiting our turn. The room smelt of disinfectant and damp dog. We did not speak. The vet came out and recognised us.
‘Hello, my dear,’ she said, and she put her arm around my mother.
I could see my mother beginning to cry. The vet took us into the back and took Salt out. Then the vet began stroking her. Hurry up, I thought. Get on with it. Our mother began a long story about Salt’s life and what a character he was and how she was going to miss him. When the vet gave him the injection, Mum stood stroking him and sobbing so loudly that I thought everyone in the waiting room would hear her.
‘Give your poor mum a hug,’ the vet told me.
I swear there was disapproval in her voice. Jack was examining a chart on the wall. Throughout the whole business he had whistled softly, under his breath. Later, I caught him in the garden pouring boiling water on to a line of ants.
‘Look,’ he said, when he saw me, ‘come and see how they’re struggling.’
And he laughed in a voice that was already beginning to deepen.
The changes in Jack were unnerving. He began to look more and more like Dad, but there the resemblance ended. He would fly into sudden, violent rages that erupted for no reason at all, which Mum ignored and which terrified the other children he played with. One day a neighbour called round. Jack, who knew the neighbour’s disabled son, had tampered with the brakes of the boy’s wheelchair. It had rolled on to the road with the boy still in it. Luckily, there had been no cars and someone had come to his rescue.
‘He might have been killed,’ the neighbour said.
‘You’ve no proof it was Jack,’ my mother said, feebly.
‘I know it was Jack,’ the woman insisted. ‘I don’t want him coming round again, Mrs Robinson. I’m sorry. I know your family has had a lot to deal with. I think you should get your children to see a counsellor, perhaps?’
Jack was hiding upstairs.
‘Did you?’ I hissed.
In answer he kicked me. Downstairs there were raised voices.
‘Just look at them,’ the woman was saying. ‘Can’t you see how disturbed they are?’
I remember I was far more shocked than Mum, but when I tried to talk to her she became vague and would not look at me. Something had gone terribly wrong with us all and there was nothing I could do about it. In hindsight, this was when I noticed how Jack loved to simultaneously bully and be kind to me. What I didn’t know was that everyone at school was frightened of him too and that my mother received letter after letter of complaint about his behaviour from the head teacher. This was something that came out much later.
We lived with our individual preoccupations in this way while all the time our collective skeleton languished in a hidden cupboard. In the end, the sea at Aldeburgh saved me. When I was fourteen I went back to Eel House, and my uncle’s farm. I went back without Jack. He was spending the summer with friends from school, living a different existence with a different family. Who could blame him? Secretly I was glad to have the place to myself. My life had not so much gone downhill as stagnated. When I arrived another shock awaited me. Both Aunt Elsa and Uncle Clifford seemed to have aged terribly. None of us mentioned Dad. It was as if my father had never existed. On one rare occasion, after a particular angry phone call to my mother, my uncle told me gruffly that although Mum had behaved disgracefully he believed I would find it in me to forgive her one day. I said nothing. I was already hating my mother in a way that was beyond speech.
It was Eric who eventually talked to me about what had happened. All through the summer when I was fourteen we would go out eeling while my uncle grumbled that he wanted to make me a farmer not a fisherman. Eels were Eric’s passion. We would go out in his boat on the hot summer nights, mooring up in places where the water curled around the base of a willow tree. Then, after we had eaten the delicious supper of fresh fish he had cooked on his little camping gas stove, Eric would tell me eel stories. It was he who introduced me to the Sargasso Sea.
‘Imagine, Ria,’ he would say, ‘a sea without shores, without waves, without currents. That’s the Sargasso for you!’
I listened mesmerised as he talked about a place of utter darkness, where starfish and sea cucumbers crept. My imagination was fired by a place full of weed-harbouring monsters.
‘The eels swim there, Ria,’ he told me. ‘They are programmed to swim three thousand miles in order to remain faithful to their ancestral life in the matter of reproduction!’
I had no idea what he was talking about, but the stories fascinated me, nonetheless.
‘And then,’ Eric said, getting into his stride, ‘after they finish reproducing, spent and exhausted, far away from home, the fire of life goes out of them and they die. That’s life, Ria.’
We would sit staring at the night sky with its Milky Way running in a silent ribbon above us. And it was on such a night as this, without fanfare or fuss, that he began to talk about my father’s death. The conversation slipped in easily like oars dipping into the water. All conversations with Eric were like that. He told me that death, whenever it came, was always sudden, always a shock. You could not prepare for it, he said, no matter how hard you tried.
‘Your Ma was only trying to protect you both,’ he said. ‘She wasn’t being wicked, just foolish, maybe. We’re all foolish at some point or other. Don’t listen to other folks.’
We sat in companionable silence. For the briefest of moments I felt a kind of peace.
‘How’s Jack been?’ he asked, finally.
I shrugged and Eric looked at me sharply.
‘You’re both out there in the dark, aren’t you? It’s too much for you to have to deal with on your own.’
Then he talked of other things too. He told me about the brother he had lost years before and he told me that having been born on the farm meant his roots were firmly buried in this little patch of land.
‘The land you are born on is so important, Ria,’ he said. ‘People take it for granted these days because travel is so easy. But it never was in my day and I have never wanted to be anywhere else.’
I had no idea how old he was.
‘You’ll come back, luv, when you’ve grown,’ he said, nodding his head, certain. ‘Your dad loved it here and this place belongs to you, you’ll see.’
I nearly began to cry but I took a deep breath and looked at my hands and then the tears went away again. Only the lump in my chest stayed where it was and I remember thinking I would have to learn to breathe with it always there.
One day Eric gave me a photograph that my father had taken of me. In it I was sitting on the steps at the back of Eric’s farm, holding a doll. I must have been about five at the time, because I still had my hair in long blonde plaits. Later, as an adult, I had the photograph enlarged. It sits on my desk now, that figure of a little girl, smiling up at the sun with her father’s shadow across her face.
‘He’ll always be with you, Ria,’ Eric told me, busying himself with his eel-traps. ‘You mustn’t fret. Time is the famous healer.’
As I grew older, even after I moved away from him, and first my aunt and then my uncle died, it was Eric I loved the most. When the will was read and it turned out that the house had been left to me, it was Eric who wrote first.
I love Eric. Always in the background of my life, his presence nevertheless underpins it completely.
I had walked the length of the beach and was now on Main Street. This stretch never fails to remind me of those long, lonely years after Dad’s death. I was going to call them the barren years, but in fact barrenness came later. The breeze blew unstoppable and fresh, straight off the North Sea. Today it was warm, but in winter it could be very cruel. I bought my fish and returned home.
Looking back, that day proved to be one of the most productive of the summer. I finished the poem and later even managed to do a bit of weeding in my vegetable patch. The sun had given my tomatoes an intensity of flavour. I picked a few and some runner beans, too. I decided to grill the fish with dill and parsley. It was all planned. The basil-soaked olive oil, the fresh bread. The pudding was to be apricots, halved and stoned and tossed with slices of watermelon and late strawberries in a dressing of my own invention. I had a bottle of wine chilling in the fridge but then, remembering how my swimmer had drunk his beer so thirstily, I put the last of Jack’s cans to cool. I was excited. It was years since I had cooked for a man. At six o’clock the phone rang. It was Heather. I sighed. Heather is my only friend left in Orford. As a child, Heather hated her own mother. She used to want to be part of our family and our mother was very fond of her. Later, when everything went cold at home, Heather would still sometimes visit us. Occasionally she even used to cook for us, making cakes that she knew Mum and Jack liked, fussing over them and bringing presents from the farm. I remember after one such visit Mum saying Heather should have been her daughter. I think I stopped believing that Heather was my special friend after that.
‘How’s the visit going?’ she asked me now.
Heather knew all about Jack. She knew I dreaded these annual visits and she knew about the long-running battle over Eel House.
‘They’ve gone away for a few days.’
Instantly I regretted telling her.
‘Poor Jack,’ she said. ‘Have you driven him away?’
‘Of course not!’
I was back on the defensive.
‘How about supper over here, then?’
‘I’d rather not, if you don’t mind. I haven’t done any work for ages and I’m on a roll now.’
‘Of course, of course…um…well, never mind…’
She made a sound as if she was gulping down some food and all the irritations of the past few days gathered in me. I could tell she was hurt by my refusal of dinner. The hurt was constantly in her voice and the more she tried to hide it, the more distant I became towards her. But, I suppose living alone had made me waspish.
Why am I friends with Heather? When we were children her parents ran the farm on the other side of Orford, along the Unthank Road, the unfashionable side of town. We met each summer but then, after Dad died, apart from the odd visit, we went our separate ways, I to Cambridge and Heather into marriage to a difficult man, another farmer. She had three children in quick succession. The process aged her. We kept in touch spasmodically, but never met up again until my mother died. Then she tried to resurrect the friendship with the absence of the years lying unspoken between us. As a reunion, it was not successful. Mother had just died after a long and rambling descent into dementia. I had been the one to look after her, until Ant put a stop to that and I was forced to put her into a home. More guilt. The transfer killed her; of that I remain certain. We had about two months before the end when I tried belatedly and unsuccessfully to address the past, and then she died. Heather came to the funeral and fussed over Jack even though he had done nothing for Mother for years. She blamed me for the feud over Eel House, telling me that, as we only had each other now, I should try to sort out our differences. I never forgot that remark, made on the steps of the crematorium.
‘Try to understand him, Ria,’ she had said, in her kindly voice.
I had been too shocked to defend myself. Looking at Jack’s handsome face, I suspected him of complaining about me. I never really forgave her after that.
These days, now that her children have grown up and left home, Heather has drifted away from her monosyllabic husband and started throwing herself into local politics. She has a large circle of acquaintances to whom, when I first arrived in Orford, she introduced me. I think she hoped I would meet a suitable man. It was kind, but the ploy didn’t work. Neither her male friends nor I were interested. After a while she gave up and we continued our lukewarm relationship, regardless. The trick of intimacy evaded us both.
There was a short, awkward pause.
‘Did you get the local paper?’ she asked.
‘No, I forgot. Why?’
‘You know about the calves that were killed?’
‘Probably a fox,’ I said.
‘A fox can’t slit throats,’ Heather said quickly. ‘Anyway there’s been an attack at the circus. Did you hear about that?’
‘You think it’s related?’
Heather loved a good crime story. In this, as in so many other things, she and my mother were similar.
‘Of course! The woman’s passport was stolen, you know.’
‘So? What are you saying?’
‘Well, obviously it’s worrying. Clem has become paranoid. He thinks there are terrorists in Suffolk. Muslim terrorists!’
Clem was the husband. Paranoia was his speciality. I laughed.
‘So the terrorists go around slitting up animals? What for? Doesn’t make sense.’
She was silent.
‘Yes, I agree. So what are you doing this evening?’ she changed the subject.
I had the feeling she wanted to catch me out, and this both annoyed and made me nervous.
‘I’m really exhausted, Heather. And I simply must work.’
She rang off a few minutes later, her disappointment hovering like cigarette smoke in the air. To dispel it, I tuned in to the local radio station. There was nothing new. They were still talking about the animals that had been found with their throats slit. There was also speculation that the woman who was attacked had been part of a drugs ring. There was no mention of Heather’s terrorist theory. I went back to my cooking.
My swimmer arrived just as I was pouring a glass of wine. The halibut, creamy white and melting at the touch, was almost cooked. He entered the kitchen silently, lifting up the latch. With the practised hand of a burglar, was my first ironic thought. He was wearing a clean T-shirt and had a folded piece of paper in his hand.
‘I have brought some music,’ he announced.
I could see straight away that he was keen to play the piano, so I took him into the drawing room. As I set the table in the garden, music drifted out through the open window like wisps of scent. All my irritation over Heather, the vague anxiety she had induced in me, evaporated instantly as I listened to Ben playing French jazz and managing somehow to make the piano sound both unfamiliar and mellow. Confused, I felt the light from this summer evening fall sweetly through the tangle of trees. Roses bloomed. I stared at the old garden table set for two and, as if on cue, the phone rang, and rang again, insistently. The music faltered, almost stopped, then continued regardless as I hurried into the kitchen and closed the door. I picked up the handset and moved towards the small scullery.
‘Yes, yes, I’m fine. I was listening to some music,’ I said.
‘You’re out of breath,’ Miranda remarked.
I took a deep breath.
‘I didn’t hear you ring,’ I said as calmly as I could. ‘Are you having a nice time?’
The piano stopped and I heard footsteps approaching the kitchen but Miranda was still talking. I suspected she was trying to make amends for Jack’s brusqueness, but I could have done without it just at the moment. On and on she went; how wonderful the weather was, how dreadful the children were, how they squabbled, how crowded the Broads were, the ghastly day-trippers. I listened, saying as little as I could, not wanting to prolong the conversation, wanting her to finish.
‘Jack’s meeting someone in the pub,’ she said. ‘Honestly, Ria, sometimes I think he’s trying to take over the world!’
I had no idea what she was talking about.
‘You know what he said this morning? How nice it was not to see any black faces on the Broads!’
I felt my jaw tighten but managed to say nothing. Finally, thankfully, she rang off. My hands were sweating.
Ben was sitting quietly at the kitchen table, waiting for me.
‘If you give me a screwdriver I’ll fix your light,’ he said.
‘That was my brother and his wife on the phone.’
There was a pause.
‘You don’t like them?’
‘Oh no,’ I said. ‘It’s not that…’
I was rummaging for a screwdriver and when I turned around he was staring at me with a puzzled look. I was aware of the velvet brownness of his eyes. I looked away abruptly.
‘Actually, you’re right,’ I said. ‘I don’t much get on with him. We are…quite different.’
He nodded and said no more, just fixed my light.
Later, as we lingered over the halibut, I asked him tentatively about himself. How had he learnt to play the piano so well? The last light flickered on the leaves. I felt detached as though a part of me had been severed sharply from my body. The evening drew together as he spoke.
‘In my town, before I left,’ he said, ‘people were nice to me. They told me I had a talent.’
He shook the hair from his eyes and smiled. He needs a haircut, I thought.
‘They said it sadly, as if they were really thinking, What a pity he’ll never get anywhere in this place. He’s just a Tamil boy. There are thousands of them.’
‘Is that why you left?’
Again he shook his head. He had left, he told me, because of the war. Why else would anyone want to leave their home?
‘I am the only child of my mother,’ he said. ‘I have two cousins from my father’s side of the family. The cousin closest to me in age was in the year above me at medical school. One day he was asked to leave his course. We think it was because someone saw him talking to a journalist. After that, he worked as a male nurse at the hospital. No one dared teach him any more.’
Ben paused and sipped his beer. I waited. His eyes had darkened.
‘One morning, my cousin went to the hospital to work as usual. He didn’t know the army had arrived to begin an offensive in the area. As he cycled up to the entrance, an army officer shouted to him to stop. So he stopped and started taking out his ID. The officer shouted at him to raise his arms above his head. My cousin tried to get his hand out of his pocket but wasn’t quick enough and the soldier shot him in the face. At point-blank range. Some of his friends saw it happen.’
Ben stopped speaking and for an immeasurable moment the evening too became suspended in the spaces left by his words. I felt a small shock, like electricity, jolt through me.
‘At the same time this was happening, my cousin’s younger brother was at school. He knew nothing about it. An air raid started and planes began dropping bombs. No one had been able to get a message to my uncle’s house after the shooting. My aunt still had no idea her eldest son was dead. The head teacher at the school told the children to leave the building. The teacher decided to take them out the back way into the countryside, where he thought it would be safer. He urged them to go quietly and quickly, with him walking ahead and the children following in single file. But an army helicopter spotted them and started firing. The children broke into a run, heading for cover. My little cousin was the smallest child. He couldn’t keep up with the others. The teacher was screaming at them to hurry, but my cousin slipped. He must have been petrified. He was hit. They left him where he had fallen and when the air raid was over the teacher went back and found him. He was not dead. But when they brought him to my uncle’s house, he was senseless and this is how he has remained. I don’t think he will recover, and my aunt has lost her mind.’
Shocked, I didn’t know what to say. Remnants of food lay on the plates.
‘And you?’ I asked, finally.
He nodded and finished his beer. I had no more left, so I offered him a glass of wine instead. When he smiled his thanks a small dimple appeared in his cheek.
‘I am a qualified doctor,’ he said. ‘I trained during the short space when they dropped the restrictions, but after what happened my mother didn’t want me to stay in Sri Lanka. I had witnessed too many things. I knew how the innocent civilians were treated, how medical aid was withheld from the hospital doctors. I witnessed the way children had their limbs amputated, without anaesthetic, using only a kitchen knife. I had seen too much and because of this our family was marked. It wasn’t easy for me to leave. There were money difficulties too.’
He hesitated.
‘It cost twenty thousand euros for the flight to Moscow. Then another ten thousand for the overland trip by lorry.’
I was staring at him. What he was telling me seemed disconnected from what he was: a refugee-medic who played French jazz. And now, he told me, he would wait for asylum status. He had applied to the Home Office, two weeks ago.
‘They haven’t replied yet,’ he said. ‘I don’t know how long it takes.’
He sounded confident and I wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him that his application might be rejected or that he ought to plan for that eventuality. I began asking him.
‘Have you actually been to the Home Office?’
He shook his head. I felt he didn’t want to discuss it. The farmer had sent the letter in for him, Ben said. The same farmer who was paying him a little cash and letting him sleep in the barn. It was all illegal, of course.
‘But how will they contact you?’ I asked, puzzled.
It didn’t make sense.
‘At the farm. The farmer will let me know when the letter arrives.’
‘There are centres where you can stay,’ I told him, tentatively. ‘I think there’s one that’s opened in Norwich. At least you’d have a proper bed and food.’
‘That only happens when you are registered. I have to be patient, to wait.’
There appeared no doubt in his mind that the letter would arrive any day now and meanwhile the only thing he missed was playing the piano. And the chance of a proper shower.
‘That is why I try to swim every day.’
‘Have you been here a lot, then?’ I asked him.
He shook his head sheepishly.
‘I have only been coming here for a week,’ he admitted. ‘Before that I used to bathe in the river further upstream. But it takes longer to get to and there are others there. I wanted some privacy.’
I digested this fact in silence.
‘You can come here any time,’ I said, finally. ‘And play the piano. No, really,’ I added, not understanding the look he gave me. ‘I would like that!’
I wanted to tell him he could have a shower too, but it seemed too intimate a thing and I had an acute sense of his wariness.
‘I would like to clear your garden by the river in exchange. And maybe you would like the grass cut?’
His face became closed. He looked suddenly stubborn. I could see it was necessary for me to accept the offer. Only then did he relax. He told me that he felt as if he had been walking through a page of history. To have his country’s history inscribed on him was a disquieting sensation, he said. I was appalled by his matter-of-factness.
‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.
‘It feels like years!’
In fact it had only been about four months. He was moving in some mysterious current of destiny, quite alone, as alone as a man dying, he told me. And travelling with him was the soul of his dead cousin.
‘It has been a long journey,’ he said softly, folding his hands together, intertwining the fingers. His voice belied the sorrow in the words. His wrists were slender. Once again I began wondering how old he really was when, without warning, he told me another story. That of the journey.
‘The air in the lorry was stale. After a while it became difficult to breathe and some of the women started to cry. We were banging on the sides, begging for the driver to stop, begging for air.’
I shuddered. He had sat in this way for hours as day and night became indistinguishable and the miles fell away unnoticed. It felt as if he were travelling through nothing but unbending time. On and on from one horizon to the other. The truth was, he no longer felt in the world.
‘I tried to imagine the sea,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘But it was useless.’
The darkness in the lorry had blanked out every thought except that of trying to breathe. Even his grief at the last glimpse of his mother’s face had been blotted out, and in this way he had travelled, across endless land, feeling ever more mortal and insignificant as he went. Like the swimmer he was, he had moved further and further from the shore, until at last he understood the meaning of ‘no return’.
‘I have crossed a line,’ he said. ‘Even if my application for asylum fails, I know that I have crossed that line.’
I stared at his young, still unfinished face and saw how his experiences would slip into the fabric of his features. It would happen slowly, unobtrusively at first, but then one day someone would take a photograph and suddenly the change would be noticed.
‘There was not a single one of those miles that was not filled with memories,’ he said, very softly.
He was frequently conscious of not wanting to die. Which was not the same as wanting to live, he said. Then, just as he had thought he was on the brink of death, the lorry began throwing them out, one by one.
England had come to him in this way. Cold air filled with the smell of seawater. He remembered breathing deeply, thinking he would never again take breathing for granted. And, turning, he had seen the sea and his heart had filled with such longing for his home that he realised why it was considered a sickness. All that first day he had walked, keeping the sea in his sights, never knowing where he was until at last he found himself on the outskirts of a town. He had been the only one of the original group in the lorry who spoke English and he supposed this had saved him, although from what, he did not say. He never found what had happened to the others. He walked all night and finally stumbled on the farm. Now all he wanted was refugee status. The farmer had registered his letter and Ben had kept the proof of postage, along with a copy of the letter itself. I didn’t know what to say. It was simply a question of waiting, he told me.
‘I’m not able to earn enough money until I get my papers.’
It worried him that his mother knew nothing of his whereabouts. The farmer had given him stamps and paper and he had written home, but he didn’t know if the letter had even got to her.
‘Look,’ I said, swallowing, ‘you can have some stamps. Why don’t you write, giving this address?’
He glanced at me with a faint smile, shaking his head. Again I sensed an iron stubbornness, lurking.
‘You are kind, but you can’t do this. You don’t know who I am. Let me do those jobs for you, first.’
There was an awkward silence. It was growing dark, he needed to get back, he told me.
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