Ten White Geese (12 page)

‘Not any more.’

‘Can you climb over it?’

‘I think so.’ She lifted a foot and put it on the lowest rail. My badger foot, she thought. She put the other foot next to it. She saw that she was going to manage and moved a hand from the plank to the post. Standing on the other side, panting slightly and turned to face the boy, she saw the black cattle she had seen the day she went to the pond. They were as black as his hair and her gaze sank from his hair to his eyes. Dark grey. She couldn’t look straight into his eyes, she could never look straight into both his eyes, she always had to choose left or right.

Bradwen was cooking again. He did it without asking and seemed to enjoy it. Tonight he’d made spaghetti with a sauce that, whatever else it included, had a tremendous amount of garlic in it. ‘It’s healthy,’ he said. ‘You should eat as much garlic as possible.’ In the afternoon the wind had started to pick up and it was still rising. There had been a gale warning on the radio. A branch from the creeper beat against the kitchen window. ‘That branch has to come off the Chinese wisteria,’ he said. She tried to feel positive. There was someone here who made decisions, who told her what needed doing, who – when necessary – held her tight. Without waiting to eat first, he asked where the secateurs were and went outside with a kitchen chair. She could just make out his legs, lit by the two candles on the windowsill. The dog had stayed inside, but was standing in front of the cooker with his ears pricked and his head up. Chinese wisteria, she thought, but what’s it called in Dutch? She could hear the wind whistling in the living-room chimney, the wood-burning stove roared. A bottle of red wine was open on the kitchen table.

‘You have to go,’ she said when he came back in.

His hair had all been blown in one direction. He was holding a wisteria branch.

‘To the next bed and breakfast. And then to another one, a day’s walk from there.’

‘No way,’ he said. ‘I am now going to dish up your dinner and then I’m going to pour you a glass of wine.’

‘Tomorrow,’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Dish up, then. And pour.’

Bradwen laid the branch on the floor and poured two glasses of wine. During dinner he smiled. He didn’t say anything but kept smiling, drinking wine, refilling their glasses and finally running his fingers through his hair. He quietly whistled the dog, rubbed an eye with one finger and licked his knife.

‘You don’t take me seriously, do you?’ she said.

‘No.’

She sighed and tried again to feel positive, which was significantly easier after one and a half glasses of wine.

‘I’m staying,’ he said.

‘We’ll see.’

‘The garden’s nowhere near done and I assume you want to have it finished by a certain date?’

‘What makes you assume that?’

‘It’s just a feeling.’

‘I have feelings too sometimes.’

‘Really?’

‘And I find them rather tiring. Just pour some more wine instead.’

The wind was now howling around the house. Despite being cut back, the bamboo was scraping the kitchen wall. Now and then something blew against the window. The dog was asleep but restless, whimpering and with his legs twitching.

Bradwen topped her up. ‘He’s dreaming,’ he said.

‘So what did you think of Dickinson?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘I haven’t read it. I don’t get poetry.’

‘Another reason you should go.’

He smiled again, or rather, he continued smiling. ‘Coffee?’

‘Have you got a mobile?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you ever use it? I haven’t even seen it.’

‘No. I don’t know anyone.’

‘That’s nonsense, of course.’

As if the dog had understood, he woke and barked once. He stood up and went over to stand panting where the kitchen joined the living room.

‘I’d be careful if I were you,’ the boy said. ‘He bites.’

‘Do you have a father and a mother?’

He hesitated. ‘Of course.’

‘You know them, then. Don’t you need to call home sometimes to tell them how you’re doing?’

‘I’m here now.’

She had a tremendous desire to grab her breasts to try to make something clear. She almost did it, but instead – her hands checked in mid-air – she knocked her glass over and began to cry. The boy didn’t do anything, he just stayed where he was. She stood up and walked to the stairs, passing the dog, who licked the back of her hand. She ran the bath, squeezing a long squirt of bubble bath into it, Native Herbs. She left the door – which was the only one inside the house you could lock – unlocked. She took off her clothes and stepped into the water. In the end, this was where she felt
best: lying back in hot water, aware of her body, which felt flawless and uncompromised, especially with the storm raging outside. She saw the corridors of Dickson’s Garden Centre before her, rows of rose bushes, and thought of bees in late spring. Come on then, she thought.

The windowpane clinked. Just when she thought the last gust had been the strongest, the wind roared even louder. She plunged deeper under the duvet, her bedroom door swung ajar, clatter from the landing. She held on tight to her body, hugging her breasts through the thin fabric of her nightie, putting her hands between her legs, raising her knees as if to brace herself, giving off a smell of bottled herbs. The wind roared in from the Irish Sea. She shook her head to dislodge an image of a big ship, pints of beer and fried snacks sliding over a bar, paintings hanging away from the wall, roulette balls bouncing across a red carpet, a clown on a small stage, off to one side, vomiting into the wings. She swallowed and imagined Bradwen on a blue-edged square, moving exclusively in diagonals. Wearing shorts but with his L and R socks on. They’d slipped down a little. He turned circles on his hands, elbows tucked in, the veins in his neck swollen. Sam was sitting on a chair on the edge of the blue square and barked as his master tumbled through the air, almost flying, and landed
straight-legged in the dead centre of a corner before raising one outstretched arm, exposing his armpit. Above the raging of the storm something creaked. It was more tearing than creaking: old, living wood coming free of the earth. She realised that she was no longer thinking about before, her mind was clear of all memories of the husband, the student, her uncle, Christmas with the sweetly perfumed Santa-shaped candles. ‘Ah,’ she said, because that candle was in her head now, burnt down to Santa’s waist, a puddle of red wax on the paper Christmas tablecloth, next to a plate of cauliflower cheese and thinly sliced roast beef. Along with her mother, who could never enjoy Christmas dinner because she was too scared to take her eyes off the candles in the Christmas decoration on top of the TV. She considered getting up. Going downstairs to sit next to the cooker and smoke? Maybe make some tea?

She shot bolt upright, threw the duvet aside and stood up. She held a hand against the window. She could feel the pressure on it. Things went black for a second; she’d got up too fast. The lights in the distance flickered. No, it was the branches swishing back and forth and blocking out the light as the storm rose and fell. She pulled the door further open and groped her way to the stairs, one hand heavy on the rail of the landing. Downstairs in the living room the stove was still smouldering, a vague red light lit the WELCOME mat at the front door and the boy’s hiking boots, next to the mat.

She lit the two candles on the windowsill and put the kettle on the hottest plate. The bamboo scraped over the side wall and somewhere a door banged, the door to the pigsty,
she could hear the metallic clang of the old-fashioned handle. It wasn’t raining, the window was dry. The water started to boil. She filled a mug and dropped in a tea bag. While the tea brewed, she massaged her forehead and temples, her belly. Nothing. On the outside, there was nothing. She took the packet of cigarettes from the table and lit one. The tea was hot. She burnt her tongue and swore under her breath. Immediately after stubbing out the cigarette, she lit another. She sat on a chair between the table and the cooker and turned her head towards the clock. The wind was making such a racket she couldn’t hear the sharp ticking. It was ten past two. She heard another kind of ticking. It was coming from the living room and when the dog appeared in the kitchen she realised it had been his nails on the wooden stairs. ‘Hey,’ she said. The dog hung his head and approached slowly, contrite, though she couldn’t imagine what he had to be contrite about. ‘Couldn’t you sleep either?’ she asked. Sam looked at her attentively, followed the smoke coming out of her mouth, then laid his head on her knees. His sigh made the bottom hem of her nightie tremble. She stubbed out her cigarette and laid a hand on his head. ‘Where’s your master?’ she whispered. The dog started to whimper softly.

The next morning there was no wind at all. Bradwen stood next to a fallen oak that was lying with its crown over the
stream. He pulled on a branch, holding the saw ready in his other hand. He had already rehung the pigsty door, which had blown off its hinges. She watched him with her belly pressed against the cooker. She held the mug she had drunk tea from hours before under the tap and watered the three flowering plants on the windowsill. Sam ran across the lawn with a branch in his mouth. The cows stood at the garden wall and watched, inquisitive and skittish. She brushed some crumbs off the worktop with a flat hand and sniffed. Was it the kitchen that smelt of old woman or was it her? The coffee pot started bubbling gently.

‘I think it’s going to snow,’ the boy said when he came in. ‘It’s got cold.’

‘Uh-huh,’ she said without turning.

‘Then we’ll go to the mountain.’

‘Don’t you have to continue with your path?’

It was quiet behind her for a second. ‘Sure.’

‘But not now?’

‘Not now.’

She sighed.

‘I’ve got other things to worry about now.’

‘Such as?’

‘Rose beds. A Christmas tree.’

She turned round without moving away from the cooker. ‘A Christmas tree?’

‘Yep. It’s almost Christmas.’ He stood next to the table with his hat in his hand. His black hair was stuck to his forehead, there were oak chips on the collar of his coat. Today the L and R socks were red and blue.

‘Do I need to wash some clothes for you?’

‘You don’t need to,’ he said. ‘But I do have dirty clothes.’

‘All right, you dig and I’ll wash.’

He looked at her but didn’t speak.

‘And now I suppose you’d like some coffee.’

‘Yes, please.’ Finally he sat down.

‘Where’s the dog?’

‘Running up and down along the fence of the goose field. He’s been doing it a while.’

‘Why?’

‘No idea.’

‘Do you know anything about geese?’

‘Not really.’

She poured a coffee and put it on the table in front of him. ‘Biscuit?’

‘Yes, please. Aren’t you having one?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Bradwen,’ she said. ‘Stop it.’

‘OK,’ he said. ‘But you haven’t said “
ach
” yet.’

She smiled and laid a biscuit next to the coffee mug. Then she walked past him to the sideboard and turned on the radio.

‘Yes,’ said the boy, just loud enough. ‘That’s another method.’

*

She was standing at the front door to ask him what he wanted washed, but the sight of his bent back restrained her. He was digging, she went to do the washing, hauling herself up the stairs with her left hand on the banister. She went into the bathroom first to take a paracetamol, then crossed the landing. It had been a few days since she’d even been in the study. It was cold, the window above the oak
table was up a little. The
Collected Poems
lay as she’d left it, the note she’d written was a little shaky. She rested three fingers on the page and looked down into the garden. The boy was working systematically: he’d already dug up a large part of the bordered rectangle, furrow by furrow. Now he’d stuck the spade in the ground and was standing at the open door of the old pigsty, looking down into the cellar. There was steam rising from his shoulders, his coat was lying on the garden wall. What did he see there?
Be its mattress straight.
Since Bradwen had come, she’d hardly given Dickinson a thought. She went over to the mantelpiece, where a brown rectangle with four metal clips was leaning against the wall. Apparently there was something about the portrait the boy didn’t like. She turned it round.

From the mantelpiece, she walked to the divan to straighten the duvet. Behind the divan was a pile of clothes: jeans, L and R socks, a T-shirt, a couple of pairs of underpants. His rucksack was in the corner. She hesitated, then quickly bundled up the clothes. Before leaving the room she looked out through the small back window. The dog was still running back and forth near the geese, nose to the ground, the birds themselves huddled together near the shelter. The sky was a yellowish grey.

In the kitchen she squatted down next to the washing machine and put his clothes in one garment at a time. Whether it hung in the kitchen or seeped from the washing machine or anywhere else, the old-woman smell didn’t stand a chance against the rancid pong of his blue and grey socks. He has to go, she thought. Better today than tomorrow. To fill the machine, she stripped the bed in her room and added
the duvet cover, sheet and pillowcase to the load.
Be its pillow round
. On the radio Wham! were singing ‘Last Christmas’.

This time the red-headed boy at Dickson’s Garden Centre had a very different look on his face. He was wandering the car park in a red Santa hat, helping where help was needed. When he saw Bradwen, who had come out of the exit just behind her carrying a Christmas tree, he stopped in his tracks. She saw him wavering: he could hardly pretend he’d been approaching someone else. It was snowing lightly. All of the garden-centre employees were wearing red Santa hats and there were decorated Christmas trees everywhere, even between the tables in the Coffee Corner. A Christmas carol was playing on the PA system. The roses had been moved to make room for racks full of candles and other Christmas paraphernalia; it took her a while to find them. After picking out twelve rose bushes, she asked Bradwen to choose a Christmas tree, but only because she thought they could plonk it in the corner, decorate it and be done. He took one with roots. That was handy, he said, because you could plant it in the garden in January. When she saw him dragging the tree through the aisles, she realised she’d need baubles and tinsel and fairy lights.