The River House (18 page)

I find the book I need. I’m turning to go when my eye falls on his desk. There’s a paragraph of prose with pencil notes at
the edges—an extract from his Celtic book. I pick up the page. Phrases tug at me, and I remember again what I’ve forgotten
for years, amid my resentment that all these words constantly drew him away from us—the loveliness of this world that he inhabits.
It’s just a short extract, just a moment that’s described. A man called Froech is swimming through the water, carrying a branch
covered with berries that he has broken from a rowan tree; a woman called Findabhair watches as he swims. “And Findabhair
used to say afterwards of any beautiful thing which she saw, that she thought it more beautiful to see Froech across the dark
pool; the body so white and the hair so lovely, the face so shapely, the eye so blue …” My eyes fill with tears as I read.
Perhaps it’s because of the rowan tree, and the berries that are like the berries near the river house. The emotion is so
strong it shocks me—as though something has been opened up in me, or peeled away.

“I didn’t know you were up here.”

He’s standing in the doorway.

“Amber had an essay crisis.”

He puts his coffee down on the desk. He frowns at the copy of
Othello
in my hand.

“That’s a crap edition,” he says. “I’m always meaning to throw it out.”

“It’ll do. Really. It’s fine for what she needs.” I pick up the page of prose. “I was just reading this,” I tell him.

He looks at me with a slight air of surprise.

“It’s Irish,” he says. “Eighth century, probably.”

“It’s beautiful,” I say.

“It’s for my anthology,” he says. “Fenella’s being very positive about it.”

I push away the image of Fenella, with her velvet hair bands and certainty.

“I was wondering who these people were,” I say. “With their names I can’t pronounce. She’s in love with him, isn’t she? She
must be. That’s what it sounds like.”

He looks amused.

“Froech is an elfish king,” he says. “They live in the
sidh
, the underground kingdom, the otherworld.”

“It’s by the river,” I say.

“These writers had a lot of beliefs about the edge of the water,” he says. “That you could find wisdom there. That it was
a rather magical place where anything could happen.”

“But they don’t have to be supernatural, do they?” I say. “You can just read that, and it could be anyone, couldn’t it? Just
recalling that moment, of something so perfect, of someone seeming so beautiful. Like it’s imprinted in her mind forever.
She can always see it.”

He likes me saying this. There’s a brightness about him—his eyes, his face—that I haven’t seen for ages.

“There are very precise descriptions of people in early Irish writing,” he says. “They used a lot of color words. They were
interested in exactly what people looked like.”

“I think she must be in love with him,” I say again. “The way she’s looking at him. How she loves to look at him.”

I put the sheet back on his desk, precisely, just where it was.

He’s looking at me, puzzled, pleased, as though he’s only just really seen me.

“You’re looking so pretty nowadays, Ginnie,” he says. “Have you done something—you know, changed your hair or something?”

“Not really. It’s much the same.”

He’s studying my face. I feel I need to say more, to be casual, to conceal myself. I suddenly worry that I have given too
much away. “Maybe the girl cut it better than she usually does,” I say.

“I’m sure you’ve done something,” he says.

He reaches out and puts his hand on the bare skin of my arm.

Just very briefly, something recoils in me. It feels so wrong to me, his touch; it feels like something taboo, something that
shouldn’t happen. This is an instant thing and I immediately suppress it—but he senses it, of course he does. I stand there,
quite still. I try to smile.

He turns away from me. I see how his eyes harden.

He goes to the window, resting his hands on the sill, looking out, looking down to the river.

“The water’s very high,” he says.

“Yes,” I say, with too much enthusiasm. “I’ve noticed that too. Well, there’s been so much rain.”

“We could flood here,” he says. “You know that, don’t you? We’re definitely at risk here.”

“It’s never flooded before.”

“It’s different now,” he says. His head is bowed; he has that creased look, when he seems too old for his years. He looks
defeated. I know I should go and put my arm around him, but I don’t move.

T
HERE’S A WET, GREEN SMELL
, and clouds that bulge with rain. Today the path is empty: Even the old man who feeds the geese has decided not to come,
or taken shelter somewhere, fearing the storm. Even the river seems quiet. I like it like this, when the whole place belongs
to us, this dull, hushed world, the russet slime of the bracken, the cries of the gulls.

“You haven’t got the blanket,” he says.

“It was difficult today,” I tell him. “Greg was working at home—I didn’t want him to see … to have to explain.”

As we near the river house, there’s a sound in the bushes along the path like many people whispering, and then the first drops
fall.

“Come on,” he says. He grabs my hand, and we run like children, my shoes clumsy on the rutted path. Just as we reach the door,
the downpour begins—huge, heavy drops that kick up the pale earth of the path, and a rattle of rain.

“Good timing,” he says, closing the door.

We laugh; we are lucky.

It’s dark in here today, no river light: and cold too. When he’s taken off my clothes I pull my coat around my shoulders again.
The rain is noisy on the roof. It seems to create a space, a quietness for us, making the river house seem so secret and safe.

“I like that sound.” It’s as though he thinks my thought. “Like being in bed as a child and it was tipping down outside. That
kind of safe feeling.”

I put my arms around him, breathing in his smell of smoke and cinnamon. My eyes are half closed, my head on his shoulder.
Through the window in front of me I can see the path, the river, the rowan tree, their shapes and colors blending, washing
together between my half-closed lids, like a child’s painting done with too much water—the red of the berries, the gray of
the rain and the river. He slides his fingers inside me. I feel how I open up to him. My back arches a little. He gives a
small sigh of pleasure.

Over his shoulder, I see something moving toward me out of the distance, a man running in the rain, along the path toward
us: moving straight down my line of sight, between the river and the rowan. He’s running fast, his eyes for a moment looking
straight at me. He’s wearing office clothes, suit trousers, a shirt, a tie. I think briefly how wet, how cold, he must be.
Why would anyone be out in such a storm? Just before he reaches the river house, he stops. I see him quite clearly: his fair,
thin hair, full face, the way he chews his lip, his intent expression. He seems for a moment to peer in at the window, as
though he is looking for something. For a brief, shivery moment I think he may have seen us: that he will burst in on us and
find us here, like this, entangled together. But then he turns and walks briskly away, across the overgrown lawn and into
the trees.

“Will, I saw someone.” Whispering as though I might be overheard.

“Mmm?” he says vaguely.

“There was someone on the path. I’m worried he saw us.”

A flicker of anxiety crosses his face.

“How far away was he?”

“A few yards.”

“Don’t worry,” he says. “He couldn’t have seen in.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure. It’s dark in here. You can only see inside if you press right up to the pane.”

“But if he looked really hard? If he was looking for someone?”

“Ginnie, what is this?” He takes my face in his hands. It’s not a caress, more the way you might cup a child’s face to be
sure you had their attention. “Forget it, for God’s sake, darling,” he says. “We haven’t got long.”

He kisses me, as though to start again from the beginning, then he’s moving his hand on me. We can still hear the rain, but
more gently now, just fingering the roof, and already the sky is brighter. I close my eyes, try to lose myself in this sweetness
that usually makes me shake. But the man I saw is imprinted on my closed lids. Against the blurry river path his image is
clear and distinct as a photograph, as he runs between the river and the rowan. His shirt hanging out, the urgency of his
running, something about his face. He won’t leave me. I feel as I’ve never felt before with Will—that I have to make it happen.
Excitement surges in me then dies away: I never quite get there.

I move his hand away from me.

“I don’t think I can come today,” I say.

“Are you sure?”

“It’s hard standing up. I’ve kind of got used to doing it properly. My legs feel too shaky.”

“OK,” he says, with a hint of relief. “If you’re really sure you don’t mind.”

He turns me around, pulls my coat off, bends me forward over the table. It’s cold without my coat. I wish I’d brought the
blanket and we could lie down. If we were lying together, perhaps I could get lost in these feelings, lost in him. I’m too
aware of the awkwardness of the position, the edge of the table pressing into my stomach. The sun is breaking through again;
there’s a harsh square of light from the window on the table in front of me. It’s too bright, too searching. Suddenly I see
us as though I am looking in on us: and it seems a little preposterous, this hurried, hungry lovemaking in a neglected room.

He comes quickly, wraps up the condom, starts putting on his clothes.

“Was that OK for you?” he says.

He’s never asked that before; there’s been no reason to.

“Of course. I really didn’t mind … I mean, I still enjoyed it. Next time I’ll bring the blanket.”

“So, what’s the matter?” he says. “I know that something’s the matter.”

The light from the window is shining straight into his face; his eyes are narrowed against the brightness of the light.

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “It’s just that man I saw. Something about him—the way he was running.”

“Ginnie, it was raining. He probably would be running,” he says, with an edge of impatience.

“But people don’t usually run. Even when it rains.”

“We ran,” he says. “Anyway, he was probably a jogger.”

He’s buttoning up his shirt. He hasn’t held me. I want him to, but it’s too late to ask now.

“He wasn’t dressed like a jogger.” I’m pulling on my tights, but it’s hard to do standing up—I’m struggling to keep my balance.
“It was like he was looking for something. I mean, you read these things in magazines. About people hiring private detectives
to check up on their partners, and bugging phones and things …”

I see his expression, one eyebrow raised, amused, a bit exasperated.

“I’m probably being silly,” I say.

“I think so,” he says. “Just forget it, OK?”

“I’m sorry,” I say. “That was wonderful, anyway. It always is wonderful. Thank you.” I reach across to kiss him lightly on
the lips, but I time it wrong and our mouths clash together abruptly.

Will seems impatient to be gone, to move on to the next thing. I feel how fragile everything is, how easily it can start slipping
away from you. I’m angry with this man who came running along the path and disturbed our time together. I wish I’d brought
the blanket—then I’d have been lying down and I wouldn’t have known he was there.

After I’ve left Will, I turn my phone back on. There’s a message on my voice mail.

“Ginnie, it’s me.”

Ursula’s voice is high-pitched, too emphatic.

“God, I hate leaving messages on these things. Anyway, Ginnie, it’s to let you know they admitted Mum to hospital this morning.
Mary Grayson found her. You know, Mary Grayson next door? I’m afraid Mum had collapsed, Ginnie. Mary went in because she didn’t
see her yesterday. She’s on Bentham Ward at the General. They don’t really know what it is yet, they’re doing some investigations.
Visiting’s from three to four, but they said we could go anytime.”

I
go to see her the next day
, driving down to Southampton through a clear afternoon. The road goes through the downs, through a landscape of vast, bright
fields and gorse with yellow flowers. The motorway is quiet, and I drive at the speed limit almost all the way.

I get there at three o’clock, as I’ve agreed with Ursula: then waste minutes at the flower stall in the hospital foyer, unable
to make up my mind. The daffodils are cheerful, but rather cheap and obvious. The roses suggest my father. The arum lilies
seem somehow morbid: I remember a vicar I once knew who always said they made him think of funerals. I stand there incapacitated—every
choice seems wrong. This is ridiculous, I tell myself—to come all this way, to drive so fast, then waste precious time struggling
with such a trivial decision. I settle for some innocuous tulips, then almost go back to change them.

The nurse at reception on Bentham Ward has flamboyant turquoise eye shadow and a wide, white smile.

“Your sister’s here already,” she says, when I introduce myself. “She’s a poppet, your mother. Really no bother at all.”

I follow her down the ward. We’re high up here. Broad windows open onto a vista of rooftops and tower blocks and the dazzle
of sun on windows, a cityscape of gleaming towers. A sharp smell of antiseptic catches in my throat.

Ursula is there at the bedside, in a sleek new coat of mahogany leather. She gives me a small, anxious smile. Lying in the
bed is a gray, gaunt woman who, just for an instant, I don’t recognize. Her face is worn and frayed, the bones sharper, the
shadows deeper, as though since I last saw her she has lived through many years.

I’m walking toward her, but she doesn’t seem to have seen me.

“Look who’s here,” says Ursula.