She lies there motionless for a few seconds, then she sits up and looks back at the hole in the ice. Broken pieces float on the surface. There is no sign of the boy. She knows something terrible has happened. But what should she do? ‘Ryan?’ she calls quietly. ‘Ryan?’ Then she starts to scream and her arms are thrashing but something is obstructing her. She tries to throw it off and then she is sitting up in her chair with her blanket on the floor.
Marianne lay back in the chair, breathing hard with her heart pounding in her ears. I remember everything. I have remembered for years. I started my life by drowning that poor boy. And I didn’t even run for help. I pretended to myself and to the world that it hadn’t happened. As if pretending could make it so.
24
The rattle of a passing train temporarily drowned their conversation as Jake and Leah walked across the Jubilee Bridge towards Charing Cross. So much water, Jake marvelled, great streams of gushing grey water flowing each side of the pillars; why was it that, when walking over a bridge, the Thames always seemed so much wider than he remembered? Was it merely the greyness of the afternoon, with sky and water competing for the same place on the artist’s palette, or was it the way the river curved around to St Paul’s and the City which made it seem especially wide at this point? A sharp wind was blowing down the river and Jake turned his gaze to the east where Wren’s masterpiece lay like a recumbent empress surrounded by her praetorian guard of glass and steel towers.
Jake was surprised to find that he was holding Leah’s hand; he did not recall making any conscious decision to do so. Yet somehow her hand had come into his, and he found himself remembering how powerfully intimate this simple act could be. A thousand nerve endings gently caressing each other, speaking in their own silent language of sensation, while the controlling minds danced a more cautious minuet with words.
‘So you haven’t told me yet what we are going to do,’ said Leah.
‘You said you wanted a surprise.’
‘Yeah, but now is the time to surprise me.’
‘OK – we are going to the theatre.’
‘Cool, so what are we going to see?’
‘It’s a revival. Arcadia, by Tom Stoppard, have you heard of it?’
‘Yeah… Stoppard… yeah, I remember, didn’t he write the script for Shakespeare in Love? We saw it at school.’
‘Yes, I think he did.’
‘Yeah, I remember something else. Mrs Duckworth, our English teacher, talked about Stoppard – I think she approved of him.’
‘Well, that’s a relief!’ said Jake.
‘Hey!’ said Leah, giving Jake’s hand a squeeze. ‘Don’t mock my Mrs D – she was a brilliant teacher. What’s Arcadia about?’
‘Well, it happens in different time zones – you move back and forth from early nineteenth century to late twentieth century, with overlapping themes. To tell you the truth, the only production I’ve ever seen was about five years ago at university, so it’s all a bit hazy, but I’m looking forward to seeing it again. I seem to remember there’s lots of maths in it.’
‘Maths! Is it going to be entertainment or hard work?’
‘I think you’ll enjoy it.’
‘OK, and hey, thank you, this is a real treat for me, you know.’
Jake turned and smiled at his companion; this definitely has the feeling of a date, he thought, noticing again that Leah’s familiar jeans had given way to a skirt – short, but not ostentatiously so, over which a black woollen coat had replaced the normal grey jacket, and a new emerald green scarf which looked like cashmere was wound tightly around her neck. A modest amount of makeup – which he had never seen on her before – completed the transformation.
Jake was looking forward to seeing the play again, but ten minutes into the production, as details of the plot and characters came flooding back to him, he began to wonder whether he had made a wise choice. She’s never going to believe me if I tell her I couldn’t remember that it featured a young teenage girl and her tutor. She’s going to see all sorts of parallels which I did not intend and which I could really do without. His expectations were fulfilled as soon as the interval arrived.
‘Are you trying to tell me something?’ Leah asked as soon as the applause had died down and they had begun to move slowly from their seats towards the bar. ‘Do you think of me as Thomasina? I’m not thirteen, you know, and I think I can just about get the meaning of “carnal embrace”.’
Jake was ready with his answer. ‘To be honest, Leah, I had forgotten almost everything about the play except for the bare outline. I didn’t even remember the characters of Thomasina or Septimus. I wanted to see it again because it’s regarded as maybe Stoppard’s best play – it’s clever and funny, and I thought you would enjoy it.’
Leah smiled, and Jake was relieved to feel that the moment of tension had evaporated. ‘Yeah, it’s really cool, and I love Thomasina. She may be ignorant of life but she’s so ferociously clever. Books, literature – that’s all very well. But maths and physics – that takes real intelligence. I wish I understood that part better.’
‘Don’t worry about it, hardly anyone else does either. Just sit back and enjoy it and in the meantime stay here while I fight my way to the bar to get us a drink.’
Leah seemed strangely preoccupied as they walked away from the matinée performance towards the Italian bistro in Soho where Jake had booked a table. Her hands remained firmly in the pockets of her coat and Jake chose not to force a conversation but guided her through the early evening crowds towards the restaurant. Their table wasn’t ready so they took a seat at the bar and Jake ordered a bottle of the Pinot Grigio. As they sipped their wine and nibbled on grissini, it wasn’t long before Leah recovered her voice. ‘So Thomasina dies in a fire on her seventeenth birthday – I can’t bear it. All that brilliance going to waste.’
For a fleeting moment Jake thought of his twin sister and remembered why the play had affected him so much when he had first seen it. Then he laughed. ‘It’s a story, Leah. Her death is just a theatrical device.’
‘Yeah, I know that, but you have to believe in the characters. They have to be real to you – otherwise what’s the point?’
‘By all means believe in the characters – but it’s the ideas that make you think.’
‘So who’s right?’ asked Leah. ‘They never really tell you, these authors, do they? They love teasing you – posing questions. I mean, the creepy prof who rubbishes science. Stoppard didn’t really think that science was a waste of time, did he? Or perhaps he did – I mean he was a writer, so perhaps he’s just for art and poetry. The human heart and all that stuff.’