Lyndsay was told. A sibling for Nicholas. Although he was not so much an only child now that Klara was – an unexpected form of relationship, unnamed, as she had been. Lyndsay herself doesn't define it, the child has not been taught to call her mama, or should it be grandma – that's the question but not a problem: she's Lyndsay to the child, and this doesn't undermine authority; or what looks like love, apparently.
Benni is overwhelmingly energetic, working in her advancing position at the Agency to take advantage of the improvement in the economy, as beautiful as ever, the face above the thickening body. When gestation is over (difficult not to think in terms of the vocabulary familiar for the other mammals that should be saved from extinction) will be the time to judge. If what is born is not affected, mutated in some way by sperm spurted from a body that had emanated radiance. Only then. In the meantime have to trust. What? Benni's instinct. Her contribution to starting over in a new state of existence. She has had a scan which reveals the curled-up foetus has male genitals already formed. A son. Be able to think of this being as a son when other things have been verified. You can be guilty of what you were not responsible for. Derek and Thapelo are congratulatory when they notice, on Sunday lunch invitations, the mound his wife carries under her flowing robe (Berenice's flair has taken to African dress as most attractive, in her present shape). Their jubilation – did they think a man wouldn't be able to make it after the state of quarantine – is infectious, it calls for a few beers Thapelo contributes to be enjoyed with rations in the wilderness. Nickie's hand is taken by his mother and placed on her belly; your little brother's waiting in there. He won't be as big as me. Everyone laughs at the premature one-upmanship. But there is a gleaming joy of curiosity and anticipation that may be what will banish for good the fingers forced from the iron gate, Daddy! Paul! Klara hears she too will have a little brother. Why not? A family has to be constituted for one who has none. She has been introduced to Jacqueline, the one of Paul's sisters who lives in the city, not Brazil or on an ostrich farm. Jacqueline's adolescent daughters make a great fuss of the little girl, putting bangles on her arms and bows on her dreadlocks. Likely Lyndsay may have told the prospective grandfather of the new addition expected by his son, in one of the occasional letters to Stavanger. No response to Paul and Benni, from there. If the father writes to her, the mother doesn't bring letters to the family, any more; the absence is not noted, perhaps not noticed, Klara and Nickie are playing a wild game, friends are expected. Lyndsay has sat for the first time in her judge's robes, at her elevation in court. If she's mentioned that, tie must be allowed to be proud of her. Still.
Lyndsay came with a letter again one day, without the accompanying happening of the child, and after calling to ask if he was alone. Yes, his wife Benni couldn't forego a promotional cocktail party which Berenice should host despite the hard swell under the beaded African robe that announced, in medical jargon, her term was approaching.
His mother ignored Nickie watching the children's television programme he demanded with Benni's inherited charm. Taking it out of a courier's plastic packet she, once more, gave over the letter. The son found the envelope unopened – uncomprehending, ready to be irritated, what's this for, Ma, looked away from her. The address: the writing unfamiliar.
He slit the top of the envelope carefully and drew out the folded sheet at the same time handing it towards her, but she came to stand close beside him, head bent to read it together.
Stavanger.
Lyndsay recognised the handwriting from the statement of expenses the guide had presented at the end of each week of services in Mexico. She sensed her lips moving as she and her son read, as if following a foreign language. Dear Mrs Bannerman, I didn't want to shock over the phone, so I write to tell you he died last night, Adrian. In his sleep, the doctor came at once, I called. It was heart failure. He did not suffer. It was after the theatre. We had a nice walk by the sea in the afternoon. That was yesterday, 14th. So that was the date when it happened.
Both stopped reading. What happened: he stayed behind in Mexico, he went to Norway. Gone away. It is difficult to realise another departure. If this had been a letter from Adrian telling at last that he was not coming back, the state of retirement he was in, Stavanger, was final, would that have been different? But what an insane escapist thought. Even if they were having it together. Adrian is dead. He hasn't announced finality. He's silent about it. Lyndsay and he read poetry together when they were young, tags remain, 'Death is silence, things which are not'. The guide he retired to speaks, writes for him.
Her son – their son – stirs the sheet of paper; they must read on. As if there is anything to say. Already told: died in his sleep, in bed beside the guide of course, no suffering, she knows because she was there, she simply sensed there was no rise and fall of breath or his body was cold against hers. They had walked together in the afternoon on the beautiful North Sea beach, Sola, a theatre where the streak of wet in the light from the stage that touched his cheek announced another kind of grief.
Read on. A gap, a pause at the word processor before a new start to this letter. Mrs Bannerman (again, though surely thought of as Lyndsay, embarrassment, guilt at the appropriation of retirement or late assurance that this title of marriage would never have been usurped) Mrs Bannerman, I have made all the enquiries, I will do it immediately you give me details where he must be received. My telephone number and email is at the top of the page. I can arrange it. I will send his body.
Smiling.
How else. In the grief she also must feel.
They walk into early evening light in the garden of Paul 's house, to which he returned from that other garden. Up and down, slowly, legs move even if mind doesn't. To the shrubs and the acacia where the children's swings hang twinned, one's been strung up for Klara too; and back. Lyndsay trips over an abandoned toy in the rapid rise of darkness in Africa and he steadies her; also himself, to speak. Silence is only for the dead. Adrian.
Let's go in.
It's no-one else's decision, only theirs, as the conditions of another state of existence were finally between them alone in quarantine. He doesn't dutifully indicate, it's yours to decide, you, his lover, that indefinable relation dubbed by law and church, wife. Do you want him back; if dead. Did he ever express that primeval urge, to be buried in his natal soil. The idea that his death in the logical sequence of events after retirement would happen elsewhere never occurred. He could have had a heart attack and died in the Arctic under the aurora borealis, that retirement venture with Lyndsay that didn't come off. Preserved in ice ready to be flown home.
Home. From Stavanger. Begin over again, from the grave. Or the ashes of the crematorium. There are new beginnings, in place. This's not home you left to follow so late, in archaeological digs, your avocation.
Smiling.
Found it.
They didn't tell other members of the family, not Jacqueline, not Susan, not Emma in Brazil, of the offer. An email was sent thanking the guide and declining. His mother asked Paul to place his name alongside hers. He had his sense of loss carried with him in the wilderness that still needed him and his team, Derek, Thapelo, always new threats to which there must be human solutions (if your father dies do you now exist in his place, nature's solution). If there's a possibility for the dune mining project or the pebble-bed nuclear reactor to be outlawed that's proof that what is a vocation and an avocation may be worth pursuing in the limited span of one individual's minuscule existence, not seen from Space.