Alex was cleaning paint drips from the floor in the living room. The window was open. Straight ahead was a view of the blue unclouded weather but the window itself reflected an angle of the exterior that he could not see directly. The reflection in the window was darker than reality, imparting a tint to the sky like a premonition of thunder. He went over to the window and opened it inward. As he did so the view in the glass panned round to reveal the gravel path leading to the barn. It was like a form of elementary surveillance and Alex felt as if he were spying. He opened the window wider, until he could see the barn itself. At the extreme edge of the window frame, he saw Nicole walking into view. With the window open as wide as possible he watched her lay a towel on the parched grass and take off her shorts and T-shirt. Underneath she was wearing her yellow swimming costume. She sat down and rubbed sun lotion on to her arms and legs and shoulders. She picked up a book but put it down again almost immediately and lay back in the sun. Alex heard the door open behind him. He glanced round as Sahra stepped into the room. She saw him silhouetted against the shock of light.
‘Hi!’ he said, moving the window slightly.
‘Alex?’
‘Yes.’ He stood up, giddy with the blood draining from his head.
‘Are you busy?’
‘Not at all.’ Sahra walked towards him, put her arms around him, kissed him. ‘What is it?’ He held her.
‘We’re still looking in the same direction aren’t we?’
‘At this moment, no. We’re looking at each other.’
‘You know what I mean.’
‘Yes, of course. I mean, we are still looking in the same direction.’
‘Promise?’
‘I promise. Look,’ he said, moving so that they were both facing the open window, looking out at the blaze of wheat and sky.
One night, when Alex and Sahra had gone to bed, Nicole and Luke carried their mattress and bedding out into the yard. They made love, Luke manoeuvring, selfishly, so that he was underneath and could see the sky. Nicole moved slowly, pulling away from him until he almost came out of her, then sliding back over him, taking him inside her again.
‘Shoulders,’ she said. He moved his hands up to her shoulders, stroked them.
‘Shoulders,’ he said.
‘Back,’ she said.
‘Lovely back,’ he said, moving his hands down the steps of her spine and then back up again.
Next she said, ‘Waist.’ He repeated the word and moved his hands down to her waist.
‘Hips,’ she said.
‘I love your hips,’ he said, moving his hand over the angle of bone.
‘Breasts,’ she said.
‘Breasts.’ He touched her breasts and kissed her on the mouth.
‘Lips,’ she said.
‘Lips,’ he said.
‘Tongue.’
‘Tongue.’
‘Ear.’ He kissed her ear, whispering the word in her ear.
‘Neck,’ she said, and he touched her neck as softly as he could.
‘Hair,’ she said. Her hair was falling over his face. He gathered it loosely in his hand and let it run through his fingers.
‘Hair,’ he said, gathering it in his fist.
‘Hair.’
He pulled her hair, gently, then harder until her head was pulled backwards.
‘Hair.’
‘Hair,’ he said, threading it with starlight.
Afterwards they lay side by side, staring up at the star-drenched night. Neither of them was able to recognize the constellations. To attempt to arrange the swathe of stars into patterns, designs, shapes or outlines of objects was to diminish them, to scale down the immensity of what was seen and render it manageable. Even to look at them through your own eyes, to seek to hold the view in your head seemed compromising, belittling.
If only we could see without being — then we could be what we see.
‘How many stars do you think there are up there?’ said Nicole.
‘An astronomical number.’
They watched for shooting stars, taking it in turns to call out: ‘There’s one!’ ‘Look, there!’
‘I’ve never been happier in my life,’ said Luke.
‘Nor have I.’
‘And I never will be happier.’
‘How do you know?’
‘There’s a ceiling. A limit.’
‘Funny to say that now, now that there is no ceiling to be seen.’
‘You don’t think those stars are a ceiling?’
They lay still. A satellite skimmed the earth. Passing, passing.
‘What are you thinking now?’ said Nicole.
‘I’m wondering if it’s possible that happiness could become unbearable,’ he said. ‘I think I can imagine it, not being able to bear happiness any more.’
Nicole said nothing. He moved to kiss her. Her face was wet against his lips.
To see without being, to be what is seen. .
A few days before they were due to return to the city the four friends drove to the coast. It was an hour’s drive, and when they were almost there they took Daniel’s acid. Alex had done a trip once before, years ago, and so had Sahra. After much negotiation Alex took a whole blotter while the women — Nicole having once again been persuaded and reassured by Sahra — took a half each. Luke swallowed the rest.
They parked the car and began walking. The wall beside the road was tumbled down and broken. It didn’t matter: its dereliction was part of a cycle that led ultimately to its being repaired. Everything had its season here. The road was dusty, dry. At the side of the road were stones, left over from whatever process had been used to make the road. All along the roadside was the sizzle of cicadas. They turned on to a smaller road. To the left were trees, bare and thorny as barbed wire. Leaves had been dispensed with as an unnecessary luxury. It was perfectly still but, after years in this normally windswept spot, the trees looked, even in repose, as if a gale were screaming through their spindly branches. Leaves had been sacrificed for roots, display for the more desperate task of clinging to thin soil. All energy passed down rather than out. All visual clues suggested the buffeting and howling of wind — even the grass was combed flat — but the only sound was of insects, twitching.
They found themselves walking across the very different grass of a golf course. A group of men in pastel sweaters took it in turns to tee off. Because Sahra was the only one with a watch they called her Chronos, a name she was more than happy with. Here and there they tried to give names to various land formations. Although, between them, they had many names at their disposal, no one was sure if the words corresponded to the features intended. Luke thought of rock types and forgotten processes of erosion taking millions and millions of years, proceeding, so to speak, at a glacial pace.
Unsure of the direction they were taking, they passed a car park where an old man and a woman stoically contemplated the view while drinking from a tartan-patterned flask. Odd things caught Luke’s attention: a red phone box, English-style, with blue tiles of sky showing through the square frames of windows (two broken). What was that doing there?
‘Hey Chronos!’ called Alex. ‘What’s the time?’
‘It’s stopped,’ said Sahra.
‘Time has run out,’ said Nicole.
‘There is no more time,’ said Sahra.
The road gave way to a path that followed the bend of the coast. Their feet moved over crumbled yellow stones. A single dark puddle — where had the water come from? — fixed Luke’s face against a glinting bowl of sky. To the left was a low wall; to the right, a taut wire fence, tufts of grey fleece hanging from the barbs. A hundred metres further on this gave way to an electrified fence that hummed quietly to itself. They began to feel hemmed in by this corridor of fences and walls which was just one strand of an elaborate web, stretched over the landscape as far as the eye could see.