‘Who are you, anyway?’
‘I just told you my name.’
‘Yes, I heard you, but my doctor has a different name.’
‘Since 1 January this has been a group practice. That means that several —’
‘I know what a group practice is.’
‘Your foot, you said.’
‘Yes.’ He pulled off his shoe and sock.
‘Could you come over here and sit on the bed, please?’
While the doctor examined his foot, and none too gently, he tried to read the computer screen over her head. The bed was too far from the desk. I must be less irritable, he thought. Minutes later he was sitting opposite her again. She wrote a referral.
‘Back to the VU?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘That’s easiest.’
‘I think it’s just severe bruising, but I don’t have X-ray eyes.’
‘No,’ he said.
She handed him the letter. ‘You can go straight there.’
‘That information,’ he said.
‘Yes?’
‘Is that just mine or is it ours…together?’
The doctor peered at the screen. ‘Everyone living at your address. For instance, it says here that your wife — or girlfriend — also had a fertility test.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said.
She stared at the screen and either typed something or used the arrow keys; he couldn’t see. ‘July.’ She read something, then met his gaze directly. ‘How is she now? In the middle of treatment?’
‘It’s going OK,’ he said.
‘It’s not often that something else shows up during a fertility test. They’re not looking for that kind of thing.’
‘No,’ he said. Keep talking, he thought. Please, keep talking.
She was still staring straight at him. ‘You don’t have the slightest idea what I’m talking about, do you?’
‘No. Yes.’
‘I’m sorry, I can’t say anything else. I’m afraid I’ve said too much already.’
‘She’s my wife!’ he said.
‘Yes. That’s what makes it so peculiar. Your not knowing.’
28
Mist. The world stood still. There was hardly any noise, even the stream sounded as if the water was being sieved through gauze. She was working in the garden all the same. The first alder was now cut back completely and she had already lopped a couple of thick branches off the second. She set about it very calmly. When she felt that she was tiring, she carefully climbed down off the kitchen chair and went inside to sit for a while in front of the cooker. It was only after drinking a cup of tea, having a snack and smoking a cigarette that she went out again. She stripped the side twigs off the branches and stacked them against the garden wall on the short side of the lawn. In weather like this, Dickinson would have sat inside coughing and sighing, she thought, writing about bright spring days and the first bee. The sawing was easier now she’d learnt to let the saw do the work. The light was on in the pigsty, the door open; it looked warm in there. The diffuse glow in the mist made her think of donkeys and oxen standing round a crib. Keep sawing like that, she thought. Very calmly, in a small world, all sound muffled. Working outside, she imagined the kitchen table with the map on it and a new attempt at a garden design, which made her think of Monday and driving to Caernarfon, where she could buy coloured pencils. And another shop where she planned to buy a TV: the nights really were getting very long now and she wanted to be able to empty her mind watching a gardening or an antiques programme, or that BBC series about people who want to move from the city to the country and call in the presenters’ help.
*
As she was carrying the umpteenth branch over to the garden wall, someone vaulted it in a swirl of wet air. It was like the jump happened in slow motion, perhaps because of the large rucksack the man was carrying. He landed on the pile of branches, lost his balance and slid sideways. That too seemed slower than normal, reminding her of a gymnast doing a floor exercise. He struggled to right himself, clutching his left wrist. She stopped where she was.
‘Oh,’ he said. It wasn’t a man, more a boy.
‘Have you hurt yourself?’ she asked.
‘No, not really,’ he said. ‘At least…’
She dropped the branch and walked up to him.
‘Bradwen,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘That’s my name.’ He held out a hand.
She put her hand in his and said, ‘Emilie,’ pronouncing it the Dutch way.
‘Is this your garden?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you German?’
‘What is it with you people? Can’t anyone here tell the difference between Dutch and German?’
‘Sorry.’ He rolled his Rs.
‘It doesn’t matter. But it is peculiar.’ She was still holding his hand. He was wearing a woolly hat and he squinted. Only slightly, but enough to be confusing. ‘Have you hurt your wrist?’
‘Yes.’
She removed her hand. ‘Would you like to sit down for a minute?’
‘Yes, please.’
‘Come inside then. I’ll make some coffee.’
‘Sam!’ the boy shouted.
A dog jumped over the low wall. Like its master it landed on the branches, and like its master’s, its feet slid out from under it. It scrambled back up.
‘A dog,’ she said.
‘Sam,’ the boy said. ‘That’s my mate.’
‘Hello, Sam,’ she said.
The dog sniffed her outstretched hand and licked it.
‘He likes you,’ the boy said.
She gripped the animal under its chin and looked into its eyes. ‘I like him too.’ The dog pulled his head free.
‘Nice,’ said the boy.
‘Coffee,’ she said.
*
The boy had put his rucksack under the clock and taken off his hat, revealing thick black hair. He didn’t run his fingers through it. The dog lay on the floor against the cooker and let out the occasional, contented sigh. She had made some coffee and lit a couple of candles on the windowsill above the sink. The sun was already low. She had cut some bread and made a cheese sandwich for the boy. ‘Thank you, Emily,’ he said when she put the plate down on the table in front of him, pronouncing it the English way. What difference does it make? she thought. He’ll be gone again soon. Now he’d finished the sandwich and drunk a second cup of coffee. He hadn’t spoken while eating and drinking. He’d taken his hiking boots off at the front door; there was a sweet smell in the kitchen.
‘I’d better be off,’ he said. ‘It’s getting dark.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘There’s a bed and breakfast a bit further along.’
‘How much further?’
He reached over to his rucksack and pulled out a map. The very same map she’d taken off the table earlier, folded and laid on the worktop, though his had been used a lot more. The stiff paper had already turned soft. He unfolded it and ran his index finger over it. He had sinewy hands with broad thumbs, a little dirty.
‘Two or three miles.’
‘It will be pitch black by that time,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘Do they know you’re coming?’
‘No, I haven’t rung yet.’ He thought about it. ‘Usually I ring up around twelve, after I’ve walked a couple of hours. Not today. I don’t know why.’
‘If necessary, you can sleep here,’ she said. ‘If you’d like to. There’s a divan in the study.’
The dog yawned.
‘Sam thinks it’s a good idea,’ he said. ‘He’s nice and warm there.’
‘It’s settled then.’
‘Do you live here alone?’
‘Yes.’
*
The boy had a bath while she cooked a meal. The dog had slipped away from his warm spot in front of the cooker and when she quietly climbed the first half of the staircase she saw him lying in front of the closed bathroom door. He raised his head and watched her attentively. She shook her head and went downstairs again and the dog followed her. Strange, how easily the boy and the dog adjusted to this house. She put a few more logs in the stove in the living room. She stirred the soup. The dog lay down with its back against the cooker. She opened a bottle of red wine. The clock ticked sharply, the geese clucked softly.