29
‘I’m mapping a new long-distance path,’ he said. ‘Planning it, actually. In the south they’ve got the Pembrokeshire Coast path. Now they want a path up here too.’ He had taken a notebook out of his rucksack. ‘I write everything down, all the things I see, landmarks. Sometimes a whole day’s work is wasted because I come to a dead end.’ He had washed his hair and looked very different from earlier. As if there were a glow around his head.
‘How long will it take you?’
‘I don’t know. I’ve got all the time in the world.’
‘Why is that?’
‘I dropped out of uni. I couldn’t be bothered any more.’
‘How long have you been at it so far?’
‘A week and a half.’
He had tipped dry food from a plastic bag into a bowl for Sam, who finished it in no time. There was a pan of soup on the table. Bread, beetroot salad, cheese and butter.
‘I have to talk to farmers too. Ask permission. Farmers and homeowners. So I’m actually working as we speak.’
‘The path follows my drive for almost half a mile.’
‘Exactly.’
She poured him another glass of wine. He’d gulped down the first two and now he started to tip this one back as well. ‘Are you scared someone else will drink it?’ she asked.
‘You pour it, I’ll drink it.’
‘How old are you?’
‘Twenty.’
‘What were you studying?’
‘I’ve forgotten. It was boring.’
‘You don’t want to say.’
He rushed through his soup. Instead of bringing the spoon up to his mouth, he brought his head down to the bowl. ‘Nice.’
‘How’s your wrist?’
‘No problem.’
‘Would you like some more?’
‘No, I’ve had enough, thanks.’ He leant back, raised both arms and stretched by pulling one wrist with the other hand. His faded T-shirt crept up, there was a hole in the left armpit. ‘Not that you can say no anyway,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘You can’t actually refuse. Right of way. That’s what it’s called. The path I took today already exists. It’s on the map. You can’t stop people using it.’
‘I’ve never seen any walkers here at all. I’m the only one who uses that path.’
‘Yeah, it was funny today. At a certain point the path suddenly appeared and was easy to follow, but before that I kept losing my way.’
‘I walk on it to the stone circle.’
‘The stone circle?’
‘Yes, you walked right through it.’
‘Didn’t notice a thing.’
‘It was misty.’
‘I wouldn’t mind another glass of wine.’
She had to stand up to fetch another bottle. The dog was immediately alert. It was warm in the kitchen, the window had misted over. She smelt the old-woman smell again and shook her head to get rid of it. The boy and the dog had their own smells, especially the dog, and she hadn’t put the lid back on the soup pan. A pan which, by the way, had belonged to Mrs Evans. She opened the bottle. ‘Where do you come from?’
‘I was born in Llanberis. You?’
‘Rotterdam.’
‘Never been there.’
‘I haven’t been to Llanberis either.’ She tried to make her LL sound just like his.
*
After they’d drunk the second bottle, she’d had enough. She was exhausted, she needed some paracetamol and she wanted a bath. While he’d been sitting at the table freshly washed and wearing clean clothes, she’d been in her gardening clothes. She had deliberately called him Bradwen a few times to get used to the name and, as if in response, he’d kept calling her Emily. Or was it the other way round? Had she started calling him by name because he kept ending sentences with hers? She had a constant feeling he was about to say something important, even after he’d started on his concluding ‘Emily’, perhaps because he kept looking at her with that squint, behind which she also suspected more than if he’d looked at her normally.
‘I’ll light the fire in your room. Then I’ll have a bath and go to bed.’
‘Fine,’ he said.
‘There are books there. Mostly English.’
‘I’ve got my own book with me. Can Sam sleep there too?’
‘That’s fine by me. I’ll lay a rug on the floor for him.’
The dog was already heading through to the living room.
‘I’ll let him out first.’
‘See you in the morning.’
‘Goodnight,’ he said. He put on his coat and followed the dog, closing the front door behind him. Sam barked angrily a couple of times.
She went upstairs and laid a fire in the grate, looked around to see if there was anything she should put away, and fetched a duvet cover from her bedroom. ‘Yes,’ she said to Dickinson’s portrait after making up a bed on the divan. ‘Yes, this is a different kettle of fish. See you later.’ Then she went into the bathroom and pushed two paracetamol out of a strip. In a fortnight or so she’d almost finished all five boxes. Taking a painkiller was the first thing she did in the morning. She avoided looking at herself in the mirror, which wasn’t difficult with it steamed over from running the bath. A little later she was lying in the warm water, her mind a blank. She heard the boy and the dog come upstairs. He pulled the door to the study shut behind him. The dog barked and stopped almost immediately when the boy warned him to be quiet. ‘Not again,’ she said quietly to her toes. ‘And definitely not now, Emilie from Rotterdam.’ She rubbed her belly with both hands, keeping it up for several minutes, then ran her fingers, almost surprised, through her hair, which was very short.
30
The next morning she got up fairly early. The door to the study was closed and the house was silent. She made some coffee and set the table, putting a tablecloth on it for the first time. The mist had cleared in the night, a dull sun was shining. The sight of the one and a half unpollarded alders immediately drained her. He would leave; she would have to do it alone. She sat down with her hands next to her empty plate. Instead of coming down from upstairs, he came in from outside, bringing the bitter smell of fallen leaves into the house with him. The dog was overjoyed to see her. She could still see the boy as a gymnast: not a brawny one on the rings, but the slender kind whose best event is the floor exercise. He took off his coat and hung it on the back of the chair he was about to sit down on, opposite her.
‘Good morning,’ he said.
‘Good morning,’ she said.
‘I was at the stone circle. It’s a real one. This bit will definitely go in the route.’
‘Are some of them unreal then?’
‘Sure. Even farmers have time on their hands sometimes.’
‘See any badgers?’
‘No. You only see them at night. Sam didn’t smell anything either.’
She pulled off a sock and stuck her foot out towards him under the table.
‘What’s that?’
‘A scar.’
‘Yes, I can see that. What from?’ He reached out to her foot and for the first time since the bite she felt the teeth penetrating her flesh. Just before he was about to touch her skin, he pulled back his hand.