‘How long?’ she said after a lengthy pause. ‘How long do you think the smell of the dog will linger at the goose field?’
‘Fairly long, I’d guess.’
‘Hmm.’ The wood on the fire crackled. She felt its warmth on the top of her head. The old days, she thought. What does an expression like that mean when you’re twenty? Suddenly a thought entered her mind. ‘How could you not have known about the stone circle?’
‘I did know about it.’
‘You said you didn’t.’
‘Not at all. I said I “didn’t notice it”. It was misty that day.’
‘And you asked me how to get to the mountain.’
‘Not how. I asked if you had a suggestion for the most beautiful way to get there.’
‘Are you lying or what?’
‘No, I’m not lying. Are you?’
‘Yes. Constantly.’
The boy sniggered, his chest shaking.
‘Your father wanted to tell me how she met her end.’
‘Yeah?’
‘But I didn’t want to listen.’
‘No?’
‘I wanted to get rid of him as fast as I could.’
Again, he sniggered.
‘I’ll listen to you,’ she said, although she was suddenly finding it almost impossible to keep her eyes open.
The boy got up off the divan with his duvet in his hands. ‘Move over a bit.’
She did what he asked, laying her arms alongside her body on top of the covers. He lay down next to her, half under his own duvet, his head at the level of her breasts. There was something submissive about it that reminded her of the night Sam came downstairs and laid his head on her knees.
‘I found her,’ he said.
‘You?’
‘Did my father say otherwise?’
She thought about it. ‘He acted as if he knew all about it.’ She had to dig deep for the English, translating was an effort.
‘That’s true. I arranged it so he’d find her after me. I owed him that much.’
*
The boy talked. She had to do her best to follow him, trying not to miss bits or let her mind stray, because it was easy to listen to his words as sounds alone. It was summer — last summer, she presumed — and he’d wanted to see Mrs Evans again, maybe for the last time, she was over ninety after all. He’d come by bike from Bangor, not another cyclist on the road. People here don’t ride bikes, even though there’s a bike rental place right next to the train station — it’s for the tourists, who don’t use it either. Up the drive: the grass in the fields was very long, which reminded him of his father who was apparently neglecting his mowing duties. Typical. Sam wasn’t with him, he’d left him at home. Replying to her question as to where that was, he said, ‘Liverpool.’ Was that where he studied? ‘Yes, at Hope University. Don’t tell my father.’ Bangor to here was about fifteen miles, he didn’t know if Sam could do that running alongside a bike. And, of course, there was always a chance that his father might be here on any given day, the father he’d stolen the dog from. She could have interrupted him at this point, she was feeling hot from the fire and his talk of summer, but she couldn’t summon the energy to open her mouth. He’d seen the geese huddled together near the small wooden shed and hadn’t found anyone in the house or under the alders along the stream: she used to sit there sometimes on hot days. He’d leant his bike against the side of the pigsty. The geese gaggled excitedly. He’d walked over to them. They reminded him of a group of people standing around a traffic victim, horny with excitement. He climbed over the fence, the geese scattered and there she was, lying where they’d just been standing. Something had been at her. He didn’t know if geese would do that, but imagined it was more likely to have been a fox or a bird of prey of some kind. A kite. Not a vlieger, she thought, a wouw, and she opened her eyes so that she would see the ceiling of the study and not a goose field in the summer and an old woman lying there dead. He’d only glanced at her. Her dress had been pushed up, he found that worst of all. He ran out of the goose field. A moment before he’d been hungry. On the bike he’d been looking forward to huge pieces of home-made cake. Mrs Evans did that better than anyone, cake-making. He realised that he had to phone someone. He’d grabbed the bike and ridden out to the road. There, at the gate that was always open, he’d rung his father, confident that he wouldn’t be home at that time of day. He’d done his best to sound different, leaving a short, deep-voiced message on the answering machine. Then he’d cycled back to Bangor, returned the bike and got on the train. Change at Chester. Final destination: Liverpool Lime Street. The girl in the room next to his at the student house said that the dog had howled all day and asked him to leave it with her next time he planned to go off somewhere alone.
*
A girl, she thought. ‘Will we see your father around here again?’ she asked.
‘I don’t think so. He’s got his dog back and you weren’t interested.’
Almost unnoticed, the boy had joined her under the duvet. She must have lost the feeling in her left arm for a moment. She didn’t complain, this body full of heavy things was not that delicate. He was giving off something, a kind of electricity: his chest shimmered, his hand smouldered, his breath was as hot as a happy dog’s. What would it feel like if she weren’t wearing her nightie? She wanted to take it off, but the fire had made her sluggish and it was the middle of the night; she was tired, exhausted. ‘Can you…?’ she asked, raising her head slightly off the pillow.
He understood and soon they were lying next to each other in their underpants like two wary adolescents. Her on her back and him on his side, still a little lower, his nose against her upper arm, his arms against her hips. Arms full of tension, she could feel it radiating. The stream was rushing. Just when the sound of the flowing water was about to give way to sleep, he said, ‘We’re going to the mountain. The day after tomorrow. Christmas Day. The train’s running.’
Fine, she thought. To the mountain, I should be able to manage that. ‘Will you go to the baker’s tomorrow? To buy some Christmas pudding? Give them both my greetings. The fondest greetings from the Dutchwoman.’
The boy made a sound at the back of his throat and fell asleep. Did he find her old and ugly? Could he smell something? She sighed and closed her eyes. Don’t think about it. Not now.
55
The boy had gone to the baker’s. On foot. She had the house to herself until he came back. Then he had to go to Tesco’s to get some food in for Christmas. The radio was on. She was sitting at the kitchen table with the woolly hat on her head. In front of her: Dickinson’s Collected Poems, open at pages 216 and 217, ‘A Country Burial’. She’d written down two translations of the first line and crossed them both out: