Alice kicked at a pebble with her heel. ‘I think I might like them better than anywhere on earth. I just feel … more myself up here.’
Margery glanced at her and smiled conspiratorially. ‘This is what people don’t see, wrapped up in their cities, with the noise and the smoke, and their tiny boxes for houses. Up there you can breathe. You can’t hear the town talking and talking. No eyes on you, ’cept God’s. It’s just you and the trees and the birds and the river and the sky and freedom … Out there, it’s good for the soul.’
A prisoner sprung from jail. Sometimes Alice wondered if Margery knew more about her life with the Van Cleves than she let on. She was dragged from her thoughts by a blaring horn. Bennett was driving his father’s motor-car towards the library. He shuddered to an abrupt halt, so that the dog leaped up, its tail between its legs. He was waving at her, his smile wide and uncomplicated. She couldn’t help but smile back: he was as handsome as a movie star on a cigarette card.
‘Alice! … Miss O’Hare,’ he said, catching sight of her.
‘Mr Van Cleve,’ Margery answered.
‘Came to fetch you home. Thought we might take that picnic you were talking about.’
Alice blinked. ‘Really?’
‘Got a couple of problems with the coal tipple that won’t be fixed until tomorrow and Pa’s in the office trying to sort it out. So I flew home and got Annie to do us a picnic. Thought I’d race you back in the car and you can get changed and we’ll head straight out while it’s still light. Pa says we can have this old girl all evening.’
Alice stood up, delighted. Then her face fell. ‘Oh, Bennett, I can’t. We haven’t entered the books or sorted them and we’re so behind. We’ve only just finished the horses.’
‘You go,’ said Margery.
‘But that’s not fair on you. Not with Beth gone and Izzy disappearing as soon as we got back.’
Margery waved a hand.
‘But –’
‘Go on now. I’ll see you tomorrow.’
Alice glanced at her to check that she meant it, then gathered up her things and whooped as she raced down the steps. ‘I probably smell like a cowboy again,’ she warned, as she climbed into the passenger side and kissed her husband’s cheek.
He grinned. ‘Why do you think I’ve got the top open?’ He reversed into a speedy three-point turn, causing the dust to fly up in the road, and Alice squealed as they roared towards home.
He was not a mule prone to exaggerated shows of temper or high emotion, but Margery rode Charley home at a slow walk. He had worked hard and she was in no hurry. She sighed, thinking of the day. A flighty Englishwoman who knew nothing of the area, whom the mountain people might not trust, and would probably be pulled away by that braying blowhard Mr Van Cleve, and a girl who could barely walk, couldn’t ride and didn’t want to be there. Beth worked when she could but her family would need her for the harvest during much of September. Hardly the most auspicious start to a travelling library. She wasn’t sure how long any of them would last.
They reached the broken-down barn where the trail split and she dropped her reins onto his narrow neck, knowing the mule would find his own way home. As she did, her dog, a young blue-eyed speckled hound, bolted towards her, his tail clamped between his legs and his tongue lolling in his delight to see her. ‘What in heck are you doing out here, Bluey boy? Huh? Why aren’t you in the yard?’
She reached the small paddock gate and dismounted, noting that the ache in her lower back and shoulders probably owed more to hoisting Izzy Brady on and off a horse than any real distance she had travelled. The dog bounded around her, only settling when she ruffled his neck between her hands and confirmed that yes, he was a good boy, yes, he was, at which point he raced back into the house. She released the mule, watching as Charley dropped to the ground, folding his knees under him, then rocking backwards and forwards in the dirt with a satisfied groan.
She didn’t blame him: her own feet were heavy as she made her way up the steps. She reached for the door, then stopped. The latch was off. She stared at it for a moment, thinking, then walked quietly to the empty barrel at the side of the barn where she kept her spare rifle under a piece of sacking. Alert now, she lifted the safety catch and raised it to her shoulder. Then she tiptoed back up the steps, took a breath, and quietly hooked the door open with the toe of her boot.
‘Who’s there?’
Directly across the room, Sven Gustavsson sat on her rocker, his feet up on the low table and a copy of Robinson Crusoe in his hands. He didn’t flinch, but waited a moment for her to lower the gun. He put the book carefully on the table, and rose to his feet slowly, placing his hands with almost exaggerated courtesy behind his back. She stared at him for a moment, then propped her gun against the table. ‘I wondered why the dog didn’t bark.’
‘Yeah, well. Me and him. You know how it is.’
Bluey, that squirming traitor, was nestling under Sven’s arm now, pushing at him with his long nose, begging to be petted.
Margery took off her hat and hung it on the hook, then pushed the sweaty hair from her forehead. ‘Wasn’t expecting to see you.’
‘You weren’t looking.’
Without meeting his eye, she moved past him to the table, where she pulled the lace cover from a jug of water and poured herself a cup.
‘You not going to offer me some?’
‘Never knew you to drink water before.’
‘And you won’t offer me anything stronger?’
She put the cup down. ‘What are you doing here, Sven?’
He looked at her steadily. He was wearing a clean checked shirt and he gave off a smell of coal-tar soap and something uniquely his, something that spoke of the sulphurous smell of the mine and smoke and maleness. ‘I missed you.’
She felt something give a little in her, and brought the cup to her lips to hide it. She swallowed. ‘Seems to me you’re doing just fine without me.’
‘You and I both know I can do just fine without you. But here’s the thing: I don’t want to.’
‘We’ve been through this.’
‘And I still don’t get it. I told you if we marry I won’t try to pin you down. I won’t control you. I’ll let you live exactly as you live now except you and I –’
‘You’ll let me, will you?’
‘Goddamn it, Marge, you know what I mean.’ His jaw tightened. ‘I’ll let you be. We can be exactly as we are now.’
‘Then what’s the point in us going through with a wedding?’
‘The point is that we’ll be married in the eyes of God, not sneaking around like a pair of goddamn kids. You think I like this? You think I want to hide from my own brother, from the rest of the town, the fact that I love the bones of you?’
‘I won’t marry you, Sven. I always told you I wouldn’t marry anybody. And every time you go on about it I swear my head feels like it’s going to explode just like the dynamite in one of your tunnels. I won’t talk to you if you’re just going to keep coming here and going over the same thing again and again.’
‘You won’t talk to me anyways. So what in hell am I supposed to do?’
‘Leave me alone. Like we decided.’
‘Like you decided.’
She turned away from him and walked to the bowl in the corner, where she had covered some beans she had picked early that morning. She began stringing them, one by one, snapping off the ends and throwing them into a pan, waiting for the blood to stop thumping in her ears.
She felt him before she saw him. He walked quietly across the room and stood directly behind her so that she could feel his breath on her bare neck. She knew without looking that her skin flushed where it touched her.
‘I’m not like your father, Margery,’ he murmured. ‘If you don’t know that about me by now then there’s no telling you.’