So, she allowed her hand to slide along the armrest until it touched his, pressed closer to the large, sleeping body, and pretended that she, too, was asleep.
3
SHE HAS A watch. She is pretty sure it has been three days and nights so far. Sun goes up, sun goes down. The so-called comfort temperature of the sleeping bag is said to be six degrees celsius but, as of now, there’s nothing comfortable about it. The sulphurous haze of fog is still as dense and someone up there is playing with the on-off switch for the wind. Abruptly, the tent becomes a perfect dome again and all she can hear is the pale-gray hum she has come to think of as the sound of the mountains.
He took the map when he left. Her cell phone is out of juice. The only edible thing in the tent is mackerel in tomato sauce and barely half of it is left in the tin no bigger than a deck of cards. The contents have a fishy, bluish shine and taste metallic, like chunks of the actual trawler.
She needs to drink. With the sleeping bag bunched up around her waist, she crawls to the front of the tent. Once the zip is pulled halfway down, a shower of freezing rain slaps her in the face. She wriggles out of her sleeping bag, puts on her boots and, stooping, emerges into all that whiteness.
Beyond that stone begins the territory you must keep out of. Over there, the negative force can get you. That is why you have to stay on this side of the stone. Stick to the area between the tent and the stone, right? Then the puddle of water is on the borderline, kind of.
If I’ve got that right, then drinking the near-side water is fine?
Yes, only not from the other side. That won’t do.
She kneels down, as if in prayer, in front of the small, reflecting surface and looks into her own wild eyes for a brief moment before her chin breaks up the mirror image. As she straightens her back and swallows like a long-necked bird, she recalls something Hemingway is supposed to have said: Never go on trips with anyone you do not love.
But, then, Hemingway also said: Madame, all stories, if continued far enough, end in death…
4
“EXCUSE ME, YOU really must speak up.”
(…)
“Could you possibly raise your voice, Ms. Ashland?”
(…)
“I’m sorry. It’s just that you’re mostly inaudible.”
(…)
“I realize that, in your mind, the sound of your voice is coming out clearly but that is not actually the case.”
(…)
“The prosecution should postpone the hearing until the witness is capable of making her statement. I would have appreciated if assurances had been obtained in good time that Ms. Ashland was…”
(…)
“Ms. Ashland, I must ask you to let go of the microphone and leave the witness stand now.”
(…)
“Ms. Ashland? You can…”
(…)
“Jane Ashland?”
5
AT FIRST, YOU will feel that constructing a wall is essential, Dr. Rice had told her. A wall between yourself and all the insensitive comments made by your friends, family, and acquaintances who either ought to know better, or else are simply unable to understand.
Her parents were quickly sent to the far side of that wall. Not because they said so many fatuous things—that is, apart from her mother, who kept using the term “accident” in her whispering tone of voice, one of the critical factors in Jane’s decision to leave home at the age of eighteen—but because they, unlike herself, seemed to have kept the cores of their beings intact. Unlike her, they had not become fearless. They never failed to lock the front door, never stopped strapping themselves into safety belts. Nor did they consistently choose to sleep on the sofa instead of in bed. They did not break plates. For them, day-to-day existence did not alternate between strict adherence to routine and being utterly adrift, without a sense of time. She didn’t think they were urging Dr. Rice, or anyone else, to prescribe more and more pills for them. As far as she knew, they sought sanctuary neither in the shower nor in the car, the only places nowadays where people can scream out loud or wail wordlessly.
True, her parents moved house. Into an apartment in a new housing development, some twenty-five miles from what had been Jane’s childhood home. The development consisted of identical rows of apartment blocks surrounded by a landscaped area rather like a golf course. There was an artificial canal crossed by a small arched bridge. Her dad had tried to catch catfish from the bridge but gave up after being soaked several times by the automatic sprinklers. They had new furniture held together with screws that forever needed tightening, and a complicated air-conditioning system that demanded much attention from her father. Jane’s mother had traded their favorite old armchair for a wine-colored La-Z-Boy. Sitting in it, looking out through the bay window, Dorothy had a view free from memories. The window occasionally annoyed them, though, because it didn’t face the lake as the agent had assured them it would.
Jane went to visit her parents three days before her departure. She had put on makeup. Fixed her hair. Her clothes were clean. Only her timing was wrong.
“I thought it might be you,” her father said as he opened the door. His eyes were mere slits, and he was in his dressing gown. Her mother, who immediately started making pancakes, insisted they had been up and about for hours and tried to block the view of the clock on the stove. It showed 5:15.
“Are you sure you’ll want to go traveling?” she asked, keeping her back turned.
Jane didn’t have to reply.
“Of course she’s sure, Dorothy. She bought the tickets, didn’t she?”
“Well, you know best, Robert.”
“You may call me Bob,” he said. “After all, we’ve been married for almost fifty years.”
After breakfast, they left Dorothy in the chair by the window and took the elevator to the ground floor. The sun had just risen. Jane had left her car with the trunk gaping open like a metal monster, digesting after having swallowed the remains of her life: cardboard boxes, a Fisher-Price castle, a yellowed computer monitor. How far away had she been when she selected these things to keep?
Neither of them made a move toward unloading the car. They just stood in the dazzling, diffuse morning light, arms crossed. Then, her father astonished her with a nakedly emotional outburst, something he rarely permitted himself and normally didn’t seem to need. He clenched his jaw, shut his eyes tightly, and pointed to his chest as if describing a site of physical pain.
“It hurts so much, Jane.”
She should have said something then, perhaps hugged him, but somehow did not get it together.
“I regret all the things I didn’t do. I have had such an eternity of time on my hands. Dorothy and I, both. I cannot think now why we didn’t… take part much more.”
She just nodded.
“Anyway, is it all right if I leave all this?” she asked.
Her father swallowed.
“Yes, of course. We still have the attic space.”
“True, but somehow you…”
The high, thin pitch of their voices hardly carried and meanwhile other sounds seemed muffled, as if the world around them transmitted poorly.
“What will you do about the car?” Her father’s shoulders had sagged suddenly.
“I intend to dump it in a wood near the airport and walk the last bit,” she said.
Her father breathed audibly through his nose and looked away.
“What, are you saying I should set fire to it as well?”
Flocks of ring-billed gulls, blown in from Lake Michigan during the night, drifted about as if baffled by the large expanses of grass. Not a soul in sight, even though it was no longer too early in the morning for retired folk.