‘Yes, of course,’ I say. ‘But I’ve also noticed that the sky is blue. Although the sun doesn’t penetrate as far down as this.’
‘Quite right,’ says Mark. ‘The sun never gets as far as Barrett’s bolt-hole. But we’re going to go up along that little slope,’ he points with his staff again, ‘and then we’ll be in sunshine all the way back, I promise you that.’
‘I’ll believe it when we get there,’ I say again. ‘So, this is where Elizabeth Barrett was born, is it?’
‘According to legend anyway,’ says Mark, looking thoughtful. ‘Maybe not the best of places in which to begin your journey through life, but let’s assume that it was in the summer. I know where she got her middle name from in any case. Williford, isn’t that what it says on her grave?’
I confirm that he’s right about that.
‘That was a name she started using after he’d died. She wrote quite clearly in her will that the name should be on her grave. And she wanted to be buried in that little copse where so many people come walking past. . Everybody should see it, that was the point.’
‘What point?’
‘The name Williford. That was the name of her father, the farmer who made her mother pregnant and then threw her out. Quite an effective way of getting her revenge, don’t you think? There are still people on Exmoor called Williford, and they’re not exactly thrilled by that grave.’
He laughs.
Revenge is a dish best served cold, I think. As I’ve thought before. But it’s not something I like remembering.
Mark’s weather forecast proved to be absolutely correct. Two hours later we are sitting in The Forest Inn in Simonsbath, having lunch. I feel both worn out and warm. Castor is lying on the floor like a dead body, and what strikes me is that I just don’t know how I’m going to sort this whole business out.
Should I tell Mark Britton everything? Literally everything?
What would happen if I did?
I take a drink of fizzy water and think I must be suffering from sunstroke. Simply asking questions like that suggests I must be.
Sunstroke on the thirtieth of December? Presumably pretty unique in that case, in these latitudes at least. I give Mark a television smile and thank him for such a nice day. He belongs to the present, not the past, and that’s the whole point. I try to insist on paying the bill, but come up against a brick wall. Never mind, I think, I’ll have time to drive to Dulverton tomorrow and buy a few bottles of decent wine at least.
But as we are sitting in Mark’s car on the way back to Winsford, I realize that tomorrow is Sunday and everywhere will be closed — so that’s another plan that comes to nothing.
‘Seven o’clock tomorrow, okay?’ he says as he drops off me and Castor. ‘You know the way — and remember to bring a bit of dog food with you, because I don’t think I’ll be driving you back home afterwards. I’ll dig out that old mobile phone as well, and make sure it’s working.’
I feel like protesting, about several of the implications, but I can’t think of appropriate ways of putting it. I nod and try to look enigmatic instead.
45
And so I wake up in that bed yet again.
The first of January. For the second time within the space of two weeks I have made love to a man. A stranger, whom I met in a pub in a village at the end of the world.
Is there anything wrong in that? I ask myself. Not as far as I can see. I assume that my former husband is dead, and I assume that if despite all expectations he is in fact still alive, he wouldn’t want me anyway. And so I am a free woman.
My new lover isn’t lying beside me in bed, but I can hear him pottering around in the kitchen downstairs. We have a new year, and we have a new situation.
Jeremy was allowed a sip of champagne at the stroke of midnight, but he didn’t like it. He spat it out, and washed away the unpleasant taste with a large glass of Fanta. As I lie here in bed I have the feeling that he might actually like me. In any case, he seems to accept that I associate with his father in this way, and if I have understood Mark rightly it would not be routine for Jeremy to do so. He admitted yesterday that he was taking a considerable risk in inviting me to dinner that last time: he didn’t know how Jeremy would react, but decided to chance his arm. The last time he was visited by a woman, two-and-a-half years ago, everything went wrong — but he hasn’t given me any details.
I look out at the dense foliage outside the window. It doesn’t allow much light in. The house really is hidden away from the world, and it feels as if you are both protected and inaccessible here. Mark told me yesterday that the house had been empty for nearly ten years when he bought it, and that putting it into decent shape nearly drove him mad. The middle floor, where I am currently lying in bed, contains Mark’s bedroom and study: I’ve only glanced into the latter, as he was reluctant to show me what a mess it is in. There are piles of papers and files all over the place, and computers, and a stuffed parrot in a green wooden cage that he claims has magical powers. The bird, that is, not the cage. In any case, it can apparently solve difficult computer problems if you know how to ask it properly. I was on the point of asking him — Mark, that is, not the parrot — about my little password problem, but I managed to check myself. It wouldn’t be a good idea for him to be aware that it was somebody else’s computer, not my own; and if he eventually managed to open the document I shudder to think what he might conclude.
Now that I come to think of it, it strikes me that I could maintain that it is just something I’m writing about: a main woman character who has that little problem. But I decide not to push it. Another day, perhaps, but not today. Despite everything, I might well not want to know what happened when six men, each of them armed with a revolver, went out at dawn one day thirty-two years ago.
I can smell that he’s frying bacon downstairs. Perhaps he intends to serve me breakfast in bed, but I’m not keen on eating in bed, so I throw the duvet to one side and go out into the bathroom.
A new year, and a new situation, I think again.
I look for Castor, but realize that he is downstairs with Mark. Let’s face it, a kitchen is a kitchen after all. Castor has never had the problems of prioritizing that have troubled his missus.
We decide to walk back up to Darne Lodge and leave Mark and Jeremy at about noon. We can walk back again tomorrow and collect the car — we don’t need it for the rest of today.
In my pocket I have a mobile phone that works. Orange instead of Vodafone, that’s the key difference. Mark rings to check before we’ve gone more than a few hundred metres. I answer and say that it seems to be working, and we close the call. It feels remarkable: I realize that I could hear Synn’s or Gunvald’s voice within a few seconds simply by pressing a few buttons. Or Christa’s? Or Eugen Bergman’s?
I put the mobile back into my pocket and promise myself not to press any such buttons. Not in any circumstances. Instead, when we are back in Darne Lodge I sit down at my table and try to sort out what I have been putting off for such a long time.
Planning. Accepting once and for all that there is a whole ocean of days, weeks and months ahead of me. Perhaps even years. It’s high time I took that into account. A new situation?
The fact is that I have an idea, and I sit there the whole evening playing around with it. It is in fact no more than a very primitive thought, a sort of whim that I have purposely left undeveloped inside its shell, intending to give birth to it in the new year.
Yes, I like to imagine it all in that way: you conclude things in December, and you start anew in January. It’s feeling more and more like a hang-up, but if it’s all to do with magical thoughts, then so what? It doesn’t disturb me in the least.