Lesley had come back.
She didn’t ask me anything, just helped me to get upright and back into the house. She had hot Indian takeout for herself in the car, which she brought to me. She put a blanket over my shoulders. I assume she eventually remembered giving me the key. It had been five years.
She took everything in without visible shock until she realised her part in what had happened. “You stepped on the plates! Oh, God, Nick, I’m sorry…” She put her hands on mine. She tried to laugh at how pitiful I looked, but tightened her grip. “God… I hadn’t thought… I hadn’t thought you’d ever really need to come. Nick, what happened?”
Lesley must have been over thirty. But she’d always looked “grown-up” to me, so the changes were… appropriate. She was still in the right proportion to me, always older and wiser, always beautiful. She was as beautiful as a person could ever be.
“I made some poor decisions,” I said. “I didn’t want to hurt anyone.” She looked alarmed so I quickly explained: “I haven’t done anything bad, not like that. I just… I had to leave.” It had seemed so urgent at the time.
I put more chicken tikka into my mouth. I didn’t want to explain.
“Does anyone know you’re here?”
I shook my head.
“God, Nick. Did you tell someone you were going?”
“I know,” I said, putting both fists against my head. “I know.”
She looked at her phone. “My mobile’s out of charge.” She put it back in her bag. “You should see a doctor.”
I think she meant for my ankles but, given my demeanour, she could have meant anything.
“I was worried about slipping in the shower, and getting in and out of a bath,” I explained, justifying my Robinson Crusoe look. Hitting my head crossing the ford had frightened me. “I’ve been brushing my teeth and washing my hands; I’ve done that much,” I asserted, suddenly almost in tears.
She told me about her recent trip to Kosovo, from which she’d just returned. She was on the board of several charitable groups and had gone to inspect a children’s home they’d funded.
I felt small, which was wonderful. I felt like nothing in comparison to attempted genocide and potential independence. I felt like no one was looking in my direction, and I could finally relax.
“What have you been up to?” she asked, as if this were a normal conversation.
“I’ve almost completed my thesis. I’d like to get a Fellowship.”
“You want to be one of those eccentric old men who live in college rooms as lifelong bachelors?” she teased.
I shook my head, smiling. “You know it’s not like that,” I corrected her.
And it’s not. It’s just normal, a more peaceful version of normal. As a child I’d been treated as a prodigy. The truth is, I liked lecture halls because the seats were set out and the focal point was obvious. People had been impressed, thinking me clever. Really, I’d just been suited to the atmosphere.
“We’ll go now,” she said, standing up when I’d eaten everything. “Or would you like to shower first?” she added, reminding me what a mess I’d made of myself.
She would have to help me. It would be too embarrassing. It all would. Where would I let her drive me? Would I just walk into the Chanders’ house as if nothing had happened? I’d have to go home. To my parents’ house. It’s what I’d been wanting, to put them out of their grief, but my shame swelled greater than my compassion.
“I can’t,” I said.
But I whispered it, and she said, “What?”
“I can’t,” I said more loudly, pushing on the second word. “It’s too embarrassing.”
This is not how I wanted to be in front of her.
“I’m not proud of myself right now,” I explained. “I deeply distressed one friend, misled another, and stirred up things that would have been better left alone. Now here I am, a dirty hermit hiding out in the house of someone whose respect I would really like to have. I’m not respectable right now, at all, and I can’t even wash myself.” I’d actually started a scraggly beard, which takes some doing with my fair hair. “I’ve been brushing my teeth,” I repeated. It seemed important that she know that.
Lesley laughed again. It took great rib-spreading breaths to make a laugh like that. She put her hands on her face but even they couldn’t make it stop. At last it petered out, and two little wet spots on her cheeks sparkled from reflected light. “I’ve just been among people who, fifteen years ago, were murdering each other,” she said quietly. “You can’t shock me. All right? I’m not shocked.”
My supervisor, Richard, sometimes has to defend himself to creationists, because he combines his faith with his science. He told me about a time he got in an argument over Noah’s Ark. He’d said to some devout person, or at least in her hearing, that his understanding of the idea of a “whole world” flood had flexibility. That, depending on who was telling the story, “whole world” could mean different things. The borders of one person’s whole world may not match another’s, or even overlap. This upset her a lot. But I know what he meant. And I realised in this moment, here with Lesley, that my whole world was actually rather small. It matters, of course it matters, because it has people in it, but it’s not the actual whole world, and I needed to get that straight.
“You’re right,” I said.
If I’d been washed, I’d have reached out to her. I would have pulled her to me and made love to her somewhere in the house on some grand bed or uncomfortable Victorian sofa. I’d have again ignored Richard’s admonition not to rush. I’d have rushed ahead and lost myself in it. I wanted to rush, even though rushing had, so far, been a terrible idea.
“I broke up with my fiancé,” she said, out of nowhere. “He works in Kosovo right now, though he’s being transferred to Congo. He’s with an American charity. He’s American. He’s saving the world.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said.
“His world, my world. You know. I don’t want to live there. Either there. Maybe I should, but I don’t.”
She stopped talking about it. I tried to picture her in Africa, but I don’t know what Congo is like.
“Your father,” she said, “will kill me if I don’t promptly return you.”
“I would like to bathe,” I said, determined now to risk a fall coming out of the tub, knowing at least that I wouldn’t be left shivering on a tiled floor for potentially weeks. “I can do it myself.” God, I sounded five years old.
“Help yourself. There’s a ground-floor suite with a tub in the east corner. Leave your clothes on the bed and I’ll put them in the wash. Soak. I’ll put my toiletry bag in there. Some soap and a razor.”
She turned on a water heater in some far cupboard. The hot bath felt wonderful. I scrubbed myself, and shaved my face with her leg razor. I drained the tub and towelled off inside of it. Getting out was all right because she would be there if my one good foot slipped, though I was not going to let that happen. I hobbled into the adjoining bedroom, holding on to the tub edge, then the doorframe. Of course my clothes weren’t ready yet. She walked in just then with a robe in her arms. I shook my head.
“God, I want you,” I said, helpless to get her naked myself. I wanted to pull off her shirt but she was wearing a turtleneck. She pulled off her own clothes and guided me to the bed. It was an enormous, indulgent bed-maybe an American king, I’ve heard about those things. Right then it was big enough to be the whole world.
“I can’t believe you don’t drive,” she said.
“I’ve lived all my life in London and Cambridge; why would I drive?”
“I still don’t believe you can’t drive!” she mocked, and still hadn’t started the car. We were in the curved drive in front of Dovecote’s massive front door. The car was spattered with mud from her journey from the airport, but the weather was clear now. It was dark, but there was a bright moon. “Are your legs really all right?” she asked seriously. I nodded. The left one still hurt, but it wasn’t horrible. It wasn’t broken. So she got out and came around to my side.