Ten White Geese (17 page)

She picked up the biography and the
Collected Poems
and clomped down the wooden stairs in her boots. Before going out, she threw the biography in the bin on top of the empty anchovy tin. Even worse was that it still enraged her
here and now. She laid the poems on the table, sat down on a chair and pulled her laces tight.

*

She crossed the stream, trying not to think of the distance she had to cover. Taking her own path step by step. She had pulled an alder branch out of the pile to use as a walking stick, one that came up to just past her waist, and now she swung it forward, put it down and swung it forward again. At the stiles she needed to use her hands more than ever: she didn’t let go of the pole or the top board until she was standing on the ground on the other side. It was quiet in the oak wood, a thin mist rising from the lichen-covered trunks and branches. No animals anywhere. No cows, no sheep, not even grey squirrels. She could imagine squirrels hibernating; she could imagine any wild animal with a shaggy coat hibernating. She was getting hot. A familiar smell rose from the neck of her thick coat. The smell of old Mrs Evans.

At the stone circle she felt like sitting but decided to walk on. The rocks were dry; the lichen pale grey and brownish yellow. Around the gorse bushes there was a very vague smell of coconut. She followed the natural embankment between the tufts of stiff grass. There was no trace of the black cattle, she couldn’t hear any birds. She was completely alone, as if she too were not there. She crossed the field to the reservoir, passing the standing stone, which she whacked with her stick. Today the water wasn’t like a silver tray that had just been polished; an almost imperceptible breeze was rippling it. In the distance it was surging through the small brick building. She shuddered to think that not so long ago she had stood in this reservoir, seeing her body bent by the
refraction of the light, air bubbles in her pubic hair, tiny fish around her toes. She walked to the big rock she had laid her clothes on last time, sat down and lit a cigarette. A car drove along an unseen road. She stirred the water with the stick, making wavelets that pushed out through the wind’s ripples. She followed one until it died on the opposite bank. When she tried to suck on her cigarette, she noticed that her mouth no longer closed. She panicked, pushing her lower jaw up with her hand, but she still couldn’t suck; it felt like the time an oral surgeon extracted a wisdom tooth from her upper jaw and left a hole that connected to the nasal cavity, breaking the vacuum you need to smoke. She threw the cigarette in the reservoir and breathed in deeply through her nose a couple of times, something she could only manage by pressing her tongue up against the roof of her mouth. Her tongue was still working and a little later she managed to close her mouth. She stood up, felt her knees wobble and, leaning heavily on the stick, walked towards the standing stone, where she rested, laying a hand on its cold top and looking at the trees lining the rolling field.

Before starting the climb, she imagined the dull red tractor with a shrewdly smiling Farmer Evans sitting on it. And chains, deep tracks in the grass. Maybe Mrs Evans – not yet widowed – had helped him to stand the stone upright, leaving the basket with the bread rolls, two pears and a bottle of lemonade at the water’s edge. Maybe they’d laughed, run, rolled in the grass.

She hadn’t wanted to know a thing. She’d resisted the temptation to look it up on the Internet. She’d left. Like an old cat that wants to be left in peace. Not that she’d ever
experienced anything like that herself; they’d never had a cat in the narrow house in De Pijp. Her uncle had cats. ‘If they’re gone, they’re dead,’ he said and her aunt nodded. She looked back once again at the water and thought of him. Why didn’t anyone ever say ‘Go on. Go ahead’? Why had every last member of the kitchen staff done their best to get him out of the pond and into dry clothes, putting his shoes on the oven? To give him a chance to do a bit of carpentry? ‘A wall unit,’ she said and walked on.

*

By the time she reached the stone circle the second time, the light had changed. The gorse flowers were a darker yellow, the stiff grass a different green. She sat down on the big rock and dared to put a cigarette in her mouth, even though her hands were trembling and she dropped the lighter after lighting it. There was still an enormous silence. Badger lady without a badger, she thought. She felt her legs grow leaden, her back stiff, her arms heavy. It wasn’t coming. Maybe it was hibernating. Aren’t badgers a kind of small bear? Slowly she covered the last stretch to the house. She stood on the beams over the stream for a long time, looking at the water flowing downhill. It bubbled and foamed. Clear, ice-cold water.

Bradwen already had the arch in the ground. She stayed behind the wall for a few seconds in the spot he’d jumped
over weeks before. That was very impressive of him, the wall came up to her chest. Was that the sound of him whistling contentedly under his breath? Sam’s jump was even more impressive. She followed the path to the kissing gate near the old pigsty. The walk from the stone circle to the house had not entirely dispelled the heaviness and stiffness from her back and legs. Two ramblers were standing against a side wall; one of them had a flower.

Bradwen turned round. ‘Look,’ he said.

‘Lovely. Excellent. I’ll be right there.’ She leant the alder branch against the wall next to the front door and went into the house. In the bathroom she shook all of the strips of tablets out of the boxes, washed one tablet down with a couple of mouthfuls of water, and went downstairs again. In the living room she pulled open the stove door and threw the boxes on the fire, not going out again until she’d watched them catch and burn. She thought of the prescription and saw the piece of paper sliding across the counter at the chemist’s. There’d be a record of that somewhere, filed, but it didn’t matter. It only had the doctor’s name and address, not her name, and definitely not her address. The sun had disappeared; a red glow hung over the goose field. In half an hour it would be dark, maybe a couple of minutes later than yesterday, a virtually imperceptible difference. It was almost Christmas.

‘Would you like to plant them?’ the boy asked.

‘OK.’

He walked to the shed, picked up the pots and pulled the rose bushes out by the stems. He had already dug two holes and partly filled them with compost. The bag lay under the arch on the slate path. ‘Careful of the thorns.’

She lowered the first rambler into a hole and went to get down on her knees.

‘Let me do that.’ He was already squatting to fill the hole with compost, then stood to press it down firmly with his feet.

‘You’re not just a gymnast,’ she said, ‘you’re a gardener too.’

‘
Ach
, not at all. Anyone could do this. Have you been out for a walk?’

‘Yes.’

‘Here.’ He gave her a few lengths of green string. ‘If you tie this one up, I’ll plant the other.’

She tied two branches to the arch and did the same on the other side after Bradwen had planted that one too. The single rose – off-white, more bud than flower – wobbled on a branch that was much too thin but didn’t break off. The boy went inside and came out with a large saucepan. It was only when he held the pan at an angle next to one of the roses and water came pouring out that she realised what he was doing. He tossed the pan onto the grass, put his hands on his hips and sighed contentedly. ‘It’s time for your favourite programme,’ he said.

*

‘This ticks all the boxes!’ exclaimed a spoilt bitch. Even though she and her equally spoilt husband had a budget of eight hundred thousand pounds, their house-hunting just wouldn’t gel. He wanted ‘contemporary’ and she wanted ‘character features’. Sort yourselves out, for God’s sake, she thought, and don’t bother us with it. ‘This doesn’t do it for me,’ said the husband. ‘Not at all.’ She groaned. Bradwen brought her a glass of white wine without further comment. She didn’t notice him until he was right next to her. He’d
crept up on his L and R stockinged feet. Fish, she thought. He’s taking good care of me. The boy crept back out of the room. He hadn’t taken off his new hat. The right side of her face was glowing from the heat of the stove.

She slumped a little and leant her head back against the sofa. Although on TV they were now talking about a typical Victorian hallway, she saw Shirley’s hairdressing salon before her: Rhys Jones waving his big hands to clear the cigarette smoke; the doctor in the cobalt-blue hairdresser’s cape with bloodshot smoker’s eyes and a strangely lecherous twist to his mouth; the hairdresser laughing so shrilly that her breasts jiggled and the tendons in her neck stood out obscenely; the house-and-garden magazines full of green pumpkins; and there’s the door opening to let in the baker of all people, it’s high time he had his hair cut too and his wife Awen pushes him in – her perm is sagging and a bit listless and it will be Christmas in a few days’ time. The hairdressing salon has got very busy all of a sudden. A Border collie is lying under the magazine table; it licks one of the table legs, maybe another dog lay there not so long ago. There goes the telephone. Shirley answers and says, astonished, ‘Yes, he is here. You must be psychic.’ And Rhys Jones takes the handset for a short conversation with his estate agent friend, assuring him with a smile that the woman will leave the house and also telling him that he groped her, that she’s got a ‘glorious arse’ and that she was only too keen to respond to his advances; a shame that she’s leaving really and no one knows where. Strangely enough there’s no cutting, washing or hairdrying going on. The word ‘badger’ crops up regularly and when it does they all laugh, except for the
baker’s wife and the dog, dogs don’t laugh, and this dog seems to be trying to creep farther and farther away from the people. Near the door are plastic crates with big lumps of meat in them, watery blood trickling out over the tiled floor. Shirley asks the sheep farmer how his son is, what he’s getting up to these days, and the sheep farmer turns pale, whistles his dog out from under the magazine table and almost slips over in the puddle of blood that’s formed near the door. His dog starts to lick the tiles. ‘Enjoy your lamb,’ Rhys Jones says before banging the door shut behind him. Now she hears ‘Emily’ in the hairdressing salon. ‘Emily.’ It’s unclear who’s speaking. The doctor looks guilty and, like a bad actor, asks who they’re talking about.

Bradwen was standing next to the sofa. ‘Tea’s ready,’ he said, maybe for the second time.

On TV a team of clever people were competing in a quiz. Eggheads they called them here, even more mocking than
bollebozen
in Holland, the kind of people who did a PhD on someone like Emily Dickinson.

The boy had put new candles in the holders on the windowsill. There was a lit candle on the table too. Dickinson’s
Collected Poems
lay next to her plate, shut. On the plate it was haddock again, with mashed potato and fennel. Colourless food.

She sat down and looked at him, thinking of the almost
subservient way he had worked for her an hour and a half ago. Stamping down the soil, pouring the water. ‘Why haven’t you gone away?’ she asked.

‘Who’d cook?’

‘I can cook too.’

‘Who’d plant the roses? Who’d do the shopping? Who’d keep the stove burning?’

‘Why?’

The boy looked at her. The hat looked really good on him, even at the dinner table.

‘Have you already brought in the pan?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘Why?’ she asked again.

‘Do I ask you questions?’ he said. ‘Just look under the Christmas tree instead.’

She looked aside. A present was lying there. Before standing up to get it, she took a big mouthful of wine. She stayed next to the Christmas tree with Bradwen’s gift in her hand.

‘Socks,’ she said softly.

The boy sniggered. ‘That woman doesn’t know what she’s talking about.’

She tore off the paper. He had simply bought her a woolly hat. An incredibly ugly hat, purple, with sewn-on flowers in a range of colours, almost all of which clashed with the colour of the hat itself. A hippie hat, it even had two tassels hanging down the sides. She swallowed and was glad she was facing away from him. She swallowed again before pulling it on. It fitted perfectly. ‘Just what I needed,’ she said, turning and going back to the table.

Bradwen looked pleased and ate.

She drank and poked at the fish.

‘What is it with this Dickinson?’ he asked, gesturing at the poems with the mash-filled serving spoon.

‘Yes. I wanted to ask you that too.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Why do you keep turning her portrait round?’

‘Those beady little eyes.’

‘It’s a photo.’

‘So? She gives me the creeps. And you?’

‘I was involved with her because of my work.’

The boy chewed. ‘Hmm.’

‘She had a dog too.’

‘Yeah?’

‘Yes, Carla.’ She squeezed her lips into a circle between her thumb and index finger. It was called Carl
o
, the name was in her head, another detail that had angered her in Habegger’s biography because the man only mentioned the dog four times. It was a Newfoundland, an enormous hairy beast – she had looked up a picture of the breed – and it was called Carl
o
. A timid little woman whose only friend was a big dog and Habegger didn’t care. Now that she’d squeezed her lips into a circle, she tried it again. ‘Carla.’

‘A lapdog,’ the boy said.

‘No, a very large one.’ She ran the back of her hand over her hot forehead and drained her glass of wine. ‘Pour some more.’

Bradwen picked up the bottle obediently. ‘Funny name for a big dog.’

‘Yes.’ Funny name for a big dog. She knew it meant
something, but translating it was somehow beyond her. She wanted to go upstairs to the shelf under the mirror. Not one, but two tablets. She stood up. She walked through to the living room and stairs. The boy didn’t call after her. Without turning on the bathroom light, she grabbed the strips and dared to look at her backlit self. Fortunately she was wearing a hideous hat, a fancy-dress article, nothing anyone could take seriously. ‘Carlo,’ she said. ‘Ohhhhh.’ She saw her mouth open and close again: vague, colourless. The bathroom smelt of Mrs Evans, of course, as if she’d got out of the bath ten minutes ago and dried herself, leaning on the washbasin now and then with one hand. She swallowed the two tablets with a single mouthful of water. When she straightened up again, the two tassels swung cheerfully.