Уильям Николсон - Motherland

Nell has one of the bottles out, together with a pad of paper and a pencil.

‘So what’s our first message to be?’ she says.

‘We really are sending messages in bottles?’

‘Of course. I’ll do the first one.’

She writes on the pad, tears off the sheet of paper, shows it to Larry. She has written: If you find this message you will have good luck for the rest of your life .

‘You don’t think that’s going to end in disappointment?’ he says.

‘Not at all. If you believe in your luck, it comes.’

She screws the cap on the little bottle and drops it from the parapet of the bridge into the river below. They see it hit the water and sink and then come bobbing up again, to swirl away downstream.

They cycle across to the north bank of the river, and along the Victoria Embankment to Westminster Bridge. Once again, Nell parks her bike in the middle of the bridge.

‘We’re on a bridge crawl,’ says Larry.

‘I want this to be a day you’ll never forget,’ says Nell.

She takes out the pad and pencil.

‘Earth has not anything to show more fair,’ says Larry.

‘What?’

‘Wordsworth’s poem. On Westminster Bridge.’

‘Next message. Here. It’s your turn.’

She hands him the pad. Larry is remembering the poem.

‘The beauty of the morning, silent, bare,

Ships, towers, something something lie

Open unto the fields and to the sky,

All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.’

‘No fields now,’ says Nell.

‘No smokeless air, either.’ He looks at the Houses of Parliament on the riverbank. ‘You think all this has been here for ever, but Wordsworth never saw this. This isn’t even a hundred years old. There were other buildings here, that have just vanished.’

‘Send the next message.’

Larry thinks for a moment and then writes: If you find this message, look around you and enjoy what you see, because one day it will all be gone .

‘That’s a bit glum, isn’t it?’ says Nell.

‘It’ll make them appreciate what they’ve got.’

He rolls up the paper and pushes it into the bottle. He gives the bottle to Nell but she says, ‘Your message, your throw.’ So he drops it from the bridge into the river below, and watches it bob away out of sight.

They mount their bikes once more and ride round Big Ben and down Millbank to Lambeth Bridge. The obelisks on either side have pineapples on top, according to Nell. Larry claims they’re pinecones.

‘Why would anyone carve a giant stone pinecone?’ says Nell.

‘Why pineapples?’

‘Pineapples are thrilling. All hard and scratchy on the outside, and sweet and juicy on the inside.’

She’s pushing her bike up onto the pavement, sunlight gleaming on her hair. Larry gazes at her in admiration.

‘How did you ever get to be you, Nell?’ he says.

‘What do you mean?’

‘You’re so open, so uncorrupted, so … I don’t know. You just go on surprising me.’

‘Is that good?’

‘It’s very good.’

She writes her message and shows him.

If you find this message, go out and do the one thing you’ve been wanting to do all your life, but have been afraid to do .

‘What if he wants to rob a bank?’

‘Who says it’ll be a he? It might be a girl. She might want to kiss the boy she’s secretly in love with.’

She kisses Larry, there on Lambeth Bridge.

‘Now it’s not a secret any more,’ says Larry.

He feels light-hearted, happy in a way he’s not been happy for a long time. Nell’s game makes everything good seem possible, and everything bad seem far away.

She drops her bottle into the water.

They ride on past the Tate, past Vauxhall Bridge – ‘Too ugly’ – along the embankment to Chelsea Bridge. Here on the guardian lamp-posts in place of pineapples or pinecones there are golden galleons. Across the river looms the immense block of Battersea Power Station. Two of its four chimneys are streaming black smoke into the summer sky.

Nell gives Larry the pad.

‘Your turn.’

If you find this message , writes Larry, believe that happiness exists, because I am happy now .

‘That’s beautiful, Larry,’ says Nell. ‘I want you so much to be happy.’

He drops the bottle into the river on the downstream side and watches it swirl away under the railway bridge.

Nell has taken the pad back and is writing on it.

‘Where next?’ says Larry. ‘Albert Bridge?’

‘No more bridges.’

She puts her message into its bottle without showing it to Larry, pushing it deep inside.

‘I have to go now, darling,’ she says.

‘Go? Where?’

‘Just go.’

She gives him the little bottle.

‘The last one’s for you.’

She gives him a kiss, climbs onto her bike, and pedals away up Chelsea Bridge Road.

Larry unscrews the bottle cap and tries to get the roll of paper out, but the neck is too narrow. Baffled, mildly irritated, he gazes at the bottle, wondering what to do. The paper inside has partially unrolled itself, so even if he were able to grip it through the neck it would tear as he pulled it out. The only solution is to break the bottle.

He holds it by its neck and taps it against the kerb. Then he taps it more briskly. Finally he hits it a sharp blow, and it shatters. He picks the paper out from among the glittering fragments of glass, and unrolls it, and reads.

If you find this message please believe that I expect nothing from you and only want you to go on being happy. I am going to have a baby. I love you.

Larry stands up, blood draining from his face. His first instinct is to ride after Nell at once. But he realises he has no idea where she’s gone, and will never find her. So instead he wheels his bike slowly off the bridge, fighting a confusion of emotions.

Most of all, he feels frightened. It’s not a specific fear, it’s a kind of panic. Events are exploding beyond his control, unknown forces are bearing down upon him. Then through the panic, like a mist burned off by the sun, he feels a hot shining pride.

I’m going to be a father.

The thought is so immense it overwhelms him. It exhilarates him and fills him with dread at the same time. The responsibility is too great. It changes everything.

I’m to have a wife and child.

A wife! It’s almost impossible to see Nell in this role. And yet of course they must marry.

So is this it? Is this my life already laid out before me?

He knows even as he forms the thought that this is not the life he meant to lead. But if not this, then what? What is this dream of a future that even now he sees being lost to him for ever?

Dazed, he mounts his bike and sets off pedalling up Chelsea Bridge Road, in the direction Nell took. He realises then that she must have planned it all to happen this way. She must have dreamed up her game with the messages in bottles as a way to give him time alone to form his response. He feels a sudden flood of love. What an extraordinary girl she is! Old beyond her years, she understands all he is now going through. She knows he’ll have doubts about committing himself to a future with her. So she bicycles away. This touches him deeply. Adrift in the great world, she cares enough for him not to lay on him a greater burden than he can carry.

In this moment, pedalling behind a bus as it lumbers up Sloane Street, he feels only love for her, and gratitude. But as he swings left onto Knightsbridge and rides along the south side of the park, other concerns begin to present themselves. How is he to support a wife and child? Where are they to live? What will happen to his painting?

At this point he realises where he’s going. This is the way home. Guided by instincts deeper than conscious thought, in this time of crisis he is returning to the house where he grew up. There’s no purpose to this, he can’t expect his father to resolve his dilemma for him. He is going home as to a refuge.