Gerbrand Bakker - Ten White Geese

The boy let go of her. ‘A minute ago, you fell over.’

‘Not any more.’

‘Can you climb over it?’

‘I think so.’ She lifted a foot and put it on the lowest rail. My badger foot, she thought. She put the other foot next to it. She saw that she was going to manage and moved a hand from the plank to the post. Standing on the other side, panting slightly and turned to face the boy, she saw the black cattle she had seen the day she went to the pond. They were as black as his hair and her gaze sank from his hair to his eyes. Dark grey. She couldn’t look straight into his eyes, she could never look straight into both his eyes, she always had to choose left or right.

Bradwen was cooking again. He did it without asking and seemed to enjoy it. Tonight he’d made spaghetti with a sauce that, whatever else it included, had a tremendous amount of garlic in it. ‘It’s healthy,’ he said. ‘You should eat as much garlic as possible.’ In the afternoon the wind had started to pick up and it was still rising. There had been a gale warning on the radio. A branch from the creeper beat against the kitchen window. ‘That branch has to come off the Chinese wisteria,’ he said. She tried to feel positive. There was someone here who made decisions, who told her what needed doing, who — when necessary — held her tight. Without waiting to eat first, he asked where the secateurs were and went outside with a kitchen chair. She could just make out his legs, lit by the two candles on the windowsill. The dog had stayed inside, but was standing in front of the cooker with his ears pricked and his head up. Chinese wisteria, she thought, but what’s it called in Dutch? She could hear the wind whistling in the living-room chimney, the wood-burning stove roared. A bottle of red wine was open on the kitchen table.

‘You have to go,’ she said when he came back in.

His hair had all been blown in one direction. He was holding a wisteria branch.

‘To the next bed and breakfast. And then to another one, a day’s walk from there.’

‘No way,’ he said. ‘I am now going to dish up your dinner and then I’m going to pour you a glass of wine.’

‘Tomorrow,’ she said.

‘No.’

‘Dish up, then. And pour.’

Bradwen laid the branch on the floor and poured two glasses of wine. During dinner he smiled. He didn’t say anything but kept smiling, drinking wine, refilling their glasses and finally running his fingers through his hair. He quietly whistled the dog, rubbed an eye with one finger and licked his knife.

‘You don’t take me seriously, do you?’ she said.

‘No.’

She sighed and tried again to feel positive, which was significantly easier after one and a half glasses of wine.

‘I’m staying,’ he said.

‘We’ll see.’

‘The garden’s nowhere near done and I assume you want to have it finished by a certain date?’

‘What makes you assume that?’

‘It’s just a feeling.’

‘I have feelings too sometimes.’

‘Really?’

‘And I find them rather tiring. Just pour some more wine instead.’

The wind was now howling around the house. Despite being cut back, the bamboo was scraping the kitchen wall. Now and then something blew against the window. The dog was asleep but restless, whimpering and with his legs twitching.

Bradwen topped her up. ‘He’s dreaming,’ he said.

‘So what did you think of Dickinson?’ she asked.

‘Nothing.’

‘Nothing?’

‘I haven’t read it. I don’t get poetry.’

‘Another reason you should go.’

He smiled again, or rather, he continued smiling. ‘Coffee?’

‘Have you got a mobile?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

‘Do you ever use it? I haven’t even seen it.’

‘No. I don’t know anyone.’

‘That’s nonsense, of course.’

As if the dog had understood, he woke and barked once. He stood up and went over to stand panting where the kitchen joined the living room.

‘I’d be careful if I were you,’ the boy said. ‘He bites.’

‘Do you have a father and a mother?’

He hesitated. ‘Of course.’

‘You know them, then. Don’t you need to call home sometimes to tell them how you’re doing?’

‘I’m here now.’

She had a tremendous desire to grab her breasts to try to make something clear. She almost did it, but instead — her hands checked in mid-air — she knocked her glass over and began to cry. The boy didn’t do anything, he just stayed where he was. She stood up and walked to the stairs, passing the dog, who licked the back of her hand. She ran the bath, squeezing a long squirt of bubble bath into it, Native Herbs. She left the door — which was the only one inside the house you could lock — unlocked. She took off her clothes and stepped into the water. In the end, this was where she felt best: lying back in hot water, aware of her body, which felt flawless and uncompromised, especially with the storm raging outside. She saw the corridors of Dickson’s Garden Centre before her, rows of rose bushes, and thought of bees in late spring. Come on then, she thought.

The windowpane clinked. Just when she thought the last gust had been the strongest, the wind roared even louder. She plunged deeper under the duvet, her bedroom door swung ajar, clatter from the landing. She held on tight to her body, hugging her breasts through the thin fabric of her nightie, putting her hands between her legs, raising her knees as if to brace herself, giving off a smell of bottled herbs. The wind roared in from the Irish Sea. She shook her head to dislodge an image of a big ship, pints of beer and fried snacks sliding over a bar, paintings hanging away from the wall, roulette balls bouncing across a red carpet, a clown on a small stage, off to one side, vomiting into the wings. She swallowed and imagined Bradwen on a blue-edged square, moving exclusively in diagonals. Wearing shorts but with his L and R socks on. They’d slipped down a little. He turned circles on his hands, elbows tucked in, the veins in his neck swollen. Sam was sitting on a chair on the edge of the blue square and barked as his master tumbled through the air, almost flying, and landed straight-legged in the dead centre of a corner before raising one outstretched arm, exposing his armpit. Above the raging of the storm something creaked. It was more tearing than creaking: old, living wood coming free of the earth. She realised that she was no longer thinking about before, her mind was clear of all memories of the husband, the student, her uncle, Christmas with the sweetly perfumed Santa-shaped candles. ‘Ah,’ she said, because that candle was in her head now, burnt down to Santa’s waist, a puddle of red wax on the paper Christmas tablecloth, next to a plate of cauliflower cheese and thinly sliced roast beef. Along with her mother, who could never enjoy Christmas dinner because she was too scared to take her eyes off the candles in the Christmas decoration on top of the TV. She considered getting up. Going downstairs to sit next to the cooker and smoke? Maybe make some tea?

She shot bolt upright, threw the duvet aside and stood up. She held a hand against the window. She could feel the pressure on it. Things went black for a second; she’d got up too fast. The lights in the distance flickered. No, it was the branches swishing back and forth and blocking out the light as the storm rose and fell. She pulled the door further open and groped her way to the stairs, one hand heavy on the rail of the landing. Downstairs in the living room the stove was still smouldering, a vague red light lit the WELCOME mat at the front door and the boy’s hiking boots, next to the mat.

She lit the two candles on the windowsill and put the kettle on the hottest plate. The bamboo scraped over the side wall and somewhere a door banged, the door to the pigsty, she could hear the metallic clang of the old-fashioned handle. It wasn’t raining, the window was dry. The water started to boil. She filled a mug and dropped in a tea bag. While the tea brewed, she massaged her forehead and temples, her belly. Nothing. On the outside, there was nothing. She took the packet of cigarettes from the table and lit one. The tea was hot. She burnt her tongue and swore under her breath. Immediately after stubbing out the cigarette, she lit another. She sat on a chair between the table and the cooker and turned her head towards the clock. The wind was making such a racket she couldn’t hear the sharp ticking. It was ten past two. She heard another kind of ticking. It was coming from the living room and when the dog appeared in the kitchen she realised it had been his nails on the wooden stairs. ‘Hey,’ she said. The dog hung his head and approached slowly, contrite, though she couldn’t imagine what he had to be contrite about. ‘Couldn’t you sleep either?’ she asked. Sam looked at her attentively, followed the smoke coming out of her mouth, then laid his head on her knees. His sigh made the bottom hem of her nightie tremble. She stubbed out her cigarette and laid a hand on his head. ‘Where’s your master?’ she whispered. The dog started to whimper softly.