Rupert Thomson - Divided Kingdom

‘And they’re still arriving,’ Rhiannon said, ‘even now.’

‘By sea as well as land,’ I said lightly.

‘Actually’ — and she gave me a smile I couldn’t fathom — ‘I think you’d fit in rather well.’

My eyes drifted beyond her. The girls had disappeared, leaving their rackets lying on the grass. The lake beyond was motionless.

‘In the end, there’s something about this place,’ Rhiannon said. ‘I don’t know what it is. An absence of pressure, I suppose. A sense of acceptance.’ She smiled again, more openly this time. ‘A kind of peace.’

The unearthly stillness that had troubled me during my walk turned out to have been the prelude to a change in the weather. That night a storm blew in, gale-force winds rushing through the courtyards and passageways of the house. Sheet lightning lit up the sky every few seconds, making the clouds look like stage scenery, artificial and melodramatic. After dinner I retired to my room with a book I had borrowed from the library, an essay on gardens by someone called Sir William Temple. As I lay on my bed reading, a lamp on beside me and the rest of the room in darkness, the door came open. At first I thought the wind must have forced the latch, but then I saw a figure silhouetted against the steel-grey light in the yard outside.

‘Rhiannon?’

‘It’s not Rhiannon.’

A girl crossed the room with a tray. She had brought me a herbal infusion that smelled a little like warm grass. I didn’t think I’d seen her before — unless, perhaps, she was one of the girls who’d been playing badminton. The silk dress she was wearing came down to her ankles, but it showed off her forearms, which looked slender, almost golden, as she reached into the fall of lamplight to pour the tea. Her dark-brown hair was so long that it hid her shoulderblades. She couldn’t have been more than eighteen or nineteen.

‘I was the one who saw you first,’ she said.

‘I’d been wondering who it was,’ I said — though, in truth, I had done my best to put the events of that particular day behind me.

She looked away into the room. ‘I’m often out there early. It’s a beautiful time. That morning, though, I saw something on the water, a figure that had arms, a face. Then I saw you crouching on top of it, all huddled up. I ran back to the house. I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast.’

‘I heard a bell tolling as I was drifting in towards the beach,’ I said. ‘I thought it was a funeral. There was a part of me that thought I must have died.’

She glanced at me sideways. What I had just said seemed to disturb her. Outside, the wind swelled, surging against the walls.

‘How long have you been here?’ I asked.

‘About a year.’

‘And will you stay?’

‘I don’t know. I’m happy at the moment.’ She moved her shoulders, as if to rid herself of the burden of having to decide too soon. ‘Would you like to go for a walk?’

She saw me hesitate.

‘It’s not raining,’ she said. ‘It’s not even cold.’

I closed my book and put it down.

She led me through the stable-yard, then along the side of the conservatory whose sheets of glass creaked under the gale’s weight. We crossed the lawn at the back of the house. In Owen’s library, the curtains had been drawn against the storm. After circling the lake, we entered a wood on the edge of the property. Lightning flared. High wrought-iron gates stood on the path ahead of us, forbidding as a row of spears. Any sound they might have made as we hauled them open was drowned by the trees hissing and thrashing all around us. We began to climb upwards, over rugged ground, and soon the house had shrunk to a collection of frail yellow lights afloat in a swirling blackness.

Before long we found ourselves on a headland, its cropped grass the colour of slate when the sky lit up. Only now did the wind reveal its true power, gathering the girl’s long hair and lifting it away from her neck until it flew at right angles to her body. Her exhilarated laughter was snatched from her mouth and carried off into the night. I watched the silk of her dress ripple against her belly and her thighs, and I imagined that, if I kissed her, her breath would taste fresh and slightly bitter, like the petals of chrysanthemums. I remembered the tea that she had served with such care, then carelessly abandoned, tea which would be cold by now, and I thought how young she was, how little lay behind her, how far she had to go.

She had brought me to a part of the cliffs I hadn’t visited before, and I could hear the sea below, boiling and roaring on a steep bank of shingle. The waves didn’t break so much as shatter. We leaned into a wind that seemed to want to fling us to the earth. Once or twice, miles out, sheet lightning flashed, and I could just make out the clouds massed on the horizon, their furious shapes, their ripped and jagged edges, like molten metal left to cool.

The girl linked her arm through mine and pointed to the east.

‘Look that way,’ she shouted.

For a moment, though, I couldn’t take my eyes off her face, which was so eager, so elated. It was one of the purest things I’d ever seen.

She tightened her grip on my arm and pointed again. ‘Keep looking.’

And then it happened. White water came leaping from the ground in front of us, rising high into the air, only for the wind to reach out and bend it sideways. Now I could see the blow-hole in the cliff-top, just a few feet from where we stood.

The girl leaned close to me again. ‘There’s a cave down there. We swim there in the summer. When it’s calm.’

‘I’ll be gone by then,’ I said.

But she had already turned away, and didn’t hear.

My door was open, and a triangle of early morning sunlight stretched out on the floor, as white and pristine as a sail. Since my suit was beyond repair, I was wearing the clothes Rhiannon had found for me, which would in any case be more appropriate for the kind of travelling I had in mind. Before throwing the suit away, I’d checked the jacket collar, but the banknotes had been reduced to a pulp. I was broke. If I was to reach Aquaville, I would either have to walk or hitch.

The room darkened. Rhiannon stood in the doorway, holding a knapsack. ‘You’re leaving,’ she said.

I nodded. ‘I think it’s time.’

‘So you know about our visitors?’

‘What visitors?’

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. The day before, Owen had been interviewed by two officials from Customs and Excise, she told me. They suspected there had been at least one survivor from the boat that had recently gone down just off the coast. If the person or persons in question were illegal immigrants, as appeared to be the case, they would have to be apprehended and taken to a detention centre where their true status could be established.

‘He didn’t mention me,’ I said, ‘did he?’

‘He said he’d seen some statues on the beach, but that was all.’

‘Did they believe him?’

‘I think so.’

‘I’m sorry. I should have told you.’

‘There was no need. As far as we’re concerned, it doesn’t matter where you’re from. You’re the reason we can go on living here. We’re hardly going to hand you over to the authorities.’

‘All the same, it’s best I leave as soon as possible.’

‘I’m afraid so.’ Rhiannon reached into the knapsack and handed me a wallet. ‘Owen had a collection for you.’

The wallet was stuffed with notes of all denominations, and plenty of loose change. ‘This is a lot of money,’ I said.

‘He didn’t want you to leave empty-handed, not after what you’ve done for us.’ She passed me the knapsack. ‘A few things to keep you going.’

I shook my head. ‘You didn’t need to do all this.’ Then I remembered the principles on which the community had been founded. ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘For everything.’