37

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.