23

It is late by the time Gabrielle gets up to leave. I had assumed she would be sleeping in the house, in Alice’s or else the spare room, but no, she seems set on sleeping in the tent. She asks if I will walk with her ‘down the garden path’, yes, she uses that expression – whether knowing its colloquial significance or not – which amuses me then, but not as much as it will later. She takes my arm and draws close, much closer than is necessary, certainly more than seems strictly appropriate. When we reach the little gate that leads into the field she leans forward and kisses me, slipping her tongue between my lips, between my teeth, at first gently, then probing deeper. Her thighs press tight against mine. Her breath is hot on my face and she smells sweet and musty.

She leads me by the hand and we duck beneath the flysheet, into the tent’s nest, and she undresses, first me and then herself. Gabrielle operates with a skilled determination. She is supple and needy, and any residual fatigue I may have been enduring from my sleepless nights is banished as she sits astride me and shakes loose her long blonde hair, which falls about my face. She leans over me and with her mouth on mine she kisses me deeply, then sucks at my tongue, a most bizarre, but agreeable sensation, while below she manoeuvres me inside her. Then she sits up straight, takes my hands and places them on her breasts, my palms flat on her hard nipples, and her movements and gyrations, slow at first, begin to accelerate, provoking us both into an excited – and she into an exuberantly noisy – state of sustained bliss. After such a long period of sexual abstinence, my body’s mass release of endorphins is overwhelming and I ejaculate, just as she, with laudable timing, pauses in mid-motion, arches her back, and lets out a protracted cry.

It is a most convincing performance. I don’t mean that as a slur on Gabrielle, far from it; more as a reflection that despite the intense pleasure I derive from our coupling, it doesn’t seem to be happening to me, or even to us, but rather to two actors whom I am observing from afar.

I pull away from under her and fling myself onto my side. The air in the tent is stifling and I pull up the zip, to let the night in. Gabrielle has settled to sleep, flat out after her exertions, and I try to make myself comfortable, which is difficult in the confines of the tent. I drift on the edges of slumber for a half hour or so, the events of the day and its unexpected climax playing out on repeat, with only a dim awareness of Gabrielle’s warm and sleeping body by my side. Even when the afterglow has dissipated, I feel more alive than I have for a long time. But I know I must leave: if by some miracle I were to sleep, I do not want to wake up in the tent. Or rather, I don’t want to be seen emerging from it, and certainly not by Alice.

So I get dressed, finding my clothes with difficulty in the dark, and return to the house, to the library, and I prepare a fire, or rather I build on the ashes of the fire that has nearly died. I select newspaper and kindling, setting about the task meticulously. Once the logs are ablaze, I am about to get up, when I see a book lying on the edge of the rug, a book I have not, until this moment, noticed lying there, nor – I am certain of this – have I removed it from the shelves myself. It has been left open on a poem entitled ‘Art of War’. I read the poem aloud:

A rose at the window has the colours

of a blonde’s young nipple

a mole walks underground.

Peace they say to the dog

 whose life is short.

The air remains sunlit.

Young men learn to make war

in order to redeem a whole world

so they are told

but to them the book of theory

remains unreadable.

I read the poem as though it bore a direct relevance to my own predicament, my own life, even hoping that it might contain some clue or message, beyond the rather obvious reference to the ‘blonde’ at the beginning. I do this simply because the book is there, open at this page, so I deduce, in a not unreasonable way, that it has been left out for me. I am particularly struck by the idea that, for the young men, the book of theory remains unreadable. What else have I been doing in the library this past year, other than studying books of theory instead of living a life? But making war? How is that pertinent to me? And why am I assuming that the poem has something to tell me? I put the book down. I guess that Alice must have been in the library. Perhaps she came here after supper, when she left the kitchen, rather than retiring to bed, picked out a book at random and neglected to return it to its shelf …

I am not sure how long I have been seated on the rug – caught between reflection on my recent liaison with Gabrielle and the poem I am studying – when I am alerted by a scratching sound from outside: a grating, or scraping of something heavy against concrete.

I cannot quite identify the sound, but I know its source is not too distant, and that it emanates from the kitchen garden, or perhaps a little further away, towards the woods. I step out through the French windows onto the patio. It is cold, and there is damp in the air. Despite an almost full moon and a clear sky, the night has taken an inhospitable turn and a wind is stirring, causing the branches of trees and bushes to rustle and sway. I set off in the direction from which the noise originated. To one side of the kitchen garden is an old woodshed, where logs and a few gardening tools are kept, and it is toward this shed that my footsteps lead me. I push open the heavy wooden door and as it drags against the concrete, I recognise the grating sound that alerted me at my desk. Inside, I can see nothing at first. But someone is groaning at the far end of the shed, and I hear their laboured breath. Stepping forward, moonlight floods in from the open doorway behind me. Huddled in the corner is a human shape, draped, it would appear, in a rug or covering of some kind; and I make out – as I knew, a split-second beforehand, that I would – O’Hallaran’s face, haggard in the dim light.

I step closer, intrigued. I am close enough now to see that his face is bloodied and bruised: he looks as though he has taken a beating. Human sympathy takes over from curiosity and I stand over him, intending to ask him what is the matter. But he cowers from me, pulling his covering close – it turns out to be his ethnic blanket – as though this will somehow offer him protection. I crouch, so that we are at a level, and to help assure him that I mean no harm.

What happened to you? I ask, and reach out a hand, meaning to grasp his shoulder in a supportive gesture. Again, he draws back from me.

Don’t be afraid, I say. I’m not going to hurt you.

He is shaking. I notice his duffle bag at his side. He is not a person I would have associated with this state of abject fear. O’Hallaran, with his ready wit, was a man with a quip for all occasions; but not now, as I squat beside him in this uneasy silence.

Can I get you something? I ask, finally. Do you want water, a hot drink? Whisky?

I am thinking that his face could do with a good clean. That wound above the eye looks nasty, and might need stitches.

He shakes his head and waves both hands at me in a violent gesture, as though shooing away a dog, while shuffling back, retreating towards the wall of the shed. He pulls the blanket tight around him.

I try one last time, in an offer of unprecedented generosity:

Would you like to sleep inside the house? There is a spare bed. It’ll be warmer there. You’ll be more comfortable. Or would you like to tell Alice what has happened, someone else, rather than me?

Just Fuck Off, he cries out finally, hoarsely, shaking his head, tears smearing his cheeks: For fuck’s sake leave me alone. Leave me here. I cannot, will not move. I will wash me fucking face in the morning. Now sod off and leave me be.

I remain crouched at his side, pondering this outburst. Does he even recognise me? Is he drunk? I did catch the whiff of alcohol on him … but he has given no real sign of recognition, merely treated me as though I were one amongst a host of terrors, another phantom come to torment him. What can have happened to O’Hallaran to reduce him to this pathetic state?

There is no point in trying to bring about a rescue when the object of my goodwill so evidently wishes to be left alone. I stand slowly and retreat to the door, and O’Hallaran remains huddled against the far wall, as if unable to bear my presence. As I close the door behind me, it makes the same ominous scraping sound that led me here. I need to clear my head, again. I need to think.

Returning to the kitchen I make tea – builder’s tea, with sugar – and retire to the library. I draw the armchair closer to the fire, and pull my feet up beneath me.

I have rarely witnessed so thorough a transformation as has come over O’Hallaran. And all of this since my entering the blue tent this morning. Am I, therefore, in some way responsible for what has happened to him? Was his distress caused by whatever physical injury was done to him, exacerbated by a more ominous and general sense of terror? Or was it on account of seeing me? Which was why I suggested bringing Alice to him, knowing that he was fond of her, which in turn proves I did not loathe O’Hallaran quite as much as I had made out to myself that I did, even if – to be honest – his return was most unwelcome. Whatever the cause of his misery, I was not going to force him to talk, or drag him down to the house against his will. In spite of his anguish, he seemed resigned to his own woeful condition. This, bizarrely, struck me as an attitude for which the tent itself was somehow responsible. I remembered the way that Alice had accepted O’Hallaran’s claim to ownership of the tent without any obvious concern; she had treated it almost as a matter of course and had reacted to her own ousting in a manner which, at the time, had seemed absurdly passive.

Outside, the night is edging into day, and an impressively punctual cockerel starts up from the direction of Morgan’s farm. I put another log on the fire and settle into my armchair. My thoughts return to O’Hallaran. Perhaps I shouldn’t be too concerned: he could always wander over to the house if he feels the need for human company. I will not begrudge him the warmth of my hearth and a cup of coffee. Perhaps Alice will reproach me for not having told her immediately about O’Hallaran’s injury. On the other hand, would it be entirely absurd to suspect that Alice already knows about O’Hallaran’s return? She seems to be abreast of pretty much everything else that goes on around the house. The day before, she certainly seemed to be expecting Gabrielle – more precisely, she had arranged it. Which brings me to thinking about Gabrielle, and the brief encounter that marked the start of the night’s adventures. How spontaneous was it, on Gabrielle’s part? How much of a coincidence was it that Alice should bid us goodnight and go to bed early, giving Gabrielle and myself time to get better acquainted? Especially now that I know she did not go straight up to bed, but was in the library, where I must assume she was reading poetry even as Gabrielle and I were fucking in the blue tent.

Was Alice a party to Gabrielle’s seduction of me? And if so, why? And the poem – if it was intended for me, and I can think of no other reason why the book would be left open on the rug – what relation if any, does it bear on the events of the night? Or, on the contrary, was my fifteen minutes of passion with the Frenchwoman something I should conceal from Alice; would it inspire jealousy and cause offence – even if it was not, exactly, at my instigation?

Tired now, but knowing I will not be able to sleep, and still bubbling with the febrile energy of the night, I wander over to the window. As I stand there, the fox trots by, at a distance of only a few yards, returning from his nocturnal scavenging. I have not seen him since he spoke to me, or I imagined him speaking to me. I smile, as one does at the sight of animals going about their business, oblivious to human society – inhabitants of a world that is contiguous with our own, and yet separate – and he stops dead, one forepaw raised in a characteristic gesture, before taking off again at a run, and climbing to the upper lawn, where the woods begin.