For a while, the talk in the city was of neither expansion nor decline. Although there were things that had to be played out, this was not an age of commitment and so it could not become one of risk. There was nothing to fear, even when talk of war became war; for London, this was more or less the same thing. London did not know the people who went to fight. They did not live in the city, but in barrack towns and other, smaller ports.
This war entered the language as military acronyms, sporting analogies, government patois and the variable pronunciation of Middle Eastern place names. Around the time the first jokes were coined, people stocked up on mineral water and candles. They watched the news, cried by their sleeping children and talked about moving to the country. It passed.
Money was being spent in unlikely places. Khyber Road was awarded a twinkling slick of tarmac edged with yellow lines, and a red brick pavement. The last corrugated-iron fences were replaced with hoardings and the illustrated promise to rebuild. Every other house in the street had been renovated, and someone had planted three saplings, which remained and grew.
‘Our street is being coloured in,’ Fred said to Juliet, whom he phoned from his office thirty floors above the river. ‘And there are growing things. Thank god I’m off.’
‘You mean it’s no longer picturesque?’
‘You should see this view.’
‘Tell me about it, please. We’ve got more snow. Jacob left the shovel out and it disappeared into a drift, so we can’t even dig our way to the car.’
‘It’s getting dark already, and the sky is sort of plum coloured. Everything else down there is bony, chalky, I don’t know. I can’t really say, but it looks wonderful.’
Juliet knew exactly what it looked like and almost said yes when Fred asked her to come home.
‘I’m going to have five bedrooms in Botolph Square,’ he said. ‘That’s more than twice as many as Khyber Road. Come home.’
I am home, thought Juliet that evening as she drowsed by the fire in the house on the hill. She had come in sneezing and Jacob had directed her to an armchair, tucked her up under a quilt and built a fire. He made hot toddies and read to her, stopping now and then to urge her to drink up.
‘Do you like the cinnamon stick? I had to go to Mount South to get that.’
‘It’s lovely.’
‘And the nutmeg? It has to be freshly grated. I grated it.’
‘Freshly,’ she said, meaning to tease him because he sounded so sweetly anxious, only Jacob did not seem to get the joke. He read on until she fell asleep, then carried her to bed.
He liked to watch Juliet sleeping and sometimes stayed up all night to do so. When awake, she toughened. Only at Christmas when she had arrived like a visitation, in a fever, had he believed that he held all of her and that was why he had come to Littlefield. After his mother’s second stroke, which ought to have killed her, Jacob and Sally had installed her in a private nursing home, which had been paid for by the sale of her bungalow and the advance on Jacob’s next book. He had handed the sum over to the home intact.
The arrival of Jacob Dart, the author of Foucault’s Egg, caused a stir in Littlefield. Merle asked Juliet what he was working on now, but Juliet did not know because she had not asked. One day when Jacob answered the telephone, Merle elicited the information that he was writing a book of essays called The Disappointed Bridge, about the self-limiting connections between modes of cultural theory.
‘Jacob’s new project sounds fascinating,’ Merle said to Juliet.
‘It does?’
‘The disappointed bridge! So clever.’
‘Isn’t that a joke about piers?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘Piers?’
Merle switched subjects by rummaging in her bag. ‘I nearly forgot. Here’s the key for Jacob. He’s welcome to use it any time. And you must come to dinner again. Soon.’
Juliet took the key home and gave it to Jacob. All the way back she had been persuading herself that she was not going to ask what it was for.
‘Thank you, sweetie,’ he said and kissed the tip of her cold nose. ‘Tea and cake? I found some madeleines in that little French bakery.’
‘What’s the key for?’
He had taken off her coat and gloves, and was warming her hands in his. ‘A place to work. They have this cabin up in the woods behind the house and when Merle found out I was working on another book –’
‘About piers …’
‘Bridges. Anyway, they’re terribly kind and it means I won’t get in your way.’
‘You don’t.’
‘Not yet, but once you get down to any serious sort of work …’
She thought she had. ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this new book?’
‘Because it’s not important; besides which,’ he said, smiling so lovingly, ‘you haven’t read the first one.’
If Juliet felt troubled, she was too lulled – by treats and pills and snow – to pursue it. These days her worries flared softly, flickered and went out.
She and Jacob slept well. They rose late and ate a good breakfast. Jacob ground coffee-beans and squeezed oranges, and went out to the French bakery for croissants or brioches. Juliet had little interest in food but learnt to enjoy what Jacob presented. He was right, it was all delicious and she learnt to say so. He would wake her each morning when the table was laid and they would sit for an hour reading the New York Times, the Littlefield Fencepost or the weekly English news digest to which she subscribed.
Sometimes Jacob would alight on an article about a politician, a book or a war, and force Juliet into debate. ‘Well that’s obvious but do you really think … Don’t you see … Everyone knows that he … Why agree with her? … Why agree with me? …’ It became clear that while she scanned the papers for an anecdote that might amuse her, Jacob, who appeared to read equally casually, was absorbing names, statistics, issues and facts. He couldn’t help it.
Jacob’s mind was so acute and energetic that he had learnt to exist in a state of semi-consciousness, otherwise he would wear himself out. This meant that he was averted, absent-minded and often estranged from what he felt and did. From time to time, his mind demanded proper exercise and what Juliet took to be a need for conflict, was a need to be in opposition. These discussions, which could go on for hours, wore her out even though she was attracted to their rigour. Afterwards, Jacob would look as relieved as a racehorse who had thrown his rider and galloped over the downs full pelt, on and on, until he had exhausted the accumulation of his unused self.
One day, she couldn’t stand it. ‘Why are you attacking me?’
Jacob looked bemused. ‘I’m not attacking anyone; I’m just talking.’
He would suggest a walk and they would make their way down the hill and through the woods to the reclaimed railroad, where the trees were so thick that even in winter they made a low roof and sometimes a tunnel. In better weather, the railroad was busy. The locals ran, cycled or skated, properly dressed and equipped, and overtook Juliet and Jacob with a polite bellow, ‘Passing on the left!’
‘I hate this,’ said Juliet. ‘Having to walk in a straight line is bad enough but why does it have to be so organised? Why don’t they just wander or stroll? Even their hiking trails are full of arrows and fences, colour-coded, tarmacked and stepped. There’s no … no …’
‘No what? Difficulty? Danger? Perhaps it’s because they know how tough their landscape is. They have to be tough with it. You’re spoilt, Juliet. The English countryside is ingratiating – it flatters people into thinking they’re exposing themselves to something grand and wild.’
‘I’m cold.’
‘Then you should be pleased. That’s just what the English hope for in a walk – difficulty and discomfort. Nothing they hate more than a smooth path and a clear day.’
‘You’re English. More English than I am.’
‘Am I?’ To Jacob, the idea of belonging anywhere was preposterous.
Juliet sniffed. ‘I want to go home.’
‘But we’re nearly at the river. Come on.’ He took her hand. ‘Listen … A woodpecker … There, no, to the left, up there, look! Look!’ He held her as they watched the bird bounce from one tree trunk to the next. Had she been alone, Juliet would barely have raised her head, let alone stopped. She would have come back from her walk complaining that there was nothing to see.
They followed the track out onto an old wooden bridge over the Connecticut River and Jacob pulled her to one side, towards the broadening valley to the west. Without Jacob she would have turned back home an hour ago, or if she had reached this far would have hurried across, complaining about the wind or her wet boots, the pain in her face and fingers.
There were no rivers this wide, no bridges this long and high, in England. Girders rose extravagantly. Slow water, thick with ice, carried sun and cloud away from a silver horizon which folded into soft blue mountains.
Juliet stared. ‘That is further away than I ever thought my eyes could reach.’
Jacob held her in place. ‘Do you like it? Really like it?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh yes,’ but having to speak tore her away from a thought, something to do with depth of field. She shook herself free and leaned forward so that the rail propped her up instead.