TWENTY-ONE

They returned to the house one Saturday morning to find the interior transformed: the rooms looked larger, the ceilings higher, the staircase broader, the windows brighter and, recalling that the choice of colours and wallpapers had been Mrs Corrigan’s alone, Bryan’s admiration for her increased by leaps and bounds. As he watched her move from room to room, appearing at one door and then another, passing across the hall, pausing on the stairs, he thought that, despite the ordeal of the past six weeks, he had never loved her more: their love had been transformed from the familiarity of the past into something more demanding.

A few days later Mr Corrigan fell ill; he was brought home from work in the afternoon but, by the evening, unable to resist the need continually to ring the shop, he was taken away to hospital. The following morning, when Bryan and Mrs Corrigan visited him, he appeared to be asleep, murmuring slightly when Mrs Corrigan spoke to him and opening his eyes only when Mrs Corrigan took his hand.

‘I’ve told him repeatedly,’ she said in the taxi back. ‘He needs to relax. He takes the shop too seriously. The excitement of the past few weeks has been more that he could stand. Why,’ she continued, as they reached the house, ‘I tried to teach him the piano once, even to sing, but he had no voice. The hours I played accompaniment!’

Bryan lay awake that night wondering what, in future, his life with Mrs Corrigan might be: perhaps Mr Corrigan would die; he imagined a life with Mrs Corrigan and himself living in the house together.

The following evening, when he returned from school, he discovered she was out: his tea had been prepared. ‘Mrs Corrigan rang to say Mr Corrigan was feeling better,’ Mrs Meredith said, sitting in the kitchen to watch him eat.

It was late in the evening by the time Mrs Corrigan returned.

‘Are we going to the hospital?’ Bryan asked.

‘I’ve been there already,’ she said.

She might easily have come in from a game of tennis, relaxed, her make-up freshly done.

‘Are you going out again?’ he asked.

‘I might.’

She sat across the room, her back straight; her hair, too, he observed, had been freshly done, giving her face a slimmer look, the hair piled up at the top of her head and secured by a black silk ribbon.

‘You didn’t tell Mrs Meredith.’

‘Why should I tell Mrs Meredith?’ she asked.

‘She stayed behind tonight because she doesn’t like me being in the house alone.’

‘You’re not frightened, are you?’

‘I resent you going out.’

‘Why shouldn’t I go out? I can’t make Harold better. Nor,’ she concluded, ‘would he wish me to stay inside and mope.’

‘You don’t have to mope.’

‘What else can I do?’

‘We could listen to the wireless.’

‘I’m going out in order to distract myself,’ she said.

‘From what?’

‘From you.’

‘Why me?’

‘I think I ought to.’

‘Why?’

She picked at her skirt.

‘I have to think of the future. It’s my job to see more clearly than you.’

She lowered her head.

Foreshortened, he didn’t recognize her face at all: it might have been that of an older woman.

‘I’ve always,’ she added, ‘been attracted by other men. By what they are like with one another. I always played with boys when I was young. I always found men more interesting than any amount of women. I can’t help it. It’s the way I am. I like their company. Even when I know they’re being coarse. One thing you have to believe. I’ve always been true to you.’

‘Stay in tonight,’ he said.

‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

‘I said I’d go.’

‘Are you going to go out each night?’ he asked.

There came a ring at the door; perhaps she’d heard the sounds preceding it, a car door, or the gate at the end of the drive.

He had reached the landing when he heard her in the hall, the release of the front-door catch and sound of a voice, cheerful, followed by a vague inquiry.

He closed his door.

He heard her come upstairs and change, and heard the man humming to himself in the hall below.

A man’s voice called; Mrs Corrigan’s voice replied; the man’s voice called again.

His door was opened.

‘I’ll see you later.’

‘Depends what time you get back in.’

‘There’s supper in the kitchen.’

She remained in the door, her face no longer young but bloated.

‘Leave the door unbolted,’ she added.

‘I shall.’

‘Good night.’

The sound of her footsteps faded; after an interval came the sound of a car engine starting in the road outside the house.

Some time later the door to his bedroom opened.

‘Are you awake?’ she asked.

‘I have been,’ he said.

‘I’ve bolted the front door.’

‘Is anything the matter?’

‘I didn’t feel like going out this evening.’

‘Your friend not with you?’

‘He went some time ago.’

She turned along the landing.

‘Do you want me to come to your room?’ he asked.

‘What for?’

‘To say good night.’

‘No, thank you, Bryan,’ and, as she turned back along the landing, his door was closed with a bang.

He visited Mr Corrigan each evening; sometimes Mrs Corrigan came with him or, if she had visited Mr Corrigan during the day, he went alone. For several days he got no better, the dark eyes inanimate, the cheeks sallow, the voice slurred; then, after a week, he began to recover: he sat up in bed and took an interest in what Bryan had to tell him. He got out of bed; he sat in a chair; he talked of coming home. His emaciated figure, shrouded in a check dressing-gown, showed signs of impatience. ‘You shall come home,’ Mrs Corrigan told him on one of her visits, ‘as soon as you’re well.’

‘I am well,’ the emaciated face announced.

‘As soon as the hospital gives permission.’

‘I’ll discharge myself,’ Mr Corrigan said. ‘I can’t wait any longer.’

Even while Bryan was sitting with Mr Corrigan, and taking note of his returning health, as well as the residual signs of his illness, he was observing Mrs Corrigan’s arm, the shape of her mouth, her nose, the colour of her make-up, the way she withdrew her hand from her glove: the suffusion on her cheek when, glancing up, she saw his look. At other moments, when they were in the street, and he glimpsed her reflection in the window of a shop, he thought that something in her life had now been broken. ‘She has no centre to her life, other than the clothes she wears, the perfume she puts on, the looks that follow her,’ he reflected, ‘wherever she goes.’

‘What are you thinking?’ she asked on one occasion as they waited outside the hospital for the bus to Chevet.

‘I’m wondering how long we’ll be together.’

‘You’re always telling me for ever.’ She laughed: the sound echoed in the street. Drawing him to her, she said, ‘There’s enough to keep us going for quite some time.’ A moment later, she added, ‘And all the while you’re getting older.’

‘So are you,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she said, ‘but a time will soon be reached when, in a street like this, we might easily be mistaken for a man and wife.’

He didn’t refer to it again. ‘Perhaps it’s her nervousness that makes her like this,’ he thought. ‘Or a deeper disturbance altogether, one I’ve scarcely glimpsed before.’

‘Do you want to take a taxi?’ she asked.

‘We’ll wait for the bus,’ he said, not wishing to be indebted to her for more than his mood could stand.

Other people came up and stood beside them; neither of them spoke. ‘Our relationship is odd, maybe even mad,’ he thought, and yet, in glancing up at her face, he saw no sign of apprehension.

When the bus arrived, its interior crowded, they sat on separate seats; only as they approached Chevet did he take a place beside her. ‘I don’t think there’s any problem,’ she said.

‘What about?’ he asked her.

‘The future. It seems easier than the past. Much. Even,’ she took his hand, ‘more normal.’

She had left a light on in the house and, once inside, having taken off her coat, she walked through the hall as if she expected Mr Corrigan to emerge from the sitting-room to greet them: it was long after Bryan had gone to bed that he heard her come upstairs, call good night and, he assumed, still in her abstract mood, close her bedroom door without waiting for an answer.

‘I’m sending Fay on holiday,’ Mr Corrigan said one morning before Bryan left for school. He had recently come home from hospital and the routine of their life at Chevet had resumed along the lines which had prevailed before his illness. ‘I shan’t go away myself. There’s too much to do. I thought,’ he concluded, ‘you ought to go with her.’

‘My parents will be expecting me to stay at home,’ he said.

‘I’ll talk to them,’ Mr Corrigan said. ‘I’ve spoken to them before. I’m sure they’ll understand.’ He added, ‘How do you think she’s been since I came back?’

‘Much the same as before you went away,’ Bryan said.

‘The change will do her good. You’re so much happier on your own than when there’s someone else around.’

‘I don’t think so,’ Bryan said.

‘Oh, I know so.’ Mr Corrigan laughed. ‘She depends far more on you than she does on me.’

Later, that evening, when he got home from school and found Mrs Corrigan in the sitting-room, playing the piano, and told her about the holiday, she said, not glancing up, ‘It was my decision, Bryan, to go away, not his.’

‘You never told me,’ Bryan said.

‘I was waiting to see his reaction. He might have objected.’ She added, ‘I also have to wait for him to see your parents. We don’t want to provoke them by taking you away when they’re expecting you to spend the summer with them. I hope they’ll agree. I thought, to put a gloss on it, we ought to take Margaret.’

‘I’d prefer not to,’ Bryan said.

‘It’ll look very odd, the two of us together.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘Perhaps you’ve a friend from school,’ she said.

‘I prefer to take Margaret,’ Bryan said.

‘Don’t you like it at Peterson’s?’ she asked.

‘I do,’ he said. ‘It’s the one thing that excuses my seeing you.’

‘That’s true,’ she said, returning to her playing, the tune changing to something brisker. ‘So that’s all decided,’ she concluded. ‘We’ll go away together.’

By the end of the first week of the summer holidays Bryan, Margaret and Mrs Corrigan found themselves, each in a separate room, in a secluded hotel on the shores of a lake across which, beyond a line of wooded hills, were visible the peaks of several mountains.

A curious change had come over Mrs Corrigan: rather than appearing more relaxed she became withdrawn, and spent a great deal of her time alone in her room, seldom answering the door when either Bryan or Margaret knocked and sitting – Bryan observed from the lawn below – at her window, gazing across the lake towards the mountains on the other side. Occasionally, when she did come down, she would sit in much the same mood at a table on the terrace, looking out to the jetty, alongside which several boats were moored, or, idly, without any sign of interest, she would examine the figures sitting beside her on the terrace or at the tables on the lawn below.

‘Aunt looks more like a schoolmistress than a courtesan,’ Margaret said, watching Mrs Corrigan in her chair from across the terrace. ‘She gives the impression, away on holiday, of being at home, and when at home,’ she concluded, ‘of being away on holiday.’

‘There you are, Bryan,’ Mrs Corrigan said when, on this occasion, after watching Margaret swim off from the jetty, he walked over to where she was sitting. ‘Not swimming?’

‘What would you like to do?’ he asked.

‘I’ll sit here,’ she said. ‘You run off, if you like, with Margaret.’

‘I’d prefer to stay with you,’ he said.

‘Margaret’s more company.’ She shielded her eyes, gazing out to where Margaret’s shouts came up from the lake: amidst several bobbing heads a column of water shot into the air. ‘I’ve never seen her look so happy. It’s what she’s needed all these years. To get away from Freddie. The farm’s not a place for a girl like her.’

‘What is?’

‘It’s too masculine for one thing. It’s what drove Mary into her grave.’

A figure approached Bryan across the lawn and, laughing, flung out her hand and called, ‘Are you coming in? It’s nice?’

He shook his head: the figure ran off and plunged back in.

Sitting on the terrace beside Mrs Corrigan’s chair he was conscious less of her abstracted mood than of something about her that was definitely ‘odd’: she didn’t smile nor was she provoked when he made an allusion to Margaret’s looks. ‘She could,’ Mrs Corrigan said, ‘if she wished, be as pretty as her mother, before that farm, and my brother, ruined her looks.’

‘I didn’t think Mrs Spencer’s looks were ruined,’ Bryan said.

Mrs Corrigan glanced down. ‘When she was young she was the prettiest woman I’d ever met. I was jealous of Freddie for having married her. She put me in the shade. I can tell you that.’

‘Mr Proctor says the same about you,’ he said.

‘Does he?’ She glanced back to the lake. ‘Prettiness to him is any woman who wears a skirt.’

She crossed her legs.

‘Is anything the matter?’

‘Haven’t you something you can do? Why don’t you swim,’ she added, ‘or hire a boat?’

‘I’d prefer to sit with you.’

‘I don’t like you sitting with me.’

‘Why not?’

‘You’re here to relax.’

‘Why don’t we go inside and talk?’ he asked.

‘I’ve no intention of going inside,’ she said.

‘Why not?’

‘The more time we spend apart,’ she said, ‘the better.’

‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘Not long ago you were saying we would never be apart.’

‘It’s become a disease.’ Mrs Corrigan lowered her voice. ‘We can’t go on as we are at present.’ She was gazing off across the lake: in a faint striation on the opposite shore stood the buildings of a village. ‘If I were asked to acknowledge it I would have to kill myself.’

Bryan got up.

He wandered down to the jetty: the shouts of someone clinging to the supports beneath the jetty were interspersed with the shouts of someone holding to the mooring rope by one of the boats.

When he glanced back Mrs Corrigan had gone: her chair was being taken by a woman escorted by a man – a figure who, in plus-fours and a check jacket, and with a neckerchief in his open collar, was drawing up a chair to sit beside her.

He glanced up to her room and caught a glimpse, not of her, but of a maid passing to and fro across the window; finally, after one last look round, she moved in the direction of the door and disappeared.

He was inclined to go inside and find her but Margaret, hanging to the side of the boat below, called, ‘Aren’t you coming in? What’s happened to Aunt Fay?’

‘She went off,’ he said.

‘Why didn’t you ask her to come in? It’ll do you good. You’re both a couple of grumpies.’

‘I don’t feel grumpy,’ Bryan said.

‘You look it.’

‘I’ll get my costume, in that case,’ Bryan said, and was already walking back along the jetty when he saw Mrs Corrigan walking away from the hotel, across the lawn, towards a clump of trees at the opposite end.

‘Hurry up!’

The voice came from the water and, having paused, he turned back to the terrace and started to his room.

He was already changed when the thought occured, ‘She’s dead!’, the image so vividly evoked of her lying amongst the trees which enclosed the back of the hotel that he moved to the window and gazed down at the lawn, craning out to see if she might have reappeared: the same figure, foreshortened from this perspective, occupied her chair, with the foreshortened figure of the man beside her.

His towel in his hand he ran down to the jetty to find that Margaret was, in fact, some distance out, surrounded by several youths each of whom, effortlessly, she appeared capable of out-swimming, her breathless laughter coming back as, beside him, on the jetty, a man called, ‘No swimming from the boats,’ waving him towards the bank where a portion had been roped off for bathers.

Waiting for Margaret to acknowledge his arrival, he stepped in, gasped, felt the water lap between his legs, shivered, his arms held to him until, closing his eyes, he plunged forward and swam for several strokes, frenziedly, beneath the surface, coming up breathless, thinking, ‘If only she could see me now it would wipe away our conversation and she’d forget everything she told me.’ He glanced along the lawn, in the direction of the jetty.

‘Bryan!’

He choked, swallowed, struggled, pushed up, pushed out and, surging upwards, reached the surface, retched, half-choked, felt his head pushed down again and, swimming, set off back, beneath the water, in the direction of the bank.

He caught his breath, clutched his chest and, still coughing, crawled up on the grass.

‘You’re not mad at me?’

He shook his head.

‘I saw you come in.’

‘You were miles out.’

‘Part of the plan.’ She laughed. ‘You never saw me coming.’

He coughed again.

‘You’re a jolly good sport. I never thought you’d do it.’ Glancing along the lawn, she added, ‘Where’s Aunt?’

‘She went off to the woods.’

‘In one of her moods.’

‘What moods?’ Bryan said.

‘Doesn’t like people having fun.’

‘That’s not like her at all,’ he said. ‘She could easily come in and swim.’

She turned to the bank, stamping at the water. ‘Ten years ago she would, but not any longer. Race you to the boats.’

She disappeared beneath the surface.

When he came back up, after diving in, she was swimming on her back beside him.

‘Go with it,’ she called. ‘You’re fighting the water.’

A youth, having climbed into one of the moored boats, dived off.

His head came up beside them.

‘Your brother?’

‘My cousin,’ Margaret said, and laughed.

Bryan swam round the edge of the nearest boat and caught hold of the rope at the bow.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.

He nodded, swimming around the boat, releasing the rope and clutching the gunwale.

Margaret, having climbed up on one of the boats, dived off.

Bryan watched the disappearing legs, the brisk elevation of the head and shoulders and was conscious of a sudden warmth radiating now across his chest.

He recalled the softness of Margaret’s body and when, a moment later, she came towards him, he began to smile, the smile expanding until, as she reached the boat, she called, ‘Do I look funny?’

‘No,’ he said and added, for no reason he could account for, ‘I feel very light.’

‘What did I tell you?’ She grabbed the gunwale of the boat herself. ‘Not ticklish?’

‘No,’ he said.

Her arm was placed around his waist. ‘Not even there?’

With his free arm he drew her to him.

The spray splashed in his ear; it filtered into his nose: in a moment, instead of coughing, he began to laugh.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘You’re an awful ass. Race you to the bank.’

She swam on her back.

Bryan slowly followed.

Across his hips and against his chest he could still feel, rhythmically, the movement of her body: her arm curved, her wrist came down and, moments later, as she climbed up on the bank, he thought, ‘She’s like Mrs Corrigan must have been when she was a girl.’

‘You don’t swim badly, Bryan.’ She picked up a towel and dried her hair.

‘I don’t swim fast.’

‘Speed isn’t important.’

‘You swim quickly.’

‘I like it.’ She bowed her head, flung back her hair, and added, ‘You don’t strike me as a physical person. You never have.’ She dried her legs, gasped, said, ‘That feels better,’ and lay back in the grass.

He spread his towel beside her.

‘How many girls have you kissed?’ she asked.

‘Not many.’

‘There aren’t any at all at Peterson’s.’

‘There aren’t any boys at St Margaret’s.’

‘We get Peterson’s boys over,’ she said.

‘We get St Margaret’s girls.’

‘Not many.’

‘One or two.’

‘No one would be seen dead outside Peterson’s,’ she added. She pulled herself up.

‘There were girls at Stainforth before I met you,’ Bryan said.

‘Were there?’

She leant on her side, picking at the grass between them and dropped several strands on Bryan’s chest.

‘Ticklish?’

‘Not much.’

‘I bet.’

With something of a laugh she knelt across his chest, ran her hands across his ribs, then, flushed, turned back to the lake and, laughing, ran down to the water and quickly plunged in.

He watched her swim out to the boats, glanced down at her rumpled towel, rolled over on his stomach and – listening to the voices from the lake – he dozed.

Cold water trickled on his back.

‘Spoil-sport, Bryan,’ she said, and laughed. ‘Not coming in. We’re thinking of swimming across tomorrow.’

‘The lake?’

The nearest headland, on the opposite shore, was shrouded in mist.

‘It’s not far.’

‘It looks it.’

‘Three-quarters of a mile. Though they think, with a current, it’s nearer two.’

‘Are you telling Mrs Corrigan?’

‘I can swim two miles without a rest. In any case,’ she gestured off to the crowd of youths, ‘one of their fathers has a boat and says he’ll sail as pilot.’

She picked up her towel.

‘I think I’ll get changed. Race you to the door.’

She disappeared across the terrace.

He went up to his room, dressed, laid his towel on the window-ledge, and gazed down at the terrace.

‘Bryan?’

She was standing in the door.

Her hair, still wet, had been drawn in a single swathe to the back of her neck: she wore a light-blue dress, belted at the waist. Her legs were bare.

She came to the window, avoiding his towel.

‘Forget about her.’

‘I wondered where she’d got to.’

‘She’ll be all right.’ Her shoulder brushed against his. ‘She’ll have picked up a man.’

‘Where?’

‘In the woods.’

‘I doubt if she’s in the mood,’ he said.

‘She’s always in the mood.’

‘Are you glad you came away?’ he asked.

‘From what?’

‘Feltham.’

She hunched her shoulders and glanced at the prostrate bodies on the lawn below. ‘Are you?’

‘I’m glad I came away with you.’

‘Me, too. Though I don’t know why.’

‘When was the last time you had a holiday?’

‘The year before my mother died.’ She paused. ‘And you?’

‘I haven’t been away for years.’

‘I suppose you couldn’t afford it.’

‘No.’

‘Shall we go down to the kiosk?’

‘If you like.’

‘Beat you downstairs.’

‘I’ll walk,’ he said. ‘I’m not used to swimming as far as that.’

‘Come in the boat tomorrow.’

‘I’d prefer to wait over here,’ he said.

‘Don’t want to see me drown.’

‘That’s right.’

She laughed, waited for him to close the door, then added, ‘You’re not knocking?’ as he went to Mrs Corrigan’s door and, dissuaded by the tone of her voice, stooped to it, listened, then, lightly, his body shielding the action, tried the handle.

The door was locked.

‘The way you run after her.’

‘I don’t.’

‘Leave her alone.’

She took his hand and, side by side, they ran down to the terrace.

He was conscious of a figure moving across the dining-room whose gestures alone attracted his attention: her shoulders were bare; her face shone. Not until she was at the table did she glance at Margaret, nod at Bryan and, as her chair was held for her by the waiter, inquire, ‘Had a good day?’ laying her handbag on the cloth beside her.

‘Not bad,’ Margaret said, glancing to the window and, beyond the window, to the evening light across the lake. ‘Had one yourself?’

‘Quiet,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

‘I swam,’ Margaret said. ‘Bryan drew.’

‘What did you draw?’

‘Nothing much,’ he said.

‘Drawing isn’t your line,’ she said. ‘More, modelling, I should think, which is very messy. He hasn’t, fortunately, brought any clay.’

Her features glowed; her hair shone: the dress she wore, a pale-blue, enhanced her colour.

The food was brought; as other groups finished they came across, offered invitations to Mrs Corrigan, and passed on to the lounge across the foyer.

It was to the terrace, however, that Mrs Corrigan led them when the meal was finished.

They sat at a table, Mrs Corrigan between them.

‘I’ll go up early this evening,’ she said. ‘Sitting out all day has tired me.’

‘Why don’t you have a swim, Aunt?’ Margaret said. ‘We could find somewhere around the lake if you’re feeling shy.’

‘I shouldn’t feel shy,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘But,’ she added, ‘I don’t anticipate swimming.’

‘Or sun-bathing.’

Mrs Corrigan stood up. ‘Let’s see how I feel in the morning.’ She kissed Margaret good night, kissed Bryan, and disappeared inside the foyer.

‘All that preparation and she doesn’t do anything with it,’ Margaret said.

‘What preparation?’ Bryan moved up to the chair beside her.

‘It must have taken hours, her hair. Even her dress. Just to sit down to a meal,’ she added.

‘Perhaps it’s for our benefit,’ Bryan said.

‘She’s far more selfish than that,’ Margaret said.

‘I wonder,’ he said.

‘You always see her as someone without motives,’ Margaret said. ‘At least, without the sort of motives I know she has.’ Her arms swept down as she smoothed her dress. ‘Shall we go for a walk?’

He took her hand; he glanced to Mrs Corrigan’s window as they reached the jetty: the curtains had been drawn.

‘She must have been in her room,’ Margaret said, ‘before we came down to dinner.’

‘Perhaps she was busy.’

‘In one of her moods.’

‘What moods?’

‘She has lots. Particularly,’ Margaret said, ‘when I’m around.’

They gazed down at the reflected lights in the water; the waves lapped against the moored boats: the sound reverberated beneath the jetty.

‘We rub each other up the wrong way,’ she added. ‘It’s a chemical reaction. Just as, with you, she feels compatible. With me, it’s oil and water.’

‘You’re both women,’ Bryan said.

‘Temperament, mainly,’ Margaret said. ‘Aunt is an artist. Only, she creates herself instead of pictures.’

‘Why do you dislike her?’ he said.

‘I don’t dislike her. But there’s a lot I ought to criticize. And a lot,’ she concluded, ‘that needs explaining.’

Other figures drifted past, paused to glance out across the lake, turned, and drifted back towards the terrace.

‘Do you want to walk far?’ she asked.

‘I’m feeling tired.’

‘Me, too. I’m beginning to ache,’ she said. ‘I mightn’t swim across tomorrow.’

‘I thought you’d arranged it,’ Bryan said.

‘I can easily dis-arrange it,’ she said. ‘They do anything I ask them as a matter of fact.’

‘You talk like Mrs Corrigan,’ he said.

‘I suppose there is a part of her in me,’ she said. ‘Which is another reason, no doubt, why we rub each other up.’ And when, finally, they stepped inside the foyer, she added, ‘Are you going up?’

‘I think I shall,’ he said.

‘I might stay down.’ An arm was raised in her direction. ‘See you,’ she added and, having released his hand, she started to the lounge: he saw her sink down in a waiting chair and two figures, who had stood for her, sat down beside her.

He knocked on Mrs Corrigan’s door.

She stood there, blinking, not glancing down but, beyond him, to the landing.

The room was in darkness behind.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I was resting,’ she said.

‘Haven’t you gone to bed?’

‘I sleep very badly at present, Bryan.’

Clothes, worn earlier that day, were lying on a chair.

‘Why don’t you open the curtains?’

‘What for?’

‘You can look at the lake.’

‘I’m not very keen on the lake,’ she said.

‘I thought you were.’

‘Not much.’

He could see the impression of the straps on her shoulders from the dress she had worn that morning, and the flush of colour on her upper arm.

‘Are you going to bed?’

‘I shall be.’

‘Do you want me to stay?’

‘No, thanks.’

‘Why have you cut yourself off?’ he asked.

‘You’ve Margaret to talk to,’ she said.

‘I’d like to talk to you,’ he said.

‘I’m tired.’

‘Shall I kiss you good night?’

‘If you like.’

She averted her cheek.

‘I’ll sit with you, if you like,’ he said.

‘Go and find Margaret if you want to chatter,’ she said and, adding, ‘Good night,’ she closed the door.

It was Margaret who, some time later, tapped on his door and, having waited for an answer, and received none, tapped on Mrs Corrigan’s, called, ‘Good night,’ and, having received no reply there either, called, ‘Good night,’ again, and closed her door with a bang.

She was standing by the window, and had only come in perhaps moments before for she turned and called, ‘It’s you,’ and he saw that, previous to his entry, she must have been crying.

‘Is anything wrong?’

‘Nothing,’ she said.

He closed the door and, as she came back from the window, she asked, ‘Have you had your lunch?’

‘I’ve just come up,’ he said.

‘Is Margaret about?’

‘She’s over the lake.’

‘Who with?’

‘People with a boat.’ He gestured to the window.

‘What do you mean by over the lake?’

‘They have a yacht.’

‘Weren’t you invited?’

‘No.’

‘She never mentioned it to me.’

‘Why don’t we go for a walk?’ he asked.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Do you want me to go?’

‘I’d like it.’

‘I’ll see you later,’ he said and added, from the door, ‘Knock on the wall if you want me.’

As he lay on his bed he imagined her sitting there, and thought, ‘She is seeing how far she can go and when she sees I won’t be moved she’ll respond by coming closer.’ Then, to his surprise, he heard her knock and when he went to her room he found her standing by the bed, and as if in the interval she hadn’t stirred, she said, ‘It’s you I should be blaming. All I did was give you a chance you never had.’

‘It’s not like that at all,’ he said.

‘Why is it me who always fails?’

‘Do you want me to go?’ he said and, when she didn’t answer, he added, ‘Back to Stainforth?’

‘No, thank you.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’d have to go with you. I mean to enjoy myself. Margaret deserves a holiday, too.’

‘When we get back home I’ll give up Peterson’s.’

‘You’d like that.’

‘I’d prefer to stay with you.’

‘And prolong the torment.’

He closed the door; even when he’d returned to his room and lain down on the bed he couldn’t restrain himself from shaking. When, finally, he thought he could stand, he got into his costume and ran downstairs and, in a rage with himself as much as he was with her, ran across the lawn and into the lake.

Perhaps it was the coldness that brought him to his senses; perhaps it was the thought, also, that this was a test, not only of his feelings but of his courage: perhaps it was a combination of both these things which compelled him, swallowing water, to fight to the surface.

A hand clasped his shoulder; it grasped his chest: ‘Cough it up. Spit it out,’ came a bland instruction. His arms were pumped; his back was slapped.

The sky gave way to the ceiling of the foyer.

He heard Mrs Corrigan inquire, ‘Who is it?’

A moment later he was lying on her bed.

‘He’ll be all right,’ a voice suggested.

‘He’ll be all right,’ came the voice again.

He was turned on his side.

A towel had been placed beneath his head.

‘It was an accident,’ he said.

‘I watched you. Without that man,’ she said, ‘you would have drowned.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I didn’t intend to. I could easily have swum back. I’ll go out now and prove it.’

‘No,’ she said.

She was pressing him down.

‘Will you forget what I told you?’ she added. ‘I can’t imagine what made me do it.’

His head was raised; the towel was replaced.

A hand brushed back his hair.

The light, when he woke, was fading in the window; across the room, her head bowed, the figure of Mrs Corrigan was sleeping in a chair.

‘What’s all this about drowning?’ Margaret asked.

‘I swam out too far,’ Bryan said.

He was waiting for breakfast, sitting on the terrace, gazing out across the lake.

‘When I told her where I’d been she bit my head off.’

‘Did you make it to the other side?’ he asked.

‘Easily.’

‘What about the others?’

‘One kept up. The others dropped out.’

She sat in the chair beside him.

‘Did they give you a prize?’

‘They gave me lunch. And dinner last night. You look pretty well,’ she added.

‘Not really.’

‘Better than ever.’ She sat forward, her arms wrapped round her knees.

‘I feel all right.’

‘She said you were lifted out.’

‘I could have managed.’

‘She says you might have drowned.’

He could see Mrs Corrigan through the dinning-room window; she was speaking to the waiter who, having held her chair, stooped forward and, in response to something she had said, glanced out to the terrace.

‘Slept well?’ she said when they went in to her.

‘I have,’ Margaret said. ‘Dinner was super, Aunt. You ought to have come.’

And later, when they sat out on the lawn, a motor-boat had appeared from beyond an adjacent headland and, turning in circles, cut a wake in front of the jetty.

‘The Pettingers,’ Margaret said. ‘They’re coming this morning to pick me up.’

‘What for?’ Mrs Corrigan asked.

‘I was invited,’ Margaret said.

‘Where are they taking you?’ Mrs Corrigan asked.

‘I’ve no idea.’

‘Not swimming?’

‘I shouldn’t think so.’ She stretched her arms. ‘I’m stiffer today than I’ve ever been.’ She glanced to the lake. ‘I could have swum back if they hadn’t stopped me.’

‘I’m glad they did.’

‘I’ll stay behind if you want me to.’

‘You go,’ Mrs Corrigan said. ‘If that’s what you promised.’

And later, when the motor-boat came in, she ran down to the jetty; an arm was waved: the boat moved off.

A crescent of foam rocked the tethered rowing-boats and, in successive waves, lapped against the bank.

‘You feeling all right?’

‘I am.’

‘Better than yesterday?’ he asked.

‘Much, thank you.’

The bay was enclosed at the water’s edge by rocks and, on the grassy slope above, by trees: out on the lake the motor-boat, its bow raised, a line of white spume thrown up on either side, was turning in circles.

‘I wanted to drown.’ He paused. ‘But I couldn’t.’

‘I don’t want to talk about it, Bryan.’

‘If anything happened to you I’d feel the same.’

‘Would you?’ After a while, she added, ‘If anything happened to you I’d be the only one to blame.’

‘I Wouldn’t do anything to harm you,’ he said. ‘Everything I do is because of you.’

‘It’s time,’ Mrs Corrigan said, ‘you were thinking of something else.’

‘There’s nothing else I care about.’

‘I’m sure there is.’

‘Nothing.’

‘If you want to stand a chance there has to be.’

‘A chance of what?’

‘Of living a life with other people.’

‘I’m not complaining,’ Bryan said. ‘But there’s no reason now,’ he concluded, ‘we should ever be apart.’

The sound of the motor-boat grew fainter.

‘You’ll grow away from me,’ she said and, looking up from where she was sitting in the direction of the distant boat, she added, ‘If not with Margaret, then with friends from school.’

‘I don’t have any friends from school.’

‘Because I’ve taken up too much of your life which, normally, you would have spent with other people.’

‘I was like that before I met you,’ he said. ‘I’m like that now. I’m proud of what we are.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘I’d never disown it.’

‘You’d be in no position to,’ she said.

‘I would be,’ he said. ‘And more so,’ he concluded, ‘the older I get.’

‘I see further ahead than you,’ Mrs Corrigan said.

‘You only imagine it,’ Bryan said. ‘All we know for certain is what exists between us now,’ and, glancing at her as she sat beside him, her arm pushed back, her legs thrust out, he thought, ‘Outside of our feelings for one another we don’t exist: everything is there merely to make sure that we look like everyone else.’

‘Why don’t we have a swim?’ he asked.

‘I haven’t brought a costume.’

‘There’s no one about.’

‘Only a dozen people in passing boats.’

‘They’re too busy with other things,’ he said. ‘Once we were in,’ he added, ‘no one would know.’

She swam out several strokes and turned on her back.

She waited, treading water.

‘Can you feel the bottom?’ she asked.

‘It’s deep,’ he said.

‘Swim together.’

He could feel her abdomen beneath him.

‘Anything the matter?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘What you wanted?’

‘Yes,’ he said.

‘You look much prettier in the water.’

‘So do you.’

‘How much?’

‘Lots.’

She drew him to her.

He felt the pressure of her arm around his waist.

Lapped by the waves, the shore invisible beyond her head, it was as if they were elements of the lake itself, their figures loosely joined, their legs entwined.

‘Fay,’ he said, and saw her smile.

‘Are you all right?’ she asked.