“How are you today?” he asked.
The girl lay pale under the skylight, just awake. Last night had been worse than the night before. She had had her second fever. No medicine would help. He had drunk too much wine. They had sent George to his grandparents. He had had with Emma incomplete sex and now he was upstairs in Annie’s bedroom feeling guilty.
“I’m okay, Papa.”
“Will I tell you a story?”
“Yes, please.”
Afterward he went downstairs to the front room where Emma stood looking out of the bay window. She turned as soon as she heard him. “How is she?”
He shook his head. “When she’s sick I can’t think.”
Emma sank into her chair. She played with the worn threads of the armrest. “Are you afraid, Charles? Are you afraid?”
“They bury themselves in the sand.”
“Who do?”
“The San. The original humans, according to genetic research. The folk who stayed in Africa when the rest of us left. To escape the heat. What d’you think are our chances of understanding life before our grandchildren come along?”
She looked away from him. “Please don’t start.”
“All creatures seek water, but only at certain times of the day. When it is safe. What if knowledge is water? We don’t really know who we are or why we’re here, do we?”
She flinched. She wrinkled her nose. She craned her neck, gazing through the bay window, fingers busy with the worn armrest. “Our kids are good, aren’t they?”
He went to the window to see what she was looking at. The road outside was wet, empty except for a gull striding along, big red screams leaving its beak. “She will be okay.”
“I’m afraid now, Charles.”
“She will be fine, sweetheart.”
“But she’s worse, isn’t she, Charles?”
“Yes.”
“She woke me up in the night. When I went into her room, she was soaking wet.”
“She’s sleeping now.”