11.

July, I know. It began in July. July. Cauldron hot.

The cells dividing. Some right, some wrong.

I take Polly along the ice-fringed river. As usual, we meet the black dog with three legs. Apocat and Kata sit wreathed in smoke, bundled in blankets on the porch of their house. I flap my arm at them. They don’t register my presence. I am no less lonely, no less impatient, than I was last summer. I tell Polly that the months slip and slide while the seasons follow their course, with the usual traffic, and it’s nothing that hasn’t happened before.

Although instincts have lost their way and smokers on their porch won’t diagnose or solve the village’s ailment, my wife’s arm is mending. Every night, woken by her pain, I go out onto my sheltered promontory and sit with candle, glass of wine, shivering at my desk. What of Abi’s pregnancy? She was drunk. She got drunk with Danny. What have they done? What will they do next? Papagana. Pabbivinnar. Ayabmenang. Apanyer. Vatergewinnt. Babamafanikio.

On the hanging path, Polly at heel, I hear voices from the nuisance grounds and set off through the trees to the gully. On the shore of that intoxicated sea are two kids throwing pebbles at an engine projecting from the swamp. I recognise Gee and Harry. From the shaggy cutbank a family of crows caws down.

Almost home, a movement in the fence shadows catches my eye. The black dog with three legs stands his ground. Polly growls.

I crouch in the shelter of my wall in the afternoon under winter’s monumental blues. Our village is slipping. True. A consortium has been buying us out, house by house, farm by farm, for a decade. They plan a super quarry to the north, and say our town is perfect for housing and offices, a staging ground for operations. How big? Big. For what? For aggregate. To surface-mine aggregate. What does this mean? That the vineyards will disappear. Massive wheeled hoppers, crushers and washers will dominate the landscape. We’ll make money and retire into memory, loss of memory. Where we move to, what will happen to Danny and Abi, will matter less and less then not at all. Consortium. Conglomerate. Aggregate. Emma is organizing a petition against the developers; a research committee has been struck, and a committee to build a website and get the word out. We are organizing a series of town hall meetings for the spring. But don’t we need new families?

I pat my pockets and look out. Last July I sat in this spot watching Danny’s horses crop the curly grass below the vine hills. Apocat and Kata sat near the river, under the big tree, in a haze of dust kicked up by the rain, weaving their lazy baskets. Was I as worried then as I am now? We were all younger then.

Fine snow crystals land on my knees.

The rest of the villagers will be sitting in front of their fires, the year’s work done, all the merchandising and maintenance, and the girl’s pregnancy and the boy’s death no longer stir the bare branches, and mention of Danny’s illness won’t even change the light. Even though there are no wild horses, and machines fly overhead, the people will still doze before their dying fires every winter afternoon. The village has thrived through wars and complicated migrations and our neighbours’ worry and envy and confusion. We kept our noses to the ground. When the fires go out there’s the sound of laughter, hooves, then stillness and night.

One windy January morning we met at the river to say goodbye to Danny. We were a small group waiting under the big tree, all of us freezing by the time he appeared leading three horses. He looked miserable. He stroked the face of each horse. He kissed Lucy and Abi, shook Tom’s hand, hugged Emma and bowed to me.

“Last time you left,” I said, “we were both young and did not say goodbye.”

Kata and Apocat appeared trundling downhill between two mounds of snow-covered vines, sun surging behind them.

“We had to see you,” Kata said, “before you ran off.”

Danny hugged her. Apocat smiled and drew her shawl tight. To the east boiled the sun, a wild anxious balloon, and the horses whinnied and nickered and stamped in the gusting wind, and Abi took their reins and led them back up the path while Tom and I kept Danny company to the edge of the cultivated hills and along the river.

At the Greyhound stop beside the bridge Tom ranted about the quarriers’ plans to build new roads and a subdivision.

Danny lit a joint. “That’s not news to me.” He staggered, coughing, then gripped my shoulder. “I have told Abi she can depend on you and Emma.” He turned to Tom. “We all know the land out there is useless for agriculture and pasture.”

Tom said: “They do not know shit.”

We stood, breaths crystalizing, and watched the river; the edges were frozen and in the middle eddies spun debris; the surface purled and settled into a gold sheet in the early sun.