Back then, in France, it had been summer. The ever-present buzzing of the cicadas was numbing, lulling, the sound of the south. Now, towards evening, a wind came up from the sea and blew away the heat that rose from the rocky ground, but it still smelt of wild thyme and bitter pine resin. The side door on the camper was open. She had used clips from preserving jars to attach a tarpaulin to the rail at the top of the van. With the addition of two tent poles, it created a large awning, almost a tent that could be put up anywhere, wherever they happened to be. She was proud of that little invention. Sonny had gone shopping in the town. The baby had fallen asleep, dressed only in a little vest, arms and legs stretched out wide, breathing peacefully on the sheepskin that normally lay on the driver’s seat. Liss had laid her book down beside her and was studying her son. The sound of those words. Even now. My son. The emotion rising within her made her catch her breath: that sudden realisation that this was true happiness. Being far away. Being free, even if they had barely any money. When that was the case, they stayed where they were until they could fill up again, and then they drove on. Having a healthy child and being able to be there for him. Being able to read where she liked and what she liked and when she liked. Breathing this air and feeling this wind that didn’t exist at home.
She stood up and took a few steps to the edge of the cliff. It was a little bay, and they’d parked the camper on the clifftop at one side. All the campsites were long closed. They could go no further south in France. When they’d first driven south, heading for Spain, she’d fallen in love with the landscapes of southern France. Spain had never been able to compete. The evening breeze stirred the light fabric on her body; it was almost as though she could feel it directly on her skin. The water in the bay had an unreal clarity. When she’d used to dream of beaches like that, she’d been unable to believe they really existed. No river, no lake in her childhood had ever been truly clear. The first time she’d seen such clear water, she’d stood for several minutes, just looking. And that fascination had never faded. If she swam out, she could see six, seven metres down to the seabed below her. It was still so incredible that this world existed. Her parents had never gone on holiday.
We’re farmers, her father had said once. Who’ll look after the livestock for us?
A ski trip in the mountains with the school. Two Protestant Youth camps, under canvas. And now here she was, in early October, standing on a French clifftop above a bay, wearing a summer dress that she didn’t even need. She pulled it over her head with one quick movement and let it drop. It blew over to the camper and fluttered down like a weary, multi-coloured bird.
Wow!
Sonny had come up the narrow path.
You look good.
He put down the bags and reached for her. They did it standing up, breathlessly, hard and fast, and she had her eyes open, feeling Sonny, watching the sea and herself, as if from outside; standing naked, passionate, in front of Sonny, and for a moment she felt herself to be as beautiful as the water in the bay.
Later, they sat at the wobbly camping table and ate. Drank red wine that tasted so very different from the thin white plonk her father made. That could never taste good. After all, it wasn’t made for flavour, it was made the way it always had been made.
We ought to think about heading home.
The words hit her like a casual slap in the face.
What? Head home?
It’s nearly autumn. We’ve run out of money. And you have to … we have to think about the baby.
For a moment, she was incapable of speech. It was such a long time since she’d had that feeling: the words gushing up in her, all wanting to get out, forming a traffic jam in her throat; sometimes she thought that must be what it felt like to suffocate.
We said we’d travel. We’ve only been away for five weeks.
Sonny had never taken criticism. Where other people felt caught out in a little everyday lie, apologised or tried to talk their way out of it, he went on the attack. She’d used to like that.
Do you think this can carry on forever?
He snarled now, sat upright in the borrowed camping chair, slammed the cup of wine down so hard that it slopped over.
Yes, I did actually think that. And that’s what we agreed. That’s why we’re here!
The words began to find their way out. They were in a rush, sometimes she found herself stammering.
Think about the baby, should I? Me? Do you remember what happened when I told you I was pregnant? D’you remember?
That’s in the past!
He almost screamed it.
Nothing’s in the past. How can you sit there and tell me we should drive home because I ought to think about the baby? I thought about the baby when you ran away and fucked the first female to cross your path. Be glad you didn’t get her up the duff too. Two years at least. That’s what we said. Two years! I am thinking about the baby. I am. I don’t want him to grow up like me or you. I want him to have a life, a real one.
With no money? In a camper?
He was mocking now, and that hit her harder than when he yelled, because she knew that tone so well.
Suddenly she felt dirty and vulnerable, half naked as she still was. She stood up and grabbed a T-shirt from the guy rope.
Yes. With no money. In a camper. But here. Or in Spain. Or Morocco. That’s what we were planning, wasn’t it?
The moon traced a silvery trail that bobbed uncertainly over the water, directly towards them. Over there lay Africa.
Your father offered to let me take over the farm if we get married.
She had to grab hold of the camper. At a stroke, everything was unreal, nothing was true. None of what she could see. The baby wheezed and curled up. She bent and covered his little body with her dress.
How long have you known that?
She could only whisper it.
Why does that matter?
He poured wine into his cup and drank hastily.
He’ll retire for good in a couple of years, he said. He promised me. If we draw up a deed of conveyance, I’ll have it written in. And then everything will be settled. You’ll be provided for, and so will the baby. The farm is sound.
She didn’t know how to move. She wanted to run and to sit down. She wanted to let herself fall. Sleep beside the baby till morning, then everything would be different. All of a sudden, she was dreadfully tired.
Don’t you see what he’s doing? Don’t you see that he wants to chain us up like his dogs? A lifetime on a chain in his farm? In exchange for… She made a helpless gesture that took in the coast, the sea, the moon, the camper, the sleeping boy …in exchange for all this?
It’ll have to come to an end sooner or later.
He shouted it, grabbed the wine, stood up and walked off.
I’m drowning, she thought. I’m standing on dry land and drowning. The phrase ran through her head all night, back and forth, back and forth like a harrow, and in the morning her thoughts were nothing but a desert.
‘Did you call the police and tell them the girl was staying with me?’
It was seven thirty a.m. She was standing in front of Gerhard, who was wearing only a sloppy T-shirt and Bermuda shorts, which she guessed he’d slept in too.
‘What?’ he asked sleepily. ‘You rang the doorbell at this ungodly hour for that?’
‘Did you call them?’
Her tone was so sharp that he woke up properly now.
‘What? Yes! Of course.’
Liss stood on Gerhard’s front doorstep and shivered. She’d shivered all night long, and only slept uneasily and superficially. In the end, she’d got up at five, sat in the kitchen and shivered there too.
‘Of course? Gerhard, you’re an arsehole.’
She turned and left.
‘You don’t get it, do you?’ Gerhard yelled after her. ‘You can’t live like that. There are laws. There are rules. The rules apply to you too. People have to obey them! You can’t just…’
He didn’t finish the sentence. He probably didn’t know himself what he’d been going to say. But it rang in her ears all the same. You can’t live like that. Yes, she thought as she walked, yes. You can’t live like that. It’s like I’m invisible. I think I talk to people, and the words freeze in the air and nobody hears them. I should never have taken the girl in. The silence on the farm, now that she was gone, was almost unbearable.
She found it hard to work. Work had always been the thing she could cling to. But today, she found every step hard. As if the air were denser; almost like water. She felt an invisible resistance to everything she did. She didn’t feel capable of anything. She sat in the kitchen and looked out onto the yard. The morning mist was starting to dissolve, and she could see that it was going to be a sunny day, and nothing stirred within her. She had always defended herself. Always. Time and again and time and again; and time and again they’d caught up with her, and now they’d managed it again. Her father. Her mother. Sonny. And then Sonny again. They’d all tried to diminish her. She’d always got up again. But what for?
Mechanically, she rolled herself a cigarette, and it occurred to her that it must be the sixth or seventh that morning already. Not a good sign.
There are only two places where they can’t ban smoking, Beatrix had said once when they’d been out for yard exercise. One hour a day. In a yard where there wasn’t even a tree in case you climbed it and got over the wall. As if that would have done any good. After the inner wall, there was another, and then the fence, and then one more wall…
Only two places. On the psychiatric ward and in prison.
Beatrix had seen both. She’d had that hoarse laugh that might be from smoking, though maybe her voice had always been like that. Because smoking is the only warmth left to you then.
But that’s not true, thought Liss as she smoked and looked outside without anything stirring within her. It’s not warming.
She went into the cellar, stood in the middle of the passageway and couldn’t remember what she’d come down for. Actually, she ought to be able to smell the mash; the scent ought to be hanging sharp and clear in the air by now. And now it also occurred to her that when she’d been smoking just then, she hadn’t been able to taste the tobacco flavour. Cigarettes always did smell better than they tasted, but she’d hardly been able to perceive anything. She hurried over to one of the mash tuns, lifted the lid and bent over it. Now the smell of pears and alcohol reached her, but still as if through a filter. She ought to start distilling, but the mere thought of setting up the equipment reared up in her face like a wall. What was wrong with her? Distilling had always given her pleasure, but now she couldn’t even remember what that felt like.
She’d only been by the Atlantic once, but one image had seared its way deep inside her: in the evening, the landing stages were lying almost horizontal in the water. The waves broke hard against the quay wall, only a metre or so below the balustrade; you could feel the trembling of the stone in your feet if you stood still. It was a good feeling. But the next morning, when she’d gone down from the campsite to the water, alone because Sonny was still asleep and she’d got up because she’d been yearning for beauty, the sight took her completely unawares. The boats were gone. The jetties dropped away steeply and when she looked over the balustrade, she saw, about eight metres below her, nothing but a grey, oozy wasteland on which the boats lay around uselessly, tipped onto their sides. Five hundred metres away was the glittering ribbon of the waterway. She hadn’t known what a tidal range was. She’d read about high and low tide, but the idea of the sea just flowing away, leaving a desert in its wake, had been beyond her imagination. She’d never seen the seabed naked before. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
And that was how she felt inwardly now. As if everything had flowed out of her, leaving her as a wasteland of mud. With all the ugly and harsh and overgrown things that usually lay hidden beneath the glittering surface of the water now sticking out. All the things that sink to the floor within you, where they rot and fester. Everything had flowed out of her, and she was empty right down to the stinking sediment. She spun around on her heel in the wine cellar and thought: If I were a barrel, I’d throw me away. You can’t put any more wine in there. You’ll never get that one clean again.
She took two bottles of wine off the shelves at random, went up into the kitchen and started drinking, and she couldn’t have said whether or not the wine tasted good. It was only a desperate attempt to pour something into the huge void inside her.