How to begin to understand this child’s mind? Only one theory held up. There was a day in June 1932, all the more beautiful for coming suddenly, after a long spell of rain and wind. It was one of those rare mornings which declares itself, with a boastful extravagance of warmth and light and new leaves, as the true beginning, the grand portal to summer, and he was walking through it with Briony, past the Triton pond, down beyond the ha-ha and rhododendrons, through the iron kissing gate and onto the winding narrow woodland path. She was excited and talkative. She would have been about ten years old, just starting to write her little stories. Along with everyone else, he had received his own bound and illustrated tale of love, adversities overcome, reunion and a wedding. They were on their way down to the river for the swimming lesson he had promised her. As they left the house behind she may have been telling him about a story she had just finished or a book she was reading. She may have been holding his hand. She was a quiet, intense little girl, rather prim in her way, and this outpouring was unusual. He was happy to listen. These were exciting times for him too. He was nineteen, exams were almost over and he thought he’d done well. Soon he would cease to be a schoolboy. He had interviewed well at Cambridge and in two weeks he was leaving for France where he was to teach English at a religious school. There was a grandeur about the day, about the colossal, barely stirring beeches and oaks, and the light that dropped like jewels through the fresh foliage to make pools among last year’s dead leaves. This magnificence, he sensed in his youthful self-importance, reflected the glorious momentum of his life. She prattled on, and contentedly he half listened. The path emerged from the woods onto the broad grassy banks of the river. They walked upstream for half a mile and entered woods again. Here, on a bend in the river, below overhanging trees, was the pool, dug out in Briony’s grandfather’s time. A stone weir slowed the current and was a favorite diving and jumping-off place. Otherwise, it was not ideal for beginners. You went from the weir, or you jumped off the bank into nine feet of water. He dived in and trod water, waiting for her. They had started the lessons the year before, in late summer when the river was lower and the current sluggish. Now, even in the pool there was a steady rotating drift. She paused only for a moment, then jumped from the bank into his arms with a scream. She practiced treading water until the current carried her against the weir, then he towed her across the pool so that she could start again. When she tried out her breaststroke after a winter of neglect, he had to support her, not easy when he was treading water himself. If he removed his hand from under her, she could only manage three or four strokes before sinking. She was amused by the fact that, going against the current, she swam to remain still. But she did not stay still. Instead, she was carried back each time to the weir, where she clung to a rusty iron ring, waiting for him, her white face vivid against the lurid mossy walls and greenish cement. Swimming uphill, she called it. She wanted to repeat the experience, but the water was cold and after fifteen minutes he’d had enough. He pulled her over to the bank and, ignoring her protests, helped her out. He took his clothes from the basket and went a little way off into the woods to change. When he returned she was standing exactly where he had left her, on the bank, looking into the water, with her towel around her shoulders. She said, “If I fell in the river, would you save me?”
“Of course.”
He was bending over the basket as he said this and he heard, but did not see, her jump in. Her towel lay on the bank. Apart from the concentric ripples moving out across the pool, there was no sign of her. Then she bobbed up, snatched a breath and sank again. Desperate, he thought of running to the weir to fish her out from there, but the water was an opaque muddy green. He would only find her below the surface by touch. There was no choice—he stepped into the water, shoes, jacket and all. Almost immediately he found her arm, got his hand under her shoulder and heaved her up. To his surprise she was holding her breath. And then she was laughing joyously and clinging to his neck. He pushed her onto the bank and, with great difficulty in his sodden clothes, struggled out himself.
“Thank you,” she kept saying. “Thank you, thank you.”
“That was a bloody stupid thing to do.”
“I wanted you to save me.”
“Don’t you know how easily you could have drowned?”
“You saved me.”
Distress and relief were charging his anger. He was close to shouting. “You stupid girl. You could have killed us both.”
She fell silent. He sat on the grass, emptying the water from his shoes. “You went under the surface, I couldn’t see you. My clothes were weighing me down. We could have drowned, both of us. Is it your idea of a joke? Well, is it?”
There was nothing more to say. She got dressed and they went back along the path, Briony first, and he squelching behind her. He wanted to get into the open sunlight of the park. Then he faced a long trudge back to the bungalow for a change of clothes. He had not yet spent his anger. She was not too young, he thought, to get her mind around an apology. She walked in silence, head lowered, possibly sulking, he could not see. When they came out of the woods and had gone through the kissing gate, she stopped and turned. Her tone was forthright, even defiant. Rather than sulk, she was squaring up to him.