She felt ignorant. ‘I don’t know it.’
‘There are so many books.’
But she would read.
He told the ‘March of the Ten Thousand’, of the struggle of Xenophon and his Greeks through the snows of Anatolia towards the benign sea that would take them home, a tale that whittled away the kilometres till the pale Mediterranean came into view for them also. Travelling was still his life. Being on the move meant nothing to him. He was taking care of everything as if it signified little to her. But it did. She was out of her element, a child again, wanting to be away from the car and in control of her own movements. It was hard to know what you wanted till you hadn’t got it, especially when you didn’t know whether or not you already had what you wanted. Equally hard to know what you wanted when you were in love, and even harder to know anything at all when you were pregnant. But what she wanted was what she had, and what she had was more than she’d ever had in her life, and because she had all she wanted at the moment she didn’t doubt that there was far more to come – as much as she ever would want, in fact. A disturbing lack of doubt told her it might never be enough, whatever it was, and made her wonder at this stage if everyone had to settle for far less than they perceived it was possible to have.
Behind the city he turned west towards blue sky along the coast. They threaded tunnels and caught vivid sights of the sea. All windows were opened. She felt more carefree now that palm trees and villas were visible, and small villages that looked good to live in.
‘There are at least three hotels in town.’ They drove off the motorway. ‘And it’s only four o’clock. Plenty of time for a stroll along the seafront.’
8
She sat in the car, and hoped there would be a room. Singlestoreyed cottages were angled between eucalyptus trees and set on different slopes. The larger building had a café and restaurant. People were sitting in shirtsleeves and cotton dresses at outside tables. He tapped on the window, holding a key. ‘Plenty of rooms.’
He drove around the complicated lane system to their allotted dwelling. There were two beds and a wardrobe, desk, chairs and a telephone, as well as a bathroom. She liked its space and cleanliness. He washed his shirt at the sink, then put his underwear into the water, while she stood under the cool shower, a pleasure all the greater for the change she was going through. Impossible to think about getting back to the place they had left.
She ran a finger through her pubic hair, and let fingers stroke her belly. She had needed to pull him from death’s cul-de-sac before seeing a way out of her own. In that sense she was connected to him for ever, and he with her, whether or not they stayed as man and wife – whatever that might mean. For who knew whether she would want to remain with him or he with her? To expect comfort from the future was no more than a pathetic cry for help. You could only live in the present, and trust that the way would be shown.
She soaped herself, and held her face to the downrushing water. With blinds drawn, they lay on their separate beds. When she awoke, two hours had gone. Her oblivion had been without dreams, or any indication of having been asleep except that she felt weak, and hardly rested.
He sat reading. ‘I couldn’t lose consciousness. The road was still rolling along under my eyelids.’
She stood by his side. ‘I haven’t looked at the Bible for a long time.’
‘I thought I’d bring something to read, for those empty moments when one needs solace. It’s a book that reinforces my moral fibre. There isn’t much left either in me or the rest of the world. It’s on the wane, but we must get it back. My spirit is solidified by this, for instance:
‘“Give counsel, execute justice;
Make thy shadow as the night in the midst of the noonday;
Hide the outcasts; betray not the fugitive.”
‘At one time I would have needed a sledgehammer to get such precepts into my senses. Every word is like bread:
‘“And I will rejoice in Jerusalem,
And joy in my people;
And the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her,
Nor the voice of the crying.”’
What caused her anxiety at hearing him quote such poems? She felt either fear or joy at the change she had seen in him, at the alterations in herself. Nothing in between. There was no anchor, no stillness or fixity for either of them. But they belonged nowhere if not to each other. He was someone come to life whom she had known but had forgotten, yet still did not know who he was. Was that the same with everyone – for the rest of their lives, no matter how long they were together? The mystery that could never be solved was to be the cement of their unity. The insoluble joined them more firmly than the certain or commonplace. He was going away from her, yet would never get so far that they would lose each other, all the same.
He sat by her on the bed. ‘You looked beautiful when you were sleeping, but even more so now.’
She put an arm over his shoulder, thinking they would make love. It didn’t matter. She was disembodied, feeling affection more than passion. The air from outside smelled of flowers and pine needles. Their window looked up a hillside. He put on a grey light-weight suit, with shirt and tie, and she wore a cardigan over her dress because the air seemed cool.
They drank a bottle of Valpolicella before they began the dish of ravioli. ‘I wonder what happened to Aubrey?’
He broke the powdery bread. ‘Aubrey?’
She reminded him. ‘Your drinking companion of last night.’
‘Seems years ago. I expect he’s in Rome by now.’
‘Would you like to be roaming around on your own?’
Was he, sailor or not, out of his depth and unable to admit that he wanted to end the jaunt? She was elated, then depressed, within a space in which no time passed. Either that, or it went backwards. Her spirit fled. It came back – always. Did he want to turn around, but his mouth wouldn’t say so? To plan travel in the isolation of his aunt’s flat was a pleasant way to pass a few evenings. All experience said so. But how about the reality of being with her? And her reality of being with him? Feeling lost, she knew that he wondered, too, and held his hand. It was getting dark. A few couples were dancing to the music.
‘I’ve roamed enough on my own,’ he said. ‘More than thirty years. I love you, and love being with you. There’s no one else, and never will be.’
He looked at her as if also asking why he was in this place with a plain strange person who was a million miles separated from his worldly mentality. He looked at her, she thought, as if he knew more about her than he was easy with. She saw too close, and too deep, and he couldn’t know it. But was she wondering whether he wanted to go on because she herself couldn’t bear to ask the same question? The idea frightened her. She didn’t want to ask. It was unnecessary because it was unanswerable.
‘Tomorrow …’ he began.
When the music stopped there was the deafening cro-ack of bullfrogs on the hill-slope. Talk, she knew, cured all doubts – and pulverized all queries.
‘We’ll go on to San Remo,’ he said. ‘It’s not very far.’
They needed another bottle for the scaloppine con Marsala. The waiter was young and quick, with wonderful eyes. There was a beautiful man at the next table, with an even more beautiful woman. It was a pleasure to look at other people. She could love them both. ‘Do you want to?’
‘There’s nothing else to do,’ Tom said.
She knew that he was alarmed. So was she. But he hadn’t answered. He might at least reply to her question by asking if she wanted to go on.