She had a horror of treading on something she couldn’t see. He drew her along, and out. ‘Can you swim?’
‘After a fashion.’ She dived forward, feeling a wave of water as he followed. He swam around her, then she broke out of his circle and went ahead in a rapid side-paddle, turning to see how far off she had left him. She felt safer when she could no longer touch bottom, dipped under and corkscrewed up for air, spouting water at the sun’s heat. She laughed at his slow progress, and did a languid breast stroke towards him.
They sat on a slab of rock in their swimming suits, a towel over her shoulders so as not to scorch. ‘I’m getting dehydrated,’ she said.
He went to the car on the road and came down with the stove, provisions and a canister of water. Ships in the distance stood waiting to go into harbour. She couldn’t eat in the early morning, but her appetite came as the day wore on. Sea creamed over the rocks, a ragged string of phosphorescence coming in and going out.
‘It’s polluted,’ she said. ‘We’ll probably die after our swim.’
‘I don’t believe it. But if it is we’ll have to get used to it.’ He made tea, then sat and looked at the ships through his binoculars. She couldn’t tell when they moved, but didn’t doubt that he could. They were monuments to the patient sailors who worked on them. Graven, and unable to move head, arms or shoulders, he was a statue set above the dreamy sea. She was apart, and let him be alone, not wanting to know what he thought. He was filled with his own back-and-forth contemplation. When he lowered the binoculars his eyes continued to look in a half squint towards the horizon as if he could see beyond the dark blue line.
She wanted less and less to know what kind of vision he saw. His vision was part of him. His, and his alone. He had a right to it. What did she want it for? She had her own, however unclear it yet was and would perhaps remain. But her own. That was what she wanted. If she showed interest in his she might not understand what he would say, might not recognize her own when it became manifest, if one day it magically did. So how could she take a chance on such a vital question, which in any case wasn’t specifically hers? Perhaps at the moment he had even less to tell than she had, that he was also empty, and content in spite of all.
The sun warmed her thighs. She lay back, her head on the folded basket, lids closed against the sky’s glare, smelling trees and a mild breeze from the sea. She weighed nothing – because of the heat, the touch of grit under the calves of her legs, her closed eyes and the sense of emptiness given by sea and sky. The vacancy of space produced a peace no force could touch. Her senses floated. She could broach all limits. Within her weakness she felt a semblance of not quite forgotten strength returning from many years ago. Or perhaps she was recalling a life she had never known, a reflection sent back from the future telling of what was yet to come, but designed only to lure her into unimaginable turmoil.
Such feelings of renewal were impossible to trust. She preferred to push them away into the fanciful mists, and instead enjoy the timeless moment with a hand over her eyes to keep off the sun’s damaging glare, yet be ready for whatever might come.
He looked at the sea, and said that for the first time in his life he did not want to move. He wanted to stay where he was for ever. The great blue had meaning only because she had come with him. She was here. Why go on? Tennyson had a few choice words on the subject, he laughed. What did it matter where he lived? His ancestors could look after themselves.
He turned to her. ‘I’ve lived three whole lives: orphan, seaman, and now I’m a Wandering Jew. The last I didn’t know about till recently, which makes it more important than the others, because it really was the first. It means everything – and yet nothing, as long as I’m with you.’
God had already taken care of them, he went on, just as they would yet be taken care of. He felt weary to a depth he could never have imagined, though knew he had no option but to move, as if he had a fatal illness and was determined to die only in a particular and chosen spot of the earth, so that he could be content in knowing that he had done the right thing even unto death. He refused to believe it, however. It wasn’t like that at all. They still had a whole life to live.
They collected the things together and put on their clothes. She should have been afraid but wasn’t. When he revealed himself so absolutely her optimism came back, the unalloyed and joyous sort with no catches to it. Yet it didn’t last long, though the residue left her with the desire to do something, to move, to act. When they were driving along she said: ‘I want to go back to England.’
‘All right,’ he answered. ‘We’ll light off in the morning.’
‘Not in the morning. Now.’
He would obey. He has obeyed all his life, she thought.
‘We’d better let Judy know, then,’ he told her.
‘Send a telegram.’
‘Why not phone?’ he suggested. ‘Do it from the hotel while I pack.’
10
‘Judy?’
‘It isn’t Judy.’
‘Who is it, then?’
‘It’s Hilary.’
She hadn’t recognized the voice. It had sounded like that of a boy she didn’t know. ‘Why didn’t you say so?’
‘Why should I?’
‘Is your mother there?’
‘No, but Judy is.’
Now she knew what she was going back to. ‘Get her for me,’ she said sharply, ‘or my fist will come out of the telephone and clout you one! I want to talk to her.’
There was a bang, as if the phone had dropped on to the floor, or had been thrown there. She waited.
‘We’ll only get two hours along the road before we have to stop and look for another hotel,’ Tom said, folding his trousers into a case. ‘We might as well stay here tonight – we’ll have to pay for the room, anyway.’
She could tell he thought her more stupid than determined.
‘Start early tomorrow,’ he went on. ‘We’ll be half-way up the Rhône before evening, maybe even beyond Lyon.’
She nodded. ‘I want to go now.’
‘Judy?’
‘Yes.’
‘This is Pam.’
‘Pam?’
‘Pam.’
‘Pam! Where are you, then?’
‘Italy.’
‘You sound next door.’
‘So do you.’
‘I wish I was.’
‘Wouldn’t it be nice? We will be, soon.’
‘I couldn’t sleep for days after you left. What do you mean? Are you coming back?’
While with Tom she felt ten years younger. With Judy she felt that even twenty years had been taken off her life. ‘I’ve got news for you. I’m pregnant.’
There was a drop in the tone of her voice. ‘Oh.’
‘Tom’s happy, as you can imagine.’
‘I’ll bet he is.’
‘I am as well. I hoped you would be.’
Judy forced a laugh. ‘That’ll make three kids we’ve got.’
‘I don’t expect there’ll be any more, though, do you?’
‘Let’s hope not. Boy or girl?’
‘I can’t tell yet.’
‘Let me know as soon as you can.’
‘I’ll try!’
‘I’m interested. See you in a few days, then.’
There was a pause.
‘Do you want us to move out?’ Judy said.
‘For God’s sake!’
‘Well, do you?’
‘What an idea!’
‘We’ll make very picturesque refugees, sitting on the steps of the town hall. We’ll be in all the local papers. Or maybe we won’t, because I saw an empty house in Hove yesterday. We can become squatters.’
‘Don’t be daft.’
‘Can’t you tell when I’m joking?’
Pam couldn’t always. ‘Isn’t our place big enough for you?’