As she waited by the river, she found she was questioning the Romantic assumption that nature was reviving to the soul. It was possible for a particularly dark and miserable soul to resist even the consolations of a perfect view. She thought of Wordsworth walking the fells. He had gone up — was it Helvellyn? — on his seventieth birthday, limber and bold-hearted. That was a fine man! Hwaer cwom Wordsworth, she thought. Whither Wordsworth. She snorted quietly and held her head. It felt swollen. Swollen with booze, she thought, her capillaries quite flooded with the stuff. The light seeped across the sky. Later, she dragged herself along the bank and threw up. That felt cathartic, so she walked upstream and washed her face. She stood and gripped her bag. Looking at the slender shapes of the winter trees, Rosa understood perfectly well that the scenery was ancient and she was very small. She was adequate to the task of perceiving the beauty around her, the lovely contours of the hills, the cold glinting waters. She saw no one when she raised her head above the bank, so she started to walk slowly. She found the road, no longer mist-clad, and followed it down the valley. She kept low on the ground, hoping they couldn’t see her, and when she lost sight of the farmhouse she began to breathe more easily. Through the gaps in the trees Rosa saw the sky, and then the sky looked like a lake, with the shapes of the hills spread around its shores. Then it started raining, and she turned sharply down the hill towards Broughton, passing a few houses with their curtains drawn. The rain slapped her face, and she held up her hands as she ran; through sheets of rain she could see the valley, grey and wind-blown. She stumbled slightly and brushed against the damp hedges, feeling the branches on her face. She watched the trees moving in the wind. The rain cooled her head, and made her feel better. The sheep were standing on the hills, sheltering under trees. Their funny faces turned towards her. In front of an audience of sheep she went over a cattle grid and slipped on the metal.
Then she felt a low boom of thunder across the valley, she could feel the vibrations under her feet and deep in her stomach. The sky flared, and thunder rolled around the valley, drawing echoes from the rocks. The rain was falling in thick white lines, more like flowing milk than water. She heard a gate slamming in the wind, and the thunder and the rain. The valley was drenched by the downpour, and now she could smell the bracken. Brackish, she thought, and she noticed the interwoven smells of grass and trees and the taste of dampness in the air. Another flash of lightning, followed by a round ricochet of thunder, and the trees shuddered under the wind and the fresh force of the rain. Now the rain sounded like a river in full flood. Above she saw a chastened sky, and the deep green colours of the leaves, the stained trunks of the trees.
Drenched and weighted down by her clothes, Rosa ran. She was revived by the forces around her, the wind blasting against her, volleys of thunder resounding deep within her. The sky flashed again. She saw a line of oaks bowing and shaking their leaves. Rain hissed at her feet, falling as steam. She darted around a puddle, brushed a wet hedge, lifted her bag higher on her back, heard the all-shaking thunder burst around the valley again, felt the rage of the wind and said, ‘Crack Nature’s moulds!’ Dense shards of rain. White steam and a cold sky. She moved through mud and newly created streams of water. She skidded at a corner and fell against a trunk to steady herself. Ingrateful man, she thought. Everything was monochrome, the trees and low houses dark against the blank sky. She turned onto a road where the cars lashed her with water.
Another throb of thunder, and the rain slapped her face and arms. When a woman in a car wound down her window and shouted out, ‘Do you need a lift?’ she tried to speak and found her lips were rigid with cold.
‘Thank you,’ she managed to say, shaking her head. She stepped aside as the woman drove off. The thunder was rich and raw; she was a sounding block, nothing more than another surface for the thunder to echo from. She saw the dusty sides of the rocks, doused to blackness by torrents of water, and she saw a flock of birds hanging in the air, sweeping a course across the furrowed mass of clouds. Then she felt a sense of great joy, of something glorious and ancient beneath everything. She was beginning to say, ‘But this is the sublime’, and then she said, ‘You have to be quite determined, not to become ridiculous.’ She shook her head and walked on.
She arrived in the village of Broughton as the clocks chimed 10 a.m.. She had lost a lot of time, hiding by the river and walking in the rain. She hadn’t noticed how far the morning had advanced. Now the rain was easing off. Her clothes were wet; her bag was heavy on her back. The local baker was just opening her shop, and Rosa briefly explained her predicament — terrible mess — she had come to borrow a friend’s house, forgot to bring the key, no one had it, would have to go back home to get it, have invited friends for the weekend, can’t break in, tragic start to a holiday. Never mind, she said, stoical in response to polite sympathy. Yes, it was a bit of a fuss but it would be fine in the end. The baker — a woman called Sue with perfect teeth and a thick Lancashire accent — called a taxi. Rosa waited in the shop, sipping coffee. She found herself writing in her notebook, though the pages were greasy with rainwater.
Will and Judy, I am more sorry than I can ever say. Words cannot express how sorry I am. They are inadequate to the task, or I can’t turn them so they would phrase a fifth of my feelings. Had I but words enough and time, I would verse you a verse — oh yes, such a verse, they would write about it for years to come — but my coat is soaked and my head is full of something — it feels like putty. I am quite aware I drank all the wine. But I don’t want you wasting any time thinking about me. Really, there’s no need. I am only sorry I lost my dignity. My bearings I lost long ago. Yours ever, Rosa.
Then she shivered violently and moved closer to the fire. She wrote:
Get a grip on yourself now. This is descending faster than you can winch it up. Your brain isn’t working fast enough. You need to be quick-witted. Contain yourself. No one is impressed by you, and Jess is furious. This wouldn’t bother you if you had managed things well for yourself. But you haven’t, that much is blindingly apparent. Now you have to:
Go back to London.
Find a place to stay
Explain to Andreas
Get a job
Match your words with actions
Get Liam to sell the furniture
Wash your clothes
Sit down with Jess and apologise for everything
Go to the bank and talk to Sharkbreath
Read variously
Detach yourself from illusion altogether
Scale the wall
Traverse the threshold
Find the TEMP
Then the taxi came.
RETURN