Soon he saw Di hurrying anxiously down the road. Of course, she must have heard the scream. ‘I’m all right, love,’ he called.
‘It was the same, wasn’t it’ Did you see what it was?’
‘No. Maybe it’s children. Playing a joke.’
She wasn’t reassured so easily. ‘It sounded like a man,’ she said. She gazed at his painting. ‘That is good,’ she said, and wandered into the cottage without mentioning her book. He knew she wasn’t going in to write.
The scream had worried her more than she’d let him see. Her anxiety lingered even now she knew he was unharmed. Something else to hinder her book, he thought irritably. He couldn’t paint now, but at least he knew what remained to be painted.
He sat at the kitchen table while she cooked a shepherd’s pie in the range. Inertia hung oppressively about them. ‘Do you want to go to the pub later?’ he said.
‘Maybe. I’ll see.’
He gazed ahead at the field in the window, the cooling tree; branches swayed a little behind the glass. In the kitchen something trembled ‘ heat over the electric stove. Di was reaching for the teapot with one hand, lifting the kettle with the other; the steaming spout tilted above her bare leg. Tony stood up, mouth opening ‘ but she’d put the kettle down. ‘It’s all right,’ he answered her frown, as he scooped up spilled sugar from the table.
She stood at the range. ‘Maybe the pub might help us to relax,’ he said.
‘I don’t want to relax! That’s no use!’ She turned too quickly, and overbalanced towards the range. Her bare arm was going to rest on the metal that quivered with heat. She pushed herself back from the wall, barely in time. ‘You see what I mean?’ she demanded.
‘What’s the matter’ Clumsiness isn’t like you.’
‘Stop watching me, then. You make me nervous.’
‘Hey, you can’t just blame me.’ How would she have felt if she had been spied on earlier’ There was more wrong with her than her book and her irrationally lingering worry about him, he was sure. Sometimes she had what seemed to be psychic glimpses. ‘Is it the cottage that’s wrong?’ he said.
‘No, I like the cottage.’
‘The area, then’ The field?’
She came to the table, to saw bread with a carving-knife; the cottage lacked a bread-knife. ‘I like it here. It’s probably just me,’ she said, musing about something.
The kettle sizzled, parched. ‘Bloody clean simplicity,’ she said. She disliked electric stoves. She moved the kettle to a cold ring and turned back. The point of the carving-knife thrust over the edge of the table. Her turn would impale her thigh on the blade.
Tony snatched the knife back. The blade and the wood of the table seemed to vibrate for a moment. He must have jarred the table. Di was staring rather abstractedly at the knife. ‘That’s three,’ he said. ‘You’ll be all right now.’
During dinner she was abstracted. Once she said, ‘I really like this cottage, you know. I really do.’ He didn’t try to reach her. After dinner he said, ‘Look, I’m sorry if I’ve been distracting you,’ but she shook her head, hardly listening. They didn’t seem to be perceiving each other very well.
He was washing up when she said ‘My God.’ He glanced anxiously at her. She was staring up at the beams. ‘Of course. Of course,’ she said, reaching for her notebook. She pushed it away at once and hurried upstairs. Almost immediately he heard her begin typing.
He tried to paint, until darkness began to mix with his colours. He stood gazing as twilight collected in the field. The typewriter chattered. He felt rather unnecessary, out of place. He must buy some books in Camside tomorrow. He felt restless, a little resentful. ‘I’m going down to the pub for a while,’ he called. The typewriter’s bell rang, rang again.
The pub was surrounded by jeeps, sports cars, floridly painted vans. Crowds of young people pressed close to the tables, on stools, on the floor; they shouted over each other, laughed, rolled cigarettes. One was passing round a sketch-book, but Tony didn’t feel confident enough to introduce himself. A few of the older people doggedly practised darts, the rest surrounded Tony at the bar. He chatted about the weather and the countryside, listened to prices of grain. He hoped he’d have a chance to ask about the scream.
He was slowing in the middle of his second pint when the barman said, ‘One of the new ones, aren’t you?’
‘Yes, that’s right.’ On an impulse he said loudly enough for the people around him to hear: ‘We’re in the cottage across the field from Ploughman’s Path.’
The man didn’t move hurriedly to serve someone else. Nobody gasped, nobody backed away from Tony. Well, that was encouraging. ‘Are you liking it’ the barman said.
‘Very much. There’s just one odd thing.’ Now was his chance. ‘ We keep hearing someone screaming across the field.’
Even then the room didn’t fall silent. But it was as if he’d broken a taboo; people withdrew slightly from him, some of them seemed resentful. Three women suddenly excused themselves from different groups at the bar, as if he were threatening to become offensive. ‘It’ll be an animal caught in a trap,’ the barman said.
‘I suppose so.’ He could see the man didn’t believe it either.
The barman was staring at him. ‘Weren’t you with a girl yesterday?’
‘She’s back at the cottage.’
Everyone nearby looked at Tony. When he glanced at them, they looked away. ‘You want to be sure she’s safe,’ the barman muttered, and hurried to fill flourished glasses. Tony gulped down his beer, cursing his imagination, and almost ran to the car.
Above the skimming patch of lit tarmac moths ignited; a rabbit froze, then leapt. Discovered trees rushed out of the dark, to be snatched back at once by the night. The light bleached the leaves, the rushing tunnels of boles seemed subterraneously pale. The wide night was still. He could hear nothing but the hum of the car. Above the hills hung enormous dim clouds, grey as rocks.
He could see Di as he hurried up the path. Her head was silhouetted on the curtain; it leaned at an angle against the back of the settee. He fumbled high in the porch for the hidden key. Her eyes were closed, her mouth was loosely open. Her typescript lay at her feet.
She was blinking, smiling at him. He could see both needed effort; her eyes were red, she looked depressed ‘ she always did when she’d finished a book. ‘See what you think of it,’ she said, handing him the pages. Beneath her attempt at a professional’s impersonality he thought she was offering the chapter to him as shyly as a young girl.
Emerging defeated from a patch of woodland, the dryads saw a cottage across a field. It stood in the still light, peaceful as the evening. They could feel the peace filling its timbers: not a green peace but a warmth, stillness, stability. As they drew nearer they saw an old couple within. The couple had worked hard for their peace; now they’d achieved it here. Tony knew they were himself and Di. One by one the dryads passed gratefully into the dark wood of the beams, the doors.
He felt oddly embarrassed. When he managed to look at her he could only say, ‘Yes, it’s good. You’ve done it.’
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I’m glad.’ She was smiling peacefully now.
As they climbed the stairs she said, ‘If we have children they’ll be able to help me too. They can criticise.’
She hoped the book would let them afford children. ‘Yes, they will,’ he said.
* * *
The scream woke him. For a moment he thought he’d dreamed it, or had cried out in his sleep. But the last echo was caught in the hills. Faint as it was, he could feel its intolerable horror, its despair.