‘It always made me feel close to you,’ Lee said, ‘that neither of us could do it. That we were both faking it. It was a secret we shared.’
Now the moon had disappeared entirely; its only relic was the silver glow that suffused the air. Everything was mist, so thick that Marcus felt that if he reached his arm out from his shoulder, he might never see it again. He could hardly make out Lee across the boat. He grabbed one of the oars and paddled listlessly at the water, moving them in slow circles. He felt Lee shifting around in the boat, caught a glimpse of movement from the prow when he strained his eyes towards her.
‘Come over here.’ Her voice a heavy whisper. As he sank to his knees, she began to appear more clearly through the gauze of mist. The first thing he noticed was her eyes. They sparkled dangerously and fixed upon him, drawing him towards them. He kneeled on the floor of the boat between her legs. Lee was lying back on the warm pile of furs, bare from the waist down. Her skirt was rolled beneath her head as a pillow. Her black blouse served only to accentuate the pale legs that stretched out from the shadowy mound between them.
‘I’ve always wanted you to go down on me.’ She leaned forward and knitted her hand into the hair at the back of his head. He eased himself down until all was blackness and the slick saltiness of her against his tongue. Goose pimples on her thighs. He closed his eyes. The boat rocked as he flicked his tongue over her; she twisted his hair between her fingers as he moved faster. She began to arch her back, pressing herself against him, grinding his head down into her lap. He tried to stretch up and cup one of her breasts. She gently batted the hand away. He buried his face further into the bulge of her pubic hair. He remembered when, as a child, he had built himself a den in the middle of a clump of ferns in the woods at the back of his house, tramping down a circle at the centre and then pulling the encircling green fronds over himself. It was damp and the ferns tickled his skin, but he had felt very safe there. He thought of the den as he whipped his tongue over the soft tufty dampness of her pussy. Lee let out a sighing squeal like air released from a bicycle tyre. Marcus rose back up to kneel at her feet; leaning over, he tried to place a kiss on her lips but she turned away, presenting him with a cold hard cheek. Her teeth were chattering. She pulled on her pants and unrolled her skirt, snaking her way into it on the floor of the boat.
Marcus rowed them back to the shore and tied the boat to the deck in front of the boathouse. He reached out an arm and helped her to step onto the bank. They walked in silence down the path towards the motorway. Marcus lit two cigarettes and passed one to Lee. She took it without thanks. Finally, they heard the noise of the surging traffic in the distance. She quickened her pace, walking a few feet ahead of him as the slope steepened. The mist still wove its fingers between the trees, and Marcus kept thinking he saw shapes forming in the corners of his eyes, figures watching him from behind the adumbrated trunks of the pines. He scurried to catch up with Lee.
‘Is it true Philip left earlier?’ she asked.
‘Yes. I drove him to the station.’
‘Did you tell David?’
‘No.’
‘He’ll be cross.’
‘I know. I think he has the impression that all he has to do is get people as far as the Retreat and then any reservations will be blown away by the beauty of the voices, by the sense of community and friendship and safety. But Philip was just, I don’t know, disappointed.’
Lee sighed and flicked her cigarette into the misty foliage that surrounded them.
They rounded a bend in the path and saw Mouse and Abby coming up the hill hand in hand. Mouse was carrying a bottle of wine. Each time he took a swig he would pass it to Abby, who gulped in turn. They were both laughing and Mouse raised the bottle in the air when he saw Marcus and Lee on the crest of the hill above them.
‘Hey you two! Where did you get to? You missed an inspiring ceremony. Abby and I scattered lily petals onto the roofs of the lorries. We allowed nature to cover over the abomination of the motorway-beast.’
He stood before them, panting, and held out the bottle. Lee took it and swigged greedily. Marcus, whose head was beginning to pound, smiled and looked at Abby. Her cheeks were flushed and she had turned up the collar of her coat so that her wide face nestled in a frame of fur. Her eyes were soft and kind and she reached out her arms to him. Marcus stepped into her embrace and tried to return the love that he felt flowing from her, but all he could think about was the boat’s hard floor against his knees, the taste of Lee that still flooded his mouth and his nostrils, the sin he had committed. The four made their way back up the hill towards the house, Mouse still chattering wildly.
Lee and Abby went up the stairs together while Mouse and Marcus struggled to impose some sort of order on the chaos of the dining hall. Marcus woke the twins, who stretched and yawned like cats, smiling up at him as he attempted to eject them from their wardrobe lair. Mouse collected glasses and bottles, stacked chairs and straightened the tables. They worked quietly, the house heavy and silent around them. When they had finished, Mouse clapped Marcus on the back and they made their way upstairs together.
‘I’m just having the most brilliant time. I live for this, you know?’
Abby was already asleep when Marcus came into their room. The curtains were open and a banner of moonlight fell down across the bed, illuminating Abby’s pale skin, her white pyjama bottoms. He crossed to the window and looked out into the night. The mist had receded and now hung only over the lake, which was a silver cloud in the valley below. He pressed his hands against the cold glass of the window. Abby turned over in bed and sighed. Marcus took off his clothes until he was standing naked in the bright whiteness of the moon. There was something purifying about the light, and it was with a sense of regret that he pulled the curtains closed, the darkness covering Abby. He crossed to the sink and brushed his teeth in a thin needle of water, keen not to wake her. He slipped into bed next to his wife, who groaned in her sleep and turned over again, gathering the duvet between her legs. Marcus lay on his back, not minding the cold, and fell into a deep, dark sleep.
He woke twice in the night from nightmares where the decomposing rooks, oscillating in the misty air above the pheasant feeders, came suddenly alive, screeching and flapping their bone-wings, trying to escape the wire that held their feet. Each time he woke, his heart racing, his face hot despite the coldness of his uncovered body, he felt that someone had been in the room until just a moment before he opened his eyes. His mouth was dry but he couldn’t move from the bed, frozen by a creeping horror that unfurled in his mind when the night’s events came back to him. He heard noises echoing around the dark house, thumps and creaks and, once, the faint sound of someone crying out. He slept fitfully until the sky lightened outside his window. When the hands of his watch moved around to seven o’clock, he rose and dressed silently. He needed to speak to Lee.
Three
The curtains of Lee’s room were open, revealing a grey world where the pine trees huddled in conspiratorial conference above the still waters of the lake. The abandoned nests of rooks and jackdaws hung in the trees’ tallest branches like lookout posts on ships’ masts. Marcus saw Lee’s clothes strewn across the carpet and thought that she too, on returning to her room the night before, had crossed to look down upon the lake. Her bed had been slept in. The sheets were crumpled and the duvet kicked to the floor. He could see streaks of the orange pollen from the lilies scattered across her pillow. He wondered if she had taken one of the flowers up to bed with her.