The Quickening Maze - Adam Foulds [18]
‘I got lost.’
‘Did you?’
‘In the dark. I walked too far.’
Matthew Allen looked at him, sucked at his moustache. John looked back, then down. There was a moment of stalemate before Allen said, ‘It absolutely must not happen again. Can you assure me of that?’
‘I won’t walk that far, doctor. And I’ll pay more mind to where I am. I was composing was maybe part of the trouble.’
‘Ah, yes, John. After our conversation I collected a few poems from your room. To send to editors.’ Matthew Allen blinked a few times, perhaps not quite sure of the decency of this invasion.
John saw this,but didn’t mind;he welcomed the chance to even the advantage. ‘Oh, did you?’ he said casually to heat any embarrassment there might be in the doctor. ‘As I was saying,’ John went on, ‘I was composing yesterday. A poem to my wife, Mary. It’s fine I think. I can write it up for you fair to go with the others you took.’
Matthew Allen shook his head. ‘John, we’ve talked about this.You know that Mary is not your wife. She was your childhood sweetheart. A child, John, a girl of what nine or ten? Patty is your wife, and I know she finds this fixed idea of yours most distressing.’
‘No,’ John said. ‘No, I am well acquainted with the truth.’ He knew also that what was law and what was natural were not the same thing. ‘Mary is my wife. And so’s Patty. Just because a thing hasn’t happened before doesn’t mean it can’t. And anyway it has occurred, in the Bible.’
Hannah had offered to take Abigail for a walk. As they’d set out, she’d confused the child by turning her from the usual route, on this occasion, towards Beach Hill House.
Abigail preferred walking with her mother, who took more of an interest in what she picked up, pretty stones or feathers. Hannah’s attention was elsewhere, across and away somewhere, not down with Abigail, and she walked too quickly. Abigail caught her sleeve and leaned her whole weight back over her heels to slow her sister, but she was pulled forward into a trot.
‘I hope you’re planning to behave,’ Hannah said, ‘or I shall take you straight back.’
Hannah’s angrily swishing legs marched ahead. Abigail chased after, then her sister suddenly stopped.
‘Why have we stopped?’ she asked. ‘Stopped the wrong way?’
‘Shh, Abi. I’m thinking.’
‘But what are you thinking?’
‘Shh.’
Hannah stood and looked at the house where he was living, set behind its own large pond and lawn. Formerly of no significance, this place was now charged and thrilling as a beehive. She stood up on her tiptoes to see more.Taking a few paces up like a ballet dancer to bring a hidden corner of the garden into view, she saw him. It must have been him. Such a tall man, his back turned to her, standing still, in a thick cloud of his own manufacture, wearing that cape. She stood as still as she could, her heartbeats strong enough to unsteady her, absolutely at the edge of her life. Something had to happen soon. It had to.
Abigail, bored and frustrated, ran into her with both arms outsretched and shoved at her bottom.
‘Don’t,’ Hannah span round and hissed. She caught hold of Abigail’s hand and tugged the child towards her. Abigail saw her sister’s face, bright with a flush of anger, swooping towards her. Her lips were trembling. She looked very ugly like that. Abigail tried to free herself from Hannah’s grasp, but Hannah shook her arm hard, standing up and looking away again.
Uncertainly postured between cringing out of sight and standing up tall to see, Hannah tried to ascertain whether Alfred Tennyson had heard the commotion. As she did so she felt the warm wetness of Abigail’s small mouth close around her wrist and her little cat’s teeth bite in. She couldn’t help it, she cried out and definitely now Tennyson had heard. She bobbed up and saw his large shape turning. She ducked and ran, dragging a wailing Abigail after her. When they returned and had calmed down she could bribe the child with a chip of sugar not to tell.