Outside a pig blew on a Venezuelan pipe then, more obscenely, a fight broke out among Joe Love’s pigs. He listened to her moving to and fro. Hours seemed to pass. He stared straight ahead at the upside-down trees and flowers on the wallpaper. He heard the clash of Delft. Of running taps.

“Please, Jack, I’m going crazy,” she whispered through the door. “Please come and sleep with me.”

“Are you going to start shouting again?”

“No, I swear it.”

He got up and walked alongside her to her room. Her eyes were fearful. They lay in bed.

He looked at her face. She had wiped some talcum across the bruise. The whites of her eyes were painfully white. She had red lipstick on.

“It was my fault,” she whispered softly.

“Oh Christ, Catherine,” he said.

They woke at seven. The driver of the car from Pontoon was pounding on the door.

Catherine said: “I can’t go in, looking like this.”

“The taxi is waiting.”

“I feel terrible,” she said, “I could not bear to face them.”

“What do you want me to do?”

“Let’s just stay here. Don’t let’s go anywhere today.”

“What will I tell him?”

“Tell them I’m sick. Send him away. Tell him something. Tell him anything.”

Outside the horn blew.

“Oh Jesus, Jack, send him away.”

He went and told the driver that Catherine was unable to accompany him.

“Why?”

“She’s not well.”

“Well she could have rung,” he said, “and saved me the god-damn journey.” And he reversed and drove away.

“What did he say?” she asked.

He told her.

“Oh God,” she said, “I’ve fucked everything up, haven’t I?” She started to laugh. The talcum fell away.

31. The Cuckoo Mocks the Corncrake

31

The Cuckoo Mocks the Corncrake

“Get in beside me,” she said.

He lay beside her and then when he thought she had fallen asleep again he climbed out of bed and dressed.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“I’ve got some business to do.”

“Leave it for a while.”

“No. I must start.”

He made his way to the table in the study. Later he heard her downstairs moving around. She was whistling.

“You sound happy,” he shouted down.

“Yes,” she said.

He felt extraordinary relief to hear her singing. She knelt in the garden and wearing Maisie’s gardening gloves she began weeding the flowerbeds. The warm winds of July came soothingly over the Atlantic. Hugh arrived at noon. “We’re only going out for a few hours,” Jack called to her. “OK,” she said.

At four o’clock next morning she suddenly started up in the bed fully awake. A ghost she couldn’t name was backing off into the corner of the room. She heard him throwing his oilskins aside. She waited and reached out to see if he was there. Jack Ferris, on his back, smoking in the dark. A stranger.