by Tim Bowler
His voice was dying away, and the slight pressure of his hand loosening in hers. She let it rest on top of the sheet and waited for a few moments.
Grandpa was asleep.
She stood up and walked to the door and closed it quietly behind her, then made her way through the sitting room toward the hall. And as she did so, she caught in the window the glow of moonlight on water. And the sound of the river came back, rushing up on her like a cascade of spells.
CHAPTER THREE
She woke to that sound and to a frolic of birdsong. The air was cool, and she felt snatches of breeze through the open window. She rubbed her eyes and glanced toward it, and saw treetops moving against a pale sky.
It felt early, but she had no notion of what time it was. She reached down to the floor and felt for the watch she had sleepily dropped there the night before.
Five-thirty.
It didn’t seem possible that she’d slept so little yet felt so rested. The river was calling her already and she jumped out of bed, put on her swimsuit, and crept from the room.
No sound from Mom and Dad except for Dad’s steady breathing as before. They would probably sleep for some time yet, Dad especially after all his driving, though perhaps anxiety about Grandpa or just the atmosphere of this unknown place would wake them earlier than they might like. She tiptoed down to Grandpa’s room and glanced around the door.
His head was back, his mouth open, and his breathing, unlike Dad’s, was short and fitful; but he was at least asleep. She hurried back to the hall and out through the front door.
The sound of the birds broke upon her again, and with it, as always, the ripple of the stream. She gazed about her, wonderstruck at the beauty that daylight had revealed.
The cottage, she now saw, was at the base of a great hill that stretched up to the left of her, the river coursing down it through dense woodland. The trees were especially thick close to the cottage, but farther up she saw patches of clear ground with craggy outcrops.
The cottage itself, though bordered by trees, occupied a small clearing fed from the right by the little lane that had brought them from Braymouth. There the car sat, moist with dew and looking curiously out of place. But what caught her eye most was the view beyond.
It was a valley, cleaved through by the snaking river, with high slopes on either side, and again, dense patches of woodland interspersed with rocky clearings. She walked to the edge of the water and knelt down.
It was so beautiful, this stream, only fifteen feet across at this point, yet it moved with restless speed, drawing its power from the steepness of the slope. She stepped into the water, and the chill made her draw breath, but the sharpness was invigorating; she seemed to feel the vitality of the whole river as it raced past her legs.
She walked downstream, staying in the water. The river was shallow here, barely up to her knees, and the bed, though stony and uneven, was easy underfoot and not too slippery. She left the cottage behind her and waded down toward the base of the valley.
The ground continued to fall but only a short way farther. With almost dramatic suddenness it merged with the valley floor and flattened out, and she saw, through a canopy of trees, the river widen before her and wend its path onward.
The change was almost startling. What had been a rushing whippet of a creature had, in what seemed the twinkling of an eye, become a long, almost languid beast, no longer hurrying but dawdling on its way. She waded down to where the tree-cover ended and the valley floor checked the plashing descent of the stream.
The current was still strong here, where the water broke its fall, but it quickly seemed to slacken, and farther down the river, at the first point of its meander, there seemed no energy left at all, though she knew that was an illusion. It must be moving quite fast, even out there. But there was only one way to test the strength of a river.
She took another step forward. The ground fell with unexpected sharpness, and the water level seemed to jump from her knees to her waist. She stopped for a moment and scanned the river before her.
It wasn’t that she doubted her own ability; when it came to swimming, she trusted her own skill and strength more than almost anyone she knew. But this was an unknown river. There could be reeds, or other dangers she didn’t know about. As a townie, she’d had little experience of the countryside, and none at all of swimming in rivers.
But the temptation was too great, and it looked safe enough. She took a deep breath and pushed herself into the water. It still felt cool, though not as bracing as when she had first stepped into it, and she liked the clean, luxuriant feeling as she swept down with the current.
She swam breaststroke and kept her head above the surface, not ready to go right under until she had settled herself and felt safe, and trusted the water. After a few strokes she stopped swimming and stretched out a foot for the bottom.
There it was, nice and firm and somewhat pebbly, but the water had deepened more quickly than she’d expected and was already up to her chest. She looked back at the trees she had left behind her.
The current had pushed her quickly down, with very little effort on her part. Instinctively she started to swim back against it. Now she felt the true force of the river, and it was strong, though not, to her relief, too much for her. Breaststroke kept her level with the bank, and with an effort she found she could make a little headway against it; but crawl would be no problem. She put her feet on the bottom again and peered down through the water.
It was clear and she could see the bed easily, and her feet moving about as she kept her balance against the current. She relaxed at last: this water was friendly enough. There was nothing to fear here. She could dive now.
She didn’t go deep, just enough to douse her head and come straight up, and then she was swimming again, against the current and with a comfortable crawl, her favorite stroke; and the current was not her master.
She swam as far as the trees, then turned and glided back once more, letting the energy of the river take her. She didn’t need to test herself now. She could conquer the river, at least at this point, and if the current grew too strong farther down, she could always climb onto the bank and walk back.
But she quickly realized this might prove difficult. Parts of the bank were clear, but other stretches were lined with thorn and dense vegetation. There was no discernible path as far as she could tell.
Moreover, the meander of the river itself appeared to impede straight walking. The only way to follow the river, apart from being in or on the water itself, seemed to be along the valley peaks, and the climb to them did not look like an easy one. She swam to the side of the river and clung to a clump of reeds.
She was a good hundred yards downstream now, and the current had done most of the work. She glanced down and saw the bottom of the river curving beneath her about seven feet below. It seemed strange to find deep water so close to the bank, but this was not the pool back home, or the sea: this was something new, something exciting; something she had to learn about. She pushed off and swam toward a small clearing on the other side.
The current grew noticeably weaker as she crossed and she saw the riverbed rise toward the other side. She stopped by the far bank and found that she could stand; and the water came only to her waist.
She looked around. It was so fascinating, this river, so full of secrets. Certainly her first impression had been wrong. The current looked slow here, and on this side of the river it was, but there was a deceptive force, especially where the water was deeper. She started to swim back.
Again, to her relief, the current was unable to resist her, but she felt its will against hers and knew, as stroke followed stroke, that to swim against it for any length of time would be impossible. In the end, the river would win. Fortunately this time she only had a hundred yards to go. Yet she found, as she drove herself upstream, that even with the crawl she had to work hard; and she was curiously relieved to reach the canopy of trees from where she had started.
It
was time to go back. Mom and Dad might be up, and maybe worrying about her, though they’d probably have come down to the river by now, knowing where she’d be. She waded over to the bank where there was a clearing that stretched up to that lane and on to the cottage, and started to climb out.
Then stopped, her body tensed.
Someone was near; someone was watching her. She could feel it.
She whirled around, her eyes darting over the river, the banks, the lane.
But there was no one in sight.
She relaxed, hauled herself onto the bank, and started to walk back toward the cottage. But even as she chided herself for being fanciful, the feeling started to grow that she had not been —and was not —alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’m not sitting in that thing, ” said Grandpa, scowling.
He hobbled on his stick over to the stream and stood there, his back firmly toward them.
Jess looked at Dad, standing with her in front of the cottage, his hand on the wheelchair he had brought from home. He looked tense and unsure of himself, as he so often was with his father. She wished Grandpa wouldn’t be so hard on him all the time.
She glanced up at the sky. The sun was already some way above the peaks, and the valley was warming up fast, though it was only half-past ten; and judging from the lack of clouds, they were in for a scorcher.
She thought of the strange feeling she had had down in the river, of someone being near; and looked about her again.
But still she saw no one.
Her father cleared his throat.
“Come on, Dad. The wheelchair’ll make life easier for all of us. ”
Grandpa didn’t look around but grumbled an answer, just audible above the sound of the stream.
“I’m not being pushed around like a grocery cart when I can still walk. ”
Mom put her head out of the window to the kitchen where she’d been doing the dishes.
“But, Pop, we wanted to take you around a bit. See where your old house was. ”
“There’s nothing to see. It burned down, for God’s sake. Who wants to look at an empty space? ”
“Don’t you even want to visit the place where it was? ”
“No. ”
“But what about finding your old friend? ”
“He’ll be pushing up daisies now. Or he should be. And if he’s not, then another day won’t make any difference. I didn’t come here to see him. I came here to paint. You can go off if you want to. I’m getting on with my picture. ”
Jess frowned at the mention of the painting. She had thought about it a great deal since Mom showed it to her yesterday, though she hadn’t seen it since they’d packed it for Grandpa. And the image that haunted her most was that of the boy, the river boy; the boy who wasn’t there.
Yes, he had to finish the picture, and soon. The tetchiness would only get worse, and besides, he needed to paint. It was like oxygen to him. Even he’d once admitted —in a rare, unguarded moment —that it was only painting that kept him on the respectable side of sanity.
She didn’t know whether that was true. What she did know was that whenever he couldn’t get to his work, she felt the depression of his spirit. It was like a wound in him, a wound she could almost touch, but not heal. His art —that was different: she could love that, admire that. But the pain of it . . .
She wished there didn’t have to be pain. She tried to tell herself, whenever this upset her, that in some way painting for him must be like swimming was for her: just as she constantly needed water around her to feel truly herself, so he needed a brush with which to shape the visions of his inner life.
Through all the years she had known him, he had painted almost —it seemed —without pause, uninterested in the fame his gift had brought him and so hopeless with money, he seemed constantly without it. The day he lost the hunger to work would truly be the end.
So no matter how difficult he was being, it was probably a good thing that he still wanted to paint.
“I can stay with Grandpa, ” she said to Dad. “You and Mom can go off. ”
Mom came out and joined them. “I do feel like a walk and we’ve got to go and see Mr. and Mrs. Gray. But one of us ought to stay behind. ”
Grandpa turned around at last and leaned there, swaying on his stick, his eyes daring them to offer sympathy. “Jess can stay with me if she wants to, and you two can go walking. ”
“But will you be all right? ” said Dad.
“I’m not planning on snuffing it for a few hours yet. ”
“You’d better not, ” said Mom. “I don’t want you spoiling the vacation. ”
Dad glanced at her with slight disapproval, but Grandpa only laughed.
“OK, ” she said. “We’ll go and see Mr. and Mrs. Gray, and Jess can stay here. ”
“You sure, Jess? ” said Dad. “I can stay behind if you want to explore with Mom. ”
Mom touched him on the arm. “She’ll be fine. ”
Jess caught her eye and smiled.
“We’ll see you later, ” said Mom, and before Dad could speak, she linked arms with him and steered him away, past the redundant wheelchair and across the clearing. Jess watched them disappear down the lane to Braymouth, then walked over to Grandpa.
He was staring up at the sky and seemed lost in thought; but he stirred suddenly and fixed his eyes upon her. “Could you —? ” he started.
But she put a finger on his lips. “You know I will, ” she said.
She’d fetched his things for him ever since she was small. It was one of those rituals she treasured, collecting his canvases and paints and palette, the rickety little easel he insisted he couldn’t paint without even though he always swore at it and said he’d get a decent one someday, the even more rickety chair that everyone was sure would collapse under him any moment but which, like the easel, he had to have, and the brushes and cloths and turps and palette knife, and tea and cookies, and anything else he asked for —and there was usually a lot —until he was finally ready for work; after which he would brook no distraction, even from her.
She had often thought how strange it was that she liked to do these things for him, especially when he could be such a tyrant. He had never asked her to help him in the beginning; but once he found out that it mattered to her, he always asked her. And now, especially now, she was glad of it.
“Where do you want to sit, Grandpa? ” she said.
“By the river. ”
She started to take the chair over to the stream, but he called after her. “Not there. Farther down, where it flattens out. Where you went swimming this morning. ”
She looked around at him, startled. “How did you —? ”
“I didn’t see you. I was asleep. ”
“So how come you know —? ”
He chuckled. “I know you. Don’t need to know any more. Suppose you haven’t told your mom and dad you’ve been swimming in the river. ”
“They’ve probably guessed anyway. Seeing as you have. ”
“So you haven’t told them. ”
“I was going to. I just haven’t had time. ”
There was no fooling Grandpa, but he didn’t chide her. He turned and gazed downstream, his eyes distant. “You’ll be safe enough here. It’s a friendly river, not like some. The current’s not too strong, as you probably found, but it’s enough to keep the reeds flat. You’ll come to no harm in the water, provided you show it respect. ”
He glanced around the other way and nodded uphill. “And the source is up at the top there. You can’t see it from here —we’re too low down. If I was a bit younger, I’d take you up there myself and show you. ”
She looked at the stream, more captivated than ever by it, and once again remembered the strange feelings she had had of someone being near; and though the feelings were gone now, the remembrance of them filled her with a slight unease.
She forced her attention back to the painting. “Where shall I put the chair? ”
�
��I’ll show you. ” He pushed himself off with his stick and lurched down the way Mom and Dad had gone. She hurried to help him, but he waved her back.
“No, just bring the chair. I’ll need something to collapse into when we get there. ”
His mouth was tight, his eyes fixed on where he wanted to go. She walked beside him but said nothing, not wanting to tire him with the talking. He trudged on, pressing the stick hard against the ground as he put his weight upon it.
She watched, secretly anxious lest he fall. He looked frighteningly unsteady but as usual never seemed to think he couldn’t do anything or go anywhere he wanted. They reached the clearing by the water’s edge where she had climbed out of the river earlier, and he stopped.
“This is the place. ”
She looked at him. “Do you remember it? ”
He stared out over the river. “I’ve been dreaming about this place. ” His voice sounded strangely wistful, and for a moment she almost dared to think he was about to indulge in what for him was the unheard-of practice of reminiscing. But she was quickly disabused of the idea.
“Come on, then! Get a move on! Put the chair up before I conk out completely! ”
She set it up by the bank, just where he wanted it, then ran back to the cottage to fetch his things. She asked no questions about the river boy as she handed him the picture.
Ten minutes later, he was at work.
He didn’t talk in the beginning. He rarely talked for the first hour or so when he was working on a picture. It was as though he needed to focus his mind entirely on finding out what he wanted to say. Later, when he had found his way, he often liked to talk and sometimes even asked her what she thought of the painting he was doing.
She always wondered what, if anything, she gave him with her opinions. He usually hated being questioned about his work, and could be blunt and downright rude even to well-meaning people who showed interest. To Dad and even to Mom he could be scornful, as though they understood nothing about art, which was certainly not true.