Read Online A Dream of Wessex by Christopher Priest - Free Book Online Page B

you.’
    A large fly buzzed around Julia’s face, and she flicked a hand at it. Undeterred, it landed on her leg and walked up her thigh in quick, staccato movements. She knocked it away.
    She said: ‘I thought for a time that I ... It’s difficult to say. Yesterday at the shop. Well, I thought it was one of those sexual things. You know, when you can’t control it.’
    ‘You’re very attractive, Julia.’
    ‘But it’s not that, is it? Not just that.’
    ‘I’m tempted to say yes,’ he said. ‘I wish it was only that, because it would be simpler. It’s there for me ... but that’s not all.’
    ‘I’d like my dress, please.’
    He passed it to her without a word, and watched as she pulled it over her head. She stood up to shake it down over her legs, then sat beside him again.
    ‘Did you get dressed because we were talking about sex?’ he said.
    ‘Yes.’ ‘Then I think we understand one another.’ He had a sudden urge to touch her, and he reached out to take her hand, but she moved it away from him. He went on: ‘I feel that we somehow possess each other, Julia. That we are linked in some way, and that it was inevitable we would meet. Do you know what I mean?’
    ‘I think so.’
    ‘I’d like a direct answer.’
    She said: ‘I’m not sure I can give you one.’
    Harkman flicked away the end of his cigarette, and it cartwheeled into the water and hissed. He lit another immediately. ‘Am I offending you by talking about this?’
    ‘No, but it’s very difficult. I know what you mean, because I feel it too. As soon as I saw you I felt it.’
    Harkman said: ‘Julia, two years ago I was working at my office in London, when I suddenly felt a tremendous necessity to live and work here in Wessex. It obsessed me; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Eventually I applied for a transfer to Dorchester ... and although it took two years for the permit to come through, I got here in the end. Now I’m here, and I still don’t know why. It feels to me now, as I talk to you, that it was to meet you, or someone like you. But I know rationally that that’s nonsense.’
    He paused, remembering how he had fretted in London, waiting for the appointment to be confirmed.
    ‘Go on.’
    ‘That’s about it. Except that now I’ve met you, it feels as if my reason for coming here was just a pretext.’
    Julia said, unexpectedly: ‘I think I understand. When I came to Maiden Castle for the first time, everything that had happened before seemed unreal.’
    Harkman looked at her in surprise. ‘Are you making that up?’
    ‘No. I can remember my father and mother, and I can remember the farm, and schooldays ... and all that. But at the same time I can hardly remember what it was really like.’
    ‘Do you ever see your parents?’
    ‘Sometimes. I think I saw them ... recently. I’m not sure.’
    ‘And you’d never go back to the farm?’
    She shook her head. ‘It would be impossible.’
    ‘Do you know why?’
    ‘Because I’m committed to the Castle.’ She was looking away from him. ‘No, it isn’t just that. My place is here. I can’t say why.’
    ‘My place is with you,’ Harkman said. ‘I don’t know why, either. I’ll never leave Wessex.’
    ‘What do you want, David?’
    ‘I want you, Julia ... and I want to know why’
    Looking directly at him, she said: ‘If you had to settle for one, which would it be?’
    And she looked away, just as she had done outside the skimmer-shop.
    There was a noise above them, and Harkman turned. Greg had appeared at the top of the nearest rampart, and was walking down towards them. Julia had seen him too.
    Harkman said: ‘Will you come to my room tonight? In Dorchester.’
    ‘No, I can’t. It’s impossible.’
    ‘Tomorrow, then.’
    She shook her head, watching Greg come towards them, but said: ‘I don’t know where it is.’
    She stood up, straightening her smock with guilty movements of her hands.
    ‘The Commission hostel. Room 14.’
    Greg scrambled down