Read Online Homing by Henrietta Rose-Innes - Free Book Online Page B

should have a towel,” she said. “Warm yourself up.”
    She stood a moment longer, then turned and walked away, half-blinded by the lanterns that led up the slope into the dark. The flush in her cheeks felt like sunburn.
    In the morning she woke from dreams of damp, blue light. For a while she stared up at the ceiling … had it even happened? It wouldn’t be the first time she’d risen from sleep with dream and reality dissolving in her mind. But when she covered her face with her hands she smelt grass and chlorine, and found she was smiling. The clock next to the bed said ten thirty, way too late for breakfast. Erin hadn’t slept so long in years.
    In the Dining Pavilion she found coffee, and the round man. The others were all off on a “vineyard ramble”.
    “Matthew, hi!”
    “Um, Michael.”
    “Oh, right. Sorry.”
    Her gaze slid away from him and out of the window, into the air beyond. The lawns sloped down in invitation, down to where the golden bamboo nodded over the pool. The vineyards stretched to touch the feet of the mountain, and was that a pair of hawks in the sky? She smiled apologetically at Michael and slipped out onto the deck.
    Clouds were rolling in low, hiding the mountain. Like the weather, Erin felt reckless, changeable. She walked down the sloping grass – steeper, it seemed, than before; she could barely keep up with her feet, and broke into a little trot.
    The pool was pale and ordinary in the daytime – no longer the night’s dramatic arena of aqua glass. She had that feeling of returning to a childhood scene, of being too large, things much smaller than remembered. The day smelt different: crisper, colder, slightly briney. But when she dipped her fingers into the water, she was surprised to find it warm. It began to rain, large cold drops. Erin opened her mouth to catch them. The difference in temperature was voluptuous.
    She’d always loved to swim in the rain. She glanced over her shoulder: no one around, and she was out of sight of the pavilion now. Anyway, she’d be leaving soon, this morning if possible, before the others returned. What would it matter if she got caught taking a dip?
    Quickly she stripped off her blouse, her jeans, down to her underwear. As the rain grew heavier, she slid into the pool and swam a length, two. Then turned on her back and floated, droplets on her face. With her eyes closed, her body was weightless; she could no longer tell up from down, or the rain from the water that held her. The wetness and rushing sound enclosed her, buoyed her; she could almost have slept.
    Then she sensed a new pull below her in the water. Something forming from the massed droplets, a body rising. She rolled over, and opened her eyes under the rain-dimpled surface to see him suspended beneath her, rippling and indistinct. Silver bubbles bursting through his smile, short hair waving like translucent sea moss. He was naked and palest blue: blue skin, blue teeth, blue hair. The water pressed silence into her ears. She put out her hands and they were blue too, and when she flattened her palms against his chest, their skins seemed to merge. Hands took her hips and pulled her down. The crown of his head was against her throat, lips at her breast. Fingers cold through the fabric of her bra, and then that was gone, floating away like seaweed; fingertips pushing down her spine to its base. She kicked her panties away, each movement slowed against the water. Turning, rolling, no breath needed, breathing water. She gripped her ankles around the small of his back, pulled him into her and kissed him, his hip bones sharp against the insides of her thighs. Hands squeezing her waist, tongue cool in her mouth. His smooth length was at first slippery in her arms, then found purchase, gripping, locking hard.
    She tried to hold the moment, still and breathless; but they floated together to the surface, rolling. She felt the rain pummelling her back like shot. She tried to grasp him, keep him at