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Authors: Samantha Harvey
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marriage, both to himself and to her. Today was the beginning of that.
Thoughts of the baby, the baby that meant more to him than he could justify or quantify, and for whom he felt an almost painfully dense love; so dense, so graceless, that he sometimes wondered if it could count as love at all. Thoughts of his mother and dead father. Thoughts about the aviary, which culminated in an effortless knowledge about the permanence, the coercive and perfecting permanence of a building, the permanence of a home, of going home, and of being home.
Sara was in the kitchen when they arrived, negotiating the complexities of her coffee machine. They deposited their three cases in the living room, brushed the long journey from their clothes, and took coffee with her. It was, indeed, a matter of
taking
coffee, as some take the papers each morning: with the adoring rigour of a ritual. He kissed his mother and, with barely a word, took the gold-rimmed cups from the cupboard—proud to intuit immediately where they lived—then laid them out on the sideboard.
They exchanged pleasantries about the journey. Helen trod the orange living-room carpet with the baby in her arms, steppingbetween their sparse belongings and humming or repeating
sshhh,
even though the baby was silent. Then they sat, he and Helen on the sofa, Sara across the room in her bentwood chair. The china cups, though slightly chipped and tarnished, clinked with a hushed clarity that shored up mislaid moments of his childhood with such concision that he was disoriented briefly.
“So you will be looking for somewhere to buy, once you have started work?” Sara asked.
He glanced at Helen. “Yes.”
“And what about building?”
“We still intend to, in a few years. We'll save, then buy land, a piece of moor land, sit on it for a while, and then build.”
That wonderful interlude of agreement between him and Helen had revealed its drawbacks quickly enough. He had realised soon after how he had in fact just agreed to live in some state of rustic dreaminess rather than the self-conferred modern splendour he had planned: the glass house to end all glass houses, the white sunlight on the panes, skeletal against thick black peat. He had, with one cigarette and the mention of inappropriate sex, consigned his reality to a dream. But he told himself it did not matter. There was time. Time reaching forward, time going backwards—more time than he had ever had in his life.
“So you'll need to stay here for—what? I don't know, a few months maybe?” Sara asked.
“Just for a month or so—until we find somewhere to rent. Then we can look around properly. It will all be quick, Sara.”
“As you wish.”
When Helen brushed her hair behind her ear the gestureseemed to carry an undercurrent of irritation. “You don't mind us staying, Sara? It's an awful pain, all three of us.”
“If I minded I would not have invited you. It isn't my way. And if I want you to go I'll tell you that in a second.”
Helen reached for her hair again to find it already behind her ear. She smiled with visible effort and sat. She put Henry stomach down on the sofa, between them.
“Look at these.” Sara took something from a drawer in the dresser. They were photographs, square Polaroids which she handed to them. “It's a house about six miles from here, a coach house. The woman who owns it is a friend of mine. She lost her husband a few months ago and she wants to sell. It's a bit— ratty-tatty, but a good house. She wants to find good people to buy it, it's not the kind of a house that appreciates complete strangers.”
The photographs showed a long narrow building with white façade, dating, he estimated, to the early 1800s. Perhaps the monochrome images bequeathed to the house a mystique it did not really deserve, a cloudy wistfulness to its old age. He saw through it; he did not especially like it. The two photographs of its interior showed large rooms and splendid supporting beams,
Thoughts of the baby, the baby that meant more to him than he could justify or quantify, and for whom he felt an almost painfully dense love; so dense, so graceless, that he sometimes wondered if it could count as love at all. Thoughts of his mother and dead father. Thoughts about the aviary, which culminated in an effortless knowledge about the permanence, the coercive and perfecting permanence of a building, the permanence of a home, of going home, and of being home.
Sara was in the kitchen when they arrived, negotiating the complexities of her coffee machine. They deposited their three cases in the living room, brushed the long journey from their clothes, and took coffee with her. It was, indeed, a matter of
taking
coffee, as some take the papers each morning: with the adoring rigour of a ritual. He kissed his mother and, with barely a word, took the gold-rimmed cups from the cupboard—proud to intuit immediately where they lived—then laid them out on the sideboard.
They exchanged pleasantries about the journey. Helen trod the orange living-room carpet with the baby in her arms, steppingbetween their sparse belongings and humming or repeating
sshhh,
even though the baby was silent. Then they sat, he and Helen on the sofa, Sara across the room in her bentwood chair. The china cups, though slightly chipped and tarnished, clinked with a hushed clarity that shored up mislaid moments of his childhood with such concision that he was disoriented briefly.
“So you will be looking for somewhere to buy, once you have started work?” Sara asked.
He glanced at Helen. “Yes.”
“And what about building?”
“We still intend to, in a few years. We'll save, then buy land, a piece of moor land, sit on it for a while, and then build.”
That wonderful interlude of agreement between him and Helen had revealed its drawbacks quickly enough. He had realised soon after how he had in fact just agreed to live in some state of rustic dreaminess rather than the self-conferred modern splendour he had planned: the glass house to end all glass houses, the white sunlight on the panes, skeletal against thick black peat. He had, with one cigarette and the mention of inappropriate sex, consigned his reality to a dream. But he told himself it did not matter. There was time. Time reaching forward, time going backwards—more time than he had ever had in his life.
“So you'll need to stay here for—what? I don't know, a few months maybe?” Sara asked.
“Just for a month or so—until we find somewhere to rent. Then we can look around properly. It will all be quick, Sara.”
“As you wish.”
When Helen brushed her hair behind her ear the gestureseemed to carry an undercurrent of irritation. “You don't mind us staying, Sara? It's an awful pain, all three of us.”
“If I minded I would not have invited you. It isn't my way. And if I want you to go I'll tell you that in a second.”
Helen reached for her hair again to find it already behind her ear. She smiled with visible effort and sat. She put Henry stomach down on the sofa, between them.
“Look at these.” Sara took something from a drawer in the dresser. They were photographs, square Polaroids which she handed to them. “It's a house about six miles from here, a coach house. The woman who owns it is a friend of mine. She lost her husband a few months ago and she wants to sell. It's a bit— ratty-tatty, but a good house. She wants to find good people to buy it, it's not the kind of a house that appreciates complete strangers.”
The photographs showed a long narrow building with white façade, dating, he estimated, to the early 1800s. Perhaps the monochrome images bequeathed to the house a mystique it did not really deserve, a cloudy wistfulness to its old age. He saw through it; he did not especially like it. The two photographs of its interior showed large rooms and splendid supporting beams,
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