Water Theatre Read Free Page B

she?”
    I said, “Marina left my life a long time ago. You have to understand: these are old loyalties. I’m doing it for Hal.”
    â€œNo,” she said, “I don’t think so.”
    â€œIf you had any idea how much I’m dreading this trip…”
    â€œThen don’t go.”
    â€œI have to, Gail. For Hal.”
    She shook her disbelieving head again. “No, Martin. Like always you’re doing this for you.”
    And as if in ironic fulfilment of her declaration, here I was, alone in Marina’s house under the Umbrian night, regretting that I’d come, knowing there were many reasons why I’d allowed myself no choice, and aching with memories of Hal Brigshaw’s children who, together or apart, had long been capable of opening up a war zone in my heart.
    I remembered the pain of my last encounter with Marina. I remembered the bleak hour in which Adam’s friendship had turned to hostility. I thought about Hal stricken in his wheelchair and about the piled bodies of the dead in Equatoria. Again I shrank beneath the burden of my father’s corpse, a limp, decaying load that I could not put down.
    Knowing these things must keep me from sleep, I reached for the copy of Virgil. It fell open at the page where the letter had lain, and I saw at once that someone – Adam presumably; the book was his – had underscored three lines:
    Your ghost, Father
,
    Your sad ghost, often present in my mind
,
    Has brought me to the threshold of this place
.
    The night swung like lock gates around me, letting more darkness in.
    I woke in a rose-madder room already steeped in warm mid-morning light. Pushing back the curtains, I saw a plump hill of olive groves topped by a cluster of houses, impasto pink and white, with terracotta roofing tiles. Sunlight flashed from a chimney cowl. In the hazier distance two thickly wooded hillssaddled the horizon. Nothing moved. Even the swallows were silent on the wires, though somewhereasolitary cowbell clanked every now and then, jolting dry air that smelt of rosemary and thyme. Beyond the bamboo awning, a closer olive grove sloped steeply away down the hillside. The shadows of stone terraces tumbled in soft cataracts between the rows.
    I was showering when I heard a sound beyond the clatter of water at my feet. When I called out to see if someone was there, a woman’s voice lifted from the foot of the stairs. “I think may be I have come at a bad time. Forgive me.” I knew at once that it was not Marina. So whose was it then, this cloudy foreign voice that added, “I shall return again when you are dressed?”
    I reached for a towel, calling, “Hang on, I’ll be with you in just a minute. Don’t go away.” But the sitting room and kitchen were empty when I went down, though a newly filled bowl of fruit stood on the table in the dining area. Towelling my hair, I stepped outside and saw the woman sitting in the shade at the circular blue table. Sunglasses masked her eyes. A wide-brimmed straw hat with a silk ribbon hid most of her dark curls.
    â€œGood morning,” she said, “I had not meant to discompose you,” and rose, offering a firm hand. Slim, in her late forties, she wore a shirt of lavender-grey silk hanging loose over ivory-coloured linen trousers. “I heard only this morning that you are arrived. If I knew last night…” Her ringed hands made a deprecating flourish. “There was no food in the house, I know. I have put milk and butter in the refrigerator and there is now bread in the box.” With a hint of reproach she added, “We were not expecting you.”
    I took note of that familiar “we”.
    â€œThere’s no phone here,” I explained. “I had to come at short notice and couldn’t let Adam and Marina know. I thought I’d find at least one of them here.”
    â€œI see. You wished to jump a surprise on