She wakes in the middle of the night, feels the damp darkness, scents the weeds and tangled vegetation out in the garden. Silently, barefoot, she tiptoes down the corridor. She needs to spend time alone, explore these low-ceilinged rooms, this house where he lives. Once she creates a solid base, she can understand where she’s landed, perhaps know David better.

These paintings, faint blurs of colour in the night, partly abstract, partly figurative, suggestions of countryside and solitary figures, are what he has chosen. In a library, shelves of books cover all walls; it would take more than a lifetime to read every one. And several lifetimes to learn the languages they’re written in. Underfoot, the old red quarry tiles are cool but not unpleasant, ancient and split but solid, their edges rounded by the steps of long-vanished generations. The tang of the extinct fire floats on the air, and again she sits on the cracked leather sofa, listening to silence, waiting, sniffing the ambiance, and feeling its weight. What secrets will the house reveal? Long before early light touches the window’s small panes, she returns to her bed.

Much later, she comes downstairs, finds him standing in a kitchen ablaze with sun. How she loves the folds of skin beside his mouth when he smiles; her fingers ache with the desire to caress. Instead, she pats Virgule, then reaches for the large cup of coffee he hands her, closes her eyes, enjoys the pungent rich odour. “Have you been up for long?”

“I get up early in the morning and go out to my office in a little hut beside the house. It’s the best time for writing.”

“I can understand that. I wake up as early as possible when I’m learning lines or working on a play. My mind always seems to function better when much of the world is sleeping.” There is an unexpected pang. Those intense days in the theatre world have been gone for some time: how she misses them. Hers has been a charmed life. Will she ever get it back, or is it gone for good? All over, all over.

 

 

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