given way to romance for an inspired moment.) Such stories as far as Clare was concerned belonged inside books and were unimaginable as real childhoods; it seemed wholly characteristic that while Bram and his sisters had been busy living these adventures she had only been busy reading about them.
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
G ENNY TOOK C OCO AND L ILY and the others on an expedition looking for bones in the Burren; she was chief technician for the University Bone Collection at Oxford, trained as an animal behaviorist and now working for the archaeology department. Lily under her grandmotherâs tutelage was getting quite bold and had even poked at a very dead cat at the side of the road with a stick while Genny pointed out the structure and articulation. (It didnât unfortunately make any difference to her feelings about spiders.) Bram had managed to persuade his mother not to bring the cat home and boil it up for its skeletonâthey had already done several voles and a pigeon, filling the house with a stink Clare had to wash out of her hair. She had learned long ago never to look under the lids of Gennyâs saucepans. Coco had helped to bleach the bones and lay them out like exquisite puzzles on old seed trays in the plantless ruined conservatory. He had a pigeon wing, too, and had showed Clare condescendingly how it folded like a fan.
When they went to the Burren, Clare stayed at home with Rose and played Davidâs tapes on Cocoâs Walkman. She sat on the gray crumbling steps of the portico at the front of the house to smoke one of the cigarettes she had bought on her last visit to the mini-market; the cigarettes too were a fetish item from her obsession, as if by accumulating around her objects and habits associated with David she could somehow translate herself inside his real presence. No other building, except some unused sheds and one wall of the ruined mill, was visible from where she sat; she could see the lake, the islands, a field where the hay was gathered into old-fashioned beehive-shaped stooks you never saw in England anymore. It was a ten-minute drive down to the village; at night, partly because of the trees planted closely around the house, you couldnât see another light.
Rose had taken all her clothes off and, having achieved her point in getting out of the trip to the Burren, was rewarding Clare with her deep absorption in some rite involving small stones picked from the drive and carried off to a sorting place behind the rhododendrons. Clare made a pot of real coffee and brought it out into the sunshine for herself and Ray, Bramâs father, who was painting at the bottom of the rough sloping lawn with his back to her. In this household of practical people (Tinsley was a geologist in plate tectonics, Bram worked on a conservation project, Opie was a physiotherapist), Clare and Ray tended to get lumped together, as if they might help one another out and understand each otherâs mysteries. Today it was possibly true that they shared a sense of respite in the absence of his wife and his children. He was really startled, coming up from concentration, when she brought him his coffee; he had the same forward-set lower jaw as Bram, so that his mouth closed with an expression of gentle trustingness like a ruminant, a vulnerable deer.
She sat on the stone steps with her novel turned face down beside her because she couldnât concentrate on it. This was one of those moments given on earth like a promise of whatâs possible: the palely veiled creamy blue sky, the water glinting, the sun-warmed stone against her skin, the heat on her shoulders, the loved child happy playing in the earth, all the loved family spread safely and at their proper distances like a constellation, so that she in her place, part of it, was both holding and held. In literature though, Clare thought, there is a notorious problem with heavenly peace. It is well known that it can only be appreciated
*Â Â Â *Â Â Â *
G ENNY TOOK C OCO AND L ILY and the others on an expedition looking for bones in the Burren; she was chief technician for the University Bone Collection at Oxford, trained as an animal behaviorist and now working for the archaeology department. Lily under her grandmotherâs tutelage was getting quite bold and had even poked at a very dead cat at the side of the road with a stick while Genny pointed out the structure and articulation. (It didnât unfortunately make any difference to her feelings about spiders.) Bram had managed to persuade his mother not to bring the cat home and boil it up for its skeletonâthey had already done several voles and a pigeon, filling the house with a stink Clare had to wash out of her hair. She had learned long ago never to look under the lids of Gennyâs saucepans. Coco had helped to bleach the bones and lay them out like exquisite puzzles on old seed trays in the plantless ruined conservatory. He had a pigeon wing, too, and had showed Clare condescendingly how it folded like a fan.
When they went to the Burren, Clare stayed at home with Rose and played Davidâs tapes on Cocoâs Walkman. She sat on the gray crumbling steps of the portico at the front of the house to smoke one of the cigarettes she had bought on her last visit to the mini-market; the cigarettes too were a fetish item from her obsession, as if by accumulating around her objects and habits associated with David she could somehow translate herself inside his real presence. No other building, except some unused sheds and one wall of the ruined mill, was visible from where she sat; she could see the lake, the islands, a field where the hay was gathered into old-fashioned beehive-shaped stooks you never saw in England anymore. It was a ten-minute drive down to the village; at night, partly because of the trees planted closely around the house, you couldnât see another light.
Rose had taken all her clothes off and, having achieved her point in getting out of the trip to the Burren, was rewarding Clare with her deep absorption in some rite involving small stones picked from the drive and carried off to a sorting place behind the rhododendrons. Clare made a pot of real coffee and brought it out into the sunshine for herself and Ray, Bramâs father, who was painting at the bottom of the rough sloping lawn with his back to her. In this household of practical people (Tinsley was a geologist in plate tectonics, Bram worked on a conservation project, Opie was a physiotherapist), Clare and Ray tended to get lumped together, as if they might help one another out and understand each otherâs mysteries. Today it was possibly true that they shared a sense of respite in the absence of his wife and his children. He was really startled, coming up from concentration, when she brought him his coffee; he had the same forward-set lower jaw as Bram, so that his mouth closed with an expression of gentle trustingness like a ruminant, a vulnerable deer.
She sat on the stone steps with her novel turned face down beside her because she couldnât concentrate on it. This was one of those moments given on earth like a promise of whatâs possible: the palely veiled creamy blue sky, the water glinting, the sun-warmed stone against her skin, the heat on her shoulders, the loved child happy playing in the earth, all the loved family spread safely and at their proper distances like a constellation, so that she in her place, part of it, was both holding and held. In literature though, Clare thought, there is a notorious problem with heavenly peace. It is well known that it can only be appreciated
Similar Books
