The River Wife by Heather Rose Page B

from town, you never stopped.
    ‘I will not be needing anything, Wilson James,’ I said to him.

S ummer played gently on the lake’s edge, nesting in the long evenings and the pearl dawns. Creatures brought their young to the lake’s edge. The grass plains above the forest were filled with yellow-winged butterflies as I walked the open pathways between river and lake, singing to the small tributaries and streams that ran towards the river, clearing them of stones and sticks that had tumbled there, singing to the little creatures the stories of the world and the river which was their mother.
    Wilson James came by the river late in the afternoon and called to me. He carried a cloth wrapped about something in his arms. When he unwrapped it on a fallen trunk I saw it was bread, bread sending its smell like a memory into my bones.
    ‘The first two times it didn’t rise. And then . . .’ he said.
    The sound of my father’s voice was clear again to me as if he stood just beside me, the knife in his hand, the loaf upon the cutting board. ‘Be careful, little fish. It is human food and I am not sure it is what you need. Eat it slowly now.’ And I had. Nibbling at its hard edges, the crumbs falling into my lap, the warm, fragrant centre of it soft in my fingers. Father had made for himself stews of meat, but for me he made a clear soup and I would dip tiny pieces of bread in it and let them soak on my tongue.
    ‘Here, try some,’ said Wilson James. He pulled from his back pocket a knife and then the blade was hovering above the loaf, waiting to bite the crust.
    ‘The berries are ripening all about,’ he said. ‘Do they make good jam?’
    ‘I do not know it,’ I said.
    ‘Jam? Goes on bread.’
    I shook my head.
    He handed me a slice and I took it and smelled it. It was still warm. He watched me and there was a happiness on his face, buzzing about him like a visiting fly.
    He cut a slice for himself.
    ‘I don’t have any butter. Nor honey,’ he said.
    ‘Honey, yes,’ I said, leaping up. Something about him watching me made me want to buzz like a fly too. I darted over the riverbank and into the house, and found there, upon the shelf, one of the glass jars Father had stored. Bringing it back into the light I saw the honey had turned dark gold in the passing of time.
    Wilson James lifted away the rusted lid and sniffed. Using the knife he dug a chunk from the jar the colour of amber quartz. When he tasted it, his eyes closed and he shook his head. ‘That is the most amazing flavour. Where is it from?’
    ‘From here in the forest. You may take the jar. I have more.’
    ‘What happened to me?’ he asked suddenly, clouds moving across the forest above him though there would be no rain. ‘One day I was in a city with a schedule and friends and withering reviews, and now I am here and it is as if the world I have known no longer exists. Every day this place is different. I can’t rely on anything. Like the sky. How did the sky get so big here? In the city it’s grey. It’s grey every day. But here the sky is blue. Incredibly blue and so close. Like it’s right here with us. Not far away. Sunshine makes just about anything pretty. I never noticed things like that before. I thought I was noticing but I wasn’t at all.’
    He watched me nibbling at the bread. ‘Don’t you like it?’
    ‘I think this is how loving a child tastes. New and tender yet like a habit as old as the seasons.’
    As I said it a purple veil threatened to close over Wilson James. But he held and gripped.
    ‘Do you have children, Wilson James?’ I asked.
    ‘No,’ he said. ‘You?’
    ‘No,’ I said. But it was not the truth. A river wife can bear only one daughter and my only daughter was no longer with me. If ever I went from this place there would be no daughter of mine, no river wife left to weave the songs and stories of the river.
    ‘I found a couple of old books in town on fly-fishing,’ he said at last. ‘Do you