Читать книгу Come Away With Me - Sara MacDonald, Sara MacDonald - Страница 21

I woke with the dawn and sat crouched and cold in my sleeping bag to watch the sun flare up over the dark forest on the far side of the creek, then rise to touch the water. My spirits rose and swooped and soared in a moment of wonder at the sheer mystical beauty of yellow winter sun rising through mist that lay over the water like a ghostly blanket.

As the sun came up I saw a light go on in an upstairs room of the cottage and I got out of my sleeping bag and pulled on jeans and a sweater. I tied on my walking boots and reached for my Barbour. Then I sat and waited.

The light in the bedroom went off and one came on in a downstairs room. After a minute the front door opened and Adam emerged. He was muffled in green waterproofs, hat and scarf. Outside his coat he carried binoculars against his chest.

He walked quickly down the garden path and turned left up the creek path. He was making for the lake. I waited for a few moments, then pulled up my hood and slowly followed him.

I smiled as I thought of Ruth asleep in her bed while I was with Adam on the outside of that womblike cottage. I was watching over Adam as a new day began.

The birds were singing as if their hearts would burst and the waders screeched out across the water. Ahead, I could just hear the boy’s footsteps. I could not see him because of the mist that lay over everything. He stopped every now and then, and I stopped too. I knew he must be looking through his binoculars but there would be little to see on a morning like this.

When he came to the lake the skies began to lift and lighten a little and I could see his outline clearly. He paused, left the path and moved over boggy ground to the left of the lake where there were large stones he could sit on to watch the waders. Then his outline disappeared. I stopped and leant on a gate leading into a field running parallel to the lake. I strained to hear his movements but there was only silence.

I gathered my coat round me and, holding the hood to my face, moved carefully on down the path between lake and creek, past the point where I thought Adam must have left the path to the far side of the lake. I tucked myself into the undergrowth. The ground was soggy and the stone I sat on was damp.

I waited, waited amid the rustling and swooping and singing of birds. As the sun filtered through, the mist began to evaporate and rise up over the water a few metres like a theatre curtain. The dim shape of Adam started to materialise on the other side of the lake in early morning light. He was crouched on a rock, watching something through his binoculars.

I was at an angle from him so he could not see me as I sat hard against the hedge, but for a minute it seemed as if he stared straight across at me. Then he raised his glasses again and trained them skywards at an egret flying over my head towards him.

He birdwatched for perhaps twenty minutes, then he got up from his boulder, stretched, shook his legs and moved back to the creek path.

I got up too and kept my distance. The sun was beginning to burn off the sea mist. Adam walked slowly but seemed ill at ease. He looked left and right; then he stopped, turned and looked behind him. I stood very still, close to the hedgerow, and hardly breathed. He could not see me, but he must feel me here.

He shivered suddenly, then turned and walked quickly on back to the cottage. He almost ran up the path and the front door slammed behind him.

Most of the houses were still in darkness. I got back into the Volkswagen. I needed to drive away before anyone was up. The car engine was noisy and as I turned in the halflight I saw the boy standing in his unlit bedroom watching me.

The car lights flickered across the wall of the cottage before I turned and drove away up the hill. Next time I would park at the other end of the creek where the woods made it easier not to be noticed.