Читать книгу Come Away With Me - Sara MacDonald, Sara MacDonald - Страница 26

Adam and Ruth took the path through the woods. This route was quite new and part of a Job Creation scheme. It didn’t lead anywhere but meandered in an arc above the water and came out where the awful yellow house now stood.

Not many people used the new route, they preferred to stay on the open creek path rather than enter the shade of the trees, but it had been a boon for the Manor House, a school for autistic children. The children and teachers could now wander through a little latch gate straight on to the creek.

As they passed the gate Ruth and Adam saw a semicircle of chairs with musical instruments lying abandoned on them, looking poignant and incongruous.

They walked in a circle and came back to the old barn where Adam had been fishing without success. They sat on a bench and finished their sandwiches and apples in the sun. Adam checked his line. Not a bite.

Ruth held her face up to the thin warmth of the sun while Adam took something revolting off his line and put something else on to the hook and cast again. He was humming and Ruth smiled, feeling relaxed.

‘OK,’ she said after a minute or two. ‘I’d better go back to the cottage and garden. Heaven knows when we’ll be down again. I’ll see you later, hon.’

Adam turned and grinned. ‘Don’t bank on fish for supper, will you?’

‘You’ve still got time!’ Ruth felt relieved that he was happy again.

Walking back to the cottage she saw that the best of the day was nearly over. Clouds hovered and the persistent mist was going to roll in again. She could almost feel its damp hand touching her face and coming up through her feet. She hurried to get her plants in.

Adam was fishing just beyond the ivy-clad barn. He had been fishing for a long time as if he were determined to catch something. I watched him from the trees, just inside the wood where the pine needles were dry. Ruth had gone and Adam was alone again. I stared at the back of his head. It was so familiar, the angle at which he held it, the shape of it, the way the hair grew, just like Tom’s. I loved watching him.

There were no walkers on the paths and the sun was sliding in and out of cloud. The warmth of the day would soon slip away.

Adam placed his rod between two sticks and turned. He looked up into the wood where I was sitting and he shivered, pulling a sweater over his head in a swift movement. Then he turned quickly back to his rod, fiddling with the bait on the end of his line. I saw that his shoulders had suddenly become hunched and tense, his movements nervous.

My throat caught. A pulse beat painfully in my head. He knew he was being followed and watched. I was frightening him.

I shivered too. The boy playing the violin had hurled me back from some strange place. His eyes, staring straight into mine, had registered the bewilderment of a life he could not quite grasp; a world where everyday actions become a constant battle with fear.

I recognised, for a bleak and startling instant, the dark and lonely place he inhabited. A place where you can no longer control your thoughts or your actions or judge them. A world where it is impossible to relate to anyone; where the simplest decision is too difficult. In the boy’s eyes I caught a brief reflection of myself and with horror realised I might be going out of my mind.

I was following and scaring the one beloved person left to me. Ruth and Adam had walked past me as I lay among the fir needles while the fragile rays of the sun touched my face. I could have called out, almost touched them, but I did not. I had trembled with wanting to shout, Help me. Help me.

Now I knew there was only one thing I could do. I could not leave Adam frightened. I must reassure him that no one wanted to hurt him, let him know it had only been me following him. Only me.

I picked up my coat and moved out of the wood across the deserted path to the small windowless stone barn. Pressed against the wall, I looked at him through the gaping hole. I was so near to him. I would call out to him in a minute. I would call out that it was only me, Jenny, but somehow it seemed hard to find my voice as if it had disappeared inside me.

Adam’s collar was caught inside his jacket, exposing that tiny bit of white neck. I want to hold him. I want to hold him. I am so tired. I will put my coat on the ground. I will rest for a moment, for a moment, until I stop shaking, then I will call out to him.