Hamnet(85)

‘And . . .’ he sweeps an arm towards Hewlands farmhouse ‘. . . your brother? He is well?’

She lifts her face to look at him, for the first time since he arrived. She cannot continue this conversation for a single moment longer. If he says one more thing to her about flowers, about Hewlands, about bees, she doesn’t know what she will do. Invert her knife into his boots. Push him backwards into the bee skep. Run from him, to Hewlands, to Bartholomew or to the dark green haven of the forest and refuse to come out again.

He holds her frank gaze for the count of a breath, then his eyes skitter away.

‘Can’t look me in the eye?’ she says.

He rubs at his chin, sighs, lowers himself shakily to the ground beside her, and holds his head in his hands. Agnes lets the knife slip from her hands. She doesn’t think she can trust herself to keep holding it.

They sit like that, together, but facing away from each other, for some time. She will not, she tells herself, be the first to speak. Let him decide what should be said, since he is so skilled with words, since he is so fêted and celebrated for his pretty speeches. She will keep her counsel. He is the one who has caused this problem, this breach in their marriage: he can be the one to address it.

The silence swells between them; it expands and wraps itself around them; it acquires shape and form and tendrils, which wave off into the air, like the threads trailing from a broken web. She senses each breath as it enters and leaves him, each shift as he crosses his arms, as he scratches an elbow, as he brushes a hair from his brow.

She stays quite still, with her legs folded beneath her, feeling as if a fire smoulders within her, consuming and hollowing out what is left there. For the first time, she feels no urge to touch him, to put her hands on him: quite the opposite. His body seems to give off a pressure that pushes her away, makes her draw into herself. She cannot imagine how she will ever put her hand where another woman’s has been. How could he have done it? How could he leave, after the death of their son, and seek solace in others? How could he return to her, with these prints on him?

She wonders how he could go from her to another. She cannot imagine another man in her bed, a different body, different skin, different voice; the thought would sicken her. She wonders, as they sit there, if she will ever touch him again, if perhaps they shall always be apart now, if there is someone in London who has ensnared his heart and keeps it for her own. She wonders how he will tell her all this, what words he will choose.

Beside her, he clears his throat. She hears him inhale, about to speak, and she readies herself. Here it comes.

‘How often do you think of him?’ he says.

For a moment, she is taken aback. She had been expecting an account, an explanation, perhaps an apology, for what she knows has occurred. She was bracing herself for him to say, We cannot go on like this, my heart belongs to another, I shall not return again from London. Him? How often does she think of him? She cannot think to whom he refers.

Then she realises what he means and she turns to look at him. His face is obscured by his folded arms, his head hanging down. It is an attitude of abject grief, of sorrow, of such utter sadness that she almost rises to go and put her arms around him, to comfort him. But she recalls that she may not, she cannot.

Instead, she watches a swallow swoop down to skim the tops of the plants, searching for insects, then lift up towards the trees. Beside them, the trees inflate and exhale, their leaf-heavy branches shuddering in the breeze.

‘All the time,’ she says. ‘He is always here and yet, of course,’ she presses a fist against her breastbone, ‘he is not.’

He doesn’t reply but when she steals a glance at him, she sees he is nodding.

‘I find,’ he says, his voice still muffled, ‘that I am constantly wondering where he is. Where he has gone. It is like a wheel ceaselessly turning at the back of my mind. Whatever I am doing, wherever I am, I am thinking: Where is he, where is he? He can’t have just vanished. He must be somewhere. All I have to do is find him. I look for him everywhere, in every street, in every crowd, in every audience. That’s what I am doing, when I look out at them all: I try to find him, or a version of him.’

Agnes nods. The swallow circles around and comes back, as if it has something of importance to tell them, if only they could understand. Its cheek flashes scarlet, its head purple-blue, as it passes. Across the surface of the pot of water beside her, a series of clouds roll by, indifferent and slow.

He says something in a subdued, hoarse voice.

‘What was that?’ she says.

He says it again.

‘I didn’t hear you.’

‘I said,’ he says, lifting his head – she sees that his face is scored with tears, ‘that I may run mad with it. Even now, a year on.’

‘A year is nothing,’ she says, picking up a fallen chamomile bloom. ‘It’s an hour or a day. We may never stop looking for him. I don’t think I would want to.’

He reaches out across the space between them and seizes her hand, crushing the flower between their palms. The dusty, pollen-heavy scent fills the air. She tries to pull away but he holds her fast.

‘I am sorry,’ he says.

She pulls at her wrist, trying to wrest it from his grasp. His strength, his insistence surprises her.

He says her name, with a questioning lilt. ‘Did you hear me? I am sorry.’

‘For what?’ she mutters, giving her arm one last, futile tug, before letting it fall limp in his grasp.