The Things I Know(24)

‘I never, ever get tired of the view,’ Hitch said. ‘It’s even different from one hour to the next. The sky changes colour from greenish grey to the clearest blue and the clouds are like brushstrokes in the sky. The water is murky or clear, moving or still. It’s like a painting that’s never finished. Sometimes I come and sit here of an evening and just watch: it’s my favourite thing to do. The sunset at certain times of the year is orange – bright, bright orange, like you see in a film or a photo – and I always think that’s the way the sun is supposed to look, like a great ball of fire, just out of reach.’

‘It’s quiet here.’

‘I thought it was very noisy in London when I went. Is it hard for you to get to sleep? It would be for me.’

‘No. I’m used to it.’

‘I guess you must be.’

‘In fact,’ he said, swallowing, ‘I sometimes find it hard to get to sleep if it’s too quiet. I’m used to the sirens, dog barks, shouts, TV noises from other flats, whistles in the stairwell and the drone of traffic. It’s like an urban lullaby that soothes me to sleep as surely as any nursery rhyme whispered from a rocking chair.’

There he was again with his poetry.

‘I like the way you say things.’

‘Thank you, Thomasina.’

Again the sound of her name on his lips almost moved her to tears. It was overwhelming, respectful and beautiful all at once.

‘You want to sit down?’ She coughed, pointing at a large, flat rock that looked like a table cast by nature.

‘Sure.’

She nimbly trod the path and sat down on the rock, which still had some warmth to it. She ran her fingers over the soft grey surface.

‘I think living in the countryside is so great because you have so many places to sit down,’ Grayson said suddenly.

‘What are you talking about?’

Buddy looked over in his mistress’s direction, his expression quizzical, as though he were checking on her well-being.

‘I mean that, in the city, the only places where I can sit are on the bus, in my flat, on my chair at work, on a bench if there’s an empty spot, or maybe a wall. But here you can sit anywhere. On the grass, a hay bale, the bottom or the top of a hill, even at the side of the road. No one is going to ask you to move because you’re cluttering up a verge or a rock.’ Grayson patted the soft rock on which they perched. ‘Can you imagine if I just sat in the middle of the pavement?’

‘Actually, I can’t,’ Hitch said, shaking her head.

‘No. Everything about the countryside is soft.’

‘What do you mean?’ She screwed up her face, picking up a flat pebble and holding it in her hand.

‘The air tastes soft, without the dark tang of pollution. The buildings are imperfect with walls made of stones, all thick and sloping in places and irregular. You’ve got grass, not concrete. If the city is hard and grey, I think here it’s soft, green, rounded, forgiving.’

‘I suppose so.’

A man called to his son much further along the path and the boy turned and ran back to him. ‘Even when people shout here, it’s a long, echoey, sing-song sound, and it doesn’t sound angry. Where I live, the shouts are short, sharp, aggressive, fast, as if people need to call out but know everyone is listening. Here, it’s as if the person is happy to shout out across the fields or the river, letting their sound carry on the wind; they don’t mind being heard.’

Hitch stood up and, with surprising force, lobbed the pebble, which skimmed the surface – one, two, three, four, five times – before disappearing beneath the water.

‘I think you’re right, Grayson.’

‘About everywhere being softer?’

‘No, what you said earlier, about you noticing some weird stuff.’ She smiled at him, letting him know that her observation on this and just about every other aspect of him was something she liked very much.

He threw his head back and laughed. ‘I do, I know I do, and tomorrow I get to do it in front of an audience.’

‘Are you nervous?’ She swung her good leg back and forth, the sole of her boot scuffing the stone-strewn path.

‘No.’

‘Do you like your job?’ She twisted one foot beneath her, facing him, and watched his face colour under her scrutiny.

‘I like getting it right.’

‘But do you like getting up and going in every day to do it?’ She twirled the ends of her hair around her fingers.

‘What else would I do?’

‘I don’t know – I don’t know you! A different job? Lie in bed? Go to the seaside?’ Hitch raised her arms and let them fall by her side, exasperated not by the exchange but at how easy she found it to make suggestions she was too scared to implement herself.

He seemed to think about this. ‘I like the routine and I like going to bed knowing what to expect the next day, so I guess it suits me. I don’t think about it too much.’

‘I understand that. It’s a bit different for me – my job is my life and my life is my job. It’s like that in farming. You can’t easily see the join where one stops and the other starts.’

‘So if someone asks you what your job is, what do you say?’

‘I say I’m an egg collector. That’s my responsibility: my girls.’