'Well, I stepped off the line and waited for you and instead of following me, you didn't. I stood around for a while and was wondering whether I should travel back down the way and try to find you when I heard my name. You were calling for me but I couldn't see you anywhere. Then the air sort of bent around itself and you came hurtling out and crashlanded on the grass.'
'No, after that.'
'After that? After that I wondered if you'd broken your neck, but it's OK because I think you landed on your head.'
'After that.'
'After that I kissed you.'
She stepped across me using both hands to tuck her skirt between her knees and then knelt down, one knee either side of my stomach. The light was still behind her, but she leaned over me putting her hands on either side of my head so her shade sheltered my face.
'Would you like me to do it again?'
Her voice was softer and had an edge of huskiness to it. She lowered her face so her hair fell around us and I could see those fabulous green eyes glinting at me. I was acutely conscious of her weight resting low across my stomach.
'Blackbird, I thought we were…' I stopped and started again. 'I thought you were…'
She sat up, her weight suddenly heavy on my stomach, her arms folded. The sunlight was full on my face again, but I could see the spark of anger in her eyes.
'What did you think, Niall? That I'm too old for you? What is it with you and age? I was born in 1642. Work it out if it matters so much to you.'
'I thought we were friends.'
She put her hand on my chest and pushed herself up, standing over me, looking down. I pushed myself back up onto my elbows.
'Friends? Is that what we are? Really?'
She turned, collected her things from the ground and walked up the slope, shoulders square and head up. In a moment she had vanished around the corner of the low stone church. I shook my head, trying to clear it, wondering if the fall had knocked the wits out of me. None of this made any sense. I knew she was angry with me, but now I couldn't figure out what I'd done wrong.
I pushed myself to my feet and brushed the dry grass stalks from my clothes, finding myself largely unscathed, despite the bad landing. I stood up and looked around. I was in a graveyard behind a church, the ground sloping steeply down to a little stream hidden in the thickets at the bottom. The church was surrounded by ancient yew trees and it took me a moment to orientate myself. I struggled up the slope between the graves and found the gravel path around the church.
I caught sight of her sitting on the wooden bench in the lych-gate. She was sat in the long shadow of the surrounding trees as if nothing had happened. I shook my head again, wondering whether anything had happened or whether I was suffering the after-effects of a bump on the head.
I walked down the path and through the gates to stand in front of her.
She looked at me, head on one side in that characteristic pose. She took in the dishevelled appearance, the bits of grass still caught in my hair. Deprived of sleep, chased, threatened and almost killed several times, I wasn't sure I understood anything anymore.
She got to her feet, shaking her head and chuckling to herself, and walked off down the lane. I trudged after her, more confused than ever. Had the fall addled my wits completely? Had she really kissed me or was I hallucinating? No, she had definitely kissed me. But then she stomped off in a huff and then laughed at me.
She paused, waiting for me to catch up and then walked alongside me. I felt confused and resentful at being made fun of, but she didn't say anything and after a while I subsided into a circular thought pattern leaving me no wiser.
We walked down a twisted lane, sunken between hedges as the light faded into twilight. There were glimpses of farmhouses and outbuildings through the hedge and the occasional distant tractor. A single car passed us, slowing as it drew level and then accelerating away once it was past. We crossed a bridge over a brook and started the climb up the hill on the other side. Real blackbirds scolded their alarm at our passing and there were occasional rustlings from the hedge beside the road that might, I suppose, have been a rabbit. She didn't speak and I had no idea what to say, so I stayed silent, mulling over what had happened.
My relationships with women had always been fraught. Even my marriage to Katherine had been difficult. We had been brought together by friends who thought we were made for each other, and at first that had been true. We wined and dined, and went to the theatre and talked of culture and art and politics. We were affectionate and even passionate. We stayed up late and spoke about history and philosophy and our jobs and even our friends, but never about us.
Our relationship was something we never discussed. I liked her a lot, but in the end it had been she who had seduced me. It was she who pushed our relationship from an intellectual exchange to a physical consummation.
Quite suddenly the relationship changed. I found the physical aspect of our relationship overwhelming. I was obsessed with her. I couldn't wait to see her and be with her. But she wanted something beyond the moment, beyond the enjoyment of each other.
We broke up on a Friday. I was looking forward to a weekend of Katherine. I thought everything was fine until she called me and told me it was over. When I asked her why, she told me she wanted more than just sex and when I said that I thought we had more than sex, she laughed and said that was the problem. I told her I didn't understand and she told me she thought that was true.
That was why I asked her to marry me. Not immediately, not then, but later. I found I couldn't bear the thought of living day to day without her. It wasn't until much later that I realised I couldn't live with her constant suspicion and innate mistrust. By then we had Alex, and everything had changed.
'You're quiet.' Blackbird brought me back to the present.
'Hmmm?'
'We've walked about two miles and you haven't said a word.'
'I was thinking.'
'What about?'
'Nothing.'
'Two miles of nothing?'
'Old stuff, stuff that's gone; things long passed.'
'Want to talk about it?'
'No. It's history.'
We walked on, rounding a bend and walking past a farmyard where a tractor was left running unattended, the driver presumably engaged in one of the buildings.
'Blackbird, why aren't we friends?'
'Aren't we?' She looked sideways at me. 'I thought we were.'
'But you said-'
'Back there? I don't know if we were friends then, but we are now, if you want to be.'
'Would you do something, for me?' I asked her.
'What's that?'
'Stick with me, stay friends with me.'
I waited while she considered my request. She didn't just say 'OK', and I valued that. She treated my proposal seriously. Friendship wasn't something I offered lightly or trivially. It was a commitment to a way of being. It cheered me that she considered it carefully.
She skipped forward and turned in front of me, leaving me no choice but to stop or step around her. I stopped and she rested her hands on my chest.
'Do you know what you're asking?'
'Yes. No. Is it so terrible to be my friend? Does it mean something else to the Feyre?'
'No, it's not terrible and friendship amongst the Feyre has all the usual connotations. But do you know what it means when a guy says to a girl, let's just be friends?'
