'I take it this always happens?' I said.
'Yes, but not as soon as this. It normally boils when we start climbing.'
After loud discussion with the passengers at the front, the driver set off back down the road towards the last village, accompanied by two of the men.
Unexpectedly, Seri slipped her hand into mine and leaned against me slightly. She squeezed my fingers.
'How much further are we going?' I said.
'We're nearly there. The next village.'
'Couldn't we walk? I'd like to stretch my legs.'
'Let's wait. He's only gone to get water. It doesn't look steep, but it's uphill all the way.'
She closed her eyes, resting her head on my shoulder. I stared ahead, looking at the bulk of the mountains now rising directly before us. Although we had climbed a long way since leaving the town, the air was still warm and there was hardly any wind. Vineyards stretched on either side of the road. I could see tall cypresses in the distance, black against the sky. Seri dozed for a while, but I was getting stiff so I roused her. I climbed down from the bus and walked a distance up the road, relishing the exercise and the sunshine. It was not as humid here, the air smelt different. I walked as far as the crest of the rise the bus had been climbing when it broke down, and here I stopped and looked back. The plain stretched out before me, wavering in the thenmals, a fusion of greys and greens and ochnous yellows. In the distance, on the horizon, was the sea, but there was a haze and I could not see any other islands.
I sat down, and after a few minutes I saw Seri walking up the road to join me. As she sat down beside me she said: 'The bus has broken down every time I've been on it.'
'It doesn't matter. We're not in a hurry.'
Again she slipped her hand into mine. 'Why did you leave me there?'
I thought of excuses--fresh air, exercise, see the view--but changed my mind.
'I suppose I'm a bit shy of you,' I said. 'Last night, when you left me in the bar, I thought I'd made a mistake.'
'I just had to see someone. A friend. I'd rather have been with you.'
She was looking away, but she was holding my hand tightly.
Later, we saw the group of men returning to the bus with a can of water, so we walked down and took our seats again. In a few minutes the journey resumed, as dusty and lurching as before. Soon the road was rising through trees, turning into a pass in the mountains invisible from where we had halted. Tall eucalypts grew on each side of the track, the white bark peeling.
Above, a ceiling of blueish-green leaves, glimpses of sky; below, a twisting shallow river, seen fleetingly through the trees. The pass curved, and the road with it, and for a minute I saw a superb mountainscape, rocks and trees and broad shoulders of scree. Water tumbled down the face of the rocks, bouncing and spuming through the gum trees to the river below. The dusty plain around Muriseay Town was lost to sight.
Seri was staring through the open window as if it was the first time she too had been along this road. I began to sense the scale of these mountains; by Faiandland standards they were low and unspectacular, because the High Massif in the north of the country contained the grandest mountain scenery in the world. Here on Muriseay, scale and expectations were smaller, the effect more compact yet more startling. One could relate emotionally to this scenery: it was human-sized without being domestic.
'Do you like it?' Seri said.
'Yes, of course.'
'We're almost there.'
I looked ahead but could see only the track climbing through the trees into green penumbra.
Seri shouldered her bag and made her way up the aisle to the front of the bus. She spoke briefly to the driver. In a few moments we came to a part of the road where it opened out, and where two wooden benches had been built at the side. The bus halted, and we climbed down.
9
A path led down from the road, worn from the undergrowth to expose the soil. Stripped tree-branches had been laid in the ground at intervals to provide crude steps, and in the steepest places there was a handrail. We descended rapidly because the soil was dry and firm, and almost before the sound of the bus's engine had faded into the distance we saw the roofs of a village below us.
The path opened out on to a levelled area, where several cars were parked, and from here we came straight into the centre of the village. This was a pleasing double row of well-preserved old buildings. One or two had been converted to shops: there was a souvenir shop, a small restaurant and a garage. Because we were both hungry we went straight to the restaurant, and sat at one of the tables under the trees at the hack.
It was good to sit down without the intrusive racket of the bus, on the flying grit; we were in the shade, the river flowed at the end of the garden and high in the trees overhead were birds invisible to us, making a strange and abrupt bell-like call. The meal was a dish called valti. Native to Muriseay it was a colourful mixture of rice, beans, tomatoes and meat, served in a spicy saffron-coloured sauce. Seri and I spoke little, but we had become detectably closer to each other.
Afterwards, we walked through the village until we came to the river.
Here, a broad lawn had been laid and a number of people were sitting around, relaxing in the shade of the trees. It was a peaceful place, made oddly more silent by the river sounds and the birdsong. A wooden bridge, rustic but solid, led across to the other side where another path climbed erratically through the trees. There was a great stillness to the air, and the smell of the eucalypts, reminding me obscurely of childhood medicines, hung thick in the warm day. Below, we could hear the river on the stones.
We had not climbed far when we came to a single-bar gate across the path. Seri slipped two coins into a box,
