Believing the Lie

floated and on the opposite bank wild mallards rooted through the heavy-topped grass for slugs or worms or whatever the hell it was that they ate and oh God how he wanted to feel one of them all of them crushed beneath his fist or his feet it didn’t matter just to have something die die die.

Tim was in the water without knowing he was in the water. The ducks scattered. He flailed at them. Shouting was coming from every direction and some of it he realised was coming from him and then he was grabbed. Strong arms came round him and a voice in his ear said, “No. You mustn’t. You don’t mean to. It’s all right.”

And goddamn, it was the bumboy himself, the limp wrist, the queer. He had his arms and his hands on Tim and he was holding him God he was actually holding him touching him the filth the filth the filth.

“Get away!” Tim shrieked. He fought. Kaveh held on harder.

“Tim. Stop!” Kaveh cried. “You don’t mean to do this. Come away. Quickly.”

They wrestled in the water like two greased monkeys till Tim squirmed away and Kaveh fell back. He landed on his bum and the frigid water was up to his waist and he was struggling to get back to his feet and Tim felt such triumph because what he wanted was the stupid git struggling, he wanted to show him, he wanted to prove-

“I’m not a butt fucker,” he screamed. “Keep your fucking hands off me. You hear me? Find someone else.”

Kaveh watched him. He was breathing hard and so was Tim, but something came over his face and what it was not was what Tim wanted it to be, which was hurt, devastation, destruction.

Kaveh said, “Of course you’re not, Tim. Did you think you might be?”

“Shut up!” Tim yelled in reply. He turned and ran.

He left Kaveh sitting in Bryan Beck, water to his waist, watching him run.

GREAT URSWICK CUMBRIA

Manette had managed to get the tent raised by herself. It hadn’t been easy and although she had always been excessively competent when it came to anything that required her to follow instructions, she hadn’t done her usual perfect job with erecting the poles and the canvas, not to mention plunging the stakes into the ground, so she reckoned the whole thing would collapse on her. But she crawled inside anyway and sat Buddhalike in the opening, facing the pond at the bottom of the garden.

Freddie had knocked on her bathroom door and said he needed to speak with her. She’d said of course and could he give her a few minutes. She was just… whatever. He hurriedly said absolutely as if the last thing he wanted to know was what she was doing in the bathroom and who could blame him, really. There were some forms of intimacy that were far too intimate.

She hadn’t been doing anything. She’d been killing time. She’d sensed something was going on with Freddie when they’d met at the coffeemaker midmorning. She’d come down from her room; he’d come in from outside and since he’d entered wearing what he’d been wearing the previous day, she knew he’d spent the night with Sarah. Wily one, that Sarah, Manette reckoned. She knew a gem when she saw it.

So when Freddie asked to speak with her, she reckoned the boom was going to fall. He’d seen in Sarah a potential to be the One or perhaps, Manette thought wryly, the Two, since she herself had been the one. At any rate, he probably wanted to bring her home this very night or move her into the house soon, and she wondered how she was going to cope with that.

Obviously, they’d have to sell the house and go their separate ways. She didn’t want to do that because she loved this place. Not so much the house, which, admittedly, was rather pokey, but this particular little spot that had been her haven for years. It was, indeed, all about the place itself and having to leave it… this disquiet she was feeling. It was about the silence of Great Urswick, about the canopy of stars that hung above the village at night. It was about the pond and the resident swans that floated placidly on it and only occasionally went after an overly enthusiastic dog who stupidly tried to chase them. And it was about the old paint-flecked rowingboat tied to the dock and the fact that she could take it out onto the water and watch the sunrise or the sunset or sit in the rain if she wanted to.

She supposed it was really all about roots, having them planted somewhere and not wanting them to be torn out because transplanting often killed the plant and she didn’t know what it was going to feel like when she herself had to move on.

This wasn’t about Freddie, she told herself. This wasn’t about Sarah or any other woman Freddie might finally choose. How could it be when she herself had been the one to bring up the spark and how they had lost it, she and Freddie? It was absolutely, utterly, and irrevocably gone and didn’t he agree with her, at heart?

Manette couldn’t recall the expression on Freddie’s face when she had initiated this painful conversation. Had he disagreed? She couldn’t remember. He was always so bloody affable about everything. It should have come as no surprise to her that he’d been equally affable about the idea that their marriage was as dead as roadkill. And she’d been relieved, then. Now, however, she couldn’t remember why on earth she’d been so relieved. What had she been expecting of marriage, after all? High drama, sparks, and falling all over each other like randy teenagers every night? Who could sustain that? Who would want to?

“You and Freddie?” Mignon had said. “Divorcing? You’d better have a long look at what’s out there these days before you take that step.”

But this wasn’t about trading Freddie in for a different model. Manette had no interest in that. It was just about being realistic, about looking squarely at the life she had and evaluating its potential for going the distance. As they’d been — best friends who occasionally made the time for a pleasant encounter between the sheets — they hadn’t stood a chance of lasting. She knew it, he knew it, and they’d had to deal with it. That was what they’d done and they’d both been relieved to have it out in the open. Hadn’t they?

“Here you are. What the devil are you doing out here, old girl?”

She roused herself. Freddie had come to find her, and he bore in his hands two mugs. He squatted by the tent opening and handed one over. She began to crawl out but he said, “Hang on. I’ve not been inside a tent in years.” He crawled in to join her. He said, “That pole’s going to go down, Manette,” with a nod in the general direction of the troublesome part of the structure.

She said, “I could tell. One strong gust of wind, and it’s over. Good place to think, though. And I wanted a trial run.”

“Not at all necessary,” he said. He sat next to her, Indian style, and she noted he was flexible enough to do the same as she: His knees went all the way to the ground, not like some people who couldn’t manage that because they were far too stiff.

She took a sip of what he’d brought her. Chicken broth. Interesting choice, as if she were ill. She said, “Not necessary?”

“Decamping,” he said, “if you’ll pardon the pun. Deciding upon the out-of-doors just in case.”

She frowned. “Freddie, what are you talking about?”

He cocked his head. His brown eyes seemed to twinkle at her, so she knew he was joking about something and she hated not to be in on the joke. He said, “You know. The other night? Holly? That was a one-off. Won’t happen again.”

She said, “You giving it up or something?”

“The dating? Good God, no.” And then he blushed that Freddie blush. “I mean, I’m rather enjoying it. I’d no idea women had become so… so forthright in the years I was out of action. Not that I’d ever really been in action.”

“Thank you very much,” she said sourly.

“No, no. I didn’t mean… What I did mean is that you and I, having started so young, having been together from the word go, more or less… You were my first, you know. My only, as a matter of fact. So to see what’s going on in the real world… It’s an eye opener, I can tell you. Well, of course you’ll see for yourself soon enough.”

She said, “Not sure I want to.”