Boats on Land: A Collection of Short Stories Read Online Free PDF Page B

throat.’ Her voice carried a trace of exasperation. He had a feeling Mrs Smithson was accustomed to people submitting to her orders; presumably she didn’t know what to do with her niece.
    ‘She’s stubborn,’ the lady blurted. ‘Just like Eve. I told my sister to get out of London, the city was being bombed to bits, for god’s sake…but no, she stayed on, to nurse the wounded. And now…well, now I have an impossible situation on my hands.’
    Doctor Wallang wanted to say he was sure it was traumatic for Lucy too.
    ‘May I see her?’ he asked.
    She gestured for him to follow. They walked down the narrow, airless corridor that led to Lucy’s room; without a lantern it appeared darker during the day than at night. At the door, she stopped. ‘See if you can talk some sense into her, doctor.’
    He found Lucy sitting by the window, a shawl wrapped around her knees, an unfinished embroidery hoop on her lap. On the table was a plate of winter fruit—small soh um berries and thick, fleshy soh mon—lying untouched and unpeeled. He wasn’t expecting to find his patient looking well, but he didn’t think she’d have deteriorated this quickly either.
    ‘How are you feeling?’ he asked, trying to avoid her dark-circled eyes.
    She glanced up at him, her skin translucent in the light. ‘May I go riding, doctor?’
    It was too cold, and she much too weak. ‘When you get better, of course you may.’
    She turned to look outside; a series of frosty nights had left the landscape pockmarked with patches of burnt, shrivelled grass.
    ‘I will not get better.’
    ‘You won’t if you carry on this way. Your aunt says you’re refusing to eat…’ He sat on a stool beside her. ‘How are your headaches?’
    ‘They come and go.’
    Around her were layers of fog far thicker than the clouds that rippled over the hills.
    ‘Have you been sleeping well?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And your dreams?’
    A small smile flitted over her face. ‘They visit like old friends.’
    They sat in silence, a faint drizzle had begun; it pattered softly on the tin roof.
    A maid entered and placed a coal-filled chula in front of them.
    Lucy drew her hands out from under the shawl and held them over the stove. They shook slightly.
    ‘Doctor, if I’m not permitted outside…no matter how much I long to…I’d like to bring it in…the sun, the wind, even the rain.’
    He said he wasn’t sure he understood.
    ‘What I mean is…I’d like to see Kyntang.’
    The doctor began to say it wouldn’t be possible.
    ‘They’ve dismissed him from service at the stables here… I overheard the maids talking…he was good with the horses.’
    Lucy sounded as though her mind was far away on the open hillside.
    ‘I know my aunt and uncle won’t hear of it, even Jonah… they don’t understand. I was sent here to be safe.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘But it follows me everywhere.’
    ‘What does?’
    ‘There’s no escaping it,’ she continued. ‘I told you. Yet sometimes when I’m with him…’ Her eyes were the colour of the hills after the rain.
    ‘I don’t see how such a thing could be arranged.’
    Her shoulders drooped. Under her shawl, she seemed a captive, fluttering creature. Outside, it was growing dark, the days were short and graceless in November. He stared at the coal in the chula, burning amber-golden, in between liquid and light, solid and shadow. Lucy had her eyes closed, her breathing flimsy and shallow.
    ‘Will you tell him at least, doctor? What I said…’
    Doctor Wallang hesitated.
    ‘Please.’
    ‘If I see him.’
    The embroidery hoop slipped to the floor; the doctor picked it up and placed it on the table. She was stitching a wreath of white lilies.
    ‘Are these your favourite flowers?’ he asked.
    ‘No,’ she replied quietly. ‘Somebody else’s. I couldn’t find any to place on their grave.’
    One evening in late December, Doctor Wallang was summoned to a house close to where Kyntang lived, to perform an