The Winter Sea

I wished, through the long minute of the pause that followed, that I could have seen his face, and known what he was thinking. But when he spoke, his voice was hard to read. He only tossed the question back at me. ‘Why didn’t you?’

I knew why I’d kept silent, and it wasn’t just because I hadn’t wanted to conflict with his own story, or the lack of it. It was because…well, Graham, like the horses, was a private weakness, too. When he was near me I felt half-electric, half-confused, excited as a teenager caught up in a new crush, and I had wanted that to last a while, to hug it to myself and not let anyone intrude upon it. But I couldn’t tell him that, so I said, ‘I don’t know. I didn’t really think.’ And then, like him, I threw the ball back. ‘I assumed you’d had your reasons for not telling him.’

Whatever they had been, he didn’t tell me. We were on a different subject. ‘So,’ he asked, ‘how goes the book?’

Much safer ground, I thought. ‘It’s going really well. It kept me up till three o’clock this morning.’

‘Do you always write at night?’

‘Not always. When I get towards the last part of a book, I write all hours. But I do my best work late at night, I don’t know why. Maybe because I’m half-conscious.’ I’d said that last part as a joke, but he nodded, considering.

‘It’s possible,’ he said. ‘Maybe at night your subconscious takes over. A friend of mine paints, and he says the same thing, that it’s easiest working at night, when his mind starts to drift and he’s nearly asleep. Says he sees things more clearly, then. Mind you, I can’t tell the difference myself from the pictures he paints in the daytime—they all look like great blobs of color to me.’

After this past week and what I’d learned about Sophia Paterson, I’d formed a few opinions on the subject of subconscious thought and how it ruled my writing, but I kept these to myself. ‘With me it’s habit, more than anything. When I first started writing—really writing, not just playing—I was still at university. The only time I had was late at night.’

‘And what was it you studied? English?’

‘No. I love to read, but all through school I hated it when books were pulled apart and analyzed. Winnie-the-Pooh as a political allegory, that sort of thing. It never really worked for me. There’s a line in The Barretts of Wimpole Street—you know, the play—where Elizabeth Barrett is trying to work out the meaning of one of Robert Browning’s poems, and she shows it to him, and he reads it and he tells her that when he wrote that poem, only God and Robert Browning knew what it meant, and now only God knows. And that’s how I feel about studying English. Who knows what the writer was thinking, and why should it matter? I’d rather just read for enjoyment. No, I studied politics.’

‘Politics?’

‘I had ideas of changing the world,’ I admitted. ‘And anyway, I thought it might come in handy, somewhere. Everything’s political.’

He didn’t argue that. He only asked me, ‘Why not history?’

‘Well, again, I’d rather read it for enjoyment. Teachers always knock the life out of the subject, somehow.’ Then remembering what he did for a living, I tried softening that statement with, ‘Not all teachers, naturally, but—’

‘No, it’s no use now, you’ve said it.’ Leaning back, he studied me with obvious amusement. ‘I’ll try not to take offence.’

‘I didn’t mean—’

‘You’ll only dig yourself in deeper,’ was his warning.

‘Anyway, I never finished university.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I finished my first novel first, and then it sold, and things just took off on their own after that. It bothers me sometimes that I didn’t get my degree, but on the other hand I really can’t complain,’ I said. ‘My writing has been good to me.’

‘Well, you’ve got talent.’

‘My reviews are mixed.’ Then I paused, because I realized what he’d said, and how he’d said it. ‘Why would you think I’ve got talent?’

I’d caught him. ‘I might have read one of your books this past week.’

‘Oh? Which one?’

He named the title. ‘I enjoyed it. You impressed me with the way you did your battle scenes.’

‘Well, thank you.’

‘And you obviously did a thorough job with all your research. Though I did think it was hard luck that the hero had to die.’

‘I know. I tried my best to make the ending happy, but that’s how it really happened, and I don’t like changing history.’ Fortunately, many of my readers had approved and had, according to their letters to me, wallowed in the tragic end, enjoying a good cry.

‘My mother would have loved your books,’ he said.

My hand still idle on the horse’s neck, I turned. ‘Has she been gone for long?’

‘She died when I was twenty-one.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Thank you. So am I. My dad’s been lost these fifteen years. He blames himself, I think.’

‘For what?’

‘She had a problem with her heart. He thinks he should have forced her to slow down.’ He smiled. ‘He might as well have tried to slow a whirlwind. She was always into everything, my mum.’

That must be where he got it from, his restlessness. He flipped the conversation back to me. ‘Are both your parents living?’