“Make whatever pleases you,” she said. “Why’s it so important that you have an explanation for everything? I told you: things are different here.”
She caught hold of his hand, and they stopped walking. There were insects in the grass all around them, making music; overhead, the stars were coming out, their patterns as familiar as the din of cicadas; and tonight, as strange. His doubts were contagious. The fact that he didn’t understand how it was possible this woman could have lived the life she claimed to have lived spread confusion into every other sign the world brought him. What was he doing here, in between the music in the grass and the brightening stars? He suddenly seemed to understand nothing. His face throbbed, and his eyes stung.
“It’s all right,” she said softly. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
“I’m not afraid,” he said.
It was the truth, in a way. What he felt was not fear, it was something far more distressing. He felt lost, cast off from every certainty.
But then he looked at her face, at her perfect face, and he felt a calm come over him. So what if he was adrift? So were they both. And wasn’t it better to be with her, sharing her gentle madness, than to be alone in this unforgiving world?
He leaned towards her, and kissed her on the lips. Nothing overtly sexual; just a tender kiss.
“What was that for?” she asked him, smiling.
“For being here.”
“Even though you think I’m a lunatic?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, but you think it. Don’t you? You think I’m living in a fantasy land.”
“I’m taking your advice,” he replied. “I’m making whatever I like of it. And I like being here, right now, with you. So the rest can go to hell.”
“The rest?”
“Out there,” he said, waving his arm in the general direction of the city. “The people who used to run my life.”
“To hell with them?”
“To hell with them!”
Katya laughed. “I like that,” she said, returning his kiss in the midst of their laughter.
“Where now?” he said.
“Down to the pool?” she replied.
“You know the way?”
“Trust me,” she said, kissing him again. This time he didn’t let her escape so lightly, but returned her kiss with some force. His hand slipped up into her hair and made a cradle for her head. She put her arms around his waist, pressing so hard against him it was as though she wanted to climb inside his skin.
When they broke the kiss they gazed at one another for a little time.
“I thought we were going walking,” he said.
“So we were,” she said, taking his hand again. “The pool, yes?”
“Do you want to go back to the house?”
“Plenty of time for that later,” she said. “Let’s go down to the pool while there’s still some light.”
So they continued their descent, hand in hand. They said nothing now. There was no need.
Across the other side of the Canyon, a lone coyote began to yap; his voice was answered by another higher up on the ridge behind them, then another two in the same vicinity, and now another, and another, until the entire Canyon was filled with their glorious din.
When Todd and Katya reached the lawn there was a small, scrawny coyote loping across it, giving them a guilty backward glance as he disappeared into the undergrowth. As he vanished from sight, the pack ceased its din. There were a few moments of silence. Then the insects took up their music again.
“It’s sad, the way things have declined.” Katya said, looking at the sight before them. The starlight was forgiving, but it couldn’t conceal the general condition of the place: the statues missing limbs, or toppled over and buried in vines; the pavement around the pool cracked and mossy, the pool itself stained and stinking.
“What’s that?” Todd said, pointing out the one-story mock-classical structure half-hidden by the cypresses around the pool.
“That’s the Pool House. I haven’t been in there in a very long time.”
“I want to see it.”
It was a larger building than it had appeared from the front, and uncannily bright. There were several skylights in the ceiling, which ushered in the brightness of moon and stars, their light bouncing off the silky marble floor. In the centre stood a cocktail bar with mirrors of marbled glass behind the glass shelves. After all these years there were dozens of bottles on the shelves — brandies, whiskies and liqueurs.