‘Yes,’ Harry finally answered, ‘I think I do love you. I mean, I know I do. It’s just that I’ve a lot on my mind. Is that what you mean? That I don’t show it enough? See, I don’t know what you want me to say. Or I haven’t the time to think of the right things to say.’
She clung to his arm, snuggled closer as they walked. ‘Oh, you don’t have to say anything. It’s just that I’d hate it to end . . .’
‘Why should it end?’
‘I don’t know, but I worry about it. We don’t seem to be getting anywhere. My parents worry, too . . .’
‘Oh,’ he said, glumly nodding. ‘Marriage, you mean?’
‘No, not really,’ she sighed again. ‘I know how you feel about that: not yet, you keep saying. And: we’re too young. I agree with you. I think my mother and father do, too. I know you like to be on your own a lot; and you’re right: we are too young!’
‘You keep saying that,’ he said, ‘but still we end up going round in circles.’
She looked downcast. ‘It’s just that . . . well, the way you are, I never know what’s what. If only you’d tell me what it is that preoccupies you so. I know there’s something, but you won’t say.’
He looked about to say something, changed his mind. Brenda held her breath, let it go when it became apparent he’d backed off. She tried elimination.
‘I know it’s not your writing, because you were like this long before you started to write. In fact, as long as I’ve known you. If only – ‘
‘Brenda!’ he stopped, grabbed her in his arms, dragged
her to a halt. He seemed breathless, unable to speak, to say what he wanted to say. It frightened her.
‘Yes, Harry? What is it?’
He gulped, drew breath, started to walk again. She caught up with him, grabbed his hand. ‘Harry?’
He wouldn’t look at her, but he said:
‘Brenda, I… I want to talk to you.’
‘But I want you to!’ she said.
Again he stopped walking, drew her into an embrace, stared out to sea over her shoulder. ‘It’s a queer subject, that’s all . . .’
She took the initiative, broke away, led him by the hand along the beach. ‘Right. We walk, you talk, I listen. Queer subject? I don’t mind. There, I’ve done my bit. Your turn.’
He nodded, glanced at her out of the corner of his eye, coughed to clear his throat and said: ‘Brenda, have you ever wondered what people think about when they’re dead? I mean, what their thoughts are when they lie there in their graves.’
She felt goose-flesh come up on her neck and at the top of her spine. Even with the sun hot on her, the utterly emotionless tone of his voice coupled with what he had said chilled her to the marrow. ‘Have I ever wondered – ?’
‘I said it was a queer subject,’ he hurriedly reminded her.
She didn’t know what to say to him, how to answer him. She gave an involuntary shudder. He couldn’t be serious, could he? Or was this something he was working on? That must be it: it was a story he was writing!
Brenda was disappointed. A story, that’s all. On the other hand, perhaps she had been wrong to neglect his writing as the source of his moodiness. Maybe he was that way because there was no one to talk to. Everyone knew that he was precocious; his writing was brilliant, the work of a mature man. Was that it? Was it simply that he had too much bottled up inside, and no way to let it out?
‘Harry,’ she said, ‘you should have told me it was your writing!’
‘My writing?’ his eyebrows went up.
‘A story,’ she said. That’s what it is, isn’t it?’
He began to shake his head, then changed it to a nod. And smiling, he nodded more rapidly. ‘You guessed it,’ he said. ‘A story. But a weird one. I’m having difficulty pulling it together. If I could talk about it – ‘