The Snakes Read online

  Before long she came to an opening in the thick foliage, and a path. If she followed it away from the river, keeping left, she was bound to find the road. She wrapped her cotton skirt round her legs, stepping carefully. There was toilet paper in shreds on the brambles and a faint smell of shit mixed with the trodden mud. Ahead of her was a gate, hanging open like an invitation, and beyond it a pasture. Bea went through the gate onto the thick, rich grass. There were flattened tyre-tracks and she followed the twin lines, feeling conspicuous in the empty field. The hotel must be less than a mile away.

  Reaching the brow of the hill, she saw below her a valley and a farm. Between her and the farmhouse was a vineyard and beyond it, on the opposite side, woods; the same woods that surrounded the hotel. The farmhouse below her was a low building of yellow stucco, with small windows. She could make out a chicken pen and some goats and a dozen or so white Bourgogne cows grazing. No fence separated the vineyard, it just began. The reddish earth was heaped and crumbling around the slender stems which went away in rows towards the house. She started down the hill, taking care, but her feet made prints on the soft soil. Her pale shoes were stained with red. If she saw the farmer she would apologise and ask directions. Her French was fluent, she could explain. She made a mental note to count the times her phone came into her mind and she wondered if she could manage being without one for all the time they were away.

  The windows of the house, like holes, were just as blank close up. The only movement was the small unthinking steps of the animals as they ate. She reached a barbed-wire fence. The posts looked new and the wire was thick and tightly strung. She demonstrated looking up and down it – in case anyone was watching – then stooped and climbed between the strands. Her skirt got caught and tore and she scratched the inside of her thigh. Bent double, she couldn’t see anything but the magnified twists of wire, and the grass, and she concentrated on getting through. When she was clear, the house seemed suddenly nearer. She couldn’t get round it without going into the goat pen, or crossing the enclosures with the chickens, which felt presumptuous. Animals lifted their heads. She could feel the thin cut on her thigh, stinging. The chickens’ eyes flicked as they pecked at the ground that was patterned with sticky cracks where water had dried. There were upturned plastic water buckets, a flattened hose and manure, and the fermented smell of silage. The cows grazed peacefully, like refugees from a pastoral canvas. She had no right to be there. She tiptoed past the silent farmhouse towards the road, which, she realised too late, was private. She stopped, paralysed by discomfort. The chickens jostled. The field shelters gaped, the earth bald at their openings. Two big, sandy-coloured rats came into the light. One loped away, marsupial-like, but the other paused, with a raised front leg, looking at Bea brightly. Cold seeped into her shoes. Something touched her foot, like a hair on the skin, and she looked down to see a spider. She was standing in a patch of water, green at the edges. She waited as the spider crossed the top of her foot, leg by leg, and climbed down to the safe ground. The smell rose up. She started towards the path again and then she heard the sound of voices, singing. She stopped and looked round. The valley bounced the faint song back and forth. Then the singing ended and there was quiet. The peeling painted walls of the house were behind her as the voices started again, singing in unison, quite soft and monotonous like a hive of bees. They were coming from the barn ahead of her. There was no other way to get to the road. Goats stared with marble eyes. The barn doors were closed. The singing continued. She couldn’t tell how many voices. She was, despite her discomfort, intrigued. Compelled, under cover of the sound, she approached the doors of the barn. Stealthy, creeping, she took a breath, held it, and put her eye to the gap between the shrunken boards. Adjusting to the dark she saw the backs of heads, gleaming hair, then, staring straight at her, a tall man with his arms outstretched and pale, naked skin shining. She almost screamed and nearly choked, and put her hand over her mouth. It wasn’t a man, but a full-size altarpiece. The voices stopped and the Christ’s wooden eyes stared at Bea. She turned and ran, and her feet slapped down on the hard stones of the track, the stagnant smell of the farmyard came up off her shoes, as she went faster and faster down the hill, which was much longer, much steeper than she’d thought.

  She reached the road and had to skid to a stop to avoid a car speeding by. It looked unnaturally fast and shiny, as if she’d crossed from one reality to another. She bent over with her hands on her knees, to catch her breath, adrenaline fizzing. She had trespassed. She couldn’t wait to tell Dan. She reached for her phone – and then began to laugh.

  Alex was in the garden pulling a petrol mower out of the barn. He was incredulous and amused.

  ‘I can’t believe you went round the Swiss-Germans’.’

  ‘The who?’ said Dan.

  Alex shook the mower, bending over it to listen. ‘The Swiss-Germans. German-Swiss. Whatever. Our neighbours.’

  ‘Why would they come here, if they were leaving Switzerland?’ asked Bea. ‘Why didn’t they go to Germany, if they’re German-Swiss?’

  ‘I don’t know, Bea.’ He went to fetch a petrol can from the barn. ‘I hardly see them. They’re a family. Or a cult.’

  ‘Cult,’ said Dan. ‘Got to be. Who converts their barn into a chapel?’

  ‘Right,’ said Alex. He knelt to unscrew the rusted cap on the mower tank. ‘Very weird.’

  ‘It wasn’t converted,’ said Bea, ‘they were just praying in it.’

  ‘Like you do,’ said Dan. ‘Just “praying in the barn”.’

  Alex laughed. He couldn’t undo the petrol cap. Unable to resist, Dan went to help him. They struggled with it. Alex fetched a rag and a spanner.

  ‘So I was thinking,’ Bea said to Dan, ‘what if we get rid of our phones?’

  ‘What?’ said Dan, not looking up. ‘What for?’

  ‘We rely on them.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘No,’ she said, ‘I mean too much.’

  ‘Babe, we need to make calls and look shit up.’

  The cap came loose and he removed it and Alex began to pour the petrol into the hole.

  ‘Do we really need them, though?’ said Bea, to his back.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, what if I got rid of mine?’ said Bea.

  ‘That’s nuts,’ said Dan. ‘What if we lose each other? What if we need to get in touch?’

  ‘I can get one that just makes calls and texts. They still make those don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, they’re made of wool, I think,’ said Alex.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Dan. ‘Like socks, with aerials.’

  He tightened the petrol cap and stood back for Alex to start it up.

  ‘Result!’ Alex shouted over the roar, and began cutting the grass.

  Dan turned to Bea and smiled.

  ‘This is more like it,’ he said. The sun was out. He had made something work. It was enough.

  There wasn’t anything else that needed doing, so they lay down on the grass by a flower bed. They held hands.

  ‘Holiday,’ said Dan, but his voice was drowned by the mower storming towards them through the tangled grass.

  ‘What?’ said Bea.

  He rolled over, his lips brushing her ear. ‘What?’ he whispered.

  She laughed. ‘What did you say?’ she whispered back.

  ‘Careful! I’ll mow you!’ shouted Alex, swerving jerkily around the tables.

  They lay in the sun holding hands until the insulating roar stopped, and there was quiet.

  ‘I’m bored and hungry now,’ said Alex, wiping his face on his arm. He went inside. ‘Don’t help me!’ he shouted, waving his arm above his head.

  Dan’s phone rang.

  ‘See?’ he said. ‘Phone.’

  He sat up to look and stopped smiling. ‘It’s Leanne.’

  Lying on her back Bea watched him.

  ‘Hey, Leanne, what’s happening? What?’ He got to his feet. ‘That’s no good … Really? When?’

  L
istening, Bea could piece together what had happened. Their PhD student tenant had not taken occupancy. Leanne was trying to get hold of her, but couldn’t. They had her deposit, but the flat was empty. Once Bea realised they had two of the three months’ rent, she almost laughed with relief, but Dan was pacing up and down, shaking his head. He ended the call and faced her.

  ‘That’s just so fucking typical,’ he said.

  ‘Well, it’s OK,’ said Bea. ‘We can still cover the mortgage.’

  ‘We’ve lost money,’ he said.

  ‘But that’s all we’ve lost.’

  ‘What do you mean, that’s all?’

  ‘It’s only fourteen hundred pounds,’ she said.

  ‘That’s the mortgage,’ said Dan.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘The mortgage and forty quid a week we were going to use.’

  ‘Forty-three. It’s not great.’

  ‘Not great?’ He was sarcastic.

  ‘We can still pay the third month,’ said Bea. ‘We can use the Cushion.’

  ‘The Fucking Cushion is paying for us to do this,’ said Dan.

  She resented having to talk about it when the sun was shining, and they had been having the first nice time since they’d arrived. She hated hearing the words they always said: the Cushion, the mortgage; she didn’t want to hear them, or the tone they used to say them. She knew it would be normal to feel anxious like Dan, but she couldn’t. To him money was freedom, to her it was a cage. Having less made her feel lighter.

  ‘So we’ll have a bit less to spend,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  He looked insulted. He shook his head at her.

  ‘Right. It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

  ‘I mean, I know it matters,’ said Bea, ‘but we can be careful.’

  ‘We’ve got less than three grand now.’ He was upset and scared. ‘Altogether. In the world. That’s all we’ve got, Bea. When we get back to London I need to find work, we can’t fall behind. We could lose the flat. Things were tight already, as it was.’

  ‘You were going to anyway. My job will cover us for a while. Don’t let it ruin our day,’ she said.

  ‘Day? Try everything.’

  ‘So we’ll have to miss out some of the things we planned. Maybe it’s better, we’ll have less choice.’

  ‘Less choice? How is that good? I chose to go to Rome, but now I’m not going to? I chose to see the Alhambra – this is our chance. After this – I don’t know, but we had this.’

  ‘We’ll go to Rome. We’ll do the sums. And Leanne will probably find us another tenant,’ said Bea. ‘Hey, we can Airbnb the flat. Why didn’t we even think of that?’

  He shook his head at her again. ‘From here?’

  ‘Leanne will help out. Dan, there’s no point going crazy over it –’

  ‘I’m sick of doing fucking sums,’ he said. ‘All right? I’m fucking sick of it. Every single fucking thing we do we count our pennies. What’s the point in coming away if we’re going to be sweating over every single fucking thing, like we always do?’

  ‘I know. It’s annoying.’

  Alex came out with a tray piled with plates, a baguette balanced diagonally across the top of it. He stopped when he saw the way they were standing, like boxers in a ring.

  ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘We’ve lost the tenant for our flat,’ said Bea.

  ‘Oh. Huh.’ He thought about it. ‘Is that the end of the world?’

  ‘No,’ said Bea.

  They ate leftover cheese with stale baguette and some fruit and cut-up cucumber.

  ‘The pâté looked a bit wrong,’ said Alex. ‘I binned it.’ He had brought wine but stuck to water, draining glass after glass. ‘I really don’t drink that much alcohol,’ he said.

  Bea drank water with him in solidarity. Dan got a beer from the fridge and ate lunch like a chore he had to get through, using the beer to wash it down, then got up from the table.

  ‘Listen, is it OK if I use the computer in reception? I need to try and sort things out and my laptop is shit.’

  ‘Whatever,’ said Alex. ‘Mi casa, etc.’

  Dan forced himself to smile. ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Airbnb?’ she called after him. ‘Do you want a hand?’ But he didn’t answer, just went in, tripping on the sill into the dining room and having to right himself, even more bad-tempered.

  Alex giggled.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Bea.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But he needs to chill.’

  ‘He’s worried.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  ‘I probably should be.’

  ‘It’s different for us,’ said Alex.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it is.’

  Together, they got up from the table, and lay down on the grass, she with her head in the shade of the table, because she was too fair for sun. He gazed up at the bubbling white clouds.

  ‘Is Dan really an artist?’ he said.

  She was offended. ‘He’s not an estate agent,’ she said.

  ‘What’s wrong with being an estate agent?’ said Alex.

  ‘Would you do it?’

  ‘Me? No, but I’m a brat.’

  ‘You’re not.’

  There was a long silence. The clouds moved slowly above.

  ‘Alex,’ she said carefully, ‘was it true, what you said about going to online meetings?’

  He gave her sidelong glance. ‘Why would I pretend to go to meetings?’

  ‘It has been known.’

  ‘Fair point. But I swear, Bea, the NA online community is like one big family.’

  ‘Alex –’

  ‘I log off before they get to that serenity prayer bullshit.’

  ‘But you’re drinking.’

  ‘Yeah but they don’t know that, do they?’

  She gave up.

  ‘All right,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry. It’s a webcam thing, like a poker table, yeah? And everyone talks about their various shit. On the wagon, off the wagon, down the toilet. Or you can do forums. I love a forum. I’m an expert at group.’

  ‘Yes, you are.’

  She knew all about his experiences in group and how much it helped him, once he got over his resistance.

  ‘Turns out I’m not any different to the rest of them,’ he’d said. ‘I’m so arrogant.’

  ‘You’re not arrogant,’ Bea had answered. ‘You felt left out.’

  She turned onto her tummy and rested her chin on the back of one hand, tugging the blades of grass, but not breaking them. If she looked close enough the blades went into darkness and she could see the white part, before they turned green, and the soil.

  ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer,’ said Alex.

  She looked up. The quotation was from a book of Simone Weil’s essays and letters that she had taken in to hospital for him, not that last time at the Priory, but the first, when she was still at university. She was twenty, he wasn’t thirty yet. She’d helped him check in, and gone every week from Cambridge to south-west London to visit, carrying books and cheap chocolate in a cotton bookshop bag. It had been summer. The bag would bump against her hip, the handles damp with sweat by the end of the journey. She used to cry on the coach on the way back to Cambridge, but never in front of him. They sat in his room, like a room in a Premier Inn, and talked. They talked about religion, travel and philosophy; her set texts, his desired enlightenment. They talked, but never about the thing they both knew best, their family. It was enough they had both been there.

  ‘Simone Weil is way classier than the serenity prayer,’ said Alex. ‘I mean, fuck sake, that’s some horrible writing. Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change?’

  ‘Niebuhr’s original starts with “God grant me”,’ she said, ‘and it has Jesus in it. And it’s a bit better written.’

  ‘No,’ said Alex. ‘Fuck God. And Fuck Jesus.’

  ‘Simone Weil was a Christian.’

  ‘Yes, I realise that,
she was practically a saint,’ said Alex, ‘but she wasn’t an arsehole.’

  ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer.’

  ‘Attention, taken to its highest degree, is the same thing as prayer. It’s bigger than addiction, and personal power. It’s losing the self through being present.’

  ‘It’s a beautiful idea,’ she said.

  ‘Since we’re on the subject of morality. I was thinking I might convert to Catholicism.’

  ‘No you weren’t.’

  ‘I’m living in La France!’ he said. ‘Why not? And it’s all in Latin, so you don’t notice the silliness. It’s ideal for me. Incense. Architecture. Absolution.’

  ‘On the other hand, you’re an atheist,’ said Bea. ‘Potential stumbling block?’

  ‘Well, yes – the Christian God. I mean, it’s bullshit, isn’t it?’

  She rolled over again onto her back, and risked the sun on her face. ‘Religion is a bit of a problem. But religion is a Western construct. God isn’t.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I’m an atheist,’ said Alex. ‘Atheism is a belief system in itself. And they’re such bullies. That Richard Dawkins doesn’t like Jesus because he wants his job. I refuse to be saved by anyone who thinks he has the answer.’

  The clouds, thickening, moved slowly, very close to the earth compared to the deep blue beyond.

  ‘I sometimes think the problem is the semantics,’ she said. ‘The moment we name the mystery “God”. Once we do that, we start thinking we know what He wants, and who He likes, and who is and isn’t acceptable, then we’re in trouble. Who am I to say what God is or isn’t?’