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Authors: Peter Cameron

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“I'm her sister,” said Caroline.

“We heard she died,” said the woman. “I'm sorry.”

“Thank you,” said Caroline, not knowing what else to say. “Where have you been?” She nodded at their programs.

“Oh,” said the woman. “The ballet.”

“How was it?” asked Caroline.

“It was lovely,” said the woman.

The elevator stopped. The other woman pushed open the door. “Good night,” she said.

“Good night,” said Caroline.

In the apartment she let Hugo off the leash. He trotted into the living room and lay down on the rug. Caroline got ready for bed.
She went into the living room and turned out the lights. “Good night, Hugo,” she said. He looked up at her.

She closed the bedroom door and got into bed. After a moment she heard him whining at the door. Then he scratched at it. She got out of bed and opened it. “What?” she said. “What do you want?”

He looked up at her.

She got back into bed but left the door open. She was almost asleep when she felt him jump up onto the bed. He turned around a few times and then settled himself at her feet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

It was June, the penultimate day of school before the winter recess. Portia got on the bus and sat near the front, beside Ana Luz, but she heard her name being called from the back of the bus. She turned around and knelt on the seat.

He was sitting alone on the last seat; none of the girls had sat beside him. He was smiling, but he looked very silly sitting there, on the school bus, and for a moment she wondered if she could pretend not to know him.

Ana Luz had also turned about. “Who is that?” she asked.

“The man who came to write the book,” said Portia. “The one who fell out of the tree.”

“What does he want?” asked Ana Luz.

“I don't know,” said Portia. “I'll go see. Save my seat.”

She walked down the aisle. Giselle and Claudia and Seraphina and Teresa, sixth-formers who usually sat in the last seat and smoked cigarettes, were sitting in the second to last row, having been displaced by Omar. They glared at her as she approached. Only girls in the upper school satâor even approachedâthe back
of the bus. But Portia walked proudly past them; something about being allied with the mysterious stranger empowered her. She sat down beside Omar.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Taking the bus to Ochos Rios,” said Omar.

“I know,” said Portia. “But why?”

Omar did not answer. The bus started. Teresa turned around and looked at them.

“You can go back with your friend,” said Omar. “I just wanted to say hello.”

“Are you staying with us again?” asked Portia.

“I'm not sure,” said Omar.

“Does my mother know you're coming?”

“No,” said Omar.

Portia looked at him. He looked different from how she remembered him, but she could not see how.

“How is everyone?” he asked.

“Caroline's gone away,” said Portia. “And Pete too.”

“Where have they gone?”

“Caroline moved to New York City. Pete is in Montevideo. He's opening a store there. Instead of selling his furniture to the American lady, he is selling it himself. He comes back, sometimes, when he is looking for new things.”

“And Adam?”

“He's still there.”

“And your mother?”

“Of course she is still there. I found your shoe, you know. The one you lost when the bee stung you. I found it when we cut the grass in the meadow. It had ants in it. I kept it, although my mother told me to throw it away. She said it was ruined.”

Omar said hello to Teresa, who was still watching them. She turned around.

“I forgot I lost my shoes,” said Omar.

“Just one,” said Portia. “We took them off because your feet were swelling up, and you kicked one, far away. We couldn't find it. You look better now. You're not swollen at all.”

“Yes,” said Omar. “I'm all better.”

“We have a medicine now. In case someone else gets stung like you. A needle. We keep it in the refrigerator. You stick it in your bum.” She paused for a moment and then said, “Why have you come back?”

“Because I wanted to,” said Omar.

The bus left them off at the gates. They walked up the long drive and into the front hall. “Wait here,” said Portia. “I'll go find my mother.” She disappeared through the door to the kitchen.

Omar stood in the hall. The large round table, which he always remembered as having flowers on it, had none: just some stacks of mail and magazines and papers. And dust: it needed to be dusted. He walked around the table and looked out through the French doors at the courtyard. The table they had eaten at was covered by an ugly black tarpaulin. It is winter here, he thought, and less lovely: the black shroud, the dead leaves skating over the cobbles. The sky had clouded over, thick, dark clouds he did not associate with the place. It looked as if it would rain.

He heard the door open above him on the gallery at the top of the curved stairs, and then he heard Arden say, “Portia?”

He knew he should step forward so she could see him, but he could not. He felt suddenly panicked, for he had done it all very quickly, without thinking: using his credit card to buy the ticket, packing the little bag, leaving the same afternoon Yvonne returned. He had told no one what he was doing, where he was going, he had just thoughtâfor of course he had been thinking, but it was a different kind of thinking, a thinking that came from somewhere else inside himâ
go there go there go there
, and as long as he was in motion
it had seemed right, it had seemed inevitable, and he thought: Do not think until you get there, it will all become clear when you are there, but now he was there, he could go no farther unless he opened the French doors and fled, but he could not open the doors, he could not think, he could not move, he had gone as far as he could go and all he could do was stand there and listen to Arden descend the stairs.

He heard her stop. It seemed very long, the moment, or perhaps it did not seem long, it was a weird moment drained somehow of time and it was the quiet that finally made him turn around. Arden was on the first landing of the stairs, in the far corner of the hall, looking down at him, both hands on the banister. He was shocked by how beautiful she was. For a second he thought: She knew I was coming and has made herself beautiful, but then he realized that was absurd. Perhaps it was how she was standing on the stairs, like a woman in a painting, but her beauty shocked him. Or perhaps it was simply her presence. He had thought he would never see her again, even coming here did not guarantee it: she could have left, like Caroline, like Pete. She could have died.

“Omar?” she said.

He nodded, but stayed standing where he was.

So did she. “I thought it was Portia â¦” she said, vaguely.

“It was,” he said. “It is. She's gone to look for you. In the kitchen.”

“I was upstairsâ” She gestured. Then she shook her head. “I don't understand,” she said. “How did you get here? What are you doing here? I thoughtâwe got your letter, I thought it was all over â¦”

“It is,” he said. “The book, I mean.”

“So why?âso whatâwhat brings you here?”

“I needed to ask you something,” said Omar.

“Ask me something? You came all this way to ask me something?”

“Yes,” he said. He moved toward her but the door to the kitchen opened and Portia said, “She's not back there. She must be upstairs.”

“I'm here,” said Arden. She came the rest of the way down the stairs.

“Omar came on the school bus with me,” said Portia.

“I see,” said Arden.

“May I have my snack?”

“Yes,” said Arden. “Why don't youâget it yourself, darling. Have a pear and a biscuit if you like.”

“There are no pears,” said Portia.

“Have a banana, then. Or an apple.”

Portia stood there.

“Go,” said Arden. “Get your snack.”

Portia returned to the kitchen.

“I don't understand why you're here,” said Arden. “Is something wrong?”

“No,” said Omar.

“Then why have you come?”

“I told you,” said Omar. “I need to ask you something.”

“What?” said Arden.

Omar could not speak.

Arden moved toward him; they were standing on opposite sides of the round table. “What?” she asked again, impatiently, almost fiercely.

It was all happening too quickly, he had not expected it to happen so fast. He did not know what he had expected they would do but he had thought it would be days before they got to this point. He had thought she would know why he had come, and so there would be no need to talk about it until it became clear somehow, acknowledged, and then they would talk about it, almost in retrospect. She was looking at him fiercely and he realized the extent of his foolishness.

But he had come this far and he could not go back. That is why he had come, why he had done it this way, it was all about being thereâbeing here. Here. He touched the table in front of him. He ducked his head but he looked over at her again and her fierce look had faded, her face had softened somewhat; it was slack with curiosity and patience. It had begun to rain: behind her, he could see it through the windows, falling.

He said nothing for a moment. He glanced down at the table, and then he looked over at her, but she was staring at the table. He said to her lowered face: “I think I kissed you because I love you.”

She looked at him. “Do you?” she asked, and then she amended: “Did you? Think that?”

“Yes,” he said.

“Ah,” she said.

“Why,” he asked, “why did you kiss me?”

She shook her head. Her face was flushed and she lowered it again, diverted her gaze. “I don't know,” she said. “It was all very confusing, the book and you and everything.”

“But you didn't love me?”

She looked at him with eyes that were half mean, half sorrowful. “I thought perhaps I did,” she said.

“But then why, afterward, did you tell me you didn't?”

“BecauseâOh, Omar, you don't understand. It isn't that simple, that easy. It isn't even about that, really. There's the past. Andâyou can't do this.” Her fierceness rebloomed, suddenly, across her face. “Will you go on like this? Appearing here, intermittently, in these fantastic ways? I think you should not have come like this. I think you should leave, Omar.”

“You don't understand,” said Omar.

“What don't I understand?”

“Perhaps I have done it all wrong,” said Omar. “I am sure I have done it all wrong. I'm sorry to have done it wrong. I wish I could have done it right. If there was anything I could give you it
would be to do it right, but I don't know how to do things the right way, the way people are supposed to do things, butâdoes that mean I should do nothing?”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” said Arden. “You appear here, out of the blueâ”

“I'm talking about I love you!” said Omar. “I'm talking about I fell in love with you. And I thought, I thought I felt, I thought I rememberedâalthough it's vague, perhaps I'm wrongâI thought I felt that you loved me. Not only when we kissed. Of course then, but not only then. The whole time. Every moment. Every moment.”

After a moment he said it again: “Every moment.”

Arden sat on the bench beside the door. She leaned forward and closed her eyes. She sat like that for a long time. It was very quiet and they could both hear the rain falling. Then she abruptly stood up. “I'm sorry,” she said. She was speaking loudly, as if speaking loudly could keep her from crying. “But I don't love you. And you're right: it was wrong of you to come like this. To just appear, without phoning or even writing. I'm sorry, but it is wrong. You should never have come like this. You must go.”

Omar said nothing. He stood there. He could not think what to say. He knew he must be very careful and say the right thing. He must not say the wrong thing. Not now, of all times. After a moment he said, “I love you.”

Arden shook her head. “Go,” she moaned. “Please, just go.”

Omar picked up his bag, which he had left on the floor. He paused a moment inside the door, but Arden did not move: she stood there ashen, immobile. She was looking past him, out through the French doors, at the rain falling on the shrouded table.

Omar opened the door and stepped out into the rain.

Arden did not know how long she stood there in the hall. Presently the door to the kitchen opened and Portia reappeared. “What's happening?” she asked. “Why are you crying?”

Arden wiped her face with her hands. She shook her head. “Did you finish your snack?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Portia.

They stood there a moment, stupidly, silently.

Portia said: “Where is Omar?”

“He's gone,” said Arden.

“But I wanted to give him his shoe.”

“What shoe?”

“His shoe! The one I found in the meadow. I saved it for him! I told him!”

“It's just one shoe,” said Arden. “He doesn't need one shoe.”

Portia said nothing. Then she said, “You were crying.”

“Yes,” said Arden.

“Why?”