The Path Along the Sea

1

Nora had the measure of the place before they did. While the movers carried boxes through the open door, she circled the fence twice, pushed her nose under every bush and found the spot where the ocean showed between the pines. Then she drank from her bowl on the terrace and lay down across the doorway to the living room, as if the house now had to be guarded from the movers as well.

“She’ll be happy here,” Daniel said.

Laura was sitting on the terrace step with a hand under her belly. She was a little over a month from her due date, and since the move her lower back had ached more than usual, although she had carried almost nothing.

“She will,” she said. “What about us?”

“Us too. I’ll see to that.” He watched the dog streak off towards the pines. “And we don’t have to walk her every morning now. Let her run.”

Daniel had found the house in the spring, when they had all but settled on a flat closer to Lisbon. He sent her the listing straight from the airport and two days later had arranged a viewing. The white two-storey house stood at the edge of a village west of Cascais; the neighbours began beyond stone walls and thickets, and you needed the car to reach the nearest supermarket. Daniel liked both.

Laura learned the house was theirs from a photo of the signed lease. She had meant to reply that she was still thinking, and realised there was nothing left to think about. Before the pregnancy she had worked as a conference interpreter: French, English, Portuguese. Her last contract ended in March. She took no new ones: Daniel had worked out that after the birth there would be no time, and he had worked it out correctly.

On the ocean side the garden ended in a low stone wall with a metal gate. Beyond it ran a public path along the edge of the plateau, coming right up to the cliff in places and then ducking back into the scrub. Higher up the slope stood another house, of which you could see from their terrace only the upper floor and part of the roof. In the evenings one window lit up there.

That first week Daniel fitted out the house as though he had to hand it over to a client. He had the alarm checked, changed the lock on the side gate although the old one worked perfectly well, and put a closer on the door from the garage. In the utility room he hung up a plan of the house he had found among the previous owner’s papers, labelled every breaker in the fuse box, and mounted a torch beside it in a plastic holder.

“You bought a torch just for the fuse box?” Laura asked.

“Well, what else? The power goes, and then what, you look for a torch in the dark?”

“Your father had one exactly like it.”

“Did he?” He thought about it. “Well, then he was right about something at least.”

Daniel’s father had known the correct order for everything. You did not go into the garage barefoot, the car was parked nose to the gate, the bread knife cut only bread. To the question “why” there was one answer: because that’s how it’s done. Nothing ever happened in his father’s house: nothing burned, nothing leaked, nobody cut themselves on the bread knife. Daniel grew up certain that the rules were the reason, left home, and began to say “it’s easier this way”. Unlike his father, he always explained what he asked for, and Laura usually agreed, because the explanations were sensible.

With Nora things were simpler still. He had taken her from a shelter two years before he met Laura. By then the year-and-a-half-old shepherd had been through two owners; the last had returned her after a week: too big, too loud, too much time. Daniel had come to look at another dog, and Nora sat by the wire and said nothing. The woman at the shelter told him they were going to put her down and listed the reasons already written on her card. Daniel took Nora home that same day. Since then she had kept close to him, and she obeyed quickly, though sometimes she looked into his face first.

“See?” Daniel would say. “She’s thinking.”

Laura first went out on the path four days after the move, when Daniel had driven into town. She meant to walk for ten minutes, as the doctor had advised. It was a clear day, the path was smoother than it looked from the terrace, and it rounded the outcrops of rock in such easy curves that each bend revealed one more short stretch which it seemed only natural to walk. Then the next. She stopped only where the bushes parted and she could see several kilometres of coast. She turned round. She could still pick out the white wall of their house, but the terrace had already merged with the neighbouring roofs. Her phone said she had been walking for twenty-seven minutes.

“I told you distances are deceptive out there,” Daniel said that evening.

“Have you walked it?”

“Once, when I came to see the place.” He handed her a bottle of water. “Take your phone next time.”

“I did. Eighty-two per cent, if you’re about to ask about the battery.”

“I was just going to,” he admitted, and kissed her temple.

Five weeks later they came home from the maternity hospital. Nora met the car at the gate, whining and trying to look inside, but when Laura got out with the baby in her arms she froze and only stretched out her neck, drawing in the air.

“Let her sniff,” Laura said.

“Later,” said Daniel. “Nora, back.”

On the third day he brought a tape measure in from the garage. Laura thought at first he meant to measure for furniture, but Daniel hooked the tape over a leg of the cot, ran it out across the floor and at the two-metre mark stuck down a strip of blue masking tape.

“Who’s this for?” Laura asked.

“For us. So it’s clear.”

“And for Nora?”

“Nora doesn’t need metres. She needs a boundary.” He called the dog, pointed at the cot and moved her back until she stood at the strip. “Place.”

Nora lay down.

“Dan, she doesn’t even touch him.”

“I know. I trust her, but not enough to find out what happens when he pulls her ear. It’s easier to teach her now than in six months.”

By evening the blue strip had come away from the warm stone, and Laura threw it out when she found it under the table. Nora no longer needed it: she lay down of her own accord about two metres from the baby, and if she wanted to come closer, she looked at Daniel first.

2

After a few weeks Daniel stopped checking where Nora was. The rule worked: the dog kept away from the cot, did not push her muzzle under Laura’s hand while she was feeding, and when the baby was carried from room to room she followed and stopped at a distance. Only now she brought Daniel her ball precisely when he picked up his son. He sent her to her place, and the next time she came with the ball a little earlier, as soon as he reached for the cot. He sent her again. If he did not react at all, she took the ball out to the terrace and lay there with her back to the house.

On Saturday after lunch Daniel was washing the car by the garage. The baby was asleep in the pram on the terrace, and Laura sat beside him with a cup of coffee. Nora was the first to hear someone on the path, and she shot off so suddenly that her hind legs skidded on the stone.

“Nora!” Daniel shouted from behind the car. The barking went on.

Laura reached the bottom wall first. At the gate stood a grey-haired man in an old jacket, and beside him a grey dog with a dark muzzle. A lead hung coiled over the man’s shoulder, and the dog stood free of it. Laura noticed that at once, because she did not like keeping Nora on the lead either. Daniel believed discipline began with the lead, and whenever she came back from a walk with the lead in her pocket he looked at her as if she had forgotten to lock the door.

Nora was racing up and down along the wall. The man did not step back, nor did he try to calm her. He stood and watched her with interest.

“All right,” he said, in the ordinary voice you use to a neighbour over a fence. “You’ve seen me. I’ve seen you. No need to keep shouting.”

Nora barked a couple more times, now just for form’s sake. Then he put his hand between the bars of the gate, palm down, and left it there. Laura had time to be frightened. Nora came up, sniffed his fingers, his wrist, his sleeve, and suddenly began to wag her tail, slowly and widely, the way she wagged it only for Daniel.

“Nora. Come.”

Daniel was crossing the lawn, wiping his hands on his jeans. Nora looked round and reluctantly moved away.

“Good afternoon,” the man said, and calmly withdrew his hand. “Sorry, I didn’t ask.”

“She can bite strangers.”

“Then I was lucky. I’m Martin, I live further up the slope.” He nodded at the hill. “And this is Finn. He’s nine, and these days he prefers others to do the running for him.”

“Daniel. Laura.”

They did not shake hands through the gate. Martin glanced at the pram on the terrace and congratulated them without further questions. Then he asked how old Nora was.

“Nearly five.”

“She looks younger. If you like, we could let them run together some time. There’s a big empty plot further along the path, no cars.”

“Not now,” Daniel said. “We’ve only just had the baby, she’s still getting used to it.”

“I understand.”

Martin said goodbye and walked on. Finn trotted beside him, neither lagging nor running ahead. Nora set off along the wall after them, and Daniel let her go a few steps before he called her. She stopped, looked after them, and came back. Daniel told her to sit, lie down and sit again. Nora did everything.

“What was that for?” Laura asked.

“So she knows what to do when strangers are around. When a dog knows what to do, she’s calmer. So are we.” He stroked the dog and went back to the car. “Did you see how he stuck his hand in? I wouldn’t have.”

“She didn’t bite him.”

“This time.” Daniel wrung out the sponge. “And where does he live? Up there?”

“That house, I suppose.” Laura pointed at the roof above the pines. “Up at the villa.”

“Up at the villa?” he repeated.

“What?”

“Nothing. Sounds like the title of a novel.”

The baby cried on the terrace. Laura went to the pram, and Nora started after her but stopped at the edge of the terrace by herself, though nobody had said anything to her.

Two days later Laura saw Martin again, from the kitchen, through the glass door. He was walking back along the path, Finn plodding beside him. Nora ran to the gate, gave one short bark and fell silent. Martin bent towards her, said something, and Nora wagged her tail.

In the evening Daniel asked whether anyone had come along the path.

“People walked by,” Laura said.

“Did Nora bark?”

“Hardly.”

“So she’s getting used to it.” He opened the fridge.

Laura looked out of the window. Up on the hill the light was already on.

3

In the mornings Daniel took the baby after the first feed and walked about the living room with him, listening to the news in one earbud, and Laura had time to shower and sometimes to lie down again for half an hour. Nora now brought her ball in advance and put it by Daniel’s chair while his hands were still free. Once he threw it through the open door, but Nora came back too quickly: Daniel was already holding his son, and the ball landed on his shoe.

“Not now. Place.”

Nora looked at the ball, then at him, and went out to the terrace.

“You used to play with her in the mornings,” Laura said from the kitchen.

“I used to have both hands free in the mornings,” he answered, and kissed his son on the top of the head.

Daniel had more work after the baby was born, or else Laura had simply begun to notice each trip. He sold expensive things to people who had no intention of buying anything until they had talked to him. Sometimes a video call was enough, sometimes it took a dinner in another city. He was paid, Daniel liked to say, for results and not for hours, from which it followed that nobody counted the hours. Next month he had Madrid, Paris and Dubai.

“Is Dubai a long one?”

“Three nights. Well, four days, with the travel.”

“Four days.”

“I know. Listen, I could come back on the night flight on Thursday and stay home on Friday. In the study,” he added before she could, and put his arms round her. “I know it’s hard for you. If it gets really bad, I’ll cancel.”

Laura knew he really would cancel, and that was exactly why she did not want to say it had got really bad.

When the baby began to lie awake for longer, Laura spread a thick cotton blanket for him on the living-room floor. At first Nora went round it; later she began leaving her rope ball at its edge. On the day it happened Daniel was away. Laura was feeding the baby on the sofa and stroking the dog with her free hand; Nora sat beside her, leaning a shoulder against her leg. The baby let go of the breast and cried, Laura took her hand away, and Nora at once pushed her muzzle under her palm. Then again, harder. The baby was screaming louder and louder, the dog turned her head towards him, and Laura heard a short low sound. At first she thought Nora had sighed. Then the sound came again.

“Out.”

Nora didn’t move, and Laura said it again:

“Out, Nora.”

She put her out on the terrace and shut the glass door. When the baby had calmed down and she opened it, Nora walked through the living room without looking at her and lay down in the hall.

That evening Daniel stopped slicing tomatoes as soon as she began to tell him.

“She growled? At him?”

“I don’t know at whom. He was crying, I took my hand away…”

“But she was looking at him.”

“Yes.”

“That’s exactly why I made the rule,” Daniel said, and put down the knife.

“Maybe.”

“What do you mean, maybe, Laura? She’s never growled at you. Or at me.”

He called Nora, crouched in front of her and took her head in his hands.

“We don’t touch the baby. Understood?”

“She doesn’t know the word ‘baby’.”

“She knows the tone.” He let the dog go and went back to the tomatoes. “And don’t leave her alone with him. Even when he’s asleep.”

“Dan, I don’t.”

“Good.”

A week later the doctor said she could walk further. At first Laura went along the road between the villas, where the pram was easier, but cars sped past faster than she liked and there was hardly any shade. So she tried the path. For the first two hundred metres the wheels stuck between stones; after that the ground grew firmer. Nora ran beside her off the lead and came back whenever Laura called.

She had meant to go only as far as the place where a long stretch of shore came into view, but the baby was asleep, there was hardly any wind, and the next bend was very close. Beyond it the path climbed, she had to push the pram with both hands, and at the top the house on the hill appeared. From this side it looked different from how it looked from their terrace: grey stone, large windows, a low roof, two old pines and a swimming pool between them. Laura straightened the blanket and looked at the windows. There was no one there.

She got home two hours later.

“Don’t go far on your own,” Daniel said that evening. “Break a wheel and you’ll have fun dragging it back.”

“I had my phone.”

“A phone won’t fix a pram.” He looked at her. “I’m not stopping you from walking. Just think about where you’re going.”

The next day Laura took the road. The day after that she chose the path again, but did not go as far as the house on the hill.

4

On Saturday Daniel wrote from Dubai that the meeting was running late and he would call later. Laura sent him a photo of their son, and a couple of minutes later the message showed as read. Towards evening the wind got up and they had to close the doors to the terrace. The baby fell asleep around nine.

Laura was putting a cup in the sink when she heard water. The tap was off; the sound came from below. She opened the cupboard and saw a puddle already standing on its floor and a thin jet spurting from the metal braiding of a hose. The little valve on the pipe would not budge even through a tea towel, and when she leaned on it harder the jet only grew stronger.

Daniel did not answer the first call or the second. The management company’s emergency line replied with a recording in Portuguese, from which Laura, after listening twice, understood only that at weekends you should leave a number. Meanwhile the water had crept from the kitchen into the living room and was moving in a thin sheet towards the glass doors. Laura wrote to Daniel, “We’ve got a leak. Where’s the main tap?” and went to the utility room, to the plan he had hung up in the first week. The electrics were neatly labelled, every breaker. There was no water on the plan.

Upstairs her son began to cry. Laura stood in the middle of the kitchen for a moment, then wrapped him in a blanket, laid him in the pram, shut Nora in the house and went out through the side gate onto the path.

In the dark the climb to the house on the hill seemed shorter than by day. A lamp was burning at the gate. At the second ring a light came on in the house, and Martin opened the gate himself, in an old grey shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

“I’ve got water coming in,” Laura said. “I can’t turn it off.”

“Where?”

“Under the sink. The hose, I think.”

“Wait a minute.”

He came back with a small metal toolbox and a jacket over his arm and went with her, leaving the gate open. Finn came out onto the porch, watched them go and stayed in the yard, as though he had been put in charge of it. On the way Martin asked nothing. On the downhill stretch the front wheel jammed between stones; without a word he took the pram’s handle, pulled it free and let go at once.

Nora met them at the gate, barked once at the stranger and fell silent when he said “hello” to her. In the living room the water had already reached the rug. Martin looked under the sink and asked where the main tap was. Laura didn’t know. So he went out to the front gate, shone his phone into a low cabinet in the wall beside the letterbox, checked the number against the plate and turned one of the two valves. The house went quiet.

“I didn’t even know it was there,” Laura said.

“Now you do.”

Martin took off his watch, laid it on the kitchen island and, holding on to the edge of the worktop, lowered himself onto his knees in the puddle in front of the cupboard. His trousers darkened at once at the knees. He ran his fingers along the wet hose.

“The braiding’s split by the nut. If we blank this line off you’ll have water in the house, just no cold water from the kitchen tap until Monday.”

“I don’t care.”

“Good answer.”

In his box every tool lay in its own place. Martin chose two spanners, unscrewed the hose, found a brass blanking cap and wound white tape round the thread. He worked slowly, but made no wasted movement, and Laura caught herself watching his hands: broad palms, short nails, an old white scar on the index finger.

“Where do you get all this from?”

“Leftovers.”

“Of what?”

“Of life,” he said seriously, and then smiled. “Every house has something left over from the last repair.”

When the water was back on and the joint stayed dry, he took hold of the edge of the worktop with both hands and got up. First onto one knee, then all the way, and he stood a second longer leaning on the stone, as though he were studying the cap.

“That’ll hold till Monday. Then buy a new hose; better buy two, the other one’s the same age.”

They drove the water out of the living room together: Laura gathering it with towels by the kitchen, Martin pushing it with a rubber squeegee towards the open terrace. They hung the wet edge of the rug over two chairs.

“I don’t know how to thank you,” Laura said. “You came out in the middle of the night at the weekend and crawled about under my sink.”

“It gave me something to do.” He put his watch back on. “I’m genuinely glad to have been useful.”

The baby stirred in the pram. Laura picked him up, and Nora, who had started to come closer, stopped by herself about two metres away. Martin looked at the dog, then at Laura, but said nothing.

At the door he took hold of the handle and let go of it again.

“May I ask you one thing? Don’t tell your husband it was me.”

“Why?”

“I had the feeling he didn’t like me talking to your dog that time. Perhaps I was wrong.”

“He didn’t say anything like that.”

“Then all the more reason not to. Otherwise you’ll have a conversation tonight that you could do without.”

“He doesn’t forbid me to talk to the neighbours.”

“I didn’t say he did.” Martin opened the door. “Good night, Laura.”

“All right,” she said to his back. “I won’t tell him.”

He nodded without turning round and went off along the path to his house, where an open gate and Finn were waiting for him.

Two messages from Daniel hung on her phone screen: “Just got free” and “Everything OK?” The truth would have meant a conversation about why there was no water on the plan, and she had no strength for that conversation. Laura replied: “Yes. Everything’s OK now.” He called at once.

“Are you all right? Where did you find the tap?”

“By the gate, next to the meter.”

“Oh, right. I did show you, didn’t I?”

“Maybe. I don’t remember.”

“Never mind. And the hose?”

Laura opened the cupboard. A brass cap gleamed on the pipe.

“I’ve blanked off the line for now. I’ll get a plumber on Monday.”

“On your own?” The pause was short. “Well done.”

He told her where best to order a hose, asked her to check the joint in the morning, and asked about their son. When the call was over, Laura looked once more at her message, “Everything’s OK now”, and wiped the worktop. The room smelled of the sea.

5

In the morning Laura checked the cap before she put the kettle on, and again half an hour later. The tissue stayed dry. By lunchtime the sun had come out, the wind had dried the stone floor, and apart from the rug on the terrace almost nothing was left of the evening before. On Monday the plumber came, replaced both hoses and said the valve under the sink had long been seized.

“Know where the main tap is?”

“I do now.”

Daniel came back in the evening. Nora heard the car first, and when he came in she reared up on him with her front paws. He pushed her off with his knee, put down his suitcase and laughed all the same. He kissed Laura, then his son, sat down on the floor and scratched the dog behind the ears for a long time.

Over dinner he asked how bad the flooding had been.

“It got as far as the rug.”

“The Persian? Damn.” He went out to the terrace, felt the edge, sniffed it. “Lucky. And what did you blank the line off with?”

“A blanking cap.”

“We had a blanking cap?”

“Turned out we did. In the tools.”

“I didn’t even know we had one that would fit,” he said with a grin.

“Now you do.”

“And how much did the plumber charge?” Daniel asked, and Laura went for the bill with relief. For the next ten minutes they discussed whether two hoses really ought to cost that much in Portugal.

Later he opened the cupboard under the sink, turned the new valves, ran a finger over the joints.

“Good job. See, he should have changed both straight away.”

“You said so.”

“I say a lot of things,” he said, closing the door, and Laura laughed.

In the night she fed their son and, getting back into bed, suddenly remembered how Martin had taken off his watch and laid it on the kitchen island before kneeling down in the water. She turned onto her side. By morning she was no longer thinking about the watch.

Two days later Laura meant to walk along the road. At the crossroads, left led to the village and right to the ocean, and she turned right. The path had dried out after the wind, the pram rolled easily. Where the path began to climb, Nora shot out from round the bend, and behind her, in no hurry, came Finn. Alone. He sniffed the pram’s wheel and sat down.

“There you are,” said Martin, appearing behind him. “I was beginning to suspect you’d changed families.” Then he saw Laura. “Good afternoon. All dry?”

“Completely. New hoses, both of them.”

“Then it’s a good plumber.”

“Or he just wanted to sell two hoses.”

“That’s also the sign of a good plumber.”

Nora went up to him and offered her neck.

“She remembers you,” Laura said.

“I should hope so. I spent the night at her place.” He winced. “Sorry, that came out worse than I meant.”

Laura laughed, and the awkwardness passed.

The path here was wide enough to walk side by side. Martin said he had lived here for nine years.

“And you’re not tired of it?”

“Not yet. But I try not to praise the place to people who’ve already bought a house here.”

“We’re renting.”

“Then you can still escape.”

“You don’t like it here?”

“I like it. That’s exactly why I don’t recommend it. Everyone I’ve recommended it to has bought a house and then complained to me about the wind.”

She never did work out whether he was joking. At the fork, where a narrow track climbed to his house, Martin stopped and asked the baby’s name. Laura told him, and he repeated it once, as if checking he had heard it right.

“A good name. Goodbye, Laura.”

He went up the track, Finn after him. Laura carried on along the sea, past one bend, then another, and turned back only when her son woke up.

In the evening Daniel told her about a client in Dubai who had changed the terms of the deal three times, and then asked whether she had been out.

“Yes.”

“Along the road?”

“By the sea.” Laura straightened the bib under her son’s chin. “The pram was fine today.”

She was about to tell him about Finn coming round the bend without his owner.

“More wine?” she asked instead, and went for the bottle.

6

Over the next two weeks Laura met Martin three times. The first time he was coming towards her talking on the phone; he raised a hand and did not stop. The second time he turned off to his house before she reached the climb. The third time he was sitting on a low stone wall beside the path, pulling a thorn out of Finn’s paw.

“Shall I hold him?”

“If he’ll let you.”

Finn lay on his side and put up with it. Martin parted the fur between the toes, hooked the thorn out with a fingernail and showed it to the dog.

“Was this the cause of all the tragedy?”

“Nora can’t do that,” Laura said. “Lie still when she doesn’t like something. She walks off. Or argues.”

“How can a dog argue?”

“She looks at you. Doesn’t do it straight away. Pretends she hasn’t heard. She wasn’t like that before. Before the baby.”

They walked on together. One wheel of the pram kept pulling towards the edge of the path, and Laura kept straightening it.

“Daniel says she’s jealous and it’ll pass. And once she even growled when the baby was crying.”

“What else does she do?”

“Brings Daniel her ball exactly when he’s holding the baby. Pushes under your hand. Sulks and goes off to the terrace.”

“Sounds to me like an ordinary dog who isn’t getting enough attention,” Martin said. “In her place I’d bring the ball too.”

“Would you growl at a baby?”

“At a baby, no. At the ball, maybe.”

“Daniel’s forbidden her to come closer to the baby than two metres. He measured it with a tape.”

“With a tape,” Martin repeated without expression. “And which came first: the two metres or the jealousy?”

“The two metres,” Laura said after a moment. “From the first day.”

“And the growling started later.”

“Much later. So what follows from that?”

“Nothing. I hardly know your dog. Only now I know what came first.”

At the fork Finn stopped and looked back. Martin said “wait” to him, and he sat.

“There you are,” said Laura. “You gave him an order.”

“I asked.”

“What’s the difference?”

“If he doesn’t sit, I won’t set out to prove to him who’s in charge. I’ll go and find out why he didn’t.”

“And what if he runs off?”

“Then I’m the one who’s lost. He knows where he is.” Martin looked at Finn. “His ancestors followed ours around for thirty thousand years and somehow didn’t get lost. It’s the ones who’ve been led on a lead all their lives who get lost. They’ve no reason to remember the way.”

“Is it all that complicated with dogs?”

“It’s more complicated with people,” Martin said, and instead of turning off to his house he walked on along the sea. “Finn could do with the exercise.”

Laura asked what he did for a living.

“Hardly anything any more.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It is if you prepare well.”

“And how old are you, if it’s not a secret?”

“Fifty-four.”

Laura was more surprised than she wanted to show, and he noticed.

“What?”

“I thought you were older. Not much,” she added quickly.

“That’s a relief.”

She really had thought him older, because of the grey hair and because at their first meeting he had seemed to her a man of another generation. Now, walking beside him, fifty-four did not seem old to her. For the first time in months someone was talking to her about something other than the baby and the schedule.

“And you?” he asked.

“Thirty.”

“Then we’re quits. I thought you were younger.”

“Liar.”

“A little.”

At the clifftop viewpoint the baby stirred. Laura bent to straighten the blanket, and when she stood up Martin was already a few steps away, looking at the water.

“I should head back.”

“Of course. See you.”

He did not offer to walk her home.

That evening Daniel wrote that he would be late for dinner. Laura replied “OK” and meant to add that she had met Martin on her walk, but did not add it.

A few days later, standing at the gate with the pram, she noticed that she had come out at almost exactly the time when she had last met him by the stone wall.

7

That day Martin was not on the path. Laura walked almost to the steps down to the little stony beach, fed her son on a bench when he woke, and spent a long time looking back along the empty path, where only two women with walking poles and a boy on a bicycle went by. The next day she deliberately chose the road between the villas, and the day after that she went to the sea again.

Martin caught up with her from behind. First she heard Finn drawing level with Nora, then footsteps.

“No thorns today?” Laura asked.

“Not so far.”

As always, the lead hung over his shoulder. At the old grey stone with evenly spaced holes along its edge, which Laura had long taken for a piece of some wall, Martin stopped and kicked a dry branch aside.

“What is it?” she asked.

“No idea. Every time I stop and try to work it out.” He ran a finger round one of the holes. “Something was fixed here. A railing. Or a post.”

He straightened up. In the pram her son woke. Laura gave him his dummy, and Nora, who had started to come closer, stopped at a single “don’t” from her. Martin was looking at the ocean meanwhile and did not turn round.

They walked on in silence until Laura asked where he had liked living best.

“Depends on your age. At thirty I liked big cities. At forty, places that are easy to leave. Now, here.”

“Because it’s hard to leave from here?”

“On the contrary. The airport’s close.”

“Do you always leave yourself a way out?”

“I try to,” he said quite calmly.

A family with two small children was coming towards them, and one of the boys ran at Nora. Laura grabbed the dog’s collar before she had time to think.

“Please don’t.”

“Does she bite?” asked the father, catching hold of his son.

“No. Just please don’t.”

When they had passed, Laura let go of the collar.

“Daniel would say I should have put her on the lead.”

“Do you have a lead?”

She nodded at the handle of the pram, where it hung.

“Then perhaps he’d be right.”

“You were supposed to say something different. For contrast.”

“With whom?”

Laura laughed and did not answer. Martin pointed at a band of cloud far out over the water and said it would rain in an hour. The sky above them was perfectly clear. At the fork to his house Finn turned uphill of his own accord, Martin said goodbye and followed him, and Laura carried on along the sea, though she already knew she could have turned for home at the previous branch.

On the way back the pram’s front wheel began to click with every turn, and it pulled to the right again. The rain began when she was about three hundred metres from home. Daniel opened the garage for her from inside.

“Saw you coming on the camera. Wet? I told you this morning it would rain.”

“You told me to take a jacket.”

“Well, yes. Because of the rain.”

“Dan, those are different things.”

“All right, all right,” he said, and pulled the wet hood off her head.

He lifted their son out of the pram and handed him to Laura, and at that moment Nora shook herself in the middle of the garage, soaking the bicycle and the tool cabinet.

“Outside!”

“Dan, it’s raining.”

“I didn’t tell her to live there.” Half a minute later he opened the side door, let the dog in and dried her with an old towel. Then he crouched by the pram and spun the wheel. “How long has it been like this?”

“A few days.”

“Why didn’t you say?”

“It still goes.”

“That wasn’t the question.” He took the wheel off. “The axle’s shifted a bit. It’s fixable.”

He loosened the mounting, straightened the wheel, tightened it, checked the other one. Laura pushed the pram the length of the garage, and it ran straight.

“Can you fix everything in the world?”

“Only things held together with screws. If it had jammed out on the path, it wouldn’t have been funny.” He took a small hex key from the set and slipped it into the pocket of the pram bag. “Let it live there.”

“Dan.”

“It weighs twenty grams.”

“I don’t mean the weight.”

“What do you mean, then?”

Laura didn’t know herself.

“I’m not stopping you from going,” he said. “It’s just that if you can anticipate something in two minutes, why not? And keep it here from now on, between the bike and the cabinet. After the path the wheels are filthy; there are already two grey stripes in the hall.”

“And I’m supposed to carry the baby through the garage?”

“Through the door. It’s three metres.”

Over dinner he told her he was flying to Geneva on Thursday, and then, pouring her some water, asked:

“By the way, is that neighbour with the dog still around? Martin.”

“I suppose so.” Laura drank from her glass. “I see him on the path sometimes.”

“Nora doesn’t bark at him any more?”

“No.”

“At least she’s remembered one,” Daniel said, and started talking about Geneva.

Clearing the table, Laura remembered the word “sometimes”. It was true. There was just less truth in it than in “three times in two weeks” or “he walked with me as far as the fork”.

In the morning she wheeled the pram out of the garage and at the gate turned towards the sea out of habit. A few steps on she remembered she had meant to go to the chemist’s, and the chemist’s was the other way. The path was less than five minutes off, the chemist’s fifteen. Laura turned the pram round and went to the chemist’s. The path, she decided, she would leave alone for a while.

8

Daniel came back from Geneva on Friday evening, with chocolate for Laura and a soft rabbit for their son. On Saturday he took Nora out himself for the first time in weeks and came back two hours later. The dog was wet to the belly and lay straight down on the cool kitchen floor.

“I ran her out,” Daniel said, pouring himself some water. “We need to take her out properly at least once a week. The garden’s all very well.”

“I told you that.”

“You did.” He crouched and ran a palm along the dog’s flank. “We all behave better when we’re tired.” He straightened up. “Listen, do you want to go somewhere at the weekend? Sintra, Ericeira. Wherever you like.”

“I don’t mind.”

She said it and knew at once that it wasn’t true. What was true, she didn’t know.

On Monday after lunch Laura went along the road between the villas again. She did not take Nora: there were cars on the road, and Daniel thought a dog belonged there only on a lead. Just past the crossroads the road began to climb and curve round the hill. Laura had never gone that far along it before, and only at the grey gates with the lamp did she realise where she had come. It was the same lamp under which she had rung the intercom on the night of the flood. The climb from the path came out here too, at Martin’s house, only from the other side.

She quickened her step to get past, and at that moment the pram pitched forward. The front wheel, which Daniel had straightened a week earlier, slipped off its axle, rolled across the tarmac and lay down in the gutter. Laura caught the handle in time; her son did not even wake.

She found the wheel, and the hex key too, in the pocket of the bag, where Daniel had put it. The nut was gone. Laura walked a few metres back, looking at the ground, and returned empty-handed.

Finn came out to her first: the gate, as on that night, was open. Then Martin, with a bundle of post in his hand.

“Is that your wheel in your hand, or did you find it?” he asked.

“It’s my wheel. The nut’s somewhere on the road.”

He crouched by the pram, looked at the axle and at the hex key in her hand.

“Good that you’ve got the key. Bad that you haven’t got the nut.” He stood up. “I’ll have one that fits. Wheel it into the yard; it’ll get there on three wheels.”

The yard was smaller than Laura had imagined. The pool was covered with a grey sheet, three big ceramic pots stood by the wall, two of them with dry stalks sticking up. Martin went into the shed and clattered about among tin boxes, and Laura, because her son had woken and was crying, sat down with him on the terrace.

“I’ve just made coffee,” Martin said, coming back with a handful of nuts. “For myself. But there’s enough for two.”

“No milk, no sugar.”

“Then I hardly had to do anything.”

While he picked out a nut and worked on the axle, she fed her son and drank his coffee. From here their house could be seen better than his house could be seen from theirs: a white wall between pines, a piece of roof, the terrace.

“Your house looks small from here,” Martin said without raising his head.

“Do you read minds?”

“You’re looking at it.”

“And yours looks enormous from our terrace.”

“That’s the useful thing about hills.”

“I took the road today on purpose,” Laura said, and did not understand herself why she said it.

“It’s a good road too,” Martin replied, tightening the nut. “It just leads here as well.”

He rolled the pram across the tiles and back, then checked the other wheel again.

“Your husband did a good job on this one. This nut, though, somebody fitted without a washer. You’ll make it to Lisbon now.”

Laura looked at her watch. Forty minutes had gone by.

At the gate Martin gave her back the hex key.

“Keep it with you. It turns out it’s needed.”

Halfway home her phone buzzed in the bag, and only then did Laura see three missed calls from Daniel.

“Where are you? I’ve been home forty minutes, I keep calling.”

“Coming, coming. You said six.”

“The meeting was cancelled. Are you all right?”

“Yes. The phone was in my bag.”

“Ah. OK then, see you in a bit.”

When she came in through the gate Daniel was waiting on the terrace. He pulled the hood up over their son and looked at his watch.

“Two and a half hours?”

“A wheel came off the pram. Right on the road.”

“That one?” He crouched at once, spun the wheel, tried the nut. “It’s holding. You put it back on yourself?”

“The hex key came in handy,” said Laura.

“See?” Daniel straightened up, pleased. “Twenty grams.” His face was so pleased that it seemed a shame to correct him. He kissed her. “Just text me next time if you’re going to be long. I didn’t know whether to come looking for you. Let’s say: if it’s more than an hour, just a message. ‘All fine.’ Nothing more.”

“Agreed.”

In the evening they watched a film. Daniel kept his hand on her shoulder, Nora lay at his feet. Halfway through Laura realised she did not know what it was about.

9

The next day Daniel reminded her about the message himself. He was sitting in the kitchen in front of two screens; beside him, in a carrycot, their son was asleep.

“Leave him with me,” he offered. “I’ve got two calls, then a free hour. You and Nora go for a proper walk. She needs it more than he does.”

Without the pram the path became different. There was no need to choose where to put the wheels; she could simply walk. Nora ran off round the bends and came back when Laura called. Laura passed the climb to Martin’s house without stopping. By the cliff a message arrived from Daniel: “Asleep.” She replied: “Great.”

Martin and Finn were coming towards her. The old dog was plodding along with his head down, and when Nora tried to draw him into a game he lay down in the middle of the path.

“That’s it,” said Martin. “He’s decided that’s enough for today.”

“And you’ll just turn for home?”

“Why drag him any further?”

“Nora never gets that choice.”

“Finn doesn’t always either. When the decision has to be mine, he walks. Now it doesn’t.”

Something dark had been gathering over the sea for several minutes, and the first drops fell as they reached the fork. Half a minute later it was pouring.

“My place is three minutes,” said Martin. “Yours is twenty. Choose.”

They left Nora and Finn under the lean-to in the yard, and for the first time Laura went inside the house. The kitchen was small: a newspaper on the table, on the fridge a single magnet with the number of a veterinary clinic.

“It doesn’t look like a villa at all in here,” Laura said, wiping her face with a paper towel.

“And what should a villa look like?”

“Bigger.”

“From below, everything up above looks more important.” He switched on the coffee machine. “It’ll pass in a minute. The rain here doesn’t last.”

Her phone lay on the table face up. An hour and seven minutes had gone by. Laura opened the chat and wrote: “All fine. Waiting out the rain.” She looked at the words and sent them.

“Status check?” Martin asked, putting a cup in front of her.

“We agreed I’d text if I’m out for more than an hour.”

“Sensible.”

She waited for him to say something more, but he sat down opposite and drank his coffee.

“Do you never say anything on purpose?”

“About what?”

“About all this.” She nodded at the phone.

“What is there to say?” Martin shrugged. “You told him the truth. It really is raining.”

Laura turned the phone face down. The reply came at once; she read it later: “OK”.

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. Martin saw her to the gate, and Nora shot out from under the lean-to with something green in her teeth, but Laura was looking at the sky and noticed nothing.

She had been gone an hour and forty-two minutes.

“He slept almost the whole time,” said Daniel. “Where did you shelter?”

“Under the pines by the cliff. It doesn’t come through much there.”

“Did Nora at least get a proper walk?”

“I think so.”

That evening Daniel found a green tennis ball under the table.

“This isn’t ours.”

“She must have found it on the path.”

“Then throw it out tomorrow. Who knows where it’s been.”

He put the ball by the door. In the morning Laura slipped it into the pocket of her jacket.

10

The ball stayed in her jacket pocket for two days. Laura’s fingers found it every time she dressed, and every time she left it where it was. On the third day Daniel went to Lisbon, saying as he left, “If you’re going to be long, text me”, and she set off towards the sea with the pram. At the climb to Martin’s house Laura took the ball out of her pocket, and Nora instantly leapt up.

“Not yours,” said Laura, and went uphill.

Martin answered the bell almost at once.

“I’ve brought back stolen property.”

The gate clicked. Martin came out from behind the house in gardening gloves, earth on his trousers, and took the ball from her hand.

“I’d already noticed it was missing.”

“Did Finn report it to the police?”

“Finn believes that everything in the garden belongs to him until it disappears. Then he forgets about it. An enviable philosophy.”

Laura wheeled the pram into the yard. Behind the house stood trays of small shrubs, the earth around them was dug over, and beyond the far wall of the garden rose an even, dark-green wall taller than a man. Laura took it for a hedge until she saw the opening.

“And what’s in there?” she asked.

“A garden.”

“Another one?”

“Technically.”

Laura took a step into the opening and came straight up against a fork.

“But it’s a maze.”

“That’s right. My father made it when I was about seven. I grew up here, then went away, and came back nine years ago.”

The hedge was old: low down you could see thick stems, here and there several grown together, and above the neatly trimmed top young shoots stuck up.

“And can you really get lost in it?”

“You can. I tried it, at about ten. At first it was interesting: you walk, you turn, you see what’s next. I knew a few short routes and one day decided to go further. I turned off somewhere, then again, then I got bored and decided to come out. Three times I ended up at the same stone basin. After the third time I sat down beside it and howled.”

“You?”

“I was ten. My father came and led me out. He knew the way; he’d designed it himself.”

“That’s not fair.”

“That’s more or less what I told him.” Martin rolled the ball in his palm. “While you’re going in, everything’s fine. It gets unpleasant when you decide it’s time to come out.”

“Very bad advertising.”

“I wasn’t inviting you.”

“And what’s in there now?”

“I don’t know. I don’t go in. The gardener trims it twice a year, inside as well. I hope he knows the way; otherwise I’d have to find a new gardener.”

Laura went back to the opening. The left-hand path beyond it was narrower than the right.

“Come with me.”

“No.”

The answer was so short that she turned round.

“At least the two of us won’t get lost.”

“We will,” said Martin. “I know how it would go. I’d want to go round one more corner. Then one more.”

He stayed standing by the wall.

In the pram her son woke. Laura looked at her watch: twenty-two minutes.

“I have to go. But I’ll come back to your maze.”

“It’s not going anywhere.”

Daniel was back from Lisbon before her and greeted her with the question of where she had been.

“Out walking. Along the path.”

“And where were you?” Daniel asked his son, bending over the pram.

“He’s not saying,” said Laura.

“Then he’s got something to hide,” Daniel smiled.

In the evening, while the water heated for tea, Laura stood at the window. Martin’s house could be seen between the trees. The maze could not be seen from here at all.

11

In the morning Daniel took Nora out before breakfast and came back an hour later, pleased.

“The perfect dog today. You just have to work with her.”

“So it’s not only about the baby after all?”

“One doesn’t rule out the other.”

Later he sat on the sofa with their son, and Nora, after lying by the wall for a while, came over and sat by his knee. Daniel did not stop her.

“What about the two metres?” Laura asked, folding laundry.

“She’s calm. Let them get to know each other properly.”

The baby reached out to the dog and grabbed the fur under her ear. Nora jerked her head round, and a short growl sounded in the room. Daniel was on his feet before Laura could draw breath, and with one word sent Nora to the wall. Their son didn’t even cry. Daniel examined his hand, every finger.

“She didn’t bite,” said Laura.

“I can see that. But it’s enough.” He sat back down, and she noticed that the hand he was holding their son with was trembling. “I got complacent. And I was right there.”

“Exactly. You were there.”

“And if next time I’m not?”

The next day he suggested she go for a walk himself.

“I’ve finished my calls till four. Take Nora, it’ll do her good too. You can take two hours, no hurry. A text if it’s more than two. I’m feeling generous today.”

On the path Laura let Nora off and walked faster than usual. At the climb to Martin’s house she stood for a while, then went up.

Martin was sitting in the yard on an upturned crate, scraping earth off a trowel.

“After all?” he asked, following her gaze.

“After all.”

“The way into the garden’s open. I haven’t changed my mind, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

Nora had already settled down beside Finn, and Laura left her in the yard.

The first turns were easy. The path forked, then forked again. The hedge stood thick on both sides; nothing could be seen beyond it. Laura passed an old stone bench, almost hidden by branches, and came out on a small round clearing with a stone basin. Empty, with a dark ring from old water on its side, with leaves and two pine cones at the bottom. Eleven minutes had passed, and Laura decided it was time to go back.

Three paths led away from the basin. She chose the one she thought she had come by, and after a few turns was glad to see the bench, until she noticed that this bench had no back. She went back, chose another path, and a minute later was standing in front of the basin again.

On her phone screen was a message from Daniel: “Not asleep, but happy.” Laura replied “Good”, and her finger hovered over the screen. She could call Martin: he was sitting somewhere out there, beyond the green walls, on his crate. She did not call.

Then it became genuinely unpleasant. The hedge rose a metre above her head, the wind rustled up at the top, while down below it was quiet, and no turn was any different from another. Twenty-three minutes. Laura had already drawn breath to shout his name.

“Nora!” she shouted instead.

Somewhere to the left came a bark. Laura went towards the sound, turned, turned again, called again, and a minute later saw the way out, and beyond it the yard and Nora, standing right at the opening.

Martin was by the trays of plants.

“Did you find the basin?”

“Twice.”

“Then you went a long way in.”

“Did you know I’d get stuck in there?”

“You asked yourself whether you could get lost. And I told you about the boy who sat down and cried.”

“All right, I withdraw the complaint.”

“How long were you in there?”

“Twenty-eight minutes. While I was going in, it felt like less. Until I decided to come out.”

Martin looked at her, and she heard what she had said herself and fell silent.

“Coffee?” he asked a few seconds later.

“No.”

“All right.”

He went back to his plants so easily that Laura felt hurt.

“You could at least be a little disappointed.”

“About coffee? I’ll survive.”

She opened the gate herself. On the path she looked back once: Martin was sitting on his crate again, working.

On the way, Daniel sent a photo: their son asleep on his stomach. Caption: “I lost.” Laura sent back three laughing faces.

“See, we didn’t die without you,” he said at home.

“I didn’t think you would.”

“You did.”

Nora came up to them, and Daniel, without looking, said: “Back.” The dog retreated and lay down.

“Maybe you were right from the start,” said Laura.

“Write down the date.”

“Don’t hold your breath.”

12

The next day Daniel brought home two baby gates: he put one between the living room and the hall, the other at the kitchen doorway.

“The house looks like an airport now,” said Laura, handing him the screwdriver.

“Dogs don’t usually live in airports.” He tightened a bracket. “I don’t want to shut her away in a separate room. This is better.”

“For whom?”

“For everyone.” He clicked the latch. “Opens with one hand, handy with a baby. We close it only when he’s on the floor. The rest of the time it’s open.”

In the evening their son lay on the blanket, and Nora came up from the hall to the closed gate, stood there and lay down right against the bars.

“Look how she’s lying,” said Laura. “I feel sorry for her.”

“Laur, she’s just lying there.”

“Yes. With her nose in the bars.”

“She growled at him.” Daniel pushed the laptop aside. “What do you want, open it and see what happens? Even if it’s only ten per cent. I can’t do that, you understand?”

“I understand.”

“Well, then.”

A few minutes later Laura picked their son up and opened the gate. Nora came over, stopped two metres away and looked at Daniel. He said “go on”, and she came closer, sniffed Laura’s fingers and lay down at her feet. Daniel went on working.

On Wednesday he was flying to Madrid overnight and before leaving showed her the latch once more.

“I can open a gate, Dan. And close one.”

“Closing’s harder. When he’s on the floor, Nora’s on the other side. Even if she’s calm.” He kissed the back of her head and picked up his suitcase. “I won’t call every twenty minutes.”

“Thank you.”

“I’ll call every forty.”

After lunch their son fell asleep. Laura caught herself closing the gate to an empty living room, opened it again and put on her jacket. She had no intention of calling on Martin, but at the climb she slowed down, and Nora had already turned uphill, and Laura followed her.

Martin was reading on the terrace. Finn was asleep in a strip of sunlight by the wall.

“Am I disturbing you?”

“Not yet. When you start, I’ll say.” He put the book aside. “How was the maze?”

“I got out.”

“I noticed. You were in there nearly half an hour.”

“And you didn’t come for me?”

“You didn’t call.”

“And if I hadn’t got out?”

“You would have. You had a voice.”

Laura sat down on the edge of the next chair.

“Nora’s now officially separated from the baby. Daniel’s put up gates.”

“After she growled? Sounds sensible to me.”

“Sensible? You were the one who asked what came first, the ban or the jealousy.”

“I did. Maybe a constant ban only feeds the jealousy. But if a dog growled at my child, I’d separate them too.”

“Great,” Laura leaned back in her chair. “I thought you’d say something else.”

“Then why ask?”

“I don’t know.” She paused. “You’re a terribly inconvenient person.”

Martin did not reply and turned a page. Laura looked at the cover: a French author she knew from one novel.

“Do you have any more of his books?”

“I do.”

“Would you lend me one?”

He looked at her a little longer than the question required, then got up and went into the house. Through the glass door Laura could see bookshelves, a low table, a dark sofa. He came back with a thin, worn paperback.

“No hurry.”

On the first page, in the top corner, was written in pencil “M. V.” and a year. Laura laid the book on her knees, and Martin opened his own again and did not ask when she would bring it back.

At home she began reading at the kitchen table. The French was harder than she remembered. Daniel called.

“Is the gate shut?”

Laura looked into the hall. Nora was lying by the open gate.

“Not right now. He’s upstairs, asleep.”

“Then it’s fine.”

“Thanks for the permission.”

“I’m not permitting anything. You understand all this yourself.” He told her about the meeting, then asked, “Are you leafing through something?”

“A book. A French one.”

“Decided to torture yourself again? Where did you get it?”

The question came between two others, without the slightest interest. Laura looked at the pencilled initials.

“I found it. At home.”

She said it before she had decided what she would say.

“We’ve got French books?”

“Apparently.”

Daniel moved on to something else. When she had hung up, Laura opened the first page once more, closed the book, wanted to put it on the shelf in the living room, but changed her mind and took it upstairs, to the bottom drawer of the bedside table on her side of the bed.

When Daniel came home he went down on his knees and hugged Nora.

“Well, did they treat you badly here?”

“Terribly,” said Laura.

He kissed her and took their son. Nora followed him, and without turning round he said “back”. Laura closed the gate behind them.

13

Laura finished the book four days later, in the morning, while Daniel was on the phone in the study. Hearing his steps on the stairs, she pushed the book into the drawer.

“Have you seen my blue notebook? Small, no lines.” Daniel opened the top drawer of his bedside table, closed it. “It’s not in the study.”

“Maybe in the car.”

“I’ll check,” he said, looked at his watch and left.

Laura took out the book, ran a finger over the pencilled initials and closed the cover. For two days she walked along the road between the houses, and on the third she put the book in the pram bag and went to the sea. She met Martin and Finn coming towards her by the clifftop viewpoint.

“I’m returning it.”

“Already?”

“Is that a compliment to the book or to me?”

“To the book. Did you like it? Then keep it.”

“No. It’s yours.”

“A strong argument,” he said, and took the book.

They walked towards his house.

“Can I ask you something? Why did you ask me that time not to tell Daniel about the water?”

“You told him after all?”

“No.”

“Then the question isn’t urgent.”

“It is for me.”

Martin moved the book to his other hand and stepped to the edge of the path to let two cyclists by.

“When I was a little over thirty, I worked with a ship’s engineer. He used to talk about his captain. It was his first voyage in command. A good captain, well trained, meticulous, and very anxious that the crew shouldn’t notice he was unsure of anything. So there were a lot of rules on board. The officer of the watch doesn’t alter course by more than a few degrees without confirmation. Every deviation is reported up. The captain, unless it’s an emergency, is woken by a messenger.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“It was all reasonable. After a couple of months the crew got used to the idea that it was better to ask.” Martin laid the book on the old stone with the holes. “One night they were running along a rocky coast. Wind, current, nothing special. The ship began to be set off course. The officer of the watch noticed early; he could simply have come round, but coming round far enough meant more than a few degrees. So he came round as far as he was allowed and sent a seaman to wake the captain. The captain woke and asked whether they had definitely checked the position. The officer checked it again. Then the captain asked about the current. Then he got dressed and came up to the bridge.”

“And?”

“And they ran aground. Nobody died, they were pulled off a few hours later, with damage to the propeller and the bottom. Afterwards the captain blamed the officer of the watch for waking him late. And the instructions really did say: in case of doubt, call the captain immediately.”

“But the officer was trying to deal with it within what he was allowed to do.”

“Because everything else needed the captain’s permission.”

“So who was to blame?”

“The officer of the watch really did break the instructions. He woke the captain too late.”

“That’s not a fair answer.”

“About the captain I told you everything else.” Martin picked the book up off the stone. “You asked why I didn’t want a conversation. It seemed to me your husband is one of those people who want to decide for themselves what’s safe in their own house.”

“Is that bad?”

“No.”

“But you asked me to keep quiet anyway. So you decided for him.”

“That’s how it turns out.”

Laura had not expected him to agree.

“And for me.”

“Not for you. You could have told him.”

She turned towards the ocean. Below, low waves were breaking.

“You could have just said: I was wrong.”

“I could have. Maybe I was wrong.”

“You’re impossible.”

“You’ve said that before.”

At the fork he went off to his house, and Laura walked on along the sea and was not thinking about the captain. She was trying to remember exactly what she had said to Daniel on the night of the leak, and she remembered one word: “sorted”. About the book there was also one word: “found”. Short words, and not one of them a lie, unless you counted what had not fitted into them.

At home Daniel was sitting on the living-room floor. The gate was open, their son lay on his stomach trying to lift his head, and Nora lay by the opposite wall.

“Look,” said Daniel. “Five minutes like this already. She’s not coming over.”

“Maybe soon we won’t need the gates.”

“Maybe.”

“Did you just say ‘maybe’?”

“Don’t get used to it.” He lifted their son into his arms, pleased. “See, it works. Walks, a boundary, calm. If you’re consistent, she understands everything.”

“And what if she’s simply got used to it?”

“So much the better.”

“And when will you decide the gates can go?”

“When I’m sure. A month. Not one sound in his direction.”

“And if she growls on day twenty-nine?”

“We start counting again.” Their son reached for his shirt; Daniel caught the little hand. “This one will need the rules explained too.”

“With a tape measure as well?”

“If need be,” he said, and they both laughed.

That evening the blue notebook was lying on Daniel’s bedside table. Laura didn’t ask where it had turned up.

14

After the conversation about the captain Laura walked with Martin a few more times, sometimes meeting him by chance, sometimes not. She did not go into the house again. Once they walked as far as the entrance to the maze; Martin asked “once more?”, she said “no”, and they walked on. He did not ask about Daniel, and she did not talk about him.

At home everything went on as before. Daniel worked, went away, came back, and on Sundays walked Nora. He took down one of the gates; the other was nearly always open. Once their son grabbed Nora’s fur again, and the dog only turned her head. Daniel unclenched the little fist, praised the dog and stroked her. Laura watched from the kitchen.

In the evening they had dinner on the terrace; Daniel talked about work, and Laura laughed. Then he cleared the dishes and she put their son to bed. When she came down, Daniel was sitting at the table, and in front of him lay the blue notebook.

“Can I ask you something? Do you see Martin often?”

“Sometimes,” said Laura, sitting down opposite.

“How sometimes?”

“A few times a week.”

“Do you arrange it?”

“It happens.”

He nodded, the way he nodded to clients when the figures added up.

“When I was looking for the notebook, I opened all the drawers. Your bedside table too. There was a book in it, in French, with the initials ‘M. V.'”

“I gave it back.”

“I know. On Sunday I walked Nora past his gate. The same letter’s on the letterbox.” He laid his palm on the notebook. “You said you found it at home. I waited three weeks to see whether you’d tell me yourself.”

She said nothing, and he went on:

“I want to ask you not to see him any more.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t like it. That you went to his house. That you arrange things. That you hid it from me.”

“I’m not hiding anything now.”

“Now, no. I don’t want it to go on.”

“Is that a rule?”

“If it’s easier for you,” Daniel said after a pause, “yes. Don’t go to his house and don’t arrange walks.”

“And if we meet by chance?”

“Laura.”

“I’m only asking.”

“Say hello.”

“You’re allowing me?”

“Don’t start.”

For a few seconds they were silent.

“And if I go anyway?”

“I can’t forbid you anything,” he said, not at once.

“But there’s a rule.”

“There is.” He looked at the notebook as if it said in there where it had all begun. “All I ever wanted was for us to be at peace here. From the very beginning. Nothing else.”

He stood up and collected the cups. Laura stayed at the table; her phone lay in front of her, and there were no messages.

15

The next day Daniel worked from home. After lunch Laura put on her jacket, and Nora got up off the floor. Daniel came out of the study.

“A walk? Where to?”

“To the sea.”

“Laura. Are you going to him?”

“I don’t know.”

“Yesterday you knew what I was asking.”

“I knew.”

Their son was asleep upstairs; the house was quiet. Laura opened the door, and Nora followed her out onto the drive. Daniel went after them as far as the middle of the lawn.

“Nora.”

The dog stopped, then moved off after Laura again.

“Nora. Place.”

Nora stopped at the gate and turned to him. Laura put her hand on the latch. Daniel was looking at the villa on the hill. Laura looked there too, opened the gate and went out.

Nora looked at Daniel a second longer, then followed her.

Laura heard him draw breath and turned round. Daniel took a step across the lawn, the same long stride with which he had once walked down to the wall on seeing a stranger with a dog at the gate, and stopped. The hand with which he used to show Nora her place at his foot rose and fell. He did not call her again.

The path was dry and even. It rounded the outcrops of rock in easy curves, and each bend revealed one more short stretch which it seemed only natural to walk. Then the next. Nora ran on ahead, vanished round the bends and came back, though nobody called her. At the first bend Laura looked back: Daniel was standing alone in the middle of the lawn, and the gate behind her had been left open. At the second, only the house and the terrace could be seen. After that she walked without turning round, and when at last she stopped where the bushes parted and she could see several kilometres of coast, the white wall could no longer be told apart from the others.