And then he was out the door and down the steps and along the path towards the woods. He turned and was going to say something but thought better of it, waved, and went on.
‘Now, Will,’ she called. ‘Don’t overdo. Don’t make too much distance the first hour! You get tired, sit down! You get hungry, eat! And …’
But here she had to stop and turn away and get out her handkerchief.
A moment later, she looked up the path and it looked as though nobody had passed there in the last ten thousand years. It was so empty she had to go in and shut the door.
Night-time, nine o’clock, nine-fifteen, stars out, moon round, house lights strawberry-coloured through the curtains, the chimney blowing long comet tails of fireworks, sighing warm. Down the chimney, sounds of pots and pans and cutlery, fire on the hearth, like a great orange cat. In the kitchen, the big iron cook-stove full of jumping flames, pans boiling, bubbling, frying, vapours, and steams in the air. From time to time the old woman turned and her eyes listened and her mouth listened, wide, to the world outside this house, this fire, and this food.
Nine-thirty and, from a great distance away from the house, a solid whacking, chunking sound.
The old woman straightened up and laid down a spoon.
Outside, the dull solid blows came again and again in the moonlight. The sound went on for three or four minutes, during which she hardly moved except to tighten her mouth or her fists with each solid chunking blow. When the sounds stopped, she threw herself at the stove, the table, stirring, pouring, lifting, carrying, setting down.
She finished just as new sounds came from the dark land outside the windows. Footsteps came slowly up the path, heavy shoes weighed the front porch.
She went to the door and waited for a knock.
None came.
She waited a full minute.
Outside on the porch a great bulk stirred and shifted from side to side uneasily.
Finally she sighed and called sharply at the door. ‘Will, is that you breathing out there?’
No answer. Only a kind of sheepish silence behind the door.
She snatched the door wide.
The old man stood there, an incredible stack of cordwood in his arms. His voice came from behind the stack.
‘Saw smoke in the chimney; figured you might need wood,’ he said.
She stood aside. He came in and placed the wood carefully by the hearth, not looking at her.
She looked out on the porch and picked up the suitcase and brought it in and shut the door.
She saw him sitting at the dinner table.
She stirred the soup on the stove to a great boiling whirl.
‘Roast beef in the oven?’ he asked quietly.
She opened the oven door. The steam breathed across the room to wrap him up. He closed his eyes, seated there, bathed.
‘What’s that other smell, the burning?’ he asked a moment later.
> She waited, back turned, and finally said, ‘National Geographies.’
He nodded slowly, saying nothing.
Then the food was on the table, warm and tremorous, and there was a moment of silence after she sat down and looked at him. She shook her head. She looked at him. Then she shook her head again silently.
‘Do you want to ask the blessing?’ she said.
‘You,’ he said.