pour its fluid notes across this garden. I had stood on this very spot, mesmerised by it, wondering for a confused moment who the singer was. I have never heard a nightingale sing since.
A slight breeze moved the muslin and the trees rustled. It had become so muggy that there would probably be a storm soon. I yawned, slowly. If I turned in now, I would wake refreshed. Next Tuesday, when they left, I’d be able to have a clear day to work. The poem would, I hoped, return once peace was restored. Turning, I reached out to close the window in case of rain later, my eyes scanning the garden idly. I froze. There was my swimmer! Good God, I thought, astonished, for there he stood, bold as brass, bare-chested at the water’s edge. What a nerve he had, trespassing in someone else’s garden, again. As I watched, to my amazement, he moved towards the honeysuckle and bent to smell it. He was towelling his hair with his T-shirt; I could see the whiteness of the cloth against the dark garden. Then he pulled it over his head. I shrunk back further into the room, but he wasn’t looking in the direction of the house. I saw him edge towards the water and stare beyond it. Something had obviously caught his attention for he stood perfectly still, looking in the direction of the woods. Almost instantly I heard the nightjar again. An owl flew past and my swimmer jumped. I could have told him the garden was full of nightlife and that over by the trees there were a family of owls, but I did not make a sound.
He turned his head as if he had read my thoughts, but he was still looking in the wrong direction. Then, bending down, he did up first one shoe and then the other with casual indifference and a second later he vanished from view, going presumably around the side of the house. I continued to stare out of the window, unable to move, straining my ears. There was a slight pause and unmistakably, I heard a door open. Could any burglar be this reckless? I hesitated. Damn, I thought, belatedly, the back door was unlocked, again. What if I went downstairs and confronted him? He had looked quite young. Not that it mattered if he was carrying a knife. But would you swim first, before you committed a crime? By now I had moved to the landing and I heard once again an unmistakable creaking of floorboards. There followed another silence. I waited. My study door was shut. I opened it a fraction of an inch, on the verge of going out when I heard a soft step. I was struck with paralysis. He was definitely in the house. I shivered. Something thrilling and fearful passed over me. Holding the empty bottle of wine in my hand I crept downstairs at the same moment as the outside light came on. Instantly I hurried down the stairs and into the kitchen just as the timer plunged the garden back into darkness. In a flash I had switched on the kitchen light. I gasped, there was no one there.
All this had taken only a few minutes, but any thoughts of sleep had vanished. Locking the back door, I checked the windows. Then I filled the kettle and was about to put some tea into the pot when I noticed the lid of the bread bin was slightly open. I closed it, changed my mind and opening it again peered in. It was empty. There had been a freshly baked loaf inside. I knew this because I had baked it myself only this morning.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 23RD. ON THE MORNING that Jack and Miranda left for the Broads I awoke to them having breakfast noisily in the garden. I was exhausted. They had now been here for three days. Last night I had again waited up until midnight hoping to catch sight of the swimmer, but the garden had remained undisturbed. Then, just as I dozed off, the outside light came on and woke me. It was him! But by the time I crept downstairs he had vanished. There were damp marks on the kitchen floor.
‘There’s no bread,’ Jack informed me, his mouth full of muesli.
Miranda handed me a cup of tea.
‘You look tired,’ she said.
‘Of course she is!’ my brother said, waving an empty cup in her face. ‘Workaholics usually are!’
He laughed a braying laugh and I wondered how Miranda could bear living with him.
‘More tea, more tea!’ he shouted childishly. Obviously he was in a good mood. I looked at him over the rim of my mug. Ant always maintained that Jack had a touch of Asperger’s Syndrome. It was the only way he could explain my brother’s sudden mood swings. Eric thought otherwise. Jack, he had once said, was disturbed for other reasons. Sunlight glinted through the trees. We had not had such an astonishing summer as this for years and it was going to be another hot day.
‘You need a wash, Miranda,’ Jack said. ‘You’re sweating, already.’
And he laughed.
‘I’ve got seven mosquito bites,’ Sophie complained.
‘Aunty Ria, have you seen how weird the spiders are in this house?’ Zach asked. ‘They’re enormous, like in the Caribbean!’
‘That’s global warming for you,’ Jack said.
He was eating and drinking with an odd, manic speed. Miranda seemed not to notice.
‘I read somewhere that the insects in Britain will become more like Mediterranean ones as the place hots up.’
‘Ugh, how will they get here? By swimming the channel?’
‘No, Sophie, I think they’ll just evolve differently. Like your Aunty Ria has!’
‘Mum!’ wailed Sophie. ‘I hate spiders.’
Go, I thought. Just go. We’ll never get on.
‘Stop winding her up, Jack,’ Miranda said. ‘There was some bacon in the fridge, Ria. I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve used it.’
I nodded, not wanting the subject of bread to be brought up again.
‘Of course, help yourself.’
In all, my swimmer had appeared three times. Last night the images of him had played themselves over and over again. His visits were a puzzle, I was becoming mildly obsessed by them. Perhaps, I thought, I ought to write a poem about the mysterious way in which he visited and then vanished. I yawned. I had meant to wake at six, begin working, but not having managed this all I wanted to do now was sit in the sun. Miranda was probably right and I needed a holiday. The coffee was lukewarm. Could it be, I frowned, returning to my earlier train of thought, that I had imagined some of it? The facts were few. At some point in the night the outside light had come on and the bread was missing. That was all. I had no proof the swimmer had taken it. I had no proof that he had come into the house, even. I glanced at Jack, but he was concentrating on the map spread out in front of him. My baby brother has a round, slightly chubby face. Curiously unlined. Empty, Eric always said. Like a man who could not comprehend what was lost. I yawned, again, distracted. Hmm, I thought, but had I actually seen the swimmer?
Miranda was looking at me, quizzically.
‘You’re out of it, aren’t you!’ she said. ‘Would you like me to do the shopping before we go?’
‘Oh no, I shall go into town a bit later on.’
Tonight I would try a small experiment.
‘We could go through Bury,’ Jack was saying. ‘On the A14, that’s probably the quickest way.’
‘Are you sure you won’t come with us, Ria?’ Miranda asked.
I felt a certain desperation on her part. Fleetingly, I was sorry for her. Neither of us understood the preoccupations of the other.
‘My
