Lake of Sorrows

The beat of the music coaxed her memory back to the spring. She’d been lying in bed at university, her windows open for the first time in the year. She’d emerged from sleep in darkness, to a noise coming from outside and above her bedroom window, a deep guttural sound. An animal, she’d thought at first. Then the cries had started to come faster and faster. When she’d realized what they really were—human noises, not animal—she’d felt embarrassed, repelled, fascinated. It had lasted only a few seconds, then all was quiet. People said it was a beautiful thing—but how could it ever be beautiful, she wondered, all that thrashing and howling like beasts? Her stomach knotted, remembering the disgust she’d felt. It remained one of the profound mysteries, what made men and women want to do those things to one another. But the worst thing was pretending that it was driven by love.

At eight minutes past twelve, Rachel got to her feet and looked around the room, surveying all it contained: a bed, a chair, a desk; herself and her rucksack. Nothing to tell anyone anything about her—no books, no music, no pictures. Only a few articles of clothing, a small clock, and some toiletries, all of which fit into her rucksack. She had to leave this room each night prepared never to return. And yet, so far, she always had returned, unable to let this part of her life go as eventually she must.

As she pulled on her jacket, she felt the pendulous weight of the binoculars in one pocket, her torch in the other—her two touchstones in this whole strange affair. She felt safer with them bumping against her legs. She checked to make sure no one was in the hallway, then left her room, shutting the door behind her. She would have locked it, if only she’d had the key. She passed the sitting room, seeing that Trish and Sarah were completely absorbed in some insipid pop-music program. They didn’t give a toss what she did. It was the three lads who thought her strange, who couldn’t resist slagging her, and who were probably puzzled by her total lack of interest in them. They had no way of knowing that she was here for reasons completely different from their own.

She quietly lifted her waterproofs from the hook and left the house by the kitchen door, careful to lock up after herself. Once outside, she struck out along the narrow lane, staying close to the verge so that she could avoid the headlights of any oncoming car, but sure there would be none. This road was dead quiet at night. A short distance down the lane, she climbed up and over a large metal gate, sinking into the soft ground churned up by the cattle that congregated there each morning and evening. She followed the field’s bushy perimeter—a short, familiar walk over the hill, fifty yards this way, another thirty yards that way—until she came to the gap in the hedge. She ducked under, sure of her footing after treading the same path each night for the past couple of weeks.

Rachel began to feel the knot in her chest loosen as she approached her destination. She’d imagined it would be hard to live in secret. But she’d been shocked at how easy it was, how like second nature it had become for her to lie to people’s faces. Perhaps it was more difficult when you were spurred by baser motivations. She felt herself to be above all that; it was love that was driving her, after all. This nightly trek was her own act of devotion, her own private pilgrimage. She always made sure no one saw her go out. And she had always made it back to the house before morning. But the late nights were beginning to take their toll, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to maintain these sojourns forever. It had to come to an end, and soon. Perhaps tonight she’d have the courage to act. She tried to imagine what she would say, what Ursula would say, what they would both do, but she could not envision the scene. The future loomed empty ahead of her, beyond the point of confrontation, that precipice. She’d never pushed herself to a place like this before, and it was both frightening and exhilarating. She began to acknowledge that tiny flame inside her that relished the prospect that lay before her, the unknown, dangerous place she was about to tread.

Working with Ursula every day, watching her, studying her, was a chance she’d never even dared to imagine. She’d applied at the firm not even hoping for a spot on this dig, at least not right away. But it had fallen into place: first one of the archaeologists had got appendicitis just before work was to begin, and then her own application had been top of the heap when the position was to be filled. She couldn’t have planned it better had she schemed and plotted for years. That had to mean something.