The Bradshaw Variations by Rachel Cusk Read Free Book Online Page B

outdoor furniture. She gathers the apples where they lie rotting around the tree. Everything is poised between readiness and decay. She watches the children playing after school in the crisp late afternoon. Their bodies have lost the fluidity of summer, though the weather is fine. They move around the rectangle of lawn in their uniforms, laughing and jostling, throwing sticks for Skittle and crying out when he bounces up to catch them smartly between his jaws. Later, when they have come in and the garden is wrapped in its blue-grey pall of evening, Claudia looks through the window and sees Skittle cavorting alone in the indistinct light. He leaps in the air, his jaws snapping at invisible sticks. She watches his white twisted form, suspended. She can hear the murmur of television from the other room.
    Howard gets home at half past seven. He wears an air of expectation, of excitement, though for him the day is nearing its conclusion – Howard is usually asleep by half past ten. Claudia sometimes wonders what his excitement signifies. He is like someone eagerly awaiting dessert, the main courses behind him. Sweet though they are, these are the rituals of conclusion. He discards his coat and briefcase in the hall, finds the children and roughhouses them with his big bear’s body, drinks two glasses of wine one after the other standing by the kitchen counters; after which he is red-faced, blissful-looking, rubbing his eyes with his shirt tails hanging out.
    ‘It’s been the loveliest weather,’ Claudia says wistfully. ‘I was thinking what a shame it is we can’t go away this weekend.’
    Howard blinks. ‘What are you saying, Claude? You’re telling me something but I don’t know what it is.’
    ‘Just that we could have gone to Scotland, or to that place in Derbyshire your brother told us about. There hasn’t been such a lovely autumn for years.’
    Howard leafs through the letters on the kitchen table, looking at them over the tops of his glasses. ‘Well, I’m going to Scotland,’ he says, abstractedly. ‘I don’t know what you’re doing. I’ll be back last thing Sunday.’
    ‘But we can’t!’
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘We can’t take the dog.’
    Claudia notices the smallest hesitation before Howard replies.
    ‘Of course we can take the dog. We just chuck him in the back of the car with a bowl of water.’
    ‘We’re not driving all the way to Scotland, just for the weekend. We’d have to fly, or go by train.’
    ‘We’ll do the other one, then. Derbyshire. Where’s Derbyshire? It can’t be that bloody far away. What’s the name of this place? Let’s phone Tom and ask him. They can come too – we’ll all go together.’ Howard is now standing by the telephone with the receiver in his hand. ‘What’s his number?’
    Claudia finds the number. It is Howard’s speciality – commitment. She has grown accustomed to it, going with Howard into the future like a boat breasting choppy waters, the sensation of uplift just ahead, the momentary resistance and the breaking through. She is dependent on it – she was from the start. Years ago they stood on the beach at Mothecombe, watching a family play cricket on the sand at the end of the summer’s day. Howard was enchanted by the sight, the children calling and laughing in the pink light.
    ‘Let’s get on with it Claude,’ he said, rubbing his hands together, sunset on his face. ‘I don’t want to fuck about. I want the lot. I want a cricket team of our own.’
    They had only known each other three weeks.
    Thomas and Tonie can’t come to Derbyshire. Howard tries Leo, who agrees to meet them there with Susie and the children.
    ‘What about those people in Bath – the Mattisons?’
    ‘The Morrisons,’ Claudia says.
    ‘We haven’t seen them for bloody years.’
    He rings the Morrisons. They too agree to come to Derbyshire. It is nearly ten o’clock. Howard, bleary-eyed, eats his dinner on the phone, shovelling it up with his fork. He rings the