Dreaming of the Bones

read? He doesn’t look bookish, and I suppose I’d thought of him as a rugger-and-football sort of boy.”
    ”Oh, he’s capable enough at games, and he does what’s necessary to fit in at school, but his heart’s not really in it. And it’s odd, because he’s always been ferociously competitive about his schoolwork—even more so since Ian left. The other day I found him crying over an exam score, and then he was furious with me for catching him at it. He didn’t speak to me for two days.” Vic hadn’t told anyone this, and now she didn’t know if she felt relieved, or guilty for betraying Kit’s confidence. These were the sort of things meant to be shared by parents, she thought, but she wouldn’t have told lan even had he been round to tell. He’d have gone all pompous and preachy about it, and he’d somehow, as always, manage to miss the point.
    ”Poor kid,” Nathan said, his jacket rustling as he moved in the dark. ”Perhaps you could encourage him to love the acquisition of knowledge for its own sake, separate from the carrot system of education.”
    Vic heard a soft plop from the direction of the river. A frog? Or a fish jumping? Did fish sleep? she wondered. She thought of asking Nathan, then dismissed it as being too humiliatingly ridiculous. How ignorant she was of anything outside her own little area of expertise. Tonight the river seemed merely a dark void in the landscape—she had never thought of it being full of life as complicated and messy as her own.
    Now she found that if she stared long enough at the water she could see light and movement, the reflection of starlight filtering through the chestnut branches. ”So how do I go about it, teaching Kit to love knowledge for itself?”
    ”Look at yourself,” said Nathan softly. ”Have you forgotten why you do what you do? That’s a start. And I’ve some books he might like. Why don’t you come up to the cottage with me?” he added, cupping a hand round her elbow. ”I’ve something for you, as well.”
    Vic found that her odd, new awareness had spread from the perception of outward phenomena to her body. She felt the heat from Nathan’s hand through the bulky sleeve of her cardigan and the sensation left her suddenly ripe, aching, weak-kneed with desire. Oh, Lord, she had forgotten this, the strength of it, and she was not prepared. She thought of Nathan’s hand on her breast and stumbled, gasping.
    ”Are you all right?” He tightened his grip on her arm. ”Fine,” she said, a bit breathlessly, fighting laughter, trying hard to stamp down the singing joy rising in her. ”Just fine.”

    ”Fancy a drink?” Nathan asked. ”Wine or—”
    ”Whisky,” Vic interrupted decisively. She stood before the fire in his kitchen-dining area as if she were cold, but her cheeks were stained with pink.
    Watching her while he filled two tumblers from the bottle he kept in the kitchen cabinet, Nathan wondered if she might be coming down with something. Come to think of it, she’d been behaving very oddly these past few minutes. She’d not often touched him, yet tonight when he’d let go her arm on reaching the level path, fearing he’d overstepped his bounds, she’d walked so close beside him that their shoulders bumped.
    Nathan delivered her glass and raised his. ”Cheers.”
    Vic took what on anyone less delicate looking he would have labeled a swig, then coughed and sputtered. When he patted her solicitously on the back, she shivered. ”Honestly, Vic, I think you’re not well. Let me—”
    ”No, I’m fine, Nathan, really,” she said, her eyes still watering. ”I just got a bit carried away with this stuff.” She took a much smaller sip. ”See? I’m quite all right. Now, tell me about those books for Kit.”
    He went to one of the bookcases that lined the wall opposite the garden windows, and she came to stand beside him. ”Gerald Durrell,” he said, running his finger along the shelves as he scanned, then stopping on some slender spines. ”Has he read these? They’re marvelous, all about his childhood on Corfu with every kind of insect and animal imaginable. And what about Laurens van der Post? He made me want to see Africa , follow in the tracks of the Bushmen. Or Konrad Lorenz, the grandfather of animal behavior?” Stop it, he told himself, pulling books from the shelves. You’re chattering like a bloody adolescent on a first date. And to make it worse, he was probably imagining that her nearness was