Dying Fall

directions (‘I think it’s this way— Oh, look at that bird! Is it a buzzard?’), views it with relief. At least this must mean that they’re going the right way. All the same there is something, to her, slightly chilling about the wording. She remembers Dan’s letter with its reference to the ‘frozen and inhospitable north’. She is going into alien territory, and for a moment she thinks she understands how the Roman legions must have felt, leaving the sunny comfort of Italy and travelling northwards to the barbarous lands of the Anglo-Saxons.
    It is July 29th and, as Ruth had predicted, the good weather has broken and rain is forecast. Ruth, Cathbad and Kate are on their way to Lytham. When they stopped for petrol outside King’s Lynn, Ruth thought how much they must look like a normal, nuclear family. Cathbad, in jeans with his greying hair in a ponytail (no cloak – thank God),could be any hippyish dad, siphoning unleaded into the battered family car. Ruth, coping with a fretful Kate and buying sweets for the journey, was aware that she looked every inch the frazzled mum. This must also have been the vision in Max’s head when he had said, ‘Everyone will think you’re a couple, you and Cathbad.’ It had been an odd thing for Max to say. For one thing, he prides himself on not caring what people think. For another, he knows that Ruth and Cathbad are just friends, he even knows about Judy. And, for another … well, he hasn’t any right to comment, has he?
    For the last few weeks, Ruth has been thinking a lot about her relationship with Max. In July, after term had finished, Max came down for a week and they hired a boat on the Broads. Having nearly been murdered on a boat once, Ruth is not that keen on sailing as a pastime, but despite being involved in the same incident Max is a keen waterman. And it had been lovely, drifting through the flat Norfolk fields with the sky high and blue above them, Max at the helm, Kate shouting out with pleasure whenever she saw a swan, or a cormorant, or another boat – or anything really. That had been the only problem; Kate had been so excited that Ruth had had to keep hold of her all the time. She had been fitted with her own cute baby life-jacket, but even so Ruth wasn’t taking any chances. By evening, as they moored under willow trees or in shallow backwaters, Ruth was exhausted, far too tired (and conscious of Kate only a few feet away) to make love in the narrow double bed.
    On their last evening, as they drifted along the Wherryman’s Way, Max had said, ‘Kate’s had a great time, hasn’t she?’
    ‘She’s loved it,’ said Ruth. Max had bought Kate a miniature captain’s cap and she was sitting on his lap with her hands firmly on the helm. It would make a great picture, if only Ruth could remember where she’d put her phone or camera.
    Max turned to Ruth, who was sitting on the bench seat behind him.
    ‘Do you worry about her being an only child?’
    Ruth had been surprised. She had been so shocked to have a baby at all that she had never considered Kate’s single-child status. Of course, in theory she had two half-sisters, but in reality it was just the two of them – Ruth and Kate. Was there something wrong with that?
    ‘No,’ she said. ‘It’s not as if I have much choice.’
    ‘But you do,’ Max had said, turning back to Kate. ‘We could have a baby.’
    Now, filtering into the motorway with all the other families, hot and fractious at the beginning of the summer holidays, Ruth thinks about Max’s incredible statement. She has honestly never thought about having another baby. Getting pregnant with Kate had seemed like a miracle and, like all miracles, it was a one-off, inconvenient as well as wonderful. She has always thought that Kate was her one chance at motherhood – a chance she once thought she would never have. But she is only forty-two, it’s not impossible that she should have anotherchild (though she ought to get a move on if she’s considering it). She thinks back to her fantasy family on the beach at Blackpool. Is it possible to imagine a baby next to a toddler Kate? A baby with Max’s curly hair? Would Max be in the fantasy too? He didn’t mention marriage or even living together. In fact, after dropping his bombshell, he had never mentioned the subject again, had not even waited for Ruth’s reply (just as well as she had no intention of giving one). They had parted on easy, affectionate terms, Max saying