of them at night, and wakes in the morning filled with their imagery, satisfied in a way she has never found before—not from sex or food, not from exercise or books or making films. From her mind, her planning, has come this scheme to change a tiny portion of the world. In forty years these rusted hulks will be gone, the birth pathology rate will fall from its current horrendous forty-one to something more normal, and people will fish again in the Aral Sea.
SEVENTEEN
Ruth and Ellen owned a tiny house in a row of sixteen, all painted bright, primary colors. They faced what had once been a brickyard. The yard had closed down unexpectedly four weeks after they had signed the mortgage, making their home instantly worth thousands more. The yard, Ellen told me as she took my coat, was being converted into a seed nursery by one of the big garden-center chains.
Ruth showed me the living room—small, but with ingenious shelving—then led me into the big kitchen. Ellen followed but said nothing.
There was a bathroom extension, compact and rather chilly, and a back door that led out onto several square feet of concrete.
“We’re going to turn it into a patio or something, but we need to get the inside of the house fixed up first.”
“It looks fine to me.” And it did: clean, bright, open.
“You should have seen it before. Upstairs is still a bit of a mess.”
Ellen handed me a big glass of cold white wine. I drank it as I followed Ruth to look around upstairs. Ellen filled it again for me when we came down.
We sat in the bay window of the living room, at an old table with scarred legs covered with a cheerful cloth. Handmade stained-glass shades colored the lamplight, dimming it enough so that I could barely see the thin patches in the chenille curtains. The room felt warm and vibrant and jewel-like, and I wondered if they knew how much I envied them.
Ellen brought in soup. We started to eat. I did not know what to say. I had hurt these two a while ago, yet here I was, eating their food.
I cleared my throat, waved my spoon at the walls. “Do you think these colors would suit my flat?”
“Tell us what it’s like.” There were rich shadows under Ruth’s cheekbones, along her jaw.
“Empty. I mean, bare. Long and narrow, low ceiling. Strange angles at the roof and corners.” My soup was gone. I refilled my wineglass, just to have something to do with my hands. “A high window, but wide. From my bed it looks like the horizon a long, long way off.” That surprised me, but they weren’t giving me funny looks. I was encouraged. “In the late afternoon and early morning, the light slants in and sort of washes the walls. Sometimes it’s like stumbling out of a dark tent to desert sunshine, to sand stretching away in the distance.” I held my wineglass up until the light turned it gold. “I want the air to feel as though it’s this color. Sunshine on sand.” I felt very pleased with myself. “Yes. A sort of sandy peachy color.”
Ruth got up and went to the bookshelf that ran along the long wall over the couch. She brought back an old book of photographs. We pushed aside glasses and bowls.
“How about this?” Dunes, blue sky. Camel prints into the horizon. “Or this?” Sunset, sand the color of orange and caramel. “If you find the right color, they’ll match it for you.”Ellen brought back a tray with two covered dishes and we had to set the book aside. We spent a moment spooning things onto our plates: some kind of spicy vegetable casserole, with roasted potatoes and baked parsnip and carrots.
I tasted the parsnips cautiously. They were light, sweet like fresh pastry. “These are good.” We ate quietly, looked at some more pictures. Ellen said nothing much. I drank steadily.
“Thank you,” I said, and gestured to my empty plate, the book of photographs. “I’m grateful.”
Ellen leaned back in her chair. “You should be.” Ruth shot her a look but she ignored it. “I’ll be honest. I didn’t want you to come. What you did was unforgivable, except that I did a few things I’m not very proud of while I was with Spanner. She has that effect on people.”
“She didn’t exactly hold a gun to my head.” I wondered why I was defending Spanner. Or maybe I was defending myself; I wasn’t