Free Keeping the World Away by Margaret Forster Page B

stared at him, and Gwen wondered if she saw something of Gus in him. They left La Réole poorer than when they arrived, earning only 1.50 francs there and spending 2. Next night it was cold and they slept under a haystack, waking very early, shivering, and rolling together, Gwen on top of Dorelia, to try to warm themselves. When they got up, Dorelia said she had not slept at all but Gwen had done so, her arms loosely round Dorelia’s neck and her body burrowing into the folds of Dorelia’s dress and cloak. She felt entirely happy, in spite of the cold and lack of comforts. For breakfast, they picked grapes, but the fruit was not yet quite ripe and tasted sour. Every day, their portfolios and equipment seemed to grow heavier and they prayed for a cart to come along and relieve them of their burden.
    Carts did stop, quite often, attracted by the sight of Dorelia whose attractions were obvious. Twice they were followed, after they had sung in an inn, by men eager to give them money for other services. The men were not frightening, not rough or threatening in manner, but they were persistent and once the two women had to seek refuge in a church (where the verger took pity on them and gave them a bed in his own house for the night). But on they went, mile after mile, walking or riding in carts (and once in a motor car, unimaginable luxury), the weather glorious except for a few isolated heavy showers which they rather enjoyed though the rain made them look bedraggled. How far had they travelled when, towards the end of October, they felt the first cold wind? They did not know. Not far, for sure. Gwen was aware of a change in herself, not just in the weather. She wanted to be inside, she wanted an
interior
to make her own. Four walls, and a floor. To be enclosed again, and have order and certainty, to shut out distraction. Dorelia, though she said nothing, looked astonished, even perhaps alarmed, when Gwen remarked that they should look for a room in the next village and stay there for a while. She was happy, in the open all day, as happy as Gus always was. She liked not knowing where they would lay their heads. She liked having the sky for a roof and trees for walls.
    They came to Toulouse in November, on a grey, misty day, and Gwen said, ‘Enough.’ Toulouse was nowhere near Rome, it wasn’t even Italy, but she could wander no further, or not for the moment. Dorelia shrugged, and let Gwen knock on doors and make enquiries about cheap lodgings until they were directed up a hill, up a cobbled street, to a house where a tiny woman in black glared fiercely at them and asked to see their money before she showed them a room. The room was small but clean and practically empty. It had a bed (only one bed, but quite wide, room enough for two) a table, and two chairs. ‘Perfect,’ said Gwen. The window looked out on to a stream and had heavy wooden shutters which kept the east wind from blowing in. On the table was a lamp, quite a large oil lamp which once lit gave a steady yellow light. The moment it was lit, Gwen reached for her paintbrush. This was what she had wanted: this sense of containment, of calm. All around the edges of the glow from the lamp it was dark , the light fading gently as it reached outwards, making the walls mysterious and shadowy. She held her breath.
    *
    Dorelia studied. The book was difficult, her French uncertain, but the intensity with which she studied it pleased Gwen. The heightened sensibility gave to Dorelia’s face a touching and unusual solemnity. She had asked Dorelia to wear her grey dress today, grey but with black threads drawn through it, a black belt tied at the side, and black trimming round the high neck. A sombre dress against which Dorelia’s skin looked peach-like. A demure dress, chaste, the sleeves long, her body hidden beneath it. Gus dressed her flamboyantly in vivid colours but Gwen wanted nothing to detract from Dorelia’s loveliness. Her portrait was not about clothes.
    She asked