Free Conversations With Mr. Prain by Joan Taylor Page B

suppose he was simply observing, inspecting me in this environment where I clearly did not belong. He had an
intention
, nevertheless, that seemed to cause him some anxiety. He was designing things so that he would be successful in some matter of importance, which related to the photograph. And that matter might be sex, I thought, though, if so, he was going about things by the most bizarrely circuitous route anyone could imagine.
    We were walking along the hallway of the top storey when we passed a small corridor with stairs at the end. I pointed it out and asked where the steps led up to.
    “Oh just my bedroom,” he said, plainly. “There’s nothing interesting in there.” I felt him hesitate. Clearly, it was not good form to show a female guest his bedroom. But then he said, “Well, there is a rather good view. It’s built into part of the old attic, and there are windows facing two directions: north and south. You might enjoy seeing that.” Enjoy? Without demurring further he walked along the corridor, up the few steps, and opened the door. I trailed obediently behind, reflecting on the fact that this tour was supposed to be enjoyable for me.
    His bedroom was so tidy it almost seemed unused, as bedrooms do when exhibited to the public—those bare bedrooms of stately homes—except that it had an
en suite
bathroom that was clearly the place where he performed his ablutions. Beyond the open door I could see a shelf with his shaving things (badger shaving brush, hand razor) beside a huge mirror.
    The bedroom was quite dark, being wooden-panelled, and strangely shaped, with the ceiling sloping down at both sides. It was dominated by an antique four-poster bed with a heavy green counterpane. A leaded window provided a view to the back of the house—where the gardener was still tinkering with the lawnmower—and the woods, which I could now see stretched for several acres before merging into a shallow valley that adjoined farmland. Another similar window faced the front, where we looked down to the sweeping driveway, gardens bathed in sun, and the ostentatious wrought-iron gates of Walton Hall, with their giant pineapple-topped stone pillars on either side. Beyond these gates was the road, and then more woods, oblong fields ripe with wheat and barley which swayed in the breezes as if being stroked with invisible combs, meadows dotted with sheep and cows, cottages and farms, lanes, hedgerows, a distant village, a disused railway embankment running towards the horizon, and a sky like a vast blue sheet.
    “What a beautiful day,” I said.
    “We’re not scared,” came the echo in my head, from the children’s book,
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
, by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury. It’s a beautiful day, and they’re not scared, but when they find a bear in a deep,dark cave they are absolutely terrified and run as fast as they can back home, lock the door and climb into bed.
    Uh-uh, Mr. Prain’s house. A big, rich house. We can’t go over it. We can’t go under it. Oh no! We’ve got to go through it!
    “It’s really nice to be in the countryside,” I said, trying not to sound either too regretful or effusive. It was beautiful, this rural England. In London, it sometimes felt that the city was all there was in this land, sprawling out its tentacles via the tube map. Here it felt as if London was far, far away. Here there were different birds: robins, starlings, yellowhammers, bluetits, chaffinches. I wanted to lean on the windowsill and absorb the scene, like Wordsworth at Tintern Abbey, to take it back with me to the traffic and buildings. If only we could have been out walking down those lanes, to a canal, rather than stuck inside. I wished I could inhale the country air, the smell of herbs, flowers, fields, hay. I looked at it all before me. It might as well have been a painting in a gallery.
    And then, as I felt this rush of longing, I was aware of him standing next to me, also looking at the scene, but