The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood Page B

tried the number before work the next morning, hoping she would answer. It rang four times and then her frail, friendly voice came through the receiver. All she said was ‘Hello,’ but it made his heart quicken.
    ‘It’s Oscar,’ he said.
    ‘Oh, Oscar, thank goodness.’ She exhaled loudly. ‘I’m so glad to hear from you. I wanted to call so many times and explain, but I couldn’t think of how to … it doesn’t matter. We’re talking now. That’s what counts.’ They navigated around the subject of her brother with awkward small talk about the recent hail showers. She began to tell him about an ice storm she’d once seen in Montreal, but he interrupted her. ‘I was thinking we should get a cup of tea or something. Like normal people,’ he said. ‘Are you free later?’
    ‘Yes. That would be nice.’ He could almost hear her smiling. Then she asked, ‘Where?’, and his mind wiped itself blank. All he could think of was a funny-looking place by Magdalene Bridge, an Italian chain bistro with phoney terracotta walls.
    She arrived nearly ten minutes late, sporting a grey bobble hat that barely covered her ears, and a pair of mittens made from the same thick, whiskery wool. The sight of her coming down Magdalene Street brought a tremor to the backs of his knees. A soft ache built inside him. He was still angry with her, but it didn’t seem to matter any more. She was carrying her cello case, strapped over two shoulders like an unwieldy backpack, the weight of it bending her body forwards. A cyclist steered quickly to avoid her as she crossed the road without looking.
    Stopping before Oscar, she set the cello down by his feet. They shook hands, daintily, like they were perfect strangers. ‘Sorry I’m late. I got out as soon as I could,’ she said. ‘Our director was going on and on about our bowing. I told him,
Mike, if we were any more in sync we’d be Siamese twins
, but he didn’t really see the funny side. Have you been waiting long?’
    ‘I just got here.’ She didn’t need to know that he’d been standing nervously in the doorway for a quarter of an hour. ‘I thought you were giving up the chamber group.’
    ‘No. I decided against it. My father will just have to lump it. And besides, it annoys the heck of out my brother.’ She looked away. ‘We should get a table.’
    They found a place beside the biggest window in the café. The austere grey buildings of Magdalene College stood proudly on the riverbank. Everywhere Oscar turned, the college and its pristine lawns were in his peripheral vision, lurking, pressing. It was getting on for four o’clock, but the sun was still slanting down, casting silhouettes upon the river. Punts were idling along the water, and for a moment he sat there quietly with Iris, watching them collide with tame little bumps. A Japanese family steered into the embankment while an old man in a straw boater went by serenely, a parade of mute swans following in his wake. There was a tension in the silence. For the first time, he felt uneasy being alone with her.
    Iris poured her Darjeeling. ‘So look,’ she said, ‘sooner or later, one of us is going to have to talk about what happened the other week.’
    ‘I know.’
    ‘I want you to know how sorry I am. Things got out of control.’
    ‘Well, I think I might have overreacted a little bit.’
    ‘That’s understandable. You were injured, after all, and Eden only made things worse.’
    ‘I should’ve let you explain.’ He tried to look into her eyes, but her face was pointed down towards the spoon she was whirling in her tea. ‘I mean, I haven’t known Eden that long, and I don’t know what he thought he was trying to prove with that stunt of his exactly. I don’t even know how I ended up hurting myself. But that’s not what upset me. It was when he wouldn’t let go of my hand, and I looked at
you
—it seemed like you didn’t want him to let go. It felt—’ He stopped to make sure the words came