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Chapter nine

The river mistake

I looked at Grant as he sat down in the chair opposite me. I didn’t want to draw him, and I knew why. It was because I didn’t want to spend all that time looking at him.

‘Oh,’ I said. ‘You don’t want me to draw you, do you? I was only doing it to keep everybody happy this evening.’

‘And what’s wrong with keeping me happy?’ he asked with a lazy smile. I knew I had no choice. I’d have to draw him.

‘Oh, all right then,’ I said.

With all the other pictures, I’d started by spending some time looking at the person. I didn’t do that with Grant. I began drawing immediately, and I only looked up at him when I had to. And each time I did look at him, he was looking at me. It almost felt as if Grant was the one doing the drawing.

‘You’re a good artist,’ Grant told me suddenly, and I nodded, continuing with my work.

‘Yes, yes,’ I said. ‘And I’m a bad tour leader. I know. You don’t have to say it.’

‘I wasn’t going to say that, actually,’ Grant surprised me by saying. ‘Those drawings you did of everyone were very good, that’s all. You’re a good artist. Or are you one of those people who don’t like people saying nice things about them?’

I couldn’t believe it was Grant saying nice things about me, that was the thing. I’d always believed him to be an uncaring sort of man. Or maybe not uncaring exactly, but the sort of man who didn’t notice or think about how other people were feeling.

‘Why don’t you work as an artist?’ he went on. ‘Isn’t there enough money in it?’

‘I don’t care about money,’ I said.

‘Then don’t you believe in yourself?’ Grant went on.

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘No. Oh, I don’t know. Not enough, perhaps. Look, do you mind staying quiet? I can’t draw very well if I’m talking.’

Grant smiled. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘But you should think about working as an artist.’

I said nothing, and just got on with my drawing. But after a few more minutes I looked at my picture and shook my head. It was all wrong. It wasn’t a caricature of Grant at all. I needed to start again. So I put the first picture face down on the floor and took another piece of paper.

‘What was wrong with that one?’ Grant immediately wanted to know.

‘It just wasn’t right,’ I told him.

But that wasn’t good enough for Grant. ‘Let me see it,’ he said.

‘No,’ I said. ‘I told you, it isn’t right. Now please be quiet; I need to.’

‘I know,’ Grant said. ‘You need to think.’

I smiled. ‘That’s right.’

This time I sat for a while before I began to draw, looking at Grant’s face and thinking. Grant was a very strong person, and he had a strong face. He liked to be the boss. He had to be the best, and he always thought he was right. As I looked at him, I tried to think what animals were like that. And then I began to smile to myself again.

‘I don’t think I like that smile,’ Grant said, but I just went on smiling and said nothing, my pencil moving quickly over the paper.

‘Here,’ I said when the picture was finished. ‘I hope you like it.’ But I didn’t actually think Grant would like the picture. So I got up quickly and went to the tent entrance.

‘Tess,’ Grant said behind me, ‘come back here!’

But I didn’t stop. I just ran out into the rain, laughing. I’d drawn Grant as two animals - half big cat and half bull, complete with a ring through his nose! Well, that was just what he was like!

I thought Grant might come after me, but he didn’t. So I threw my drawing things into my tent and walked towards the trees by the river to find somewhere to go to the toilet. On my way I went past Astrid’s tent. It was open, and the rain was getting in.

I looked in to see if she was there. Astrid?’ I called, but the tent was empty. I closed the front of the tent to keep the inside dry, and continued walking towards the trees. To tell the truth, I was very worried about Astrid. She’d been really sad when she’d seen my caricature of her. I was so stupid. I always seemed to make her feel even worse about things, poor woman. Where was she now? It was still raining very hard. She would be wet through.

As I went into the trees, I looked around for her. ‘Astrid?’ I called softly. ‘Are you out here?’

There was no answer, but suddenly I heard a noise. Something large had jumped or fallen into the water a few metres away. Now I was really worried. ‘Astrid!’ I shouted. ‘Astrid!’ And I hurried over to the river to take a look. But I could see nothing. It was too dark.

‘Astrid!’ I called again. When there was still no answer, I began to run back towards the tents to find Grant.

The lamps were still on in the cooking tent. I hurried inside. Grant was sitting where I’d left him, looking at one of my drawings.

When he looked up at me he knew something was wrong. The drawing fell to the ground as he got up. ‘What is it, Tess?’ he asked.

‘It’s Astrid,’ I said. ‘I think she’s jumped into the river!’

Grant got up immediately. ‘Come on!’ he said, moving quickly past me. We both hurried back towards the woods and the river.

‘Where did you see her go in?’ Grant asked, taking off his jacket.

‘Just here, I think,’ I said, as he began to take off his boots and trousers. ‘Only I didn’t really see her; I just heard something.’ But my words came too late. Grant had already jumped into the river.

I watched from the trees as Grant swam through the cold water. Then suddenly he was under the water. I put my hands to my mouth, feeling very worried for both Astrid and for Grant. Time and time again Grant went under the cold water looking for Astrid.

After a while, Grant looked at me from the river. ‘I can’t see anything,’ he said tiredly. ‘Are you sure it was here you saw her go in?’

I was beginning to feel terrible. ‘Well, actually, the thing is .’ I started quietly.

‘What?’ asked Grant. ‘Speak up, Tess; I can’t hear you.’

I coughed. ‘Well,’ I said a bit more loudly, ‘I didn’t actually see her go in at all.’

Grant looked at me. What?

‘Well,’ I said, ‘I did try to tell you, but you

At that moment there was the sound of something getting out of the water further up the river. Grant and I both looked towards the noise. So we both saw - at the same moment - a very large, very wet dog, which was running through the trees towards us.

After the dog had gone, I looked at Grant. ‘Sorry,’ I said. But he said nothing, and began to swim towards me through the dark water.

He was still quiet after he’d got out and was putting his clothes on again.

‘I’m sorry, Grant,’ I said again, but he just walked away through the trees.

I hurried after him. ‘I’ll make you a nice hot cup of coffee,’ I told him.

Finally he spoke. ‘No, thank you, Tess,’ he said. ‘You’d probably fall over and burn me with it.’

I stopped trying then, and followed him sadly through the trees until we got to the tents. Astrid’s tent was still closed. I watched as Grant got down on the ground to open it. Astrid?’ he called softly, and the next second the quiet of the night was broken by the sound of a woman screaming.

‘What is it? What do you want? Go away!’

‘It’s all right, Astrid,’ Grant said quickly. ‘It’s me, Grant. I just wanted to.’

‘Go away!’ Astrid screamed again.

People began looking out of their tents to see what was going on.

‘Astrid, please,’ Grant said. ‘I just need to.’

‘No! I’m not interested in you, do you understand? Get away from my tent!’

‘All right, all right!’ Grant said, quickly closing the tent and getting to his feet. Then he saw everyone was looking at him. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘You can all go back to sleep.’ Then he looked at me. ‘Talk to her, will you? After all, you started this.’ And he began to walk away.

‘OK,’ I said, feeling fed up. He was right; I had started all of this. Why hadn’t I stopped to think? Or checked to see if Astrid was back in her tent before I ran to Grant like a wild woman?

‘Astrid,’ I said, speaking through her tent. ‘It’s OK. Don’t worry. Grant was just checking to see if you were safe.’

‘That’s what he says,’ Astrid replied through the tent. ‘But I have seen the way he looks at women.’

‘No, really, Astrid,’ I said. ‘He was just.’

‘Even you, Tess,’ Astrid said. ‘He looks at you that way too. You should be careful. Now, good night. I want to sleep.’

I stood up slowly. ‘Good night, Astrid.’

After all that, I found it difficult to get to sleep. I’d made yet another big mistake. Because of me, Grant had jumped into a river for no good reason. And now Astrid thought he was a dangerous man. I would have to try to explain it all to her again tomorrow. But I wasn’t sure she would believe me. What was it she’d said? That Grant looked at women? That he looked at me? Was it true? I hadn’t seen him look at me like that.

There was something else I hadn’t seen before as well. It had hurt Grant that Astrid was afraid of him. When he’d walked away, he hadn’t just been angry, he’d been hurt. It was a side of him I hadn’t seen before. And it made me think about him differently.

I turned over, trying to get more comfortable in my sleeping bag, but I still couldn’t get to sleep. I was thinking about drawing Grant now - the first drawing, when I hadn’t seen him as a big cat or a bull. I’d drawn him just as he was. A strong man, yes. A man who always thought he was right, yes. But a handsome man too. That was why I’d stopped working on that picture. It was because I thought it showed the way I felt about him.

‘You like him,’ a voice said inside my head, and suddenly I knew it was true. Grant often made me so angry I wanted to throw something at him. But as I got to know him better, I saw that he could be quite nice when he wanted to be.

I closed my eyes. ‘Oh, no,’ I said to myself. ‘You cant like him like that. You can’t!

But I knew that I did.