Natural History Read Online Free Page A

laugh.’
    She nudged him with her elbow—it was sharp, and she was strong. And then Patrick said, ‘Excuse me,’ and walked off to piss in the bushes; it was probably okay to piss in front of a woman who’d said clitoris, and dick and testicles, and schlong.
    She stood with her back to him, unembarrassed, rocking on the balls of her feet, humming a tune he didn’t recognize and looking at the shining bridge, until he was finished. And then she unbuttoned her jeans and went for a piss too. She squatted in the bushes; the epicentre of a hiss, a rising cloud of steam, a whisper of relief.
    On the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, they went for a walk in the Mendips, a range of limestone hills south of the city.
    They wore bright kagouls and hiked through a low, milky mist to the flat summit of Beacon Batch, carpeted in damp heather, and set down by the cairn. Patrick had a flask of tea in his knapsack, and they passed it between them. He told her about the ancient barrows and forts littered around the grasslands below—the burial places of forgotten kings. He pointed to where Weston super Mare would be, were it not so foggy.
    He knew she wouldn’t care about Weston super Mare; who would? But he wanted to show her things about England she didn’t know.
    In his pocket, he had tickets to that year’s pantomime at the Bristol Hippodrome. It was Babes in the Wood, starring Jim Davidson and the Krankies.
    Patrick believed Pantomime to be a window onto his nation’s soul; he was explaining this as she passed him back the tea and said, ‘I’m pregnant, by the way.’
    He jerked his head—shocked and birdlike—to look at her. She lurched away, as if to avoid a head-butt.
    â€˜Sorry?’
    She excavated a pack of barley sugars from her kagoul pocket, popped one into her mouth and crunched it to shrapnel. ‘I’m keeping it. And blah blah blah.’
    â€˜What about your field study?’
    â€˜No change. I leave in February.’
    There was a noise in his head like a vacuum cleaner.
    â€˜You’re having the baby in Africa ?’
    â€˜People do.’
    He laughed out loud, because she was better than him. It was a glorious feeling. Liberating and exhilarating. She finished her barley sugar, pleased.
    He said, ‘You’re unbelievable.’
    â€˜If I want a baby, I’ll have one.’
    â€˜Do you want one?’
    She hugged her knees. ‘Actually.’
    â€˜Wow.’
    She touched the back of his hand. ‘This isn’t your problem.’
    â€˜Is it a problem?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Is it a problem?’
    â€˜I don’t think so. I don’t think it’s a problem.’
    They had their backs to the cold stone of the cairn; England was spread below them.
    He thought about Jane’s bedroom.
    Its walls were bare, and she had thrown away the dank old carpet to expose the floorboards. There were bookshelves, an ugly Oxfam table on which sat a beautiful, beetle-green Underwood typewriter.
    And there was an old trunk. It had belonged to Jock’s father; it was a dead man’s chest, manufactured in 1919 by Oshkosh of Wisconsin, and it was scaly with travel stickers. Patrick liked to sit on her messy bed and stare at them; they were sun-faded and half-peeled— Hotel Richemond, Genève. Cook’s Nile Service. Saigon Palace Hotel. Cunard White Star Lines Cruises. Train-Bleu.
    In Patrick’s favourite adventure stories, there was always a sidekick. And now he knew that’s what he was—not Alan Breck Stuart but David Balfour; not Holmes but Watson. It was heady, finally to learn this. Sidekicks never instigated adventures. They were drawn into them. And here was his; after all those years of waiting.
    They’d climbed this hill together in silence. Jane had worn a secret on her face which Patrick pretended not to notice, it was a happy look and he’d been happy too, to think he might be