Creature Comforts. Trisha Ashley

       Chapter 6: Water Cure

      I hurried down the path as fast as the overgrown bushes and brambles along it would allow, for I now had an almost overwhelming urge to immerse myself in the strangely opaque greeny-blue waters – and not only in my usual ‘wash away my sins’ manner, but now, after the encounter with Dan, a ‘wash that man right out of my hair’ one, too.

      The clearing lay dreaming in the crisp April sunshine, the usual hint of magic tingeing the air. Tom’s small stone cottage looked as if it belonged in a fairy tale, tucked behind a white picket fence, with a neat row of beehives at one end and a dovecote at the other, where there was a slight flurry of wings as an occupant exited.

      The wild wood pigeons called and somewhere a blackbird whistled sweetly. Then a red squirrel bounded gracefully and airily across the grass, pausing briefly to turn its tufty ears and bright, inquisitive eyes in my direction. I thought there couldn’t be a spot that had more spirit of place – somewhere where the passing of centuries seemed tangible, soft and enfolding. You could feel a connection with the earth, or the life force – or even, if you’d been bashed around the head enough, an inner angelic voice telling you what to do.

      Mine was telling me to go and get into the pool.

      The stone wall surrounding it was silvered with circles of lichen and I had a plastic token for the old turnstile at the entrance, which had once graced Southport pier. It let me pass through with a well-oiled clanking noise, and once inside, everything was just as it had been on my last visit.

      When the Romans rediscovered the pool, they deepened and extended it into a rectangular bath big enough to swim two or three strokes each way in. They’d roofed it, too, and built other rooms off it, heated by an ingenious hypocaust system, but all the stones were taken to make Spring Cottage, and now the only evidence that there had once been a superstructure lay in the hummocky shapes under the short turf.

      I climbed up to the cave, took a pointed paper cup from a stack on a shelf inside and had a drink of the water, which tastes weird, though not unpleasant.

      Then I changed in one of the wooden sentry huts by the pool, before sliding into the water, which, because I’m so short, came to about shoulder height. I ducked under and it closed over me as softly and silkily as cold milk. Then I turned and floated starfish-wise on the surface and the spring sun fell golden on my closed eyelids.

      Debo once told me that the young Roman soldiers would have swum naked, and ever since then I had often thought I could hear echoes of them laughing and chatting … but then other times I’m convinced I can hear faint pagan chanting.

      That day I wasn’t aware of any past swimmers sharing the space with me, just the softness of the water on my skin, the sun warming my eyelids and the sweet warbling of birds in the trees.

      I always brought my worries and fears to the pool and now I felt them drain away, leaving a sense of peace and lightness behind in their place.

      I was prepared to let go of Kieran, too, though not without some regret for the love I’d once felt for him and the hopes I’d had for our future.

      He’d seemed such a kind, generous man, easy-going and popular with everyone … except, now I came to think of it, with Debo. She’d flown out to India for a visit just after we’d got engaged and immediately befriended one of the local stray dogs that attached itself to her. She’d decided to take it back home to Halfhidden with her, though of course, she couldn’t do that straight away, and I was left in charge of organising all the vet’s checks and inoculations and the rest of it, until I finally managed to get the dog onto a plane and off to her new life. (She was a sweet golden brown creature we called Rani, who was eventually adopted by the family who own the alpine plant nursery at the top of the village.)

      Kieran hadn’t understood why Debo should make such a fuss about a dog, when there were children suffering so much poverty and hardship. In fact, he made no secret of it that he thought Debo’s Desperate Dog Refuge was a stupid idea altogether and a total waste of money.

      ‘Why take in dogs that aren’t suitable for rehoming?’ he’d asked, puzzled. ‘I mean, they must bite, or have some other antisocial behaviour, so putting them down would really be the only sensible option.’

      So no, he and Debo were never going to see eye to eye. And though I could see his point about the children, animals deserve better treatment, too, and they were where Debo’s heart lay.

      Apart from that one glitch over Debo’s Dogs, everything about our relationship had seemed entirely serendipitous, from our first meeting right up to the moment he introduced me to his parents for the first time …

      I flipped over, took a deep breath and then swam underwater to the other end of the pool, where I let myself slowly float back to the surface, looking down into the opaque depths. I always think coming up is a bit like being born again. One minute it’s dark turquoise murk and the next – out you pop into bright light and a birdsong ‘Hallelujah’ chorus.

      But this time, just as I was about to turn over, there was the sudden shock of an almighty splash right next to me and next minute I was wrenched out of the water, taking an involuntary gulp of it in the process, then upended inelegantly over someone’s arm. A hard hand thumped me between the shoulder blades and I choked and spluttered, then began to struggle.

      ‘You’re alive!’ said a deep voice, thankfully.

      Turning me the right way up, the man waded to the side and laid me down on the stone edging, before climbing out.

      I sat up, still coughing up water, and exclaimed indignantly, ‘Of course I’m alive, you idiot! I was swimming!’

      ‘My God,’ he said blankly, looking down at me from a great height, ‘I’ve rescued a pixie!’

      His hair was darkly plastered to his head and his clothes dripping, but there was something strangely familiar about him. Then, when he reached down and hauled me to my feet, I found myself staring up, stunned, into a distinctive and unforgettable pair of eyes the soft green of sea-washed bottle glass, edged with smudgy black around the iris.

      ‘Harry?’ I whispered, my heart suddenly stopping, then restarting, but faster and more erratically.

      It was he who broke the long eye contact, frowning and letting go of his grip on my arms so suddenly that I nearly sank down again.

      ‘I’m Rufus – Rufus Carlyle,’ he said, looking at me strangely.

      And of course, after that first brief shock I could see he was a total stranger. He might be much the same age as Harry, his half-brother, would have been by now, but other than the eyes, his face was entirely different, all planes and angles, with a cleft chin and a Roman nose that wouldn’t have looked out of place under a plumed helmet on the obverse of an ancient coin.

      In fact, it occurred to me that if he hadn’t been wearing clothes, he would have been a dead ringer for the fantasy Roman soldiers I’d often imagined sharing the pool with me.

      I felt a slightly hysterical bubble of laughter trying to escape my lips and clamped them together, but I must have looked weird, because he asked tersely, ‘Are you all right?’

      I nodded and then swallowed. ‘Yes. Or at least I was, until you started half-drowning me and bashing me around.’

      ‘Only because you were floating face down and looked drowned. What on earth were you doing in there, anyway? The place is closed to visitors until two. Did you climb over the fence?’

      He