In the end Grant took the rod that Tad Cullen was using—a spare one from Clune—so that they could go down river together and talk. But Zoë made no motion to continue her fishing.
‘I’ve had enough,’ she said, unjointing her rod. ‘I think I shall go back to Clune and write some letters.’
Pat stood irresolute, still like a friendly dog between two allegiances, and then said: ‘I’m going back with Zoë.’
He said it, Grant thought, almost as if he were championing her instead of merely accompanying her; as if he had joined an Unfair-To-Zoë movement. But since no one could ever think of being unfair to Zoë, his attitude was surely unnecessary.
From the rock where he sat with Tad Cullen to give him the news he watched the two figures grow small across the moor, and wondered a little at that sudden withdrawal, at the dispirited air that hung about her progress. She looked like a discouraged child, tired and trailing homeward unexpectant. Perhaps the thought of David, her husband, had suddenly drowned her. That was the way with grief: it left you alone for months together until you thought that you were cured, and then without warning it blotted out the sunlight.
‘But that wouldn’t be much to get excited about, would it?’ Tad Cullen was saying.
‘What wouldn’t?’
‘This ancient city you’re talking about. Would anyone get all that excited about it? I mean, about a few ruins. Ruins are two a nickel in the world nowadays.’
‘Not these, they aren’t,’ Grant said, forgetting Zoë. ‘The man who found Wabar would make history.’
‘I thought when you said he had found something important you were going to say munition works in the desert or something like that.’