It was always a joy to come in, to pass the headland and see the house in the distance. She loved that stretch of coast and she loved the house. Some other places made her feel she was on the fringes of the world and there were places that made her feel she was in the middle of nowhere, and places – like this one – that made her feel she was at the centre of the universe. In great cities she had felt in the middle of nowhere but she reckoned that if she ever went to the North Pole or Tierra del Fuego she would at least feel she was somewhere. Of course whether or not you like a place depends on so many things – what it looks like and its atmosphere and the people and so on – but in her case she believed there was something more besides: some atavistic need or instinct, something to do with her sense of orientation perhaps – her position in relation to the Earth's magnetic field or something of the sort – or perhaps some unconscious memory of the past, of a place once known and loved, and then forgotten. At any rate she liked it where she was now and knew how lucky she was to be there. She had loved the place ever since the first day when, arriving by coach from inland, she had seen the pine forest and suddenly she was in under the trees, and even in the coach it was cooler and the scent of the pines came in through the windows and mingled with the smell of the exhaust fumes. When you got off the coach, it was a ten-minute walk through the pine forest with the sea-breeze blowing in gentle puffs through the trees and then came the first glimpse of deep blue and then you came out onto the beach. Turning to the right you saw the house ahead, about half a mile away and just in the right place, not too close to the water, not too far, not on the centreline of the bay but slightly to one side, on a spot which probably marked the golden section of the arc of the bay.
She loved to walk up to the house, to its weathered timbers painted light blue and white on the outside – and up the five front steps and into the interior, which always smelled faintly of sea and sun and pitch, like an old wooden boat. It sounded like a boat, too, creaking in the wind, its deck-like floor booming underfoot and, like a boat, the house had its foibles and weaknesses in the shape of numerous draughts, leaks in bad weather, and faulty plumbing. But she wouldn't have swapped that place for anywhere else in the world.
