They walk through the garden, back through the shrubs and trees, towards a boathouse that Gwen hadn't seen yet. Arthur proposes a challenge.
"So. I think that we need to make this a little more… interesting."
"How so?" Gwen asks, wondering what he has in mind.
"Whoever catches the largest fish gets to have their fish cleaned by the other."
"Or how about cooked?" she suggests, knowing full well that they'd be finding a restaurant if she won.
"Well, as I have every intention of winning, I should agree to those terms," he says. "However. Just on the off-chance that you do catch a larger fish than me, why don't we keep it to cleaning?"
"That's probably safest," she agrees, then adds, "Especially because when I catch the larger fish, I would like to be able to eat it for dinner."
"This is, of course, contingent on us catching any fish worth keeping," he clarifies.
"Obviously."
They reach the boathouse, which contains a simple fishing boat, a set of oars, several poles, tackle boxes on shelves, some life vests, and a few hats hanging here and there. Gwen blinks a few times, letting her eyes adjust to the dim light, while Arthur works on freeing the boat.
He checks that there is fuel in the small motor and starts it briefly to make sure it is working still. It is. "Excellent," he says, standing.
"Choose your weapon, my lady," he declares, indicating the fishing poles.
Gwen walks to them, selects the one she likes. It is a very warm and humid day, so she also takes one of the hats hanging on a hook on the wall and places it on her head. Arthur smiles at the sight of her in the fishing hat, and she defends herself. "It's hot out this morning. My skin may be dark, but it does get sunburn, you know," she says, laughing.
He grabs his pole and a tackle box, the oars, a couple life vests, and a few more items and places them into the boat. Gwen has a cooler with some bottles of water, fruit, and a container of worms Arthur bought earlier for bait ("No time to go digging this morning").
As he rows them out into the canal, Gwen looks up and says, "Probably a good thing we're going out this morning. I think it may rain later."
"You think?" He looks up at the sky, hazy with the humidity, but blue.
"Definitely. Too humid for there not to be a threat of rain. Or a thunderstorm, even."
"Well, let's go find some fish, then," he says, firing up the motor and heading them out to deeper waters.
As he navigates their modest vessel through the waterways, Gwen lounges on the bench, watching the scenery pass. There are several houses similar to Uther's cottage, and lots of green. Everywhere, green; lush and gorgeous.
Arthur knows the canals well, so he mostly watches Guinevere. She is dressed for the hot weather, which means he is treated to a lot of her lovely skin. She is wearing a snug-fitting spaghetti strapped tank top, striped in various shades of blue, khaki shorts that are quite short (thank you very much, thinks Arthur), and her black flip-flops. Her toenails are painted purple, he notices. Her hair is in two bunches secured with elastic at either side of the back of her neck, and combined with the fishing hat that is slightly too big for her, she looks very much like he imagines she would have looked as a young girl. A very desirable, mature young girl, with the sun glinting amber on her tawny skin…
Arthur watches her through his sunglasses, but Gwen knows she is being studied. She looks at him and inclines her head. Well?
"You just look really cute," he shrugs, and his eyes briefly drop to where the pendant of her new necklace is resting just above her breasts.
"You, too," she counters. And he does. He is wearing a grey t-shirt that says The Clash across the chest, black cargo shorts, and he's barefoot, his leather flip-flops having been discarded as soon as his butt hit the bench. He always wears such simple clothes, but for some reason they look fabulous on him. It's so unfair. "I like your sunglasses. They suit you," she tells him.
"Here we are," he says, maneuvering the boat to the place that he likes. "This is where I caught the fish in the picture."
"Lucky spot?"
"Something like that." He drops an anchor and opens the cooler, taking out the container of worms.
He pries the lid off and holds the container out to her as if he were offering her a snack.
"No thanks, I'm still full from breakfast," she says with a smirk. Arthur laughs and sets the worm tub on the top of the cooler between them.
He is impressed that she isn't squeamish about baiting the hook, spearing the worm on it without a second thought, even after it wriggles frantically. "Settle down, you," she talks to the worm before spearing it a second time, securing it.
They sit quietly for a time, waving at other fishermen floating past. Arthur unintentionally snags some plant material on his hook, scowling as it drags into the boat, wetting his shorts. Gwen laughs at him and casts her line out further.
"So do you have to be at work at noon tomorrow?" Gwen asks as they stare out over the water. It has been on her mind, and she's been wanting to ask about it.
"I'm expected at some point tomorrow, but if I don't get there spot on noon I don't think anyone will have a heart attack."
"Okay," she noncommittally says. She's not looking forward to spending all the balance of Monday alone, especially after having him all to herself since Friday. Thursday night, she corrects herself.
"I know, I don't want me to go either," he says, noting that she's trying to hide her disappointment.
"It's all right. I'll find some way to survive without you," she tries joking to lighten the mood. "I promise I won't fall into any rivers while you're working."
He chuckles at this, and says, "Well, that's certainly encouraging."
They both have some nibbles, but too furtive to snag. Gwen has to replace her worm at one point, much to Arthur's amusement, because it had been eaten too far away.
"Hang on…" Arthur snaps to attention, watching his line. The round plastic bobber disappears beneath the surface of the water and he gives the line a yank and starts reeling. The fish breaks the surface and comes into view. Gwen starts laughing.
"Aw, what a cute little fish you've caught," she says, as though she's cooing over a toddler. He's caught a small perch, about four inches long. "Maybe we can find a nice bowl for him and keep him as a pet," she suggests.
Scowling furiously, he nabs the tiny wiggling thing and removes the hook from its mouth. He looks at it, pointing its tiny face at his own, and tells it, "I'll let you live… this time. Next time you may not be so lucky." As he tosses it back, he tells it, "Off with you. Go and get big so I may eat you at a later date."
"Do you always talk to fish?" she asks him, laughing at his performance.
"Just the little ones. It's all a part of my evil plan to lull them into a false sense of security so that I may more easily catch them once they're big enough to be worth my time," he winks conspiratorially at her.
"And how is that working out for you?" He is so ridiculous, and I love it.
"You know that fish in the picture?"
"Yes?"
"Haven't caught one that size since then."
"Oh! And you were so confident that you would best me!" she exclaims, laughing hard now.
"Well, a certain amount of trash-talking is to be expected in any competition, my love," he is laughing now, too.
"I see. Hiding behind false bravado, then. Whoa!" She hasn't been paying close attention to her line and suddenly the pole jerks, bending just slightly.
She grabs the pole tight in her hands, pulling back, and starts to wind the reel back, steadily, slowly, but not too much so. She stands, planting her feet to get better leverage.
Arthur can see she's getting a struggle from the fish and comes over to assist her. She shoos him away with a, "Back off, poacher! This is my fish!"
He laughs and sits back down, but near enough that he can grab her if she loses her balance. He reaches for a bottle of water and takes a drink, watching the muscles in her arms and legs strain, an adorable look of determination plastered on her face.
Gwen finally lands the fish, swinging it into the boat. It thrashes and splatters Arthur. She sits back down and looks at it. A brown trout, about a foot long, flops and gasps in the bottom of the boat. Arthur hands her the water bottle, and she takes a drink.
He is just about to reach for the fish when she leans forward and grabs the fish in both hands, once again surprising and impressing Arthur. She removes the hook from its mouth and hoists it in the air, her hand hooked in one of its gills.
"Nice fish," she says, grinning broadly.
"It'll do," he is trying not to smile. That's a gorgeous fish, he thinks.
"Hope you're prepared to clean it for me."
"Well, we're not done yet; I could still come up with a bigger one," he says.
"Indeed you could," she says, stringing the fish on a rope line and hanging it over the side of the boat. "But we don't have too much longer before the weather changes." She points in the distance, to a solid grey bank of clouds approaching.
"Hmm. You were right." He turns his attention to his hook, baiting it once again and casting it out. Gwen lounges back, content with her catch, and starts to reach into the cooler for a snack.
She stops, looking at her hands. Sniff. Fish. Worms. She reaches her hands over the side of the boat and swishes them in the water briefly, but it doesn't seem sufficient.
Looking into the cooler, she spies a bunch of grapes. Aha. She takes a bunch, holding it carefully by the stem. She holds it aloft and plucks a grape from the bunch with her teeth.
Arthur has been watching his line, but finally Gwen's motion catches the corner of his eye. He turns a little, surreptitiously watching her. She looks like a Greek goddess sitting there eating those grapes like that. She lifts the bunch again, and he watches, transfixed, as she leans her head back, opens her mouth, and delicately surrounds a grape with her teeth and tongue. As she plucks it from the bunch, he jumps just at the moment when the grape pops free, and he realizes that he is now staring and his heartbeat has increased slightly.
"Grape?" she offers, fully noting his stare.
"Well, I'd rather continue to watch you eat them, but sure, I'll have some." As long as she feeds them to me like that.
She moves to the bench beside him and lifts the bunch of grapes up for him, and he grabs three at once. "Thank you," he says, mouth full. She kisses him and takes another grape for herself.
"You've got something there," she points to his line.
"Hmm?" he was watching her again. "Oh! I do." She moves back to the other bench to allow him to bring in whatever he's got this time.
He brings in the fish, another perch, but larger this time. About eight inches.
"Appetizer," Gwen declares with a smirk.
"Hey, this one's big enough to keep. Sort of…"
"Sure, keep him. We'll have a nice dinner of trout and perch."
Just then the wind shifts and noticeably picks up.
"We'd better get back," Arthur says, stringing his fish on the nylon rope along with Guinevere's. He pulls the anchor up and fires up the motor.
"Hope it's not too bad a storm. The power goes out pretty easily around here. Might make it difficult to cook dinner."
Gwen ponders this a minute. "In that case, we should bring in a bunch of firewood when we get back."
"Firewood?"
"Yes. I believe there is at least one fireplace in that cottage, yes?"
"You're going to cook on the fire?"
"If I need to, I can. No big deal," she dismissively shrugs, making a grab for her hat when it almost blows off.
Never ceases to amaze me, he thinks.
xXx
By the time they get back to the cottage, the ominous clouds are closer and more threatening, and the temperature has significantly dropped. Inside the boathouse, they quickly unload the gear and secure the boat.
"Guinevere, in that cabinet over there," he points to a small cabinet behind her, in a far corner, "is a knife and a fish scaler. Would you get them for me so I can clean these stupid things?"
"Of course," she laughs, and walks to the cabinet. She opens the door, and when she does so, an old shoe box on the top comes dislodged and starts to fall. She quickly grabs it before the contents spill everywhere. There is a thick layer of dust on the top of the box. She holds it in one hand and grabs the tools with the other.
"What have you got there?" Arthur asks, hearing the commotion.
"This box fell from the top of the cabinet when I opened the door." She holds it out for him to see.
"What's inside?"
"I don't know. Can I look?"
"Yeah."
She opens the lid and sees a stack of envelopes with hand-written addresses on them in a soft, flowing feminine hand. Next to these is a small pile of photos. She gasps.
"What is it?" he asks, stepping through the boat to come closer and see.
"I don't think your father burned everything," she whispers.
Arthur peeks inside the box. Letters. From my mother to my father. Wedding pictures.
He gently takes the box from her and closes the lid. "We'll bring this inside," he softly says, placing a kiss on her cheek. He picks up the fish with his other hand and they go inside.