The Song House (17 page)

But occasionally she’d be caught, as she was when she
discovered the fountain pen from Kenneth. She couldn’t say then why his gift had made her so weak. Now she considers
it: not because he likes her, but because she likes him back. She
would like to be neat for him. Smooth. She would like to be
as smooth and perfect as a neatly stitched hem. That’s not supposed
to happen. And the fact of it makes it hard to keep things
separate in her mind: black and white, smooth and jagged,
him and her, then and now.

When it gets to the edge of the bench it will be day. After a
while, she stops staring at the thin line of light and falls asleep,
her body curved like a comma on the wooden slats. The brick
against her back is damp and then her back is damp, and when
she wakes up she thinks she’s had a dream about a boy.

Leon always says, What’s up, babe? when she cries, and she
can show him where she caught her finger in the cupboard
door or slipped on the wet step outside when she was running
in and banged her knee. He kisses the place and says, Looks
terminal, Bird, which she knows is funny because Nell laughs
and he laughs, and if it really is terminal, Nell will wipe it with
a wet cloth and put a plaster on it. Sometimes, when she takes
the plaster off, the skin underneath is a different colour, paler
and lighter than the rest of her, and Nell will say, All better,
and throw the plaster away. Then a sticky brown edge will show
her where the plaster used to be, until eventually that too will
be gone. She can’t find the place, now, to show Leon where it
hurts, because it’s deep inside and it hurts all over.

It’s very hard to see, even though the line is getting wider
and brighter. She’s thirsty and her eye is sore and there’s a thing
inside her belly that feels like when she’s hungry but it’s a
feeling she doesn’t really know because she’s never had it
before. She thinks it’s a hungry feeling but it’s not, it’s fear.

The market place is nearly empty. Three teenage boys lean
against the lychgate at the clock tower, a man jogs by on the
other side of the road, tugging a reluctant dog. Inside the
perspex of the bus shelter, two elderly women, so alike in their
appearance they could be twins, perch on the bench, swapping
nods and pauses. Now and then one or the other will bend forward,
investigating the distance for any sign of a bus. Maggie
stands a little way away from them, her case jammed between
her feet. She feels conspicuous, as if any minute now Kenneth
will screech into the lay-by, fling open the car door, and ask
her what she thinks she’s up to. She relaxes a little when she
remembers that he doesn’t drive any more. She’d left him sitting
in the garden, a volume of Shakespeare in front of him, having
what he called a ‘sundowner’. Except the sun wasn’t shining;
you couldn’t tell where it was in the sky.

As the coach pulls up, it starts to rain, a rush of thick blobs
smelling of road dirt and tar, but fresh, Maggie thinks, a good
smell after the headache-inducing sultriness of the afternoon.

She’d hated having to deceive him. There was hardly any
food in the house; an inch of milk, some dried goods, stuff in
tins, but he’d used all the salad for his lunch with William, and
most of the bread was gone.

Who needs milk when we’ve got wine, he’d said, And the van comes round in the morning. We can manage, Maggie,
we’re practically old hands at awful dinners.

But she had insisted; she’d go into town before the supermarket
closed and buy some vegetables, some fresh rolls, and anyway,
she’d said, the walk would do her good. That was a mistake.

No more walking for you today, Maggie. Listen, I can’t run
you in – it’s – I no longer have a licence. So perhaps, if you’re
very careful, you might take the car?

And then he’d offered to come too, to keep her company, and
suddenly she was trapped.

I’ve got to go to the chemist, she’d lied, which made him
throw his hands up in retreat.

The notebook is at the bottom of the case, and she will
leave it there. When the driver asks if she wants her bag stowed,
she says yes, to avoid the temptation of looking at what she’s
written, to stop herself from writing any more. There are hardly
any other passengers on the coach. The two women sit together
at the front, their walking sticks sliding companionably along
the handrail in front of them, and the teenage boys head straight
for the back. She smells cigarettes and chewing gum as they
pass her.

The clock on the tower says eight, but she knows that’s not
the time: it read eight o’clock when she arrived, and was still
eight o’clock when she got on the coach. It doesn’t matter, she
tells herself, there’s no such thing as the right time, but then
goes through it again: she left at six-thirty. It would have taken
her twenty minutes to walk to the market place, and she waited
for ten or so minutes for the coach to come. The urge to know
makes her get up and lean over the headrests and ask the two
women. They both consult their watches.

Quarter past, says one, Ten past, says the other, and she leaves them to argue it out and sits down again. She’ll be back at
Field Cottage within the hour, with nothing to show for it but
a new wound, and a second, invisible one opening up, a small
fissure of sadness and regret. Kenneth will have started on his
‘concocting’. She imagines him standing in the pantry, holding
a tin at arm’s length, or trying to read the use-by date on a jar
of soupe de poissons. Then he’ll be sitting on the terrace, his
best place, as he calls it, and he’ll be looking at his watch, too,
and wondering where she can have got to. It’s not pain, she
tells herself, it’s pity, so put that feeling away. And it’s not where
I’ve got to, it’s where I’m going, Maggie whispers to herself,
wiping her breath from the window. You’re not running away,
she says, touching the smooth outline of the plaster through
her sleeve, You’re quitting while you’re ahead.

He checks all the rooms on the ground floor and all the rooms
upstairs. He goes and knocks on the door of her flat. The east
wing – the suite of rooms beyond Maggie’s landing – is unused,
and the connecting door locked, but as Kenneth climbs back
down the stairs, he tries it anyway, to make sure. He tells himself
he’s being silly, but then he saw something in her face this
afternoon when he was talking about Will – an anxious look
– that makes him return to his office and fumble about in the
desk drawer and find the master key, and he climbs her stairs
again and unlocks the door to her flat. He knocks twice, very
loudly, before he steps into the room, only now considering
the possibility that she might simply have fallen asleep. Bound
to be tired out after the day she’s had. He hasn’t been in the
place since she moved in, and although he can see at once that
she’s gone, he finds her everywhere. A square indentation on
the quilt where she laid her case to pack it; a vase of flowers
on the kitchen table; the scent of her on the bathroom
air. He sees some bloodied cotton wool balls in the metal bin
and he looks away. He has to be gone from here. Kenneth takes
the stairs quickly, gripping the cold iron balustrade at the bottom; feels a sharp pain in his ribs from all the climbing up and
down.

She’s the last person on the coach. The boys jumped off
at Boxford, and not long afterwards the elderly women got
let off by the side of the road, at the intersection of two enormous
fields. The driver dropped down out of his cab and
walked round the side of the coach. Maggie waited, listening
to the rolling engine, as he carried their shopping across the
carriageway, then ran back to shepherd them over. Now, as
the coach nears Welford, the rain ceases and a cloud break
appears, low in the sky, just wide enough to glimpse a streak
of sunset.

Kenneth tries to behave normally. He’s hungry so makes
himself a snack of peanut butter on toast, but as he’s eating it
he realizes why the jar has been in the pantry for so long: he
isn’t at all fond of peanut butter, the way it cleaves to the roof
of his mouth. He wanders about the rooms with his glass of
wine, wanders back to the kitchen to top it up. In the library,
he puts on a collection of Chopin nocturnes, thinking it will
soothe him, but all it makes him feel is depressed. He sits in
the chair Maggie sat in and then moves from it as if bitten,
paces the room, perches in the window seat, walks to the wall
of records. She said she liked Dylan, and some other stuff.
Martin someone? Folk, soul. He half-wishes she’d said she liked
military bands, or Billie Holiday. Nina Simone. There’s so much
he didn’t play her. All he’s got in the folk section is a pristine
Peter, Paul and Mary album. His soul collection is nothing to
boast about either: a couple of Aretha Franklin, Al Green, a
Motown Classics record that Will bought him one Christmas
and which he’s never knowingly played, and Otis Redding. He
chooses this one, sliding it from the shelf, but his heart sags
when he remembers the moment Maggie found it, her teasing:
it would be torture to hear this now. He looks again at his watch. He’ll wait until ten, and then he’ll do something. He
isn’t quite sure what.

She unlocks the door to her cottage. The inside feels damp and
airless, drained of light. She moves through the unlit rooms,
opening all the curtains.

Kenneth sits at his desk with Maggie’s letter of application in
his hands. He struggles to read it, holding it further and further
away from him, pulling it back in, slowly. The words are blear
in front of his eyes. As far as he can see, there is no phone
number, no contact details, and for her address, she’s just put
what looks like ‘Fell Cottage’. Could be anywhere. Perhaps he
should talk to Will.

Lying down fully clothed on her bed, Maggie waits for sleep.
Her case is on the floor beside her, unopened. She tries not to
think about Kenneth, but the shadows on the wall won’t let
her.

William trips up the steps to find the front door of Earl House
ajar, the hall ashen in the half-light. It’s only just past five, but
the messages his father left on his machine gave him no choice.
He shouts, Dad! Dad! hearing his own voice ring through the
house. Kenneth appears from the kitchen, wearing his dressing
gown and a look of surprise. The two men stare at each other;
take in the stubble and the unslept eyes.

What’s happened? they both say, in unison.

Your phone messages happened, Dad. You said it was urgent.

Did I? says Kenneth, When?

William grits his teeth,

About two hours ago?

Kenneth’s tone is offhand, infuriating,

And you came straight down? How did you get in?

Through the door, says William, The front door. Which you
conveniently left wide open.

Ah,
that
door, says Kenneth. Well, she’s gone. All packed up. And I don’t know where.

And you left the house unlocked just in case she came back? Why? Do you think she’s a cat?

Worried she might have lost her key, says Kenneth, I suppose
you’d like some coffee. I’m afraid there’s not much milk.

She could have rung the bell, Dad, like a normal person.

William leans against the doorway and rubs a hand over his
face.

I’d only just got in, he continues, And checked my messages,
and there’s you, gibbering on and on.

I was not gibbering, says Kenneth, putting the kettle on the
hob, I simply wanted your advice. I did
not
want you racing
over here at the crack of dawn.

Six messages, Dad, says William, All exactly the same.

Kenneth looks at him now.

Six? Oh. Well, I’d had a few drinks, probably.

Kenneth scratches at a blob of dried grease on the hob, inspects
his finger, waits for the kettle to boil. He pours the water into
two mugs, drops a teabag in one, and a spoon of coffee granules
in the other. He does all this calmly and without spilling
anything, without making a clatter.

Can’t seem to find any way to contact her, he says. He can’t
remember whether his son takes milk or sugar. Decides not to
ask.

But you’ve checked the silver? asks William.

I don’t have a great deal of silver, son, not much call for it
these days.

You know what I mean, says William, Has she taken
anything?

Kenneth laughs to himself. He wants to say –Yes, indeed, she
stole my heart – but he knows his son won’t see the funny side.

I thought she might be in danger, he says, Wondered if I
should call the police.

William nods his head, as if to agree.

Good idea, he says, Call the police and tell them that your
secretary has quit. They’ll send a squad car round straight away.

Shall we sit out to drink it? Kenneth says, passing him a
mug, Only I do like the light at this hour of the morning.

The bath is ancient and too big, and the water runs so slowly
that Maggie doesn’t bother with the cold tap; by the time the bath is full, the hot water will have cooled enough to get in.
While she’s waiting, she cleans her teeth, and with the toothbrush
angled in her mouth she goes through a familiar ritual,
opening the windows upstairs. She looks out over the fields
at the back of the house: in the rain, the ancient stone of St
Gregory’s church shines like wet coal. At the front window, she
takes in the mud-carved road, the solitary tree bent askew by
a lifetime of wind, the river stretching out beyond it. Nothing
is changed or altered in any way. She’s been away no time. The
road is quiet at this hour, although soon it will be rumbling
with tractors and farm lorries. In the bedroom, Maggie shuffles through the piles of CDs on the dressing table, considering
Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell. She won’t know what
she wants until she sees it. Scanning the racks on the far wall
of the room, tracing a clear line through the dust with her
finger, Maggie finds what she’s been searching for:
Otis Blue
.
She puts the disc into the player, turns the volume up full, goes
back into the bathroom and climbs into the bath.