The Song House (26 page)

The pilchards untouched, the wine, untouched; the book,
unopened. Kenneth sitting very still, remembering how it felt
to be a young man then, lording it, thinking he should be in
control of his life, and really, how terrified he was. He imagines
dealing with it differently. He wouldn’t have gone there;
would have told Bryce to call the police if there was a problem.
But after the trouble with Will, and with Rusty, with the
talk going round – he couldn’t take the risk. Everything he’d
thought was safe, solid, had turned to liquid. Rusty was leaving
him. She was leaving him, and leaving William, too, and this
was it, this was the problem he could hardly bear to admit
to himself: Kenneth didn’t want the child. He didn’t love him.
Standing on the riverbank with those three buffoons, he was
thinking,This is what my life has become, a series of unending
horrors. I’ll be stuck here all my life with these imbeciles and
their narrow, artful ways and their knowing looks. No Bahrain,
no fresh start. Can’t ever have a fresh start with a child like
Will.

He’d tried to take control as best he could, step by step, giving
the appearance of stability, of order. But he was sickened
at Flynn’s idea that they pull the man piecemeal out of the
branches. Kenneth had fetched a blanket from the car and
wrapped the arm in it, rolling it up, retching at the awful smell
and wanting to put his hand over his face and trying not to
breathe, only trying to take control. As best he could. No one
would ever be able to say that he didn’t face up to his responsibilities.

The smell is here again now, festering on the air, and with
it follows his putrid life and how miserable it has been. How
selfish he has been. How cruel.

The rain that falls on Kenneth and Maggie is the same rain
that falls on William, but in London it takes on a city-fuelled
quality, as if it comes not from the sky but from the towering
structures that enclose his terrace block. It is more noise and
light than smell and feel. The sound of tyres on tarmac, slick,
abrasive, is as regular as the glimpses he gets of shining wet
metal speeding on the road beyond the lush cover of the trees.
To look up is to see an oblong of flat grey cut like a windowpane
between the darker concrete forms of the surrounding
buildings. The rain can only be seen at an angle, gathering light
from the city as it drops to earth.

He abandons the desk where his computer shares space with
his coffee cup and his diary and his empty glass. He is tidier
than this normally – pristine, in fact – but today has been an
off-day. He can’t seem to think straight; as if he has become
infected with his father’s malaise.

The first answerphone message came mid-morning: his father
couldn’t find the number for the plumber, did Will happen to
know it?

Recently, William has come to dread the sound of the telephone,
and, since his father had discovered he could call his
mobile too, is equally cautious about answering that. The calls
were not merely rambling and disjointed, although that was
unsettling enough; they were sometimes strangely impersonal,
as if his father had forgotten who it was he’d phoned and was
on his best behaviour. More frequently, they were appeals to
William to confirm some snatch of a recollection, to restore
certainty to an idea. Could you make a steak sandwich with
mince or did you need a fillet? Was there any harm in burning
barbecue briquettes in the chiminea? Did he have a clue where
his boots might be?

William imagined he could see the holes being burrowed
inside his father’s head; pictured it as a labyrinth where beetles
gnawed away at the soft tissue. Not for the first time, he felt
the irony; while his father panned for long-forgotten moments,
what escaped him was the day to day, everyday, unthinking
normality of existing. Going on with life, without setting the
house on fire or doing himself some serious injury. But to give
voice to those concerns was to invite ridicule, or rage, or indifference.

It made William more determined to spend his day off as
planned; searching online for support, finding out what was
on offer. He’d discovered a place called a Memory Clinic in
Slough, but it was the one in Southampton which held his
attention; they had a Specialist Memory Nurse who would
do home visits. Nowhere could he find mention of the need
for a referral, knowing that his father would refuse to see
his GP. He wrote down names and numbers in his diary,
invigorated, but cautious enough to realize he would need to
speak with him first. If he could implant the idea of a pretty
young nurse coming to visit, it might make Kenneth more
amenable.

The second call, in the middle of the afternoon, was a
confused, messy recounting of an event William could barely
recall; something about a body washed up in a tree. And by
the way, had he mentioned he’d found his reading glasses? And
by the way, did he remember a song about an anchor? Did
that ring a bell? And did he mention the business of the body
in the tree?

If William could only put his own memories to use instead of
avoiding them, he might understand that connections were
forming in his father’s mind, might detect the synapses firing,
creating sparks, reigniting a long-doused flame. But he thinks
of his father now as a spent force. It wouldn’t be his first mistake.

The final call comes as he’s preparing dinner. He has planned
to cook seared tuna with a mizuna and sorrel salad, mainly
because Nat is coming over and the only other time he’d made
her a meal, she teased him about the rice he’d used for the risotto.
The wrong kind, apparently, as if there could be a wrong
kind of risotto rice. He’d even shown her the box.

Blame my father, he’d said, trying not to feel hurt, I’ve inherited
his culinary skills.

And she’d said,

You blame your father for everything; the wine you put
away, your frankly obsessive cleanliness – the way you drive.

And what’s wrong with my driving? he’d asked, knowing
what the answer would be. He’d brought her round
though, made her laugh. And she ate the risotto without complaint.

William considers answering the call, but knows from the
others, and from the time of day, that it’s better to wait. The
booming of his father’s voice makes the speaker vibrate.

Will, it’s your father again. That water bailiff, he was called
Thomas—

There’s a pause during which William can hear what sounds
like pages being shuffled.

– Thomas Bryce! That was it. Forgot to say the first time.
Don’t suppose you know if he’s still about? I wouldn’t mind
having a word with him.

And just like that William is implicated. Two words, a name he
pretended not to remember, only for the old bastard to find it
in some murky corner of his brain.

He was first taken on by Thomas when he had just turned ten.
It was a proper job, his father had warned, which would take
up all the holidays and involve early starts and some responsibility.
William didn’t mind; the house had become so miserable
since his mother got sick, since Grace had to leave, and
the latest nanny, a local woman with fat goose-pimply arms,
reminded him of the matron at school. She insisted he call her
Miss Sharon, although no one else did, and said things he didn’t
understand about birds pecking out little boys’ eyes if they spied
on people. He wanted to tell her: I’m not a spy, and I’m not
a baby. So there. But she had a look that frightened him. He
didn’t even need a nanny any more, but his father had insisted
–William had heard him, talking to his mother about it. He
wasn’t spying; he was going to her room to see if she was feeling
better, and heard, from behind the heavy wood, the clipped,
angry tone of his father’s voice. He’d waited before knocking,
and that was a mistake – the voice getting louder, then the
sound of the door handle, then his father, in a rage suddenly,
sending him to his room. Someone to be a mother to him,
since you’re not capable – that’s what he’d said. But his mother
was sick, she couldn’t help that.

Thomas wasn’t like the other adults. He didn’t speak to him
like they did, like he was a small child, or worse, an idiot.
Thomas’s words were plain and direct and had nothing hidden
in them. He’d worked with Thomas that first summer, then
every holiday afterwards. At school, when things were bad, he
clung to the memory of it: gliding down the river in Thomas’s
boat; hooking worms onto the line the way Thomas showed
him; lying under the trees with a ham sandwich and Sonny at
his shoulder, waiting patiently for the last crust. He loved the
dog more than anything. During the first year, he’d petitioned
his parents for a spaniel of his own; obliquely with his mother,
who was so pale and tired and stayed in her room all day,
suggesting in his sly, boyish way that a dog would be company
for her too. Just a small one, a cocker, perhaps. He was more
honest with his father, who would see through any pretence
at altruism. And who would look after the animal while you’re
at school? his father demanded, Take it for walks, feed it, all
that? William didn’t have answers to the questions. Later, he
thought Sharon could have done it, but by then the idea had
been dismissed. Still, there was always Sonny.

The job was easy at first; all he had to do was sit with Thomas
in the boat and call out when he saw anything unusual – like
the time he’d spotted an upturned bicycle in the reeds,
and that morning when he saw his first heron flying like a
pterodactyl down the middle of the river. Sometimes he’d
follow a step behind as Thomas surveyed the trees or checked
the licences of mute fishermen, with nothing else to do;
but by the second year, he was entrusted to take water samples.
Thomas complained about the new regime, about the
factory discharge, about the levels, about how much more
work there was. William happily volunteered himself for any
task. He was never late, never spoke out of turn, laughed in
the right places, knew when to be still, silent, stealthy. He was
strong, he could lift things, heavy objects: a fox, a fawn, a sack
of logs.

He remembers Peel and Flynn, Thomas’s drinking buddies.
The River Rat gang, Thomas had called them, and Flynn especially
looked rodent-like, with his long nose and his pointed,
eager face. During their last summer, William had been allowed
to sit out in the pub garden and ‘keep the bench warm’ for
them while they went in the New Inn for a drink. They would
appear a while later with a treat for him: a packet of smoky
bacon crisps, and a half of bitter shandy in a knobbly glass. William loved the taste of it, and the way the men would smile
as he drank, nodding encouragement. He’d have to make it
last, that was the trouble. One drink and you’re on your way,
my lad, Thomas would say, but if he took small sips, he could
stay with them and listen to their talk. Often it was uninteresting
stuff about the river, or the latest plans for the golf course,
but now and then their voices would sink into whispers as
they discussed the latest events at Weaver’s Cottage. That was
their chief delight: what the foolish boy had done now, how
that girl went about half-starkers. Next time they passed the
spot, William made sure to have a good look. That was when
he first noticed Birdie.

Kenneth puts another record on – Keith Jarrett, the Köln
Concert, because he’s always considered it to be the most
languid, summer-rain music. Not, he tells himself, that he’s
thinking of Maggie, of what would be the perfect piece to
listen to at this moment, but because he
wants
to hear it. He
sits again in front of the typewriter, takes a sip at the dregs of
his whisky and positions his fingers above the keyboard, like a
pianist about to perform. At this moment he believes – because
he’s read it somewhere, because he wants to believe – that the
words will flow through his veins in a river of harmonious
notes, spill from his fingertips in a cascade of meaning. But his
mind is blank. There is just the sound of the concert in his
head. He should be grateful for this after the day he’s had; it
would be reviving simply to follow the notes, as he would have
done the first time he’d ever heard it; that intricate, vital quality,
like a promise, like heartache, like nothing words can ever begin
to describe. And he knows this piece will change even as he
listens to it; recognizes the sleight of repetition, the subtle way
it opens, spreads, like ripples on a pond. That’s partly why he
chose it. He has stopped fighting; has given himself over to
whatever may come to mind.