Limestone and Clay (25 page)

There is a crash against the kitchen window and she jumps. A bird has landed on the sill, a big, clumsy bird that scrabbles awkwardly at the sill – and there is shouting from outside. Nadia looks out of the window and can hardly believe what she sees. It is like a sort of miracle, Derek, upright and outside, lumbering, calling in his pure high voice, ‘Darling, Darling,' and looking upwards at the bird on Nadia's windowsill. Seen from above, he is a great pyramid of a man: peaked head, cascading beard, wide belly, splayed feet in great spreading slippers. Iris hovers anxiously behind him, her hand to her open mouth, her sparkly shawl falling from her shoulders, her wig glistening like black snow.

The crow's clumsy claws cannot get a grip on the narrow sill and he flaps his wings against the glass so that feathers rain down. Nadia catches his eye, bright through the glass. He looks desperate, pathetic, his bald head a startling shrimpish pink. Nadia slowly opens the other half of the window and Darling hops in, regaining his dignity immediately, squawking, scattering a feather or two in the sink. He flaps to the floor and hops jerkily around the kitchen, leaving a long greenish dropping on the clean tiles.

Nadia leans out of the window. ‘All right,' she calls to the two upturned faces. ‘Got him.'

Darling sits on Iris's shoulder. He is fretful and embarrassed by his silly display. His head leans weakly against her cheek, his eyes are half closed.

‘Naughty boy,' Iris scolds fondly. ‘Dirty little bugger. Never seen Dad so worried, have we?'

‘First time I've seen Derek outside.'

Iris smiles proudly. ‘Not much stirs him.'

‘Well,' Nadia says. She is aware of the time, of Simon's absence, of the cold potatoes snuggling in the pan. The clean kitchen is beginning to smell of crow.

‘Spring cleaning?' Iris asks, nodding towards the bucket and mop and the bottles of detergent.

‘My mum's coming.'

‘Made it up, then?'

Nadia shrugs. ‘Anyway, she's calling in. First time I'll have seen her for …'

‘That's good, duck. And Simon?' Iris screws up her face.

‘Out.'

Darling makes a growling sound and rattles his feathers. Iris clucks absently at him. ‘You should go,' she says with sudden intensity.

‘Go?'

‘To Simon.'

‘But …'

‘If you want him. Go, duck. He's waiting.' Nadia opens and then closes her mouth. Iris's eyes are so intense, the light and the dark, they search Nadia for a response and she closes her eyes against them for a moment, sees Simon, his hair bright in the sun. ‘It's all up to you now,' Iris adds.

‘Yes.' Nadia opens her eyes. ‘I think I see.' She does not, quite, see. But there is a fizz in the air around her, a sense of anticipation, risk, the exhilaration that precedes a leap.

‘Then you'll go?'

‘Yes.' Nadia does not ask where. There is only one place.

But when Iris has gone and she has cleaned the signs of crow away, she waits, hoping that Simon will return, giving him time. She tries to read the paper and, when that fails, to watch children's television. She drinks a glass of wine. Unable to sit still, she goes into her tidy studio. She lifts the damp cloth off her first sculpture. She cannot decide whether it is complete and so she does not let it dry. A species of mould has grown on the strange foot/root thing, delicate blue-green tentacles like branching veins. She smooths her finger down its surface. It has an inner coldness that seeps out like breath. Nadia is waiting to cast her other sculptures, first in plaster and then, if she can afford it, in bronze. And then they will last for ever, for bronze will not corrode or shatter. She relaxes for a moment with the satisfaction of that thought. But there can be no denying that she is worried about Simon.

Nadia fidgets through the misery of the six o'clock news and then she calls a taxi. She waits outside, the evening is still and glorious, muted gold now, the air pungent with wallflowers. As the taxi arrives, she turns and sees Iris watching her through the window. She has taken off her wig and her grey hair is fluffed out around her head. Nadia waves and gets into the taxi. The driver is young and beautiful and knows it. He has the air of a cheeky, beloved child. ‘Hello beautiful,' he says. Bloody cheek, Nadia thinks, but smiles.

‘Where to?'

‘I'll direct you,' Nadia says. ‘I'm going out into the country, looking for someone.'

‘Great,' the driver says. ‘Nearly as good as “Follow that car.” It'll make my day when someone says that.'

Nadia laughs. She settles back. The windows of the taxi sparkle dustily. Once they are through the busy traffic, she watches the houses rush easily past, remembering her laborious pedalling through the rain last time she came this way. It is like another world now, a picture-book world of flowers, children on bright bicycles, and ice-cream vans, even someone trying to fly a kite. They drive through the valley and out past The Hawk. Nadia averts her eyes as they pass. The driver attempts to engage her in conversation, but the nearer they get to the place the more difficult it is for her to move her mouth. Eventually he gives up and leaves her in peace.

She squeezes her hands together in an attitude of prayer, but it is not prayer, it is will. She is willing him to be there. To be waiting. They rise high over the moorland road. Low shafts of sunlight are dusty on the grey-green heather, exaggerating stunted birches with great sprawling nests of shadow. Nadia holds her breath as they take the last curve round to the place: and there is Simon's car.

‘Thank God,' she breathes.

‘Beg pardon?'

‘We're here. Stop here. Just by this car.'

‘You sure?'

The driver switches off the engine and Nadia opens the door and steps out into the thin, clear air. It is utterly quiet and still, not a breath of wind to stir the heather, not like last time, when everything was a confusion of shivery shifting brightness. Her eyes dart around, avoiding the entrance to the cave, but she cannot see Simon.

‘Should I wait?' The taxi driver regards her curiously.

‘No, no.'

‘You sure you want to be left? Alone?' He gets out of the cab and stands looking around him. ‘Bloody nothing out here.'

‘It's all right,' Nadia says, her voice gone loose with relief. ‘There's my friend.'

Simon is standing in front of the cave. Her face splits into an idiotic grin which she cannot control as she counts out her fare.

‘Right then,' the taxi driver says, also relieved, shivering and climbing back into his seat. ‘Be seeing you.' He slams the door and starts his engine. Nadia runs towards Simon.

‘Hey!' she calls, and he lifts his arm in greeting as he comes forward to meet her.

‘Must have cost a fortune,' he says. ‘Fancy coming in a taxi!'

‘How else?'

Simon shrugs. They're awkward together. Nadia notices the little wisps of blond hair at the neck of his shirt in the. tender hollow between his collarbones. His face, so indoor-pale lately, is pink from an afternoon of sunshine.

‘Come here,' he says. He takes her hand. There is a strange look in his eyes and she is frightened. Absurd to be frightened of Simon, but still.

‘How long have you been here, Simon? Why here? I was worried … Iris's bloody crow got free while I was cleaning the flat – my mother's coming tomorrow …'

‘Shut up.' Simon holds her hand tightly. ‘Come with me.'

‘Where?'

‘Into the cave.'

‘No!' He pulls her but she stands her ground. ‘Simon! Are you mad?'

He lets go of her hand abruptly and she staggers. He turns his back, and she can see his shoulders moving, sense his struggle. She looks at the evil slit in the earth, the single empty eye.

‘I only wanted …' he begins. She puts her arms round him from behind, pressing her face into his back. Through his shirt she can feel his warmth, smell his skin. Through the thin white material she can faintly see his scars.

‘Wanted what?'

‘Please come with me.' Nadia closes her eyes. The colour of terror really is yellow. It is there behind her eyelids, an ugly shitty yellow. She can feel the cold of the evening now that the sun is setting, undramatically, a greenish goldness in the west. There is a breeze and goosepimples rise on her arms.

‘All right.'

Simon pauses for a moment and then turns. She doesn't meet his eyes. He puts his arm round her shoulders. She walks with him, down the lumpy slope. Last time she was here he was underneath. That is what she thinks, remembering how it felt to walk here when he was down there. The irrational fear that her feet were compounding his compression. Now he is out, safe, and she has him. Has she? She puts her arm round his waist and squeezes, feeling the slip of the ribs under his skin.

They reach the entrance. There is a dripping, a stickiness, muddy slime on the inner walls; the hole is the height of a door but wider; above it tussocky grass and heather sprigs are silhouetted against the sky.

‘No,' Nadia says, stopping. ‘I really don't want to.'

‘Don't be afraid,' Simon says. And she lets him pull her out of the light and into the shadowy gloom. She breathes in the dank wetness, the smell of old urine. There is rubbish on the floor, crisp packets, cigarette ends. She breathes very shallowly and lets him lead her in, afraid of what she might be stepping on. Simon gets a torch out of his pocket. It is a small feeble thing, but it serves to light the viscous-looking walls.

‘Please, not far,' Nadia whispers. There is a small scramble down and though Simon steadies her she has to put her hand out to stop herself falling and she touches the cold stone. It is unfriendly. More than that, it feels hostile. The beam of the torch flickers ahead, bouncing and sliding in time with Simon's footsteps. He lets go of her and walks in front. She follows. She cannot speak. She looks back at the smear of light behind her. Stops. ‘Simon, I …' She is embarrassed by her voice, ineffectual, a rodent squeak.

‘All right,' he says. He speaks softly. His face is lost to her in the darkness.

‘I can't see you.'

He turns, but still she cannot make him out, only the deeper darkness of his mouth as it opens, he has the torch pointed downwards, only the edge of his chin is clear. ‘This is as far as we can walk,' he says. ‘After this there is a chimney – a pot …'

‘No!'

‘It's all right, we'd need a rope. I only wanted to tell you … I was going to … All afternoon I've been deciding whether to go in, go back.'

‘No.'

‘Wait. To go back. Roland's in there, you know.'

‘I know.'

‘No, I mean I saw him.'

Nadia gives an audible shocked shudder. ‘What …'

‘I saw something that I believe was his skull.'

Nadia turns back towards the little visible light. ‘I want to get out.'

‘Wait. I want to ask … It's over, isn't it? Us.'

‘I don't know, I …'

‘Because if it is, I'll go.' He sounds so lonely when he says this. And something in Nadia rebels against his loneliness. She reaches for him. Puts her arms round him, rubs her face into his warm neck where she can feel the throb of his pulse. He presses her bottom tight against him. And in the darkness she feels a terrible shock of desire. It is the strongest desire she has ever felt. It hurts. It is like electricity. And when he touches her she moans. ‘No, not here.' He cups her sex in his hand and squeezes and it is as if milk is oozing from her breasts, from every pore. ‘Simon, no,' she says, dizzy with the sensation.

‘Go on then.' He pushes her out ahead of him, but when the light is a solid thing in front of her, a safe thing that she can attain in seconds, she turns back.

‘I do want you,' she says. ‘But I don't know how … how we get over … how can we …?'

Simon doesn't answer. What could he say? Outside the cave he pulls her by the hand, up the hill above the cave to the very place she stood waiting for him, where she stood with Celia on a skittish day that seems years ago. The sun has gone. The sky is pale blue still, but darkness is leaking from the ground. Simon pulls her down.

Anyone could see them there, anyone driving past and straining their eyes for the sight of lovers on a hill in the heather. And anyone who heard Nadia's voice would ponder for a moment on the oddness of the call: bird? Wild creature? And then forget.

About the Author

Lesley Glaister (b. 1956) is a British novelist, playwright, and teacher of writing, currently working at the University of St Andrews. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a member of the Society of Authors. Her first novel,
Honour Thy Father
, was published in 1990 and received both a Somerset Maugham Award and a Betty Trask Award. Glaister became known for her darkly humorous works and has been dubbed the Queen of Domestic Gothic. Glaister was named Yorkshire Author of the Year in 1998 for her novel
Easy Peasy
, which was shortlisted for the Guardian Fiction Award in 1998.
Now You See Me
was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2002. Glaister lives in Edinburgh, Scotland, with her husband, author Andrew Greig.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1993 by Lesley Glaister

Cover design by Connie Gabbert

ISBN: 978-1-4976-9410-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.