Night Music (14 page)

‘Try not to talk too much about your husbands, girls. The Cousins say she’s quite recently widowed . . .’ Annette told them. Then a thought struck her. ‘You could talk about yours, Nancy. You’re never nice about him.’

Isabel Delancey walked into the overheated room and felt the weight of eight pairs of eyes settle heavily upon her. In them, she saw that they knew she was a widow, thought her clothes eccentric, and disapproved of her lateness. She was amazed at how judged one could feel in a split-second silence. Then the eyes dropped to her feet. Her dark red suede boots were covered with a thick crust of mud.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed, noticing the footprints behind her. ‘I’m so sorry.’ She stooped and made as if to pull them off, but a chorus of voices leaped in.

‘Oh, please don’t worry.’

‘It’s what vacuum-cleaners are for.’

‘You should see what my children tread in.’

Persuaded not to remove her footwear, even though most of the other women had taken off theirs, Isabel was led to an empty seat and invited to sit. She smiled waveringly, already knowing this had been a mistake and wishing she had pleaded a prior engagement.

‘Coffee?’ Laura McCarthy was smiling.

‘Thank you,’ she said quietly. ‘Black, please. No sugar.’

‘We were wondering if you were going to come.’ A tall, prematurely grey woman with a long neck had spoken. It sounded a little like an accusation.

‘I was practising. I’m afraid I often lose track of time. Forgive me,’ she said to Laura.

‘Practising?’ The long-necked woman leaned forward.

‘Violin.’

‘How lovely. My Sarah is very much enjoying learning it. Her teacher says we should think about putting her in for exams. Have you been learning long, Mrs Delancey?’

‘I . . . Actually, I do it for a living.’

‘Oh. Lovely,’ said a shorter woman. ‘Deborah’s desperate for lessons. Perhaps you can give me your number?’

‘I don’t do lessons. I was with the City Symphonia.’

The idea that she might have had a professional life appeared to dumbfound the women.

‘And you have children?’

‘Two.’ God, it was hot. ‘A girl and a boy.’

‘And your husband?’ Two women glared at the questioner.

‘He died last year. In a car crash.’

‘I’m so sorry,’ said the woman. ‘How awful for you.’ There were murmurs of commiseration from around the room.

‘You’re very brave, starting afresh all the way out here.’

‘It’s a lovely area for children,’ someone said reassuringly. ‘The school is very good.’

‘And how are they finding the move? It’s a big place for you to be rattling around in, with so much work to do . . . and without . . .’

This was the point at which they were expecting her to crumble a little. If she confided how awful and decrepit the house was, how miserable her children, that she was haunted not just by the absence of her husband but by the recklessness of her own actions, those brittle glances might soften. The women would sympathise and reassure her. But something in Isabel wouldn’t let her do this.

‘They’re fine,’ she said. ‘We’re settling in well.’ Her tone suggested this was not a topic she wanted to pursue.

There was a brief silence.

‘Yes,’ said the grey-haired woman. ‘Good. Anyway, welcome to the village.’

As Isabel raised her cup to her lips, she noticed something odd in Laura McCarthy’s expression. It vanished, and she met Isabel’s smile with a broader one.

Byron Firth lifted the metal sheath and brought it down hard, with both hands, against the fence post, the impact juddering through him as the wood sank into place. He had done twenty-two so far, ready for the wire that would mark out Matt McCarthy’s boundary. A machine could have sunk the posts in a tenth of the time, but Matt was reluctant to hire one. He was paying Byron a weekly wage, and couldn’t see the point in spending more. Byron would continue until the task was completed. But in the hard earth you could still feel the chill of winter, and Byron knew his shoulders would be knotted and sore that evening, and that with his sister’s boyfriend a permanent guest at their house, he was unlikely to get a bath.

She was leaving in four weeks, she had told him. She and Lily were moving into Jason’s house on the other side of the village. ‘You knew we couldn’t stay for ever,’ she said apologetically. ‘Especially with Lily’s chest and these damp walls. And at least you’re working again. You’ll find somewhere else to rent.’

‘Don’t worry, I’ll be fine,’ he had told her. What he did not say was that the rent of every cottage he had seen so far was more than twice what Matt paid him. At the one flat he might have been able to afford dogs were not allowed and Meg was due to whelp any day. The man at the housing department had almost laughed when he had tried to sign on there. Apparently they worked on a points system, and as an able-bodied single man not on benefits, that would have been of no more value to him than flicking through the property section of
Country Life
.

‘I’d say come with us. But I think Jason would like us to make a start by ourselves . . .’

‘Don’t fuss, Jan. He’s right. You should try to be a family.’ He put an arm round his sister’s shoulders. He didn’t like to think how much he would miss his niece, the casual chaos of their life together. ‘It’ll be good for Lily to have a dad around.’

‘And you’re all right now . . . aren’t you? Now that everything’s . . . well, you’ve got a clean slate.’

He sighed. ‘It’s fine. I can look after myself.’

‘I know you can. I guess I just feel . . . responsible.’

‘You were never responsible.’ He met her gaze, but neither of them said what hung in the air between them.

‘Well, come for Sunday lunch. I’ll do us a proper roast every week. Okay?’

Whumph!
He brought the metal cylinder down again, driving the post into the earth, squinting against the sun. He had thought about moving to a new area, somewhere the rents weren’t going up so fast. But the classified ads in the farming magazines wanted qualified land managers, people who’d been to agricultural college. He had no chance against people like that, especially with his history. Besides, he understood the land here, still had a few contacts. And a job with Matt McCarthy was better than none.

Byron lifted the metal cylinder, and as he prepared to bring it down on the post, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a movement to his right. A boy was standing by the hedge. The sight distracted him and Byron caught his thumb between the cylinder and the post. As the pain shot through his hand he let out an expletive. The dogs jumped up, whining, and when Byron, his thumb shoved painfully between his knees, looked up, the boy was gone.

Isabel habitually walked with her head held high, her almost exaggeratedly erect posture her way of compensating for years of crooking her neck round her violin. But today her head was down as she strode through the mossy undergrowth on her way back down the woodland path to her house. What had possessed her to go to such an event? Why had she pretended that she and those women might have anything to say to each other? The rest of the morning had been spent in painfully stilted conversation. Laura had asked more about Isabel’s children, but when she confessed how much she missed their nanny, and then that she couldn’t cook and, no, she didn’t have any domestic skills, they had seemed disappointed. And Isabel, instead of being cowed and silenced, had felt increasingly mutinous. She remarked, a little tactlessly, that she found caring for a house unfulfilling, and watched their jaws drop as if she had said her signature dish was human flesh. ‘Oh, well,’ said one woman, placing a hand on her arm, ‘at least now you’ve stopped working, you’ll really get to
know
your children.’

Isabel wrenched open the door, which she had forgotten to lock. She ran upstairs and pulled out her violin. Then she returned to the kitchen, the only room that retained any warmth, and flicked open a book of music. Eyes on the notes in front of her, she began to play, the notes harsh and angry, the bow scraping gracelessly across the strings. She forgot the damp kitchen, the washing hanging from the dryer, the dirty breakfast things. She forgot the women across the lane and their barely concealed distaste, Laura McCarthy’s unreadable face. She focused only on the music, until she had lost herself, stretching out the notes until her body eased. Finally, several pages in, Isabel relaxed.

After some unknown length of time, she stopped. She pushed her shoulders back and let her neck roll first to the left and then to the right, lengthening the tendons, letting out a long, slow breath. When someone clapped behind her she jumped and spun round.

Matt McCarthy stepped forward. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘You left the door open, and I didn’t like to disturb you.’

Isabel felt exposed, as if she’d been caught doing something she shouldn’t. Her spare hand went to her neck. ‘Mr McCarthy.’

‘Matt.’ He nodded towards her instrument. ‘You really do get stuck into that, don’t you?’

She put it carefully on a chair. ‘It’s just . . . what I do,’ she said.

‘I’ve got those figures you asked for. Thought we could go over them if you’ve got five minutes.’

It was still cold outside, and chilly enough within for Isabel to have kept her coat on, but Matt McCarthy was wearing only a grey cotton T-shirt. Everything about his demeanour suggested that he was impervious to temperature. The solid outline of his upper body made her think of Laurent, and she was briefly disoriented. ‘I’ll make some tea,’ she said.

‘Not got your fridge working yet?’ He pulled out a chair at the kitchen table, and nodded towards the appliance, which still sat, unplugged and redundant, at the end of the room.

‘There are no power points.’

She pulled up the sash window and took in one of the bottles of milk that stood on the windowsill.

‘Yeah. I don’t think this room has been updated since the 1930s.’

While she made tea, Matt got out a notepad and calculator, humming to himself as he ran through a series of figures with the stub of a pencil. When she sat down, he pushed the pad towards her. ‘Okay – these are your initial works, as I see them. You should fix the roof. It really needs a complete overhaul, but until then you must make the place waterproof. With materials, patching it up will cost in the region of that . . .’ He tapped the pad. ‘Internally it gets a bit more complicated. You need a damp-proof course throughout. The drawing-room and dining-room floors have to come up because there may be dry rot underneath. At least eight windows want replacing, and the rest should have the rotten wood dug out and made good. And there’s your electrics. To be on the safe side, you’re looking at a complete rewiring job.’

Isabel stared at the figures.

‘You’ve got a few structural problems too. It’s possible there’s some movement at the back of the house. If that’s so it’ll need underpinning, although we can take out some of the trees near the back wall and leave it a few months to see if it settles. That’ll cost you . . .’ He sucked his teeth. Then he smiled reassuringly. ‘Tell you what, let’s not talk about it just yet.’

Matt’s voice had begun to recede. This couldn’t be right. Isabel was willing the decimal points to swap places. ‘There’s nothing here about the hot water and central heating. We need a working bath.’

Matt leaned back in his chair. ‘Ah, yes, the hot-water system. The
pièce de résistance
. You’ve probably guessed that the whole lot wants ripping out. The range isn’t powerful enough to do your heating and hot water long term. You need a new boiler, radiators, and half the pipework is shot. I’m afraid it’s a big job in a house like this. Not something you can do half-heartedly.’ Isabel’s head swam. The hot-water system alone would eat up nearly all the money she had saved from the sale of Maida Vale.

‘Look, get some other quotes if you want,’ said Matt, apparently sensing her concern. ‘Best you compare prices, and I’m not fussed either way. I’ve got other jobs to get on with.’ He ran his hands through his hair. ‘I don’t think you’ll get a lot cheaper than me, though.’

‘No,’ she said weakly. ‘I wouldn’t know where to find other people to do these things anyway. So . . . let’s just do the urgent things, and worry about the rest later. We can live without proper heating for a bit longer.’

Matt gave her a half-smile. ‘Mrs Delancey, these are all urgent works. I haven’t even begun on the replastering, the wood replacement, the new ceilings, redecoration . . .’ He shook his head. ‘There’s hardly a room in the place that doesn’t need overhauling.’

For a few minutes they sat in silence, Isabel trying to make sense of the figures.

‘Bit of a shock, eh?’ Matt said eventually.

Isabel breathed out slowly. ‘My husband always handled things like this,’ she said quietly. She imagined Laurent beside her, running through the list of figures, questioning. He would have known how to handle this.

‘It would be a huge project even if he was around,’ Matt said. ‘Can’t tell you how many jobs we’ve done like this. When you buy a house that’s been so neglected, it never ends. Like painting the Forth Bridge, I always say.’

Isabel closed her eyes, then opened them again. Every now and then she felt as if she had landed in someone else’s life.

‘I’ve got to warn you. This house is as bad as they come. You need to think seriously about how much money you’re willing to put into it.’ He was squinting, as if he were telling her something he found painful. ‘I mean, I don’t know your financial circumstances,’ he went on, ‘but you should think, too, about how much energy you’re prepared to give to it. I can take a lot of the weight off your shoulders, but you’ll still have to be very much involved. And if you’re not the practical sort . . .’

She could leave, Isabel thought. She could put the Spanish House on the market, and they could go. How bad would it be to live in a small flat in London? Would it matter if they couldn’t live somewhere as nice as they’d been used to?

The tops of the trees were moving gently in the grey air. She had a sudden image of Thierry picking his way through the garden, stick swinging in his hand. Her violin lay on the chair beside her, glowing and expensive in the drab kitchen, her only link to her old life.