The Devil's Music (28 page)

    ‘What about that?’ I point.

    ‘The rope?’ Head tilted, eyes narrowed, she considers. ‘Looks nice. You made it, I suppose?’

    ‘You can tell?’

    ‘Well, it looks sort of weird, with that pointy-edge.’

    Thanks, Susie. ‘It’s star-shaped.’

    She cocks her head again, squinting. ‘Is it?’

    ‘In cross-section, it’s star-shaped.’

    ‘Well –’ She seems about to add something, but she then sighs as if she’s bored with the whole thing. ‘Bit like a seaside pub, with all this.’ She gestures towards my collection of battered lobster cages, the heaps of nets. ‘People will be wandering in off the beach and ordering a pint!’ She laughs, lifting a red-knuckled hand to her mouth. It’s not a happy laugh.

    ‘None of that’s permanent.’

    I shove the door open with my foot, then remember, too late, I’d intended to steer her away from the sun room. It’s full of rope work and stuff I don’t want her seeing. But, hands shoved deep into her pockets, shoulders hunched, she hurries through the creaking sun room, stepping between the piles of jigsaws, books with no covers and squashed tubes of paint from the old trunk. She’s so busy watching where she treads she doesn’t notice much else.

    ‘What a mess! Looks like the boys’ room on a rainy day.’

    The kids aren’t setting foot in here. I’ve put a bolt high up on the internal door of the sun room. I’ll tell Susie the bolt is to stop them escaping on to the beach. Richard was supposed be left in charge today, but there was some last-minute ‘commitment’. Henry’s at a friend’s, but the twins are here, asleep in the car.

    ‘Kitchen looks good.’ She sniffs the air. ‘Fresh paint!’

    She goes to check on the twins, leaving the front door ajar. It shudders back on its hinges, wind frisking through the house. When she returns, she’s out of breath, her nose red against the pallor of her skin. The twins are still asleep, thank God. I light the Calor gas heater.

    ‘Drink? To warm up?’

    She wipes her nose with a lumpy piece of tissue from her coat pocket. ‘No. I’m fine. Give me a quick guided tour while they’re out of action.’

    We start off along the corridor of one of the Pullmans. Although it’s narrow – only about the width of my shoulders – I’ve repainted all the wood, white, as agreed, and with the row of south-facing windows the corridor’s bright with light from the open sky beyond.

    ‘I love these windows,’ she says, tracing SMOKING with her forefinger. ‘Are they Victorian? That’s when the carriages were made, isn’t it?’

    She turns into the last compartment opening off the corridor. I’ve used white gloss on the wooden walls and curved ceilings in here too, and repaired the rope luggage shelves above the bunk beds. The rectangular frames that used to hold the advertisements I’ve painted light blue, at Sarah’s suggestion. Looped along the sides of the beds is a three-strand rope made from the cornflower curtains, ripped linen sheets and some ancient, thin beach towels. Susie will probably mention pubs again.

    I scuff my foot on a flap of old linoleum. ‘Floor still needs doing.’

    ‘And maybe something simple at the windows?’ she says.

    She touches everything and sighs. Now she’s running a hand over the gleaming gloss.

    ‘It all looks so much better, doesn’t it?’ Her hand is on the blue-and-white rope. ‘Where did you get this?’

    But before I can answer, she’s pushed past me and opened the door to the next compartment, the one Elaine shared with our mother.

    ‘Goodness!’ She steps in.

    I’ve reused rope from fishnets, new ones, fanning knotted rope above the bedheads. Tom gave me the nets in exchange for the doormat I’m making for Denise. He not only supplied the necessary rope and twine for the beckets for his old chart chest, but insisted on paying me for my time making them. We consulted
Ashley
’s. He flicked through the book, reading out phrases which, for some reason, he found uproariously hilarious. Finally, he chose beckets with Six Strand Round Sinnet bails and Manrope Knots which suited the carved cleats very well.

    I’m telling Susie most of this, but she has her back to me, fingering the fan of net above the low iron-framed bed that was once our mother’s. She’s not listening.

    ‘Our old spirograph, do you remember it, Andy? That’s what it reminds me of, this shape.’

    I can see how the parabola of interlocking lines might remind her of spirograph patterns.

    ‘It’s very pretty; so feminine. Expensive?’

    ‘No  ...—’

    Susie winces again, passing a hand over her eyes. She flops. Her knees give way. Before I get to her, she’s steadied herself, a hand on the iron bedhead. Back straight to counterbalance the weight of her belly, she lowers herself down on to the bed using one arm as a prop. Head hanging, she draws deep, shaky breaths.

    ‘Susie  ...’

    ‘I’m OK. Little woozy. Probably blood sugar.’

    ‘Tea? Some toast?’

    Her drooping head, a ragged line of scalp parting thin hair, turns from side to side. She takes more deep breaths, a hand stroking the paisley eiderdown, sliding a finger in and out of rips in the silky material.

    I begin to tell her, again, where the netting came from. Her shoulders rise and fall. I can’t see her face. Finally, when she looks up, her face is blotched with tears.

    ‘I haven’t heard a thing, Andrew.’

    ‘About the—?’

    She sniffs and drags out the lump of tissue. I gather she’s not referring to the netting or the beckets.

    ‘Sorry.’ She blows her nose and dusty bits of tissue float on the air.

    Her body tilts towards mine as the mattress sinks under my weight. I put an arm around her shoulders. I’m shocked how loose and haphazard her bones feel beneath my palm. No flesh or muscle to give strength or hold them together.

    ‘It’s a long drive. Perhaps you—’

    ‘The twins! I’d forgotten.’ She levers herself up to vertical, then rocks as if she’s losing her balance. I leap to catch her. Briefly, she collapses on to me before sighing and pushing herself upright again. She wavers unsteadily back down the corridor and out to the Volvo.

I carry the box of food supplies and a plastic crate of stuff for the boys in from the car. Susie shuts herself in the kitchen, a barricade of old deckchairs around the gas heater, and tries to keep the twins contained in the one warm room. The twins flick the light switches on and off, on and off. Open drawers and slam them shut. Take saucepans and lids and chopping boards out of cupboards and bang them around. Condensation runs down the window. I pace about a bit, wondering how we can possibly spend the whole day like this, then hit on the idea of going out to fetch fish and chips for lunch. After some dithering over what the kids are allowed to eat, Susie writes a list which she presses into my hand. ‘No salt. No vinegar. Don’t forget!’

    It’s a relief to escape the noise and stifling air. I dawdle, going the long way round to the fish and chip shop via the harbour mouth. The mudflats are glazed with watery light but far to the west a dark bank of cumulus bellies, mountainous on the horizon. Rain will come before the day is out.

Fish and chips under my coat to keep warm and dry, I shoulder open the front door. Voices.

    ‘No, I’m sure it hasn’t been,’ Sarah is saying as I enter the kitchen, her hand on Susie’s, her head tilted. The two women are sitting side by side at the kitchen table, turned towards each other confidingly. The table top is littered with coloured card, glitter and felt-tip pens. Wind gusts in through the front door and folded pieces of card with cotton wool stuck to them blow on to the floor. Susie is peeling glue off her fingers. A pile lies on the table like shed skin. She doesn’t look up as she says, ‘Shut the door.’ Another gust lifts the newspaper covering the table. Looks like Susie’s crying again.

    Sarah gets up to kiss me, a flake of glitter on her nose catching the light.

    ‘We’ve introduced ourselves and had a good long heart-to-heart,’ she says, pouring Susie another cup of tea from the pot. ‘And we’ve managed to keep the boys amused at the same time. See?’ Sarah holds up what appears to be a loo roll covered with cotton wool.

    ‘A snowman,’ she says, laughing at my confusion. ‘To be filled with sweets.’ She claps a hand over her mouth in mock horror. ‘I shouldn’t have told you that; it’s a surprise!’

    Today Sarah’s hair is lifted up and back the way I like it, exposing the swoop of her neck, the line of her jaw.

    ‘Do you want fish and chips? Or are you hurrying back to work?’

    ‘Not a difficult choice, is it?’ She arches an eyebrow and angles her head. She looks at me, the tip of her tongue touching her upper lip. Time slows, syrupy between us. A pulse throbs just below her jaw line.

    ‘Use a fork, not your fingers!’

    Sarah and I pick up our cutlery.

When the boys finish eating, Susie clears their plates and gives them the loo roll snowmen which they point like guns at each other, making firing noises. Before long one of them stomps around the table and lifts up his arms. Susie hauls him on to her lap, where he picks up a dessert spoon to examine his reflection.

    ‘Sarah’s been talking to me about your—’ Susie shifts awkwardly to pour herself a glass of water, a hand on the boy’s head as she lifts the glass jug over it ‘—
sculptures
.’ The word is loaded with a sneer.

    My hackles rise. ‘Yes, well, she knows more about it than I do. It’s how she earns a living.’ I don’t want to discuss this with Susie. ‘It’s the same old thing.’

    ‘Mmm. That’s what I told her.’ Susie grimaces and presses a hand to her side.

    ‘Sue, believe me. People are interested. I know it.’ Sarah’s hand squeezes my thigh under the table. ‘I’ve emailed photos to one or two people and had a great response. Some of his knot and rope work is extraordinarily beautiful, you know. That amazing sinnet! Wouldn’t mind betting this gallery in Glasgow are on the verge of sending him an invite.’

    ‘Glasgow?’ Susie’s doughy face is slack.

    ‘The shipbuilding history is a good connection.’

    Susie’s expression remains uncomprehending. The boy on her lap puts the spoon into his mouth and takes it out again, teeth clashing on the metal.

    ‘Well, all I can say is, it was always an awful nuisance, his thing with rope.’ She darts a glare at me.

    Oh, here we go. Susie has never met one of my women before. My instinct to steer well clear has obviously been spot on.

    ‘He tied a washing line around my neck once, you know. Got him into all sorts of trouble.’

    ‘I can imagine,’ Sarah says smoothly. She picks my hand up from the table and studies it. Sarah makes a habit of examining my hands, exclaiming over their size, the thickness of my fingers. She’ll circle my palm with her thumb, lick the hair below my knuckles. My cock stirs.

    ‘The things boys get up to,’ she says, smiling broadly at Susie, showing those even white teeth.

    I stand up to pull off my sweater and fiddle with the heater.

    ‘Yes, well. And then, after—’ Susie stops, seems to change her mind about what she was going to say. ‘He was always up in his room messing about with string and rope when Dad thought he should be out playing rugby.’ She shifts to the edge of her seat and slides the little boy – I don’t know which twin it is – back to the floor, then faces Sarah as she flicks her hair over her shoulder. ‘It’s not statues, is it? It’s not pottery. Not – what’s the word? –
ceramic
. So how is it sculpture? I don’t understand.’

    This’ll get Sarah started. Sure enough, her eyes flash as she takes a breath ready to launch into discussion, but the kid has a thumb in his mouth and distracts Susie by tugging at the front of her dress with one hand.

    ‘No, darling.’ Susie strokes his hair. ‘Do you want a little nap?’ She struggles to her feet. ‘Please excuse us for a minute. I’ll just pop him in one of the bedrooms.’

    ‘Can you manage?’ Sarah rises quickly. ‘Will he let me?’ She holds her arms wide. He takes out his thumb, frowns at her, then burrows his head in Susie’s shoulder.

    ‘Don’t worry. I’m strong as an ox.’ Susie wades out of the kitchen, the kid tangling his fist in her hair. The other twin slides down from the table to totter after her.

    ‘Phew.’ Sarah fetches another tumbler and helps herself to the open bottle of red standing by the breadbin. She puts both hands on my shoulders and propels me back to the table. ‘You
are
a quiet one! Sue’s told me the whole story.’

    ‘Story?’

    Sarah’s words are slightly slurred. Perhaps she had a drink before she arrived. She drank tea with the fish and chips, but she seems slightly pissed. I’m not the only one who keeps erratic hours. A positive thought. She’ll never want me to move in.

    ‘About your parents.’ Sarah pushes her chair back at an angle, kicks off her shoes and lifts her feet on to my lap. ‘Your
mother
.’ She swirls the red wine around her tumbler.