The Purple Swamp Hen and Other Stories

by Penelope Lively

  “Well,” says Paul, “he is differently constructed. Constructed to leap. But yes, it always does seem rather an achievement.”

  “I’ve watched him. One jump up onto the counter. Then he sort of eyes the top of the cabinet, and there is this effortless liftoff. And he arrives. If there is reincarnation,” Lauren goes on, “I’m coming back as a domestic cat.”

  “In order to be able to jump on top of kitchen cabinets?”

  “Because it’s the most luxurious, unthreatened life going. Everything you need supplied. No dangers. Nothing demanded of you.”

  Paul considers. “Limited, then, one might say. No challenges or achievements—except access to high places.”

  “That’s anthropomorphism. Animals don’t think in terms of challenges or achievements. Survival is all. And reproduction, of course. Poor old Archie. Snipped in youth. No genetic drive for him.”

  “Then he is spared,” says Paul.

  Something in his voice makes Lauren look more intently at him. “Spared?”

  Paul shrugs. “A maddening compulsion, I imagine. Necessitating indiscriminate sexual pursuit and mortal combat with rivals. We’re lucky to have more contained feelings.”

  “Yes,” says Lauren. “I suppose we are.”

  There is a silence. An odd silence, somehow—no, not pregnant, inappropriate word. Loaded, perhaps.

  The freight that this silence carries seems to fill the room. A thought freight emanating from him, from her.

  Paul thinks of children. Not of specific children, not of his Harry, but of abstract children. The concept of children. The reproductive drive, he supposes sourly. Somehow, it doesn’t feel quite like that. It feels less ruthless, more considered, more human.

  Lauren does not so much think as experience. First, she experiences the baby issue that she thought she had managed to tamp down. It comes surging up: disturbing, dismaying. Then, looking at Paul, she seems to begin to experience something quite different: she is not just looking at Paul but looking out from him. It is as though her POV has suffered fission, and become double. She sees Paul but she also sees herself, a Paul’s-eye view of herself, and she understands that she is lacking, that there is an absence, that he wants more of her, that there should be more of her.

  “Do you?” she ventures, at last.

  “Do I what?”

  “Have . . . have feelings that way?”

  He gazes at her. He is all POV.

  “Well, yes,” he says. “I do.”

  If she could levitate, she would. She would rise up in joy, sail round the room, rejoice, rejoice.

  Lauren says, “Actually, me too.”

  There is a silence. Paul reaches for the wine, fills their glasses. “I had no idea. You’ve never . . .”

  “Said. Nor have you.”

  “I thought you . . .”

  “Didn’t want to?” says Lauren. “And I thought you didn’t.”

  Paul’s expression is a turbulence of surprise, delight, confusion, pleasure. And he is not that kind of man. He is a calm man, phlegmatic. It occurs to Lauren—the Scriptwriter surfaces now, for a moment—that if she were writing this scene the POVs would be rampant, competing.

  “I’ve been so . . .” She shakes her head. “So not realizing.”

  “And I’m afraid I’ve been . . . well, I’d got a bit glum about it.”

  The POVs, at this point, are no longer rampant but are holding hands, united. And so, too, are Lauren and Paul. Holding hands across the kitchen table, smiling, planning, anticipating. Archie, perhaps sensitive to a change in kitchen atmosphere, drops down from his perch. But no, he is prompted not by sensibility but opportunism. The pan from which Lauren served the chili con carne is on the side, not entirely empty. And something tells Archie that people are not, right now, paying attention.

  Archie eats.

  DIY

  Here we go, she thought: “Ripe for renovation.” Of course. Another one.

  Tim was turning off the main road, responding to the sat nav. They left the traffic, forged through a mesh of suburban streets, arrived at the heart of what had once been a rural village, now digested by later development. Row of old cottages, a pub, the church.

  “Should be just along here,” he said.

  “An irresistible wreck?”

  He laughed. Patted her knee. “Trust me.”

  “No way. Medieval barn, is it?”

  “If only. Thirties, I think. Ah—must be this.”

  He pulled up. They studied the house. Undistinguished. Plain, thought Laura. Basic house. Bit like a child’s drawing: front door, window each side, three above. And yes, crack in the brickwork, roof tiles missing, window frames haven’t seen a splash of paint in years. Right up Tim’s street.

  There had been the murky basement flat in Kentish Town. A gleaming space by the time he had done with it, all wood floors and halogen lights and clever cupboards. And the two-up, two-down in Croydon, to which he had given a loft and a conservatory extension. She had never lived other than surrounded by tools and timber and drums of paint. Oh well—he’s worth it.

  He had the key from the agent, unlocked the door.

  “Nice and damp,” she said, sniffing.

  “Empty for ages, apparently. The price is good. Very good. And we’d get it down.” He was diving into the rooms at either side of the hallway. She heard him banging across the boarded floors, throwing open a window.

  Staircase to the side of the hall, up to the floor above, where there was a small landing, with rooms opening off. Steep staircase, surprisingly steep, not well designed.

  He had flung open the door at the back of the hall. Kitchen, she saw. Well, sort of kitchen, once.

  She joined him. “Just what I’ve always wanted—granite worktops, cabinet lighting, carving trolley.”

  He put his arm around her. “You’ll get all that. Let’s have a look upstairs.”

  “It’s a good thing I love you,” she said. “Most women would be out of here and into the car by now.”

  They climbed the stairs. The wood of the banister was splintered and there were balusters missing. The landing above had a loose plank that lurched when stepped on. Tim opened doors to rooms. “Ah. You’d do an en suite here. Maybe knock another window in this one—a bit dark.”

  She sighed.

  He was inspecting floorboards. “Sand them throughout. Possibly slate flags in the kitchen. Oh . . .” He had spotted a dead bird in the corner of what she now grimly knew would be their bedroom. He picked it up by one desiccated wing and dropped it out of the window.

  “Dead birds I can do,” she said. “A passing inconvenience. I’m more interested in damp, and that dysfunctional roof, and a funny smell in what is supposed to be a bathroom, and that crack up there, and those over there.”

  He was leaning out of the window. “Old orchard at the end of the garden. You’d make a paved area—perhaps steps up from it to the lawn. Come and look.”

  She looked. Shaggy grass. Nettles. Remains of a bonfire. Various plastic bags. The carcass of a child’s buggy.

  “No one could ever accuse you of lack of imagination,” she said.

  He grinned. That confiding grin that had first won her, at some party she’d nearly not gone to, eons ago, or so it now seemed. Six years, actually.

  “You’re on board, then?” he said.

  “What choice do I have?”

  “You’ll love it. Eventually. You’ll see.”

  “Ah. You mean we’re going to settle here?”

  “Oh, well . . .” He shrugged. “Let’s have another poke around the kitchen area.”

  Down those stairs. Cold, she thought. Extraordinarily cold in here. June day, sun outside, and so cold.

  Central heating installation one of his specialties. Just as well.

  He was a local govern
ment official. Not a builder. He worked in an office, amid computers and filing cabinets, and escaped to his power drill, his saws, his hammers, his larder of screws and nuts and bolts and intricate ironmongery, his drawing board, his pencils and set squares and compasses. Then, he took flight.

  Laura taught. She taught six- to seven-year-olds. One day, they would have one of these of their own. Two, maybe. Nice. When he had banged his way through enough decayed properties.

  She could stand it—the dust, the dishevelment. In a curious way, she quite liked it, because this was essence of Tim—his energy, his beguiling enthusiasm, the way he flung himself into a new project, on a high with schemes, his eyes alight with power showers and quarry tiles and fitted cupboards. Weekends, she supplied endless cups of tea and coffee, admired, consoled when something went awry. Their outings were to Homebase and builders’ merchants. Once, contemplating fireplaces in a reclamation yard, he said, “When you can’t put up with any more of this you must say so.”

  She smiled. “Seriously? And then what will you do with yourself?”

  “Crosswords? Sudoku? Learn to play the violin. Take up judo. You are a saint. I know that. You indulge me.”

  “I suppose it could be said that I am climbing the property ladder. We both are.”

  “Never thought of it like that. It’s the doing it. Do you like this one? Lovely marble surround.”

  “Exactly. And that’s why I indulge you. And no, marble is not appropriate for a small Croydon terrace house.”

  She loved the intensity of his application, his ability to concentrate for hours on the exact construction of a shelf. He had made a wrought-iron spiral stair for that basement, an exquisite tiled bathroom for the Croydon terrace, squeezed into an extension. Once she had suggested to him quite seriously that he should think of packing in office life and go into business as a builder.

  He laughed. “But it’s exactly because it’s not work. That’s the joy of it.”

  And now, she saw, there would be this somewhat unlovely, seriously dilapidated and enticingly cheap house in an outer London suburb. Oh, well. And it was worth it for his soaring good spirits—always so when on the brink of a new undertaking.

  “This is going to be really good. Huge potential. The only thing is, it could take years.”

  “I shan’t complain,” she said. “Who knows—you might decide to live in it.”

  It was autumn when they took possession. Within weeks the ground floor was piled high with his equipment; weekends were spent sourcing materials. Radiators, piping—he was making central heating a priority, thank goodness—timber, tiles. They both had farther to travel to work from here, but even so he would set to each evening, if only to sit staring at squared paper on his clipboard, working out how he would deal with some particular space in the house. He was happy, and she with him. They made love a lot.

  The neighbor appeared when they had been there about a month. Elderly woman—eighty plus—coming up the front path, eyeing things as she went: timber under a tarpaulin, that sagging gutter. Laura saw her out of the window and went to the door.

  “I’ve tried you before but you’re gone a lot. Sheila Bates. I live down there.” The visitor waved toward the nearest housing—a little nineteenth-century terrace beyond the scrubby field that separated their own house from the rest of the sprawling nearby development. Tim was a touch concerned about this field: likely to be built on, at some point. “I see you’ve builders in. High time someone did some work on the place.”

  Laura smiled. “The builder isn’t a professional, I’m afraid.” She hesitated. “I’d suggest a cup of tea, but it’s an awful mess in here.”

  “That’ll be all right.” Sheila Bates had both feet on the doormat by now anyway: stumpy woman, stick in one hand, Asda carrier bag in the other. “I’ve not been in here for years. The last people weren’t what you’d call matey, and they’re long gone anyway.”

  Laura took her into the kitchen, put the kettle on.

  The visitor inspected the room. “Well, he’ll have his hands full with this. Dry rot, I shouldn’t be surprised. And that roof . . . Nobody’s much stayed, and then it’s left empty. Children?”

  “No,” said Laura. “Milk?” Oh, dear. Well, maybe there are other neighbors.

  “Yes, and one sugar. Both at work, are you?”

  “We are. Have you lived here long?”

  Sheila Bates became more expansive. Since childhood, it seemed. Born here, left for elsewhere to marry, husband died. Parents also, twenty years ago. “And then I thought I’d sooner end up here than in Manchester where we’d gone. So I’m back where I began.” She fished in the Asda bag. “Here—green tomato chutney. Made it last week.”

  Laura took the jar, thanking effusively. There, heart of gold after all.

  “Doing heating, is he? Those radiators out there? You’ll need it. That him outside?”

  Tim could be seen through the open kitchen door sawing timber.

  “It is.”

  “Married long?”

  “We’re not married,” said Laura firmly, and at once regretted this. “We—we’re partners.”

  “That’s all right with me,” said Sheila Bates. “It’s the way nowadays, I know. Makes sense, really. Marriages come unstuck.” She looked down the garden at Tim. “Big chap. Needs to be—into DIY on this scale. Reminds me a bit of . . .” She broke off. “Do something about the garden, will you?”

  “Oh, yes. In time.”

  “You’ve got apples down there at the end. A nice Russet, I remember. I can use any you don’t want.”

  An exchange economy, thought Laura, when Sheila Bates had—eventually—left. Fair enough.

  She told Tim about their neighbor.

  “So long as barter doesn’t include me fixing her plumbing.”

  “Come on, we should be neighborly.”

  Autumn segued into winter; he had the heating up and running, and basic remedial work done on the kitchen. He was sanding floors now—dust everywhere.

  She had never known him so absorbed in a new project—immersed in it each evening, every weekend. It was as though he were possessed. He sanded, he replaced rotten floorboards, in fine weather he got up on the roof and started to tackle the slipped and broken tiles. He set about the creation of the en suite bathroom next to their bedroom to replace the original dank facility at the end of the landing.

  Winter now in full control. Icy mornings. Snow that came, melted, lay around as slush. The house could not be called warm, despite the radiators, the state-of-the-art boiler.

  Intermittently warm. She said, “The heating works in an odd way, have you noticed? There are cold patches. Here and there.”

  He grunted, dismissive, short with her. “It’s fine. Just that the house has been empty.”

  He could be like that these days.

  Laura cooked a lot, surprising herself. She had always been a rather lazy cook, favoring easy things, short cuts; now she found herself making hefty stews, doing complex bakery. And it passed the time—her rather solitary time; there is only so much tea and coffee you can supply.

  She went for walks, too—not that the neighborhood came up with much by way of an interesting route. Too built up. On one of these she met Sheila Bates, heading for her house, dragging a shopping trolley.

  “How’s he doing, then? Got your heating in?”

  “He has,” said Laura. “He’s got masses done.”

  Sheila parked her trolley, nodded. This was not to be a fleeting exchange, it would seem. “You know, it’s maybe as well you’ve not got children. There was a child fell down those stairs. Wasn’t all right after. The family left quite soon.”

  “They are quite steep, I suppose,” said Laura. Right, let’s have all the bad news.

  “Ages ago. In my parents’ time. There’s been people since, several lots, but no children,
I think. You hadn’t Russets to spare, then?”

  Oh, heavens—the apples. I forgot entirely. Black, black mark. “Do you know—there weren’t that many. A bad year, perhaps. I’m sorry. But . . . but can I bring you a cake next weekend? I always bake then.”

  Sheila Bates looked interested. “Into cooking, are you? That’s unusual, with younger people, I’ve noticed. It’s all takeaway and that. All right, then. I won’t say no.”

  There had not been much intercourse with other neighbors. A couple at the end of Sheila’s terrace occasionally passed the time of day, a few faces had become familiar. Sheila seemed vaguely to be valued, as some kind of tether to this place.

  Actually, Laura thought, I’m not at all sure I’d want to stay here. Something . . . oh, I don’t know, something not right. Well, staying put is not likely to happen, with Tim’s track record.

  Sheila was saying something about the house, their house. “. . . new back then. Not far off new. Built just before the war.”

  “Sorry? Oh, our house. Yes, I suppose. To me it feels old.”

  “Well, it’s not been cared for, has it? My parents never liked it.”

  “I must get back,” said Laura briskly. “Tim will be wanting his tea.” And what does it matter whether your parents liked it or not? They didn’t live there. “I’ll remember the cake, next weekend.”

  Laura found Tim sitting in the kitchen, in a state of exasperation because the wrong tiles had been delivered. She tried to cheer him up with an embellished account of Sheila Bates—the archetypal crusty old neighbor—and merely provoked irritation.

  “Look—without those tiles I’m set right back this weekend. Can’t get ahead with the bathroom.”

  “So? There’s no deadline. So it takes a bit longer . . . You know, you’re a bit obsessive, this time. This house . . . I don’t know . . . it seems to consume you.”

  No reply. He was examining his plan of the bathroom, and did not look at her.

  “I watch telly on my own every evening,” she said.

  “For Christ’s sake, Laura, stop being so pathetic.” He stood up, and slammed out of the room.