Susan has pushed her hair back behind a dark band, so that she looks like a squash player. Her mouth gleams with butter, and her hands cut the food up very small, so it is almost unrecognizable, before she eats it. From time to time she darts a quick look at one face or another. Isabel has stopped eating, though her plate is almost full. She has an unlit cigarette between her fingers, but she seems to have forgotten about it. Richard gets up and moves clumsily past me, on his way to the kitchen for bread. He always wipes his plate with bread. He staggers and puts his hand down hard on my shoulder, for balance.
‘Bring in the tart,’ I say. Susan laughs loudly, and sprays potato through her teeth. Edward turns and scrubs at her with a napkin, like an elder brother, while Isabel leans forward and lights her cigarette from one of the candles, which are suddenly bright, because when I haven’t been noticing it, it’s gone dark.
Time which I don’t notice passes. Richard bangs the tart down on the table in front of me, so hard that I think the crust must have broken. But it hasn’t. Usually I can’t bear anyone but me to cut into a pie or tart I’ve made, but tonight I can’t be bothered. ‘Help yourselves. It might as well be eaten,’ I say, as if the food’s nothing. I stare at the apples running rings round the dish. Isabel shakes her head, a tiny shake, and draws on her cigarette. Susan hesitates, looks round again before taking the offered dish and plunging in the knife. She cuts herself a small piece.
‘Cut a big piece,’ says Edward. ‘You know you want to.’ Susan giggles, and cuts again. ‘I’ll pour the cream for you,’ adds Edward, and lifts the jug high.
‘Let her do it for herself,’ says Isabel quietly. Edward glances at her, and puts the jug into Susan’s hand.
Richard has filled my glass. I drink off the yellowish wine without bothering to taste it much, though it’s good. I take the bottle and fill my empty glass again, right to the top. I am quite drunk, and I want to be much drunker.
‘I want to see the owls,’ I hear myself say suddenly.
‘I can show you them if you want. They’re nesting in our barn,’ says Susan.
‘Let’s all go,’ says Richard.
‘They won’t be there now.’ Isabel stubs out her cigarette. ‘It’s night time. They’ll be hunting.’ Then she tenses. Was that him?’ she asks.
‘I don’t think so,’ says Susan, spooning cream.
‘I’m sure it was.’ Isabel rises. She’s wearing a dress I haven’t seen before, a silk dress, long and slim. It’s a deep, blackish red, the colour of ripe mulberries. Automatically I look down at what I’m wearing. Black trousers, a cream linen shirt. I wonder if I’ll ever not feel this pang, so deep it seems to have been put in there by nature.
‘I might as well feed him in bed,’ says Isabel.
‘Are you going to bed?’ asks Richard. ‘It’s early.’
‘Not for me. Come in quietly, or you’ll wake him up when I’ve just got him off. Or you could sleep down here, on the sofa. That might be easier.’
She looks at him and he looks at her, swivelling with that blind, baited look I’ve seen on him before.
‘All right,’ he says.
Chapter Ten
I stumble on the stairs and bang my shin hard. It seems safest to crawl up the last few stairs and on to the landing, where there’s a strip of light under Isabel’s door.
‘Isabel?’
The door opens and there’s Isabel with the baby slung over her shoulder.
‘What are you doing down there?’
‘I’ve got to sit down, Iz, I feel awful.’
‘I thought you were drinking a lot.’
I sprawl in Isabel’s armchair and watch her sit down again, patting the baby’s back. The room is too bright, so I shut my eyes.
‘I suppose Richard’s still boozing.’
‘He’s gone out for a walk with Edward and Susan.’
‘You should have gone too.’
I make a huge effort and open my eyes. ‘No I shouldn’t. Better here.’
‘I wonder if it’s colic. He’s all right as long as I do this, but as soon as I put him down he starts screaming.’
Isabel stands up and begins to walk the baby up and down, up and down the same strip of floor.
‘I can remember doing this with you,’ she says.
‘You can’t, can you?’
‘I used to put you in the doll’s pram and take you for walks. I remember how people used to look in thinking I had a doll in there, and then they’d see it was a real baby. You should have seen their faces. I used to have you all tucked in and parade you up and down the street. Then I’d take you down the hill, holding on tight to the handrail in case the pram ran away with me. It nearly did, lots of times. Everyone used to say I was a proper little mother. I used to think I was the bee’s knees. God knows what they thought really.’
I watch her walking, her right hand patting Antony’s tiny humped back.
‘You didn’t eat the meal I made,’ I say suddenly.
‘It was wonderful, Neen. Everyone said it was wonderful. But you know I can’t eat meals like that.’
She looks at me steadily, over the baby’s head. I have never heard Isabel admit as much as this before, though I know it, of course I know it. I’ve just chosen to pretend that things change and people alter, and Isabel makes it easy for people to pretend. She’s always had her breakfast early, she’s always going to eat her lunch in the garden, or else she doesn’t feel like supper yet. The fact is that Isabel can’t eat round a table with other people. When I look back I can’t remember whether she ever could or not. Our mother would leave sandwiches and apples for her under covered plates, and let her go into the larder to fetch what she wanted when she wanted it. I raged because it was so unfair, but for once my mother was immovable.
‘Why can’t I have Rice Krispies for tea like Isabel?’
‘Isabel’s different’
I wonder how she’s managing. Our mother was always worried that Isabel didn’t eat enough, but no one was allowed to say a word to Isabel about food.
‘But you’re feeding him. Aren’t you hungry?’
Isabel points to her bedside table.
‘Look in the drawer.’
‘I don’t think I can get up.’
‘Yes, you can.’
The table lurches, faraway then close. I snatch at the knob and the drawer slides open.
‘There you are,’ says Isabel, ‘oatcakes and dried apricots. I eat them all the time, and they’re full of iron. So you don’t need to worry.’
I think of the house filling up with the smells of food all day, and Isabel sitting here, eating an apricot, a quarter of oatcake. Perhaps she did say more about it once. I remember her voice saying something about people’s mouths opening and closing, their hands reaching out for food, and all of it unreal and slowed down, as if time was stuck and she was stuck there too. She always hated people who ate too much, except me. She liked me to eat. Yes, now I do remember. There was a time when Isabel used to be able to eat in front of me, as if I was part of herself. But I don’t know when it ended.
‘I hope the baby won’t be like me,’ says Isabel. ‘Do you think he will?’
I look at the baby, wheezily sleeping on Isabel’s shoulder, limp as a rag. Its eyes are so tight shut there is only the thinnest line. ‘He doesn’t look very like you,’ I say.
‘I can’t bear to think of what might happen to him,’ says Isabel, her voice low and intense.
‘Nothing’s going to happen to him.’
‘How do you know?’ she asks. ‘How can you tell? Anything could happen. Babies can’t tell anybody anything, no matter what happens to them.’
‘Nothing happened to me, though, did it? – and you were only four or five, pushing me all round town.’
‘He’s not like you,’ says Isabel, so quietly I can hardly hear her. ‘Look at him. Who do you think he looks like?’
I peer at the baby, but he looks like no one to me. ‘He’s a bit like Dad, isn’t he?�
�� I suggest, because someone else has already said it.
‘Yes, I suppose so.’ The tension has gone out of her voice. ‘Yes, I suppose he is quite like Dad when you come to look at him.’
I’m lying flat on my back on Isabel’s bed, without knowing how I got there.
‘Don’t go to sleep, Neen.’ I jump. The tension is back in her voice.
‘What’s matter?’
‘Does the baby look all right to you?’
I prop myself up and inspect the small, shut face. He’s the same colour as he was earlier, and he seems to be breathing.
‘Izzy, of course he’s all right. You’re just tired. I’ll go, then you can get some sleep.’
‘Don’t go, Neen.’
‘But you’ve got to rest.’ And the drink’s abandoning me, leaving vast fatigue like mud in an estuary when the tide’s gone out. I drag myself off the bed.
‘Go and find Edward then. Tell him I need him.’
‘But Izzy, he’ll have gone to bed.’
‘He won’t. He won’t mind.’
‘OK then. Sure you don’t want me to stay?’
‘It’s all right. Get Edward.’
I find Edward in the kitchen. We didn’t touch the gooseberry fool earlier, but Edward’s found it. He sits at the kitchen table with one arm curled round the bowl, digging into it. He raises his spoon in salute.
‘Delicious. You really are an excellent cook, Nina.’
‘Isabel wants you.’ My tongue feels too big for my mouth, too big for any explanations with Edward. He seems to go at once or, at least, not to be there when I next look. And someone’s done the washing-up. I walk back through the dining-room, where the table shines, empty. The candles are out, stiff with congealed wax, and the flowers stand in a pool of dropped petals. In the next room, the sitting-room, I find Richard asleep on the sofa, face down, his head hidden in his arms. He’s snoring. On the other side of the room there’s Susan, sitting on a cushion under the window.
‘Oh good,’ she says, ‘here you are. Don’t worry, he’s all right. I’ve put him in the recovery position.’
‘What?’
‘The recovery position. He’ll be perfectly safe.’
‘What’s happened? Did he have an accident?’
‘He was terribly drunk,’ mouths Susan, as if Richard might hear us. ‘You know there’s always a risk of inhaling vomit’
‘Good God.’ I stare at Richard. ‘You mean you put him lying like that.’
Susan smiles proudly. ‘They taught us how to lift on the course,’ she says. ‘He’s a big man, but it wasn’t too tricky. Edward couldn’t help because he’s got a bad back.’
‘Oh, well. Well done,’ I say. Susan’s eyes shine. She looks like an angel in this light, with her fair hair turned white, standing up round her head and held back by the black band. She brims with questions, her mouth already opening to ask how Isabel is, why Richard’s drunk, what I’m going to do with the leftover salmon. But I point at Richard, put my finger on my lips, and back out of the room. It’s quite time this evening was over.
I undress in the dark, leaving the curtains open. I wish I was in London now, with orange street glow coming in through the curtains I’m always meaning to replace with something thicker. I’d like to wake up to a dull day and the swish of tyres through rain. This country darkness makes my eyes ache as I try to peer through it. But it’s not really dark now. The more I look, the more shadows I see. A soft yellow half-moon is caught in the branches of a tree. Then it breaks free and rises like a bubble of air from a diver. I pull on a navy T-shirt and sit on the bed and watch the sky.
But I must see Isabel. She wanted me to stay, and I didn’t. I’m always wanting her to want me, and then when she does I’m out of the door. I’d rather listen to her telling me about when I was her baby. I’m her sister, and it was me she wanted, not Edward.
I don’t knock. I push Isabel’s door open gently, in case she’s asleep. And there they are. Edward must have been sitting in the chair beside her bed for a long time. He holds one of Isabel’s hands. His left foot is on the cradle rocker, rocking gently, rhythmically, as if he’s treadling an old sewing-machine. The baby and Isabel are both asleep. She lies flat, sunk into the bed, her head on one side. The cradle is facing me, and I can see the baby’s head, his fists up by the sides of his face. Edward has his back to the door, his head bowed, so I think at first that perhaps he’s asleep too. But he’s awake. He hears the door creak. Without letting go of Isabel’s hand, or altering the gentle pressure on the cradle rocker, he turns his head and looks over his shoulder at me. He shakes his head, a tiny shake which does not disturb either Isabel or the baby at all. There’s nothing to do but go away.
I think of the hours Edward spends in Isabel’s room, talking about Alex, making Isabel pour out the oil of her understanding and advice on him. And giving nothing back. Why does she do it? Why does she have them here, Edward and Alex and all the others who come for supper and stay a week? Exhausting her, draining her, keeping her from what she really wants to do. I can never see her alone.
That’s how I’ve always seen it. I suppose everyone has a story about the people they love, and that’s been mine about Isabel. It’s a safe story, well-worn and comforting. One of those stories children get addicted to, asking for them again and again and pushing all the other books aside. Perhaps I tell myself this story so loudly that I can’t hear anything else. Otherwise why would she lie there, sunk in sleep, leaving her baby to Edward? And that look he gave me, as if I’d met his expectation exactly. He knows more about me than I thought.
Chapter Eleven
I fall into sleep hungrily, as if it’s food, and dreams crowd in. It’s because I’m not working. I always dream too much when I’m not working, because all the images I ought to be making lie in wait until I sleep.
I dream of a garden which is Isabel’s, but different. The grass in Isabel’s garden is burned to the colour of a camel by the hot summer, but this grass is soft and green. I’m beside a long border of flowers, backed by a thick yew hedge. The black-green hedge is starred with out-of-season berries, like jam tarts. There are golden rod and rudbeckia in flower, burning yellow. And there’s an overwhelming smell of catnip. I look along and see that the whole border is edged with it. There are small apple trees growing among the flowers, heavy with ripe apples, so heavy that some of the branches have broken and the white, torn wood shows.
Someone’s coining. I’m thinking of Isabel, but it isn’t Isabel I’m waiting for. I’m alive with excitement. I look down and see I’m wearing a dress I’ve never seen before. I feel beautiful and on edge. I’m wearing this dress because I’m going to meet someone, here, now. The name won’t come, but it’s someone I know well. There are bees all over the border, in the catnip and clinging to the heads of the golden rod, bending them down with a weight of bee bodies. I start to walk up and down, up and down, feeling my skirt move against my legs.
In the second dream nothing happens. It’s a dream about the river, wider and deeper than it is now after weeks of drought. The water’s a different colour too, like brown glass. I’m standing on the bank looking down. There are tiny pebbles at the bottom, as clear as if they were in my hand, and lodged among them there’s a very small plastic doll, a doll’s house doll, naked, with wide eyes. The water sways over them and someone says behind me: ‘Those pebbles are boulders. It’s only the depth that makes them look so small.’
I try to move back, terrified now that I see how deep this water is, but the same voice says, ‘Careful. Stay where you are. If you move you’ll fall in.’
‘Fax for you.’ Richard hands it to me and I read it eagerly, glad of proof that I’ve got a life outside this house. I read it again to be sure I’ve got it right. Yes. The Cruzet Foundation is going to use me on the Music House recording visits. It means three trips to Romania, two weeks each. They want a different kind of record, sketches as well as photographs. That’s why I’ve got it, because there’l
l have been a lot of photographers in the running who have more experience than me. I spent a couple of days with a music therapist getting a cameo project folder together and working out the basis of my proposal. At the time it seemed stupid – a whole two days which I’d never be able to cost into my fee. But you have to be stupid sometimes, to get into the kind of work you really want.
‘You look pleased.’
‘I never thought I’d get it. It’s a terrific piece of work.’
‘I read the fax,’ says Richard, ‘but I couldn’t make much sense of it. What’s the Music House?’
‘It’s an orphanage in Romania.’
‘Jesus. You’re not going to one of those places, are you?’
‘What did you see, when I said an orphanage in Romania?’
‘I don’t know. Newspaper pictures. Kids with shaved heads and big eyes and brain damage. But they’re not in the papers any more, are they? They’ve had their five minutes.’
‘That’s what this project’s about, about it not having to be like that. The house uses music in everything, so even the kids who can’t speak all play in the house band and learn to sing. They choose a piece of music which becomes theirs, like another name. Some of them lost their names, because they were abandoned when they were too young to know them. They each get given an instrument as soon as they come and no one else is allowed to touch it. They’ll smash it up but it’s always replaced. When they started most of the instruments were home-made, but now they’ve been given a lot of stuff and they have a concert every night after they’ve eaten. There are two music therapists working out there now, as well as this woman who began it. She still works with the children twelve hours a day. Can you imagine what I’ll be able to do, living there for two weeks at a time?’
Talking to the Dead Page 6