The China Bird

by Bryony Doran

  ‘You’re wise for your years, you know?’ he says, smiling, brushing the tears away with the palm of his hand. ‘I’ve just remembered, there’s a bottle of whisky downstairs in the cupboard under the sink. Will you go and get it?’ Give me time to compose myself, he thinks.

  Angela lies on her stomach, legs bent at the knees, bare feet waving in the air. He wants to put his hand out and hold the plumpness of her calves, squeeze the flesh gently between his fingers.

  ‘You know,’ she says, sipping at her whisky. ‘I keep getting this irresistible urge to draw you.’

  ‘Oh,’ he says, ‘if only. Oh, for those times back again. When life was less complicated.’

  She smiles sadly. ‘Nothing seems black and white anymore does it? I should have known that I couldn’t just stick with charcoal.’ She laughs at her own joke, and gets up from the bed to pour them another drink.

  ‘I don’t mind, you know?’

  ‘What?’ She waits, bottle in hand.

  ‘Mother has a sketch pad downstairs.’ He watches her face, frowning, as she tries to comprehend his meaning. He imagines lying naked with her here, in-between his mother’s best cotton sheets.

  She pulls a face. ‘I’m a bit drunk!’

  He rattles the ice in the bottom of his glass. ‘Just think, mother prepared this ice for us.’ He hiccups. ‘You hadn’t thought of that, had you?’

  ‘I did actually, clever clogs. As I was running the ice tray under the tap, I had the very same thought.’

  ‘Shifting sands.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Shifting sands.’

  ‘Are you drunk?’ she grins.

  ‘That’s what life seems like lately.’

  ‘You’re right, nothing seems quite safe anymore, does it? I mean, fancy you moving out of Mrs Ingram’s. I thought that you’d end your days there. What are you going to complain about now you haven’t got her to ruin your clothes, or serve you up salty food?’ She begins to giggle. ‘Oh, Mrs Ingram? Look. You’ve ruined my best socks,’ she mimics.

  He pokes her in the ribs.

  Outside in the garden, they hear the cat yowling.

  He must have nodded off. He wakes in the middle of the night propped up against the pillows. Angela is asleep with her back nestled up to him, snug against his body. He leans forward and, marvelling at his new-found courage, kisses the vein on her neck, letting his lips trace it down to her collarbone. She turns her head slightly and smiles up at him, her eyes still closed. If he wasn’t so drunk he could get up and turn the light off. He lays there wishing they were both naked.

  And now it is the next morning and she is pacing back and forth in the kitchen.

  ‘Angela?’ She stops pacing long enough to look at him. ‘Do you want any sugar in your tea?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No, thank you, Edward,’ he reprimands.

  ‘Any chance we can go in the back room yet? It’s so dingy in here.’

  He nods.

  On the side are little packages wrapped in old newspaper. He picks one up and peels back a corner to find a willow pattern cup. She must have wrapped them up to give him.

  He finds it strange to be in his mother’s kitchen, using her things. He has found only one mug – a present from the Isle of Wight. He will have that. It already has a tea bag in it. He unwraps one of the willow pattern cups for Angela. He will need a tray. He finds it tucked under the sink where it always lived. He waits for the kettle to boil and smiles to himself, thinking of the night they spent together. He is beginning to feel better. He will ask her if she will come to the grave with him today. They could even go for lunch afterwards.

  If he is careful he can manage to carry the tray through with one hand. He props open the kitchen door. Angela has opened the French windows. The sunlight is stippling the lawn. A bird is on the bird table. He notices his mother’s stone birdbath and remembers all those years ago when he and his father bought it as birthday present for her and how, for once, they’d got it right.

  Edward watches Angela as she sits slumped in the chair. She is miles away, her finger twisting a coil of hair.

  ‘Penny for them.’ He expects her to smile, but she doesn’t. She removes her finger, letting her hair uncoil.

  ‘I decided earlier, whilst you were making the tea, that I’m going to Cornwall later this morning. If I can get a train.’

  His voice is toneless, ‘But I thought we were going to the ballet this evening.’

  ‘I have to see someone.’

  ‘Who? A man?’

  She snorts, ‘No.’

  She is lying, he thinks. ‘Please don’t go, not yet,’ he pleads. ‘I love you.’

  ‘Fuck off! Just fuck off, will you?’

  He hears the front door slam, the stained glass rattling in its lead.

  He sits staring out into the garden, numb with shock. He holds his hands prayer-like up to his face. His grandfather, Richard Appleyard, stares kindly down at him.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE

  As the train makes its way southwards, the tension in Angela’s jaw lessens. She absorbs the sounds of the train: the clack of the wheels on the line, the softer roll of the tea trolley making its way towards her. The image of Edward’s face that morning is beginning to fade. She presses back into the headrest, closes her eyes and feels the warmth of the sun on her eyelids.

  Once upon a time, she thinks, there was a man and a woman. The man was old and crippled, and the woman was young and … she opens her eyes long enough to study her reflection in the glass, cocks her head to one side – lovely – that would do. Why not beautiful? She looks again, smiles. She has always liked her teeth; the colour of fine porcelain, the perfect balance of translucence and pearl; neither too big nor too small. No, she doesn’t want to be beautiful, that would be too ordinary. Will Paul, her Cornish fisherman, think her lovely when he sees her again? She closes her eyes. She must be mad, but what wouldn’t she do for another night like they’d had?

  He is there when she enters the pub, sitting on a stool along the bar with his mates. He glances over at her and then looks away. She sees that he is studying her in the mirror behind the bar, a gradual recognition dawning on him. As she crosses the room towards him she sees he is still watching her. Her heart is banging against the inside her rib cage.

  ‘Hi.’ She can feel her face turning red, ‘Fancy meeting you here.’ How trite she sounds.

  His mates smirk and nudge one another.

  ‘All right, Maid?’ He looks her up and down, still unsure, ‘What are you doing down here?’

  ‘And there’s me thinking you’d be pleased to see me.’ She tries to gauge him. Is he just being like this because he’s with his mates?

  He takes a drink of his beer. ‘I never usually ‘spect to see Emmets again.’ He laughs, ‘Suppose you want a drink?’

  She nods her head towards the door. ‘Do you want to go for a walk?’

  He descends reluctantly from his stool. ‘Okay.’ He finishes his beer and follows her out.

  As they come out of the pub, a cold wind blows in across the cove and she shivers. He stands awkwardly, looking down at the incoming tide.

  ‘Down here with your fancy feller, are you?’

  She doesn’t reply. He follows her to the top of the slate steps, to the edge of the quay where they’d first met.

  She sits on the wall and picks at a limpet. ‘I don’t know what to say now.’

  He sits down beside her. ‘What is it, Maid?’

  She remembers how funny she’d found it to be referred to as ‘maid’.

  ‘I was just down at the cottage again,’ she lies, ‘and I thought I’d look you up. See if you wanted to relive our one night of passion.’

  He grins, and she remembers some of the attraction she’d felt for him.

  His grin widens. ‘Oh, I see,’ he sticks his hands in the front pockets of his jeans. ‘It were good, weren’t it? In fact, it were fuckin’ fantastic.’

  She laughs.

>   ‘Can’t go tonight, though. If this weather holds, we’re going fishing. First bit of good weather we’ve had in days. Can’t miss it, not even for you.’

  He takes her hand and turns it over, studying her palm. ‘How about tomorrow night?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No can do. I’m going back tomorrow.’

  ‘Well, how long have you been down here?’ he asks.

  ‘A week,’ she lies.

  He turns to face her. ‘How about now?’

  ‘Now?’

  He shrugs, ‘Yeah. Why not?’

  Her inner self is saying no, but she has come all this way just to see this man. ‘Where?’ She asks.

  ‘No reason why we can’t go back to the Keep House,’ he replies, holding his hand out. ‘Come on.’

  She remains seated on the wall. ‘I’m not sure. It all seems a bit rushed.’

  He leans forward and kisses her. It is a good kiss. She searches his chapped lips with her own, trying to bring back the feelings she has coveted for weeks.

  The evening light is shining through the diamond panes of the window and patterning the wall opposite. Angela turns and watches the last of the sun as it sinks into the sea.

  Paul comes and stands behind her, clasps his arms around her waist and sniffs the hair at the back of her neck. ‘Your hair’s grown,’ he whispers. ‘I like it.’ His hands move up to her breasts. ‘God, have these grown as well.’

  Under her jumper, she is wearing the bra Edward gave her.

  She can feel him, pressing into her from behind. She pulls away. ‘Just let the sun set first.’ She puts her elbows on the windowsill and stares out to sea.

  He copies her and grins, ‘Same old floor show every night.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The sun going down.’ He pulls her towards him. She feels his tongue pushing her teeth apart, and the sudden strangeness of it all.

  She pulls away. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t do this. It was good that night, really good, but I should have left it there.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake!’

  He stands there enraged. She holds her breath quite still, looks down at the floor, her eyes tracing the rust veins in the slate tiles. He turns abruptly, leaves the huge studded door wide open behind him.

  She sees his headlights wander down into the cove and the red rear lights weaving up the hill opposite.

  She watches as the darkness creeps in off the sea. She is afraid to turn on the lights in case someone comes. She lies down on the bed. She must have dozed because when she wakes the room is pitch black. She listens to the constant song of the sea and for strange noises; imagining that Paul, after his fishing trip, might return to try again. At first she sleeps like a cat, wakeful to any sound, but the wind and the constancy of the sea soothe her and she is surprised when she wakes to find the sun shining brightly through the window, her arms cut into a diamond pattern by the shadow of the leaded bars.

  The screeching of seagulls drives her from the bed. She has slept all night in her clothes and her body feels gritty and unwashed.

  She looks down into the cove. Hilda’s cottage still sleeps. The sick room window is half open, the pale green curtains lapping on the grey slate window ledge. A woman is sitting on the wall, her face raised to the sun and her palms pressing into the slate slabs. It is not Hilda. She takes a closer look and wonders if it is Alex’s mother. Up the valley the faith healer’s chimney is already spiralling smoke up into the air.

  She leaves the bed unmade and hides the key back under the stone. She remembers there is a phone box down in the cove, an old fashioned red one, the only contrast against the greys and greens of the landscape.

  She picks up the receiver. It is dead. She rests her elbows on the scratched black shelf, her head in her hands.

  What is she going to do now? For no apparent reason an image of Rachel comes into her head, the image Edward had painted of Rachel sitting in her chair; head resting against the wing, her mouth open. She shudders and thinks of her gran. She suddenly feels very alone.

  She sits by the stream, looking down into the clear water, a picture keeps drawing itself in her head. Two black figures, silhouettes, are loping across the page. They are thin with rounded shoulders, their hair straggly and unkempt. A man and a woman; her parents, they are moving towards her.

  ‘Ange? I thought it was you I saw coming down the hill. What on earth are you doing down here?’

  She looks up. Alex is leaning over the bridge studying her. She gets to her feet.

  ‘Are you all right? You look terrible.’ He is making his way towards her.

  ‘I didn’t see your car parked in front of the house or I’d have come over.’

  ‘It’s in the boat shed.’ He nods up the valley. ‘Do you want to come and have a cup of tea and meet my mother?

  ‘Is that who I saw sitting on the wall earlier?’

  ‘Yes, she’s doing really well. Did you come down to see me?’

  ‘No.’

  His mother is still sitting on the wall in front of the cottage. She is younger, gentler than Hilda.

  ‘Mum? This is Ange. You remember? The girl that came down with me so I could keep working while I was visiting you.’

  The woman looks into Angela’s face, her head tilts slowly, taking her eyes out of the light. ‘Yes, I can see she would be a good model.’

  ‘Are you an artist?’ Angela asks.

  The woman smiles, ‘Only of life. Alex tells me you’re his star pupil. He keeps talking about your work.’

  Angela shakes her head, not knowing what to say.

  Alex sits down on the wall beside his mother. ‘Yes. Right now, some of your work is hanging on the wall in the hall at college.’

  ‘Oh shit! I wanted to ask Edward for his permission before I displayed them.’

  ‘Too late.’

  ‘Shit!’ She puts her hand to her mouth and looks at Alex’s mother, ‘Sorry.’

  He waits with her at the station. She flicks a spot of water off the slatted seat and sits down. ‘How long are you here for this time?’

  ‘Just a week. I’ve got another term to do at college. I didn’t tell you, did I? I’m leaving permanently. I’ve had enough of teaching. I’m going to concentrate on my art. Move down here, be nearer my mother.’

  ‘What brought that on?’

  ‘Lots of things, you partly, seeing your work made me realise I better bloody get on with it.’

  ‘That good, huh?’ Her work had impacted on him that much? ‘You’re really leaving then?’

  He nods, looks down at her with an expression of curiosity on his face. ‘You never did tell me what you were doing down here.’

  She shrugs, ‘The truth?’ She squints up at him. ‘I met someone the last time I was down here.’ He shakes his head, puzzled. ‘We’ve been writing to each other,’ she lies. ‘I arranged to come down, but it didn’t work out.’

  The train pulls into the station. ‘But I don’t understand.’

  ‘Thanks for the lift.’ She grins, ‘Let’s leave it as one of life’s little mysteries, shall we?’

  ‘Angela?’ She is just about to place her foot on the first step of the train. What is he going to say? He looks a bit miffed. ‘Look after yourself.’

  She smiles, turns back towards him and, surprising herself, kisses him on the cheek.

  ‘I’ve just remembered something.’ He takes her hand, ‘Will you do me a big favour? I left a new canvas and all my oil paints in that studio you use. Will you put them somewhere safe for me?’

  ‘One, two buckle my shoe,

  Three, four knock on the door,

  Five, six …’

  The small boy sitting opposite her on the train is waiting to be prompted by his mother.

  ‘Pick up sticks,’ Angela wants to say.

  The boy, disinterested, pulls his coat sleeve over his knuckle and wipes the window, staring out at the countryside rushing past.

  The mother sighs, ‘Pick up sticks, Seven eight, the garde
n gate, Nine ten …’ She pauses. The boy turns and grins, ‘A big fat hen. Can we stop now? Are we nearly there?’

  She remembers her gran teaching her that rhyme. There is more but she can’t remember it. She must go and see her. Tell her she’s going to London. See if she will go with her when she goes for the interview. Then she will be able to see for herself that it’s not a million miles away.

  ‘Eleven twelve … dig and delve’ That’s it.

  Angela checks her watch. 3.30. She feels drained. When she gets home, she will go to bed. But first she has to do that favour for Alex, she owes him that much.

  In the studio, Angela wedges the canvas between two chairs. It is stretched and ready like Alex had said. She smears red vermillion, gauging the proud line of Edward’s back with a small palette knife, slashing it with the straightness of his stick. His head is bowed, rimmed by blue and yellow; ribs limned in green, arched as a fleshless basket, weaving and expanding around and around; swirling until they fill the whole of the canvas; spreading like ripples on a pond, encasing the head, the back, the legs, until even the stick is encircled within the basket.

  From these fresh reeds, fresh green will grow into new white willow; pliable, without flesh and muscle to contort and twist it like before. Through the centre she plots a backbone snaked in blue, twisting and secretly meandering like an underground river.

  She is panting for breath, not through exertion but through anger; anger at herself, anger at Edward.

  She remembers him on Surrey Street. Himself, his stick, and the wind, carved against the light like a black thorn tree. But now spring has come and she has carved of him a rainbow tree, like all the colours in his mother’s trunk.

  She can no longer see him in black and white.

  CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO

  Edward enters the house, uninhabited now except for his mother’s cat that skulks under the table, mewing at him accusingly.

  He hears the snap of the letterbox. On the coconut mat is a pale blue airmail envelope. Leaning heavily on his stick he bends to pick it up. Staring back at him is his own name – Mr Edward Anderson. A letter from Uncle Ruben. Surely it can’t be his birthday, not today. He works out the date in his head. It is.