by Sara Alexi
‘Oh, Loukas.’ She stands in the middle of the room and clutches at her chest as if she is having a heart attack. She might as well be, for the pain. She waits for the initial shock of her own outburst to subside and then she rips her coat off and runs upstairs and puts on her warmest jumper, ignoring for the moment the unmade bed. She rolls up her sleeves and heads back downstairs to do the washing up.
Chapter 21
There is a great satisfaction to seeing the house so clean and tidy. The brasses shining, the floor washed. The smell of clean linen drying on the rack above the Aga mingles with the smell of the chicken pieces she took from the freezer and made into a pie that is now in the oven. The house is warming and the bed has been stripped, remade with sweet-smelling sheets, and the washing machine rumbles.
She hung her rucksack on one of the hooks on the back door when she first returned, and there it has remained. She should have put her dresses and underwear in with the sheets, but, like the dirt that collects on the floor and the washing up that grows in the sink, there will always be more laundry.
The sandals come out first along with a trickle of sand that falls to the newly swept floor. It lays golden against the light grey flags. The romance of the sun against the romance of the stark moors. How out of place Loukas would seem here. How inconceivable it is to think of Marcus over there. She puts her sandals alongside the mud-clogged walking boots in the chest by the back door.
Her t-shirt dresses seem unfeasibly thin and flimsy. She wouldn’t even wear them to bed in the summer over here. No, that’s an exaggeration. She is saying that because of the rain lashing at the windows. In a cloudless moment at the height of summer when the sun has been shining for a day or two and the heather and the peat have soaked up the warmth, there are pockets of sheep-shorn grass between the brackens that trap the heat. She could lay in one of those in these little dresses, smelling the warmth in the undergrowth, listening to the grouse burring and cawing. Invisible from the world. Loukas could lay there too.
Pine needles fall from one of the dresses to join the sand. Burying her face in it, she breathes in its scent, sun cream and pine sap, cotton and Kyria Poppy’s shop.
This is not going to make her marriage happen. The underwear in the bottom of the rucksack gets piled into the wicker clothes basket, but the dress she stuffs unwashed into a plastic bag and this, along with the rucksack, is hung on a hook in the cupboard under the stairs in the darkest corner. She needs to forget them, but she cannot wash them, lose the smells, forget the memories. Not yet.
There, she is done. The house is tidy, she is unpacked, the washing is on, the bed has clean sheets and the dinner is in the oven. Now what? What time is it? Surely Marcus should be home by now? The light over the moors, visible through the small window above the deep, chipped butler sink, is fading. The sheep are silhouetted as they come over the rise to the sheltered lee. Maybe Marcus has been staying over at Brian’s whilst she was away. But that does not account for the beer bottles and the pizza boxes. He must have been here, and possibly with company.
She could idle her time away on the Internet. His laptop is in its cover down the side of the sofa. It is tempting, but the last time she was on it, she was looking at pictures of Greece and emailing Stella. It will only serve to remind her. She could call Brian, see if Marcus is there, tell him she is home. What is the sensible, responsible thing to do?
Call Brian. Definitely to call Brian and see if Marcus is there.
One glance out of the front window at the water collecting and gushing down the cobbles, the rain pelting against the windows and the wind rattling the gate convinces her she is not going down to the telephone box! She will wait. If he does not come home today, he will come home tomorrow and if he doesn’t turn up tomorrow, she will go and call on Brian. He is bound to be there, playing with the trains.
The sofa sinks deeply as she sits. She watches the changing direction of the rain at the window, listens to the wind across the chimney top. The wind chime over the back door is quiet; it must have become tangled.
She spots a letter on the mantelpiece, addressed to her, in Mum’s writing. Mum has taken to sending her notes since she moved. She says it is because they have no phone. Ellie suspects it is more a result of her being lonely. They never say anything, these letters, they just ramble, cataloguing what Mum bought at the supermarket, things that have happened in the news that need commenting on, the topic of Father’s latest sermon. Ellie usually skim-reads them, burns them and, instead of answering them, goes to the phone box and calls. This letter is typical and carries little real news, except Mum mentions that they have taken in a lodger to make use of her old room. This news has an unexpected effect on her. She doesn’t mean to, but she starts to cry. It is not so much that she wants to go back there—God knows she doesn’t. God knows she never wants to have a Sunday lunch there again as long as she lives, but on the other hand, it would have been nice if Mum had asked if she minded that her old room was to be let out. Not that it is really her room now, but somehow it feels sort of final, as if the choice has been taken away from her, as if she can never go back even if she really needs to. A closed door.
She lets the crying run its course. The initial impact subsides. What has happened fits and feels like a natural continuation of their general disinterest in her. It is probably for the best. Going back would never be a good thing under any circumstances. She flings the letter in the flames and watches it burn.
After a while, she adds coal to the fire, takes the pie from the oven. It is a perfect golden-brown but she is not hungry. The emptiness in her stomach is somehow comforting, friendly, as if Loukas is there with her.
‘Stop it, Ellie!’ she demands of herself, out loud. Maybe she should clean Marcus’ mother’s brasses again. Maybe she is just bored. Maybe she should just go to bed.
Next morning, it is as if yesterday’s bad weather was just a passing outburst. The sun is out, the clouds are few and fluffy white. The wind has dropped and the world is drying out. The flowers in the window box have lifted their heads and touch the bottom of the window frame with colour. What a difference the sun makes. Opening the back door brings in a smell of warming heath. The tangled wind chime is the only testament to the night before.
She will walk on the moors today. Climb up to the stone circle, past the old reservoir. Or maybe she could sort out the backyard, arrange the wood more carefully, take a load inside and stack it next to the chimney breast. If she sweeps all the bark up, scrubs the winter green off the few flags that nestle by the back door competing with the moors, maybe she could think about putting some sort of seat out there.
No, the moors it will be. She ties the arms of a waterproof jacket around her waist, stuffs a hat in her jeans pocket, wraps a piece of chicken pie in cling film and carefully puts it in the pocket of the jacket and sets out. Maybe she can find a warm spot to read.
These are the sort of days she loves. No thoughts, few clouds, no pressure on her time. She steps lightly over the cushions of heather until she gains a sheep track. She startles one or two of the woolly animals that are chewing noisily nearby, and the way they dart away reminds her of Sarah and her goats.
Ellie consciously tries to concentrate on something else: the bees in the heather, the new shoots amongst the bracken. It works very briefly, but each new focus reminds her of the track on the hillside above the Greek village where she laid, watching beetles scuttle and crickets jump, Loukas by her side.
Her eyes are drawn up to the horizon, but this only serves to bring the old quarry on the edge of the moors into her line of sight. The quarry that is only visible because of the tell-tale line of pine trees around its top edge. She can almost smell them, recall the heat, the touch of Loukas.
‘No,’ she tells herself and looks back to the path.
Her walk becomes a march and her legs move mechanically and without grace. Her feet stomp and her breathing grows quick. She increases her speed until she stops dead in sight of
the stone circle. The ancient rocks stand as tall as a man, some erect, some leaning, only two fallen over. These two lay in the grass, side by side. Like she did with Loukas.
‘Oh holy moly, this is not working!’ Ellie stops walking and she sits with a thump in the heather, just vaguely aware, but not caring, that she has squashed her chicken pie. What she needs is to stop being in this vacuum. She needs to see Marcus, get back into her old life. As long as she has not seen him, her heart will still be with Loukas. Once she has seen Marcus, it will all be easier. She should find him as soon as he has finished work and suggest that they go to the Shepherd’s Arms tonight, even if it isn’t Saturday. Maybe at the weekend they can find a ceramics workshop. Perhaps she can broach the idea again about her going to night school to complete her A levels.
The pie has disintegrated into pieces.
‘Well, a least the pastry is crumbly.’ She forces the optimism and stands to set off back home, scattering the pie pieces for the birds.
Clearing out the backyard keeps her thoughts mostly away from focusing on Loukas for a couple of hours, and when the clock creeps around to the time Marcus usually comes home, she brushes her hair and applies a little makeup. Not much; it is not really her thing. Just enough to give her a glow, a sparkle.
The hands of the clock move so slowly. Marcus does not come. He must be at Brian’s.
‘Right.’ Ellie stands, takes out the remains of the chicken pie that is warming in the oven, and covers it with a towel, pulls on her jacket, bangs the mud off her boots outside the back door and puts them on by the front door, and sets off to Brian’s.
Will he be pleased to see her? Or will he be as unruffled as ever? She must think long-term, like the old woman of whom Sarah spoke. If she tries, and keeps trying, love will come. She must picture herself and Marcus as an old married couple with the years behind them, holding hands, loving, close.
Septic Cyril is in the telephone box. He has a bottle of window cleaner and a roll of kitchen paper in there with him and he is cleaning the windows. Ellie is glad the door is shut. Apparently it is not only his house that smells bad. As she passes, Cyril knocks on the glass and grins, peering through his small, round, thick, wire-rimmed glasses. Ellie gives him a little wave and he mists the window he is looking out of with a spray of window cleaner.
She could grow to like the eccentricity of the people here. At least they are not dull.
Halfway down the hill, an old white van coughs and splutters as it begins the climb towards her. In the driver’s seat is King Nev, apparently unconcerned by the vehicle’s slow progress and worrying noises. By his side is his queen, who waves at Ellie to her surprise, mouthing hello. Queen Helen then speaks to King Nev who smiles broadly at Ellie so she waves at him, too. He waves back.
So after living here for nearly a year, the locals are finally being friendly. About time!
But then, when has she ever been friendly to them? In fact, when has she ever seen them? The first two or three months, she never even went out of her front door, only out the back straight onto the moors. After that, she saw Helen twice, both times in the patisserie, which was the only place she ever went. Both times, Helen quietly said hello, but other than that, when has she even been out to meet any of them? Marcus takes her to do the shopping in his car, and for one hour a week, they sit in a dark corner at the Shepherd’s Arms in the next village. Marcus has so impressed on her the need for her to keep a low profile after all that happened that she might have overdone it a bit, perhaps. How different her life would be if she got to know her neighbours, made some friends. Helen and Nev look very nice, smiley, fun. It could be good here.
So, rule one of being back: Go out, use any excuse to go out to places she may bump into people, or they—she and Marcus—could have a party. A housewarming party. Invite the whole street and meet them all. Yes, she will suggest it to him. If he doesn’t like the idea, maybe she can do some sort of coffee morning to meet the women like her grandmother used to do in the olden days. She could bake cakes and that sort of thing.
There is a bounce in her step as she heads out of her house, out of her lane and down the hill. The railway line at the bottom marks the official boundary to the next village. Brian’s road is the first on the left on the other side of the tracks, defined by a bright yellow front door, on the end of a row mill cottages. There is an alley down the side, which she knows Brian always uses to enter his house by the back door, so she does the same. His handkerchief garden is shaded from wind and weather and faces south. It is a real heat trap and his back door is wide open.
Chapter 22
‘Hello, guess who!!’ Ellie steps through the back door into the kitchen with a surge of confidence that everything is going to be alright. Even Brian will turn out to not be quite as boring as she remembers him. The sound of the trains whirring reverberates down from the attic.
‘Guys?’ It is not a house she has spent much time in and she is hesitant, but as Marcus is so friendly with Brian, she supposes she should try to feel more friendly and so, with false bravado, she mounts the stairs, past the bedroom, its door open to a pile of duvet on the unmade bed. The toilet door is also open, and from it comes a strong smell of bleach. The next set of stairs, more vertical this time, go straight up into the attic.
She climbs these stairs slowly and puts her head up through the hole. There is no one there.
The trains are going round and round, but nothing about the track and the model village seems to have changed, which is odd. Marcus said he and Brian were going to rebuild it, and that was why he didn’t come home till late every night the week before she went away. Maybe there is a planning stage, maybe they were ordering the stuff they needed. But why would they leave it running, go out and leave the back door open?
Was Brian’s car outside? Come to that, was Marcus’? She didn’t think to look.
She begins her descent back out of the attic, leaving the trains going. Between the smell of bleach and the bedroom door, there is a muffled sigh from the bedroom. It must be Brian sleeping.
If he wakes up and sees her there, she is going to be mortified. What will she say?
‘Oh, so sorry to be passing your bedroom uninvited, Brian, but I have lost my husband.’ Or maybe she could play it cool: ‘Hi Brian, did you sleep well? Just looking for Marcus, creeping about your house, uninvited.’ No, that would be too weird to contemplate! Maybe the bathroom has a window, maybe she could… No, she is being ridiculous. What is the responsible and adult thing to do? Knock. Yes, why not? Knock on his bedroom door, explain the back door was open, and ask if he has seen Marcus.
That’s what she will do. That, or she will crouch down as she passes the door so he will not see her beyond the end of the bed and she can sneak back down the stairs and out the back door.
The floorboard she steps on creaks. She freezes and closes her eyes, stops breathing. There is another sigh and then a half snore. She takes another step, another creaky board. As she nears the bedroom door, she flattens herself against the wall. She will peek through the crack between the hinges of the door, and if he looks safely asleep, she will tiptoe out. If he is awake, she will knock with aplomb and brave it out.
The crack of the door is wide enough and in amongst the mess of duvet, she can see Brian’s blond hair. He is lying face down, both arms stretched out above his head. He looks quiet sweet when he is asleep, nice looking even. Younger than Marcus.
She watches him for a moment, encouraging positive feelings towards him, telling herself that he is not boring. He is a good friend to Marcus. There’s a grunt and the bedclothes move.
It happens so fast, it is not real. For a moment, she does not respond. Her limbs do not react. Then she moves quickly.
‘What the…’ The words come out like one of the screeching grannies in Greece, so high-pitched and Brian pushes the side of his face into the pillow, but his hands remain above his head. She stands squarely in the doorframe. Brian’s eyes swivel toward her, open a
nd wide, but he makes no attempt to turn onto his back and face her. But it is not Brian she is looking at.
Marcus lifts his head and turns to face her, wipes off the spittle on his lips with the back of his hand. ‘Ellie?’ He almost giggles the words. No shock, no remorse, nothing, just as if her being there is a bit of a funny joke.
‘What…’ Ellie tries again. Marcus sits up, leans back against the headboard, his chest hairs glistening with sweat. Brian cowers lower into the pillow as if he is wishing it would absorb him.
‘Did you find yourself, Ellie? Did you grow, experience, experiment?’ Marcus takes the remains of a hand-rolled cigarette from the ashtray by the bed and lights up. He takes a long drag while Ellie stands there with no idea what to say or do. It feels impossible to move. All she can do is watch. With one hand, Marcus leans over Brian and undoes a loose black band that until that moment, Ellie has not noticed.
Brian pulls his hands down from above his head quickly as they are released, casting off the bonds, and reaches for the cigarette that Marcus is drawing deeply on, sucking air in with the smoke and holding it before exhaling at length. He gives the remains to Brian, who has hidden as much of himself as he can under the duvet. Just the two fingers holding the cigarette and his face are visible. Ellie continues to stare. One drag from Brian and the cigarette is down to the butt. His mouth dips under the duvet; leaving just the fingers waiting for Marcus to take the glowing end, and a pair of wide scared eyes.
There is nothing she can do but stand there. She seems to have lost her senses. A ringing in her ears is matched by specks of light that spin before her eyes. Her mouth is hanging loosely open and there is a vague feeling that she might be dribbling. Her legs have locked and will not respond and her hands have gone numb. If she could be granted one wish, it would be to be able to move, to run, to take this sight away from her, to be somewhere, anywhere else. On top of the moors, fighting the rain, throwing stones at a goat, anywhere but here.