Limestone and Clay

by Lesley Glaister

  ‘Can you sleep through it?’ she asks.

  ‘I sleep in the gaps,’ Iris says. ‘I sleep for a second and then wake, all night, sleep/wake, sleep/wake, like one of those lights that flick on and off.’

  ‘A strobe? Can you really do that?’

  ‘I’ve learnt. Now let’s pour the tea and then we’ll go through. You can meet Darling. He’s in the back today, in my room. Getting on Derek’s wick this morning, wouldn’t shut up. I’ll just take Derek his coffee – he won’t drink leaf tea,’ she explains, spooning Nescafe into a cup. ‘Afraid I’ll read something. He likes a biscuit though.’ She takes a packet of Garibaldis from the cupboard. Nadia glimpses, before the cupboard door closes, a stack of tinned pies, and another of biscuits. The kitchen is full of old-fashioned things: a wooden-handled washing-up brush, a hand-knitted dishcloth, a big slab of green soap, a coronation tea-caddy, things that remind Nadia of her grandmother, although Iris isn’t old, can’t be more than fifty-five.

  ‘All right, that’s him settled. Come through.’ They carry their rattling cups and saucers into the back room. It’s the room that corresponds to Nadia’s studio upstairs, narrow and coldly lit. Nadia blenches at the stifling bird-stench, recognised now. She breathes through her mouth as she looks round. The room looks entirely different from her own, despite having the same shape and light. It is dominated by the crow in its majestic domed cage which is suspended from an elegant lamppost of a stand. But it is a homely room otherwise, with its flowery carpet and fat furniture – or would be if it were not for the liberal splattering of bird droppings and feathers.

  ‘Meet Darling.’ Iris taps the bars of the cage.

  ‘Hello Darling,’ Nadia says, but the bird looks morosely at the floor of its cage. It has a bald spot on top of its head and looks like a sour, disenchanted vicar.

  ‘He’s always shy with strangers,’ Iris says. She makes some loving, chuckling noises in her throat. ‘Moulting, aren’t you? Normally you’re a lovely glossy boy, aren’t you?’

  ‘Never mind.’ Nadia smiles and looks around the room for signs of fortune-telling. Under a blue cloth by the window is what looks like the crystal ball.

  The bird shuffles along his perch, sticks his tail through the bars and ejects a long brown dropping onto the carpet.

  Iris tuts. ‘Naughty boy,’ she says. ‘I’ll put the fire on. Always bloody cold in here.’

  ‘North-facing,’ Nadia says.

  ‘Sit down, do.’ Iris indicates one of the armchairs by the fire. She switches the fire on and there is an electric flickering under the logs. ‘Quite effective, don’t you think?’ she says, and Nadia doesn’t know how to respond. There is an elusive teasing in Iris’s voice. Is she serious?

  She brushes the feathers off the chair and sits down opposite Iris.

  ‘Drink your tea and I’ll do your leaves. Free gift. Sales incentive, they call it,’ Iris says.

  Nadia sips her tea, avoiding the large leaves floating on the surface. It is weak, grey, strange tea.

  ‘You look better,’ Iris remarks, leaning forward and observing her.

  ‘Sort of,’ agrees Nadia. She wonders if she is allergic to crows. Her eyes have started to itch.

  ‘China tea,’ Iris says. ‘Only they usually drink it without milk.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Fortune teller’s tea. Better leaves, though as I say, anything will do. Finished? Leave a drop.’ Nadia finishes her tea, bracing herself against the cooling slops, the leaves floating up against her lips. She picks a leaf from her mouth and replaces it in the cup.

  ‘Finished.’

  Iris looks into the cup. ‘That’s it. Now, turn the cup three times anti-clockwise. Concentrate. Shut your eyes.’ Nadia does so, pinching her lips together against a smile. She’s glad Simon can’t see her sitting so foolishly between the fake fire and the sulking crow playing make-believe. Through the wall she can hear the drone of a racing commentator rising in excitement and a dull thud which must be Derek in a lather, thumping the arm of his chair or stamping. The crow belches.

  ‘He begs your pardon,’ Iris says, taking the cup.

  She turns it upside-down. ‘It has to drain,’ she explains, ‘and then …’ She turns the cup over and frowns into it, squinting and muttering. She looks up at Nadia as if puzzled, the electric firelight flickering oddly in her odd-coloured eyes.

  ‘I see a lover …’ She pauses.

  ‘That’s Simon, yes.’

  ‘I see a lover in danger. I see darkness. A bad omen …’

  ‘Oh God,’ Nadia goes cold. ‘That’s the cave. He’s a caver.’

  Iris looks into the cup again. ‘Could be … sometimes it’s not literal, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Metaphorical?’

  ‘I don’t know about that. But it might not be a danger like caving, it could be a problem, a secret, a deceit … that kind of danger.’

  ‘But he is going caving, a dangerous expedition, he’s supposed to be going this weekend! It must be that.’

  ‘Well, maybe. But keep an open mind. And I see a mother … your mother?’

  ‘Haven’t seen my mother for years.’

  ‘Ah, that’s it then,’ Iris sits back. ‘I see a mother alone. You should get in touch. Could you get in touch?’

  ‘I could,’ says Nadia, ‘but I doubt I will.’

  ‘Fallen out?’

  ‘Sort of.’ Nadia is reluctant to think about it.

  ‘And that’s it.’

  ‘All you can see?’

  ‘This is a free introductory offer,’ Iris reminds her huffily. ‘If you’re ready to pay, I’ll read your palm. I need the money first. I’m not being funny – that’s how it’s done.’

  Nadia brings a five-pound note out of her purse. She is disgruntled by Iris’s reading already. Doesn’t want to hear more. But she feels committed now. She hands the money over.

  ‘No,’ Iris says. ‘You hold it in your hand for a moment. Now, shut your eyes again. Relax.’ Nadia tries, hoping this won’t take long. She is feeling chilly and faintly sick; there is almost a taste of crow in her mouth. She opens her eyes. ‘All right?’

  Iris nods and takes the money. She holds it in her hand for a moment, rubbing it between her fingers as if she could absorb information through her skin. Then she takes both of Nadia’s hands in her own. She does not look at them but gazes unseeingly straight through Nadia, who is unnerved by the intensity of her expression. It is absurd. She wants to laugh. It is either absurd or frightening. It is unnerving the way the eyes are so different; the pale eye, reflecting light, seems candid and friendly, while the dark one soaks up light and secrets. Nadia tries to pull her hands away, but Iris squeezes them hard for a moment, screwing her eyes closed. Her hands are very hot and the pressure almost hurts.

  Then she loosens her grip and smiles and her face is ordinary again, plain, doughy, good-natured. ‘Now. You’re right-handed?’ She studies the two palms. ‘The left is inheritance, the right what you make of it. Strong hands. Creative. You work with your hands?’

  ‘Iris! I just told you that. I’m a scu – well, potter.’

  ‘But dissatisfied, duck.’ Iris rubs her thumbs into Nadia’s palms, she seems to be reading them like Braille, hardly glancing at them, looking all the time at Nadia’s face for her response. ‘Time for a change of direction … there is inspiration … but frustration. You should go for it, whatever it is, duck. Don’t be afraid. I see success.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘And money … not much … no, you’ll never be rich, but you’ll be comfortable.’

  How many people does that apply to? Nadia wonders.

  ‘You’re not easily taken in,’ Iris says, narrowing her eyes. ‘Nobody’s fool. But you do have a tendency to trust some people, you should watch that.’ She looks away, glances down at the hands. ‘A good long life,’ she traces her thumb down to Nadia’s wrist, ‘but there are breaks. Some illness in the abdomen, some weakness … perhaps some nervous trouble? You
take things to heart.’ She pauses as if waiting for encouragement, but Nadia keeps her mouth shut. She will not help. ‘You’re passionate,’ Iris continues. ‘He’s a lucky man – Simon, isn’t it? And he’s yours for keeps – barring accidents.’

  ‘Is he?’

  ‘You must watch your health.’

  ‘I do yoga, and I don’t smoke.’

  ‘Good. I see a move soon. I see water, a move across the water.’

  ‘Can’t imagine that.’

  Iris shrugs. ‘Only telling you what I see. Someone close to you, a woman, will be ill. A problem with a lump … a relative. Sister? Someone whose name begins with J?’

  Nadia shakes her head. ‘I’ve no sisters. No one I can think of.’

  ‘Now, have you a question?’

  Nadia hesitates. She clears her throat, tries to keep her voice light, succeeds in sounding utterly unlike herself, like some thin impersonation of Celia. ‘What about sprogs?’

  ‘Kiddies? Ah, so that’s it.’ Iris runs her thumbs up the outsides of Nadia’s hands, glances down.

  ‘Just a question.’

  ‘Not important?’ Iris gives a knowing smile and Nadia bristles, pulls her hand away. Iris looks searchingly at her. Really she looks almost half-witted with her light and her dark eye, and her unkempt scribbled face.

  ‘I don’t see any … but you can’t tell, something like that …’ Tears jump to Nadia’s eyes. ‘So that’s what’s up,’ Iris says. ‘I thought, yesterday, I could see it in your eyes.’

  ‘Must go,’ says Nadia standing up.

  ‘Don’t rush off, there’s more …’

  ‘No, that’s enough.’ The crow smell is choking her, making her eyes run.

  ‘I’ve upset you. Should keep my bleeding mouth shut, shouldn’t I? Open it and put my foot right in.’

  ‘No, it’s all right, I asked you,’ Nadia says in a stifled voice. ‘Must go, that’s all.’

  Iris follows her through into the hall. ‘Would you like to talk …? I do know …’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘Stay for another cup of tea, not leafy muck, proper tea with a teabag.’

  ‘No …’

  ‘Oh sods,’ Iris wails.

  ‘Another time,’ Nadia says, desperate to get out. ‘Bye, Derek,’ she calls. There is an answering yell of fury as a horse loses a race.

  ‘See you in the morning – about ten, shall I?’ Iris asks.

  ‘Oh, yes … Bye.’ Nadia flinches away from Iris’s extended hand.

  ‘It’s all a load of cobblers, Nadia,’ Iris calls after her. ‘Don’t believe a word.’

  Nadia almost runs along the road, gulping fresh air deep into her lungs, brushing her hair with her fingers to rid herself of the sensation of dirty feathers. There is something soft on the sole of her shoe, something she picked up from Iris’s carpet; she pauses to scrape it off on the kerbstone. It looks like a sliver of meat, or a worm. She shudders, wondering what crows eat.

  The sky is heaped with grubby clouds but between them are stretches of tight blue silk. Sunlight glints from puddles in gutters and the soaked grass in the park. She decides to go through the park and breaks into an awkward run. Her feet splash in the puddles, a gardener looks at her curiously. There are no children this morning, a showery schoolday. She stops by the duck-pond, quite breathless. The surface of the water is enamel green and the ducks are suspended motionless within it, their beaks closed, their slick feathers folded around them as tightly as if they were carved. There is soggy bread floating on the surface of the water. The ducks in this city park are spoilt rotten. They ignore her, but sparrows dance about her feet begging for crumbs.

  Nadia fumes. How dare Iris presume to know her problem when she’s more or less a complete stranger? And then, after all that, to call it a load of cobblers. As if it could be anything else! What a fraud the woman is with her odd, mad eyes and her stinking bird. And what did she really say? So obvious, all of it, so generally applicable. That there will be no children is the answer. That’s what she really said. And what about the tea-leaves? What about the danger to Simon? Is cobblers all it really is?

  She stalks along, hands in her pockets, wishing she hadn’t asked Iris to model. She’ll always be round now, prying, sticking her nose in. And what does she mean, anyway, she does know? Nadia kicks an empty can and it clatters satisfyingly, sending a rabble of pigeons whirring into the trees.

  And what is the point of copying lumps of a lumpish woman in clay? She brushes the wetness off a bench with the sleeve of her coat and sits down. There is something wrong with the hand she made, it comes to her as she watches the clouds gathering and dispersing, they make almost-pictures – a castle with a streaming moat becomes a grazing cow becomes a dragon breathing fire becomes a mouse with a fractured tail. The hand is too literal, that is the trouble. It is literally a hand, actually her own hand. It has no flow. There should be a flow, like the flow of clouds. The shapes will be solid, of course, but ideas must be able to flow around them, form and re-form like the pictures in the clouds.

  Simon looks at the tops of the heads of his industrious class. A good class to have last thing in the afternoon. Some classes are impossible to control at the end of the day, all ears cocked for the finishing bell. Here, almost everyone is working. There’s Laura gazing out of the window, and Joe’s head is bobbing. He looks closer, sees the earphones in his ears. Takes a step towards him, and then stops. Let him be. He’s not doing any harm. Let him think he’s got away with something. Only fifteen minutes to go. Simon is the one all ears for the finishing bell. The class are tracing isobars onto their maps. They have been studying weather.

  Simon brushes chalk-dust off his hand onto his trousers. He must ring Miles. There is no reason not to go ahead with the expedition. It has rained, true, and he wouldn’t advise inexperienced cavers to take any risks. But he and Miles know what they’re doing. Just as well, perhaps, that Celia has pulled out. She is so cautious; the Voice of Reason, they call her. Many times she’s called a halt, retreated, insisted that they abandon an expedition. Bloody women, he and Miles have muttered mutinously behind her back. Sometimes – only sometimes – they have had to admit that she was right. But this time nothing will stop them. He looks at his watch, taps it impatiently as if to speed it up.

  He follows Laura’s eyes. She is gazing out at the daffodils on the school lawn. Most of them are broken off, trampled by trespassers across the green in front of the school. It is a logical short-cut. Whoever designed the entrance? Did they really expect the kids to walk round by the path to the door, twice as far? The sun is shining smugly now, as if it had never stopped. It shines on the daffodils and the window, illuminating the vertical smears the window cleaners have left. It shines on the hair of the children nearest the window. Laura has lovely hair, he notices, toffee-coloured, and long dreamy eyes, beautiful, actually. In a few years’ time … Her cheeks are as soft and full as summer fruits, an apricot bloom.

  ‘Sir?’ It is clever Zachary at the front, blinking earnestly through his spectacles.

  Simon sighs. ‘Yes, Zach?’

  ‘Sir, I’ve been wondering how maps are made. In the first place, I mean.’

  ‘Good question, we’ll come to it later in the course.’

  ‘I mean, how can the world be drawn as if it is flat? Won’t it be distorted? And who decides what goes in the centre?’

  Simon sighs. Surely it’s time for the bell? ‘Big questions, Zach. There are different projections – there’ll always be some distortion of course … on a rectangular projection you get distortion of high-latitude areas … Tell you what, I’ll bring some in next time. They come in all shapes, all attempts to reduce distortion. As to who decides the centre …’

  He tails off, but Zach looks satisfied, goes back to his isobars.

  The school cat stalks across the green and settles itself down in the sunshine. A woman pushes a push-chair up the school path, pink padded arms and legs wave feebly from it. He thinks of t
he baby – not baby yet, the blob – inside Celia. He sees Celia by the fire – ridiculously, for it is the last thing she would ever do – knitting a shawl.

  There is the premature rumble of chairs being shuffled that always precedes the final bell.

  ‘OK you lot,’ Simon says. ‘Pack up now.’ And then there is the rude but welcome jarring of the bell.

  Thank Christ for that, thinks Simon.

  Sunshine discovers a soft hollow by the road, and there is a stirring. Green sepals split, spilling thick yellow primrose cream. Furled fern fists lift and splay their fingers. Green life nuzzles out of the earth into the warmth. Small creatures scuttle, brittle wings glint. And the stirring becomes a more vigorous movement. Under the surface, a tangle of snakes is awakening. The sun warms the blood in their sluggish veins and the serpentine struggle back to life after a dormant winter is transmitted from body to sinuous body. There is an orgy of slithery wriggling and then, at once, the creatures separate, glide away through the bracken, pressing their muscular sides against stones and plant stems, winding away, until the writhing place is still, and only the squashed bracken stirs as it rights itself.

  Clay

  Nadia brushes her hair vigorously, tearing through the snarls, until it fills with static and flies up to meet the brush. Simon has gone to work. She has a memory of a kiss, and then the bang of the door. She had slept again, woken, wept for the might-have-been child and then got up. Sunlight patches scatter from the window, there is the fruity song of a bird. She is suddenly energetic, enthused with ideas for her new project. She looks at her own body under the shower, solid curves and planes, smoothness and dimples, the roughness of knees and elbows, the sharpness of nails.

  Naked, she performs the Sun Salutation, bending and stretching and flexing her whole body, feeling the stiff morning muscles relent, the blood flow. She relaxes on the floor and an oblong of sun stretches across her; there is even a faint warmth through the glass, as if someone has laid a warm towel on her belly. She wriggles, feeling unexpectedly sexy. It is the sun and the exciting sizzle of spring in the air. Simon, Simon, Simon, she thinks. Or somebody.