The Song House

by Trezza Azzopardi

  Kenneth throws his head back as the first movement ends, as if to drink the air.

  Fifteen minutes of wonder. Don’t you think, Maggie? Spring and no end to it, Mahler said. Can’t you just smell that morning dew?

  Her body jerks in shock.

  How did you know? she cries, How did you know that?

  He opens his eyes, smiling, but stops when he sees the stricken look on her face.

  Maggie, the First . . . it’s a symphony about the glory of nature. This movement is the awakening. Everybody knows that.

  Not everybody, she says, Would you like me to get that down, about nature and all its glories? About awakening?

  He hears rage in her tone, can’t imagine where it’s come from. Getting up, Kenneth takes the needle from the record, and moves to the window.

  Let’s just have a minute to reflect, shall we? he says, over his shoulder. And he thought they were getting on so well.

  He’d spent yesterday evening alone, had deliberately left her alone – kept out of her way, in fact, after the strange intimacy of the afternoon. He was conscious of his desire to spend time with her, more conscious still of the position she was in: he must let her have some privacy. Trying to find a distraction, he took refuge in the garage. He would polish the car; it would occupy an hour. With Borodin on the stereo, in the soft, dusty light, he could imagine he was driving through the open countryside, top down, greenery shooting past him and the glide of the steering wheel under his fingers. Not Maggie’s hair falling into his palm, not tracing the smooth line of her jaw with his knuckle, not looking to his left and seeing her sitting next to him, one arm bent across her head, trying to keep her fringe out of her eyes.

  I said you should have brought a scarf, he shouts, turning his face back to the road. And in this fantasy, his voice is young and full of strength, his hands on the steering wheel are firm. She pulls at a strand of hair caught on her lips, she laughs, and leans in – he’s noticed how she does that, as if to whisper a secret – Can we get one in Winchester? she asks, Will there be time? and he nods, yes, because in this life there will always be time.

  He’d worked the wax into the bonnet and buffed with the chamois until he was coated in a melting sweat. He didn’t notice her at first, over the swoon and thunder of the Dances, but as the finale reached its crescendo, he heard his name called, once, twice. She was standing at the door.

  Come in, he’d said, wiping his forehead with his wrist. But she just stood there. He couldn’t read her face in silhouette.

  Why don’t you come out?

  The sun was low, but the air was warm; fresh sweat broke open on his brow.

  Just polishing the car, he said.

  Obviously, she said, and he saw her trying to hide a smile, It’s beautiful, what is it?

  Kenneth stared at the cloth, saw himself folding and unfolding it; felt the greasiness of wax on his fingers.

  It’s a Mercedes.

  He was going to elaborate, but then she surprised him. Crouching slightly, she peered into the shade of the lock-up.

  Would you let me have a go? she asked.

  She hadn’t struck him as the type of person who would ask that. It baffled him; for a moment, he felt insulted.

  Of course not, he said, What an idea!

  Just round here, on the estate. I do have a driving licence, you know.

  He had never let anyone else drive his car; not Rusty, certainly not Will. He wanted to say so, and heard how he would sound: like an old fart. Will had called him that when he flatly refused to loan him the car; it was how he’d felt seeing Maggie’s face, her eyes full of hurt.

  I’m sorry, I didn’t realize it meant so much to you, she said, Or I wouldn’t have asked.

  And that was how he’d got behind the wheel again. He drove her only a short distance, past the rhododendrons, turning round at the top of the drive and falling back down through it, getting some speed up, just enough of a breeze to trouble her hair. And it made her laugh: he knew it would. Afterwards, he’d retreated to the garage on the pretence of fixing a rear light, but he couldn’t remove the image of her from his mind. The canopy of leaves above them, her luminous face, her hand in his as he helped her out of the passenger seat. It had taken all his willpower not to try to kiss her again. Later, sitting on the terrace, he felt his blood quicken when he thought of her; pictured her lying in the field. Pictured her lying in his arms.

  Well? Have you reflected? she says now, pen held like a scalpel over the page.

  Maggie, have I upset you? he says, Was it something I said?

  She shakes her head, and shakes it again more emphatically, as if the first attempt to clear it didn’t work.

  No, Kenneth, of course not. Come on. When did you first hear this piece? Maybe we can make some notes before the next bit.

  I would have been about fourteen. All the boys at school were into jazz and some rather arcane music – Delta blues, Stockhausen – it was deemed very radical to find the most esoteric stuff and pretend to like it – except for this one boy. He had a funny way of talking, sort of whistled when he spoke, made odd tweeting sounds.

  Tell me his name, says Maggie, writing quickly.

  His name was Philip, but of course, we called him Trill.

  How very sympathetic, she says, under her breath.

  And this boy Trill had tickets for the Mahler concert at the Philharmonic, but he was such a strange little cove, no one would go with him.

  And you felt sorry for him? Maggie interjects.

  Yes I did, says Kenneth, matter-of-fact, And I said I’d be happy to go with him. Turns out it was the Philharmonic in Liverpool. Ha-ha. Had to spend hours on the train listening to Trill tweeting and whistling. In those days, you had separate compartments, which was always a mixed blessing. No one sat in ours for too long.

  And the concert?

  Divine. It’s not often you feel your pulse racing these days, he says, looking at her bent head with appreciation, But when you find something special, something seemingly simple and yet difficult, intricate – he pauses, enjoying the sound of the words flowing so easily from his lips – When you discover something for the first time and you think you’re the only being on earth to truly understand it, that no one else can possibly feel the way you do . . . it’s – Maggie – it’s divine.

  In the afternoon, in the quiet semi-darkness of the prefect’s office, Maggie is struggling.

  It’s not enough, Kenneth, she says, ripping out a page from the typewriter and balling it up, Divine is not enough. Divine will not do for this spring awakening. No – bloody – end – to – it, she says, snatching up her pen.

  Here’s me and my mother in the lane outside our house. This is what I know: I’m wearing a red raincoat with a woolly collar, and a pair of wellies because it’s been so wet. It’s 1975, and the first Christmas I can remember, although I have recollections of other things around this time: an orange and white dog that swims in the river, Geoffrey and Bungle, Leon and Nell teaching me how to do the Bump. I’m only three and a half, but I know it’s dangerous to go too near to the fire and that the stairs in the cottage are very steep and that I’m a lucky girl because I can play with nearly anything I want, even Leon’s drums. This is because I am a wise head on little shoulders. What I don’t know is that people will want things that don’t belong to them, or that they will take those things without asking. In our house, everything is free and everyone is happy.

  I’m holding the bag for my mother to drop the holly into. I mustn’t touch it because it will prick me. I’m calling her now, Nell! Nell! because she’s gone round the back of the hedge and there’s a car coming. I always have to shout if there’s a car. She pulls me to the side of the road, but the car stops anyway and the river man sticks his head out of the window. There’s the orange and white dog sitting next to him, and in the back is the boy. He’s wearing a tartan hat with a bobble on it like Woody wears on Top of the Pops. My mother says hello to the river man and wishes him
a Merry Christmas.

  Have you got your tree yet? he asks, and my mother says,

  No, Ed says we aren’t Christians, so why go to all that bother?

  The man laughs, and my mother does too, although I can tell she thinks she’s done something wrong because she goes red when the man points his thumb behind him.

  Or maybe it’s because there’s nothing left to stick a fairy on, he says, and then he drives away.

  My mother is going: Fuck off, Fuck off, shouting down the lane.

  Ed has cut down all the trees around our house, for firewood. Nell always says there’s no privacy any more but then he says,

  What’s your problem? Who do we ever see up here?

  Or sometimes he’ll smash his hand on the kitchen table and make all the cups jump, yelling,

  If we had bloody trees, no one could see us freezing to death. Is that what you want?

  Any of these things can make Nell’s lips go white. Later, when she tells him about what the river man said, Ed says,

  Fucking water bailiff, he should learn to mind his own fucking business.

  Then he says he’ll speak to his father about it. That’s my grandfather, who we hardly ever see. You can tell when he’s about to pay a visit because Nell cleans the whole house and the toilet and everything smells of bleach. My grandmother has never come to see us; she lives in Chelsea.

  We did have a Christmas tree in the end. We went to sleep one night and when we got up in the morning it was there in the living room standing in a bucket. The whole place smelled like frost. Leon said the fairies had brought it, but then Nell laughed and said,

  Thank you, Baby,

  and kissed him, so I knew it was Leon, really.

  There are no such things as fairies and ghosts: there are only people; nice people, friendly people.

  I have always slept in the big bed with Nell. Leon has always slept on the sofa downstairs. Ed has always slept in the back room, which they call the Spare, because Nell says his snoring keeps us awake, even though Cindy doesn’t seem to mind it. Cindy is like a cat; she will sleep anywhere. Sometimes she comes in with me and Nell, sometimes she’ll curl up next to Leon downstairs, or else she goes in the Spare. Nell tells me it’s because Cindy’s a gyppo. I think the way of things is fixed; I think people are fixed. I can find them in their beds, I can find me in mine. But then Ed goes with Cindy to London to make his fortune, and his bed is empty. I want to tell Nell I don’t like it. I should be the singer, not Cindy. He promised me. But Nell doesn’t want to talk about him any more. Sometimes in the afternoons I lie on his bed and smell his smell and think about him moving around and laughing.

  My mother says, Who knows where the time goes? and cries a bit but she still won’t talk, and if I try to cheer her up with a song she’ll say, Shut it, you’re doing my nut.

  It’s February and spitting solid rain when Ed and Cindy leave for London. Nell rages when she finds out that Cindy has taken her fur hat, but Leon says, What does it matter, I’ll make you one. Leon catches rabbits and cooks them on the fire. He makes my mother a rabbit-fur hat but we have to leave it in the shed to cure, he says, which is to make it not smell of death.

  March is snowing when the postman comes, sliding up to the door and banging on it. There used to be a bell on a rope outside but it went missing one day and no one knows where. Nell jumps with fright when the postman does that. She says, Why does he have to bang so loud? And, He should be a debt collector with that gift.

  This time it’s a telegram for Leon, from someone called Athame, telling him they are going to make a record – Come up. Stop. Paved with Gold. Stop – it says at the end. Nell says Athame is a bad word and will bring us bad luck, but Leon says it’s the new band name and is quite cool, really. My mother cries again. When I ask her why, she says the postman has wanton eyes and what will she do if Leon goes to London as well?

  On Walpurgis night, Leon and Nell drink wine and make a sacrifice to the god of Mammon. They burn Leon’s drums on the bonfire. My mother takes down the sketch that Ed drew of her with me in her belly, and burns that as well.

  Shame, says Leon, I liked looking at your big belly.

  The days start burning too. May has not a speck of rain, and the river man comes over and says we’re not to draw water from the river on account of depriving the fish. He says there’ll be trouble at this rate. Nell says, As if I would, to his face, and, What bloody fish? when he’s gone away again. She tells me that this is the hottest summer in history. We try to fry an egg on the ground, but it doesn’t work, even though they did it on the telly. It just sits there on the path looking sticky. Later, the birds come down and peck it all up and Nell goes, Look at that, filthy cannibals.

  Nell says you can’t be too careful in the sun. She buys me a straw hat and puts oil and vinegar on my skin whenever I go out playing, but she wraps a piece of tinfoil under her chin when she sits in the garden so that she’ll catch the rays. Leon builds a greenhouse out of some old window frames and grows tomatoes and weed. He sells the tomatoes on the road at the top of our lane, and the weed to the lads in the MarketTavern. For my fourth birthday, he buys me a Wombles annual, and Ed sends me the Joni Mitchell songbook from London. When Leon sees it, he says, It’s way beyond, and shakes his head. I don’t know what the Wombles are, except hideous, with their beady eyes and their pointy snouts. I have to hide the annual under the bed to stop them looking at me. Nell teaches me to read using the songbook. We start to sing again. We learn ‘Blue’, and make loveheart tattoos on our skin using cochineal out of a tiny bottle, but when we get to ‘Cold Blue Steel and Sweet Fire’, Nell always skips the page. She says I’m not ready for those words, or the ones in ‘Banquet’, but I’ve seen them and they’re easy enough. Everyone says I’m an exceptional reader. I’ve got my own library tickets and everything, even though the lady in the library said it wasn’t allowed. Nell said, She can read, you show her, my Bird, and lifted me onto the counter. I read a whole Janet and John and then the lady said, I suppose we can make an exception for such an exceptional little person. I think words are songs waiting to happen. I think talking is singing: I don’t ever separate the two. When the Newbury Advertiser gets delivered on Fridays, I sing the articles out over breakfast. I think this is how everybody reads. Leon says I sing like a bird and calls me Birdie all the time. Nell calls me Birdie too, and My Little Bird, My Dove.

  Nell says I’m old enough now to know what’s right, and to be careful, and although I’m not allowed to go in the river – Never go in the river, she warns – sometimes she lets me sit by the bank. That’s when I first see him, hiding on the opposite side. He likes to watch. Sometimes he’s in the boat, sunk low down so only his head is poking up; sometimes he’s sitting really still like a squirrel on a branch. Once I waved at him, and he waved back, but last time, I shouted, Hello! and he ran away in a mad rustle. Now I have to look really hard to see him; I can’t always tell if he’s there. Nell’s more relaxed about the river, but always says, Don’t go in, Bird, a person can drown in an inch of water, and Leon asks her what planet she’s on. Planet Leon, she says, crinkling her nose and smiling so wide you can see right through the gap in her front teeth.

  One afternoon, I come in from the garden and see Leon in my bed with Nell. He says, It’s cool, come ’ere, kid, and Nell is smiling and she looks shiny-faced and sleepy. We were just having a snooze, she says, throwing back the covers, Want to cooch up?

  It’s funny having Leon in the bed. There’s less room, for starters, and his legs are hairy and rough. The bed smells different as well, bleachy, like the toilet. I don’t quite like it. I suppose that’s why I end up sleeping in Ed’s bed. I end up in the Spare.

  ten

  Maggie comes down in the late afternoon, the Mahler symphony still circling in her head. She’d fallen into a fitful doze, lying on her bed with the curtains drawn, and dreamed of taking a train. The whistle of the boy Trill became the high clarinet of a cuckoo in the chestnut tree, then the tr
ee began to weave in time to the music, and its eyes slid sideways, beckoning her. The branches parted to reveal a cobbled yard, a wooden door set low in the wall. The sun, beating down through her bedroom window, found the gap between the curtains and fell on her in a long bright strike. It was in this half-waking state that she realized: she wasn’t looking at the door, but from behind it. Her eye to the slat; a single white line of arid heat.

  She woke with a terrible thirst, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth and her head pounding. A sliver of light in the darkness, the feel of rough wood under her fingertips. What else was there? A smell of leather, and something else. She licked her lips and at once could taste the smell. Spearmint. Leather and spearmint, and the roughness of the door, how pulling at it gave her splinters, how blinding the light was.

  She’d made the decision, sitting up in the sweated air of the bedroom, to talk to Kenneth directly. She wouldn’t have to give too much away; she would be discreet. Maggie knows how tight-lipped people can get when she starts to ask questions. A few weeks after her mother died, she had gone to visit Thomas Bryce, the water bailiff, long since retired, with the hope that he might be able to remember some details about that time. She didn’t know what she expected, but Bryce was in no mood for answering questions. The mere sight of her seemed to frighten him. Even if she could find the words, she would need to be very careful about what she asked Kenneth.

  Instead of music playing, and Kenneth’s wide smile to greet her, she finds the kitchen empty. A dusting of soft light across the room, the back door closed and bolted. A single sheet of paper is stuck with a magnet to the door of the fridge.