The Song House

by Trezza Azzopardi

  She unlocks the door to her cottage. The inside feels damp and airless, drained of light. She moves through the unlit rooms, opening all the curtains.

  Kenneth sits at his desk with Maggie’s letter of application in his hands. He struggles to read it, holding it further and further away from him, pulling it back in, slowly. The words are blear in front of his eyes. As far as he can see, there is no phone number, no contact details, and for her address, she’s just put what looks like ‘Fell Cottage’. Could be anywhere. Perhaps he should talk to Will.

  Lying down fully clothed on her bed, Maggie waits for sleep. Her case is on the floor beside her, unopened. She tries not to think about Kenneth, but the shadows on the wall won’t let her.

  twenty

  William trips up the steps to find the front door of Earl House ajar, the hall ashen in the half-light. It’s only just past five, but the messages his father left on his machine gave him no choice. He shouts, Dad! Dad! hearing his own voice ring through the house. Kenneth appears from the kitchen, wearing his dressing gown and a look of surprise. The two men stare at each other; take in the stubble and the unslept eyes.

  What’s happened? they both say, in unison.

  Your phone messages happened, Dad. You said it was urgent.

  Did I? says Kenneth, When?

  William grits his teeth,

  About two hours ago?

  Kenneth’s tone is offhand, infuriating,

  And you came straight down? How did you get in?

  Through the door, says William, The front door. Which you conveniently left wide open.

  Ah, that door, says Kenneth. Well, she’s gone. All packed up. And I don’t know where.

  And you left the house unlocked just in case she came back? Why? Do you think she’s a cat?

  Worried she might have lost her key, says Kenneth, I suppose you’d like some coffee. I’m afraid there’s not much milk.

  She could have rung the bell, Dad, like a normal person.

  William leans against the doorway and rubs a hand over his face.

  I’d only just got in, he continues, And checked my messages, and there’s you, gibbering on and on.

  I was not gibbering, says Kenneth, putting the kettle on the hob, I simply wanted your advice. I did not want you racing over here at the crack of dawn.

  Six messages, Dad, says William, All exactly the same.

  Kenneth looks at him now.

  Six? Oh. Well, I’d had a few drinks, probably.

  Kenneth scratches at a blob of dried grease on the hob, inspects his finger, waits for the kettle to boil. He pours the water into two mugs, drops a teabag in one, and a spoon of coffee granules in the other. He does all this calmly and without spilling anything, without making a clatter.

  Can’t seem to find any way to contact her, he says. He can’t remember whether his son takes milk or sugar. Decides not to ask.

  But you’ve checked the silver? asks William.

  I don’t have a great deal of silver, son, not much call for it these days.

  You know what I mean, says William, Has she taken anything?

  Kenneth laughs to himself. He wants to say –Yes, indeed, she stole my heart – but he knows his son won’t see the funny side.

  I thought she might be in danger, he says, Wondered if I should call the police.

  William nods his head, as if to agree.

  Good idea, he says, Call the police and tell them that your secretary has quit. They’ll send a squad car round straight away.

  Shall we sit out to drink it? Kenneth says, passing him a mug, Only I do like the light at this hour of the morning.

  The bath is ancient and too big, and the water runs so slowly that Maggie doesn’t bother with the cold tap; by the time the bath is full, the hot water will have cooled enough to get in. While she’s waiting, she cleans her teeth, and with the toothbrush angled in her mouth she goes through a familiar ritual, opening the windows upstairs. She looks out over the fields at the back of the house: in the rain, the ancient stone of St Gregory’s church shines like wet coal. At the front window, she takes in the mud-carved road, the solitary tree bent askew by a lifetime of wind, the river stretching out beyond it. Nothing is changed or altered in any way. She’s been away no time. The road is quiet at this hour, although soon it will be rumbling with tractors and farm lorries. In the bedroom, Maggie shuffles through the piles of CDs on the dressing table, considering Nick Drake, Jeff Buckley, Joni Mitchell. She won’t know what she wants until she sees it. Scanning the racks on the far wall of the room, tracing a clear line through the dust with her finger, Maggie finds what she’s been searching for: Otis Blue. She puts the disc into the player, turns the volume up full, goes back into the bathroom and climbs into the bath.

  Outside, the cows in the field turn their heads as one towards the window, listening to the crying of the song.

  part three

  the river

  the river man

  It used to be that Thomas Bryce knew the names of all the dwellings on the river; which ones were tenanted, which were grace and favour, which lay empty. There were four on the north side under his jurisdiction, an area of nearly fifteen miles from Welford to Snelsmore. Officially, his job was to check the waters, make sure the licences were in order: didn’t matter who lived there or why, no one fished on his patch without a permit. Field Cottage stood alone at the very end; Keeper’s, his own place, bang in the middle; then Meadow Cottage, then Weaver’s, opposite Earl House. He knew the cottage when the Weaver family had it. They were pig farmers at one time, although they always claimed that their original trade was in their name. Then it fell derelict for a while until the Cranes got it into their heads to turn it into their holiday home, and that wasn’t much of an improvement, from what he could tell. They spent one summer there and gave up. Mrs Crane not thrilled with the flies, apparently. So it stayed empty, and the youths from town would come across the water and camp there and have parties. Once, he turned up to check the licences on that stretch and saw all the windows had been put through. After that, the Cranes gave it to their son to look after. Thomas remembers the very first time he met him, when he was only a kid. Edward was very polite in those days, very interested in the river and the fish. The next time, years on, he was calling himself Ed and had a ponytail and was wearing a necklace. He remembers the girlfriends too: the one with the motorbike; the tall one with the miniskirt and all the make-up; that one with the baby. Sometimes he’d see her from over on the far bank and he’d hold his breath, not want her to notice him, because she was very nice to watch, when she didn’t know you were looking. If she met you, she went stiff and terrified, like she was waiting to be arrested. She was a beauty, Nell, but not what you’d call modest. That wouldn’t bother him now.

  Edward was supposed to be taking care of the place, but he didn’t know anything. Cutting down the trees! Thomas had a go at him for it, and Edward complained how they made the walls damp, the inside gloomy. Why live by the river if you don’t like the wet, Thomas told him. He didn’t listen, of course; none of them would listen. Thought they owned the place. And they did, the bricks and mortar of it; but Thomas told them more than once: doesn’t matter what the deeds say, no one owns the river but nature herself. Then he didn’t see Edward any more, but the other bloke with all the hair was always around the place, playing the bongos and singing. He saw her and him out in the back garden once, lying down like Adam and Eve. He thought to shout, You’ll want trees now, you shameless hoboes, but he had the lad with him and didn’t want to draw attention.

  Four cottages down that stretch of river, very peaceful. Now, it’s teeming; he can’t put names to the faces he sees. There’s the new development and the barn conversions, the leisure centre just past Boxford; there’s the golf club. Meadow Cottage is up for sale again and Weaver’s has been turned into a holiday let. The river’s not his business any more, but it makes him want to spit when he sees it, all the rubbish, the way people think if they ch
uck the odd bottle in, the odd can, it won’t matter; and they leave the trees to overhang, and the pennywort to smother, and think it won’t affect anyone else.

  Everything affects everyone else on a river life. There’s only Field Cottage left tenanted. The river was always snagging up that way, on account of the bend in it, like a dog-leg, before it straightened again in a rush down to town. They gave it to Nell to bring her girl up, all grace and favour, like, and – more to the point – out of the way. But it wasn’t much of a favour, was it, what with the damp, and the estate not wanting to spend money on it. She was doing them a favour, if anything. He knows who lives there now: he knows her name, and that she looks a lot like her mother used to, and that she won’t be cutting down any trees round her way. She likes it gloomy.

  twenty-one

  Kenneth isn’t surprised to find she’s taken his song notes with her; they were her idea, and her invention, and he doesn’t suppose they’d mean much to him without her interpretation. Alone in the dimness of the prefect’s office, he rests his hands on the desk and stares unblinking at the typewriter, and the sheaf of paper, and the box file. He’d clicked open the lid as soon as he saw it, but found nothing inside. He was so hoping she’d have left the notebook. He remembers he’d written on the front, the crass joke he’d made about her being a hobbit. Unforgivable. Stupid, stupid man.

  She’s still here, and in every room of the house. Even the daylight has the look of her. A single sheet of paper wound round the platen is all she’s left behind. He bends forward, grunting with the effort, and snatches it out with his fingers, holds it close to his face, then at arm’s length. A short paragraph of words, very small, handwritten. Handwritten, but left on the typewriter for anyone to find. She’s left him a message! And then he thinks on; perhaps he doesn’t want to read it, perhaps it will upset him. He peers again at the sheet; it looks like a poem; not an address, at any rate, not a phone number: can’t make out any numbers. He folds it carefully and slips it into his back trouser pocket. He must find his reading glasses. He’ll have put them somewhere obvious.

  For the first few days after she’d gone, he’d simply remained in the library, in the quiet, or stood under the shower and let the rushing water deafen him. Silence or roar; anything in between was unbearable. When the van came with his weekly delivery, Kenneth could barely bring himself to speak to the girl, Sarah, even though they had always been friendly; him helping her in with the boxes, and feeling for her, because it wasn’t like driving a mobile library about, it was heavy work. And she had felt sorry for him, he could tell, up at the house on his own. Once, she’d asked him why his family didn’t do his shopping for him, and he’d joked that he’d have no excuse to see her pretty face every week, then, would he? When she’d arrived this time, it was all he could do to answer the door. He’d told her he wouldn’t be having any more deliveries, but then he’d had to fill out a form, because Sarah said she wasn’t authorized to cancel on his behalf. The form had such tiny print on it, and Kenneth didn’t know where his glasses were, and he had to breathe hard through his nose in order to stop the tears.

  Standing there on the porch, full of self-pity, trying not to weep. Standing at the window of his office, looking out over the fields and the clouds rumbling low across them, with a great thick lump in his throat, impossible to swallow. Sitting on the rainswept terrace with his head in his hands. Can’t remember what day it is, but remembers how it feels to cry.

  The boxes remain on the kitchen counter where he’d left them. He sees the outer leaves of the cabbage have turned a yellowy brown, the lettuces have shrivelled, the carrots, in plastic, are silvered with condensation and dotted with mould. He visualizes the bottom of the box, the gathering of slimy liquid, the putrefaction, and has a fleet, clear image of the river man. He can’t recall his name just now but it doesn’t matter. He should do something with the boxes, and then he was going to do that other thing. Feed the fish, that was it.

  William rings the bell – one steady drill – and waits. He follows through with a series of short jabs at the button. Finally, he places the wine he’s brought down at his feet, and with both hands, bangs on the panel in the centre of the door. He resists the temptation to shout through the letter box, the urge to throw the bottle at the wood. Not so long ago he mentioned again the idea of him having a key, for emergencies, and felt the black taste of hatred at the back of his mouth when his father said it wouldn’t be necessary.

  At your time of life, William had argued, Anything could happen. And his father had laughed and replied, Oh, I do hope so.

  He goes round the back of the house to the courtyard, kicking at the gravel like a truculent child. He’ll smash the lock on the French windows if he has to. But there’s no need, because the windows are open to the weather, and there’s Kenneth, stretched out on one of the wicker sofas, swiping through a magazine. He raises his head when he sees William, standing in the rain with his collar turned up and his hair slick and dripping, and waves him inside.

  You’ll drown out there, he says, Come and give your father a kiss.

  William crosses the tiles, bends over obediently. A hint of aftershave, lemony, on his son’s fresh skin. Kenneth is about to ease himself out of his seat when William pulls up sharp.

  Dad, don’t tell me you’ve started smoking, he says, pointing to a cigar in the ashtray. Kenneth sinks back, smiles at him.

  Thought I’d give it a try, he says, Can’t do any harm at my age. It’s quite enjoyable. I can understand what they see in it. William catches his breath. He wants to say, You’ll only set the house on fire, no harm in that, but he has made a promise to himself that he’ll go more carefully this time. And now a new promise to check all the smoke alarms. There are matters in need of attention, and if he loses his father now, it’ll be a wasted trip. William knows how Kenneth operates: how forgetful he is, and how he plays on it. His refusal to see a specialist is his weapon, so there’s no telling how absent-minded he’s become, no way to be sure how much of his behaviour is the performance of an autocrat and how much is masking the truth. William puts the wine down on the coffee table.

  You didn’t answer the door, he says, unbuttoning his jacket.

  Couldn’t be bothered, says Kenneth, not looking up, And you said I should be careful who I let in these days.

  William turns about, curls his fingers into a fist. He has a dizzying urge to take the wine bottle and hit his father on the head with it, smash his skull to pieces. He can almost hear the sound of cracking bone. The vision makes him sick to the stomach.

  Is this an all day mood, or just for the next half-hour? he asks, trying to control his breathing. Kenneth keeps flicking the pages of the magazine, pretends to admire a set of bathroom scales.

  Dad?

  I miss her, he says, giving in, I know I shouldn’t, I hardly knew her. She’s young enough to be my daughter. But I do miss her. And it makes me really very angry.

  William drags a chair across the tiles and sits on the edge of it. He licks his lips.

  What do you wish to do? he asks, like a counsellor, What would be the ideal situation here?

  I’d like her to come back, obviously, but I don’t think she’s going to. She was quite troubled, on that last day.

  The day I came for lunch.

  That’s the one.

  She probably realized that I was wise to her scheme,William says, And took off before I blew her cover.

  Kenneth’s eyes are steady on his son now.

  Is that so, Miss Marple? Listen to yourself! She had no scheme. She had, um, she had—

  Kenneth falters. What did she have? What the bugger do they call it?

  – she had issues.

  William smothers a laugh.

  Get you, Dad. Issues. She was a flake, that was her main issue. Next time you want a secretary, I’ll do the hiring.

  There it is again, that tone, the same self-righteous timbre to his son’s voice that Kenneth heard the last time they met. Tr
iumphant, says Kenneth, nailing it at last: he thinks he’s won a war.

  What was that, Dad?

  I said flood warning. Heard it on the morning news. Better batten down the hatches.

  He rises unsteadily from his seat, grabbing the bottle of wine by the neck.

  Fancy a picnic? he says, Before the deluge?

  twenty-two

  The clouds swell across the sky, blackening the hills below with their thick shadows. The lane outside the cottage is awash with tractor mud and run-off from the fields, alive and uncontained; but it is the river Maggie watches, how it gathers into a foaming swirl at the bend, fuller now than she’s ever seen it. She thinks of Kenneth, alone in his house on the downs, looking at the very same river, and feels an ache, like a small hole, opening in her chest. It catches her out, this sudden stitch of pain, and she has to breathe carefully to ease it away. She should never have gone there in the first place. It’s just made everything worse.

  In the days after her mother’s death, Maggie wasn’t able to think about what she would do with the rest of her life. Without Nell in the background, it was as difficult to imagine the future as it was to forget the past. And it was this past, the pieces of it, that Maggie kept revisiting. She wanted to take it out, lay it side by side, organize it, as if it were a pack of playing cards. She wanted clarity, logic, sequence, and all with a new urgency, a sense of sudden desperation, felt more keenly because her memories were so fractured. She had no idea that trying to regain what was lost was in itself a symptom of loss.