My husband’s not well, she says, her eyes flicking up to the closed bedroom curtains, But I’ll tell him as soon as he gets up. Sorry I can’t go myself, she says, lifting the smallest onto her hip.
At Keeper’s Cottage, Thomas Bryce pulls on his boots, fetches his dog from the garden, and sets out to comb the riverbank.
But we should go in your car, cries Nell, Surely that’s best?
Sonny’ll find her if she’s out there, he says, with what sounds like a boast in his voice.
At midday, Thomas climbs up through the nettles at the end of the garden, startling my mother. She’s sitting on an upturned bucket, skin burning in the hot sun. She has searched the house and the shed and the nearby fields, and searched all over again. To try to stop the shudders coursing through her body, she has had a joint and a glass of rum. Leon has gone into town; his mate has a van, they’ll check the roads. She told herself if he wasn’t back in an hour, she’d go to the police, weed or no weed. But she hasn’t moved; she’s kept her eye on the river, as if it will rise up in a spume and spit me out onto the bank. Thomas treads silently up to her, followed by his dog, nose-down on the path.
Nothing this end, he says, And not much water neither. She won’t have been carried away, if that’s what you’re thinking.
How can you be sure? she asks, not liking him.
Look for yourself – there’s no flow. If she dropped in here, see, he says, pointing his stick backwards at the river, She’d have only been up to here, he says, sliding the stick across his shins to demonstrate the depth.
Nell tries to keep the disgust out of her voice.
Yeah, that’s right, she says, If she were as tall as you.
Thomas catches hold of his dog as he pads up to greet her.
Some places it’s bone dry. Like I said, she won’t have been carried away. Not by the water, anyway. This here’s a bourne river.
She hears ‘born’ river, thinks he’s trying to tell her something.
You’re saying a little child can’t drown in that water? she asks, squinting up at him, You’re saying someone took her?
The river man shifts from one leg to the other. Under his cap, his head is prickling with sweat.
I’m only saying she won’t have been carried away, he says.
Someone’s got her, she says.
Or she’s wandered off. Kids do that, don’t they?
She can’t open the front gate, says Nell, The latch is too stiff. She looks over his shoulder into the beckoning weeds.
Someone’s got her, she says again, her voice like a siren on the air. Thomas reaches out a hand towards her shoulder, to comfort her; rests it instead on his stick.
Now hang on, he says, You have reported it, haven’t you? You’ve been to the station?
He looks around the garden, at the burnt-out fire and last night’s abandoned glasses, fixing his eyes on Leon’s makeshift greenhouse. He takes in her silence.
Well, you must, then. Someone might’ve seen her. She might be there now.
Nell has an image of me sitting on the front desk of the police station, swinging my legs, the duty officer feeding me toffees from a crumpled paper bag. But she knows that’s just an image in a film. She knows thinks she knows, because, despite what Thomas Bryce tells her, she can sense it: I’ve gone in the river.
Thank you, Mr Bryce, she says, rising from the bucket and leading him along the side of the cottage, My boyfriend’s dealing with that.
Not her father? he says.
He can smell sweat on her, stale perfume and alcohol.
He’s away, she says, showing him out of the front gate and thanking him again. She watches him walk down the lane. Now and then, he rustles the hedges with his stick, puts his hand up to his cap and stares out over the fields of wheat and barley, and the sun makes Nell see everything white and flinty, too sharp for her eyes to focus on. She watches until he is a small dark outline on the dusty road. A born river. She doesn’t know what it means, and thinks there’s intent in what he said, as if he’s giving her a clue to decipher. She touches the top of her head, feels her scalp burning. The dog trails behind the river man until he whistles, and then Sonny flies to his side.
Maggie puts her pen down and shuts her eyes. The fire, collapsed on itself, burns low; the room is airless. She knows that if she looks up she’ll see Nell, her accusing stare, her mouth quivering with resentment.
You’ve no idea what I went through, she’ll say, You’re not even close. You can’t imagine the agony, so don’t you dare try. Maggie will not look up for that.
twenty-six
Kenneth admits defeat and decides to call William; it’s late, but he knows his son is often out until the early hours, doing God knows what, and that he’ll check his answerphone when he gets back in. When the woman on the end of the line tells him he can re-record his message at any time, Kenneth thinks hard about what he will say.
Will, it’s your father. I don’t want to fill up your machine, so ring me back when you get in. Bye. Speak to you soon. Bye.
After he’s put the phone down, he’s unsure of how his voice sounded. Did he sound drunk? Incoherent? The woman said he could record his message again, so he redials.
Hello, he says, to William’s voicemail, I’d like to re-record that message if I may.
Nothing happens in the long silence that follows, so in the end he simply repeats himself, puts the receiver back on the cradle, and glares at it. Will’s always telling him he should get a portable phone: Kenneth squeezes his eyes tight to bring the right word up – a cordless – and now, sitting at his desk, he wishes he’d taken his advice. He’d like to go down and sit outside. But then he’d have to shift pretty quickly, to his den or up to the office, if Will rang back. He considers the prospect of getting a new phone; he’d have one where there isn’t a machine for answering, but a service, and where the numbers are already stored in it and you only have to push one button. His address book is old, and tattered, and the words and numbers look very small these days. Will had suggested they go and choose one together. Kenneth’s wondering whether the cordless one would be waterproof, when the phone rings. It’s his son.
That was quick, says Kenneth, I’ve only just left a message.
Dad, you rang my mobile. What’s wrong?
Did I? says Kenneth, peering again at the address book, Well, how clever of me. Nothing’s wrong, no panic. I just wondered if you happened to know where I’d put my reading glasses.
He hears himself saying it, the affected, offhand tone, and cringes with shame.
What? says William, and then, with a punctured sigh, When did you last have them?
Don’t know, says Kenneth, About a week ago. Um, not sure.
Have you looked in all the usual places?
There’s another voice in the background, more distant, a woman calling Will, Will, saying something that Kenneth can’t make out. He hears the muffle of a hand closing over the receiver.
Is this a bad time? says Kenneth, Because I can call back.
No, Dad, listen. Check all the usual places. Don’t forget the cellar, and then if you still can’t find them – hang on, what about your spare ones? Where do you keep them?
Good thinking, says Kenneth, desperate now to be off the line, Of course! I’ll go and fetch them right away.
He mislaid his spare pair ages ago. He hears a rash of laughter and the sound of a car engine, and William says,
Got to go, Dad. Speak to you soon. I’ll call you in the morning.
The silence is ringing. Kenneth does as he’s told and searches again, in his office desk, and on the windowsill, and goes downstairs and checks the top of the fridge and all the kitchen shelves, leaving a residue of grime on his fingers, and then he goes to his den and rummages down the sides of the armchairs and pats all the surfaces he can think of. He’s standing in the atrium wondering what to do next when he has a sudden realization. He can see them, clearly, in his mind’s eye. Up the stairs, up what he always
thinks of now as Maggie’s stairs, and into the flat. There they are. The last time he was up here, he sat on the bed, and took off his glasses and rubbed his face, like a child waking up. And now he sits on the bed again, puts on his glasses, takes out the folded piece of paper from his trouser pocket and, with a tiny prickle of recognition he simply can’t place, reads and rereads the words on the page.
We have an anchor that keeps the soul
Steadfast and sure while the pillows roll,
Fastened to the rock which cannot move,
Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.
twenty-seven
The rain is unrelenting, and the air so drenched that the view from Maggie’s cottage is opaque, elusive, like a half-remembered dream. In the distance, the river keeps a wide black shadow. Every day it thickens; becomes more sinuous, more alive. The sky has come down to meet the fields, throwing its metallic light over everything: the trees dissolve against it; even the cows are drained of colour. They gather in a steaming cluster in the barn, shaking their heads, lowing mournfully at the weather. There is the hiss of wet wheels on the main road, and beneath it, a hush of deep rain falling on the land.
The windows inside the cottage glow with condensation. Maggie banks up the fire with logs, covering them with a heap of coal slack: the dust sparkles pink and yellow with the effort of staying lit. She stands in the centre of the room and looks around, trying to see it as a visitor might. A lot of brown furniture, a bed in the corner, a thin veil of dust. The damp has invaded the sympathy cards on the mantelpiece, giving them an ancient, wrinkled look. She should have got rid of them weeks ago. She gathers them into a little pile, meaning to burn them, and then she makes another decision: she will burn the cards, and the notes she typed for Kenneth, and the notebook, and the newspaper cutting. It will all be burnt. Everything will be flame and ash. She will have nothing left to tempt her to look back.
She slides the folded sheaf of papers out of the notebook and opens them flat, not intending to read them but unable to stop herself.
Kenneth likes dancing to you. He says the spaces in between are as important as the sounds. Listen to the gaps, he says, They are music too.
I’m doing that, Kenneth, I’m listening to the gaps and I’m trying to fill the spaces. Not dead yet.
She throws them onto the fire, watches as the pages fold in upon themselves, twisting black, blacker, and then a quick flare of lustrous blue. Immediately, she’s filled with regret. The sound of the front gate saves her, and she rises from the floor to see Aaron dashing up the path with one hand shielding his head. Through the soaked glass, he appears as a series of waves and ripples, like a man under water. She opens the lid of the dreamcatcher box and shoves the notebook inside it, quickly, but not quickly enough to avoid the face of the boy in the photograph smiling up at her. Behind the door, she hears Aaron clear his throat. He’s grinning shyly when she opens it, one arm behind his back.
For you, he says, producing a large bunch of white chrysanthemums, Picked them fresh.
Maggie puts on her best smile as she takes them from him. The cellophane under her fingers is cold and sparkling with rain.
Fresh from the petrol station? she says, understanding that he was making a joke.
There’s no getting past you. I see I shall have to do better next time.
She would like to tell him that there won’t be a next time – that there won’t even be a this time – but he’s here now, standing so tall in her tiny living room that he looks like a giant at the funfair. She doesn’t have the heart to do it.
I’m not quite ready, she says, taking the flowers into the kitchen, Have a sit down. I’ll only be a minute.
She puts them in the sink and then stands there, twisting her fingers into a knot. The last time there were other people in this house, they were paramedics. Maggie had assumed they’d take Nell away quickly, that they’d be on their way in five minutes, but they’d spent a long while, the woman sitting on the edge of Nell’s bed and whispering gently to her, the man standing with Maggie here in the kitchen, asking her to collect up her mother’s medication, asking her about morphine and steroids and antidepressants and at what times her mother took them and whether Nell had free access to them. One question heaped itself upon the other, and Maggie couldn’t concentrate. She tugged on the stiff drawer of the dresser, not knowing how to answer, yanking it out so it fell with a bouncing crash at her feet. The pills and packets and assorted debris of sickness spilled out onto the kitchen floor.
She understands now that they needed facts, but at the time she thought it a terrible intrusion. They bent down together to retrieve the mess. The man had a shaved head, and a hole in his left earlobe where an earring would have been, and his pale eyes looked tired in the morning light. Smell of antiseptic coming off him, antiseptic, and calm, and kindness. It was a torment to her, all of it; the questions and the delays and the sweet air of springtime as she opened the door for them to take her mother away. She wanted to scream at them, Get a move on! Can’t you see she’s dying? But they knew there was no point in rushing. They’d brought a folding wheelchair out of the ambulance, and lowered Nell gently into it, and the sound she made is in Maggie’s ears right now. Like a child’s cry, she thought then, and later, like an animal’s.
I’m saying, what do you normally do for your winter logs? Aaron is standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.
Only, you can’t be getting them from the garage. You should order them direct from us.
Maggie frowns at him.
My mother gets them from somewhere. Um, a man from Boxford. Can’t think of his name. He delivers. Logs and coal, oil for the burner. Anyway, it’s only July. There’s plenty of time. She hears herself, the unravelling, disjointed sounds she’s making, and all the while, Aaron watches her face. He moves close to her and she’s afraid he will touch her – put his arms round her – and he can’t do that because it would be unbearable. She would cry if he did that. He rests one hand on the stove and tucks the other in the pocket of his jeans.
I’m really sorry about your mum, Maggie, he says.
Me too, she says, pressing her lips together. She would say, But it’s all right, I’m managing, or, She’s at peace, or any other stock response, but when she opens her mouth there is only silence: the words are stuck again and the stones are resting heavy on her tongue.
We’ll get your winter fuel sorted, he says, But what about that barn dance? Sure you’re up to it?
She could send him away now: he would easily forgive her. And then she would be alone with her ghost; with Nell, still angry, refusing to speak to her. Anything would be better than that. Playing for time, Maggie reaches up to the shelf to fetch down a vase, and as Aaron reaches up for her, she freezes.
Can you smell that? she asks.
He takes a deep breath in.
Smell what?
You can’t smell it?
He smiles and shakes his head, as if she’s teasing him, and he lifts the neck of his shirt and buries his face inside it.
I’ll have you know I’ve had a shower, he says, Is it wood? We’ve been sawing birch all afternoon.
It’s gas, says Maggie, suddenly furious, My own personal stink of gas.
She dumps the flowers, still in their wrapper, into the vase, and runs the tap on them.
Not on the mains, are you? he asks.
Nope.
It gets worse before it gets better, he says quietly, But it does get better. Honest.
What makes it better? Knowing, or not knowing?
He starts to say something else but she cuts him off.
I can’t go to the dance, Aaron. I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m not up to it. But would you mind dropping me off on the way? There’s someone I have to see.
twenty-eight
The last time Maggie came to talk to Thomas Bryce, he didn’t let her in; he simply poked his face in the narrow gap between the door and the frame and grunted his responses a
t her. Ran his hand along the metal chain, as if testing the strength of it, while she stood on the porch, clutching the bottle of beer she’d bought him. She told him that her mother had just died, and that she would like to ask a few questions. Got nothing back in the way of answers, only an instruction to leave the bottle on the step.
Tonight, he slips off the chain and opens the door, not even bothering to check who it might be. He knows straight away it’s her, leads her in without a backward glance. As if he’s been expecting her; as if, this time, he’s readied himself.
Cup of tea? he says, and doesn’t wait for an answer. She follows him through the hallway, eyes fixed on the floor, because it’s dark in here, too dark to see properly, and the carpet underfoot is loose and torn. They pass through the living room, blue and flat in the television light, and down the step into the kitchen. The only illumination comes from a street lamp in the lane at the back of the cottage, casting a sulphurous glare into the room. It smells bad, as yellow and acrid as the sodium glow. Thomas fills a cup with water and tips it into the kettle, flicking the switch with a bent thumb, then remembers he has company and measures out another cup of water and tips that in too.
Mustn’t waste it, he says, Never mind all that out there—he jerks his head to the window – We’ll have drought again in a couple of month.
He opens the fridge, and in the clear white oblong beam it throws across the floor, Maggie sees that she’s standing in a shallow wash of liquid. She looks at Thomas’s feet, clad in a pair of grey plimsolls, the bottoms of his trousers turned up above the ankles.
Thomas, I think the water’s in here, she says, Haven’t you got your sandbags?
The windows of heaven were stopped, he says, Worst is over. He sniffs the carton of milk and hands it to her.
I don’t reckon that’ll be off.
The Song House Page 16