Not like us, eh, Sonny, he says to Bramble, Some people get to live for free, make others do their dirty work. Some people get to open a nice little shop somewhere on the coast and live off the profits. Some people don’t know they’re born.
part four
hole in the rain
thirty-one
The silence wakes her, and a draught blowing on her face; the air, cool and dewy, carries a faint tang of the sea. Maggie flies up from under the mound of blankets to see her bedroom soaked in light, a curt breeze blowing in. Last night, enduring hours of unceasing rain, she’d made a decision: went downstairs and collected everything she thought she might need; a couple of bottles of drinking water, some food and candles from the pantry, a carton of milk from the fridge. She wrapped up her books and her most vital CDs in blankets, and put a change of clothes and the dreamcatcher box in her holdall. Methodically, with only the guttering light of the candle to see by, she checked and double-checked that she’d rescued the most important things. The furniture couldn’t be saved, and Nell’s collection of vinyl would have to stay lined up along the walls downstairs. Maggie reckoned the sleeves would be ruined but the records themselves would survive. She didn’t consider that the river would leave its taint on everything.
She lay on the bed with her possessions close by, waiting for morning, or the flood, whichever came first. In the early hours, the rain began a new pattern, of fits and starts, sudden gusts, momentary gaps of silence. Maggie noted and then grew accustomed to the sirens, a helicopter thwapping in the distance, the way the wind sang through the roof tiles. Just before daybreak came a lull so quiet, she imagined she could hear the river lapping at the front door. The worst is over, she thought, Thomas was right. She began to feel herself drift off to sleep, only to be jarred awake by a noise outside: not wind, not a helicopter, but a noise she could feel: a deep, guttural roar. The branch punched through the window, in and out again, like a giant’s maw. Maggie could only stare at the gaping hole it had left; in the dawnlight, the rain was lit up and trembling like piano strings.
From the window she can see that the tree is still standing, the branch torn from the trunk like a severed limb. The wound is butter-yellow and so fresh she can almost smell the sap. The branch itself is gone, submerged, or carried away, and the field opposite the cottage has been transformed into a broad swim of water. Maggie watches the run-off pass below her, rapid and brown, hurrying away with its loot of tangled twigs, an upturned dinghy, a child’s buggy. She follows its progress down into the valley and then switches back to look in the opposite direction, back up to the bend in the hill, where she sees that the road has become visible again, emerging from the water like a drawbridge.
thirty-two
At the start thes ound is as sweet as a summer morning
The sound is like
If you imagine all the sum er mornings wrapped up inone
Christ-All-Bloody-Mighty!
Kenneth puts the tip of his finger in his mouth and sucks on it. Holding it under the lamplight, he sees a purple line darkening along his fingernail, a thin streak of a bruise from the tip to the bed. He waits for the throb of pain to pass. He has been trying to describe Ravel’s string quartet. Beside the typewriter is a bottle of Glenfarclas and a cup containing rehydrated mushrooms. Occasionally, he’ll fish one out and feed it into his mouth, chewing slowly on the salty, rubbery sliver. It’s only early evening but he’s on his second whisky and his eighteenth sheet of paper. The rejects are crushed and scattered around his feet: some of them have tumbled away across the floor to nestle beneath the furniture. He takes another mouthful of his drink, then another. His trousers are rolled up to his knees, and on his feet he sports a pair of William’s old trainers. There’s a draught blowing in around his ankles. Kenneth’s gaze searches along the library windows: all closed, the raindrops on them twinkling like diamonds. He takes another sip of his whisky.
When he woke this morning, he made a promise to himself: he would start again with his project, without anyone’s help, first thing. He delayed the start by rewarding his idea with a cooked breakfast. He planned to have eggs and bacon and mushrooms and beans and just the one slice of fried bread. In the cupboard, he found a tin of pilchards he couldn’t remember ordering, an untouched packet of crispbread, and a can of borlotti beans. Some dried mushrooms, like toenail clippings, sat in a dusty cellophane wrapper. There was one egg left in the tray, and he couldn’t read the tiny red print to see how old it was, but he’d learnt a trick years ago about how to tell if an egg was fresh. You put it in a pan of water, and if it sank to the bottom, it was fresh. Or if it floated to the top. He couldn’t remember which way round it was supposed to be, so when he tried it, and the egg floated, he decided that it was a fifty-fifty chance, and what’s more, he was going to eat the damn thing anyway. Looking in the fridge, he was delighted to find a half bottle of champagne that had rolled to the back. There was some sort of healthy spread William had insisted that he buy, a jar of pickled onions and an opened pack of streaky bacon. This was going to be a good day. Kenneth ate an onion or two while cooking, steeped the mushrooms in a cup of boiling water and forgot about them. His breakfast – of bacon and egg and borlotti beans covered in tomato ketchup, with a slice of the healthy crispbread on the side – tasted completely superb. The Buck’s Fizz (without the orange juice) made the meal twice as enjoyable as the real thing.
After breakfast, he carried the typewriter from the prefect’s office to the library and set it on a low table in front of his chair. He would do the washing-up first, then get cracking. Back in the kitchen, he turned the radio on to hear the news, ran hot water into the bowl and leaned over it, peering into the steam.
The view from the terrace was like shot silk: beautiful, hazy; the air soaked and the birds like black buds in the trees. The lawns were under water, so it was all river, practically, up to the steps. Kenneth decided that it would be nice to have a glass of wine, maybe a few slices of crispbread with some of the pilchards on top (it was nearly elevenses, after all) and he could sit with his raincoat on, in his best place, and admire the weather. He took down the key from the top of the door frame and made his way into the cellar. Immediately, he could taste the change of air, slightly sulphurous, a damp match. The grille of light at the back of the shelves showed him: the cellar was flooded. Retreating, Kenneth thought about what to do. He could call William. The last thing he wanted was to talk to William. He knew the idea of phoning a plumber was ludicrous; he’d heard the bulletins. Kenneth took off his shoes and socks and rolled up his trousers. There was nothing else for it, he would have to rescue his stock: the water would go down eventually, but he couldn’t take the risk of leaving the wine in there, the damp getting to it. The concrete floor felt gritty under his bare feet, gritty on the first journey in and out – Kenneth leaving a wash of water in his wake – then atrociously sharp and painful on the second trip. He’d almost dropped the bottles. Limping out to the bench, he sat down and tried to raise his foot to see what he’d done. The effort of lifting his leg so high filled his head with blood and made him dizzy. He wiped the sole of his foot with his hand and felt again the stab of broken glass in his skin. He stood on the step and paddled his foot in the river water, gingerly at first, then with more vigour. Underneath, the grass was giving and sweet to the touch, and he raked it with his toes until the pain went away. He’d need to put some boots on. Bound to be wellies in the trunk room.
Only when Kenneth had hobbled round the side of the house and in through the courtyard gate did he remember: the trunk room no longer existed. The door that opened into it had been bricked up years ago, and the space inside knocked through to create a bigger wine cellar. He traced the wall with his hand; such a close match to the original brick, he could barely make out where the outline was.
It took five journeys to bring up his most vulnerable wines. He put the bottles anywhere on the worktops, admired the dust on them, his fingerprints in the dust, and didn�
��t worry about laying them down; stood them up all around, a very dusty, priceless cityscape in his own kitchen. Kenneth promised himself he’d start work on his song notes straight after he’d had something to eat. He felt ravenous: thought it had to be lunchtime. It took an effort to open the tin of pilchards, having to fiddle with the ring pull and getting oil all over the worktop and on his fingers, but finally, he managed to concoct his lunch. With the pilchards smeared on three brittle pieces of crispbread, a glass of wine poured, and his book on the tray, he was ready. He took his meal outside, all the better to watch the weather, shivering a little but relishing the wild thrashing of the trees, the scouring rain. In a while he would light the chiminea, if he could find something to burn. That was one of Will’s better ideas, unlike the fish tank, the electric toothbrush that raked his gums, the motorized pepper mill. Always buying him some present or other, as if to make up for, apologize for – he can’t imagine what. You need to burn that stuff, she’d said. Too wet for a bonfire, and the chiminea too small to contain all the things he would like to burn. And the neons; he must remember to feed them. She’d said to eat them, hadn’t she, fried like whitebait. Would be more palatable than the sardines. Sardines? Pilchards. Had fresh sardines once in Sicily; not the same taste at all, even if they are supposed to be family. And so his mind wandered away, little wisps of thoughts and memories and vague ideas and inspired ideas, and all the while Kenneth looked at the trees. The trees, and the river overflowing, and the smell of fish on his fingertips; something was floating to the surface. From deep in the house came the sound of the telephone ringing. Smell of fish on his fingers, metallic, faintly nauseating; the trees bending in the breeze; the sound of a telephone. Kenneth closed his eyes to see it more clearly.
It was the water bailiff calling, his words coming sharp and fast through the handset. Kenneth had been avoiding him since that business with Will and the child – must have been three months ago now – but occasionally, when the land agent wasn’t available, he’d have to give him instructions or ask him to look in on one of the properties. And then he’d feel it, a new and uncomfortable familiarity, an unspoken guile. Nor did he care for the way the man looked at him these days, as if they’d made some fiendish pact with each other. In truth, he preferred his employees to be a little more servile.
Despite the early hour and his half-awake state, Kenneth knew that something was very wrong. He’d asked him to slow down, repeat himself, but couldn’t get any more information beyond: You must come at once. Kenneth took directions and told him to wait until he’d arrived. He’d set off in his Range Rover, driving quickly through the lanes, empty at that time of the morning, then slowing at the bend in the valley. The view dropped away before him; a sweep of brown and ochre, the earth blasted into hollows here and there by the recent storms. The fields, with no time to recover from the drought, looked devastated. It had been wet again overnight, but now the skies were clear, hazy; there was a soft September trace in the air. Kenneth wound the window down to let in the morning, and at once saw a young boy waving madly from just below the verge on the opposite side of the road. So, the bailiff had got himself another helper; it was to be expected. The thought of Will, away at his new boarding school and hating it, gave him a momentary flash of rage.
What is it? he barked at the boy, younger than William, smaller at any rate. The boy simply pointed to the river with a switch of wood, where Kenneth could just make out two heads proud of the bushes.
What? he repeated, and the boy replied,
They said I’ve got to stay put.
Kenneth slid down the side of the bank, using the bushes as a brake. Thomas Bryce and another man he couldn’t name were standing at the bend of the river, beside a clump of willows.
Thomas Bryce, said Kenneth, alive to the moment, That’s the devil. That was his name.
It came back quickly then. Thomas Bryce and Freddy Peel were standing near the water, and a third man, unshaven, runty-looking, was on the deck of a small dredger – Flynn; he was known only as Flynn. The three of them were all speaking at the same time, but it was Bryce who broke through.
Ah, Ken—Mr Earl, I thought, not again, not another child. His voice was thick with drama. As Kenneth approached, Bryce put his hand out and gripped his arm.
I thought: Not another one.
Flynn braced himself on the deck of the boat and pushed his pole into the willows, trying to clear an overhanging branch so that Kenneth could see.
It were tangled up here, he was saying between thrusts, After the storm, right, and these needed cutting back, right? That’s when I found him. Or some of him, any road.
The men laughed at that. Bryce took his cap off his head and flattened it against his chest. He put his hand out to Kenneth again, this time to stop him from getting any closer; and then Kenneth saw. That was the source of the smell, fish but not fish, flesh but not meat; putrefaction. A man’s clothed arm, the full length of it from shoulder to fingertips, lay like a landed carp in the undergrowth. Kenneth crept closer, not entirely believing what he knew must be true, believing instead that these idiots were playing some kind of trick on him. He bent over it to make sure, because the arm didn’t look remotely real. It was clothed in a checked fabric that was dotted with a patina of green slime. The fabric had been torn away at the shoulder; at the cuff end, the hand was open, the fingers fat as sausages. He took a breath and wished he hadn’t.
Rest of him’s in there, said Flynn, gesturing to the branches with his pole. The end of it gleamed black and sticky.
I tried to hoik him out, see, but look what happened. The three men turned as one to where the limb had been tossed.
I’m going to fetch the police, said Kenneth, And call an ambulance.
Might be a bit late for an ambulance, said Peel. And the men laughed again. Flynn, aware of his audience, leaned forward from the waist and launched the tip of the pole back into the branches. His gaunt face split in a grin.
Here, give me a hand and I’ll fetch him down, he said, to more guffaws.
Kenneth spun on Bryce and whispered loudly, emphatically:
You will need an ambulance for the body. And the police will need to be present. Show some respect.
The men sobered immediately. Flynn put down his pole and climbed onto the bank, and Bryce went looking for his lad. At least, thought Kenneth, he had the decency to keep the boy away. But the smell was the thing; how could they bear it?
Peel made to shake Kenneth’s hand then thought the better of it, settled for wiping his palm down his trousers.
He will have fall in, he said, An’ got caught up in them, see? He were famous for his drinken.
You know him? said Kenneth, not sure if anyone could identify a body in such a condition.
Baggs, he said, Just look at the size on him. Been gorn more’n a week.
The pilchards untouched, the wine, untouched; the book, unopened. Kenneth sitting very still, remembering how it felt to be a young man then, lording it, thinking he should be in control of his life, and really, how terrified he was. He imagines dealing with it differently. He wouldn’t have gone there; would have told Bryce to call the police if there was a problem. But after the trouble with Will, and with Rusty, with the talk going round – he couldn’t take the risk. Everything he’d thought was safe, solid, had turned to liquid. Rusty was leaving him. She was leaving him, and leaving William, too, and this was it, this was the problem he could hardly bear to admit to himself: Kenneth didn’t want the child. He didn’t love him. Standing on the riverbank with those three buffoons, he was thinking,This is what my life has become, a series of unending horrors. I’ll be stuck here all my life with these imbeciles and their narrow, artful ways and their knowing looks. No Bahrain, no fresh start. Can’t ever have a fresh start with a child like Will.
He’d tried to take control as best he could, step by step, giving the appearance of stability, of order. But he was sickened at Flynn’s idea that they pull the man piecemeal out of
the branches. Kenneth had fetched a blanket from the car and wrapped the arm in it, rolling it up, retching at the awful smell and wanting to put his hand over his face and trying not to breathe, only trying to take control. As best he could. No one would ever be able to say that he didn’t face up to his responsibilities.
The smell is here again now, festering on the air, and with it follows his putrid life and how miserable it has been. How selfish he has been. How cruel.
thirty-three
The rain that falls on Kenneth and Maggie is the same rain that falls on William, but in London it takes on a city-fuelled quality, as if it comes not from the sky but from the towering structures that enclose his terrace block. It is more noise and light than smell and feel. The sound of tyres on tarmac, slick, abrasive, is as regular as the glimpses he gets of shining wet metal speeding on the road beyond the lush cover of the trees. To look up is to see an oblong of flat grey cut like a windowpane between the darker concrete forms of the surrounding buildings. The rain can only be seen at an angle, gathering light from the city as it drops to earth.
He abandons the desk where his computer shares space with his coffee cup and his diary and his empty glass. He is tidier than this normally – pristine, in fact – but today has been an off-day. He can’t seem to think straight; as if he has become infected with his father’s malaise.
The Song House Page 18