Sophie reaches for the photo again and Virginia hands it back, unthinkingly. She shifts her aching weight from foot to foot, and tries to focus on the framing of a question.
‘So …’ It’s all so simple, but at the same time terribly difficult, like trying to think straight when you’re emerging from a dream. ‘So your surname …?’
Sophie is poring over the photograph. ‘It’s Deering,’ she says, without looking up. ‘Same as him.’
‘Deering.’ Virginia repeats the name and the whole day is realigned, like an ill-fitting jigsaw that’s suddenly slotted into place. She wants to go and hide in the shadows under the eaves – just for a moment, just while she tries to take it in – but her feet are prickling with pins and needles and she can’t budge. Her features begin to contort, and since she can’t move she has to hide her face against her sleeve while the spasm comes and goes. Sophie doesn’t notice anything.
‘Oh my gosh, so this person here – the bride – what was her name?’
‘Lorna.’
And now Sophie is full of questions (‘How old was she? She hardly looks old enough to get married. And what was his name? What year was this photo? How are they related to you?’) and Virginia feels compelled to answer, although her mind is busy with its own obsessions.
Now that the truth is out, Virginia can’t see anything but Deeringness in the girl’s moon-like pallor and satin-black hair. She wonders how she ever missed it. And it’s not just the way she looks, either. There’s something very Deering about a gentle voice that persists with questions, even when the questionee is patently flagging. (‘So when did they adopt you? Was it because they couldn’t have children of their own? Did you look for your real parents? Did you know my great-granddad? Did you know him well?’) Perhaps she is cut out to be a lawyer, after all. Perhaps it’s in the blood, whether she likes it or not.
Admittedly the girl has a milky, childish scent, which bears no resemblance to her forbear’s hair oils and masculine soaps. Nevertheless her scent is, by definition, the scent of a Deering, and Virginia can’t bear to breathe it in, so she twists away – pins and needles or no – and tries to rest her gaze on something neutral. But there is nothing neutral in the attic at Salt Winds. She turns in desperation to the window and sees the rocking chair, stark black against the winter light.
‘You’re probably cold,’ says Sophie, touching her on the arm. ‘Sorry if I’m babbling.’
Virginia flinches when those sharp white fingernails press into her sleeve but she doesn’t shake them off, and when Sophie asks if she’d like help going down the stairs she doesn’t protest – or not overtly. She’s not entirely lacking in pragmatism. If Sophie doesn’t manoeuvre her down those winding attic stairs, she won’t be going anywhere today; she’s too stiff and weak to make it on her own. She has to get downstairs for something to eat and a good rest, before she can face this evening’s walk.
‘Can you manage?’ Sophie says, as they shuffle to the top of the stairs and begin the descent. Truth be told, the girl conducts the whole operation rather deftly, but Virginia decides she’s not going to notice a thing like that. It’s enough to know that the hand on her arm is a Deering hand; that the skin cells left, ineradicably, on her sleeve will be Deering cells.
Halfway down, Virginia stumbles on her own stick, but Sophie catches her round the waist with a murmur and keeps her from falling. The child may be slight, but she’s sinewy, and Virginia leans into her. She doesn’t want to, but she has to.
‘Your great-grandfather was strong,’ Virginia hears herself say. ‘Not a big man, like Clem, but strong. Wiry.’
Sophie is frowning with concentration, biting down on her lower lip, and doesn’t reply until they reach the landing.
‘It’s amazing to think you actually knew him,’ she exclaims once they’re safe, her face clearing as Virginia extricates herself and her stick. ‘He’s like this mythical figure in our family that we’re all meant to live up to, and I hardly know anything about him.’
‘What do you know?’
Sophie meanders down the landing, peering through half-open doors, and Virginia wishes she would stand still while she answers the question.
‘Well, I know he had all these terrible things happen to him,’ Sophie says, and she enumerates, on her fingers, the trials of Max Deering. ‘First his wife died when their children were really small; then he got engaged to this woman who left him for his best friend; and then his daughter got killed in the Blitz.’
Virginia gives a non-committal nod. Put like that, how diminished his losses become. What a fuss about nothing. Sophie obviously agrees, because she looks quite cheerful now, as she contemplates the three acknowledged tragedies of Great-Granddad Max. Virginia’s mouth curls into something like a smile. What a lost soul the girl was, just a few hours before, when she was sitting on the flint wall and thinking about her chances of getting to art school.
‘But then something else happened,’ Sophie goes on. ‘A fourth thing. I don’t know what it was, but it had something to do with Salt Winds.’
The smile – such as it is – freezes on Virginia’s lips. Something else happened. Yes, indeed it did, but Sophie is too distracted to notice the effect of her words. She’s actually flitted into Virginia’s bedroom now, and Virginia is forced to limp in pursuit. Briefly she fears for her privacy and all her precious things – the curlew’s skull, in particular – but then she remembers her fatalistic new creed and relaxes a little. Whatever is meant to happen today will happen. If the child drops the bird’s head on the floor and treads the pieces into the rug, it doesn’t matter. Nothing will have changed.
‘How do you know it had to do with Salt Winds?’ Virginia demands as she reaches the bedroom door. Sophie has, indeed, spotted the curlew’s skull and is crouching down to study it more closely. She doesn’t touch it though.
‘I just do. In our family, the name “Salt Winds” has got this kind of aura of horror about it.’ She chooses the word ‘horror’ carefully. In fact, she chooses all her words carefully, pausing every now and then to think. ‘Even after my great-granddad died – which was way before I was born, so it’s not like I even remember him – “Salt Winds” was this … this thing that you sometimes heard whispered, and never asked questions about. I didn’t even know it was the name of a house till Granddad Theo told me he used to go there as a boy.’
Virginia walks towards the window and her reflection comes to meet her, like a stringy-haired ghost. The watery light is coming from the other side of the house now. Midday has passed; the see-saw is tipping towards night.
‘Granddad Theo,’ she laughs, too quietly for Sophie to hear, before raising her voice to ask, ‘What else did he tell you? He must have said something else?’
‘Well, no. Not really.’ Sophie comes to stand next to her and their arms touch. The girl is still shivering, and no wonder when you consider how she’s dressed. A gauzy white shirt under a little denim jacket. Bare ankles and ballet pumps. What on earth was she thinking, on a December day like this? Silly child. Not that it matters. It’s no business of Virginia’s if a Deering chooses to die of exposure.
‘He didn’t want to tell me anything,’ Sophie said. ‘It was like he’d inherited this superstition about the place. All he said – eventually – was that he’d grown up in a village called Tollbury Point, and he used to visit a house called Salt Winds with his father, during the war. And then suddenly, when he was twelve, the visits stopped and they moved to Putney, and he wasn’t allowed to ask any questions about it, or mention it at all. The one time he tried, his father – my great-grandfather – thrashed him so hard he actually broke his arm.’
‘Hmm,’ Virginia replies, pursing her lips. The girl is expecting a better reaction than that – He broke his own son’s arm? How horrible! – but Virginia is unmoved. Actually, she’s been concentrating on Sophie’s voice rather than her words; straining to catch the Deering timbre. Sometimes she thinks she hears the faintest whisper of Max
a split-second behind, repeating everything his great-granddaughter says. Sophie’s tone is childishly earnest but the echo is contemptuous, as if to say, I’m still here, Miss Wrathmell. You might have known I’d still be here.
Virginia decides to match her voice to the echo, and fight mockery with mockery.
‘So,’ she says, folding her arms across her chest and swallowing a cough. ‘You fancy yourself as a bit of an amateur sleuth, do you? Dragging skeletons out of cupboards for the fun of it?’
Their eyes meet in the window. Virginia’s gaze is steadfast, but Sophie’s is anxious.
‘I didn’t mean to cause any … It was partly curiosity. But it was mainly because I knew they wouldn’t look for me here.’
‘Your family sound surprisingly superstitious, given they’re all so highly educated?’
‘Yes.’ Sophie is on firmer ground. ‘When it comes to Salt Winds they are superstitious. Well, Dad and Granddad, anyway. That’s exactly the right word.’
Virginia bats the air impatiently and moves back into the room. It’s not for her to scoff at other people’s demons. God knows she’s plenty of her own. Besides, the girl’s private reasons for coming are unimportant. The question – the urgent question – is what to do with her now she’s here.
Virginia sighs. She has to take the weight off her feet before her legs give way, so she lowers herself on to the edge of the bed. It’s a bit soft and low for sitting on, but it’s better than nothing. She can look straight into the curlew’s left eye socket from this vantage point, and she searches it for an answer, but it stares back without giving anything away and makes her feel foolish. Virginia frowns and strokes the frayed bedspread, seeing it in her mind’s eye when it was rose pink and new. It’s a sort of fawn colour now, or at least it is on top where the sun has bleached it. The wallpaper’s in much the same state.
‘You’re thinking I ought to ring them, aren’t you?’ Sophie asks. She’s followed Virginia across the room and now she’s standing by the bed, running a nervous finger round the outline of her phone.
‘No!’ Virginia’s eyes snap open. She may not know what to do, but she knows what not to do. Somehow or other, the Deering girl belongs to the mysteries of this day, and there’s no question of her leaving now. Not any longer. Everything has changed.
‘Anyway, I thought you said the battery was dead?’ Virginia is trying hard to sound indifferent – too hard, perhaps, because her voice is trembling.
‘That’s true,’ Sophie agrees. ‘But I think … Did you say it’d be OK if I used your phone? Not that I necessarily want to phone them, yet. It’s just …’
The girl’s shivers become more pronounced and her eyes start swimming again.
Virginia gathers herself. ‘Before you do anything, let’s go down to the kitchen and make a pot of tea.’ Her tremors subside as her confidence grows, and she thinks she sees a gleam at the back of the curlew’s eye. ‘What d’you think? We both need a hot drink and a bite to eat. And then we can see.’
She staggers to her feet to show she means it, and Sophie nods obediently. ‘Actually, that would be nice.’
They hobble on to the landing arm in arm, but when they reach the top of the stairs, Virginia halts.
‘I’ve forgotten something,’ she says.
‘Oh, d’you want me to—’
‘No. You carry on downstairs and fill the kettle. I’ll be half a minute.’
Virginia wasn’t intending to use violence. All she meant to do was fetch her nail scissors from the dressing table and snip through one of the wires to make the telephone impotent. And then, since she was passing the wretched thing on her way to the bedroom, it seemed simpler – less destructive, in fact – to unhook it from the wall and hide it.
The trouble is, it won’t unhook. She’ll need a screwdriver, and even then she’ll have a job, because the screws are fiddly-small and rusty and difficult to get at. She tries to unplug the cord but it won’t budge, so she yanks at it, first with one hand and then, instinctively, with two, growling through her teeth as her walking stick falls to the floor.
The cord rips apart, leaving bits behind in the socket, and now Virginia begins to grapple with the rest of the machine, tearing at the casing, the dial, the wires. She breaks several of her nails, but she doesn’t care: she’ll break her teeth on it if it comes to that. The telephone creaks and pings and rattles; bits of plastic crack under her hands and skitter across the floor; wires spray from broken fibres; plaster tumbles off the wall. The phone is unrecognisable by the time she’s finished: a mutilated corpse still screwed to the wall, with its spilling entrails frozen in mid-air.
Virginia stumbles backwards and leans against the opposite wall to see what she’s done. There’s the sound of the kitchen tap gushing: thank God the girl didn’t witness this. Virginia covers her eyes with her crooked hands. A moment ago she wanted to laugh with elation, but now she wants to cry quietly, with someone’s arms around her.
January 1941
‘BUT WE CAN’T send him outside again!’ Virginia whispered fiercely. ‘He’ll freeze to death out there. Mr Deering might be here for ages.’
As she spoke, the Austin 12 curved out of the lane and braked in front of the house with a gentle squeak.
‘Where then? Where?’ Lorna was twisting her fingers in her hair, on the brink of tears. ‘Oh Lord …’
There was a shuffling noise behind them and they turned to see the stranger standing at the kitchen door, wrapped like a pilgrim in Bracken’s rug. He swayed slightly and his lips started to move, but no sound came out.
‘Don’t you dare collapse on my kitchen floor.’ Lorna grabbed him by both elbows and hauled him away from the lighted doorway.
‘All right,’ she said, turning back to Virginia. ‘You can take him upstairs, but for goodness’ sake be quiet. I’ll keep Max outside for as long as I can.’
Mr Deering’s voice sounded horribly close, and he hadn’t even come inside yet. He was peeling his driving gloves off – Virginia could hear the leathery flourish – and locking the car, and saying how disappointed Theo was that the snow wasn’t going to stick. He didn’t even ask for news of Clem.
‘I think it is sticking, a little,’ Lorna rejoined brightly. ‘Look there, on top of the wall. And you never know, there may be more tonight.’
Virginia gripped the man’s hand. He was leaning on the wall at the top of the stairs with his eyes closed, listening carefully to something inside himself. He scarcely seemed to register Mr Deering’s arrival on the scene, let alone show special alarm. Only when the wind blew the front door open with a bang did he jump, and then his teeth started chattering.
‘Shh!’ Virginia whispered, squeezing harder on his hand. His teeth were absurdly loud, like a handful of dice rattling in a cup, but he looked at her helplessly and shook his head, unable to stop.
‘Let’s get out of this blasted wind,’ Mr Deering was saying. ‘I could do with a tot of scotch, if there’s any left.’
Virginia dragged the man away from the staircase and propelled him along the landing. He moved willingly, but clumsily, and the floorboards shrieked beneath his stockinged feet. She glanced at every door they passed but none was safe. If she took him in there, they’d be right over the kitchen; in there they’d be over the sitting room, or the dining room, or the library – and who knew where Max Deering would decide to settle with his glass of whisky?
Footsteps crunched over snowy gravel towards the front door.
‘Bother, I’ve lost my headscarf,’ Lorna called, half laughing and faraway. ‘The wind just whirled it off …’
‘Well, we’re not looking for it now.’ Mr Deering stopped to wait for her, but he was beginning to sound testy. ‘Drat it, Lorna …’
There was no more time to think. Virginia opened the nearest door and bundled the man inside. When he tripped against stairs she exclaimed, under her breath.
The attic. Of course, the attic.
They sat down on the mattress, side
by side. Mr Deering’s voice had vanished now, and there was nothing to hear but the wind in the eaves. The man held his bent legs against his chest and laid his head on his knees. There were a few twisted blankets on the mattress, decidedly moth-eaten and damp to the touch, but Virginia gathered them up and bundled them over his rounded back.
‘Danke,’ he murmured, without moving.
Virginia smiled, even though they were invisible to one another in the dark. Somehow Mr Rosenthal’s presence was a good sign; a message from Clem that all would be well, if only she kept faith. It was the first time she’d managed a smile in hours, and the muscles in her cheeks felt stiff and strange.
‘Mr Deering is always getting in the way,’ she explained, after a while, anxious to signify her dislike of Mr Rosenthal’s enemy. ‘Lorna finds it difficult to get rid of him. I don’t know why. I don’t think she likes him, really, it’s just …’
She trailed off. The man made no response, and she thought perhaps he’d gone to sleep. If only he could have a proper wash and something to eat. There was something unsettling about the state he was in now; he seemed to be exuding cold from the very core of his body and chilling the entire attic. He smelled unhealthy too: like mud and stagnant water and rotten vegetation. For half a moment, before she could dismiss the idea as stupid, Virginia thought he smelled of drowning. But of course drowning isn’t a thing, and it doesn’t have a smell.
Virginia shivered and fidgeted with the bits and bobs inside her cardigan pocket: a handkerchief, a pencil stub, a box of matches. She was always spending hours on her bed with a book – stillness was her usual preference – but this particular evening, stillness hurt. All her muscles ached to walk about and chatter, and do somersaults across the mattress.
Call of the Curlew Page 13