Call of the Curlew

by Elizabeth Brooks

‘Ah ha!’ She couldn’t see his smile, but she could hear it. ‘The birthday girl!’ His hot face touched hers, so that his breath was on her neck, and she thought she’d suffocate in the oily perfume of his hair. Later on, she wondered how he’d managed with only two hands, because she distinctly remembered a pressure on the small of her back, and a tight grip on her upper arms, and at the same time her fingers being moulded round a square envelope.

  ‘Open it,’ he murmured, and she began to fumble – all thumbs – with the seal.

  There was a card with a picture of an old-fashioned lady standing by a garden gate. Virginia’s eyes must have been getting used to the light, because Max had dainty handwriting and she managed to read the greeting inside. Dear Virginia, he’d put. Happy 12th Birthday to our favourite girl, from Max and Theo. And then, slipping out of the card, was the photograph – a few square inches of black-and-white gloss – with Max grinning and Lorna squinting and she herself scowling into the sand-blown sunshine. Warren Sands, it said on the back. May 1941.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘My pleasure.’ His lips were wet on the rim of her ear. ‘Many happy returns.’ But then there was a clatter of feet on the attic stairs and he drew back, and Lorna’s voice came bright and breathless through the gloom.

  ‘Max? Is it you? But I thought you were in London?’

  ‘And yet here I am in Tollbury Point,’ he retorted, stepping forwards to meet her. He picked up her ink-stained hand, as if to kiss it, but dropped it before it reached his lips.

  ‘Virginia and I were having a big sort-out in the attic,’ Lorna babbled, dusting down the front of her shirt. ‘I know I look a fright! I spilled a pot of paint – she probably told you – and now look at me! Not to worry. I’ll go and get changed and we’ll take some tea into the garden.’

  Mr Deering picked up Lorna’s hand again, and opened her palm. The colours of the inks – the greens and blues she’d been using lately – were grey in that half-light. With his forefinger he traced the outline of each spot and spatter, and they waited for him to say something but he seemed lost in thought.

  The ceiling creaked, as though someone in the attic was shifting, ever so carefully, from one foot to another.

  ‘What was that?’ Mr Deering frowned and let go of Lorna’s hand. He set his foot on the bottom stair and peered up through the winding shadows.

  Lorna and Virginia exchanged a furtive glance. Mr Deering narrowed his eyes and took another step, and suddenly the staircase was a racket of scrabbling claws and thudding paws, as Bracken came bowling down to join them.

  ‘That dog,’ muttered Mr Deering. He returned to Virginia’s side and Lorna closed the attic door with a flick of her foot.

  ‘Well?’ she smiled. ‘Why don’t we go and sit outdoors, since it’s such a lovely day? It won’t take me a moment to make myself decent.’

  ‘Don’t trouble yourself.’ Max’s fingers ran like cold water down Virginia’s spine, and she shuddered. ‘I can’t stay. I only came to wish this one a happy birthday.’

  ‘Virginia! Your birthday! Why on earth didn’t you remind me?’

  All morning the house had rung with Lorna’s guilt and Virginia was sick of it. She’d made the mistake of snapping back at one point, which had made things ten times worse.

  ‘I didn’t remind you,’ she’d said, ‘because I wanted you to remember by yourself.’ Like Clem would have done, she’d managed not to add.

  ‘Well, we’ll have to mark the day somehow,’ Lorna declared testily, wiping her hands down her shirt. ‘What d’you want to do? You can ask a school friend over for tea, if you like.’

  ‘No thanks.’ Virginia twisted the toe of her shoe against the attic floor and tried to scowl her blushes away. She could feel Jozef’s scrutiny, even though he was just a blur in the corner of her eye. He would understand, by the way she said No, that she hadn’t got any friends – whereas Lorna would think she was just being difficult.

  ‘All right.’ Lorna had just unscrewed the lids from four ink bottles, but now she replaced them, one by one, with a slam and a twist. ‘Fine. We’ll get the bus into town and you can choose a present. How about that? And I’ll take you for afternoon tea at Delafield’s, just for good measure. Yes?’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’ Virginia tried to sound grateful in the same way that Lorna tried to sound benevolent, and with about as much success.

  Lorna ran a lingering hand over her sketches. ‘Good,’ she said. ‘In that case, I’m going to go and have a quick bath and tidy myself up. I’m sorry you can’t come too,’ she added, presumably addressing Jozef, though she was still studying her papers.

  Jozef touched her lightly on the wrist. ‘I’m sorry too. But you’ll both have a wonderful time, and you’ll tell me all about it later. Yes?’

  There wasn’t much point in Virginia getting changed, since she didn’t own anything smarter than the skirt and blouse she was already wearing. Her hair was tidy but she brushed it anyway, because she had to do something – even if it was only a gesture – towards Getting Ready to Go Out. Once she’d finished she sat on the edge of her bed with the Warren Sands photo in her hands, and listened to the water thundering from the bath taps.

  Someone knocked and she stuffed the photo into her open drawer.

  ‘What is it?’ she called, but it was Jozef – not Lorna – who poked his head round the door. Virginia started to her feet. If there was one unwritten rule – one law – in their disorderly realm, it was that Jozef stayed in the attic during daylight hours, and only ventured down at night, once the doors and windows were locked and the blackout curtains drawn.

  ‘I wanted to give you this,’ he whispered, before she had time to object, and he held out a scroll of papers, tied together with a neat green bow. ‘Happy birthday!’

  She took the scroll with a nervous smile and a glance over his shoulder on to the landing.

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ she whispered back. ‘Does Lorna know?’

  Jozef shook his head. ‘This – only this – is a secret for you and me. I finished it last week, and I was wondering when to give it, so your birthday is well timed.’

  He waited, eager-eyed, while she undid the bow. The first page read, simply:

  ‘Call of the Curlew’

  For Virginia

  With all good wishes on her twelfth birthday

  J.

  Virginia looked up. ‘You wrote a story for me!’

  ‘I said I would.’

  She sat down again and flicked, damp-fingered, through the eight pages of type. She couldn’t think of anything to say. She was pleased, of course, but anxious too; it was like being at the fair and waiting in a queue at the fortune-teller’s stall. She wanted to read it straight away and she wanted to procrastinate. She wanted to believe it meant everything; she wanted to believe it meant nothing at all.

  ‘Thank you,’ she murmured at last, but he’d gone again, so she took a deep breath and began to read.

  ‘Once upon a time,’ she whispered to herself, ‘a king lived with his daughter in a castle on the edge of a marsh …’

  ‘You seem very preoccupied,’ Lorna remarked, when they were waiting at the bus stop by the church. ‘What’s the matter?’

  Virginia ran her thumb round the edges of the papers in her pocket. She wasn’t sure why she’d brought Jozef’s story with her; it wasn’t as if she’d have a chance to re-read it while they were out. Her nail flickered over the eight sheets, and she counted them off in her head.

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine,’ she said blandly. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black: Lorna herself seemed downright nervous, pacing about in front of the bus stop and poking at her hairpins the way she used to do in the old days. Thorney Grange was just around the corner from St Dunstan’s, and they could see the Deerings’ chimney pots through the swaying boughs of the churchyard trees. Lorna kept glancing that way, and every time a car came puttering down the Deerings’ road (or, indeed, any of the other roads that met in the middle o
f the village) she’d seize Virginia by the arm and pull her backwards into the shadow of the lych-gate. It was like being in a spy film, Virginia thought, though she didn’t dare say so, even as a joke.

  When the bus arrived, at last, they stood aside for the people getting off. Mrs Hill was among them and she met Virginia’s eye as she elbowed past, which felt almost – though not quite – like a greeting. Lorna nodded cautiously and murmured, ‘Afternoon,’ but Mrs Hill pretended not to hear.

  Virginia glanced up at Lorna’s face, but it was difficult to read her feelings when she was wearing make-up. It made her expression seem blank and brittle, like that of a porcelain doll.

  The sliding window was open over the seat in front, and a lush breeze blew through the bus. Flowering gardens passed them by, and after that – as they left the village behind – hedgerows and ripe fields and overhanging trees. Even when she closed her eyes, Virginia could smell the greens and yellows, and the splashes of sunshine. She was surprised. She associated August, and her birthday, with dust and tiredness; the ugly fag end of summer.

  Lorna raised her face to the breeze too, and her hair began escaping from its pins as it always did in the end, fluttering like ribbons from under the brim of her hat. Virginia thought she’d get rattled when she noticed what was happening, but she didn’t. In fact, the further they got from Tollbury Point, the more tranquil she became.

  As the bus bumped along, Virginia thought about Jozef’s story again. ‘Call of the Curlew’. She longed to spread it out on her lap and re-read it, but if she did that then Lorna would peer over her shoulder and start asking questions. Besides, there was every danger she’d be sick. She remembered how ill she’d felt when she was travelling to Tollbury by bus for the very first time (a lifetime ago; a year and a half ago) and how she’d worried about spoiling her navy coat, and how Clem had given her a sweet to chew on.

  It was pleasant to think about Clem for a bit – which was odd, because ever since his disappearance, thinking about Clem had been a brutal compulsion, and there’d been nothing nice about it at all. The picture she had of him was infinitely sad, of course, but today the sadness was tinged with something sweet, like sharp mint tinged with sugar. Once again she touched the papers in her pocket and listened to their soft rustle. Nobody apart from her would hear them over the grunting of the engine; not even Lorna.

  You could see the cathedral for ages before you actually arrived in town. It rose from the horizon like an ocean liner riding a flat sea, although when you actually lived in its shadow – like the children of Sinclair House – you could only see it from certain places, and at odd angles.

  Sinclair House was just off the bus route, on an avenue of old, rambly houses. They were going to pass the end of the road any minute now, and the closer they got, the more tightly Virginia’s muscles tensed all the way along the backs of her legs. She meant to look in the opposite direction, but in the end she couldn’t help herself, and there they were, flashing past: the big bay windows and the yellowish bricks and the gaps where the railings used to be, before the army took them away and melted them down for weapons. Received wisdom said that Sinclair House was second to none, as orphanages go, and maybe received wisdom was right. Virginia shrugged to herself. How would she know? They hadn’t been cruel or anything. They’d taught her to read.

  Lorna couldn’t resist a quick glance either, as the bus sailed past, and they caught one another’s eye in the window.

  They got off the bus before most of the other passengers, because Lorna wanted to walk through the park. Even in the middle of town it felt like a fine day, and the green scent of summer still surrounded them, only now it was mixed up with other smells like car exhausts, dogs, chip shops, cigarette ends and hot tarmac. Virginia seemed to see things more vividly than she usually did – she noticed the ducks fighting for titbits on the pond, and the cornflower sky, and the way Lorna was walking with her shoulders back and her hair blowing, like someone perfectly familiar with happiness. As they turned off into the main street, the park keeper tipped his hat at them and Lorna nodded back with a sort of brimming amusement.

  ‘What a lovely day to have a birthday,’ she said, taking Virginia’s arm as they stopped outside the stationer’s shop and studied the window display. ‘I’m glad we came out, after all.’

  Virginia suppressed a smile. Lorna didn’t usually say things like that; she wasn’t one for pleasantries and chitchat – or for taking people by the arm. Virginia felt suddenly proud of her birthday, as if the loveliness of the day was a measure of her own wisdom, in choosing to be born in August.

  Their eyes roved over notebooks, packets of pencils, labels, paint boxes, bottles of ink, balls of string.

  ‘It’s a shame Jozef couldn’t come with us,’ Virginia murmured.

  Lorna cupped her hands round her face and pressed them against the window, so as to see more easily through the jostling lights and shadows.

  ‘Maybe we could buy him a present?’ Virginia went on. ‘Just something small, I mean, to make up for not coming.’ She had a horrible feeling she was saying all the wrong things, without knowing how, but when Lorna turned from the window she was still smiling.

  ‘Good idea. I wish I’d thought of that.’

  They linked arms again and walked on down the street. The cathedral clock boomed over the medieval rooftops: three o’clock.

  ‘You like him, then?’ It seemed such a trivial question, but the way Lorna said it you’d think she was dredging it up from the dark depths of her soul. Virginia wriggled uneasily.

  ‘Yes, of course I do.’

  ‘Good. I was only asking.’

  The bookshop was a few doors down, across the street, and this time they went inside. Virginia hovered uncertainly near the children’s section, wondering where to begin, but Lorna took the first volume that came to hand, opened it at random and read for a couple of seconds, before putting it back and taking another. Virginia wished she could keep up with Lorna’s excitement; wished she could be sure it was just about blue August skies and sunshine.

  ‘What about this for a birthday present?’ Lorna held out a copy of Black Beauty. ‘I used to love this; I was a big fan of horse books at your age.’

  Virginia hesitated. ‘You got me Black Beauty last year.’

  ‘Oh.’ Lorna grimaced ruefully and put it back. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘I haven’t read it yet,’ Virginia confided, taking another book from the children’s shelf and turning it over in her hands. ‘The horse on the cover always puts me off. His eyes are sort of … rolling around in his bony head, and he’s baring his teeth. He looks more like something from the Book of Revelation.’

  Virginia expected to be laughed at, but Lorna gave a sympathetic shiver and said, ‘You’ll have to show me when we get home.’

  In the end Virginia chose a copy of The Snow Goose, and the shopkeeper wrapped it in a paper bag while Lorna rooted in her purse. They returned to the stationer’s after that, where they bought a box of editing pencils for Jozef, and then they went to Delafield’s for tea.

  ‘It was lovely in here before the war,’ Lorna whispered, leaning across the table. ‘Really, it was. Quite posh.’

  Virginia tried to imagine what Delafield’s had been like in the days before rationing and make-do-and-mend. The ghost of the old days was there, right enough; you didn’t have to look too hard. The lace curtains were greasy and yellow now, but you knew they’d been frothy white once upon a time; and if the fine bone china was chipped, you could still picture it in its perfection. The old ladies, sipping tea with their hats on, would have sipped just the same before the war, only Virginia couldn’t help thinking they’d have looked less tired in those days, and their hats would have sat more plumply on their heads.

  She prodded her Victoria sponge experimentally with a fork.

  ‘What d’you think of the cake?’ Lorna’s whisper lowered even further. ‘It’s not too awful, is it? Though it’s a shame they didn’t manage to mix the e
gg powder in properly. It sort of … clags on the tongue, doesn’t it?’

  It was true, and Virginia got the giggles. One of the ladies shot her a horn-rimmed glare, but Lorna didn’t seem to mind; she was on the brink of laughter too.

  They ate another forkful and Lorna said, ‘Isn’t it nice to be away from Tollbury Point for a bit? I love towns. I love the bustle and noise and … just the life of them.’

  She paused, waiting for some casual assent, but Virginia busied herself over the last few mouthfuls of cake. She didn’t love the town. She loved Salt Winds and the marsh.

  ‘Lorna?’ she asked, as she finished. ‘What’s going to happen to you and me? I don’t mean today, I mean … you know … in the future.’

  Lorna sat back with a sigh and opened her handbag. ‘What’s going to happen?’ she repeated, rummaging for her cigarette case. ‘Well, let’s see. What’s going to happen is that I’m going to become a world-famous illustrator, and everyone’s going to want my pictures in their books, and as a result I’ll make pots of money and buy a fancy flat in London. Or … no, not London. Manhattan.’ She slung an arm over the back of her chair and smiled through a cloud of smoke. ‘What about it?’

  Virginia moved the cake crumbs about with the tip of her little finger, until they formed a thin line across the plate.

  ‘Manhattan,’ she echoed, without smiling back.

  ‘Mmm. Or San Francisco. Or both. What’s the matter? I’m only being silly; you don’t have to look quite so scandalised.’

  Virginia tried to excise the passion from her face and her voice. ‘I just … I don’t ever want to leave Salt Winds.’

  Lorna narrowed her eyes. ‘Why not?’ Through the smoke she could have passed as a film star – one of the ones who manage to look sharp as a tack and half asleep, both at the same time.

  Virginia pressed her teeth together hard, and stared at her plate. Lorna reached for the ashtray and tapped her cigarette on the rim.

  ‘Because of Clem?’ she said, softening.

  Virginia nodded stiffly, but under the table she was knotting her fingers. The bell tinkled over the door as people went in and out. The till rang, voices buzzed and crockery chinked. One of the waitresses came over with a jug to top up their teapot, and Virginia waited until she was done.