Call of the Curlew

by Elizabeth Brooks

  With one almighty effort she placed her palms flat against his chest and shoved. Mr Deering looked so surprised as he staggered backwards that Virginia might have laughed, if she hadn’t felt so desperate. His arms flailed and he fell, dragging a dining chair with him, and a great bunch of balloons burst, one after another, in quick succession, like a volley of gunfire. She saw the whites of his eyes and the black circle of his mouth as it searched in vain for words – or even sounds. When she began to run he rolled on to his front and clutched at her ankles with both hands, but she was too far away and too fast.

  ‘Bloody little minx!’ Mr Deering’s words chased Virginia down the stairs, and she crossed the fingers of both hands, her eyes fixed on the front door. By the time she noticed Theo’s arm snaking through the bannisters it was too late to avoid him, and in the effort to do so she tripped and fell down the last three stairs. As she tumbled she bumped her nose on something, and a stringy trail of blood spewed over the wall and floor.

  She scrambled to her feet and clamped her hand over her nose. The front door appeared to be bobbing about from side to side, and there was a sound like rushing water in her ears. She sat down, perching on the bottom stair with her head between her knees, and listened to her own ragged breathing. It sounded as though she was crying, but she knew she wasn’t – at least not in the way Theo would call ‘girlish’. Not in weakness or defeat. When Theo came and stood in front of her, and the others began crawling out from underneath tables and hat stands, she glared round at them, like a wounded tiger. Blood was still dripping through her fingers and on to the floor, but she made no attempt to staunch it. There was a kind of satisfaction in letting it come.

  ‘You idiot!’ Theo whispered, ashen-faced. ‘You prize idiot! You’ve got blood all over the place!’

  He spat on a handkerchief and began to dab – then scrub – at the long red streak on the wall, but that just made it spread, and took the shine off the wallpaper. The other boys stood about exchanging sheepish glances and biting their lips. Mrs Bellamy started up the stairs from the basement kitchen, crying, ‘What’s going on? What’s happened?’ The play-room door crashed open and heavy footsteps thundered along the landing. Virginia got up and pushed her body across the hall, as if it was a dead weight that didn’t belong to her.

  ‘What on earth …?’ she heard as she tumbled outside, but then the door shut, and all the shouts and murmurs stopped as though a switch had been thrown. She found her feet and careered out of the driveway, stopping to lean against the churchyard wall and close her eyes for a moment. The wind rested on her forehead like a cool hand, and she wished she could stay with it for ever and never have to think again.

  ‘Virginia Wrathmell?’

  Her eyes snapped open with thoughts of Mr Deering, even though it wasn’t his voice. It was Mrs Hill, emerging from the main street. The knife-grinder had gone. She stood in front of Virginia, her expression more curious than sympathetic, and addressed her for the very first time since their rift. Trust Mrs Hill to be brought round by a bloodied nose.

  ‘What in heaven’s name has happened to you, child?’

  Virginia accepted Mrs Hill’s hanky without answering the question.

  ‘That man you were talking to—’

  ‘You’ll need to moisten it a bit first. Here, let me do it. What man?’

  ‘The man with the tricycle. The knife-grinder …’

  Mrs Hill spat into the handkerchief and began polishing Virginia’s chin and lips.

  ‘Ira Rosenthal? What’s he got to do with the price of eggs?’

  The handkerchief was black with blood, but Mrs Hill spat on it again, and began working round Virginia’s nostrils. ‘You remember Mr Rosenthal, don’t you?’ she went on. ‘He was interned on the Isle of Man a year or so back, on account of his being a German – do you really not remember? They let him out again a few months later.’ She stopped to inspect the hanky, in search of a clean patch. ‘Anyway. Poor old Mr Rosenthal is neither here nor there. What I would very much like to know—’

  But Virginia broke away and began her stumbling run towards the lane. Something hideous began pushing up through her insides – a noise of some kind, an obscenity, a primeval wail – which frightened her, and she pressed it down again as hard as she could. She tried crying instead, but that was no good, and her sobs emerged dry and inauthentic. The pounding of her head started to keep time with the pounding of her feet – and what with that and the exaggerated rasping of her own breath, she couldn’t hear a thing outside herself. Mrs Hill’s indignation blew away, unheeded, like a feather on the wind.

  Virginia didn’t know what she wanted, other than to go home. Or perhaps it was just that everything she wanted was a paradox. She wanted Jozef to tell her the whole truth, and she wanted him to say everything was fine. That he’d lied, without being a liar; that he was an enemy airman, but not a villain; that he’d emerged from the marsh wearing Clem’s coat, but hadn’t left Clem behind.

  Virginia stopped for breath once, when she was halfway home, turning her face towards the marsh and the strong, wet wind. She didn’t look back, so she didn’t see the black car that stopped when she stopped, and edged forwards into the lane as soon as she began to run again.

  New Year’s Eve, 2015

  SOPHIE LETS HER mother walk all the way round the car and slide back into the passenger seat before emerging from the house. Even then there’s no hysterical rushing into the night; she just stands in the doorway with the grubby hall light behind her and drums her fingers on the cover of the book.

  The Deerings might easily drive off without observing their daughter, but they don’t. It’s the father who spots her as he’s reaching sideways to release the handbrake. Virginia sees the reflection of his eyes in the rear-view mirror and, after a few moments of absolute stillness, the motion of his jaw as he speaks a few cryptic words to his wife.

  Mrs Deering gets out of the car again and returns to the house. She’s as long and lean as a panther, and Virginia retreats towards the stairs, her shoulders rising. She thinks about switching the light off, but it’s too late now, she’ll only draw attention to herself. She wishes she was Silver, sitting by the hall table inside the tidy circle of his own tail, cleaning his paws, watching without being watched.

  Something explosive is bound to happen now. It’s inevitable. There’ll be wails and recriminations; bone-crushing hugs; laughter and tears; declarations of love and remorse. The mother will shake her daughter by the shoulders, like a rag doll, and thank God she’s alive. That’s what it’s like when you find something you feared you’d lost for ever. Virginia has meditated on reunions a lot, in her time, and thinks she’s something of an expert on the subject. She knows the thoughts that have been spinning round Mrs Deering’s head ever since this morning, when she discovered Sophie’s bed empty and the sheets all smooth and cold. She knows the darkness behind those thoughts; the patient horror that promises to be there still, when there are no more thoughts to think.

  ‘So,’ says Mrs Deering, stopping in front of her daughter with her arms calmly folded. They share the same facial structure – the same strong nose and cheekbones – but the ins and outs are more exaggerated in the older woman. Her face is like a totem, chiselled from wood.

  Sophie stares back without a word and hugs the fairy-tale book to her chest, almost her mother’s equal when it comes to self-possession. Her rings catch the tail lights of the car and make her fingers flash like red stars.

  ‘Well,’ Mrs Deering continues. ‘Your father was right. He said we’d find you here.’ She speaks in a husky accent, which clashes with her sangfroid. What is it? Spanish? Something like that. Something full of vigour and heat and flavour. She hoiks the zip of her coat right up to her chin, and when it’s as high as it will go she pulls the fur collar up round her ears, as if to demonstrate how much she objects to this weather – and to being out in it.

  ‘How?’ Sophie wonders. ‘How did he guess?’

  ‘Oh,
by knowing you so much better than I do.’ On the last couple of words something cracks inside Mrs Deering’s voice, and in the same instant she notices Virginia. She’s startled but manages a smile.

  ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so sorry.’ Mrs Deering approaches Virginia with her left hand placed lightly over her heart. ‘I don’t know how to apologise enough for all this; I don’t know where to start.’ She holds her right hand out, for shaking. ‘I’m Adriana. I’m Sophie’s mother.’

  Whatever it was – that tiny, warning crack – has been filled in, sanded and smoothed away. Virginia takes Adriana’s hand and the feel of it makes her think of wood that’s been polished till it shines like silk. After all, she reassures herself, things could be worse: wood is not a bad substance; not entirely without warmth or give. She’d rather Sophie’s mother was made of wood than – say – stone or metal. She stares at the woman’s hand and realises she’s letting her thoughts spiral, when she ought to be saying something. She runs her dry tongue around her lips, but the fact is, she’s forgotten how to make conversation.

  ‘Has Sophie been with you all day?’

  Virginia stiffens, still feeling for the woman’s tone. Is this a straight question or an accusation? The car engine cuts out and the ensuing silence is as heavy as guilt. Blue police lights start spinning through her mind and she imagines New Year’s Eve in a cell, with a polystyrene cup of tea and no view of the marsh.

  ‘I kept telling her to contact you,’ she insists. It’s true, up to a point. ‘I couldn’t get hold of anyone myself; my phone isn’t working.’

  Mrs Deering encloses Virginia’s featherweight hand in both her own. ‘Bless you,’ she whispers. What with all that padded goose-down and fur edging, it’s warm inside her hands. Virginia allows herself to rest a moment in the simple pleasure of it, before her conscience gets the better of her and she pulls away.

  ‘Why would you want to do that?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Bless me.’

  Adriana beams with compassion – the type of compassion that people reserve for querulous babies and crazy old ladies. Virginia could say almost anything (for much of the day I’ve imagined myself capable of sinking your daughter in the marsh) and Mrs Deering’s expression would stay much the same. It might go a bit glassy, but it would survive.

  ‘Bless you for letting Sophie shelter in your home, on such a day. Just to think …’ A shudder runs the length of Adriana’s body, and her glance flickers to the open doorway behind Virginia. ‘I don’t know what possessed her. She didn’t even take a proper coat.’

  ‘Dad?’ Sophie is moving off into the darkness, step by careful step. The driver’s door is hanging open and Mr Deering is no longer inside the car. It’s a while before Virginia spots him, standing by the harbour wall with his back to the house, and even then she’s not entirely sure. She can make out the very vaguest shape of a man, but if she didn’t know the landscape so well she could believe it was a boulder or a stumpy tree or a fluctuation of the light.

  Adriana sighs. ‘I honestly don’t know how to begin thanking you, Miss … Mrs …?’

  Perhaps civility is not Mr Deering’s thing; perhaps he thinks it’s a feminine virtue. His wife is certainly good at it, though Virginia rather wishes she’d stop now. She foresees flowers arriving in a few days’ time: a seasonal poinsettia, perhaps, or some blood-red amaryllis, with a little card purporting to be ‘from Sophie’. She pictures the delivery man walking round the house, knocking and peering through windows. He’ll have to leave it on the doorstep, eventually, where the wind will pick it to bits.

  ‘I’m worried you’ll catch cold, standing about in this weather,’ Adriana persists. She doesn’t seem remotely worried by Virginia’s reluctance to speak – thank goodness.

  Sophie stops a few feet away from her father, as if she’s afraid to go any closer. Virginia’s eyes follow, adjusting slowly to the dark. Now she can see that Mr Deering’s head is bowed, and that he’s leaning on the wall with both hands, as if he’s trying to topple the entire age-old structure.

  ‘He’s not throwing up?’ Adriana mutters, under her breath. ‘Oh, please God. Whenever I so much as put the heating on in that car …’

  Mr Deering’s shoulders are, in fact, heaving, but not because he’s being sick. When Adriana realises he’s weeping she says, ‘Oh,’ and turns away. She taps out a quick rhythm on the ground with the toe of her boot, and frowns.

  ‘Dad?’ Sophie’s plea is tentative. ‘Daddy?’

  He doesn’t respond, but then he probably hasn’t heard, because the wind snatches the words straight from her mouth and carries them off in the opposite direction. Sophie closes on him slowly, step by tiny step, holding out her hand as if he’s a dog with an uncertain temper. She’s left her denim jacket in the kitchen and her white shirt flutters, wraithlike, in the wind.

  When she touches him, his arms seem to melt so that he can’t lean on them any more. It’s not just his arms either, its his neck and legs and spine. He’s losing his solidity – dwindling to an invisible core – and the only thing that’s holding him together is Sophie herself. The wind rattles the upstairs windows, like a ghost dragging a chain, and whatever they say to one another – if they say anything at all – is lost in the din. Sophie wraps her father in her arms, and he wraps her in his, and the darkness seems to tumble round them like water.

  ‘Sophie is very close to her father,’ says Adriana, apologetically.

  I was very close to mine. Virginia tries to utter it aloud, conversationally, but her voice gurgles round her throat and comes out as a cough.

  ‘He’s good at this whole parenting thing,’ Adriana goes on. She probably thinks she’s talking to herself by now. ‘A bit bossy at times, but good. I mean, the two of them argue – God, do they argue – but in the end …’

  Her voice peters out and the two women stand in silence, united by their own private defeats. They watch from the doorstep as Sophie and her father hold tight to one another, and sway from side to side in desperate exhaustion.

  Virginia would know him anywhere. Adriana tells her his name is Phil, or Fred, or something like that, but as he approaches the house all she can think is Max. He must be a good ten years older than his grandfather was in 1941, and he’s almost completely bald, but there’s hair on his face, and it’s been carefully trimmed to form two broad stripes – one across his upper lip, the other down his chin. He’s the same height and build as Max, with the same pale hands, and the same glint of a signet ring on his little finger. Virginia tightens her grip on the walking stick and plunges her right hand deep in her dressing-gown pocket, in case he offers to shake it. (He doesn’t.)

  They nod at one another watchfully. ‘Virginia Wrathmell,’ he states, and she feels wrong-footed by the baldness of his tone. What does he mean? Is he asking her if that’s her name? Or telling her he already knows?

  Even his swollen eyelids remind her of Max, and the evening after Juliet was killed when he drank himself stupid on Clem’s whisky. This Mr Deering has had a bad day too, and it shows. He’s transparent in a way his wife could never be: to look at him, you’d think Sophie had been gone a week, or a month. His eyes and nose are red. His shirt is patched with sweat, and the buttons aren’t done up correctly. Even the sculpted beard, when you study it more closely, risks losing itself in a rash of black stubble.

  ‘I knew your grandfather,’ says Virginia carefully. ‘And your father.’

  When Mr Deering licks his lips you can tell, by the tacky sound, that his mouth is dry.

  ‘Yes,’ he replies. ‘Yes. I know.’

  The silence swells with unspoken – unspeakable – knowledge. Virginia ponders the darkness beyond the wall and shivers.

  ‘Well,’ she concludes. ‘I’m glad you found your daughter safe and well.’ They’re only words; they fill a gap. As to whether she really means them, she can worry about that later.

  ‘Thank you.’ Mr Deering holds Virginia’s gaze a moment or two longer than bef
ore and nods once.

  Virginia remembers the denim jacket and goes back indoors to fetch it. Mr Deering keeps jangling his keys and saying, ‘Well …’ as if he’s keen to get going, so she doesn’t feel obliged to invite them inside. Adriana looks like she could do with a drop of whisky, and it might not do him any harm either – but best not. The kitchen is well and truly closed for business now. All the mugs and glasses are clean and neat, and so they shall stay until Joe wraps them up in newspaper and takes them down to the charity shop.

  Virginia unhooks the blue jacket from the back of the chair and brushes it down, as if it’s had time to gather dust. Sophie has followed her into the kitchen, and she takes it from Virginia’s hands with a smile before shrugging it on over her arms. That done, there’s nothing to keep her, but she lingers for a minute over Silver, crouching down to rub his chin every which way, and making little sing-song farewells.

  ‘I’m sorry you never got to show me your walk,’ Sophie says, glancing up at Virginia. Silver is on his back now with his eyes half closed – shameless creature – while she strokes his downy stomach. ‘Maybe I could come back and see you at February half term? Would that be all right? We could do it properly then, in the daylight, and you could tell me more about Lorna.’

  Virginia makes a mumbling sound, which may or may not imply assent.

  ‘Look after that book,’ she says, to change the subject. She likes the careful way Sophie holds the volume, as if she’s frightened of dropping it.

  ‘Oh, I absolutely will. And I won’t forget what you told me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘About my great-grandfather being a bit … you know … control-freaky.’

  Virginia smiles slightly at the choice of words, which prompts Sophie to hug her. Sophie probably flings her arms round everyone she meets – people have a tendency to do that these days – so it’s silly to be moved by the gesture. Virginia returns the embrace robotically, as if she’s not quite sure how to go about it. The child feels so fine and delicate – so crushable – inside the circle of her arms that even she, Old Brittle-Bones, is afraid of squeezing too hard. She’s reminded of the curlew’s skull as it sat on the palm of her hand last night, quivering in the air, as light as an empty eggshell.