‘I’m not hungry,’ he says. ‘I don’t want lunch.’
‘Okay, stay here, then,’ I tell him. ‘Come when you’re ready. I’ll save some pasta for you – you can have it whenever you want.’
Joseph rewards me with a radiant smile. ‘Thanks, Mum! You’re sick!’ This is another word he has picked up at Saviour. He assures me that it means cool and generally brilliant.
I head back to the house, having said nothing to the Welsh boy’s mother about keeping an eye on my son. I know I don’t need to. The Swallowfield security detail is meticulous. Bethan made it sound too good to be true when I came for the sales tour, but it turns out she was spot on: discreet but ever-present was what she told me and it’s quite true. I haven’t noticed security staff patrolling the grounds – haven’t felt overlooked or spied on at all – but when I left my car window open by mistake, a friendly man in a Swallowfield-crested tunic-top knocked on my door to advise me of my lapse, and when I dropped my phone’s case while out for a two-hour walk around the estate that took in Reach Lagoon, Swallows Lake and The Pinnacle, another smiling man in an identical tunic returned it to The Boundary within half an hour of my return.
I love it here. I love everything about it, but especially the benefits I didn’t know that I or my family would get when I signed on the dotted line. I knew Swallowfield was beautiful, special, peaceful, but I didn’t anticipate the effect it would have on my mental and physical health, or Stuart’s, or Joseph’s. A mere four days here have extracted the grey-yellow pallor of the city from our skin, the etiolated aspect we didn’t know was there until we saw how different we looked after a couple of days breathing in the pure air at Swallowfield. I am not imagining this; Stuart was the one who first remarked on it, and he’s right: our skin looks buffed here, rosy pink, properly oxygenated. Our eyes have more shine to them. We are bundles of energy who take far longer to get tired than we did in Cambridge, and when we eventually do it’s because we’ve swum for an hour and a half in the heated outdoor pool and then walked a full circuit of the wild-flower meadow, not simply because we’ve had to wait twenty minutes in the queue at Tesco on Hills Road and then kick through too many Domino’s Pizza boxes on our way back home.
We sleep better here, thanks to the darkness and the silence. The swollen patches beneath my eyes have subsided – this after no cream my Cambridge doctor had me try did any good at all. The same doctor told me I must take at least six months off work and suggested I see a cognitive behavioural therapist. Before we moved into The Boundary, I hadn’t been into the office at all for more than a month; I couldn’t imagine ever being able to drag myself in there again. Now I am thinking that on 9 January 2013, Joseph’s first day back at school, I will be able to report for duty bright and early and tell everyone that I’m fine now, thanks: the trauma is over.
Mr Fahrenheit can try to wind me up by playing choral music if he wants to, but I shall outwit him. I’ve already told Stuart: we’re going to get the attic properly insulated and swap our bedroom with his study. Mr Fahrenheit will have no way of knowing we’ve done this; he’ll never know that there’s no longer anyone sleeping in the room on the other side of the wall from his bedroom, and he’ll waste hours of his time fiddling with the volume, turning boys’ voices up and down in the night whenever Stuart’s not there and he thinks he can get away with it. Meanwhile, I will be in the attic, fast asleep, wearing the best earplugs money can buy.
I could and should have thought of this in October or November, but I was in no fit state to save myself then. Swallowfield has saved me, as I knew it would. It’s strange. All the things that were out of control and threatening in Cambridge seem manageable from this safe distance. I am ready to throw away the drugs I stole from Mr Fahrenheit’s house; I’ve decided that I will leave the house late one night, while Stuart and Joseph are asleep, and scatter the tiny clumps of cannabis over Topping Lake as if they are the ashes of someone I loved who died. If I’m between my house and the lake, I’m fairly sure no security guard will spot me, as long as I take no more than a few seconds. I don’t think it will contravene the estate’s no-litter rule; the drugs look like tiny clippings from some kind of tree in any case, so it’s all natural and organic; it isn’t as if I’m planning to dump a truck load of empty Coke cans. I don’t know much about horticulture, but I think it’s unlikely that an enormous marijuana plant will start to grow outside my house as a result.
It’s strange to think that I brought the drugs to Swallowfield thinking I might need them. Luckily, the security guys don’t have sniffer dogs, but still, it was a crazy risk to take – one I only took because the woman I used to be, the Louise Beeston who packed to come here, was well on her way to crazy and heading for a life as a drug addict.
I realise now that, though I never admitted it to myself, that was my back-up plan all along, from the moment I stole the little plastic bag with its illegal contents from Mr Fahrenheit’s house: if I couldn’t make his noise stop, I could numb myself with drugs instead, so that I didn’t care any more – just as soon as I learned how to do that thing with the burned bottle and the silver foil. I might have ended up needing to ask Mr Fahrenheit for lessons.
The memory of my desperation unnerves me as I walk past the entrance to Starling Copse on my way to Topping Lake. I could so easily have failed to save myself. Thank God I didn’t; thank God I paid no attention to Pat Jervis, or Stuart, or Alexis Grant. Alexis took great exception when I told her about our plans to buy a second home, as I’d known she would. She winced and said, ‘You don’t seriously want to be going endlessly back and forth to the Culver Valley, do you? Why not save yourself the hassle and the money and move to a village outside Cambridge instead? You’d have the best of both worlds, like we do in Orwell.’
I smiled and said something non-committal. If she asked me now, I would have an answer for her: I needed, and need, more than the highlights of two worlds squeezed into one. I need two separate worlds: two physically distinct places. I have to know that my Swallowfield life still exists and is waiting to welcome and shelter me whenever I need it to. If you only have one world, one life, then however brilliant it is most of the time, you have nowhere to run when you need to escape from it for a while.
It still shocks me how quickly Swallowfield rescued my sanity. Four days here was all I needed to get me back on track – four days with the guarantee of many more to come – and I am happy again, able to put things in perspective. I know that term time will be hard, with Joseph away at Saviour, but I will simply think about us all being here together during the holidays and I’ll be able to get through the weeks of school. And if Stuart can arrange it so that he can work from home more – and he seems fairly confident that he can – that will be even better. In Cambridge, I thought I might prefer it to be just me and Joseph at Swallowfield. The pressure of the city was slowly killing my bond with my husband; here, I have rediscovered it. When we first unlocked The Boundary’s front door and walked in, Stuart beamed at me and said, ‘Fuck, this is amazing, Lou! You were so right about this place. And this house. Look at that view.’ That was when I knew we would be okay, that it was safe for me to love him again.
He’s on the terrace behind the house when I get back, kneeling beside the new bike we bought for Joseph yesterday, trying to pump up its wheels. ‘This pump’s knackered,’ he says. ‘I’m going to have to drive into Spilling and get a new one. Have I got time before lunch?’
‘Easily,’ I say. It is already what I would normally call lunchtime, but it will take me at least an hour to prepare the food and I don’t intend to rush. As Stuart hauls himself to his feet and starts to mutter about finding his wallet and ‘bloody bike shop – sold me a dud’, I stare at the ripples on the surface of Topping Lake, at the thirty-odd houses that surround it. Winter sun glints off their roofs, lights up the facades of the glass-fronted ones. Each house is unique and yet they look like a coherent collection. Swallowfield has won several prestigious awards, Bethan told me
as we took the sales tour – prizes for aesthetics, for ecological soundness, for just about every aspect of its conception and design.
I can see why people would be queuing up to bestow honours. At night all the Topping houses, lit up from the inside, duplicate themselves on the shimmering surface of the lake and it’s like looking at a mixed media work of art: light, water, stunning architecture. No wonder most of the houses here don’t bother with curtains or blinds apart from in the bedrooms and bathrooms; the estate has been laid out carefully so that no house is intrusively near to any other, and who would want to deprive themselves of such amazing views?
‘Right, I’m off,’ says Stuart, leaning out of the French doors. I didn’t notice him go inside. He’s holding his wallet in his hand. ‘Oh, before I forget – Dr Freeman rang.’
A stone lands in my heart. A stone thrown from a very long way away. Far enough to be out of reach, I thought. Apparently not.
‘Don’t panic.’ Stuart smiles at the expression on my face. ‘What, you think I’m going to say Joseph’s Christmas holidays have been cancelled and he has to go straight back to school?’
You’ve just said it. Why say it if it’s not true?
The stone is growing. Hardening.
‘Tell me,’ I say.
‘It was just a reminder about Friday. I must admit, I’d forgotten, but I’m sure you hadn’t.’
‘Friday? What’s happening on Friday?’
‘Oh. Well, it’s lucky Dr Freeman rang, isn’t it? Since we’d both forgotten.’ Stuart is trying to make light of it. I am a lead weight. Waiting. ‘There’s an extra Choral Evensong – last one of the year.’
‘On the twenty-first of December?’
That will mean taking Joseph back to Cambridge twice during the hoildays. No. No. I’m not doing it.
‘It’s because the chaplain’s retiring. It’s kind of like a leaving thing for him. Anyway – in view of the Christmas Eve rehearsal and Christmas Day service, I don’t think there’s much point in our coming back here in between, is there?’
‘Yes, there is,’ I say quietly. I want to be emphatic but I can’t get my voice to carry. ‘I’m not going back to Cambridge twice. Neither is Joseph.’
‘Don’t be silly, Lou. All right, if you want to come back in between, we can. I suppose it’s only an hour and a quarter’s drive, isn’t it? Some people do that twice a day to get to work and back. We can drive back here on the evening of the twenty-first, then back to Cambridge again on Christmas Eve morning. Okay?’
I nod and say nothing, keen for Stuart to leave so that I can allow myself to cry. I’d have liked to stand firm and say no to this extra Choral Evensong – that I’m sure we have never been told about before, that I suspect Dr Freeman of hastily scheduling with the sole aim of destroying my composure and my plans – but I don’t want to be unreasonable. Stuart backed down from his initial suggestion that we stay in Cambridge from 21 December until Christmas Day; as soon as he saw how much I hated the idea, he withdrew his proposal. I need to prove that I’m willing to compromise too.
When he finally gets into the car and drives away, I say to myself, ‘Right, it’s safe to cry now,’ and find that I’m unable to. I go inside, close and lock the glass doors and sit down on the sofa. I will remain calm, I promise myself, and deal with this sudden feeling of doom in a rational way. I am not Louise Beeston of 17 Weldon Road any more; I am Louise Beeston of The Boundary, Topping Lake, Swallowfield Estate. I must act and think differently, just as I have furnished my home here differently.
I look around me at the brand new chairs and sofas: all contemporary, bright colours, all bought in one go from Heal’s in London and delivered last Friday. No one who saw this room and my lounge in Cambridge would believe that the two might belong to the same family. The furniture in our Weldon Road house is old and shabby, some of it antique, much of it fairly battered from having been dragged by me and Stuart from house to house over the years.
But I’m at Swallowfield now, I remind myself, which means I must be capable of thinking brand new thoughts. I have been up until this point, and I must force myself to continue, since I was doing so well. I have all the natural light I need, fresh air instead of builders’ dust, peace and quiet …
Telling myself all this makes me feel a little calmer.
Nothing has really changed. It’s only one extra trip to Cambridge, and won’t even involve an overnight stay. It won’t make any difference. It’s the idea of Dr Freeman being able to reach into our Swallowfield life and pluck us out of it at will that has disturbed me, and I’ve already thought of a solution to that: I will have a word with him at the beginning of next term and tell him that he’s not to contact us when we’re at Swallowfield – ever. This is our retreat; he must learn to respect that.
I stand, take a deep breath and make my way across The Boundary’s huge open-plan living space towards the kitchen. I am starting to feel hungry, which means that Joseph is bound to be. He could be back any second, demanding the lunch he was so dismissive about half an hour ago.
The kitchen component of our living area is relatively small, but it doesn’t matter because the room itself is so vast. I can watch the action on the lake as I prepare food, and there is always some action to watch, whether it’s birds hovering, swans gliding, or simply patterns made by light on the gunmetal-grey skin of the water. I can hardly take my eyes off it for long enough to chop a vegetable.
I open the cutlery drawer to pull out my favourite knife. That’s when I hear it.
Boys.
Singing.
O come, O come, Emmanuel,
And ransom captive Israel,
That mourns in lonely exile here
Until the Son of God appear.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.
O come, thou Wisdom from on high,
Who orderest all things mightily;
To us the path of knowledge show,
And teach us in her ways to go.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel …
No boys in sight. These are the same voices I heard in Cambridge. This is the same choir. I don’t know how I know this, but I do.
O come, thou Rod of Jesse, free
Thine own from Satan’s tyranny;
From depths of hell thy people save,
And give them victory over the grave.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel …
I shut my eyes. No point looking out of any window for what I know I won’t see.
O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice!
Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel …
I put the knife back in the drawer and close it. Go back to the sofa. Sit very still, waiting for Stuart to come home.
Stuart closes the lounge door behind him. Leans against it. ‘Right,’ he says. ‘I took him up a sandwich and a drink, and I’ve started him on FIFA on the Xbox. We should be safe for a while.’
What he means is that Joseph will be safer in a part of the house that doesn’t contain his crazy mother. He’s right. I don’t remember Stuart making a sandwich, and yet I must have been here when he did it. I can see the bread, butter and cheese still out on the countertop, the smeared knife. I haven’t moved since Stuart got home.
I don’t feel safe. I did until recently – here; only here at Swallowfield, not in Cambridge – but I can’t remember the feeling. And so, although I have an idea about what I need to do in order to recreate it, I don’t believe it will work. It is hard to imagine myself being able to tap into any kind of calm, ever again.
‘Lou—’
‘Before you start on me … I know it wasn’t real.’
Stuart’s eyes dart from left to right. Is he lo
oking for clues? A prompt? He wasn’t expecting me to say that. He thought he would have to convince me. Now he sees that he doesn’t, he has no idea what to say next.
I tell him what he was about to tell me, because I want it to be out there, explicit: the only possible truth. ‘Justin Clay’s miles away, in Cambridge. Even assuming he could get past the security and break into Swallowfield, there’s no way he’d go to all that effort. He might hate me, but not that much.’
‘I doubt he does.’ Stuart moves away from the door, perches on the edge of the sofa. ‘Hate’s too strong a word. Minor irritation’s probably more like it, assuming you feature in his thoughts at all. It’s over from his point of view. He’ll have turned his attention back to making money and getting pissed and stoned. You blasted him with loud music, showed him you were his equal, and he caved. What did he say? “Point taken”?’
‘“Point made and taken.”’
‘There you go, then.’
I nod. ‘Pat Jervis was right. Apart from the “Best of the Classics” CD that one time, he’s only ever played pop music. In his basement. Never played choral music, never anything through the bedroom wall. He doesn’t have any CDs of boys’ choirs singing. That was all …’ I break off. ‘It felt real, so real, but … it can’t have been. I see that it wasn’t, now. It was all in my head.’
Stuart looks uncomfortable. He’s probably wondering whether and when to agree; not too readily, given that he claimed to be able to hear the boys’ voices too. He always made sure to say that it was barely audible, he could only just hear it. I understand why. It was his idea of a compromise: supporting me a little bit, while at the same time being fair to Mr Fahrenheit by insisting that the non-existent choral music couldn’t be said to constitute a noise nuisance.
It was the opposite of what I needed. He should have given me a shake and said, ‘Louise, there is no music playing. None. You’re imagining it.’ If he’d done that, I might have pulled myself together sooner.
‘You never heard it, did you? The choral music.’
The Orphan Choir Page 13