Weathering

by Lucy Wood

  ‘Why are we going?’ Pepper asked. ‘Are you going to drink whisky and fall asleep?’

  Once. That had happened once. ‘Are you going to drink something fizzy and run around the room?’ Ada said.

  Pepper scowled. ‘I don’t do that any more.’

  Ada squinted against headlights. ‘I’m just covering someone’s shift,’ she said.

  ‘But I fought you said we weren’t living here,’ Pepper said.

  ‘Thought,’ Ada told her. ‘I thought you said we weren’t living here.’ Where was the pub anyway? Usually you could hear music blaring and engines revving in the car park by now. A teeming, sweaty bar, raucous laughter, more often than not someone outside pissing against a wall.

  The road narrowed and the hedge scraped against the windows. There was the pub up ahead, low and whitewashed. No sign or name. And hardly any cars. A statue of an angel looking down at a bilgy pond.

  ‘Stay close to me in there,’ Ada told Pepper. She pushed the door open. A blast of hot air hit her face. A radio bawling old jazz. The room was almost empty; just a man in a checked shirt and cap standing at the bar. Guns, antlers and copper pans hanging on the wall. A plastic holly wreath with faded berries.

  ‘Ada.’ Val came out from the kitchen, both hands stretched out as if she were about to embrace her. But she dropped her arms as soon as she got close. She was doused in perfume, and her pale hair was held back by a pink fabric rose. She was wearing a sweatshirt and jogging trousers. ‘Look at you,’ she said.

  She stared at Ada’s face until Ada put her hand up to her cheek. ‘What?’ she said. ‘What is it?’

  But Val was already looking down at Pepper. ‘You look a lot like your grandmother,’ Val said.

  ‘We put her in the river,’ Pepper told her.

  Ada settled Pepper at a table in the corner. ‘Stay here,’ she said. She laid out paper and a pencil and straightened Pepper’s jumper. Then followed Val into the kitchen, which was small and smoky and stank of oil. There were dirty pans stacked in teetering piles next to the sink, a man in a stained apron hunched over them, cleaning out a bowl like he was beating eggs.

  ‘Howard. This is Ada. I told you about her. She’s working tonight. Howard.’

  The man beat the pan a few more times before he turned round. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Could you pass that scourer?’ He looked about fifty, with threadbare hair and deep rings slung like hammocks under his eyes. He was wearing yellow trainers and a necklace of wooden beads. There were purple scars and burns on his hands and wrists.

  Ada passed him the scourer, which had crumbs and milk skin stuck in it.

  ‘I saw your brother yesterday,’ Howard said to Val. ‘He was asking about you.’

  ‘Don’t talk about that crook to me,’ Val said. She picked up a handful of potato skins and threw them at the bin. Most of them went on the floor. ‘Right.’ She clapped her hands together. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ And she went out of the kitchen.

  The radio buzzed out static. Ada turned the dial to clear it.

  ‘Don’t touch that,’ Howard said. ‘It’s the best you can get in here.’ He swiped a cloth over one of the pans.

  After a while, Ada cleared her throat and asked if there was anything she could do. Howard gestured towards a pot of something that was bubbling too fast and a chopping board with garlic heaped on it. The knife was blunt and Ada hacked at the ends of the cloves, then peeled them. There wasn’t a garlic press anywhere so she started cutting them up into the smallest bits that she could.

  ‘Wait.’ Howard rushed over and shielded the chopping board with his body. ‘These are going in whole. I don’t want bits all mixed up in there.’

  Ada’s face felt hot. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said. But who wanted a whole boiled clove in amongst a thin stew? Probably tried it herself at one time or another – she’d started cooking whenever her mother forgot, or when she couldn’t stand the thought of more instant rice. She’d used whatever was lying around, learning what would taste good and what wouldn’t. Not pasta cooked with vinegar – one of her earliest disasters.

  Howard tsked and ripped up tough spinach leaves, which creaked in his hands. ‘How many tables have we got?’ he said.

  There were four people at a table by the door. No one else for food, except for Pepper in the corner. Ada felt a small shock – the last time she’d stepped out of the pub kitchen she’d been twenty-one, serving a rowdy table. Now there was her daughter, swinging her legs. She had a glass of orange juice in front of her and a newspaper, which she was ripping a hole out of with her teeth.

  ‘More than usual,’ Howard grunted when Ada told him.

  She found a notebook and pen and went over to the table to take the group’s orders. ‘My grandad said the whole valley was cut off for two weeks in January,’ one of them was saying. When he paused, Ada said: ‘Can I get you anything? To eat?’ She realised they didn’t have menus and she went to look for them by the till, where they used to be. The man standing at the bar leered at her. He looked familiar, maybe someone she’d been to school with.

  ‘We don’t have menus any more,’ Val said. ‘It’s just the usual stuff with chips. Some kind of special that Howard puts on. Maybe a couple of lasagnes in the freezer.’

  Ada recited the list to the group. ‘And the special’s a garlic and spinach stew. You can have that with rice.’ She took their orders back to Howard.

  ‘We don’t have any fish,’ he said. ‘You’ll have to go back and tell them. No fish.’

  ‘You said anything with chips,’ the man at the table said. ‘You hear chips, you say fish.’ He looked around at his group and they all nodded agreement.

  ‘I know,’ Ada told him. ‘But maybe you hear chicken too. Is chicken OK?’

  When Howard was sorting out their orders, Ada took a bowl of stew over to Pepper.

  ‘What is it?’ Pepper asked. She poked around with her fork, then ate some. The fork clattered back down. ‘It’s horrible,’ she said, pushing the bowl away.

  Ada hushed her and took a forkful herself. The overall flavour was sulphur and scorching. ‘It’s nice,’ she said. She worked something gristly around in her mouth.

  ‘You eat it,’ Pepper said. ‘I will be fine.’ It was her old trick, to sit looking sorrowful and resigned when something hadn’t turned out as she wanted it to. A long-suffering expression on her face.

  ‘I’ll get you something else,’ Ada said. Back in the kitchen there was smoke and cursing. She took out heaped plates to the group. Didn’t hang around to ask if it was OK.

  Again, she saw the man at the bar looking at her. Jake, that was his name. At eleven, she had planned their whole future together. Something about his long eyelashes, or the marble collection he had. There was no way of avoiding him, so she went up and asked how he was.

  ‘Can’t complain,’ he said. His front tooth was broken. ‘How about yourself?’

  ‘Just trying to sell the house at the moment,’ she said.

  Jake flexed his hands against his high stomach. ‘I’ve got a new truck, out there,’ he said. He inclined his head at the door, swayed slightly.

  ‘Good,’ Ada said. ‘It’s good to have a truck.’ She nodded for a long time.

  Jake stared with red-rimmed eyes. ‘You’re a beaut, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘Why don’t we go out there? You can see it if you want.’

  ‘God no,’ Ada said. She took a step back. ‘I mean, I think I saw it already. The new truck in the car park, right?’ She examined an empty pint glass like a detective searching for prints. Halfway back to the kitchen she heard him ask Val who she was.

  Howard was leaning against the worktop, massaging his heart. ‘It’s not good for me,’ he said. He gestured around him. ‘A stressful environment.’

  In Greenland they would bury seabirds and dig them up when putrefied. A way of preserving food for winter. Travellers had written about trying to eat it and Ada imagined them looking exactly as Howard did now: harrowed. When he wasn’t looking,
she reached over and turned down the roaring burner on the stew.

  ‘It’s all these customers,’ Howard went on. He opened a packet of crisps and slipped two into his mouth. ‘They’re not from round here generally. You get a lot of people buying up houses, staying a couple of weeks every year. They expect certain things.’ He breathed noisily. ‘I heard you were going to sell your place. I know someone who’s interested. Yeah. Likes the look of the place. By the water. Reckon he’d take it off your hands quickly enough. I’ll put him in touch with you if you want.’

  ‘Have my phone number,’ Ada said, writing it down quickly. The estate agent had reported no interest whatsoever.

  Pepper came into the kitchen, scuffing the floor. ‘Who likes the look of what?’ She peered into the chest freezer.

  ‘The house,’ Howard told her.

  Pepper jabbed at feathery ice. ‘Those people want you to go out there,’ she said. ‘They’re not very happy.’

  When Ada went out to the bar, the group were stern. No, they didn’t want anything else. No, they just wanted the bill.

  ‘All OK?’ Howard asked. He rubbed his heart.

  ‘All fine,’ Ada said. ‘They just wanted to pay.’ Shook her head at Pepper, who went back to picking at the ice.

  No one else came in for the rest of the evening. Ada washed the dishes and swept onion skin off the floor. Rearranged the fridge so there wasn’t raw meat next to cheese. Howard was at the bar drinking. Val barking advice on everything from his health to his haircut.

  Ada fixed herself and Pepper a plate of sandwiches and they both pulled the crusts off and left them at the side. A clock chimed the half-hour, then the hour. Wind rattled the windows. Uncanny how quiet the pub was – like an abandoned fairground – whorled stains on the floor, broken chairs. Ada touched one of the old guns on the wall, thought of all the times it must have been pulled off and aimed with beery intent.

  ‘When did it get like this?’ she asked Val. ‘So quiet?’

  ‘Quiet?’ Val said. ‘It’s no different than it always was.’ As if the change had been so incremental she’d hardly even noticed. She sipped a cup of tea. ‘Pearl came in,’ she said. ‘About a year ago. I gave her a drink and dropped her back in the car. Walked all the way up here. I think she wanted some company.’

  ‘Company?’ Ada said. Her mother had never wanted company in her life.

  Val shrugged and opened the till. ‘Here’s your money sweetie. I’ll give you a bell whenever we need you again, OK?’

  Ada was so relieved to be going she found herself nodding. It was only when she was back in the car that she realised what she’d agreed to. The heavy feeling of getting embroiled.

  Chapter 11

  The diagrams were like mazes. Pepper knelt on the floor in the study and squinted down at them. At first they’d made no sense, but slowly she was working things out. How to fit on a bigger lens. Which lever to move round after she took each picture. How to adjust what Luke had called the focus. Everything fitted together and then the satisfying click when she pressed the button.

  It had been raining forever. Sallow days, like something woollen left on the line too long, its colours rinsed out. The trees smeared into wet air. There was no going out but the woods and river looked different every day and she kept watching them from the window, not wanting to miss anything.

  She turned the page. It was late afternoon: just on the cusp between light and dark. What her mother called dimpsy even though Pepper had never heard anyone else call it that. It was hard to see the next picture and when she looked up it had suddenly gone very dark, the sky turning the same green as boggy water. The wind knocked against the house. Lightning lit the sky like an X-ray, showing the pale bones of the trees. Pepper stood in the window and watched, remembering her own bones showing up on a screen when she’d swallowed that bit of metal which was stuck in her chest.

  There was a low rumble of thunder. ‘Come up here and watch,’ her mother called down.

  The house stank of wet paint and Pepper could taste it in the back of her throat. She went upstairs and into the room her mother was sleeping in. The wind shook the window. ‘I got born in a storm,’ she said.

  ‘Just after,’ her mother said. She was holding a paintbrush with cream paint on it, the same boring colour the walls were anyway.

  ‘And the nurse said I cried louder than all the thunder.’

  Her mother picked out bits of brush that had stuck to the wet paint on the wall. ‘I don’t think she did. All that woman talked about was her apple tree; how she had crates of apples all over her house that were rotting.’

  ‘Louder than all the thunder,’ Pepper said. It was better to be born in a storm than just after one.

  They leaned against the window and watched. Huge thundery booms and gusts of wind. White sheets of lightning. The reflection of the rain rippled over their skin. The thunder was right above their heads – it sounded like the sky was cracking. More lightning, then more, and Pepper didn’t want it to stop, crack after crack of thunder. But there were longer gaps in between now, and the thunder was quieter, the lightning flashed less bright. She willed the storm to come back but the clouds moved apart, the sky turned grey again and the quiet was almost too much to bear.

  ‘You can do some painting if you want,’ her mother said. She turned away from the window and went back over to the wall.

  Pepper pressed her forehead against the cold glass. The paint was sour in her throat, the horrible rasping of the brush against plaster, just so that man could come and see if he wanted to buy the house.

  ‘It’s not going to be for much longer,’ her mother said. ‘OK?’

  A shivery feeling rushed over Pepper. She covered her ears, la la la. If only the storm would come back. She closed her eyes and then opened them again. The sky was the same old grey and the wind had calmed right down. She went over to the wall and stood in front of the bit her mother was painting.

  ‘I’ve got to get this done,’ her mother said.

  Pepper stayed where she was and when her mother tried to lift her she made herself as heavy as she could. It was easy: all you had to do was go completely slack and imagine your legs were made of the heaviest metal in the world, whatever that was.

  ‘You’re a bloody lump.’

  ‘You are,’ Pepper said. ‘You are.’

  Her mother tried to move her again. ‘Stop being boring,’ she said. She touched the paintbrush lightly against Pepper’s cheek.

  Pepper clutched at her face. ‘My eye,’ she said. ‘I can’t see anything.’ She staggered around and bumped into the wet wall, then she lay down on the floor and covered her face with her hands.

  Her mother sighed and went over to the window. She tucked her hair behind her ears, tucking and tucking over and over. There was the faintest rumble of thunder in the distance.

  Pepper stayed on the floor and watched her mother from between her fingers. They both knew she was faking it. After a while, Pepper went over and stood next to her. Very close but not touching.

  ‘Maybe we should play the hiding game,’ her mother said.

  ‘We probably should,’ Pepper told her. Already running through her mind where she could hide. She always found the good places. She had hidden in the loft of one house and stayed there all afternoon – her mother hadn’t even known there was a loft. And another time, in another house, she’d balled herself up in a deep drawer with a sieve on her head. Her mother was terrible at hiding. She would stand behind a door that had glass panes in it. Or she would hide in a curtain with her feet sticking out.

  ‘You go and hide,’ her mother said. ‘I’ll count here.’ She covered her eyes and started to count slowly.

  Pepper ran out of the room and stopped, looked left, then right. Panicky laughter bubbling up. The house sprawled in front of her. She looked back at the bedroom then ran, skidding, along the corridor. Went halfway down the stairs then tiptoed back up, hand over her mouth and snuck into the bathroom. Looked around and he
ard her mother saying she was coming. It was too late to find somewhere else so she stood in the bath and pulled the curtain around. Hunched up, her shoulders shaking and her stomach all tight and sloshy.

  Her mother walked past, paused outside the bathroom. ‘Muuhhuuuha ha ha,’ she said in the deep scary voice. ‘I’m going to find you.’

  Pepper stuffed the shower curtain in her mouth but still a squeaky laugh came out. Her mother came into the bathroom and stopped. Then she pretended to give up and leave the room but at the last minute she turned and pounced on Pepper, who shrieked and thrashed around in the curtain, the shower dribbling onto their shoulders.

  ‘Your turn,’ Pepper said. ‘Your turn now.’

  ‘OK,’ her mother said. ‘Are you wearing shoes?’ She checked Pepper’s feet but she was only wearing socks. ‘There’s water and gritty stuff all over the hall.’

  ‘Come on,’ Pepper shouted. ‘Let’s play.’ She stayed in the bath and counted. Maybe peeked a bit. One, two, three, four. Miss a few, one hundred. ‘Ready or not,’ she called out. The first thing she did was whirl right round to check her mother wasn’t hiding behind her. Which had happened once before. Then she ran downstairs and checked the kitchen. Everywhere was quiet. Through the hall and all the downstairs rooms, pouncing on a coat that she thought had moved, pouncing on a curtain. Up the stairs and back into the bathroom, snatching back the shower curtain. Nothing. Under the beds in each bedroom. Down into the kitchen, across into the lounge, the study. ‘I know where you are,’ she called out, but minutes passed, then more minutes. She started upstairs again, looking under beds, flinging open wardrobes, but the house was quiet and she stood at the top of the stairs looking down. ‘I know where you are,’ she said softly, but she stayed hovering at the top of the stairs listening for any . . .

  Chapter 12

  Shuffling, crammed in the cupboard under the stairs between a mop and an ironing board. Ada heard Pepper go past the stairs and down the hall into the kitchen. ‘Got you,’ she said, and made a crashing sound. Ada stifled a giggle. Her palms sweaty and her stomach jittery. Just like when she was a kid hiding from Judy. Pepper went back upstairs and the shower curtain rattled on its plastic rings. ‘I know where you are,’ she called. For a tiny person she made the floorboards creak like trampolines.