by Lucy Wood
And they started to mishear each other a lot. Table slipped to ladle, flour slipped to fire. Pearl went to the doctors and got them to check her ears – skulking in at fifty-seven, worried about going deaf, sitting amongst the other mothers with their soft skin and perfect eardrums. She was given drops to soften any wax. Outside, the ice thickened. She bought a bag of cheap salt for the lane which turned orange and smelled like metal. It didn’t stop the ice. She scooped up a handful and threw it at Ada and Ada shrieked and threw some back. Ada said it looked like someone had peed all over the lane. Pearl said, since when has your pee been orange? Ada said, my pee has never been orange. Pearl said, so why did you say it looked like someone peed all over the lane? Ada said, I said it looks like orangeade all over the lane. Pearl passed a hand over her ear as if she was pushing aside a curtain. She scraped the grit up with a shovel.
For Christmas she bought Ada a yellow mixing bowl. Ada bought her a glass photo frame wrapped in tissue paper.
The next winter it rained. At first it was a relief – every day was mild, grey, wet. The sky looked like wet newspaper, water collected in footprints in the fields. The windows streamed with all the different kinds of rain: sometimes heavy and lashing, sometimes sharp and sideways, sometimes grey mizzle which draped over like a net.
Pearl repaired the porch roof, put tape over the leaking windows, found an old sandbag and put it by the front steps. She tried going out but the rain drummed against her face, soaked the camera, sent the river slopping over the best paths. So she stayed in, listening to Ada pacing around the house, the floorboards creaking as she moved from room to room. Stopping at each window and looking out, fretting that there was nothing to do, she couldn’t get to Judy’s, she couldn’t go up to the shop, her books and shoes were going mouldy because the house was so damp. Which was true. When Pearl took up the mouldy jackdaw and danced with it around the room, Ada did something new: she laughed then tried to hide it, her lips puckering like old fruit, shielding her mouth with her hand.
One particular evening, Pearl was struggling to resize a ring, which was always a pain in the arse, the metal either over- or under-heating. Ada was in the kitchen clattering pots and bowls. Pearl started to cut into the metal. A cupboard slammed. Then another. Pearl got up and stood at the door, listening, tracing her finger over the grain in the wood. No noise from the kitchen. When she went to look, Ada was sitting at the table with an empty bowl next to her.
‘What are you making?’ Pearl said. Hoped it was something with raisins, she couldn’t get enough of them for some reason.
‘There’s no ingredients,’ Ada said.
Pearl looked out at the belting rain. Could hardly see the car through the smeary window. But she knew that the rain was corroding what was already corroded anyway. ‘The brakes are playing up,’ she said.
Ada nodded. ‘The shop’s still open.’
‘The brakes are playing up,’ Pearl said again.
Ada’s fingers tapped against the empty bowl. Chink, chink, chink.
Pearl watched the rain. Her fault, after all, that they lived so bloody far from anywhere. She went and got their coats and started the car. Splashed it through a deep puddle and turned onto the road. The tarmac was slick with rain. The windscreen gushed water. She drove slowly, knew she should have stopped and turned round but she kept going. Ada was sitting very still, holding her breath round every bend. Pearl changed gear, turned a corner and swerved to avoid a deep puddle, felt the brakes slacken and not catch. Slammed them and slammed them again. The hedge reared up, branches tore at the car and they were flung sideways. The engine went quiet, the car tilted into a ditch and both of them sat there, stunned. In the hedge next to them, baffled bluebells that had come up far too early.
For Christmas she bought Ada a set of cake tins and Ada bought her a leather notebook.
The next winter there were starlings, hundreds of them, in the bare trees. Ada started sleeping until midday; she confused litres with pints and grams with ounces; she came downstairs in the night and nibbled at a block of marzipan, leaving behind small teeth marks and fingerprints.
The winter after that, the river froze. Pearl thanked Christ it wasn’t more rain, but after a few weeks, the steely quiet started to get to her. It seemed like, if you rapped on anything, it would ring out like metal. The water pipes froze and they had to buy bottles of water from the shop and Mick, that greedy bastard, put the price up each week. A pipe burst and left a brown stain on the ceiling that looked like someone giving them the finger.
Pearl wanted to show Ada the frozen river. The way it creaked, the bubbles and stones trapped in the ice.
‘It’s too cold out there,’ Ada said. She had started drinking coffee, but only if she heaped in half a pot of sugar and about a pint of milk – wouldn’t listen to Pearl’s advice about the benefits of having it strong and black.
‘It’ll only take a minute,’ Pearl said. She half expected Ada to say no, but Ada put her mug down and got up. Pearl pushed past and strode on ahead, suddenly worried – what if the river didn’t look as good today, or the ice had started to melt?
But the river was still ridged with ice. Clear in some places, opaque in others, like someone had huffed on a mirror. A thread of silvery glints running deep in it, and blue and grey shadows.
Pearl cleared her throat. She wanted to say something about how strange the frozen river made her feel – uneasy but also astonished at the colours the ice could make. ‘Here it is then,’ she said. The cold air made her voice gruff.
‘Yes,’ Ada said. She looked down at the water.
Since when had Ada’s cheekbones jutted out like that? And why had she started plucking her eyebrows so ridiculously thin and arched? Made her look as if she was constantly startled.
‘It’s thick,’ Pearl said. And then, because she didn’t know what else to do, because she wanted to show Ada how important the ice was, how beautiful, she stepped onto it.
The ice creaked. Pearl stood very still. After a moment, Ada stepped onto the river too. The ice groaned and shifted. A bubble contracted, then sprang back. They stood there for a long time, their hands in their pockets, staring down at their feet on the ice.
She bought Ada a recipe book that she had a copy of already. Ada bought her a camera bag that was too small.
And the next winter there was a spate of burglaries. First the pub had its window jacked open and the till raided. Then Luke’s place – they took his whalebone with the patterns inked on. Then the new houses by the road – each time getting closer and closer.
Pearl fixed another bolt to the door, propped a chair in front of the handle, left the poker by her bed. She lay awake, listening. Jumped at every small noise. Went down to check the bolts and then check them again. A tight feeling in her chest which carried on all winter. She learned the particular nocturnal movements of Ada: how she would sit up watching TV until the early hours; how she would sneak out of the low study window, leaving it propped open with a book so she could get back in. How she would half-wake sometimes and murmur a name that Pearl didn’t recognise; how she would make hushed, urgent phone calls, talking in stifled laughs and gasps, so that, however hard Pearl listened, it sounded like a different language entirely.
She bought Ada a purple scarf with beads on that Ada wore for one day. Ada bought her a bright green belt, which Pearl wore for two.
Storms the following winter. Trees tossed from side to side like an ocean; lightning, thunder, an oak cleaved in two and burnt inside. A branch smashed tiles on the roof. Pearl went up there and nailed the tiles back down, she bought wind-up lamps for when the power was out, she got ripped off in a deal for fuses which were all duds.
She found otter tracks and tried to tell Ada about them. But Ada only glanced at the photos, didn’t want to know that there must be a den somewhere and that the spraint smelled like jasmine tea. So Pearl stopped asking what Ada was cooking. She went back to eating all her food out of tins: baby potatoes, peaches, spag
hetti. She developed a peculiar fondness for those tinned sardines in tomato sauce.
But it couldn’t go on forever. She found an old recipe that Ada had cut out. She put a handful of flour in a jar, added honey and warm water and left the jar in her study. After a few days there were bubbles. The acidic, pissy smell changed to something warm and yeasty. She took the jar into the kitchen and scooped some of the starter out and mixed it with flour, shaping it into a loaf. It rose overnight by the fire and Pearl kneaded it and shaped it again. She turned the oven on and slid the loaf in. She went back into her study and waited for Ada to come home. Got to work on a tricky bracelet, head down, hooks and pins out. Hours passed. She smelled something, thought maybe the wind had pushed smoke down the chimney and went to check the fire. It seemed OK. The smell got stronger. The fire alarm went off. The front door opened and Ada rushed into the kitchen with her boots still on.
Pearl slid the tray out. The loaf was black and smoke curled out of it. A deep, dark split in the crust.
‘You made bread,’ Ada said.
And Pearl felt such a fool that she said, ‘No I didn’t.’ Took the thing out and threw it in the bin, where it smoked for hours.
For Christmas she gave Ada cash. Ada gave her some tinned sardines, but not the ones in tomato sauce.
Then there was that terrible winter that dragged on until April. The snow started falling and didn’t stop. A thick blanket that covered everything. Sounds became muted, but not peaceful. Snow falling on snow, the world humped and submerged and unfamiliar.
Pearl bought a roll of cheap insulation, put tape over the draughty windows, tended the fire, using up more logs than she should have. Looking out for signs of spring. Winter dragged on and on. A single daffodil peeked out and, startled to see the white world, withered and turned brown.
The house was quiet and muffled. Pearl listened to Ada moving through it. She stood by the study door, running her finger along the grains in the wood. Suddenly thankful for the way the TV blared, covering up the small noises and echoes: the clink of cups and forks, the footsteps, the creaking springs in the sofa. Sometimes only a handful of words passing between them: please, thank you, dinner’s ready. As if they were struggling with a new and complicated language. Weeks passed and the snow didn’t shift. She opened the study window and scooped up a handful of snow from the windowsill, went towards the kitchen ready to burst in and throw it at Ada, make her shriek. But she stopped in the hallway, thought: maybe next year, and let the snow drip through her fingers and onto the carpet.
Chapter 22
December was rushing by already. One morning Ada thought about snow as she opened the curtains, and then there it was: a dusting on the ground, as if a dandelion had blown apart in the wind. She shut the curtains, waited a moment, then opened them again. The snow was still there. She had been so busy at the pub, Val asking her to do more and more shifts – one minute trying to use up the rest of the deer, the next minute working out what the hell de-bearding a mussel was – that she hadn’t noticed how short the days were getting, or how raw the air had become.
She went outside and touched the snow with her fingers. It was crumbly and fine, not like the heavy, cloying snow she remembered, which heaped up and stuck to itself like burs. But maybe that was to come. She looked up at the laden clouds. Almost clasped her hands together.
By mid-morning, the snow had disappeared.
The sound of hammering on the roof and then the ladder bouncing as Tristan went down to get more tiles. Replacing the ones he’d already prised off; nailing them on in neat rows. A work-belt slung across his hip. He’d made his way around the house looking for the source of the leak, running his hands up walls, levering floorboards. Decided that the only way was to completely seal the roof. So now he was up there every day, only stopping when it got too dark or the wind suddenly reared up.
When Ada was upstairs, she could hear him talking to himself about what he was doing: overlapping tiles, keeping the felt taut. His voice muffled because of the nails in his mouth. She kept finding reasons to go up and listen, or watch him on his breaks – he would go down to the river and rinse his hands in the water, or cut across the bridge and walk up one of the paths. Once he’d climbed halfway up a tree and sat on a curved branch. She would make herself turn and go back downstairs. Not what she needed to get involved with. Follow the recipe exactly and everything will turn out as expected.
But it made sense, didn’t it? asking him to work on the house. Fix the leak, repair the walls. He was reliable, everyone kept telling her that, and he didn’t have any other work on at the moment. It made sense, it definitely made sense. Get it done before winter set in properly.
She went into her mother’s bedroom and looked at the wardrobe. Took a deep breath. Couldn’t keep putting it off any longer. She opened the doors. The wardrobe was stuffed – coats and shirts and trousers creased into strange poses, like a line of people gesturing at different things. A row of felt shirts, drooping at the waist and unravelling. Baggy cords with damp brown knees and flecks of yellow grass. Wrinkled waterproofs, crushed shoes and knapsacks. A pair of waders slumped in the corner, a tide-line of silt around the thighs. The overwhelming smell was of mildew, but also soil and strong coffee. The oil used to clean jewellery.
Ada unhooked a shirt from its hanger. A tissue fell out of the sleeve. There was a rip across the collar. She folded the shirt carefully and put it in the box she’d brought up. Blew her nose on the tissue, which was running from all the dust. Then saw all the dust coated on the tissue. She picked up a pair of canvas shoes with mould around the eyelets and petrified laces. She put them in the box along with a bright green belt, a horrible thing with a fat buckle. The hangers swayed. Maybe that would do for now. But she made herself take out a stack of jumpers and lay them out on the bed. One of them was much bigger than the others; a man’s jumper, navy with thick ridges. When she was growing up, she used to find things around the house: a bottle of spicy-smelling aftershave, a battered harmonica, a silver cufflink that had slipped under the carpet in the bathroom. Things that, one by one, disappeared, and she never saw again.
Ada folded the jumper neatly and left it on the bed. Then looked at the rest: all snarled together, the crusty wool stained and snagged. Could hardly untangle one from the other. She heaped the pile onto her lap and worked carefully at the wool, licking her fingers to gather loose yarn and threading it back onto itself, closing up the holes and finishing them with small knots.
The front door opened and she heard Tristan come in. The kettle clicked on. Ada tied one more knot, then went downstairs. Tristan was rinsing his coffee mug, his cheeks mauve with cold. ‘Do you want one?’ he asked. He’d left his boots by the door. Ada, her eyes acclimatised to noticing loose thread, saw a fraying lace, tattered heels on his socks.
She nodded and he reached up to the shelf and got another mug. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. She stood by the kettle; it seemed to take a long time to boil. Tristan radiating warmth and that bloody pine-and-soap smell, which stayed in the house for hours.
‘I’m working around the chimney now,’ he said. ‘You know there’s different stone there. All the rest is local stone but the chimney isn’t.’
Upstairs, the wardrobe creaked open. ‘Grockle stone,’ Ada said. Then frowned and poured out hot water.
Tristan got the coffee and shook it in straight from the jar. ‘Are you going to Luke’s party at the weekend?’ he asked.
She had forgotten about the party. Luke had mentioned it a while ago, a small gathering he’d said, for the festive season. She imagined awkward small talk in his living room, mostly people she didn’t know. ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. She would probably be working anyway. She took the jar from Tristan and spooned the rest of the coffee in. Regretting telling him he could come and go as he pleased – no idea he would be around this much.
Tristan stirred his coffee with his finger. Seemed to dislike spoons. ‘You can tell how far the stone’s come by
the amount of quartz in it,’ he said. ‘A lot of people don’t like working with the stuff around here, but to me, it’s the best kind, splitting it open and finding a seam of quartz in there.’
There were bits of bark and tile snagged in his jumper. She wondered where he would go, if he had to move on. ‘Are you going?’ she asked. ‘To the party?’
‘I told Luke I would,’ he said. He picked up his mug and crossed the kitchen. Bent down to tie his boots. ‘He’s worried no one’s going to come.’
‘Lots of people will,’ Ada said. ‘I’m sure lots of people will.’
Tristan shrugged. ‘Maybe it will just be me and him. Talking about the good old days.’ He whistled a bar of quavering music, then saluted her with his mug and closed the door.
The wardrobe doors clunked. The hangers rattled. Ada went back upstairs. The box had tipped over and spilled onto the floor. The clothes in the wardrobe were rumpled and very cold. Specks of snow on the edges of the sleeves. She crouched down and pulled out handfuls of shoes from the bottom shelf: trainers, walking boots, sandals with Velcro straps. A pair of leather boots, the heel cracked like paint.
‘Don’t get rid of those,’ her mother said. She was standing by the window looking out.
Ada ran her hand along the cracks. Some of them had gone right through. ‘I think they’re broken,’ she said.
‘Everyone needs old shoes. You can get rid of any new shoes you want.’
Ada got back down on her knees and looked along the shelf. Saw hatched bootprints, tissues and dust. There was a slipper by itself in the back corner, worn right through at the toe and the heel. She reached in and brought it out, then glanced at her mother. ‘There aren’t any new shoes,’ she said.