Rough Music

by Patrick Gale

  “I’m not.”

  “Prove it.”

  Desperate, he pulled down his shorts so she could see. She narrowed her eyes for a moment or two and really looked, he saw her looking, but then she merely sneered as though she’d asked for a lobster and he’d offered her a prawn.

  “That’s no good,” she said. “Put it away. You’re still girly.”

  “I’m not,” he said, hoping he wasn’t about to prove her right by crying, for his eyes were prickling.

  “So?” she asked. “Prove it.”

  He did something braver than anything he had done before, braver than climbing over the prison roof, braver than going into the cellar with no lights on. He thrust his forefinger deep into the waving tentacles of a sea anemone. It closed its scarlet fronds about him and the stinging was so sharp and hot and worse than a nettle that it was all he could do not to cry out. Skip just watched his face, watching for tears. When he could bear it no more and tugged his finger out, she looked briefly at the fingertip, which rather disappointingly was not blackened or dripping blood. Then she made a slight sucking noise between her teeth and stood.

  “You’re still girly,” she said. “But I won’t tell.”

  Julian watched her return to the waves, lugging Bill’s full-size surfboard. He sucked his finger furiously. Beef curtains, he thought at her, making his thoughts an all-destroying laser beam. Chutney ferret.

  Then he remembered Ma saying that Henry had broken out of the prison. At first he had been sad about this, disappointed that Henry had not said good-bye or thought at least to wait until his return. Now his thoughts on the matter turned fearful. Henry in the prison garden, under guard, where he was a trusty and had to be nice because Julian was the governor’s son was one thing. Henry in the wide world where he was anyone and Julian was nothing, where Henry was a rapist, was something else. Julian glanced up at the cliffs, imagining that Henry was watching from the tamarisk bushes and tree mallows, was despising him for letting a mere girl tell him what to do, Henry who would not stop at raping her, who would think nothing of slitting her from gizzard to belly button with a penknife. He comforted himself with the thought that now that Henry could roll his own cigarettes or buy as many as he liked with the postmistress’s money, which he had probably buried in a well like the one in Moonfleet, a mere boy was nothing to him, even a girly one, and would be the last thing preying on his mind.

  BLUE HOUSE

  Will sat on the veranda swathed in a jersey, reading but not reading a new biography of Poulenc and trying to convince himself the cold, penetrating drizzle was no more than a sort of sea mist that would soon be burned off by the sun. He was alone, blissfully alone, Mum and Dad having clearly plotted together to give him a day of rest before Sandy and the boys arrived. They were shivering dutifully around some gardens on the Lizard, consoling themselves that at least he would be enjoying his day of solitude, but here he sat unable to enjoy himself or settle to anything.

  Long before Mum gleefully reported back her findings he had already seen that sad young man, as she had dubbed their neighbor, shave in a rock pool. Every day he watched him walk the dog up on the cliffs, gather driftwood for his fire, go for the early morning swim during which he washed. At the risk of behaving like a stalker, he had twice now plucked up the courage to swim at the same time but swimming was not a conversational activity, at least not between strangers, and he was cowed by the stupidity of their first meeting and the pompous way he had spoken. He was fascinated in the way only possible with people about whom one knew almost nothing.

  Once he had gone through the no-no-I-insist motions of offering to be Mum and Dad’s driver for the day, he was impatient for them to be gone. Only as Dad drove them off did he realize this sense of urgency came from the fact that Sandy was arriving the next day, which left him less than twenty-four hours to do—what? They were complete strangers. In all probability they were not even on the same team. What had begun as a holiday hobby, fit to be polished up into an anecdote for Harriet, was assuming an emotional importance out of all proportion to its scant raw material.

  This situation had never arisen before. In all the time he had been involved with Sandy, or been Sandy’s arrangement or however one could best put it, Sandy had effectively annexed the square yards of emotional territory not devoted to work, friends or family. There had been the occasional adventure or mild flirtation, usually involving someone’s friend from abroad or a temporary worker at the shop, but nothing major and certainly nothing that made him feel, as he so absurdly felt now, like a spouse tempted toward adultery.

  What he had with Sandy was entirely sexual; inevitably, since Sandy already had a wife and family, more than enough to furnish an emotional life. For Will, however, this must have left a void. This scowling man, who appeared to save all his affection for his dog, aroused his desire, certainly, but desire was a commonplace. What consumed Will, what made mere interest feel like infidelity, was the hunger to know. What was the sad young man doing here? How did he make ends meet? Did he have no friends? What were his secrets? What or who did he think about as he lay in bed? All this, Will recognized, was the essence of romance; the tantalizing stranger, the inconsolable, brooding male. It was not the banal exchange of sex, different with every partner but ultimately, deadeningly, always the same. It was instead the holding out of a possibility; the invitation, threat rather, to discover and be known.

  Curtains of drizzle blew across the beach. Mum always claimed that swimming in the rain made the sea feel warmer. Will had put her theory to the test earlier, hurrying across the deserted beach for a dip in the hope that he and the man might coincide. He swam alone, however, and soon returned, shivering, to the bungalow, having ascertained that the sea was as cold as ever but merely less of a contrast to rainy air than dry. Perhaps the young man had felt there was less urgent need of an early swim with the beach kept clear by foul weather. Perhaps he was ill.

  This was preposterous.

  Feeling in urgent need of a dose of sane cynicism, Will slouched indoors, grabbed his telephone and rang Harriet’s direct line. She was always busy but he caught her in a lull between meetings and she was so startled at his speedily confiding in her about affairs of the heart for once rather than being chattily enigmatic, that she blocked incoming calls and made time for him.

  “So you’ve spoken?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know his name or what he does.”

  “So you haven’t spoken really?”

  “No. But I know that he lives in one of those shiny American caravan things.”

  “They’re called Jetstream trailers.”

  “Really? Thanks. And he has a dog and he’s about my age but with long hair, dark-blond, and these freezing blue eyes and he scowls all the time. I’m being absurd, aren’t I? Tell me I’m being absurd.”

  There was a pause.

  “Finn,” she said at last.

  “What?”

  “You’ve found Finn again.”

  “Who said I was looking for another Finn?”

  “Will, please. It’s me you’re talking to. A nun with no English could tell Finn is your yardstick. So what if you were only eighteen and it was only two weeks? So what if this was a man who preferred rocks to people? You’ve measured everyone since against him and no one’s come close.”

  “But I haven’t …” Will sat, perplexed. “Have I?”

  “We all have yardsticks.”

  “Who was yours?”

  She thought a moment. “Sister Damien, which explains a lot.”

  “But I don’t even know this man.”

  “And you knew Finn? You sound less stable than you have in years. If he has that effect without even knowing you exist, doesn’t that make him an improvement on Master Mystery?”

  “You’re not helping. You’re meant to dissuade me.” He paced to the French windows.

  There was a bark and the subject of their conversation walked into view at last, dog at his side, jogged across
to the sea, tossed a wash bag on the ground and dived into the surf. The dog sat immediately, watching for his reappearance, heedless of the rain.

  “You asked for my honest opinion,” Harriet said. “Which is, of course, immaterial until you get to know him. If nothing else, he might get Finn out of your system and set you free to compromise like everyone else.”

  “He’s out there now, swimming. I’m too old to feel like this.”

  “From what my mother told me, the grim truth is that one’s never too old to feel like that. Hang up and get out there too. Empty beach. The two of you in the rain. What could be more romantic?”

  “A warm log cabin. He probably isn’t gay, Hats.”

  “That was never a problem before.”

  “Harriet? Not helpful.”

  “OK. Listen. Time’s running out so we’ll do the Life Choice Test. Shut your eyes, think of Master Mystery and tell me the first three words that come into your head. Quickly! Stop thinking!”

  Even with his eyes still open, watching the man come out of the surf, reach for a bar of soap and start washing his hair, Will had no difficulty.

  “Guilt,” he said. “Timetable. Family.”

  “Now open your eyes and tell me the first three words about Finn Revisited.”

  To be fair to Sandy, Will shut his eyes.

  “Salt,” he said. “Privacy. Compulsion.”

  “No contest, I’d say.”

  “He’s coming.”

  “The man? Now?”

  “His dog. Thanks, Hats. I have to go.”

  “All major credit cards accepted …”

  As the man stooped to rinse his hair, his dog had broken out of its sitting posture and bounded up to him, long tail floating. The man had looked up briefly, directly toward the bungalow where Will, too slow to hide, was standing in the French windows on the telephone, and said something to it.

  Immediately the dog had turned and raced across the beach, jumped the picket fence, pushed through the tamarisk and arrived on the veranda too fast to brake without comically skittering on the varnished wood. As Will turned from tossing the telephone on to the sofa, the dog nosed open the windows and bounded across the room, showering neat surfaces with sand and water, to greet him like a long-lost friend.

  Nervous of dogs as a child, perhaps because he was never allowed one as a pet, Will had not acquired the art of dealing with them as an adult. This one was skinny and midnight black, with a tail like a whip and a long, snouty mouth like Red Riding Hood’s wolf and teeth to match. It seemed to be everywhere at once.

  “Oh God,” he said. “Down. No! Off the sofa. Off! Get out. Shoo!”

  It seemed to think he was greeting it for it bounced up, pressing its paws into his kidneys and bounded once around the place, as if to show it could, then obeyed him to the extent of flying out on to the veranda. But there it lay down, nose on paws, as promptly as if someone had cut its strings, and showed no desire to move further.

  “Go home,” he told it. “Home!” But it only watched him, showing the plaintive whites of its eyes.

  The man was running up the beach shouting “Hey! Hey!” furiously.

  “Perfect,” Will thought. “Our second conversation and it’s going to be another ugly scene.”

  But the man was only shouting the dog’s name. “Fay! Get out of there.”

  Fay stayed put. Will sensed she was enjoying herself. Her tail was discreetly thumping the boards.

  “I’m sorry,” he called out. “I shouldn’t have let her in but she sort of helped herself.”

  “Wretched mutt. Fay!” Fay wagged and stayed put. The man came in to fetch her and Will saw a justification for dogs which had eluded him until now. “She hasn’t done this before,” the man said. “Maybe it’s the drizzle. Her coat’s so short she can be a bit of a wimp.” There were still flecks of soap on one of his collarbones. “I told her to go home and she came straight here. Fay! Come on. Other home.”

  Fay looked at him beseechingly as the drizzle turned to a downpour.

  “She’s being sensible and so should you,” Will said, raising his voice above the clatter on the veranda roof. “Drink to warm you up?”

  “Erm.” The man stepped on to the veranda as he hesitated. “I don’t.”

  “Oh. I meant coffee,” said Will, thinking something stronger an excellent idea now it had been mentioned. Then he remembered the wine on his breath when they first met and Mum saying I saw his hair fanning out in the water.

  The man smiled and immediately stifled his smile, as though he had forgotten himself. “OK,” he said. “Black. No sugar.”

  As Will went in, he left the French windows ajar, assuming he would be followed, and made the coffee self-consciously, assuming he was being watched. He struggled for something to say to break the awkward silence. But he turned from the kettle to find himself alone and the man still waiting politely on the veranda, checking one of the dog’s paws. Perhaps he was shy of bringing sand indoors. As an afterthought Will took him out a towel.

  “Here,” he said.

  “Thanks.” He used the towel on the dog then, standing again, saw Will’s face. “Oh. Sorry,” he said and used it on his own hair too before leaving it draped over the veranda rail.

  “Is something wrong with her foot?” Will asked.

  “No. She picks up thorns from the gorse when she’s after rabbits. They don’t seem to bother her but they can work their way right under her skin and could cause an infection.” He had the faintest trace of a Scottish accent. Care seemed etched on his brow and around his eyes and was further suggested by the traces of gray at his temples Will had not seen before. Grief, depression; some trauma had marked him as surely as a knife.

  “You said her other home just now,” Will said.

  “Her main home’s here.”

  “Of course,” Will said, baffled. “Oh I see,” he added as the penny dropped. “How crass of me.”

  “We live out there in the holiday season while I let this to pay the bills for the year.”

  “It’s beautiful. It … It doesn’t feel like a house a dog lives in.”

  “It does once you take the covers off the sofas.”

  Will pictured the place with rougher edges, threadbare cushions, without all the bright colors and surface styling so carefully calculated to appeal to townies, and thought how much better it must look.

  “Is everything OK, though? You’ve got all you need?”

  “It’s fine. Better than fine.”

  “I’d normally have called round on your first day but I felt a bit stupid after that business with your mother …”

  “Christ, I’m so sorry. She’s … She’s not very well.”

  “Oh. Forgive me. She seemed incredibly fit,” he added with feeling.

  “In her head, I mean. She’s got Alzheimer’s.”

  “She’s not that old, is she?”

  “It’s the early onset kind. She’s fine most of the time but … Well …” Will felt a shiver of sorrow pass through him, so intense he had to make a conscious effort to pull the corners of his mouth out of a droop.

  “How do you do that?” the man asked.

  “Do what?”

  “You were getting depressed and—”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “You were. I saw. You were on the point of crying and you sort of snapped out of it. I saw you. It was like a gear change inside your face!”

  “Really? Sorry.”

  “No, I’m sorry. Forget it. I shouldn’t have …” He seemed touchingly worried by the curiosity he had shown. He tapped the dog lightly with a bare foot and she jumped up. “Come on, you. No more rain.” He drained the coffee cup at one go and handed it back. “Tell that mother of yours, when she gets back, that I can deliver her sculpture whenever she wants it.”

  “You’re the sculptor?”

  “I’m full of surprises today.” He turned to go, Fay launching herself off ahead of him, clearing the fence again rather than wait for the ga
te to open.

  “Well, I could come and get it now. Couldn’t I?” Will asked, head reeling.

  “You could.” He walked on as if it were all one to him whether Will came or no.

  Having locked the house behind him, Will had to run to catch up. “I’m Will, by the way,” he said. “Will Pagett.”

  “I know.”

  “And you must be Roly Maguire.”

  “Yup.”

  They followed the dog along the top of the beach and under some barbed wire into the field behind the house.

  “Your Jetstream’s brilliant. So much better than those fat beige things you see holding the traffic up.”

  “Want to buy it? It’s a nightmare. Leaks when it rains. Roasts when it’s hot.”

  “Oh.”

  “Days like this, a fat beige thing would be a godsend.” Fay waited hopefully by the trailer door but Roly took her by the collar and tied her outside under a canvas awning, where she had a bed and a water bowl. “She’s not really a pet,” he said defensively. “She earns her keep catching us rabbits.”

  “Us?”

  “She gets all the bits I don’t eat.”

  The sight of the dog tied up, curling herself into the bed in a sad, reproachful circle, reminded Will of what the woman in the gallery had said about a dead wife. How could he have forgotten something so crucial, so instantly disabling to his trite romantic projections? The entire adventure, the whole day home and parentless was fatuous. His ruder impulse was to save himself mortification, grab the stupid sculpture, which would no doubt fall apart after one winter and prove a useless waste of money, and go. He had no sooner entertained such low thoughts, however, than he felt the need to be sociable to compensate for them.

  “Pretty idyllic,” he said, taking in the scene around him. Closer to, the encampment was far less slipshod than it appeared from a distance. Three brown bantams scratched for grubs inside a wooden run, tomato and courgette plants were thriving in a grow-bag and strawberry plants cascaded from a filled-in car tire. Driftwood was stacked in one pile, pebbles and shells in another and what had appeared from the house as a mound of litter was revealed as a heaped hoard of beachcombed miscellanea awaiting recycling into sculpture. Because of the intervening gorse and sand dune, the site enjoyed a view of the sea without sight of the beach. During a crowded summer, the views from here would be better than those from the house. “So how long have you lived here?” he asked but Roly had already gone inside.