by Cesca Major
She focused on the people on the screen, a drama, something she knew she could lose herself in, given the chance. She tucked her legs underneath her and took a sip of the wine. There was a noise, something rolling, metallic, across the street and she ignored it, cross for feeling so jumpy. She felt a breeze tickle the back of her neck, a gust as if someone had opened a door. She found herself checking over her shoulder for something. Nothing, of course. Then the cat appeared in front of her in the doorway of the kitchen, arched back, fur up, watching something in the entrance to the room.
The front door to the apartment was beyond; Irina could see it and it was shut. There was nothing there and even as Pepper started to hiss, she reminded herself of this fact. Pepper wouldn’t stop though, her whole body an angry curve, mouth open, teeth on display, entirely focused on something in the empty doorway. Then, slowly, very slowly, her green eyes followed a path across to the sofa where Irina was sitting. Pepper continued to hiss at a spot to her left and Irina held the red wine to her chest as if it could protect her from what was there. The hissing merged with the orchestra of the weather, the rolling metal and she felt her palm dampen on the glass.
Then all the lights went out, the television snapped off with a gasp, the lamp sputtered and died. Irina felt her heart hammering in her chest, against her ribs, felt impossibly hot, clammy, then a cold sensation seemed to run over her body, her left arm, her chest, her face, as if someone had opened a freezer door next to her. The cat’s eyes glinted in the half-shadows, she was still staring at the sofa and Irina felt entirely frozen, petrified of looking to her side.
The weather seemed to pause, the momentum gone, the rain almost disappearing, as if it had never been there. It was only her breathing then, just her in the flat, in and out, the cat’s stare.
Then the noises started up, instantaneously; everything came back on and in the shock and the surprise of the moment Irina felt a dampness all over herself, seeping through her clothes to her skin, sticking to her. She looked down at her chest, at the enormous red puddle down her top, like blood, all over her, spreading everywhere. The wine glass empty in her hand.
She put the glass down, wiped with two hands at her chest, frantic now. She couldn’t be alone tonight, she knew that, she felt she was going slowly mad. The cat padded across to curl up at her feet. The temperature seemed to be normal again, the rain a friendly patter on the roof, the drama on the television still on. She was scrubbing at her top with both hands, her breathing shallow as she finally looked left, at the sofa.
It looked unchanged at first, but then Irina saw it, the small indentation in the seat, as if someone had recently been sitting there.
ABIGAIL
She found the bird lying beneath the beech tree in the garden, making a pitiful sound, high-pitched and tiny. It was lying on its side, one wing bent under its body, the other flapping pathetically in the air before dropping back to the ground, its minute chest thrumming with frantic breaths. She couldn’t see where it had fallen from and carefully knelt down to gently scoop it into her hands. The unfamiliar feeling of bones and feathers almost caused her to drop it again in surprise. Its pulse continued to beat violently as she slowly walked back towards the house, pushing through the French windows backwards, relieved to see the living room deserted.
She hadn’t noticed it at first, had been replaying the previous day in her mind. She had been such dull company, distracted, returning to small talk and then so quiet, answering his questions in monosyllables, the thought of returning to the house too much. Richard was surely used to lively girls, rosy-cheeked women with stories that could make him howl. He was bursting with energy, always on the edge of a joke, wanting to show off the village, point out the details. She loathed herself for having dampened his mood, had left him without a cursory glance back, a muttered thank you.
The bird was hopelessly small, sitting in the palm of her hand, one eye looking out at her with desperation. She cupped her other hand over it as she moved into the hallway towards the stairs. It was silent, her footsteps louder on the wooden floorboards, her eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness.
She had one foot on the bottom step when she heard him.
‘And where are you slinking off to?’
She froze at the words, both hands trapped over the bird, holding it out like a religious offering. She wondered whether her own chest beat quicker, whether the bird would sense her rising panic. She glanced to her right, where the words had come from. He was standing silhouetted in the doorway that led to the kitchen. ‘Nowhere. I…’
It was no use, he had already spotted her awkward pose, moving towards her now, his eyes focused on her hands. ‘What have you got?’ he asked.
‘It’s nothing. It’s…’ She lifted one hand.
‘What?’ His lip curled in disgust as he took in the ruffled downy feathers, the tiny yellow beak.
‘I found it, in the garden. Please, I think I can help it…’ She stopped, embarrassed by the whine in her voice. She should stand taller, look him in the eye. Why was she hunched over herself?
Her answer seemed to amuse him. His face lightened and he stood at her shoulder, close, the smell of burnt toast on his breath as he went to examine the bird. ‘Let me see.’ He wiggled his fingers impatiently.
She tried not to flinch as he reached out, lifting her hand away, his hand closed over hers, lingered, before he removed it. He placed one finger on the bird as if he were baptizing it. There was a circle of skin in the middle of his hair, at the top, where it was thinning.
‘You can have your plaything,’ he said in a low voice, looking up at her. He was so close she could see the individual pores on his nose.
Then with boyish enthusiasm he seemed spurred into action. ‘Wait here,’ he instructed, moving suddenly away from her, down the hallway. She heard him issue instructions to Edith and when he returned he was holding a glass of milk and a freshly sawn slice of bread.
‘Go on.’ He nodded at the stairs and she started to climb, aware of him following her, feeling every movement of her body, clenching her muscles as she went, trying not to draw attention to herself.
They reached the landing outside her bedroom and she hesitated at the doorway. He brushed past her with an impatient huff, opened the door, set the milk and bread on the side and stood there expectantly. It was strange seeing him standing in the middle of her bedroom, she felt embarrassed to see a girdle thrown hastily over the back of a chair, discarded stockings rolled up on the floor. He turned, rubbing his thumb and forefinger together.
‘Come on.’ She hadn’t seen this look before. He seemed impossibly youthful suddenly, the years stripped away as if he were a young boy, his foot tapping restlessly. ‘Where were you going to put him?’
For a second she forgot where she was, and who he was and she said with a smile, ‘Him? I imagined it to be a her.’ She blushed at the end of the sentence, hearing her own voice, cajoling, friendly. She straightened, her mind jumbled, feeling wrong-footed. ‘The hat box.’ With her head she indicated the top of the wardrobe.
He reached to bring it down, the sound of something slipping around inside it. He opened it up on her bed, gingerly removing her best hat and placing it reverentially on the pillow. It looked as if someone was sleeping on it. He rearranged the tissue inside to form a makeshift nest and stood back to watch her lower the little body into it. They stood there side by side, in silence, before he turned to tear off a piece of the bread, dipping it into the milk and returning to place it gently at the beak of the bird.
‘Thank you,’ Abigail said quietly.
‘I’ll leave you now,’ he said, moving towards the door, into the corridor beyond and down the stairs before she could think any more about the encounter.
Looking down into the box, the grey body in a halo of tissue, one orange eye roving, she said a quick prayer for the fragile thing, hoping she
might fly again one day.
They spoke about the bird that evening at dinner, Larry enquiring after its health as if it were an elderly relative. Her sister raised one pencilled eyebrow at the conversation. ‘What bird?’ she asked, her snub nose wrinkling a fraction.
‘Abigail rescued it. Sorry…’ He raised a hand, a small smile playing on his lips. ‘Rescued her.’
Abigail shifted slightly in her chair, feeling heat creep up her chest and into her face. ‘She was in the garden,’ she explained to her sister. ‘She’d fallen. I don’t think she’s broken anything.’
‘And you brought her into the house? The thing probably has diseases.’
Abigail couldn’t fail to notice her sister’s hand moving quickly to rest on her stomach as she spoke.
‘Nonsense,’ scoffed Larry, piercing a piece of pork with his fork before lifting it to his mouth.
Connie didn’t respond, looking quickly at her plate instead.
Abigail felt a lurch, as if she had somehow wounded her. Trying to make amends, she said in a light voice, ‘This is delicious.’
‘Edith made it. It’s always too dry.’
There wasn’t much talk after that, the sound of the carriage clock far too loud, Abigail feeling that they must be able to hear her swallow, the meat (it was rather dry) rolling slowly down her throat. She was grateful to be free of the table, to be climbing the stairs back up to her room. As she pushed the door closed she could hear their voices moving through to the living room and hoped they were not talking about her.
Perhaps if she had found the bird lying still on its side, all the breath having left her body, she might have wondered whether the bread had been too much, whether the jostling and the unknown territory had tipped her over the edge. Perhaps, if she had seen her chest drumming quickly, she might have thought it had been a natural turn of events. But she didn’t find her like that, she found her lying in the perfect circle of tissue, on her side, yes, but with her tiny neck broken, head forced back at an odd angle, her frozen eye looking up at nothing.
Abigail reached into the box, gently lifting out a loose feather. It had the softest feel.
‘How is the little thing doing?’ he asked her as she emerged from her bedroom, his arms folded, leaning on the banisters on the landing below.
Abigail felt foolish for wiping at her eyes. ‘She’s dead.’
Larry looked up at her with a steady gaze, not flinching at the news. ‘What a shame,’ he said, his voice flat. ‘Although you don’t want to go getting too attached to things, they might not stick around.’
IRINA
‘Come in, come in.’ Andrew beckoned her inside. His hair was mussed up on one side as if he’d been sleeping, which he probably had been when Irina called him, whispering into the phone as if she were being overheard.
She stumbled as she moved through the doorway, a hand out to balance herself, which flattened against his chest. She could feel the heat from him, underneath the brown jumper he had thrown on.
‘Are you alright?’ He looked concerned.
She didn’t feel alright, couldn’t remember leaving the apartment, making the drive over there, her head snapping back to look at the passenger seat of her car as if it were occupied, as if something had come with her from the flat. He drew her into a hug and she didn’t stop him, her head tilted down so that her forehead rested on his chest, the cashmere soft. He was wearing jeans, his bare feet another sign that she had disturbed him. She froze momentarily, wondering whether he’d been alone when she rang.
‘The cat,’ she sniffed, in a voice that didn’t sound like her own.
He drew back gently, holding the tops of both her arms. ‘The cat what?’ He smiled then, in a way that reminded her it was only her that was in this mood. It was an easy smile, teasing and light.
‘Pepper. I left her there.’
‘She’ll be alright until the morning, cats are very resilient.’ He held her gaze. ‘And Pepper can more than take care of herself, she’s a minx. Don’t worry about it.’
She nodded mutely, glad to be there, glad she’d called him, wanting to thank him.
He walked down the narrow corridor ahead of her, his bare feet not making a sound on the hardwood floor. Her steps clacked in the silence, bringing it all home to her. She had left him and now here she was, arriving on his doorstep, eyes wide, asking for him to comfort her, to let her straight back into his home.
It hadn’t changed: the walls were still white, there were still stray dumb-bells acting as doorstops, which made her briefly forget her panicky mood. Everything was so uncluttered and modern. She felt herself relax as she moved down the corridor after him, into a kitchen with glossy units and silver pots in ascending order on the counter.
‘I’ve put the kettle on,’ he called over his shoulder, his back towards her at the counter as he reached up and brought down two mugs. The patterns were familiar; Irina had a sharp memory of the same two mugs on a tray, a morning about a year ago, both of them under the covers, papers spread out on the duvet, crusts of toast abandoned, mugs topped up.
‘Great,’ she said after a beat, still back there, a year ago, under those covers. The thought distracting her from the mood she’d arrived in.
He didn’t talk about why she was there; she had babbled something at him down the phone but couldn’t remember how much she’d told him. He handed her the drink wordlessly and she sat on one of the black leather bar stools, hands wrapped around the mug, feet tucked beneath her, blowing on the tea.
‘I’m sorry it’s so late,’ she said, waving a hand at the window, through which they could see a midnight-blue sky moody with clouds. The lights of the kitchen were reflected in the glass.
‘You don’t have to explain.’
‘No, I want to. I’m sorry, I know it seems silly, but it’s like the house has been taken over by something.’
He didn’t laugh at her, look scornful. She’d known he wouldn’t.
‘There’s something there. The woman… It’s like she’s waiting for me to find out more.’ It struck her then that this was true, that she felt some invisible connection to the things she’d seen, as if she’d woken something up and now she had to find out why.
‘I was going to phone you in the morning actually. I looked up the information…’
Irina seemed to be hearing him from a distance, her brain slow to process the words.
‘The ticket stub,’ he prompted.
‘Oh, of course,’ she said, remembering the other evening as if it had happened a month ago.
‘It’s a railway, quite unique actually, built towards the end of the nineteenth century in Lynmouth, connecting it with the village above it, Lynton.’
‘Lynton,’ she repeated, thinking of the postcard, the calm curve of the bay, the hills and houses. ‘Where is it?’
‘It’s Devon, Exmoor.’
‘Devon.’ She rolled the word around slowly. The shell, the smell, the white grains in the bureau, like sea salt. She felt sure this was the place. ‘Maybe I should go there. Things seem to be pointing there, and now the ticket…’ She hadn’t realized she’d said it out loud until Andrew joined in.
‘It’s something,’ he said, taking a sip of his tea, looking at her over the rim of his mug. ‘I’ll come with you.’
‘You don’t have to.’ Irina jumped in. ‘I… Well, don’t feel obliged.’
‘I’m not obliged, I’m curious. And frankly, I want to know what’s going on and I want it to stop.’
His eyes were filled with concern and Irina looked away, her chest squeezing, a familiar pain as she remembered how they’d been together.
‘We can talk about something else if you like? Take your mind off things?’
She tasted the sweet tea he had made. The kitchen tiles were charcoal, the kitchen top marble, sha
pes swirling in the surface. She felt so strange and yet so familiar in this room where she must have drunk a hundred teas.
They spoke of nothing and when Andrew yawned and Irina couldn’t hide the dregs in her mug anymore, he announced, ‘I made up the spare-room bed.’ He said it quickly, avoiding her eyes.
Was that a flicker of disappointment she felt?
‘Of course,’ she muttered, putting her mug down a little too hard on the counter. ‘Thank you.’ She followed him out of the room. Absurd to feel tears prick the back of her eyes.
He showed her to the door of the spare room. It had changed since she’d been there last: a new picture, an old street map of Paris, hung over the bed, the duvet was a different colour, and the pile of gym clothes had vanished from the corner.
‘I had a clear-out,’ he said, as if he had heard her thoughts.
‘It’s nice. Thank you,’ she said, turning back to him.
He moved to switch on the bedside lamp. ‘Right, well, you know where everything is, so… Towels in the cupboard, and the kettle and…’
She wondered again whether anyone else had been there. Nearly asked and found herself clamping her lips together at the last moment. ‘Thank you,’ she repeated.
He turned to go. ‘Night, Reena.’
For a brief second she wanted to follow him, hold the bottom of his jumper as he guided her to his bedroom, get lost in his embrace in the darkness. Tell him why she had come, why she had left the apartment in such a hurry and then why she had chosen to come to him.
Instead, she watched him leave, listened to him cleaning his teeth, washing his face, whistling for a second before he stopped, perhaps remembering she was next door.
She hadn’t thought to bring anything really, had scooped up her thick cardigan, pushed her feet into shoes without socks. She took off her clothes so she was just wearing her knickers and pulled the cardigan around her, waiting for him to leave the bathroom, for his door to click closed.