by Hazel Prior
“See you soon,” I say quickly and leave him to stew.
I’ll get the silent treatment when I arrive back, but what can I do? Dan needs me.
| 19 |
Dan
November is sucking the color out of Exmoor. Only the hollies and pines have stayed green. The beeches cling to their coppery, curled leaves and some of the oaks are snuggled in thick yellow-green sweaters of moss. But all the other trees stand naked, the last gray tatters of leaves drifting about their ankles. They are resigned, patiently waiting until the year turns again. They’ll have to wait a long time.
The air has begun to bite. I don’t feel it much because I’m made like that, but the harps aren’t keen on cold air. It’s bad for their strings. Phineas isn’t keen on it either. Pheasants are not native to Exmoor, they are native to Asia, which must be substantially hotter. They must therefore be prone to winter chilliness. The people who breed pheasants and feed pheasants and then let pheasants out into the wild to be shot don’t think about this. Not at all. They consider neither the feelings of the ones that are shot nor the feelings of the ones that aren’t.
When I asked Ellie the Exmoor Housewife if she thought Phineas might be too cold, she said, “Glad to see you are so concerned about your pheasant.” She had a little sharp tang in her voice. She was blowing on her fingers, which were slightly blue. I wondered if, underneath his feathers, Phineas was also slightly blue.
Phineas dislikes cold, but he dislikes the noise of machinery even more. I know this because whenever I am using the electric band saw he heads for his pheasant flap in double-quick time. I have therefore made him a second bed, in the woodshed, so he can still be warm when I’m using loud machinery in the barn. Phineas is pleased about this, very.
* * *
• • •
Today Ellie arrives at four fifty-six. She’s booted and wrapped in a cardigan (moss colored like the ones the oaks are wearing). It hangs a long way over her jeans and has eleven buttons. She is plucking at the hairs of her right eyebrow.
“Sorry, I couldn’t get away! My— Oh, never mind. How are you?”
I tell her my leg isn’t in the best of health, but the rest of me is very well. “Good,” is what she says. I then ask if she is well too because that’s a question you are supposed to ask and also because I want to know the answer. She answers: “I’m fine, thanks, fine.” Then she adds, “Although . . .”
I wait for more of this sentence, but it doesn’t come.
As she takes out the clean bandages from the cupboard she is muttering something about rocks and limpets, however. I ask her to please repeat what she said.
Her mouth twists a little, then she unrolls the bandage and lays it flat on the table. “I said that even limpets have to stand on their own two feet sometimes.”
This is interesting and unexpected. I point out to her that I am no expert in marine biology, but I am pretty certain about this fact: Limpets do not have two feet.
“Metaphorical ones do,” she says.
I consider metaphorical limpets for a while. The subject fascinates me. I ask her what else metaphorical limpets do apart from standing on their own two feet.
“Well, they can drive,” she tells me.
I express my astonishment. I ask what else.
“They enjoy a good weepy film on TV,” she says. “They can make a damn good curry. Also they’ve been known to make rather good jam. And they read a lot—and write poetry.”
I comment that I would very much like to read a poem written by a metaphorical limpet.
“Would you?” she says.
I tell her yes.
“That just shows . . .” she says, doing her tailing-off thing.
I don’t ask her exactly what it shows. Instead I inquire what other artistic pursuits the metaphorical limpets pursue.
“Well, I know that a metaphorical limpet once made a papier-mâché unicorn for her nephews and nieces.”
I remark that metaphorical limpets must be very clever. Very clever indeed.
“They do their best,” she answers. She pauses, then adds, “They love the harp. They practice harp playing whenever they get the opportunity.”
I am increasingly impressed with these limpets. I ask if they can make harps as well.
“No,” she says. “Metaphorical limpets can’t make harps. That’s a job for . . . for metaphorical oysters.”
Then she bursts out into one of her snorty laughs. Her whole body is jolting so that she can’t hold the bandage straight. I laugh too.
“I love that I can have this sort of conversation with you, Dan,” she says when she’s able to speak again.
She looks completely different to how she looked when she came in. Less stiff. More smiley. Lighter. I am glad.
But all of a sudden, without any reason that I can fathom, there’s a reversal. She’s stiffer. Less smiley. Heavier.
She gets up slowly. Normally after doing my bandages she goes upstairs to practice the harp, so that is what I’m expecting her to do, but she doesn’t. She walks over to the middle of the three big windows in the barn and she looks out at the great gray sky. Then she picks up a bright penny, one of the ones I’ve polished and placed on the windowsill, and she plays about with it in the palm of her hand. Then at last she says, “Do you mind if I am a bit nosy, Dan?”
I tell her I don’t mind a bit.
Then she asks, “Do you mind if I am a bit nosy about Rhoda?”
I tell her again that I don’t mind a bit.
Then she starts asking me questions. They come slowly at first but then gather momentum and roll out one after another as if hurtling down a hill. Her first question is this: Have you known Rhoda a long time?
My answer is this: Yes, six years.
Her second question is this: And has she been your girlfriend for a long time?
My answer is this: Yes, six years.
Her third question is this: So, I’m just wondering—did you used to be closer to her than you are now?
My answer is this: No. She’s always lived in Taunton and I’ve always lived here.
Her fourth question is this: Oh, all right, then, did you, by any chance, ever go through a phase of not seeing her?
My answer is this: Yes, for most of 2012.
Her fifth question is this and the words are strung together so fast I can hardly catch them: Um, strange question this one, but do humor me. I’m a woman and interested in these things. Do you mind telling me: Has she always been as beautifully slim as she is now?
My answer is this: No, not always. She did get a little plumper in spring 2012.
There is then an “I see” and a bit of a pause. I wonder if the questions have finished, but then she comes out with this one: Would you say, Dan, that it ever seemed to you that Rhoda wanted to tell you something but couldn’t quite manage it?
My answer is this: I have no idea.
Her seventh question is preceded by another pause and is this: How much do you . . . do you, well . . . trust her?
My answer is this: What do you mean?
I know it’s bad to answer a question with another question, but I am not clear exactly what she means when she asks if I trust Roe Deer.
Ellie doesn’t seem clear either. She just says: “Oh, never mind! I have to get back home now.” She puts the penny back on the windowsill and looks at her watch. “I must dash. Take care, Dan. See you tomorrow.”
She has not practiced the harp today, which is an odd thing. Her smile has not come back either. Not at all.
| 20 |
Ellie
I close the front door and smooth down my hair. There’s a great deal of coughing and spluttering coming from the sitting room.
When I go in, my husband is still sprawled on the sofa. My favorite picture—a Yorkshire landscape painted by my grandmother—
is lying in smithereens on the floor.
“Oh no! What happened?” I cry.
When Clive has finished coughing (which takes some time) he explains: “It went crashing down. Must have been a weak nail. I’d have cleared up the mess, but—well, not quite up to it.”
He has the injured-blame thing down to a T.
I run and get the dustpan and brush. I feel his eyes on me as I’m sweeping. Does Clive sense I’m not being honest with him?
The frame is obviously destroyed, but I would have thought the painting would still be redeemable. Yet somehow the surface of the picture has got horribly scratched as well. I’m gutted. I loved that picture.
I chase the fragments of glass round the floor with the brush. A painful headache hovers just behind my eyes.
I can’t stop thinking about Dan’s relationship with Rhoda. He calls her his girlfriend all the time, but they can’t really be together, can they? Surely I would have witnessed something—a romantic kiss, a mushy phone call, any indication that they are intimate—by now? I harbor suspicions that it’s all in Dan’s head, but is that just wishful thinking? Just because I find Rhoda shallow and selfish doesn’t mean he does. Men—even Dan—always have a very different perspective.
What about her? What’s she hiding? And who is she hiding it from?
A shard of glass drives into my finger. I yelp with pain.
Clive isn’t sympathetic. “Looks like Christina will have to come round and look after you now.”
I suck my finger. “It’s nothing, it’s nothing!”
It won’t help with playing the harp, though, I think as I head upstairs to fetch a plaster.
* * *
• • •
“Rhoda, may I use your bathroom?” I ask the minute I’ve stepped over her threshold on Tuesday morning.
I’m granted a bright smile. “Of course, Ellie!” She is in a scarlet jersey dress. Her hair is scooped onto the top of her head with a few blond locks prettily straying over her brow. “It’s up the stairs and straight ahead of you.”
I dash upstairs, then slow my pace and look back over my shoulder. She’s disappeared. An instant later the soft sound of harp arpeggios starts drifting up from the living room. I am safe. It’s time for a good snoop.
I push open the door next to the bathroom. The room is quite small, furnished with only a bed and a chest of drawers—perhaps a spare room. I scan the walls. No photos. Just a watercolor of an elephant in an African landscape and another of trees by a lake.
I close the door softly and try the next one. This is clearly Rhoda’s bedroom. The bed is unmade with a pair of tights strewn across it. My eyes quickly take in the silky crimson covers, a pine wardrobe, a bedside lamp in the shape of a curved crocus flower, bookshelves, a CD player. And exactly what I’d hoped for. Hanging in pride of place opposite the window is a huge wooden frame full of photos. I creep into the room, hungry for details. My heart is thumping.
The photos have been arranged in a montage. Many are professional photos of Rhoda herself together with her harp, and I recognize the same one that’s in Dan’s workshop—the one with the cleavage and the come-hither look. Nobody could accuse Rhoda of false modesty. Another photo shows her posing with her guitarist friend, the edges of their instruments just in view. He sports a goatee beard and one of those crooked smiles that’s actually quite attractive. He looks smug, the cat that got the cream. I wonder. I feel disturbed. I’m not quite sure what I’m hoping.
Then my eye falls on another photo and I know this bears no resemblance to what I was hoping. Dan and Rhoda together. Slightly younger than they are now, standing under the plum tree in his orchard. Dan has a hazy, romantic look in his eyes, which are directed straight at her. Her smile is radiant. The sunshine is picking out the gold in her hair as it tumbles loosely over her shoulders. She is in a saffron-colored dress that flows around her in the breeze. She appears to be all made up of honey-colored light. She looks utterly beautiful.
There’s a sharp tug in my guts. The plum-picking day is sacred in my memory, something I want to wrap in tissue paper and fold away tenderly and take out often to gaze at before I fold it away tenderly again. But now it’s been polluted. Rhoda was there first, before I ever knew Dan or he knew me, before he even knew I existed. My doubts about their relationship are suddenly looking flimsy in the face of this new evidence. I fight with the feeling and push down the pain. It will have to wait until later.
Now my other suspicion looms larger. I scan the other photos. Some seem to be family snaps, many quite small. Are there any children among them? I step closer. There’s a little girl looking sweet and coy in a bridesmaid’s dress, but if my deductions have been correct, it’s a boy that I’m looking for.
“Ellie, what are you doing?”
I jump. Rhoda is peering in at me from the stairs. Frowning. I was so intent on my search I didn’t even notice that the harp sounds stopped a few moments ago.
“Oh!” I cry, leaping out of her bedroom covered in blushes. “I’m sorry. I somehow lost the bathroom . . . and then I noticed your beautiful photos and had to have a closer look.”
She’s not amused.
“That picture of you in the green dress is so stunning!” I gush.
She thaws slightly. “Yes, it’s my favorite.” A pause. “The bathroom’s right there at the top of the stairs, like I said.”
“Sorry, Rhoda. I shouldn’t have been so nosy.”
I see from her face I’m not forgiven.
“I wasn’t expecting to find you in my bedroom.”
I rack my brain for excuses. “It’s just that . . . I’m feeling a bit hassled today because . . . because I had a row with Clive. It’s still going round and round in my head. I’m in a bit of a daze. I wasn’t thinking straight.”
“Oh?” She looks at me curiously. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Just money matters. I’m spending too much on petrol. He doesn’t like it.” This is very true.
“Are you all right?”
“Um, yes, I suppose so. I just get upset about these things.”
“It’s hit you quite hard, hasn’t it?” she says, suddenly sympathetic. She comes a step higher up. “Have you told him you play the harp yet? Perhaps that would be a lovely surprise for him and make everything better.”
“I don’t think so,” I mumble.
“Are you sure you’re OK? You look quite shaken. We can postpone the lesson if you like.”
“No, I’ll be fine. I’ll just . . .” I gesture toward the bathroom, then dive into it, shutting the door behind me with more of a bang than I’d intended. My reflection gawps at me from the mirror, shame painting it crimson. I splash my face with cold water to try to reduce the color. My hands are actually shaking. I am furious with myself. What’s more, the mission has been a complete failure.
Perhaps I’ve been completely wrong. But then, I reflect, the bedroom might be the very place where Rhoda is most anxious to conceal her secret, assuming she is visited there by Dan . . . or anyone else. I’m no longer sure what I can assume and what I can’t.
I glance at my reflection again. I am biting my lip.
* * *
• • •
I hurl a bottle in and listen with satisfaction as it shatters. Then another. Breaking things is great therapy. Thank God for recycling centers. Thank God Clive drinks lots of beer these days. There are plenty more bottles to go.
I hate her. I shouldn’t. But I do.
I feel like a caged animal gnawing at bars. My eyes are raw and watery. I pause to take a deep breath, then reach inside the polythene bag for another bottle. I smash it into the bin with all my force. Three more follow, blasted to smithereens, the noise roaring painfully through the air. Then I stop and breathe again.
Late shoppers are scurrying past on their way to the car park. I glance upward and
suddenly notice the sky. It is a vast, gleaming landscape above me. Bright tiers of copper-edged clouds drift across the deep, silky blue. I let myself imagine for a moment that I’m swimming among those clouds; I’m bathed in light, gliding along to the sounds of harp music. Dan is gliding by my side. Guilt, my constant companion, tells me to stop being an idiot, to banish the romantic image. I don’t want to banish it, though, I want to keep it treasured right here in my heart. I let my eyes linger on the sky for another few moments, then remind myself of Rhoda. I smash another bottle.
I am desperate to get to the bottom of Rhoda’s secret. If my theory is correct it has monumental significance for Dan, and he has no idea. But I’m lacking proper information. If I was closer to her I could come straight out and ask Rhoda, but I’m not close to her and don’t think I ever will be.
I head back to the car, lost in thought. I’m a slave to my own curiosity. It just keeps on thrashing away at the same questions. Until I get answers I’ll have no peace.
* * *
• • •
Meow looks calm and thoughtful. Christina doesn’t. She’s fluttering about the kitchen like an anxious butterfly.
“She’s Swiss, so will probably want to eat funny things. Do you think I can get away with nut roast for Christmas dinner? Alex says she’s easygoing, but Alex is not the greatest judge of character. And he’s seeing her through love-struck eyes.”
I try to reassure her. It’s surely a good thing that her son wants to bring his girlfriend home for Christmas.
“But what if I hate her? What if she hates me?”
“Nobody could hate you, Christina!”
“I so wish that was true!” She reaches for a cigarette, a slight puckering in her face. Underneath her cheerfulness I sense there’s a thick, dark lump of sorrow. She recently tried online dating and met up with a string of unsuitables and losers. Then, to try to fill the emptiness, she managed to get in touch with one of her exes—only to be presented with the words: “Christina, I don’t want you in my life. Get lost!” I don’t know why she’s so unlucky with men. She’s attractive, exotic even, and fun to be around. Perhaps she’s just too much for them to handle.