by Kathy Shuker
‘This was always going to happen,’ a voice murmured in his head. ‘Harry’s growing up.’ Sophie? Just a whisper now.
Matthew managed a smile. Of course she was right. He needed to get used to it. In the blink of an eye Harry would be all grown up and leaving.
‘Yes, I think so,’ he heard himself say. ‘We’d need to check out some things first, wouldn’t we? But yes, in principle.’ He ran his tongue round a dry mouth. ‘It sounds good.’
Harry looked at him a moment, surprised perhaps. Jo listens. You never listen to me. Harry thought he didn’t care, that he was glad Sophie had gone. How in God’s name had that happened?
They ate in silence.
‘So about this evening…’ said Matthew, ‘…you know I’ve got to go and hang around the events, take some pictures maybe, but I’m not going to be busy all the time. And this Frank Marwell who’s giving one of the talks, he’s supposed to be very entertaining. I bought a ticket for you in case you’d like to see him. I’m going to try and catch most of it myself.’
Harry rammed another forkful of mashed potato and sausage in his mouth and chewed, watching his father now in frank amazement. He gulped it down.
‘But he’s a poet, isn’t he?’ he said.
‘I know, listening to a poet doesn’t seem cool but the lyrics of songs are just poems, after all. It depends on how you look at them. We’re not talking, oh I don’t know, iambic pentameter and forty-six verse ballads here. Anyway this guy’s reckoned to be quite a performer: funny and clever.’ Matthew paused and found he needed to swallow. ‘He was one of your mother’s favourites. She had a book of some of his poems.’
‘Really?’ Harry stopped eating and stared at him. ‘I don’t remember that.’
‘We’ve got it here. I found it in one of the boxes.’ Again Matthew managed something resembling a smile. ‘She even scribbled notes in it. You should take a look.’
Still Harry stared at him but didn’t speak and started shovelling food in his mouth again, flicking glances up at his father now and then.
‘So do you want to go?’ pressed Matthew. ‘There’s a concert afterwards too - well, I’m sure you’ve seen the posters. I don’t know what it’ll be like but worth a try.’
Harry shrugged. ‘Maybe. I dunno.’
‘I’ve got tickets for both anyway. I’ll give you them, just in case. Sit at the back. You don’t have to stay if you’re not enjoying it.’ With an effort of will he added, ‘Jo will probably be there.’
Harry flicked him another confused look but said nothing.
They finished eating and Matthew began clearing up. After a moment’s hesitation, Harry carried his plate across to the sink then stood in the kitchen doorway, hands rammed in his pockets, an intense expression on his face as if he was about to say something. In the end he didn’t and drifted away upstairs.
*
It was a mild but dull evening with occasional drizzle in the air, a small foretaste of the rain that had been predicted for later in the night. The Mill was jammed with people. A handful of keen smokers sat or stood outside but every indoor table was occupied and a cluster of people stood at the bar. Imogen had booked a table for eight for their dinner and had asked the management for a place in the room to the rear of the bar which was smaller and quieter. Two tables had been pushed together for them and attractively laid. Imogen and Mari arrived first. Eleanor and Jo were last, though one chair remained empty.
‘Oh good, you’ve made it, Eleanor,’ said Mari breathily. ‘How wonderful to have you back with us again for our last supper.’
‘How are you, Eleanor?’ said Louisa. ‘You look amazing.’
Eleanor put a reflex hand up to the scarf covering her head and smiled at Louisa without conviction. ‘Thank you. Though I’ll be happier when my hair’s grown. Otherwise, I’m doing well, despite my doctors’ best efforts.’
‘On the contrary,’ remarked Frank, who had somehow ended up sitting opposite her, ‘I’m sure your doctors made a huge effort to get you well so they could get you out of their hair. No doubt you were telling them what to do as usual.’
A ripple of laughter went round the table. Eleanor grinned but said nothing, reaching a slightly shaky hand to her glass of gin and tonic. Jo had seen the shake; she wondered if they all had.
‘Isn’t Lawrence coming?’ Mari looked towards the vacant chair.
‘It would appear not,’ said Frank. ‘I daresay we’ll cope.’
‘Oh Frank,’ said Louisa.
‘Your festival’s gone terribly well so far, darling.’ Mari was smiling at Eleanor. ‘Look at all the people who’ve come. And after your awful fall and such an inauspicious start to the summer.’ She picked up her glass of wine and held it up towards Eleanor. ‘Congratulations.’
Eleanor shook her head, looking unusually flustered. ‘No, congratulate Jo…and all the others. Please. It’s not my festival. I don’t even remember planning it.’ She smiled. ‘And thanks to you all for taking part. I must fall over more often. I seem to get more done that way.’
Again there was laughter. A waitress appeared and, after some hesitation, they all ordered.
‘So you’re enjoying the festival, Eleanor dear?’ said Vincent. ‘I saw you at my humble little talk. I was surprised consid…’
Jo quickly intervened. ‘Your talk went down well, Vincent. Thank you for doing it at such short notice. Did you make many sales?’
‘Not bad. Just as well since we aren’t being paid.’
‘Vincent, don’t,’ warned Imogen.
Eleanor frowned but said nothing. Jo was sitting next to her and glanced sideways. Her aunt had that glazed, preoccupied look in her eyes again as if an internal eye had suddenly fixed on something that no-one else could see.
‘I just thought…’ Vincent paused for emphasis, ‘…that we should be recompensed for our efforts.’
Eleanor seemed to have trouble dragging herself back to the present. She looked momentarily lost.
‘The terms of everyone’s performance were laid out beforehand,’ said Jo. ‘As you well know.’
‘Vincent? Shut up,’ said Frank vehemently, glaring at him. His expression softened as he turned his head to look at Eleanor. ‘He’s just messing with you, Ellie. Ignore him.’
Vincent snorted. ‘There speaks a man who doesn’t worry where his next meal’s coming from.’
‘Really Vincent,’ protested Imogen, ‘you’re nothing like as poor as you make out.’ She pointed at the large whisky in front of him. ‘Perhaps you should stop drinking if you can’t make ends meet.’
Louisa silently followed the to and fro of the exchange with watchful eyes.
‘It must be awful not to be able to remember things, Eleanor,’ she said. ‘Poor you. Some memories can be so precious, can’t they? Never to be repeated moments.’ Frank gave her a baleful look. She ignored him. ‘Can you even remember what you were writing? Will you be able to finish it do you think?’
‘My writing might benefit from a bit of amnesia,’ Imogen interposed drily. ‘There are bits of it I’d certainly like to forget I wrote.’
Laughter lightened the mood and a couple of the others agreed, adding their own jaundiced perspectives on their writing. Eleanor never answered the question. Jo watched her warily.
‘Has everyone else sold lots of books this weekend too then?’ Louisa embraced the whole table with a triumphant smile. ‘I was thrilled. And they say print books are dead. It’s nonsense.’
There were grunts of agreement and dissension.
‘You must have spoken well, Louisa,’ said Mari, generously. ‘That’s what makes people buy.’
‘She certainly practised enough.’ Frank flicked Louisa another look. ‘She was consumed with nerves earlier.’
‘Really? It didn’t show.’ Mari shrugged apologetically. ‘I’m afraid nerves got the better of me again yesterday. I couldn’t get into gear. I’m really not good at this speaking business.
’
‘Nonsense,’ said Frank. ‘Everyone gets nervous. And poetry’s not an easy sell but look how well you went down in Exeter. I didn’t see any sign of nerves there and you absolutely stormed them.’
Jo automatically turned to Mari for her reply but Mari said nothing, diffident as ever, staring at Frank wide-eyed as if desperate to believe him.
‘You get nervous, Frank?’ Imogen rolled her eyes. ‘My God, you’ve shaken my whole belief system.’
‘Frank recites his poetry to his busts,’ declared Eleanor. ‘In his study. He told me.’ She leaned forward, reaching a hand across the table with a teasing smile, and put it on top of one of his. ‘It’s true isn’t it darling?’
There was silence for a moment then more laughter.
‘She means his busts of dead poets,’ said Louisa crossly, colouring.
‘The perfect audience.’ Frank grinned, unfazed, and squeezed Eleanor’s hand. ‘No heckling.’
The food arrived and the conversation dwindled then meandered. Eleanor fell silent again and Jo watched her occasionally, wondering what exactly was going on in her head. And she wasn’t the only one. Apart from Vincent, who appeared uncaring, everyone at the table kept an occasional and watchful eye on Eleanor.
*
Frank was the perfect end of festival speaker, able to tell jokes and stories and move seamlessly into reciting his poetry, which was sometimes deceptively simple, sometimes quite obscure. Somehow he made it accessible. He had the audience eating out of his hand.
Jo glanced round the room now and then. Louisa was sitting near the front; Imogen and Mari sat in the row behind them and Matthew was there too, sitting on the farther side of the aisle. There were other faces she recognised: committee members and people from the village. Lawrence had appeared and was standing at the back of the hall but there was no sign of Vincent.
The meal had made her uneasy again; there had been an atmosphere at that table, something tense and unspoken. She glanced sidelong at her aunt’s face. Eleanor was rapt, watching the man who had been her lover off and on for the majority of her adult life. Now and then, her lips moved as if she were recalling something, murmuring it out loud to fix it. Or perhaps it was nothing, a repetition of words from one of his poems maybe, a line which struck a chord.
Frank wrapped up his talk and invited questions from the audience. There was a brief awkward silence then a hand went up.
‘How long does it take you to write a poem?’ said the woman.
‘Sometimes ten minutes; sometimes ten months.’ Frank smiled. ‘Sometimes they have to be dragged out of you kicking and screaming. No seriously, it’s…’
Jo stopped listening. She found herself thinking about the dinner. Something had unsettled her, a comment perhaps or a look, something which didn’t quite fit, like a line of poetry that doesn’t scan properly and brings you up short. It kept niggling at the back of her brain. There was a brief vote of thanks to Frank for his talk, then ringing applause. Jo came back to the present.
‘The concert will begin in approximately half an hour,’ said the MC. ‘Please take all your belongings and leave the room while we reset it. You’ll need a concert ticket to be readmitted. The bar is open next door if you want a drink while you wait.’
People began to stand up and shuffle out. There was a separate designated bar area just for the use of the function room. Jo gave Eleanor an arm to hold and they joined Imogen and Mari and managed to find a seat for Eleanor while the others stood around with their drinks. Frank and Louisa passed but didn’t speak; they appeared to be in the middle of an argument. Eleanor’s eyes followed them.
‘Am I too old to find a new lover?’ she demanded suddenly.
Imogen laughed. ‘Of course not. You’re still in your prime. Did you have someone in mind?
‘Not yet.’
‘Plenty of time. Find someone who doesn’t recite poetry to the busts of dead poets though, huh?’
Eleanor stared up at her, looking troubled.
‘Sorry, was that a bit crass of me? I was only joking, Eleanor.’
Jo found Mari’s eyes on her, her gaze steady and meaningful. She was trying to communicate something. Jo stared at her and Mari jerked her eyes sideways towards the washroom. Jo got it. She finished the last of her drink and put the glass down.
‘I need to go to the bathroom,’ she said, fixing Mari with a look.
‘Me too,’ said Mari. An announcement came through the speakers warning that the concert would start in five minutes. ‘Will you and Eleanor get the seats for us, Immy?’
‘Sure.’ Imogen turned to Eleanor as the two women walked away. ‘So, what kind of man are you looking for?’
*
In the ladies cloakroom, Mari and Jo stopped by the washbasins and faced each other.
‘Did you want to say something to me?’ asked Jo.
‘Yes.’ Mari glanced round. One of the cubicles was occupied.
A toilet flush sounded and a woman exited the cubicle. They moved aside and she washed her hands, tossing them both a suspicious glance. The woman left and they were alone.
‘I didn’t see Frank in the audience that night,’ Mari blurted out.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t…’
‘You know.’ Mari looked anguished. ‘Frank said he watched my performance on the Friday night in Exeter. At the poetry weekend. He keeps referring to it and how well I spoke. Well maybe he did - I mean he probably did - it’s just that I didn’t see him. Only the thing is, I’ve kept agreeing that he was there and that’s what I told the police too because…well, you know, it was Frank and I’m sure he must have been. Frank’s been a friend forever. I’m not trying to contradict him. It’s just that I didn’t actually see him and it’s been bothering me. I don’t like to tell lies.’
‘Maybe it was the stage lighting…’ suggested Jo. This didn’t make sense. Frank? He lied? Jo began to feel queasy as it sank in. Not Frank, surely? It couldn’t be significant. ‘What about afterwards?’
‘After my slot I went to the bar with another poet friend for a couple of drinks. She’d done her stint earlier so we were both free.’
‘And you didn’t see Frank then either?’
‘No.’ Mari smiled tentatively. ‘He was there the next morning at breakfast though. He said he’d wanted to get some fresh air the night before and had wandered further into town for a drink. This isn’t really important, is it? I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others. Anyway, Imogen says I talk too much. But I wanted to set the record straight. I don’t need to tell the police, do I? Tell me I don’t.’
Jo said nothing, still trying to process it.
‘I had a lot on my mind for my performance,’ Mari added. ‘I could have missed him. Easily. I could.’
‘But I saw your face tonight when he said how well you spoke.’ Jo paused. She hated what she was thinking. ‘You don’t believe him.’
Mari looked away. ‘I don’t know,’ she said in a small, obstinate voice and disappeared into one of the cubicles.
The concert had started. The Mill function room was full and buzzing with every seat taken and people standing in the gloom at the back and sides, drinks in hand, all eyes fixed on the brightly lit stage. A five piece band had opened the programme, playing covers of well-known hits. They were late starting due to a hiccup with the sound system but already they had electrified the atmosphere, their music loud and pulsating. It felt a little surreal after the constrained and measured talking events of the rest of the weekend. Jo slipped into her seat next to Eleanor and glanced across. Her aunt was staring at the stage vacantly, a light frown puckering her forehead. It wasn’t her kind of music.
‘Are you tired?’ Jo asked her. ‘We can go if you want.’
Eleanor brushed Jo’s concerns away with a shake of the head.
Jo wanted to leave; she wanted space to think about what Mari had said. The music drummed around her, number after number, none of
which she heard. And now they had finished their set and there was to be a brief pause while the stage was cleared of instruments and reset. A number of people got up to refresh their drinks. Jo got up too, affecting the need to stretch her legs and back. Warily, slowly, she glanced round the room. Imogen and Mari were sitting the other side of Eleanor. Charlotte and her daughter were sitting two rows back from them; she caught Charlotte’s eye and smiled. Matthew was in the audience too, over to her left, his camera on his lap and, standing right at the back, Harry was leaning against the wall, trying to look cool and succeeding in looking really awkward.
And now she could see Frank too, sitting over on the far side towards the rear, alone, talking to the man next to him. The next act were being introduced and she sat down. It was a duo: a man with a guitar and a woman who played the fiddle and they started with a fast instrumental number which quickly got the audience clapping and drumming their feet. They moved into a slower ballad, the fiddle’s haunting notes harmonising with the man’s singing. Jo took a minute to realise that Eleanor was speaking to her.
She leaned across. ‘Sorry, Eleanor?’
‘Hugh managed to find Shelley.’ Her tone was pressing, urgent. She stared into Jo’s face. ‘He was very proud of it. It was something special. Frank had been wanting one for years.’
‘Shelley? I don’t understand. What do…?’
‘Percy Bysshe Shelley,’ hissed Eleanor.
‘Ssh,’ said Jo, putting a quelling hand to Eleanor’s arm, sure that others would be able to hear her, maybe even Frank, but scared to look round, just in case. The song came to an end and everyone clapped. The duo introduced their next piece and started singing unaccompanied. When the man began playing a guitar accompaniment and the fiddle kicked in too, Jo leaned over again.
‘Are you talking about Hugh Shrigley?’ she whispered.
‘Yes. He showed it to us. To Frank and me.’
‘Showed you what exactly?’
‘The bust of Shelley. It was special.’
‘Please keep your voice down,’ said Jo, squeezing her hand.
‘The sculptor was famous for it,’ whispered Eleanor. ‘Can’t remember her name. But I’m sure Hugh only bought it because he knew Frank would be jealous of it for his own collection. Hugh was like that.’ She was picking hard at a piece of loose skin on her thumb, agitated and restless. ‘But Frank didn’t seem that bothered and we left.’ She hesitated, still fidgeting her fingers. ‘Yes, I’m sure we left soon after.’ She shook her head and fell silent.