House of Silence (12 page)

Marek turned and caught me staring at him. I
looked away at once and glanced round the kitchen, searching
belatedly for Alfie, rather as a shipwrecked mariner might scan the
horizon for land, but he was nowhere to be seen. Suddenly at my
shoulder, Marek said, ‘He’s in the sitting room. Laying a
fire.’

‘Oh... Thanks,’ I replied.

‘Tyler, drink your tea before it gets cold,’
Hattie scolded. He padded across the kitchen, sat down at the table
and pulled a mug of tea towards him. Hattie offered him a plate of
mince pies, her eyes watchful. The contents of the plate had been
augmented with some cheese straws, too golden and uniform to have
been created by Hattie.

Marek didn’t even hesitate. He helped
himself to one of Hattie’s mince pies and disposed of it in two
mouthfuls, with every appearance of relish. She looked at me over
his head and grinned. I smiled back, absurdly pleased. It occurred
to me - and this was not a comfortable realisation - that Marek had
passed some sort of test, not just in Hattie’s eyes, but mine. A
test that Alfie had failed.

Hattie poured a cup of tea for me and one
for Alfie. I took them and Marek held the door open for me as I
left the kitchen. As I walked along the corridor, heading for the
sitting room, I told myself he might not have known Hattie had made
some of the mince pies. Then I admitted to myself I was clutching
at straws.

Cheese straws.

Nothing Alfie had said about the strain of
spending time with his family prepared me for what I saw when I
walked into the sitting room. The door was ajar and he didn’t hear
me come in; his eyes were closed, so he didn’t see me either. He’d
collapsed in an armchair between the Christmas tree and a display
of family photos, most of which were portraits of him and I had a
moment to register the change in his appearance as he sat sprawled
in the chair, looking as if he’d survived some gruelling
ordeal.

He’d aged about ten years. Alfie looks
boyish; when he’s asleep he looks angelic, blessed as he is with
unlined skin and long brown eyelashes, at odds with his fair hair.
As I regarded him across the sitting room, it seemed as if the
bones of his face had worn through his flesh, creating ridges and
hollows I’d never noticed before, that I could have sworn didn’t
exist. Perhaps it was just a trick of the light. The room was
illuminated only by a table lamp, the Christmas tree lights and the
glow from the fire. The flames cast moving shadows over Alfie’s
frame, which seemed smaller and more frail than I remembered. But
was that because I’d just been paying attention - possibly too much
- to Marek’s?

I’d just come to the conclusion that the low
light must account for Alfie’s transformation, when he opened his
eyes, saw me and sat up like a jack-in-the-box, rearranging his
features. Then I saw another transformation take place. He passed
his hand over his face in a tired gesture, revealing, like a
conjuror, quite a different face. The smile dazzled, his eyes
creased amiably at the corners and the haggard look vanished. The
only tell-tale sign of exhaustion was the way he then ran a hand
through his hair, raking it back from his forehead.

I approached with my offering. ‘I’ve brought
you some tea. You look like you could use it.’

‘Thanks.’ He took the mug and set it down
beside the photographs, where it remained untouched.

‘How was Rae?’

‘Oh, the usual. Maybe a bit worse. It’s hard
to tell. She gets emotional. And then she just rambles on.’

‘Is her mind going?’

‘Gone, I think. No, not
gone
. It’s
her memory that’s affected, not her mind. She can remember tales
from my childhood in minute detail - and insists on regaling me
with them. But she doesn’t really know who I am. Just who I
was
. She doesn’t care who I am now, it’s what I represent. A
key to the past.’

‘Is that what’s so tiring?’

‘Tiring?’

‘When I came in you looked shattered. Is it
the trips down memory lane that take it out of you?’

‘Must be. That, and trying to follow her
train of thought. And - well, it’s all pretty
sad
. Pathetic,
in fact.’

‘Will she come down for dinner?’

‘I doubt it. She looked tired and confused
by the time I left. She sent her apologies for not greeting you and
hopes you’ll understand. But she’d like you to go and see her
later. After dinner. If you wouldn’t mind.’

‘Not at all. I’m dying to meet her.’

‘She takes camomile tea before bed. You
could take her tray up to her.’

‘I’d love to.’

‘I’ll come with you if you like.’

‘No, I’ll be fine. We’ll do girl talk.’

He smiled at me gratefully - relieved, I
supposed, to be spared another encounter.

I put my mug down and knelt beside the table
of photographs to take a closer look. There were pictures of Alfie
as a sleeping baby in a pram and as a toddler on a beach, carrying
a bucket of sand; there was Alfie up a tree, distant and waving;
Alfie dressed as a shepherd in a Nativity play; a formal portrait
of Alfie in school uniform, looking vaguely apprehensive, or
perhaps just bored. All the photographs were of Alfie as a boy;
none pictured him as a teenager or a man. There were silver frames,
leather frames, wooden frames - all of them dusty, as if the photos
were never disturbed. I couldn’t think who would touch them if Rae
rarely emerged from her room and I doubted that dusting was high on
Viv’s agenda.

I turned to look at the adult Alfie, who,
like his schoolboy self, looked slightly apprehensive, or maybe
just bored.

‘You were an adorable child, weren’t
you?’

‘Oh, yes. Sickeningly lovely.’

I ignored the heavy sarcasm. ‘It must have
been nice growing up feeling you were so loved. So
wanted
.
That you’d been the answer to someone’s prayer.’

‘Stop this, right now, Gwen, or I’ll throw
up over that nauseating display of childhood memorabilia. Rae has
all those photos because I was her son
in absentia
. She
never actually knew me as a boy! Freddie must have sent her photos,
I suppose. I was a fantasy child,
her
fantasy child. But I
assure you, I picked my nose and farted just like any normal
boy.’

I picked up the photo I’d decided was my
favourite. A golden-haired boy of perhaps eleven or twelve playing
cricket, his eyes narrowed against the sun, leaning forward,
wielding his bat awkwardly, wearing shin pads that looked far too
large. Alfie looked quite the little man, but I couldn’t detect in
the boy’s features any trace of the man he would become. I replaced
the photo on the table, noticing as I did so that my fingers had
left tell-tale prints in the dust on the leather frame.

‘Alfie, why
do
you suffer so much
when you come home?’

His eyes didn’t meet mine. ‘Suffer? This is
nothing! Wait till the gang’s all here and things really get going.
Remember then that you insisted on coming, Gwen.’

‘I’m having a great time! And I love my
attic room. Hattie’s going to show me her quilts tomorrow and we’re
going to have a sewing bee.’ Alfie groaned in mock dismay. ‘I’m
looking forward to the concert too,’ I added. ‘I hear you’re
performing!’

‘It’s unavoidable.’ He spread his hands.
‘Hattie has decreed.’

‘I can’t wait.’

‘Tyler’s good,’ he conceded. ‘And Hattie’s
not bad. She plays better than you’d think. When all her
scatter-brained energy is focused she can be quite...
intense
. Expressive even.’

‘Like her sewing.’

‘How do you mean?’

‘She channels her thoughts and feelings into
a quilt, doesn’t she? Any object that she makes. Something huge and
complex like her hexagons quilt, it’s like a map. A map of her
mind. Or a window looking into it... I really liked it. And I
really like her.’

‘Thought you would. She likes you too, I can
tell. But be on your guard. She’ll cling. The poor girl’s desperate
for friends. Always has been.’

‘She seems to get on with Tyler.’

‘Yes, that’s an odd relationship. I used to
wonder if they’d been lovers. She seems quite fond of him.’

‘That doesn’t mean they’ve slept together,
surely?’

‘No, I just wondered. He’s a weird guy. I
could imagine him being Hattie’s type.’

‘Why do you say he’s weird?’

‘Have you met him yet?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, don’t
you
think he’s
weird?’

‘I hadn’t really thought about it. But no,
he doesn’t strike me as weird. A bit odd, perhaps. But he seems
nice enough. He ate one of Hattie’s mince pies,’ I added.

‘He
must
be sleeping with her, then.
No other possible explanation.’

‘Don’t mock. It’s more than either of us
managed to do. I was impressed by the gesture. I think Hattie was
too.’

‘She would be. Little things mean a lot to
her.’

‘They mean a lot to me too. Viv and Hattie
are being so kind. Making me feel part of the family. I’m glad I
didn’t listen to you and brought presents for everyone.’

‘They wouldn’t have expected anything, you
know. Let alone generosity on your scale.’

‘It’s more blessed to give than to receive.
Don’t sneer, Alfie! You don’t realise, the downside of having no
family is not just that you don’t receive any presents, it’s that
you don’t get to
give
any.’

He looked up, beyond me. I turned to see
Hattie and Marek standing in the doorway. ‘Rehearsal time!’ Hattie
announced. ‘Alfie, are you going to rehearse with me, or just busk
on the night? I’ve been practising like mad, but if you’re going to
do anything funny, like pauses, or knowing looks at the audience,
I’d like to mark them in my score. Sorry, Gwen, talking over your
head like this, but we’re performing tomorrow night and I’d like at
least one rehearsal with Alfie.’

‘Yes, of course. That’s fine. I’ll clear off
out of your way.’ As I turned to get up from the floor, Marek’s
hand was there, offering to help me. I noticed he offered his left
hand and I tried to recall which one had been bleeding in the
kitchen. Was he left-handed? Or was he protecting his right hand?
And why the hell was I asking myself so many questions about this
man?...

He said nothing as I grasped his hand and
felt him brace himself to take my weight. His dark eyes watched me
as I rose, rather more elegantly than I might have done
unaided.

‘Thanks.’

‘You’re welcome.’ He turned away and walked
to the side of the room where he opened a cello case which stood
beside a baby grand piano, neither of which I’d registered in the
dim light. The fire was dying down now and Alfie got up and chucked
another log on. The flames flared up and cast their warm,
flickering light on the photographs. My eye was drawn again to the
one of Alfie playing cricket. Much as I liked it, there was
something odd about it, something unsettling I couldn’t place.

‘Dinner at seven, Gwen,’ Hattie said. ‘Help
yourself to a drink in the dining room. That’s next door.’

‘I’ll go and give Vivien a hand in the
kitchen.’

‘Oh no, you won’t! Not on your first night.
Viv gave strict instructions to that effect. If you’re good, we
might let you unload the dishwasher tomorrow.’

‘Thanks, Hattie. I’ll look forward to
that.’

She grinned at me. ‘Now, off you go, or our
performance won’t come as a wonderful surprise to you.’

‘More like a terrible shock,’ said Alfie
under his breath, thumbing through a book of sheet music on top of
the piano.

‘Practice makes perfect,’ was Hattie’s crisp
retort. As brother and sister started to wrangle, I sidled past
Marek, now seated by the piano, the cello positioned between his
long legs. He struck a piano key, then started to tune. I watched
the glow of firelight reflected in the cello’s burnished surface
and wondered if the instrument was old and if it was Polish. He
must have seen me looking at it and said, ‘It was my grandfather’s.
It was given him by a famous Polish musician. He gave it to me when
I was smaller than the cello. I grew,’ he added simply.

‘It’s so beautiful,’ I replied. ’Just to
look
at, it’s beautiful.’

‘And to hold and to touch.’ He stroked the
curved body of the cello. ‘The wood speaks of what it’s seen and
heard. Then, with the addition of the bow...’ He drew it across a
string, making a low, mellifluous sound at almost the same pitch as
his voice, ‘It sings.’

He didn’t look up, but seemed absorbed in
the tuning of his instrument, then in warming up. For a few moments
I stood and watched, fascinated, as his hand moved crab-like up and
down the finger-board, then I left them all to it. It wasn’t until
I was on the landing, facing Sir Eglamour Slopbucket, seated at his
desk, quill pen poised, that I realised what it was that had
bothered me about the photo of Alfie.

The boy in the photograph was holding the
cricket bat left-handed.

But Alfie was right-handed.

Gwen

Of course, there had to be a rational explanation.
Alfie must be - or at one time must have
been
-
ambidextrous. Or the negative had been printed back-to-front. That
seemed the most likely explanation. This thought calmed me a
little, until, in my mind’s eye, I saw the rest of the picture and
the background against which young Alfie had been photographed. The
scoreboard was visible and the numbers hadn’t been reversed.

So the boy in the photograph was
left-handed.

But the boy in the other photographs
appeared to be
right
-handed. If memory served me - and I’d
studied those photos for several minutes - the toddler carried his
plastic bucket in his right hand; the boy in the tree was waving
his right hand; the schoolboy actor held a shepherd’s crook in his
right hand. But the boy playing cricket was left-handed.