The Kind Folk (20 page)

"I suppose we won't be able to after Maurice is born."

"Not for a while, but maybe he'll be as precocious as you were." Sophie smiles down at herself and says "Do you know, I think he heard that."

Luke feels as if he's putting on a show that's himself as he says "What would you like me to make for dinner?"

"I've already made it. Just salad and spaghetti and a lot of bolognese. I fancied that, or the little one did."

"That's three of us."

"Lead the way then, little Maurice," Sophie says and heads for the kitchen at a stately pace. The round black glass top of the table is already set for two. As the tureen full of pasta rotates in the microwave Luke finds all the tasks he can—bringing the salad bowl from the six-foot refrigerator and the wooden utensils from the drawer beneath the hobs, dislodging cubes from the frosty tray to ice a jugful of water, refilling the compartments to the brim before returning the tray to the freezer—until Sophie says "You sit down, Luke. You've been on the road since I don't know when."

"I've only been driving. You're being a vehicle."

"Not too cheap for fuel but runs well otherwise." Sophie watches him pour out two glasses of water and says "Just because I can't drink at the moment doesn't mean you have to be like me."

It seems a petty way to prove he's not an imitation, but he finds a bottle of Chianti in the built-in wine rack and serves himself a glassful while Sophie tosses the salad. "Here's to us," she says and clinks her glass against his. "To our family."

"Thanks for being one for me."

Perhaps he should have come up with a more orthodox response. Sophie is quiet until he enthuses about the meal they're eating, and then she says "I didn't tell you yet, the label wants the new album as soon as I'm ready."

"That's great news. I couldn't be happier for you." This sounds like a routine he has learned from someone else, however genuine it is, and so Luke tries saying "When do you think that will be?"

"I'll be trying out some of the songs onstage tomorrow and then I'll know better. Before this little one's born is the plan. That way it'll earn us money while I'm resting, except that's the last thing I'm likely to be."

"You'll be doing some of that and that's a promise." Even this feels too much like a standard rejoinder, though he means it. When her smile suggests she'll wait to be convinced Luke says "Have you got a title for the album?"

"I've used a lot of traditional material, so I was thinking
The Past is Alive."

"I don't know if I'd buy that."

"You won't have to, will you?" Somewhat more gently Sophie says "Tell me if you think of a better name."

He has downed a second glass of wine by the time she lays her fork to rest. "That's what I call a wethl-fithled bethly," she declares and turns a wince into a wry grin. "I wouldn't be much good at your act, would I?"

"You shouldn't want to be like me." Luke wishes he'd been more careful with his words. "As far as I'm concerned," he says, "you ought to stay exactly as you are."

After dinner he listens while Sophie rehearses.
Kisses Sweeter than Wine
sounds to him like her next hit, especially when she improvises a fugue on the tune. It's growing dark by the time she unstraps her guitar. "Do you mind if I go to bed now?"

"Do you mind if I do?"

"I'd mind more if you didn't," she says and heads for the bathroom.

Luke goes into the bedroom to draw the curtains. The crop of high buildings that Terence deplored has cut off much of the view from this window, but a section of the bay is visible between two of them. A moon waiting for its features to be filled in lends a pale glint to the watery horizon, which sprouts a single spindly windmill isolated from its identical companions. Its vanes stir as if they're fingering infinity or making a secretive sign to the moon. Luke reaches for the curtain cord, and then he leans so close to the window that his breath swells up like a gust of fog to meet him.

Along the front of the apartment building the Strand is almost deserted. A knee-high concrete strip divides three lanes from three more on the road. A car has just swung around the bend that takes the road inland. For a moment the headlights illuminate a group of objects on the far edge of the strip. They could almost be abandoned plastic bags, variously misshapen by their meagre contents; the four of them are nearly featureless except for the glint of eyes deep in their pallid substance. Their chins are resting on the edge of the meridian, and each of them is flanked by a pair of hands, not so much gripping the concrete as displaying how wide their elongated fingers stretch. The headlight beams sweep onwards, but the heads appear to be growing more definite. Sketchy mouths have begun to split open, each one a hint of an identical grin.

Luke feels as if he can't move until they do—as if the sight has trapped him into imitation. It seems to have stolen his senses too, because he's aware of Sophie only when she joins him at the window. "What are you looking at, Luke?" she says, and by no means immediately "Good moon."

If there's any reassurance to be had, it's surely that she can't see what he's seeing. He glances at her to make sure, and when he looks out of the window again the watchers have gone. As Sophie slips into bed he tugs the curtain cord like a lifeline. He mustn't let her overhear, but he mouths so fiercely he feels his lips stretch. "Go back where you came from. Leave us alone. There's nothing for you here."

A PARENTAL INTERVENTION

"You're looking uncommonly pleased with yourself, Luke."

"Don't you think he has plenty of reason, Ambrose?"

"Most emphatically. I wasn't intending to suggest otherwise, Delia. You were very splendid tonight, Luke."

"And you equally were, Sophie."

"I was on the cusp of saying so, dear. If I may be allowed to sum up, I've rarely seen more skill and confidence in a performer, and that applies to you both."

"It's because Sophie's new songs went down so well," says Luke.

He has another reason, but nobody else need know. It came to him in the night, when he crept out of bed to peer down at the road. All six lanes were deserted, and so was the concrete meridian. He'd silently vowed to protect Sophie and their child however he had to—and then, as he slipped under the quilt beside them, he'd wondered if he was too fearful on their behalf. Whatever happened when he was young had never really threatened him, even while he was most vulnerable; why should it be more of a threat to his family? No matter how disturbing his uncanny glimpses have been, there's no reason to regard them as a menace to Sophie and the baby—no reason to believe that the others won't keep their distance so long as he does nothing to entice them closer. The notion let him sleep, and now it's allowing him to appear normal, even sure of himself. Everyone is silent for a moment, and then Ambrose Drew is less so until his wife says "Scarlatti."

They're all in the bar of the Unity Theatre, where a poster for the show Luke and Sophie have just finished occupies a prominent place on the wall. Maurice and Freda are perched on a small couch while Luke and Sophie face her parents from another. The elder Drews are tall and slim with hair so discreetly silver it suggests that owning up to more of their age would be inelegant. When either of them speaks the other commonly responds with the sort of patient look they might give their music students. Whenever there's a lull Ambrose has a tendency to hum a sample of a melody, which Delia identifies with a tolerance Luke suspects is many years old. It amuses Freda, who says "Maurice only knows a few songs, but you can always hear when he's in the bath."

"I know plenty," Maurice protests. "You just wouldn't thank me for singing them."

"When's your new record out for us to buy, Sophie?"

"It's racing little Maurice. I need to find out when the studio is free, and I still have to think of a title. I thought
The Past is Alive,
but Luke didn't care for that one."

Her father's eyebrows hoist some of the expression out of his eyes as he turns to Luke. "So long as you've vetoed it, might you have a substitute?"

As Luke opens his mouth Maurice says "It hasn't got to be up to him."

"That's right," Freda says, "we can all have a think."

Luke is touched by the notion that they're playing the roles of his parents, protecting him as if he's still their child. Freda suggests
A Girl and Her Guitar,
which Ambrose counters with
Folk Baroque.
It takes his deprecating smile and his admission that he had folk rock in mind to prompt Maurice to contribute
Folk for Folk,
and Delia is diffident about offering
Attuned to Folk.
There are too many repetitions of the word that haunts Luke, but at last he has a chance to say "I was wrong about your title, Sophie. I wasn't thinking of you enough."

"Well, that's decent of you." As Ambrose lifts his glass of wine he says "Here's to bringing the past alive."

"The past." Delia sips her wine and says "If you were thinking of yourself, Luke, I expect it was out of concern for Sophie."

"And our baby," Sophie says.

Ambrose shuts his eyes for the duration of a nod. "Obviously you're saying Luke has been."

"I certainly would."

"In the appropriate departments." When she looks puzzled Ambrose says "He'll have had a satisfactory report."

"What your father's taking such a time to ask," Delia says, "is whether Luke has had a medical check."

"Nobody's suggested he should."

"He had a few when he was little," Freda says.

"He had the lot," Maurice says. "All the ones they said he should have."

"We'd expect no less of you," Delia assures them. "Only now we're talking about parenthood."

Freda gives her an understanding smile. "It'd help to put your mind at rest too, wouldn't it, Luke?"

Luke can't see how to avoid asking "What would?"

'Any tests they need to do before the little one is born. We're like you," she tells Sophie's parents. "We were thinking he'd have had them."

"I don't suppose they can do any harm," Sophie says.

"I'm certain they would make everyone happier." With scarcely a pause Ambrose says "If that's possible."

"Here's to them, then," Delia says and clinks her wineglass against Sophie's glass of lemonade.

Luke can only imitate the gesture as everyone else joins in. They drain their glasses and Ambrose stands up. He's consulting Maurice about a loft conversion before they reach the street, while Delia tells Freda almost apologetically how uncomplicated Sophie's birth was. Outside the theatre they say their various goodbyes, and the couples head in three directions. Ambrose has hummed just a pair of notes when his wife says "Bach."

It reminds Luke of Terence, as far too much does. Sophie takes his hand as they start downhill towards the city centre, past pubs and wine bars outside which smokers stand like pickets. A moon that puts Luke in mind of an infected face peers over the skyline alongside the river. Before Luke can think of anything he dares to say he hears Sophie in the distance, as though she has found out about him and fled. No, her voice is closer but minute. It's in the headphones worn by a girl who's waiting next to him at traffic lights, and it's singing
A Song We All Can Sing.
Sophie squeezes his hand, so that for a moment he shares what she must be feeling, and then all that he's keeping from her catches up with him again. The lights halt the traffic and the girl hurries downhill. Being alone with Sophie seems to release him to speak, and he has already come to the only decision he can think of "I want you to read Terence's journal."

THE SECRET ROUTE

"I think I understand now, Luke."

"Do you? Well then, well, go on."

"I don't think there's very much to understand."

"Then maybe you haven't. Tell me what you think you know."

"Don't be upset, but I'd say Freda and Maurice were right about him."

"Just tell me why I'll be upset."

"Because I feel as if you were looking for more than there is. I'm not trying to put him down. He'll always be the person who did most for your imagination."

"You do, Sophie, but we aren't talking about that. How were they right?"

"He was very sixties, wasn't he? He used a few drugs and maybe even dabbled in a bit of magic like some musicians did. It was just a fashion. I'm glad it's over, though."

"Why should you be glad?"

"I wouldn't want little Maurice to grow up with it, would you?"

They're at the kitchen table, which is laden with Terence's journal. Sunlight is working its way around the block, and although the room is bright Luke feels as if he's urging more illumination to reach them. The clinic has given him an appointment tomorrow, and he wants to convey the truth to her before the tests betray it, but he's desperate for the journal to relieve him of at least a little of the burden of explanation. "Why should that matter," he tries saying, "if you don't believe in it?"

"I believe in drugs all right. Believe they have effects, I mean. But shall I tell you what I think his diary really shows?"

"That's what I want to hear."

"I think he wanted to be a writer but his imagination got the better of him when he couldn't find a proper use for it. A lot of this looks like a kind of story he was telling himself." When Luke opens his mouth she says "I know that isn't all that's there. You can see how much he cared about you and the Arnolds. I'm afraid my parents might think he went too far, so perhaps we shouldn't mention it to them."

"I won't be discussing it with anyone but you. How are you saying he went too far?"

"We'll never know exactly, will we? I did wonder if there's anything at his house that might show us."

"Like the skull you found. You remember what I told you about that."

"I don't think I do, Luke."

"You have to. You can't have—" Just in time, if even that, he realises that he never had the conversation with her; it was only part of one of his rehearsals as he drove home from Lancaster. He feels as if his mind is close to giving way, as it may almost have done during his childhood. "It wasn't what you thought," he blurts. "It was some sort of magical thing."