The Song House (23 page)

For you, he says, producing a large bunch of white chrysanthemums,
Picked them fresh.

Maggie puts on her best smile as she takes them from him.
The cellophane under her fingers is cold and sparkling with
rain.

Fresh from the petrol station? she says, understanding that
he was making a joke.

There’s no getting past you. I see I shall have to do better
next time.

She would like to tell him that there won’t be a next time –
that there won’t even be a
this
time – but he’s here now,
standing so tall in her tiny living room that he looks like a
giant at the funfair. She doesn’t have the heart to do it.

I’m not quite ready, she says, taking the flowers into the
kitchen, Have a sit down. I’ll only be a minute.

She puts them in the sink and then stands there, twisting her
fingers into a knot. The last time there were other people in
this house, they were paramedics. Maggie had assumed they’d
take Nell away quickly, that they’d be on their way in five
minutes, but they’d spent a long while, the woman sitting on
the edge of Nell’s bed and whispering gently to her, the man
standing with Maggie here in the kitchen, asking her to collect
up her mother’s medication, asking her about morphine and
steroids and antidepressants and at what times her mother
took them and whether Nell had free access to them. One
question heaped itself upon the other, and Maggie couldn’t
concentrate. She tugged on the stiff drawer of the dresser, not
knowing how to answer, yanking it out so it fell with a
bouncing crash at her feet. The pills and packets and assorted
debris of sickness spilled out onto the kitchen floor.

She understands now that they needed facts, but at the time
she thought it a terrible intrusion. They bent down together
to retrieve the mess. The man had a shaved head, and a hole
in his left earlobe where an earring would have been, and his
pale eyes looked tired in the morning light. Smell of antiseptic
coming off him, antiseptic, and calm, and kindness. It was a
torment to her, all of it; the questions and the delays and the
sweet air of springtime as she opened the door for them to
take her mother away. She wanted to scream at them, Get a
move on! Can’t you see she’s dying? But they knew there was
no point in rushing. They’d brought a folding wheelchair out
of the ambulance, and lowered Nell gently into it, and the
sound she made is in Maggie’s ears right now. Like a child’s
cry, she thought then, and later, like an animal’s.

I’m saying, what do you normally do for your winter logs?
Aaron is standing in the doorway, leaning against the frame.

Only, you can’t be getting them from the garage. You should
order them direct from us.

Maggie frowns at him.

My mother gets them from somewhere. Um, a man from
Boxford. Can’t think of his name. He delivers. Logs and coal,
oil for the burner. Anyway, it’s only July. There’s plenty of time.
She hears herself, the unravelling, disjointed sounds she’s
making, and all the while, Aaron watches her face. He moves
close to her and she’s afraid he will touch her – put his arms
round her – and he can’t do that because it would be unbearable.
She would cry if he did that. He rests one hand on the
stove and tucks the other in the pocket of his jeans.

I’m really sorry about your mum, Maggie, he says.

Me too, she says, pressing her lips together. She would say,
But it’s all right, I’m managing, or, She’s at peace, or any other
stock response, but when she opens her mouth there is only
silence: the words are stuck again and the stones are resting
heavy on her tongue.

We’ll get your winter fuel sorted, he says, But what about
that barn dance? Sure you’re up to it?

She could send him away now: he would easily forgive her.
And then she would be alone with her ghost; with Nell, still
angry, refusing to speak to her. Anything would be better than
that. Playing for time, Maggie reaches up to the shelf to fetch
down a vase, and as Aaron reaches up for her, she freezes.

Can you smell that? she asks.

He takes a deep breath in.

Smell what?

You can’t smell it?

He smiles and shakes his head, as if she’s teasing him, and he
lifts the neck of his shirt and buries his face inside it.

I’ll have you know I’ve had a shower, he says, Is it wood?
We’ve been sawing birch all afternoon.

It’s gas, says Maggie, suddenly furious, My own personal
stink of gas.

She dumps the flowers, still in their wrapper, into the vase, and
runs the tap on them.

Not on the mains, are you? he asks.

Nope.

It gets worse before it gets better, he says quietly, But it does
get better. Honest.

What makes it better? Knowing, or not knowing?

He starts to say something else but she cuts him off.

I can’t go to the dance, Aaron. I’m sorry, you’re right, I’m
not up to it. But would you mind dropping me off on the
way? There’s someone I have to see.

The last time Maggie came to talk to Thomas Bryce, he didn’t
let her in; he simply poked his face in the narrow gap between
the door and the frame and grunted his responses at her. Ran
his hand along the metal chain, as if testing the strength of it,
while she stood on the porch, clutching the bottle of beer she’d
bought him. She told him that her mother had just died, and
that she would like to ask a few questions. Got nothing back
in the way of answers, only an instruction to leave the bottle
on the step.

Tonight, he slips off the chain and opens the door, not even
bothering to check who it might be. He knows straight away
it’s her, leads her in without a backward glance. As if he’s been
expecting her; as if, this time, he’s readied himself.

Cup of tea? he says, and doesn’t wait for an answer. She
follows him through the hallway, eyes fixed on the floor,
because it’s dark in here, too dark to see properly, and the carpet
underfoot is loose and torn. They pass through the living room,
blue and flat in the television light, and down the step into the
kitchen. The only illumination comes from a street lamp in
the lane at the back of the cottage, casting a sulphurous glare
into the room. It smells bad, as yellow and acrid as the sodium
glow. Thomas fills a cup with water and tips it into the kettle,
flicking the switch with a bent thumb, then remembers he has
company and measures out another cup of water and tips that
in too.

Mustn’t waste it, he says, Never mind all that out there—he jerks his head to the window – We’ll have drought again
in a couple of month.

He opens the fridge, and in the clear white oblong beam it
throws across the floor, Maggie sees that she’s standing in a
shallow wash of liquid. She looks at Thomas’s feet, clad in a
pair of grey plimsolls, the bottoms of his trousers turned up
above the ankles.

Thomas, I think the water’s in
here,
she says, Haven’t you
got your sandbags?

The windows of heaven were stopped, he says, Worst is over.
He sniffs the carton of milk and hands it to her.

I don’t reckon that’ll be off.

Maggie takes it, looking around for somewhere to put it down,
seeing the table heaped with boxes and containers and more
cartons. She follows him back into the living room where he
lowers the volume on the television and drops himself heavily
into his chair in the corner. He motions her to sit on the sofa,
which is cream leatherette, etched with scratches but otherwise
bare. It squeaks whenever she shifts in her seat. Between
them is an old-fashioned marble-effect coffee table with a
battered metal trim, and a huge onyx ashtray in the centre,
filled with spent matches. The tea tastes of iron, coating her
tongue with the bitter dryness of sterilized milk.

I know what you’ve come about, he says, And there’s a film
on in ten minutes, so, you know, we’ll make it quick.

We will, says Maggie.

She’s prepared herself for this. She has gone over this conversation
in her head so many times since Nell died, has imagined
the whole scene; and now, since she found the dreamcatcher
box, her questions will be direct. Maggie had braced herself
for another battle, but he seems quite cooperative, almost
friendly; she might not even need ten minutes.

Can you tell me anything about William Earl? she says, When
he was a boy?

A sound of scratching as she speaks, and Maggie scans the room,
looking for the source of the noise. Thomas shakes his head,
twists around and takes his pipe and a crumpled paper bag
from the shelf.

Don’t reckon I remember much about him, he says.

He used to help you when you worked on the river.

Oh, him, yes, and quite a few other boys, too. They all blend
together, after a while.

Maggie unzips the inner pocket of her fleece and takes out
the newspaper cutting, smoothes it flat on the coffee table, and
then, realizing he won’t be able to see it from any distance,
hands it over to him.

Will this help? she says, It’s a picture of William. He’s holding
me.

Oh aye, says Thomas, not taking his eyes off the television,
Well, he found you, you know. You’d gone wandering. He
found you.

I don’t think he did, says Maggie.

Still he doesn’t look at the photograph. He concentrates on
filling his pipe, and Maggie watches, waiting, staring at his
fingers as they paddle in the paper bag, drawing out what
appears to be a knot of dirty brown hair.

If you look, Thomas – can you see? Can you see what’s
happened to my face? It’s like – as if it’s been painted.

Oh, he found you all right. You’d gone wandering.

She folds the cutting and puts it back in her pocket.

What’s the use? she asks, trying to control her voice, Is there
any point in me asking?

Ask away, he says, stuffing the clump of tobacco into the
bowl of his pipe, pressing his finger once, twice, on top.

Thomas, please listen. I remember him, from back then. I
know what he did. So there’s really no reason to pretend, not
for my sake. All I want from you is the truth.

Maggie stares at the ashtray. It’s in the shape of an island. It’s
in the shape of a Mediterranean island. She can do this.

William Earl abducted me, she says, I was only four, but I
remember it as if it were yesterday.

Thomas jerks the pipe at her, the ball of his thumb joint shiny
and misshapen, threatening to split the skin.

A slippery thing, memory, he says.

Not this memory.

Thomas smiles to himself.

I used to have a friend when I was little, he says, and now,
finally, he appears to be looking at her, His name was Vinny.

Maggie nods for him to go on.

He was a good friend, the best friend you could ever have.
We used to go everywhere together.

Thomas fumbles around in his pockets, shifts in his seat, his
fingers searching underneath him, under the cushion, in his
pockets again.

Yes, says Maggie, urging him on,And thisVinny? What about
him?

Finding the matches, Thomas strikes one and pushes the flame
into the bowl of the pipe. Sucks and sucks and the flame leaps
up in a rash of sparks, and the room fills with a cloud of smoke,
so thick Maggie can barely see him behind it. The smell is
immediate; dense and choking.

My mother killed him.

Maggie sits back, appalled.

Why are you telling me this? she cries, feeling the tendrils
of the smoke curl around her.

Because it’s the truth, says Thomas, And you want the truth,
don’t you? That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? His name was
Vinny and he lived in a little box—

Thomas picks up the matchbox and rattles it at her,

– And he lived in my pocket. And one day my mother
found the box and she stood in front of me and she said, ‘What
have I told you, boy, about bringing these things in the house? What have I told you?’ And she crushed the box in her hand,
and I swear I could hear his bones go pop. Chock, like that—Thomas closes his fist around the box,

– And that was the end of Vinny.

He stares at her for a long moment, takes another suck on his
pipe.

I was only little, he says, But it could’ve happened yesterday,
as you say. I should have put him back, see? And he would’ve
been all right, if I’d only put him back. Like you’re all right.
Some mothers can be very hard.

Maggie stands up, banging against the coffee table, feeling and
not caring about the metal cutting sharp into her leg, and
there’s the smell of pipe smoke and that noise again, that
scratching noise. It’s close and hot, that smell, and that scrabbling,
it’s a dog, she says it, she hears herself saying it:

It’s a dog. It’s your dog. Thomas, it was your dog!

Ah, no, that’ll be Bramble, he says, I’ve locked her in the
pantry. You don’t like ’em much, do you, dogs? Now that I
do
remember.

In the corner of the cafe, Alison is pretending to read the newspaper.
She hates waiting; she hates, even more, being kept
waiting, especially in a place as dreary as this. She’d ordered
coffee without a second thought, and now wishes she hadn’t.
It’s bitter, and murky as a puddle. The news is dreary too; local
stories of the past week’s flood damage, with a centre-page
spread showing photographs of the Cerne Abbas giant and a
statement from the Pagan Federation.

Anything of interest? asks William, bending over to kiss her
on the cheek.

Pagans, she says, tapping the picture, Apparently it’s all their
fault.

William drags out a chair and cranes his neck to read the
story.

Ah, the rain, yes, it’ll be them all right. They got all upset
about Homer. Threatened to cast a spell to wash him away.

You’ve lost me, says Alison, raising her head and trying to
catch the waitress’s eye, Don’t have the coffee. It’s like gravy
browning.