Night Music (19 page)

As she rummaged in her pockets, she heard him approaching. He held out a handkerchief to her. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘Please take this.’

She reached out reluctantly, and pressed it to her face. Nobody used linen handkerchiefs any more, she thought absently. She felt vaguely reassured, as if there could be no malice in someone who kept one on his person. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she said, trying to stop shuddering. ‘You’ve caught me at a bad moment.’

‘Is there . . . anything I can do?’

She half laughed. The idea of it, as if there were anything that could help this now. ‘Oh . . . No,’ she said.

He waited while she dried her face. Crying was so alien to her.

‘I wasn’t sure if you could hear me. I didn’t know if you were wearing one of those things . . .’ He mimed earphones. ‘Dog-walkers often do, you know.’

‘No . . .’ She glanced around for Bernie, then made to give back the handkerchief, and realised how wet it was. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t think you’re going to want it like this.’

‘Oh, that . . .’ He waved a hand, as if it were of no importance.

She got the dog by the collar and stood for a moment, head bowed, not knowing what to say.

‘I’ll leave you in peace, then,’ he said, seemingly unwilling to move, ‘if you’re sure you’re okay.’

‘I’m fine. Thank you.’

Suddenly she remembered where they were. ‘You do know this is a private road? Were you looking for somebody?’

It was his turn to look awkward.

‘Ah,’ he said. ‘A private road. I must have taken a wrong turning. Surprisingly easy to get lost in woods.’

‘This is a dead end. Where are you after?’

He seemed reticent. He pointed to his car. ‘Just somewhere nice to eat my lunch, I suppose. I live in the city, so anywhere seems pretty to me.’ His smile was so apologetic, so genuine, that Laura relaxed.

She took in the good, if tired suit, the sad, kind eyes. A kind of quiet recklessness overtook her. Why should she care? What did any of it matter, given Matt’s behaviour?

‘I know somewhere nice you can eat it on the other side of the lake,’ she said. ‘If you pull your car on to the verge, I’ll show you. It’s only a few minutes’ walk through the trees.’

A short distance away, in the stultifying confines of her history lesson, Kitty was mulling over her discovery. She had tried to be fair, as Mary had taught her, but however she looked at it, the message came with only one explanation.

‘Hello, Mrs Delancey. It’s Mr Cartwright here. I wondered if you’d thought any more about our discussion. I’ve had another call from Mr Frobisher, who is still interested in seeing your Ge– Guar– your instrument. I don’t know if you got my previous messages, but I do think it’s worth considering. As we discussed, the amount he’s suggesting would change your financial situation considerably. It’s more than double what your husband paid for it . . .’

Change your financial situation considerably
. Kitty remembered Cartwright, with his big shiny briefcase, and his embarrassment at the laundry pile teetering beside him. Mum had sent her away, even though she couldn’t cope with what the man was saying. And now Kitty had an idea why. She hadn’t wanted Kitty to know that there had been a choice. In spite of everything, that stupid violin was more important to her even than her family’s happiness.

Thierry was no help.

‘Did you hear any of these messages?’ she had said to him in his room the previous evening, as he sat in front of his computer game, his thumbs beating out some apocalyptic tattoo. ‘Did you know Mum could have sold her violin?’

He had gazed at the screen blankly as if he didn’t want to know anything.

‘Don’t you get it? If she knew she could have sold the violin, Thierry, we didn’t have to move to this hole. We might have been able to keep our house.’

Thierry stared fixedly in front of him.

‘Do you hear me? Doesn’t it even bother you that Mum lied to us?’

He had shut his eyes then, as if he were determined not to even look at her while she was talking. So she had told him he was a freak, an attention-seeking idiot, and gone off to her room to brood.

Mum had known something was up. She had kept asking Kitty questions over dinner, whether school was all right, whether she was okay. Kitty was so mad she could hardly look at her. All she could think was, we could still be in our Maida Vale house. We could be in our old road, with the neighbours we knew, and our old school and maybe even Mary, if the violin was worth enough.

Her mother had gone on about how she had decided to do some teaching to bring in more money. She had put a notice in the Cousins’ shop. She said, ‘It won’t be so bad,’ so many times that Kitty knew she was dreading it. But still she couldn’t feel grateful or sympathetic. Because her mum talking about lessons made her think about violins again.

‘Do you love us?’ she had said pointedly.

Her mother had been shocked. ‘How can you ask that? Of course I love you!’ Even Kitty had felt guilty about how upset she had been. ‘Why?’ Isabel had asked. ‘Why are you even asking?’

‘More than anything?’

‘More than anything you can imagine,’ her mother said, all fierce and emotional. She had hugged her after they had eaten, as if to reassure her, but Kitty could not hug her back, as she normally would. Because they were just words, weren’t they? It was obvious what she loved most. If that stupid violin hadn’t been their only hope of anything, Kitty would have thrown it out of the upstairs window.

That afternoon she walked home with Anthony. She had missed the school bus, and Anthony had too, and it was only when she got home that she realised he might have done so deliberately. They walked together quite a lot now, and Kitty was definitely less shy with him. He was quite nice to talk to, and she felt safe walking through the wooded bit if he was there. When she was by herself she was always imagining someone watching her from behind the trees.

‘What would you do if your parents lied to you?’ she said, as they kicked their way down the path. They walked quite slowly in the afternoons, as if neither was in a hurry to get home.

‘About what?’ Anthony held out a stick of chewing-gum. She took it and unwrapped it as they walked.

Kitty wasn’t sure she wanted to tell him. ‘Something big,’ she said eventually. ‘Something that affected the whole family.’

Anthony snorted. ‘My dad lies the whole time.’

‘Don’t you ever say anything?’

He tutted. ‘The thing about parents,’ he said, ‘is that there’s one rule for you and another for them.’

‘My dad wasn’t like that,’ said Kitty. She stepped on to a fallen tree-trunk and walked its length. ‘He talked to me like I was the same as him. Even if he told you off it felt like . . . like he was just explaining something.’ She couldn’t say any more about him, or tears would well in her eyes.

They moved back as a car came up the lane, slowing almost to a halt as it edged past them. The driver, a man in a suit, lifted a hand as he passed.

Anthony watched him go, then moved back into the middle, shrugging his schoolbag on to his shoulder. ‘My dad lies to everyone, and he always gets away with it,’ he said bitterly. Then he changed the subject. ‘Saturday,’ he said. ‘Me and a few others are going to the pictures. You can come if you want. If you fancy it.’

The violin was briefly forgotten.

Kitty glanced at him from under her fringe.

He was looking straight down the lane, as if there was something really important down there that he had to focus on. ‘It’s nothing special. Just a few of us having a laugh.’

The lump had disappeared from Kitty’s throat. ‘All right,’ she said.

Nicholas Trent blinked in the bright sunlight as he left the wood, drove to the top of the lane, and signalled right to head back on to the main road. Given the amount of time it had taken to get there, and his unexpectedly long lunch break, he should have headed off to the estate agents’, as planned. But, distracted, he drove back towards the motorway. His head was too full, his mind spinning too hard for clarity.

And this time it was nothing to do with houses.

Twelve

The boy lay on his back, giggling as the puppies crawled over him, their fat stomachs and oversized paws scrabbling for purchase on his sweater. Boys that age were like puppies themselves, Byron thought, taping round another cardboard box. The child had spent much of the morning tearing round the small garden, racing the terrier, who yapped excitedly at his heels. He was different here, away from his mother. He was keen to learn – how to mend fencing, how to rear the young pheasants, which mushrooms were safe to eat, and unleashing such a torrent of affection on the dogs that both bitches had expanded their previously exclusive loyalties to include him as well. It was not as if he’d said much – it was hard enough to get a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ out of him – but he’d let his guard down a little.

It didn’t seem right on a boy his age, the way he was. When Byron compared him with his niece, Lily, and her noisy chatter, her uncomplicated demands on everybody’s time and affection, he felt sad. They said it was understandable, in a boy who had just lost his father, that all kids reacted in different ways to such a trauma. He had overheard the widow on the phone to the school, fighting off psychiatrists and suchlike that some teacher had wanted to press on her. ‘I’ve talked to him about it, and he doesn’t want to go. I’m happy to let my son deal with things in his own way for now,’ she had said. He had noticed that while her voice was calm her knuckles, gripping the drawer handle, were white. ‘No – I’m well aware of that. I will certainly let you know if I feel he needs specialist help.’ He had silently applauded her: he had an instinctive need for privacy, for freedom from interference and supervision. But it was hard not to wonder what on earth was locked behind the boy’s closed-off little face.

He leaned over the half-door of the kitchen. ‘You all right down here for a minute, Thierry? I’ve got to get a couple more bits down from upstairs.’

The boy nodded, hardly seeing him, and Byron ducked out of habit as he made his way up the narrow staircase to his bedroom. Two suitcases, four large cardboard boxes and a trailer-load of bits and pieces, plus a bootfull of puppies. Not a lot to show for a life, not a lot to find a home for. He sat down heavily on his bed, hearing the yaps downstairs. It wasn’t the smartest or most luxurious bedroom, but he had been happy these last few years, with his sister and Lily. He had not brought women here – on the few occasions he had felt the need of female company he had made sure he went to theirs – and consequently, without any feminine input, it had the blank, utilitarian appearance of a hotel room. His sister had insisted on making matching curtains and quilt covers – an attempt, he knew, to make him feel like he was part of a home again. He had told her not to bother. He spent most of his time outdoors anyway. Still, it had been home, and he realised that he was sad to leave it.

Landlords did not want tenants with dogs. The only one who had said he would be happy to accept Byron’s dogs had demanded six months’ rent as a deposit, ‘in case the animals cause damage’. It was a laughable figure. The other possible landlord had not wanted the dogs indoors. Byron had explained that once the puppies were gone his dogs would be happy to sleep in his car, but the landlord wasn’t buying it. ‘How do I know you’re not going to let them in as soon as my back’s turned?’

The weeks had ticked by, his sister had left, and it was now a matter of days until the tenancy formally ended. He had considered asking Matt for a loan, but even if he had agreed, something in Byron balked at the idea of being even further beholden to him.

‘What we going to do, then, old girl?’ He rubbed the collie’s head. ‘I’m thirty-two years old, I have no family, a job that pays less than the minimum wage, and I’m about to be made homeless.’

The dog looked mournful, as if she, too, had grasped the uncertainty of their future. Byron smiled, and made himself stand up, trying not to think of what he had just said, or of how oppressively quiet the house already felt now that he was alone. He tried not to let the voice that spoke of despair drown his determination. He knew from another time how easy it was to let such thoughts overwhelm you.

Life wasn’t fair, and that was that. Young Thierry downstairs knew it, and he had had to learn a harder lesson than Byron at a painfully young age.

Byron made his way downstairs. It was nearly time to get the boy home. The local newspaper was out this afternoon. He hoped something would turn up in it. He watched the child, registered his joy, suddenly grateful for the distraction.

‘Come on, you,’ he said to Thierry, making himself sound more cheerful than he felt. ‘If you’re good we’ll ask your mum if you can sit in Steve’s digger when we clear that bottom field.’

Isabel heard the low whistle as she came down the stairs, and found her hand creeping across her chest to pull the two sides of her shirt collar together. Matt was on the other side of the hallway, feeding electrical cable into a gaping cavity, his leather tool-belt slung low round his hips. He was flanked by two other young men she had seen a couple of times before. He was smiling at her. ‘You’re very smart, Mrs D. Going anywhere nice?’

Isabel blushed, and cursed herself for it. ‘Oh . . . no,’ she stuttered. ‘It’s just an old shirt I dug out.’

‘Suits you,’ said Matt. ‘You should wear that colour more often.’ He went back to the electric cable as one of the men muttered to him. He began to sing quietly to himself. Eventually she recognised the tune. ‘Hey there, lonely girl . . . lonely girl . . .’

She fought the urge to turn round and instead walked into the drawing room, her hand still at her throat. This was the third time Matt had commented on her appearance in a week, but she found it hard to believe that her shirt was worthy of note. It was navy blue linen, and so old as to be worn paper-soft. Laurent had given it to her many years ago during a trip to Paris – it was one of a number of old garments that had recently begun to fit her again. In truth, a large proportion of her wardrobe now hung off her. She hadn’t had much appetite since Laurent had died. Sometimes she felt that if it hadn’t been for the children she would have lived on biscuits and fruit. And there was nobody to talk to about the children, about Kitty’s foul temper, her son’s continuing silence. She probably spoke to Matt more than any other living being.