The Devil's Music (35 page)

    The brown egg is warm against your palm. There are specks on the shell, pieces of grit, eggshell coloured. Your stomach lurches. You should not have eaten breakfast.

    ‘
I was all right for a while, I could
—’

    You leap up, the corner of the table catching your thigh ‘—
smile for a while
—’ and Jean’s hands, fingers spread, hover protectively over the eggs as they roll.

    ‘
But I saw you last
—’

    Reaching out: ‘The wireless – please.’

    ‘Steady!’

    ‘—
held my hand so tight, When you stopped
—’

    Your fingers find the dials. A blare of music, then it’s off. Your throat squeezes around a breath that forces itself out as a sob.

    ‘It’s—’ but you can’t speak.

    ‘Roy Orbison.’ Jean nods. ‘Yes!’ Then she starts up again. ’
Cry-y-y- ying ... ov-er
—’

    You smack the flat of your hand, hard, on the worktop. ‘For God’s sake, Jean!’

    Jean dips her head and pats a curl. ‘I thought you liked that song.’

    ‘No.’

    Jean considers her egg and jabs the needle into the other end.

    ‘I don’t.’ You sink back into the chair. ‘No.’

    ‘Well, as it happens, it’s one of my favourites.’ She sighs. ‘You’re very jumpy, I must say.’ Egg to her lips, she bends over the Pyrex bowl and blows, puffing out her cheeks; a gelatinous mix of yolk and raw egg white trails out through the other needle hole. She dabs at her mouth with a folded handkerchief. ‘Are you still on anything?’

    ‘No.’ Your palm is hot from slapping the table, stinging. You roll the egg to and fro on the Formica, only brittle shell between the heat of your hand and the hardness of the table top. ‘I wasn’t “on” anything very much. And they don’t let us out of the loony bin while we’re still loonies, you know.’

    Before Jean arrived, you’d crushed the eggs. The ones that you’d just blown: one by one, beneath the flat of your hand: crushed. You scooped up the fragments and buried them in the compost colander under muddy potato peelings; wiped your fingers on the roller towel.

    There is no way to explain.

    ‘I just can’t ... Some kinds of music are too sad.’

    ‘I see.’ Jean places her empty eggshell in the wicker basket. ‘Feeling fragile? Perhaps something more cheerful:
My Fair Lady
?’ She starts to sing again, warbling. ‘
I could have danced all night! I could have danced all night! And still have begged for more. I could have spread my wings. And done a thousand things
  ...’

    Placing the tip of your little finger between your teeth, you bite down and keep on biting until the flare of pain dies back. Then you rest your palm on the brown egg.

    Jean wiggles her fingers over the eggs, as if choosing her favourite chocolate from a selection box. ‘You weren’t ever a loony exactly.’ Her voice is softer, almost a croon. ‘Just a bit tricksy.’ She flutters her fingers.

    The egg turns below your palm.

    Jean fishes in her handbag for her cigarettes and lighter. Inhaling, she nods towards the eggs. ‘Shall we save some for the children to blow later?’

    ‘No.’

    She puts her hand on yours, to still the forward and backward movement.

    ‘Relax. It’s nearly Easter. It’s spring. Soon be warm enough to go to The Siding. Sea air will do you good.’ She takes another suck on her Senior Service, blows the smoke out fast, tight-lipped, angling it upwards. ‘You have a loving family.’ She gestures into the air with the cigarette. ‘This is an optimistic time of year.’

    Her eyes are pale blue, the black pupils shrinking. She knows.

    A heartbeat.

    She can’t know, but she might have guessed. How well does Jean know you?

    You shift your gaze to the poster paints on the kitchen table, the slender paint brushes and three tiny yellow balls of fluff, each stuck on to a pair of plastic claws. There’s a reel of shiny ribbon on the table, un-spooling. The twigs, from which the decorated eggs will hang, lie knobbly and dark on newspaper, a damp patch spreading beneath them. Your stomach churns again.

    ‘I don’t think I can do this any more,’ you whisper, burying your head in your hands. The skin smells of potato peelings.

    ‘Right you are.’ Her voice is brisk. Jean’s taken a fortnight’s holiday to ease you back into ‘real’ life, because Michael thinks that to be too much on your own would be unwise. They’re both watchful, anxious not to allow you near whatever brink it was you toppled over before. You’re never alone.

    The chair creaks as Jean leans forward to rest a hand on her arm. ‘Tell you what, old thing, I’ll make you a cup of Nescafé and then we’ll go to the copse and pick some primroses before the kids get back, shall we? They’re perfect now, the primroses. We could dig up a few for the garden. Dad might like some too.’

    You smell cigarette smoke and a faint whiff of perm solution in Jean’s hair and see the primroses shut in the boot of the Morris; bags filled with the breath of soil and roots and crinkly green leaves, petals pressed against misty plastic: creased; fragile and dying.

    You drop your hands into your lap, holding them there. ‘I’d just like to walk by the river. On my own.’

    Jean hesitates, cigarette between two straight fingers, elbow poised on the palm of a hand. Her eyes slide over you, up and down.

    ‘Just half an hour to myself, down by the river. If you could take Susie to Brownies, I’ll be back before Andy’s home.’ Fingering the pearls at your neck, you smile brightly.

You go along the river to Cock Marsh, trying to amble. Three swans glide by: a lamentation. The cows turn their heads, chewing. There are dangling catkins, rolled leaf buds like fairy cigars on the beeches and, among the trees, glossy bluebell leaves. In the distance, water rushes over the weir.

    There’s a houseboat tied up by the lock so you walk towards it, although it’s not his. This one is empty for the winter. You rub at the rust on the padlock securing the door and listen, as you did that first day outside the dining room, hearing his heavy shoes on gritty boards, his sigh, your voice echoing in the uncarpeted room that smelt of damp glue and soot. He strides towards you again, huge, the top part of his overalls hanging from his waist, thick coppery hair surging at the neck of his shirt. The sudden dipping movement as he bends to his shoes, the bulk of him so close, his head near your feet, shoulder muscles shifting.

    You take a breath, let go of the padlock and make yourself face towards home, walk in that direction. Watching your feet, you almost bump into Mrs Reeves stepping through her garden gate with secateurs in one hand and an empty trug over her arm.

    ‘My dear, how nice to see you out and about! Feeling better?’ In the March sunshine, the face powder on her jowls is dusty. ‘How about a cup of tea, it’s almost that time?’ She peers at her wristwatch as you shake your head. Before you have time to voice a reply, Mrs Reeves has put down her trug. ‘And how is that adorable daughter of yours?’

    Mrs Reeves is one of Michael’s wealthiest patients. She’s been extremely generous to the children. Toy trains, dolls, even a Wendy House. You must prepare yourself to listen. Mrs Reeves shakes her head over the misdemeanours of somebody’s daughter. You have been ill for months; village life has passed by. You should catch up with things. You look up; wisps and smudges of white on the blue: clouds. The easterly wind bites.

    ‘And, my dear, shocking news about the Sinclair’s eldest, Ian; such a
dashing
young man. Have you heard? Eh?’

    The prick of goose bumps on your neck and cheeks: his name.

    Mrs Reeves has cocked her head to catch the reply. ‘No? Surely, Michael ...? Eh. Yes? Not long after he went out to Paris. Well, it’s a terrible tragedy, terrible tragedy.’ Mrs Reeves smacks her lips together, rummages in her pocket for a handkerchief and gives her nose a hard blow.

    Your stomach has fisted. You must hold yourself very still. ‘Mrs Reeves, no, I
haven’t
heard.’

    The springy curl of his beard at your neck, his smell of turps and sweat;
my darling
, he sighs at your ear – but when you glance over your shoulder there is just grass in the breeze; cows ripping at it.

    Mrs Reeves wipes her nose thoroughly, shoving the handkerchief up each nostril. ‘Well, yes, my dear. That contraption he rode around on, his “scooter”. And the roads in Paris – well, I don’t know if you’re familiar—?’

    In your ears, the boom of blood. You shake your head, tasting metal.

    ‘His mother would be very grateful if you were to call in, eh? I’m sure it would be a great comfort for her, my dear.’

    ‘Tell me—’ you enunciate each word with care ‘—what happened.’ It sounds like an order. You put your hand to the flint wall. ‘I mean, pardon me, Mrs Reeves. Please. I haven’t heard—’

    ‘Well, it was right in the centre of Paris. You knew he went over to teach art out there? Delightful city, but my dear, the traffic! And he was knocked off the—’

    Fierce as labour, the pain has you hunched, pressing a hand against the rough tweed of your skirt. ‘He’s
dead
?’

    ‘Oh no! No, he did come out of the coma, finally –
such
an ordeal for his poor mother. She was quite exhausted by it all. But now, of course, they want a second opinion, because they’re saying he’ll never walk again and as for his painting—’

    Your legs are numb but you’re stepping for the last time into the tiny space that rocks as he ducks through the doorway behind you and there’s liquid movement, bright with the sun pouring in through windows on three sides and ripples of light on the ceiling, reflections from the water, the air dancing with dust motes on streaming rays of light, canvases stacked against a wall, the floor splashed with crimson paint, his beard thick with its reddish glints, the white line across the back of his neck where his hair’s been cut. He’s asking about the children and wiping his hands on an old cloth, his fingers with the blond hairs above and below the joint; he lifts a hand to your cheek. He’s asking again, cajoling.
Paris:
a glimpse of yourself, washing at a basin under the slope of an attic room – a low bed, canvases – but the children ... Your ears thrum with the sudden fog of absence. You turn and tear along the towpath towards the weir, stumbling on the hummocky grass, choking, hand to your mouth.

‘It’s me, Mum.’ I kick the front door closed and let my satchel thud to the floor. A pile of post is spread across the doormat. I’d better pick it up.

    ‘Mum?’

    The house is cold. Today Mrs Spencer pointed her cane to the globe and told us more snow was coming from Siberia. If you live in Siberia you have a fur coat and hat and log cabin on the Siberian plateau. Most probably, the bear that holds the coats in Grampy’s house is a Siberian bear.

    She must be in bed again.

   
Utterly worthless
. It’s our favourite saying, me and Hugh.

    I tread on the heel of first one shoe then the other, flattening them, wriggling my feet out. Then I tread on the toes of my socks until they’re wrinkly on the hall carpet. I scramble up the stairs on all fours making as much noise as possible.

    The door to their bedroom is closed. There’s an icy draught across the lino. I put an ear to the wood and my hand on the doorknob and then something happens. Something weird in my head makes me stop. Like trying to remember a dream.

    No bag in the hall; Father must be out. I knock on the door. Nothing. I open it. Freezing wind from Siberia rushes in through the open windows and the net curtains rise up in the air. The bed is tucked in and neat.

    I shut the windows and sit on the big bed, hands on the candlewick tufts. Bouncing gently, I watch my reflection in the mirror on the wardrobe bounce too. Today is  ...

    This week I am Register Monitor so I missed writing the date in my exercise book because I was collecting all the registers from all the classrooms to take to the headmaster’s office.