The Song House (13 page)

I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with D.

Dark!

The answer is always the same. I’m playing on my own, and
that’s all I can see. D for dark. And black: B for black. It’s not
cold, it’s stuffy, and I have to wipe my nose on my pyjamas
because it keeps going wet. My eye is wet too, like crying, but
I’m not crying. Leon says only babies cry. M for mouse, which
I can only hear so it doesn’t count. I can’t tell what time it is.
At home we have a clock on the wall in the kitchen but it
only has one hand on it because Nell tried to move them back
for winter and the little hand snapped off. Leon says, Oh look,
it’s twenty past something, I’ll be late! about six times a day.
There’s another clock next to Nell’s bed. The numbers go green
at night, so no matter how much dark there is, you can always
tell the time, if you know how to do it. And you can see Nell’s
face in the light when her head is near the edge of the pillow,
green like Kermit the Frog. I’m not crying. The boy said I
must wait until the Time is Right. He said he will fetch me
when the Time is Right and I mustn’t be sad about anything.
But I am sad. I want Nell and Leon. I don’t know how to do
the time yet. I don’t know when it will be right. He said, Don’t
cry, you’ll meet your mummy, and I said, My mummy’s Nell,
I’ve already met her. He said, Not that whore, I mean your
proper mummy.

Maggie pauses, raises her head; in a corner of the window, a
pale-blue dawn is breaking: she is thankful for this. She sits up
straight at the long desk and breathes deeply, mouth open,
listening for any sign of movement above her. Earlier, she had
tracked Kenneth’s footsteps on the staircase, slow and steady,
a door opening and closing; listened to the rush of water in
his bathroom, his happy tuneless humming. Nothing now, no
sound except the quick low rustle of a breeze in the bushes
outside. She pushes away the dark, pushes away that child in
the dark, and immediately feels a wrench of guilt: she’s only
just found her and already she wants to forget again, wants
to put her away in the dark again. She’s no better than him.
Maggie clenches her jaw, holds out her left arm in the half-light,
twisting it, bending the wrist backwards and forwards.
Her skin looks as blue as the sky. Getting up from the desk,
she closes the notebook and picks up the fountain pen,
exposing the pale soft flesh of her upper arm, offering the skin,
like a sacrifice, to the morning. She feels a chill air blowing off
the river. She stabs the tip of the pen, once, twice, into the soft
underside of her flesh. And then again, again, the point jabbing,
black, black, pockmarks of black surrounded by fresh pink
haloes of trauma, and quickly now, black, black, blocking out
the thought of the child, burying the thought of the child,
pushing her deeper and further in, until finally, she is without
thought. A rush of saliva fills her mouth. It’s a glorious taste.
Like Chablis. Like water over stones.

Today, Kenneth plays her what he calls cool jazz: Chet Baker,
Gerry Mulligan, Miles Davis, moving not quite seamlessly from
Dave Brubeck to the Alan Price Set. The sounds are interesting,
but his reminiscences involve a detailed, lengthy and, to
Maggie, stultifying potted history of the music. But he speaks
and she takes notes; lets him ramble on. Neither of them has
referred to last night, although she can see in his eyes that he
thinks they have moved beyond friendship. He is quieter this
morning, looks tired and elated. He talks about London clubs,
and fast cars, and his college friends and business associates,
buying his first house and the view of the park and painting
one room entirely purple; about driving a Bugatti down to the
south of France, being propositioned by a princess in Cap
Ferrat, meeting Jimmy Stewart in Nice. He’s making it up, she
thinks, he’s creating a fantasy. Not once does he mention Rusty
or William; the avoidance hangs like a stink in the air between
them.When he starts another long monologue about cars, she
interrupts.

You can tell the truth, Kenneth, she says, These notes are for
you, remember?

He looks directly at her as she says this, gives her a tense smile.

Am I so transparent?

’Fraid so. Why don’t you tell me about meeting Rusty? She
was a performer, wasn’t she?

Kenneth retreats to the chair in the corner. He would like to
say that he doesn’t want to think of Rusty now, sitting here
on a blue summer morning with Maggie so close. But she has
asked the question.

Rusty certainly liked a performance. She was a singer, but
frankly – well, she wasn’t that talented. Good-looking girl,
though, stunning.
A captivating presence
, he says, in an affected
tone, as if he’s quoting a review, All the men adored her.
Maggie writes down the exact words, trying to ignore the
quick spike of envy.

Tell me something ordinary, she says, Something you’ll
always remember.

He tilts his head to one side and stares out of the window.

She was very tidy, he says, at last.

Tidy how?

He bats at the air in irritation.

Tidy. Liked everything in its place.

So, she was house-proud. It’s hardly a crime.

No. She was a maniac, he says, She was obsessive. I could
never find anything. When we had visitors, after they’d gone,
she’d take their cups or glasses or whatever, and she’d soak them
in bleach. Can you imagine? I dropped a spoon on the floor
once, at dinner, and she made me fetch a clean one.

Well, says Maggie, That’s not so odd.

It is. We could have eaten off that floor.

How times have changed, she says, quietly, Shall we try a
nicer memory, Kenneth? Something you liked about her?

She was stunning, he repeats, slapping his palms down on
the arms of the chair with an air of finality, And all the men
adored her.

But she chose you, she says, head bent, Must have been love.

Love! barks Kenneth, as though the idea is absurd, People
didn’t marry for love in my day – in my set. But I did love her, and I suppose I was a safe enough prospect. I would be
successful, you see, which was what women wanted, back then.
And all a man wanted, apparently, was a beautiful wife. You
made your bed. No living together then, you couldn’t find out
about each other first.

Maggie has an image of the bedroom upstairs, the dressing
table covered in pots of face cream and dusting powder and
elegant perfumes and silver-backed hairbrushes, and a pair of
diamond earrings tossed casually into the middle of it all: placed
very carefully in the middle, perhaps. And of her own room.
Sink full of blood. Torn handkerchief spotted with stains.

But what would you have
wanted
to find out, Kenneth? she
asks, struggling to keep her voice level, She was perfect, wasn’t
she? A woman other men coveted, and you won her. Wasn’t
that enough?

She liked to be made a fuss of, he says simply, Got terribly
. . . low if she wasn’t centre-stage. She craved attention, all the
time, from anyone.

Ah, and you were jealous, says Maggie, sensing she’s going
too far but unable to stop herself, Is that why you left her?

I’m not having any of this in there, he says, pointing his
finger at her, Don’t think you can simply come in here and
accuse me. Don’t think for one minute I wouldn’t send you
packing.

He doesn’t raise his voice, but his expression is livid. She puts
her pen between the pages and closes the cover.

You’ll have heard rumours, I’m sure, he says, About this
family.

Maggie wants to say, I
am
the rumour, sitting right here in
front of you; I’m the spectre at the feast. But she’s afraid of
him. Kenneth talks very quickly and firmly, as if he’s rehearsed
his response.

There was an incident, when Rusty was ill . . . it doesn’t
belong in there.

He gestures to the book in her lap,

That is not a period of my life I wish to remember.

The incident – she echoes.

A mother doesn’t turn her back on her child, he says, But
Rusty was unwell.

He moves over to the stereo, selects a record and puts it on. Maggie listens, waiting for more. In the long pause that follows,
she hears her blood beating in her head, and then a song she
knows so well: about a woman and a broken man, about a twist
of fate. And she hears what she thinks Kenneth hears; the
cruelty in the words, how everything that’s in the past is lost,
and how everything that happens now is built on that loss. She
won’t look up, dreading what she might see in his face, what
Kenneth might discern in hers.

There was an opening for a consultancy in Bahrain, he continues,
very quietly, almost apologetic, It was a busy time out
there, in those days. And I thought, why not? Change of scene,
might make all the difference. You think you’ve made plans,
got your escape route, but then— he throws his hands up –
All you’re actually doing is running away. And you can’t even
do that without making a mess of it. Maggie, don’t take that
down. Please. Don’t write that.

What do you want me to write, then?

He doesn’t reply. He drops his head low and smoothes a desolate
hand over his hair. She has a sudden, inexplicable urge to
smoothe it for him. Pulls on the sleeve of her shirt to stop
herself. It’s only the song that makes her feel like this, she tells
herself, those silver guitar chords, that plaintive voice.

I want you to invent something, he says, at last, Something
unexpected. Surprise me.

Like you surprised me? she says, eager now to reel back in
the past five minutes and start all over again, With your lovely
surprise?

He half shrugs in reply, and takes the needle off the record.
Maggie slides the pen from the notebook, rubbing her thumb
over the emerald cap as she does so.

Thank you, Kenneth, she says, It writes beautifully. But you
shouldn’t have.

Not a real gemstone, he says, Sorry about that.

It had better not be, I don’t want anyone sweating their life
away to provide me with a piece of rock.

So what would you rather they sweated over? he says bitterly,
What should a man waste his life on?

She hesitates. To say the wrong thing now is to lose him. But
the moment’s already lost; he won’t talk freely in this state. She
feels the danger in him, the barely contained violence, and
answers slowly, thinking it through as she speaks, articulating
the idea for the first time.

What gets me up in the morning, what keeps me
sweating
on
in life, is the possibility that it’ll be better tomorrow.

And is it?

How can I know?

Kenneth gives her a warm smile.

Maggie, I’m so sorry, and you’re so wise. Forgive me. Now,
I’ve chosen this one specially for you, he says, lining up the
needle on the track.

The sound is a big horse clopping slowly through the desert. Smell of leather, pink dusk falling behind the mountain. ‘Lay
Lady Lay’. He’s playing her a love song.

How do you make the darkness shine? she asks, silently. And
as if she’s spoken, looks to him for the answer. In reply, he sits
on the edge of the chair, places a hand lightly on her shoulder.
She can smell his cologne. She can feel the slight tremor running
through his skin, through the fabric of her shirt and through
her own skin and through her bones and down beneath her
bones. The place where she stabbed herself beats hot and sore.
She would like to tell him everything. She would like to weep.

What does it do for you? he says, when the song dies.

It makes me very sad, she says, turning her face away, Because
of course, she won’t stay.

Kenneth’s voice is ragged.

Why won’t she stay, Maggie?

Because he doesn’t know
her
story, she says, It’s always
his
story. And what is he anyway? He’s just some desperado. He’s
not a saint, and she’s probably – she’s probably just a whore!
Kenneth, blurred, kneels in front of her.

Maggie, what on earth is it? What’s happened? Was it me
being a brute? Did I frighten you?

I’m no good at this, she says, You’re right, the past is gone.

We shouldn’t go looking for it.

She holds her palms out, as if he might divine her grief this
way, but he simply takes her hands in his own. They remain
like this, like two supplicants, paying no attention to the endless
hiss-click of the needle on the vinyl.

Will is coming today, Kenneth whispers at last, Invited himself
for lunch.

Maggie dips her head down; she still can’t look at him.

Best hide myself away then, she says.

Kenneth squeezes her hands tight; she feels his own parched
warmth penetrate her skin.

No need for that, Maggie, I’d love for him to meet you. As
long as you feel up to it. He can be difficult, I warn you. Overprotective.
Has been, ever since—