The Song House (14 page)

Maggie raises her head and looks at him: she is willing him to
say.

– ever since Rusty went, he says.

Where is Rusty, Kenneth? Locked in the attic?

Maggie knows from his face he won’t answer.

Because the way you say it, you make her sound like a dog
that’s run off. And I think you might be able to trust me just
a little bit. Don’t you?

She removes herself from his grip, crossing the floor of the
library with ringing steps.

William swings his Mazda round to the porch; Kenneth is
waiting at the open door, wearing a pained expression.

Now I know the name perfectly, just can’t remember the
face, he says, holding his arms out in welcome.

Ha, Dad, you’re such a wit. How are you? says William,
climbing the steps and pushing his sunglasses up onto his head.
Maggie watches as they embrace and disappear into the dark
hole of the entrance. She waits for the door to close. Now they
will be walking through the hall, now they will be standing in
the kitchen. William will remark on the heat and he’ll remove
his jacket, looking for somewhere to hang it. Kenneth will
fetch a bottle of wine from the fridge, and William will decline,
and then Kenneth will offer him a glass of soda. He has already
frosted the tumbler, has refilled the ice tray, has fetched a wrinkled
lime from the fruit bowl and sheared off a thick uneven
wedge. She knows all this; she has seen the evidence. When
Kenneth went up to his room to change, she checked the
kitchen, saw two bowls and two plates ready on a tray, saw the
blue prawns defrosting in a sieve on the side of the sink,
the shredded lettuce. He will leave nothing to chance: William
is here to judge him.

A spider parachutes down directly in her eye-line; hangs
there, twirling, so that Maggie has to move. Can’t stand here,
hiding in the bushes all day. The back of William gives nothing
much away; his hair is greying, he wears a suit, he drives a flash
car. He is tall, like his father, but was too far away for her to
get a proper look at his face, and was wearing dark sunglasses.
She would have liked to have seen his eyes. It can’t be possible,
but she’s sure she could smell him: a scent of spearmint. Her
palate is educated enough for that. Maggie slings her bag over
her shoulder, turns her back on the house and walks into the
trees.

The pen helps her to write even faster than before. She feels
her hand glide across the page, fleet black imaginings pouring
from the nib.

Nell is asleep. She’s left the radio on and the sound of voices
fills her dreams. Leon’s thick arm pins her to the mattress. They
are both uncovered, naked, their skin cooling in the night air. The boy Will lifts the latch on the front door and eases it open.
He knows how things are here, has waited a long while, and
made preparations: he took the rope-bell when he was home
at half-term, just in case he accidentally knocked it on the way
back out, and last night he checked over the dinghy. He’d even
planned to force a door or window, thought about how would
be the best way to do it, but then had a stroke of luck when
Leon and Nell had another fight last week and she tried to
shut him outside. Leon bust the lock clean off. She’d asked
Thomas if he’d fix it for them, and then changed her mind
and said that Leon would do it. Will has seen what Leon has
been doing this week: lying doped-up in the sun, or sitting
under the shade of the willow tree, drinking from a pint glass.

Nell has taken to walking around half-dressed: a striped bikini
top and long skirt, or nothing at all on top and tiny little shorts,
always barefoot. She lets the little one run around naked. Will
can’t stand that; the little one’s got no choice in the matter.
He had to act quickly, before they finally got round to fixing
the lock. Watched them to make sure. You can smell the
weed from over the other side of the river. Will knows what
it is; some of the older boys at school smoke the stuff, usually
down the field behind the chapel, or leaning far out of the
dorm window after lights out. If one gets caught smoking, they
all get punished.

Will is careful going up the stairs: untried, he doesn’t know
where the creaks might be. Turns right. This is where she is.
He has observed her from the tree on the other side of the
bank. He was quite high up in the branches, Thomas’s binoculars
around his neck, and she was rubbing her hand across
the window. He thought she was waving, but when he looked
through the lenses he saw that she’d stuck a transfer of a
rainbow on the glass. Here she is now, asleep; she’s kicked the
bedclothes right off the bed, but her skin is still sweaty and her
hair is clinging to her forehead. Will has carried heavy things
for Thomas; boxes of logs, a dead fox that Thomas said he
planned to use as an example, a roadkill fawn. He goes to lift
her but her eyes open like a doll’s and she sits up and says, I’m
thirsty. He says, OK, little one, come with me and we’ll get
you a glass of water. And she rubs her hands over her head and
yawns and her open pink mouth reminds him of a kitten he
once had. She twists her feet into her slippers, half stumbling
against the bed, and as they turn to the stairs she takes
him
by
the hand.

Very steep, she says, and he says, Shh, because they’re passing
Nell’s bedroom, and Shh again because she’s such a chatterbox
and she just won’t listen. When she starts to say, Where are we
going? he moves her quickly through the door and down into
the garden. More difficult now, more risky than he thought, trying to get her to go at his pace. At the river’s edge, she starts
to cry.

Nell won’t let me, she says, as he’s trying to lift her into the
dinghy, I’ll drown, No! and she’s making no sense at all, and
he has to shout at her, half throws her into the boat and she
bangs her head—

Not her head. Maggie looks up into the emerald leaves on the
tree above, crosses out the error and continues.

she bangs her
head
face on the rowlock, and it’s such a shock,
it makes her silent. Will pushes the dinghy into the middle of
the river. The level’s low enough for him to carry on pushing.
The silt is gritty underfoot, the water sloshing around his knees;
the child lies still as a sack in the belly of the boat. He feels
the dinghy banking as he manouevres it into the reeds on the
other side, thinking it will capsize and tip her out. His hands
are shaking and his shorts are wet, and he lifts her out of the
boat and leads her through the tangled weeds. It’s all taken such
a long time. He’d started in the black of night, no moon, perfect,
and now he can feel the dawn lifting behind him as he
propels her up the rise towards the house. Her face in the dimness
looks very dirty. One of her eyes is shut, the skin around
it swelling like a bubble. He tries to hold her hand nicely but
she’s shivering and her fingers keep slipping from his grip. He
takes her by the wrist, striding fast into the courtyard, and in
the far wall there is a low door and behind the door there is
the trunk room. Will’s prepared it, cleared the space, moved
anything he thought might be dangerous up onto the high
shelf – the fishing tackle and the tennis rackets – and has
padlocked his school trunk. He thought about giving her a
tennis ball to play with, and then imagined her throwing it at
the door, the sound it would make. He’s put his sleeping bag
in here, and a chamber pot. He doesn’t know what else a child
of four might need.

I’m thirsty, she says again. Her eyes are like pips of light. He takes a packet of chewing gum from his pocket and unwraps
a stick, holding it for her to take.

You mustn’t swallow it, he says, feeling the terrible fear of
finding her, in the morning, choked and cold, You must chew
it and then spit it out. Look.

He shows her, folding the stick into his mouth and chewing
it, making noises of pleasure, exaggerating the movement of
his jaw.

And when the flavour’s gone, you spit it out, see?

And he spits it in the chamber pot.

Here, he says, offering the packet, You have them.

But she wriggles back against the wall, puts her hands out in
front of her, trying to push him away. It makes him feel hot,
uncontrolled, when she does that. A guilty feeling, like when
he’s been caught picking his nose and wiping it on the cushion
covers.

You mustn’t talk, he says, Do you understand? No talking. She doesn’t look as though she’s listening so he puts his face
very close to hers, like the older boys do to him at school when
they want to frighten him, and he repeats the words very
slowly.

You – must – not – talk. If the dog hears you talking – even
a little bit – he’ll jump in and rip your heart out. And Eat It. Do you understand?

A dog? whispers Maggie.

A very hungry dog, he says, satisfied he’s terrified her now.

He leaves the packet of chewing gum on a boot rack where
she can reach it and locks the door behind him. After the closeness
of the room the dawn air is like diving into a swimming
pool. Will feels the sweat running beneath his clothes.
Tomorrow, he only has to wait until tomorrow, and then he
can move her to the nursery.

Maggie takes the bridle path into the village. The air has
become sticky, the sun dim and lifeless, a flattened coin under
a thin membrane of cloud. At the shop, she pauses to read the
small ads in the window. Peering through them into the interior,
she sees Thomas Bryce contemplating a row of tins on a
shelf. Inside, the air is even thicker, and damp, carrying a vapour
of rotting vegetables. Maggie stands close enough behind
Thomas to know the smell is from him. She sees how the
grime on his collar makes the fabric look wet. It has been a
month since they last met.

Hello Thomas, she says, D’you remember me?

When he swivels his head to look at her, his eyes are filmy.

It’s Maggie, she says.

Thomas selects a tin of tomatoes from the shelf and studies it.

I know, he says, I’m not blind.

I’ve been meaning to stop by again, she continues, ducking
forward to try to catch his attention, I’d like to have another
chat.

He replaces the tin and fetches down a garish-coloured plastic
pot.

Noodles, he reads, considering, Bramble don’t much like ’em.

Are you still up at Keeper’s? she asks.

Where else would I be?

Only, I wondered if you’d had to move out. I heard the
estate were thinking of selling it. I could put a word in for
you.

He turns to face her again, weighing the pot in his hand.

They won’t kick me out, he says.

Maggie clenches and unclenches her jaw.

And why’s that, Thomas?

They won’t kick me out, he repeats, That’s mine for life. I
told you before, I’ve got nothing more to say to you.

He puts the pot back and walks away, leaves her standing there
at the shelves. As soon as he is gone from the doorway, the
assistant fetches a can of air freshener from under the counter. She moves past the till and into the aisle.

He’s a bit ripe, that one, she says, flapping a hand in front
of her face, I dread it when he comes in. Only spends about
a pound a week.

She holds the can aloft and squirts a spray of lavender rain into
the space above their heads.

Don’t suppose you sell antiseptic? asks Maggie.

Father and son sit facing each other. Earlier, Kenneth had
erected a picnic table under the cedar tree and covered it with
a white cloth. He’d brought out the cutlery and the napkins,
trudged back in for the side plates: he wanted everything to
go smoothly, was afraid of dropping or smashing things. Last
time he had William over, for dinner, Kenneth had forgotten
the forks, and then, after he’d gone back and fetched them, had
to make a second trip to get the wine glasses. Grist to William’s
mill, the small details.

When they first went outside, William with his sunglasses
covering his eyes again and carrying the drinks, and Kenneth
with the salad, he noticed something was different; couldn’t
fathom what it was. Now he sees: there’s a jar of wild flowers
in the centre of the table. He doesn’t remember putting them
there; in fact, he’s certain he didn’t put them there.