The Song House (18 page)

Outside, the cows in the field turn their heads as one towards
the window, listening to the crying of the song.

It used to be that Thomas Bryce knew the names of all the
dwellings on the river; which ones were tenanted, which were
grace and favour, which lay empty. There were four on the
north side under his jurisdiction, an area of nearly fifteen miles
from Welford to Snelsmore. Officially, his job was to check the
waters, make sure the licences were in order: didn’t matter who
lived there or why, no one fished on his patch without a permit.
Field Cottage stood alone at the very end; Keeper’s, his own
place, bang in the middle; then Meadow Cottage, then Weaver’s,
opposite Earl House. He knew the cottage when the Weaver
family had it. They were pig farmers at one time, although they
always claimed that their original trade was in their name. Then
it fell derelict for a while until the Cranes got it into their
heads to turn it into their holiday home, and that wasn’t much
of an improvement, from what he could tell. They spent one
summer there and gave up. Mrs Crane not thrilled with the
flies, apparently. So it stayed empty, and the youths from town
would come across the water and camp there and have parties.
Once, he turned up to check the licences on that stretch and
saw all the windows had been put through. After that, the
Cranes gave it to their son to look after. Thomas remembers
the very first time he met him, when he was only a kid. Edward
was very polite in those days, very interested in the river and the fish. The next time, years on, he was calling himself Ed
and had a ponytail and was wearing a necklace. He remembers
the girlfriends too: the one with the motorbike; the tall one
with the miniskirt and all the make-up; that one with the baby.
Sometimes he’d see her from over on the far bank and he’d
hold his breath, not want her to notice him, because she was
very nice to watch, when she didn’t know you were looking.
If she met you, she went stiff and terrified, like she was waiting
to be arrested. She was a beauty, Nell, but not what you’d call
modest. That wouldn’t bother him now.

Edward was supposed to be taking care of the place, but he
didn’t know anything. Cutting down the trees! Thomas had a
go at him for it, and Edward complained how they made the
walls damp, the inside gloomy. Why live by the river if you
don’t like the wet, Thomas told him. He didn’t listen, of course;
none of them would listen. Thought they owned the place.
And they did, the bricks and mortar of it; but Thomas told
them more than once: doesn’t matter what the deeds say, no
one owns the river but nature herself. Then he didn’t see
Edward any more, but the other bloke with all the hair was
always around the place, playing the bongos and singing. He
saw her and him out in the back garden once, lying down like
Adam and Eve. He thought to shout, You’ll want trees now,
you shameless hoboes, but he had the lad with him and didn’t
want to draw attention.

Four cottages down that stretch of river, very peaceful. Now,
it’s teeming; he can’t put names to the faces he sees. There’s
the new development and the barn conversions, the leisure
centre just past Boxford; there’s the golf club. Meadow Cottage
is up for sale again and Weaver’s has been turned into a holiday
let. The river’s not his business any more, but it makes
him want to spit when he sees it, all the rubbish, the way
people think if they chuck the odd bottle in, the odd can, it
won’t matter; and they leave the trees to overhang, and the
pennywort to smother, and think it won’t affect anyone else.

Everything affects everyone else on a river life. There’s only
Field Cottage left tenanted. The river was always snagging up
that way, on account of the bend in it, like a dog-leg, before
it straightened again in a rush down to town. They gave it to
Nell to bring her girl up, all grace and favour, like, and – more
to the point – out of the way. But it wasn’t much of a favour,
was it, what with the damp, and the estate not wanting to spend
money on it. She was doing
them
a favour, if anything. He
knows who lives there now: he knows her name, and that she
looks a lot like her mother used to, and that she won’t be cutting
down any trees round her way. She likes it gloomy.

Kenneth isn’t surprised to find she’s taken his song notes with
her; they were her idea, and her invention, and he doesn’t
suppose they’d mean much to him without her interpretation.
Alone in the dimness of the prefect’s office, he rests his hands
on the desk and stares unblinking at the typewriter, and the
sheaf of paper, and the box file. He’d clicked open the lid as
soon as he saw it, but found nothing inside. He was so hoping
she’d have left the notebook. He remembers he’d written on
the front, the crass joke he’d made about her being a hobbit.
Unforgivable. Stupid, stupid man.

She’s still here, and in every room of the house. Even the
daylight has the look of her. A single sheet of paper wound
round the platen is all she’s left behind. He bends forward,
grunting with the effort, and snatches it out with his fingers,
holds it close to his face, then at arm’s length. A short paragraph
of words, very small, handwritten. Handwritten, but left
on the typewriter for anyone to find. She’s left him a message!
And then he thinks on; perhaps he doesn’t want to read it,
perhaps it will upset him. He peers again at the sheet; it looks
like a poem; not an address, at any rate, not a phone number:
can’t make out any numbers. He folds it carefully and slips it
into his back trouser pocket. He must find his reading glasses.
He’ll have put them somewhere obvious.

For the first few days after she’d gone, he’d simply remained
in the library, in the quiet, or stood under the shower and let
the rushing water deafen him. Silence or roar; anything in
between was unbearable. When the van came with his weekly
delivery, Kenneth could barely bring himself to speak to the
girl, Sarah, even though they had always been friendly; him
helping her in with the boxes, and feeling for her, because it
wasn’t like driving a mobile library about, it was heavy work.
And she had felt sorry for him, he could tell, up at the house
on his own. Once, she’d asked him why his family didn’t do
his shopping for him, and he’d joked that he’d have no excuse
to see her pretty face every week, then, would he? When she’d
arrived this time, it was all he could do to answer the door.
He’d told her he wouldn’t be having any more deliveries, but
then he’d had to fill out a form, because Sarah said she wasn’t
authorized to cancel on his behalf. The form had such tiny
print on it, and Kenneth didn’t know where his glasses were,
and he had to breathe hard through his nose in order to stop
the tears.

Standing there on the porch, full of self-pity, trying not to
weep. Standing at the window of his office, looking out over
the fields and the clouds rumbling low across them, with a
great thick lump in his throat, impossible to swallow. Sitting
on the rainswept terrace with his head in his hands. Can’t
remember what day it is, but remembers how it feels to cry.

The boxes remain on the kitchen counter where he’d left
them. He sees the outer leaves of the cabbage have turned a
yellowy brown, the lettuces have shrivelled, the carrots, in
plastic, are silvered with condensation and dotted with mould.
He visualizes the bottom of the box, the gathering of slimy
liquid, the putrefaction, and has a fleet, clear image of the river
man. He can’t recall his name just now but it doesn’t matter.
He should do something with the boxes, and then he was going
to do that other thing. Feed the fish, that was it.

William rings the bell – one steady drill – and waits. He follows
through with a series of short jabs at the button. Finally, he
places the wine he’s brought down at his feet, and with both
hands, bangs on the panel in the centre of the door. He resists
the temptation to shout through the letter box, the urge to
throw the bottle at the wood. Not so long ago he mentioned
again the idea of him having a key, for emergencies, and felt
the black taste of hatred at the back of his mouth when his
father said it wouldn’t be necessary.

At your time of life, William had argued, Anything could
happen. And his father had laughed and replied, Oh, I do hope
so.

He goes round the back of the house to the courtyard, kicking
at the gravel like a truculent child. He’ll smash the lock on
the French windows if he has to. But there’s no need, because
the windows are open to the weather, and there’s Kenneth,
stretched out on one of the wicker sofas, swiping through a
magazine. He raises his head when he sees William, standing
in the rain with his collar turned up and his hair slick and
dripping, and waves him inside.

You’ll drown out there, he says, Come and give your father
a kiss.

William crosses the tiles, bends over obediently. A hint of aftershave,
lemony, on his son’s fresh skin. Kenneth is about to ease
himself out of his seat when William pulls up sharp.

Dad, don’t tell me you’ve started smoking, he says, pointing
to a cigar in the ashtray. Kenneth sinks back, smiles at him.

Thought I’d give it a try, he says, Can’t do any harm at my
age. It’s quite enjoyable. I can understand what they see in it.
William catches his breath. He wants to say, You’ll only set the
house on fire, no harm in that, but he has made a promise to
himself that he’ll go more carefully this time. And now a new
promise to check all the smoke alarms. There are matters in
need of attention, and if he loses his father now, it’ll be a wasted
trip. William knows how Kenneth operates: how forgetful he
is, and how he plays on it. His refusal to see a specialist is his
weapon, so there’s no telling how absent-minded he’s become,
no way to be sure how much of his behaviour is the performance
of an autocrat and how much is masking the truth.
William puts the wine down on the coffee table.

You didn’t answer the door, he says, unbuttoning his jacket.

Couldn’t be bothered, says Kenneth, not looking up, And
you said I should be careful who I let in these days.

William turns about, curls his fingers into a fist. He has a
dizzying urge to take the wine bottle and hit his father on the
head with it, smash his skull to pieces. He can almost hear the
sound of cracking bone. The vision makes him sick to the
stomach.

Is this an all day mood, or just for the next half-hour? he asks,
trying to control his breathing. Kenneth keeps flicking the pages
of the magazine, pretends to admire a set of bathroom scales.

Dad?

I miss her, he says, giving in, I know I shouldn’t, I hardly
knew her. She’s young enough to be my daughter. But I do
miss her. And it makes me really very angry.

William drags a chair across the tiles and sits on the edge of
it. He licks his lips.

What do you wish to do? he asks, like a counsellor, What
would be the ideal situation here?

I’d like her to come back, obviously, but I don’t think she’s
going to. She was quite troubled, on that last day.

The day I came for lunch.

That’s the one.

She probably realized that I was wise to her scheme,William
says, And took off before I blew her cover.

Kenneth’s eyes are steady on his son now.

Is that so, Miss Marple? Listen to yourself! She had no
scheme. She had, um, she had—

Kenneth falters. What did she have? What the bugger do they
call it?

– she had issues.

William smothers a laugh.

Get you, Dad.
Issues.
She was a flake, that was her main issue.
Next time you want a secretary, I’ll do the hiring.

There it is again, that tone, the same self-righteous timbre to
his son’s voice that Kenneth heard the last time they met. Triumphant,
says Kenneth, nailing it at last: he thinks he’s won a
war.

What was that, Dad?

I said flood warning. Heard it on the morning news. Better
batten down the hatches.

He rises unsteadily from his seat, grabbing the bottle of wine
by the neck.

Fancy a picnic? he says, Before the deluge?

The clouds swell across the sky, blackening the hills below with
their thick shadows. The lane outside the cottage is awash with
tractor mud and run-off from the fields, alive and uncontained;
but it is the river Maggie watches, how it gathers into a foaming
swirl at the bend, fuller now than she’s ever seen it. She thinks
of Kenneth, alone in his house on the downs, looking at the
very same river, and feels an ache, like a small hole, opening
in her chest. It catches her out, this sudden stitch of pain, and
she has to breathe carefully to ease it away. She should never
have gone there in the first place. It’s just made everything
worse.