The Song House (22 page)

Nell’s not an early riser, so when she opens one eye to look
at the clock and sees it’s only just gone six, she rolls over into
the middle of the bed and wraps her smooth leg around Leon’s
hairy one, and falls back to sleep. At nine, she sits up with a
start and shakes Leon’s shoulder.

Where’s Bird? she says, because it’s my habit to climb into
bed with them as soon as I wake up, which is often quite early,
and sing to them. Nell sees my empty bed and the open door
and she knows in her bones that I’m in the river.

Get the river man, she says, Get the police. Why don’t you
do something?

Leon gestures wildly, as if, like a conjurer, he can make her
panic disappear simply by waving his hands.

I’ll get Bryce, he says, But no police, not yet. She might have
just wandered off. Let’s have a search round, okay? Okay?

They go to Meadow Cottage first, along the river and down
through the back lanes, where Nell keeps looking over the
hedgerows, expecting to find me in a ditch. Mrs Baggs, in her
long apron, gathers her children into her body, as if they too
are in danger of being lost.

My husband’s not well, she says, her eyes flicking up to the
closed bedroom curtains, But I’ll tell him as soon as he gets
up. Sorry I can’t go myself, she says, lifting the smallest onto
her hip.

At Keeper’s Cottage, Thomas Bryce pulls on his boots,
fetches his dog from the garden, and sets out to comb the riverbank.

But we should go in your car, cries Nell, Surely that’s best?

Sonny’ll find her if she’s out there, he says, with what sounds
like a boast in his voice.

At midday, Thomas climbs up through the nettles at the end
of the garden, startling my mother. She’s sitting on an upturned
bucket, skin burning in the hot sun. She has searched the house
and the shed and the nearby fields, and searched all over again.
To try to stop the shudders coursing through her body, she has
had a joint and a glass of rum. Leon has gone into town; his
mate has a van, they’ll check the roads. She told herself if he
wasn’t back in an hour, she’d go to the police, weed or no
weed. But she hasn’t moved; she’s kept her eye on the river,
as if it will rise up in a spume and spit me out onto the bank.
Thomas treads silently up to her, followed by his dog, nose-down
on the path.

Nothing this end, he says, And not much water neither. She
won’t have been carried away, if that’s what you’re thinking.

How can you be sure? she asks, not liking him.

Look for yourself – there’s no flow. If she dropped in here,
see, he says, pointing his stick backwards at the river, She’d have
only been up to here, he says, sliding the stick across his shins
to demonstrate the depth.

Nell tries to keep the disgust out of her voice.

Yeah, that’s right, she says, If she were as tall as you.

Thomas catches hold of his dog as he pads up to greet her.

Some places it’s bone dry. Like I said, she won’t have been
carried away. Not by the water, anyway. This here’s a bourne
river.

She hears ‘born’ river, thinks he’s trying to tell her something.

You’re saying a little child can’t drown in that water? she
asks, squinting up at him, You’re saying someone took her?

The river man shifts from one leg to the other. Under his cap,
his head is prickling with sweat.

I’m only saying she won’t have been carried away, he says.

Someone’s got her, she says.

Or she’s wandered off. Kids do that, don’t they?

She can’t open the front gate, says Nell, The latch is too stiff.
She looks over his shoulder into the beckoning weeds.

Someone’s got her, she says again, her voice like a siren on
the air. Thomas reaches out a hand towards her shoulder, to
comfort her; rests it instead on his stick.

Now hang on, he says, You have reported it, haven’t you?
You’ve been to the station?

He looks around the garden, at the burnt-out fire and last night’s
abandoned glasses, fixing his eyes on Leon’s makeshift greenhouse.
He takes in her silence.

Well, you must, then. Someone might’ve seen her. She might
be there now.

Nell has an image of me sitting on the front desk of the police
station, swinging my legs, the duty officer feeding me toffees
from a crumpled paper bag. But she knows that’s just an image
in a film. She
knows
thinks she knows, because, despite what
Thomas Bryce tells her, she can sense it: I’ve gone in the river.

Thank you, Mr Bryce, she says, rising from the bucket and
leading him along the side of the cottage, My boyfriend’s dealing
with that.

Not her father? he says.

He can smell sweat on her, stale perfume and alcohol.

He’s away, she says, showing him out of the front gate and
thanking him again. She watches him walk down the lane.
Now and then, he rustles the hedges with his stick, puts his
hand up to his cap and stares out over the fields of wheat and
barley, and the sun makes Nell see everything white and flinty,
too sharp for her eyes to focus on. She watches until he is a
small dark outline on the dusty road. A born river. She doesn’t
know what it means, and thinks there’s intent in what he said,
as if he’s giving her a clue to decipher. She touches the top of
her head, feels her scalp burning. The dog trails behind the
river man until he whistles, and then Sonny flies to his side.

Maggie puts her pen down and shuts her eyes. The fire,
collapsed on itself, burns low; the room is airless. She knows
that if she looks up she’ll see Nell, her accusing stare, her mouth
quivering with resentment.

You’ve no idea what I went through, she’ll say, You’re not
even close. You can’t imagine the agony, so don’t you dare try.
Maggie will not look up for that.

Kenneth admits defeat and decides to call William; it’s late, but
he knows his son is often out until the early hours, doing God
knows what, and that he’ll check his answerphone when he
gets back in. When the woman on the end of the line tells him
he can re-record his message at any time, Kenneth thinks hard
about what he will say.

Will, it’s your father. I don’t want to fill up your machine,
so ring me back when you get in. Bye. Speak to you soon.
Bye.

After he’s put the phone down, he’s unsure of how his voice
sounded. Did he sound drunk? Incoherent? The woman said
he could record his message again, so he redials.

Hello, he says, to William’s voicemail, I’d like to re-record
that message if I may.

Nothing happens in the long silence that follows, so in the end
he simply repeats himself, puts the receiver back on the cradle,
and glares at it. Will’s always telling him he should get a portable
phone: Kenneth squeezes his eyes tight to bring the right word
up – a cordless – and now, sitting at his desk, he wishes he’d
taken his advice. He’d like to go down and sit outside. But
then he’d have to shift pretty quickly, to his den or up to the
office, if Will rang back. He considers the prospect of getting
a new phone; he’d have one where there isn’t a machine for
answering, but a service, and where the numbers are already
stored in it and you only have to push one button. His address
book is old, and tattered, and the words and numbers look very
small these days. Will had suggested they go and choose one
together. Kenneth’s wondering whether the cordless one
would be waterproof, when the phone rings. It’s his son.

That was quick, says Kenneth, I’ve only just left a message.

Dad, you rang my mobile. What’s wrong?

Did I? says Kenneth, peering again at the address book, Well,
how clever of me. Nothing’s wrong, no panic. I just wondered
if you happened to know where I’d put my reading glasses.

He hears himself saying it, the affected, offhand tone, and
cringes with shame.

What? says William, and then, with a punctured sigh, When
did you last have them?

Don’t know, says Kenneth, About a week ago. Um, not sure.

Have you looked in all the usual places?

There’s another voice in the background, more distant, a
woman calling Will, Will, saying something that Kenneth can’t
make out. He hears the muffle of a hand closing over the receiver.

Is this a bad time? says Kenneth, Because I can call back.

No, Dad, listen. Check all the usual places. Don’t forget the
cellar, and then if you still can’t find them – hang on, what
about your spare ones? Where do you keep them?

Good thinking, says Kenneth, desperate now to be off the
line, Of course! I’ll go and fetch them right away.

He mislaid his spare pair ages ago. He hears a rash of laughter
and the sound of a car engine, and William says,

Got to go, Dad. Speak to you soon. I’ll call you in the
morning.

The silence is ringing. Kenneth does as he’s told and searches
again, in his office desk, and on the windowsill, and goes downstairs
and checks the top of the fridge and all the kitchen
shelves, leaving a residue of grime on his fingers, and then he
goes to his den and rummages down the sides of the armchairs
and pats all the surfaces he can think of. He’s standing in the
atrium wondering what to do next when he has a sudden realization.
He can see them, clearly, in his mind’s eye. Up the
stairs, up what he always thinks of now as Maggie’s stairs, and
into the flat. There they are. The last time he was up here, he
sat on the bed, and took off his glasses and rubbed his face,
like a child waking up. And now he sits on the bed again, puts
on his glasses, takes out the folded piece of paper from his
trouser pocket and, with a tiny prickle of recognition he simply
can’t place, reads and rereads the words on the page.

We have an anchor that keeps the soul

Steadfast and sure while the pillows roll,

Fastened to the rock which cannot move,

Grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.

The rain is unrelenting, and the air so drenched that the view
from Maggie’s cottage is opaque, elusive, like a half-remembered
dream. In the distance, the river keeps a wide black
shadow. Every day it thickens; becomes more sinuous, more
alive. The sky has come down to meet the fields, throwing its
metallic light over everything: the trees dissolve against it; even
the cows are drained of colour. They gather in a steaming
cluster in the barn, shaking their heads, lowing mournfully at
the weather. There is the hiss of wet wheels on the main road,
and beneath it, a hush of deep rain falling on the land.

The windows inside the cottage glow with condensation.
Maggie banks up the fire with logs, covering them with a heap
of coal slack: the dust sparkles pink and yellow with the effort
of staying lit. She stands in the centre of the room and looks
around, trying to see it as a visitor might. A lot of brown furniture,
a bed in the corner, a thin veil of dust. The damp has invaded
the sympathy cards on the mantelpiece, giving them an ancient,
wrinkled look. She should have got rid of them weeks ago. She
gathers them into a little pile, meaning to burn them, and then
she makes another decision: she will burn the cards, and the
notes she typed for Kenneth, and the notebook, and the newspaper
cutting. It will all be burnt. Everything will be flame and
ash. She will have nothing left to tempt her to look back.

She slides the folded sheaf of papers out of the notebook
and opens them flat, not intending to read them but unable to
stop herself.

Kenneth likes dancing to you. He says the
spaces in between are as important as the
sounds. Listen to the gaps, he says, They
are music too.

I’m doing that, Kenneth, I’m listening to
the gaps and I’m trying to fill the spaces.
Not dead yet.

She throws them onto the fire, watches as the pages fold in
upon themselves, twisting black, blacker, and then a quick flare
of lustrous blue. Immediately, she’s filled with regret. The sound
of the front gate saves her, and she rises from the floor to see
Aaron dashing up the path with one hand shielding his head.
Through the soaked glass, he appears as a series of waves and
ripples, like a man under water. She opens the lid of the dreamcatcher
box and shoves the notebook inside it, quickly, but not
quickly enough to avoid the face of the boy in the photograph
smiling up at her. Behind the door, she hears Aaron clear his
throat. He’s grinning shyly when she opens it, one arm behind
his back.