Trumpet (26 page)

Looking back on that day through the fug of anaesthetic, billowing like a white skirt in the wind, she realized that it was the true turning point of her life. Without her bottom row in place, she was vulnerable, less
articulate, less surefooted. It was true: her teeth going changed the way she walked. You are your teeth.

When she let the journalist into her home, she noticed the young woman had horrible teeth in one so young. They were too large for her mouth and one of them was slightly discoloured. It actually made May think twice about talking to her. What would Josephine have thought of this young woman writing a book about her? She did not look the part. She looked all wrong. Sleek and sophisticated, wearing designer clothes and smile and exuding false charm. The older she has become, the more adept she is at picking out falseness in people. It is too late to turn back. Strange though, the nasty feeling she already had. The sense that something was about to happen.

Sophie Stones seized the school photograph and peered into that old time for what seemed an age. It made May look again at it herself and remember things. Rhona Elliot was red-eyed and crying. She never did like school. Kathleen Baxter already looked like an old woman. Aileen Forbes died of an epileptic fit. Names started returning to her. She could hear Miss Scrivner bark her name out, ‘May Hart.’ Everyone was called the name on the register. At least half the people in her class were not known by those names. Some of them weren’t even similar. They all had two personalities. She was just reconstructing that corner of the playground where she, Josie and Kathy Baxter used to hang out, when she heard Sophie say, ‘Amazing, amazing!’ ‘I know, how we age!’ May said. ‘It sounds daft, but it’s true. You never think it’s going to happen to you.
When you are young, you are invincible.’ Sophie Stones hesitated as if she was going to contradict her. ‘You wait. You’ll see,’ May said confidently.

‘So what was she like?’ Sophie asked her still staring, bewitched at the photograph.

‘Oh, great fun. Josie was great fun.’

‘A bit of a tomboy?’

‘No. Not at all.’

‘Where were her parents from?’

‘Well, that was a bit of a scandal. Her mother was from Glasgow, but her father was a black man.’

‘Yes but where was he from?’

‘The West Indies.’

‘The West Indies?’

‘So they said.’

‘Yes, but where about?’

May shrugged and laughed. ‘How am I to know that? He’d been here for a long time as I remember. Even if I’d been told the name, I wouldn’t remember. I’ve always been hopeless at names. He died when Josephine was quite young, eleven or so.’

‘He died!’ Sophie Stones almost shrieked. ‘He died! My God! Of course!’

‘Is this all for the article?’ May Hart asked anxiously.

‘Book,’ Sophie corrected. ‘I’m writing a full length book.’

‘And you need to know all that, do you?’ May asked her. ‘Very interesting, isn’t it?’

Sophie Stones smiled a creamy smile. ‘Actually, May’ – she snapped open her brown leather briefcase – ‘it’s
more interesting than you think. Take a look at these.’ She handed May some photographs of a male jazz musician, handsome, tall man in dark suits, patterned ties. Saxophone in hand.

‘Is that one of the men Josephine played with? Is that a sax?’

‘No, it’s a trumpet,’ Sophie said.

‘Well, there you go, I told you I was ignorant about music.’ May laughed.

‘And that’s not a fellow musician – that’s her.’

‘You’re having me on,’ May said, still laughing. ‘What’s she dressed up as a man for?’ May looked closer at one of the pictures. Underneath the man’s face, she could see the girl she remembered. Josie was there all right in those eyes. Actually, if she just looked at the face, Josie hadn’t changed a bit.

May sat back in her armchair. Josie looked so handsome playing that trumpet! As she stared transfixed at the photograph all the old love came spilling back. There’s no love like the love you have as girls. Not the love she felt for her husband, or any subsequent lover. No love to match that burning, feverish loyalty, that hysterical devotion, that total obsessiveness. As a girl, May Hart would have died for Josie. She loved everything about her. Her hair. Her lips. How her skirt hung just above her knees. Her funny high laugh. The way she grabbed at you and touched you when she was talking to you. May even loved Josephine Moore’s silence. She had a way of being silent that was just perfect! In fact she loved their silences best of all, those shy, silly, moving silences which would
only be broken by girlish embarrassment and giggles. Looking at Josie all dressed up as a man, May realized that she’d missed her all her life. Didn’t she have style! Look at that suit! Her Bert never looked like that in a suit. She was moved to tears. Sophie Stones was startled. She was later to write, ‘May Hart was so upset at the deception of her old schoolfriend that she burst into tears,’ in her
MOODY
notebook.

May Hart was off. Sixty odd years collapsed behind her. Josie and she were in the woods at the back of St Mary’s borstal school where all the bad children’s fingers were broken by the belt, running to their den. They found the exact opening underneath all the bush. Broken conkers were lying everywhere, the sudden whiteness of their insides, like split pears. Josie and May found some fine unbroken, unsplit conkers, the colour of a beautiful brown horse. They rubbed the conkers on each other’s jumpers till they shone. Beauties. They pierced them with their metal knitting needle that they hid in their school bag at this time of year. The string made it through the tunnel and came out laughing at the other end. They pierced each other’s thumbs whilst they were at it. Blood sisters. Then Josie leaned forward and said to May, ‘Have you ever tried kissing? Shall we practise so that we’re good kissers when we’re grown up?’ They kissed a bit. May liked it but she pulled away. ‘Are we doing something wrong, Josie?’ ‘No, we’re just practising.’

‘It’s a bit of a shock, I know,’ Sophie Stones was saying. ‘Do you know even her son didn’t know she was a woman?’ May looked straight into Sophie Stones’s mouth.
Her bad tooth stared back at May like a criminal. She had to get her out of her house. ‘Do you think I could keep one of these pictures?’ she asked. ‘For old time’s sake.’

May watched the journalist get into the taxi. The journalist never waved. She knew she wouldn’t wave. She had to watch to be sure that her judgement was correct. Sophie Stones was not the type to wave to someone after she left. No, no, no. She was staring straight ahead in the black cab, cool as you please. A sick feeling rose up in May’s stomach. What had she done to her wonderful Josephine? Had she harmed her in any way? She would never, never harm Josie for all the world. She picked up the cup that the journalist had drunk from. Lipstick stuck to the edges. She gave it a good clean. Then she scrubbed it some more. Then she threw the cup on the floor and watched the pieces smash. When she had asked the journalist how Josephine had managed to have a son, living her life as a man, the journalist had said, Josephine married a woman and they adopted a son. When she asked her what this woman looked like the journalist had made May Hart deeply unhappy by replying, ‘Beautiful. Really quite stunning. I’ve got a photograph of her here that her son gave to me, if you’d like to see it.’

‘No, that’s all right. I’d rather not,’ May said. What did she want to see a picture of Josephine Moore’s wife for? It was absurd. May took the photograph the journalist had given her. Josephine was wearing an elegant suit: her lovely lips were blowing her trumpet.

What happened to Josephine Moore? Look at this photograph. There she is, bright as a button, chocolate brown eyes. The picture is grainy and if it had a sound it would crackle and spit. There she is. Standing next to her house on a dark stone street. She is holding the hand of a much younger Edith Moore. Her smile is her best smile, you can tell. The best smile for the discerning eye of the camera. It is not every day her picture was taken. She is wearing a pleated skirt. Her knees are bare, but she has on white ankle socks. A white blouse. No matter how long you stare at the photograph, the clothes she is wearing will not change. They are locked in their own time, with their own stitches. But every time you look at the little girl’s face, you will see something different in it. The first time there is the wide smile. The second time there is something about the eyes that draws you. The eyes of a girl who knows she is going to be somebody special. Is that possible? Or are you seeing things? No, there it is that look. That look that is years ahead of its time, waiting. Bright and burning. Does she look at all tomboyish with that confident sparkle in her eye, that wild look? No. No, that couldn’t be said. She looks just like a little
girl. A happy little girl. She is holding her mother’s hand, not tightly. The hands rest in each other. One hand is the other’s cradle. Look at this photograph. Look at it again. And again. This is Josephine Moore when she was seven years old. The woman next to her, holding her hand, is her mother, Edith Moore. This photograph was taken in Greenock, the small Scottish town where Josephine Moore grew up.

He’s run out of malt. He picks up the phone and speaks in a low voice. He asks for half a bottle of malt. ‘What kind of malts have you got?’ He stands at his door listening for the room service man. When he hears his step approach he opens the door, bringing his fingers to his lips, telling the man to keep quiet. He signs the room service man’s board and whispers something about his baby being asleep. He closes his door, gently. It takes him another two whiskies to pluck up the courage. He will go to her door. He will tell her he’s splitting. No contract signed anyway. No fucking deal.

His heart is beating fast now. Fast enough for him to think he can smell his own blood. Got to have it out. This book is starting to eat away at him. Imagine this photograph of his father as a little girl in a book with sinister captions. His father keeps coming back to him. He won’t stop it. He won’t let him alone. Coorie in, coorie in, he says and tucks him into his bed. He likes the sounds of the words his father makes and his father likes them too. The sounds of the words and the snug warmth of his covers. Coorie in, he says. Coorie in. He knocks on Number 308 loud enough for her to hear over her blaring TV.

Tonight has an edge to it, as if the darkness itself was anxious. The moon is out already. The moon is out there moving through the quick swirling clouds, in and out of the waves. Appearing one minute, bright and glorious, and disappearing the next. A full moon tonight. The stars glint down at her. She is not long for this world, she tells herself. Maybe it’s the last time the stars at night will brighten up her night.

She comes in from her doorstep, from looking right up into the wide night sky, from watching the moon being chased by advancing clouds. Oh, it’s a wily one, the moon. It can always get away. She closes her door and locks it. Puts on her chain. She double checks everything is as it should be.

Edith Moore sighs as she puts the kettle on. Listening out for any strange noises in the night. It might be a sheltered house, but sometimes that can attract bad yins that know there are only elderly folks and a lazy warden. The old Larch folk are sitting ducks.

Josephine, Josephine. She takes off her slippers first, then her skirt, folding it on the back of her bedroom chair. She slips out of her slip. She pulls her tights off and
straightens them out, putting her fingers into the empty foot and pulling them back up. They’ll do another day. She pulls off her bloomers, bending to get them off her feet. Bending is painful now. Her back is affected by arthritis and so are her hips. She pulls her cotton nightdress over her head and puts her dressing gown on. She goes into her bathroom and rinses out her pants. Last thing at night, she always rinses out her pants. You can’t start another day with dirty pants in the house. Hanging her pants over the radiator, she wonders why the heating is still on. She was sure she turned it down. The kettle whistles. She makes herself a good cup of tea, a tiny splash of milk. She likes her tea piping hot. Not too strong. She takes her tea through to her bedroom turning off all the lights as she goes. She sits up in her bed and sups her tea. She can’t read tonight. She can’t even open her book. There are no sounds except the noise of the heating system, burping and gargling into the night.

‘I don’t believe you!’ Sophie Stones says shrilly.

They are sitting in the second-floor bar of the hotel. In the corner. On the leather couch. They are amongst the last people up. It is one in the morning. Colman is knocking back a Lagavulin. Sophie has a cognac.

‘How can you renege on our agreement like this?’

‘It’s my morals. I can’t do it.’

‘You? You’ve got morals?’

‘I’ve got more morals than you’ve had hot dinners,’ Colman says drunkenly. ‘You wouldn’t know a moral if it slapped you in the face,’ he says, trying for something better.

‘I don’t see what is immoral about doing this book,’ Sophie says, and burps.

‘Yeah, right. That’s your problem.’

‘Who do you think you are?’ Sophie hisses, furious, drunk and feeling sadly sexual.

‘Who do I think I am? I am Colman Moody, the son of Joss Moody, the famous trumpet player. He’ll always be daddy to me. I’m not stopping now just because there’s been a turn-up for the books.’

‘A turn-up for the books? You’re pissed as a newt.
You must be out of your mind. We’re both rat-arsed. Let’s not talk any more. Cole. The book wouldn’t do your father any harm. One, he’s dead and two …’

‘I thought you said we shouldn’t talk any more.’

‘Two, it will help people remember him. It is only the truth. You’re not going to make things up.’

‘How can I take that whole suitcase of letters from Edith Moore and put them in a book?’

‘You didn’t mention a whole suitcase? Really?’

‘See, there you go again. No morals. No fucking morals.’

‘Who are you to accuse me? It’s not fair, Cole. Don’t be unkind.’