Authors: Lucy Wood
Ada came back in, cheeks crimson with the cold; holding a scarf she’d left in the car. ‘Don’t leave the door open,’ Pearl told her. ‘All the heat will go out.’ She went upstairs and helped carry down the heaviest bag, offered a lift to where the bus stopped on the top road.
‘Judy’s picking me up,’ Ada said.
There was nothing to do but carry the last bag down and put it with the others at the bottom of the stairs.
The clock ticked very loudly.
‘What are you going to do?’ Ada asked. ‘This evening?’ She crouched down and fiddled with the zip on her bag.
Pearl shrugged. ‘I’ve got a new batch of prints to go through,’ she said. But why did she say that, when she knew she was just going to sit in the house watching it get dark?
Ada nodded. She looked towards the door. ‘I made you something,’ she said. ‘It’s in the oven.’ She was tall, her hips just beginning to widen, tangled hair falling across her eyes. Her daughter, lingering there in the hallway. Pearl felt shrunken and tired, a sort of dryness in her skin that wasn’t just from spending too long out in the cold wind. She thought of all the months, probably years, that Ada had spent planning this: her escape. Circling jobs and flats in newspapers, sending out applications. Waiting by the door to catch the replies as they were posted through. Pearl saying nothing, enduring Ada’s desperation to avoid getting stuck in the place.
Minutes passed. The smell of cooking from the kitchen: slices of potato and onion and apple just the way Pearl liked it. And it had been wonderful; when she ate it later it was wonderful. She had eaten the whole thing.
A car beeped outside and Ada jumped but didn’t turn round. She leaned down towards Pearl, brushed against her dry cheek. Pearl could feel Ada’s heart racing, or maybe it was her own.
‘See you soon, OK?’ Ada said.
Still they waited. The cold draught. The car idling outside the door. Pearl slipped a rolled-up twenty inside Ada’s bag. Then opened the door because if she didn’t no one would. Said what she said when she was setting up a picture, when the image wasn’t aligned, when she just needed to refocus the thing so that she could see it properly. ‘There you go then. There you go.’ Watched the closed door for a long time.
Ada stayed kneeling in front of the fire. The wood sputtered and condensation streamed down the glass.
‘It’s going to go out,’ her mother said.
‘I know how to do it.’ She fed in another piece of wood, which charred at the edges like overdone bread.
‘You’ll smother it,’ her mother said. She came closer and her clothes hissed. The sound of stones clacking together, a frosty chill. Some kind of restless energy, as if water was banking up before spilling over.
Ada dropped the poker and it clattered on the hearth. Picked it up and dropped it again. Fed in more kindling. The flames rose tentatively, licking at her fingers. She closed the stove door. Watched the flames gutter and bend before she turned round.
Her mother was small and bedraggled, a slight hump curving the top of her back. Thinner hair, the same dirty white as weathered paint. The damp curling it into feathery clumps. Deep lines around her mouth; her skin translucent, almost blue – pulled taut over her cheeks but folding and puckering under her jaw. Her jumper was covered in frost, her trousers dank and clinging to her thin legs. And her hands: gaunt and knotty with swollen knuckles. The bones showing through and stiff like cables. Her eyes were small and fierce as always.
She took a step closer and the fire sizzled. ‘I suppose it’ll be up to me to sort this out,’ she said.
Ada turned back to the stove. ‘I’m doing it,’ she said.
‘Christ, I never thought I’d have to see the bloody thing again,’ her mother said. Her voice was hoarse and she coughed a rattly, watery cough. She was close behind Ada now, her knees crunching when she moved, specks of frost on the carpet.
Ada clenched her hands. ‘Neither did I,’ she said.
Then, a screaming clamour. The front door slammed open and Pepper shouted, ‘Stop it. Get back here.’ Her voice was frenzied. Ada got up and ran through the house. Turned back to look but there was no one behind her. The cat rushed past with something in its mouth, galloping so fast it snorted. A small bird, still flapping. The cat dropped the bird on the kitchen floor and it lay there trembling.
Pepper stood over the bird, her coat and boots on over pyjamas. When the cat tried to get near it she hissed and bared her teeth. ‘It’s a thrush,’ she said. ‘Look at its speckles.’
The bird arched one of its wings. Its feathers were matted together, browns and yellows tinged with cream. Its chest fluttered up and down. Pepper stroked it with her thumb. ‘You’ll be OK,’ she said. She looked up at Ada. ‘It’ll be OK,’ she said.
‘It’ll be just fine,’ Ada said. She had got up too fast, felt faint and swaying.
‘
Just
fine?’ Pepper said. ‘
Just
fine?’ The bird tried to lift itself up and she let out a howl and ran out of the room. The front door slammed shut.
The cat skulked around, low yowls in its throat. Stalking on the tips of his paws. He didn’t take his eyes off the bird. Ada grabbed him round the middle and he fought to get away, wriggling his hips and back legs and kicking out. But she managed to get him pinned against her knees and she carried him through the hall. Had to take one hand away to get the front door open and he twisted and caught her leg with his claw. Freezing air came in, the grass brittle with frost. She shoved the cat out, put her foot in the way and closed the door before he could run back in. He whined and paced on the other side.
She went back into the kitchen. Her mother was there, watching the bird. Which was now up and flapping, lunging towards the sink, knocking into plates and mugs. ‘You don’t know what’s happened, do you?’ Pearl said to it. ‘Inexperienced. Thinking of berries and not paying enough attention.’
The bird hauled itself up towards the shelves, wings flapping but its body listing. Ada moved slowly towards it and reached up to open the window, but just as she did, the cat jumped onto the windowsill outside and pressed himself against the glass. The bird knocked off a cup and it shattered on the floor.
Ada banged on the window. ‘Get down,’ she said to the cat. ‘Piss off.’
‘Let the bird out,’ her mother said. ‘There’s nothing you can do about it now.’
The bird bumped against the window. Ada watched it. She watched the cat waiting. She went back to the front door and opened it and called the cat. Then ran back and flung open the window and nudged the bird out just as the cat bolted into the kitchen. She slammed the window shut.
The room was strewn with feathers and bird shit and bits of broken cup; a chair on its back that Pepper had knocked over. The cat growling and pacing. Cracks all over the walls, peeling paint. Damp newspapers and grit everywhere, half-filled boxes, her mother lingering at the edge of the room, her clothes rustling like the river lapping at leaves.
Ada leaned against the table and closed her eyes. ‘What am I supposed to do?’ she said.
Her mother picked a small stone out from between her teeth. ‘Just get on with it, I suppose,’ she said. She dropped the stone on the floor. ‘You should clear up all this crap for a start.’
Ada went outside to look for Pepper. Found her sitting cross-legged on the shed roof, face stony and blotched.
‘He didn’t mean to do it,’ Ada said. ‘It’s what cats do sometimes.’ The sky was orange in the distance, the edges seeping into pale grey. A band of violet ridges running through it like furrows in a field.
Pepper stared straight ahead. ‘He did mean to,’ she said. ‘I chased him away.’ Her voice was flat and hollow, not even anger in it.
‘The bird flew off,’ Ada told her. ‘It was OK.’
Pepper shook her head. ‘It’s over there,’ she said.
Ada looked and saw a sad bundle of feathers on the ground. Shock, she guessed, more than anything else. ‘Come inside. It’s really cold out here.’
Pepper ran her finger over splintering wood. ‘I hope Captain never comes back,’ she said.
‘Come down, OK? I’m going to make breakfast.’ Ada walked back towards the house, listening for Pepper scrambling down off the roof, but when she got to the front steps and turned round, Pepper hadn’t moved.
She filled the kettle and waited by the kitchen window. Pepper had done this before but she always came down after about half an hour – too cold or too hungry to stay outside for long. But an hour passed. The tinge of orange in the sky disappeared. Pallid clouds moved in. The water in the kettle cooled down. Ada made a sandwich and took it out to Pepper and held it up to her. ‘Come inside and eat this,’ she said. When Pepper shook her head, she left it on the edge of the roof.
Another hour went by. The clouds thickened. The frost slowly disappeared. The sandwich stayed on the plate. Ada stood by the window. The power snapped on and off. She leaned against the sink and closed her eyes. A sulphurous smell came up from the plughole. She pulled open the cupboard, got out the bleach and emptied half the bottle into the sink. Then she strode out of the door and over to the shed.
Pepper was shivering. ‘Come down,’ Ada said. She put her foot onto a wooden slat and hauled herself up so she was looking Pepper in the eye. ‘Now.’
Pepper shook her head. ‘I’m never coming down.’
Ada grabbed Pepper’s arms and pulled her forward until she slid off the roof and onto Ada’s chest, almost knocking the breath out of her; but she held onto Pepper’s stiff and frozen body and lugged her into the house and up into her bedroom. Pepper stayed silent and rigid while Ada put more layers on her, wrapped her in a blanket and pressed a hot-water bottle onto her chest. She allowed a couple of mouthfuls of hot sweet milk to go down her throat before clamping her mouth shut, lying down on her bed and turning to face the wall.
The afternoon passed slowly. Pepper didn’t come back downstairs. Ada picked at the cold sandwich and watched it get dark. She straightened the chairs and swept up the bits of broken plate. Frost grew back over the windows. She went to bed early, exhausted, but didn’t sleep. The camp bed sagged and a spring snapped, making the whole frame lurch. She got up and checked on Pepper. She was asleep. Ada wrapped her up tighter and felt her chest to check she was warm. An owl called out. A branch scraped against the window. She lay back down. Couldn’t get warm herself. She heard footsteps as her mother made her way around the house. Cursing and muttering, her cough like a troubled engine. The pipes pinged. The stairs creaked slowly, then the sound of something slipping, a faint cry, a dull thud. Then another cough from a different part of the house. Ada pulled the covers tighter.
It didn’t seem like morning was ever going to come but at some point there was a shift. A glimmer of grey, which spread like the sky was being scrubbed. Ada’s breath floated above the bed. Even the trees were shivering. As she watched, a distant flare of cerise appeared in the distance, like a pot of ink had tipped over.
The river boomed. She was suddenly starving. Gut-achingly starving; her insides hollow and cold. When she stood up her legs shook.
The kitchen was still strewn with matted feathers. She looked in the cupboards and the fridge but there was nothing she wanted to eat. A parched and papery onion. A tub of cream cheese floating in its own liquid. That jar of floury stuff with brown liquid on top, what was that? She took it out of the fridge and left it on the side to throw away. A few potatoes, a bowl of apples. Hardly any milk. All she had was half a loaf of stale bread. She took out a frying pan and lit the gas underneath it.
When the pan was hot, she cut a fat slice of butter, slid it off the knife and into the pan, where it spread out and sizzled. The kitchen filled with the smell of hot butter. Then she put in thick triangles of bread and fried them until they were golden on both sides, sprinkled on handfuls of sugar and let it cook to a crust. The windows steamed up and dripped. She ate the hot bread straight out of the pan, licking her fingers to get all the sugar.
The bitter thoughts were like a balloon that got bigger and bigger but didn’t burst. Pepper dwelled on them, picked at them, turned them over and over.
She went outside and looked at the bird. Something had dragged it down the grass to the edge of the field. One eye was open. Still the rich colours. It seemed to her that the bird was just the same as it had been before the cat had caught it. She crouched down and touched it. It was stiff as old twine. The feathers rumpled in the wind, which was raw and turned her fingers as stiff as the bird.
‘I’m surprised nothing’s taken that yet,’ the old woman said. Pepper hadn’t even heard her coming.
‘The cat killed it,’ Pepper said. She sucked at the welts on her hand, itchy and sore from Captain’s claws.
‘What did you expect? All cats are bastards like that.’
Pepper smoothed down one of the bird’s tufting feathers. ‘He wasn’t meant to be,’ she said. He was supposed to be her cat. She had tried to stroke him, and whisper things in his ear, and she’d filled his bowl so full it had spilled over.
The woman studied the bird. ‘A buzzard will carry it off.’
‘A buzzard?’ Pepper said. ‘A buzzard?’ Her eyes and nose streamed in the raw cold. ‘A buzzard?’ she said one more time, and let out a harsh, barky laugh that startled even herself.