“My pretty angels,” he murmured, as he traced an L with the last slowing dribble. “My pretty, pretty angels.” He pulled the chain and watched them churn and rupture down the bend.
He was humming as he trudged back to his lodgings, his hair slicked down, his shoes high-shined with a wad of toilet paper. The nail-brushes were dried, the flannels folded, the plastic duck caged safely in its sponge-bag. Miss Lineham disapproved of toys.
She met him at the front door. His quiet grey raincoat was neatly belted, his nails were scrubbed with coal tar; his trousers (never tight) were slightly damp around the turn-ups, where they had slipped from their hook on to the bath-house floor. “Good evening, Miss Lineham. It looks like a storm.”
“Good evening, Mr Chivers. I’m afraid you’re wrong. The barometer is rising. Set Fair it says and Set Fair it’s going to be. Now, will you kindly go upstairs and wash your hands. I am serving supper early. Mr Gordon has most kindly invited me to see his exhibition and I have no wish to be late.”
Mr Chivers paused by the fish-tank. The golden angel was spiralling lazily towards him, flaunting its outrageous tail, gills throbbing, mouth insolently open. He could see its topaz eyes smiling at him, smiling.... He turned away.
“Yes, Miss Lineham,” he whispered. And went upstairs.
SOLD.
Elaine pushed open the kitchen window and stared up at the sign. The O became a howling mouth, shrieking out her grief. O for void, for loss. FOR SALE hurt so much less. FOR SALE meant time and hope - hope of a reprieve: a slump in the housing market, no buyers, no interest, Colin changing his mind, even.
“God! I’m so relieved,” he said, suddenly coming up behind her and putting his arm round her waist. “Now I can sleep at nights.”
And I
can’t
, she thought, banging the window shut. She detested the new place - its meanness, smallness, the vomit-coloured carpets, the roar of traffic from the road outside. The roar was swelling now in her head, even fifty miles away, threatening and discordant, and overlaid with the still insistent howls.
“‘OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO….”
“With any luck, we’ll exchange contracts within a month. The Lloyds are as keen as we are to get cracking,”
“As
you
are,” she corrected silently. Not that he could hear. There was too much turmoil in the room.
“Well, I’d better make a start on clearing up the cellar.”
She had no intention of helping him with
that
. Even a glimpse of the cellar steps made her want to weep. She had fallen down them, thirty years ago, and not only broken her leg but lost her unborn twins. She had never managed to conceive again, despite endless tests and drugs. Since then, she kept her distance from the cellar, which had become Colin’s territory, along with the loft and out-house.
“It’ll take me ages to sort it out. It’s stuffed to the gills with clutter.” He flexed his muscles, as if limbering up, before making for the door.
She tried to imagine the clutter - piles of junk, broken tools, old boxes, all festooned with spiders’ webs, and the odd wasps’ nest in a corner. And patches of grey-green mould on the walls, and a smell of damp and decay. ‘While you’re doing that, I’ll go through all the china and glass and decide what to keep and what to chuck.’ If only she could leave everything exactly as it was - all the cups on their cup-hooks on the dresser; all the tumblers safe in the cabinet; the three china teapots (one in the shape of a house) stacked neatly in the cupboard, along with the soup tureen, the carving platter and the cereal bowls with the cockerels round the rim. She longed to shrink them all to doll’s-house size, so they would fit in the new flat; shrink the three-piece suite, the double bed, her generous desk with its six capacious drawers.
She fetched a pair of steps and started on the highest cupboard, first taking down the avocado dishes, with their matching green-bordered plates.
“Careful!” warned Colin, puffing back into the kitchen with a large cardboard box clutched against his chest. ‘Those steps don’t look too safe.’
“‘What’s that?” she asked, peering down to look.
“My coin collection.”
“Coin collection?” Thirty-four years they’d been married, this November, and he had never, ever, mentioned collecting coins.
“D’you want to take a peek?”
She stepped gingerly off the ladder as he opened the flaps of the box. Inside were scores of smaller containers: tobacco tins, throat-lozenge tins, cigar boxes and jewel boxes, even several spectacle cases, all lined with cotton wool and filled with coins: worn Victorian pennies, dirty threepenny bits, commemorative coins from royal weddings and coronations, farthings, silver florins and a whole stack of coins that meant absolutely nothing to her: coins with holes in the middle, coins from unknown realms.
“That’s a Roman semis,” he said, passing her a small brass coin.
“A what?”
“A semis. It’s one thirty-second of a denariius. They’re actually quite common, despite the fact they’re nearly two thousand years old. Coins were made by hand then, and beautifully made, so they lasted.”
Why hadn’t he told her all this
before
, shared his knowledge with her? And where and when had he got the coins? Surely he would have discussed it with her when he returned from an auction or a coin-shop?
“And this one’s a beauty, isn’t it? A George III ‘cartwheel’ penny. See the date? - 1797. It’s hardly worn or marked at all. We call that EF, which means extremely fine.”
That casual “we” hurt. “We” meant her and Colin - or had done till today.
“
Fleur de coin
is the ultimate. It’s the term we use for flawless or unused.”
All these things he knew! She simply couldn’t understand why he hadn’t made her part of it. The ancient coins seemed strangers in her modern pine-clad kitchen, but for Colin they were intimate friends. No - more than friends: his precious little babies, wrapped in cotton-wool shawls. She watched the way he handled them, lovingly and lingeringly; cradling the weight of a heavy silver sovereign in his palm; holding a penny up to the light and admiring the inscription round the rim.
“I’ve been meaning to buy a proper mahogany cabinet, so I could display them properly.”
Display them for whom, she wondered? Would she ever have lain eyes on that ‘proper mahogany cabinet’?
He began carefully packing them back, tucking his cosseted children into their tiny cots and cradles. Once they were safely stowed away, he took the box to the out-house, then went down again to the cellar. She remained sitting at the table, staring at a shred of cotton wool he’d overlooked. Somehow she had lost the will to continue with her own work. Colin’s secret progeny were still whimpering in her mind - he their exclusive father, she barren and debarred.
She jumped as he banged back in, carrying another box, full of wine, this time - a good two dozen bottles, filmed with dust. As he placed it on the table, she did a quick check of the labels. Although they were badly stained and faded, she could make out the word
“Château”
on almost every one. Superior stuff, apparently.
“God knows what I’ll do with this. It may be past drinking. Or on the other hand, it could be worth a fortune. I wouldn’t know.”
No, he wouldn’t. Colin was woefully ignorant about vintages or varieties of grape, and anyway preferred a pint of bitter to a glass of
premier cru
. “Why did you buy it?” she asked.
“To drink, of course.”
“But we never drank it.”
“No. I was saving it for a special occasion.”
Like the twins’ twenty-first birthday, she thought, picking up a bottle and tempted to open it there and then.
“I suppose we should have had it for our Silver Wedding but, to be honest, I clean forgot it was there.” Colin glanced at the clock “God! Is that the time? I must get to the dump before dark.”
“The dump?” She shielded the bottle protectively. “Don’t tell me you’re chucking
this
lot out?”
“Course not. It’s the other stuff I’ve got to dump. Fishing tackle, diving gear…”
She stared in disbelief. Colin had never learned to swim, and was less likely to go diving than to stand on his head in a peat bog. As for fishing, he had often told her he regarded it as cruel. “I’m sorry, Colin, but I just don’t understand what you’re doing with either fishing tackle or diving gear.”
“It’s not mine, it’s Jasper’s.”
“Who’s Jasper?”
“A mate of mine at work.”
“You’ve never mentioned him.” A name like that would have hardly slipped her mind.
“Why should I? He’s no one special.”
“Then why are you storing his stuff?”
“Because he asked me as a favour. His wife divorced him a couple of years ago, and
she
got the house and everything. He had to move to a bedsit, and there just wasn’t room for all his gear.”
She glanced at Colin curiously, trying to fathom his expression. Although he was often busy in the daytime, they invariably spent their evenings together, chatting about this or that. Wouldn’t he have told her about the divorce; asked if she minded housing Jasper’s possessions? “Surely you can’t get rid of someone else’s stuff without asking if they object?”
“I’m afraid the poor chap’s dead. Heart attack. Last month.”
Even more extraordinary not to have said a single word about the sudden death of a colleague. He must be lying, covering something up.
He took the bottle from her and wiped it clean with a rag. “Look, Do you want to try this, darling, or shall I take it to an expert and see if it’s worth a bob or two?”
She shrugged. “Please yourself.”
“Well, I’ll leave it here for the moment, until we’ve made our minds up. I must get the cellar completely cleared, so I can give it a damned good clean.”
Once he’d gone, she sorted through the bottles, selecting a Cabernet Sauvignon 1999. Having found a corkscrew and wrenched out the cork, she took a cautious sip, then swilled it round her mouth. It was good - remarkably good, full-bodied and fruity, with a hint of mingled blackcurrant and plum. But why hadn’t her involved her in its purchase, knowing her love of wine?
He was back in a few minutes, loaded down with fishing rods, shrimping nets, a Neoprene wetsuit and pair of yellow flippers, and a large black cylinder flung across his shoulder. He took the load directly to the out-house, puffing from the weight of the cylinder. Had Jasper brought this stuff to the house, and, if so, where had
she
been? Why hadn’t they been introduced, shared a drink, a chat?
She watched Colin cross the kitchen, empty-handed now, on his way back to the cellar. This was the person closest to her, her next of kin, her so-called nearest and dearest. Yet did she know him at all? - apart from obvious things like his voting habits or favourite foods? She shivered suddenly, keeping her hands cupped round the wine-glass, as if its vibrant red might warm her. If your husband was a stranger, then you were on your own, isolated, living behind a soundproof wall. If she didn’t know Colin, then she didn’t know anybody - there
wasn’t
anyone else.
When he next appeared, he was holding a stuffed parrot in an elaborate gilded cage. “Meet Polly,” he laughed, putting the cage down in front of her.
She shrank away from the creature. It seemed alive, its grey beak open, as if about to speak, its bold black gaze impertinent. “What I’m wondering, Colin, is why I didn’t meet Polly months ago, or years ago, or whenever it was you bought her?”
“Well, you never go near the cellar,” he said, wiping his hands on the dish-rag. “Understandably,” he added quickly, seeing the look on her face.
“That’s not the point. You could at least have
shown
me all this stuff, before you actually took it to the cellar.”’
“‘I did - I’m sure I did.”
“I’m sorry, Colin, you did
not
.” She snapped her lips shut on the ‘not’, suppressing a sudden urge to slap him.
“Well, it’s not important, is it?”
“Yes, I think it is. We’re meant to be married, which means sharing everything.”
“Not everything.”
“Most things.”
“Look, I must get on. It’s already half past four. Why don’t you go upstairs and have a lie-down. You look tired.”
“I’m perfectly all right.” Clearly he wanted her out of the way. If she stayed here in the kitchen, he couldn’t avoid her on his route from cellar to out-house, loaded with more of his booty. She took a sip of wine, but its rich bouquet seemed to have entirely disappeared. It tasted bitter and salty now, as if she were drinking tears.
“Gazooks! On guard!” Colin burst into the room once more, waving a long, thin, rusting sword-like thing in circles round his head.
“For heaven’s sake, be careful! You could
kill
someone with that.”
“You’re telling me! It’s lethal.” He gave a mock thrust and parry, battling an imaginary enemy with the vicious, stabbing blade.
“‘What is it?”
“A rapier. We got it for that fancy dress party.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” As far as she could recall, they had never been to a fancy dress party all the years they’d been married.
“Ages ago. Up in Berwick-on-Tweed.”
On no account would they travel such a distance for a party. Unless - the thought appalled her, swingeing into her consciousness with savage, sword-sharp force - she was losing her memory She’d read a terrifying statistic just a week ago: one in twenty people her age suffered from dementia.
“You must remember, surely. I went as a Cavalier - hired the whole costume from that theatrical place off Tottenham Court Road. And Douglas got me the rapier.”
Douglas she did remember - Colin’s madcap cousin. But, Douglas or no, she would never have permitted Colin to handle such a dangerous weapon, or take it to a public place. Distraught, she drained her wine, seeing her face distorted in the glass. “So what did
I
go as at this party?”
“Florence Nightingale. You wore a sort of crinoline thing, with a white apron over it. And carried lots of bandages and medicines. I don’t know how you can have forgotten.”