Hush (6 page)

Marcus got home from work just after three o’clock, most days. The firm he worked for was surprisingly casual in its attitude to working hours; as long as he did his allotted eight hours each day, no one seemed to mind what time he arrived or left. As a result he’d been leaving the house earlier and earlier in the last few weeks, often arriving at work before the sun had fully risen, leaving Connie to get herself to school. Anna, he knew, was unlikely to get out of bed before mid-morning.

In the weeks since Christmas he’d always made it home before Connie did, to find the house empty, the space oddly deserted and ringing with silence. Anna, who didn’t work, spent most of her afternoons in her bedroom, or walking in the woods, or roaming around the village; she said she couldn’t stand the house when no one else was in it.

It was the silence of Lily’s absence, he knew; even over the Christmas break, when they’d all been at home more often, Anna had been absent more often than not. But they rarely talked about it, and Anna had taken to acting as if Lily had never been there. He’d caught her one day, boxing up all the photos and childhood mementoes that had once had their home on a special shelf in the living room. She’d shoved them away in the top of the wardrobe in their bedroom, ignoring his protests. ‘They’ll keep better, away from the light,’ she’d said briskly. ‘You don’t want to go rummaging through them in a sentimental moment and then find them all crumbling to dust in your fingertips, do you?’

He’d conceded the point, knowing that in reality she just couldn’t bear to see the reminders of what their family had been, even though watching her hide them away was almost as hurtful to him as closing the door on Lily at the end of every visit. The shelf sat exposed and empty, now, and Anna’s poor attempts at filling it with books and videos had done nothing to lessen its presence.

Today he arrived home to find Anna sitting at the kitchen table. The radio was on, a low, comforting babble that made him think of times past, when he would often have come home to find Anna and Lily playing together. The house would have been in disarray because Anna never thought to tidy up after herself, and it would be Marcus and Connie who picked up after them, muttering about how they were obviously the grown-ups of the family.

Now it was just Anna sitting there, a curtain of dirty blonde hair falling in front of her eyes, her mouth pursed in concentration as she moved a pen in broad, sweeping strokes across the page in front of her. Marcus stood in the doorway for a moment, watching, thinking she was absorbed and hadn’t noticed him come in; but of course she’d heard the front door slam.

‘Stop it, you’re breaking my concentration,’ she said, looking up from the page. Her expression was half-amused, half-annoyed.

‘Sorry.’ He took a step towards her, then stopped, feeling oddly hesitant. ‘Can I – can I see what you were doing?’

She looked down, as if considering, and then shrugged and held it out to him. He took it gingerly. It was an A4 sketchbook, bound with black cardboard, the pages thick and white and substantial. On the top page was a sketch of a naked woman. It was rough, but not unskilled.

He traced the curve of the woman’s body with a fingertip, gently.

‘I like it,’ he said finally, handing it back. ‘What made you suddenly start drawing?’

She shrugged, defensive. ‘I’ve always drawn a bit.’

‘Anna, we’ve been married for thirteen years. I’ve never once seen you pick up a pencil and draw something. I’ve never even seen you colouring in with the girls.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ She closed the sketchbook and stood up, moving across the kitchen in two strides. ‘Tea?’

‘Sure.’

As she filled the kettle, he studied her back, her shoulders taut and rigid underneath her black T-shirt.

‘But seriously,’ he said, noting the way her muscles visibly tensed as he spoke. ‘What made you start doing this today?’

‘What does it matter?’ She sounded annoyed.

‘It matters because I love you and I’m interested,’ he said, in the most reasonable voice he could muster. ‘Why do you not want to tell me?’

‘It’s nothing. I just – ’ She put the kettle in its cradle and flicked it on. ‘I was speaking to a friend today, that’s all. About – bereavement, and trauma, and so on. And they said it can be good to do something creative. To get the feelings out, or whatever.’

‘So you drew a naked woman?’ Marcus was genuinely perplexed.

‘Well, apparently I don’t really have
feelings
like other people do.’ Her voice was bitter, and Marcus found that he wanted to step closer to her, but he wasn’t sure how to bridge the gap between them.

‘Darling, you definitely do have feelings.’

‘You make me feel as if I don’t.’ She looked directly at him, then: her blue eyes, so like those of her daughters.

‘How can you say that? I’ve never doubted that you had feelings. All this time, I’ve been trying to protect you – ’

‘I don’t want to be
protected
, Marcus; I want to be
understood
.’ Her eyes blazed.

‘How can I understand if you won’t talk to me?’

‘I’m
trying
to talk to you.’ She marched back to the kitchen table, picked up the sketchbook, and threw it at him. It bounced off his shoulder, one corner digging sharply into his skin before it fell to the ground. ‘Learn to listen, why don’t you?’

Without another word, she turned and walked out of the patio doors. By the time he’d recovered enough to follow her, she’d crossed the lawn and was disappearing into the woods.

Connie arrived home just after four o’clock. Marcus heard the click of the front door from the kitchen. He was sitting at the table, in much the same position as Anna had been when he’d arrived home an hour earlier; he’d rescued the sketchbook from the floor, and had been perusing it intently, searching for clues. He flipped it shut when Connie appeared in the doorway.

‘Hey, stranger.’

‘Hey.’ She dropped her bag on the floor next to the table. ‘Where’s Mama?’

‘She went for a walk.’ He jerked his head in the direction of the patio doors.

‘The woods again?’

‘Again?’

Connie was rummaging through the cupboards, searching for food, and she didn’t notice his head snap up. ‘Yeah,’ she said, her voice vague. ‘I’ve seen her go walking in that direction a few times. I’d have thought it would bother her, being out there, but it doesn’t seem to.’

Marcus weighed up his next sentence before speaking. ‘Does it bother
you
?’

Connie shrugged, still facing away from him. ‘Obviously.’

He was surprised at her honesty, but he didn’t pursue it. He sat watching her while she took bread and peanut butter out of the cupboards. ‘You want some?’ she asked, when she saw him looking.

‘No, thanks.’

‘Then what are you staring at me for?’

He smiled as she slipped two pieces of bread into the toaster. ‘Sorry. Just thinking. Did you have a nice day?’

‘Not really.’ She leaned back against the counter, and Marcus was reminded again of the similarity between his daughters’ eyes and his wife’s. Lily’s and Connie’s eyes were virtually identical – vivid blue, ringed with darker blue, flecked with grey. Anna’s were only different because her eyelashes were sparser, the creases in her skin more pronounced. ‘Next question?’

‘What do you want for dinner?’

‘Takeaway. Next?’

‘What kind of takeaway?’

She smiled, her eyes scanning the ceiling as she mentally trawled through her list of takeaways. ‘Chinese?’

‘Hmm. I might be able to manage that, I suppose.’

‘Seriously?’ Connie looked genuinely excited, which made Marcus laugh. He forgot what it was like, sometimes, to not be in control of your own circumstances, to be at the mercy of older and more sensible people all the time.

‘Sure. Why not? We’ll have to wait till Mama gets home, though. I’ll never hear the end of it if we order without her.’

‘
Cool
.’ Connie’s toast popped up, and she set about spreading it liberally with peanut butter, looking more animated than she had in weeks. Was that all it took, then: the prospect of a meal that wasn’t home-cooked? Or was it just that any change from the day-to-day routine was a welcome relief?

In the end Anna didn’t come home until gone seven, so Marcus ordered without her. When she came through the door they were curled on the sofa together, surrounded by foil containers and plastic bags, a large plate of prawn crackers on the cushion between them.

‘Hey,’ Marcus said. His voice was controlled, purposely cheery: he was determined to be normal and not demand to know where she’d been for nearly four hours. ‘I ordered you chow mein. It’s in the fridge, if you want it.’

Anna looked confused; also out of breath and dishevelled, as if she’d been running. ‘Chow mein?’

‘Yeah. That’s what you usually have, isn’t it?’

‘Um, yeah. Thanks. I’m not actually that hungry right now, though.’

She hovered in the doorway, awkward.

‘You can sit down, you know.’

‘I know.’ But still she didn’t. ‘I might go upstairs, actually. Have a shower. I was walking for a long time.’

‘Yeah, you must have been.’

She looked at him curiously, as if trying to figure out if there was a hidden meaning in what he was saying. But Marcus turned back to the TV, and she shrugged.

‘See you in a bit, then.’

Her footsteps echoed on the bare floorboards; they followed her all the way to the bathroom.

Marcus went to visit Lily every other weekend. Sometimes, maybe one in three times, Connie and Anna would come with him. In theory he welcomed their presence – he thought it made the family less broken, somehow, if they were all in the same place together at least some of the time. But actually, all of them together generally meant arguments, awkwardness, discussions about the future; things best avoided. And so when
Connie said she had plans and Anna said she’d better stay home to look after her, Marcus tried not to let his relief show.

When he pulled into the driveway his father was in the front garden, digging at the borders between clumps of daffodils, and Lily was kneeling on the ground behind him, bundled up in a thick coat and fingerless mittens, sorting through a pile of stones. She looked up for a moment at the sound of him slamming the car door, then went back to her stones without acknowledging him.

‘Hey, Dad.’ Marcus spoke loudly, overcompensating for his father’s slight deafness. The older man turned slightly and lifted a hand, but didn’t stop his digging. Marcus crouched down beside Lily.

‘Whatcha doing, Lils?’

She didn’t look up, but continued shifting stones from one pile to another. He squinted, trying to see her logic, but it was lost on him. The usual distinguishing features – size, colour, shape – didn’t seem to be of importance in whatever system she was using.

‘If you can figure it out, you’re smarter than me,’ his father said, coming up behind them and laying a hand on Lily’s shoulder. She looked up briefly, a faint trace of a grin on her face, and then bowed her head again and continued her sorting.

‘How’s the garden coming along?’

‘Oh, same as usual, really. Not much to do this time of year. Lily’s been helping me tidy up some of the shrubs while I loosen the ground a bit ready for spring planting, but then she got distracted by
this
– ’ He waved a hand in the direction her stones. ‘She’s not been much use since.’

‘Can’t blame her. Sorting is more fun than gardening.’

‘And both are more fun than lessons with Grandma. Isn’t that right, Lily?’

Lily didn’t look up.

‘What do you mean? Have the lessons not been going well?’ Marcus looked from his father to his daughter, both of whom stared at the piles of stones on the ground and wouldn’t return his gaze.

‘Why don’t you go and have a chat with your mother?’ his dad suggested, without looking up.

Marcus found his mother doing the washing-up, singing softly to herself as she looked out of the window. For a moment he was struck, as he sometimes was, by her age, the extra years blurring the features of a face that was almost as familiar as his own. He couldn’t remember when she’d started looking like a grandmother instead of a mother.

‘What are you doing lurking in doorways instead of coming to say hello like a normal person?’ She didn’t turn her head, still staring at something out of the window, but she was smiling.

‘How did you know it was me?’

‘Heard your car pull up, didn’t I? Come and give me a hug; if I try and move I’ll get bubbles everywhere.’

He came to stand behind her, hugging her around her shoulders. She pressed her cheek into his forearm. ‘I’ve been watching that blackbird out there,’ she said, lifting a bubble-covered hand and pointing out of the window. ‘He’s been bobbing around singing to himself for about fifteen minutes. Not a care in the world.’

‘Well, I don’t imagine blackbirds have much to get stressed about.’

‘I’d like to see you build your own house every year and not get stressed,’ she retorted, and then laughed and changed the subject. ‘Where’s that daughter of yours? Still following your father around like a lost puppy?’

‘Yep. She’s sorting stones into piles.’

‘Ah, yes. She’s been doing that for a couple of days. Got your father totally confused, trying to figure out her system.’

‘And me,’ Marcus admitted.

‘Yes, well. You were never much good at that sort of thing.’

‘And you are?’ He raised an eyebrow, stepping to one side and picking a soap-covered glass off the worktop. ‘Can I rinse this?’

‘Sure.’ She lifted her hands out of the bowl so he could run the tap. ‘I’m done now anyway. And yes, for your information, I am. I figured out what she was doing straight away.’

‘Really? What is it?’

His mother grinned. ‘It’s to do with the indents.’

‘Indents?’ Marcus narrowed his eyes, puzzled.

‘Yes. You know? Those things that stop the stones being round and smooth?’ Her tone was warm, teasing. ‘She’s sorting them according to the number and size of the indents. There might be some other factors as well, but that’s the main thing.’