Puccini's Ghosts (30 page)

21

T
oilets?’ Fleur said. ‘For God’s sake, Raymond, don’t talk to me about toilets.’

Raymond closed his mouth and pulled off his boots, stooping in the back doorway. Thick drizzling rain hung in the air like mist. It had started early, as he was setting out for the farm to help clean up after the ceilidh, and after nearly two hours of picking bottles and rubbish from the track and the field he was soaked through. A silvery film of water glistened on his hair and moustache and face; shining drops like tiny glass beads stood out on the shoulders and sleeves of his dark jersey. He straightened up and brushed himself down, sending a shower sprinkling across the floor.

‘Stop that!’ Fleur hissed. ‘And for God’s sake get that door shut. You’ve brought in enough damp as it is.’

Raymond skulked to his place at the kitchen table. Despite himself, he filled the room with his soggy bulk and the outdoors, wide-awake smell of rain. His skin shone pink and cold and clean.

His freshness put Fleur in a rage. She rubbed a hand over her forehead and pinched at the flesh under her chin. She felt slack and tired. Her face was bed-wrinkled, her mouth furry. Often now in the mornings she was afraid she was getting a glimpse of herself as she would soon look and feel all day. Nobody had warned her how short and cruel this interval was, the decade between the ages of thirty and forty, and how she would be more than halfway through it before she realised how much of her life had passed while all she had been aware of was how the years dragged.

She was wearing her new dressing gown, bought from a divine and exorbitant shop the girls had put her on to, but it was failing her, as clothes could these days. When she was younger, beautiful clothes delighted her; she used to succumb and overspend and feel guilty, but she would cherish her lovely things until they wore out. Soon after she was married she turned defiant about the cost; the sums that Raymond sighed over were simply what it took to look half-decent and her expensive clothes were no more than her due. Now their expense was the main point. But the surge of happiness she got in the shop from spending more than she ought to was short and cheap, no more than a gambler’s thrill. It never lasted the journey home; by the time a new garment was unwrapped at 5 Seaview Villas, Fleur would know from a sourness in her heart that neither it nor she was worth it.

The dressing gown was all wrong for getting breakfast. The sleeves were gathered at the wrist in floppy cuffs and even when she pushed them up past her elbows the ribbons kept falling in the lard. Not wanting to get the frying pan too hot (the stink would cling to her hair all day if the pan smoked) and trying to keep a safe distance, Fleur cracked the eggs from shoulder height into a pond of barely melted fat. The yolks burst on impact and lard splashed down her pale blue ruffled frontage. She clenched her teeth and watched the egg whites, gashed with orange, spread coolly to the edges of the pan and solidify silently with none of the lively spit they gave when Eliza cooked them.

She turned and glared at the table. George was unshaven and smoking before breakfast again, sitting with his back to the wall and looking even worse than she did. Raymond was still going on about toilets.

She said, ‘Will you get some plates and shut
up
.’

‘I’m afraid he has a point, though,’ George said. ‘I don’t know why I never thought of it.’

Raymond fetched the plates and returned to the table.

‘Aye, toilets have to be considered.’ In an odd way, he liked a plumbing problem. Getting down to brass tacks made him secretly cheerful. ‘Let’s face it,’ he said. ‘Last night we got off lightly. Stanley McArthur’s saying with the best will in the world his cistern can’t take it. As it is he needs a new ball cock after last night’s traffic.’

‘And we had how many at the ceilidh?’ George asked.

‘Och, less than a hundred and fifty,’ Raymond said. ‘Maybe a hundred and twenty.’

‘So if we’re putting in seats for over two hundred,’ George said, ‘and if we get a full house—’

‘And then there’s the cast and orchestra and crew, that’s an awful lot more.’

‘Oh, God,’ George sighed, sucking the last out of his cigarette and stubbing it out.

‘Aye, and don’t forget last night it was only the girls went in the house,’ Raymond said morosely. ‘The lads mainly used the hedge.’

‘Well, that won’t do,’ George sniffed. ‘Not exactly savoury, is it, a big night out at the opera and you have to pee in a hedge.’

‘For God’s sake, George, must you?’ Fleur said, pushing at the eggs.

‘Aye, there are limits,’ Raymond said. ‘A hedge can only take so much.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Fleur snapped. ‘Must we discuss this at the table? Why hasn’t somebody thought about all this before?’

‘We’re not
at
table,’ George said, swallowing a painful belch. ‘Or nothing’s on it, anyway. I’m starving. Florrie, aren’t those done yet? Isn’t there any toast?’

‘Oh, eat some bread, it’s in the bin. I’ve only got one pair of hands, if you want toast you can make it.’

George got up and brought the loaf, and butter still in its paper, to the table. Raymond, his eyes on Fleur’s back, fetched a bottle of HP sauce and set it down gingerly, as if it might be a small bomb.

‘I
am
thinking of it,’ added Raymond, taking his seat again and watching her slide the eggs on to cold plates. ‘I’m thinking of it now. Where’s wee Lizzie?’

‘Never mind her,’ Fleur said. She brought the plates and passed them over. ‘Let her cool her heels. She’s probably too ashamed to show her face. Or she’s sulking.’ She lifted a strand of her hair and stretched it as far as her nose. ‘
Damn,
I’ll have to shampoo my hair. I can’t believe I’m expected to sing a whole run-through this afternoon
and
cook and slave for all and sundry.’

Moving quickly, Raymond upended the sauce bottle over his plate and gave it a couple of sharp slaps. Before anything had come out, Fleur’s hand flew out and snatched it away.

‘Oh no, you don’t. That’s an insult to the cook,’ she said. ‘And least of all at breakfast,
if
you don’t mind.’

‘Och, Fleur. George likes a bit of HP, too,’ Raymond said, looking for solidarity. ‘Don’t you, George?’

‘Sorry, you’re on your own this morning,’ George said. The very thought of vinegar made his guts shrivel. ‘So look, Ray, what do you think we should do? About the, er…’ Fleur glanced up from buttering her bread and gave them a warning look. ‘About the facilities,’ he said.

Raymond cleared his throat. ‘Elsan,’ he told him, carefully. ‘Like you can get in caravans, or camping. The chemical solution.’ More eagerly he said, ‘We’ll need to get on with it though, arrange for the hire and so on. And we’ll need the proper tents, with dividers. Duckboards. No time to waste.’

‘Do they really work?’ George said. ‘Can they cope?’

‘Oh, aye. The Blacks now, Gordon Black was up there this morning helping—he says they’re nothing short of miraculous. The Blacks have been camping to the Lakes more than once. He says they’re—’ Raymond stole a glance at Fleur, who was flipping a slab of egg white into her mouth—‘completely inoffensive.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Both liquids and sol—’

‘Oh, for God’s sake!’ Fleur cried, banging her fork down. ‘Enough! Shut up! I mean it! I don’t want to hear another
word
.’

So it was that a few minutes later Lila slipped into the kitchen and was met with nothing but dogged chewing from the three at the table. Assuming that she was the cause of the awkwardness and that she was not forgiven, she was turning to leave when Uncle George said with false brightness, ‘Now you’re here, Liù, would you fry another egg for your old uncle?’

She did so happily, and also did another one for her father who decided he could manage one as soon as Fleur had left the room to go up for her bath. He covered it with HP sauce and left a large leftover dollop on the side of his plate. Afterwards, scraping everything into the bin and washing up the dishes and the congealed frying pan, Lila reflected on the kindness she had been shown. It was clear to her that Uncle George had not really wanted the second egg because he left at least half of his first one on the plate. In asking her to cook him one he was showing her there were no hard feelings. It did not occur to her that the awful silence in the kitchen might have been caused not by her but by something more important.

A few hours later, Lila heard the whump of the front door and was out of her room and at the top of the stairs in an instant, peering over the banisters. George came out of the music room and confronted Joe in the hall.

‘What time do you call this?’

Joe looked ragged and sullen. In reply, he dropped his holdall on the floor. Lila could not bear his letting it fall there as if he were undecided about staying; it looked so temporary. She wanted to tear downstairs and run up to his room with it.

‘You know what, Maestro? You sound like an old woman. What time do I call this?’ Joe’s voice was thick and deliberate. ‘I call it on time. I call it punctual. You said the run-through was at two. Well, here I am.’

‘You’ve been drinking.’

Joe looked past George up the stairs and grinned, but his eyes were tearful. ‘Well, well! Hello, hello, Liù! And how are you?’

He set his hands on his thighs and shifted his weight on to one hip.

‘You’re cutting it a bit fine, aren’t you? Ray’s already down there, so’s half the band,’ George said, his voice rising. ‘You’re not even warmed up. I bet you haven’t done any practice. You’ve been on a bender, haven’t you? Joe, I’m talking to you.’

Joe ignored him. ‘Well, Liù, you’re looking happy, anyhow—I’m glad someone round here’s happy to see me. So how are you-ou, little Lee-yoo?’

‘Oh, Joe, I’m fine! I’m better! My tonsils are fine now.’

‘Tonsils? Tonsils! Good news, wonderful, I’m delighted! Ready for a sing this afternoon then, eh?’ He shuffled his feet for a moment and with one hand reaching upwards he sang an ascending scale, ‘La-la-lala-la-la-la-la!’ He cracked the top note with a lift of his eyebrow at her, an invitation to exclude George. Lila took a deep breath and sang back down the scale, her voice floating easily above Joe’s. George crossed his arms and waited while Joe leered up the stairwell and sang:

Ah! Tu sei morta,

O mia piccola Liù…!

Lila, leaning over the banister, faltered. A smell of whisky rose from his mouth and he seemed unaware of what he had just said:
Ah! You are dead, o my little Liù…!
Could he have forgotten that this was the point in the opera when she dies? Liù has just seized a dagger and plunged it into her bosom, and all for him. Lila shook her head and gazed at him.

‘All right, all right, all
right,
’ George said, glancing between them. They were looking at each other like two spoiled, unguarded children waiting to receive a surprise, each mistaking the other for the indulgent grown-up holding a treat behind the back. ‘That’s enough.’

‘Oh, I love the way you sing that. I think your voice is lovely…it’s perfect,’ Lila said. ‘It’s
wonderful
.’

Joe bowed. ‘Oh,
oh
. Well, my goodness, Liù,
thank
you!’ he said. ‘How nice to have one’s talent appreciated!’ His face, suddenly pinker and brighter, told George that he at least had got what he wanted.

‘That’s enough fooling around,’ he said. ‘Save it for the run-through.’

‘Hey! Hey,’ Joe said, turning to him, ‘it’s only a bit of fun. No need to get into a paddy, Mr Maestro!’ He gave George’s shoulder a gentle shake. George could tell he did it to point up the contrast between them: tense, irritable George, big-hearted, lenient Joe.

Lila brought her hair round one shoulder and tipped forward so that it hung into the stairwell. Could Uncle George not see he was in the way? How could either of them speak with Uncle George standing like a wall between them?

‘Please, Uncle George, Joe’s done nothing wrong. Don’t be mean. It’s not fair. Let him be.’

‘Nothing wrong? He’s been away for days, he’s missed rehearsals and now he turns up in this condition for a crucial run-through with only minutes to spare,’ George said with a rising squeak in his voice. ‘It’s grossly unprofessional. It’s disgraceful.’

He frowned up at her. She was squinting down, flopping over the banisters like a cross-eyed rag doll, pulling her hair around in a way that reminded him of a slipping-off wig. Was she going mad, too?

‘I’m here now though, aren’t I?’ Joe said. ‘And did you even really notice I was gone? You haven’t noticed me properly for weeks.
Did
things fall apart because I wasn’t here?’

George’s voice tightened. ‘
Haven’t noticed you properly?
What do you think all this is
about
? How many hours a day do I spend—’

‘All you think I am is a
voice,
you don’t really care about
me
. And you haven’t answered my question—did things fall apart? Of course not.’

‘That’s not the point. Things are okay, no thanks to you, but that’s not the point.’

‘I told you I had to get away.’

Lila said, ‘You did get all the things you went for, didn’t you, Joe, all the brocades and the silk trimmings and everything? You did get those?’

Joe leaned over and opened his holdall. ‘Nope,’ he said, ‘I didn’t.’

‘What?’
said George. ‘Then what the hell have you been doing?’

‘One of the warehouse places I never found, the others didn’t…well, I wasn’t inspired. We’ll have to make do with what Stella can get hold of. It won’t matter.’

‘I asked you what the hell you’ve been doing. You’ve been away nearly a week. You’ve done nothing! And you were meant to be back here last night.’

Joe straightened up and spoke slowly. ‘Well, there you are. I’ve been doing other things. Nothing you’d be interested in.’

‘I take it I’m not supposed to ask where you’ve been staying? Or who with? And just how much have you been drinking?’

‘No, as a matter of fact, you’re not.’

‘How dare you!’

Fleur came out of the back room into the hall. Her head, wrapped in a scarf, was bulging with hair rollers and had doubled in volume. She let out a shriek and brought up her hands to cover her face.