The Girl With Glass Feet (7 page)

Carl got off the coach in a town communist in architecture. In the distance, hills and a power station cast a protective cloud over the streets. Double-headed lampposts stood tall on street corners. Fences were tagged with unimaginative graffiti in tasteless colours. He found the best-looking hotel he could, which had at least made an effort (if a rather meagre one) by laying a tawdry red carpet in the foyer and hanging chandeliers made of plastic in the lobby. A jobbing student with a wonky black bow tie gave him a room key, and he took the stairs up to the fourth floor to exercise legs that had become nearly numb on the coach. He threw his bag into his room, locked the door again and headed straight back out on to the streets, ignoring his rumbling stomach.

He strode down the roads that led him to the graveyard. He wished there were a florist open at this time in the evening so he could leave Freya her favourite golden irises. In the graveyard he passed a mourner caressing a memorial bench and found his way between the headstones to the white block of stone carved with that strange name that was only half hers. Freya
Maclaird
.

That bastard Charles Maclaird never even told Carl a tumour was bulging at the top of Freya’s spine. Never even informed him of her death. That was his spite towards him, more hurtful even than his legal ties to the woman. More hurtful even than the idea of the two of them sharing a bed with torturous regularity.

Crouching by the gravestone with fists clenched in front of his mouth, he wondered how the girl he had seen, the girl he had given his house keys to, had nothing of Charles about her. She was so like her mother had been in her heyday that she could have been a sister. Holding her in his arms had been like… like what he had always imagined holding Freya would be.

If he had only known Freya were dying he would have come to her bedside and held her, no matter what Charles Maclaird and the rest of the world might think.

When he had last come to this graveyard (could it be three years back?) he had been so distraught that he awoke the day after to find his fingernails cracked and his fingers bruised by bite marks. He had seriously considered digging her out of the earth. He had been deprived of his rightful place at her deathbed and funeral, and he could scarcely believe his hopes were dashed. He had long held a swaggering belief that Charles would wrong-foot one day and Freya would come running. He had held the belief, albeit steadily eroded by the ageing of his body, that there would be nights with her. Her frame and his, her gasp through parted lips.

How clean, so much cleaner, the headstone had been three years back. Only fear had stopped him from scrabbling at the fresh dirt back then. Not fear of the consequences should he be caught, but fear of how he might defile her. Instead he had returned to his cottage on St Hauda’s Land.

There were no flowers on her grave now. Charles should have tended it, but here was the rub: Charles had loathed and despised Freya. Called her a whore, so it was alleged. Carl would have
wrung the wretch’s neck if he had witnessed him call her that. At least Ida saw sense. Ida, from what she had told him in letters, saw her father for the selfish bumpkin he was. She might not despise him as Carl did, but it made him grimly pleased to know they were on better terms with each other than she was with the dolt who had engendered her.

She was every inch her mother, that girl. He bent down to kiss the headstone.

An army of leaves roved through Ettinsford’s low-lying park, charging over the bedraggled turf and the tarmac paths. A child in a pushchair tried to catch them as they poured past her. She strained against her harness and squealed as her fingers snapped at thin air. The leaves kept moving, passed the banks of the strait on to which the park backed, rounded the bottom of the painted clock tower. Finally they piled against a hedge behind an old lady on a bench. She screwed up her face as they scrambled over her and caught in her shawl.

Midas checked the clock tower. Already the sunset was ending, dividing the sky into a yellow wall and jewel-blue ceiling. Robins darted among bare branches. Ducks bobbing on the water tucked their beaks under their wings. A faded crisp packet crackled in the wind.

He wondered whether Ida would show up, because she was late. They’d arranged to get some fish and chips, and he’d come here straight from work, down the winding cobbled road from the florist in the High Street to the exposed grass of the park. He crossed his arms and stamped from foot to foot. Even over two jumpers and three T-shirts, his ropy coat couldn’t keep him warm. He was uncomfortable about the fish and chips. When they had left the café the day before, Ida had suggested they meet up again, for a meal. He’d not tried any of Ettinsford’s restaurants or bars, so when she asked him for a recommendation the only place he could remember visiting was the chip shop, maybe six or seven years back. She’d said it wasn’t what she’d had in mind, but insisted that if it was what he recommended she’d give it a shot.

He was surprised she had wanted to meet up with him again, after he’d told her he couldn’t help her find Henry Fuwa. In the café when she’d said his name his gut reaction had been to shake his head and deflect the memory of bouquets. Yet later, in the evening when he boiled the kettle for his hot-water bottle, he noticed he felt deceitful. As if he had betrayed her.

Memories were just photos printed on synapses. As such he justified sharing some of them with the world while keeping others locked in hidden albums. Yet as he’d poured the steaming water down the bottle’s rubber nozzle, some queasy emotion made him shudder, splashing scalding water over his hand. Was there some law at work, some authority that required him to submit his memories of Fuwa to her as evidence? He hadn’t slept well, had sat up in bed with his bony knees bundled close to his chest, feeling too spooked to turn the light off.

Now, in the park, he wondered how he could tell Ida that actually, yes, the name Henry Fuwa did ring a bell, without making her angry that he hadn’t done so before.

A tramp waddled into view on the other side of the clock tower, holding a carrier bag of blue cider bottles. Somebody walked slowly behind him. When the tramp slouched on to a bench, Midas saw that it was Ida. Only, her gait was different. She had abandoned her walking stick in favour of a stout wooden crutch.

He knew the moment she smiled across the park at him that he would let himself down. Braving the queasy feeling was better than braving her anger. His gullet rippled as he willed the guilt back inside. She approached along the edge of the water, wearing the same white hat and knee-length coat he’d seen her in before, and it struck him again that her face and eyes were almost monochrome in pallor. The cold gave everything acute definition, and she was no exception. He wanted to rip off his lens cap and photograph her there and then.

‘A pleasant afternoon,’ she said, looking up at the sky.

‘Yes,’ he said, deciding not to comment on the switch from stick to crutch.

‘You look freezing. Sorry I’m late.’

‘You’re not.’

She looked at the clock face. ‘I am. Really, I’m sorry. I still find it hard to allow time for these.’ She pointed at her boots. ‘I was dreading you’d think I wasn’t coming. Aren’t you cold? Midas, there’s a hole in your coat!’

‘I’ve got two jumpers on.’

‘But aren’t you cold?’

‘A bit.’

‘Okay. Then let’s grab those fish and chips.’

He nodded to show enthusiasm and walked slowly beside her out of the park and across a road to the chip shop.

A wooden fish hung over the door. Cracks and smears of bird shit sullied its blue paintwork. The smell of grease and batter wafted on to the pavement. It smelt even stronger inside, in the hot close air where the blue walls were tiled like a swimming pool’s and were painted with murals of shark and octopi. Red-faced staff in white caps shovelled chips into polystyrene trays and dunked fish into sizzling fat fryers.

Midas pointed to a green-hued photo of the speciality fishcake. When she’d asked him what was so great about the chip shop he’d cited them as an example. On cue, a grinning customer left the counter with an open fishcake and chips, vinegar making the breadcrumbs soggy. A lean man in a leather jacket and black polo-neck stepped up to the counter and rested an umbrella against it. He winked at the girl serving, who blushed.

‘Double fishcake and chips,’ he said in a nasal voice.

‘Salt and vinegar?’

‘Plenty of salt.’

The girl serving scattered salt over his chips. Midas turned to Ida to ask her not to be disappointed if the fishcakes had gone
downhill in six years, suddenly embarrassed about his choice of food. Yet she looked genuinely delighted, and entrusted him with ordering her fishcake while she sat in a white plastic chair at a small table by the window.

‘How long do you think they’ll stay hot for?’ she asked when he came over with two soft packages of greaseproof paper.

‘They’re just out of the fat fryer.’

She grinned. ‘Shall we take them back to my place?’

‘Um…’

She stood up carefully and tapped his belly. The touch of her finger on his stomach had filled his throat with a gargle and he couldn’t speak, even though he thought he should politely decline her offer.
God
, he barely knew her.

She was relentless. ‘Are you okay to drive us?’

He looked at her eager face and took the father test: ask yourself what your father would have done and make sure you do the precise opposite.

They stepped out into the chilly street, where the tramp from the park was huddled in an alley mouth with his carrier bag of cider bottles. Midas heard the percussion of his chattering teeth. He led the way towards his car, which he realized now he’d parked in a puddle. She lowered herself carefully into the passenger’s side. Night was falling quickly. Soon they were driving through darkening countryside and there were no other cars on the road.

‘Those chips smell good.’

‘Mm.’

She laughed. ‘You get really tongue-tied, don’t you?’

He blushed. ‘S’pose.’

Dark branches rushed past the window. It started to rain. The car shuddered through a pothole and Ida winced and involuntarily grabbed her knees. Midas tried to watch the road. Coniferous trees shook in the wind and rain.

‘Perhaps you think too hard about what words you’re going to use and how to make your mouth say them.’

He frowned. Perhaps she spoke her mind too easily. ‘Maybe.’

After a silence she pointed out a narrow driveway. He turned up it, headlights sweeping across a tiny bungalow with a slate roof.

Trees lashed each other in the darkness. Cold rain, nearly sleet, tapped their scalps and shoulders as they left the car.

Ida took a deep breath. ‘Okay. This is the cottage.’

A blue front door had a horseshoe nailed to it. Dead plants in cracked flowerpots sat on the windowsills. A drop of icy rain hit Midas in the eye. Ida stepped up to the door, holding the key tightly but making no move to place it in the lock. She stared at the woodwork.

‘The décor’s rather predictable I’m afraid. Carl’s not really interested in it. Think middle-aged academic.’

He thought of his father. She unlocked the door and hit a light switch.

A wide passageway led to some wooden stairs and two doors, one to a kitchen and one to a sitting room with a sofa bed where she had clearly been sleeping. He wondered why she didn’t sleep upstairs in the bedroom, and whether the sofa bed made this her bedroom. In which case he was
in her bedroom
. God, he wasn’t ready for anything like that.

A bookshelf was stacked with a few photo frames and books with names he half remembered from his father’s study: Virgil, Pliny, Ovid. They were like the words of a black magic spell, and he turned his back on them. In a corner sat a neat pile of lifting weights and an aged pair of blue boxing gloves, while on the wall opposite the window hung a small print of a self-portrait of Van Gogh, ear bandaged tightly. A patterned throw, navy blue with silver dots, overlaid the sofa bed.

Ida sat on the bed and started to unlace her boots. Midas tried
not to seem too interested. She slid them off and laid them carefully on the carpet beside the bed. Underneath, she wore many layers of thick socks.

‘It must have been hard,’ he said, looking at her padded feet. ‘Underwater.’

She frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

‘That diving you said you used to do with Carl Maulsen.’

‘No, no. This… condition hadn’t developed when I was working for Carl.’

‘Oh.’

‘Yes.’

‘Is it recent?’

She nodded.

They looked at their laps.

‘Midas?’

‘Yes?’

‘I don’t want to talk about it.’

‘Sorry.’

She shrugged. She clapped her hands together. ‘Right then. Let’s eat these fishcakes.’

Midas went to the kitchen and found plates. He unwrapped the greasy bundles on to the crockery and carried them back to the sitting room. He sank into an armchair that was lumpy with springs.

Ida had opened a window to let out the smell of chip grease. Something in the trees hooted as they ate.

‘There are owls outside,’ said Midas.