The Song House (7 page)

And disposed of the wine, she says.

He starts to say, I’ll fetch another, when she nods at the fridge.

I’d quite like some white, really, she says, Nothing fancy.

Kenneth turns the key in the lock and places it back on the
top of the door frame. His expression when he faces her is
severe again.

Now, Maggie, he says, in a scolding voice, A wine can be
unassuming, it can be modest. Sometimes, we say it’s a friendly
wine.
Fancy
is not, as far as I’m aware, a technical term. I can
see you have much to learn.

Shall we start with where the glasses are kept? she says, A
girl could die of thirst round here.

Patience, my dear, he says, pulling open one drawer after
another, It’s here somewhere. I may be forgetful, and silly—he
breaks off, brandishing a horn-handled waiter’s friend – But
there are some things a fellow never forgets. You have to open
the bottle first, he says, And release the genie!

She doesn’t remind him about the broken glass in the cellar.
She’ll clear it up herself tomorrow; she knows where he keeps
the key.

But now it is today: yesterday’s tomorrow. Maggie shivers as
she creeps down the stairs;despite the promise of another warm
morning, the house at this early hour is chill. Only the tick of
the grandfather clock breaks the silence. She walks in time with
it, through the hall and into the kitchen, fumbling along the
top of the cellar door for the key until she finds it. Inside, she
gets only as far as the archway: a waft of cold air blows on her
face, stalling her, making her blink. The grille at the far end
casts a square of dismal light onto the floor, showing where
the wine has soaked into the concrete. All that remains is a flat
black stain and a jagged crescent of glass, surrounded by a halo
of glittering splinters. Maggie retraces her steps and puts the
key back where she found it.

Outside, the morning sky is a soft pearl grey, a score of red
slashes marking east. She’d slept badly again: her recurrent
nightmare – of a flash of white light burning into her eye –
seemed to repeat itself on an endless loop. She was woken by
the sound of a dog barking, but couldn’t tell whether it was
real or part of her dream.

Her plan is to walk off the noises in her head, the dull ache
behind her eyes; both the result, she thinks, of too much wine.
She has hours before work – before Kenneth plays her more
of his memories. She chooses not to think about what he will
say, what piece of history he will attempt to resurrect. Instead,
she aims directly east, moving swiftly now through the middle
of the rhododendrons and down the lane, entering a dewy
copse. It’s lush inside; full of waist-high nettles and bindweed,
overhanging branches strung with silver spiderlines. She hears
a woodpecker drumming a tree, distant traffic on the motorway.
Maggie sinks further into the thick silence of the copse, feeling
a change in the air on her arms. She follows the descent of a
narrow track this way and that, scenting out the river.

The mooring on the far side is home to two boats; a rackety
narrowboat and a sleek white pleasure cruiser. She scans them
both for signs of life, and finding none – it’s early still – turns
her eyes to the water. The willows at the river’s edge chop the
surface into black strips; further into the middle, the reflected
sky lies flat as a pan. It’s impossible to judge the depth. Maggie
takes off her boots and socks and slips quickly down the bank,
her fingers finding purchase in the gritty mud and small stones,
until her feet are in the water. It is burning, numbing cold. She
moves slowly forwards until she feels the ledge begin to fall
away, then she stops. Her skirt rises up around her like a water
lily.

Standing quite still, feeling the slow drift of the current
nudging her body, Maggie watches the way the growing
daylight is mirrored on the water. She thinks of her mother,
of the river, and of how the two will always be connected. It
would be the last thing Nell would want, to be bonded to her
fear. But she never moved far. Maggie considers it again; how
Nell ended up in Field Cottage, only fifteen miles from
Weaver’s and still in plain sight of the river.

As if I have a choice, she’d said, shrugging, I just go where
they put me. They have all the power round here and don’t
you forget it. They don’t just uphold the law, they make it.

And then, a second reason, as if the first one wasn’t enough:

Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Maggie understood her mother’s anger over the Cranes and
their kind; her father had abandoned them, with hardly a look
backwards, but Nell never forgot that Maggie was Ed’s child
too: she was a Crane. Nell would live on the moon if it meant
she could keep her daughter. Maggie knows it now, what an
enemy fear can be, what a bully; waiting round the corner,
spying, turning up when you least expect it, when your
defences are down. Far better to keep it in plain sight. But the
river isn’t Maggie’s enemy: she loves it, her only rebellion
against the force that was Nell. And Kenneth loves it too, she
knows he does. The way he sits there, watching it, breathing it
in. The certainty is oddly pleasing to her; the thought that they
should be so different, but share something ordinary. She was
grateful that he told William not to come. And the evening
had been enjoyable, despite the awkwardness of the pass he’d
made, despite the burnt stew. She tells herself not to think
about him, but like the current, he tugs her back. If she is to
stay, she must prepare: she has to be ready to meet his son. She
knows there is a right moment, but that it isn’t now. Today she
will be cheerful, she won’t try to lead Kenneth anywhere in
particular, and it’ll be easy, he makes her feel easy. Easy, she says,
pulling herself up onto the bank. Her skirt clings like river
weed to her legs, black spots of mud freckle her shins and feet.
It’s then she hears the sound: a low, rumbling growl behind
her. She turns to see a man standing on the deck of the narrow-boat,
with a face so tanned and lined it looks like a mask. His
eyes are squinting at her, the fingers of his left hand are buried
deep in the scruff of a large red dog. In her ribs a quick, intense
stitch of pain: the spiteful poking of the fear.

Skiffle, Maggie! cries Kenneth, as she enters the library, Can’t
beat it to get the blood flowing!

He’s bending from side to side, shaking a pair of imaginary
maracas. He looks ridiculous. Clearly, the wine they drank last
night has had no effect on him. She perches on the edge of
the armchair, opening the notebook slowly and emphatically,
hoping he’ll take the hint; but he merely circles her, smiling,
and leans over the wing of the chair.

It’s a very fine morning, don’t you think?

And you are very fine, he says, in his head.

It’s a lovely day all right, she agrees, But all that drink last
night; I’m just not used to it.

Maggie expects this statement to be met with solicitous dismay
by Kenneth, but he surprises her.

What you need is a bit of something to pep you up, he says,
raising his arms again and twisting his wrists, Something . . .
life-affirming.

He follows Lonnie Donegan with Buddy Holly with
someone she thinks is called Tubby Hairs; but when she asks,
Kenneth shouts over the frenetic sound,

Never mind that now, just listen. That sax. Miraculous!

Despite herself, Maggie is transfixed by Kenneth: by the sight
of him, his pure joy. He dances round the room like a child.
Possessed, she thinks, that’s what he is: he’s been taken over. He
announces an Alvin Robinson song, following it with another
three or four bursts of music, half-played and snatched from
the turntable before she can find out what they are.

Kenneth, I need some help here, she says, What should I be
writing?

Robert Johnson, he cries, Just listen to this.

A sound of thin wailing, dry and dusty guitar, as if the man is
locked inside an old tin can. Maggie writes down the name
and asks Kenneth for the title.

The devil himself, he says, not hearing her.

He pauses, his face questioning hers.

Maybe something a little more upbeat? Maybe the devil isn’t
for you. Rusty never liked him either.

He ducks down beneath the stereo and brings up a battered
LP with no outer sleeve.

How about this? he says, You gotta like Ike.

Maggie watches as he stares into space, begins to dance, then
stops, then starts again, like a robot with a faulty circuit. She
can’t help but smile, even if he is in perfect time with the guitar,
even if it makes sense. He catches her eye, smiles with her.

C’mon, Maggie, twist those strings.

And he pulls her out of her chair.

The silences are important, he says, stopping with one finger
in the air and then jumping about when the music kicks in
again, It’s the spaces in between things that count. Listen to
the gaps. They’re music too.

She tries a self-conscious hop from one foot to the other, until
he takes both of her hands in his and swings her round, and
round again, round and round, until the room is turning too
and she’s in free fall, and the feeling is like sherbet fizzing on
her tongue; it makes her laugh out loud with delight. Then
the music ends and Kenneth drops her hands and slumps,
sweating, into the window seat. Still weightless and elated,
Maggie sits down too.

Better than a workup at the gym, he says, wiping his forehead
with his arm, Haven’t boogied like that in years.

You were good, Kenneth, perfect timing.

Oh, that’s me, he says, tapping his brow, Upstairs for thinking,
downstairs for dancing.

When, she says, When was the last time you danced?

She picks up her notebook, feels her hands trembling. Kenneth
scratches at a bead of sweat on his nose.

They have ceilidhs in the village sometimes. Probably a few
years back.

And they dance to jazz? she asks.

He leans across the seat and pushes the window open; cool air
fills the room.

They dance to violins – fiddles – you know what a ceilidh
is, surely?

It’s a barn dance, she says, I’m just asking.

And then she releases a truth.

I used to go to festivals in Charmouth. You know, free festivals,
like raves. Didn’t matter if you couldn’t dance so well,
nobody minded.

Kenneth frowns at her.

Raves. They’re a nuisance, all that noise and litter. All that
destruction. Can’t say I see you enjoying
that
.

They weren’t illegal. It was folky, Kenneth, like, um, like an
outdoor barn dance. It was very peaceful. Lots of tree hugging.
She has his attention again.

You’ve actually hugged a tree?

Don’t knock it until you try it, she says, It’s quite soothing.
But not with that monster in the courtyard – the one with
the scary eyes.

She’s about to ask him about it when Kenneth swipes the notebook
from her hands. A leap of panic as he takes the pen. He
bends away from her, shielding it with his arm like a schoolboy
as she tries to snatch it back. On the cover he writes, in broad
capitals,
THIS BOOK BELONGS TO MAGGIE. IF FOUND, PLEASE
RETURN TO—

Where? Bilbo Baggins at Bag End?

Har har. Give it back. You’re not allowed to see it until we’re
finished. And we’ll never get finished if we don’t get on.

Relax, he says, waving her away, We’ve got all day. We’ve got
all summer. Haven’t we, Maggie, the whole lovely summer
ahead.

When she doesn’t reply, he scrawls two more words on the
book and makes to give it back, holding the edge so it’s trapped
between them.
EARL HOUSE
is written beneath her name.

You will stay, won’t you? The Fates have ordained it. Or the
fairies, if you prefer.

Where were we? she says, finally gaining possession, the
book safe again. She won’t be sidetracked by his teasing.

We were dancing.

You said something about Dusty, she says, and guesses, Dusty
Springfield?

Rusty
, he says, First met her in the Sunset Strip. He raises
his eyebrows, Soho.

Was she a performer? asks Maggie.

Kenneth smiles, puts his head on one side in what looks like
a gesture of forgiveness,

Not exactly, he says, Dear old Rusty. She was my wife.

Every time she touches the keys, the noise of the machine
drills into her head. Maggie works quickly, not checking what
she types, keen to be out of Kenneth’s memories and back into
her own.

Lonnie Donegan

My Old Man’s a Dustman, but he wasn’t was
he, Kenneth? Your old man was a high court
judge, and he knew my grandfather. They’re
both dead now; presiding in Heaven.

Alvin Robinson

A sound that smells like a swamp, says
Kenneth. RIP Alvin, lie deep.

Robert Johnson

Not much of a name for the devil. You don’t
scare me. Dead and gone, dead and gone.

Ike Turner

You’re dead too but you don’t sound it.
Kenneth likes dancing to you. He says the
spaces in between are as important as the
sounds. Listen to the gaps, he says, They
are music too.

I’m doing that, Kenneth, I’m listening to
the gaps and I’m trying to fill the spaces.
Not dead yet.

Upstairs, Kenneth sits at the desk in his office, his ear cocked
to the open door. He can hear, with bright satisfaction, the
stabbing sound of the typewriter keys, amplified and hollowed
by the wooden staircase. From the irregular stops and starts of
noise that Maggie makes, he can tell that she’s a far from expert
typist. And he has looked over her shoulder in the library:
despite her claim to have shorthand, her notes could be read
by anyone. So, she is a fraud. So what? He’s a fraud too. And
none of that matters to him now, if it ever did. From his first
glimpse of her, he knew that she belonged here, with him.
There is a pause, a vast, empty stretch of silence, where nothing
seems to happen and Kenneth wonders if she’s finished for the
day. He presses the nib of his fountain pen onto the blotter
and marks out his shortcomings in furry blue blobs: his age;
varicose vein like an elver climbing up his leg; hair falling out
where it should be growing and growing where it shouldn’t.
How big his earlobes are. The terrible, irrevocable whiteness
of his pubes. Spreading his hands in front of him, he studies
the familiar tremor. If he could remember where he’d stashed
that half of whisky, he’d have a steadier now. He rummages
through the desk drawer, scrabbling beneath the piles of CDs
and abandoned papers to the very bottom. He put the photographs
in here. It was almost the first thing he did after he saw
Maggie down in the field: crossed the room, straightened his
tie in the reflected glass of the painting on the wall, then had
second thoughts and removed it altogether. He took the two
silver-framed pictures from his desk and hid them away in the
back of the drawer. Slung his tie in there after them. He is
meticulous in his vanity: he didn’t want her to see him as he
used to be; young, with Will hanging off his neck, like a proper
doting dad. And he didn’t want her to see the
Vogue
portrait
of Rusty in her off-the-shoulder wedding gown.