The Devil's Music Page 4

  He stayed with you for a few weeks until Michael complained about hearing him at night, pacing up and down. Then he wouldn’t have Honey back. Jean had to keep her. There seemed to be no logic in it. And at first he hardly seemed to go out, beyond his garden.

  You didn’t know what to do to help him. You tried to think what your mother would have done, and realised there were many things you should’ve asked her. What was it like, to be loved so much?

  She was tiny, much smaller than you. She’d dart around the kitchen making supper while your father, a hand on the door jamb, took off his boots and stood to watch her; waiting. He’d put out a hand, place a palm, huge, at the small of her back, and she would pause, poised beside him. On the settee in the evenings, he’d lift her legs on to his lap and massage the insteps of her stockinged feet or circle an ankle with his callused fingers. Images of them touching, from your childhood, come back to you often now.

  ‘Gynaecology and obstetrics,’ you’d answered your mother proudly, when Michael first started courting you. ‘And GP work at the Albert Road surgery.’

  Your mother lowered her teacup. ‘Well then, you’ll need to get him off his pedestal right away.’ She snorted. ‘No playing doctors and nurses in a marriage.’

  You laughed together in her steamy kitchen, wiping tears from your eyes. A suet pudding simmered in a pan on the stove, lid rattling. She’d paused in the doorway, slipped her arms around your waist, rested her head on your shoulder. ‘You make sure he’s right for you.’

  How do you ever know?

  Michael had swept you off your feet. You were still new to the hospital, nervous to prove yourself capable of a promotion to theatre sister which you hadn’t thought you’d get. Your first Monday, and Michael sailed down a hospital corridor towards you, white coat billowing. He swivelled round as you passed each other.

  ‘Nurse!’ He whisked a black-and-gold fountain pen out of his breast pocket and rolled it between his fingers. ‘Write it down for me,’ he handed you the pen, ‘your name. Have you a telephone number?’ He put out a hand; his handshake was firm and warm. ‘Michael.’

  He tore a corner from a notice on the board for you to write on. His nib scratched; you were anxious about spoiling it.

  ‘I’ll take you for a drive,’ he nodded in agreement with himself. ‘In fact, I’ll give you a driving lesson. What do you say to that?’ His voice was just like James Mason’s. And there was the wave in his hair, combed to one side. He pocketed the scrap of paper and leaned with an elbow on the window ledge as you walked away down the corridor. You hoped the seams of your stockings were straight. He watched, you knew he did, even though by the time you reached the corner and glanced back, he was gone. You splashed out on a visit to the hairdresser’s for a Veronica Lake cut and set, shiny waves lifting to one side from your forehead and nestling at your neck, and spent an age worrying about which shoes you should wear for driving.

  He called you a ‘handsome’ woman. You were flattered until you wondered why he hadn’t said pretty, or beautiful. Jean said it was because you are tall and well endowed. ‘It’s always breasts with men,’ Jean said, eyes narrowed as she lowered her head to light her cigarette, ‘the bigger the better. He wouldn’t tell you that.’

  Michael strode the hospital wards and corridors, back straight, head up. He bent close to patients, looking them full in the eyes. Women smiled up in surprise when he cupped a heel in his palm, ran his fingers lightly either side of the length of a foot as he chatted about dates and antenatal care. They weren’t to know the intimacy of his touch was an illusion; he was simply assessing pelvic width. Even the elderly female patients responded to him, fingering the ribbons at the neck of their bed jackets, fluffing up their bed-flattened hair if they glimpsed him sweeping down the ward.

  He took you to the pictures to see Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train, boating on the river at Henley. He bought sheet music: Mario Lanza’s ‘The Loveliest Night of the Year’; ‘Unforgettable’ by Nat ‘King’ Cole. That won your mother over straight away, those gatherings around her piano while you played and Michael and your parents sang. He drove you to the little church at Cookham where, walking in the graveyard, he pointed out the gravestones with his family name, lichen-covered and leaning, one or two of them going back as far as the 1700s. He bought expensive flowers and chocolates every week for the first two months. The other nurses exclaimed over the roses in crisp Cellophane brought to the staff kitchen by the porter almost every Monday. Often you took them to the wards.

  The sex had happened too quickly. In your mind, Michael was still gowned up, in charge; the surgeon. Eyes closed, you wondered how to kiss him, where to touch him. The harsh graze of his stubble made your face sore. And the brown circle of rubber, powdery in its box – you never thought to put it in until it was too late, a halt in things, running to the bathroom and messing around while Michael lay on the bed talking and pulling himself about. It’ll get better, you told yourself. You’d mentioned something to Jean. She said, ‘Well, we’re not supposed to enjoy it that much anyway, are we? Women, I mean.’

  Your mother had. You’re sure of it. Hoggie had once talked about being the single child, a mistake; about being excluded because her parents only really wanted each other. As she spoke, you remembered one summer holiday in St Leonards-on-sea, a fortnight in a furnished flat on the sea front, you and Jean running along the promenade to the ice-cream van, every day, coins clutched in your hands.

  ‘Why not sit out on the wall and eat them so as you don’t drip ice cream all the way up the stairs?’ your mother suggested one day.

  After that, you and Jean always did, you sat on the brick wall that scratched the backs of your legs and you looked across the promenade at the silvery railings and the stall with the multicoloured plastic windmills that rattled round in the wind. Once, you’d not had enough money, or Jean had dropped hers down a drain, you can’t remember what made you turn back and run up the dark stairs. You burst in. Their flustered movements – your mother smoothing down her dress, your father coughing, his back to you as he walked into the bathroom – it came to you in later years that they had not been sitting drinking the tea that had grown cold in their teacups.

  Your father picks up the freesias again, lifts them to his nose before laying them in the vase at the base of the headstone. Does Michael know now, freesias are your favourite flower, as they were your mother’s?

  ‘Time to go, Dad?’

  When he nods, you have the sudden urge to prolong this weekly hour in the graveyard, this hour away from the children.

  Beside you, your father limps between the gravestones towards the car. You lean over to open the door for him. He lowers himself slowly into the passenger seat, lifting up his leg to ease it into the foot-well.

  ‘Going rusty.’ He tut-tuts at himself, in the way your mother used to cluck her tongue at him. ‘Have we time for The Copper Kettle, duck?’ He pats your leg and nods. ‘Talking to your mother has made me yearn for some tea and that chocolate cake they do.’

  Chapter 9

  Susie leaves with the boys to buy bottles of water and other ‘essentials’. Silence settles like dust. I sit at the kitchen table. A leaf litter smell from the rotting lino; curled husks of dead woodlice everywhere. Bakelite door handles and chipped Formica surfaces; a blue metal cooking stove on legs. And a shadow in the room, like a warp in time. Nobody has been here for years, by the looks of things. Susie said Father paid out for someone to cut the grass and mend the roof if necessary; basic repairs. Not much else has been done.

  She has written a list, ‘TO DO’ at the top, underlined twice. I’ll look at it later. In the living room, I lower myself on to the faded cushion of a lopsided wicker chair and place my palm on the cool glass top of a wicker table. Then, through the salted glass of the window, I glimpse the roof of the shed.

  ‘Flipping heck, Andrew! What a mess.’

  Susie’s voice makes me jump. As I turn towards her, the bottom of the cardboard b
ox in my arm gives way. A jug and half a dozen striped beakers clatter on to the grass.

  ‘What on earth are you doing in there?’ She starts to pick her way towards the shed, stepping between rusted shears, cans of creosote, broken deckchair frames and an assortment of sagging boxes. The boys are thudding about inside The Siding, running up and down the long wooden corridor that’s built down the side of one of the railway carriages.

  ‘Ah – you’re back already?’ I pick up a beaker, remembering the feel of them, brittle plastic against my teeth.

  The biggest kid appears at the back door and starts to follow her across the grass. ‘Henry! Be careful.’

  I point to the shelf at the back of the shed. ‘There’s a hammock.’

  Susie peers in. The bulging canvas sack lies there like a cocoon. Henry strains to burrow his head in-between our legs across the doorway, tugging with a fist at the bottom of Susie’s jumper. I try to ignore him.

  ‘And look,’ I tap Susie’s arm. Hanks of tarred rope hang from the ceiling.

  ‘A hammock? Is it a high priority?’ Her voice is shrill.

  I try to interrupt. ‘I was looking for secateurs, to clip back ...’

  But she’s talking. ‘—and I’ll have to take the boys back tonight as I can’t get hold of a plumber or an electrician today. You’d think this was the back of beyond. We’ll have to get a skip for all this bloody rubbish.’

  She grabs the kid by the back of his sweatshirt and hauls him out from the piles of cardboard boxes. Her mouth is a straight line. ‘This is impossible.’

  ‘I can sort the electrics.’ Rubber gloves, a hammer and nail – that’s all I need to bypass the meter. ‘I’ll put the kettle on.’ I’m heading for the house as I speak. ‘Got any water?’

  Susie follows me and starts slamming cupboard doors in the kitchen. ‘Anyone would think you grew up in a barn.’ She raises her eyes heavenwards. ‘I’m going to have to buy a few bits in Maidenhead, I guess. Nothing is in stock down here. We’ll have a clear-out, make a start on the cleaning, then think about how much we need to do to jazz the place up before we put it on the market.’

  She shoves her hair behind her ears and avoids my eyes as she pulls on rubber gloves. ‘I’m going to have a go at the windows,’ she announces and reaches for the bleach. ‘May as well achieve something useful. Can you take down all the curtains and chuck them outside? And keep an eye on the boys with that junk from the shed.’

  There’s so much material. Although the vivid blue of the cornflowers has faded, the fabric feels heavy and substantial. The pattern is so familiar, the extravagance of the cornflowers splashed over the pale blue background, it’s as if I saw it only yesterday. The linings are ripped and stained with damp.

  I carry the pile of curtains outside. Something about the soft weight in my arms and the swathes of fabric make me think of lifting a woman, cradling her in my arms. I stand in the long grass. My mother must have made these curtains.

  I negotiate the stuff that litters the grass. It looks as though the remnants, the discarded and broken household utensils and tools, the disintegrating pieces of lino, have been vomited on to the grass.

  Folding the curtains loosely, I push them into a back corner of the shed. Clouds scud over a pale blue sky. I find I’m glad not to be getting back into the Volvo for the return journey. I stack boxes and cans and carry them back to the shed. There seems to be too much to fit back into the space. Tangled coils of rope swing against the back of my neck. Later, I’ll investigate the shed contents more thoroughly.

  When I stick my head around the kitchen door, Susie is scrubbing mould from the deep grooves in the carriage window frames with a toothbrush.

  ‘Half an hour and I’ll be finished,’ she says, blowing her fringe out of her eyes. ‘Then we’d better make a move.’ She’s trembling with exertion. ‘I’ll feed the kids in that café on the corner.’

  At the last minute, over fish and chips at the café, Susie has a change of heart and tries to persuade me to leave with her. ‘At least until the water’s sorted out,’ she says, fiddling her wedding ring round and round. ‘And the phone. Otherwise how will I get hold of you?’

  ‘I’ll use the phone box. Or the pub’ll have one.’

  ‘Well,’ she stands to wipe the twins’ mouths, one after the other, a hand on their heads to stop them squirming away. ‘And you’re OK for money now?’

  I nod. She’s already handed out cash to tide me over. She wants to sort an account for me to use while I’m down here, to buy paint and odds and ends; and food. Some warmer clothes. I wish she’d stop fussing.

  The kids slide down from the table. Outside, a guy has turned a hose on the window to spray off the salt. The three kids line up inside and stare as water pounds and sluices the glass.

  Susie sniffs and takes a breath. She’s going to start all over again.

  ‘There’s so much ... Richard kept saying she was bound to come to the funeral. But she didn’t.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘In the church I looked for her, kept turning round, thinking, I know she won’t look the same and I might not recognise her, but I didn’t know how to imagine her, except from ancient photographs. I don’t even know how old she is. Andy, I don’t even know her date of birth.’

  ‘No. 1920s?’

  ‘So, she’s seventy-odd?’

  ‘Sixty, I’d say.’

  Susie frowns. ‘Well, she was younger than Dad, but she’d have to be late sixties at least, surely.’

  My mother is young and wears a headscarf, a navy Guernsey sweater over slacks, and she sits in a deckchair on the beach, squinting into a compact to apply her lipstick.

  ‘Jean gave me Hoggie’s address, years ago, when I was going through a crisis at university. She was living quite near me then, in Leeds. Remember Hoggie?’

  Red hair escaping from hairgrips, the nurse’s belt and starched white apron; a watch pinned upside down on the apron’s bib. I nod.

  The guy outside starts messing around for the kids’ benefit, holding the hose away for a second or two, then turning it back on to the glass, thumb over the end so water smacks the glass. Two of the kids leap about, pointing and yelling, but the bigger one puts his hands to his ears. He takes a step backwards, picking his nose. He watches as the other two clap and laugh, pull faces and shove at each other. They turn in unison, mirror images of each other, to the window again.

  Susie reads my mind. ‘Henry gets excluded. Those two are in their own little world. People hyphenate them. Y’know, “Paul-and-Matthew, do you want a biscuit? Paul-and-Matthew, do want to play?” Even I often call them The Twins.’

  The kid, Henry, takes another step back, away from the window and the noise of the water. The other two lean and roll together, a jumble of chubby arms and legs. Lost in each other. They shriek and point, eyes wide, when the hosepipe guy shoves open the door and strides in. Henry’s lip wobbles. He staggers back to the table. The hosepipe guy rattles his bucket and cloth and pulls a face back at the twins. Henry clambers past my knees to bury his head in Susie’s lap.

  ‘Tired, sweety?’

  Henry turns his head from side to side, slurping on his thumb. He lies with his foot thumping rhythmically up and down against my shin. I move my legs an inch or so but he wriggles, repositioning himself so that he can go on kicking me. Finally, I put a hand loosely around his ankle, half expecting loud complaint. Or a harder kick. But his foot stills. It feels such a delicate, breakable thing, his ankle. Like bone china. Susie gazes into the middle distance, a hand on his head. The leg I’m holding gradually relaxes, foot falling outwards.

  ‘I went to have tea with Hoggie quite regularly before Richard and I got married.’ Susie strokes the blond head on her lap. ‘Where were you then? Don’t think we knew.’ Her hand on Henry’s hair lifts and falls, lifts and falls.

  He must be asleep now. His ankle’s warm and still in my hand.

  ‘Hoggie’s in America now. We haven’t been in touch for years. She sh
owed me their old nursing snaps. Holidays abroad: Monaco, and so forth. Biarritz. It helped.’

  I’ve got several photograph albums of my mother’s – thick pages, black-and-white photos with white scalloped edges – her comments (that strange habit nurses had of calling each other by surname only, like public schoolboys) and scattered exclamation marks under each one. They’re in a box in my room, in Triopetra. Letters too, from various nursing friends. I can’t remember how I got hold of them. Susie will probably be pissed off.

  ‘Now Jean’s gone, there’s no one left. Well, one or two of Dad’s patients were at his funeral, of course. Can’t believe there are still any around. That awful woman who gave me Big Doll one Christmas, remember? She hung around for years. And Mrs Hubbard still cleaned. But I felt like a child, really, an orphan. Bereft, you know?’

  Big Doll. That awful walking, talking doll with orange hair. Something happened ...

  Susie gropes up her sleeve for a tissue and blows her nose. ‘Know what I did? I came home from the church hall tea-and-bloody-cakes afterwards, marched down to the bottom of the garden, kicked the fence and shouted at her. Bloody selfish woman.’

  Susie fusses with the twins in the back of the Volvo – innumerable belts and buckles and beakers with spouty lids. Henry is already strapped in. He’s dropped his biscuit, is straining and stretching sideways to reach for it, biting on his lower lip. I open the door his side and retrieve the biscuit for him. From my pocket I take the small Monkey’s Fist I made earlier and place it on his lap. He stares down, then up at me. Says nothing. He looks at his mother, who is busy offering a selection of toys to the other two. He balances the biscuit carefully on his knee and picks up the Monkey’s Fist instead. Turns it in his fingers; lifts it to his nose. He closes both hands around it. I’m pleased to see I judged the size about right. It’s a good fit, small enough. He lifts his cupped hands to his nose once more and his eyes flick to me and away. I close the door.