The Song House Read online

  She arrived last night, just before dinner, as Kenneth had instructed. They ate in the dining room. It had wall cabinets full of fine china, plates with gold-leaf patterns on them, but the crockery they ate from was just ordinary; plain and heavy. He’s laid the table especially, she thought, looking at the candles and place mats and napkin holders. She imagined him on his own in this big house, eating a ready-meal at the end of the long table, and the thought of it brought a tightness to her chest. He served her pasta, vegetarian, because, he said, he didn’t know if she was or wasn’t, and no one objects to vegetables. He looked proud when he told her that he’d cooked the meal himself, and made the sauce. It was a mixture of tinned tomato, hard courgette chunks, chopped onion that squeaked between her teeth. Kenneth was very different in this role; slightly bashful and eager to please, and when he gave her some wine, Maggie understood the effort involved: as he poured, he placed his free hand on the base of the glass to steady it.

  Call me Kenneth, he said, No need for formalities, which made her feel stiff and oddly angry, as if he were granting a privilege to a servant. And you can call me Maggie, she replied, which made them laugh, and easy again, because he had been doing just that all along. Afterwards, he wanted to show her around downstairs.

  So if you get lost, you’ll know where you are, he said. He pointed to a half-closed door,

  Kitchen. Where I’ve just spent three hours concocting. And where you will often find me concocting. I am, if I may say so, an adventurous cook.

  Maggie glimpsed a large rectangular space with a stove set into a brick hearth.

  And the dining room you’ve seen. I sometimes eat in there, but quite often you’ll find me down here. C’mon.

  He led her further along the corridor until they arrived at an atrium, stuffed full of tall hothouse plants and wicker furniture. Despite the hour, the heat was intense, trapped by the blinds on the sloping glass roof. It reminded Maggie of a picture in a catalogue, with its pamment flooring and French windows leading onto the courtyard. There was a coffee table in the centre with a wedge of magazines on it, shaped into a careful fan. She couldn’t quite see Kenneth deliberating over which type of conservatory blind would best complement the chintz, but someone had definitely styled this space. They passed a closed door with an engraved plate on it.

  Music room, she said, reading it.

  True, true, but it’s where I keep most of my books. The library is oak-panelled, you see, with a coffered ceiling.

  Maggie struggled to keep up with him.

  A coffined—? she asked.

  Coffered. Good for listening to music. So I switched them about. The music room’s now my library, and the original library is my music room.

  And this is where the schoolchildren came to practise? asked Maggie, perplexed.

  What? No, no. It’s full of books! The main hall. They used that.

  The corridor grew narrow; Maggie had to walk behind him to avoid bumping her elbow into his.

  Don’t you find yourself rattling about in this place? she asked, just as he came to an abrupt halt. They’d reached the end of the tour, and were facing a painted white door.

  I do, he said, Which is why I spend a lot of my time in here: the den!

  He opened the door onto a room saturated with colour; the walls were maroon, the curtains midnight blue and covered with golden stars and planets. Two brown leather armchairs were placed either side of a marble fireplace, itself a repellent, mottled purple.

  It’s very . . . full, said Maggie, eyeing the books and papers stacked up all over the floor. Kenneth smiled at her.

  A full life is a wonderful life, don’t you agree, Maggie? She wasn’t about to contradict him. Instead, she pretended to study the gallery of paintings stretched along one wall: a stag in oils, a stern-faced portrait of a man in a dog collar, a ruin in a garden.

  Lots of stuff, she said, moving on to the collection of clocks on the mantelpiece. Each one told a slightly different time: ten past, twelve minutes past, a quarter past. Closer, she could hear their panicky ticking. Her eyes fell to rest on a large glass orb housed in a tubular frame. It looked modern, out of place. As Maggie approached, she was able to separate it from the background. It was an aquarium, swirling with brightly coloured fish.

  That, said Kenneth, pointing, Is not my idea. It’s a work of art, apparently. But it has a function. The fish are intended to keep me active.

  Active how? It’s not as if you can take them for a walk.

  As she ducked forward to watch them more closely, the neons flashed away to the far side of the globe.

  I’m supposed to remember to feed them, you see, otherwise the little beggars die.

  Well, it seems to be working, said Maggie, straightening up again, They look healthy enough.

  He drew closer, suddenly serious.

  You don’t think it’s cruel? he asked.

  Maggie shrugged,

  No more cruel than eating them, she said, Perhaps that’s the way to go. Fried in batter, like whitebait.

  Kenneth bent his head and put his hands on either side of the globe. He looked like a fortune-teller about to reveal her future.

  When they die, they float to the top, he said, I find it quite sad. Like they say, the water gives up her dead.

  The sea, corrected Maggie, I think it’s from the Bible.

  I found a man once, he said, still staring into the bowl, Drowned. Well, I didn’t find him myself, but I saw him. What remained. He’d been washed up after a storm. Baggs, his name was. Huge man, lived in one of the estate cottages. It’s an awful thing, the smell. You never forget it.

  Maggie turned away from him. She didn’t want this conversation any more, didn’t like the way it had cast a shadow on the room.

  These are just little fish, Kenneth, she said, And if you really don’t want them, why don’t you advertise them for sale? Or donate them to the local school? Or you could sell them to the pet shop at the retail park. That’s probably where they came from in the first place.

  Can’t. Will bought them. One of his less brilliant gifts. You see, Maggie, that’s what happens, as you get on. You acquire stuff you don’t want. People give you all sorts of rubbish, football-shaped radios, painted china kingfishers, a stacking rooster teapot— he was in full flow now, sweeping his arm across the array of objects on the shelves – A tartanware bloody decanter! His face had gone very pink. Maggie tried not to laugh at him.

  Show me the worst thing, she said, offering her palm.

  Kenneth rummaged on the shelves, brought down a black mug with the Playboy logo etched in gold, and passed it to her. She weighed it in her hand, held it out at arm’s length.

  You really hate it, she said, her eyes glittering.

  Yes I do.

  She took it over to the hearth and let it drop.

  Whoops, she said, glancing down at the broken pieces, I’m so clumsy. Any more?

  Kenneth thought for a second, then fetched an ornate round dish with a transfer image of Frankie Dettori on the front.

  Present from a lady friend, he said.

  She gave you a plate with a jockey on it? said Maggie, astonished, And now she’s in a home, yes?

  Kenneth’s laugh turned into a coughing fit. He wiped his tears on his sleeve as Maggie waited.

  Ali’s – well – she’s in a stable, so to speak. Lambourn. It’s a village not far from here. Full of horsey types. Breeders, trainers . . .

  Plate-givers, finished Maggie.

  Kenneth held it over the hearth and dropped it. It bounced, twirled on its rim, and settled with a scuttering flourish.

  I don’t seem to have your knack, he sighed, bending to retrieve it.

  Maggie crossed to the shelves, scanned them.

  Seriously, though, if you don’t want to live with all this, why keep it?

  Ah, well, I’m on to that, he said, fanning the plate in his hand, I’m sorting it out. See, here, I’m cataloguing everything. He moved to a low table near the window
and fetched an exercise book from the top of a pile. She saw for the briefest moment an emblem on the cover, before he opened it to show her what was written inside: three long columns of words, some of them scored out and rewritten, and on the facing page, lists and bullet points and a great many exclamation marks. It was a wild, meaningless scrawl. And she saw plainly what he’d neglected to mention at the interview: he was unable to put anything down in a coherent manner. His thoughts were everywhere on the page. Maggie perceived his tone, his plea for acknowledgement.

  So you’re far too busy to do this and make your music notes, she said.

  That’s right, he agreed, and suddenly lit with a new idea, Would you like some more wine? It’s such a nice evening, we could sit on the terrace, watch the sun go down on the river. What do you think?

  Maggie has her own kitchen up here, off her bedroom: a narrow space with a high window. This first morning she eats, standing up, a piece of toast and marmalade, waiting for the kettle to boil.

  It was only three days ago they’d agreed the terms of the job, but nothing in the kitchen looks newly purchased, except for the milk and bread. The cereal packet has dust on the top, the marmalade has a faded price sticker on the lid, and the coffee granules in the jar are solid: she has to dig repeatedly with a spoon to excavate them. It takes her back, as everything does, to her mother, for whom the simplest things became an act of deep concentration. Place the spoon in the jar, scoop the granules up and hold the spoon steady while you carry it to the cup. It was agonizingly slow to watch. Maggie would have to grip her hands behind her back to stop herself from snatching the spoon or the kettle or the plate – whatever implement it might be – and doing the job herself. After the feat was achieved, she’d sneak back into the kitchen, wipe away the stains and spillages as if they had never happened.

  She tries not to think of her mother, because it feels wrong, at this, the start of her new life, to let her old life in: she would like to keep them apart for a while longer yet. But there’s a prickling at the back of her neck, a sense that if she were to turn round, quickly, she would find her mother standing there in the doorway with one hand on her hip, shaking her head in disbelief.

  And what do you hope to achieve by this?

  It was her mother’s idea that if Maggie would be staying in Berkshire for a while, she should get herself a job: nothing too demanding, just so that she wasn’t stuck indoors all day, she’d said, fussing over nothing, fretting. They ordered the local and national papers, and in the evenings they’d look together, Maggie half-heartedly, her mother with more determination, reading out the most ridiculous posts.

  Fork-lift truck driver, that’s local. Arborist. You could do that. You know about trees and everything.

  But the illness progressed so quickly that the prospect of even a few hours away from her mother frightened Maggie; the idea of hours, suddenly, being all they had left together. So she never did apply for work, but they continued to look, all the same; for amusement, for distraction, to pretend that everything was normal. Towards the end, Maggie would sit on the edge of the bed and read the advertisements out loud, one eye on her mother, watching as she slipped quietly into sleep, like a child being told a bedtime story. Then Maggie saw the advertisement for the post at Earl House; a large blocked-out rectangle in the Times: unmissable, beckoning. She didn’t read that one to her mother.

  Unable to finish her toast, Maggie throws it in the bin and rinses her cup, forcing herself to concentrate on the moment, and on Kenneth: she considers how long he might have waited for the right person, feels a thin pulse of satisfaction that he’s found her at last. And she’s conscious of how long she has waited, too. Thinking again about what he told her at the interview, she is struck by a way of laying her ghost to rest. Make the past into a story, Kenneth said. Resurrect history. Her plan, if she had thought it through, was not dissimilar: to resurrect history, yes – if she only knew what that history was. She has heard stories, has lived inside moments, has memories scattered like light. She thinks these things aren’t facts. But Kenneth can tell her, if she can only lead him to it. If he supplies the facts, she’ll do the rest. Time to go to work.

  She comes down to find the library empty. No sign of Kenneth, no sound from the kitchen. On a low table next to one of the chairs, she finds his instructions. ‘Make yourself at home. Here’s the office equipment! Be with you soon, K.’ Beneath his note is a single slim exercise book, an exact copy of the one he showed her yesterday, the same herald on the front displaying a badge, the words Veritate et Virtute scrolled beneath it. The paper inside is ruled with pale blue lines. Placed next to it is a cheap gel pen. In the dimness of the shuttered room, Maggie sits on the edge of the chair, opens the book and turns to the back. She presses the page down flat with her hand, and begins to write.

  three

  My mother names me Maggie, after the song by Rod Stewart. She decides this as she lifts me in her arms and angles me to the window, where both of us can watch the rain fall on the glass. You’d think I’m an unexploded bomb, the way she holds me.

  Look, Baby, she says, That’s called rain, that stuff. You’ll see lots of that.

  Outside the window there’s an overgrown garden with a shed at the far end. Abandoned deckchairs are grouped around a burnt-out bonfire, with cups and glasses strewn across the grass. A washing line stretches from the back door to the shed, the whole length beaded with shimmering pearls. Everything is sodden. The rain comes down fine and steady, softening the view.

  Ed is sitting at the kitchen table, rolling a joint. All the paraphernalia – the silver tin, lighter, Rizlas, the torn-off strip of an Embassy packet, the greasy wrap of red Leb – are set out before him on top of a copy of yesterday’s newspaper. He ducks his head slightly to lick the edge of the roll-up. His thick beard hides his lips.

  You can’t call her Baby forever, he says, nodding at the newspaper, My family will want to put a notice in the Telegraph. ‘We are delighted to announce the birth of Cassandra Crane. Mummy and daughter are both doing splendidly.’ Ed laughs at his joke, looking up to see my mother, still at the window, facing away from him.

  What would you like to call her? she asks, not rising to the bait about his family. Of course they will want a christening, as they wanted – will still want – her and Ed to get married.

  Whatever you like, he says, It’s all cool.

  So she decides, if it’s all cool, that she’ll call me Maggie, but she won’t mention it just yet, because if she sees him pull that shrugging, artless gesture again, she’ll throw something at him. The sink is full of unwashed pots – any one of them would do.

  My mother takes me upstairs and lays me down in the centre of the bed, then she undoes the buttons of her smock and steps out of it. She’d like to take a bath, but she knows there’s no hot water unless she lights the fire downstairs. She considers the idea; Ed will grumble about burning wood in June, and she’ll have to lug it in herself from the shed when he’s having a sleep because otherwise he’ll insist on doing it but then he’ll forget. And then it’ll be night, and she’ll have to go down there in the black and scrabble around among the mice and insects. She takes a flannel out of the drawer and calls downstairs for Ed to put the kettle on. She’ll wash me and then she’ll wash herself, squatting in front of the unlit fire as if the memory of it will keep us warm. I’m a week old, she’s a month off twenty, and this is the dampest, coldest summer she can ever remember.

  My mother’s called Eleanor but everyone calls her Nell, and Ed, my father, is called Edward Harper Crane. His father is a circuit judge and his mother is a charity worker, which, he tells Nell, means that she does bugger all except hold a coffee morning once a week. Ed doesn’t appear to do anything either, although when he first meets my mother he tells her he’s an artist. There’s not much evidence of his work around the cottage – a few drawings, the odd painting – and no hint of his interest, except for the glossy catalogues he sometimes brings back from his trips t
o London, full of pictures of glass bowls and distressed wood.

  Nell sits with her hands in her lap and surveys the room. The furniture is old, remnant stock from when the cottage was tied to the Lambourn estate. It was let to the Weaver family for generations, and it’s still called that, despite the fact that the Weavers vacated years ago, years before the Cranes got hold of it, before Ed persuaded his father to let him use it. Nell likes the simpleness of the place; the artisan patterns etched into the dressing table and the wardrobe, the blunt iron crucifix set into the wall cavity. She likes the walnut headboard of the bed, and the way the mattress slumps in the centre, so no matter how much you cling to the edge, no matter how angry you were with him when you turned off the light, your bodies would find themselves rolling together like ships in a storm. My mother and Ed do a lot of fighting, and a lot of making up. Now she has me. At night, holding me to her, she imagines all the babies that have been born in the bed, the moans and sighs and happy tears. Rather that than the piss, sweat and bloodstains that darken the old mattress like a map of moil.

  The walls are plain off-white, dusty to the touch, the distemper cracking and falling onto the floorboards in wafer-thin flakes. My mother doesn’t mind this, nor the way the floor slopes down towards the back of the building, so everything is on the tilt. What she minds is the river. It runs at the bottom of the garden, behind the willow trees. Businessmen come at the weekends to fish for brown trout. It’s part of the deal with Ed’s parents, that Ed and Nell can live in the place rent-free as long as they don’t interfere with the clients, who pay handsomely to fish the private waters. The men bring hampers and metal boxes full of kit, trudging up and down the path at the side of the cottage, their laughter ringing off the stone walls. Their Range Rovers, parked on the verge outside the living room window, block the daylight.