Rook (26 page)

Ada sinks on to the sofa.

‘Nana Ada?’ Zach clambers up beside her. Behind Nora’s ribcage something contracts. Zach glances at Nora and Eve, before cupping his hand to whisper in Ada’s ear. She nods. He removes a hairpin from her chignon and holds it up to the light, inspecting it like a jewel before running a finger along the waves and bumps of the hairpin’s length. He stabs at his fingertip with the pointed ends. Ada’s hand rests on Zach’s chubby foot where it lies on the sofa with the sock half off. Zach combs the hairpin through his hair, looking up at Ada, who nods and smiles, so he places the pin with care on the sofa arm and reaches up for another. Ada, meanwhile, closes her eyes, and smiles blissfully.

In the kitchen, Eve hands both ice creams to Nora while she fills Benjie’s bowl with water.

‘I wanted to talk to you about your mum,’ she whispers, pushing the door to. ‘She’s been calling by a lot recently.’

‘She’s got funny about being left alone in the house.’

‘She nearly drowned, Nor. It brought home to her that death is not far off, and she’s frightened. She doesn’t want to be on her own.’

‘Frightened? My mother’s never been frightened of a thing her entire life!’

‘Fear can show itself as anger.’

A soft scratching comes from the other side of the kitchen door.

‘Mummy?’

Nora steps over the dog, moving to make room for Eve, who opens the door and crouches to hug Zach. ‘I’m here, sweetie. It’s OK. I’m here.’

Zach’s fingers reach round to stroke the hollow of Eve’s neck. Eve takes the kitchen cloth and wipes the ice cream from Zach’s face and hands.

In the living room, Ada is asleep on the sofa, the white bristles of the baby’s hairbrush on her lap almost the same colour and texture as the hair falling straight and fine around her face. Zach lifts a finger to his lips and looks fierce. ‘Sshh!’ he whispers, ‘Nana Ada sleeping.’

Nora and Eve exchange glances.

‘She was up half the night,’ Nora says.

The clink and rattle of ice in a glass had woken Nora, followed by the sound of the front door opening and closing. ‘Her body-clock is all askew.’

‘Let her sleep. Come out the back for a bit. I want to talk to you.’ Eve takes hold of Zach’s hand. ‘Sshh!’ she says, finger to her lips, copying Zach. The three of them step outside and Eve closes the back door with a soft click.

From the high terrace at the back of the cottage, they climb down on to Shore Road via the steep steps cut into the sea wall. Nora watches Eve on the uneven steps, worried her balance might be affected by the bulk of her belly. Tiny flies leap and settle on heaps of drying seaweed washed up by the last high tide. At the water’s edge, Zach paddles his feet up and down in slick mud, picks up a stick and pokes at weed and flints.

‘You know the story of the church clock, I expect?’ Eve says.

Nora nods. After the Second World War, a memorial clock was proposed for the south wall of the ancient belfry. Some villagers considered it an act of defacement to insert a clock mechanism and place a modern slab of Portland stone on a Saxon tower, especially where it would partly cover a previously blocked-up Saxon window. Meetings were held, letters written, posters displayed outside the post office. In the pub and along the foreshore where the dog-walkers met, there were arguments as to the rights and wrongs of the proposition.

Nora knows about the clock because her father and grandfather, while in favour of a war memorial, fiercely believed the clock should not be allowed to deface the Saxon tower. They, alongside a few other opponents, petitioned against its instalment. It was a story her father loved to tell his girls, an argument which caused neighbours to fall out over garden fences or cross the road to avoid speaking to each other. Feelings ran high and took many years to die down.

It’s not the church clock Eve wants to talk about. Nora stoops to pick up a length of rope lying in the weed and flings it. The rope snakes through the air with Benjie bounding in pursuit, spattering mud.

‘Tell me you haven’t slept with him.’

It’s all right for Eve, pregnant by a man who adores her, living in her own house, following her own dreams. ‘I take it from that comment you have strong feelings against the exhumation?’ Nora says.

‘The idea of Jonny digging up the dead for a TV programme has upset a lot of people.’

‘It has?’

‘He’s just a front man, a smooth talker.’

‘He knows he’s no historian, he’s consulting experts.’

‘He told me his
experts
will extract DNA from the teeth, if the bones are found to be contaminated by handling. He’ll find that hard without a skull, won’t he?’

Nora picks up the rope which Benjie has brought back and toys with the frayed end before throwing it again, hard and far. She wasn’t aware Eve and Jonny had even met. It seems impossible Jonny can have forgotten there is no skull in the tomb.

‘DNA would be needed from both of the men who handled the bones,’ Eve says.

‘My father’s dead.’

‘I know, but there was another man, wasn’t there? It has to be the male line, a male relative.’

‘I didn’t know you knew so much about it all.’

‘Your mother brought her fifties photos to show me. She’s very upset.’

‘She’s upset because she’s been dropped. And angry with me. You are too.’

‘No. I’m not. You love all the history of this place. I can see why you got involved. But I know the bishop won’t give permission for this thing so I’m not angry.’ Eve’s strokes her belly protectively. ‘Anger is a very negative energy.’

‘This
thing
is going to be a substantial historical programme centred on a centuries-old mystery. It’s a wonderful idea.’

‘Nora, it’s a TV programme. You’re deluded.’

Benjie has returned with the sodden piece of rope and stands in front of Eve this time. He drops it at her feet, looking up at her with his paw on one end.

Eve is always so sure that she’s right about everything.

‘My grandfather was convinced they’d say no to the church clock, you know.’

Just above Eve’s eyebrow the skin puckers around a piercing like a steel nail sewn through the side of her head. Close up, the punctured skin is disconcerting, the pull and stretch of flesh over metal.

‘They said yes.’

But Eve is not listening. She grabs the rope just as Benjie pounces, ready for a tug of war. He grips the other end with his teeth, which are bared. Eve mimics his mock growl as the rope shakes and twists between them.

Laughter floats across the water from three people splashing in wellingtons as they wade along the path which, when the tide is right out, provides a short-cut across the inlet. However, water is fast covering the mudflats and the final stretch of their short-cut has already vanished beneath murky ripples. Nora and Eve lean against the sea wall and watch the waders’ slow progress.

‘Harry’s given me five paintings to sell, to raise cash,’ Eve says.

‘Cash?’

‘Yeah, to help get one of our projects off the ground when the café opens; Stavro’s graffiti-teaching sessions.’

‘Will anyone buy his paintings?’

Eve turns towards her. ‘Are you serious? Have you
seen
them?’

Nora hesitates. ‘No.’

She’s not sure why she’s lied, except for the complex mix of intrigue and guilt connected with looking at Harry’s painting when he wasn’t there. Also, she feels awkward around Harry. Her body had reacted of its own accord when he kissed her, pushing back into his, a frisson shooting through her hot as a blade. She’s been avoiding him whenever possible; they haven’t really spoken since she snatched the pickaxe from him and locked it in the shed.

‘He’s a man of hidden talents,’ Eve continues.

‘We argued.’

‘You and Harry?’ Eve studies her face. ‘Really?’

‘About the alcohol he brings to the house. He and Mum are always drinking.’

‘Look what I found, Mummy, look!’ Zach sways towards them with his stick, grinning and waving a dripping mop of green slime.

Eve licks her lips. ‘Ooh yum! Green candy floss, my favourite.’ She takes the stick of dangling slime, rubbing her stomach. Zach jumps up and down, shrieking and shaking his head when Eve mimes pinching pieces of green algae and pretends to pop them into her mouth. Zach’s chin wobbles and his eyes grow round. ‘No, don’t eat it, Mummy, not in real life.’ He clings to her arm to stop her.

Eve claps her hand to her mouth, rolls her eyes and wilts, as if falling dead to the ground. Her feet thud and bounce on the pavement. Zach’s used to these baiting games, but Nora thinks he’s not completely certain when his mother is playing Let’s Pretend, unless she announces it.

He rubs his eyes and bends down to put his cheek against Eve’s, where she lies ‘dead’ on the road. ‘Just ’tend, Mummy? Just ’tend?’ he whispers.

29

Eve wheels an elderly man into the room. His hands and feet are trembling and he has huge, old-fashioned hearing aids in both ears.

‘Where do you want to sit, George?’ Eve asks, very loudly.

‘I want to sit on your lap,’ George replies, his head wobbling a little as he twists round in his wheelchair.

Eve laughs, and rubs his shoulder.
This is the lively group
, she’d said to Nora as they unpacked the car earlier.
Not so drugged up, so they’re full of beans
.

One man is asleep, the woman next to him, perhaps his wife, plucks at his sleeve. ‘Wake up! Wake up! She’s here!’

Over by the door stands a woman on her own, bone-thin, her face like a crone’s.

‘Come on, Phyllis.’ Eve’s white-blonde plaits tumble over each other as she bends to hook arms with her.

Phyllis is the only woman in the room whose nails are not varnished with a garish pink colour, which Nora takes as a sign she will not be cajoled into a chair or persuaded to conform.

‘Get your hands off me,’ she mutters. ‘Don’t you touch me, don’t you dare!’

Her body is twisted with fury at being brought to this room with its circle of chairs, her back so hunched by age or arthritis she can only glare downwards at the floor. Yet she’s as frail and slight as Ada.

Last night, waif-like in her pale nightdress and her silver hair in disarray, Ada stood by the French doors in the sitting room. Her back was towards Nora and she held the handle of the croquet mallet in both hands, the mallet’s heavy head resting on the floor. Two or three of the panes of glass in the French door were ragged with broken glass, part of the wooden frame splintered. Ada rocked back and forth on the balls of her bare feet, unaware of Nora’s presence. She heaved the mallet up, cradling it with both arms across her body until the weight began to topple her. The head of the mallet thudded down to the floor. Nora heard a low vibrating sound, feral. Ada straightened her back. Her shoulders swayed as she breathed hard and prepared again to lift and swing the mallet down on the window like an axe. The growl came from deep in Ada’s throat.

Eve smiles at Nora over Phyllis’s bent spine and shoulder blades. ‘Where do you want to set up?’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Phyllis lashes out with her stick.

Nora opens her cello case and glances round. The air is like soup, the room stuffed with an assortment of winged chairs and mismatched side tables on castors. In the far corner, a man with the face of an ageing matinée idol sits upright and motionless, his hands linked on his lap. His trousers are immaculately pressed. He stares at the floor with a dreamy smile, not at the repeated swirls and lurid colours of the carpet, but into the privacy of some inner space, his isolation in the crowded room due to drugs or sorrow.

Eve has backed away from Phyllis and moves round the circle of chairs saying hello, talking about last week’s quiz, the weather, what they can look forward to for lunch. Every now and then she stops and straightens, putting a hand to the small of her back. Zach’s face was pale and serious when Eve fell to the ground pretending to die, her feet bouncing on the tarmac while he hovered over her. She has been asked back for another scan, to check the unusually large size of the baby’s stomach. The doctors at the hospital have told her it’s probably nothing to worry about, but how can she not be anxious? She doesn’t take enough care of herself. Here she is, in stifling heat, smiling and talking, bending to make eye contact with each person in the circle as she says their name, crouching or putting a gentle hand on a shoulder; smiling, talking and touching.