Talking to the Dead

by Helen Dunmore

  ‘I can see why you got the job. You’ve certainly done the homework,’ says Richard.

  ‘But it really is unique. No one else has tried anything like it.’

  ‘I’m not saying it’s not.’

  I pick up my mug of coffee and drink. I’m longing to look through the fax again but I’ll hold back while Richard’s here, since he’s clearly not that interested. A green little do-gooder, that’s what he makes me feel like. But bugger him. He doesn’t see what I want. The children separate as droplets, the instruments talking to each other long before the children are able to do so. Groups of children playing together, a single face coming into light and then reabsorbed into shadow. I can see splinters of light, splinters of sound. I’ll use a camcorder too, and then freeze the images and draw from them. I can see myself collaging, drawing across the grain of the prints. In a way it won’t matter what the facilities are like, how rough it is. That’s what I want. Rough, immediate, tense work. Like a steel band, but with moments of hush that take your breath away.

  ‘I must fax back. Is that OK?’

  ‘Of course. Use it any time, and the computer if you like. I was wondering how you were keeping up with your work.’

  ‘I’ve only been here eight days, and I haven’t taken a holiday since Christmas.’

  ‘Is it only eight days? It seems longer.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘I didn’t mean that,’ he says. ‘I didn’t mean that, Nina, and you’ve got me wrong about this Romanian thing too. I admire you.’

  I flush deeply and turn away, fumbling with the kettle switch. Patter repeats in my head, the patter that I gave Richard, the patter on paper that got me the job. I push in the switch and the kettle hisses dryly.

  ‘I’m very good at boiling up an empty kettle,’ I tell him.

  ‘Aren’t we all.’

  He is pouched, heavy, shadowed by hangover. He’s washed thoroughly in some sharp-smelling soap, and put on a clean white shirt. I recognize the impulse: I’ve washed my own hair and it’s still wet.

  ‘The sun’s getting hot. You could sit outside and dry your hair.’

  ‘I thought I’d go in and see Isabel.’

  ‘She’s talking to Edward.’

  There’s no clue to what he thinks or feels. ‘Let’s walk round the garden,’ he says. ‘It might clear my head.’

  The paths keep narrowing so there is not quite room for two people to walk abreast. I’ve never noticed this before now but it’s awkward, almost ridiculous. One of us is always having to bob ahead, holding back a branch, or else we’re apologizing for bumping into one another.

  ‘Let’s sit on this seat,’ says Richard. It is full in the sun, and Isabel has put a terracotta pot full of golden marjoram beside us. The garden is full of early business, birds slashing at a near-ripe fig, bees fumbling in and out of flowers. We are quite hidden here.

  ‘I think she’s getting worse,’ says Richard.

  I say nothing, because I know he isn’t talking about the healing of Isabel’s wound.

  ‘She hasn’t been out in the garden since you came, has she?’

  ‘She must have been.’ But I think back. Has she?

  ‘I think she tried, the first morning after I was back. Her shoes were wet. But she was back in bed looking awful by the time I woke up. I slept in the armchair.’

  ‘She’s been in a lot of pain.’

  ‘I’m not talking about pain. I don’t think she can go outside any more, do you understand what I mean?’

  I understand what he means. It’s the same as the food, it all seems so reasonable until you look closely. Isabel doesn’t drive, and the buses are awkward. She doesn’t visit people. Why trail to London or anywhere else when people can come here? All her city friends can’t wait to get away into the country. They come to see her, and they come eagerly, Edward, Alex and a dozen more. When did she last come to London? I think back. Not since she was pregnant. Not all last summer.

  ‘What about the shopping?’ Suddenly, urgently, I want to think of Isabel biking down the track and a couple of miles along the road to the nearest post office, coming back with overpriced mayonnaise and clothes-pegs bouncing in her basket.

  ‘I do it,’ says Richard. ‘The only time she’s been down that track for months is when she went into hospital. The midwife came here for the antenatal stuff, because she was supposed to be having the baby at home.’

  ‘But she was all right in the hospital.’

  My statement falls into silence. Silence is dangerous. Two people, the sun falling, getting hotter and hotter on my bare arms and legs. My hair must be nearly dry now. There’s the noise of bees, swinging near, veering away again. Farther off a light chink of metal on metal comes from the barn. The sound of other people at work only makes this bench more private. Richard’s face glistens with sweat. He ought to wear a hat. I feel what he feels: the drink, the headache, the hangover, that airy frightened feeling of guilt for things that didn’t happen last night – the kind of feeling that makes me want to walk away from myself without making a sound –

  We kiss. Not touching much, only our lips. It feels as if there’s all the time in the world. He’s hot under his shirt and all the things I forget each time flood back: the tiny movements at first, the kissing deeper and deeper, the thickness of flesh before you touch bone. I thought I’d finished with this greed for the beginnings of things, but it comes again, better than anything I’ve tried to put in its place. I lean into Richard’s heaviness, wanting it to swallow me.

  ‘I’ve only ever wanted her,’ says Richard. It’s perhaps thirty seconds since the time before we’d kissed. He’s sitting upright, thighs spread, hands clasped, hanging between them.

  ‘I know.’ But I’m a meticulous noter of tenses. Up till now, this means. All I have to think about is what ‘now’ means.

  ‘And you don’t love me, you love Isabel,’ he says, putting his hand over mine.

  ‘I’m not talking about love,’ I say, and look him full in the face, ‘but we can have a good fuck and none the wiser.’

  I watch how his eyes narrow to strips, and then widen. His hand tightens on mine. He’s looking straight back at me now, and thinking of nothing else.

  ‘I’m not like Isabel,’ I say, ‘I told you that before. I like food, and I like fucking.’

  ‘How many men have you slept with?’ asks Richard.

  ‘Nineteen,’ I say immediately.

  ‘Nineteen? You’re sure about that?’

  ‘It could be twenty. Ask me again tomorrow.’

  ‘We can’t do it here.’

  ‘I don’t see why not.’

  ‘Someone might see.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I see,’ says Richard. ‘You like an element of risk.’

  ‘There always is one anyway, so why pretend? This is as good as anywhere.’

  It was as good as anywhere.

  ‘You’re not taking off all your clothes, are you?’ said Richard.

  ‘Why not? It’s still fucking even if I leave my bra on, so why not let’s do it properly?’

  He looks at me and I see a splinter of hesitation swim in his eye, like a minnow.

  ‘You’re thinking about those nineteen men,’ I say. ‘Don’t worry, it’s safe.’

  ‘I wasn’t thinking of that, Nina.’

  ‘Then you should have been. That’s what things are like. But I haven’t got AIDS and I won’t get pregnant, so it’s safe.’

  I sit down on the seat again, naked. Whatever he does, I’m fine. I could sit here all day soaking up heat and light.

  ‘Women look so different without their clothes on,’ he says, his voice changing.

  ‘Yes they do, don’t they? How many are you thinking of? Nineteen is it – or twenty?’

  He laughs, sits down beside me, his leg in jeans against my bare leg. The sun burns on us. Richard slides his hand under my breast and watches my nipple stiffen.

  ‘What if Susan came past?’r />
  ‘She’d think we were about to fuck.’

  ‘This bench hasn’t got a back,’ he says. ‘If I knew you better I could ask you to lie on your stomach across it so I could fuck you from behind. But it’s an awkward position.’

  ‘That’s what you want?’

  ‘It’s what I’ve always wanted.’

  ‘Then it’s what we’ll do.’

  I have short hair so it doesn’t get in my way, hanging down and trailing on the ground. The position is awkward and the bench would be rough if I hadn’t spread Richard’s white shirt carefully over it, and used his jeans to make a pillow under my stomach.

  ‘It’ll be better if we get down on the ground,’ says Richard. The grass is short, crisp and prickling with drought. I get down on hands and knees and then let the weight of my body fall on to my forearms. There is a marigold at eye-level, so close I smell its peppery smell. The dry grass under me, the grainy heart of the marigold, the long, still exposure, are all one. I get into position, raising myself, and Richard’s finger slides, parting the lips of my wet vulva.

  ‘It looks nice,’ he says. ‘You’re ready for me, aren’t you? I can tell you’re ready for me.’

  He says it with pleasure, with relief, with gratitude, not as some men would say it. The hot sun falls on our wetness and sweat, and a blackbird works away at a grub it’s found, less than four feet away. My body stretches, every membrane willing to let him in.

  Chapter Twelve

  We’ve rolled behind the bench, into the shadow. We’re lying there, our skin separating as it cools, when I hear the back door click.

  ‘Put your clothes on,’ I murmur in Richard’s ear. His slack face tightens.

  We throw on clothes, listening for footsteps, but there aren’t any. Then there’s a second of standing still, out of breath, Richard looking at me as if there’s something more to be said. I smile at him and run my fingers through my hair.

  ‘You look just the same,’ he says.

  ‘Of course.’

  He reaches forward, hooks his fingers in the sides of my shorts, and slowly pulls them down. Then he kneels and presses his face into my stomach. I look down on his messed-up, wiry dark hair, but I don’t touch it.

  ‘We’ll do it again,’ I say, ‘but not now. Susan’s just come out. I can hear her talking to the baby.’

  I walk down the little twisting paths on my own, rubbing my fingers on lavender and purple sage. My thighs ache. The paths cross one another, winding between low hedges, so you can walk round the garden many times and never go the same way. Here’s a rough patch of gooseberry bushes and blackberries. The gooseberries are finished, but some of the blackberries are ripe, bigger than wild blackberries, fat, shiny and already black, though it’s much too early. The sun’s forcing everything. I eat a handful, and then sit down on the rough grass so I’m level with the bramble tips feeling their way down to root. I take some things out of my pocket: cigarette papers, a tobacco pouch, a small packet wrapped in silver foil, some matches. I stick the papers together, tear off cardboard from the packet and roll it up, spread tobacco over the paper. I open the foil, light a match and singe a corner of the brown resin, and then crumble it over the tobacco. Then I roll up the joint and twist the end. I wait for a long time before I smoke it. I want to draw those bramble tips as they arch down, nosing their way into the earth, which is so hard that they’ll never be able to root. I can hear voices in the distance, but I can’t tell whose they are. I close my eyes and sit cross-legged, simmering in a little tent of heat.

  I can’t get Isabel’s doll out of my mind. Yes, I did cut off her eyelashes, thinking they’d grow again. I can still recall the crispy feel of the lashes between the scissor blades. Again and again I wished I’d called my doll Rosina instead of Mandy. One day I began to call her Amelia, but Isabel wasn’t having any of that.

  ‘You can’t change her name now. How would you like it if we all stopped calling you Nina and started calling you Lynn?’

  Lynn was my enemy three doors down. I knew Isabel meant what she said, and if I kept on with Amelia she would take away my name as well.

  ‘Let’s have a christening,’ Isabel said.

  We’d never been to a christening. Isabel and I used to sit on the wall on Sundays in our bare feet to scorn the tidy church-going boys and girls as they came by. Once Isabel took me to a Methodist Sunday school, explaining to the lady there that I was very interested in Jesus and our mummy and daddy wouldn’t let me find out about him. This went down well, and the next thing I was colouring a donkey while Isabel won the prize for telling a Bible story in her own words. But the prize was only a packet of Spangles.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Isabel, ‘our mummy doesn’t allow us to eat sweets because of our teeth,’ and she hauled me off the brown carpet where I was starting on the donkey’s tail, which I’d left till last.

  ‘What a load of shit,’ said Isabel as we skipped off up the hill.

  The christening Isabel organized was much better than Sunday school. We collected all the flowers we could find, the candytuft and marigolds and daisies that grew in our hot, dry garden. Isabel filled the washing-up bowl with water, and spread a tablecloth out on the grass. Another tablecloth was going to go round the shoulders of the priest. I could see that Isabel was torn between the two roles of mother and priest, but she solved this by wheeling Rosina and Mandy ‘to the door of the church’, and then quickly wrapping herself in her robes while I stood in as mother, clutching the dolls. Isabel muttered words I couldn’t hear properly, and sprinkled flowers on the dolls’ upturned faces. Then she seized Rosina and plunged her into the water. A second later Rosina bounced up to the surface, water rolling off her plastic skin.

  ‘Right, she’s done,’ said Isabel in her normal voice. Then she took Mandy. Mandy went down as Rosina had done, but unlike Rosina she stayed there, bubbles of air streaming up from her soused curls.

  ‘Oh dear,’ said Isabel, ‘I’m afraid she’s stuck. Don’t worry, mother, I’ll pull her out.’

  But I saw her hands tensed, pushing Mandy down. ‘She doesn’t want to come up, I’m afraid,’ said Isabel.

  ‘Get her up! Get her up!’ I screamed.

  Isabel grunted, pushing and pulling at the same time. Suddenly Mandy shot out of the bowl on a wave of water on to the parched grass and lay there still, face down and sodden. Isabel rushed to her and knelt down, her tablecloth robe hiding Mandy from my sight. I stood rooted. Slowly, Isabel turned. Her face was wet with real tears.

  ‘I’m sorry, mother, I’m so sorry. Your little baby has drowned.’

  I shut my eyes so as not to see what Isabel was holding, and screamed and screamed. My screams rang in my head, red as the sun through my closed eyelids. As long as I kept screaming nothing else could happen. I heard a sash window bang up; then Isabel grabbed my shoulders, shaking me, shouting, ‘She’s all right! Look, she’s sitting up! It’s a miracle!’

  But I could not stop screaming, though I opened my eyes and saw Mandy sitting rigidly on the grass, her eyes staring blindly ahead of her. Our mother came out of the back door, wiping clay from her hands. Isabel rushed to her.

  ‘Nina’s crying because Mandy fell in the washing-up bowl and she thinks she’s dead. I keep telling her she isn’t but she won’t listen.’

  My mother knelt on the grass beside me and put one arm round me, and I stopped screaming.

  ‘Isabel, give Mandy to me.’

  My mother took the doll, turned her over and patted her back. ‘That’s to get the water out of Mandy’s lungs. Now I’m going to turn her over and give her the kiss of life. Watch.’

  My mother put her lips over Mandy’s face. Slowly, gently, she breathed out into Mandy’s mouth. She turned aside, took another breath, and breathed into Mandy again. After a while she stopped and said. ‘There. It’s working. Her colour’s coming back. She just had a shock, Nina. She wasn’t really drowned.’

  I took Mandy from my mother. She felt soft again, and warm fr
om my mother’s skin. Her eyes looked at me, smiling.

  ‘She’s all right now,’ said my mother, ‘Pour the rest of that water away, Isabel.’

  Isabel poured away the water; it sparkled on the dry earth, and then sank in. I watched her, rocking Mandy, and my mother went back into the house.

  How long was that after Colin died? Two months, maybe.

  I smoke some of the joint, not much. The baby’s crying, and I hear the whine of a car coming up the track in low gear and then the crunch of its tyres. I see bits of Richard’s body in bright flashback, disconnected, and myself too, my hands pulling off my clothes and then flexing against the ground. I feel like someone who is running faster and faster but still finding breath.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Margery Wilkinson’s sitting in the kitchen, holding the baby while Susan makes a pot of coffee. Her eyes rest on me, bright and curious, and I wonder what Susan’s been telling her. She holds the baby expertly, even I can see that. She’s wrapped his cotton shawl differently, tight, like a swaddling shawl. You’d think he’d be too hot, but he looks much more comfortable with her than he does with any of us. He’s wide awake, his big navy eyes scanning her face.

  ‘Wide awake and not crying,’ I say. ‘There’s a miracle.’

  ‘It’s just a knack,’ Margery says. ‘I’ve had four, don’t forget.’

  You wouldn’t guess it to look at her. Like Susan, she’s blond, but in Margery’s case it’s an expensive blondness that has to be renewed every three weeks or so. She always wears a lot of gold jewellery; once she told Isabel she was collecting gold. Isabel’s been half-promised a sight of the collection, though of course you have to be careful with insurance premiums the way they are these days. Margery is a carefully dieted woman, too, who still looks good in her jeans and white shirt.

  ‘I haven’t seen your sister,’ she says to me, a faint accusation in her voice. ‘She’s gone to sleep, Susan says.’