The Pre-War House and Other Stories

by Alison Moore

  ‘It’s the holidays,’ said the boy.

  William spread the birds’ breakfast more evenly over the table.

  ‘I’m going to find a fossil,’ said the boy.

  ‘You’ll be lucky,’ said William.

  ‘I bet I can,’ said the boy. He took his hands back out of his pockets, lifted the flap of the satchel he wore across his chest and reached inside. He took out a shard of rock and showed it to William. ‘I found this,’ he said.

  William moved towards the boy to look at the rock, the suggestion of a body in the stone. ‘You collect fossils?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve only got that one,’ said the boy, returning it carefully to his otherwise empty satchel.

  William turned and began his careful walk back up the wet path towards his front door.

  ‘You’re older than my granddad,’ said the boy, ‘and he’s dead.’

  William, slowly stopping, turning back, said to the boy, ‘I’ve got a collection.’

  He had wanted to be a natural historian. He had imagined working in a museum, sitting in a back room, labelling acquisitions. He had not got on at school though. He was bullied, and often his mother had said he did not have to go. ‘We’ll say you’re sick,’ she had said, settling him at the kitchen table to draw his birds.

  He had missed a lot of school. He never even applied for a museum job, has never even been to the Natural History Museum, but he has his annotated sketches of birds pinned to his bedroom walls, and he has the skeleton of a bird in a jar beside his bed, and he has his collection.

  As a boy, William climbed trees, climbed up to the roof of the house, looked in tree stumps and under bushes and in the reeds around the lake, finding nests and taking eggs, just one from each nest, just one of any type: a sparrow’s brown and blotchy egg, a blackbird’s pale turquoise and brown-speckled egg, a pigeon’s white egg.

  In William’s hands, a warm egg turned cold. Beneath the thin, crackable shell, an immature bird, with embryonic eyes closed, grew still, trapped in its watery environment, suspended like an insect in amber.

  In his bottom drawer, underneath his jumpers, there was a large shoebox, and it was full of birds’ eggs: a starling’s pale blue egg, a thrush’s bright blue and black-spotted egg, a robin’s white and red-spotted egg.

  One day, he came in from the garden, into the kitchen, and found his mother sitting at the table with his shoebox out, the lid off, his stolen eggs in her hands: a yellowhammer’s white and purple-scribbled egg, a skylark’s greyish and brown-freckled egg, a reed bunting’s pale lilac and black-blotched egg.

  ‘What’s all this?’ she asked him.

  William looked at the box, picked out an egg and began to tell her the name of the bird which had laid it, where he had found the nest, how many eggs had been in it.

  ‘These are not yours, William,’ she said, taking the egg from his hand, putting it back in the shoebox and taking the shoebox away.

  He stood at the window, watching her standing outside, unable to put the eggs in the bin. In the end she pushed them gently under the bush beneath the kitchen window, as if, in the right habitat, they might still hatch.

  Later, when he crept down from his bedroom to take the eggs back out from under the bush, his mother was watching. In the garden, on his knees, his head down while his hand groped, he turned and saw her coming towards him. He had not had time to get to his feet before her soft hand flew out and smacked the side of his head so hard he lost his balance, and before he had regained it another blow landed. It all happened so quietly, but he can still feel the smarting and flushing of his skin; he can still see the glare of her small, dark eyes.

  When he looked again, she had moved the eggs and he had to start his collection from scratch, with a new hiding place.

  William knelt down and retrieved the shoebox from under his bed. He lifted the lid and showed the boy the eggs nestling inside, amongst the balls of cotton wool: a kingfisher’s roundish white egg, a coot’s buff and brown-spotted egg, a tufted duck’s olive-coloured egg. Each one was labelled in a child’s handwriting on a small strip of paper pinned to a cotton wool ball.

  The boy was impressed. He said, ‘There can’t be any you haven’t got.’

  ‘I haven’t got a swan’s egg,’ said William.

  ‘Why not?’ asked the boy.

  William had always wanted one, but he was scared of swans. He was afraid of their big, heavy bodies, their powerful wings, their serpentine necks, the hard snap of their beaks, their hissing and biting. And he was especially afraid of nesting swans, which were ferociously protective of their eggs. He had seen their huge nests on the shore of the lake and on the island, but he had never got close to one. There was one on the island which had been there since the spring, abandoned with an unhatched egg inside it. He had watched it through his binoculars.

  ‘They’re not easy to come by,’ said William, looking down at the boy, at the small, dark head bent over the shoebox. ‘You’d be lucky to get one.’

  He imagines the first chilly moment of clambering into the lake, the cold water perhaps only up to the knees at first, or up to the tops of the thighs or just above the waist. He imagines the struggle through the reeds, the effort, half-wading, half-swimming and then actually swimming through the icy water to the island. He imagines the swans, which have not left the lake, which have remained into the winter, witnessing the taking of the egg from the nest. He imagines the plunge back into the lake, the body already numb with cold and exhaustion, encumbered by waterlogged clothing and by the bag in which the egg has been stowed, and again the almost-swimming, the struggling in the reeds.

  The shoebox is on William’s pillow with the lid off. He sits down beside it, holding a tiny rectangle of white paper and a pin. He touches the smooth, cool shells of the eggs: the pale green egg of a mallard; the creamy egg of a goose; a large, light-grey egg beneath which he positions his label, pushing the pin through the paper and through the cotton wool. The tip slides into the soft pad of his thumb, and the blood is slow coming to the surface. The handwriting is scratchier, shakier, than on the other labels. The still-wet ink says, Mute swan.

  He replaces the lid on the shoebox and pushes it back under his bed.

  He had imagined a wife, but it never happened. The master bedroom is vacant now, but his single room suits him fine; he has never used the double bed.

  He rarely leaves the house. His shopping is delivered by a Tesco van and brought into his kitchen in a plastic crate which is then taken away again, empty.

  But every morning, before his bath, before his breakfast, before feeding the birds, William walks around the lake. He goes early, when it is barely light, so that he will have it all to himself. It is three miles all the way around, and these days it takes him a while. Often he walks the whole way just looking at his shoes and he doesn’t even notice the changing seasons. Other times he sees things.

  This morning he saw the frost.

  He saw the puddle by the garden gate frozen over, the dead leaves trapped, the ice cracking under his heel as he walked out.

  He saw the emptiness of the park beneath the blank dome of the sky, and the snow beginning to fall.

  He saw the overwintering swans in amongst the reeds, and the empty nest on the island.

  He saw something in the water, near the bank, holly berry red under the snow-mottled ice, and the frosted grass beside the lake crushed beneath his feet.

  Overnight Stop

  Monica is approaching the check-in desk when her phone begins vibrating in the pocket of her shorts. She takes the call, rolling her eyes at Michael. ‘Dad,’ she says, ‘stop worrying. We’ll be fine.’ She listens briefly before saying, ‘I’ve got to go.’

  She and her dad watched Lost last night, watched Flight 815 break apart in his darkened living room. After switching off the television, he said to her, ‘What time’s your fli
ght?’

  He is worried about the engines failing, the wings falling off, about terrorists and aggressive passengers, about pilots having heart attacks or falling asleep in the cockpit.

  Monica has spent this afternoon sweating into her wedding dress. Now in her holiday clothes, she’s a bit cold, and there are hours of in-flight air conditioning which must be endured before reaching the honeymoon destination.

  On the far side of check-in, they find somewhere to sit and Monica tries not to think about the wings coming off. Her dad’s anxiety seems to be catching, like something she has just discovered growing in her skin, like the itchy ringworm she picked up after scrubbing an infected cage at the veterinary surgery. Her arm, bare between her rubber glove and the sleeve of her bottle-green uniform, must have touched the cage, or perhaps the invading fungal spores were airborne.

  ‘What’s wrong with your legs?’ says Michael, and Monica stands to look at the backs of her knees where she has been absent-mindedly scratching.

  ‘What the hell?’ she says, still raking her nails over the rash which has broken out.

  ‘It could be the new car seat covers,’ says Michael. ‘Some people are allergic to neoprene. I’ll see if I can get some antihistamines.’ He wanders away. When he returns with a bag from the pharmacy, he says, ‘Our flight’s delayed.’

  Monica swallows a tablet. Five minutes later, she says to Michael, ‘It’s not working.’ After another five, she says, ‘If anything, it’s getting worse.’ She is agitated.

  Michael is restless too, impatient to be crossing the tarmac and strapping himself into his seat on the plane, to be accelerating down the runway, to be tens of thousands of feet in the air.

  They listen to announcements they can’t decipher, and Michael goes to investigate. When he comes back and says to Monica that they won’t be flying out until the morning, she feels herself relaxing. But then, she thinks, if something dreadful is going to happen, it has only been postponed.

  They are going to be put up overnight, says Michael, in an airport hotel.

  ‘Oh well,’ says Monica, ‘that might be nice.’

  They pick up their hand luggage and make their way to the assembly point, from where they and dozens of others will be taken by bus to the hotel.

  Walking into the softly lit lobby, looking around at the sofas and potted plants, Monica says to Michael, ‘Let’s just stay here. We’ll stay in our room until it’s time to go home. We’ll order room service.’

  She stops to have a good go at her rash while Michael goes to reception. Hearing the receptionist say, ‘Mr and Mrs Porter,’ Monica glances up, looking around for Michael’s parents before realising that the receptionist is talking about Michael and her. She meets the eye of a thin man with a shaved head who is waiting in line with the other passengers, and then Michael steps away from the desk with keycards in his hand and Monica follows him.

  As they walk together to the stairs, Monica is aware of the loudness of her wooden wedges on the tiled floor. She wishes she had worn something quieter, and that she had put overnight essentials in her hand luggage. She could do with a toothbrush and a change of underwear, things that are packed in her suitcase along with her bikinis, her evening wear, a beach towel that says ‘OCEANIC TRANQUILLITY’ in big, red capital letters, and an alarm clock that will go off in the morning and might be thought to be a bomb. She would like a magazine to read.

  When Monica reaches the foot of the stairs, she glances back at the thin man who has now reached the front of the queue and is talking to the receptionist.

  I know him, she suddenly thinks, and stares for a moment longer before turning away and carrying on up the stairs.

  When Monica sees their room, she says again, ‘Let’s just stay here.’ She closes the curtains and lies down on the double bed, discovering that it is two twin beds pushed together, with an unclosable gap between the mattresses. The bedspread irritates her rash.

  Michael helps himself to a Malibu from the mini-bar. ‘Tomorrow evening,’ he says, ‘we’ll be eating red snapper from the Caribbean.’

  ‘Unless there’s still a problem with the flight,’ says Monica.

  ‘Twelve hours from now,’ he insists, ‘we’ll be on the plane, strapped into our seats, awaiting take-off.’

  Monica goes for a bath. She sits in hot water scrubbing at her rash with a complimentary flannel. She washes her stomach. Her pregnancy is beginning to show. When she gets out, she puts her dirty clothes back on and goes to see if she can get a toothbrush from reception.

  The receptionist produces a dental kit and a list of other items the hotel can provide – combs, shaving kits, deodorant, sanitary products, manicure kits, condoms, slippers, shoe polishing kits. Glancing at Monica’s clothes, she also mentions the laundry service, and Monica enjoys the thought that she really could manage here for weeks without her luggage.

  She wanders over to the lounge area, picks up a magazine and sits down in an armchair.

  She is reading a scathing review of a book she liked when she becomes aware of a man standing in front of her. She glances up, expecting to see Michael.

  ‘Hello, Mrs Porter,’ says the man.

  She recognises him as the one from the queue, the thin man who watched her scratching furiously at her legs while Michael was checking in. She is sure now that she knows him quite well but can’t think where from. He watches her struggling to place him and chooses not to help her. He sits down, and as he is getting comfortable it dawns on her who he is and her stomach sinks.

  ‘Well, Monica,’ says Stanley, ‘Barbados here we come, eh?’ He smiles.

  He looks different, bared without his long hair and his beard, but he always did smile a lot, although Monica could never decide whether he was friendly or hostile.

  She shared a house with a friend of his and never knew if she would return from work to find Stanley on the sofa, drinking milk from the carton, resting it between his thighs after swigs, looking at her in her uniform and saying, ‘Hello nursey.’ Sometimes, she would feel agitated in anticipation of finding Stanley in the house with the milk between his legs, but then, arriving home, she would find the house empty, the milk untouched in the fridge.

  Sometimes, she would come home after a night out to find that he had bolted the front door before falling asleep on the sofa, so that she could not let herself in with her key. She remembers hammering on the door with her fist, trying to wake him, furious that he should have the power to shut her out of her own home.

  One time, Stanley wasn’t there when she went to sleep, but when she got up at dawn to make coffee, she found him stretched out on the sofa. Sitting up, scratching, he said hello to the man who was coming through the doorway behind her, who then declined coffee after all and left quickly. To the departing back of this man who was old enough to be Monica’s father, Stanley said loudly, ‘I suppose he has to get home to his wife and kids.’

  Now Stanley, reclining, putting his shoes on the hotel’s sofa, says to Monica, ‘Does Michael know about you and his dad?’

  Monica is taken aback. She had no idea Stanley knew the man he saw coming out of her room that morning. Stanley, clearly enjoying her discomfort, keeps her waiting before explaining, ‘I used to get private tuition from Mr Porter when I was a kid. I went to his house so I always saw his kids too – Michael and his brothers and sisters. There were always loads of kids there. I always imagined I could just sort of stay and no one would notice. But of course I was always sent home.’

  ‘His dad and me, that was years ago,’ says Monica. ‘I didn’t know Michael then.’

  ‘Did you get crabs?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Did Mr Porter give you crabs?’

  She stares at him.

  ‘He always had crabs,’ says Stanley.

  She feels as if she is, at this very moment, crawling with lice.

  �
�I have to get back to Michael,’ she says, standing, returning her magazine to the table. Stanley reaches over and picks it up, settling down to read what she was reading, without saying goodbye.

  She finds Michael asleep. She also finds that she has left the dental kit downstairs and has to get into bed without brushing her teeth. She sleeps badly and is already up when the wake-up call disturbs Michael. ‘How’s your mange?’ he says, which makes her scratch.

  They walk down to breakfast and Michael says, ‘You’re on edge. Antihistamines can do that to you.’

  Monica doesn’t have much of an appetite but Michael makes the most of the buffet, eating as if he might never eat again, as if he will not be facing an airline lunch in a few hours.

  Afterwards, he goes to pay his mini-bar bill while Monica goes back to their room to collect their things.

  She is straightening their bedding when she hears someone knocking on the door. Opening it, she finds Stanley outside. He is holding out the toothbrush she left behind last night. ‘I used your toothbrush,’ he says. ‘You don’t mind, do you? I’ve nothing catching.’ Peering past her, he says, ‘Nice room. It’s bigger than mine. But then mine’s a single.’

  ‘I was about to leave,’ says Monica.

  ‘I saw Michael at the front desk, settling his bill.’

  Monica stiffens, although she is relieved to think that this must be how he knows her room number; that he has not been in an adjacent bedroom, on the other side of a thin wall.

  ‘He didn’t remember me,’ says Stanley.

  His mouth, no longer hidden by facial hair, is quite unpleasant, thinks Monica. He never quite closes it.

  He looks suddenly pained. He puts his hand on his crotch. ‘I have to piss,’ he says. Monica finds herself stepping aside so that Stanley can come in. He pushes open the bathroom door and then closes it behind him.

  Monica shoulders her bag. She waits, hearing nothing through the bathroom door.