Puccini's Ghosts

by Morag Joss

  She followed Uncle George’s eyes up to the pitched roof. The floor and walls were of concrete and breezeblock and the steel struts from which lights were suspended crossed from side to side like rafters at a height of about ten feet. Six square, metal-framed windows, some with broken or missing panes, ran down one side. At both ends of the building, wide sliding doors opened it up like a hangar. Apart from the tractor and boxes of tools, some lengths of timber and a heap of tarpaulin, the place was empty. Uncle George clicked his tongue twice and sang an arpeggio over the sliding racket from the radio. His voice rose and echoed generously.

  Mr McArthur cleared his throat and glanced at his son. ‘Aye, well. Billy, turn that damn thing off, we’ve to take the van and get the coal,’ he said.

  Billy scrambled down without looking at the visitors.

  ‘Are you the music lover, Mr McArthur?’ Uncle George asked, as they walked back across the yard.

  ‘I am not. Fair gets my goat.’ Less gruffly he said, ‘Billy here, he’s the one. Got it from his mother, she could sing you back a tune even if she just heard it the once.’

  ‘I’m just wondering, you see—the shed there. I’m looking for a place like that, for a musical venture. Just to use for a while, till August, nothing permanent. No disruption to you. Would you be interested at all—hiring it out, for a musical event? At the going rate, of course?’

  Mr McArthur looked baffled. He cleared his throat again. ‘Aye well, good of yous to come and let us know about the coal. We’ll take the van down now, give yous a lift home.’

  He led them over to a van with an open back. ‘Your lassie all right on the back there wi’ Billy? Billy, help the lassie up,’ he said. Then he made his way round to the driver’s side and opened the door. ‘I’d no be putting up wi’ yon beatniks, mind,’ he said, over the roof of the cab.

  ‘Oh, no. No, absolutely not…’ Uncle George said, scrambling in at the other side. ‘Quite the opposite. Let me tell you…’

  Billy jumped onto the back and hauled Lila up. His hair covered his eyes so he was still managing not to look at her. The dog leapt on too and barked as the van suddenly pulled forward. Lila grabbed a hold of the side and laughed as she lurched around. The wind blew Billy’s hair back from his face and she caught his eye; he stared back at her without trust.

  ‘What’s its name?’ she asked, pointing at the dog.

  ‘Sherpa,’ Billy said.

  ‘Nice name.’

  ‘It was Schubert—my dad changed it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just. None of your business.’ Billy looked away startled, as if he had not known that such a question could reasonably follow from what he had said. They bounced on down the track without speaking. Lila pretended to be enjoying the ride more than she was, laughing and holding down her hair as if being blown to bits were pleasurable, and Billy kept his eyes on the fields as if it were scenery. When she knew he wasn’t watching, Lila took a look, memorising him so she could tell Enid every detail, already enjoying the edge that meeting a boy would give her. He was about eighteen, solid and dirty but in an outdoors way; about his shabby clothes was a hint of coal smoke and animal and stale bread that she didn’t mind in the least. It was easily preferable to the smell of boiled eggs that eddied round most of the boys in her class and his skin was nicer than theirs, too, darker and almost foreign-looking. She liked looking at him, assessing him. It was a relief to let her mind flow away from her thoughts about the farmhouse and back to the familiar preoccupation and still hypothetical anxiety of her and Enid’s virginal lives: what you do when you meet a boy. How you tell if he likes you. The ultimate, most worrisome of all: how you find out if he is interested in One Thing Only, except the hard way.

  When they reached Seaview Villas Lila jumped off by herself before Billy could think she wanted him to touch her. Jimmy, Billy and Mr McArthur shifted the coal onto the back of the grey van, Uncle George’s clothes being too clean for him to help. More tea was made, Fleur by now quite the hostess. She brought it out on a tray and they became a modest street party, chatting and smoking and drinking tea out on the road next to the loaded van.

  Lila watched them all, dazed. In the space of a day Uncle George had changed them, doing something as alchemical with them as he had done with the leftovers at dinnertime (just the way he called it lunch made it different). She didn’t understand how, but his assurance about everything was part of his power. He wouldn’t believe, and wouldn’t let you believe either, that a thing wasn’t going to turn out fresh and lively and right. Meeting neighbours, chatting with the coalman—whatever he touched, from Turandot to beef hash, he turned into a story thrumming with fun and full of connections, people, events.

  As Billy turned to go he handed Lila his cup and managed a direct look that was not hostile. Sherpa was whistled back on board the van, Uncle George shook Mr McArthur’s hand and told him he would be up in the morning. Mr McArthur said that would be grand and the corners of his mouth tilted upwards again.

  i ring the Burnhead & District Advertiser and speak to a woman who seems to like her job. She cares about spelling. I carefully dictate the wording of the announcement and by the time she finishes taking it down she is quite jocular.

  Aye, we’re the old-fashioned kind, she says. Spelling matters to us. We got taught right.

  They don’t teach anything useful nowadays, I say.

  She says, You’re right there. Well, that’s all in hand for you now, Miss du Cann, I’ll just read it back.

  I listen.

  ‘On Wednesday January fourteenth 2004 following an illness, Raymond James Duncan aged eighty-five, late of 5 Seaview Villas, Burnhead. Beloved father of Lila du Cann. Funeral Friday twenty-third January Ayr Crematorium 2.00 p.m., followed by service 3.00 p.m. Evangelical Lutheran Mission, Burnhead. Friends, neighbours and former colleagues welcome. No flowers.’

  Without realising I am going to, I ask her, Would you mind just adding, before ‘Beloved father’, the words ‘sadly missed’?

  I hear the muffled patting, like words scurrying by in light shoes, of fingers on computer keys.

  Right you are. That’s that done. Now was there anything else I can help you with today?

  I can’t reply. Sometimes lately when I open my mouth to speak my voice comes out but the actual words lag behind. It’s a bit like gasping, as if I’m suddenly frightened of what I might say. At other times my voice seems entirely absent. It’s something to do with breath and vocal coordination, probably.

  Are you all right? the woman says. She sounds almost worried.

  After a little while I say, Yes, thank you, I’m all right.

  No hurry, Miss du Cann, she says. I know bereavement’s stressful, you take your time. You don’t have to tell me, I’ve known it myself.

  But he was bound to die. He was old, I say. I’m old.

  Ah, doesn’t matter though, she tells me with authority. Doesn’t matter how old you are, it takes you just the same. Take your time. It’s a shock. Was there anything else?

  I used to live here, I tell her. I’ve been away a long time. I had to get away. I’d forgotten how it was.

  Aye, a lot of folk do that. You need to get away to get on, there’s not the opportunities round here, is there? That’s what I tell my kids. I’ve four.

  The Burnhead & District Advertiser, I begin, and falter. I don’t even know what I intend to say. I try again. The paper, years ago…There was a lot in the paper. One summer…there was a lot about my family, our family. The Duncans…and the Pettifers…A long time ago.

  Oh, I see. Was your family well known in the area, Miss du Cann? Will I put you through to Features? They’d be the ones you’d need to deal with as regards the possibility of an obituary for your father in the paper.

  While I wait to be connected I gather my wits and so am quite ready when a young man announces himself as the Features Assistant. He sounds Australian, which throws me for a moment. There were no Australians in Burnhead when I lived here
. I tell him my name. I am not going to falter anymore.

  I’ve returned from abroad for the funeral, I say. Just for a few days. I thought it might make an interesting little piece for the paper—I mean there can’t be many Burnhead people who go on to have careers in opera! Never mind a career spanning more than three decades. I’ve been in opera for nearly thirty-five years, there aren’t many people I haven’t worked with.

  Oh? he says. Big names?

  And a career abroad, of course, it takes one so far from one’s roots. Roots are so important for an artist, people don’t always realise. It might interest your readers to hear about that?

  Can you give me an idea of who you worked with? The big stars? Pavarotti?

  I give him some names, to which he barely reacts.

  These are all opera stars, are they? Okay. Thanks.

  And Joan Sutherland, I add.

  Now I’ve heard of her, he says. Is she still alive?

  She once lent me her limousine and driver, I tell him.

  Really? You were mates, were you?

  (At last, a bit of interest—the hoops one has to go through!)

  I tell him, Actually it was all rather a scream. There was some mix-up. She thought she was free so she’d ordered her car to pick her up outside the theatre but in fact she had a rehearsal, so this car arrived and she couldn’t use it. We’d just got off so she gave it to us. Let us have it for the whole afternoon. Complete with chauffeur!

  Let us have it? Who else, other big stars?

  A group of us from the chorus. Though actually I was covering a small part, on no rehearsal I might add—in fact Joan was probably appalled at that. Covers did not get anything like proper consideration, she would have noticed that. Anyway, the car took us out of town to a porcelain factory that had a seconds shop. It parked right outside and waited for us, then we drove back. How it does spoil one, having a driver!

  He says, Hey, right you are. Well, thanks for your time. I’ve got your details but it’s not actually my decision, so, thanks anyway.

  Obviously he’s too young to know who he’s dealing with.

  I’d better have a word with he whose decision it is, then, I say. You can put me through, I suppose?

  He’s in a meeting, I’m afraid. But I’ll pass it on, tell him who you were and everything. Call you back if he’s interested, okay?

  As I ring off I ask myself what made me mention roots at all, never mind say that they were important, because I never think of them normally, living a truly international life (I don’t think he really got that point). I am not sure there really is any such thing as roots, and even if there is, I would rather there weren’t.

  It’s nearly dusk but I haven’t been outside today, or I don’t think I have, and I need some fresh air. Perhaps if I walk for a while I shall sleep better. That’s probably all it is. This wandering about at night that I seem to be doing rather a lot, it’s because I’m not getting enough exercise during the day. In Antwerp I walk everywhere. With roots still in my mind I set off under a broken umbrella of my father’s. Darkness is already coming on fast and there is nowhere else to go but across the road and up Arranview Drive, into the orange light from the streetlamps. In no time at all I have strayed far from Seaview Villas and deep into the winding and interlocking roads that snake through the rows of new houses. Not so new, now; early eighties and typically unattractive but at least when they went up they brought mains gas out here and he got central heating at last at 5 Seaview Villas. Though it didn’t altogether remove it, it made the damp warmer.

  These houses are bungalows, mostly, with flat staring windows reaching almost to the ground. As I guessed, there is nobody about on the pavements in this weather and at this time of day. It’s cars that come and go along these streets, not people. So I don’t bother much that my raincoat doesn’t look right over these trousers. Charcoal grey and the milky beige of the coat don’t do much for each other but under the streetlights they barely look like colours, anyway. I have a scarf for my head that has both grey and beige in it, and navy and red as well, in a pattern of horseshoes and crossed riding crops and other equine clutter (not Hermès but just as good) so I feel I have pulled the look together at least a bit. Thinking about that cocky little Australian on the telephone made me put on some lipstick so I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be recognised and stopped. I’m not finished yet.

  I walk by little, low houses skulking in the rain, some empty and dark, others inhabited by fluttering television screens in uncurtained rooms whose light spills out and trembles on wet front lawns. There are houses that show the backs of drawn curtains, pulled in and hugging to themselves all their padded, warm peachiness, flaunting the glow that the room bestows on those within and that excludes me. I leave Arranview Drive and wander along Arranview this and Arranview that: Avenue, Court, Close, Walk, and then I turn back the way I came, past the lit houses with cars sitting tidily alongside and the unlit ones where empty concrete ramps are still waiting. Now I am in High Trees territory; the same looping cul-de-sacs called High Trees this, that and the next thing. There are no high trees, of course; the real sycamores have long since gone. I guess they disappeared some time between the decision to name part of the development for them, and the realisation that nobody had recorded what kind of trees they were before cutting them down. It’s impossible to work out where they stood except perhaps by the next name change, as High Trees gives way to roads called Old Farm. I keep walking under the pattering umbrella, my soles making no sound above the rumble of a few cars rolling home at a conscientious crawl.

  I am half-looking for their house. If the Old Farm collection of streets bears some relation to where the farm used to lie, I must be near it. It should not be difficult to find.

  Part of the deal when they sold the land was that the developers would build a house to their specification close to the site of the old farmhouse. For a few years I used to get, along with their newsletter, a Christmas card with a photograph of the new one, floodlit. Makes a better card than the ubiquitous robin! she would write, and each year I would privately disagree. Then I suppose I moved and didn’t send my new address and the cards stopped. In the last year or two I was treated to a view of not just the house but an extravaganza of fairy lights racing around the eaves and a flashing reindeer on the grass, so it was no great loss.

  He went into golfing supplies and sports equipment. Her idea. As soon as the land was sold she put him in silly caps and pastel jerseys and shoes with fringed tongues and sent him off, pulling a top-of-the-range, two-tone leatherette caddy, to play golf in the afternoons. He turned middle-aged overnight. Given the company he was keeping it was a natural development that he should spot a ‘gap in the market’ and start selling the gear to men like himself: foolish great boys as ruddy in the face and as thinning on top, as bored and gadget-hungry as he was. He needn’t have turned out that way. The Christmas newsletter would give a tally of the number of outlets: Gleneagles, St Andrews, Harrods. There was talk of Scottish airport concessions and a tie-in with Burberry. He must have gone along with it.

  I find it at the end of Pow Drive, a bungalow more than double the size of its neighbours and standing in a plot four times larger than theirs. It alone has a faade of pink faux marble and is surrounded by low walls made from ornamental blocks with fancy shapes in them that make a pattern of daisies, as if someone has been at work with a giant biscuit cutter. The wrought-iron house name on the wall—‘Casa Lisboa’—stands out in the beam of floodlights set into the ground.

  The floodlights must be on an automatic timer for the house is shut up and dark. Around the porch sit the hulks of patio plants overwintering in black plastic shrouds and in the apex of the front gable a burglar alarm winks its alternating red and green eyes. This is just as I expect. I would not have come this way if I thought there was any chance of running into them. I took the small risk of supposing that their habits haven’t changed; the habits of people like them don’t. I’m confident they st
ill spend January and February in the Canaries. They will still own property—with them, it’s always ‘property’—in Gran Canaria, and they will have kept the apartment in the Algarve that one newsletter explained they couldn’t part with. She wrote, you do get very attached to your very first overseas property! So with two properties abroad there’s nothing for it but to take more holidays! But they prefer Portugal in the spring, when his golfing weather is more reliable and she can take her classes on wild flowers in watercolour.

  I gaze at the house for a while until I am numb to its immaculate ugliness. I picture the garden of the old farmhouse where lupins and a tangle of roses grew up through rusting machine parts and old tractor tyres and where in Sherpa’s water bowl on the front step you would sometimes find flakes of paint from the peeling yellow door when it was slammed. I turn round and head back to Seaview Villas. Going in this direction I am walking straight into the wind and raindrops land in wet explosions on the umbrella that flaps loose where the cover has torn away from three of its spokes. I tip it downward in front of my face and walk fast, looking at my feet. I do know that this is the last time in my life that I shall walk here, but I can’t make this feel significant. I can find no mental commentary for the occasion; as I step briskly back down Old Farm Drive, my footsteps refuse to feel historic.

  I wonder if the Burnhead & District Advertiser will take up my idea for an article. I wonder if I could put into clearer words this feeling—this sad truth, and true sadness—that although you may be exiled from a place long before you leave it you still crave, upon your return, an invitation to belong.

  Traces of the old farm exist nowhere now except in my head. The sounds of that day when I saw it for the first time—my mother singing scales above the noise of a coffee grinder, the whistle of Jimmy from Brocks and the rumble of coke hitting the bunker, a barking dog, Mantovani from the Café Royale in the echoing farm shed—mingle in my mind with the day’s many other accidents and coincidences. Suppose we had not run out of bread? Uncle George would have trampled over my mother’s distaste for picnics and frog-marched us out to some freezing beauty spot with travelling rugs and sandwiches and flasks of tea, and we would not have been at home when Jimmy’s lorry refused to start. Then we would never have wandered up the track to Pow Farm and found ourselves a venue—an improbable one, a putative cowshed with a tractor in it, draughty and floored with straw—for Turandot.