It had rained all night and this morning it was still raining. April checked her watch again. Seven minutes past ten on day four. She had three-and-a-bit more days here, and no idea how to fill them.
At home, she had a routine. She passed the hours by cleaning her flat, checking on Jenny, preparing for her evening classes, shopping for her short list of groceries and, most of all, walking. Walking up in the hills on the town belt, among the pines. Walking around the bays, often into a buffeting head wind. Walking the streets on the outskirts of the town centre, where there were no shops and no schools, just houses, most of them empty, locked up, silent, while their occupants were off at work.
Walking was a good thing in April’s book. If she’d walked that day instead of driving, she wouldn’t have had to park across the road from the school. If she’d not been wearing such a bright dress, she would not have been so obvious. If she hadn’t—
April’s tea was cold. She tipped it down the sink and sluiced it away. The tap squeaked as April turned it off, and rattled, a little loose on the wall. April felt guilty that, unlike Kit, she was sure, she did not know how to fix it. She empathised with the tap; without her routine, she was coming a little loose herself, as if adrift on a strange body of water and uneasy that its horizons were not visible. April felt restlessness flicker like a snake’s tongue. Restlessness, in her experience, led to dangerous thinking. She should go for a walk, let the rain and exertion drive it out of her system.
The thin coat she’d brought with her was next to useless but, by the boiler, Kit had left an old yellow mackintosh, the kind worn by trawler-men. Kit was a large man, tall and broad; it was like wearing a stiff yellow tent. April did not mind. The extra cover would be welcome.
She set off towards Empyrean, aiming to walk along the driveway and then down the lane. She’d prefer not to pass the house at all, but the only way to avoid it would be to go into the woods behind the cottage. They would be drier, which was an attraction, but they were also dark and unfamiliar. Dark woods were treacherous to navigate. She could find her way in, but not necessarily out again.
The rain spattered through the branches above and drummed on her coat. Drops ran like mercury along the edge of the mac’s hood. April kept her head down. It made it hard to see where she was going, but ensured the water dripped off and not in. The hood muffled the rain noise into a fuzzy constant roar, as if she had a seashell pressed to each ear. The squeak of the mac and the slap of her shoes added rhythmic punctuation, and a song began to play in April’s head, a ’50s rock-and-roll number that Ben had been mad for at bath time, and which his father had been happy to sing again and again, with actions that usually saw more water on the floor than left in the bath. Splish, splash—
April stopped walking, and stood still so she could drive the song from her head. After five years, she’d become expert at cutting off her memories, expelling them as soon as they threatened to take hold. Her aim was not to avoid pain. As time went on, memories hurt less and comforted more. April could not allow that.
It wasn’t working. She could still, ever so faintly, hear singing. But the song was not the same …
April flipped off her hood. The rain flattened her hair against her scalp but she could hear more clearly. The song was not in her mind. It was coming from the big house, which, now that she could also see more clearly, was approximately five metres to her left.
It was true that she did not want to even see the house again, let alone go inside. But now someone else, a singing stranger, was inside, and though it might not be her house for long, it was right at that moment, and April did not recall inviting anyone to drop by.
The front door was unlocked, which made April pause. The stranger had not broken in, so he must have a key. Was it Edward, then? He hadn’t struck her as a crooner.
April crossed the dingy entranceway and, following the sound of the voice, ventured further into the house. Edward hadn’t exaggerated. It was a mess. The rooms were bare of furniture and what was left of the carpet was threadbare. Floors and window frames were covered with a gummy dust, dried insect casings, rodent droppings, stray feathers and bird dirt. The few remaining curtains were falling off their rails, moth-eaten, shreds of fabric hanging.
Empyrean is dead, thought April. Well and truly. But as she walked across the filthy floors, she felt the air move around her and it was warm compared to the chill outside. The dust she disturbed rose and sparkled in the weak light that slanted in through the windows. For all Mr Potts’s purported desire for showiness, the rooms April passed seemed to have been decorated in a straightforwardly homey style. Perhaps Mrs Potts had held sway when it came to the practicality and taste of the interiors? On the wallpaper that was left she saw leaves, flowers and fruit; no spiky abstract patterns or brash colours. The carpet had been a greenish-grey, hard wearing, wouldn’t show the dirt too much. Ideal for a family …
The singing was loud and clear now. April did not recognise the song, a folksy number, but she had no trouble identifying that the voice was excellent. A warm, slightly husky baritone, with a resonant quality that, unexpectedly, travelled through April’s entire body.
A clatter of metal on metal cut off the song mid-note.
‘Bastard!’ said a voice that was definitely not Edward’s.
The stranger was behind a half-closed door, which April pushed cautiously open. The room was the kitchen, and it was in the worst state of all. The benches were smeared in greasy brown dust, the ceramic sinks crazed and rusty. Floorboards and cupboard doors were splintered, pipes torn off the wall. Taps dangled as if beheaded. Only fragments of the original paintwork had survived. Primrose yellow, April noted.
Squatting in front of an ancient Aga was a man, trying to re-affix one of its once-white cast-iron doors. Half on, it fell off again onto the floor with a clang.
‘Illegitimate shite!’
He had his back to her. April had no way to make her presence known without startling him, so she didn’t try.
‘Hello?’
He leapt straight up like a jack-in-the-box and, pressing his backside against the Aga, held the iron door in front of him like a shield.
‘Mother of—’
He stared wide-eyed at April, puffing out rapid breaths like a steam train.
‘Sorry,’ said April.
‘No problem.’ He lowered the iron door. ‘It’s good for my heart to be tested like that. Wouldn’t want it getting complacent.’
His accent was odd. Irish mashed up with West Country, April thought. Or perhaps that was how country folk around here spoke? Sunny’s speech patterns were hardly a guide to the local patois.
‘I’m guessing you’re April,’ he said. ‘And unless you nibbled on the wrong side of the mushroom earlier, I’m also guessing that’s not your coat.’
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘And no. Who are you?’
‘Oran,’ he said, with a smile. ‘Oran Feares.’ He shifted the iron door into one hand so he could extend the other.
Oran. The repairman. Not long out of jail.
April took his hand. It was warm, calloused and filthy. Everything about him, April observed, was filthy. He had on jeans torn at the knees and smeared with grease as if he were in the habit of wiping his hands down his thighs. His rough flannel shirt, frayed at collar and elbows, had possibly once been light blue but was now the colour of used dishwashing water. His hair was curly and in need of a trim. April had first thought it to be brown but now she saw it was very dark red, the colour of damp autumn leaves. His eyes were brown, and his stubble, not quite a beard, had a jester’s motley look about it, with patches of red, brown and dirty blond. He was around her age, April estimated, though his face was as weathered and salty as a tree branch washed up on the beach. Physically, he had the half-starved leanness of a stray dog, the kind that, no matter how much you kicked it away, would come back, eager to follow you anywhere. Oran Feares was one of life’s rebounders, April decided. Nothing would keep him down for long.
‘Why are you trying to fix the stove?’ April said.
‘The Aga!’ he said with enthusiasm. ‘An original, this is. My granddad grew up with one just like it. House got hit by a doodlebug during the war. Kitchen was reduced to rubble, he said, but the old stove stayed right in place, barely a scratch on it.’
‘But why are you fixing it? I thought you were only going to paint?’
‘He said my great-grandmother used it to warm her bosom. She’d lean over it if she’d been out in the cold. Granddad used to keep an eye on her through a crack in the kitchen door. She wasn’t a small woman, and he was worried she might topple over and singe herself on the hotplates. Be tricky explaining that to the local doctor.’
This is like a Beckett play, thought April. She resisted an urge to pinch the bridge of her nose.
‘Did Edward ask you to fix it?’
‘Don’t ever try to light it with petrol, will you? Granddad did that once, and blew the kitchen to rubble a second time. Lucky to get away with only losing his eyebrows.’
‘Oran, why are—?’
‘His mother’s old cat used to squeeze behind it. He said you always knew it was there because of the smell of burning cat hair.’
‘Oran!’
Her sharp tone made him blink. ‘What?’
‘Who told you to fix the Aga?’
‘Mr Gill,’ said Oran, as if it should be obvious.
‘Why? And do not say because it’s broken.’
Oran grinned. Given that overall he resembled a hobo, his teeth were surprisingly white and straight. He would be quite handsome were he not so grubby, thought April. Mind you, she was hardly one to throw stones.
April had not looked in a mirror for years. But she knew there was more grey now in her hair than brown, and that the ponytail she dragged it into was lank, its ends split and uneven. Her skin often felt dry and rough, and she knew that was most likely how it looked. She knew the bagginess of her clothes and their dull colours concealed her like camouflage. People — and not just men, everyone — no longer saw her. She was as invisible as a dead leaf in a gutter. As she intended.
Oran, though, was unlikely to judge her appearance. April was not sure whether she found that a relief or unsettling.
‘Mr Gill did mention that more extensive renovations than a quick wash and brush up had not been discussed in full with you,’ said Oran. ‘But then he added that what you didn’t know wouldn’t hurt you.’
‘Mr Gill has been generous with information about me, I see.’
‘No need to huff,’ he said. ‘It’s not as if I know all your personal hootmalalie. Only that you’re the one who’s rejected numerous heartfelt appeals to keep this house.’
He glanced up and around, taking in the room. The rain outside had stopped, and a square of weak sunlight shone on the floor, made shimmery by the wet glass. Dust twinkled languidly in its beam.
‘I can see why you might baulk,’ he said. ‘It’s a project, right enough. But I feel it would be a pity to see the bulldozers crunch it all to bits. So I’m glad to do what I can to encourage some less heartless person to spare it.’
‘And of course you get paid to be noble.’
He grinned at her again. His eyes, she saw now, were streaked with amber, the same dark orange colour she’d always associated with owls’ eyes.
‘Mr Gill will take care of your loot, don’t you fret.’
April bridled. His ability to make her feel like the one in the wrong was galling.
‘Do you really think you can revive this?’ She gestured around the decrepit, dusty room. ‘It looks like a hopeless task to me.’
‘Where there’s life, there’s always hope,’ said Oran. ‘I’ll send you photos. I guarantee you’ll be amazed.’
Enough, thought April. No more house talk. Time to turn the subject around.
‘Why were you in jail?’ she said.
To her annoyance, Oran wasn’t in the least offended. But she should have known. Like cockroaches, rebounders such as Oran were impossible to destroy.
‘Oh, the usual,’ he said. ‘Some idiot kept heckling me to sing “Free Bird”, so I smacked him one.’
‘That’s usual?’
‘There’s always idiots.’
‘You’re a very good singer,’ said April, after a moment. ‘I heard you before.’
‘Yes, I am,’ he said, without a trace of egotism. ‘But I’m shite at performing. Sit me in a corner of a noisy pub and I’m right enough, but put me up on a stage in front of folks and I dry up like a nun’s hoo-ha.’
April pressed her lips together to keep from laughing. She did not want to encourage him.
‘I used to mind,’ Oran went on. ‘I used to rant at God, and curse Him for making me such a failure. Then I realised He could have chosen not to give me a gift at all, but instead He had and I should bloody well appreciate it. Worse to have a gift and not use it than to have none to begin with.’
‘Do you believe in God then?’
As soon as the question was out, April regretted it. Did she really want to know?
Oran was frowning, considering, hefting the Aga’s iron door from hand to hand.
‘I think God believes in me,’ he said, ‘which is the same thing but not quite.’
Something flashed through April, white-hot and as sharp as a knife. Anger — at the injustice of it. How was it that this man could feel like that and she could not? At that moment, she hated him like fury, wanted to crush and hurt him, though she knew he had done nothing to deserve it.
The coat was far too hot now. April ripped apart the snaps and pulled it off. It was as cumbersome to fold as a Zeppelin. By the time she had it tucked over her arm, she was breathing hard. Oran, she saw, was watching her with interest.
‘I have to go,’ she said.
‘So you do,’ he said, and added, ‘Come for a drink with me some time soon?’
April was floored. No one had asked her for a drink in decades. What flitted through her now felt uncomfortably like pleasure. She snatched it out of the air and pinned it dead.
‘I won’t be here,’ she said.
‘Heading home?’
‘That’s right.’
‘No time for a drink before you go?’
‘No.’
‘Your call.’
He smiled, unscathed. April realised with a start that she could grow to like Oran Feares. Just as well, then, that she would not get a chance to.
‘Good luck with the Aga,’ she said.
‘Ach.’ He kissed the iron door with a smack. ‘I’ll win her over. Or die trying.’
Outside, the brightness was such a contrast that April had to shield her eyes. Water was still heavy on the ground, but she was keen to get away, so she splashed straight through the puddles, not caring that she was soon sodden up to her knees.
It was a short walk back to the cottage — not far enough for April to work out of her system the restlessness that her meeting with Oran had provoked. She headed instead for the woods. It was light and sunny now. She would not get lost.
On the grassy outskirts, she noticed for the first time green spears topped with slim buds. She bent to look. The thin outer of the bud was green like the leaves, but inside April could see a gleam of yellow. Like a butterfly within a cocoon, she thought, wings cramped tight in those last moments before the casing splits, and it can fly free.
Daffodils, she realised. It was nearly spring. When all these buds flowered, April could see, there would be a whole swathe of yellow, the colour of butter and lemons and a favourite dress, worn long ago.
She was leaving not a moment too soon.
The woods were dappled and hushed, the only sound the soft plip-plop of the last raindrops falling from the tips of the branches and landing on the mulch of leaves below.
April slowed down and walked quietly, so she could enjoy the peace. But she did not walk as quietly as the animal that slid suddenly, pale and large, into the edge of her sight. She
hadn’t heard it at all, but there it was, standing, watching her, tail up like a feathered flag.
A white dog. Like a setter, but with reddish spots instead of grey.
It did not look unfriendly. It did not look that friendly, either. The tail was upright but still. The dog’s mouth was closed, no lolling tongue. Its legs were angled, front and back, as if poised to move.
Then it did move. It bounded, leapt up and around, and sped off into the wood’s darkening heart.
April gasped. The suddenness of movement had been startling, but not what had surprised her most. Before the dog had leapt away, she’d heard a sound. A whistle. A man’s whistle.
She was sharing the woods with another. Who he was, what he looked like, April had no idea. But at the instant of his whistle, she had felt her own feet move, as if an instinct deep within her had heeded the call to run right to him.
CHAPTER 8
late February
‘I’ve been sent to fetch you,’ said Edward. ‘Sunny’s orders. She has something she wishes to show you before you leave.’
‘You two are shameless,’ said April.
‘Guilty.’ Edward’s smile suggested he felt entirely otherwise.
‘It won’t work,’ said April.
‘Of course not,’ he said. The Alvis’s wheels crunched on the driveway. ‘How could it?’
On Sunny’s table was an art folio, bound in worn black leather and fastened with a frayed black grosgrain ribbon. Beside it was a tray; a picture of Ben Nevis just visible beneath a plate piled with scones and dishes of jam and clotted cream.
April’s mother had been an erratic cook, mostly because she’d tended to get distracted by a need to draw. But one thing Margaret Turner had excelled at was baking scones, and early on she’d passed her secrets to her daughter. April, caught by culinary fever, had spent many hours on weekends and after school teaching herself to bake and cook. Ben, even when he could barely stand unaided, had loved to help her, and the truly staggering mess he made was more than compensated for by his enthusiasm and delight.
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