Breaking Light

by Karin Altenberg

  13

  The fallen leaves from a silver birch stuck to the wet cobbles like golden confetti from some spectacular event that was now irretrievably over. Mr Askew stopped in his tracks and watched as a gust of wind rippled across a puddle. That’s how a ghost would move, he thought to himself – parting the surface of life with its breath.

  The coming of autumn was always unsettling. He did not mind the actual season, in fact he cherished that period the Americans called fall. It was an appropriate name, he thought, for the time of year when you no longer had to keep up the pretences, when you could loosen your grip and let yourself settle down into something less intense. No, he did not mind autumn itself, it was the transition – that uneasy coming-of-age as summer matured – that he could not stand. ‘Let it be over with,’ he muttered to himself and walked on. Fall. As in falling in love.

  It had started to drizzle. The fog was coming in from the moor. It made the village look dirty. If it had a smell, he imagined it would be stinking – of filth and the aftermath of war. A car passed with dipped fog lamps gleaming off the wet pavement. Mr Askew trembled slightly. The car reminded him of a wolf sneaking past with all-seeing yellow eyes. His mind was not right today; he was feeling unsettled, exposed, as if he was at a turning point – just like that time when he had first gone to London, following that eventful summer after leaving school. He thought of himself as he was then: independent and strong for the first time in his life but still an innocent with so much more to learn. His body half inhabited, half suspended.

  After escaping from Dr Buster’s in the storm, he had driven through the night to Portsmouth. He had driven without a licence, with a couple of conjoined twins curled up in the back seat of a car that wasn’t his. A pair of Siamese showgirls who he had helped run away from a nineteenth-century-style freak show that was living out its last days on the commons of England. It did sound like a joke. But the girls had got away all right. Once they reached Portsmouth, he had bought them two tickets with the money they’d found in the car and he had put them on to a ship bound for America – and he had never heard from them again. For a while afterwards, he kept scanning the papers for news of those spectacular twins, but it was as if they, like Rey and Dr Buster, had vanished from the face of the earth that day when they stepped on to the gangplank, turning once to wave at him. Before boarding, they had sold the Ford to a man in the harbour for fifty pounds, which they had left with Gabriel. Not knowing what to do next, he had found a phone box and rung his mother, who had given him his next cue – he had been accepted to university in London and was due to start in a couple of weeks.

  On reaching Paddington, he had made his way to a room in Camden Road, which the university had allocated him. Completely alone in the world after being abandoned by Rey and the twins so abruptly, he was left with the fine sand of sleeplessness behind his eyelids and the darkness that opened the following morning, as he stirred to the smell of frying fat – a darkness that lingered long after the sun had reached his new window, fruitlessly trying to brighten the yellowing standard-issue bedclothes. But what did it matter if he slept and woke in light or darkness? The dreams and nightmares were all the same.

  During those first rainy autumn nights in London, he had kept moving through the city, entering its metabolism like a thief on the run, seeing his loss reflected in green and silver on the surface of black puddles and streaming gutters. There were moments when he had begun to suspect that Rey, the sideshow, Maryanne, had all been a dream, a folly, a brief madness. Or perhaps it had all been a rather complicated plot, elaborated by some ancient and long-forgotten gods or obscure spirits of fate in order to … in order to do what? What was the purpose? He had managed to keep this unsettling feeling of uncertainty from his mind most of the time, but every now and again, when he had found himself alone and had time to think about it, it had overcome him, this doubt, like one of those fevers that will keep you awake all night, twisting in damp sheets.

  In love.

  Did he, had he ever, loved Anne? Well, he had risked his life for her, for them. He had entered another world for them and saved them from it. And, at times, in the days leading up to that last night, he had been overwhelmed by a longing to kiss Anne’s lips, knowing what it would feel like and certain that just one single kiss like that would stay inside him for an entire day or more. But, just as he started to lean towards Anne’s half-smiling, pouting lips, Mary would say, ‘Ah, this could not have been more agreeable; aren’t we lucky to be together, the three of us?’ but with such steely tones in her voice that Gabriel would sit back again and draw a finger through his moustache. But love? He was not so sure. Thinking about it now, in hindsight, he was not at all sure why he had got involved. Love? That was not it, he realised – no, that was not it. He had done it because the opportunity to do something good – to do something – had presented itself and, for once, he had acted forcefully. He had just done it and, for the first time, he had loved himself – a little. Yes, he had done it. He – Gabriel Askew. Gabe.

  And the twins, in the end, as they walked up that gangplank, had they not loved him, too – his new, assertive self? They had loved in a rather finicky way, he was sure, the way they loved themselves and their dream of a new life.

  *

  In the past, Mrs Ludgate’s black eyes had often been inconveniences, a hindrance, like a stomach upset or – in her youth – the monthlies during a day at the beach. She had tried to conceal the bruising with the foundation that she had started buying years and years ago, precisely for this purpose, in the pharmacy in Stagstead. To be perfectly honest, she was quite baffled by her own foresight as a young woman – it was remarkably crafty of her to keep it to hand, just in case, for those occasions when it was needed. Lately, she had not had any reason to use it, but she did all the same. It had become a habit and she felt naked and exposed without the protective membrane. Now she was running out and had to buy some more. It had been preferable, she reminded herself, as she hurried down the lane towards Stanton’s Cross, when he had not hit her in the face; the bruises on her body were more easily covered up. Even that time when her arm broke, there had been no reason for people not to believe that she had fallen down the stairs. These things happened, after all, especially on farms. But, of course, it had not been for her to decide where he hit her, in spite of the inconvenience.

  The foundation was by Rimmel, which was supposed to be a slightly better make than No 17 at Boots. And yet it was not satisfactory. The colour was off – just a little too dark – and it made her skin look sodden and slightly yellow – and blue and yellow makes green, as we all know. The mirror in the bathroom up at the farm was too dark these days; she could not really see what she looked like. The window was small, just a slit in the stone wall, and the lights were no longer working – not since her husband stopped paying the bills.

  She was surprised that no one had ever commented; surely somebody must have noticed the awful green bruises that would sink slowly down her face like stones caught in ice. She had become accustomed to keeping her head down, but she hated it every time she had to go back to the Stagstead chemist – the look of concern – or apathy, for that matter – on the faces of the ignorant assistants as she asked for the various items of selfmedication. They were hoping to become pharmacists themselves one day, no doubt, or even beauticians, aromatherapists, that kind of thing. Hopeless, stupid girls.

  The bus came around the corner just as she reached the crossroads and the driver – it was Mr Carpenter – having spotted her, slowed down and waited for her to reach the bus stop. That was kind.

  ‘Morning, Mrs Ludgate,’ he said, cheerfully, as she climbed the steep steps. ‘Going for a bit of a shopping spree today, are we?’

  ‘Shopping spree, my posterior!’ she spat through her pinkest lipstick, and pulled her hat further over her face. ‘There’s only rubbish to buy in Mortford. If I wanted to shop, I’d go to stay with my daughter in Exeter.’

  ‘Oh, dear; it�
�s one of them days, is it?’ said the driver, but not unkindly.

  Mrs Ludgate wobbled down the aisle and found her seat at the back. The bus was empty, apart from a couple of ramblers. Foreigners, for sure – they had that smell about them. Garlic and suchlike. As the bus started moving, she held on to the seat in front with both hands, her feet in the white trainers barely touching the floor, and thought about the task at hand. Now, Rowden’s sold foundation, she was quite sure of it. Not Rimmel, of course, one could not hope for that, but some other brand, surely? She wondered if the girl at the till would find it untoward if she bought two tubes at once – perhaps, if they were different shades, a lighter and a darker … Yes, that was the way to do it. She wondered, at times, what other women did; this must be a common pursuit, after all, as normal powder would not offer enough coverage. Over the years, she had often wished that she had a friend, somebody with whom she could discuss such issues. But it was not the kind of thing one talked about at the Women’s Institute, for instance. Lately, the discussion there had mainly been concerned with the plight of the honeybee. The initial, slightly over-agitated lamentations about the decrease of the bee population had soon been abandoned for talk about recipes for honey cake. She did not care for honey cake but she didn’t mind bees and, without telling anyone, she had planted a patch of foxgloves and larkspurs in the kitchen garden up at the farm. There, by midsummer, they had stretched proudly, pink and blue, against the grey stone wall, like a festival of medieval knights. One morning in July, when she was all alone – her husband away in London – she had sat for hours in the grass, her legs stretched out like a child’s, watching the bees as they dipped in and out of the bright thimbles, wearing the flowers like tiny wizard’s hats. She had been so overwhelmed by a sense of achievement – to think that it was her planting that dressed these creatures – it had made her cry, silly bint that she was. She liked the bumblebees best, the way their fuzzy bums would stick out of the flowers as they dipped their tongues into the nectar. Their look of dusted bewilderment as the pollen gilded their pelt reminded her of the slick and dewy meadows on the cliffs of her youth and filled her with a sudden and inexplicable longing. Identical at first, the closer she observed the bees, the more individual they appeared. Most wore the same bands of black and yellow with the soft white scut, but some had more yellow, almost red, and some were nearly all black. And the buzzing! The beautiful buzzing of the bumblebee, the abandon, the lust, the soothing softness of that summer sound as they all bumbled away, buzzing for joy in that most still and perfect of mornings.

  It was November now and the moor was at its grimmest. Some of the farmers had started the swaling, the annual burning of the bracken and the gorse. There were large patches of ashy grey amongst the auburn bracken. A few sheep, blackened by the sooty undergrowth, stared at the bus as it passed on the road. She resented them and the way they threatened to draw her down into some undergrowth realm of bluebottle flies and slugs. She could not stand their mindless gaze, empty of everything but some deep-rooted instinct – panic, perhaps, or some other stinking drudge.

  ‘It hurts me, too,’ he used to say, in the beginning. ‘Can’t you see you’re spoiling the fun?’ Back then, she did not seem to have much fun – nor much of a future. Would death have been a way out? She might have thrown herself in front of the bus. It would have been easy enough, as the driver would not have spotted her as he came around the bend towards Stanton’s Cross, at least not in the summer, when the hedges were high. It was a dangerous crossing, people said. But why, she had asked herself, would I do that? I am already crushed. She could have hanged herself, but her breath, she had been told, was a waste of time, so what would have been the point of that? There were other ways, she knew, to end one’s life, but she had been too tired at the time to think of them – and never vain enough. And then there had been the girl – the daughter she had secretly named for a lighter existence.

  Suddenly she remembered the book of photographs she had seen in the professor’s drawing room. There had been women there – and men, for that matter – wearing make-up, but the photographs had stripped them of their masks. Not in a ruthless way, but almost tenderly. That woman photographer, whom the professor liked so much, would surely have known about the use of foundation; she would not have wasted her time talking about the plight of the honeybee, silk-ribbon embroidery and macramé. She would have seen.

  They had been relatively well off, at times. Not rich, mind you, but there had been enough – enough money for his weekends away along the coast or his long stays down in London. There had always been electricity and hot water up at the farm, and he had had the roof of the old barn replaced, although they no longer kept any cattle. The barn was where he stored his merchandise. He was better off as a businessman than as a farmer, he had explained to her once. Not that he ever talked to her about his business – nor of the property deals, of course – but she had managed to find out a thing or two for herself. He would buy cheaply from old widows and sell dearly to Londoners and golfing entrepreneurs. People, mainly the relatives of the old widows, would get cross with him from time to time, even upset. She knew this because they would sometimes ring up and shout down the line. But he would only put on his charms, the ones that made people afraid of him, and, afterwards, he would smile and hum to himself. ‘It went for a song, Granny’s bungalow did – a fucking song!’ But then, a few years ago, there had been no more singing or dancing. His business had turned for the worse. He had never allowed her to work – to have a proper job outside the house. She chuckled to herself as she thought about what her husband might have said about her job at the professor’s – at Gabriel Askew’s – who was not just a stranger to her husband, after all. Oh, no – no stranger at all. She shivered at the thought and yet she was strangely pleased.

  Suddenly, she stirred and grabbed her handbag that sat perkily on the seat next to her. She opened the oversized metal clasp with a click and looked inside, rummaging nervously through the jumble of lipsticks, old bus tickets, Kleenex, a miniature bottle of Jägermeister and a couple of postcards that she had never sent to Exeter. Then she found what she was looking for and relaxed. It was a piece of paper – a document that she had found when clearing out her husband’s filing cabinet a few weeks previously. She was surprised that there were still some documents left in the house. Throughout their marriage, she had avoided knowing about her husband’s business. But lately, since the professor arrived in the village, something – a sliver of a memory from the time before her fate was sealed – had made her want to find out more. She had no idea what she had been looking for, but this particular file had caught her eye immediately. It puzzled her – she could not make head nor tail of it – but, as far as she could tell, it seemed to suggest that the professor had bought Oakstone from her husband, that Jim of Blackaton had been sitting on the deeds to the house for years – just holding on to it. If he had been letting it, she had not been aware of it. As far as she knew, the house had been boarded up. It seemed almost perverse. There was an entire file just on Oakstone. How was it possible? Where could he have got hold of the deeds? There was no way he could ever have afforded to buy that house – that much she realised – not a grade two listed house. She had been thinking about it for weeks. Perhaps, today, once she had bought the foundation at Rowden’s, she would bring herself to ask Mr Askew about the strange document.

  The road turned off the moor and followed the stream down into the valley, where the hedges were still thick, if not lush, and the oaks and the elms, old and wise above the bus, heralded the approach with their autumn colours. This was good – it was all fine – and she could already see the tower of Mortford church ahead – solid, reassuring. And the stone in her chest began to float.

  *

  Later that afternoon, Mr Askew watched her toiling up the drive. From where he was standing vigilantly by the French windows, he imagined he heard her heavy breathing – a plump person’s breathing – as she pushed on up the
gravel, where the potholes were mud-thick and un-drained. A green and white plastic bag from Rowden’s was dangling from her left wrist and that ridiculously large handbag of hers was swinging heavily from the other; every now and again it would bang against her right thigh. He gazed up beyond her as a weak sun broke through the drab November sky for a moment. A couple of bare branches on the huge trees at the end of the garden were black against the marbled background of greys and whites. Their trunks were barbed in ivy – like strings of broken lyres.

  He had listened to a programme on Radio Four that morning about migratory thrushes – how they would fly south from Britain in November, only to be trapped and caught by hunters in eastern Spain and served as tapas in local restaurants. Bird-watchers were quite reasonably upset about this, but the Spanish were unmoved, claiming that their practice was an unbroken cultural heritage going back to Roman times – a tradition that must be encouraged, according to some EU policy about regional growth. ‘Some blessed hope,’ Mr Askew muttered to himself and shook his head before turning his mind to the lucky songbirds who managed to avoid the Spanish glue traps and flew on to North Africa; how, come spring, a handful of them would home in on those trees at the end of his garden and travel thousands of miles to find this very spot again. Lucky birds, to believe in home, to have such an instinct for belonging. The whole thing baffled him.

  He turned away from it and, with a long sigh, lowered his eyes once more to the outlandish figure of Mrs Ludgate – who was nowhere to be seen. She seemed to have disappeared into thin air, quite literally. He blinked. ‘What the—’ he began, greatly annoyed, but broke off abruptly as her face suddenly appeared right in front of him, pressed against the windowpane. They were inches apart, only separated by the glass. For an unsettling moment, he was forced to look straight into her eyes. They were of a peculiar violet blue and somehow angry, but there was something else, too, something which he could not quite place. ‘Argh!’ he barked, involuntarily. Mrs Ludgate looked equally perturbed, but she collected herself quickly and pointed sternly towards the front door, the plastic carrier from Rowden’s swinging like a punchbag. Her face was an odd colour, he noticed, and blotchy like the bark of a beech tree, and there was a drop at the end of her nose. It glittered briefly in the weak sun.