Funeral Music

by Morag Joss

  While she was busy in the tiny kitchen next door Paul got up, pulled on the jeans that he had left on the floor and stepped outside through the French windows. The sting of gravel on his bare feet, then the prickle of the grass and the breeze on his bare shoulders made him want to pee. He walked gingerly across to the washing line under the chestnut trees, the morning air pricking his nose in a way that he liked. He could hear birds. He was waking up, and as he now began to think of her with his whole, thinking mind, the full knowledge of his predicament mingled with his physical longing for her. He always thought about sex first thing in the morning and for quite a while now it had been a welcome torment to think of it with her. He had met her just when his interest in Sue was waning. Sue had been sweet and he had been lonely, but he had exhausted all possibilities with Sue within months. But now he had met her, and she had moved him in a way no other woman, certainly no younger woman, ever had or could. Within a very short time he had realised that he loved her, and thinking, mistakenly, that this fact simplified everything else, he had told her so in a panicky, ardent rush that had genuinely surprised her. He had been sure that his revelation gave her pleasure, although she had not consented to becoming his lover. She tried half-heartedly to talk him out of it in that flattening English way that was so easy to see through. She said that he should think of his girlfriend; if he left her on the strength of this ‘silly crush’, she would not consent to see him again. So she was playing it dignified for the time being. He admired her for it.

  She had no children and never would have now. He was thirty-one. His mind slid again to her body, its ripeness all but blown over, its life-giving potential unfelt, the quiet, mothering part of her reduced to a whisper. He ached to wrap himself in her, rock her out of her smooth habit of reciting a serene rationale for everything in her duty-laden life. She knew that her coolness was driving him wild, but she would not allow herself, and him, the pleasure of being thawed. She insisted that his feelings for her were based on pity, and would pass; he should settle down with Sue. They both knew that she did not really mean any of this, that no amount of English sensibleness would talk away the turbulence they both felt; he wanted only to touch some long-embedded nerve in her that would let her shout aloud her disappointment with her life. He wanted to hear her say that she needed him, as they both knew she did. He would melt her. He would make her love him as he loved her. For the first time in his life he had found that he was prepared to wait. Sex, of course, he would continue to have with others while he waited; it simply added to the frisson with which he anticipated it with her. One day. For now, the knowledge that it would happen was enough.

  Sun slanted through the chestnut branches overhead. He tugged his warm T-shirt off the line and he felt where it was sticky with the sap that had dripped from the trees. The faint smell of soap powder as he pulled it over his head reminded him of Sue. Think of Sue. She was the one deserving of pity, really, walking out now with their coffee cups, in her shorts and sandals, smiling up at the sun. She was all summer, golden and young, yet her approach across the cat-walk of the grass was like the coming of frost.

  He took his coffee, smiling, and braced himself for conversation. It was his day off. Sue was on duty in an hour, and she was bound to open brightly with some suggestion about meeting up for a quick jog or a sandwich during her shift, anything to break up her interminable day when she could not know for certain what he was doing. He had to preempt her.

  ‘Can you do me a favour this morning? Give me a lift to the station? I’ve got to go to London,’ he said, as breezily as he dared.

  ‘Oh. Oh. You didn’t say anything about going. What for? Of course I’ll take you,’ she added, anticipating his impatience.‘I’m just surprised. I didn’t know. Is it, um, anything interesting? Why are you’re going?’

  ‘It’s interesting. But I haven’t any more to tell you than that. Not yet. Okay?’ He knew this to be unsatisfactory, but with the right smile, which he now turned on her, it would do. She was such a sweet person, really.

  ‘Ooh, be all mysterious then,’ she said playfully. ‘See if I care. Want some toast?’

  She had learned that it only made him angry if she pestered him and they drove more or less in silence to the station in Sue’s old car. Paul used the inherent difficulty of saying good bye in cars to good effect and kissed her on the edge of her face with the side of his mouth. Sue drove back feeling only a little more alone than she had when in his company. Face it, she told herself, it’s over. No, it isn’t, she said back. He’s going through some kind of crisis and needs you with him. He just can’t say so. Of course he’s scared of commitment, he’s a man. But he’s still here, isn’t he? Remember how it was at the beginning. One day he’ll realise what a great thing we’ve got going and he’ll surprise me.

  Sue had always loved best the stories that ended ‘and he just swept her off her feet’. For the rest of the day she stood by her man, incubating the hope that Paul was in London on some business to do with their future together: an interview for a proper chef’s job, getting them a flat, maybe even choosing a ring. If he would only come back with just one lovely, wonderful surprise that would show her how wrong she was to have been quietly losing hope in him. ‘It’s a solitaire. Do you mind having just one diamond, darling?’ Even flowers would do, anything, just one sweet, touching, silly gesture that would prove to her that he loved her, perhaps even as much as she loved him. ‘They’re gardenias, darling. And now you need a wedding dress to wear with them.’ All that was needed to dispel instantly the long shadow in her, the sad suspicion that he never would take proper care of her, was just one glorious Hollywood ending. But so far he had never even called her darling.

  LATER, WHEN Sue had begun to wonder which train Paul would be coming back on, Sara sauntered into the club.

  ‘Fancy doing a run?’ Sue asked. ‘Nothing strenuous, it’s too hot. Just the short one, down the drive and round?’

  ‘Sure,’ Sara said, knowing that a run with Sue meant un-competitive companionship and encouragement to show a bit of pace when she needed it. It was no hardship to listen to the latest in Sue’s love life; in fact she had to admit that now that she had met Paul it was all rather riveting. For Sue it was restful to have a running companion whose pace was more sedate than her own and who often noticed things along the route, and it was also a way of getting out of serving coffee to those club members who supported the idea of exercise in principle but so often felt, on balance, that it was altogether better for them to lie by the pool in a bathrobe.

  ‘It was nice to meet Paul properly,’ Sara began, as they made their way down the drive. ‘At Olivia’s,’ she added. ‘How long have you known him?’

  ‘Nearly two years. Almost since he came here. He worked in Bristol first. For a few months.’

  Talking while you were running required short sentences. Sue was dimly aware that she was choosing only the words she needed, giving her answers efficiently, and perhaps saying more than she really meant to. Sara had often noticed that the act of running, in separating you from the normal world, made your language plainer, your position clearer.

  ‘But you don’t live together, do you?’

  ‘Not properly. He’s only got the one room.’ They were close to the end of the drive. ‘But you know it’s not always easy.’

  ‘Well, never was, was it? You told me he was moody. How’re you doing? I’m not too bad today.’

  ‘Fine. Got these new trainers. Should be good, they were sixty quid. Lost my others. No, I mean, he’s been going off.’

  ‘How do you mean? He walks out?’

  ‘No, no. He just goes off. At weekends. Only sometimes.’

  At the end of the drive they turned right to do the short route and continued along the road where the narrow pavement followed the boundary wall of Fortune Park. Sue dropped back and, in single file, conversation stopped. After two or three minutes they reached the end of the wall, which turned away from the road at ninety degre
es and stretched back towards the hotel. A bridle path ran along the far side of the wall under a line of trees and Sara turned from the road onto it, running gently on the spot as Sue caught up and joined her.

  ‘He’s got friends in Bristol. His mates, he says. It’s only sometimes. I suppose I shouldn’t mind.’ They jogged on side by side.

  ‘God, I’m tired,’ Sara said. ‘We’re about halfway, now, thank God.’

  ‘Yep. You’re doing great. You should try zero-balancing – releases more energy.’

  ‘Hmm. Maybe. I could go astro-planing at the same time.’

  They ran on, cooling under the trees.

  ‘No, seriously. Anyway, Paul. The thing is, he always goes over there, they never come here. So I’ve never met them.’ Sue hesitated. ‘Sometimes I think he’s got someone else over there. I get all upset.’

  I bet you do, Sara thought, and felt sorry for her. She could imagine Sue in a state of near hysteria, her nice manners abandoned in a storm of fear, rage and bewilderment.

  ‘But I don’t think he has, really. He’s gone to London today. Don’t know why, think it may be about a job.’

  ‘That would be exciting. Would you mind moving?’

  ‘Oh, no, I’d like it. I want us to get a flat anyway, a proper place together. Even if we stay here we’ll probably manage it – by Christmas, I keep saying to him.’

  They ran on in silence for a while.

  ‘Look, we’re here. There’s the gate.’

  They entered the grounds of Fortune Park by the gate in the boundary wall and ran on along the bark path that wound through the woods. There were many of these paths, artfully made to wind and wander among the trees. There were benches here and there, and through the trees they could see glimpses of the hotel on the right. Staying out of sight they jogged on before clearing the woods behind the buildings and coming out onto the gravel of the tiny overflow car park at the back of the health club. Here they halted. They had been running for only twenty minutes, not a difficult run for either of them, but there was as always a moment of shared triumph at the finish.

  ‘Good one,’ Sara said. ‘Thanks. God, I’m hot. You swimming?’

  ‘No, I’ll have a shower at Paul’s in a bit,’ Sue said, nodding towards the detached stone house under the trees on the far side of the car park. A covered walk of about sixty yards through its front garden led to double doors with the sign ‘Fortune Park Spa Hair and Beauty’ above. She prised her key out of her shorts pocket.

  ‘Is that where he lives? I thought that was the beauty salon and hairdressing place.’

  ‘It is. They’ve got the two main rooms on the ground floor and one room upstairs. But round the back it’s converted. Paul’s room is downstairs and there are outside stairs up to the two other staff rooms. He’s got his own little bathroom. It’s nice. No proper kitchen, but it’s not bad. Come and see. Fancy a coffee?’

  Sara, her face resplendently pink, knowing that her legs needed waxing, accepted, reassuring herself that there was no chance of running into Paul. Sue led the way past a line of rhododendrons round to the back of the house where French windows and a solid back door gave on to a square of grass under the chestnuts. Round the far side of the house a wooden staircase stretched up to a small door at first-floor level. They went in by the main back door into a small square hallway which was almost filled by Paul’s bike and a line of laden coathooks with an assortment of trainers and wellies underneath. The door on their left was Paul’s room and next to it a doorway led into a small basic galley kitchen. Sue pointed at one of the two doors opposite.

  ‘That’s the way into the salon. The girls used to make coffee in the kitchen, before it was converted, but they’ve got their own place now. That door’s kept locked. That other one’s the bathroom.’

  They took their coffee into the large bed-sitting room and sat in the two rattan armchairs.

  Sue waved an arm. ‘I’ve just rearranged it all. I read this thing about feng shui and realised at once why Paul and me kept going wrong. The energies in here were completely blocked.’ She frowned. ‘Course, it takes a while for the new energies to flow. But it’s a bit better. Although he shouldn’t have the flowers. And I keep telling him about the blue. Still.’

  Sara looked round. Although some of Sue’s clothes (and none of his) were draped over a chair at the bedside, it was definitely Paul’s room and not Paul’s and Sue’s. It was essentially simple and orderly. A portable television stood on a low black circular table in one corner. There was a double bed in the other corner, covered with a dark blue heavy cotton bedspread. The shelves which ran along one wall above a long, built-in chest of drawers contained mainly books: food and cookery classics – Larousse, Escoffier, Michel Guérard, Elizabeth David – but also many others, the drawings of Degas, one on the Incas, another on the cave paintings at Lascaux. The bookends were simple cubes of black marble. There was a modern clock with no numerals and two or three ethnic sculptures. Instead of proper curtains, several dozen yards of striped ticking had been ingeniously draped and stapled to a pole that ran almost the length of the wall, and were now pushed behind two heavy iron hooks that had been set into the wall at the sides of the French windows. In front of the window was a small square table with a cloth of the same ticking on which stood a tall glass jug of deep ultramarine containing several sprigs of philadelphus. It was grown-up and male and altogether consistent with Sara’s impression of Paul, yet there was something else, something that, although familiar, she could not quite identify.

  ‘Oooo, look at the time!’ Sue suddenly squealed and got to her feet. ‘And I said I’d be back at four. Look, I’m just getting under the shower for a second. No, don’t go.’ She had already picked up a towel and was on her way out the door. ‘You stay and finish your coffee. Shan’t be a tic.’

  A few seconds later Sara heard the noise of the shower. She got up and went over to the bookshelves, and picking a book almost at random opened it, not out of interest in its contents but to see if there were some inscription or some other little tantalising insight into its owner. But there was nothing, not even his name. As she replaced the book she wondered idly what his handwriting was like. It was just as she was reaching up to the top shelf for the book of Degas drawings that she heard the voice say, almost in a whisper, ‘How’s the finger?’

  She spun round to see Paul laughing in the doorway of the French windows. Before she could say anything he had crossed the threshold, slung his black denim jacket on the bed and stopped in front of her, his thumbs hooked over the front pockets of his jeans.

  ‘What an honneur, madame,’ he said, bowing slightly, his green eyes not leaving her face.

  ‘Sue’s in the shower,’ Sara blurted. ‘We were running together. She asked me for coffee. She’s just had to dash off and have a shower.’

  Paul took in the background shshsh and his face broke into a sarcastic smile of disappointment. ‘Tcha! And I thought perhaps you had come to see me. For a consultation and possibly even . . . further treatment.’ He was laughing at her embarrassment. And without being in the least furtive, he was looking steadily and thoughtfully at her body.

  Sara cursed herself for being caught in her clinging, sweaty running clothes and with a greasy face. Just how hairy were they, her legs? And she knew, without looking down, that the coolness of the room had made her nipples stand out under her thin vest. Oh, please, God, please let them be level, she prayed.

  ‘So, we’ll have to find a more convenient time, won’t we?’ he said, still amused.

  She knew better than to reply. She stared straight back at him and with one hand slowly moved her damp fringe off her forehead with a gesture of dignified disdain. At that moment the shower stopped abruptly and Paul moved over to the door.

  ‘I’m back!’ he called, which brought a muffled ‘Ooooh’ from the bathroom and a moment later a drenched and delighted Sue skipped into the room, wrapped in a very short towel. Sara made her excuses and went back to the cha
nging room at the club, blazing.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE NEXT DAY, unable to put it off any longer, Sara telephoned Andrew to apologise. He apologised back and admitted it had been difficult to detain the friend of ‘someone he felt close to’. But now, if she had a moment to listen, he had other things to worry about.

  ‘What? What happened to your instrument?’ asked Sara eventually.

  ‘Natalie,’ said Andrew dully at the other end of the telephone. ‘Natalie happened to it.’

  It was the drained voice of a man whose anger is spent.

  ‘Our youngest; she’s five. She decided to post all her Polly Pockets into my cello. What? Oh, they’re little miniature plastic doll things. Then she couldn’t get them out, so she decided that the cello was their own little house with a funny curly door. So to make it prettier, she decorated it with felt tips and wrote POOLY POCIT LIVS HER on the front. Then she gave them their tea. Half a packet of crisps, a Milky Way and a carton of Ribena. And a yoghurt. Blackcurrant. Straight in.’