House of Bells

by Chaz Brenchley

  Tom didn’t say anything about the bread. He’d been purposefully dismissive of the stew, just because he knew how good it was, how rare; the bread he put into her hand, take it or leave it, no comment.

  She did take a bite, but it was brown and fibrous, chewy, rough, too serious for her. She was a frivolous girl, when she could manage still to be a girl at all. Just across the table was another girl, long hair conscientiously plaited, skirt to her ankles, bare feet tucked under; she was eating bread with conviction, where any woman Georgie knew would be plucking at it, rolling little pellets, leaving the solid crusts on her side plate.

  Every woman Grace knew would be ignoring it altogether.

  Here there was no side plate, nothing so decorous. No tablecloth, either. She had known, had eaten in houses where the polite thing was to use the tablecloth for your bread. The upper crust was strange. They couldn’t just afford plates, they had plates by the dozen, by the many dozen, all matching, all frighteningly valuable. That might have been why they didn’t use them, except that all the other courses came on that same crockery: just not the bread. Someone had told her once that it was because in olden times there weren’t any plates, your bread served as the plate and went straight on the table, and this was a modern version of that – but she hadn’t really believed him, then or since. People did like to wind a girl up so, when she didn’t understand a thing.

  She didn’t like the bread much, didn’t want it, but didn’t want to put it down. She was fairly sure that these people would frown on waste. She chewed her way through a few more bites, but really, the stew was all she wanted. Stew and more stew.

  Bless him, Tom had noticed. He served her another ladleful before even her bowl was empty; and a little after that, he reached across to snare that hunk of disregarded bread from her poor sore hand and eat it heedlessly himself.

  ‘Sorry,’ he mumbled around the crust, ‘it’s a little earnest, the bread we make. A bit on the worthy side.’

  It was. They made it, he said, in a wood-burning brick oven they’d built themselves in the stable yard. She thought they could have used their loaves for bricks, to build another. And didn’t quite like to say so, but the thought made her giggle regardless. He quirked an enquiring eyebrow at her; she shook her head, dropped her gaze, went back to eating stew.

  After a while, she remembered that she was here on a mission. She was supposed to be spying, not really in retreat. There was no point actually living out her cover story, shy girl on the run, hiding from her own life. Tony might not pay for that, he might not feel obliged; money might suddenly become an object after all.

  Between spoonfuls, then, she looked around as best she could, peeping from below her fringe. Shifting her weight, shifting her legs from one side to the other, taking any opportunity to face another way, snatch another view. She was like a buttonhole camera, secretly bold.

  If she caught someone’s eye, well. Even a shy girl would peek about, wouldn’t she? Once she’d come this far? And then dart her eyes back to her bowl again, then peek again.

  She wasn’t sure if she’d ever been honestly shy, but she did seem to have Georgie in her bones. She understood that girl, from the inside out. Even if she’d never been her, or anything like her.

  There were a lot of people here, a lot of faces to peek at. No point trying to learn them in this difficult light, at distance, in snatched glances through her hair. Any more than there was any point trying to pick out individual voices in the general buzz of conversation. Just impressions, then. It was as much as anyone could ask of her, the first night here. As much as she would ever ask of herself.

  There were as many women as men here, she thought, more or less. It was hard to be sure when they all sat together, when so many wore their hair long and loose, when they were bent over bowls or turned towards one another with their heads close, when their clothes had little to say about what sex they were. While they were sitting down, at least. She might reasonably hope not to see boys in skirts, though she expected plenty of girls in trousers.

  She was wearing a minidress herself, to keep in character. One more swivel from one hip to the other, one more tug at the hem of it where it rode up high on her thigh; Tom said, ‘You’re really not used to sitting on the floor, are you? Poor Georgie.’

  Actually, she preferred it, though not quite like this. Give her a soft shagpile carpet, room to stretch her legs and a man in a chair behind to lean against, something slow on the record player and his hand on her cheek. With everything that that implied, before and after. Really, she was no good on her own.

  She was on her own here, and needed to be good. She said, ‘I’m not wearing the right clothes, that’s all.’ Another tug, another shift, like a girl dressed for fashion but uncomfortable with showing so much leg. Like a little idiot who had run to the country, to a commune, without giving a moment’s thought to what that meant. Like a girl whose suitcase was full of city dresses, yes. If anyone was looking, if anyone cared enough to look.

  There’s something going on there, Tony had said. Go in like an innocent, and if you get caught – well, be guilty of something else. Of being yourself. Why not?

  He was a clever lad, Tony. She almost felt safe, almost.

  ‘Not to worry,’ Tom said. ‘We’ll sort you out something to wear, something you’ll be comfy in. This evening, after you’ve talked to Leonard.’

  Sitting this way, at this angle to the long room, she could see Leonard and Mary quite easily, no need even to move her head. Not that it did her much good at this distance, in this light; they were too far away to read expressions, let alone lips. Not that she knew how to read lips anyway. A proper spy, she thought, would be better trained and better prepared.

  If this was a movie, she’d be doing everything right. Being herself in the city, bright lights and cocktails; recruited at a party, briefed in glamorous Soho; going undercover far from home, disappearing into a sinister commune under another name, living secretly among strange and dangerous people who harboured ambitions that she didn’t understand.

  But then, if this was a movie, she’d be James Bond. Jane Bond. Cool and lethal, enigmatic, desirable.

  A lot of men desired Grace Harley, but that was different. That was . . . quite horrible, actually, when she thought about it now. She’d become collectable, something to be bragged about in that cold, dismissive manner that expensive men liked to cultivate. ‘The Harley girl? Lord, yes. I’ve had her. Who hasn’t? Grace and Favour, they call her: she’ll do anyone a favour, if you only have the grace to pay her.’

  It was almost true, that was almost the worst of it. It wasn’t what she wanted; it wasn’t anywhere near or anything like what she wanted; but she couldn’t have what she wanted, so why not?

  This wasn’t a career move, just a diversion. She wasn’t really a spy, or a reporter. Whatever happened here, soon enough she’d find herself back in London and doing what she did again, being who she was. Grace Harley wasn’t a job, she was a life sentence. The judge had understood that, she thought. He’d even been sympathetic, a little. You’ve been punished enough. What that really meant was: Go out and be who you are, learn to live with yourself. It’s never going to get any better.

  If she did well here, Tony might hire her to work for his paper properly. She could write about fashion, maybe. Or be a gossip columnist. They didn’t even use their own names; that could be a whole other kind of going undercover, being herself at parties and then writing them up, having the whole world of London wonder who she was, this Bella Donna who went everywhere and knew everyone and was so scathing about them all in print . . .

  But she’d still have to go to the parties and be Grace Harley. From here, already, it looked unbearable. She couldn’t imagine how she had survived it all these months. Brazen they called her, but it wasn’t true. Brazen meant brassy, she’d looked that up; and brassy meant hard. Stubborn under all that surface polish, the immaculate shine. Not crying yourself to sleep any night you found yourse
lf alone; not stubbornly setting out to make sure you never were alone if you could help it. They thought she didn’t care. What they never saw was how hard she had to work to keep herself from caring.

  From where she was sitting, the way she sat, it was easy to tell when the meal was over. There was no formality to it: only that Leonard and Mary stood up, bowed a little to this side of the room and to that, and turned away from the table. Turning inwardly, towards each other, like lovers do. Military men all went the same way, she’d noticed, as though they were drilled to do it, while two businessmen would turn independently, away from each other. If Leonard and Mary shared a word or a touch she couldn’t see it, but their bodies declared an intimacy that she ought to be aware of. Whether or not it was passionate or physical. The elderly could still get it on, she knew – too well, she knew it! – but they had ways of mattering to each other without needing to sleep together. She knew that too and envied it, almost. Looked forward to it, almost.

  There was another set of double doors behind where they had sat. They went through those alone, with no fuss at all, and let the door swing closed again behind them.

  That was when she realized that all the room’s talking had died when they rose, that everyone must have been keeping a quiet eye on them just as she had. As the door closed at their backs, there was a single soft sigh, as though the room itself had let out a breath of disappointment. Really, it was half a hundred mouths in unison, acknowledging a loss, the departure of the guru.

  It was odd, slightly. He didn’t look like a guru: a shortish man, slightly bandy-legged, with a neat aggressive little beard and a weathered face. Commonplace clothes, jacket and trousers: Mother Mary might dress in robes, but not he.

  Well. He must have something. She’d find out, one way or another. I’ll do my best for you, Tony love. Even if there’s really no mystery, if this is just an excuse to be nice, to get me out of town . . . It was a suspicion that had crossed her mind more than once, that this was really a charade all aimed at her, for her benefit, to find her another way to live. She liked to dream sometimes that Tony really was that kind underneath and really did care that much, that he’d disguise charity as a job of work. Not even fantasy Tony could seriously imagine that she’d settle to life in a commune at the arse end of the world, but yes: to get her out of London for a while, off the front page of the papers? Even his own paper? Fantasy Tony would do that. Actual Tony not, of course not. Actual Tony would look for his own and the Messenger’s advantage, and do something nice for her if it suited. Which meant that no, this wasn’t a hoax and she wasn’t being double-crossed; which meant . . .

  Never mind. Someone else was standing now, but not turning away. A man, his long hair bound back with a leather thong. He held his hands up against the rising murmur and smiled broadly as it died back again.

  ‘Thanks, people.’ His voice was mellow but carrying; he was in his thirties, maybe, as near as she could tell; and, oh yes, he had something. Even at this distance, at the wrong end of a crowded room. A while ago – years now, but she still remembered it – she’d been at the back of a crowd when her host uncorked some fabulous bottle of wine at the front. She remembered how the smell of it had come to her, all that far away, at the back of all those other people; how it had perfumed the air, how it had silenced them all.

  This was like that. Whatever it was about him, his gift, his gift of presence: it washed through all that long room like a swell of clean fresh water. People sat back on their heels, put down their bread, would have strained to hear him except that they didn’t need to, he came through loud and clear and easy.

  ‘Just a few announcements, to keep everyone up to speed. We’re running short of wood again, so anyone who’s walking in the valley, do your share and drag back a branch or two. Fallen branches only, of course. Give the trees a chance.

  ‘And Cookie says the power’s off in the west wing for a reason, he’s very suspicious about a box or a relay or something and he’s waiting for parts, so don’t fuss at him about it. We don’t need electricity out there anyway; it’s just an inconvenience. If anybody’s sleeping over that side, they only have to get out of bed to switch it off. Candles are easier, so long as you’re careful.

  ‘Talking of being careful, there’s a leak in the painted bathroom. Just cold water, so don’t be alarmed, but you’ll get wet feet paddling about in it. Cookie says he’ll get to it in the morning . . .’

  It was like parish announcements at church when she was little, when her mother still made her go. She should have drifted off, let her thoughts wander and her eyes too. And yet, and yet. He was like the most charismatic vicar ever. Or that really cool teacher that no school ever actually had, the one that all the girls would dreamily fancy while the boys vied for his attention because he came in on a motorbike and hung out with some deep band at weekends and would take half a dozen favourites off in the holidays for an adventure.

  There’d been a succession of men at her school who had tried to be that guy. Probably every school had those: the ones who grew their hair and didn’t shave, wore coloured shirts and pendants, talked hip and always, always disappointed. She’d been like any of the girls, falling for it, willing to believe. Before they let her down, she would sit in class or assembly trying frantically to catch their eye, to be the one they noticed: to matter, somehow, more than her friends to left and right. It was what she’d always done, to chase after an elusive celebrity. And then catch it, and find it after all not worth the effort, not deserving of the dream.

  She wasn’t even trying to catch this man’s eye, not pushing herself forward, not in the race any more.

  And yet he was looking right at her now, his bright gaze snaring her through the shadows as he said, ‘As usual, Mary and the captain ask us to leave them alone this hour, to let them have some quiet time together. It’s not so much to ask, people, is it?’

  It didn’t seem like anything at all. Who would worry about letting the old ones go off to bed, while this golden man remained to them?

  But Tom touched her hand and said, ‘Don’t worry, Leonard will see you,’ even while a murmur of agreement was still rolling along the tables:

  No, not so much, we’ll let them be, of course we will, don’t we always?

  She just shrugged at him heedlessly, her eyes still fixed on that man as he made his way between two tables into the open arena of the floor, as he walked unhurriedly in her direction, as he came directly and indisputably to her.

  Training held good; she knew how to stand up gracefully, even from the floor with nothing to hold on to. She was on her feet before his offered hand could be any use to her. On her stockinged feet, because she’d slipped her shoes off when she sat down; her head barely reached to his shoulder, though his own feet were bare. Tall as well as golden, then. And very much a man – nothing of the boy about him, nothing to prove. Not likely to be a disappointment, this one. It was probably just as well that she didn’t want anything from him.

  He took her hand anyway, although she was up already and didn’t need the help: not to shake, apparently, just to hold it as he smiled down at her. Warmth and strength in his silky fingers, warmth and strength in his honey voice as he said, ‘I’m Webb. They tell me you’re called Georgie?’

  She nodded, slightly unhappy at even that fractional lie. She’d never been a natural liar. She’d had to learn the art of it in bed, even, to boost the frail egos of the men who took her there. They only liked to be laughed at with their clothes on. In court she’d told the pure simple truths of all she’d done and everything she’d taken, the men and the money, the advantage and the risks. To the papers, too: nothing but the truth. It had done her little good. If honesty was the best policy, she had yet to be shown any good reason for it. It was just easier, that was all.

  She was sorry suddenly to be entering this house on a lie, even such a small one. People changed their names for all sorts of reasons, all the time: for politics, for safety, for escape, for sex, for
fun. What kind of name was Webb, anyway? Not the kind you found on a birth certificate, unless it was a surname, and he wasn’t the kind of man in the kind of place to be going by his surname. No. He’d just chosen what he wanted people to call him, and so had she, and—

  And she was still sorry to be telling him a lie, even if it didn’t really matter. Even if he knew it and didn’t care. Perhaps it was only her guilty conscience, but she had a feeling that he could see right through her.

  He said, ‘Well, if you’re ready now, Georgie –’ if you’ve got your story all prepared was what she heard, though the tilt of his head towards the table seemed to say if you’ve finished your supper – ‘why don’t you come on through and meet the captain?’

  ‘I, um, thought you said he wouldn’t want to be disturbed . . .?’

  ‘He’s not generally available after dinner. If he was, he’d never have a moment to himself, or for Mary. He does always like to meet newcomers, though, as soon as may be. This is the best time, when you can sit and talk and not be interrupted a dozen times an hour.’

  ‘Wouldn’t Mary rather . . .?’

  ‘I expect she would, yes – but she won’t say so. She learned long since that there’s no point arguing with Leonard, for his good or your own, when the good running of the house is an issue. That’s why we had to learn to keep away in the evenings, to stop him wearing himself ragged; it’s our own decision, not his. I’m not sure he even knows. Come on, now. An invitation to the captain’s cabin is a privilege, and no one here disdains it.’

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t—!’

  But he was teasing her. She realized it too slow, smiled to acknowledge it too late. By then he was already walking, still keeping that loose grip on her hand so that she had to stumble after him or look absurd, tug herself free like a child not willing to be led.