Quiet City

by Philip Davison

  ‘That’s good. I like Chinese. Want me to collect it?’ He did well to cover his excitement.

  No-no, she explained, she was preparing the food at home. Actually, she was thinking that lunch would be better.

  ‘Wonderful. I’ll bring something special.’

  Oh God. What was she doing really? Poor Tom. Poor Gloria. Where had all the sparrows gone?

  ‘When you say Chinese night …. We’re having lunch, right?’

  ‘Yes. Chinese lunch. Two o’clock.’

  ‘That’s fine. I don’t want to get the time wrong.’

  Gloria lifted her eyes to the mirror. Only the eyes were hers, with their smudged black rings. The body belonged to her mother. A good-looking mother, she had to admit. A woman with bobbed grey hair turning white, who would still flirt with the likes of Tom.

  Change the hair, she thought, prodding her fingers through the thick of it. Its thickness afforded some protection in court. It seemed to absorb some of the excess alpha-waves. Getting the right cut would be a challenge.

  Widow. She spoke the word aloud. Bag-lady potential, she thought. Best go to London for that. She’d be a good bag lady – if there was such a thing as being good at it. She would persist, is what she meant. She still had stamina. She had never been less than tenacious. Pity, in a way.

  The longer she stood in front of the mirror, the less like her mother she appeared. She studied her reflection for a long time. Change the hair, she confirmed. No bob.

  She saw that she had arched her back and was pushing her breasts out. She did not judge herself harshly. She ran the fingertips of one hand lightly down her throat, where the skin had started to sag. She had things to say to Tom that would excite them both, as she and Richard had once been excited. This had not been lost. He would be making an effort, too, no doubt.

  She would try that burgundy lipstick, and be free with her talk.

  Tom was late. While she waited, she soaked the roots of the weeping fig in Richard’s study, then, in an extension of her spontaneous action, pruned it to extinction.

  She knew that Tom’s business wasn’t doing well. He might be sued. Perhaps she could help with getting him the best legal counsel. Richard would want her to help him.

  She and Tom were made of resilient stuff, she thought. More elastic than Richard. Perhaps there wasn’t much active consoling to do. The one cancelling the other, as it were. Just a deep blue embrace, a tear or two, then open his bottle of fine wine – which he was certain to bring. She was back at the living-room window, looking down anxiously into the street.

  Start with a firm embrace and the evening would be a simple success, even if the food she made was a disaster. Latecomers weren’t in a position to complain.

  Serving something bland or mediocre would be worse. In any case, what she had cooked didn’t go with red wine. She must remember to make a fuss of the wine he had under his oxter.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, Gloria,’ he panted. ‘Sorry, sorry.’

  ‘That’s all right, Tom.’ She gave him a firm embrace and kissed him on the cheek.

  ‘Mmm, lovely smell.’

  Did he mean her or the lunch? Gloria didn’t ask.

  ‘What’s that?’ he enquired, looking in through the open study door at the pile of branches from a weeping fig.

  ‘A mistake,’ she replied bluntly.

  Did she mean that having the fig tree was a mistake, or chopping off the branches? He didn’t ask. ‘Never mind,’ he said. He wanted to sound enthusiastic, but he was reeling from his latest fiasco. ‘They want the house,’ he declared, following Gloria through to the kitchen. ‘That’s what has delayed me.’

  ‘Your house. You’re having to sell up?’

  ‘No. The bank. They’re taking it.’

  ‘Dear God. Can’t you reschedule the mortgage? Pay interest only?’

  ‘Done all that.’ He had two bottles of wine, one for each oxter. He handed them over.

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘We’ll want one of them open right way. Let it breathe.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Open them both, maybe ….’

  ‘Bastards. Sorry to hear about the situation. If they put you on the street, you can stay here.’

  ‘Can I?’

  ‘No.’

  He laughed, and so did she. She was surprised by her own offer. With both arms free now, he embraced her. Actually, it was more of a bear-hug. ‘Gloria … Gloria ….’ He sprang her free.

  ‘What will you do?’

  ‘I’ll find a few quid, give them that, and renegotiate. That’s what has me late. I was on the phone. Sorry.’

  ‘You didn’t buy this specially?’ she asked, holding one bottle aloft.

  ‘I have a few left. When that’s gone, well ….’

  He stepped in close again; this was more intimate than the bear-hug. ‘How are you?’ he asked, in something just above a whisper.

  ‘I’m OK,’ Gloria said, and blanched. They were both wildly self-conscious, but not feeling guilty, and that was thrilling. He nodded, broke into a broad smile and moved to take down two stem glasses from ranks on a nearby shelf. Gloria hesitated, seemed momentarily frozen.

  ‘Show me what you have,’ he said, pointing to the stove with a glass. ‘You sit down and I’ll serve.’

  She did just that. ‘I meant to say to you, Tom, that if you need legal advice I could recommend someone, I’m sure. I can ask.’

  ‘Thank you so much,’ he said, rooting for a corkscrew without asking. ‘Have one.’ He told her the name of his solicitor. ‘She’s not bad – so far. We’ll see, won’t we?’

  Gloria tried to sound positive. She closed her eyes for the cork-pop. Opened them to watch her guest put the mouth of the bottle to his nose and inhale. ‘I’m looking forward to this.’

  There was a buzz from the intercom. Gloria lifted the receiver and saw on the small screen her mother lean into the camera lens mounted in the speaker-box. Gloria let out an impressive whinny.

  ‘It’s me, darling,’ her mother announced militantly. ‘Open the door.’

  ‘Hell’s bells.’

  ‘Hell’s bells,’ Tom repeated. He hadn’t heard that phrase in a long time.

  ‘My mother.’ For a moment it appeared that Gloria was stuck to the floor with daughterly exasperation.

  The buzzer sounded again. ‘I know you’re there.’

  ‘Aren’t you going to let her in?’

  ‘Of course I am.’ She buzzed her mother into the building, went to the apartment door, swung it open and stood with one leg in the corridor to watch the entrance to the lift.

  When the lift doors opened, her mother stepped out like a diva. She had this act she put on that suggested she wasn’t sure which apartment her daughter and son-in-law occupied. She did her strange-place walk now, despite seeing Gloria positioned in her doorway.

  ‘Hello, mother.’

  ‘Hello, Gloria dear.’ She had a Brown Thomas bag firmly crooked on one forearm, which temporarily masked the ancient crocodile handbag underneath. ‘You’re in,’ she added pointedly.

  ‘I’m in,’ Gloria confirmed.

  ‘Happy birthday, dear.’ She held the bag out long before she reached the apartment door.

  ‘Thank you, Iris.’ She used her mother’s given name in an attempt to even things up. It never worked. ‘You really shouldn’t have given it any thought.’

  ‘Can’t help it, can I? You’re entertaining?’ She gleaned this by the way her daughter was standing.

  ‘As a matter of fact ….’

  ‘I’m glad,’ she said, abandoning her strangeplace walk in favour of something more progressive. ‘I won’t be staying.’

  Gloria took the Brown Thomas bag with a gracious smile and gave her mother a one-arm hug. ‘Thank you,’ she said again.

  ‘How are you?’ Iris asked. She wasn’t about to settle for anything less than a heartfelt full embrace.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Gloria replied softly. She had told her as much
on the phone the previous night. She knew that Iris was looking over her shoulder into the apartment to see who she had in there. Secretly, she had always thought that her mother was well set up for widowhood. Did her mother now think the same of her? ‘Come in.’

  ‘Are you sleeping?’ her mother asked, moving ahead without hesitation.

  Gloria’s sleep was erratic. It didn’t matter which side of the bed she slept on. When she slept, she didn’t remember much about the sleeping – except that it saved her life. ‘Yes, I’m sleeping.’

  ‘That’s my girl.’

  ‘Mother, this is Tom.’

  ‘Tom,’ she repeated, as if testing the weight of the name, and finding it wanting.

  ‘Pleased to meet you.’

  ‘Gloria,’ she said, abruptly switching, ‘aren’t you going to open your present?’

  ‘I am.’ Gloria fumbled with the black bow tired across the mouth of the striped bag, the ribbon her mother had double-knotted.

  ‘It’s her birthday,’ Iris said, switching back. ‘She didn’t tell you, did she?’

  ‘No. She didn’t.’

  ‘Happy birthday, my darling.’

  For an instant, it sounded to Tom’s ears that he was required to repeat the sentiment by rote. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said, wisely dropping the ‘my darling’, but substituting it with an awkward peck on the cheek.

  ‘I saw you at the funeral,’ her mother continued, her tone now suggesting interloper. ‘Are you moving in?’

  ‘How lovely,’ Gloria interjected loudly, as she pulled the finest of cashmere cardigans from the bag, sending a wad of tissue paper fluttering to the floor. ‘Thank you, Iris.’

  It was clear to Tom that Gloria’s sprightly eighty-two-year-old mother liked to fire her big guns first to see what would fall over. He was on to her. In fact, the encounter steeled his resolve. ‘You did see me at the funeral. And no, I’m not moving in.’

  ‘You’re a friend of my son-in-law?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Gloria invites you on her birthday, not her dear old mum. You can see I’m not offended. It’s as it should be. No friends for back-up. Fair enough, I say. Not even what’s-her-name from upstairs.’

  ‘Fidelma.’

  ‘A nice woman, Fidelma.’

  ‘Iris. Please….’

  ‘Won’t you sit down?’ Tom asked, pulling out a chair.

  ‘Sit down,’ Gloria ordered.

  ‘You needn’t worry,’ Iris said, sitting down, ‘I’ll not be staying. What’s that you’re cooking?’

  ‘Stay,’ Gloria insisted lamely. ‘Have something to eat with us.’

  ‘You’ll not make a gooseberry out of me.’ This, to anyone who might recognise it, was tacit approval.

  ‘We’re starting with dumplings.’

  ‘Dumplings?’ Iris said with incredulity. She wasn’t about to let up on the drama.

  They were then going to have noodles with crispy black bean chilli sauce, and chicken in fresh ginger with bok choy, mangetout, shallots and cashew nuts.

  ‘Good God.’

  ‘I’m really looking forward to it,’ Tom remarked comfortably.

  ‘Poor Richard,’ Gloria’s mother said, and suddenly burst into tears. Tom moved out of the way to let Gloria give Iris’s shoulders a firm hug – which saw her rally quickly. ‘What do you think happened, Tom? We don’t know. The Guards don’t know. What was he doing wandering in the middle of nowhere, the bloody fool?’

  Tom had no idea. ‘We must be patient.’

  ‘Huh.’ Gloria gave her mother a glass of water. ‘Something stronger, and I’ll be on my way.’ She poured her a gin and tonic. ‘We might never know,’ Iris continued, making fierce eye-contact with her daughter and squeezing her wrist. Gloria had to look away. For a while the three were joined in a deep silence. It was Gloria who looked searchingly to the others. Her love for Richard was not for sharing, they must know.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Iris. ‘Happy birthday, Gloria. Happy birthday, love.’ She rose to her feet, this strong-willed, agile and inquisitive old bird, and pointed with her glass. There was just the slightest weakness in the hips that made her roll a little when she walked. You could see it now as she left the kitchen and made for the open study door. ‘What’s that heap? What have you done, dear?’

  ‘I’m pruning,’ Gloria said.

  ‘I can do that for you.’ She was weeping again, and drinking from her glass as she circled the pile of fig branches on her way to visit the jagged thing that was left standing in the large ceramic pot.

  Iris was so upset for Gloria and for herself, it wasn’t difficult to get her to stay for lunch. Gloria had the extra place set at the dining table before her mother had agreed to it. Iris didn’t want wine. She stuck with her gin and tonic. She didn’t eat much, just picked at what was put on her plate. While the other two were still eating, she got up from the table, went to the piano and took a wad of sheet music from the piano stool. ‘Still here,’ she declared with a lamentable sigh.

  These were scores from the Great American Songbook, she explained to Tom – songs her husband used to play at this very piano, songs he would sing to her.

  ‘And to me,’ Gloria added.

  ‘We were happy together, weren’t we?’ It was as though she sought the confirmation from Tom, not her daughter.

  ‘Yes,’ Gloria answered gladly. ‘You were.’

  ‘That was before I put him in the home for the bewildered. I had to, you understand.’

  Tom nodded. He understood.

  ‘I’ll not be going in,’ she assured him. ‘They won’t have me reciting the alphabet every morning. I wouldn’t go. Would I, Gloria?’

  ‘No. You wouldn’t.’

  ‘The three of us here are happy together,’ Iris declared, as though it were a revelation. She had consumed too much to drive. She was really quite drunk. Ready to start a sing-song. Gloria said she would call a taxi. ‘I’ve told her to take my car, now that their one is gone,’ Iris told Tom. ‘I don’t need it much. I’ve enough for taxis, haven’t I, dear?’

  ‘You do. If I need to borrow your car – ’

  Her mother jumped in: ‘Take it,’ she boomed.

  ‘If I need it, I’ll be on to you. Have you anything in your fridge?’

  Gloria’s concern was dismissed with a wave of the hand. ‘Tom, dear, will you bag that mess in the study, and put it in the bin?’

  ‘I will.’ And he did. He and Gloria packed the fig branches into two large refuse sacks. He then slung them on his shoulders, and took them down in the lift to the bin-room, where he toppled them into an empty dumpster.

  The white sap made his hands stick to the steering wheel for the journey home. He was a little drunk, too. Drunk and confused – though he didn’t know about what. Not his money troubles. That was something separate. It had to do with the compassionate visit: that’s what had him so charged.

  As best he could, he kept a steady speed all the way back to the bank’s house.

  23

  Several days of rain showers had made Gloria think that the plants on her winter garden balcony didn’t need water. In fact, she hadn’t watered them in two weeks or more. It was only now that she saw they were in a sorry state. But she could bring them back, she was sure.

  Maybe she should just chuck them. Start with a new lot. Get a new weeping fig for the study, not let it grow from a plant into a tree.

  She made a hell of a mess, but got the balcony plants into plastic sacks, got the sacks down to the bin-room, got them into a dumpster. She went back up to the apartment, had her wine and biscuits, then went to church. She hadn’t been there since her husband’s funeral. She went early, arriving just as the doors were unlocked. She knelt in a pew and prayed moderately for her own salvation in this life, and hard for Richard’s spirit to go forwards and to settle. Could Richard Meadows, a Protestant atheist, please be shunted into the domain that lay beyond disbelief, as he was, no doubt, still in denial.

  She left the
church before the service began. She slipped out through one of the heavy swing doors with a nod to the smiling reverend, who seemed to be holding out his hand to her as he approached from the vestry.

  The reverend didn’t follow her into the open. She was glad to get the wet gravel under her feet again, to feel the mist on her face. The wine she had drunk on the couch made he want to pee. She peed in what she called the canon’s bushes, then had to wait to let the first parishioners for the evening service pass. She had never done the like before. She didn’t feel bad about it, though she supposed that she should.

  She was now ready for a long walk through the cool, earthy evening. The praying for Richard wasn’t enough. This would be her most ambitious nightwalk yet. What had begun with a tentative journey to the bin-room would now end with a pilgrimage to the place where Richard’s body had been found.

  What precisely had happened, and where? She had faith that she would be told. Detective Barrett and his colleagues were doing what they could to establish just that. In time, they would give her the discoverable facts. Right now, she was compelled to walk to that place where his journey had ended.

  She had got Barrett to show her the precise location on a large-scale map. She had had him describe the immediate geography – which he dutifully did, as he recognised her fierce desire to bear witness.

  ‘Would you like me to take you there?’ he asked eventually, but she declined.

  ‘There’s no need,’ he assured her.

  But here she was, and glad to be on her way, feeling only intermittent bouts of trepidation. She calculated that it would take her some three hours on foot if she didn’t lose her way. She had been out in the streets in the night for as much, but that was wandering; this was different. It would be the same hike home, whenever the indeterminate time spent there had passed.

  Setting off from the doors of the church was odd, but it added to her resolve – which had been building with all her hours of melancholic lingering in the apartment. That wine she had drunk on the couch was churchy, come to think of it.