by Alice Jolly
Of course, she says. Of course. You’re right. I know. That is quite a problem, of course. I’ll find an electrician, I should have done that before. I’ll do it straight away.
Thank you, he says. Thank you very much. He walks away from her, crosses the road but then turns back.
And Miss Ravello. If you don’t mind me saying as well. I think you should visit your mother. You have a mother and this is very lucky and your mother is very worried. She has been to the church and received a message from your father who is speaking to her from the dead. She needs you.
My father? Dead?
No. Sorry. Very sorry. Not your father. Somebody important but I don’t know.
He nods his head, then heads back towards the church. Lara watches him go and then sinks down onto the bench. Her head is full of those photographs. She shuts her eyes but they’re still there. Suddenly her body is shaken by sobs. Martha comes out and sits beside her.
We’ve telephoned. It wasn’t true. It can’t be because the BBC have been in touch with someone at the Palestine.
This news doesn’t matter any more. The exact details of who’s been killed aren’t important. Lara stands up, wipes her eyes. A power point, an electrician. Then she sits down again. The great warm bubble of certainty which has enveloped her for the last two weeks has burst. She was so sure she had found her purpose, her mission. She’d thought she’d found a way of relating to Jay, a way of pleasing God so that Jay would come home safe. But now it’s all gone. Ahmed is right. She doesn’t understand and she can’t understand. This war has arrived in her life and she’s part of it but it isn’t her war, her world.
Instead it’s all about power points – and Mollie. 42B Roma Street. And now Ahmed criticising her for being a bad daughter. She looks back on the last few weeks – all the activity, that sudden moment of certainty when she’d offered to pay for a lawyer. Maybe all of it had just been a distraction, a way of getting through the day, a way of avoiding the small mess of her own life.
Come inside and I’ll make you a coffee, Martha says. Or a tea.
No, no. Thanks very much. You go back. I’m all right.
Sure?
Lara nods, wipes at her eyes, crosses the road to where the Guest House is. It’s silent and ghostly, like an unlit grate. She takes the key from her bag and heads up the front steps. Standing in the reception area she calls up the stairs but no one answers. Where would Mollie be? Has she gone up to London again to try to find Rufus? Lara can feel that he’s gone, not gone in the usual way, not a mere ceasefire before the continuation of hostilities. But gone in some more final sense which has affected the structure of the house itself, so that the damp which has always infected the basement is now in every timber, and the pools of light from the low-hanging yellow bulbs are weaker than ever.
The cubbyhole which Mollie used as an office still remains from the time when the Guest House was operational. The brass bell sits on the desk waiting for some new arrival to ding it. Beside it, a board of photographs, which Lara stares at briefly. Rufus, Rufus, Rufus. He is everywhere, occupying every inch of space, occupying all the space. But you can never know him. He needs so much effort to hold himself together that he has no time for anyone else. Lara peers more closely at a faded photograph. Rufus with Liam. Strange, she’s walked past this board of photographs hundreds of times but she’s never really noticed that photograph before. A wilful unseeing. Odd how Liam disappeared from their lives so entirely. Even in the photograph only half of his face appears, the rest of the space being occupied by Rufus. Your mother has received a message from your father who is speaking to her from the dead. Lara shakes her head as she thinks of Ahmed’s mistake. It’s certainly possible to believe that not even death would silence Rufus.
Lara peers in through the door of the sitting room. Mollie never uses this room because it’s meant to be reserved for the guests, but they never use it either. The décor is all heart-shaped cushions, pictures of fluffy cats, ovals of lace marooned on polished table tops. Lara backs away, wanders down to the kitchen. A sewing machine is out on the table – not Mollie’s old Singer but a large and modern machine. On a rail by the radiator a rack of clothes are drying, among them several small white thongs decorated with pink hearts. Presumably they belong to the girl who Lara saw entering the Guest House the other day. Lara imagines her and Mollie together in the evening, cooking supper, chatting, drinking tea. Something about the pants – hanging there so innocently – causes a gush of sadness. It should be so simple – all she has to do is love her mother. Lara sits down at the kitchen table, longs for the day when she helped with the sewing, when her pants dried next to the radiator, when she was a contented and good daughter, longs for a world in which that day really existed.
35
NOW
Oliver – Brighton, April 2003
Oliver works with a bucket and mop, soaking up rainwater that has come in through the roof. He knew the rain would come in – it was heavy and vertical. Rain blown at an angle doesn’t come in but vertical rain does. It’s happened several times over the last few weeks. April weather – bright sun and then a sudden deluge which leaves the city steamy. Oliver half expects rickshaws in the streets and houses with tin roofs.
Occasionally the vicar, who has two other churches to care for as well, tells Oliver of his worries about the surveyor’s report which revealed ten years ago that the roof needs stripping off, totally rebuilding. Oliver offers words of encouragement but isn’t worried himself. This church, along with most others, is an abandoned building and so it’s appropriate that rain should come in through the roof.
Oliver looks at his watch, finds that the day has already slipped away. He finishes the mopping and tips the water down the sink in the kitchen behind the parish office. Then he sits down in one of the pews with the intention of doing nothing for a while, except enjoying the half darkness and the rustles and tickings of the church. Up at the front two elderly ladies in felt hats are knelt in prayer. They have been deceived, he’s sure of that. And yet he understands them, and their desire for deception. He’s glad that they are comforted although he can no longer participate in such comfort himself. Briefly he thinks of Lara. Now that the war is ending her son will come home and she’ll return to the spacious, shiny world of normality. She’ll be a little embarrassed by their friendship, deny its intensity. It’ll all turn out to be one of those good news stories about how, through adversity, a woman finds her son. She keeps her bargain with God, and God keeps His with her. Such stories do exist. She’ll be lost to him then and He’ll miss her when she’s gone. But the danger will have passed. In the world of sadness, memory, he is safe.
Behind him he hears a noise, sees a shadow slide across a wall at the back of the church. Oliver is always pleased to see people in the church, even if they’re only getting out of the rain, or using the church to shelter a match that would otherwise blow out. The shadow moves, is defined as a young woman. Oliver’s seen her before. She’s come to the church often over the last few weeks but never as late as this. She’s wavering and vivid as the candles she occasionally lights. She walks on the edge of a cliff but is sure-footed, fearless, despite the abyss below. Her hair is as long and dark as a night-time river, her ears heavy with a line of gold rings, her coat decorated with felt flowers.
Often she just sits in a pew, waiting. For what? But today she is different, purposeful, nervous. Excuse me.
Yes.
Sorry to disturb you but – as I was walking up the front steps I heard something. It was in the alleyway, to the right of the main door. It was—
Oliver waits, finds himself drawn into the panic filling her eyes.
I think there’s a baby. It’s crying. In the alleyway. Sorry – it was dark so I couldn’t see. I know you’re probably trying to lock up but we must—
Oliver knows the dank alleyway which runs along the side of the church. To one side of it an iron railing, and a locked gate, closed off steps down to a storeroo
m under the church which hasn’t been used in years. Beyond the gate, the alley curves muddily away between black wood fences and overhanging laurels before emerging into the next street. It’s seldom used except by drug addicts, fly tippers and rent boys.
Oliver has to go there sometimes because people dump rubbish bags in the alleyway or even heave them over the railing. So then he takes the key to the gate, pulls out the rubbish bags, unearths the various paraphernalia of modern pleasure – condoms, needles, cans and bottles. Discussions have taken place with the council about closing the alleyway but no money is available for gates. He’s quite sure the girl is wrong. No one would dump a baby there. But there could well be some old tramp there – an old man whimpering his last breath – and Oliver will arrive too late, be powerless to save him.
He fetches the key for the gate, his hand fumbling as he takes it from the hook. He should have a torch but the last one broke and the vicar has not yet provided another. When he returns to the church, the girl is waiting for him, follows him down the aisle. She wants to run, to rescue the crying infant in the alleyway, but her movements are slow and deliberate, each step is significant. Although her coat is loose and hides the shape of her body, the knowledge comes to him that she’s pregnant. He can almost feel the baby lying there, like a lump of molten metal inside her. Someone has told him a story about this girl-mother but he can’t remember now.
He wants to hurry but feels that he must move in time with her, even though the imagined tramp is struggling for breath, the light suddenly passing from his stunned eyes. And still they move together down the aisle, an unlikely bride and groom, with the empty pews on either side of them and the air a vacuum, empty of music. He feels some strange desire to take her arm, to stop her from falling. But there is no danger that she will stumble. Her ability to control fear is complete.
Then he remembers – not what he was told but only that she’s living with Mad Mollie Ravello. What can she be doing there? She’s too unstained for such a place. Mollie had been at the service on Sunday and she’d talked to him briefly afterwards but he was in the middle of dealing with a weeping drunk. He’d thought she was talking about Jay but instead she was talking about – Ludo, was it? A man who taught her to sing. He can’t remember now.
No news? he asks the girl. Of Jay?
No. But they took the airport today so that surely means something?
Oliver takes care never to see a television screen, never to hear the radio, but nevertheless this news had already drifted up to him from the peace protest office. So many people who need to be saved – a whole city, a whole country.
I knew him, the girl says. At college. It’s very hard for Mollie.
Outside the darkness is shallow, the road deserted.
I’ve been longing so much for him to come home, the girl says.
Across the street bikes are chained to railings, and lights shine through thin curtains, televisions flicker. Oliver comes to the entrance of the alleyway and listens.
The cry, the girl says. Like someone in pain.
At first he can hear nothing because of the splutter of a passing motorbike. But then a thin, anguished cry spills towards them. The girls stretches her arms forward but he moves first, stepping into the alley. Behind the railings, a tiny flash of red light. It’s either the eye of an animal or some piece of red material shimmering in the dark. It could even be the reflector of a bicycle – but who would lift their bicycle over the railings? The alley smells of urine, engine oil, rubbish bags and rotting leaves. The flash of light comes again, wavers in the darkness, disappears and then flashes again closer to the railings. He looks up at the exterior wall of the church and the narrow strip of sky above, dark grey against black. Fear flutters inside him, leaps in his throat.
It is a baby, she says. It must be.
No. No. A fox or a cat. Perhaps you should go home.
No. Not yet. I must go soon because of Mollie. But first we have to check.
A snuffling noise, the hint of a whimper. Again a flash of red in the dark. And also shapes – boxes, bins, the metal lines of the railing. The noise stops and Oliver waits. Then it comes again. Almost certainly a fox has slipped in through the railings and is going through the rubbish. The red light doesn’t appear again but a crackle sounds, then a ruffling and snuffling. Short, brutal sounds. Oliver imagines a pig, a wild boar. An animal with bristles, a snout and red eyes, crouching amidst the bins and the damp cardboard boxes.
You must go, he says to the girl. You must go now.
No. No. I’d rather stay with you.
Please. You don’t understand. Please.
No.
Oliver clenches his teeth in anger. Why doesn’t she see? Why doesn’t she go? He can’t protect her from the animal behind the railings but he must try. He advances a little further. Again he sees the red eye, hears that grunting snuffle. The smell of rot and urine fills his nostrils. He knows this animal, has seen it before. It brings violence and destruction. It’s come to claim someone – but who?
The girl, it must be the girl. Sweat is running down his face. Once he would have had the power to grasp the animal, choke the breath from it. Once it would have whimpered in terror, fled away. But now he’s alone, entirely alone. As he was on the A23 dual carriageway, crossing the South Downs. Nothing at all between earth and infinite sky and it won’t matter how long he shouts into the night for help, none will come, no one is there. So who now will defeat the animal and drive it away?
The girl steps forward, steady and certain. He wonders at her. It isn’t the case that she’s simply not frightened. He knows that. So why is she doing this? How does she dare? She knows as well as he does that the dog has come to take her. But she’s resolute, standing staring ahead. Again he is conscious of the baby inside her. She carries it ahead of her like a flaming torch.
It’s all right, she says. You’re right. It was a fox – or perhaps a cat. I didn’t know they could make a noise like that. But I think it’s gone.
A glimmer of sound echoes from further down the alleyway. The night is settling back into itself. Oliver realises that one of his hands is pressed against the wall of the church, that he’s sucking breath in. He pulls himself upright, rubs his hands together, tries to match her expression of blank ignorance.
Just a fox, she says.
Yes. Or a cat.
He sees her long, sharp face in the grainy shadows. She pulls her flower-stitched coat more tightly around her, moves her hand to adjust a swinging gold earring.
Yes, she says. One or the other. It must have got in down there where the railing is bent – see? Her face is still organised into a look of bright stupidity. Of course, she knows but she wishes to save him from this. And he’s grateful for her kindness.
Stupid of me, she says.
They turn to go, reach the front steps of the church. She pushes open the door and light floods out on them. She will not allow herself to ask for anything. She might say goodnight, or thank you, or express some hope that the imagined cat will come to no harm, but instead she turns and runs lightly down the steps, is swallowed by the night.
Oliver hurries into the church and pulls the door shut behind him. He checks that the two old ladies have gone, then draws the heavy iron bolts, rushes through the church, checks that the glass doors which lead to the Community Centre at the back are secure. This is ridiculous and he knows it. Nothing more than a fox or a stray dog. But his face is still wet with sweat. And the red eyes stay in his head. He won’t sleep. Even if he’d dared to go into the alleyway, it would’nt have done any good. All this is his fault. He set the animal loose. Nonsense. He tries to tame his mind, but his breath grinds as he walks up the stairs to his flat. The fox-dog will be back, of course. And Oliver knows now who it will claim.
36
BEFORE
Mollie – Worcester, October 1953
Mollie is running through the cramped and raining streets near the canal. She’s going to an audition, a real
audition. Her school shoes slap out that word, rainwater gathers in the gutter of her school hat, her blazer is soaked, her satchel bangs against her hip. The streets smell of canal water. But none of that matters. She’s going to an audition. At a bus stop a fat woman wrestles with a bucking umbrella and men grip their hats. A voice trills – the Severn will soon be over its banks. Mollie slows, passes the Hop Works and a corner shop, turns into a street of red-brick terraced houses, hunched and secretive.
Mr Brandt’s shop is at the end, attached to the other terraced houses, but larger. A sign on the front says The Arcade Music Emporium. The wide window is set back and edged by shiny brown tiles. Velvet-covered boxes display clarinets, flutes in their cases, and sheet music pinned up in the shape of a fan. A violin is propped forward and surrounded by triangles, castanets and recorders. Mollie can hear those instruments in her head, imagines how their sounds would mix together. The instruments are arranged in front of a velvet curtain that comes halfway up the window. A notice announces that Thorens record players are available inside.
Moving closer to the window, Mollie sees Mr Brandt, outlined against the cavernous shadows above the velvet curtain. Small and precise, he has a bald head and a small moustache. He wears a neat pinstriped suit over a small potbelly and a red handkerchief is arranged to spout from the breast pocket. The cuffs of his shirt are a delicate shade of mauve and held together by heavy gold cufflinks. And wrapped tightly around his neck is a green wool scarf which comes right up to his chin. Mollie has seen him many times before at the theatre but never spoken to him.
Audition, audition. The word is still drumming in her head, giving her courage. She’s borrowed a pair of her mother’s stockings and snakeskin shoes with square toes. The stockings she put on in the loo before leaving school. Now she pulls the shoes out of her satchel, pushes her wet feet into them and shoves her sodden school shoes into their place. She hesitates. In the Folies Bergère romances, the plucky, raven-haired heroine always strides into the theatre, sings like an angel, and is immediately given the main part in a musical.
