Call of the Curlew Read online

  They were like badly delivered lines from a badly written play, expressive of nothing but her own discomfort. Lorna made no response, except to lean her forehead against the glass and feel in her pocket again.

  ‘Why don’t you go and have a wash and get into bed?’ she said eventually. ‘I’ll tell Clem to come up and say goodnight. The bathroom’s at the end of the landing.’

  She moved towards the door, a trace of the hostess smile still visible on her features. ‘You’ll find a clean nightie under your pillow.’

  Virginia nodded dumbly.

  ‘Oh, and yours is the pink towel on the bathroom rail.’

  After she’d gone Virginia stood and stared after her, her fingers pinching and twisting at the skin around her wrists.

  Virginia locked herself in the freezing bathroom and took off all her clothes before remembering to run a basin of water. Her teeth chattered as she held her hand under the hot tap, feeling it turn from cold to tepid to cold again. When it turned icy she gave up on the idea of a wash and just dabbed at her face and neck with a smear of coal-tar soap, before pulling the new nightie over her head. It was made of white flannel with a pink ribbon at the neck and it was meant for a smaller child, judging by the way it strained across her ribs and dug into her armpits. She wondered what kind of little girl Lorna thought she’d seen in that high-ceilinged visitors’ room at Sinclair House. Perhaps miscalculations occurred quite often. Perhaps children had a tendency to look small in the context of an echoey orphanage.

  Virginia emerged from the bathroom unable to remember where her bedroom was, and as she stood there, trying to think, she listened to the wind over the last gurgles from the basin. Or was it just the wind? It sounded different now: all rhythmic and juddery, like someone who can hardly breathe for crying. She bent her head to listen, before creeping along the landing to the top of the stairs and peering over the bannister.

  It was Lorna. She was sitting on the bottom stair with her knees hunched up and her head tucked inside her arms, and Clem was standing over her with one hand over his eyes, pelting her with whispered words.

  ‘… so you always say,’ he was whispering, ‘but if that’s true, then why are you always hiding from me? I come into the room and you shove a bit of paper on the fire. I ask what you’ve been doing all day and you say, “the usual”. I ask you what you’re thinking and you say, “nothing”.’ He threw his hands in the air. ‘It’s enough to make a man commit … Lord knows what. And now this.’

  Lorna held herself more tightly, like someone waiting for a storm to pass. She didn’t reply.

  ‘I thought all women wanted children? I thought that was the whole problem with – with us? This is the best I can do, Lorna. I’m sorry, but it’s the best I can do, and you can’t even … For God’s sake, what kind of human being are you? Do you want me to take her back? Is that it? Is that what you want?’

  When Lorna only shrugged, he grabbed her by the shoulders, but she flung him off and backed up the stairs, hissing like a cat.

  ‘Get off!’ she whispered. ‘Go away! Why won’t you just go away?’

  Clem came after her, but halfway up the stairs she sat down abruptly and wept into her hands. He stopped – equally abruptly – and closed his eyes. ‘Oh God,’ he muttered, pulling a handkerchief from his sleeve and tossing it into her lap. After a minute Lorna shook it out and blew her nose and Clem said, ‘Sorry,’ but he said it in the same bitter tone he’d been using all along.

  Virginia leaned over a little further, anxious to try to understand what she was seeing, and her own shadow loomed on the wall above their heads, sliced through by shadow-bannisters. She moved back quickly, before they could notice it too, and though she stayed a little longer she couldn’t make out what they were saying any more, and wasn’t sure she wanted to. It was bad enough to intuit the gist of it; actual words might stick like splinters in her mind and fester there.

  She tiptoed back along the landing and forced herself to imagine another cold walk along the flint wall, back towards the bus stop and Sinclair House. It might not happen – she had a feeling that the orphanage didn’t countenance refunds or returns – but it was better to picture it all now, so as to be ready if it did. She found her pink-lit room and stood in the doorway, picturing the scene with all her might. Lorna would ask her to keep the mittens, out of sheer politeness, but she was sure to want the navy coat back. Clem would feel sorry for her and offer up fusty sweets, but he’d be disinclined to hold her hand this time, or call her ‘old thing’.

  The curtains were still half open and Virginia went and stood between them, resting her face against the glass like Lorna had done. The wind from the marsh made a constant drone, which you hardly noticed at all until you thought about it. It never whistled or gusted, it just went on and on, as if the whole house was falling through space.

  If Clem did come and say goodnight to her, then she was going to ask him, straight out, whether or not they’d keep her. It had to be better to know one way or another. She stood her ground when she first heard his feet on the stairs, but as he reached the landing her nerve failed. When he was a few paces from her room, she switched the light off and darted between the cold sheets.

  ‘All right, Vi?’ he whispered, lowering himself on to the end of the bed. He sat there quietly for a while. Virginia breathed slowly and made no answer, but perhaps he could feel her pulse drumming through the mattress springs, because he knew she was awake.

  ‘Listen, Vi,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t worry about Lorna. She’s pleased as Punch you’ve come.’

  Virginia opened her eyes. Clem was sitting hunched over with his elbows on his knees and his face turned towards her. The landing light was behind him, so she couldn’t see his expression, but she could feel his gaze as if it was a tangible thing, with a reach and weight all of its own. She gave up pretending to be asleep and sat up.

  ‘Tomorrow’s a Wednesday, isn’t it?’ he said.

  Virginia nodded.

  ‘Well, Wednesdays are Mrs Hill’s day off, and my day for going up to town, so you two will have the house to yourselves. You’ll be the best of friends before the morning is out, mark my words.’

  He fell silent after that and Virginia waited nervously. He had something important to say – she knew it – but he was too kind to get to the point.

  ‘I was thinking …’ he began, at last, and she leaned forwards, readying herself, the tight seams of the nightie boring into her underarms like wires.

  ‘I was wondering,’ he said, ‘if you’d mind calling her “Mother” or “Mum” or some such? I think she’d like that.’

  Virginia let out a long breath. Was that it? She nodded, quite calmly and slowly, and heard herself saying, ‘Yes. Yes, all right.’

  The mattress wobbled as Clem sat up straight, placing his hands on his knees. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s very good.’ He paused, as if he was going to say something else, but he thought better of it and stood up to go.

  ‘Clem?’ Virginia leaned so far forward that she could have seized his hand, if she’d dared, and there was a tearing sound in the vicinity of her left armpit. ‘Shall I call you “Dad”, as well?’

  ‘You can if you want to,’ he replied. ‘Do you want to?’

  Virginia pretended to think. ‘No, not really.’

  She sensed his smile in the darkness, just as she’d sensed his gaze before.

  ‘Well, that’s all right with me,’ he said, as he stood up. She tensed, expecting the awkwardness of a goodnight kiss, but he mussed her hair instead and she burrowed under the sheets.

  She thought he’d gone, but he was still there when she surfaced, standing in the open doorway.

  ‘Vi?’ He ran his finger over the doorframe, like a craftsman in search of minute defects. ‘Keep an eye on her for me, will you? I don’t just mean tomorrow but generally, if there’s ever anything – I don’t know – anything odd, just be sure to tell me. Will you?’

  Virginia nodded, anxious to sh
ow how helpful she could be, and how lacking in natural curiosity. Clem nodded back, though he didn’t seem particularly satisfied.

  ‘I worry about her,’ he said. ‘That’s all.’

  A moment later he went away, leaving the door ajar and the landing light on.

  She fell asleep thinking about names and colours. ‘Lorna’ was a green and gold name, like sunlit trees in summer, but ‘Mother’ was white, like a blank piece of paper. ‘Virginia’ was as clear as water from a tap, while ‘Clem’ was black, like peat, and smelled of smoke and leather and wet earth.

  New Year’s Eve, 2015

  IT ISN’T THE dawn that wakes the old woman, but the lessening of the darkness that begins an hour or two before, as lengths of grey and silver start to show in the sky.

  As soon as she opens her eyes she sees the curlew’s skull on top of the dressing table. Even in the deepest depths of sleep she hasn’t forgotten, but it’s still a shock to see it sitting there, so full of its own significance, with its watchful eye sockets turned towards her. She could lie here and contemplate it for hours, like a holy woman at a shrine, but she decides to get up, and the cat yowls and clings to the sheet with his claws as her legs move from underneath him. She continues to stare at the skull while her feet are searching for slippers, and the cat jumps to the floor with a thrash of his tail.

  Virginia fumbles for her stick and shuffles to the window: one of the rags must have worked loose overnight, because the frame is trembling inside its casing like a bird in a trap. She pulls a pile of tights from the back of the armchair and rips off one of the feet with her teeth. The nylon scrap fits nicely between frame and casing, and she jams it down with her fingers until the breath of outdoor air is stifled and the window falls still. She will continue to perform such little routines today. Tomorrow, the house will have to take care of itself.

  Virginia returns to the dressing table and picks up the skull, running her gaze over the curves and hollows of its head, and down its long needly bill. She closes her eyes and stands very still, her lungs straining, the skull as dainty as a bubble on her hand. Last night, an extra twenty-four hours seemed like an impossible gift; this morning she is less euphoric. A single day is not such a very long time in which to extricate herself, thread by thread, from Salt Winds. There are cupboards, full of oddments, which she won’t have time to sort through, and drawers of photographs that she’ll never see again. She pictures the house, room by room, and plots the route of her farewell tour, mentally circling certain parts and crossing others out. Clem’s desk? Yes. The dining room? Briefly. Lorna’s mothball-smelling wardrobe? Perhaps not. The attic?

  The attic. Virginia’s eyes snap open. She must have been standing here for a long time because there’s a paler sky reflecting off the discoloured pink of her bedroom wall, and the outlines of things – the rickety furniture, the stretching cat – have grown bolder.

  ‘The attic.’ She makes herself say it out loud as she returns the curlew’s skull to the dressing table. The phone on the landing begins to ring, and the cat starts and glares at the noise.

  Virginia glares at it too. She’d forgotten about Joe. On her last day she’s reluctant to commune with anyone except the house and its dead; anything else feels tasteless, if not actually wrong. She’s tempted to let it ring and ring, but Joe will start worrying if there’s no answer, and then he’ll be driving over to check she’s all right. She stumps on to the landing, where the telephone is screwed to the wall, and picks up the receiver. At least it’s a chance to make arrangements for the cat.

  ‘Virginia? It’s Joe.’

  The warmth of his voice touches her unexpectedly. Not the emotional warmth – Joe is not emotional – but the sheer blood-warmth of it; the rumbling maleness of the sound.

  ‘Of course it’s Joe,’ she replies. ‘Who else would it be?’

  Virginia has got out of the habit of expressing affection, and Joe misreads her tone.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, unapologetically. ‘I only wondered if you wanted any shopping. I’m off to the supermarket shortly.’

  Something soft brushes against Virginia’s leg. It’s the velvet curtain that hangs across the attic door. A draught has caught it, and every time it swells outwards it taps her on the ankle. Over the years she’s stopped seeing that curtain; she’s erased it from her field of vision.

  ‘Virginia?’

  ‘Oh. No. No shopping today. Thank you, Joe.’

  There are woody shadows behind the curtain, and smells of varnish and undisturbed dust. She cranes her neck and glimpses a pale globe floating in the darkness, which puzzles her, until she recognises the porcelain doorknob.

  ‘Could you pop over tomorrow, Joe, and feed Silver? I’ll leave some pouches for him by the front door.’

  ‘Oh? Well, yes, of course …’

  She can picture him so clearly now, as he frowns and scratches the back of his curly head.

  ‘Why?’ he says, inevitably. ‘Where are you off to?’

  ‘Oh. Not far.’

  Joe’s voice drops.

  ‘This isn’t about Monday, is it?’

  ‘Monday?’

  ‘We’re popping over to Thorney Grange, remember? We made an appointment for Monday morning.’

  Thorney Grange? Virginia rubs her nose on the back of her hand and tries to pay attention to what Joe is saying. Thorney Grange. These days it’s an old folks’ home, and Joe thinks she’d be better off there. Less of a worry.

  ‘Hello?’ Joe persists. ‘Virginia?’ He thinks she’s going to kick up a fuss, like she did the last time. ‘We’re only looking round, and you don’t have to … But you did promise …’

  ‘Yes, yes, I remember.’ Virginia’s mood lifts for the first time since waking, and she waves her hand imperiously. ‘Don’t worry. I shan’t make any more difficulties.’

  ‘Really? Well, that’s good. But—’

  ‘Thank you,’ she says deafly. ‘Goodbye, Joe.’ And she puts the phone down.

  ‘Thorney Grange,’ she snorts, as the receiver rocks back into place with a ping, and the agitated cord swings back and forth. She waits while it slows down and stops, and resists the temptation to set it going again. It feels like her first relinquishment. Her first act of farewell.

  The biggest of the spare bedrooms has the best view towards Tollbury Point, but it’s a long time since Virginia last went in. Her routine has diminished over the years and nowadays she rarely strays from the well-trodden path that leads from bedroom to bathroom to kitchen and back.

  She glances around as she opens the door and advances across the tattered rug with a picture frame in one hand. She doesn’t wish to see things too thoroughly. Presumably the other rooms – even Clem and Lorna’s – are in much the same state: all dry rot and dust sheets, and curtains hanging in greasy tatters, like bats’ wings. It’s a bit late now to start wishing she’d taken better care of the place. She sits down in the wicker chair by the window and lays their wedding photo in her lap. It’s odd that she should set so much store by it, she thinks, when neither of them looks the least bit happy. She gazes at them a moment, returning their reluctant smiles in kind, then turns them over and grapples with the pins at the back of the frame. That way, she’ll be able to fit it in her dressing-gown pocket.

  This room faces west, and dawn hasn’t silvered the western sky yet. Tollbury Point is still a blur on the horizon, but she can see the whole length of the lane, as pale and straight as the day she arrived in her navy-blue coat. She tries to re-imagine her ten-year-old self walking along the flint wall and Clem striding below her in his trilby, but all she can see is Max Deering leaning across the passenger seat of his Austin 12. She shudders. She doesn’t want to think about Max Deering, today of all days. It’s bad enough that she met his moon-white face in her dreams last night; that her final sleep was tainted by his spit-polished smile.

  Daylight is starting to reach this side of the house, and outlines are growing clearer. There’s a dusting of snow on the marsh
and more to come, judging by the bulging clouds. She tries not to shiver and shrink from the cold, but to welcome it, the way she’s used to welcoming warmth. She tries to yearn for snow-streaked mudflats the way she yearns for bath and bed, but you need years, not hours, to pull off mind tricks like that. She’s left it too late.

  She can at least wear her dressing gown; that’s allowed, isn’t it? Apart from anything else, she’ll need the pockets for all her souvenirs and stones. She heaves herself to her feet, but something catches her eye as she’s turning away from the window. There’s something out there, on the old sea wall. An object has appeared a few yards from the house, near the spot where she was standing last night.

  Virginia frowns at it and thinks of a cormorant, its bony wings hunched against the weather, its feathers fluttering. She wishes this thing was a bird, but it isn’t. It’s a person. It’s a girl.

  The girl is sitting on the wall with her arms wrapped round her knees, staring out at the marsh. The wind is picking at her thin clothes and pulling at her hair, and making her judder with cold. Her face and hands are bare, and the blue-tinged pallor of her skin is bright in the semi-darkness. As Virginia stands and watches, a few flakes of snow drift on to the girl’s head and speckle the shoulders of her denim jacket.

  Virginia takes a turn round the room, muttering and bringing the stick down hard at every step, but when she gets back to the window the trespasser is still there, quaking now, as if in the throes of fever, her damp hair dusted white. Virginia thinks about rapping on the glass and shooing her away, but that would be communication, of a sort, and she can’t bring herself to do it.

  She returns to her own room and unhooks her dressing gown from the back of the door. It used to be Clem’s and the unrolled sleeves are long enough to hide her fingers. She knots the belt tight and pulls the collar up as high as it will go, pressing her nose into the brown tartan and catching, or imagining, an ancient whiff of tobacco. She takes another look at the wedding photo and pops it into one of the pockets.