Kitabı oku: «The Silence», sayfa 5
Chapter 11
The House that Jack Built – Chapter 3 – Birth
‘You’ve dug deep enough,’ Captain Jack told his men. ‘Now you can start to build her.’
And they obeyed, birthing me from course of brick and seam of mortar, eyelets of windows, ear flaps of doors. Seasons changed as my skeleton rose from the heath. The next spring, my head they tiled with slate brought from Wales on the slow-running arteries of canals once the ice had broken. Finally, the churned earth was turfed and gardens planted and I stood proud: a gentleman’s residence.
Gallant House.
But I know those earlier people are with me still, the cave dwellers, Vikings, failed rebels and heedless maids. They lie in the soil with my foundations, whispering their secrets to the black heath.
Chapter 12
An oddly disturbing tale – not at all what she expected. Jenny put the manuscript away as her train drew in to Waterloo East. She wasn’t sure what to make of Bridget’s origin story for the house. Her landlady gave it the voice of a needy mistress rather than a family home. After all these years living there, unable to keep up repairs to expensive features like the balcony, did Bridget feel the house absorbed attention in that way? Was she even a little resentful of it even while she was loved it?
Jenny joined the commuters funnelling through the ticket barriers, her violin buying her a little extra room in the crowd like a pregnant woman’s bump or old man’s stick. That was welcome as she hated people breathing down her neck.
The history of the heath sounded fascinating, she thought, even if told obliquely. But did it have to be told in macabre images of burials and unearthing? It wasn’t a reassuring thought for the already problematic night-time to dwell of the numerous sad ends that had been met on the spot. Bridget had made the foundations sound like catacombs. All old houses had seen deaths – of course they had – but Jenny thought that it was better sometimes not to know.
Louis waited for her in the café, eager to hear how her introduction to Gallant House had gone. Jenny was pleased to see that he was joined by Kris, who had chosen his favourite seat overlooking the river. A big man with sandy hair, jug handle ears and a flushed face, Kris appeared the least likely person to have the soul of a poet. That just went to show prejudging was a waste of time and energy; people were rarely what they seemed on the surface. She gave both a wave and dived into the staff room to stow her violin in her locker and put on her uniform.
When she returned, her manager beckoned her over. ‘I’ve got you tea. We’re quiet at the moment so, come on, tell us all about it.’
With a smile, she sat next to Kris. He kissed her cheek. ‘What do you think of the inimitable Bridget?’ His voice was a deep bass rumble, the kettledrum in the Festival Hall orchestra of visitors. ‘Has she got you curtseying yet?’
Not quite yet. Maybe that’s day two?
‘And have you met my guy, Jonah?’
What was it about the man that everyone wanted to adopt him as theirs? She nodded.
‘And?’
Jenny debated withholding the information about dragging Jonah into her bedroom but decided that an embarrassment shared was an embarrassment halved.
‘You didn’t?’ Louis chuckled, after reading her confession. ‘You don’t let the grass grow, girl!’
‘I bet poor Jonah felt all his birthdays and Christmases had come at once.’ Kris patted her hand in consolation. ‘A classy lady like you enticing him into her boudoir. Want me to have a word with him?’
She’d prefer just to forget it. If he mentions how a nymphomaniac has moved in then yes. So what about the house?
‘The isle is full of noises,’ said Kris. ‘Sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and not hurts.’
The Tempest? She’d seen that at the Barbican.
‘Correct.’
So I should just ignore the waltzing?
‘Put it like this, I lived there three years and heard odd things all the time. I considered for a while that there was a mad woman in the attic …’
‘How very Jane Eyre,’ murmured Louis.
‘… But when I looked I just found bird nests and a broken window.’
Jenny felt a surge of relief. Her imagination had begun to people the mysterious attics with all kinds of horrors. It was just an attic floor.
‘I decided after that not to worry. It never progressed – no ghostly apparitions, no clanking chains, just noises. Old houses have quirks.’
It was reassuring that she wasn’t the only one to hear things. Did you read Bridget’s history?
Kris rolled his eyes to the ceiling. ‘Don’t say she’s trapped you into reading that already? Damn, that’s fast work. She’s been beavering away on that for a decade. I think it’s become something of an obsession. I told her to get out more, volunteer as a reader at the local primary school, or join a gardening club, but she is attached to that place like a limpet to a rock. She says the best day in her life was the day she was able to do her shopping online.’
She never leaves?
‘Not that I recall. Maybe she did at the beginning but by the time I left, I can’t remember her going as far as the corner shop. She even gets Norman to make home visits when she needs a doctor. You’ve met Norman? He’s always there on Tuesdays.’
She nodded.
‘Don’t sign on with him. I started out on his list but quickly caught on that he’s no longer what he once was. They’ve shuffled him into a figurehead role and his retirement is imminent.’
Recommendations?
‘Dr Chakrabarti if she’s got space.’
How are you now?
‘Aw, sweetie, thanks for asking. I’m much better, due to the tender loving care I’ve been receiving. If you’d met me a month ago, I wouldn’t’ve been able to come out like this. I was getting as housebound as Bridget.’
‘So she’s an agoraphobic?’ asked Louis. ‘You never said, Kris.’
‘I wouldn’t describe her like that exactly as she loves her garden. Is there a word for someone who doesn’t want to venture into the outside world?’
Scared, thought Jenny, feeling kinship with her landlady. That had been her for a year between fourteen and fifteen. The violin was the thing that had dragged her out of seclusion as it was the only way she could get to play with others. Her mother had always said it was a blessing she hadn’t taken up with a solo instrument like the piano or she would never have emerged.
‘I’m not sure I’d even call her a recluse as she loves having people round. I’d say she was an original. So, Jenny, what’s on your agenda today?’
She told them about the performance of Petrushka that afternoon for invited schools. Thank goodness she wasn’t involved in the children’s workshop beforehand. No one escaped those raucous sessions without a headache.
Kris laughed. ‘No, I’ve never thought of you as a particularly child-friendly person.’
Jenny was oddly hurt by this, it was like being told that animals didn’t like you, suggesting some inherent flaw. I like little ones. The ones that did not require her to speak.
‘I stand corrected. What’s the story of that piece? Forgive my ignorance but the only ballets I have any idea about are The Nutcracker and Swan Lake. I saw those as a kid.’
‘You went to see Humanhood with Hazel at Saddler’s Wells last week,’ said Louis.
‘Doesn’t mean I had the first idea what their performance was all about. I just went to admire the dancers.’
‘See what I have to contend with?’ said Louis in a stage whisper. ‘He ogles Rudí Cole and then comes back home to me.’
Cole?
‘The most gorgeous dancer God made.’
‘But he probably doesn’t give as good back rubs as you,’ said Kris consolingly.
‘He probably does.’
They both gave sad sighs in unison. These guys were such a good duo.
‘OK, enough, Petrushka. What’s it about?’ asked Kris.
Jenny’s fingers danced over the keys as they read over her shoulder. Weird Russian story. Starts at a fair – usual street scene – then a puppeteer arrives with three marionettes – Petrushka, who’s this kind of the fool figure in Russian stories, the ballerina, and the Moor.
‘The Moor?’
Totally not PC these days, but this was made up around 1910 in Russia. The dance suggests a love triangle between the three. Petrushka loves the ballerina, the ballerina fancies the Moor, and the Moor prefers his coconut tree.
‘I see what you mean about not very PC. What do they do with it these days for schools?’
Jenny shrugged. Her business was the music not the visuals. And then it gets wacky.
‘Only then?’
The next act is inside Petrushka’s box – very surreal. The one after that is in the Moor’s room where, after worshipping his coconut, he gets it on with the ballerina, breaking Peeping-Tom Petrushka’s heart.
‘And children watch this?’
That last part’s implied. I’m more worried by the messages they get from the coconut bit. Last act the Moor chases Petrushka back to the fair and kills him for interrupting. The crowd is about to turn on the Moor but the puppeteer points out Petrushka is just a doll. He carries the slain mannikin back to the puppet wagon. Jenny was enjoying herself. She had always liked this bizarre story with its shifting perspectives.
‘Is that the end?’
In a poorer ballet it would be, but no! She grinned, fingers hovering.
‘Stop teasing us. Tell us how it finishes.’
The puppeteer is now alone and the stars are out. The spirit of Petrushka rises from the doll for a final defiant gesture. You are left wondering what is real and what is not? Was Petrushka to be considered a doll or human? And then, it’s all a show anyway so what do we believe? Everyone was acting roles.
‘Very Russian,’ said Louis. ‘Anguished and melancholy. I blame vodka and long winters.’
It’s beautiful. There’s a fantastic chord in the middle that’s known as the Petrushka chord. Two major triads clash – it’s really bold.
‘I guess we aren’t talking Chinese gangs?’ said Kris.
She elbowed him. C major and F# major.
‘I forget when I look at my hardest worker cleaning the tables that she had all this culture at her fingertips,’ said Louis.
‘And when she looks at her boss, she probably forgets that she’s looking at one of London’s top Jazz vocalists,’ said Kris.
We are all overlooked treasures. 
‘If we weren’t on duty that would be the cue for the group hug.’ Louis stacked their empties on a tray and got up. ‘Unfortunately, us overlooked treasures have overlooked customers to serve.’ A small queue of early birds had gathered by the till with only Frieda to serve them.
Kris put his hand on Jenny’s arm before she followed. ‘I hope you like the house, Jenny, but I think it’s a bit of an acquired taste. If you have any problems with Bridget or Jonah, let me know, OK? I can talk to them for you.’
She patted his cheek in thanks and blew him a kiss.
‘I can’t help worrying about you!’ he called as she moved away to her cleaning station.
All the guys in her life seemed to feel that way. She’d prefer someone just to love her but that didn’t appear to be on the horizon. A selfish schoolboy ex and two gay pals: not promising prospects. She really should make the effort to get back on the dating circuit. Now she had a nice place to bring someone home to without Harry looming in the corridor, maybe she would.
Chapter 13
Bridget, One Year Ago
Today I’ll go beyond the front gate.
Duster in hand, Bridget stood at the window of Jenny’s bedroom gazing down the path to the untrodden green beyond. This room had the best view of Blackheath; hers looked out on the garden, to the lilac tree and the shrubbery, a closed, safe prospect. She came in here at least once a day to challenge herself.
I’ll put on my coat, make sure I have my keys in my handbag, and I will go for a walk in Greenwich Park. Simple. Nothing to fear in that. I remember the park well and it won’t have changed too much, not that little red brick museum on the hilltop with the absurd ball on the roof. I’ll watch the tourists straddling the line marking Greenwich Mean Time, holding sticks up to take selfies. Ridiculous, funny people. They’ll make me laugh. Yes, that’s what I’ll do.
Admiral Jack had built the house here because it sat on the exact same longitude as the observatory. Bridget imagined the line running through her front door, through this room, and out through the lilac tree, hopping over the fence and continuing beyond. It was like Mercury, messenger of the gods, circling the globe so fast you only saw the grass bending in his wake. It linked her to all those foreign countries that lay on the same line on the map: France, Spain, Algeria, Burkina Faso. Who lived in Burkina Faso? It sounded as made up as Timbuktu, which was also a real place apparently, in Mali, another country on the Prime Meridian. Ghana, Togo, the long stretch of the Atlantic and finally Antarctica. Bridget closed her eyes, summoning up the eerie vastness of the southernmost continent. Her husband’s great-uncle had died with Scott somewhere out there. His family were full of people who went on adventures and never came back. The empire was casual about its sons. The Jack dynasty never learnt the lesson that it was safer to stay at home.
She idly wiped a fingerprint off the pane. Her new tenant must have tried to open it but the lower sash was broken. Only the upper one slid on its ropes. Bridget pulled it down a little to let some fresh air into the room. Jenny used a strong perfume; Bridget could still smell it even though her lodger had left several hours ago. Jenny favoured that fake strawberry scent that was in so many of the cheaper deodorants. Bridget found it unpleasant but she could hardly ask the girl to change something so personal.
Bridget emptied the bin into the plastic bag she carried. What were dead poppies doing in there? She should remember to mention to Jenny that there was a compost heap behind the gardener’s shed and not to use the waste basket for recyclables. She hadn’t yet made up her mind about her new lodger. Change was not easy, not for Bridget. Kris had filled the house with his booming bass and his immoderate laughter. She’d like the military forthrightness he brought to every situation, the precision with which he’d made his bed and folded his towels. He played his new songs to her, flattered her outrageously, and managed to head off any arguments with some novel distraction techniques learned from his army days. Her favourite was when he had prevented her bickering with Norman about who was suffering from the worst aches and pains by throwing his prosthetic at them both. As a dramatic gesture it had been priceless. She and Norman had been properly shamed into not mentioning health matters on a Tuesday again. In fact, it had been solemnly entered into the list of house rules right at the bottom. Number twenty-four: thou shalt not moan about thy health in company.
As for Jenny, she was best described as Kris’s opposite. Her silence made others fill the gap.
We all end up talking too much around her, Bridget mused. She went into the bathroom to clean the mirror over the sink. And that can be dangerous.
When did I get to be so old? She turned away from the dark-eyed, hollow-cheeked woman who rose from the depths of the mirror-pool.
I’ll soon deal with you, my pretty. She sprayed blue glass cleaner onto the surface, blurring her reflection. Like Dorothy in Oz making her foe melt. Switching to a J Cloth, she briskly polished the mirror and didn’t meet her own gaze again.
The jury in Gallant House was still deliberating their verdict on Jenny. The vine liked her but the lilac tree wasn’t sure. The birds in the attic resented her music and the mice in the pantry approved her choice of breakfast cereal. And as for Bridget … It was like the space between dropping a stone into the old well in the kitchen courtyard and hearing it hit the water many feet below. Many had come and gone over the decades since Paul died. It would be interesting to find out if Jenny was one of the ones who stayed the course.
Taking her bucket of cleaning supplies, Bridget walked downstairs to prepare herself a light lunch as a reward for her housework. She paused in the hallway by the front door.
Today, I’ll open it and walk right out and keep going, she promised herself. She touched the coat hanging on the peg, her best one, not the old one she used in the garden. It was getting a little dusty on the shoulders. That wouldn’t do. She took it down and shook it. She should send it to the dry cleaners. Feeling in the pocket, she found a bent railway ticket. She checked the date. 8 January 2002. Definitely time it went to the cleaners. She wouldn’t be able to go out, would she, not until it came back?
Relieved, she went into the kitchen, made herself a salad, and set about revisions on her latest chapter. She’d reached the part where she entered the narrative, the young bride of the much older Paul Whittingham. He had been the son of the first owner of the house not to bear the Jack surname. His mother had been the eldest of a string of daughters, and wrenched the place from being owned by Jacks to settling disgruntled under a new dynasty, that of the undistinguished Whittinghams. It hadn’t lasted long, had it? She wondered if she should contact one of those ancestry websites and have a family tree drawn up. That way she could leave the house to some lucky Jack who was unaware he stood to inherit. The house would like that; she would feel happier back in familiar territory.
But what if the Jack the tree turned up were American, or, God forbid, Australian? She would have to take that into account, of course, when it came to choosing, vet the individual thoroughly. Better the house was left to charity than that. Her own relatives – all distant cousins – would fume when they found out what she had done only at the reading of the will. It would be like a scene from Dickens. Such a shame she by definition would be unable to attend.
I’ll specify that my will is read in the drawing room, she decided. If there is an afterlife of the sort that allows me to come, then I’ll make sure I’m present. I’ll swing from the chandelier with the ghosts of past Jacks. That is something to look forward to in all the grim prospect of death. A last hurrah.
She looked down at her chapter.
Chapter 14
The House that Jack Built – Chapter Thirty – My Old Age
At first, I wasn’t keen on Paul Whittingham. He never appreciated me in his youth, bringing his long-haired friends home to smoke spliffs in the snug and tell his mother that the smell came from the joss sticks. Employment sobered him. The hair was cut, a suit donned, and the city beckoned. He followed his father into Lloyd’s shipping. How his ancestor the admiral would’ve scoffed to see his flesh and blood sitting at a computer screen analysing the risks of going through the Suez or around the Horn. Go out there and see for yourself, he would’ve bawled in his voice that carried over the storm. But Paul was made for comfort. Not for him was life on the High Seas; he was born for riding a desk and drinking down the pub with his friends. They all grew soft, rounded faces and bellies, hair retreating, courage shrivelling. The irony is that the Eighties made these men out to be heroes. Insurance, as he told the woman he was wooing, is much more interesting than it seems.
He was lying to her, of course. All the men who brought their wives here have lied to them one way or another. All have had mistresses. Sometimes that mistress was a woman, more rarely a man, on occasion the sea. Best of all was when their first love was me.
I dismissed this new wife of Paul’s at the beginning, thinking she was too flighty for the flabby insurance broker. A dancer, he told his mother proudly. A prima ballerina. Or had been. Bridget Taylor had risen through the ranks of the Royal Ballet but, before she could take on any of the leading roles, she was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. She rejected the temptation of pushing herself beyond her body’s limits, resigned from the ballet and took to temping – quite a come down for one who had dreamed of her name in lights. And then Paul fished her from the typing pool. Needing a respectable date for the company Christmas dinner at the Savoy, his eye fell on the elegant secretary in her neat French suits. As the date turned into a relationship, he found he wanted to lose a few pounds, take up some active hobbies, even attend the opera with her if she so wished. They never went to the ballet. She didn’t ask and he never suggested. He learnt tactfulness in his middle years.
His mother was delighted her lacklustre son had polished himself up. She handed over the house and moved to Bournemouth where her sister lived. A Jack returning to the sea – none of us were surprised.
Paul went on one knee to propose under the lilac tree while it rained down bridal confetti. He offered his bride his love, his considerable income, a share in his pension, and a house. It was me that decided the lady in his favour. She liked him well enough, but her first love had been dancing and that had died on her. Rather than be a widow for the rest of her life, she settled for the pleasant prospect I offered.
They hoped for children to fill the empty rooms, but Paul was never the most virile of men. His wife languished, wondering what was wrong with her. It was only after his accident that she discovered what she was missing.
