Friday 21 August 2015
It had been raining for weeks. Even for a Scottish summer, this was ridiculous. The windows of 10 Altmore Road were splattered with transparent comets, obliterating the view across the road to the trees. The leaves danced in the wind, the whole forest swaying in a carefully choreographed routine, bending and oscillating before whiplashing back, each in sequence, like a Mexican wave.
It was twenty to six; the gentle light of dawn played on the horizon. The silhouette of Altmore Wood was undulating against the lightening sky. Lynda McMutrie had been awake most of the night, sitting looking out the front window, dressed in her flowered nightgown with her big blue cardie wrapped round her shoulders. Her feet, cosy in red slippers, were warm in front of the fire. An old Agatha Christie lay open on the arm of the chair, an empty bottle of vodka sat on the rug; the glass had rolled to rest against the hearth following the slope of the floor. The crowd of fake Capodimonte ornaments sitting on their dusty carpet on the mantelpiece looked down disapprovingly. Punch and Pantalone were contemptuous. The Blacksmith and the cherubs were reproachful. At least the lady of Lourdes was sympathetic. She knew life could be tough.
Drink was more persuasive than sleep, and sleep was an enemy. The noise of the rain on the roof tiles was a constant irritant; a sudden change of wind direction heralded a full volley on the window glass. Then Lynda was aware of the other noise – a whooshing, and a gentle roaring that crept into her ears. And into her head.
That was her first thought, as the noise was so clear.
Then she looked into the bottom of her glass, a more likely source of her hallucinations. Over the years she had suffered them all: chased by lions, eaten by spiders; once even humiliated at the Eurovision Song Contest. God, the relief when she had woken up from that one.
All due to the demon drink. But she didn’t think she was drunk now. Not by her standards.
She eased herself up in the chair, watching the gleaming sheets of water streaming down the road, like the first waves of an early tide racing up grey sand. All that water pouring from the sky.
She relaxed back, thinking about opening another bottle.
But that sound in her ears wasn’t for letting up. If anything it was getting louder.
And coming from inside the house. Frowning, she looked out the window, up at the dark sky, out to the woods, to the trees, at the cracked ceiling, at the bubbled wallpaper, and finally at the floor. The noise was coming from down there somewhere. She got up and walked unsteadily to the hall. Her arthritic hands on the back of the chair, then on the sideboard, on the door handle, on the table in the hall, then on the door that concealed the steps to the basement. She didn’t trust her knees or her balance these days. The noise crescendoed as soon as she opened the door. She tried the light switch. Nothing but a dry click. She reached out for the wooden handrail, grasping it tightly in her fingers. Feeling the edge of the old wooden steps, down one, two, three; reaching with her toes in their red slippers. Each foot playing catch-up with the other before she dropped another level. Hand over hand on the rail, crabbing her way into the downstairs space. A ninety-degree turn at the bottom, three more steps, then the sole of her foot was wet. The squelch of her bodyweight on the basement carpet gave her a fright.
Then she saw the photographs. Two of them warped and stained with water lying discarded on the bottom step. Both were photos of her first love, in his youth, tall and square-jawed; both pictures taken the day they had had their champagne picnic in the wood. Smiling, a little tearful, she eased herself down and picked them up gently, ignoring the pain in her thumb.
Then she slipped.
Or fell.
Or something.
Jennifer Lawson sat on the old pine chair, nursing the sore backside she had inflicted on herself at five that morning, falling asleep sitting on the loo. Tiredness had finally overcome the noise of the rain battering off the roof. Now she was looking out of the kitchen window of 8 Altmore Road. The rain seemed never-ending. But she was enjoying that rarest of moments; both her children were asleep. Simultaneously.
Gordy had finished eating and had stopped coughing for a moment, allowing him to succumb to his tiredness. Taking advantage of his wee brother being quiet, Robbie had promptly joined him in the land of slumber. With Douglas still dead to the world upstairs, so Jennifer was left awake, as wrung out as a wet rag. Hence the falling asleep on the toilet.
The darkness outside looked as light as it was going to get. She had two washings to go in the machine, another three basketfuls were still damp, and with Gordy being sick during the night there would be his cot cover strewn on the bathroom floor, stinking, and a trail of clothes on the stairs, or wherever she had taken him to try to stop him screaming. She turned her head, listening to the boiler making its loud but ineffectual roar. It had been on full all night but the chill hung in the air, a dampness that clung to the sheets and the clothes and the furniture. Nothing in this house dried out or warmed up. Jennifer looked up at the ceiling, expecting to see icicles hanging from the kitchen light, but it was the usual: dancing cobwebs. She heard her husband’s footsteps. It was ten to seven and he was up and about at last. Tiptoeing to the bottom of the stairs, she heard him talking on his mobile. She could only make out low mutterings, not the way he spoke to his staff at the bank. It was the way he used to talk to Jennifer.
She returned to the kitchen table, side-sweeping the dirty plates with her arms so she could rest her head and think about Gordy. He had been sick. His coverlet was stained with little specks of blood. Douglas said it was from the eczema on his fingers and toes. They looked sore, like tiny paper cuts, but when she had tried to examine them, Gordy had started his warp-factor screaming that woke Robbie, who promptly went red in the face and asked to go for a number two monkey as per page five of Painless Toilet Training. So Jennifer had spent the small hours of the morning stumbling round number 8 with one child or the other, cleaning this bit, feeding that bit, soothing the other bits. At some point, Gordy really turned up the volume and Douglas had stomped downstairs and asked politely if she wouldn’t mind making that kid ‘shut the fuck up’. Then he had felt guilty and put the kettle on. He had handed her a mug of milky tea when he knew she took hers black. He trudged back upstairs, muttering something about how he had an early start in the morning and needed some bloody sleep.
Today was another day, he might be in a better mood.
Nobody could ever say that Jennifer Lawson wasn’t an optimist.
Her husband appeared, looking lovely in his crisp designer suit, which was so at odds with his surroundings of old brown wallpaper, mismatched blue carpets and the second-hand black leather suite. He smelled of good aftershave. She smelled of stale sweat and baby sick. He placed his briefcase and laptop at the door, laid his bulky rucksack beside them, his computer and classic car magazines on top.
He could hardly wait to get out.
She could understand that.
‘Are you taking more stuff away with you?’ she asked.
‘Aw pet.’ He kissed her on the top of her head, ruffling her unwashed hair.
She muttered an apology for the acrid aroma of dirty nappies that clung to her housecoat, and floated around her head like a cloud of midges on a summer’s evening.
‘I am at the Edinburgh office today. I did tell you.’
No you didn’t.
‘Have you had your breakfast yet? You need to keep your strength up, running around after these hooligans all day.’
‘Are you offering to make me something? Some scrambled egg? A bacon roll. Some toast, even just warm the bread up a wee bit. I don’t mind.’ She tried to inject some humour, but it was her heartfelt wish for something hot and tasty to be put in front of her so all she had to do was eat it. With a bit of luck it might even be off a clean plate.
‘Sorry babe, I have a breakfast meeting.’
Babe?
He opened his jacket, pulled out his wallet and took out a wad of ten-pound notes, counted out four and placed them on the table in front of her. He folded the rest away. ‘God, this house is a mess.’ He placed a manicured hand on the radiator. ‘Does it ever warm up?’
‘No, we need a new boiler.’
‘No point in spending any money, it’s going to be demolished within the year. We wouldn’t get a return on the investment.’ He checked his Tag Heuer.
‘Maybe not, but at least I could get the washing dry,’ she mumbled. ‘So is this builder guy—’
‘Not “this builder guy”; his name is Gregor. And yes, we are in negotiations, it won’t take long. We just need to sit tight, pet.’
‘Why can’t I sit tight in the Edinburgh flat with you? Are you not coming back tomorrow? Why are you taking all that stuff?’ She tried to check on the calendar that it was Friday, but the door had swung closed slightly, blocking her view. It had started to do that. It had a mind of its own these days. Even the bloody house conspired against her.
‘I can’t work here with those two about, you know that.’
‘Those two are your sons. And you have an office in Glasgow, like four miles down the road.’
‘And a meeting in Edinburgh.’ He was fiddling with his cuffs now, unable to meet her eyes. ‘And the Edinburgh flat has achieved a twenty per cent gain in value since we bought it, so you can’t complain about that, can you?’
Yes.
He leaned over her, his hands on the table, like a teacher talking her through a difficult algebra problem. She looked at his lovely clean fingernails; she had God-knows-what under hers. ‘So if I stay there overnight, maybe also tomorrow, I can get so much more done. Then we can have a go at the Artex on Sunday, we can tackle it together.’
She didn’t believe him. He knew she didn’t believe him. He knew she had no strength to argue. If it was being demolished next year, then why remove the Artex? She walked him to the front door; he patted both sleeping children on their heads as he went past. She held the door open for him and wondered if he remembered their names.
He kissed her on the cheek, keeping his good suit away from the stains on her housecoat. ‘Stay inside, you’ll get soaked.’
He pressed a button on the Audi keypad and dashed out into the rain, briefcase in hand, rucksack over his shoulder, magazines rolled under his arm. Jennifer watched him go. She raised her hand to wave goodbye, but he drove down towards the parade without a backward glance. She was still standing there when he indicated left and pulled out, disappearing from her view beyond the Altmore Wood. She leaned against the door lintel, breathing in the damp air, wet and biting. It reminded her of being at home on the island.
Bloody August and the air outside the house was warmer than the air inside, so she breathed deeply, closing her eyes, enjoying the delicate new day, watching the rainfall. She wondered if it was possible to fall asleep standing up, like horses. She felt herself drifting, then was whiplashed back to reality as Gordy started to gurgle in the living room behind her. She stayed at the door, keeping her eyes closed, hoping that the baby would fall asleep again. She relished the damp rain, the music of raindrops sprinkling on the long grass, the smell of the woods opposite where the dark trees stood resolutely against the weather, as they had for a hundred years or more. She opened her eyes as Gordy coughed, a deep, racking cough that came from the bottom of his boots. He was gearing up for a screaming fit once he could get his breath. Wee soul. She left him to it; she needed a little time to herself, just watching the water pour from the sky. She tried to see some patterns in the clouds – a cat, or an island, a pork chop – but it wasn’t that kind of cloud or that kind of a day. The rhododendrons had lost some of their leaves, discarding them to form crimson footprints over the verdant grass carpet below. So sad to scatter their petals so soon, battered down by the weight of the water over the past few days.
She took a final breath of clean, fresh air, mindful of how smelly the house was. It stunk of baby and toddler, and all kinds of bodily functions and malfunctions – and something else, something that was getting worse. It was a dense, musky smell that seemed more defined when she was on her own; like the smell seemed to know when Douglas went out, and then, sensing his absence, let its own presence be known.
She saw Laura, the gym bunny from number 12 running up the road with their wee poodle. They had on matching outfits, her and the dog, bright pink and waterproof. Jennifer almost cried with envy at somebody with enough energy to go for a run and colour-coordinate their dog. Jennifer waved, thinking that it would be nice to shout out: Why don’t you come in for a coffee later, I’ll find a clean cup. She wanted to say, We are the same age, can we be friends? Or, You live two doors up, bloody speak to me. But Laura was jogging past, her blonde ponytail snaking out of the back of her cap, headphones on, and the small, expensive dog tootled behind, wrapped up in some kind of pink designer cling film.
The wave wasn’t returned, so Jennifer closed the door before suffering any further rejection.
Stuck-up cow.