A Half Forgotten Song (21 page)

“Not exactly. I mean, I have Elise now. I wish I had her in my everyday life, like before. I wish she wasn’t thousands of miles away, but I’m her dad, and I wouldn’t want to be anybody else. And she is in my everyday life, in a way. I think about her all the time. I suppose I came here because . . . I needed to know more
about
who I am. And my family has been connected to this place for generations.”

“Has it?” said Hannah. Zach smiled at her dubious expression.

“Yes. There’s a strong possibility that Charles Aubrey was my grandfather, you see.” Hannah blinked, and a tiny frown appeared between her eyebrows.

“Your grandfather?” she echoed.

“My grandma always claimed to be one of Aubrey’s women. They came here on holiday in 1939, and met Aubrey here. He even put her in a painting. And you know what they say about Charles Aubrey—that he was one of those men who patted the head of every child he passed in the street, just in case it was his.”

“Charles Aubrey’s grandson.” Hannah shook her head slightly, then tipped back her chin and laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing. Just the way things work out sometimes,” she said, offering no further explanation. She thought for a while, resting her chin on her crossed arms. Goose pimples spread up along her narrow thighs. “Do you still love Ali?” she asked eventually.

“No. I love . . . the memory of her. I love the way things were, in the beginning. Do you still love Toby?”

“Of course.” She shrugged. “But it’s different now.” She pressed her lips together and turned her head to look at him. “Very different.” She shook her head. “God, I’m so used to avoiding any mention of him in front of Ilir that I even find it hard to say his name!”

“Right,” said Zach heavily. “Does it make him uncomfortable, then?”

“Yes, but not in the way you’re thinking.”

“What way am I thinking?”

“Ilir always says—his people say—that it’s not right to speak of the dead. That you shouldn’t. It’s like some rigid social code where he’s from.”

“His people?” said Zach. Hannah paused, as though unsure whether to go on.

“Ilir is Roma,” she said.

“You mean he’s a Gypsy?”

“If you like,” she said neutrally. “They don’t have a great name in this country.”

“Where is he from? I’ve been trying to place his accent,” said Zach. Hannah narrowed her amber eyes, and again seemed oddly reluctant to answer.

“Kosovo,” she said shortly. “Ilir was a childhood friend of Toby’s. Well, not really childhood, I guess. Teenage. They met in Mitrovica when Toby’s father was in business over there, before the war started. When the boys were about thirteen, I think. Twelve or thirteen. He came over to help me when he heard Toby had died.”

“And never left?”

“As you see. Not yet, anyway. Ironic, really—the one person in my life who could share memories of Toby with me, and he refuses to.” She gazed away towards the farm for a while, and Zach thought he could see the bond between them, like strands in the air mirroring the currents in the water beneath them. It gave him a sinking feeling.

“Shall we swim? It’s too cold out here,” he said.

“I told you the water was warmer than it looked, didn’t I?” said Hannah, standing up. “Let’s dive.”

“Is it deep enough here?”

“Such a worrier!” She looked down, and gave him a smile. Zach stood up next to her, a full head and shoulders taller, so that she had to tilt her head. She studied him for a moment, in that appraising way he was getting used to. “Come back to the house afterwards, if you want,” she said, watching him steadily.

“What for?” Zach asked. Hannah shrugged one shoulder and dived.

D
imity saw them sitting side by side on the rock jetty like they’d known each other for years. She watched from the kitchen window, and felt something tickling in her stomach. Something that made her clasp her hands there, to hold it; made her shift from foot to foot and turn from time to time, to pace the floor. What were they saying? She wondered about this. The boy had so many questions, all the time, and when she answered them it only made more come. He was insatiable, like that. A hole into which all her stories could pour, and never fill it up.
Here’s a robber coming through, coming through, coming through,
she sang softly, watching them still. She’d started making a charm for Hannah. Pushing pins through small corks, and working them gradually, painstakingly through the neck of a glass bottle. Something to keep her safe, to put on her hearth or over her door. In case there really was a curse on her, or on the farm—that had been her initial thought. Now she thought: to close her mouth as well. To not let this curious boy pull words from her like he pulled them from Dimity.
Here’s a robber coming through, my fair lady.
Hannah knew things, bad things. Secrets she must never tell. Because in the end, Dimity could not do everything herself; she had to ask for help sometimes. Young hands and arms, full of the strength that age had stolen.

When she saw him walk along the beach with the girl, she was happy at first. They seemed to match, in spite of the difference in height and the color of their souls. Hannah’s had always been red, but the young man’s was more blue and green and gray. Shifting, not quite knowing what to be. But soon after she felt happy, she felt anxious, then afraid.
He stole away my wedding ring, wedding ring, wedding ring . . .
For a second, she almost wished Valentina would come back again. Somebody to hear her thoughts, even if help was beyond her. Valentina had never been a helper; could never muster sympathy. Her heart was a thing of wood and stone, hard minerals. Dimity thought about what she had said to Zach, earlier, when suddenly words and feelings had built up an unbearable pressure inside her. What she had said, and had mercifully not said, even though for a moment the truth had hovered on her lips. The truth could be divided, and given in halves, or smaller fractions. The way saying the sky is not green is not the same as saying that the sky is blue. True, but not the same.

Dimity rubbed the ring finger of her left hand; rubbed it at its base, and thought she felt a callus; hard skin in a ridge between finger and palm.
She stole away my wedding ring, my fair lady.
Dimity hummed the tune, mumbled the words, did not notice that
he
had become
she
. She watched Hannah stand and dive back into the sea; watched the young man do the same. He was a follower, that one. Not sure where he was going, and happy to take direction, as a result. If she was careful, she could lead him where she wanted, and where he thought he wanted. But she must be careful.
Have a care, Mitzy. Don’t make things harder on yourself.
Valentina’s words, from long ago. Loaded with scorn and menace. Better not to talk to him at all, however much she liked the words in her mouth:
Charles,
and
love,
and
devotion
. Other words ran alongside them, refusing to stay silent.
Celeste. Élodie. Delphine.
Whore
. Better not to talk at all, then, but it made her sad to imagine Zach never coming again. To think of him outside, knocking, bringing pictures of her that sang like joyful songs in her head when she saw them. Windows to a time she loved, a time she lived; windows so clear and crystalline bright.
But have a care, have a care.
The pair of them swam out of sight beneath the cliff and she turned from the window, went up the stairs without thought, and stood outside the door to the right. The closed door. She put her hand to the wood the way she’d done so many times before.

Then came the rush of hope, of fear. She thought she heard something move, inside. Several times now, since Zach Gilchrist had started to visit. Since the hearth charm had fallen down and left the house wide-open for a while. Holding her breath, she put her ear to the door, pressing her head close to it, spreading the old flesh of her cheek. Her hand rose up, went to the doorknob, and closed around it. She could open it, and go in. She thought she knew what she would see, but she wasn’t sure, not completely
sure
. And she wasn’t sure she wanted to see. There were knots in the wooden door, and a face within them. She thought it was Valentina’s, but it could have been Hannah’s; wide eyes, open mouth. Saying,
Dimity, what have you done? What have you done?
The things Hannah knew; the things she saw that night. Hannah’s heart had been beating so hard that Dimity had heard it clearly, clattering against her ribs, and she’d been shocked to see such fear, such horror, twisting the girl’s face and making her body shake. Swallowing, Dimity uncurled her hand from the doorknob and stepped back.

A
t the farmhouse, Hannah disappeared into what might have been a laundry room—there were heaps of clothes and cloth, spewing from several baskets around the floor; ranks of empty soap boxes. She came out with a lurid beach towel, striped and multicolored; Zach took it and rubbed it over his hair. The rest of him had dried on the walk up the valley from the beach, but his boxers were sodden and cold, clinging and clammy against his skin. He fidgeted them surreptitiously beneath his jeans, but Hannah saw, and smiled.

“Got a problem down there?” she said.

“Bit of sand, bit of seaweed. Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Coffee?”

“Is it safe to drink?”

“Yes, I think so.” Hannah eyed him haughtily. “The boiling water kills the germs.” She went through to the kitchen, stepping deftly, automatically, around the piles of debris in the hallway. The piles had clearly been there a long time. The gray-and-white collie, which had appeared at the edge of the yard and followed them in, slunk into its bed and watched them wistfully as they passed.

“Seriously, though . . . the yard is so tidy . . .” Zach looked around the kitchen and raised his hands at the chaos. “How do you ever find anything in here?”

“The yard’s important, that’s why it’s tidy. And I find that the stuff I need rises to the surface in here, eventually.” She cast her eyes around the room, as if really seeing it for once. The corners of her mouth twitched and turned down. “My mum was very house-proud. She’d be horrified, if she saw this. Especially her kitchen. It used to be the kind of kitchen where you’d come in from school and there’d be a tray of fresh scones cooling on the table.” Zach said nothing. “But . . . Toby was messy. I was appalled, when he first took me back to his room at college. In himself he was clean, tidy—a bit too tidy, almost. But his room looked like a bomb had gone off. It smelled of moldy bread and old socks. I had to throw the window open and lean out for air; grip of passion or no grip of passion. When he died . . . when he died it seemed a fitting homage, of a kind. The mess. Like I could let him have it his way, since he’d gone and left me.” She shrugged sadly. “But to be honest, once it gets past a certain point, cleaning ceases to be an option. You don’t even see the mess anymore.”

“I could help you, if you like? I mean, if you wanted to have a clear-out, one day.”

“One day?” She shook her head. “It’d take a month.”

“Well,” said Zach, then couldn’t think what to add. Hannah picked up two mugs and ostentatiously washed one under the hot tap. She gave Zach an arch look, and he tried not to notice that there was no washing-up liquid, and that the sponge she used to wash it was stained and bedraggled. But Hannah paused and looked at it, discarded it, and used her fingers to finish the job.

“Stop it,” she said.

“Stop what?”

“Stop watching me, stop making me notice. I haven’t got time to sort it.”

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Hannah put the mugs down by the kettle and spread her hands on the countertop for a moment, leaning her weight onto them, arms rigid and straight. Her bikini had imprinted a wet echo of itself through her shirt and trousers, and the rat-tail ends of her hair were hung with droplets of water like beads. The kettle began to make a quiet groaning sound, and she flicked it off again with a quick, decisive movement.

“Come on,” she said abruptly, reaching out a hand to him. “Let’s get out of these wet things.”

She took him upstairs to a large bedroom that faced the sea. The afternoon light poured in through two huge sash windows, warming the scattered corpses of flies on the sill. If there had once been curtains, there weren’t anymore. The bed had a high brass headboard; the duvet was crumpled, half on the floor. Cracks zigzagged like lightning through the pale blue paint on the walls. Hannah shut the door behind Zach and turned to face him as she pulled off her shirt and the wet red bikini top. She fixed him with a challenging expression, the pale ghost of her swimsuit diffuse against the summer tan on her skin, outlining her small breasts, making her nipples stand out darkly. Zach stepped forwards, put his hands around her waist and ran them up along her spine to the hard lines where her shoulder blades pressed through the skin. He kissed her and tasted salt. The sea was on her lips, on her chin and cheeks. Cold drops of it fell from her hair onto his arms when he wrapped them around her; and he felt her body tense up, pushing herself closer to him. Desire stormed through him, choking and irresistible, made his arms tighten until the breath was squeezed from her, and her mouth grew softer. When he opened his eyes, her look was no longer measuring but calm and urgent. It was an expression Zach could read at once; one he recognized, finally and without doubt. He didn’t loosen his grip for a second. He straightened up, lifting her so that her feet came off the floor. He turned towards the bed, and they fell together. The feel of her arms wrapped around him, the movement of her body, its taste, its smell, were all-consuming; made the world and everything in it vanish. For a while there was only the two of them, tangled together, and nothing else mattered.

When Zach woke up, he was sprawled across Hannah’s mattress like a starfish. The sheets smelled faintly of sheep. Every limb felt warm and heavy, but his mind was clear. He looked up and saw her standing in front of the window, still naked, chewing at the skin of one thumb. He took the opportunity to study her, knowing that he could do so only when she wasn’t aware of it. Her big toes turned up slightly at the ends, no paint on the nails. There was a tiny, dark tattoo of a seahorse on her right hip, just where the bone showed its shape. Her buttocks sank slightly down, creasing the skin into a single neat fold. He could count her ribs, which were scattered with freckles. Her hair was dry now, a wild, knotty-looking thatch. Wide eyes, focused far out to sea. Again he had the strangest feeling that he knew her, had seen her before. There was something naggingly familiar in everything, even the way she stood, lost in thought, and Zach wondered if this was some level of recognition deeper than the physical, than the mundane arrangement of features on a face. Something instinctive, needful. He felt something crack inside him then; a small rupture and a bruising sensation, at once new and familiar. He greeted it with mixed feelings—a dismayed sort of welcome.