The shadowing of combfoo.., p.24
The Shadowing of Combfoot Chase, page 24
Once Mr Kelly has completed his oration a spatter of polite applause is heard and the leader of the council does the honours by removing covers from the solar panel. An awkward pause before the fountain comes to life, before the spring begins, eternal just as long as there is sun enough to keep it going. At last a little joyous bulb of water pops up from the sacred opening of the pineapple. It swells and bursts, begins a cascade which will trickle down and wet the tiers below.
The curious robin hears the sound of running water. He’s not heard that here before and though the duck pond stands outside the limits of his winter territory, he decides he will be brave and will investigate. He flies and perches boldly on the rim of the top tier from whence he starts his study of this new supply of water. The flow begins to make a pool and he delights the crowd by bathing in it, by a sudden shaking of his feathers which flings bright droplets high up into the air. The drops make prisms in the sunlight, a momentary micro-rainbow. The crowd is charmed, applauds. How lovely and uplifting nature is, they think. They tell each other that the robin is a sign of good luck coming back to Combfoot Chase, that everyone will soon be prosperous and happy.
Mr Tombleson does not join in with the clapping. Instead he’s concentrating on an enormous duck who’s waddled over to the bottom of the fountain. Thanks to an interesting feature of its eye, the duck can take in objects near and far and simultaneously, so it knows both that the fountain is a new and unsoiled surface, and that not too far way away a crowd is watching him. However as the duck has no control over its sphincter muscle and can’t be potty trained – no matter how hard you might try – it promptly dumps its faecal matter on the polyresin-footing of the fountain. Mr Tombleson grunts a grunt of satisfaction. He’d like to say, “I told you so,” to the leader of the council, though if we’re honest it was Mrs Tombleson who really made that accurate prediction. Instead he rolls his banner up and herds his wife and daughter back towards the car. “That’ll show ’em all,” he says, and takes his family to The Cock and Bull, where they raise a toast to jobs well done.
The self-removal of the Tomblesons has opened up the view for Ava, who’s been sitting all the while on a shadowed bench inside the bandstand. She selected this bench because it seemed a little cleaner than the others and she’s wearing her best jeans. She read the plaque before she set her back against it. In memory of Aunty Maud, much loved and missed by Harold, June and Sandra. The names mean nothing and are easily forgotten.
Ava keeps her distance from the ceremony. Her mind is full of other things – we’ll get to details later – and besides, she isn’t sure if she’d be welcome. It’s months since she’s met anybody from the theatre company, was only driven here by niggling doubt she ought to pay respects to Mattie. She’s often thought about what happened in the theatre, has relived every horror in her dreams more often than she dares admit even to a friend like Grace. She’s come in hope that rituals are magical enough to put it all to bed. She scans the crowd, searches each and every gathered head for someone that she recognises, but realises there’s no one. Jason is a no-show and Brogan disappeared a while ago, though Ava has no way of knowing this.
A few days after Mattie died, his sister’s flat was on the market and solicitors were primed to say they had no knowledge of her whereabouts and held no forwarding address. At first the father worried and began to formulate a plan to search for his stray daughter. He’d lost a wife and son already, didn’t think that Fate could be so cruel as to take Brogan too. However he’d soon given up when he’d been overcome by feelings of complete exhaustion. The forfeiture of family takes its tolls on even the most stoic souls.
Mr Kelly had been sitting in his living room one evening, a balloon of brandy warming in his hand, engrossed in contemplation of whether he should contact the police or whether he’d be better starting with the local paper, when suddenly he’d realised that he rather liked the silence. With first his wife then both his children gone, he was at last quite free to do exactly as he pleased. No one could stop him eating buttered eggs for breakfast, nor monitor his levels of cholesterol. He’d never have to gnaw his way through worthy plates of fruit and veg each day. He’d be allowed to have a brandy every evening if he wanted to and wouldn’t have to sneak outdoors to have a cigarette. Such behaviour, he concedes, would be disgraceful – nay, completely irresponsible – if he’d still had to head a family, but as long as he’s alone he figures anything can go and no one will be any more the wiser when he rocks up in his usual pew to join the congregation of the local Catholic church.
When Mr Kelly had first had this thought, he’d laughed out loud. He’d dosed his glass more generously with what was left in the decanter, had kicked off both his moccasins and put his feet up on the sofa, had decided then and there that he would no more hunt for Brogan. The ties of blood are thinner and much less rewarding than the ones we forge ourselves, he’d thought. He’d let himself lean back against the cushions, closed his eyes and conjured up the image of a saucy widow whom he’d happened to bump into quite by accident not long ago when he’d popped in to buy a latte from that trendy café round the corner. He’d let himself imagine what she looked like naked, hadn’t shied away from all the shifting details of a slightly ageing body, had enjoyed a lengthy meditation on the shape she’d choose to trim her bush. Would she stick to bland and boring landing strips or would she dare to pluck a playful heart? In fact he’d got himself quite hot under the collar and had had to have a hasty wank before he could relax.
That self-same widow’s here today, although discretely. Mr Kelly found out yesterday her pubic hair is shaped into a lightning bolt. He’s glad he’d shaved off his moustache in preparation for a new encounter, but doesn’t think it’s yet appropriate to have her at his elbow. He thinks it’s best if she stays inconspicuous, so she lurks on the edges of the crowd and mingles with the other people who have no real memories of Ruth or Mattie. She thinks the fountain’s very lovely, just the proper way to honour absent family and preferable to dealing with real people in real life. She’s hit the jackpot, she believes, in having caught a man who comes with nothing but his money. He’s the perfect prospect and she couldn’t ask for more.
Ava’s also thinking of relationships. She’s had a proposition and is struggling to finalise her answer. The question had surprised her, had been sprung on her, had come completely out of empty blue. “I only said I’d go to supper, had no idea I might be faced with moving to Australia,” she complains. Her phone is ready in her hand. Its screen displays a moody and persistent blank. There’ve been no texts from him today, no messages at all. At supper she had made a show of indecision because she’d wanted to be civil, but from the moment that he’d asked her if she’d go with him she’d understood herself to be conventional and square. Deep down her instinct is to say no to adventure. “I’m not the sort to take off on a whim,” she thinks, “especially not to somewhere so far-flung.”
She tries to ease the weight of her own limitations by following the passage of a wasp which makes its way into the bandstand. It dances circles in the darkened space as though it’s dizzy, as though it’s not sure where it ought to be. April is the crucial time to build its nest and it’s survived for weeks on nothing but infrequent dandelions, but it’s fuddled by the new array of flowers in the park and can’t believe the glut is really real. Even if it only opts for flowers in its favourite colours – ignores the reds and sticks to white or yellow – there are still too many choices for decisions to be clear. Just this morning when it tried to feed on tubular flowers, it recognised its tongue was far too short to reach the stamen. Soon the wasp will figure out that if it bites a small hole at the base then it can rob this flower of nectar and a little innovation will release a world of possibility. For now it’s still completely baffled. A few rounds of the bandstand and the wasp decides that this is not a place it wants to build a nest. It flies away to take its chance elsewhere.
Alas for Ava she can’t bring herself to follow its example. Last week when sitting opposite at supper, Philip had exuded energy, had frightened her. A man on fire would burn her, surely? She’d tried to think of change as something to desire as he so obviously does. She’d stalled and played for time, had asked, “So when d’you imagine we would go?” She’d felt shocked when he’d said he’d made a plan to go next week.
“Only to check it out, you know…” He’d shrugged and left the offer hanging.
She’d laid her hands flat on the table, had straightened out the creases in the cloth, repeating the same action over and again. Philip had begun to throw her odd and anxious looks. She remembers a feeling of deflation, of all her hopes unfolding and flattening out, of an awareness that everything had been crumpled and spoilt. At the time she’d managed to say nothing more, had wanted to avoid a snare of worthless words, had tried to think of the suggestion without prejudice. As yet she’s not convinced migration is the answer to her troubles, but the asking of the question made a cut and she has no idea what glue might fix what she had felt for Philip. Ava tracks the wasp as long as she is able. She keeps her eyes on it and watches as it flies above the crowd, then loses it when people start to separate, when shadows move and shift formation round the fountain.
“My relationship is over,” she announces to the empty bandstand. She says the sentence out loud as a thought experiment, though she knows the words don’t taste good in her mouth and make her feel immensely wretched. The decision may be prudent, but it doesn’t make her happy.
“Sleep on it,” Philip had said, and then he’d winked at her. She hadn’t liked that. Not at all. He’d only meant it lightly, she was sure, but she believed the gesture smacked of trickery. It was a side of him she’d never seen before, as though someone had turned him over, shown her secret messages they’d written on his back.
A lying tongue had promised she would weigh his proposition and she’d duly slept on it, although a week of slumber hadn’t made the answer any clearer. She worries that to cross the world with Philip would make him responsible for her and she can’t contemplate existing under someone else’s wing. “I’ve never had much luck with men,” says Ava. Good fortune is a magic that she’s never had and now does not expect.
She presses the power button on her phone and Philip’s image is illuminated on the lock screen. That picture had been taken on the day they’d motored his boat out onto the reservoir. The wind is in his hair and all his teeth grin at the camera. Through every failure, Ava thinks, through all her days and nights alone, she’s wished and wished for that one person around whom to build her rituals. She’s yearned to make a pattern of repeated ceremonies, to mark off anniversaries and birthdays as she thinks most families – or at least their women – do. She’s not known Philip very long, but had thought he might possibly become that fulcrum. All those dreams seem very silly now. She ought to know that wishes are not granted.
“Just think about the weather,” he’d said as they’d sat by their uneaten suppers. He’d reached across the table, grabbed her hand and popped the fatal question. Then he’d topped up both their glasses with more wine – Australian Shiraz, she notes now, wryly. When she’d hesitated, he’d smiled, had tried to soothe away her doubts and to entice her with a vague hint at the possibility of marriage. “Though no pressure,” he’d said casually, “but it might make coming with me easier.”
She hopes the look she’d given him was proud. “If I should think of getting married, my only motivation would be love,” she tells the lock screen picture, and then presses the power button once again, this time to make his picture disappear. There ought to be no mention of convenience where weddings are concerned. And yet, she thinks, she had been tempted. For a week she’s flirted with the thought of being Mrs Turner but can’t make up her mind to call him and to publicly admit a change of heart.
Australia is still too far and far too new.
So yesterday when they had met for morning coffee in the café, she’d told him that she couldn’t go. She’d tried to stress how seriously she’d mulled the question over. “I didn’t, though,” she thinks now. “No, I didn’t. Not at all.”
He’d looked put out and ruffled, had sat back and crossed his arms in a defensive gesture which had not escaped her. Any hope that he might stay in Combfoot Chase, that his proposal was an early wrinkle they could iron out with time and effort, had evaporated when he’d told her he’d already said yes to a job and packed his bags. “I’ll keep your ticket, just in case you change your mind,” he’d said. But he would leave, accompanied or not.
Since then she’s heard nothing from him. No text, no message. Nothing.
Perhaps, thinks Ava, Phil is right to cut things off. There’s no point in a late-night phone call from across the world, or streams of messages if you can’t touch each other. There’s no point drawing out the agony, though renewed acquaintance with a lover’s silence has been awful. She knows his flight takes off tomorrow and then he will be gone, and she’ll go back to being absolutely on her own.
Last night she’d gone to Grace’s house in search of company, had been distraught to find her friend was not at home. She’d used her key, had waited curled up on the sofa, but Grace had not come back.
Thoughts of the ending of her love affair had stopped her sleeping. She’d woken frequently, had had to while away the hours reading tweets. When bored of social media she’d checked her emails. Not a single one was personal, just streams of messages from shops and businesses she’d bought from in the past. She’d flicked through them, deleted them. One subject line had caught her eye. Please Tell Us Where We’ve Gone Astray, it begged. She’d clicked on it and read the contents. We’ve noticed that you haven’t opened any of our emails lately. What did we do wrong? The message had read rather like a love letter, had pleaded for an explanation why she’d gone away. Why don’t you need to buy another dozen pairs of socks, or trainers, headphones, bicycles, bananas? Why don’t you want us, don’t you need us, don’t you love us anymore? “It’s scary that my phone is tailing me,” she’d thought, had shuddered and had turned the damn thing off. “Do something,” she’d insisted to herself. “Do anything, even if you only visit the museum.”
Ava takes her comfort in familiarity and seeks a consolation in the past. She goes to the museum often – more and more in recent weeks – enjoys the atmosphere of custom and tradition ossified, though cases full of porcelain and marble aren’t to everybody’s taste. “Though I prefer it once my visit’s over,” she has realised. Only later when she’s pottering around the park among the flowerbeds, or when she’s breathing fresh air underneath the trees, does she appreciate a dip into her heritage. “It’s not that I love claustrophobic cups in casements, but I feel relief once I can leave it all behind.” The past is not somewhere she wants to live, but is a root which gives her space to grow.
Although today her visit had been bothered by surprises. She’d made her way from room to room without expecting novelty or innovation, had been a little startled when she’d come across a corner that she’s never noticed on her visits there before. She must have passed it every other time she’s been, though perhaps she’d been swept on by flocks of other visitors, or had her nose stuck very deep into the guidebook. It’s easy to see only the historic highlights specified by experts and never pause to peer through the protective gloom all by yourself. And so she’s never raised her eyes to see that there’s a cupola – there’s always been a cupola – which lets in light to spiral down a simple staircase and illuminates it from the very top right to the very bottom. She’d almost missed it once again today because although the niche was very brightly lit, it had been stuffed to bursting with a host of other people.
A teacher from the school had crowded in a group of children – too many to jam into the space – so some had spilled out, made themselves a nuisance in the corridor. The teacher had been pointing up. The children dutifully craned their necks and angled camera phones at something Ava couldn’t see. She’d tried to look above the strange hubbub of heads but gave up, had decided it was better to be patient. All the children had oohed and ahhed on cue, then turned their backs on what they were supposed to notice. They’d wielded selfie-sticks, created Snaps, had occupied themselves by tagging all their friends in every photo.
“I didn’t come for this,” Ava had grumbled to herself, “I came to think, to find some peace and quiet.”
The teacher had then spotted Ava and had herded all the kids away, revealing a discrete attendant who’d been hidden in a corner. She must have sat in silence with the gaggle all around her, head bowed, concentrating on a book and pleased to disregard the boisterous muddle. But when Ava had entered she’d looked up, had welcomed her and smiled. “Hello,” she’d said. “If you hold on a mo, that lot will soon move off and you can have a look in peace.”
“Oh, yes, I will. Yes, thank you,” Ava had said, had done as she was told and waited, had then asked, “So what’s the fuss about?”
“A Temporary Art Installation,” the girl had said, the capitals embedded in her emphasis.
“Oh…?” Ava had registered the faintest trace of disappointment. It wasn’t that she objected to the thought of modern art – in capitals or not – but she had hoped simply to look up and appreciate the natural light which poured in through the cupola. She’d hoped that with the pupils gone the space would become empty and correct. And now she’d have to feign an interest in some upstart of an artist and their complication of ideas. The very thought was tiring, but the room attendant had already spoken and with no polite way out she was condemned to take part in the conversation, and to listen to prescribed interpretations of the art. She’d closed her eyes, had waited till she’d heard the teacher’s voice a long way off, had only then allowed herself to look.
