Mrs s, p.4
Mrs S, page 4
Her hand returns to my back. I have spares. From a toolbox she produces another pair of gloves. If you need I can lend you a shirt. I think she is looking at my bare arms. Still I can’t see her eyes. My back braces against the sun. At my feet she places a bucket filled with water. A few roses loll against the plastic. These are the colour of felt-tip pens. A cartoonish love-heart red. I know this colour. I know these roses. OK so let’s aim for at least seven bunches? Finally she lifts the edge of her hat. Eyes blink then narrow. No mascara today. Irises blue, as indifferent as a watercolour. Can I get you a drink? No, I’m fine. What about that shirt? She removes a glove and grips my forearm, twisting to better see the scratch. Gardening is a dangerous sport. I laugh. Really, I’ll be fine. With her free hand she pulls down her collar to reveal her neck. A raised cut. You’re not the only one. Only now does she realize my arm is still in her hand, fingers tightening. Something passes between us. Breath across light. Or maybe more. More than breath, more than light. A glance like a cigarette burn. Nausea floods, then subsides. My arm is released. I put on the gloves and count the leaves. She watches. At five I cut. It is tougher than expected. The stem resists. When the secateur blades finally meet I recoil. The force is a surprise. My body tips forward. Tough stuff, roses. She smiles and pats my shoulder, maternal. Again I am clumsy. The smile, its type, is not what I wanted.
I’ll get you that water. She walks towards the house newly authoritative. I watch her open the blue door and disappear inside. She reappears suddenly. Parading in and out of my mind. Here, please do borrow a shirt. She waves again. I see blood on my shorts. The cuts on my forearm, my thigh, are insistent. OK. She aims her torso at me: What? I call again dramatically. OK! This time I cup my hands around my mouth. She mimics falling backwards, as if the muscle of my voice has hit her squarely in the chest. I overdo my laughter so she will be able to hear. Stupid. The path towards the house offers more roses. An old bird bath almost falling off its plinth. Bees in the thicker flowers. As I walk they are caught in the breeze my body creates. Nudging my back, drifting around my neck, one considers the entrance to my ear.
The door has been left open. I notice the paint is peeling, showing another much older layer of lighter blue paint underneath. Above the door is the dead author’s name again. Her surname, followed ceremoniously by Cottage, although this is surely a house. Each letter recently repainted in slick black. The school’s endless theme: the dead author. Now she is delivered to this vicarage with its freshly painted attributes, with its charming yellow roses framing the windows.
Inside is pleasantly dark. The furniture too, dark. That handsome smell of wood. I remove the gloves and try to stuff them into my shorts. The pocket is too tight. Instead I leave them on an antique sideboard. A large mirror hangs on the wall. I pause, disappointed by the red in my cheeks. Down the corridor is a seat smooth with age, an intricate umbrella stand, a large portrait. This time not of the author but her father. Same thin lips. Hello, in here! I go towards the sound of a tap turned on and off. Here! I accidentally walk into a bathroom. The window done in stained glass, something something in Latin, what is it with Latin, an emblem of a blue fish, a red bird, both glowing with sun. No, here. Her laughter, patronizing, then her face. The kitchen is dated and spotless. A dishwasher churns in the corner. It feels strange after the depth of the corridor. Huge light swings in through two large windows behind the sink. Out the back is even more garden. A hill sloping away from the house and down to a curve of the river. In the middle of the lawn is a table set with only two chairs, an abandoned coffee cup, a plate. Maybe that is where she eats breakfast. She catches my eye. It’s enormous, isn’t it. Yes. The furniture isn’t mine, by the way, we had to move in as is. I notice the mine, then the we. There is no ours. Although she tries she can’t quite push past him. The house, its occupants, have always been a headmaster and his wife. A perk of the job. Yes, everything in here is original. From when? From the day it was first lived in, I suppose. A house with no secrets, then. She looks at me. That unblinking, still blue. What do you mean? I had wanted to sound clever. I mean an entire history is on display, its entire history. Ah well not quite, there’s hardly anything of what’s happened in between, is there? A glass of water is placed in my hand. It is a heavy crystal tumbler, better suited to whisky. There’s a short rip in the knee of her jeans, a second broken belt loop. Again my eye is caught. Is it alien, to see me in jeans? A little.
She drinks out of an old tea mug. As decoration it bears a cheap transfer of the school’s crest. Dates too. A reunion that happened ten years ago. Is that how long you’ve lived here? No, no. I step backwards out of the window’s sun. We’ve hardly been here at all, two years, just over. I nod at the mug. See? There is something of the ‘in between’ on display, then. She is pleased. I suppose you’re right, although this shitty mug is probably it. The word shitty is for me. A sleight of mimicry. She puts down the mug and investigates her hands. Soil under her fingernails. Another cut, smaller, at the base of her thumb. Ah, unavoidable damage! She brings her thumb to her mouth and sucks the injury. I look away. The damn roses. I want to offer her the same, some mimicry, a quick signal across the space between us. The damn rose book more like, useless thing. I imagine the headmasters’ wives, each headmaster’s wife, has left a successful legacy. Afternoons spent doing what we are doing, tossing roses into buckets.
Come on, up we go. She takes one last drink. I do the same. In the bedroom is the skin-and-breath odour of her sleep. She opens the window immediately, aware of the smell. A heavy woollen blanket on the bed despite the heat. A bathroom is off to one side, the door partially closed. I try to be more subtle in my gaze, moving only sideways and underneath, so she can’t watch what I see. On her bedside table is a book. I would have to stare to make out the title. I move closer and feign a turn out the window. On the sweep I read the book’s cover. It is in another language. There’s the view. From here I can spy the roof of my room. The road too, one car speeding past, then another. She is above even the church’s spire. Quite ostentatious, isn’t it – even for a vicar? Very. Hung on the wall is a portrait of the three sisters, the dead author in the middle. This must be valuable. Oh yes, there was once talk of the entire house becoming a museum. I laugh, my turn to be cruel. She barely reacts.
The churchyard is visible too. Ten headstones wearing their yellow lichen. Each name and date is almost worn out. I see a few of The Girls sitting in the far corner, faces turned into the sun, tops rolled up, exercise books open and unread. I know they detour here. A gate opens directly into the churchyard from the path that goes to and from the main school. There’s no need to engage with the church at all. At the end of the ten graves is a bright patch of grass. A few weary tulips. It is the sunniest place to be found within permissible limits. Once or twice I have taken a book to the same spot and left it closed on my lap, unable to keep my eyes open. She stands closer to me now. I hope I was seen. I hope I was seen by her. What was I wearing? If I called out now The Girls would hear me but not know where to look. Her head almost touches mine. Forever following my gaze. I feel it now, her eyes moving with mine. Ah yes, the tanning beds, the place to be. I want to ask if the nickname the tanning beds was created in my honour. But a phone rings. She moves away. Holds up one finger. Back in a sec. I am alone by the window. The rest of the room is unremarkable. Nothing that would give her away. Only the book and its title worth categorizing. I look for pyjamas across a chair. An abandoned pair of shoes. It seems she maintains her poise even in her own home. The curtains are neatly bunched. No reading glasses, no personal photographs, no dressing gown.
She returns and flings open the wardrobe, his side. Like the kitchen, it is a modern addition, quickly dated. New wood varnished to imitate the original. Grey and navy suits, a few untouched in their dry-cleaning packets. Camphor is suddenly strong. Ties hung on a special device. From a drawer she produces shirts, also pressed, but softer. One large crease through each torso. Here, choose. He won’t mind? He won’t notice. Each one is very good quality. Heavyweight cottons, most with a pastel pinstripe. I get a measure of his size. His shoulders draped across mine. That will do. I choose a light yellow. The fabric reaches the middle of my thigh. I roll back the cuffs until they pinch the skin of my forearm. No, no, the whole point is that they protect you from thorns. She comes close again. Pulls down the sleeves until they sit at the wrist. She is not gentle. The scratch burns. I catch her perfume. The camphor. Down below The Girls laugh suddenly. Each note carries into the room. We turn our heads at the same time.
Would you go back? She stays with their laughing. No longer touching me. You mean be their age again? I look at my wrists and adjust the cuffs, pulling them straight, wanting the shirt tighter around my shoulders. It wasn’t so long ago for you, though, was it. The fabric snaps into place finally, hugging the edges of my bone, my skin. Her touch returns. Oh, it’s perfect, look. She strokes the collar as if we are leaving for a party, one button done up, then undone. I return to our conversation. It was long enough ago, you know, I’m twenty-two. I hear myself, too indignant. The Girls have fallen into a leisurely silence. Laughter replaced with sunlight. I imagine their eyes closing, heat taking over, necks slackening. Anyway I wouldn’t do it, be their age again. She steps away. Takes me in from a short distance. No? No. Well I would, oh I would, you laugh, you cry, everything falling out of you all the time, you live a thousand lives a day. I stand tall for her, gripping the cuffs in my fingers, letting the shirt belong to me. Outside, the insects subside. I want to reply carefully, to not run too fast towards her disclosure. Something measured. It wasn’t like that for me. Oh being a teenage girl is like that for everybody, surely. Not for me. I wait for her to ask why. She doesn’t. If she is afraid to ask, she does not show it, not yet. I am taken in one last time, her eyes running along the shirt’s seams. It’s almost too nice for you to wear out there, you know, you should keep it, I’ll find you another for our gardening.
No, no, I couldn’t. You can and you should, please. Thanks, OK, thank you. What does she think she knows about me? She returns to the wardrobe and pulls another off a hanger. Similar, the fabric lighter again. This one blue striped with white. A top button missing. Here, now there’s no need to sew on a new one. She throws it clumsily, we watch it land on the bed, one arm reaching for the floor. OK. A shyness returns. My unwillingness to agree with her observation of teenage girlhood leaves us in unfamiliar territory. I am left desperate to explain. I try, I will try and explain. It’s just I had a hard time at school, that’s all. I’m very sorry to hear that. She doesn’t pry. I had been hoping for an opportunity to confess, to tell her who I am. She will not allow it. Perhaps that is what she fears. The conversation is abandoned as quickly as it began. There’s a bathroom there, you can change, if you like. No final looks. We are strangers again. I will go outside, I will cut her roses, I will be careful.
I notice a small bunch of flowers on the only grave visible from the path. Just three or four stems. Picked from the lower section of the river, I think. Roots curled, still muddy, still wet, still as they would have been in the ground. I open the gate with its romantic creak. The small bunches have been left leaning against eight out of the ten headstones. Above the hills a pink is slowly revealed. Name, date, condition. Each girl killed by tuberculosis in the first years of the school’s founding. Not uncommon, I know, for the era. Six girls were twelve years old, two only ten. The families could not afford to have the bodies moved closer to home. In the far corner of the low stone wall, beside the usually bright patch of grass, is a lone beer bottle. Behind, the church looms. Further away is her house. The grand bedroom and its view. From here her window is partially obscured by a beech, an oak, whatever the name of the large, old tree with soft broad leaves. The house is difficult to make out. Faintly I can hear the river’s movements. The ripped-fabric sound of water. This scene, the flowers bunched together only by pure grip, the deaths, the possible outline of her through the window, the river carrying on. I look at the bottle again. Beer, a beer, would be good. I leave the graveyard and walk carefully along the main road. After a few minutes the pub is in view. It is even older than the school. A new, navy-blue sign hangs above the entrance, the name in cursive, a large English bird done in gold. Long, camp tail feathers. Short beak. There is no view of the river. Only one table out the front is busy, left on an angle, perhaps it was crammed into the last patch of sun.
Inside it is cool. The man working behind the bar rings his bell and announces last orders. There is no one else here. He looks directly at me. You work at the school? Yes. Not a student? No. I ask for a lager and he pauses. A lager? Yes. Tap? If possible, yes. He is a big man, his cream shirt puckered across his chest. I want him to like me. For there to be a mutual respect. A woman comes in from outside. Sunburn shines across her chest. She shivers. One strap of a floral vest top slips down her arm. Another please. Hope you’re not driving. She winks. He puts down the pint glass he was yet to pour into. Turns his back to me and unscrews a bottle of white wine. He fills her glass comically high, all the way to the rim. One for the road. She looks at me now. Eyes soft with alcohol. Hi there you. I am taller than she is, in her flip-flops, a handbag in the crease of her arm, a pair of sunglasses balanced on her head. She reaches out and pulls on the waistband of my jeans. The man puts my beer down heavily. Thank you, thanks so much. At the sound of my voice she pulls back. Fucking hell I am drunk fuck. White wine spills onto my t-shirt. She flaps her hands. Sorry fuck. In the doorway she takes one last look at me and shakes her head. Fuck. More wine spills.
The man is not afraid to stare. A coil of pleasure and shame, tight at the top of my throat, pulling like rope. Before picking up my beer I make a plan. I see a sign for a beer garden, out the back. The lager is cold, delicious. I try to look at him as I take a sip. Without warning I shiver. Could be the woman’s shiver, adjusted. I did not bring a jumper. I lift the beer to him in thanks and head towards the slumped arrow indicating the way outside. In the garden are a few wooden tables, all empty. At the end of the garden is a cheap new fence and a few dying pine trees. The river is louder again. I drink half the beer in a few swallows. Behind me a pub window opens, then closes. The man, I suspect. I finish the beer without sitting down. A breeze picks up. Stars push forward.
I stand on a table and look over the cheap fence, hoping for the river. Instead I find somebody’s backyard. Garden. Backyard. Two silhouettes visible in a kitchen. Another beer would be good. I am light-headed, disappeared slightly, I could fade back into the night if I tried hard enough. The man comes outside. I am still standing on the table. What’re you doing, would you get off? He is more unsettled than before. Nothing. Get down from there. He is afraid of me. I will take it, in place of respect, why not. The moon is suddenly obvious. Not unlike the moon, desire punches through the present. It’s a good line. Around here there will be nowhere else to get a beer. OK, OK. Could I ask could I bother you for another beer? If you get down from there. Sure sorry yes. I hope to hop effortlessly to the ground but lose my footing slightly on the landing. The grass is uneven. I am uneven. He leads me back inside.
Same again please sir. The sir hangs between us. Alright. He pulls it quickly this time. I overpay him hugely, misunderstanding the note, and tell him to keep the change. No funny stuff alright? He stares again now. I nod. No funny stuff. I wonder if he is referring to the woman from before. I twist on the stool and look out the window. She has left. The wine is only half-finished. The light too dim to see any lipstick mark on the glass. I can’t think of anything to say to him. The funny stuff is me, all me, always funny stuff. He flicks on the bright clean-up lights and begins to wipe down the bar. Let me help. He looks across at me. With pity this time. That’s not your job. No I guess not. I finish the beer as fast as the first.
Up the main road I go. There is just enough light left. My tolerance for alcohol has become very low. I am drunk. No cars come my way. The walk is silent. Past the church, I turn down the steep slope, the river finally reappearing. Too dark to see its course. I hang my head over the bridge. This is the area of the school most photographed. The dead author’s original schoolhouse is now home to the younger boarders who sleep in large, cold dorms. For The Girls over the age of fifteen there are the smaller boarding houses, also old. Endless rumours of ghosts and disappearances. The imagined brutalities are always silent, always already happened. No screams. Instead, discoveries of oddly shaped bones they claim to be human but are likely sheep. Ordinary notches on the old stone that to them, to The Girls, are fingernail marks. Woodworm damages become names scratched into the timber. The lights are on in most windows. They are restless.
I stumble on the enormous cobblestones. In the warm air, on the warm air, the wild garlic is sickly. I press my mouth to the thorn scratch on my forearm. The new scab is crisp under my tongue. Is she awake, bristling, behind her curtains. Mrs S. I won’t think about her. It is pitch black, stars now confident, as I look for my keys. This building is the smallest. My room smaller still. I have been told what it was before but have forgotten. Steadings? Stables? Are they the same thing? Somewhere, above the door, is a perfect carving of a horseshoe. I feel for it now.
My attempt at quiet is a slow comedy. Knocking a toe, an elbow, against the rough wall as I move inside, trying to step lightly, trying not to wake The Nurse through the thin partition. Finally, I find the light switch. I hear the creak of her bed, maybe feet. She knocks aggressively on the wall. I knock back. There is a surprised silence. Next she hits the floor. I hear the double smack of a furious slippered foot. Enough! I shout, lips touching plaster. I hit the wall with the flat of my palm. Enough.
