That night there are coloured rings around the full moon. A glory, Kingsley once told me.
Two weeks later I go to Wales for a long weekend. Olive wrote that Mother doesn’t want to leave her bed and Father’s doing nothing at all about it. My shoes feel like lead that morning and my feet too. It’s not the right time to return.
“The Lost Sheep!” My father is waiting at the station in his best suit. The lines by his mouth are deeper when he smiles at me; there are thick grey hairs in his bushy eyebrows. He kisses my cheek and picks up my heavy suitcase. On the way home I tell him about the orchestra, about my solo, about the Magpie I found last spring, which I kept in a box for a few weeks, before setting it free again. When I ask him about his poems he says they’re still worthless, that he can’t quite put his finger on what’s wrong. We walk over a carpet of leaves, mud in the centre, borders shifted by the wind. When we reach the houses, we stop talking.
The house is smaller than I remember; paint is peeling off the window frames. There’s a wreath on the front door, evergreen branches braided with red ribbons. Cook opens the door and embraces me. “My dear. I’m so pleased to see you.” She pushes me away from her to take a good look at me, and then draws me close again. “You’re a proper young lady now. And how is your fiddle playing?”
“Sis.” Olive is coming down the stairs. “Good to see you home at last.” She’s wearing a long grey dress. There’s a faint blueness round her eyes, but I can’t tell if she’s wearing eye shadow or if it’s the colour of her skin. She kisses my left cheek. No perfume, just the smell of old paper.
My father hands Cook my suitcase. “Dudley has his study in your old bedroom. Cook has made up the guest room for you.”
“Tea is in an hour’s time,” Olive says. “Perhaps you could ask Mother if she’ll join us.”
I follow Cook upstairs, hesitating on the last few steps. The door to my mother’s room is ajar. Cook keeps walking, and on the second flight calls out again that she’s so pleased I’m home. “Me too,” I say. I knock, and then open the door.
The room is in semi-darkness. I walk to the window, push the curtains aside a little and then open the top window—fresh air will do her good. My mother is sitting straight up in bed, with pillows behind her back. She’s wearing a dressing gown over her nightdress. “Gwennie. Come here and give your mother a kiss.”
I sit on the edge of her bed and allow myself to be embraced—perfume, cigarettes, the smell of sleep. On her night table there’s a cup of tea, half a sandwich, an ashtray. Beside the plate there’s a pile of letters.
“It’s so awful, Gwen. When I got your letter, I knew immediately that there was something wrong. I had heart trouble already, you know, I wrote to you about that, and now the problem has started all over again.” She holds her breast. “Here.” She speaks about Dudley, says that Kingsley is really the second son she’s lost.
My leg has gone to sleep. I change position. “Will you come down for tea?”
She smiles. “Can you close the window, darling? I can’t bear the draught.”
“Mother, I asked you a question.”
She stares at me, then with her left hand sketches a horizon in the air. “You mustn’t think you can simply come here and boss me around.”
“I was just asking you something.”
“Oh, just asking me something.”
I stand up, close the window, move to the door. “Till later, then.”
On the first floor, I enter my old room. The bookshelves are empty. My bird books are nowhere to be seen.
We wait a quarter of an hour. “Let’s start,” my father says. He helps himself to a sandwich, and takes a bite, swallowing it without chewing.
“I’ll go upstairs, then.” Olive fiercely pushes her chair back.
Dudley takes a scone from the serving plate.
“Do you play music still?” I ask him. He used to play the cello.
“No.” He shoves the scone into his mouth.
“What a shame.”
Olive returns, shakes her head. My father leaves, making his way to his bedroom. When he’s out of earshot, Olive leans towards me. “There are stories going round that they’re not dead, but were sent to a camp. That they’ll be back soon. But don’t tell Mother and Father. I don’t want to give them false hopes.”
“How do you know?”
“Margie wrote to me. One of her friends was a soldier there.”
“Kingsley would write to us if he got the chance, surely?”
“Perhaps he’s wounded.” Olive swallows. The corner of her mouth curls up for a moment. “Or he’s confused.”
“Perhaps he just doesn’t want to come back.” Dudley puts his fork down. “That’s something I can picture. That he prefers it like it is. Nice and peaceful.”
We both stare at him.
“I’d jolly well like that too.” He takes a large gulp of milk; drops slide down his chin, fall onto his collar. “Nice bit of sunshine, jolly little drink, nice bit of cheese.”
“I don’t think he’s had much time for jolly little drinks and nice bits of cheese,” I say.
Dudley wipes the milk from his chin with his cuff, then shrugs his shoulders. “I can well imagine it. After all, he won’t get any money now.”
Olive looks startled.
“What do you mean?” I frown at him.
“Haven’t they told you yet?” Dudley laughs. “Those who leave home won’t get a thing.”
I wipe my mouth on my napkin and go upstairs. I knock three times.
“Yes?” My father doesn’t turn.
“Will you come bird-watching? We can walk to the woods or the beach. Just a short stroll.”
“Sorry. I want to finish this.” He takes off his spectacles and polishes the lenses with a handkerchief.
“Does Charles still come by sometimes?”
“Charles?” He puts on his glasses and turns towards me.
“Oh, come on, Papa. The Crow!”
“Oh yes, of course. I haven’t seen him for some time now. I did spot him last year, I believe. He came less and less, though, once you were gone.” He coughs. “Was there anything else?”
I walk to the woods along the path behind the house, then through the fields to the beach. Charles is nowhere to be seen. He should be alive still—he wasn’t all that old. Perhaps he’s just gone away. Perhaps he’s angry with me and that’s why he won’t show himself. He could be anywhere. There’s no point in carrying on searching. On the beach a fine rain draws grey stripes in the air—grey sand, grey sea, grey sky. My lips are salty. I hum out notes to hear my voice—they blow away.
Mother doesn’t come downstairs at all during the weekend.
“Goodbye, Mama.” I lean down, kiss her cheek.
“So you’re going away from us again.” She turns away from me.
“The train leaves in two hours. I still have to pack. Olive is coming to the station with me.”
“You’ve done your duty. Visiting your old mother.”
“I wanted to see you all.”
“You haven’t come home for four years.”
“And none of you have come to London either.” I take a deep breath and try to make my voice sound friendlier. “In a couple of weeks we’ll hold the premiere of our new piece, and I have a solo. Would you all like to come? There’s a good hotel near the concert hall. Stockdale would appreciate it too.”
She looks at me a moment, then smiles. “Would you close the door properly when you leave? There’s such a terrible draught in here.”
Olive writes, some months later, to let me know that she’s heard from Kingsley. He said in his letter that he was sorry he hadn’t written earlier, that he’d met a young woman, that he has a son now, called Jacques after her father, that he works in a butcher’s shop with his father-in-law, somewhere in the north of France, that he’ll stay there for the foreseeable future, that he’ll write again soon, that he hopes to see us before long, that he has to save up for a visit, that he hopes all is well, that it’s beautiful where he lives, long fields with sunflowers and hills and a sun that’s warmer and yellower than here.