Scully went upstairs to watch her sleep. It was warmer up there now under the roof. It was late. His eyes burned but there was no question of sleeping, no chance. Not till this was over, till he knew Jennifer was alright. Carefully he lay beside Billie and held her outside the eiderdown, felt her hair and breath against his face. In the band of moonlight that grew on the far wall he saw the flaws of his hurried limewash. The long, relentless unpeeling of the night went on.
Just before dawn, in the milled steel air, he filled buckets with coal in the barn by the light of the torch. The land was silent, the mud frozen. At the front door he paused a moment to look down at the castle but saw no lights. The stars were fading, the moon gone. He went in and built up the fire. For a moment he thought about their baby, whether this house would be warm and dry enough. And then he caught himself. God Almighty, where was she?
The day came slowly with the parsimonious light of the north, and Billie slept on. Scully resolved to list out all the possibilities on a sheet of paper, but all he got was her name three times like a cheesy mantra. He re-read all his mail, looked at each of the smudged telegrams. Nothing. It was only a month — what could happen in a month, or in an hour at Heathrow?
Late in the morning he put the leg of lamb into the oven. The smell filled the house but Billie slept on and the roast cooled on the bench, juices congealing beneath it. Scully ate a cold spud, made himself a cup of Earl Grey.
The mail van slewed along the lane sometime past noon. He heard it bumbling round in the valley and he went outside nearly falling in his haste, but it never came back his way. No mail. No telegram. Out on the thawed mud, Scully puked his cup of tea and his roast potato, and when he straightened to look back at his smoke-pouring house, wiping the acid from his chin, he saw Billie at the open door rumpled with sleep.
‘Rip van Winkle,’ he said brightly, scuffing the soiled mud with his wellingtons.
Billie shivered, her legs squeezed together.
‘Need a pee?’
She nodded solemnly.
‘I’ll show you. It’s out in the barn.’
She gave him a doubtful look but let him carry her across the mud on the duckboard bridge to the barn, where, at the back the old Telefon booth stood in the corner. She looked at the JOH GOES! poster.
‘Great, eh?’
He put her down on the rotting straw and she pulled open the door dubiously, and then turned, waiting for him to leave.
‘Great dunny, what d’you reckon?’ he said, retreating outside. The sun’s shining, Scully, he thought; show a bit of steel, for Godsake and brighten up. She doesn’t want you to hang over her on the bog.
He looked down the valley and saw the birds wrapping the castle keep and the low clouds motionless on the mountains. Light broke in sharp moments all across the fields. The trees stood bare and maplike with their knots of nests plain to see. It was a rare day.
He heard the flush.
‘What a toilet, eh?’ he said as she emerged, blinking at the miry ground. She looked out at the empty fields, at the hedges and fences and sagging gates. For a long moment, she stared down at the castle keep.
‘No animals, huh? First thing I noticed,’ he said. ‘They keep them indoors because of the cold. Imagine that. Every couple of days you see tractors hauling these big trailers that hurl poop all over the paddocks. What a scream. Come on, I’ll get you something to eat. What d’you think of the house? Did I do a good job? Haven’t painted it yet.’
Billie held his hand and walked with curling toes across the duckboards. It frightened him, this silence. They were so close, the two of them, such mates. Nothing innocent, no small thing could close her up like this.
She drank Ovaltine by the fire and ate her bread. Scully warmed some fresh clothes on a chair by the hearth and poured hot water into the steel tub.
‘You can wash yourself while I make your bed. New Levi’s, I see. A present from Gran?’
Billie chewed and looked at the coals.
‘I’ll be upstairs.’
Wait, he told himself. Think and wait. The telegram will turn up. Hours left in the day yet. Upstairs he leaned against the warm patched chimney and prayed the Lord’s Prayer like a good Salvo, the words piling up like his thoughts in the snug cap of the roof.
No telegram came.
Billie slept again. Scully napped and sweated. He prowled the stairs, listening for the sound of a car, the arrival of an end to this scary shit. But nothing came. In the wee hours he was mapping things out, thinking of London, of his friends there, of a simple explanation. Jesus, why didn’t he get the phone on?
The night reeled on, lurching from hour to hour, from impasse to foggy hole with the world silent beyond.
• • •
NEXT MORNING, SCULLY DROVE INTO Roscrea with Billie, bubbling away cheerlessly like a jolly dad on the first day of the holidays. He could see it didn’t wash for a minute because Billie stared mutely out at the countryside, bleak as the breaking sky. Not a thing. Not a word. Well, the waiting was over. He had to do something before it killed him.
He drew a blank at the Post Office. Pete was out on his round. No telegram anyway. He cashed a bagful of change and made for a Telefon down the high street.
• • •
‘I JUST NEED TO CHECK whether she was on QF8 from Perth via Singapore the day before yesterday,’ he said as evenly as he could manage to the voice in London. ‘This is the fifth… No, no there isn’t a problem, really.’ The phone booth fogged up with their breath. ‘I just wanted to make sure, you know — twelve thousand miles is a long way. I know what can happen with schedules… Yes, I understand.’
Billie passed him up some more coins from her squatting position in the booth.
‘Ah, terrific, so she was aboard then… out at Heathrow, great. And did she have an onward transfer from there?’
A truck from the meatworks heaved itself up the hill, shaking the glass beside his face, MAURA SUCKS NIGGERS, someone had written on the wall in felt pen. Absently, Scully began to scrape it out with the edge of a 20p coin. He noticed the beauty of the design on the coin. A horse, like a da Vinci study. Only the Irish. The voice turned nasty in London.
‘Yeah, but, I know, but I’m her husband, you see. Yes, but be reasonable about this… No, I don’t think I have to… oh, listen, I’m asking you a… well, fuck you!’
He whacked the receiver down and coins spilled free. Billie sniffed blankly.
‘Scuse my French. Sorry.’
Scully looked down the narrow, grey street and went back to scraping. So, she arrived in Heathrow, sent the kid on alone. Either she’s in London, or, or she’s gone on somewhere else. But why? Oh, never mind bloody why, Scully, where is the issue first up. Think, you dumb prick. Start at the least likely and work your way back. What are the possibilities? The house deal falling through? Some stock market economic glitch, some problem with the papers? Maybe she’s gone back to sort it out, save you worrying.
He dialled the house in Fremantle. Evening in Australia. Summer. The Telecom message chirped — disconnected. Automatically he dialled his mother but hung up before it could ring. No.