A Darker Music (31 page)

Once she was back in bed, and her feet were thawing out under the duvet, she ran through the dreams that she could remember, dreams that were curiously mixed up with what passed for reality these days. In some ways, this slipping from one dimension to another was rather pleasant, giving her a luxurious feeling of irresponsibility. With Mary there to look after her, she didn’t need to cope.

In one of the dreams she was playing her viola — miraculously intact, which was how she knew it must be a dream — the notes flowing out without any thought or plan, as if they’d been in there forever, simply waiting for her to let them out. Somehow the rich tone of the viola had been mingled with the clear sound of a soprano voice, singing like a descant, as light and pure as the song of a bird, and the two strands of melody had woven around each other without effort, in perfect harmony. A lovely dream, and one she’d experience again, if only she could.

Some of the dreams had been less pleasant. One had been a surreal montage of images: the cluttered office where the specialist had confirmed the sentence, with the fluorescent light glinting on the lenses of his glasses, making him look like an alien; the shiny machines; the drips in her hands; the drains in her chest that were so repulsive, and so painful. Not that she hadn’t known what they’d say; she’d been able to feel it, in the substance of her body, the army of foreign cells taking over. She’d endured as much of the radiation and chemo as she could, knowing it was pointless. That had been when she’d made the decision to come home. And found Mary here, cleaning the carpet in the passage, and she’d wondered who on earth this woman was, some bimbo of Paul’s, was her first thought, that he’d had the nerve to bring into her house.

No, it was bad enough that those memories sneaked back in her dreams; she had no wish to visit them voluntarily.

The painkiller started to work, and she felt the beginning of the euphoria that the cessation of pain brought. She climbed out of bed again and made her way to the door to switch on the overhead light. Nobody would notice the spill of light on the verandah outside. She opened the wardrobe doors, ruffling through her clothes. It had been such a long time since she’d worn any of these things that they seemed unfamiliar, as if a stranger had taken over the space.

Her hand found the base of the drawer, and she pushed her fingers into the far corners. Yes, there it was, just where she’d remembered: Steve’s Webley, inside a pink silk scarf, with the little box of ammunition. She could remember Lyla, her kind old face creased with embarrassment, handing it to her. Steve had died, and Lyla was leaving Downe to go and live with her daughter. The gun had been wrapped in an oily piece of hessian.

‘This is for you, Missus,’ Lyla had said. ‘Steve wanted you to have it. It’s no use to me. Ain’t nothing to shoot where I am now.’

Clio rattled the box of ammunition and opened it: there were only half-a-dozen brass-cased bullets remaining, but that was more than enough.

A
FTER A LATE BREAKFAST,
Paul and Martin left for the final day’s competition. Mary offered up a silent prayer that Paul would be more successful and come home in a mellow mood, ready to negotiate.

Clio was still deeply asleep, her hair in a dark tangle over the pillow. The overhead light had been left on; Clio must have stayed awake till late. Mary clicked it off and walked quietly across the room to draw back the curtains and open the french doors.

There was nothing she needed to do until Clio woke up. Since she had no idea when that might be, Mary was reluctant to go far from the house. Instead, she went out to her sleepout and sorted through her clothes: she’d do a load of washing, and that would occupy a small part of the morning.

After she’d hung out her washing, Mary went in again to check on Clio, but she was still sleeping. To fill in more time, Mary made up a batch of crêpe batter and left it to stand while she tried to think of a delicious filling for the crêpes. When Clio woke up, she might want something to eat, and Mary certainly would.

C
LIO CLIMBED GRADUALLY
out of her long sleep, slipping back into the dreams and then hauling herself out again, each step bringing her closer to full consciousness. When she was finally awake, the pain was savage, and she lay without moving, gathering the will to get another tablet. She could use the orange juice Mary had left to wash it down.

She managed to reach for the glass; the tang of the juice was like a shot in the arm. She drained it and lay back, fully awake at last, and waited for the narcotic to send the pain back to that dark cavern where she imagined it lurked when it wasn’t sinking its teeth into her poor flesh. While she waited, she searched back through the memory traces of the dreams. Some of them had seemed familiar, but one had felt new, and she groped through the fragments to piece it together.

There had been music. She tried to identify it … it had sounded like Puccini, but which opera? Then, above the rich orchestral sounds, the soprano voice had started.

Remembering that moment of the dream, Clio felt her blood run cold: it was Madame Butterfly’s final aria.

Nobody but Puccini could convey such a sense of doom. Now she knew why her face had been wet with tears when she’d first woken up, her heart in a flutter of panic and hopelessness. The dream had been so vivid.

An image of Richard’s young face came into her head. ‘But it’s just notes of music,’ he said, his tone dogmatic. ‘It’s nothing but pure mathematics.’ But even Richard couldn’t fail to be moved by a Puccini opera.

Within the mists of the dream, she’d glimpsed the figure of the singer in her formal kimono: the soprano whose lament had so moved her hadn’t been some nineteenth-century geisha, but a modern girl, with Alyssa’s slim figure and glowing red hair.

Alyssa. Alyssa, who loved music as she did. Clio drew a deep breath, her hands clenched on the turned-down sheet.

Alyssa must not lose her music, as she had lost hers.

W
HEN MARY WENT IN
, Clio was staring out through the french doors as if her thoughts were miles away. She was pale, the translucence of her skin revealing the shadows beneath. ‘Can I get you anything, Clio?’

Slowly, Clio came back from wherever she’d been. ‘Could you find me some paper? I thought I had a notepad in here, but …’ She shook her head. ‘And a pen.’

‘I can do that,’ Mary said. She’d have a look in the office, or there might be something in Ellen’s room. ‘And would you like some lunch? I’ve made some crêpes, with asparagus and ham.’

‘A tiny amount, yes. Thank you, Mary.’

Mary straightened the bedclothes. ‘If you feel like getting out of bed, I’ll give it a shake-up.’

Clio was drifting away again. ‘Mm? No, don’t bother.’

There was nothing but copy paper in the office, so Mary went hunting in Ellen’s room and at last found a pad of bond paper under Ellen’s diaries.

When she took the meal in, Clio was looking more alert and started eating with what was, for her, a good appetite.

After Mary had finished her own meal, she went back for Clio’s dishes. Clio’s plate was empty and she was listening to music, her eyes closed. ‘That was very nice, Mary.’ Clio seemed more relaxed. Maybe it was the music.

‘Clio, will you be okay if I go out for an hour? Gayleen wants us to go for a bike ride before she goes back to school tomorrow, and it’s a beautiful day for it.’

She opened her eyes. ‘Yes, all right. You should get out while you can, before Paul gets back. What sort of mood was he in last night?’

Mary paused, remembering Paul’s bad temper. ‘He wasn’t happy.’

‘You don’t have to spell it out, Mary. Let’s just hope he has a better day today.’ She looked vaguely around.

‘What do you want?’

‘The gold diary …’

Mary found it on the bedside table.

Clio took the little book and flicked through the pages. ‘When did you say the wedding is?’

‘Next Saturday, the sixteenth.’

Clio seemed to be having trouble focusing on the dates. ‘And when are they going up to Perth?’

‘On Tuesday.’

‘That’s … tomorrow, isn’t it?’

‘The day after,’ Mary said.

Clio closed the book and let it slip down over the bedding. ‘What time are you going out?’

Mary glanced at her watch. ‘As soon as I finish washing up. About fifteen minutes.’

‘Off you go then. Enjoy yourself!’

To Mary’s surprise, Clio smiled at her with real warmth, and as she left the room, Mary felt a hint of optimism: maybe Clio was on the way to recovery after all.

M
ARY HADN’T MADE
macaroni cheese since her first evening here, but it had worked then, and with a bit of luck it would work again tonight.

It was lucky that the pasta was something that could be kept hot in the warming oven, because it was very late when the men finally came home. Mary had eaten her own share and given some to Clio, with a glass of red wine.

A cloud of beery breath spiced with cigarette smoke accompanied Paul and Martin into the house. ‘Hello,’ she greeted them. ‘How did it go?’ She hoped this wasn’t a tactless question, but Paul managed a half-smile.

‘Not too bad,’ he said, and they wandered off up the passage to begin their evening ablutions and open another beer.

Mary used the time to fetch Clio’s empty dishes. There was a little pile of crumpled paper on the bed, and Clio was holding the pen poised over a clean sheet, with her eyes fixed on some distant point as if she was pondering something of great import. Noticing Mary, she started to gather the crunched papers into a more compact pile. ‘Mary, could you burn these for me? I don’t want them left lying around.’

‘Sure. I’ll do it now.’ Mary stacked the pages on Clio’s empty plate. Clio hadn’t quite finished the glass of wine. ‘Would you like a top-up?’

‘Yes, why not.’

As soon as she was back in the kitchen, Mary fed the papers into the stove. She didn’t want to have to explain to Paul what she was doing. She could hear from the gurgling in the water pipes that the shower was still running. She refilled Clio’s wineglass and took it in to her. Clio had gone off again into that place where she’d been spending so much of her time lately, and Mary didn’t disturb her.

When she heard Paul and Martin on their way down the passage, she took the hot dish of macaroni out of the oven, and the warm plates, and set it out on the table. She was anxious to judge whether Paul’s mood was any better tonight.

While his nose was in the trough, it was hard to tell. Mary chided herself for such an uncharitable thought, but the way Paul applied himself to his food did have a certain swinish quality. Martin was chatting to his father about the day’s successes and disappointments, but Paul responded with little more than noncommittal grunts. Still, Martin kept on trying, and Mary wished him luck.

Paul accepted cake, bread and jam without comment, keeping his eyes on his plate. Mary realised he was avoiding her. When he was so close to finishing his meal that she knew he’d be heading up the passage to the TV room and beyond her reach, she took the bull by the horns.

‘Paul, have you thought any more about giving me a lift back to Perth?’

He did look up at her now. His eyes were bloodshot. Was it from too much beer, or too much concentration on distant targets? He gave her a token smile.

For a moment she felt hopeful that she’d hear the answer she wanted. ‘It’s just that I brought such a lot of stuff with me that going on the bus would be difficult. So I’m really hoping that you’ll be kind enough to take me in the Piper.’

His smile widened, and he held her eyes with his. ‘That sounds to me,’ he told her, quite pleasantly, ‘as if it might be a personal problem.’

And that was the end of that conversation. Martin gave her a look that she took as an apology for his father’s surliness, and followed him out of the kitchen.

Mary was still seething when she retired to the sleepout. This space, spartan though it was, had become her refuge. She tried to put Paul out of her mind. In two days he’d be gone, and she need never look upon his handsome face again.

When she stared out through the louvres, there was not a hint of moonlight or starlight, just impenetrable darkness.

32

N
EXT MORNING, THE RAIN WAS BUCKETING DOWN
. Paul was at the long table, waiting for his breakfast. Martin was late, and she left his food to keep warm while she squeezed oranges, aware that anything she did for Clio was bound to displease Paul.

The bedroom light was on again, and Mary clicked it off. Clio must have had another wakeful night. She set the glass down and crossed to pull back the curtains, wondering whether to open the french doors: would it be too cold? She left them closed.

As Mary was leaving the room, some small incongruity caught at the edge of her consciousness, and she tiptoed back to the bed. Clio’s dark hair was spread across the lower of the pillows but the top one had fallen across her face. Mary felt a stab of panic: weak as she was, Clio could have smothered. She was so still, with one hand lying curled, palm up, touching her hair. Mary lifted the edge of the pillow.

Shock brought a sudden faintness. She felt her gut clench and had to fight the impulse to dry retch while she struggled to make sense of what was in front of her.

She must think.

When she’d processed the first shock, she tried to raise the pillow higher, but it seemed to be stuck.

Was Clio alive? She made herself reach out and touch the hand that lay curled on the lower pillow. It wasn’t cold, but it wasn’t as warm as it should have been either.

Holding her breath, she leant closer and eased the pillow away. Then she dropped it, hiding Clio’s shattered face and the pool of dark blood that was gluing the pillow to her hair. She could feel her face contort with grief, and then the tears came streaming down her cheeks. Without conscious thought, she collapsed into Clio’s blue velvet chair to wait for the agony to pass, with the image of what was left of Clio’s face, flesh and teeth and bone and — horror — an eyeball displaced from its orbit, floating in her vision as if it had been etched into her retinas and would remain there forever; and the smell, which had flooded into every tiny space within her lungs and taken over her senses …