‘Music?’ I said. ‘I didn’t hear any music.’
‘What do you reckon, Chris?’ Jack abandoned his walking stick and gripped the dashboard instead. ‘How about I move into your loft? I’d only need a bedroom, because I’d be able to sit in your lounge with you every night.’
Chris had been quite cheerful, but all the cheerfulness seemed to disappear back into his face.
Jack looked over the seat and winked at us.
We pulled up at the front of the house, and no more than a second afterwards, a small army of chickens shouted past on their way to somewhere else. Unusual birds, chickens. They’re quite beautiful if you take the time to study them, but they’re like pigeons in that respect. No one ever does. I pointed at them, and started talking about the week I turned into a vegetarian. Miss Bissell nipped it in the bud, which was probably just as well, because mealtimes were becoming something of an ordeal for everyone concerned.
There was a washing line of bedsheets across the lawn, and they snapped and folded in the breeze. It was the kind of house I used to dream I might live in at some point. If things had turned out differently.
‘I don’t remember Mabel very well, do you?’ I said, as we pulled ourselves out of the car.
‘I only remember she never stopped talking,’ Elsie said.
Mabel, however, remembered us. When I rang the day before, she’d spoken as though we’d all seen each other only the previous week. ‘I could tell she was smiling, even over the telephone,’ I said. Mabel waited for us on the porch. She was large and reassuring, in the way that a plumpness can sometimes be strangely comforting. Her hair is grey now, of course, but it’s a steel grey, and it rested carefully on her shoulders. Wrapped around her legs like two small skin grafts, were tiny children.
She shouted, ‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ and when we got closer, the children turned around. They were miniature Mabels. Tiny reflections of a long-ago child. Faces that seemed so familiar, the past was made to look as if it had never really bothered to leave.
Mabel’s daughter made Chris a sandwich (corned beef, not too much pickle, just a pinch of salt), and we sat with Mabel in a room crowded with sunlight and fresh laundry.
She began by apologising for the mess, but the sentence immediately slid into a discussion about her great-grandchildren. They appeared, one by one, as if summoned by an invisible register. With each child I became more fascinated, until I was openly staring at the sixth one with my mouth wide open.
‘Do you not have any children, Florence?’ Mabel said.
‘I didn’t even get as far as a husband.’ I watched the final child disappear from the room. ‘They’re like little pieces of yourself, aren’t they? Even when you’re gone, they’ll still be walking around, carrying on being you. Imagine that!’
Mabel went back to apologising, although to be honest, the room didn’t seem a mess at all. Even though light flooded through a stretch of glass, and picked out all the toys and the clothes, and the colouring books, it looked as though everything was exactly where it was meant to be.
We explored pockets of the past. Favourite stories were retold, to make sure they hadn’t been forgotten. Scenes were sandpapered down to make them easier to hold. When we talked about the war, we didn’t mention the loss and the fear and the misery; we talked about the friendships instead, and the strange solidarity that is always born of making do. There were people missing from our conversation, and others were coloured in and underlined. Those who made life easier were found again, and those who caused problems were disappeared. It’s the greatest advantage of reminiscing. The past can be exactly how you wanted it to be the first time around. This meant, of course, that no one mentioned Ronnie Butler, but just as I was trying to think of a way in, Mabel’s daughter appeared with a pot of tea, and said it was such a coincidence we’d rung, because her mother came back from the British Legion only last week and said she could have sworn she saw Ronnie Butler on a bus.
There was a piece of fruit cake exactly halfway between the plate and my mouth, and it waited there for a good minute before I remembered I was eating it.
‘Ronnie Butler?’ I said.
‘But of course, it wasn’t.’ Mabel took another slice of cake. ‘It would be impossible.’
‘Impossible,’ I said.
‘Although …’ Mabel put the cake down again. ‘I really did think it was him for a moment. It was the voice as well, you see, when he spoke to the driver. Exactly the same. Took me right back.’
‘It did?’ I said.
‘And when he walked down the bus, he had a little scar, right in the corner of his mouth.’
She pointed, and we all pointed along with her.
‘I said to him, “You look just like someone I used to know.”’
‘You spoke to him?’ said Jack.
Of course she spoke to him. Mabel speaks to everyone. She’d find someone to speak to in an empty room.
‘What did he say?’ I leaned forward on the sofa.
‘What did you talk about?’ said Elsie.
‘Nothing much. He said he’d only recently moved, and he didn’t really know anyone around here.’
We all exchanged a look across a laundry basket.
‘It gave me quite a turn, it did.’ Mabel didn’t seem like the kind of woman who turns easily, but I would imagine that would almost certainly do the trick. ‘Reminded me of the last time I saw him.’
We waited. I was on the absolute edge of speaking. Elsie glanced over again and we had a conversation between us with our eyes. Elsie always says, if you leave someone to use up a silence, they will eventually fill it with far more enthusiasm than they would have done if you had said something. I don’t like to admit it, but she’s right. Mabel found the story all by herself.
I allowed Elsie a small nod of triumph.
‘It was the night Beryl died. I was just turning the corner on the way up to the town hall, when his car came tearing down the road like a bat out of hell. Nearly knocked me off my feet.’ Mabel pressed her hand to her chest. ‘It could have been me,’ she said, and her fingers left little red prints of thinking on her flesh.
‘Was Ronnie on his own in that car?’ Jack said.
I tried to swallow, but my throat point blank refused to go along with it. I was concerned I’d begin to cough, or have a choking fit, and the more concerned I became, the more likely it seemed it was going to happen. My body has always had a habit of failing to cooperate whenever it’s called upon.
‘Of course he wasn’t. But I’ve no idea who was with him. Don’t think I haven’t tried to work it out over the years.’
‘Nothing?’ said Jack.
Mabel shook her head very slowly. ‘All I remember is a flash of red. A scarf, perhaps.’
She stared at us.
‘Or a hat?’ she said.
One of the children barrelled into the room waving a piece of paper, and everyone reappeared in the present. A strange conversation ensued between Mabel and the child, and I followed every word with my mouth. I held out my hand for the child to come forward, but instead, he helicoptered back into the main part of the house.
‘I hope I see him again.’ Mabel watched the child disappear.
‘Who?’ I said.
‘The man who looks like Ronnie. Perhaps he’s a relative of his?’
‘I’d steer well clear, if I were you,’ Jack said. ‘And of anyone calling themselves Gabriel Price.’
‘Who?’
‘Just remember the name,’ he said. ‘And be careful.’
‘I’m fine.’ She took a mouthful of cake. ‘I’ve got my own resident copper.’
‘There’s a policeman in the house?’ said Elsie.
‘Our Sandra married a detective. Retired now, of course, but he still thinks like one. Then there’s my Norman.’
‘Norman?’ I said.
‘You must remember Norman from school. We’ve been married nearly sixty years.’
Norman. Short. Skinny. Can’t stand up for himself. ‘But I thought he ran away?’ I said.
‘Ran away?’ Mabel frowned at me.