underestimated father blandly sips and asks Trudy how she’s feeling. Not too tired, he hopes. Which may or may not be a gentle dig, a sexual allusion. That plaintive tone of his has vanished. Distance or irony has replaced it. Only satisfied desire could have freed him. Trudy and Claude must wonder why their murderee is here, what he wants, but it wouldn’t be right to ask.
Instead, Claude asks Elodie if she lives nearby. No, she doesn’t. She lives in Devon, in a studio, on a farm, near a river, by which she might be letting Trudy know that here in London she’ll be overnighting between John’s Shoreditch sheets. She’s staking a claim. I like the sound of her voice, the human approximation, I would say, of the oboe, slightly cracked, with a quack on the vowels. And towards the end of her phrases, she speaks through a gargling, growling sound that American linguists have dubbed “vocal fry.” Spreading through the Western world, much discussed on the radio, of unknown aetiology, signifying, it’s thought, sophistication, found mostly in young, educated women. A pleasing puzzle. With such a voice she might hold her own against my mother.
Nothing in my father’s manner suggests that only this afternoon his brother fronted him five thousand pounds in cash. No gratitude, same old fraternal contempt. That must stir Claude’s ancient hatred. And in me, something more hypothetical, a
potential
grudge. Even as I cast my father as a lovelorn fool, I always assumed that if matters became intolerable with Claude, and if I failed to unite my parents, I might live with my father, at least for a while. Until I got on my feet. But I don’t think this poet would take me on—tight black jeans and leather jacket is not maternity wear. That’s part of her allure. In my narrow view, my father would be better single. Pale beauty and an assured duck’s voice are not my allies. But there may be nothing between them, and I like her.
Claude has just said, “A studio? On a farm? How marvellous.” Elodie is describing in her urban growl an A-frame cabin on the banks of a dark and rushing river that foams round granite boulders, a dodgy footbridge to the other side, a copse of beeches and birch, a bright clearing spangled with anemones and celandines, bluebells and spurge.
“Perfect for a nature poet,” Claude says.
So true and dull is this that Elodie falters. He presses in. “How far is it all from London?”
By “all” he refers to the pointless river and rocks and trees and flowers. Deflated, she can barely fry her words. “About two hundred miles.”
She’s guessed that he’ll ask her about the nearest railway station and how long the journey takes, information he’ll soon forget. But he asks, she answers, and we three listen, not stupefied or even mildly bored. Each of us, from each different point of view, is gripped by what’s not being said. The lovers, if Elodie is one, the two parties external to the marriage, are the dual charge that will blast this household apart. And blow me upwards, hellwards, to my thirteenth floor.
In a gentle tone of rescue, John Cairncross mentions that he likes the wine, a prompt to Claude to refill the glasses. While he obliges there settles over us a silence. I conjure a taut piano wire waiting for its sudden felt hammer. Trudy is about to speak. I know from the syncopated trip of her heartbeat, just before her first word.
“These owls. Are they real or do they, like, stand for something?”
“Oh no,” Elodie says in a rush. “They’re real. I write from life. But the reader, you know,
imports
the symbols, the associations. I can’t keep them out. That’s how poetry works.”
“I always think of owls,” says Claude, “as wise.”
The poet pauses, tasting the air for sarcasm. She’s getting his measure and says evenly, “There you are then. Nothing I can do about that.”
“Owls are vicious,” Trudy says.
Elodie: “Like robins are. Like nature is.”
Trudy:
Instead, Claude asks Elodie if she lives nearby. No, she doesn’t. She lives in Devon, in a studio, on a farm, near a river, by which she might be letting Trudy know that here in London she’ll be overnighting between John’s Shoreditch sheets. She’s staking a claim. I like the sound of her voice, the human approximation, I would say, of the oboe, slightly cracked, with a quack on the vowels. And towards the end of her phrases, she speaks through a gargling, growling sound that American linguists have dubbed “vocal fry.” Spreading through the Western world, much discussed on the radio, of unknown aetiology, signifying, it’s thought, sophistication, found mostly in young, educated women. A pleasing puzzle. With such a voice she might hold her own against my mother.
Nothing in my father’s manner suggests that only this afternoon his brother fronted him five thousand pounds in cash. No gratitude, same old fraternal contempt. That must stir Claude’s ancient hatred. And in me, something more hypothetical, a
potential
grudge. Even as I cast my father as a lovelorn fool, I always assumed that if matters became intolerable with Claude, and if I failed to unite my parents, I might live with my father, at least for a while. Until I got on my feet. But I don’t think this poet would take me on—tight black jeans and leather jacket is not maternity wear. That’s part of her allure. In my narrow view, my father would be better single. Pale beauty and an assured duck’s voice are not my allies. But there may be nothing between them, and I like her.
Claude has just said, “A studio? On a farm? How marvellous.” Elodie is describing in her urban growl an A-frame cabin on the banks of a dark and rushing river that foams round granite boulders, a dodgy footbridge to the other side, a copse of beeches and birch, a bright clearing spangled with anemones and celandines, bluebells and spurge.
“Perfect for a nature poet,” Claude says.
So true and dull is this that Elodie falters. He presses in. “How far is it all from London?”
By “all” he refers to the pointless river and rocks and trees and flowers. Deflated, she can barely fry her words. “About two hundred miles.”
She’s guessed that he’ll ask her about the nearest railway station and how long the journey takes, information he’ll soon forget. But he asks, she answers, and we three listen, not stupefied or even mildly bored. Each of us, from each different point of view, is gripped by what’s not being said. The lovers, if Elodie is one, the two parties external to the marriage, are the dual charge that will blast this household apart. And blow me upwards, hellwards, to my thirteenth floor.
In a gentle tone of rescue, John Cairncross mentions that he likes the wine, a prompt to Claude to refill the glasses. While he obliges there settles over us a silence. I conjure a taut piano wire waiting for its sudden felt hammer. Trudy is about to speak. I know from the syncopated trip of her heartbeat, just before her first word.
“These owls. Are they real or do they, like, stand for something?”
“Oh no,” Elodie says in a rush. “They’re real. I write from life. But the reader, you know,
imports
the symbols, the associations. I can’t keep them out. That’s how poetry works.”
“I always think of owls,” says Claude, “as wise.”
The poet pauses, tasting the air for sarcasm. She’s getting his measure and says evenly, “There you are then. Nothing I can do about that.”
“Owls are vicious,” Trudy says.
Elodie: “Like robins are. Like nature is.”
Trudy:
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