Read Online The Song House by Trezza Azzopardi - Free Book Online Page B

their quick
laughter rattling like gunshot off the ceiling. Cindy sings
harmonies in a West Country burr, her eyes closed, her hand
cupped over her ear. She has grown her hair, she wears long
gypsy skirts with a petticoat below the hem, tie-dyed blouses
revealing her shadowy cleavage; bangles up to her elbow. Ed
remarks that she sounds like Sandy Denny; that their duo could
be a trio. When Nell does venture downstairs, clinging to the
narrow rail, afraid of falling, splitting her belly open on the
stone floor, she finds the kitchen table awash with empty cider
flagons, sticky glasses of pale liquor, nests of newspaper holding
the savaged remnants of fish and chips, sausage in batter. She
doesn’t have to see the food; even thinking of the words makes
her retch.
    At other times she might find them blissful and out of it, a
sheet of blue smoke above their heads, and then she’ll notice
Cindy is sitting on Ed’s lap, a jingling arm snaked round his neck.
Nell doesn’t mind this at first, because she has her own private
duo now: me and her. Let Ed do as he pleases, she thinks; it’s
a free country. But one night, after she has endured hours of
churning nausea, Ed comes to bed late. A hint of patchouli oil
on his skin; a flush of red at his throat. Lifting his hand to her
face, Nell finds the rare damp earth of another woman’s smell on
his fingers. She dreams, sleeping and waking, of a terrible accident;
Cindy floating like the Lady of Shallot through the river
weeds, Cindy diving down and smashing her head on a rock.
Cindy, drunk on elderflower wine, wading to her death, the water
lapping around her legs, waist, chest, until she is vanished from
sight. Nell gives a good deal of thought to consequences these
days; of what will become of her, what will become of us.

    Kenneth knows by her scent that’s she’s been in the library. He
stands quite still in the afternoon heat, filling his lungs with
her, breathing her in. A sound from the far end of the room
makes his heart bang in his chest. Through the gloom he sees
Maggie straighten up from behind the stereo. She too takes
fright when she notices him, half-jumping sideways, hands flying
to her face.
    I saw this earlier, she says, with a voice like water, And I just
wanted to hear it again. I hope you don’t mind.
    He shakes his head.
    Never, for you, he tries to say, but the shock of finding her
steals his words.
    Maggie moves slowly towards him through the semi-dark, just
as the music starts. Time beaten out like a drum, a medieval
rhythm, slow insistence. The peculiar feeling he has, watching
her faltering steps: as if he’s invisible. No: as if she is blind. He
almost puts out his hand to guide her, but is stopped by a pure
voice rising up into the coffered ceiling of the library. They
listen together, Maggie smiling, Kenneth shivering slightly
despite the heat. She’s looking at him but her eyes are remote.
She’s seeing a memory. Kenneth understands perfectly how
that is, and is jealous of it. The words of the song are spun out,
slow and careful and full of dread, and even though he would
rather not listen any more – such is the awful feeling he gets
from the sound – Maggie is close enough to touch: he wouldn’t
break the moment for the world. Kenneth doesn’t recognize
the song, or that he is panting slightly with the heat, with her
proximity, with the strange cast of light in the room. He
watches her open mouth, her lips shaping the words, and feels
his breath desert him.

    And then she went onward, just one star awake
    Like the swan in the evening
    Moves over the lake.

    It’s hard to look at her and impossible not to. It should be
awkward, and he checks her face for any sign of embarrassment,
or irony, something that would tell him how to react.
But her eyes are fixed on his and he is unable to feel anything,
now, only a wretched and hollow longing, rising like a sickness,
for this woman and the