A Darker Music Read Free

cupboard: in a house of this vintage there was bound to be. She found it just outside the bathroom. Pleated piles of white cotton sheets, old and heavy with the scents of mildew and lavender, yellowed on the folds. She took two and rummaged for blankets. Given the austerity of the sleepout she picked warm colours: a soft ochre and a pink. On the top shelf she found a blue eiderdown, dotted with white daisies. It was a tad musty — but never mind that. And another blanket perhaps to go over the mattress? If today’s weather was anything to go by, she’d be needing it.
    Laden, she went back to the sleepout and shook out the folded linen and made up the bed, sneezing at the dust that flew from the blankets. A mean breeze sneaked in through the louvres and whistled around her ears, but it would blow away some of the mustiness, and when she’d finished making up the bed she’d be sleeping warm, if nothing else. Plenty of food and a warm bed: it could be worse.
    She was busy at the sink when Paul and Martin came in for their evening meal. As they passed through the back verandah she sensed them pause, then heard the soft scuff of feet in thick wool socks. They’d left their boots out there; just as well. She heard them head for the front of the house, the sound of a shower running, a vibration of water in the pipes that ran through the water jacket in the stove, and the pressure pump that must be somewhere up in the roof switched itself on.
    She’d finished the kitchen clean-up by the time they came back, shaven and scrubbed, wet hair combed flat, in creased shirts, woollen sweaters and trackie bottoms tucked into calf-high ugg boots. A whiff of a pleasant aftershave followed them to the table, to be swallowed up by the smell of toasted cheese as she dished up the meal. She’d made macaroni cheese, the starchiness soothing and relaxing, topped with chopped bacon, cornflake crumbs and grated cheddar. They surveyed the food and inhaled its aromas. She waited for them to take the edge off their hunger before approaching the table.
    Paul looked up as he reached for the serving spoon to help himself to more. ‘I see you cleaned the floor.’
    Encouraged that he’d noticed, Mary nodded. ‘Actually, there are a few things I need to ask you.’ She was feeling unaccountably nervous. ‘If I don’t know what you expect I won’t be able to do the job here properly.’ She made herself smile into Paul’s grey eyes, looking for a trace of rapport, but there was none. ‘I’m not a mind reader. That would cost you a lot more.’
    Paul didn’t acknowledge her attempt at humour but held her eyes while Martin ladled more food onto his plate, the smell of hot cheese hanging in a fragrant cloud over the table.
    ‘Fair enough,’ Paul said. ‘Sit down and ask away.’
    ‘Thanks,’ Mary said, sitting. ‘Now, I’ve got a list of things: first, what do you do about shopping?’
    ‘Phone Pauline at the Co-op and tell her what you want and it comes out on the bus.’
    That wasn’t very helpful. ‘Where’s the Co-op?’
    Paul looked at her as if she were stupid. ‘Glendenup.’
    ‘Okay. Where’s Glendenup?’ How was she supposed to know?
    Paul indicated with his fork. ‘That way. Sixty kays.’
    A long way to get to the shops. ‘And …’
    ‘Phone’s in the office. There’s a machine. You don’t have to answer it.’ He nodded to indicate the next room along, which Mary hadn’t yet discovered. A transient thought creased Paul’s forehead. ‘Better phone and tell Pauline who you are.’
    ‘Good idea.’ She could do without Pauline at the Co-op in faraway Glendenup thinking she was some kind of thief. ‘And the bus leaves it … where?’ She had visions of bundles of groceries dropping like emergency aid from a parachute.
    ‘Gloria drives the bus.’
    Mary was still mystified. ‘What bus?’
    ‘School bus. The high school’s in Glendenup.’
    ‘And Gloria?’
    ‘Garth’s wife. Gayleen’s mother. You met