Rook Read Free

her voice light. ‘Mum thinks I’m the bad penny.’
    ‘What do you mean?’
    Nora looks down on the roots of Eve’s mass of shoe-string plaits, the anchoring strands of hair like the aerial roots of ivy. She gives the door another hefty shove and the metal latch slots into place.
    ‘I turned up again,’ she says.
    Eve snaps the padlock shut.
     
    This afternoon, Eve has picked the theme of Special Occasions for their visit. From her plastic crate-on-wheels, she pulls a portable CD player, plastic flowers, a champagne bucket and photographs, arranging everything on a side table.
    Nora can’t get used to the silence and inertia, the circle of chairs with its jumble of occupants shut inside their own heads. Today the only sound comes from a woman slurping drink from a child’s spouty beaker.
    Come and play some of the old favourites , Eve had said, They’ll love it. Music and singing, it lights them up, please come, if you’ve got time. Of course Nora has time; these days she has too much time.
    Eve holds up a photograph, showing it round the circle of elderly people: a picture of the Queen’s coronation. ‘Peggy, do you know who these people are?’
    She calls each person by their name, always. It’s important, she says, because your own name holds a certain power. Peggy, dwarfed by the winged back of the armchair, grips the photo with both hands. ‘Yes.’ She smiles and nods.
    Nora is very thirsty. Everything about this particular retirement ‘hotel’ shrivels her insides. On the window sill, beside a flowerpot of dried soil, lie the husks of three dead moths, while through the picture window blares the bright blue of the May sky; the blossom on a flowering cherry just outside presses against the glass. Nora turns back to the room. By the time they’ve finished here it will be dark, and will also be three hours since she last ate, so she’ll be able to get out, escape for today’s run.
    ‘Do you know their names?’ Eve is still asking about the photo, but Peggy’s smile has vanished, her glance slipping sideways to the arm of the chair. ‘I don’t remember,’ she mumbles.
    Peggy did know, Nora can tell, she did remember the names, the occasion, and perhaps was even going to share a story of her own, but now she shrinks back between the enormous wings of the chair, the memory of whatever she was going to talk about having poured out of her like sand.
    ‘It was such long time ago, wasn’t it?’ Eve coaxes.
    Peggy places the picture face down in her lap, folds her hands together on top of it and stares at the floor. ‘Not really.’ Her voice is firm and tight. She is angry.
    ‘When was it, Peggy? Can you tell me?’
    A knot of tension tightens in Nora’s throat. Eve’s pushing too hard, she should let it go, but then Peggy looks up again, her face bright. ‘1953.’ She gives a little toss of her head. ‘That’s some time now.’
    ‘Yes, it is indeed. Can you pass that on for me now, Peggy?’
    Nora’s shoulders relax.
    Eve looks peachy and ripe; she’s put on a little weight. The air crackles with her joie de vivre . Those who were sleeping have opened their eyes and, one by one, each person in the room becomes aware of the others in the circle, passing photographs and red plastic carnations. Everything anyone says, anything at all, Eve conjures into some kind of conversation. She’s very good at this.
    ‘Shall we have some music now?’ she says, ‘from Nora?’
    Obediently, the circle of faces turns Nora’s way. She plays Saint-Saëns first, ‘The Swan’: lushly romantic. Some listen with their eyes closed. Music has the power to speak straight to whatever is our human soul . Nora remembers Isaac’s odd, dramatic turn of phrase. He’d make a fist and knock his heart. You must transmit the music’s inner emotional message with simplicity. Speak for the composer.
    When Nora has finished playing, a hubbub erupts. The session has run out of time. While Eve moves around the circle of