The Twilight Hour Read online

  ‘How long do you think it takes for them to get all the way to you?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘And by the time they arrived the whole house would have gone up in flames, and you with it.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘This can’t continue,’ said Leon.

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘I knew something like this would happen, but you’d never listen. Living alone in a big falling-down house in the middle of nowhere. You’re old and almost blind.’

  ‘I’m well aware of that.’

  ‘It’s not safe. I can’t let it go on like this.’ She could imagine his face from his voice: heavy-jawed, with that slightly pompous expression he wore when he was anxious. He’d been the same as a little boy, when he was angry and upset and needed comfort but couldn’t bring himself to ask for it.

  ‘Leon,’ she said, her voice cool. ‘I know you mean well, but I’m not a child and I’m not of unsound mind. It’s not up to you, it’s up to me.’

  ‘That’s quite true.’ Jonah pulled a bright green apple from his coat pocket like a magician, rubbed it on his sleeve and then took a crunching bite. ‘Tell us what you want, Eleanor.’

  ‘I want to go home.’

  ‘Home!’ Leon gave an exasperated snort.

  ‘Yes.’

  The door opened and a tall woman with a mane of long grey hair rushed in, breathless, her cheeks pink from the night air.

  ‘Mother!’ she said, half-sobbing, sitting heavily on the bed. She reached out with a hand but did not touch the old woman, who looked tiny beside her, fragile but indomitable and somehow very alone, like someone perched on a life raft on bucking seas. ‘Oh darling Mum! You’ve given us all such a fright. Are you all right? Your poor arm! What have you gone and done now?’

  ‘Hello, Esther. How nice of you to come.’ As if it was a tea party, thought Jonah, grinning to himself and pleased by her.

  ‘She says she wants to go home,’ Leon put in. ‘She says—’

  ‘I am here, you know,’ interrupted Eleanor tartly. ‘I can speak for myself.’

  ‘You can’t just go home, not after this. You must see that,’ pleaded Esther.

  ‘I see nothing of the sort. The fire was obviously put out before it could do much damage.’

  ‘That’s not the point.’

  ‘Then what is the point?’

  ‘For the time being, at least. Come and stay with one of us while we think of what should be done.’

  ‘What should be done,’ repeated Eleanor, sitting up straighter in the narrow bed. ‘That sounds ominous.’

  ‘I just mean—’

  ‘I know what you mean. You mean I can no longer be trusted to take care of myself.’

  ‘You could have died,’ Leon said once again, as if it was his trump card.

  ‘Who cares? Why does that matter so much? I’m ninety-four. I can die if I want to!’

  ‘Do you want to?’ asked Jonah, sounding interested.

  ‘Not particularly. But I want to choose how to live. And I certainly don’t want to sit in a waiting room for death with a blanket on my knees and nurses calling me dear and feeding me sloppy shepherd’s pie and rubbery scrambled egg and trying to make me play bingo and have my hair done and my relatives dutifully visiting me on wet Sunday afternoons, making polite conversation.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Sing-alongs!’

  ‘That sounds somewhat exaggerated,’ said Leon, stiff and upset.

  ‘Does it?’

  ‘Anyway.’ Esther put her hand out once more and did touch her mother this time, tentatively, as if she was still hot from the flames. ‘You don’t need to go into a home. You can come and live with one of us. You know that. Me, for instance. Or I’m sure Quentin or Samuel—’

  ‘No. I would rather die.’

  ‘Are we that bad?’ asked Jonah.

  ‘I would rather die,’ repeated Eleanor, ‘than be looked after by my children.’

  ‘Have you considered that this is not fair on us?’ said Leon. ‘We worry about you, all alone there. We worry about going on holidays or leaving you unattended for days at a stretch. We race up and down the motorway to visit you, and you’re constantly on our minds.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Eleanor. ‘I think that’s called emotional blackmail, Leon.’

  A woman screamed in the ward, a repeated wail of distress. They heard the clack of heels over linoleum and a calm voice speaking to her, but the wailing continued.

  ‘Why won’t you live with me?’ asked Esther. ‘We could have a nice time together. God knows, I could do with the company.’

  ‘I won’t live with you, Esther. I won’t live with any of you.’ She hesitated, gave a long sigh. The three round the bed saw her bony shoulders tighten and then sag under the hospital gown. ‘Please would you all leave me now.’

  ‘I’ve only just arrived.’ Esther sounded as though she would cry. ‘As soon as I heard I jumped in the car and—’

  ‘I know. Come back in an hour or so. I’m tired. I want to sleep.’

  But she was very far from sleep. She closed her eyes as they left and then opened them as soon as she could no longer hear their voices or footsteps, only the high whine of the lights and the faint creak of the hospital trolleys, and outside the windows the sound of ordinary life continuing: the slam of car doors and the hum of voices. It was a relief to be alone. She sat up in bed, and took several mouthfuls of water from the plastic beaker beside her, although the ashy taste in her mouth remained. Her children pressed in on her with their anxieties and their needs. They made the air feel tight and hot and still, like a gathering storm.

  She tried to see herself through their eyes: ancient, stubborn, burdensome, hanging on to life long beyond her time. Sometimes they talked about her as if she wasn’t there. ‘Like a mule,’ they would say under their breath. ‘You know how she can get. There’s no reasoning with her.’

  She was ancient and she was stubborn but she had no intention of being a burden. She took a deep breath and set her jaw.

  ‘Very well.’

  ‘Very well? What?’

  ‘I will go into a home. I know how you all worry. It’s not right. None of this is right.’

  ‘Don’t do it just for us,’ said Leon. ‘You know I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know exactly what you meant. Nobody should be ninety-four. It’s humiliating.’

  ‘But surely—’

  ‘Put the house on the market. I will move out at Christmas.’

  ‘Really? You do see it’s for the best – for everyone.’

  ‘I will move out at Christmas, but before that I’m going home. Alone.’

  ‘We’ll do everything.’ Leon was speaking rapidly, guilty and trying to placate her. ‘You don’t need to do anything. Sell the house, find a nice place, not like the kind of place you were speaking of, sheltered accommodation—’

  ‘It’s all right, Leon.’

  ‘And we’ll sort out all your things. We can do it bit by bit.’

  ‘No. That’s my condition. I want to go home alone and I want someone else to sort through my possessions; all my papers and my mementos.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I do.’

  ‘But we’d like to do it for you; it would be no trouble.’

  ‘I want a stranger.’

  ‘As you wish.’ Leon sat down on a chair that wobbled under him. He rubbed the side of his jaw, hand rasping against the silvery stubble. ‘If that’s what you want, I’m sure that can be arranged.’

  ‘It is what I want.’

  ‘As a matter of fact,’ said Jonah, ‘I think I might know the very person.’

  3

  Peter biked from the station as the day was fading into a smoky dusk. The street lamps dwindled as he left the town and soon there was no pavement, only a damp grass verge and a narrow, pockmarked lane that the headlights of an occasional car would briefly illuminate. The light on his bike was thin and weak and didn’t
help him. Then there were bats; oily rags blown above his head before dissolving back into gathering darkness. Silence that wasn’t silent when you listened, but inhabited by faint sounds: the wind like the sea in the trees; the faint shriek of an owl; a rustle in the undergrowth beside him – and once a tiny creature spun across the road just in front of him, like a leaf rolling, but he glimpsed its sharp eyes.

  He stopped for a moment, just to listen to the sounds his body made in the creaking quiet of the night: the intake of breath and its unsteady release; his heart banging against his ribs; the faint clamouring in his head and in his ears. He smiled to himself, feeling a prickle of excitement. He wasn’t used to quiet and he wasn’t used to dark. He couldn’t remember when he had last left London, or even the tiny grid of the city that he had occupied. For some time, he hadn’t left the flat, or his bedroom in the flat. His bed, where he’d pulled the covers over his head and burrowed into his own warmth, cradling his pale slender body. Waiting, until gradually waiting became the thing in itself, intransitive – not waiting for anything or expecting anything, just a suspended state of being – following the clouds in the sky, the skeins of birds, the way the light fell on the garden. Click of door, tick of clock, patter of rain, murmur of pipes, his mother’s contented snores at night. But now Jonah had summoned him to take care of his granny and he was on his way again. He realized that he felt interested, buoyant, alert.

  The house was up a long, uneven drive. It was so dark now that he couldn’t see his way and had to dismount his bike in order to avoid veering off the track and into the thorny hedge. His feet, cold in their thin shoes, crunched on loose gravel. The house was just a massed shape. He could see it was large, but that was all. There was one dim light on in the porch, but the windows were dark and it was hard to believe there was anyone inside. Had he got the day wrong? He slowed down, putting off the moment when he would be knocking on the door. The wind was cold on his face and he thought he could smell the sea. A long shiver of anticipation ran through him.

  He leant his bike against a wall, lifted off the bulging panniers, unslung his small rucksack so that it hung off one shoulder – and then before he had time to change his mind, he knocked on the door, bold and hard, and listened. A dog barked from somewhere inside and then stopped barking. For a while there was nothing, but as he was about to rap again he heard the tap of a stick on the floor, and footsteps. They were very slow and deliberate, as if the person taking them was pausing between each step. Then the door swung open and he found himself facing the indistinct shape of a woman. He could see that she wore a long skirt and that her hair was quite white. She stood very still and upright just a few feet from him. Behind her was the dog: large and shaggy in the gloom, with a panting pink tongue. Peter took a nervous step backwards. He wasn’t sure about dogs. Once when he was out running a whippetty creature had launched itself at him and fastened its teeth into his bare thigh, simply hanging there while its owner had moaned and said she didn’t know what had come over it. He had the faint scar still.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘I’m Peter. Peter Mistley. Are you Mrs Lee?’

  ‘Peter?’ She held out a thin hand and, putting down one pannier, he took it. A clutch of bones and the slide of dry, warm skin. ‘I didn’t hear a taxi.’ Her voice was soft and blurred, like worn velvet.

  ‘I biked.’

  ‘Dear me. That’s quite a way. Is it dark?’

  Peter turned his head to look at the night behind him, the obscure tumult of the sky.

  ‘Yes,’ he said uncertainly. ‘It is really quite dark now.’

  ‘Then I had better turn on the lights. Come in out of the cold. Your bike will be quite safe out there.’ As if guessing his anxiety, she said, ‘Don’t worry about Polly, she’s a very old rescue dog and she’s even intimidated by the wood pigeons.’

  She let go of his hand and he stepped into the hall and shut the door behind him. She reached for a switch on the wall. The gush of light revealed her to him and he had to prevent himself from gasping. She must have been one of the oldest people he had ever seen, except in photographs in magazines. National Geographic, he thought, as he gazed at her. She seemed to him like a landscape that had been battered and ravaged by torrents and winds and the erosion of decades. She was quite tall and very thin, and she stood as straight as a ruler, as if age, which bends most people, had pulled her upright. Her hair was a mass of silver-white cobwebs above the chipped mosaic of her face. She wore a long grey woollen skirt with a frayed, grubby hem and her body was draped in a tasselled shawl that had seen better days. One hand – bruised, shiny and liver-spotted, with swollen knuckles and a great ring on the fourth finger like an encrusted glittering knob – grasped a cane. Peter couldn’t tell if she had been beautiful once, or whether she still was: the sheer fact of her having lived for so long awed him. The dog that stood behind her seemed equally ancient and faded: a brindled shabby mongrel with a torn ear and beseeching eyes.

  Then: ‘Oh—’ he suddenly murmured.

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re blind.’

  ‘I know.’ She rested her unseeing eyes on his face and smiled. Her neck, rising out of the folds of the shawl, was alarmingly thin. It felt rude to stare at her when she couldn’t look back at him.

  ‘Sorry. I mean, I’m sorry that I didn’t know.’

  ‘My grandson didn’t tell you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So like Jonah.’

  Jonah: mysterious, cosmopolitan Jonah, steeped in history, biblical and heathen, swallowed by a whale in his previous life. Jonah with his beautiful clothes and his dark eyes, whom Kaitlin was with now, stepping from the wreckage of her relationship with Peter into something more courteous, less stormy and intense perhaps. His email to Peter had come out of the blue and was as formally composed as a letter – he was looking for someone who could sort through all of his grandmother’s papers, photographs and books, deciding which should be sold, which given to an interested university and which should be binned. His grandfather had been some distinguished doctor, and his grandmother had spent a lifetime in education, as a teacher and then a teacher trainer. Was he interested?

  ‘Do you have a bag?’ the old woman said now.

  Peter let his panniers and rucksack fall to the floor. He suddenly felt enormously tired. He wanted to sink down on the floor beside his luggage and rest his head on the wooden boards. Perhaps she was so blind that she wouldn’t notice. She’d go on talking to him as though he were still standing beside her. He was wearing a thick overcoat and there were patches of cooling perspiration on his shirt. He felt graceless in front of this creature from another century, with her extraordinary face like a map of life – which was ridiculous, of course. She couldn’t see him. He could make gestures at her, or turn from her, and she would go on facing him with her secret inward smile.

  ‘I’ll show you your room later. First, shall we sit by the fire? Have you had dinner?’

  ‘No. Yes. That is, I’m not—’

  ‘You haven’t eaten but you don’t want to put me to any bother? Especially since I can’t see.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ said Peter.

  ‘I can see shapes and sometimes make out faces. And when the sunlight is bright, it hurts my eyes. But I don’t need to see.’ She held up the arm that wasn’t holding the cane; a clink of bracelets. There was something of a sorceress about her: a female Prospero. ‘I see with my fingers and my ears and my memory. Follow me.’

  He picked up his rucksack and panniers and followed her as she made her way down the hall, with her slow, delicate steadiness, Polly beside her. Her feet barely made a sound on the boards, whereas his sent small pulses through the house. He had an impression of dark, oppressive oils in gilt frames, of framed black-and-white photographs showing groups of people in strange garb, of a sudden glimpse of the two of them thrown up in the mottled mirror that hung – slightly askew – on the wall. She like a wraith and he laden and stumbling behind her.

  ‘Her
e we are.’ She pushed at the door in front of them and it swung open into a kitchen. ‘Leave your bags here. Take care of the step. And the floor slopes.’

  The kitchen was long, with uneven stone tiles and a table running along its length. There were windows set deep into the walls, and on the wide sills stood pots of salmon-pink geraniums. But one of them was dead, he saw, just a dry twist of wood, a few brown leaves. He looked around the room. There was an old-fashioned stove at the far end, and near it a small fireplace where the last embers glowed. There was a leather sofa, old and shabby, on which two ginger cats curled, one at either end, tails twitching in dreams. He took off his coat and folded it on the table.

  ‘The time is nine-eighteen,’ said a bossy female voice from underneath it.

  ‘Oh!’ He picked up the coat and saw the talking clock.

  ‘The house is full of voices,’ said the old woman. ‘Sometimes they keep me company. They can have a mind of their own.’ She put her hand out and tapped.

  ‘Zero grams,’ announced a different voice, deep and plummy. ‘Zero ounces.’

  ‘Now then, what will you eat? There’s some cold chicken in the fridge, I think. And some nice cheese that my grand-daughter brought. But that was some time ago. Perhaps it’s run away by now.’

  She opened the fridge door and put her head inside.

  ‘I can’t tell,’ she said cavernously. ‘Would you like to look?’

  Peter joined her by the fridge, which was spacious and almost empty.

  ‘Is there bread in there?’

  He pulled out a nub of brown bread in a brown paper bag and a plate of pale, spreading cheese.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Bread and cheese is good for me. I’m not very hungry.’ Though he was suddenly ravenous, almost dizzy with hunger.

  ‘I used to make bread.’ She straightened up. ‘For many decades, I made bread twice a week, Mondays and Thursdays. It gave a structure to my days, when they had no other. Structure is very important, you know.’ Peter noticed how she spoke in whole sentences, precisely, as if she were seeing them written down first, following the punctuation on the page. ‘I used to love making bread: the sour bubbling yeast and the fine sifted flour; the elastic plumpness of the dough as it rose. Now it’s just another thing I will never do again. I will never run down a hill, I will never watch the sun set. I will never swim in the sea, which was my great joy. I will never dance.’