Chapter 1 The Apple and the Pearl #17
‘I mean, like, outside the Grit. For a conversation, or whatever.’
Zach turns to her, alarmed. ‘I must be fucking your induction right up because that is not on the cards. Listen to me, and listen good. There are no conversations with fairies. There is no, like, hanging out. If you follow the rules you won’t encounter one and if you do, you run. Got it?’
Lara nods. ‘Sure. Sorry.’
Zach goes back to his lighting cue sheet to hide how flustered he is.
He would like this new girl to trust him, to feel safe, to feel like he told her everything she needed to know.
He would like her to survive her pledge.
And yes, he would like her to like him. He sneaks a look at her, frowning at the lighting desk.
Not wrong, is it? To want to be liked by your closest colleague?
He tucks the thought away and flips over his piece of paper.
‘All right. Let me talk you through act two.’
* * *
Back in the Grub, the dining car is busy. Alina is slurping butternut squash soup and scrolling through her phone, while next to her Milly is stirring her soup listlessly. Derek is sitting with Yolanda and Lance, enthusiastically shoving lasagne into his mouth.
‘You see, Yolanda,’ he’s saying, waving his spoon around. ‘There are two things we don’t take bets on, here at The Apple and the Pearl. The first is who Lance will be taking to his bed next, and I won’t talk about the other one because I’m already persecuted for my honesty.’
Lance’s knuckles whiten and his lips tighten in fury. He puts a possessive hand on Yolanda’s back as Derek giggles and puts a finger to his lips.
‘Derek, you need to—’
‘Now I won’t say any more because I can see you two would like a bit of privacy.
I will just say there are a couple of young men I’m looking out for because I do believe they’d make a handsome addition to any fairy court, and a few young women I’m keeping an eye on for you, Lance.
Whenever you’re ready. You let me know.’
And Derek giggles, lets his spoon clatter into his bowl and gets up, adjusting his dirty black jeans as he saunters off.
Kavi knows he needs to go up to the Grit to set his ropes for tonight and make sure they’re not snarled, but he sits for a minute with Alina and Milly, scrolling through his phone, eyes flicking past posts from his childhood friends – parties, holidays, jokes that you’ll only get if you spend more than ten hours a day online.
He sighs, then starts to type a text to his mum: It’s Jamal’s birthday today, could you please tell his mum happy birthday if you see her at the shop? Love you, all good here x
Belinda sits with her laptop at a table on her own, typing an email back to the bell smith.
Yes, two more incidents since I last saw you, that’s why I’m looking to tighten things up.
She wonders if she should ask after his daughter, or his horses, or look up something from the news to make a general comment on.
Really, she wants to ask him about his retirement plans, because he has looked after the bell on the Grub for forty-six years and his father looked after it for thirty-nine years before him so if he’s about to drop dead or decide he’d like to devote the winter of his life to his pets she’d like to know about it.
She types: I hope your daughter is getting on well at university – any sign she’d like to join the family business?
She debates putting a little cartoon smiley face, decides against it, then presses send.
She scoops a spoonful of soup and eats it. Cold. She turns to the counter but Gino is already moving through the booths towards her. ‘Let me give that a blast in the microwave for you,’ he says, as he removes her bowl.
He hesitates a moment. ‘While I’ve got you, Belinda, I’m getting worried about the milk.’ He smiles ruefully. ‘There’s only so many scones I can make.’
Belinda takes off her glasses and folds them next to her laptop. The changeling. Yet another problem to deal with. ‘Maybe another supplier will be higher quality?’
‘This is the fourth supplier I’ve tried.’
Belinda sighs. ‘I will sort it, Gino. Thank you for your patience.’
He smiles and takes her bowl away as Belinda stares at her laptop screen, unseeing.
How exactly will she sort it? Throw Henry out of a window in the Grit?
March into the Otherworld and insist they take him?
Maybe she should just level with him, say, Look, I know what you are and what you’re trying to do – and maybe you know a little bit about me too – but this is not working out and we are going to need to find a solution before somebody figures it out and takes matters into their own hands.
She takes a notepad out of her handbag and writes: milk, changeling, ask Crow?
* * *
Sitting on the grave of Desmond C Jones, dead in 1765 may he rest in the eternal peace of the blessed, Jean checks her emails.
Her scarf is pulled tight around her throat and her hat close over her ears.
She abhors being cold and this damp mist will do mischief in her lungs if she doesn’t wrap herself up.
Her oboe and her handbag rest safe from the damp on the grave of Desmond’s wife Mary, beloved wife and mother, dead in 1782.
She swipes and swipes, deleting marketing spam from websites she last used months ago – she should unsubscribe, but the extra clickthroughs feel like too much work – saving all the interesting things for reading later.
A chatty catch-up message from her cousin complete with a picture of her newest grandchild; a reminder to come for a dental checkup; three invoices.
She marks the ones she needs to respond to, checks the time – three twenty-five, a good time to call him – finds the number of the nursing home and calls.
There is a pause before the ringing starts and in the silence she imagines the phone like a beam of light from a torch, searching up into the sky and across the land, whatever land they’re currently stopped in.
A woman answers the phone on the fourth ring. ‘Good morning, Hillview Care, Kasia speaking.’
‘Hello Kasia, it’s Jean Petersfield here. Is Dad available and able to chat?’
‘Of course! It’s a good day today, Miss Petersfield. I think he’ll be thrilled to hear from you.’
‘Fantastic. Just cut me off if he’s getting tired or agitated, I honestly won’t mind.’
‘I’ll go and get him now.’
Jean hears the phone clunk as Kasia takes it off the hook.
She hears the rustle of her trousers and the squeak of her trainers on the scrubbed linoleum tiles as she walks along the corridor to her father’s room, snatches of conversation and music and TVs.
A faint voice saying ‘Bertie, it’s for you’ and the music in the room at the other end of the line – an aria from Don Giovanni, if she’s not mistaken – cuts off mid note.
A fumble, a crackle of static, a heavy breath and a cough, then:
‘Albert Petersfield speaking.’
‘Hello Daddy, it’s Jeanie. How are you?’
‘Jeanie girlie! What a treat to hear your voice!’
A warmth spreads through her despite the autumnal chill. He sounds well. Lucid, content, confident.
‘It’s lovely to hear you too, Dad. How are you doing?’
‘Is it cold? You sound like you’re somewhere cold. Are you wrapped up warm?’
‘It is a little cold here but I’m fine.’
A pause. Jean tries to think of something to say.
She usually describes where they’re stopped but today she worries that it’s a bit too close to the bone – ha ha – to tell him that today the Grub pulled up in a graveyard and she’s sitting atop someone’s grave.
Her father is eighty-nine. There aren’t too many more phone calls left.
But he cuts in before she can say anything. ‘Tell me, have you lit a candle for your mother and your grandmother?’
Of course, it’s All Souls’. ‘Not yet, Dad. I will later, after the show.’ She can stare into the flame and think about her mother and then she can light another candle for all the other dead things in her life: her dreams, her ambition, her financial stability, her chances at romance.
‘Percy Montgomery used to gather all those inclined in his office and say a few words on days like this – a big C Catholic, was Percy, always said he’d have gone into the seminary if not the theatre which never made a blind bit of sense to me but Aleko and I used to go along to hear his fine tenor singing psalms – and tell me, how is Aleko, is he keeping well? ’
‘He’s well. The same as always really.’
‘Good, good. Listen, I was telling Kasia the other day – no, not Kasia, the other one, the one who sings those lovely tunes from Nigeria, her name’s gone now but anyway, I was telling her about the show and she was asking what was my favourite part and I said well it has to be that bit right at the end before the wedding, you know the part that goes like… ’
He starts to hum the melody of the White Suitor’s solo, the same melody he sings on the phone every time she rings.
She understands why it’s this tune that has slipped between his decaying synapses and stuck there.
It’s got an eerie tone that slips between melancholy and euphoria, and the way the cello calls across the rest of the orchestra with that plaintive voice, never to be answered, it makes you think of all the things you haven’t done or said.
Her father breaks off mid phrase to say, ‘And tell me, the lad who dances the White Suitor, is he any good?’
‘He’s great, Dad, really good.’ She told him the same thing when he asked her the same question last week.
‘I was listening to a programme on Debussy the other day – I listen with Freddy down the way, his legs don’t work anymore but he can still hold his violin – and I told him how Aleko and I used to – and how is Al, how is he keeping?’
‘He’s fine, Dad, you know how it is here. One day is much like the next.’