The Woman in the Sable Coat, page 2
The treehouse wobbles as Nina sits down and stretches her bare legs to the full. She wants to say, “You promised to write at least once a week, if I remember rightly,” but she can’t, having failed to keep up the correspondence herself. Instead she says, “You’re in Dad’s way, down there.”
Nina’s father is mowing the grass, and every time he clickety-clacks past the cherry tree, he gives them a mock-gallant bow, or touches the brim of his sun hat.
“I’ll move when he reaches this bit.”
Nina looks down on her friend’s blonde head, her primrose-yellow dress, and her folded, stockinged legs. Surely it’s too hot for stockings? She runs her palms up and down her own shins, bristling the sun-bleached hairs, and making them smooth again. There’s a whopper of a bruise on her left knee, and several long scratches that look like strings of rubies, from when she lost a tennis ball in the brambles.
Biscuit emerges from the side door and crosses the grass, tongue lolling, tail waving. When he sniffs at Rose’s legs she cries, “Careful!” and pushes him away. After a moment she says, “Sit, Biscuit, there’s a good dog,” and presses on his haunches to make him obey.
Nina can see Cottenden church tower from up here, and the humpback bridge, and most of Canal Road, until it curves away to join the main road. Their house—hers and Dad’s—is No. 7, and it looks much the same as all the other numbers from this angle: they all have the same mock-Tudor gables, the same pinkish bricks, the same preference for ornamental cherry trees. When you’re at normal eye level the houses seem more distinctive, somehow: you notice the gnomes in Mr. and Mrs. Atherton’s garden, and the bicycle inside Miss Riley’s front gate, and the Lawsons’ rabbit hutch, and their chicken coop with its half-dozen white bantams.
Rose is reading aloud from Marjorie’s Chums, something about fixing your hair in finger-curls like Norma Shearer. Nina can’t hear properly over the mower.
Living in a Cheshire village seems like a very dull fate today. The dullest fate imaginable. Last summer the two of them sat in the treehouse with their grubby knees touching, poring over Nina’s dad’s atlas, and Rose had said, “As the crow flies, Cottenden is four miles from Chester and twenty miles from Liverpool.” Nina had crunched a pear drop pensively before adding, “And it’s one hundred and seventy miles from London, and . . .” (flicking to page 21, “Europe: political”) “one and a half thousand miles from Leningrad and . . .” (pages 14 and 15, “The Atlantic Ocean”) “about three and a half thousand miles from New York City. Three and a half thousand miles!”
It wasn’t that they’d foreseen the slightest chance of leaving Cottenden last August—not for London, anyway, or Leningrad, or New York—but at least they’d had their friendship, and the world had spread itself out for their imaginative pleasure. In the summer of ’33, and in all the summers before it, for as long as Nina can remember, the earth had pivoted around the treehouse at 7 Canal Road.
Rose shuffles closer to the tree as Dad completes another stripe of the lawn, and Biscuit flops lazily onto his side. Nina picks at the scabs on her shins and thinks how much she hates characterless blue skies, and this empty time of day, just after lunch, when there are hours and hours to endure before tea. She yawns so hard that her eyes shut, and when they open again there’s a man coming round the bend in the road.
He’s not from Cottenden. Nina pushes the leaves aside, to take a better look. He’s walking down the middle of the road, as if there’s no likelihood of any vans or cars, and everything about him says not-Cottenden, not-Cheshire, perhaps not even England. She can’t decide why. It has something to do with his height and breadth, and the swing of his arms, and the sunburn that flushes his cheeks, and the jaunty way he shoulders his enormous backpack. None of these things on their own would mark him out, yet somehow, taken together . . . Nina tries to guess his age, but it’s impossible to tell with adults. He’s definitely younger than Dad, who is thirty-nine.
While Mr. Woodrow mows around the foot of the tree, Rose stands up, gathering the rug into her arms and managing to stay glued to her magazine. “Gosh, listen to this, Nina!” she calls over the noise. “This could be you!”
Nina doesn’t want to hear snippets from Marjorie’s Chums—not within Dad’s earshot, anyway. She is watching the strange man and hoping, with a bored sort of hope, that he’ll notice her too. He does glance about as he strides down the lane, a slight smile lighting his eyes, but he never turns in her direction. She rustles the branches with her foot, but he remains oblivious, and in another moment he’s gone past the house and out of sight.
“Listen, Nina! There’s a letter on the ‘Ask Marjorie’ page, and honestly, it could have been written by you.”
“Well, I promise it wasn’t.” Nina sighs and rolls onto her side, propping her head on her hand. At least Dad has finished and disappeared into the shed.
“No, but listen!” Rose pauses theatrically and clears her throat. “Dear Marjorie, I would be grateful for your advice, please. I am a fifteen-year-old girl, and I have grown up without a mother, because she passed away when I was born. I do have a father and two older brothers, but I worry about the absence of a feminine role model in my life and feel that I am lacking in confidence and general ‘know-how’ as a result of having no mother. I don’t have any aunts, or grown-up women friends, and although I have friends my own age, it is not the same as having a maternal figure to turn to. Ordinary feminine skills like wearing the right clothes, choosing and applying cosmetics, talking to boys, etc., seem mysterious and rather daunting to me, whereas none of the other girls in my class feels like this at all. If my mother were still alive, I feel sure everything would be different . . . Nina! It could be you!”
“Except that I’m fourteen and an only child.”
“Apart from that.”
“And my mother didn’t die when I was born. She died when I was two.”
“All right, apart from that.”
These are the only objections Nina can articulate, so she rolls onto her back again and wonders how long it will be before Rose goes home. This is Day One, and her shortest stay ever was a fortnight. Sometimes, in previous years, the two of them have travelled back together on the train and Nina has spent a few days in Buxton, but she won’t be doing that this time. No, thank you very much!
Nina thinks, I’m having hateful thoughts about Rose, and the novelty of it makes her feel sick and wobbly, as if she’s standing at a very great height, trying not to look down. It’s horrible but addictive.
“Are you listening? Do you want me to read you Marjorie’s advice?”
“No.”
No, I want you to go to hell.
Nina squints through the shadowy layers of leaves, to the shards of sun and blue sky. Something touches her elbow, and when she turns her head she’s surprised to see Rose’s face on a level with her own. She hasn’t climbed all the way up, but she has risked her shoes, stockings, and dress to balance on the stump near the base of the tree.
“Nina?”
Rose crooks her little finger and holds it out. Nina hesitates, reluctant to let go of her righteous anger, before joining in their secret handshake (hook little fingers; shake hands; clasp wrists; bump fists). In a rush of relief and nostalgia, she almost accompanies the handshake by saying, I wouldn’t actually want you to go to hell, but she bites her tongue in time.
“I wasn’t trying to be mean,” says Rose. “I’m sorry if it came out like that; I’m only concerned for you. Look, I brought you this. Lyn was having a clear-out of her make-up drawer and she gave me her old lipsticks.”
Lyn is Rose’s sister-in-law from across the way. Nina studies the tube that has been pressed into her hand. The casing is black with a silvery rim, and it’s labelled at one end: Secret Orchid.
“Why are you concerned for me?” she asks, unscrewing the lipstick. Lyn has used most of it; there’s only a short stub left over. It’s red and ripe, like something you might long to crush between your teeth if you were thirsty. Like a strawberry.
“I think you know why.”
“No, I don’t!”
“Well then . . . because you’re like the girl in that letter. In fact, you’re worse off than her, because at least she knows she’s missing something.”
“Yes, but what am I missing? Other than a mother, which I can’t do much about.”
The treehouse wobbles as Rose adjusts her grip. Her voice drops to a whisper. The dear old Rose—the Rose of the secret handshake—is gone again, and the new version is back.
“What would you do if you were . . . you know . . . attracted to a boy? If you wanted him to kiss you? Or, never mind kissing, if you just wanted him to see you? Would you have the first clue what to do?”
Nina thinks of the tall, broad man striding down Canal Road, which makes no sense, because although she idly desired to be noticed by him, she felt—and feels—no desire to be kissed by those subtly smiling lips. The idea is enough to make her queasy, but he stays in her mind all the same. He had a short, untidy beard, as if he hadn’t bothered to shave for a week or two, and his hair was reddish gold.
Rose continues: “It’s about getting them to look at you in that way . . . you know. Oh Nina, you must know what I mean?”
“Of course I do, I’m not a complete ignoramus.” Nina draws a greasy line across her thigh with the lipstick, then turns it into a mouth by adding two dots for eyes. She is saved from further discussion by a shout, which makes them both jump.
“Hey!”
It’s him. It’s the man with the backpack. He must have retraced his steps, and now he’s leaning his folded arms on the garden gate while he catches his breath. His arms are huge—muscular—and they make the wrought-iron gate look spindly. Nina thinks “Hey!” is a rather rude way to attract attention, or rather, it ought to be, but somehow the man makes it sound civil. He sounds as if he really means, “Hello!”
Biscuit barks doubtfully, and Nina clambers down from the treehouse. Both girls are gripped by stage-fright, but Dad reappears round the side of the house in the nick of time.
“Afternoon!” Dad’s been tinkering with the mower, and his hands are green and oily. He wipes them on a handkerchief as he crosses the lawn, and pauses a few feet from the gate. The stranger smiles and straightens. His skin is glistening, and his clothes are dusty, as if he’s been walking for a long time.
“Pardon me, sir, is this Cottenden village?”
“It is!”
Rose pinches Nina just above the elbow, and whispers in her ear, “American!”
The man goes on: “Phew, well that’s something. I’m looking for a place called Hawthorn House, but I don’t have the full address? I only know it’s in Cottenden.”
“Hawthorn House . . .” Dad reddens, then makes matters worse by wiping his face on the rag and streaking his cheek with oil. Nina loves her father all the more for being shy, but she also wishes he wasn’t.
“Yeah, it belongs to an old friend of mine—Guy Nicholson. I figured I’d surprise him with a visit. Him and his wife, I should say.”
“Hawthorn House . . . I’m not sure . . . Isn’t that the new build, just off Manor Farm Lane?”
“Could be. You know the Nicholsons? Guy and Kate?”
“I’m afraid not, but I’ve been past their place.” Dad hesitates. “Lovely spot to build a house. Lovely views of the Welsh hills.”
Dad begins giving directions, but there are too many third turnings on the left, and second turnings on the right, and “take a shortcut over the field with two oaks, not the field with one oak tree and a pond.” In the end he gives up, and waves the girls over.
“You two can take this gentleman to Manor Farm Lane, can’t you?”
Nina nods and Rose says, “Sure!” although she doesn’t even live in Cottenden and is hardly likely to know the way.
The man gazes at them mildly. “I don’t want to put anyone out.”
“Oh, not at all,” says Dad, and Rose echoes, “Not at all.”
Dad goes on, “Why don’t you take that lazy hound of yours, Nina? He hasn’t had much of a walk today.”
“Okay.”
“Take care, though, crossing that main road.”
Nina frowns at being babied. Biscuit’s curly ears quiver at the word walk, and he circles Dad’s legs, panting and grinning. The stranger leans over the gate and rubs the dog’s head with his knuckles, saying, “Hey there, mutt.”
When the man looks up again, Dad holds out his hand. “Henry Woodrow, by the by. This is my daughter, Nina, and her friend Rose.”
“Joey Roussin.” The man gives Dad’s hand a brisk jiggle. He pronounces his surname in the French way, with the R at the back of his throat.
Dad comes across as wary and slight, next to the stranger. Nina wishes he’d ask Joey Roussin about his accent, but of course he won’t, for fear his curiosity will be interpreted as some subtle form of ill will. Instead, he says, “Can I offer you a glass of water before you set off?”
Rose darts into the kitchen before Joey has even said yes, and reappears clutching one of the cut-glass tumblers that Dad keeps for best. It’s full to the brim, and the water splashes over the sides however carefully she walks. Her lips are freshly reddened, and she’s smiling in a different way from usual, as if she’s decided to show fewer teeth and more dimples.
Nina remembers the lipstick scribble on her thigh. As soon as Joey tips his head back to drink, she rubs at it fiercely, but she can’t get rid of it before he’s finished; she can only make it look like a slight, strange wound.
THE WALK IS A CALAMITY for Rose’s white shoes, especially the short cut across the field, which is rutted with dry mud. She pretends that she couldn’t care less, but Nina sees how she compresses her lips and tiptoes over the worst bits. When they reach an especially wide spattering of cow muck, Rose takes hold of Joey’s arm in order to leap across.
Nina keeps Biscuit on the lead, in case he decides to go barrelling through the hedge to chase the cows in the next field. He’s in the mood to sniff and cock his leg at every tussock, and Nina ends up walking behind the other two, although they’re relying on her for directions. She half listens to their conversation (desperately casual questions on Rose’s part; idle answers on Joey’s), interrupting now and then with a “Straight on over the stile!” or “Left here!”
At some stage—Nina doesn’t notice when or why—Joey takes to calling Rose “Madeleine Carroll.” “Why, thank you, Miss Carroll,” he says, when she holds the gate for him.
“Do you know what?” Rose confesses, as if the coincidence is almost too much to bear, “I’m going to the Odeon with my brother and sister-in-law this evening to see a Madeleine Carroll picture!”
“Yeah?”
“Yes. It’s called The World Moves On. It’s American, of course—all the best pictures are, aren’t they? I’d love to go to Hollywood.”
“Uh-huh. Well, I’ve no doubt you’ll make it there one day.”
Nina steps into the next cowpat deliberately. There is a certain grim pleasure in breaking the crust, and staining her school shoes a greener shade of brown.
“What part of the States are you from?” Rose wonders.
Joey looks down from his great height and laughs. He seems to laugh with every other breath, and mostly it sounds genial, but occasionally, when he narrows his eyes, it sounds mocking.
“I’m not from the States,” he says. “I’m from Canada.”
“Canada!”
“Rossett Falls, to be precise. It’s a small town outside Winnipeg.”
“Oh!” Rose’s eyes are wide again. “Winnipeg is a city in . . . Quebec?”
“Manitoba,” Nina mutters, though she’s not as certain as she sounds. (Page 148? “Canada and Alaska”?) Joey rewards her with a nod and a wink, and Nina has to frown in order not to smile.
For the rest of the walk, Nina and Biscuit continue to hang back, but she doesn’t mind so much now. Rose can’t see Joey, as long as she stays by his side—not unless she strains her eyes sideways or gawps at him openly—whereas Nina can study his back view at her leisure.
Joey Roussin is what Nina’s form teacher would call an “absolute sight.” His boots, along with the lower half of his trousers, are caked in dirt; his plaid shirt is darkly stained around the armpits and down the back, and he stinks as if he hasn’t washed in days. The nape of his neck is beetroot red, and his golden curls shine with sweat. He ought to be repulsive.
Perhaps it’s his exoticism that saves him? Or partly that? Nina pictures Canada as best she can: turquoise lakes, snowy peaks, forests of fir trees, brown bears, leaping salmon, solitude, vastness. The picture is familiar and strange, at the same time. It reminds her of imaginary adventures on sleepless nights, when she runs away from home, all by herself, and sleeps beneath a wilderness of stars, and lives off her wits like an animal.
NINA DOESN’T NEED TO SAY, “Here we are,” because there’s a painted sign beside a low sandstone wall, which reads Hawthorn House. Beyond it there’s a paved driveway, and a garden, and the house itself.
Joey stops when he reaches the sign, swings the backpack off, and plants it on the ground. The girls stop too, and Biscuit winds his lead round Nina’s legs.
There’s a woman on the far side of the garden, facing away from them, ankle-deep in grass as she hangs a basket of washing. Her movements are slow and heavy, and every time she finishes pegging something out—even something as slight as a handkerchief—she pauses to flex her back.
In the driveway, a man is leaning over the open bonnet of a car with a toolkit at his feet. Joey says, “Guy Nicholson,” quietly, as if he is talking to himself, but it must be loud enough for the man to hear because he straightens abruptly, wrench in hand, and turns towards the sound. For a long moment he seems merely confused, his eyes glancing guardedly from Nina, to Rose, to Biscuit, but then his features widen and he advances on them—practically runs at them—and the wrench falls, clanging, onto the driveway.
“Roussin!”
The girls stand back as the men collide. Joey makes a noise, more like a roar than a laugh, as he catches his friend mid-flight. “You didn’t expect to see me!”
