She was younger than him but he only ever noticed when she said things like that, when she seemed to be asking his advice, talking to him like an older brother. There were only six or seven years between them, and even that didn't seem as much as it once had. She had dark hair, tightly curled, cut to her collarbone. She had a small flat nose, and dark eyes, and she held her hand to her mouth when she spoke, as if she was afraid of letting her teeth show. She was tall. She was slimmer than Eleanor had lately become. They talked. That was all. They worked together, and while they were working they talked.
But one evening she touched him, for the second time, and he didn't pull away or say anything to stop her. It came from nowhere, a lull in the conversation, her hand drifting to the back of his head with her eyes fixed firmly on his, her fingers trailing down through his hair to the expectant skin on the back of his neck. She said sorry, as if it had been an accident, and for some reason he said sorry too and they said no more about it, and he tried to forget the feel of her long fingers, the delicate scratch of her fingernails across his traced and tingling scalp.
They'd finished all the displays, and were going over the layout plans, disagreeing over the need for additional text and trying to work out where to put the model steam engine a Russian man had been very keen to loan. They were both leaning over the desk, the papers and designs spread across it, the glare from the desk lamp getting harsher as the evening quickly darkened outside. He was saying I'm not sure about all this Anna, maybe we should look at it again tomorrow, and then there were her fingers, trailing down to the back of his neck.
And all that happened next was he looked at his watch and stood away from the desk, turning on the main overhead light and saying I think we'll take another look in the morning. That far corner looks like it will be too cramped, visitors will be squeezing past each other. And all she did was shrug, smiling, starting to tidy away the papers from the desk. Okay, she said with her back to him. See you tomorrow, she said. He walked away, and when he got halfway down the corridor and turned back to look through the open door she wasn't looking at him. She was marking something on the floorplan, running her fingers up and down the back of her head, through the dark tangle of her hair.
It was a popular exhibition, one of the most popular of the year. Coventry's population had been growing rapidly for years, tripling even between the turn of the century and the war, so there was no shortage of people who had a story of arrival, or who had grown up hearing their parents' stories, or who could in some way relate to the themes of being a stranger in a new town, making a new life, holding on to the few fragile reminders of home. Even Anna's husband Chris turned out to have a story, muttering it so matter of factly to David in the pub one evening that David had to ask him to repeat himself to be sure he'd heard it right.
My dad came here the long way round, Chris told him, dangling his empty pint glass between his finger and thumb, watching it swing. He went east to get away from the Germans, and ended up on a boat to England, ended up in the air force loading bombs to send back at them. He watched Anna walking back from the toilets, squeezing past a group of men by the bar, resting her hand on someone's shoulder by way of an excuse me. His eyes narrowed slightly before he turned back to David.
My mum came west a few years later, he said, to get away from the Russians. She met my dad in the Ukrainian club up in Leeds, and they moved down here when he heard about jobs going on the cars. Turned out they were only born twenty miles apart, he said as Anna sat down, saying it like a well-worn punchline, sitting back on his stool and turning to look at the bar.
Your parents? Anna asked, and he nodded.
We could have interviewed them if you'd mentioned it, David said to Anna, and she shook her head.
I don't think they would have wanted to take part, she said. Chris stood up, taking their empty glasses.
They don't like immigrants, generally, he said, turning towards the bar.
He was a broad-shouldered man, and people moved naturally aside to let him pass, as if they'd felt his approach without looking. As he got to the bar Anna said, murmuring, he's working again now you know, for the parks; it'll probably only be until the end of the summer but it's something at least. David nodded.
That's good, he said. That's something.
She looked at Chris, who was laughing briefly at something the barman was saying. It's not as bad as it was, she told him now. My money's enough for us both really. David watched him heading back across the room towards them, the three drinks held awkwardly out in front of him. He noticed Anna moving the back of her thumb across her wedding ring, rubbing it clean, the same way she'd been doing a few nights earlier when she'd told him about their anniversary. Five years though, she'd said, tutting and sighing fondly, seems hard to believe sometimes, and he hadn't known whether she meant hard to believe how quickly the time had passed or hard to believe they'd got married at all.
Where's your missus tonight anyway? asked Chris as he sat down, the three glasses knocking against each other and slopping beer out on to the table.
She's staying in, David said. She's, I mean, she's a bit under the weather at the moment.
Really? said Chris. Nothing serious is it?
Well, said David, no. Nothing serious. He noticed Anna looking at him, looking like she wanted to say something, an edge of worry in her eyes.
She not made it to the exhibition yet then? Chris asked, and David shook his head no. Pity, Chris said, it's a good bit of work. He moved his hand across Anna's thigh, grasping it, leaning in towards her. It's a smart idea she had there, I reckon, he said, and David nodded in agreement, Anna smiling with surprise, turning suddenly and kissing her husband on the cheek.
David sat back a little, not wanting to intrude, a familiar resentment turning over in his stomach. He wanted to be able to sit in the pub with Eleanor beside him, having a drink with their friends and talking about the small things. He wanted not to have to explain her absence every time, and almost always to have to lie about it. He wanted at least to know how long this was going to go on for, or to know that there was something he could do about it. He wanted their life together to be the way they'd told each other it would be when they first got married, instead of the empty helpless waiting his life had become. He wanted and he felt a rush of shame as he realised this he wanted her to make more of an effort to get better. He couldn't be expected to wait for ever, he thought, trying to silence the words even as they formed in his head. He pushed his glass away with half the pint still undrunk.
I'm sorry, he said. I'm going to have to get going.
Anna and Chris looked round.
Say hello to her for us, won't you? Anna said, reaching her hand out across the table. Give her our best wishes and everything, she said. Chris muttered something along the same lines, and David said that he would, looking back at Anna, looking at the tilt of her head, the reach of her arm across the table, her fingers arching a little. Looking at her bottom lip, caught by the concerned bite of her teeth.
I'll do that, he said. I'll say hello for you.
37 Framed photograph (wAoroken glass), David and Eleanor, c.1975
It was the birdsong he remembered, mostly. High up in the branches somewhere, hidden by the pale and folded first leaves of spring, a bird had started singing, the notes tumbling down into the yard. The air was wet, and clean, and still. The brick walls were streaked with rainwater, the stone paving slabs by the back door gleaming darkly. The bushes under the window were spilling fat beads of rain to the ground, nodding gently as each drop swelled and broke free. Everything felt as though it had been smoothed and shined by the rain, and the birdsong chittered against the hard surfaces like scattering pieces of polished glass. It was a slow, languid sound, barely even a song at all, more of a hesitant trickle down the notes of the scale, but there was something compelling about it, something demanding and insistent. Something about the way the sound was carried through the wet air. Something clear and bright and pure, moving in through the open kitchen window and raising tiny braille bumps on their skin, so that they could only stand and listen, and not dare to move, and not dare to breathe. Their bodies touched and pressed against each other. He could feel her warmth, the pulse of blood against her skin. The brittle words and stamped feet of a few moments before were forgotten. She closed her eyes, and the corners of her mouth lifted gently into a smile. The song stopped. There was silence for a moment, broken only by a few drops of water spattering on to the stone, and just as they were about to move, to turn away and say something, or not say anything, the song began again.
She shifted beside him, her shoulders dropping as she eased out a held sigh. She looked up into the tree, trying to spot whatever bird was up there. He leant forward and tilted his head beside hers, and as he did so the sound stopped abruptly. The light in the small yard faded, and there was a rapid smatter of raindrops which soon accelerated into the same heavy downpour of a few minutes before. Water splashed in off the window ledge, clattering lightly against the glass.
She backed away, startled, looking at him for a moment without quite meeting his eye, and edged out of the room. He watched her go. He reached out and swung the window closed, fastening the catch and wiping his wet arm on the side of his trousers, and he heard, from upstairs, the bedroom door closing gently, the slow rasp of curtains being pulled closed.
It was the first time, the only time, that he'd ever come close to hitting her.
He'd told her to pull herself together, and she'd said she'd be alright if he left her alone.
He'd come back from work and found her in bed again, sitting up against a heap of cushions and pillows with the sheets hauled up to her chest, staring blankly at the wall. The curtains were closed, and the room smelt as though it could do with the windows being flung wide open.