Now she sang the words, pianissimo.
'Hail to the joyous morningtide.'
Finally she showered in lukewarm water so there wasn't too much steam, toweled vigorously, and returned to her room.
Inger Sandel, dressed in shorts and sun top, was sitting on the bed.
Elizabeth didn't break stride but went to her dressing table, sat down, and began to make up her face. It was a slow, delicate process. Her skin was naturally sallow and it took meticulous work to transform it to the flushing fairness of her preference.
Satisfied at last, she met the other woman's eyes in the mirror, then spun slowly round on her stool to face her and said conversationally, 'You an active dyke or do you just like gawking?'
Inger said, 'Am I a practicing lesbian? Yes.'
'Always? Sorry, that's daft. I mean, when did you suss it? When you were a lass or not till later?'
'Always.'
'So you never tried it with a man? Not even Arne?'
Inger gave one of her rare smiles and said, 'Of course with Arne. Once. He wanted. I wanted to work with him. It seemed necessary, and once out of the way, it has stayed out of the way. And you?'
'Not with Arne, no way.'
'But someone?'
'A tutor at college. Thought I'd best try it to get it over with.'
'And?'
'And I got it over with.'
'So there was no relationship after between you and this tutor?'
'No way.'
'You are sure of yourself, I see. But what about him? Did he not want something more?'
'Well, I left a fiver on my pillow next morning and went off early. I expect he got the message.'
It was a moment when, if they were ever going to share a smile, they might have done so. But it passed.
'Any more questions?' asked Elizabeth.
'Why do you shave your bush?'
'To get a match with this,' said Elizabeth, patting her bald pate. 'Turns you on, looking at me, does it?'
'It is… pleasing, yes.'
'Pleasing?' She stood up, yawned, stretched. 'Well, don't get your hopes up, luv.'
She slipped into a pair of pants and pulled a black T-shirt over her head, careful not to touch her face. Then, taking the blond wig off its stand, she fitted it onto her head and studied herself in the dressing-table mirror.
'I had no hopes,' said Inger.
'Best way to be. It's always midnight somewhere, my dad used to say. So if it weren't hope that brought you here, how come you're squatting on my bed end?'
'It is the Kindertotenlieder. I agree with the others. I think you should not sing them.'
'Which others?'
'Arne. The fat policeman. Walter.'
'Walter's said nowt.'
'When does Walter ever say anything in contradiction to you? But I see the way he is when you sing them.'
'Oh, aye. That's a clever trick when you're banging the piano. Got eyes in the back of your head, have you?'
The woman on the bed didn't answer but just sat there, monumentally still, face impassive, her unblinking gaze fixed on Elizabeth, who made some unnecessary adjustments to her wig.
'So what're you saying, Inger?' she asked finally. 'That you're going to take your piano and play in some other street?'
'No. We must all make our own choices. I will not make yours for you. If you will sing, I will play.'
'Then everything's champion, isn't it? Ist'a coming down to breakfast or what?'
Without waiting for an answer, she left the room and ran down the stairs. In the kitchen she found the back door open and Chloe standing on the patio, drinking a mug of coffee. The garden, long and narrow, flanked with mature shrubs and shaded at the bottom by a tall pear tree, showed the effect of the drought everywhere, with the rectangle of lawn looking as cracked and ochrous as an early oil painting.
'Morning,' called Elizabeth, switching on the electric kettle. 'Wet the bed, did you?'
'That's an idea. If we all peed on the lawn, do you think it would help?' said Chloe. 'Walter went out very early and woke me, so I got up. And I've come out here in hope of seeing a bit of dew, but even that seems to have stopped.'
'Mebbe it's been banned, like hose. I'd not try a pee. Likely that's been banned too.'
Chloe came back inside, smiling. There could never be a motherstdaughter closeness between them, but sometimes when alone together their bond of Yorkshire blood allowed them to relax into an earthy familiarity which threatened neither.
Just as common were the times when she felt she'd given house room to an alien.
'I've been talking to Inger. She reckons I owtn't to sing the Mahler cycle. What do you think?' asked Elizabeth suddenly.
Chloe pretended to drink from her empty mug and wondered how someone so direct could be so inapprehensible.
'Why are you interested in what I think?' she prevaricated.
Elizabeth chewed on a handful of dried muesli, then washed it down with a mouthful of black coffee.
'She said Walter and Arne and yon glorrfat bobby thought I shouldn't. But she didn't mention you. So I thought I'd ask if them songs bother you.'
'Because of Mary, you mean? The part of my mind which deals with that has long been out of the reach of mere songs,' said Chloe.
'That's what I thought,' said Elizabeth. 'Oh, by the way, thanks.'
'For what?'
'For bringing me up.'
Chloe opened her mouth in a mock gape which wasn't altogether mock. Before she could say anything, the door opened and Inger came in. Elizabeth finished her coffee, grabbed a handful of fresh grapes, said, 'See you,' and left.
Inger said, 'Does she eat enough?'
'For a singer, you mean?'
'For a woman. This morning I saw her naked. She has strong bones, so I had never realized before how little flesh is on them. She was anorexic once, I think?'
Another member of the unreadably direct tendency, thought Chloe wryly. The only way to respond was either silence or a directness to match their own.
She sat down and said, 'After Betsy had been with us some time-she was still Betsy in those days-she was diagnosed as being anorexic. She had treatment, both medical and psychological. Eventually she recovered.'
There. How easy it was to be completely direct and yet give next to nothing away!
'So she went through a phase many modern children go through, you spotted it, had it treated. Why do you feel so guilty?'
Give nothing away! Who was she fooling? Not this sharp-eared woman, that was for certain. She'd once asked Arne what made Inger tick. She'd been a little jealous of her in those long-ago days when the young singer had surprised her body onto levels of pleasure her experience with Walter had hardly even hinted at.
Arne had laughed and said, 'Inger is gay, so no need to feel that kind of jealousy, my love. But don't feel superior, either, which, though they will deny it, is how straight women feel about lesbians, because they think they offer no threat. Inger hears more in the silence between the notes than most of us hear in the music itself.'
Perhaps also she had heard things from Arne that should not have been spoken, or at the least listened carefully to the silences between his words.
