The Detective's Daughter

35

Thursday, 20 January 2011

Sarah Glyde did not hear her brother come in. It had always been like that; Antony entered and left rooms without anyone noticing. He had a key because it had been his home, but since their mother died this was her house and she wished he would ring the bell. It was worse than that: Antony never announced himself but lingered in the doorway of her studio until she sensed his presence. She would look round and there he was. She never felt alone.

‘You gave me a start.’ She was by the sink scraping clay from her fingernails. The cold water splashing down from the loose wall-mounted tap made her hands ache.

He was dressed for work so she did not kiss him and risk dirtying his suit. He was flourishing a bunch of flowers like an Olympic torch.

‘You always say that. What are you doing?’ He sounded incurious.

‘Nothing.’ Sarah flung a wet cloth over the beginnings of her sculpture; not that he would see more than a lump of clay. It would not work for her this morning, it was thick and sluggish, refusing to comply or submit to manipulation.

She had seen the man several times, but it had taken only one sighting, when he crossed the road outside her house, for her to retain the intricacies of his face: the straight nose, high forehead and full lips. Her hands could feel his skull beneath the sallow skin and in her mind she stroked the defined planes, the rise of the high cheekbones and the jutting of the jaw. He was not one of those she collected and catalogued, to be accessible whenever she needed an ear, a pose, or a dimpled chin. He had more substance than the faces that populated her dreams. He was beautiful. Sarah had learnt that when a person burned so indelibly into her consciousness she must work on him or her immediately. She would give the clay shape and life and make it her own.

She had been in the studio since dawn, her strong hands with their nimble fingers shaping, slapping and pressing the sullen material to little avail; after several hours it remained unchanged and she quelled a rising panic that she no longer had the skill; her inspiration was used up. Her temples pounded and her eyes ached; she would get nothing done today.

As he so often did, Antony had caught her in one of her bleak moods. In vain, she reminded herself it was like this at the start of every new piece. All the things she had ever feared had happened, but she had survived. This was life. She incorporated the fear into her work, striving to make permanent what was temporary, and to find the enduring in the ephemeral.

Sarah Glyde turned people into sculptures who gazed out from alcoves and corners. The heads, busts and masks she placed everywhere did nothing to break the silence in the many-floored house that, ever since she was a child, had unnerved her. It was a silence that Antony did not break now, as stock still – a statue himself – he communed with himself until she registered he was there.

‘Do you want tea?’ Sarah had resolved to be nicer to him and, weaving her way between pedestals supporting commissions in various stages of completion, kissed his cold cheek.

He was flapping a leaflet. It was the flier advertising cleaning services that had come through the door. She had meant to hide it from him.

‘This was in the hall.’ He spoke as if she had deliberately set out to cross him by leaving it there.

‘I thought of giving them a call. This place is more than I can manage.’ She affected nonchalance.

‘You should go by recommendation. Don’t choose whatever drops on to the mat.’

‘Can you suggest a cleaner?’ A Stella Darnell owned the company and Sarah did not say that she would have gone by the name because she liked it. Such minor considerations often precipitated her into making major decisions and infuriated her brother.

‘I don’t have a cleaner.’ Antony screwed up the paper and hurled it accurately into the dustbin by the kiln. He made no attempt to sound convincing and Sarah did not believe him. He was being obstructive. In that moment she hated him.

‘It was a whim. I doubt I’ll get around to ringing.’ After her father’s death their mother had made no decision without consulting Antony. Sarah gave him the mug without the chip and, in an effort to be pleasant, patted him as he took it from her. His shoulder was thin and hard. She reminded herself that Antony bought her pieces and gave them away as presents. He was her self-appointed patron and she should think him a good brother.

‘What are brothers for?’ He had read her mind.

‘Do they have to be “for” anything?’ Antony put her on the back foot; he did not think or speak like other people. Not for the first time she marvelled he was so successful; he must be different at work.

‘What can I do for you? Is this a social call?’

‘I came round to see that you were all right.’ He seemed mildly aggrieved.

‘I am, but why wouldn’t I be?’ For over thirty years, since Antony had bought his own house, the siblings had exchanged no intimate information or confidences; their relationship was set in clay.

‘The weather’s making it hard to get out. I’ve had a plethora of cancellations.’

‘The snow brings everything to a halt. It’s fabulous, it encourages reflection.’ She did not expect him to understand.

Antony took a sip of tea with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

He was sitting on their mother’s chaise longue. Antony disapproved of his sister bringing it into her studio to be caked with splashes of slip and stained with paint; he had accepted tight-lipped the clean cloth she laid on the fabric to protect his trousers.

Wintry sun warmed their faces. The river was filling, the beach beneath Sarah’s back garden was submerged, water rising up the Bell Steps. Sarah knew this: the times and turns of the tide were in her bones.

‘I don’t like to think of you stranded, unable to get out. Have you enough food?’

‘I’m fine. Stop worrying.’

Sarah went around the screen and washed up the cups. When she came back Antony had gone. The bunch of flowers was on the table next to the sculpture. She checked the cloth and was sure it had not moved. As usual there was no message on the flowers but she presumed they were for her. She would have to ring him and ask, and then be suitably grateful; he would be upset if she did not thank him.

Later that afternoon, Sarah called her brother before she could change her mind. The crabby Mrs Willard knew her voice but as usual asked for her name and was only marginally more polite when Sarah told her. She was possessive of Antony and resented any attentions he paid his younger sister. Today was his day off, she reminded Sarah, and Antony had gone to the country. She suggested Sarah keep the flowers, doubtless they were for her.

Sarah chucked the flowers into the dustbin. As she did, so she saw the screwed-up cleaning flier on top of snips of wire and floor sweepings. Still in what she called ‘doing mode’, she rang and asked for Stella Darnell. The nice person who answered – she called herself Jackie – said Stella was out all day but booked an appointment for Ms Darnell to come that evening to scope the job. It sounded rather too official, but Sarah agreed. She was also told to expect a polite young man called Mr Harmon who, should she sign a contract, would be doing the work. Sarah was reassured: it sounded like Clean Slate took trouble.

She was about to start work when she remembered the flowers. It was no use; she took them out of the bin – chrysanthemums, her least favourite – and deposited them in a jug she had made for her mother. Putting it on the window sill, Sarah wished again that Antony would find a more willing recipient of such gifts and stifled the fear that she was the only woman he cared about.

This notion, although uncomfortable, was more palatable to Sarah Glyde than admitting that her brother did not care for her any more than she did for him.

She lifted the cloth off the clay. The feeling of dread, which had abated when she booked Stella Darnell, returned. Sarah contemplated the ill-formed features, dabbing at them with a moistened cloth, and tried again to recall where she had seen the face who was its inspiration before.