Joss Stirling - The Silence

His injury had also set her free. With his tacit consent, she had looked elsewhere for sex. As long as there were no consequences, she was free to choose. The house had witnessed her embarkation on what was to be a series of affairs. It had been with their first tenant, an Italian naval officer who lodged with them for a glorious six months, that she’d discovered the sensuous woman hidden inside her. If only she could’ve still danced professionally, she was sure she would now have produced incandescent performances as the many lovers in the prima ballerina’s repertoire. She hadn’t known enough when she was twenty-one, even though she had thought she knew it all, in the way the young have to think they are the first to discover love. Silvano he’d been called, which sounded romantic even before he started whispering sweet demands in his husky Italian. They’d had their trysts up in the attics on a daybed she’d stored up there, safe from interruption as Paul kept to the ground floor. She’d even danced again, just a little, as her lover lay back on the cushions and watched. Brava! he’d said. Brava!

Everyone should have one lover like that Italian in their life, she thought. One Silvano.

‘Mrs Whittingham! I’m just off!’ called Jonah.

‘I’m in the kitchen!’ Her tenant was a very different kind of man to Silvano but equally interesting in his own way: a talented actor if she was any judge.

He stuck his head round the door. ‘I’ll be late – night shoot.’

‘I’ll leave the chain off the front door for you.’

‘Thanks. Hard at work I see?’

‘I don’t suppose you want to read it, do you?’ She was only teasing. Jonah hadn’t proved to be a sympathetic audience for her work so she didn’t pursue him any longer. She’d given up with Kris too, and Rose all that time ago, and the forgotten ones in between. Perhaps Jenny would be the right reader? Her bookshelf was promising.

‘I’m afraid I won’t have time. I’ve got to learn my lines.’

‘You dodged that bullet very nicely, Jonah. Well done.’

He returned her smile with a brief one of his own. She’d been helping him have an easier time at college and on set by teaching him some of the tact than he’d missed out on in his unorthodox education.

‘What do you think of Jenny?’ she asked, curious what he’d made of this rival in the house.

‘She’s lovely and odd all at the same time.’

‘Lovely and odd. Hmm, yes, I suppose that’s accurate. She should fit in then. You find her attractive?’

He shrugged, clearly not wanting to answer that. ‘She played me a tune on that fiddle of hers that put a knife right in the gut – it was amazing.’

‘I thought I could hear music when I went to bed.’

‘We were in the snug. Did we disturb you?’

She knew full well he’d gone out on the balcony again but unless she actually saw him on it, she didn’t feel it her place to reprimand him. It meant he didn’t fog up the snug with his little roll up cigarettes. She had an acute sense of smell and stale tobacco numbered amongst her least favourite odours.

‘I enjoyed it. I might have a problem if she decides to practise in the middle of the night but as an evening serenade it was very pleasant.’

Jonah rubbed the back of his neck making the tattooed bolts twitch. Did he know that the Frankenstein creature in the book didn’t have those; that it was the clumsy interpretation of film? The original had been stitched, not bolted, together. ‘I spoke to her later too. We had what you’d call an embarrassing encounter. She thought she heard a ghost.’ He gave her a straight look.

‘Most people hear odd things here. I’ve always rather hoped there is a ghost but I’ve never seen one. Have you?’

He dropped his gaze and laughed; a short bark, not a belly laugh, of real humour. Poor Jonah: so sad under everything. All she could do though was offer him her affection to make up. ‘I’m too unimaginative for a ghost to waste its time on me. Anyway, I told her not to worry.’

‘Good. I hope she’d not naturally highly strung. I had another of those once.’

‘Another what?’

‘Highly strung tenant. Gillian her name was. She couldn’t settle here, thought people were interfering with her things, told terrible lies about me. I had to get rid of her in the end.’

‘You kicked her out of Gallant House?’

‘I’m afraid I did.’

‘Well, it’s your house, your rules. I reckon Jenny will be fine, though, once she’s got used to it.’

‘I hope so. It’s so good to have music here again. Kris leaves big shoes to fill.’

Jonah glanced up at the clock. ‘Right, really must go. Don’t work too hard now, Mrs Whittingham.’

She pointed to her cheek and, after a slight hesitation, he bent down to give her a perfunctory kiss. He didn’t like doing that but she wanted him to see her as family. Everyone who lived under her roof had to understand that. He also never stopped calling her Mrs Whittingham even though she had invited him to address her as Bridget numerous times. Jonah was stubborn that way, a core of steel she didn’t think she would bend. He quit the kitchen in a hurry and the next thing Bridget heard was the front door slam. She hadn’t managed to break him of that habit either.

I could follow him, she thought. Trail him to the station, then to the set, and watch them film the next episode. Perhaps I could be an extra, sit in the waiting room with a bloodied handkerchief to my temple, or leg in plaster?

She got up, went to the kitchen door and put her hand on the knob.

What am I thinking? She snatched her hand back as if the handle burned her. People don’t do that, they don’t go haring after their lodgers to thrust themselves into their work. I’m turning into a crazy old woman with stupid urges. She sat down again at the table, gathered her papers and patted them into order. Maybe she would revise Chapter One again. That was her favourite. Yes, that would be best.

‘I’ve been reading your file, Jonah, and it says that you’ve had anger management issues for years, ever since you were young, in fact. The first serious incident came when you were nine. Is that right?’

The way the inspector said it made it sound so tidy. Anger management. Turn left in the brain past accounts and record keeping. Jonah shrugged. ‘Can I smoke?’

‘Not allowed anymore,’ said the female detective. ‘Public building.’

‘Yeah, and we can’t have the boys and girls in blue dying of lung cancer thanks to all these chain-smoking criminals.’ He twiddled his thumbs instead on his lap, so hopefully they wouldn’t see his nervous gesture.

‘So you view yourself as a criminal?’ The inspector swooped in on his use of the English language.

‘Reformed. But not yet kicked the habit of Mr Benson and Mr Hedges. Sorry, I can’t remember your names.’

‘DI Khan and DS Foley,’ said Ms Foley.

‘Like in foley artist? The guys who do the backing sound for films?’

‘Sorry, not following.’

‘Sergeant, we’re getting off the point.’ The inspector looked at his watch. They’d been at this for hours and they were all a little punch drunk with tiredness. Khan looked scruffier than ever. Maybe he did undercover work? No, too senior. He was just a mess. Let’s just end this, thought Jonah.

‘Of course, sir,’ said the sergeant.

Jonah waited until she looked back at him. ‘Next time you go to a film, stay for the credits. You’ll see foley artists somewhere in the sound section. Cool job.’ He sounded calm enough but inside he was crawling with unease. Strung-out. Desperate. Serious tobacco withdrawal.