Joss Stirling - The Silence

Jonah rubbed his hands. ‘Thank God she’s setting out the grub. I’m starving. Bridget’s Tuesday nibbles are spectacular, much better than a bag of crisps or bowl of peanuts. You’re a violinist?’

Jenny nodded. She couldn’t keep her participation limited to nods and shakes of the head. They’d given her enough time to feel the ice was broken. How long have you been acting? she wrote.

‘Not long. A year maybe. I’m in drama school but they let me have time off when I get a job.’ She wondered how old he was as he looked at least her age, rather mature for drama school. ‘It’s what we’re all there for after all. I have Dr Wade to thank for that: she helped me get in and find an agent.’

Rose waved that away. ‘It was your own talent that did it, Jonah. I’m pleased you’ve graduated to ambulance driver and got away from all those gang member roles.’

Jonah rubbed at his spiderweb on one knuckle. His hands looked raw, like he suffered from eczema. ‘Yeah, but my character has a drug problem and I’m stealing from the hospital pharmacy. I’m not sure I’m going to survive beyond the season finale.’

That explained the edgy look. Perhaps he was a young guy who just had the misfortune to look older, like those men who go bald prematurely? He had all his hair but his face wasn’t the smooth one of the newly hatched student. Lines bisected the top of his nose and dug in round his mouth.

‘You might,’ said Billy in a bolstering tone. ‘And eight weeks of steady work looks good on the CV. More jobs will come your way, I’m sure.’

‘It does look good, but my tutors tell me I have a problem.’ Jonah cracked his knuckles, not noticing the number of winces around the table. ‘If I change my looks, I don’t get these parts; and if I get these parts, I can’t change my looks. They think I might get boxed in.’

Jenny was pleased to hear that the ‘just got out of prison’ vibe he projected was for show. She wouldn’t like to be sharing a house with someone who might be a threat to her.

‘Maybe you should just look the way you want to look and leave the rest to hair and makeup?’ Thus spoke the psychologist.

Jonah scratched at his close-shaved head. ‘Maybe I’ll risk it. I’d like to grow this a little longer. People don’t sit next to me on public transport.’

‘Keep it, m’boy. You don’t want people sitting next to you. Each of them is a disease vector.’ The GP rattled the ice in his gin and tonic. ‘Can’t wait to retire and get away from the lot of you!’ But he said it with a smile to soften the words.

A bell rang inside – not the front door but another one with a higher tone.

Jonah leaped up. ‘That’s my summons.’ He dashed inside.

‘Very Pavlovian of Bridget,’ said Norman. ‘She always gets her houseguests very well trained by the time she’s finished. That boy was the epitome of rudeness when he first moved in and now look at him.’

‘She shames us all into manners,’ agreed Rose. ‘Not that she’s going to have any trouble with this one, I can tell.’ She smiled warmly at Jenny. ‘You’ve fallen on your feet here. When I couldn’t get a breakthrough as an actor, it was Bridget who gently nudged me from dead-end jobs towards doing something with my psychology degree. I think I’ve learned some of my best tricks with patients from her.’

Jenny drew a question mark in the air.

‘Things like how to put them at ease when they come into my office for the first time, how to draw the best from them. Jonah’s a case in point: a more lost young man I’d never met and now look at him.’ She stopped. ‘Sorry, that was very unprofessional. Forget I said that.’

‘It’s tempting to talk shop. We get it, Rose,’ said Billy. ‘I have to remember not to take my work home with me.’

What do you do? asked Jenny.

‘I work for the probation service. I find it very rewarding, especially on a day like today.’ He toasted her with his Pimms.

Jenny couldn’t quite see the connection but replied with a raised glass as expected.

Bridget and Jonah returned with trays of food – little asparagus quiches, salmon blinis, Parma ham wrapped around mozzarella balls, and tiny chocolate brownies. Jenny could now understand why these gatherings were so popular. Everything tasted as good as it looked.

‘Tell me, Bridget, that you got these at Waitrose,’ said Rose after eating her fill. ‘You make me feel so inadequate.’

Bridget collected in the empty side plates. ‘You know I like cooking. Anyway, these are simple to make. I could show you.’

‘I might take you up on that, but not tonight. I’ve got some work to do. Goodnight everyone. Billy, can I give you a lift to the station?’

‘Thanks, Rose.’ After a quick round of farewells, they left together.

‘And I must be off too. Got the grandson of an old friend coming to stay till he can find his own place. Better move some of my books off the spare bed.’ Norman hefted himself to his feet. ‘Here’s a card, Jenny. Don’t forget to register. You don’t have to sign on my list as they’re putting me out to grass soon. I’ve plenty of youngsters as my partners, including a female colleague or two.’ He winked and then waved farewell to the others. He headed home, not through the house but through a gate in the wall that opened into his garden.

‘I found Norman using the downstairs bathroom this morning. Red faces all round,’ said Jonah when the GP had gone.

‘His boiler’s out. I told him to come and go. We keep an eye on each other’s house,’ said Bridget. ‘We don’t stand on ceremony.’

‘I was just warning Jenny. I found it difficult to meet his gaze tonight after the eyeful I got this morning. He appears to think a towel enough covering to walk between his house and yours, and I’m afraid to say it doesn’t quite hide everything it should.’

Jenny made a note to be careful when venturing downstairs in the morning in case she met the streaker doctor.

Bridget stacked the empty tumblers on the drinks tray. ‘Don’t tease, Jonah. Norman is a perfectly respectable man; he just has a boiler problem.’

‘He has a buttock problem,’ muttered Jonah.

‘I didn’t think the young were so prudish. Jenny, what do you think?’

There was nothing Jenny could write down that wouldn’t sound completely wrong.

‘Mrs Whittingham, what do you expect her to say? That she’s fine with nudity?’

They picked up the trays and carried them towards the house.

‘We’re all human.’

‘But not everyone wants to be reminded of that in the shape of a dotty seventy-year-old man. You have to protect my delicate sensibilities, Mrs Whittingham.’

‘You – sensitive!’ Continuing to bicker good-naturedly, they went into the house, Jenny trailing after them. This house was proving even more interesting than she thought.

They’d had a break during which Jonah had decided to keep lawyers out of it for the moment. He knew how to talk without saying anything.

‘Tell us how you feel about the women you shared the house with.’

Jonah was struck by the inspector’s use of past tense. ‘I’m not going back there?’ The sergeant was looking at him as if he disappointed her, like there was something obvious he was missing.

‘Do you think that would be appropriate under these circumstances?’ said the inspector.

Had he lost the right to walk those corridors, rooms and gardens of Gallant House just because he’d lost his temper the once?

But you hurt her, Jonah, said a snide inner voice.

He could no longer remember clearly what he’d done, just that he’d been driven to it. Not his fault.