Alison Moore: The Pre-War House and Other Stories

The shoebox is on William’s pillow with the lid off. He sits down beside it, holding a tiny rectangle of white paper and a pin. He touches the smooth, cool shells of the eggs: the pale green egg of a mallard; the creamy egg of a goose; a large, light-grey egg beneath which he positions his label, pushing the pin through the paper and through the cotton wool. The tip slides into the soft pad of his thumb, and the blood is slow coming to the surface. The handwriting is scratchier, shakier, than on the other labels. The still-wet ink says, Mute swan .

He replaces the lid on the shoebox and pushes it back under his bed.

He had imagined a wife, but it never happened. The master bedroom is vacant now, but his single room suits him fine; he has never used the double bed.

He rarely leaves the house. His shopping is delivered by a Tesco van and brought into his kitchen in a plastic crate which is then taken away again, empty.

But every morning, before his bath, before his breakfast, before feeding the birds, William walks around the lake. He goes early, when it is barely light, so that he will have it all to himself. It is three miles all the way around, and these days it takes him a while. Often he walks the whole way just looking at his shoes and he doesn’t even notice the changing seasons. Other times he sees things.

This morning he saw the frost.

He saw the puddle by the garden gate frozen over, the dead leaves trapped, the ice cracking under his heel as he walked out.

He saw the emptiness of the park beneath the blank dome of the sky, and the snow beginning to fall.

He saw the overwintering swans in amongst the reeds, and the empty nest on the island.

He saw something in the water, near the bank, holly berry red under the snow-mottled ice, and the frosted grass beside the lake crushed beneath his feet.

Monica is approaching the check-in desk when her phone begins vibrating in the pocket of her shorts. She takes the call, rolling her eyes at Michael. ‘Dad,’ she says, ‘stop worrying. We’ll be fine.’ She listens briefly before saying, ‘I’ve got to go.’

She and her dad watched Lost last night, watched Flight 815 break apart in his darkened living room. After switching off the television, he said to her, ‘What time’s your flight?’

He is worried about the engines failing, the wings falling off, about terrorists and aggressive passengers, about pilots having heart attacks or falling asleep in the cockpit.

Monica has spent this afternoon sweating into her wedding dress. Now in her holiday clothes, she’s a bit cold, and there are hours of in-flight air conditioning which must be endured before reaching the honeymoon destination.

On the far side of check-in, they find somewhere to sit and Monica tries not to think about the wings coming off. Her dad’s anxiety seems to be catching, like something she has just discovered growing in her skin, like the itchy ringworm she picked up after scrubbing an infected cage at the veterinary surgery. Her arm, bare between her rubber glove and the sleeve of her bottle-green uniform, must have touched the cage, or perhaps the invading fungal spores were airborne.

‘What’s wrong with your legs?’ says Michael, and Monica stands to look at the backs of her knees where she has been absent-mindedly scratching.

‘What the hell?’ she says, still raking her nails over the rash which has broken out.

‘It could be the new car seat covers,’ says Michael. ‘Some people are allergic to neoprene. I’ll see if I can get some antihistamines.’ He wanders away. When he returns with a bag from the pharmacy, he says, ‘Our flight’s delayed.’

Monica swallows a tablet. Five minutes later, she says to Michael, ‘It’s not working.’ After another five, she says, ‘If anything, it’s getting worse.’ She is agitated.

Michael is restless too, impatient to be crossing the tarmac and strapping himself into his seat on the plane, to be accelerating down the runway, to be tens of thousands of feet in the air.

They listen to announcements they can’t decipher, and Michael goes to investigate. When he comes back and says to Monica that they won’t be flying out until the morning, she feels herself relaxing. But then, she thinks, if something dreadful is going to happen, it has only been postponed.

They are going to be put up overnight, says Michael, in an airport hotel.

‘Oh well,’ says Monica, ‘that might be nice.’

They pick up their hand luggage and make their way to the assembly point, from where they and dozens of others will be taken by bus to the hotel.

Walking into the softly lit lobby, looking around at the sofas and potted plants, Monica says to Michael, ‘Let’s just stay here. We’ll stay in our room until it’s time to go home. We’ll order room service.’

She stops to have a good go at her rash while Michael goes to reception. Hearing the receptionist say, ‘Mr and Mrs Porter,’ Monica glances up, looking around for Michael’s parents before realising that the receptionist is talking about Michael and her. She meets the eye of a thin man with a shaved head who is waiting in line with the other passengers, and then Michael steps away from the desk with keycards in his hand and Monica follows him.

As they walk together to the stairs, Monica is aware of the loudness of her wooden wedges on the tiled floor. She wishes she had worn something quieter, and that she had put overnight essentials in her hand luggage. She could do with a toothbrush and a change of underwear, things that are packed in her suitcase along with her bikinis, her evening wear, a beach towel that says ‘OCEANIC TRANQUILLITY’ in big, red capital letters, and an alarm clock that will go off in the morning and might be thought to be a bomb. She would like a magazine to read.

When Monica reaches the foot of the stairs, she glances back at the thin man who has now reached the front of the queue and is talking to the receptionist.

I know him , she suddenly thinks, and stares for a moment longer before turning away and carrying on up the stairs.

When Monica sees their room, she says again, ‘Let’s just stay here.’ She closes the curtains and lies down on the double bed, discovering that it is two twin beds pushed together, with an unclosable gap between the mattresses. The bedspread irritates her rash.

Michael helps himself to a Malibu from the mini-bar. ‘Tomorrow evening,’ he says, ‘we’ll be eating red snapper from the Caribbean.’

‘Unless there’s still a problem with the flight,’ says Monica.

‘Twelve hours from now,’ he insists, ‘we’ll be on the plane, strapped into our seats, awaiting take-off.’

Monica goes for a bath. She sits in hot water scrubbing at her rash with a complimentary flannel. She washes her stomach. Her pregnancy is beginning to show. When she gets out, she puts her dirty clothes back on and goes to see if she can get a toothbrush from reception.

The receptionist produces a dental kit and a list of other items the hotel can provide — combs, shaving kits, deodorant, sanitary products, manicure kits, condoms, slippers, shoe polishing kits. Glancing at Monica’s clothes, she also mentions the laundry service, and Monica enjoys the thought that she really could manage here for weeks without her luggage.

She wanders over to the lounge area, picks up a magazine and sits down in an armchair.

She is reading a scathing review of a book she liked when she becomes aware of a man standing in front of her. She glances up, expecting to see Michael.