a few seconds’ hesitation before the girl untangles her legs
from the sleeping bag and scrambles out. She can be no
more than 18, 19 perhaps, and Sarah tries not to imagine
what has brought her out here, alone.
“What’s your name?”
“Michelle.”
“That’s nice. My best friend at primary school was called
Michelle.” They fall silent, walk the rest of the short
distance without speaking. As Sarah pushes open the front
door of her narrow, terraced house, the emptiness rushes to
greet her, as it does every evening. She looks at the photo of
Christopher on the hall table, so smart in his navy and red
uniform, so handsome. And there it is, as it always is: her
pride for his passing out parade at Sandhurst, followed by
something else twisting beneath her ribs that she dare not
give a name to however familiar it may be.
Today she whispers only a silent greeting to the smiling
photograph: “Come in. Make yourself at home. Sitting
room’s through there. I’ll just pop to the kitchen, heat up
some soup, OK?” Michelle nods, the grubby bundled
sleeping bag clutched to her chest like a comfort blanket.
Sarah watches the young woman shuff le through the
door to the sitting room before heading into the kitchen,
opening the fridge, and pulling out a carton of chicken
and vegetable soup.
It is as she is igniting the gas under the saucepan that she
hears it.
At first she thinks it must be the radio. But it is too loud,
too immediate, to be the radio.
She hurries to the sitting room door, the noise getting
louder, and that is when she sees it.
The young woman is sitting at the piano that has not
been played since the night before Christopher left for
Afghanistan, eight years ago. But now music is singing
out from it: Schubert’s Impromptu in G f lat, one of
Christopher’s favourites.
Sarah closes her eyes, allows the music to drift into her
ears, wrap itself around her heart. And for a few, beautiful
moments, it’s as if the music has brought her son back to life.
As the young woman plays, Sarah listens, and hopes the
moment will never have to end.T
he young woman is always there, on the corner
of Sarah’s street, knees pulled tight towards
her chest, legs wrapped inside a blue polyester
sleeping bag that looks as though all the
stuffing has been pummelled out of it.
Sarah does not know what makes her do it,
this day instead of any other. She has passed this homeless
woman so many times, pretending to herself that she has
not noticed her, hurrying past as though, if she walks
quickly enough, the woman will be little more than a blur.
But today is different. Perhaps it’s the drizzle. Perhaps it’s
the email from her soon-to-be ex-husband, Joe, chivvying
her to sign the decree nisi so he can set a wedding date
with his fiancée. Perhaps it is both these things and more,
reasons she will never quite understand.
“You look freezing. Do you want to come home with me
for a bowl of soup? I’m only a few doors down. It’s not far.”
The young woman eyes Sarah. “What? Why?” Sarah has
a moment’s doubt. She hears Joe’s voice in her head: What
are you doing, you daft woman? She’ll rob you blind.
Perhaps, she thinks, that’s why they’re no longer together.
“Because you look cold. And hungry. Please?” There isILLUSTRATION: HANNAH WARRENHannah Beckerman is the author of The Dead Wife’s Handbook
and her new novel If Only I Could Tell You is published by Orion
this month. Her simple pleasure is: “Sitting at the piano and
playing something I learnt 30 years ago, that my fingers still
know without me even thinking about it.”PIANO
AshortstorybyHANNAH BECKERMANBEDTIME STORY