Skilfully wrought and perfectly pitched, The Loudest Sound and Nothing, the first collection of stories by Clare Wigfall, has been acclaimed as the work of a prodigious new talent. The title story from the book, which has earned comparisons with the likes of Helen Simpson and Ian McEwan, is reproduced for you to enjoy below.

At night,
under the sea,
a body drifts,
surprised at the blackness of the water,
the eyes rolled back and chalky.
Her pale limbs are interlaced with rusted chains.
Hands bruised and swollen,
as though a breath has filled them with a stench that tugs
tight at the skin.
It is the loudest sound and nothing.
Long hairs tangle;
catch between the teeth.

Aureline Wynne-Evans lost her husband at sea. While the sky was still awash with the night and the rain and the wind. And Aureline, sat by the fire with the baby, thinking of how they never could seem to fill those cracks to block out the draughts. Baby, are you cold? Can you feel the draught, Baby? Out at sea was her love, being buffeted by waves, overalls heavy as lead, his eyes glassy, seawater coursing down his throat and into his lungs. And at just the same moment, Aureline felt with a gasp her own life flood out through her toes – never could she bleach the stains from the carpet. Out slipped her life, in a rush at first, until finally gurgling to a close like dishwater through the plughole. Those last drips almost tickling even – she might have laughed had she not been so empty. In her arms, the baby stirred and shivered.

And now Aureline stirred without thinking, stirred the soup for her little boy, that boy whose eyes were wrong. Blank, white, and round like the fishes’ eyes when they came out of the stove. What can you see, my baby? And he’d lift his face to her cheek, nose between dark strands of hair, feel the curves of her ear, and whisper his secrets, the visions, the sounds that bloomed before the eyes of a blind boy. Nothing she could ever imagine, not her. The movement of his lips made her hum like a tuning fork held against wood, and she could have cried it was so beautiful, could have smiled had she had it in her, had all the life Aureline ever known not spilled out upon the carpet. Somebody looked at her, standing before the drowned body of her husband, her face unearthly, with its eyes so wide set, as if they’d drifted with time apart from the bridge of her nose. The cheeks and forehead were flat planes, sculpted from a pale stone it seemed, chill to the touch. It was a face distorted, made unnatural by the entanglement of her ties to the past, a fishing line caught and twisted beyond saving. Uncles who coupled with nieces, first cousins with first cousins, and still all of them couples who could hold hands on the streets without turning glances. Because why should it be wrong, when he picked her wild flowers and she kissed each finger before plaiting the dough for his bread? And somebody looked at Aureline and thought, how beautiful is that face, sculpted with a defiantly faulted chisel, unwittingly beautiful. But they failed to see that behind those wide-set eyes was simply space, two stencilled holes, that had they looked close they could have stared right through to the pale-green painted wall behind her.

Aureline stared – couldn’t help it – at that face that was at once utterly familiar and quite strange. It was curious. She wondered how they’d done it, how they could have sculpted something so like him, and what could it be made of – wax or marble? And she thought, how clever they are. Even to the still eyelids, with the lines like faint scars running across each one. But he never wore his hair that way – so sleek and neat like a sea mammal. He never owned a comb. And still she stared and marvelled. At length, her eyes alighted on those nuzzled whorls that once were his ears, and she found herself compelled to hold out her fingers and run them across the damaged flesh, her fingertips aching to caress the soft lobes left lace-like by the nibbling of small fish. For it was this discrepancy from what he had been that told her it was him, and she knew now that beneath the white sheet lay limbs her touch had traced.

But somebody lifted an arm to hold back her hand, and she felt as a child, told not to touch. Not to touch that which had been as almost her own.

That night, at home in the dark, the baby asleep beside her, she would hold out her hands and sculpt the air and almost, yes almost, feel the shape of her husband. And each evening she would do the same, but with the steady passing of those hours of darkness, that volume she’d once known would slowly deflate, evaporate perhaps, until, one night, she would find herself in the dark, holding out her hands and feeling nothing but for the interlacing of her fingers. His shape had disappeared. And beside her the baby would stir and turn under the covers and she’d take him in her arms and coo in his ear, curled neat like an abalone’s shell, and soothe until his breath regained its steady rhythm and she felt his limbs go limp with sleep.

But now, here she stood before the body, somebody’s hand holding back her own, admonishing her instincts, and all of a sudden she felt the cold and shivered. Come, Aureline, said somebody quietly. And she just said, Yes, and then, her eyes fixed on the thin cotton sheet pulled to his chin, But mightn’t he be cold? Can’t we find him a blanket? And again, somebody said, Come, Aureline, and pulled gently on her arm, led her to the door. Aureline stepped softly away, still staring, before suddenly pulling away from the grip. Stepping forward again, she lifted her shawl to wrap it across his body, nestling it close against his face, and as she did so, quite consciously, she allowed her fingertips to pass momentarily across his damaged ear lobes, felt the soft chill of the flesh and indentations that had once not been there, those dents and grooves fashioned low in the sea by curious fish.

Outside, she felt her knees give, felt her legs fold beneath her, her skirts collapse against the floor, and if someone hadn’t caught her under the arms she knew her head would have given against the cold stone – a relief it would be to lie there, with gravity, collapse and lie and resign herself to the cold ground and perhaps never rise again – but instead someone had caught her, lifted her to a chair. And there she sat, around her voices she wasn’t listening to, thinking how strange, how cruel, that only now did she realise she’d always been alone.

For only the enormity of space now could make her feel a part of something, and even that comfort was temporary. Her with the child in hand standing on the cliff edge, his knees knocking together, her hairs teased from below her scarf by the fingers of the wind. The space comforted her, the fact that she could look to the clouds and not comprehend beyond them, that she could look to the sea and barely see a horizon. Her child squeezed at her hand to pull her away and yet she stood firm, didn’t want to leave. What do you see? he asked her, his words tussled by the air. She didn’t reply. What do you see? His questions distracted her, his presence needled. Cold was his nose, cold were his fingers as the wind slapped at his ears and his shoulders, threatened to deafen him, and he willed her to answer him, to say something. He pulled on her arm and took a step forward – towards a cliff edge he couldn’t see. And falling, she tugged his weight backwards, tumbling them together onto the rough heather and gravel – she, awkward upon him, crushing his arm beneath his body. Oh my baby, tell me what you see? pleaded Aureline, rolling her child into her arms, stroking at his hair, pressing his small face and faulty eyes against her neck and almost losing his words. I see the loudest sound, he whispered, low into her collar-bone, and nothing. It took the colour from her face, drained all colour into the heather below them, and she knew that what he saw was all she’d ever wanted and all she’d never known, and she handled him roughly as she pulled him to his feet, and set walking fast, too fast for his short legs, like a child with a toy on a string dragging and bumping behind it.

It was her fingers he remembered later. How deft they were. The way they slid and wove between the lines of cotton, the bobbins clicking together like marbles. And he felt their movement, their speed and dexterity without needing to see with his eyes their dancing. He loved to trace the pattern of the lace, its intricacies. And yet Aureline always wore clothes with straight edges. Dressed him the same. Brushed his hair each Tuesday and Saturday, recalling his father’s uncombed locks. And still nobody cared to hide how they stared. Behind the tabletop he stood conscious of the architecture, aware how the buildings surrounding them refracted the voices and muffled the sound of the sea beyond. Heard the reeling gulls above. All the while his eyes, white spheres, would jostle in their orbits, urge themselves upwards into his skull. And somebody leaning across to peer closer at a piece of lace would find their own eyes lifting into his. Mesmerised by their movement. Sitting close behind him, seeing it all, Aureline would observe and say nothing. Her little boy’s eyes jiggling pale. Guaranteeing a sale. And he’d find the change and wrap the handkerchief or neck-collar in fine tissue paper and tie it with a ribbon. When he passed it across he could feel faint apprehension and pity transferred through the tissue as his customer fumbled with words to address Aureline. Her reply was always as void of colour as her boy’s eyes. Eyes which she would lean across to kiss, as if to still their movement. As if to feel with her lips what they saw. But finding no answers she’d fold away the lace and the fine tissue paper and the rolls of ribbon into her basket and taking his hand they’d exchange the morning’s coins for potatoes and carrots and slabs of fish wrapped in brown paper. Brown paper of which she would, with discomfiture in her voice, request an extra square or so, that her son might have something on which to scribble.

Once home, she’d lay it out on the table and find him a pencil and sit peeling the potatoes and watching him cover the surface of the paper (and occasionally, too, the table leaking beyond the paper’s edges) with scribble. Scribble which seemed to her more eloquent than any words she’d ever spoken. His hand would move in arcs and dashes and tiny spirals, and as his pencil hovered over the paper his head would dart and sway as if it too were partaking in the creation. Each time she knew that what he’d delight in would be making music, for that’s how his pencil moved, like a musician playing an instrument. And sometimes she would rise from the table and go to the bedroom and from a shelf lift down a hard leather-covered case.

Through the doorway, he’d hear her snapping the catches open, hear the lid creaking on its hinge. Had Aureline anything inside her she might have cried, might have wept, might have sobbed to see the polished wood of her husband’s violin. The mark on the base where his chin had worn away the varnish, a pallor on the neck where sweat or the warmth of his palm had paled the wood, the foot of the bow curved smooth beneath the pressure of his fingers; these marks were too physical a trace of him. How she wished her own body had been similarly branded by his presence in life. Wished she could still see the soft pressure of his fingertips on her breasts. Wished his kisses had burnt light scars upon her flesh. She wanted to scream because her body was utterly unblemished, smooth and clear as soap. Wanted to scream because she could not weep, because once upon a time her life had trickled out upon the carpet as her love had drifted further beneath the waves, seawater coursing through his veins.

In the other room, her son had stopped his scribbling. He sat quiet, waiting for her, his nose curling at the starchy scent of potato peelings, his ears listening to her every movement. And each time, Aureline, forgetting how her little boy might have loved its music, found herself wrapping the polished instrument back in its cloth. Quickly and methodically she moved, as if the very sight repelled her. Back creaked the hinge, click click went the catches, and Aureline rose to replace the case up on the shelf before returning to her potatoes.

Once, only once, she left her child alone in her desperation to feel the enormity of space. Before departing, she stood at the foot of the bed watching him sleeping, the covers bunched close around him, the dull lamplight diffuse across his face, his eyelids rocking with the dreaming sway of the lost pupils beneath. She closed the door quietly behind her so as not to disturb him and began walking fast. Over the crest of the hill she came head-on with a dull funnel of light, sweeping slow across her eyes and out to sea. She turned out her lamp on the cliff edge, waiting in the lull for the finger of light to roll across her again. Pulling her coat close against the wind, saw how its gusting strength tore up the sea below, felt stray raindrops dashed against her face. Again the funnel of light passed slow across her, failing to make her glance to its source. Had he seen it that night? Had it caught his eye, blinking across the waves before they swallowed him under? And only to spew him out again two days later, to spit his body carelessly against the coastline in the dying rain. Aureline at home with the baby, the walls whistling with draughts. Her baby! Why, her boy! She gasped, as if she’d suddenly recalled her senses. How could she leave him asleep, alone? The house might catch fire, for hadn’t she left the coals burning in the grate, a candle flickering at his bedside? Turning on her heel, Aureline began to run, believed that was smoke she could smell spiralling though her nostrils, believed she’d run over the hill crest and confront flames.

While all the while there he lay, quiet within the walls, quiet beneath the covers, and quiet below his eyelids churned hisdreams undisturbed – safe as the inner core of a Russian doll. In her panic, Aureline had forgotten her lamp on the cliff edge. But what could she care for a lamp when her little boy was safe, sleeping peacefully? Watching him, she remembered how she’d loved to watch her husband sleep. Asleep like a baby. Curled beneath those same covers, his head resting heavy upon the same pillow. How beautiful he had been. His hair mussed further by sleep, his breath paced evenly. It was his eyelids she watched, his eyelids she loved, each one crossed inexplicably by a line, like a fine scar. Was he constructed by a careful seamstress? His eyelids sewn neatly in place. The skin was pale, purple-edged, verging on waxy; like the underbelly of a small animal. Thin shields for his dreams, betraying only faintly the rapid sway of the eyes curved beneath.

There once was a time when Aureline Wynne-Evans thought her son – blind from his birth – would know only what she told him. Until the day, lying together against the heather, she discovered he already knew more than she could ever know, she with only hollows behind her eyelids. So she combed his hair and sent him to school and by the end of the week he came home in tears and she thought, how dare they make fun, how dare they tease, they, web-footed simpletons no doubt. But she knew his eyes were only a substitute, a façade to hide the true reality of their taunts. He wasn’t the only child with defective eyes, no, but the only child, yes, whose mother could sometimes barely recall her name - It will come to me – wait – Aureline, that’s what I call myself. Only she forgot to tell them she could remember. Left her words blank and took her boy by the hand and led him from the schoolyard, feeling the harsh curiosity of young eyes upon their backs. Once he came home with a bible and she laughed, What can they think, that you’ll read it? He said nothing. She left it in the garden, let it grow moss, realised she’d forgotten to buy potatoes that morning.

He came home one afternoon, telling a story, a silly story about a boy in his class, giggled as he told it, and Aureline Wynne-Evans looked at her son and thought, How can I have been so blind? She began to cry, out of nowhere, out of a vessel she’d long confirmed empty, came tears. Hers? How could they be? They fell on the tabletop, fell on a square of brown paper covered by her boy’s scribbles. Each one wrinkling the brown, ruckling his pencilled lines. Her tears turned to sobs and Aureline lay her head on the table, lay her head on the eloquent scribbles and cursed her fate. Her boy had fast fallen silent, his mouth aquiver with confusion, his eyes darting anxious. He burrowed his head into her lap, his arms clutching at her middle, knees resting on the floorboards. As night fell beyond the windowsills, he remained where he was, head hidden beneath the tabletop and sheltered in her skirt.

Aureline Wynne-Evans felt his presence in her lap, felt his fingers clutching, felt her body heave with its weeping, and wished she might have loved him. And as she wished this she appeared to regain her composure somewhat, closed her hands round his head and lifted it so that she might slip from beneath him. Carefully, she lay his head on the chair seat, smoothed his hair gently, and left through the front door.

What was it?
A sad-armed boy you remember?
Shouting to the whales and fishes as his words
are caught
in the air and stolen.
Did you hit him? Push him slightly? Taunt? Was that it?
Were you ever slightly jealous as you mocked
and saw how his eyes were far away,
his fingernails dirty?

And you,
you went back to your family, the gas fire,
the homework underlined neatly and tea at six o’clock,
and didn’t know where he’d gone to.
Was he still shouting on the sea-shore?

© Clare Wigfall

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