‘Why is Lon scared of her?’ I ask her, interested.
‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Because she’s disapproving?’
Her story does check out, but I wonder if there’s more to it than that. Knowing what I know now, I’m curious about who else here knows about magic. I mean, they seem really fond of Brian. Does everyone? I think of Oona, Layla. I wonder who I should be wary of. Lon, clearly, but probably for douche reasons as opposed to danger ones, I reckon. I reckon or I hope? And Brian. I remember our conversation about Mamó. About what I should do. If she made me uncomfortable. Maybe I should talk to him about it, ask for help. Advice.
If I were more extrovert, I could interrogate people subtly at Donoghue’s, making lifelong friendships as I went. If I were more extrovert I’d be getting with Oona right now instead of staring at pictures of her on my phone more than is socially appropriate.
‘What are we going to wear?’ I ask my twin. ‘What do people even wear to lock-ins?’ Catlin’s much better at things to wear than I am. And this is new. Like, do we go dressed up like for a disco, or the sort of casual that takes more time than normal, like for a house party?
‘Like yourself, but better hair and make-up …’ Catlin says. ‘Actually, I was wondering if I could borrow something of yours. The pink and white dress?’
‘I thought you hated that,’ I say. ‘You told me it was only fit for 1950s cowgirls.’
‘Hate is such a strong word. People change.’ There is a pause. I look at her suspiciously.
She sighs.
‘OK. I want to wear it to please Lon. He likes me to wear dresses and my hair down. Like a proper lady. In a film.’ She plays with the edge of the blanket. I bite back a rant about Lon and his opinions and the patriarchy and everything that’s wrong with the world in one skinny bastard, and find the dress in my wardrobe and give it to her. I’d rather have her happy than be right. She stands, and holds the dress against her body.
‘He’ll love this.’ Her eyes are shining. She looks like she is feverish. Puts it on her bed and takes a picture. Sends it off, and waits for his approval.
I don’t know how to react. The room is quiet, can’t even hear her breathing. Little grains and leaves inside my boots and pockets give me strength.
‘Are you OK, Catlin?’ I ask.
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘I am. I just … I really want to make him happy, Madeline. I want him to love me back.’ Her eyes are wet. She’s blinking back the crying.
I give her the tightest hug. Has she lost weight? It feels like there is less of her to hold.
‘Catlin. You are amazing. If he doesn’t love you back, then he’s an idiot. And besides, he does. He totally does. He’s always looking at you. Staring. Sending messages to say goodnight. He waits at the bus stop every day just so he can see you. It’s either love or stalking.’
Catlin laughs. ‘He doesn’t want me putting up photos of the two of us,’ she says. ‘We kind of had a little row about it. It’s fine he’s not on social media or whatever.’ She does a little voice for social media. Her Lon impression is a lot kinder than mine, I muse, but then again, it would be.
‘… but, like, if we’re a couple, I want everyone to know,’ she says. ‘Otherwise, it isn’t fully real.’
‘Did he give you a reason?’ I ask.
‘He has some crazy exes,’ she tells me. ‘And he says that he’s a private person. But he isn’t. Have you seen the way he dresses?’
‘People can be private in some ways and not in others,’ I point out, deciding not to add, ‘like me, with my sexuality and witchcraft,’ because we both have enough to deal with without unpacking another trunkful of skulls.
‘True. I just …’ Her face is grim. ‘I don’t like the thought of other girls before me. When he talks about them, and he doesn’t do it often, I feel all helpless and small. Not good enough.’
How dare he use the ghosts of other girls to shrink my sister! I swallow down retorts. It’s not the time.
‘You are you, and who you are is amazing. I don’t want to say, “You’re better than those girls,” but I can one thousand per cent guarantee that you probably are. Plus, they’re in the past, and you are in Lon’s present and his future.’
She smiles. I keep on going. Catlin needs this.
‘Who kissed four guys in one night after we got our exam results?’
‘Me,’ she says. I see a little smile.
‘Who got asked to the debs nine times before she was even in second year?’
‘Me,’ she shudders. ‘Creeps. I was a baby.’
‘Remember when Kevin O’ Neill asked you out and you said no and he …’
Her face is brighter now. ‘… Started to cry and beg in front of everyone?’
‘Yeah.’ I smile. ‘That was just cruel, Catlin. You’re the one who breaks people’s hearts. Not him. You are my sister. And you’re magic.’
‘I love you, Mad,’ she says. ‘I feel a bit better now.’
She wipes her eyes. I look at her.
‘I know you said not to say anything bad about Lon, and I won’t, but if he makes you feel like you aren’t good enough, that’s bullshit. You might doubt him loving you, but I will always love you. No matter what. We’re blood. And if he ever, ever, makes you feel like there were better girls before you, then he is wrong. Remember. You’re Catlin Hayes. And he is just a boy from Ballyfrann.’
She grins at me. ‘Not even from Cork, like. What the hell was I thinking? I am class.’
‘You are,’ I say. ‘You really, really are.’
‘OK.’ She rubs her eyes and shakes her head a little. Shakes it off. ‘What are you going to wear? Because I already have my Galway boyfriend. Whereas you, my love, have only got potential.’
I wish the world could always be this way. The two of us, together, laughing.
Safe.
22
Primrose
(tea for frenzy, leaves for wounds)
Mamó is giving us a lift to the pub in her cherry-red Toyota. She has to go to Ballyfrann anyway, for ‘various reasons’. I’m almost annoyed that Catlin’s here. I want to know exactly what Mamó’s doing. How her work fits in to the world of the village. Who is dangerous here, and who is not.
‘She probably means the bank or something, Mad. Let her have her little mysteries,’ is Catlin’s take on it, which doesn’t work because banks aren’t open that late, so she is clearly doing something witchy. Possibly with wands. I have much fear of missing out. I could be finding out information about an elderly woman right now instead of going to the stupid pub. The actual dream, like.
We messaged back and forth inside the car. It’s cleverer than whispering where Mamó’s concerned. I have a sense her hearing’s awful keen. Every now and then she meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror. Her gaze is very steady, and knowing.
She told me to be wary, and I am.
My eyes are heavy and there is a weight on me this evening. Last night I borrowed back the dress I gave to Catlin, sewed salt and flakes of rowan bark in the hems. I feel as if there is something to be guilty about. Ashamed. I have been warned. I have not passed it on. Perhaps I should.
‘Who’ll be there tonight?’ asks Mamó, glaring at the road, as though it were a thing she could defeat. The traffic lights turn green almost immediately. Probably out of fright. I wonder what it would be like to glare at everything and everyone. To never wear a face you didn’t mean.
‘Everyone. People,’ says Catlin.
‘Oona, Charley, Layla, Fiachra, Cathal. Lon,’ I say, trying to be open with her. And not to follow it up with, ‘TELL ME MAGICS!!’
‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘Lon.’ It is the most contempt I have ever heard pumped through one syllable. Her eyes still on the road.
I suppress a smile. That is the correct amount of contempt for Lon, I feel. Catlin disagrees and is having a rage-gasm in the back seat, fingers flying off a rant to me. It has nine swears in, some of them surprising.
I see her
swallow, gather and collect.
‘Why the tone, Mamó?’ she asks. Mamó doesn’t dignify her with an answer. I wish she dignified more people with answers. And also gave better answers. We’re driving up a small, steep mountain road. Catlin kicks the seat in front of her, softly but with venom.
‘Mamó?’ she asks. And I can tell she’s going to begin stirring.
‘Yes?’ Mamó’s voice is curt. For not a change.
‘What about Oona?’
What about Oona? How is Oona any of Catlin’s business?
‘Oona Noone? The mother’s a bit odd. Artistic, like. The father’s got a temper. I don’t know much about the young one yet. Well able to go, I’d say. The Noones always were.’
She nods. And that’s as much as she says until we’re halfway up the mountain.
‘What a bitch,’ exclaims Catlin, once we’re free of the car.
‘You’re not wrong,’ I say. ‘But why did you have to bring Oona into it?’
‘Well, she talked shit about Lon, and you didn’t look annoyed enough about it.’ She turns to me. ‘And Oona is your new best friend.’
‘Oona is not my new best friend.’
‘She is. Look at the grinning head on you. You think she’s class. You want to lesbian-marry her.’
‘Shut up,’ I say. It’s true though. I’d wear pale grey and she’d wear white with the faintest tinge of blue to match the little flecks around her pupils. We’d honeymoon by the ocean. But that is all beside the bloody point. The cheek of her.
‘Don’t be a homophobic prick, Catlin.’
‘You can’t be homophobic to straight people, Maddy.’
‘You totally can. You don’t, like, need a gay person to be around for it to be homophobic. That’s not a thing.’ I can feel my face flushing. If she knew how I felt, maybe she’d be nicer about it all, but how even do I put it into words? I feel like Ballyfrann is jumbling up my headspace. Making everything a little warped.
Catlin’s looking at me with her mouth wide open, like a sentient gif.
‘You’re properly annoyed at me,’ she says, as if she really can’t believe it.
I glare at her, taking it all in, from head to toe. She looks like a young lady. It could be fifty, sixty years ago. In that dress, with her hair down, make-up simple. She could be Bridget Hora, Nora Ginn. Another girl they find upon the mountain.
I try to shove the stubborn thought away.
‘I’m not annoyed,’ I tell her.
‘You so are.’ She smiles at me. ‘You think you’d know by now, the way I am.’
We venture up the road towards Donoghue’s. It’s your typical old-man pub, wooden seats with maroon upholstery, whitewashed walls with different things stuck on. Some of them are weird. A bracelet made from braided hair. A cat’s skull. Others are just jugs or glass spheres half draped with netting. I wonder where pubs get all the random stuff they put on walls. Is it bit by bit or in a job lot?
The pub smells of spilled beer and turf. Some old guys sit in the corner, sipping their pints. There’s an open fire in the corner, with colourful bean bags around it. They seem really out of place. A surly-looking man is wiping down the counter. Lon is in a small room at the back, and, BUT OF COURSE, he is DJing. There’s an elaborate sound system hooked up. The music pulses through the lino of the floor. It’s hard to tell what colour it is, what with the combination of dim light and stains.
Layla greets us, flushed with drink and energy. She points out where the toilets are, the people that we know, and those we don’t. She’s moving differently tonight, weirdly buoyant, bopping her shoulders along to the music. Lock-in Layla’s fun, I think. I like her.
‘Hi. We’re allowed to drink soft drinks and beer or cider, but not what my dad calls hard liquor, or they won’t let us do this again. And we have to pay for everything, obviously. If you don’t recognise someone, they’re probably a Collins,’ she tells us.
Catlin’s eyes are fixed on Lon, as though he were the most important thing. She used to be her own most important thing, I think. I hope that I’ve reminded her of that. At least a little.
‘Whose is the guitar?’ Catlin asks, nodding to one propped up in the corner. ‘It’s not Lon’s. Lon’s is black.’
‘Shocker,’ I snort, and then do a little smile to try to soften my contempt. I don’t want to get into a row.
‘Fiachra brought it along – he was trying to impress Charley, but she wasn’t super into it.’
‘Why?’ asks Catlin. ‘Fiachra’s cute enough.’
Layla looks at us. ‘No, he isn’t. Ugh.’ She says it fondly. ‘My brothers are both idiots. Most of his songs are about his mountain bike. He uses girls’ names, but a sister knows. Charley deserves better. Plus, she needs to be careful around boys and things.’
‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Is she OK?… I mean, did something happen?’
‘No,’ says Layla. ‘Nothing like that. It’s just. She’s a Collins.’
‘What difference does that make?’ Catlin’s voice is high. She doesn’t get it.
Layla lowers her voice. ‘They marry each other.’ We look at her, aghast. She flaps her hands. ‘Oh, not in an incest way. In an arranged-marriage-to-distant-cousins way. It’s what they’ve always done.’
‘That still sounds a bit …’ Catlin looks at me.
I close my mouth. Reserve my judgement.
Layla starts to say more things but is immediately interrupted by Lon, because no one speaking could ever be as important as what Lon has to say. I tense my eye muscles.
‘Did I hear twincest?’ He smiles.
‘No, Lon,’ I say, with what I hope is a neutral expression on my face that hates him very much. ‘Just plain old-fashioned incest.’
He grins a toothy grin, pleased at having made me feel uncomfortable. The kind of grin a weasel would grin. If it had perfectly straight human-sized teeth. And if I hated weasels.
I look at Lon. I wonder. I reach into the compartment, slowly. Take out some of the feeling in my bones. Push it through my eyes. Just a little hint. To not mess with us. A Mamó glare.
I would rather ingest a maggot than kiss you on the mouth.
His smile freezes.
I change my expression, bat my eyes, like an innocent forest creature. Catlin looks at me.
‘What’s going on, you two?’
We both say, ‘Nothing,’ at the selfsame time.
Her voice is high, and loud across the room. ‘So, Charley, Layla was telling us you’re going to get arranged married. How do you feel about that?’
I close my eyes. I hate it when she does this.
Charley walks across the room. Says, ‘Yup.’
‘Does it ever bother you?’ asks Catlin. ‘That it could be an old guy, or a creep?’
Charley starts to speak, ‘Look who’s bloody …’ but Lon murmurs, ‘Catalina, be nicer.’
She mutters a sorry and she shuts her mouth.
I look at Lon. He smiles at me. Does that thing where he uses the small of Catlin’s back as though it were a steering wheel. He ushers her up the stairs, so they can ‘talk’, in his apartment.
I look at Charley.
Charley glares at Layla.
Layla shuffles.
‘I’d rather be arranged married than go out with Lon,’ I offer. It only breaks the tension just a little.
Charley snorts. ‘True.’
‘He’d call you Madelina?’ Layla offers, and I laugh.
‘Urrgh. He would and all.’
Layla turns to Charley. ‘I’m sorry I’m a gabby drunk. I didn’t mean to tell people your stuff. I just think it and all of a sudden I say it, and sometimes I think, Don’t say this thing, Layla, but it’s already out. Like a greyhound, or a pony. My mam loves gambling. I’m worried about her. There I go again.’
She sinks into a chair, still looking like a graceful ballerina but one who is utterly, utterly ashamed of herself.
Charley cuddles in beside her. ‘It’s fine. I mean, it’s the truth. I
t’s just my truth. And I don’t always like it. The idea. I’d like to, like, “play the field”, and stuff.’
They curl together, having a best-friend moment. I sit on a stool, wondering how much they know about this place, and what it would take for them to tell me. This makes me feel like a crap spy, so I head up to the bar and order a lemonade. Awkwardly. I might build up to cider later on. Like, I have no issue with underage drinking, it’s just it feels weird being in a pub and that being OK. Like, it’s all a bit sanctioned. When I get back to the table, Eddie has joined the girls, looking scandalised.
‘I only went up there to get my coat,’ he says, ‘and I saw a lot more of your sister than I wanted to see.’
I gasp. ‘Is she all right?’
‘Yeah, she’s grand. Laughed at me.’ He turns bright red at the thought of it. ‘I felt really creepy and awkward though. Like, what they do is none of my business … But the way Lon smiled – I think he liked me seeing them like that.’
Ugh. That is the worst thing I ever heard. I resist the urge to storm up there and pull him off my sister. She’d never speak to me again.
‘Why are ye even friends with him?’ I ask, typing a quick ‘u ok?’ into my phone.
‘He has a pub?’ he offers.
‘Fair enough.’
Catlin sends me back a lot of aubergines. She is the worst, but definitely grand. We spend the next few hours chatting and drinking, while Lon and Catlin stay in his apartment. It’s not like Catlin to miss this much of a thing. I drink a pint of cider, and feel the sugar harsh on the top of my stomach. I need to pace myself, seeing as she’s left me here alone.
‘C’mere,’ I say to Layla. ‘What’s the story with his crazy ex-girlfriends?’
She shrugs at me. ‘Dunno.’
Fiachra cracks open a can, his face dark. ‘Who – Helen?’
‘Like Helen Groarke?’
‘Exactly like Helen Groarke.’ He opens his mouth, and starts to speak again, but Charley shushes him, and clears her throat.
‘I don’t really like that word. Crazy. It usually means girls who ask boys questions.’
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