by Caro Ramsay
One day, walking home from school in a bad mood because my arm was aching from the weight of the stookie. They had plastered it from thumb to elbow and it was annoying me. I was swinging it about, testing how good a weapon it could be. That’s the sort of thing I like to know. I was keeping to the backstreets away from the coastal road. I was in primary six but this was the first time I was going to be around the Holy Loch for any length of time. I had visited Dad before but this seemed it might be for keeps. Mum was in jail at the time for grievous bodily or something. It might have been the fight when she hit a bloke on the head with a stone and blinded him in one eye. All he’d said was he thought she had nice tits.
She always had a tendency to overreact.
I might rethink my use of the stookie as a weapon.
Then I heard the noise of the gang in full pursuit; their victim was making no noise at all. She was on the ground, her blazer was torn, her school bag had been flung into the hedge, some boys from the high school were on her, pretending or not pretending, to kick her, showing off to the younger kids. Then I saw her body jolt, so one foot must have made contact. It was Wullie Campbell’s big brother. He was a bit mental. He always had snotters and he stank of cheese.
I don’t really remember the next bit. I ran at him, shouting, head down and rammed him right in his stomach, they never expect that. He didn’t expect me to bite him on the wrist either. Or the backhand in the face with the stookie.
He collapsed, hitting the ground with a resounding smack. I stood back, and looked at the girl lying on the road, blood pouring from her forehead. Then I noticed the blazer was not from our school. I could hear the crowd behind me shuffle, so I stood waiting for them to turn on me, or walk away. There was a sense of something else. A fear, a fear they had gone too far.
I thought they might have killed her, she wasn’t moving. She was curled up, her school bag had spilled its contents and there was something on the road beside her, like crushed plastic shells with bits of wire. Now I know they were her hearing aids.
The police appeared very quickly and I was huckled into the police car and driven back to the school. The girl was put in an ambulance. She didn’t look at me. I was taken to the headmistress’s office by the Hairy Monkey and an even thicker cop. The headie appeared, then Dad was sent for. He was somewhere out on the estate so my gran turned up. And all hell broke loose. What was I thinking attacking a defenceless girl? But I had no voice, there is no point in talking if nobody listens, I had learned that lesson early.
I was grounded, confined to my bedroom at Gran’s and not allowed any ice cream. Gran wasn’t allowed to go out in case I escaped. Dad put a lock on the bedroom window so I couldn’t get down the drainpipe, my normal route for nipping out for a cider at the beach. There was talk of being detained in a home somewhere, the usual parade of social workers was about to appear. Mum would blame Dad, everybody would blame Mum, nobody ever blamed me.
Snottery Campbell wasn’t even mentioned.
I can recall sitting at the bottom of the stairs looking at the lock on the door, no keys hanging there. Gran was talking to somebody on the phone, one of her wee gossipy friends. There was a feeling that the village was holding its breath. Were charges being pressed? Reports to the procurator fiscal? The children’s panel?
I was a disgrace.
Everybody was sorry for my gran and dad, nice people who had lived a good life until THAT dreadful woman got herself pregnant and spawned the devil. They were talking about me, of course, saying I had led the attack on Megan only because she was different and on her own.
Even I saw the irony in that.
Next morning, my gran brought me my breakfast without a word, and shut the bedroom door on me, locking it behind her, leaving me to eat my sugar puffs alone in my bed. This summer was turning out to be great fucking fun.
By half eleven, I was really bored, so bored I was thinking about reading a book. I heard voices downstairs, the front door opening, feet on the stairs. My bedroom door opened and my dad came in. He couldn’t look at me, he just opened the door of the tiny bedroom and waved his arm, indicating that I was to go downstairs. I thought this is it, I am about to get arrested properly. His eyes said I was on my own and there was nothing more he could do.
But the front door of the house was open, a Volvo was idling in the street. I saw the neighbour’s curtains twitch and I just managed to avoid flicking her the finger. Next door called out to my dad, ‘Is everything all right, Tommy?’ like I was going to be put against a wall and shot. Dad raised his hand, saying that everything was OK.
The door of the car opened and Beth Melvick was sitting there, all quilted jackets and a lovely coloured scarf. I thought my gran was going to curtsy. I wiped my nose on my sleeve, thinking I was going to get toasted but she just smiled and said that Megan wanted a wee word with me but she wasn’t feeling so great so would it be OK if we went up to the house? Her voice was kind and crystal clear.
So I climbed in to the front seat and Mrs Melvick helped me with my seatbelt.
When we turned into the Benbrae Estate and saw the house, I thought it was a hotel, even when we opened the double front door, and all the dogs came running out, I didn’t believe that this was all one house.
I was taken into a room – the Drawing Room – which was the size of the gym at school. It had no proper carpet, just old floorboards. The walls were covered by paintings of dead guys who all looked like Ivan Melvick in various hats and haircuts plus a huge picture of a woman in a white frock. She looked like Ivan in drag. Megan was in the drawing room, sitting on the settee with a bandage round her head. The cop, Harry, was there too, just in case I stole anything. Melissa was all very lovely and attentive to her wee sister. She was even more beautiful close up. Some other woman came in with the sandwiches and jelly and ice cream and lemonade that hurt my mouth. I was given a cushion to rest my plaster on. The other woman was a nanny or a maid or something and wasn’t allowed to speak. The dogs were great, lying around, farting. I was introduced to an old yellow hairy thing called Oodie. I gave him the sandwiches I didn’t like. Then Ivan came in and gave a speech, asked me about the paper round and went out again. I didn’t say much, I was too busy cramming food in my mouth with my good hand, everybody else spoke and thanked me for looking after Megan. Then I was taken home again.
And never invited back.
The scar on her forehead was still there the day Melissa got married. As a bridesmaid, Megan’s fringe was side swept to hide the scar, just as we borrowed her mother’s make-up to hide my bruises. We decided on that style the day we sneaked off to Glasgow to get our hair cut identically. The day of the haircuts was the day our friendship started to end; it had started with her lying on the ground bleeding, and me having a sore neck from driving my head into a brammer’s guts.
But I wasn’t finished with Wullie Campbell or his snotty brother.
I wasn’t finished with the Italian House
Or Megan.
A bond was made that day. A connection so strong, not even death could break it.
THREE
Tuesday
Megan
A death in the early hours of the morning leaves a lot of the day to be tolerated. Everything seems inappropriate.
I had remained at Melissa’s bedside while the doctor appeared, made a few notes and signed his certificates. Then we all paused, none of us wanting to leave the room. Was this the final goodbye? Dad hung around the side of the bed with his arm slightly outstretched, wanting to touch Melissa one last time but not quite able to bridge the gap between life and death. I had kept hold of her hand as the doctor left. Heather had appeared a few minutes prior to the doctor, and was now teary and white-faced, holding onto Dad’s arm. I’m not sure who was supporting who. Dad eventually left with one final look over his shoulder at me. A single tear fell as he left the room. Deborah ghosted after them like a silent blue shadow, her eyes on my father’s back.
Eventually, I decided to go
downstairs, and get something to eat, leaving Anastasia shivering, mourning on Melissa’s bed. My sister lay with her daffodil yellow sheet pulled high to her chin. She was sleeping her endless sleep. I looked up at the ceiling, wondering if that was the last view she saw.
A pale yellow sky.
A Melissa sky.
And a Heather sky. They both had a passion for delicate blues and lemons. I wondered how much of this house Heather had redecorated. She would probably be pointing out what looked a bit shabby, then followed up with, ‘Ivan, you have far too much on your plate, and you are not much use at that kind of thing.’ She’s an expert, used to have an interior design business and I suspected that she had steadfastly gone about transforming Mum’s vibrant reds, purples and golds that so resembled a Turkish brothel, but hid a lot of dog hair, to a pastel palette of duck egg blue and gentle yellows. The house now resembled a nursery for silent children.
My mother was a dogs-all-over-the-sofa and wellies-at-the-door type of woman. Heather was always plumping cushions and moving ornaments one millimetre to the left. Her shoes matched her skirts exactly. Her trousers skimmed over neat hips that had been liposuctioned to the bone, her tinted hair was trimmed every four weeks so it accentuated the triangularity of her face.
And there was something there, an echo in their slimness; Melissa and Heather, two of a kind. Controlled. I wonder how close they had become. I didn’t really know Heather, except as a friend of my mother, as a friend of the family. Now she seemed to know my house better than I did. She comforted my father over the death of his oldest daughter while I waited for them to get out the kitchen so I could make a cup of tea and some toast. Instead of being overwhelmed with grief, I was overwhelmed with hunger. Maybe watching someone die of anorexia has that effect on you.
Mum would have made me something. Scrambled eggs on soggy toast was her panacea for everything, whereas I could see Heather Kincaid designing a special cupcake to celebrate a judicial hanging. Now nobody knows where my mother is and Heather has her feet well under my dad’s table.
The twenty-sixth of May. Three years ago. A Thursday. I was seventeen. My mum woke up, decided she had had enough and walked out. I had expected her to come back. Dad seemed to suspect she would not, probably because she left her wedding ring behind. I missed her, but I wasn’t angry at her going, more angry that she had left without me. She had turned her back on us. For the next couple of months, I thought every phone call would be from her, so I just took my hearing aids out to stop the constant disappointment.
As I walked along the main hall, my feet were silent on the new runner. It was light blue, of course, and useless in a house with Molly and the Russels, dogs who ran free in the mud at the Benbrae. The watchful eye of Lady Agatha Emmaline Melvick was upon me, in command in death as she was in life, her portrait suspended, in its heavy gilt frame. She looked as though she might step out of the painting and walk away, disgusted at having to be in the same room as the proles who gawped at her.
The smell of fresh coffee drifted from the kitchen door. There was still somebody in there so I passed the door, heading for the drawing room thinking of the last time I walked this way. I was born in this house, it felt reassuring to me that it was the same house; time had moved on and we have all moved on with it. In some ways the house had not. Walking across the floor, floorboards sanded as they always had been but now covered by a Persian rug, grey and lemon of course, to the big bay window where I could look down to the Benbrae, the woods, the freshly striped lawn cut by the new gardener, employed after Tom was sent to jail. How many years had passed? Four? Nearly five? He would have been out for ages but could, and would, never come back here. He had nothing to come back for now. His wife had left him when he was convicted, taking the baby with her, and his ex-partner is now working for my dad, his ex-boss. And Carla … well …
Deborah had changed and re-invented herself as people do after tragedy. She was a stroppy, wild Deborah, the one who chased us with a pitchfork when Carla and I had climbed a neighbour’s apple tree, threatening to run us through. She was only partly joking.
It was all snakes and ladders, swings and carousels. When the music stopped, somebody died.
From the window, I could just about see the mosaic at the water’s edge, a colourful and permanent memorial to the murder that had happened on that balmy summer night, the night of Melissa’s wedding. And it was murder. I don’t care what anybody says.
The early morning sun was catching the yellow of the tiles, but the full picture, the beauty of the sunflower pattern, remained hidden from view. Carla always had a thing for sunflowers, they live short and beautiful lives, colourful and vibrant then they die. Her dad taught us both to grow them, on the sunny wall at the back of the stables. We named them, Carla’s idea. A childish silly thing, but I regretted that I can’t recall what they were. Beyoncé and Jayzee. Ant and Dec. Flip in Hell. Something like that.
The house was cold, like the people who lived here, and it remained chilly, even on a sunny day like this. I glanced at my watch; still early. I lived in a mausoleum where nobody laughed, the windows remained closed and the curtains stay neatly pleated and folded into their brass brackets. The bay window was wide, six panels of glass and I could see for miles. I knew the floorboard behind me was the creaky one, although I have never heard it, but I remember how that floorboard, that little Judas, betrayed me so many times as kid when I crept out my bed and down to the kitchen at midnight to steal a bit of cheesecake, or when Melissa, Carla and I would sneak down when Mum and Dad were having a party, just to look at the clothes (Melissa), the food (me), the drink (Carla) or the men (Melissa and Carla).
But I did sense, a heavy foot, a shadow reflected in the glass. It’s often the way; I think I hear things that I can’t, but I can sense a presence. I turned. It was a young man, the young man. The one whose Fiesta had been parked in the lay-by yesterday. His titian hair falling in his eyes and a fine film of sweat glistened his already shiny face. He looked ill. Or at least very tired. And he didn’t fit in this house. He was not expensively enough dressed to be one of Melissa’s friends although he looked closer to her age than mine. He looked as if he was here out of duty and wanted to be elsewhere. I pinned him as a junior doctor or an undertaker’s assistant, maybe a young lawyer, though if he was any of these things he’d soon find out the Melvicks didn’t do underlings.
His voice wavered a little when he spoke. Definitely a subordinate having suffered short shrift from my father. He was nervous.
I smiled encouragingly.
‘Megan? So sorry about Melissa, how are you?’
That was unexpected. ‘I am fine, thank you.’
He looked at my face closely, looking for tears. He found nothing. He had a rather soft kind face and blue eyes the colour of the Holy Loch in mid-winter sun.
‘I am sorry but you have me at a disadvantage, I have no idea who you are.’
‘Andrew Murray. Not the tennis one. Call me Drew,’ he said automatically. ‘I came to see your father, it’s a very testing time for families, losing a loved one.’
His words were not exactly trite but said as if he was used to saying them, and I did notice he had not introduced himself, not really. He was a bit young to be a friend of Dad’s.
‘The doctor has given Heather something to help calm her. She’s very upset,’ he said as he tilted his head, indicating upstairs. ‘She’s gone for a lie down.’
He stood, wanting a response, so I said, ‘Heather will be taking it harder than me, she has been here all along dealing with Melissa. I only got back yesterday, as you probably know.’
‘The entire village knows. Your dad has been so looking forward to it.’ His response was quick. ‘I didn’t know Melissa well.’
‘Did anybody?’
He stood there like a schoolboy, waiting for permission to sit down. Did he want me to offer him a seat on the pristine duck blue sofa with its beautifully plumped-up lemon and grey cushions? I noticed the tas
sels were all lying in a straight line like dead soldiers, as if each thread has been combed through. He followed the path of my gaze.
‘My house doesn’t look like this.’ He sighed.
‘Not many do.’
‘You are OK though?’ His eyebrow rose.
There was a kindness in those soft blue eyes, something questioning. Or did he know about my condition? Or was I reading too much into a simple statement of concern for the recently bereaved.
‘I’m fine, I think I’ll get something to eat and then take the dogs out.’
‘That sounds a great idea, get some fresh air. Molly is down at the stables.’
He went up in my estimation.
‘Good, I’ll collect her on the way past. Hopefully the exercise will tire me enough that I get some sleep, you know, good restful sleep.’
‘Yes, time and sleep are great healers. A cup of tea very rarely misses either.’
I thought he was about to add: And you have been through a lot. But he didn’t. Was it just paranoia? What did he know? Had they been talking about me?
Of course they had.
With Melissa, Carla and Mum gone, there was only me to talk about.
The kitchen was empty, a lot of cups and mugs were piled up ready to go into the dishwasher. A few plates with crumbs on were stacked at the side. I think other people had been and gone, maybe in the hours of darkness, it was a big enough house to hide in, if you know where to go.
I placed my hand against the kettle, lukewarm. I put it on to reboil and opened a few cupboards looking to make a sandwich. Debs wasn’t a cook, she did the shopping, the washing and cleaned the house. Since Mum left, we cooked for ourselves. I took some cheese out the fridge and a packet of oatcakes, feeling an absence of something. Dog bowls. No food bowls, water bowls, toys, baskets, twigs or clumps of mud. This wasn’t the kitchen I grew up in. Looking out the window, the sun had now reached the roof of the stables, the triangle of light worked its way across the yard. I saw Molly, lying on the grass verge, in the sunshine. The two Russells were trotting around, going to the stables, looking as though they needed to be about some business. Molly raised her head, ears up, her instinct telling her that I was looking. Then she was on her feet, at the other side of the back door before I could reach it, up on her hind legs, pawing, tail wagging, squeaking with delight. She was all over me, jumping and licking my face. I hugged her tight, it had been too long.