Mosaic

by Caro Ramsay

  Once I had put the haircut idea in her head, Megan had an idea of somewhere she wanted to go so she was already heading up to Buchanan Galleries and onto escalators, to some hairdresser up there that she knew but her family didn’t. As I say, this was days before the wedding, certainly too late to grow back a full head of hair that had been shaved off. Not that we were going to get a number one buzz cut but that was our fallback position to appease the fury that would follow. It was Megan’s ‘it could have been worse’ theory, like having one leg amputated is good news when the option was to have both legs off. The Melvicks had to capitulate – see the big words do rub off on me – and approve of our hair including Princess Frosty Pants. They had agreed that I should be bridesmaid. They made it a magnanimous gesture but Megan had told me the first two choices, some distant cousin of Jago’s and one of Beth’s goddaughters, were unavailable; one was single and pregnant – by a Muslim I would dare to hope – the other was in Australia on a gap year. It was explained to me, by Ivan, looking quite hunky and authoritarian in his study, that it was for Megan. I couldn’t take my eyes off the Munnings on the wall, in its glass case. It was for Megan, he repeated, she could find herself on her own for much of the day. The attention would be on Jago and Melissa in her big white frock. So I was there as a companion and as a bridesmaid. And he added, taking my hand in a way that would have been creepy if he wasn’t so rich, ‘as her friend’.

  I said, I actually said, I wouldn’t let her down. So next thing, I am letting her down and leading her astray. We had talked about getting our heads shaved while drunk out on the Curlew. It was funny after a bottle of Thunderbird but Megan was worried she’d be disinherited and wouldn’t be allowed to see the dog again.

  We knew what the wedding hairdresser had said about the headpieces we were to wear, like a wreath of flowers, intertwined bits of twigs and flowers and leaves so that we’d look a bit like Nero’s transvestite brother. Megan told the hairdresser what she wanted; a fringe side swept to cover the scar on her forehead and long enough at the sides so it covered her hearing aids. And then my hair cut and coloured to match exactly. The stylist had a long time poking and prodding at mine and then said how much it would be. I was glad I was sitting down, it was only a bloody haircut, but Megan, who was facing the mirror, did that thing that rich people do of looking stern and producing the dosh as if she had been slightly insulted at the suggestion she couldn’t afford it. The sight of the money got us attention, especially when the pictures of the headdress came out, with the name of the dress designer on the bit of paper.

  By the time we went home on the train, my peroxide and purple hair had been treated and dyed then re-dyed to an exact match to Megan’s natural dark, dark colour, so densely dark it was almost black, but not dyed black. She said that looked so cheap. Megan’s words not mine.

  And the bridesmaid of a Melvick could never look cheap.

  They might have been frugal, bonkers, inbred, sectarian and racist but they were never, ever cheap.

  Back home, my mum just about pissed herself when she saw the two of us. Then she stopped and nodded appreciatively. She stood us side by side, shoulder to shoulder, and did a weird thing. She caressed our faces, comparing us. I swore she had a tear in her eye. I think she thought there might be some hope for me yet.

  Ivan Melvick was a little puzzled, but on the basis my hair was no longer the colour of wet straw with mould he thought it was ‘very pleasant looking’. Those were the words out his mouth but his eyes narrowed, the corners of his mouth tightened slightly, He looked right at me, challenging me. I stared him down. I guess we were fighting over control of Megan.

  Well, I won that one, Ivan. And I still am.

  Beth just said it was very neat and the style would take the headdress beautifully. She took her husband’s arm and hugged him, looking at us as if we were her two daughters. I was the third girl in the Hornell painting, the third shell seeker.

  Melissa, however, went absolutely fucking nuts. Full toto benny mental. She glided down the stairs and slowly halted, holding onto the handrail for support. She really was a great actress. Standing in the hall, side by side, in front of the grand piano, looking like two peas in a pod were two fifteen-year-old girls, both slim, both brunettes with exactly the same haircut. One her sister, the other her gardener’s daughter.

  Melissa raged. She was calling the wedding off. Again.

  Beth tried to calm her down.

  I couldn’t stop laughing.

  Megan kept asking her politely, and innocently, what the problem was. Wouldn’t it look nicer in the photographs if we were both the same, we were wearing the same dresses after all. And surely all the attention would be on the bride. I’m bloody sure Ivan Melvick’s mouth twitched at that, he could see the point we were trying to make. And Melissa couldn’t exactly say, Yes but for God’s sake one of them is working class. What if Jago’s family think she’s related to us? But she couldn’t say that in front of me. She was too well brought up for that. She’d wait until I had left the room.

  ‘But that’s the problem, they look the bloody same, nobody will be able to tell one from the other.’

  ‘Who cares, we are only the bridesmaids, and nobody will be looking at us.’

  ‘No! I mean’ – she was nearly foaming at the mouth by now – ‘nobody will know which one is my sister.’

  ‘The deaf one,’ Megan replied, ‘they can say what they want. I won’t hear them.’

  ‘No, I mean …’

  But she couldn’t bring herself to say what she meant, could she? She didn’t really want anybody mistaking me for a Melvick and maybe, looking back, we shouldn’t have pushed her that far. She was already close to the edge, only holding on to her sanity with her beautifully manicured fingertips.

  She always had, as Megan once said tapping the side of her head, a wee touch of the Ophelias.

  SEVEN

  Carla

  It seemed to me that people always want to have control over other people. Or are some people incapable of living a life unless they are controlled by another as it absolves them of making any decisions about anything and it gives them an instant blame hound when it all goes wrong?

  One of the social workers used to blather on about co-dependency and issues like that, talking about my mother and how she was drawn to a certain type of man.

  Losers mostly, drunken, abusive losers.

  And young people are vulnerable to bad adults, men or women. I don’t think evil has a gender bias. And social workers can talk with very little awareness of the reality behind what they are saying: the pain, the bruises, broken bones, visits to casualty.

  Even I could work that one out. Bad people hurt children. There was one guy who seemed OK, Chris the car mechanic. He had a tattoo of a Cadillac on his arm and when he rippled his muscles, it looked like the wheels were going round. He had a small modern boxy house that was warm and dry and a spare room that was slightly bigger than the average dog kennel. He offered to clean it out for me so I could have my own room. Chris kept his motorbike in there, I told him to leave it and that I’d look after it for him, and I did. It was like having a pet, I think I even gave it a name.

  And we had neighbours, they had two boys, one a lot older than me, one a bit younger, and they let me walk to school with them and didn’t laugh at me the way the other kids did because my uniform wasn’t the right colour and my shoes were in such a mess.

  That went on for a year, I think, maybe less, but then Mum got pregnant and Chris changed. He came home less, he got short tempered. He wouldn’t let me see the tattoo any more. His eyes grew dark, he was pissed more. As our fridge stopped having food in it, the neighbour started asking me if I had eaten anything. She was a kind woman. I think the fighting between Chris and Mum must have kept them up most of the night as it was a terraced house and the walls were thin. And Eddie, the older boy, asked me if the police had turned up as his mum had called them out. Again.

  As soon as Mum came hom
e with Paul, the baby, all hell broke loose. Paul screamed twenty-four hours a day, nobody got any sleep. Then I was told to get my stuff packed. Chris had bought me new clothes so they wouldn’t fit into my wee rucksack anymore. Mum came flying up the stairs, covered in baby sick and emptied all the stuff Chris had bought me out the bag and set about slashing my really nice clothes with a pair of scissors.

  And I left with what I had arrived in.

  Plus a wee brother.

  Megan

  I felt slightly nauseous, I was worrying about this, but why should I? It was my sister who had died but I was too scared to go outside my room in case I walked into Jago. Outside my window there were more cars parked, the private ambulance was still there; what could be taking them so long? I could only think that Jago’s parents, or some of Melissa’s close friends, had turned up to say their private goodbye. Or it might have been the minister, doing something. Maybe they were all along in Melissa’s bedroom, kneeling round her bed in silent prayer. I could imagine me being there, praying with one eye open, seeing Jago doing exactly the same.

  I decided to stay in my room. But I was hungry. It was getting late, but I didn’t want to run into Jago unless Dad was there, I didn’t want to be in the hall with some toast, walking past Melissa’s body in a bag going in the opposite direction. Debs would be down there somewhere, working her way through a list of rooms to be prepared, linen to dig out, the dining table to be set. I should have been helping her. I doubted that Heather would offer to lend a hand. Mum would have. She’d rather be busy than ceremonial.

  And that’s the rub, isn’t it?

  Would she come back now? I wasn’t sure it would reach her ears; her eldest daughter had passed away. Or did she already know, having seen it on some social media somewhere and kept to her decision to stay away? Maybe she would come today. I was certain she wouldn’t leave it until the funeral; she wouldn’t do anything that would spoil the solemnity of the occasion. She might come afterwards though, quietly away from the eyes and ears of gossip in the village, up to the cemetery, carrying flowers for Melissa, and adding to the pile already there.

  That would be more like it.

  I told myself I shouldn’t be lying here, Molly at my side softly snoring, and go and do something. Dad would want to talk about the order of service. Then something caught my eye, somebody leaving the house. I stood up thinking that this might be Melissa’s final journey, but it was not her, it was Drew. He was walking slowly, over to the left of the house; he didn’t turn to go down the Long Drive to the Benbrae and the way out. He kept going left, round to the side of the house to the sunflower garden, to the lodge and the very private gardens that belong strictly to the family. He walked freely around, looking for something and I guessed he might be a wildlife protection officer with the police. The Benbrae estate now has high protection status due to the golden eagles. There might need to be an official here, to oversee the shooting of the rooks. He’d have a lot of paperwork to do and my dad would force him to do it in triplicate.

  I wished he’d come up to talk to me. He seemed to be on my wavelength, maybe because he knew what my family were like; his uncle knew us well enough.

  What would Heather do if Mum showed up right now? What would Debs do? Heather had a life outside the Melvicks, I’m not sure Debs did. Sometimes when she was waiting for the kettle to boil, I saw a look on her face that was difficult to fathom. She was wary, as if somebody was going to walk up the Long Drive and take her away from all this. But she was a woman who had never had any permanence in her earlier life, she was inconstant and peripatetic. Her eyes had a way of narrowing when I spoke, as if she was trying to see the lies in the truth coming out the mouth.

  She had no reason to be like that now.

  I saw movement out in the garden, and watched Drew walk all the way round the fields with the horses to the boathouse then round and back.

  Measuring something, intently working something out in his head, calculating.

  I watched him for some time, rather intrigued by what he was doing, when I noticed my bedroom door had opened.

  ‘Megan?’ Deborah accompanied this with a soft, apologetic knock on the door.

  Her floral perfume wafted in a few feet ahead of her. It reminded me of Mum so much, not the same scent but close enough to evoke memories that only the sense of smell can. ‘I don’t want to disturb you if you are resting. But I thought you’d like a sandwich and some tea. Even brought your favourite mug.’

  ‘Thanks, you are a lifesaver. Deborah? Come and see this.’

  She stood beside me at the French window, then we opened them up and walked onto the terrace to get a better view. ‘What the hell is he doing?’

  ‘He looks as if he is doing something important.’

  ‘Well, even the most stupid of men do something, Megan, although breathing can take up most of their brain cells.’

  ‘I mean he’s doing something in particular, what is he up to? Wildlife cop?’

  ‘Doubt it. Who knows? Who cares? He’s fucking mad, he’s up to something that one, don’t you trust him.’

  ‘Really?’ I looked at her.

  ‘He’s a cop, he’s using this as part of his promotion, you know. They have to be able to show that they can do stuff nowadays, he’s taking advantage of his uncle’s ties with the family.’

  ‘That’s a bit harsh, how do you know that?’

  ‘Because it’s what I would do. Well I did, if I hadn’t been Carla’s mum, I wouldn’t have got my foot in the door here.’

  ‘I can’t argue with you there, Debs. Any idea what’s going on?’

  ‘Nobody tells me anything. Your dad and Jago went out for a long walk, I think his parents are going into Glasgow for the evening. They are staying until Melissa is taken away.’

  ‘The funeral?’

  ‘Friday, noon. I think that’s what your dad and Jago are talking about, I’ve to get some help from the village to get the beds ready. I think there are a few folk going to be staying over.’

  ‘Oh good,’ I said, thinking that I’d stay here in my room and read. ‘Or can I give you a hand. I have nothing else to do.’

  ‘Thanks. Are you bringing over anybody, you know, for the church?’

  I hadn’t thought of that. Who would I ask? My ex-boyfriend Dan, who would have had me sectioned if Dad’s money hadn’t intervened? ‘No. No friends of mine even knew Melissa.’

  I was trying not to say that I didn’t have any true friends anymore. I think Deborah knew that. Deborah looked out the window, a slight wistful look on her face; I guess she was thinking how different it all could have been. I walked back over to sit on my bed.

  ‘You can’t just be on your own.’

  ‘I prefer it.’

  ‘It wasn’t always that way. Thick as thieves, you and Carla. The dynamic duo. Well, drink up your tea, get something to eat and get some sleep.’

  I picked up my sandwich, egg mayo with a fine smear of mustard. That was something about Deborah, you could depend on her to remember the details. ‘What perfume is that you are wearing?’

  She grinned. ‘It’s Heather’s. I had a squirt when I was …’

  ‘Cleaning?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Cleaning where?’ I ask, taking a sip from my Snoopy mug. ‘Dad doesn’t sleep in the master bedroom, does he? It looks just as Mum left it.’

  ‘The big bedroom over the kitchen, the one with the view down the loch.’ She looked away.

  ‘He’s always liked that room, that view. He used to sleep there when Melissa was a baby screaming the place down. Is that where the perfume is?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So sometimes Heather stays over?’

  Deborah nodded, looking out the window.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sometimes the shower is adjusted too low for your dad; I have been cleaning that en suite for years. Your dad is tall and Heather is a smout. He is always up first. She leaves everything at her arse. How do
you feel about that, kiddo?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I shifted my legs over on the bed, inviting her to sit down, glad of somebody to talk to. She smoothed out the duvet cover before she sat, a tense smile on her face. ‘But how are you coping with all this?’ I asked her, sitting up slightly to rub her shoulder, just to say that she wasn’t alone.

  ‘If truth be told it’s a relief. I know she was your sister but it’s been a long slow process, hasn’t it? And every turn has been a turn for the worse. Your dad has been beside himself for months now, taking her here and there, trying to get some help for her. Nothing worked. As you know.’

  ‘I guess,’ I wriggled my toes a little, thinking, ‘I guess it’s a disease like all other fatal diseases. I’m not sure I believe she has finally gone, she seems to have been teetering on the brink for so long now.’

  ‘It’s early days, I don’t think it has really sunk in with any of us. I doubt that your dad will ever get over it.’

  ‘I think he will, it’s not as though he has lost something he really cared for, like the Dali or one of his dogs.’

  ‘Megan, you do say the most awful things.’ She tilted her head, it made her look very like Carla, a twist of the lip that belied a cheeky thought. ‘But probably true.’

  ‘Do you think she was ever happy?’

  ‘She was designed not to be happy, that girl. Maybe she is better off out of it.’ She sighed and glanced around the room. ‘It’s been a long time since I have been up here in this room for any length of time, it’s nice.’ Deborah resettled herself on the end of the bed. ‘I think he’s going to ask you to go in the main mourning car with him, so if he does, please say yes. If you don’t then Heather will and her wee face will fracture with trying to not smile.’

  ‘God if anybody should be in the car, it should be Mum, not her.’

  ‘Megan … try not to build your hopes up.’

  ‘Why does nobody want her back? It seems I am the only one who gives her a minute’s thought.’

  ‘Of course we all want her back, it’s just, people move on, they change, times are different.’