The Weight of Angels

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘And then we were supposed to hook up again today after school. Her school got out early for teachers’ training or something. I don’t know. She said she’d meet me at the cross.’

  The Mercat Cross in Kirkcudbright was just outside the high-school gates. I didn’t know kids still met there, like they did when it was me and six or seven other girls, all cheap scent and blue mascara, perched on the steps at its base.

  ‘Did she stand you up?’

  He nodded, and I could see his lip start to tremble again.

  ‘Maybe it was a misunderstanding. Have you phoned her?’

  ‘She wasn’t there,’ he said. ‘But she’d sent all her friends. There was, like, fifty of them. Or you know, like, twelve. And they all sat there and watched me walking up and I didn’t even know till I was right there. And one of them laughed like she couldn’t keep it in any more, and then this one girl, she was scrolling through her texts and she just sort of looked up and said: “Are you Angelo? I’ve got a message for you. The date’s off.”’

  ‘Oh, Angel. She’s doesn’t sound—’

  ‘Don’t,’ he said, suddenly going rigid. He sat up and gave me one of those withering looks. I couldn’t have imagined it on his face when he was a little boy and I fixed his dumper truck when the wheels came off or found his shoe he’d lost, and I was some kind of magical genius who made his boiled egg just how he wanted it every time. ‘Don’t say she’s not worth it or I’m better off without her. She’s great, and I blew it because I’m such a loser and she had to get rid of me. And everyone saw me, all the girls from her class and half the folk from my class, and people out the bus window. They were all laughing and I tried to walk away and I fell. I tripped and fell, Mum.’

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘Well, you’re chilled to the bone and you need a couple of days to tuck up and make sure you’re not ill with a cold. So you’re not going back to school in the morning and you’re not going on Friday either. Let’s see how it looks on Sunday night. About moving house or home-schooling or whatever.’

  ‘Are you laughing at me?’

  And of course I was because when he was my age he’d laugh too. Not about the girl – wee bitch that she was – but about the conviction that he was finished for ever. Luckily, before I could answer, I saw headlights beginning to glow ahead of us on the drive and then we were blinded as the car came round the bend and hit us with the full-beams. It slid to an easy stop and I heard a door open and bang shut, saw Dr Ferris emerge from behind the dazzle and come towards us. She was all togged up in a long, fitted coat, with another of her scarves tied in some complicated knot at its collar. She bent and peered in at the driver’s side window, waiting until I wound it down.

  ‘You found him, then?’ she said. ‘Jolly good.’

  Angelo slung one look sideways at me, then stared straight ahead, dropping until his coat collar covered half his face.

  ‘No harm done!’ I said, too brightly to sound even halfway sane.

  ‘Were you coming to see someone?’ Dr Ferris said, looking past me at him. She was wearing slim-fitting driving gloves and they squeaked as she gripped the bottom of the open window. ‘Do you need to talk to someone?’

  Angelo shrank further down.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘You’d be surprised,’ said Dr Ferris. ‘Quite often people just come and knock on the door seeking sanctuary when things go terribly wrong. We can’t often admit them, but we always listen.’

  ‘He’s not—’ I said. ‘He’s fine. He’s just— He was walking and he was getting sick of the cars going past so he turned off onto the quiet lane. Right? Angel?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Dr Ferris. ‘No climbing after all, then? Good. Oh, Alison, I forgot to mention: your PVG came through. If you want to come in tomorrow.’

  ‘Great,’ I said. The woman had a kid of her own. Why did she think I’d care about work right this minute?

  ‘Well, then,’ she said, ‘if you’d pull over to one side. It’s been rather a long day.’

  When the car, big as a liner passing us, had swept away he climbed out, and looked after it up the drive. ‘What did you tell her, Mum?’ he said. ‘And don’t bother lying cos she just busted you.’

  ‘She’s used to people’s troubles,’ I said. ‘There’s no need to worry.’

  ‘Right,’ he said, dripping sarcasm. I didn’t even know why. ‘So she knows all about you, does she?’

  It was a shot in the dark. Angelo knew nothing about me. I ignored him. ‘Let’s get you home,’ I said.

  Marco came to the door as we were walking up the path.

  ‘Hey!’ He stumbled down the steps, tripping over his slippers, and wrapped Angelo in a bear hug. ‘You’re soaking! You’re freezing. Go and start a bath and I’ll bring you a hot—’ But Angelo fought him off and kept walking. He slammed the bathroom door behind him and shot the lock home. Then, finally, Marco looked at me. ‘You didn’t call me,’ he said.

  ‘Well, that makes two of us, doesn’t it?’ I said.

  ‘Oh, come on, Ali. I didn’t worry you. You didn’t stop me worrying.’

  I opened my mouth to argue then nodded. ‘Fair point,’ I said.

  ‘Was it just the cops and all that?’ he said, slinging an arm around my neck and turning me towards the house.

  I thought before I answered. He was Daddy’s boy, but he’d confided in me this time. ‘Yeah, just all a bit much,’ I said. ‘Oh, hey,’ I added. ‘Did I get any post? Something dead official?’

  ‘Likes of what?’ he said.

  ‘Everyone keeps talking about something called PVG I’m supposed to fill in.’

  ‘Protecting Vulnerable Groups,’ said Marco. ‘New name for the police check. I did it for you when I was doing all the other forms. You signed it.’

  ‘Huh,’ I said. And then: ‘Thank you.’

  Does it make me a bad mother that I was glad to know he was staying at home in his bed for a day? That for one day I’d know where he was and what he was doing? Probably.

  I took his temperature at seven o’clock when I went in with a cup of tea and I told him it was high and I’d phone the school and tell them he’d caught a chill from missing the bus and walking home.

  ‘They’ll know,’ he said. ‘Mrs Thing in the office has got a kid in the fifth year. They’ll all know by now.’ He turned over to face the wall and pulled the covers so high all I could see was a spout of hair.

  ‘Don’t put soup spoons in the microwave,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not hungry.’

  ‘Are you going out?’ I asked Marco, when I was back in the kitchen. He was making sandwiches, grating the cheese instead of just cutting slices so that little shards of it were landing on the worktop and dropping onto the floor.

  He grimaced. ‘I said yesterday I’d go in and shadow for a few hours. Get up to speed, learn some product codes.’

  ‘But now Angel’s in such a bad way . . .’

  ‘Why don’t you take the day off?’ Marco said. ‘You need some R and R after all the upset.’

  ‘I can’t just take sick leave because my son’s in his bed,’ I said. Then I hoisted a smile onto my face. ‘Oh, well. A couple of hours won’t do any harm. He’ll still be in his bed when you get back.’

  ‘Except once I’m in town I’m stuck till the next bus,’ Marco said.

  I glanced at Angelo’s bedroom door. What would he think if he heard us arguing about who was going to get stuck with him and who was going to get away?

  ‘It’s rough not being able to come and go, isn’t it?’ I said. ‘I’ll ask if anyone else goes past here. When we’re in a routine, I could cadge lifts and you could take the car.’

  I’d have to get here the same time as the rest of the day shift if I wanted a lift, I thought, when I got to Howell Hall and saw the long row of cars parked on the gravel beside Dr Ferris’s BMW. But then I’d have to get here in time for the ‘change’ anyway. After a bit, I might even chip in. I could tel
l them things that came out in the art therapy or share what I thought about my clients’ general health because you can tell a lot from hair and nails. As I trotted up the steps and let myself in the front door, I was imagining six months’ time, when I wasn’t scared and new any more, when I was a valued member of the care team and I had got the gist of the Ferris vibe so the pair of them didn’t freak me. And in six months’ time Angel would be over this blip and Marco would maybe be picking up extra hours and life would be . . . What was the thing my dad used to say? Set fair and making headway.

  We’d all have forgotten that strange couple of days when they found the remains and we got jobs, and for some reason the good news turned us sour instead of sweet. In six months’ time when we were ourselves again—

  I was lost in the daydream when a pink flash came at me and she’d raked her nails down my cheek before I even got an arm up. ‘Get me out of here!’ she hissed.

  ‘Jesus!’ I said. My cheek was throbbing. ‘Julia! What was that for?’

  Julia looked at her nails, then tucked them against her palm, flicking away the little rolls of skin – my skin! She clamped her other hand on my arm. ‘I’ve got to get out of here!’ she said. She was naked under the pink bathrobe today and her heavy breasts swung as she shook me.

  ‘Well, you’re going the wrong way about it,’ I said. ‘Assaulting staff might get a transfer to a jail cell but it’s not going to get you home.’

  ‘There’s no such place as home, you moron,’ she said. ‘I killed my father!’

  ‘Is that right?’ I said. ‘Mine’s alive and well and still living on the back of the turnip truck.’ I had turned her round and, with an arm across her back, I walked her towards the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘Ha!’ she said, a bark of nicotined laughter. She needed to floss her teeth and drink more water. Her breath was rank. ‘It’s true, you know,’ she said. ‘I killed him and buried him and left him to rot.’

  ‘Have you told the police?’ I said.

  ‘They didn’t believe me.’

  ‘Bastards,’ I said. ‘Typical.’

  ‘I like you, Ali McGovern,’ she said, then she broke away and bounded up the stairs.

  ‘Lucky me,’ I said, looking after her. I blinked. Dr Ferris was standing on the landing looking down at me, not even glancing as Julia swept by. She couldn’t have done a better Mrs Danvers if she’d bought a costume.

  ‘Now, what was the thinking behind your choice there, Alison?’ she said, coming down the stairs. ‘I’m not admonishing you, but could you talk me through it?’

  ‘I didn’t believe her but I didn’t want to argue,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Consistency,’ she said, taking my arm and pulling me along in much the same way I had just been steering Julia. ‘Consistency is key. The turnip truck or the innocent questions. Not both. You see?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said again. ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To get antiseptic ointment for your face,’ she said. ‘For choice, the turnip truck. We don’t want to be reinforcing Julia’s flights of fancy. We don’t want to be bestowing any legitimacy on them.’

  I wondered what had happened to not discussing patients’ private business in the hallways, but before I could think of a way to ask we were in her office anyway.

  ‘I thought the new thinking was that you did just that,’ I said. ‘You listen and don’t try to tamper with the—’

  ‘Psychosis,’ said Dr Ferris. ‘For schizophrenics, certainly. Great strides in that quarter. You’re quite right, if rather puzzlingly well-informed. But Julia is not schizoid.’

  ‘So what is wrong with her?’ I said.

  ‘Histrionic personality disorder,’ said Dr Ferris. ‘Julia has a new set of symptoms every time she gets her hands on Google, I’m afraid. Her mother handed her over to us when she started flirting with psychopathy.’

  I had been standing in front of the desk while Dr Ferris sorted through paperwork, but at that I sank into one of the chairs. ‘Psychopathy? She didn’t really kill her father, did she?’

  Dr Ferris looked up. ‘Good grief, no. We don’t have the security for that. No, of course not.’

  ‘Only people do die and sometimes they do get buried and stay buried, don’t they? You know what’s happened at the abbey, I’ll bet.’

  ‘Now, we don’t want to be talking about such matters in Julia’s hearing,’ said Dr Ferris. ‘Heavens, if she got her teeth into it! No, the patricide is just one of her many confabulations. Her mental health took a sharp downturn when her father left, you see.’

  ‘It would, the wee soul,’ I said, as if my cheek wasn’t still throbbing from her clawing at me.

  ‘And her “psychopathy” was the holy trinity. Performed to a T.’

  She was doing it again. Her back was to the window so I couldn’t see her features but she had gone very still. She was waiting for me to admit I didn’t know what the holy trinity of psychopathy was.

  ‘Histrionic personality disorder,’ I said. ‘That’s a new one on me. I don’t think I’ve had dealings with that particular diagnosis before. I’ll have to read up on it.’

  ‘I can send you some references,’ Dr Ferris said. ‘But for now, don’t let me keep you.’

  I stood and went towards the door. She had forgotten about the ointment and I didn’t want to whinge. ‘Sorry I missed the shift change,’ I said. ‘What time is it usually?’

  ‘Eight,’ said Dr Ferris. ‘Monday to Friday. Noon at the weekend. I’ll give you a residents list with short notes and you can get up to speed before tomorrow.’

  ‘Only I stayed back to get my son settled after his rough night.’

  She nodded, but she was reading something on her desk.

  ‘Sorry about that, by the way,’ I added.

  She shook her head absently. ‘Teenagers!’

  Maybe someone who had anorexics and cutters and junkies all round her every day didn’t think a boy walking about alone in the wet and cold was worrisome. I wondered briefly about her daughter. Then I left the room, closing the door softly, and made my way to Sylvie.

  Chapter 8

  She didn’t even look up when I wheeled my mobile table into her room. Not a flicker. She was sitting where she had been the last time, sunk into her chair, her hands lying in her lap and her legs splayed. One of her ankles had rolled over. I crouched and righted it, pulling her slipper straight. The oedema still bothered me and her skin was cold. Just like that I decided the manicure could wait.

  I took all the pillows off her bed and the cushions from the other chair too. Then I stood in front of her and brushed her hands. ‘Come on, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Upsy-daisy.’ She let me pull her to her feet, lead her to the treatment table and push her down until she was sitting. After that I had to lift and swivel her, using my own strength, until her head was nestled in the neck pillow and her legs were raised on the pile of cushions, well above her heart. I took her slippers off and pulled a breath in over my teeth. Her feet were blotched purple under thick yellow rinds of dead skin, the nails long and dirty in the corners.

  ‘Oh, Sylvie,’ I said.

  Sylvie gazed at the ceiling with that same distant look on her face.

  I wrapped her legs in hot towels, dunked in her bathroom sink, and started massaging her feet, gently at first, wondering how she’d be. But even when I traced a finger up and down her instep there was nothing. Not a jerk, not a gasp, not even a twitch, and I knew how strange that was. I’d got good at ducking out of the way of kicks when I went in hard on the soles with my scraper. But Sylvie was like one of the dummies we trained on. So I got my clippers and cracked off a quarter-inch of yellow-grey horn from each toe, cleaned under what was left and lathered them in cuticle oil, while I took a brush to her legs.

  I even shaved them. I’d never shaved someone else’s legs before. I’d never tried to do a pedicure on feet that were up in the air either. But I managed, with a bit of water-spillage and using every towel in my collection an
d hers. By the time I was smoothing lotion on, long strokes all the way from her toes to her knees I was sure she was looking better, less purple, and certainly warmer. I covered her with a blanket and went to the head of the table.

  She was asleep. Her breaths were slow and deep and, under her eyelids – thin as silk – her eyes were moving. She must dream like other people, I thought. Did she remember, when she woke up again, that she’d been dreaming?

  I stroked her hair back and we stayed like that for ten minutes, her sleeping and me stroking, until, with a small sigh, she opened her eyes and smiled at me.

  ‘There,’ I said. ‘Isn’t that better? Now I’m going to sit you back in your chair and do your hands.’

  I couldn’t bear to put her smooth feet into her old slippers again, so I chose two pairs of loose socks from her underwear drawer and cosied her into them. I kept checking all the time I did her manicure, and I was almost sure her feet were a better colour.

  Sylvie showed no interest in anything that was happening. Even when I held her hands up in front of her face – her nails now pale ovals and her skin gleaming with lotion – her pupils didn’t shift. She kept gazing straight through to that middle distance she was always watching.

  ‘Well, then,’ I said, laying them in her lap again. ‘I better go and get this lot in the laundry system before your next shower, eh?’ I jerked my head at the heap of wet towels. ‘Or you’ll have to shake like a dog. Eh?’ I shook her hands in mine, swinging them, then pumping them back and forward as if we were jiving. And it might have been my imagination but I was sure they weren’t quite lifeless in mine. I was almost sure she pushed and pulled a little, too.

  ‘I’ve trashed all Sylvie’s towels giving her a pedicure,’ I said, coming into the staff kitchenette and finding Hinny there, as I had the day before. ‘How does the washing work? Can I run them through or is there somewhere we put them? And where can I get clean ones to go in her bathroom?’

  Hinny looked at me over the rim of her coffee cup and flashed a look of mock horror. I hoped it was mock horror. ‘You’re brave,’ she said.