The Insect Rosary

by Sarah Armstrong

  I had forgotten about the dare, but now it came back to me. The best way would be to whisper her name twice and then say it louder, but that was a bit like cheating. I glanced at Sister Agatha. She always looked so cross. I wondered what it would take to make her laugh. I wondered if she’d ever laughed. Just about anything can set me off, even knowing that I really mustn’t laugh can make me. School assemblies or churches are the worst, or in the middle of getting told off. And I always felt like I was getting told off by Sister Agatha even if she was just asking me if wanted a drink.

  I needed to create an emergency, one where you call for help, but I’d had enough trouble today. I decided to just give it a go and then I could swear to Nancy that I tried.

  ‘Agatha?’

  She was looking out of the little kitchen to the parlour.

  ‘Agatha?’

  She still didn’t move or answer me. I moved to the side to see what she was looking at. It was the door of Cassie’s room. She hadn’t heard me. I felt guilty for feeling triumphant that I could do it. It would mean something different to her, that I wanted to bring her death or the devil, but I just couldn’t understand it. It was like her belief that you never turned around if you heard footsteps behind you because it might be a spirit and they can kill. To me I would just think it was a person and want to know who was going to jump out at me. And shouldn’t spirits be in heaven or hell anyway?

  I whispered, ‘Agatha.’

  She whipped round and made me jump.

  ‘What?’ Her eyes looked strange and she was blinking a lot.

  ‘I think I’m finished.’

  ‘Right. Off you go. Oh wait, I have a gift for you and Nancy.’ She put her hand into her pocket and pulled out two little plastic bags. She handed them to me. There were two strings of rosary beads, black and shiny like a line of beetles.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  ‘They’re to be used. They’re not decorations.’

  I nodded, stuffed them in my pocket and ran out to Nancy. Bruce had gone and she was sitting on the doorstep in the drizzle.

  ‘Let’s go to the hay loft,’ she said.

  She jumped on a bale and pretended she was on Top of the Pops, as usual. She kept saying that she’d get there one day. Sandra’s sister, a couple of years older, had gone and was going to get her in. The first our parents would know about it was when they were stunned, like the rest of the country, by her superb style and co-ordination in front of Duran Duran.

  ‘Not Bucks Fizz, though.’ She had standards. Usually they were Sandra’s standards first. They were changing all the time and Duran Duran probably wouldn’t cut it by the time she got to Top of the Pops. Her latest album, taped from a turntable by placing her tape recorder in front of the speakers, was ‘Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)’. It wasn’t that new, but Sandra’s new boyfriend was mad on it. Her favourite song had a tape of its own so they could practise their routine. Every time the song ended she would move the needle back and tape it again, so it filled the whole thirty minutes of that side of the tape. She played it on her Omega pretend Walkman that she bought from the market, but she was saving up for a real Walkman.

  I didn’t think she got all the words right, but she swore she’d copied them into her notebook carefully.

  ‘I think it’s “sleeping in the streets”,’ I said.

  ‘Well, it isn’t. Sandra checked the lyrics and she knows. She gets Smash Hits every week. She doesn’t have to guess.’

  I left her to it and climbed up three bales, challenging myself to jump off. I couldn’t quite do it, two was enough, but I sat up there and pretended I wasn’t scared, just sitting. Nancy was trying to do a full body jump and turn whenever she sang “do”, but wasn’t quite pulling it off. David Bowie was rubbish to dance to, but Nancy said Adam Ant was silly, Madness was for babies and Captain Sensible was just awful, so I didn’t say what I liked. She knew what was good because she was at Comprehensive now, and they knew all of that kind of thing. I had to pay attention, so I could tell everyone at my school what they should say. It changed all the time though and made my head hurt.

  ‘Sandra says she’s getting her hair permed in the summer and dyed blonde.’

  ‘Sandra says only have sex standing up when you’ve got your period.’

  ‘Sandra says that she’s going to start smoking when she’s fourteen so she doesn’t get fat.’

  ‘Sandra knows these exercises that make your boobs bigger.’

  I lay back on the bale, so only my legs dangled off and listened for rustling. We weren’t allowed in the hay loft really. Mum always said that it was full of rats, but if it was I would have seen them. She was probably exaggerating and it was only mice. Even Donn said the bales might fall on us and suffocate us but we were super careful and that would never happen.

  Sometimes there were cows in the silo next door and we could spy on them from the bales. They didn’t do much. Sometimes Bruce would sit by the gate and run up to anyone coming towards us which gave us a bit of time to pull the hay from each other’s hair, but not today.

  I looked at the corrugated roof and listened to Nancy. She was halfway through a fresh burst of the first chorus, out of tune because her headphones were in and so that didn’t count. Then she stopped. I lifted myself onto one elbow, imagining her splayed on the ground. She was standing on the bale, though, pushing at the buttons on her stereo. Tommy was standing a couple of feet away, his arms folded.

  ‘All right, Nance?’

  She nodded and pulled the headphones off. I shrank back, even though my legs were totally obvious if he looked up.

  ‘I hope you’re not misbehaving.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Good. I’ll be back tonight, so we don’t want anyone creeping around when they should be in bed. Do you understand me?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Grand,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you remember our chat. Because little girls who are too curious tend to get their tongues cut out. Ask no questions and tell no tales, and stay out of my fucking way.’ He looked up at me, ‘Right, Bernadette?’

  I jumped and nodded a lot, so he could see me. I couldn’t believe he’d used that word. Nancy had told me it was nearly the worst one ever.

  ‘But you’re all right, aren’t you Nancy?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I like your dancing. Very sophisticated.’

  Nancy blushed and looked away. He walked back to the lane and we heard his car fire up and drive away.

  Nancy climbed up to sit next to me. Her cheeks were still flushed and she was blinking. She blushed a lot around him. He could be on TV, she said once. I said she fancied him and she nearly broke my arm, so I just thought it now.

  ‘We should have checked for cars,’ I said. ‘I didn’t see him come in the house.’

  ‘He doesn’t always come in,’ said Nancy. ‘He came out of one of the stables.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘Don’t know. He wasn’t on his own. There were three others with him before.’

  ‘Was that one with shiny shoes there?’

  Nancy nodded and looked away. No-one else ever wore shoes out here, let alone shiny ones. I looked towards the barns and smirked.

  ‘He said you were sophisticated.’

  ‘Shut up.’

  She blushed a bit and picked at the bale. I hugged my legs.

  ‘Why does he hate us?’

  ‘We’re English.’

  ‘But we’re Catholic too.’

  ‘Too English to be proper Catholics, he says.’ She straightened up and tossed her hair, ‘But he said I was beautiful and if I wasn’t English he’d be in love with me.’

  ‘But you are.’

  She looked at me and then looked away.

  ‘Was he talking to you when I was inside?’

  ‘Just for a minute.’

  ‘He said a lot in a minute,’ I said. ‘He’s nicer to you than he is to me. Maybe I look more English.’

  I was start
ing to try to get my head round what all the signs and symbols meant. The red, white and blue kerbstones, the green, white and gold flags. It was complicated, more complicated than saying you didn’t like songs that you did like. It was knowing what shops you could go in and which streets were safe and making sure you said Derry when it was spelled Londonderry.

  ‘Everyone hates us,’ I said.

  Nancy shrugged and looked towards the gate. We sat quietly, listening. Tommy had left the barn but there might still be other men, even scarier men, in there now.

  Nancy shivered. It was starting to rain.

  ‘Shall we go in?’ I asked.

  She nodded. We climbed down from the bales and began to pick the hay from each other, brushing it off our own clothes where we could see it. We went through the gate and walked slowly past an old tractor and the carts which weren’t used any more. I started to imagine someone leaping from one of the barns and tried to run.

  ‘You can’t run in wellies!’ shouted Nancy.

  I could try. I stopped, went back to her and dug into my pocket.

  ‘Sister Agatha gave me this for you.’ I held out the beads.

  ‘Wow.’ Nancy pulled hers from the bag and dangled them from one finger. ‘Thanks. Hide yours so she doesn’t make us do any praying.’

  6

  Now

  It was a much longer walk to the village than Nancy remembered. Even Elian, who often walked to work on a Friday instead of paying for the gym, was tired.

  ‘Are you sure it’s only two and a half miles?’ he said, twice. He frequently took his phone from his pocket to check for reception, even though Nancy had told him it was unlikely. They kept to the wet grass of the roadside although there were few cars, as when they came there was little time to jump out of the way. Their shoes were still damp from the day before anyway. The roads curved around, almost back on themselves, and Hurley was the only one of them who seemed to accept it as a walk. Both Elian and Nancy wanted more from it, both scanning the landscape for interesting things to point out. They found little to say.

  They crossed the river Bann over the narrow stone bridge and arrived in the village. Nancy headed for the nearest shop, a convenience store, she wanted to call it.

  ‘Is this it?’ asked Elian. ‘Isn’t this the outskirts?’

  ‘This is it. Just don’t chat to anyone about anything other than the weather.’

  ‘I got it last night. No religion, no politics. Agatha brought up religion, not me.’

  ‘She asked if you were planning on going to mass, not what you thought about the different denominations and their role in the world.’

  Elian sighed and looked around. A couple of roads of black and grey buildings, the police station which still, even now, looked like a well-defended fort in which secret and terrible things happened – this was it.

  ‘I’ll just go for a wander,’ said Elian.

  Nancy felt like saying, don’t bother. The word village isn’t a promise that it will look like some pretty and abandoned town of yokels in Somerset, or poets in the Lake District. Sometimes a village is small because no-one else wants to move there.

  She nodded and took Hurley inside. She remembered this shop being the most exciting place in the world. They would test run sweets and fizzy drinks in Northern Ireland before deciding to roll them out in England. She liked being part of this early wave of people who got to decide things. Now, at home, she got all of these American products before they were introduced here, but that wasn’t really the same. She looked around, but she didn’t really know now what sweets were new and what were already sold in every newsagent in the UK. There was little that Hurley recognised but she’d long told him that English chocolate was much better than American. Sweeter and paler and easier to eat more of in one go, but she didn’t say the last bit.

  ‘Choose something,’ she said, ‘just remember it won’t be exactly the same as at home.’

  She looked around for food to add a little variety to what Agatha fed them at the strict mealtimes. She had a feeling that Agatha would disapprove of any eating outside of these times, but she was also sure that life would be easier if Elian and Hurley could be occasionally lifted by a change. A change back to what they recognised as normal, in a way. Not that their kitchen was full of chocolate or crisps. It wasn’t very processed, very American at all. The doctors had all agreed on the importance of Hurley’s diet being simple and lacking in colours and other additives. It was their last chance to show that he didn’t need any medication, that his diet could eliminate the worst excesses of his behaviour. In fact, she thought, Agatha’s plain cooking was probably exactly what Hurley needed. She just wanted to add a few different vegetables and fruit, that was all. And some chocolate to hide in the suitcase, under her clothes. And beer for Elian, who fetishized European lager in the way Budweiser used to be cool in England. She chose one with monks on the front as it seemed to be even more European, although she’d never have thought that when she lived here.

  Hurley had a Snicker and dropped it into the basket.

  ‘Half today and half tomorrow, OK?’ she said.

  He shrugged and went to look at the magazines. She chose eight bottles of beer from the alcohol aisle and then put two back. They had to carry whatever they bought. When they brought the car they could get more.

  Hurley appeared at her side again. ‘That man was talking but I don’t know what he said.’

  Nancy looked over his shoulder. The man looked cross and was putting a magazine back into its slot.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Nancy, ‘he was probably just being friendly.’

  They took the basket to the counter and paid, Nancy looking at each note carefully to make sure she gave the right amount. She could have used her card but wanted the familiarity of the money, the thick, colourful notes and different shaped coins. It made her think of pocket money and how much she used to value pound coins, and weren’t all the silver coins smaller, somehow thinner?

  She bagged up the shopping in parachute thin plastic bags and left the shop. Elian was waiting outside.

  ‘I finally found some reception and then my phone died.’

  ‘I told you to turn it off. Looking for reception wears down the battery.’

  ‘There’s no point repeating it, is there? I just told you what happened.’

  ‘I got you some beer.’ She looked at him. ‘Where’s the backpack?’

  ‘I thought you were bringing it.’

  ‘Where,’ she tried to flap her arms, ‘exactly would I have hidden that?’ She held out one bag to him.

  ‘Don’t they have any paper bags?’

  ‘Why don’t you go in and ask them if they supply paper bags for American tourists?’

  ‘Well, ten thousand Elvis impersonators can’t be wrong.’ He looked at the bag. ‘This is really going to hurt my hand.’

  Hurley searched in Elian’s bag and then Nancy’s bag for the Snicker.

  ‘And you thought that was a good idea?’ Elian continued.

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Didn’t the dietician –’

  ‘Yes, I know.’

  They set off back down the road.

  Nearly back at the house, a plastic bag stripe scoring her palm, Nancy remembered the stones in the field. She assumed they were still there, but hadn’t checked from her bedroom window. Elian and Hurley wouldn’t have known, even if they were there, from the road. The hedges that lined the field either side of the gate were thick and varied. The concrete posts which secured either side of the gate didn’t look like the entrance to a historical anomaly. She remembered that her father had loved these stones, had studied them and then been banned from ever coming near them.

  They placed their feet carefully, crossing the cattle grid, but Elian slipped and there was a crack. Beer began to drip from the holes in the bottom of the plastic bag.

  ‘Brilliant,’ he said.

  ‘See if there are any left.’

  He lowered the bag to th
e ground and pulled the handles apart. ‘Three down, one left.’

  Nancy groaned. ‘I’ve still got two.’

  Elian pulled out a large piece of brown glass and looked around for somewhere to put it.

  ‘You can’t leave it lying around. It all has to come inside.’

  He put it back in the bag and carried it at arm’s length so the drips didn’t land on his shoes. She went in the front door and held her hand up.

  ‘You can’t drip it through the house.’

  ‘But, what about the dog?’

  ‘It’s a sheepdog. You’re not a sheep. Just pretend that you’re in charge.’

  He went around the house and she took her bag to the parlour and sat down in Agatha’s chair. Elian was exhausting. She assumed Hurley had gone upstairs. Nancy heard the dog barking, but the dog was always barking at birds, at visitors, at the weather. The dog stopped barking, and there was a moment of silence. That’s when the screaming started. She hadn’t heard Hurley scream like that, not as a toddler, not in one of his most recent tantrums. He screamed now and, tasting copper at the back of her mouth, she ran.

  ‘It just attacked him,’ said Elian, kneeling by Hurley, his hands clasped together.

  Her hands slipped against the door handles, her knees buckled at the step and she half fell towards Hurley. He held his hand towards her and she smiled, for some reason, smiled with her mouth but her eyes kept sliding away from the blood. She could smell it, like a handful of copper coins held in a child’s palm for too long, that stink of blood she carried with her. She shrugged her cardigan off, her elbows getting caught, and gently wrapped his leg in the green wool thinking, this isn’t good for the wound, this is even worse for my cardigan, but her brain preferred the cool mint to the scarlet lacerations and she managed to block out Hurley for a few seconds to think, where is the dog?