House. Tree. Person.

by Catriona McPherson

“There’s nothing you can do,” he said and his voice started juddering even harder. He put his arm up over his eyes to hide his face, or maybe to block the light. I reached up and clicked the courtesy light through all its settings until the car was in darkness. “And it’s nothing to do with my bloody phone,” he added.

  “Okay,” I said. “But try me.”

  “You could let me leave school,” he said. “I’m sixteen in three months. Say I’ve got glandular fever so I never need to go back again. Or we could move house.”

  “Tell me what happened.”

  “I can’t!” he said again. “I don’t want to upset you. I don’t want to make you ill as well as everything.”

  I sat back, stunned to a lead lump. That was something my granny used to say and she was right. Those were Marco’s words coming at me out of our son’s mouth. Not to get upset. Not to risk getting ill. Had he been loading Angel up with worry over me?

  “I am stronger than I’ve ever been in my life,” I said, squashing down the memory of the voice calling from under the muddy boards, the missing slab of time today. “I was spitting mad with your dad for keeping quiet. I’m your mum, Angel. You’ll understand when you’ve got kids of your own.”

  He had been gulping and gasping, getting himself together, but now he bent forward and let go, his curled back bucking as a sob came out of him like a thunderclap. I rubbed him and shushed him and after a minute he swiveled over and rested his head in my lap. I stroked his wet hair back from his face and looked down at him: the sheen of snot on his lip like when he was a toddler playing out in the cold, but also the wisps of hair darkening in front of his ears and the little paintbrush swipes of it at the corners of his mouth. Those scabbed spots he’d been picking in the crease of his chin.

  “I won’t have kids,” he said. I kept stroking but stopped shushing.

  Was that all it was? Was he coming out?

  “Nobody’s going to want me,” he said. “After this.”

  “After what?”

  “Mum, I can’t tell you!” But then, as if he hadn’t said it or as if the words meant something else, he did. Honking and spluttering, he did.

  “I met someone. We kind of hung out a few times. And then we met up. And then we went on an actual date. Last night.”

  “Last night?” I said, thinking back over the evening: the sirens, the neighbours, the cops coming in. “Wait, you mean online?”

  “You said I could tell you anything,” he reminded me. “No, I mean later. I went out once you and dad were upstairs.”

  “I didn’t hear the—”

  “I climbed out the window.”

  “Where did you go?” I said. Any other night I’d assume he went over to the Abbey, but there were still police around.

  “She picked me up and we went to the beach round at Ross Bay.”

  “What do you mean she picked you up?” I said. “Jesus Christ, Angel, how old is she?” I could see her, thirty-eight, a teacher at his school.

  “Fuck sake, Mum. She’s still at school but she’s old enough to drive. She got her provisional on her birthday and passed in ten lessons. She’s … That’s what she’s like.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “And then we were supposed to hook up again today after school. Her school let out early for teacher’s 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 anymore 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 that look on his face when he was a little boy and I fixed his dumper truck when the wheels came off or found the 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 forever. 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 my window, waiting until I wound it down.

  “You found him then?” she said. “Jolly good.”

  Angel slung one look sideways at me and 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. “Do you need to talk to someone?”

  Angelo shrunk 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. This 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, Angelo 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’ll know all about you, does she?”

  It was a shot in the dark. Angelo knew nothing “about me.” So 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 Angel 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 himself and shot the lock home. Then, finally, Marco looked at me.

  “You didn’t call me,” he said.

  “Well, that makes two of us then, 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. Oh hey,” I added. “Did I get any post? Something dead official?”

  “Likes of what?” he said.

  “Everyone keeps talking about something called a 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 my 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 off 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&R after all the upset.”

  “I can’t just take sick leave because my son got stood up,” I muttered under my breath. Then I hoisted a smile onto my face. “Oh well. A couple of hours alone 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 in the same time as the rest of the dayshift 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 I’d have to start getting here in time for the “change” anyway. After a bit, I might even chip in. I could tell them things that came out in the art therapy or share what I thought about their 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’ down the road, when I wasn’t scared and new anymore; 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 and then tucked them against her palm, flicking away the little rolls of skin—my skin!—and then clamping her 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 about it the wrong way,” 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 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. “I would prefer you choose the turnip truck approach. 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 that in Julia’s hearing,” said Dr. Ferris. “Heavens, if she got her teeth into that! No, the patricide is just one of her many confabu
lations. 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. “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 resident 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 last 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 cold, wet night was worrisome. I wondered briefly about her daughter. Then I left the room, closing the door softly, and made my way to Sylvie.

  Eight

  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, with her hands lying in her lap and her legs splayed out. One of her ankles had rolled over. I crouched and righted it, pulling her slipper straight. That 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. “Upsie-daisy.” She let me pull her to her feet and lead her over to the treatment table and she let me 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 up 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, and the nails were long and dirty in the corners.