by Megan Tayte
Me: Hey, babe. Good day?
Luke: Not bad. You?
Me: Well, the falling-off-a-cliff bit kind of sucked.
Luke: You what?! Are you hurt?! What happened?! You could have died! I nearly lost you! I’m never letting you out of my sight again! How are you still alive?!
Clearly, sending Luke into a spin wasn’t fair, especially when I couldn’t be entirely honest…
Me: Jude pulled me up. Which was kind of pointless as I’m going to die.
So instead, I put on pyjamas, dragged my quilt down to the living room and sought solace in an evening of brainless television viewing.
In retrospect, I really should have stuck to BBC One. A spot of bird-watching in Countryfile and then a squabble over a fruit-and-veg stall in EastEnders, followed by a sedate period drama in which the most violence on offer was a fencing match watched by swooning women. But while channel-flicking I happened upon an oldish teen film I hadn’t seen with a rather attractive male lead.
I realised fairly quickly this film was dark. But by the time it registered that it was a gory horror movie about a bunch of young people being stalked by Death, some sick, masochistic part of me couldn’t turn over. You know when you’re crawling down the motorway in an almighty traffic jam and blue flashing lights signal an accident ahead and you know, you know you shouldn’t look, but you do anyway – taking in the twisted metal and scattered glass, fascinated, compelled? That was me. I sat, with mounting revulsion, through a strangulation, an RTA, an impalement and a decapitation.
By the time the final credits were rolling, I was a gibbering wreck. I had imagined every possible permutation of my own end, each more implausible than the last: drowning in the bath, electrocuting myself on the toaster, choking on a chocolate raisin, getting a t-shirt stuck as I pulled it on and suffocating. Jude had told me it wouldn’t be that way. I would be sick, was already sick. Like Sienna. But the brick, the cliff – I had some sense of danger around me, of violence looming.
Death wanted me.
Outside, the wind tapped a tree branch against the window. At least, I assumed it was a tree. It was a tree, right?
I crept over to the window. The sun had set, and here on the cliff, away from other houses and streetlights, there reigned the pure darkness of nature. I’d always found the isolation peaceful, but tonight the night seemed thick with threat and I had the crawling sensation that someone – something – was out there. Watching me.
I snatched up the phone and dialled Luke.
‘Hey. Are you feeling better?’
‘Yes. No.’
‘What’s up? Are you okay?’
‘I watched a horror film.’
A soft laugh down the phone.
‘Let me guess – you’re all alone in the house, and it’s dark out, and every sound is a psycho coming to get you.’
‘Bingo.’
‘What’s Chester doing?’
I looked over at the dog. ‘He’s fast asleep with his legs in the air.’
‘Doesn’t sound like there’s much threat there to me then.’
I was silent.
‘You want me to come over?’
‘No. It’s okay. It’s late. Just needed to hear your voice.’
‘Well, here it is. What film did you watch?’
‘Final Destination.’
‘Ah. In death there are no accidents, no coincidences, no mishaps, and no escapes.’
My stomach lurched. ‘What?’
‘It’s what that Candyman mortician says in the film, isn’t it?’
‘Oh. Right. Luke?’
‘Yes?’
‘I don’t want to be squashed by a bus, or impaled, or decapitated.’
‘I don’t imagine anyone does.’
‘I don’t want to die at all.’
‘Scarlett, are you okay? It’s just a film.’
I closed my eyes and forced a brighter tone. ‘I know. Sorry. All spooked out.’
‘Don’t be sorry. I find clowns disturbing thanks to Stephen King’s It. And Cara still has Exorcist nightmares. But maybe you should stick to chick flicks when I’m not there to hide behind.’
‘There’s no maybe about it. Bridget Jones all the way from here on.’
‘I like that film. I like her enormous pants.’
That made me laugh.
‘I also like her blue soup.’
‘Could be one for the menu in your future restaurant.’
For the next ten minutes I listened and smiled as Luke talked emphatically on the theme ‘What’s in a colour? A soup by any other colour would taste as good’, until finally the shadows receded and the cottage felt cosy and the tree outside the window was just a tree once more.
‘Luke?’ I said.
‘Yes?’
‘Thank you.’
‘Any time. You okay now?’
‘I’m okay now. I love you.’
‘I love you too.’
Only after I’d hung up did I whisper the words I wished I could say:
‘Don’t let me go. Please.’
9: THE STUFF OF STORIES
Now this is living! All those years stuck at Willake and Hollythwaite, grey and regimented and dull, dull, dull. Be sensible, Sienna. Be civilised, Sienna. Be a good little puppet, Sienna. But here, it’s all about the moment – wind and sea and speed and thrill. GodDAMN I love the surf. And the surfers. And the part-ays.
And the power! I healed a seagull today. Not because I care much for them – stupid, annoying, squawking, pooping – but because I could.
~
My first row with Jude.
Honestly, the fuss he made when I told him about healing a little girl today! I mean, what was I meant to do, help her up off the promenade and take her back to her mum with blood oozing out of her knee? What’s right with that, when with just a little touch I can take away the pain and the gore? And I made that kid’s day. Now she knows magic’s not just the stuff of stories.
But even though I did a Good Thing, Jude was all, ‘I told you not to use the light – you don’t have a clue what you’re doing. And I told you to keep it a secret.’ Which is true enough. But I hated him yelling at me, so I yelled back louder. He told me to calm down. So I told him (not very politely) to go away. So he did. Just like that. One second he was there, in the garden, looking about ready to explode with anger. The next he was gone. He out-dramatic-exited me!
I spent the rest of the day focusing really hard on vanishing like him. All I ended up with was a headache that no painkiller will shift.
~
He came back.
Oh God oh God oh God oh God oh God.
And I don’t even believe in God. Didn’t. Do I now?
Oh hell.
~
I haven’t written for a while. I didn’t know what to write. I still don’t, but I need to write something, to get all the IMPOSSIBLE out of my head.
I was so damn happy. It was so different here. Easy. Real. I knew it couldn’t last forever – the parentals would work out where I was eventually – but I thought at least until the summer, and then I’d apply for cruise work.
But then Jude laid it all out – in one massive, mind-blowing, gut-wrenching, stop-or-I’ll-throw-up hit.
1. He’s a Cerulean. Some kind of not-an-angel who heals people.
2. I’m a Cerulean. Kind of. I’m actually more human than Cerulean right now, but I’m Becoming.
3. Becoming is a euphemism for dying. Dying. D.Y.I.N.G. Since my eighteenth birthday, when I ‘came of age’ (how archaic is that?), I’ve been dying.
4. Jude is here for me, to take me with him to someplace called Cerulea when the time comes.
5. The trip is one-way. No coming back.
I didn’t take the news well. I’m ashamed now, when I think of the things I said to Jude, the things I did. Because this time he didn’t do a disappearing act. He stayed and he took all the crap I threw at him. He told me later it was a pretty textbook reaction to grief:
&nb
sp; Denial: ‘You’re off your rocker.’
Anger: ‘Go to hell! I won’t let you take me!’
Bargaining: ‘Give me the summer, and then I’ll come quietly.’
Depression: black, black, black, black.
It’s taken some time, but I’ve got to the end, to the final stage: acceptance. Because you know what? These past months, I’ve never felt so alive. And it’s not about the freedom or the partying or the surfing or the blokes. It’s about the light. I want it. All of it. So what if I have to die to get it? Dying to live. Works for me.
There’s just one thing still holding me back, hurting me. Scarlett. I hate the thought of abandoning her alone in this world.
10: STRINGS
‘Are you here to bring me to life? You’re too late. I’m already alive. Was it you who made me that way? Was I wood?’
‘Er…’
‘The Blue Fairy – you were always my favourite, dear.’
‘Oh.’
‘Though I like Jiminy too. He has a very nice hat, for a cricket, don’t you think?’
‘Um. Yes?’
Seemingly satisfied with my answer, the diminutive white-haired lady across from me took a noisy slurp of her tea and smacked her lips with satisfaction. I picked up my own cup and took a sip, to give me something to do, and looked once more towards the door through which Luke had disappeared what seemed like eons ago.
I had surprised myself in volunteering to visit Luke’s grandmother with him this afternoon. I wasn’t quite sure what had prompted me to come. Curiosity about the only other surviving Cavendish? The reassurance that came with being in Luke’s company? Yes – but it was more than that. It was about a notebook lying on a bedside table beside a blue rock. It was about words that bled on the page: Scarlett… abandoning… alone.
Now I had to reflect that if I was looking for escapism, I had picked the perfect place. Cara and Luke had both mentioned over the past weeks that their gran wasn’t quite compos mentis – but when Cara had lovingly said she was ‘away with the fairies’, I hadn’t for a moment thought she meant literally. She had moments of lucidity, Luke had explained on the drive over, but generally she lived in a fairytale world. The shelves of the bookcase in her room were stacked with Disney DVDs and children’s story books, and on the wall Luke and Cara had stuck up prints of fantasy scenes – unicorns and castles and cottages nestled in woodland with softly smoking chimneys.
The lady herself, tiny, dimpled and twinkly-eyed, had been delighted at the arrival of her visitors, especially one of the female persuasion. Soon after introductions she’d dispatched Luke to find biscuits to accompany our tea, leaving me to negotiate a twisting and turning conversation.
‘Are you Peter’s friend?’ she asked abruptly. ‘You remind me of him, Little Blue Fairy. I like that Peter. You know the one?’
‘Um…’ I searched my memory bank for fairytale Peters. ‘Peter Pan?’
‘No, dear.’
‘Peter from Peter and the Wolf?’
‘No, dear.’
I was grasping at straws now. ‘Beatrix Potter’s Peter?’
She chuckled. ‘That’s silly. He’s a rabbit. How can you be friends with a rabbit, dear?’
Quite.
‘I’m sorry. I’m not sure which Peter you mean…’ I looked again at the door. Where was Luke getting the biscuits from, Tesco’s Timbuktu?
‘Peter, dear. The cottage on the cliff.’
I twisted around to meet her gaze. Her eyes were a faded version of Luke’s and Cara’s.
‘Peter Jones was my grandfather,’ I told her. ‘I’m his granddaughter. I’m Scarlett.’
‘Scarlett. Your name means red – ruby, crimson, blood.’
‘Yes, that’s right.’
‘But you’re blue – azure, aquamarine, cobalt, cerulean.’
My heart picked up. Was it possible – did she know…
She beamed at me. ‘Blue like a Smurf! My little boy, Ryan – he loves Smurfs. Now tell me, dear, who are you?’
Was it a moment of clarity? If it was, it had passed already – she was staring at a painting of the Cinderella castle and merrily humming ‘When You Wish Upon a Star’. I reached over and laid my hand over the thin, soft skin of her wrinkled old hand. Could I do something for her? Could I heal her fractured mind? I closed my eyes and focused…
‘Garibaldis!’
I jumped in my chair, my eyes flew open and I dropped the old lady’s hand.
Luke was striding across the room holding a packet of biscuits aloft with all the glory of an Olympic torch bearer. He sank into the seat next to me and tore them open.
‘Gramps used to call these dead-fly biscuits, because he said the raisins looked like flies – do you remember, Grannie?’
‘I remember, Luke,’ she said. ‘And he called pink wafer biscuits pink waffers.’
Luke beamed at his grandmother. ‘That’s right, Grannie.’
We all took a biscuit and munched in companionable silence. Grannie Cavendish got engrossed in brushing crumbs from her dress, and then she looked up and said:
‘Ryan! Hello, darling!’
Luke’s shoulders slumped, and I reached over and put a hand on his knee.
He said gently, ‘I’m Luke. Ryan’s son.’
‘Well, where’s Ryan?’
‘He – he couldn’t come to visit today. He’s busy. At work.’
Grannie’s mouth pulled down into a little-girl pout. ‘Will he come tomorrow?’
‘Yes. Tomorrow. And he sends his love.’
The old lady transferred her gaze to me. ‘Who are you?’
‘This is my girlfriend, Grannie,’ said Luke. ‘Remember? I just introduced her to you a little while ago.’
Grannie Cavendish clapped delightedly. ‘A girlfriend! Wonderful. And such a beautiful girl. Well, don’t be shy, dear. What’s your name?’
‘Scarlett,’ I croaked.
‘Scarlett! That’s a lovely name. It means red, you know.’
I nodded, bracing myself for the next line. But thankfully, it never came.
‘There was a Rose Red in the Snow White story, you know. But not the film. Perhaps she ran off with Humbert the Huntsman…’
*
We stayed with Grannie Cavendish for another hour, and right before we left she asked ‘the Blue Fairy’ to please put on her Pinocchio film, so I did.
‘Thanks for coming today,’ said Luke as we made our way, hand in hand, out of the main doors of the home. ‘She loves visitors.’
‘She’s a pleasure to visit.’
His hand squeezed mine. ‘Thanks. I know she’s a bit…’
‘You don’t have to apologise for her, Luke,’ I said. ‘She’s a really, really nice lady.’
I thought that would make him smile, but it didn’t. He looked upset. We were in the gardens between the home and the car park, and I steered him to a wooden bench next to a little pond.
‘Sit,’ I ordered.
He did, pulling me down onto his lap. He put his arms around me and leaned his head on my chest. I kissed the top of his head.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Life,’ he said heavily. ‘The way it works. That you can be a really, really nice lady who spends her whole life looking after other people, and end your days all alone, your son gone, your husband gone, stuck living with strangers and waiting for God. She deserves better than that.’
‘She’s not alone. She has you. And Cara.’
‘And we’re selfish – we try to come on alternate days, but not always. It’s easy to find an excuse. School for Cara, work for me. Too busy. Too tired. But the truth is, sometimes it’s too hard coming here and seeing her like this. She’s not the woman she used to be. Lost in her Disney films.’
I thought about my time alone with Luke’s grandmother. I’d felt sad for her, like Luke – sad enough to have tried to heal her damaged mind. But would it have been right to do so? Would it have been fair on her, what she’d have wanted? Perhaps not, I thoug
ht. She seemed content as she was.
‘Maybe that’s not such a terrible way to be,’ I suggested gently. ‘Her fairytale life is better than her real one.’
He was silent.
I wished I could take it away, all his guilt and worry. Then he could just be a regular nineteen-year-old – young, free, fun-loving – rather than a guy struggling under the weight of his responsibility to his family.
My hand under his chin brought his face out of hiding. I touched a gentle finger to the silvery scar across the bridge of his nose – a vestige of the accident that had taken his parents from him.
‘I love you,’ I whispered.
It was the only thing I could say, but it was the right thing. He kissed me, at first gently and then with mounting passion – until a scraping noise nearby brought us up short. An elderly man was clinging to a walking frame on the path close by. Very close by.
‘Go on, my son!’ he said to Luke in a wavering voice. ‘Don’t stop on my account. Gawd, if I were seventy years younger, I’d –’
We made a fast retreat, and managed to hold in the laughter until we were in Luke’s van. Either the kiss or the voyeuristic geriatric (the former, I hoped) had restored Luke’s good mood, and he sang along with the radio as he drove us back to the cove. He had a decent singing voice, like his grandmother, whom we’d left warbling Pinocchio’s ‘I’ve Got No Strings’. There was something profoundly moving about her cheerful rendering of the line ‘I’m as happy as can be’. Ignorance could indeed be bliss. I longed for that myself. But my sister’s diary was waiting for me at home. Spiky inked words fusing into a mass of strings to entangle me. No escape.
11: LATER
There’s a new guy in town. Daniel.
We were all on the beach last night – campfire and beers – and he sat down beside me. I thought he was one of Si’s friends. We got talking. Just this and that, nothing deep. But then Jude appeared (late, as always) and it got really weird.
Jude said something like, ‘Get away from her. You have no claim.’
Daniel was all, ‘We’ll see about that.’
I blew. Don’t get me wrong – Jude jealous is mighty fine, and two boys rowing over me isn’t to be sniffed at. But no one ‘claims’ me. I’m a person, not a bloody thing to own.