The Gloaming

by Kirsty Logan

  Bidie-in

  MARA WATCHED FROM her bedroom window, waiting for Pearl. The sun was beginning to set, and all the puddles gleamed liquid gold. Mara still had Pearl’s copy of Mine, the black-covered book with its silver title. She kept it under her pillow, feeling the solidity of it every night as she fell asleep, and now she slid her hand beneath the pillow to comfort herself with its sharp edges. She stood like that, thumbing blindly through the book’s pages, waiting.

  Earlier, Signe had told Mara that Peter was sleeping in. But when he had emerged from his bedroom, his shirt wasn’t buttoned and he wasn’t wearing shoes. ‘Your mother,’ he said, his words running together. ‘I don’t want her to see.’ As Mara helped him, she tried to keep her smile steady. She spoke in a low voice, like she was soothing a horse. Under her buttoning fingers, his skin felt solid and cold, like meat from the fridge.

  Finally, Pearl appeared, swaying up the path like she was moving underwater. Mara felt her heart stutter. She’d wanted to stay there as Pearl approached. She’d wanted to make Pearl wait downstairs for her, to make a grand entrance, to be the heroine of the story. To be someone else.

  But with Pearl, she didn’t need to be someone else. She ran down the stairs and out of the house to meet her on the path.

  ‘Hey,’ said Pearl.

  ‘Hey,’ said Mara, a little out of breath. She didn’t know what to do with her hands.

  Understanding, Pearl took Mara’s hand. She stroked her thumb along the soft, scarred curve between Pearl’s thumb and first finger. Her hands felt cool and rough. Useful hands.

  ‘Is this really your house?’ said Pearl.

  Mara turned and squinted at it, even though she doubted the house could have changed while she wasn’t looking. ‘Of course it is.’

  ‘Serious?’ Pearl looked like she was trying not to laugh. ‘I didn’t realise it was …’

  ‘I told you we were fixing it up. I know it’s a mess. There’s still lots to do, but every time we fix something it seems like something else breaks, and I don’t know why it –’

  ‘Mara. That’s not what I’m saying. I mean – this house. Look at it.’

  Mara looked at it. Then she looked back at Pearl.

  ‘It looks like a birthday cake,’ said Pearl.

  ‘What? It’s a house. It looks like a house.’

  ‘It’s pink! It’s a castle, and it’s pink. It’s got bloody turrets and everything. It must have a thousand rooms.’ Pearl made a sound halfway between a gasp and a laugh. ‘Seriously, I feel like I’m hallucinating. Did I make you up? Did I make this all up?’

  ‘It’s not a castle! It is pink-ish, and it does have turrets, but only little ones. You can’t go in them. And there aren’t a thousand rooms. There aren’t even a hundred. Maybe fifty, if you count the shed and the utility room and the bigger cupboards, but most of the bedrooms have been shut up for years.’

  Pearl shook her head, still staring up at the house. ‘If fairy tales were real,’ she said, ‘this is where they would happen.’

  ‘That’s not – don’t say that, okay? Let’s just go in.’ Mara started walking, tugging Pearl along after her, up the path and into the house.

  ‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ Pearl was staring back at the doorway. ‘This house is unreal. Did we just walk through a shark jaw? You’re just full of mysteries.’

  Mara couldn’t help grinning, even though it tugged her scar tight. She squeezed both of Pearl’s hands in her own.

  The click of a door closing. The shush of footsteps in the upstairs hall. Right at the last minute, just before Signe appeared at the top of the stairs, Mara let go of Pearl’s hands. In the space of a second Pearl looked surprised, then sad. Then she composed herself and tilted her politest smile up at Signe.

  ‘This is my mum,’ said Mara. ‘Oh, but you don’t have to call her mum. Signe.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Pearl. Signe came down the stairs and put out her hand. Pearl hesitated, as if unsure whether Signe wanted her to shake it or kiss the back of it. She shook it. Signe extricated her hand a little too hastily.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I just have to get …’ And she disappeared back up the stairs.

  ‘And this’ – here Mara led Pearl into the front room, where Peter was sitting in his old leather chair, apparently lost in thought – ‘is my dad, Peter.’

  ‘Nice to meet you,’ said Pearl, and held out her hand. Peter turned his head slowly, slowly, but did not move his hand. Pearl stood for a moment, hand outstretched, before reaching for the nearest object, which happened to be a photo frame.

  ‘What’s this?’ she asked, before she’d looked at it. She held it out to Mara.

  ‘It’s us,’ said Mara. ‘All of us.’

  In the centre of the photo was birthday boy Bee, newly five, solid and blond and grinning to show all his teeth. A girl leaned grinning over him, willowy and knowing with her blood-red curls. And off to the side, Mara, square-bodied and unscarred. Their faces were lit below by the birthday cake candles. It was the last photo of their last summer together.

  ‘Nice to meet you too,’ said Peter from his chair. ‘It really is a pleasure.’

  Pearl glanced up at Mara in surprise. Mara held her gaze, pointedly not looking at her father. Pearl followed Mara’s lead, though she couldn’t help casting a polite smile in Peter’s direction. She looked down at the photo in her hand.

  ‘Your sister has great hair,’ she said.

  ‘Islay doesn’t live here any more,’ said Mara. ‘She moves around. But she’s coming – I think she’s coming. Soon. Maybe.’

  Now Pearl was looking properly at the photo, and a frown furrowed. She caught Mara looking and smoothed her brow. Mara knew it must be obvious to Pearl that Bee was much younger than his sisters. It must be obvious that he was too young to be out in the world alone, and he should be in his house. And it must be obvious that he was not.

  ‘Your brother,’ said Pearl carefully. ‘He looks like a wee heartbreaker.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mara, because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  ‘Sit down on the sofa, Mara,’ said Signe, who’d appeared behind them. ‘And you too, ah … Just sit yourselves there out of the way, and I’ll get started on dinner.’

  ‘I was hoping,’ said Pearl to Signe, and while she was distracted Mara eased the photo from her hands and placed it back on the table, ‘that you’d let me cook dinner for you.’

  ‘I got the ingredients,’ added Mara. ‘I walked to the shop earlier.’

  Signe hesitated.

  ‘Don’t argue,’ said Mara.

  ‘I’ll just pop into the kitchen and warm some cream for Peter’s whisky. I don’t usually, but – well, why not?’

  ‘I will,’ said Mara. ‘Let me. And I’ll make one for you too. You and Dad can talk.’

  ‘I … no, I don’t …’

  Peter turned his head and looked at Signe then.

  ‘Yes,’ said Signe, and her smile spread quick and then stayed. ‘Thank you, Mara.’ She sat on the chair beside Peter and put her hands beside his, not quite touching.

  ‘I’ll get the drinks,’ said Mara, ‘and then Pearl and I will cook.’

  Before Signe could argue she took hold of Pearl’s elbow and led her out.

  Ecarté

  ALL THOSE DAYS that Signe watched her girls from the kitchen window. Her hands resting idle in the soapsuds, dishes forgotten as she warmed her fingers. In those early years on the island, she could never get warm. Strange, really, as she came from a much colder country; but it was different here. The way the wind raged, the way it snatched the hair up off the back of your neck just to drip icicles down your back. The way it would wait until the sun had warmed the air, until you had decided to be brave and go out without a jumper, to let the clouds pillow thick across the sky and the rain drip sharp on your scalp. Even now, deep into a slow summer, you couldn’t always trust the sun to stay. Signe shifted her hands in the water, watching as her knuckles tu
rned red from the heat.

  Out in the garden, her girls in their pastel pants and vests. Islay with her burning red hair. Mara with her face scrunched up in concentration. The pair of them, knees bent, heads bowed, hunched over in the middle of the garden. Little witches making potions with petals and insects and spit. Speaking in magic spells, combinations of words that sounded made up – but the more you listened, the more a sense emerged. They were making something real from the unreal: a glamour made of grammar.

  It was at those times that Signe worried she’d made a mistake in naming Mara for the sea between two islands. In stories it was always three: three little pigs, three billy goats gruff, three bears in three beds. Three brothers off to find wives, three princesses in three beautiful dresses made of stars and moon and sun. It was always meant to be three. But Mara was not really the third child.

  And then came Barra. Her little Bee. Cradling his red, wrinkled body, so long a part of her own body, she counted. Fingers, toes. Bee’s eyes looked past her at something she couldn’t see. He had been in this world for minutes, and he was still stuck half in another. What Signe didn’t realise then was that he would never fully emerge from it – and then, too soon, he would be back in it. That other place, the barrier between the worlds membrane-thin and yet a thousand miles away. The land of dreams and magic and terrible, awful beauty. Was that where Bee lived now? Was that where all her lost children lived?

  When Mara was first born, the scent from the crown of her head was the most delicious thing Signe had ever smelled. It was a miracle, a strange magic, to think that this creature she had made inside her body was now outside it. She’d have to touch and smell her over and over just to make sure she was real. Her little ghost baby, her lost child, come back to her.

  That milky cotton scent of her – could it be real? The winter sun catching her gingery hair, lighting strands pink as rose petals. Her cheeks sculpted from porcelain, turning in the light as she snuffled and mewled. Her grasping fists, her restless pink tongue, the moth wings of her eyelashes. Signe held her closer, breathing her in. She pinched the velvet flesh of Mara’s arm – harder, harder – just to make sure she was real. And when she cried, she couldn’t be sure that it was the sound of a real child, or the sound of a thing pretending to be a child: a ghost in the shape of a girl.

  Signe shifted her hands in the dishwater. She watched the witchery of girlhood, the casting of spells. She watched this Mara who was not that Mara. Her misnamed girl, her changeling.

  Tatties

  IN THE KITCHEN, Mara and Pearl moved around one another like a dance. Pearl refilled Mara’s wine glass just before she noticed it was empty. Mara handed Pearl a chopping knife at the moment she needed it for the onions. The fridge door opened and closed, the flame on the hob flared and was lowered. Pearl bubbled butter in a cast-iron pan. Mara pulled back her hair and tied it in a knot. She busied herself taking peas from the pod, slipping the odd one into her mouth and letting it pop between her molars.

  With a grin and a glance to make sure that Mara was looking, Pearl tossed the chopping knife up, let it arc a loop, and caught it.

  Mara laughed. ‘Did you practise that?’

  ‘Yep. It’s my trick to impress pretty ladies.’ Pearl put down the knife and held her open hands out to Mara, palms exposed. ‘You have no idea how many times I caught the sharp end before I got the hang of it.’

  Mara lifted the proffered hands and studied them. ‘They look fine to me.’

  Pearl pressed their hands together and squeezed, pulling Mara closer. ‘Okay, so that wasn’t true. I don’t have any tricks.’ She pulled Mara in for a kiss. Mara kept her eyes open, looking at the open doorway.

  If Pearl noticed, she didn’t show it. With a grin, she picked up the knife and got to work on the onions.

  Twenty minutes later, the fisherman’s pie was in the oven and the prep dishes were soaking in the sink.

  Pearl raised the half-full bottle of wine. ‘Shall we –’ She was interrupted by the back door swinging open. In the gap, a rectangle of dark garden. It slammed shut, the latch shuddering. Seconds ticked. The wind was silent for once; the only sound was the drip of the leaky tap and the distant lull of the sea. Mara turned to speak and the door swung in again, still revealing nothing. Pearl frowned at the door, then walked over to close it.

  ‘Don’t touch it!’ called out Mara, louder than she’d meant.

  Pearl took a step back, hands raised in surrender.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Mara. ‘Sorry. The latch is broken, and I didn’t want you to hurt yourself. Mum already cut her hand on it.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Pearl. ‘Thank you for looking out for my hands.’

  ‘I need your hands,’ said Mara, and then felt her cheeks flame.

  ‘If it’s broken,’ she said, ‘then let’s fix it.’

  Mara retrieved the toolbox – one of many stashed throughout the house – from under the stairs, then dug through it for a screwdriver and a packet of screws. She went to toss the screwdriver in the air, to copy Pearl’s trick. But mid-flight, she felt her heart jolt as she recognised a smear of her mother’s blood on the handle. She snatched back her hand and the screwdriver clattered to the floor. It rolled across the tiles, revealing that the plastic handle was daubed with black paint that looked, Mara realised, nothing at all like blood.

  Pearl headed for the door, pausing to pick up the screwdriver and peer through the oven’s window at the pie. Her arm brushed the oven door, which fell open with a crash. She jumped.

  ‘Did I do that?’

  ‘No,’ said Mara. ‘It’s fine, I broke it last week. I told you, nothing works here.’

  Heat blasted out of the open oven door. Mara eased it closed, holding it longer than she needed to, willing it to stay closed.

  ‘I’ve already got the screwdriver out,’ said Pearl. ‘We might as well fix that too.’

  ‘There’s too much. You don’t understand.’

  ‘Well, you can’t just leave it broken, can you? Speaking of which …’ Pearl knelt on the floor and examined the latch. Mara brought over the toolbox in case there was anything else they needed. She reached out and tucked a strand of Pearl’s hair behind her ear.

  ‘Your brother,’ said Pearl, her gaze on the latch.

  Mara was glad of the tools, as she could keep her eyes fixed on them. ‘His name is Bee. Was Bee.’

  ‘And he’s gone.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mara.

  ‘And,’ said Pearl, ‘you think it’s better that he’s gone.’

  ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘But you still want him to come back.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Mara. ‘All the time.’

  In the silence, Mara could hear the metal scraping together as Pearl tightened the screws.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s not a question. I just needed to make sure I was putting the pieces together right.’ Pearl put down the screwdriver and rocked back on her heels. She thumbed the latch, letting it click open and shut. ‘There,’ she said. ‘Fixed.’

  The oven door crashed open, scattering baking trays across the floor.

  Mara and Pearl repeated their synchronised dance as they laid out the dishes, filled the wine glasses, served the dinner: mashed tatties on top of creamy fish, honeyed carrots, garden peas. It felt strange at first for Mara to see Pearl sitting where Islay used to sit, wrists resting on the edge of the kitchen table, back taut against the rickety chair. It felt strange to see Pearl do anything normal: sneeze, yawn, misunderstand. Mara still sometimes felt that she was only dreaming Pearl.

  The kitchen was cosy in the candlelight. The heat from the oven brought colour to Signe’s cheeks, and Peter did all his worst jokes. They laughed. Really laughed. And they loved Pearl. Mara was sure that they did. She couldn’t imagine how anyone could be less than bewitched.

  But, but. Signe ate three bites of her dinner before pushing the rest to the side of her plate. Peter’s laugh was always a little behind everyone else’s. Pearl glanced up at Mara
after every sentence to check that she had said the right thing. Looking around the table, Mara felt joy and shame and disgust and grief and compassion and anger and love, all of it, all at once.

  Afterwards, clearing the plates, Signe asked: ‘Was everything all right with the toolbox?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ replied Mara.

  ‘I heard you clattering it around.’

  ‘We were fixing the latch. On the back door.’ Mara nodded unnecessarily towards the door. ‘Dad, do you want me to make you another whisky with cream?’

  ‘Signe,’ said Pearl at the same time, ‘are you pleased about the bridge? I imagine it will be good for the guest house. More tourists.’

  ‘You must let me fix things.’ Signe’s voice grew quiet and tight. ‘I don’t want you touching the latch, and I don’t want – her either. It all has to be a certain way. I need it to be just right, and only I can …’ Signe stopped, her face tight.

  ‘Yes, thank you, Mara,’ said Peter. To Signe he said: ‘My dove, would you like to join me in a whisky?’

  ‘I’ll need to just wash the cream pan,’ said Mara. ‘Mum, do you want one?’

  Signe was not listening. Balancing the stack of plates in one hand, she reached out for the latch with the other. She thumbed it, feeling its smooth movement. It was good as new. It was better than new. Since they’d moved in, nothing in the house had worked as invisibly, as effortlessly as this latch. What was different? Why did it work?

  She remembered Mara and Pearl in the sea. She remembered Mara’s confession, the way the sea seemed to calm straight after, the way the island had been soothed. She remembered what she had given to the sea. Her hand fell away from the latch.