Not sure how I feel about it yet, I wrote.
“Who . . . Who did you see?” he asked, glancing down at his hands.
A girl called Mary. In my room, I wrote, nodding at each word for emphasis. Those days I was nodding so much I was worried I would get a neck injury.
“Who was she?”
I’m not sure. I shrugged.
“Right. Are you sure you’re okay?”
I can handle it, I wrote, truthfully. Actually, the girl kind of kept me company. It was good to see her. I know it’s weird . . .
Logan sighed. “I don’t know if it’s weird. I mean, I don’t know how I’d feel if I could see what you see. Sometimes I wish I could, so maybe I could see our parents. And Emily . . .”
I sucked in air. Logan wasn’t one to talk about his feelings much, and I’d never imagined he wished to have the Sight.
“But who knows how it would be to actually see them . . . dead.”
I bowed my head. I lost the Sight before my grandmother and my parents died, so I had no idea how I’d feel if I saw them as spirits. I knew I would give anything to see Emily.
“Inary . . .” my brother whispered, leaning against the tree once more. I knew at once what he was going to ask. Not a premonition. Just human nature. “I wonder if you are going to see her.” There was no need to ask who he was referring to.
I hope so, I scribbled.
A pause. And then Logan shifted slightly, imperceptibly, closer to me.
We walked back, the damp ground soft under our feet, yielding like a mossy carpet – the scent of wet earth and of the wide, wide sky over our heads. Many generations of my family had walked these woods. I could feel Glen Avich running in my veins, and again I asked myself how I could stand to ever leave.
17
Little fire
Logan
My sister has always been a law unto herself. Once when she was in primary school, she forgot to come in after the interval bell rang. Just like that – she forgot. After twenty minutes her teacher realised she wasn’t there and panicked – Inary was found crouching in a corner of the playground, feeding some starlings. She hadn’t even noticed that everybody else had gone in and she was alone in the playground. Another time, she went to school in her slippers. I’m not making this up.
She always lived on Planet Inary, which could be a mixed blessing. Things didn’t really seem to upset her. She was always happy, lost in her own head or in a book. It was me who had to stomach enough reality for the both of us.
When our parents died, she changed. It was like a spell had been broken. She didn’t live in an enchanted place any more – now she looked life hard in the face, like I’d always done, and what she saw terrified her.
When Lewis came along, it was like having the old Inary back for a while. It was such a relief to see her smiling again. I liked the guy. He was decent, and he was in for the long haul, or at least I thought so. I, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be able to have a relationship that lasted more than six weeks, but hey, that’s my own fault.
And then Lewis left, and Inary was shattered. That’s the only way to describe it. Not everyone noticed – actually most people thought she took it quite well – but I did. Little bits of Inary floated in her old self, but the Inary I knew was gone again.
She doesn’t know that I went to see Lewis, and that it took all my self-control not to pummel him black and blue. When I finished having a chat with him, even if I didn’t lay a finger on him, he was scared enough.
So yes, Inary was in pieces, she couldn’t stay, she couldn’t see him around, and that awful mother of his, and blah blah. So she upped and left. But I couldn’t accept that. Not moving so far away, not with Emily needing us so badly.
Not with me needing her, for God’s sake. Selfish? Maybe. You try it, to be in charge of a sick girl on your own. Because Emily had been sick and dying for years now – Inary was the only one who believed it would be okay. Maybe I should have spelt it out to her.
But I couldn’t.
I’ve been angry with Inary for so long. Three years. I never told her I missed her. But I did. Today, for the first time in a long time, I felt I could reach her, and she could reach me.
There’s still a long way to go between us, but we’ll get there.
We must. We’re all that’s left of our family.
*
Taking long walks by myself always helped me deal with everything at home. In the last few days of Emily’s life, I needed the woods desperately. I needed to go out and feel the wind on my face and the wide sky above me. But I couldn’t leave her, not even for half an hour.
On a particularly low, lonely day a couple of years ago I went to Aberdeen and, on impulse, I bought myself a state-of-the-art camera. I swear it changed my life. I even enrolled in some photography classes – the first thing I’d done for myself in years. When I was out looking for shots in the woods, on the loch shore, on the moors – it was the closest I ever felt to peace. And I came home with beautiful images that captured the moment forever. A gallery of beauty that I printed and framed, filling my house and my shop with nature, bringing the outside in.
Let’s face it: I’m a solitary bastard. I’m happy by myself, without speaking to anyone. But this, like Inary living on her own planet, can be a mixed blessing too – it’s fine to a certain extent, then it just gets very cold, and before you know it, you’re bloody freezing. I think Emily sensed that. She was worried about me being alone.
One day I came home from a night camping to find a little drawing held up on the fridge by a sheep-shaped magnet: a bear waving its paw, beside a little tent, with a caption beside it – I am Logan! It made me laugh, but I knew there was a lot of truth in Emily’s drawing.
So that was my life. Still frames of a stag, its horns outlined black against the sky; the black waters of Loch Avich the moment night falls; lightning in a stormy sky, a lonely boat moored among the stones, faces in the bark of an ancient tree. The stories I want to tell. Snippets of the huge wide world, of which Glen Avich is a tiny, perfectly beautiful corner.
But all I loved, all I knew, was kept together by Emily. Now she’s gone, and nothing seems to make much sense.
The night Emily died, Inary opened the window wide, to let our sister’s soul go. I could see that above the hills, the sky was full of stars. Ancient navigators didn’t have radar or satellites or sophisticated instruments; they could only rely on constellations to show them the way. I had spent all my life following one star, and never letting anything else sway me or change my course. I had followed what was for me the true North. And now my guide was gone, and I had no idea where I was or where to go next. Without Emily I was lost.
I don’t want to tell Inary how black inside I really feel. She’s fighting her own battle. I don’t want to tell her that I feel just as dead as Emily.
18
Scenes from a Scottish village
Alex
I turned the keys in the door, stepped over a little mound of envelopes and leaflets the postman had delivered while I was away, and went inside my house. It was freezing. A cold snap had hit England, but I’d forgotten to turn the heating on. Since what happened with Inary, since she left, I kept forgetting things, big things and small ones. Things that suddenly didn’t seem to matter any more – my work, the people around me – but that were the pieces of the jigsaw of my life. I felt like the world around me didn’t really exist, it only pretended to exist, like some sort of dream – persistent, but still just a dream.
I had a good job, and it wasn’t just work to me, it was my passion; I worked with great people who depended on me; I had friends, and a family that was far away but very loving. But everything seemed like an illusion not quite worth pursuing.
I suppose the real question now was, will this feeling of unreality fade with time? Was I going to get better – like Inary was some sort of illness I’d caught and couldn’t shake off?
I opened the fridge door, more out of hab
it than anything else. I wasn’t hungry, and anyway it was nearly empty; I’d only come back the night before after two days in Krakow. And yes, I did find an owl for Inary there. I couldn’t help it.
I know, I know. What can I say? Old habits die hard. And as hard as I tried to forget her, I found she was always on my mind.
I started the fire as quickly as I could, then sat on the rug in front of it, waiting for the flames to rise. On impulse, I switched on my laptop and googled the words voice loss trauma.
A ribbon of websites unfolded itself in front of me: voice loss, post-traumatic stress, find your voice with Dr Whateverstein, a long list of useless rubbish in which a few little truths were swimming. After a while, I’d figured out that what Inary had was called psychogenic dysphonia, or loss of voice through trauma – yes, that much I knew, apart from the fancy name. What I really wanted to know was if there was a cure.
There wasn’t, obviously. Not as such. No magical pill to make you speak again. Like most illnesses of the soul, the road to fix it would be long and arduous. Psychotherapy, apparently, and, if you were so inclined, a whole lot of other therapies from the plausible to the absurd – swimming with dolphins, anyone? Dream therapy? Dance therapy?
Inary was heartbroken. That was it. She lost her voice because she was so full of pain, she didn’t know how to deal with it and she shut down. What she needed was someone to help her through the trauma, someone who could guide her. I was sure that she could find a good psychotherapist somewhere close to her . . . maybe in Aberdeen.
But that would involve Inary opening up about all that she had gone through – the loss of her parents, and Lewis, and now Emily – with a stranger. I just couldn’t see it happening.
On impulse, I typed Glen Avich photographs, and a tapestry of squares and rectangles appeared on the screen. So that’s where she was. That was Glen Avich.
Most of the pictures were breathtaking – the loch, grey and still under the steely sky, and the hills, in a thousand shades of heathery purple. Some were funny and sweet, snippets of village life. Someone winning a knitting competition (a Mrs Edna Boyle, 84 years old), the first coffee shop opening up in Glen Avich (proud owners standing in front of a silvery-blue door, grinning), a girl taking part in the Mod in Paisley (her hair freshly done, her face somewhere between a woman and a child).
I searched on, paging through pictures of Glen Avich streets – the river with its stony bridge, and the main street with its little shops. Apparently, there was a sacred well on the hill that overlooked the village, St Colman’s well. It was supposed to aid fertility. Had Inary ever mentioned it? Because the name sounded familiar. Oh, yes, she had; she’d said she used to go there after school with her friends and with Emily . . .
Photograph after photograph, Inary’s life in the village seemed to take on a life before my eyes. Now I could visualise where she was, where her family was. This soothed me a little. The wonders of Google . . .
Dear Inary,
I did a search on the Internet, and apparently what you have is called psychogenic dysphonia, or voice loss because of trauma. Here are a few links. Most people get their voice back after a wee while. Some seem to take medication and follow some sort of therapy. I don’t really see you doing that, but maybe you should consider it.
I looked at pictures of Glen Avich. It’s beautiful, like Lesley always said. And please pass on my congratulations to Mrs Edna Boyle for her knitting trophy.
Alex x
PS. I put something in the post for you.
19
The chemistry of grief
Inary
“Inary . . . I’m so sorry about Emily.”
I looked into Dr Nicholson’s kindly face. She’d known the three of us since we were children, and I trusted her. But I was sure that being there was a waste of time. I was sure that a doctor couldn’t help me get my voice back. Alex’s email had given me a clearer idea about what was probably wrong with me, and I felt less apprehensive about what Dr Nicholson might say.
Thank you, I mouthed.
She took a breath. “Inary. I think both you and I know that this is not a throat infection or anything like that. But just to be on the safe side, I have to check you over.”
I nodded. She shone a light down my throat, in my ears and my eyes; she checked my heart and my breathing; she actually hammered my knee, which was something I’d only seen done in films.
“You’re in perfect health, but I think you knew that already.”
I nodded, buttoning up my shirt.
“I’ve done this job for a long time. And I’ve seen grief do the strangest things to people,” she said, echoing Eilidh’s words. “What I need to know, Inary, is how you feel in yourself.”
How do you think I feel, I wanted to say. My little sister has just died. I feel like I should die too. I feel like my heart should stop at any moment.
I shrugged. I’m in bits, I wrote. I couldn’t be more eloquent than that.
“I know, sweetheart,” she said, and put a motherly hand on my shoulder. “It’s been hard for you all. I remember your mum and dad, and all the worry they had . . .”
It was a physical effort not to cry. I frowned and looked down. I couldn’t cry. If I started, I’d never stop.
“Are you sleeping these days, Inary?”
I nodded. It was the truth. I was sleeping, though not so well and not for long.
“Good. Are you eating okay?”
I nodded again.
“Inary, you have to promise me. If you feel it all gets too much, if you feel the sadness is unbearable . . . if you can’t eat or sleep and if you cry constantly . . . you need to come back and see me.”
What will you do then? Nothing can bring Emily back, I wrote. I didn’t mean to be rude to Dr Nicholson, but I truly felt she couldn’t help me. It was some mysterious chemistry of grief that had taken my voice away from me, and there was no way to know if and when it would come back.
She was unfazed. “We can discuss our options. Maybe look into medication.”
I looked at her, eyes wide. She wanted to give me antidepressants? Some chemical compound that would artificially take the sadness away, like Emily didn’t deserve to be mourned? Like it wasn’t only right that my heart should be broken . . .
I shook my head.
“Well, if that’s something you’d rather not consider, let’s leave it at that for now. But if you feel worse, please come back and see me.”
I nodded. I wouldn’t.
“Promise?” she said.
I nodded again, and again I lied.
She looked at me, her head slightly tilted, like she was studying me. A doctor for thirty years, a mother of four and a grandmother of six, she knew I was lying. She knew I wouldn’t come back.
“Right. And how’s Logan?”
My heart skipped a beat. Now, that was something that needed to be talked about. Maybe she could help him, like she couldn’t help me . . . Not good, I wrote. I’m so worried about him. He’s just—
I shook my head. I couldn’t put it into words. I couldn’t explain how he was . . . broken. As simple as that.
“I see. Will you ask him to come and see me? I think he should.”
I’ll try, but it’ll be hard to convince him.
“Well, let’s see what you can do, anyway. He’s lucky to have you looking out for him.”
Really? I felt so powerless. I nodded again and made my way to the door. Aunt Mhairi sprang up when she saw us coming out.
“What is it, Shona?” she whispered to Dr Nicholson. The surgery was empty but for the practice nurse, who tactfully closed her door, and Mrs Boyle – one of the Boyle sisters, the infamous knitters of baby clothes – who was stone deaf.
“I think it was shock, with all that happened . . . but Inary will be back to see me, and we’ll see what we can do. Won’t you?”
Another half-hearted nod.
“Mhairi, I think Logan needs to come and see me,” the doctor continued. “Inary
says he’s not doing that well . . .”
“Oh, he won’t come. He’d rather walk through fire than go to the doctor! His dad was the same and so was my husband . . .”
“I know, I know. But see what you can do.”
“We’ll do our best. It’s all that drink . . .” She shook her head. I felt ill. Thinking that Logan had a problem was bad enough; hearing it spoken aloud was just horrible. “Thank you, Shona . . .” my aunt continued.
“No problem. And thanks for the picture,” said Dr Nicholson, gesturing towards her office. From where I stood, I could see her desk, and there, in its white card frame, the picture of Emily we’d sent to our family and friends. Weird, I hadn’t noticed it when I was inside. It was one we’d taken the night of the fashion show – she was smiling, wearing a light-green silk shift dress she’d designed herself, her hair loose on her shoulders and her nails painted bright green too.
Emily.
Aunt Mhairi and I walked back in silence. The strange, sudden joy I’d felt during my walk on the hills the day before had seeped out of me. Only grief remained. Again. It was to be expected, I suppose. Good days, bad days, is that not the way grief is meant to go?
Where was the green silk dress? I wanted to keep it forever. I wanted to wear it and have Emily with me, like she’d never left.
*
I was barely in the house when Lynne, our neighbour, knocked at the door. “A courier left this for you,” she said, and handed me a small parcel.
There was nothing written on it, no sign of a sender, only my address and some foreign-looking stamps – but I knew who it was from. Inside, like a set of Russian dolls, there was another box, small and velvety. I lifted its lid – nestled in the velvet there was a little china owl and a minuscule note folded into four.
Take Me Home Page 11