Bone Deep

by Sandra Ireland

  I come to the bad bend. After my conversation with Arthur, I’d been looking out for the tyre tracks in Clark’s field. I saw them on my way to the cafe; great gouges cartwheeling into the pasture. The car had ploughed through the hedgerow and taken the fence with it. I’ve been complaining about that fence for months. The stock were always getting out onto the road, and I wonder now if that has some significance. Did the driver swerve to avoid a stray bullock? Or was his mind taken up with other matters?

  The car is long gone, towed away by the local garage on the instructions of the police. Clark has been out fiddling around with fencing wire, but even in the gathering dusk I can see that the field is empty. The two old ladies in the cafe had seen it being towed away. They thought I might know something and they’d asked me in a whisper, as if there was a breath of scandal attached to it all. It was a strange car, and a young man driving it. A stranger. What would I know, I told them. There are more houses than mine up that road. If there was a stranger in town he most certainly had nothing to do with me or mine. End of story. Arthur hates me gossiping, so I made sure it was all tied up while he was out the back. By the time he returned I was sipping my soup and ignoring the two old bats in the corner.

  With a jolt, I realise I’m still standing in the road, staring at the tyre tracks. Such an out-of-the-way place to come to grief. The driver, whoever they were, must have been in quite a hurry. I plod on. Only five minutes more and I’ll be home. I can just about see the end of the drive. There’s a little whimper from the direction of the hedge, and Floss comes scampering to meet me. I rub her damp ears.

  ‘What are we going to do with you? You should be in the kitchen with your brothers. You’ll never settle.’

  At least she seems none the worse after her chocolate feast. We walk the last few yards to the gloomy house. In my mind’s eye, I am already pottering about the kitchen, plugging in the kettle, reaching for the biscuit tin. There are warm furry bodies against my cold legs, damp snouts in my hand.

  My mind drifts back to the strange car in the field, the whispers of the old biddies. I know what village tittle-tattle can be like. Jim and I always kept ourselves to ourselves, but gossips have a habit of trying to second-guess you. Visit the shop redeyed and they’ll make up what they don’t know.

  I fumble with my key, hurrying to get through the door as if the past has awakened and is lumbering after me like some monstrous beast. The collies start barking as soon as my key hits the lock, the noise distant and echoing in the empty house. I try to calm myself. What’s done is done. I’ll let them out first, take my tea into the chilly garden and look up at the sky. The hall is cold. I drag off my wet things, flip the hat onto the newel post. I don’t bother with the light; the gloom is much less disturbing. You can sink into it, imagine familiar shapes in the margins. In my mind, the echoing house creaks with unseen footsteps. I catch the whisk of Bella’s petticoat high up on the stairs, the glimmer of a white calf. Elspeth giggles in the shadows. They are at that lovely age of innocence, before males intrude and spoil everything. All my thoughts of a nice cuppa vanish, and I know I will go to my study; write late into the night. The tale of ‘The Cruel Sister’ needs to be finished.

  Lucie

  Arthur offers me a refill, but I shake my head.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asks. ‘You don’t look too good.’

  ‘Thanks for that.’

  ‘I mean you look pale. You’re pure white.’

  ‘I feel a bit . . .’ My stomach heaves and I clap my hand over my mouth. Arthur had been leaning against the counter, but as I jerk to my feet he jumps, possibly fearing an Exorcist moment, and points to the back.

  The toilet smells of overripe lemons, which makes the nausea ten times worse. I lower my brow against the cool mirror, noticing how my skin is bone white under the harsh strip light. To vomit or not to vomit – for a moment it could go either way. Slowly, the queasiness subsides.

  Arthur smiles at me when I return. He looks worried. ‘By the way, I phoned the vet, about Floss.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She said Floss would be fine, with the amount of chocolate that was in those brownies. Not enough to do real harm, but it will probably make her . . . sick.’ He glances at the toilet door. I scramble into my seat.

  ‘I’m fine. It’s the heat in that hospital. They turn it up to the max.’ I push away the latte. ‘Maybe a cold drink?’

  He rushes away to get me a plain lemonade with ice. He’s very kind, but I don’t even thank him. He asks again about Reuben.

  I shrug, as if the pain is nothing. Just shrug it off, nothing to see here.

  ‘So how long will your sister be staying?’

  ‘I’ve no idea.’ I sip the drink through a straw. It’s horribly sweet. I realise I don’t want anything and push it away. I don’t want to talk; I don’t want to sit. I don’t want to be by myself either. Arthur grabs a chair and joins me at the table. It’s oddly intimate.

  ‘Are you . . . are you going to keep seeing him?’

  ‘What?’ I scowl at him. All mention of Reuben exists only in my head. I have never spoken about him, not like this. For a moment, my tongue refuses to move. I cup the chilled glass with sweaty palms. ‘I – I don’t know. I don’t have a choice.’

  ‘You don’t have a choice?’ Arthur’s back clicks straighter. I sense the shadow of a knowing smile, just out of sight, and it makes me defensive.

  ‘I love him.’ My whisper is fierce, protective. The not-quite-smile disappears, and Arthur looks suddenly older.

  ‘We all have a choice. It’s not always easy.’

  My thoughts of the previous night come into sharp focus. I take refuge in a sneer. ‘Oh, you’d know, would you?’

  ‘I know what it’s like when a relationship ends, yes.’

  I lift the lemonade, put it down again, unsure what to say. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Her name was Nancy. There’s not much to tell, really.’

  ‘Still – it’s good to talk.’

  Silence stretches out between us, and I get the sense that I’ve stirred things up for him. Maybe he hasn’t thought about Nancy in a while. I shouldn’t have asked. It’s none of my business. Arthur eases the tension with a half-laugh. He slumps back in his chair, angling his body away from me. When he speaks again, he seems to be talking to a random spot on the floor.

  ‘It’s old history. Nancy worked here. She was a mate of Anita’s. We got . . . close. Always a bad idea when you work with someone. It gives you nowhere to go.’

  ‘Did Nancy go?’ I find myself looking at the top of his left ear, fascinated by the colour match between his spectacle frames and his hair. No doubt Nancy found him attractive. He is attractive, in a quiet, unassuming way. I’m not sure where my thoughts are taking me, so I rein them in just in time to hear the end of his very brief story.

  ‘And that was it really. She wanted to travel, and I couldn’t. Not with all this.’ His gaze flickers around the room.

  I think of the mill, and his mother. ‘You’re trapped,’ I say.

  ‘There’s always a moment,’ he replies carefully, ‘when you have to make a choice. In every tricky situation, there’s a logical decision to be made. Some people immerse themselves and flounder around. Then they wonder why they’re drowning.’

  I suddenly realise he’s swung the conversation back to me. Nancy is history. She made her intentions known, and Arthur decided to let her go. This is his way of telling me I’m making life difficult for myself.

  ‘But what if you’re pushed?’ My voice sounds feeble, an apology. ‘Good people do bad things because of circumstance.’

  Arthur looks at me with some sympathy. ‘No one pushed you – you jumped. But there’s always a way out. That too is a choice.’

  I go to bed early, the way you do when you’re exhausted, thinking you’ll fall asleep as soon as your head hits the pillow. That almost never happens. You just lie awake, your brain downloading data like a runaway iPhone. I lie in bed wi
th the lamp on, gazing up at the bumpy ceiling. I feel small, crushed, like the whole weight of Reuben is pressing my spine into the mattress. But it’s not a good weight, not his heat and his gentle roughness and all the good bits. This is the heaviness of pain, of deception, of despair.

  I suppose at the start of the affair there was an element of triumph. I found it incredible that someone like Reuben would fancy someone like me. I was everything my sister was not, dark, quiet, awkward, and Reuben was colourful and careless. I was never quiet and awkward with him, especially in bed. Then triumph slipped into something darker, an unhealthy craving. My body surprised me, the way it reacted to him, ached for him. My conscience shut down. We took chances, creeping into bed together when the house was empty, trading hot-eyed glances across the dinner table. It was a game, I suppose, and Jane wasn’t part of it. I never set out to fall in love with him, and I suppose he thought he could keep me at arm’s length – emotionally, anyway. At first, I think Reuben enjoyed flitting between two sisters. Every man’s fantasy, isn’t it? It would never have occurred to me to give him an ultimatum, to make him choose. Star-crossed lovers are blinded by starlight.

  There is no way out of this without heartbreak, and the thought makes me sink deeper, until, like Reuben in that hospital bed, I am a mere outline.

  All I can think of is how quickly Reuben tried to save himself. Part of me had been longing for him to have an epiphany under those white sheets. You’re the one I really love, Lucie. It isn’t Jane, it’s always been you. Part of me thought that, one day, Reuben would have the courage of his convictions. Part of me thought that ‘one day’ would be now.

  What if Reuben never had any courage? Something inside me wants to weep. The sheer effort of reassessing things, of seeing Reuben in a new and unflattering light, is too much to bear.

  I decide to get up. The bed is suddenly a desert, and I can still smell Reuben on my pillow. Dragging on a robe, I stumble into the kitchen, flicking on every switch, flooding the cottage with light, making day out of night. Nights are pretty pointless when you’re alone. Soon the kettle is bubbling into life, and I’m singing along to Take That on the radio. I’m not really in a bubbly, singy mood, but I don’t want to be alone with the strange turn my thoughts are taking. I have an unblemished, unshakeable connection with Reuben. There is no room for a stain or a wobble.

  Mac’s notebook is lying on the kitchen table. When she’d been rooting through her bag for keys in the cafe, she’d managed to leave the thing behind, and I’d picked it up, promising Arthur that I’d return it to her. She’s been scribbling a lot lately, closing the notebook whenever I enter the room, as if breaking off a secret conversation. I’m curious, but also a bit reluctant to open the book for reasons I don’t quite understand. I make a mug of tea and eat two Jaffa Cakes before I eventually sit down to read it.

  The sisters know they are of an age to marry when the young Lord Musgrave comes to call. At first it is Father he woos. There are meetings late in the evening: serious words and serious drinking. Once, Elspeth and Bella hid behind the window curtains, but the drapes were thick with dust and Bella couldn’t hold back a sneeze. That gave them away, and father bellowed for the maid to take them upstairs. But at least they got a good look at the young lord before being towed away. He was a little rough around the edges, but the quality of his clothing smoothed him out. He wore a fine silk shirt and a cloak of burgundy velvet that smelled of herbs.

  The next time he calls, Bella and Elspeth are invited to meet him. Bella breathes him in like a fresh rain shower as she pours red wine into his cup. Elspeth talks too much and giggles too loudly and tosses her lovely hair about. She’s wearing a yellow dress, and her hair and the dress glow like buttercups before the fire. Father smiles and nods from his heavy chair.

  The next day, the young Musgrave’s man delivers a parcel with a letter attached. Father breaks the seal and Bella unwraps it with shaking fingers. Excitement grips her belly like hunger pains as she uncovers a tiny pair of pale kid-leather gloves.

  There may have been the sound of a car engine. I might have heard the door slam and the scrabble of the back door latch, but I am engrossed. I read on, the notebook gripped between my fingers.

  ‘Oh, how beautiful!’ Bella holds up the gloves for all to see.

  Her father wafts the letter at her. He looks relieved and sad all at once. ‘They are not for you, daughter. They are for little Elspeth. Our young lord fancies her for his wife. I thought as much!’

  Suddenly my sister is here. Her car keys land on the table beside me with a clatter. Everything about me tightens and I snap shut the notebook.

  ‘. . . going back home in the morning to pick up some fresh clothes,’ Jane is saying, patting the kettle to see if it’s hot. ‘My mouth is so dry. I’m dying for a cuppa – do you want one? Why are you still up? It’s after midnight.’

  She’s still wearing that cardigan.

  ‘You need to ditch the yellow dress,’ I say.

  ‘The what?’ She pauses to stare at me, a teabag dangling from her fingers.

  ‘You need to get rid of it – the colour, it’s kind of inappropriate.’

  ‘What dress?’

  ‘The yellow one.’

  ‘Dress?’ She plucks a second teabag from the box, still peering at me like I’m demented. ‘What dress? What are you talking about?’

  ‘That – yellow – cardigan!’ I say it slowly, like she’s the idiot.

  ‘You said DRESS.’

  ‘I did not, I said –’

  ‘You said ditch the yellow dress. I don’t even own a yellow dress. Look, Lucie, it’s been a long day.’

  She’s saying some more stuff but the notebook has opened again. Had I opened it? The text dances before my eyes.

  Elspeth crows and snatches the gloves from her sister’s numb grasp. They are a perfect fit. She flexes her fingers like little cat claws, testing the suppleness of the leather. The seed of jealousy in Bella’s breast takes root with a pain so sharp she has to turn away.

  ‘Why are you being like this?’ Jane is saying. ‘I’ve been at that hospital for eight hours. I can barely see straight and now you’re just ignoring me.’

  Closing the book again, I stretch out my fingers like cat claws, testing the air, and when I look at my sister, I really look. It’s been such a long time since I’ve made eye contact or connected with her on any level not coloured by furtiveness or point-scoring, I’m not sure how to react. I have a child’s image of what she should look like, all shiny pink lips and wide eyes with symmetrical spiky lashes. The mobile hands, the tinkling bracelets. The pretty gold watch Reuben bought her so she’d never be late. Jane is a routine freak. She never stays up beyond ten thirty and before bed she writes her to-do list for the next day, and applies expensive cleansers and toners. Who tones their skin, for fuck’s sake? Jane is so together, but now, as I look, I can see she is starting to fall apart, and I am shocked.

  This woman is a stranger. Her skin is over-stretched and delicate, her make-up has migrated to the fine lines around her mouth and her nose is shiny. There are deep, dark thumbprints under each eye, and black dots where her mascara has flaked off. I get up clumsily from my chair; the scrape of it sounds brutal in the quiet kitchen. I gather up the teabags.

  ‘Hey, sit down. I’ll make tea. Do you want some toast?’

  She sits heavily in the chair I’ve vacated, and I imagine my own residual body heat seeping into her coldness. I want to hug her, but I don’t remember the last time we hugged.

  She’s shaking her head. ‘I’ve had way too many carbs today. I’m living on pastry.’

  ‘Tell me about it!’ I splash boiling water into two mugs. ‘Arthur the Baker seems to think I’ll expire without a daily dose of his cake. I’m starting to put on weight.’

  ‘I noticed that.’

  She’s staring at my bum, I can feel it. My sudden burst of goodwill evaporates. I slap a mug of tea in front of her and select the old pine chair at the he
ad of the table.

  ‘So . . .’ The first sip of tea burns my top lip. ‘Are – were – things not too good with you and Reuben, before the accident?’

  Her face shutters. She blows gently into her own mug and I think she isn’t going to reply. ‘Things were the same as always. It’s just that . . . I can’t help thinking . . .’

  ‘You think he’s been cheating?’ Let’s not beat about the bush. My heart is jabbing at my breastbone. Inside me, something deeply buried yearns for an explosion. I want to blow things wide apart, and trawl through the debris.

  ‘It’s just a feeling I have.’ Jane’s jaw is set in that stubborn tilt I recall from childhood. This is my sister, the peeved little golden girl. This is the look she perfected when she didn’t get her own way. When she was wrongly accused of starting an argument, when she wasn’t voted in as class rep, when one of her uni essays was marked down to a C . . . this was the look. Part of me always took a perverse delight in seeing her thwarted.

  That night I’d stayed with Reuben in the old fisherman’s inn, we’d pretended to be a proper couple, drinking pints at the bar, pressed up close together, with the locals smiling fondly at us. Okay, I’m remembering it like a nostalgic TV drama. Maybe they were just wishing we’d get a room. Jane had phoned Reuben that night. She thought he was on a golfing weekend with his mates. He’d pressed his mobile to his ear, lied to her, his hand all the time squeezing my knee, and I’d kept silent as a little mouse.

  I’d experienced a heady rush of something like triumph, but I don’t feel triumphant now. Jane can’t look at me and her voice is faint and metallic.

  ‘He keeps getting texts that he deletes immediately.’

  ‘You’ve checked his phone?’ I have kept all of Reuben’s texts. I cannot bear to delete them.