Bone Deep

by Sandra Ireland

  I hear a subtle cough behind me. No doubt Arthur was disappointed to wake up to discover the bed cold and empty, but he’s found me now. I lean on the table, listening to his approach, stiffening as his arms come around me, fearing his heat against my back. I stand passively as he hugs me.

  ‘Are you going to see your folks?’

  ‘My sister, yes.’

  Last night, his breathy words in my ear made me catch fire. Now, I detach myself. I step out of his embrace and he lets me go. He’s standing there in just his chinos, barefoot and bare-chested. Unlike Reuben, Arthur has thick fur on his chest. I’d combed my fingers through it, rubbed myself against it.

  ‘Yeah. I’m going home.’

  ‘You are coming back though?’

  I let the silence speak. He gives a stilted laugh. Offer him a coffee. Smile at him. Don’t be such a bitch. Still I stand there, paralysed. He shrugs, defeated.

  Mac

  The stranger carries with him the smell of bone fires and the east wind. Beneath the damp dark cloak, all that he might be is concealed. All but the thin hook of his smile and the claws of his fingers on the jute sack. His fingernails are as yellow as sheep hooves and rimmed with something white, like flour, and when Bella asks where he’s from his voice is too low to hear. The answer falls to the ground, to be crushed by her father’s boots, by the stamp of his laughter.

  ‘What have you in the sack, traveller? A gift for the bride?’

  A rare gift indeed, the man might have said.

  I barge into the cafe.

  ‘She’s gone! I knew she’d leave. Women like her can’t be trusted.’

  Anita, wiping down the table nearest the window, looks at me with something like alarm. I brush past her, aware of the door slamming in my wake. The framed prints rattle against the wallpaper.

  ‘It’s the east wind. The east wind never brings any good with it. The bible says it blows from the direction of God, but I’ve never believed that. Quite the opposite, if you ask me. But no one asks me. No one asks my opinion. Why didn’t she tell me she was going, instead of leaving a note? She’s good at that, isn’t she? Leaving notes about the place. I would have said to her – now is not a good time. There’s work to be done, before the east wind comes. And now it’s too late. It’s getting too late.’ The two old biddies who seem to live permanently in the corner are looking at me, whispering into their teacups. I give them an evil stare. ‘Mind your own goddamn business!’

  Arthur has been busy behind the counter, but now he drops everything and shushes me. He seems very tense.

  ‘Don’t shush me! She left me a bloody note. A note! Not even a by your leave!’

  ‘Mother, not here.’ Arthur holds aside the bead curtain, and I blaze around the counter. The kitchen is heavy with the smell of dough. Three seeded loaves sit on the worktop like a trio of bunched-up tabby cats.

  I brandish the note at him. ‘This is just typical of Anna Madigan. She never came straight out with things.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Look, Lucie got a call from home. Family business. And what the hell is wrong with you? You can’t come in here kicking off like that.’

  ‘Since when did her family show the slightest interest in her? We’re in the middle of important work. I have a deadline! Is she coming back?’

  ‘You’re not even listening to me.’ He turns his back, tosses a checked tea towel over the bread. I can see Anita through the curtain, hovering. Her eyes are huge and watchful.

  ‘Is she coming back?’ I grab at Arthur’s elbow, but he shakes me off, rounds on me with a violence that is uncalled for.

  ‘I don’t know, Ma! I’m not her keeper. She’s got a lot going on right now.’

  ‘I’ve got a lot going on! What is wrong with people? No sense of loyalty, decency. Always out for themselves. I’d thought better of Anna, but it seems she’s just as treacherous as the rest of them!’

  ‘Lucie.’

  ‘Yes, Lucie. She’s just like –’

  ‘You called her Anna. Twice.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘You did.’

  Did I? Fear throbs inside me. Anita is holding out a glass of water.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ she says gently. I follow her through into the cafe, docile now.

  ‘I can’t believe it. She wouldn’t desert us, would she? I’d grown used to having her around. And things aren’t finished yet.’

  No one answers me. I sip the water. It has a cold bite to it and I shiver. My teeth are chattering. The bloody east wind never blows any good.

  Lucie

  I take the early train north, sharing a table with a woman who looks up only briefly from her glossy magazine. I don’t make eye contact, just lean into the window and watch the sea roll by for the next twenty minutes. The train is a good place to think. Maybe it’s the gentle rocking, the landscape whizzing past . . . everything receding, making way for all the things that loom large in your mind in the middle of the night.

  Like losing your new job, and being made homeless and destitute. And ending up in bed with Arthur.

  Am I really so needy, so desperate? No, that’s unfair to Arthur. The guy is sweet, kind. He doesn’t judge me. He makes me smile with his endless cakes and his twinkly eyes. He doesn’t take me too seriously. But why did I have to take it too far? How can I be with Arthur when Reuben is still in my bones?

  Sighing, I let my head loll against the back of the seat. The scent of coffee and the clink and rattle of the drinks trolley comes to me from some way off. The thought of a caffeine hit and a packet of ready salted perks me up, pokes me with a little needle of excitement. I can imagine I’m speeding away from it all; taking a minibreak of blue seas and open sky. The light is different. Everything it touches, the clouds, the water, the grass, shimmers with some kind of eagerness.

  My thoughts latch onto the mantra of the wheels. Arthur is behind me. Mac is behind me. The mill is behind me. All that darkness, and concealment and the suffocating, dripping greenery – all behind me. Stone cottages loom and disappear in the blink of an eye. Perfect gardens, ponies. Wooded glens. Free and fleeting. Nothing sticks.

  Jane is waiting for me at the station. We don’t hug, because she’s parked on double yellows and we have to rush. When we get home, she abandons me in the hall, claiming that her bladder is about to burst. The place feels smaller, darker and smellier than I remembered. My mother emerges reluctantly from the kitchen, as if she’s been skulking in there since I left. Her hug is brief and chilly, and I think she’s lost weight. Beneath a string of amber beads, her collarbones are razor sharp, and her blow dry is limp.

  ‘How was the train?’

  ‘Fine, thanks.’

  I follow her back into the kitchen, watch her as she bustles about, switching on the kettle, laying out cups. China cups and saucers, as if I’m a guest – a visiting committee member or someone from the Women’s Rural. Normally we’d have mugs pulled from the pine stand in the corner beside the bread bin. It’ll be biscuits on a plate next, rather than straight out of the tin.

  ‘Did you have a snack?’

  ‘I had a coffee. It was disgusting.’ I’d been too preoccupied to snack. How was I going to deal with Arthur? I didn’t need this new complication. I should never have let myself get close to him.

  ‘I’ll make tea,’ my mother is saying, as if this will counteract the bitterness. She bursts open a packet of shortbread fingers and fans them out on a delicate plate that once sat in my grandmother’s display cabinet. It’s decorated with blue poppies. I’ve always loved that plate. My gaze wanders round the kitchen, picking out all the things that are so part of the fabric of home that they barely register any more: the pale green colander hanging beside the cooker, the spotty milk jug with the superglued handle. Yesterday’s mail stashed behind the radio and a tea caddy from Harrods, stuffed with odd keys, receipts and all those things you don’t want but think you ought to keep. I go over to it, remove the lid. Near the top is a receipt for a dr
ess I bought for a cousin’s wedding four years ago, and the memory stick with my college essays.

  ‘What are you doing?’ My mother glances at me with suspicion.

  ‘I’m just . . .’ What am I doing? I’m a child cast out in some ghastly wilderness. I want proof that my life is still here, that a bit of me is still here. ‘Nothing.’

  My mother shakes her head a fraction and I replace the lid. She hands me a cup and saucer.

  ‘We’ll sit in here. Dad is just catching up with his emails. He’ll be in shortly.’

  My father hadn’t come to greet me. I’d assumed he was out. The fact that he is actually here, squirreled away in the front room, feels like a snub. Does he know? Has my mother told him about Reuben and me? The secret is hovering between us. She can’t look me in the eye because of it.

  The Station Hotel has always been our go-to place. Dad likes the steak pie and my mother meets her friends in the coffee lounge every week. The scones are always freshly baked, apparently, and not reheated in the microwave. Arthur would approve. The place hasn’t changed much since the heyday of steam, and the landlady (who, for some reason, Jane and I long ago christened the Bar Lady) is of a similar vintage.

  ‘Do you remember when we came here for your eighteenth?’ Jane says, as we browse the big menus, bound in burgundy leather. There’s a spark of devilment in her smile, and I roll my eyes and smile back.

  ‘Oh yes. I was mortified!’

  Jane is chuckling now. ‘Dad made a big thing of ordering you a “legal” wine, and the Bar Lady just looked at you with that face!’

  I join in her laughter, mimicking the landlady’s soft Highland lilt. ‘“I think you’ll find that the young lady has been eighteen for the past two years!”’

  ‘Of all the places to do your underage drinking . . .’ Jane looks mock stern.

  ‘Probably not one of my best ideas.’ I gaze around the dining room. Everything is deep purple, from the velvet curtains to the flock wallpaper. The walls are dotted with rail-related oil paintings in gilt frames: steam locomotives, viaducts, handkerchief-waving Victorians. The paint looks wet and glossy in the subtle lighting. I take a sly peek at Jane. She looks hollowed-out. Her face is full of shadows. Reuben’s name hasn’t come up so far. Perhaps he’ll become one of the many things my family aren’t comfortable talking about. Despite our reminiscing, Jane has been distant with me. I’ve put it down to misery, but the alternative is too grim to contemplate. It occurs to me that I’ve run away from a confrontation with Mac to a potentially more painful one with my sister.

  ‘I think I’ll have the fish,’ Mum says, closing her menu and laying it down on the white cloth. She’s completely ignored the underage-drinking anecdote, and Dad is still browsing, even though everyone knows he’ll choose the steak pie. I sip my Coke. Although I’m longing for a big slug of wine, I’ve deliberately chosen a soft drink. There are too many undercurrents, and I need to be able to swim.

  ‘What are you having, Dad?’ my mother prompts. I hate it when she does that. Why doesn’t she call him Angus? A hundred vintage grievances boil under my skin.

  ‘I see they have a lamb hotpot. That sounds nice, doesn’t it? Hotpot.’

  ‘Mmm. Hotpot.’ Mum picks up her menu again and leafs through it. I grab a pale mauve serviette and spread it over my knees. I badly want to shred it.

  ‘I think I’ll just have the steak pie.’ Dad closes the menu firmly. Jane catches my eye. Normally we’d share a sly giggle, but she remains unmoved. I catch sight of something in her gaze before it slides away. The serviette grows hot and sticky in my fist. I need air.

  ‘I’m just going to the loo,’ I announce, pushing back my chair.

  Mum looks at me sternly. ‘But we’re just about to order. We don’t know what you want.’

  ‘Scampi and chips,’ says Jane. ‘Lucie always has scampi and chips.’

  ‘That’s right,’ I agree. I’ll have what I always have. It feels like some kind of statement.

  Outside, in the car park, I light up a cigarette, one eye on the back door in case my mother should pop out unexpectedly. That won’t happen, of course. She’ll be too busy bitching about me, until the Bar Lady rocks up with her order pad and it will be all fake smiles and happy families.

  Clamping the fag between my lips I rake in my handbag for my phone. I’d heard its insistent beep back at the table, and my mother had heard it too, glaring at my bag as if I was up to no good.

  Two messages. The names flash up: Reuben. Arthur.

  I click on Reuben first: In Dundee, babe. Miss you. Want a visitor for old times’ sake?

  Once, my heart, my gut and all the other bits of me that responded to Reuben would have grown hot at the very sight of his name. Now my critical self tries to decode what he’s written. He’s working away. He’s bored. He wants sex. With a resolve I didn’t know I had, I consign Reuben to the trash.

  I click on Arthur’s message: Hope all going well up there. See you when you get back :)

  No hidden agenda. No demands. I hit reply. Cheers. Just about to have scampi – could be worse. My thumb hesitates. See you soon.

  The door bangs behind me. It’s Jane. ‘What are you doing? Mum’s freaking out in case you’re not back in time for the food. Are you smoking? Seriously? She’s not going to be happy about that either.’

  I make a face and the fag wobbles in my mouth. ‘I’m an adult. I don’t give a shit what Mum thinks.’ The words have a satisfying power. I add a smiley face to my text.

  ‘Who are you texting?’

  ‘Arthur the Baker Boy.’

  ‘Oh really?’ Jane peers at the screen, so close I smell her wine breath. ‘See you soon? Is there something you want to tell me?’

  My heart skips a beat. I add a kiss, just the one, and press send. I can’t be sure if that’s a loaded question, so I paste on a smile.

  ‘Come on then, let’s get this over with.’

  I drop the phone into my bag and grind out the cigarette beneath the heel of my shoe. Jane follows me back into the building.

  I’m lolling on my old single bed. Two days at home, and I’ve had to unzip my jeans to accommodate my bloated belly. My parents seem to have bread with every meal and cheese on toast for supper. Resting my palm on the place just above my pubic bone, I think of Reuben until the soft skin there blooms warm, and I feel a corresponding tug deep inside. Reuben slipping into my room, softly closing the door, reaching for me. His hand heavy in the place where my hand is, fingers sliding under the lace of my knickers, and me half-rising from the bed to meet his mouth, kissing him fiercely.

  And my mother walking in with a pile of ironing.

  My whole body cringes at the memory and I sit up, as if by moving I can dislodge the shame. I slide my feet to the floor, feel the chill of the old floorboards. My gaze swings around the dimensions of this tiny room. Once my sanctuary, and now what? It’s never been allowed to change, this room. The duvet cover is a relic of my school days, soft cream with virginal pink roses. The walnut dressing table is festooned with cheap beads and scarves and dayglo nail polish. In the bookcase, Harry Potter and Roald Dahl gather dust alongside CDs of McFly, Girls Aloud and Good Charlotte (my little act of teenage rebellion). This room is all about the child me, the teenage me, as if I’ve packed up who I really am and taken her to Fettermore in my suitcase.

  I get to my feet, observing the adult me in the mirror on my wardrobe door. My hair needs a trim. I smooth it all to one side so that it cascades over my left shoulder. Tilt my head and search my eyes. They look sad. A chill prickles the suddenly exposed part of my neck, and my belly, where my jeans are still flapping open. Instead of attempting to haul up the zip, I just tug down the front of my baggy T-shirt. The wardrobe is a dull, dark wood, the sort you’d find in an old-fashioned B & B. My parents have never done Ikea. Opening the door releases the smell of lavender from one of the many bags my mother buys from church fundraisers. I run my hand along the hangers of familiar clothes: skinny jeans, ti
ered skirts, dresses I’ve barely worn and, at the back, my school uniform – black trousers and a white shirt scrawled with adolescent last-day graffiti, the striped tie looped around the metal hook.

  None of it fits any more. Not the uniform, not the jeans. Not this bedroom. Not this life.

  The door opens a fraction. Jane’s elegant fingers appear, followed by her face. A twist of a smile. ‘Can I come in?’

  I hoist up my jeans, tug my top down some more. ‘Has Mum sent you up to get me?’

  ‘Well, no, it’s just that . . .’

  ‘She can’t leave me alone for a second.’

  ‘She’s made cherry trifle.’

  ‘Ugh.’ I flop down on the bed. I can still hear the crack of my mother’s disapproving spoon on Reuben’s trifle bowl. ‘I’m so full. I couldn’t eat another thing.’

  ‘It’s what we always do, isn’t it? We always have a pudding when we have visitors.’

  I lie back, picking at one of the fat pink roses on the duvet cover. ‘I’m not a visitor. I’m still part of the family, aren’t I?’

  There’s a distinct pause. ‘Of course you are.’ Jane’s voice is sharp. She’s still hovering on the threshold of the room, gripping the open door. New lines of disappointment are visible around her mouth, and I see a glimpse of a future Jane, a mature, harder Jane. We still haven’t really talked about Reuben. I get up, rummage in my bag for my purse.

  ‘I’m going back in the morning, Jane. I’ll check my ticket, but I’m pretty sure I got an open return.’

  ‘You’ve only been here two days. We haven’t had time for a chat.’

  ‘Mac needs me. She has a deadline.’

  ‘Let’s skip the trifle then. Let’s hole up with a bottle of wine.’ Jane backs up a step, as if she’s planning on zooming down to the fridge.

  ‘I shouldn’t . . .’ I shake my head, but she’s talking over me, bright and determined, as Jane always is.