She gave me a small smile. ‘Because he was the best I thought I could get.’
‘That’s nonsense,’ I said because I wanted it to be. ‘And if you weren’t in love with him why did you act as if you were? Why did you marry him? Ruth?’
‘Because I wanted to be crazy about him. I wanted that whole romance thing that girls like you get and I didn’t want it with nice steady paunchy Joe Willmott, that’s why.’
‘Oh Ruth.’
She smiled again, that small knowing smile. ‘Anyway, that’s what’s been making me so angry; the way you keep being given, yet unthinkingly waste, what I would kill to have.’
Then the phone rang and I got up to answer, grateful for the interruption. It was Katarina telling me that Uncle Ian’s health had declined further. She thought I might wish to come over to see him. Unsaid were the words, ‘while you still can’.
I went online and found a ticket for the following morning. Then I told Ruth that she was welcome to stay. I emailed Beatrice to tell her there was a family emergency and that I would make up the time on my return. I hoped she would understand. I packed my bag. I prayed Uncle Ian would still be alive the next day.
Thirty-one
Sandra/Cassandra
We did it again, in the pavilion, during match tea. We had to be really quick, obviously, but Julian never took very long anyway. I didn’t mind because it was afterwards that I liked. It was what I did it for, what I lived for; those brief moments when he lay all trembly and grateful in my arms, his eyes glazed and his hair damp with sweat. Because during those moments he was truly mine. But this time, because everyone was around and the coach was waiting he just pulled up his pants and gave me a peck on the cheek. ‘Can you get rid of this?’ He handed me the condom.
‘Where?’
‘Your sports bag or something.’
I took the sticky rubber dripping with mucousy sperm, holding it between the tips of my thumb and my middle finger. Then I thought that made me seem uptight, like I was disgusted, so I folded my palm around it instead and put it into the pocket of my games skirt. He didn’t seem to care either way as he opened the shed door to check that the coast was clear. I wondered if I should tell him about being late and feeling sick and all that. Then I decided to wait until I was sure.
‘So when will I see you again?’ I had meant the question to come out casual but instead it sounded like a plea and I saw a flicker of irritation on his face as he turned to me.
‘I don’t know. Soon.’
I couldn’t bear that he should be annoyed by me just as we were saying goodbye so I tried desperately to think of something to say that would make him think I was cute or funny or something, anything but desperate and needy. But I didn’t have time.
‘I’ll be in touch.’ He turned in the doorway and my heart lurched as I prepared a smile. ‘Just wait for a couple of minutes before you follow,’ he said. Then he was gone.
I still hadn’t had my period. I hugged my secret close, smiling to myself as I listened to Rose banging on to Eliza about what a perfect match she and Julian were. How completely stupid they would look. While they were fantasising about kissing in the woods like the silly little girls they were, he and I were proper lovers and soon maybe we would have a baby together. In fact smiling was not enough. I wanted to laugh out loud but instead I just asked Rose if she had actually seen Julian. As I knew the answer would be no, I turned away before she had the chance to reply.
‘Actually, I have.’
I swung back and faced her. ‘You have?’
She gave a little shrug with her dainty shoulders. The princesses all had really narrow backs, even Portia, who was athletic and Eliza, who had those big hands and feet. I was a barn door compared to them, even though I was quite slim. It was how I was built. Like a brick shit-house.
‘I didn’t know you’d been to LABs. Why didn’t you tell me?’ I realised my voice had gone shrill so I took a breath and started again. ‘I mean, I have friends there too. Like, like Miles Boyd, for example.’ Rose was still looking at me as if she thought I was loopy so I finished with a lame, ‘I would have gone with you, that’s all.’
Then she giggled, her creamy-white cheeks blushing pretty-pink and her forget-me-not eyes sparkling. She was so beautiful she could be everything she wanted, a model or a film star or a real princess even, like bloody Grace Kelly.
‘Actually, he came here.’
Portia was in the San. And she was infectious so she wasn’t allowed visitors. He would have known that, so he must have come over to see me. I wondered why he hadn’t let me know in advance. I had checked the usual place for messages but there had been nothing. But all I said was, ‘I didn’t think Portia was allowed visitors.’
Rose did her little giggle again. ‘She isn’t.’
‘Oh. So he came for nothing.’ I prepared to walk off again when Rose said, ‘Actually, he came to see me.’
I snapped round. ‘To see you?’
Rose pointed at Eliza, who was sitting on the floor as usual, her black exercise book resting against her knees, drawing or scribbling. ‘Liza set it up.’
I turned and looked at Eliza. ‘You set it up?’
She didn’t respond at first. She was too busy sketching. But I asked again and my voice must have been sharper than I had intended because now, when she looked, I saw I had startled her. Then she frowned. ‘I just told him Rose might like him to come over, that’s all.’
I stared at her. The anger came slowly, starting in the pit of my stomach and swelling until I thought it would choke me. I tried to speak but it took two attempts before I managed.
‘You just thought you’d interfere, did you?’
Eliza blinked. ‘C’mon, there’s . . .’ But Rose butted in. ‘Look, Sa . . . Cassandra, we all know you had a crush on Julian but that doesn’t mean you own him. Anyway, you said yourself that you like Miles Boyd.’
That would be right. They would think that would be just the perfect match. Me and Miles; the two second-raters, the hangers-on. But my voice was steady as I told her, ‘I didn’t say I liked, liked him. I said he was one of my friends. We’re in the debating team together and that’s all.’
Rose looked bored now the topic had switched away from her. Eliza was obviously feeling uncomfortable. She should do.
Then Rose turned back to me. ‘We kissed, actually. And I’m sorry if that upsets you but you will have to get over it. You can’t just lay claim to someone because you like them. It’s not as if you’re a couple or anything.’ The way she said that was as if the very thought was absurd.
I clenched my fists so hard my nails dug into my flesh. ‘Proper kissing? Or a peck on the cheek?’
She opened her mouth to answer then closed it again. She shook her head.
‘Tell me.’
‘Look, if you’re going to be weird about it . . .’
I practically ran the four miles to LABs. I didn’t care that it wasn’t a half-day. I didn’t care that I’d get detention for the rest of my life if anyone saw me, I only knew that if I didn’t get to see him, talk to him, I might die.
I found David sitting smoking behind the cricket pavilion. ‘I need to see Julian,’ I said.
‘Are you all right?’
I thought I’d scream if one more person asked me that. But I needed to calm down and I imagined my voice tied to a balloon so it would come out all light and unbothered. ‘I’m fine. I’ve been walking really fast, that’s all. So where is he?’
David shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s doing prep.’
‘Please can you go and find him. Tell him I really need to speak to him.’
He smirked. ‘Take it easy.’ But then he looked at me again and with a little shake of his head he stubbed out the cigarette, putting the butt away in his shirt pocket, and lumbered to his feet. ‘Wait here.’
I sat down in the grass. Time had nothing to do with the moving of the hands on a clock. I learnt that while I waited for Julian. I have no
idea how long that wait lasted but it gave me a taste of what eternity would be like in hell.
At last I thought I saw him as a figure moved towards me from the direction of the main school building, but as I stumbled to my feet I saw it wasn’t him. I had been playing with a stone and now I lobbed it at the magpie that sat laughing in a nearby tree. But I didn’t even come close to hitting the damn thing; it just cackled even louder, taking lazy flight, circling overhead before returning to its perch.
There he was, ambling towards me. But I was wrong again. They all walked the same way, as if their legs were too long and needed folding.
Finally I saw him, sauntering across the grass as if he had nowhere in particular to go, hands in his pockets, looking down at his feet and then up at the sky, kicking at a can or something as he went. I felt hot and my watch felt too tight. I took it off and chucked it on the grass next to me. I wanted to run towards him but I forced myself to stay put. He didn’t seem to have spotted me.
A lifetime later he was standing in front of me, his hands still in his pockets. I scrambled to my feet. ‘Hi.’ I was amazed at how in control I sounded.
‘Yeah. What is it? David said it was really urgent.’
I opened my hand and showed him the silver charm on a chain inscribed with his star sign, which was Taurus. ‘I got it for your birthday but I couldn’t wait to give it to you.’ I tried to smile.
‘Right. Thanks.’ But he kept his hands in his pockets.
‘Don’t you want to put it on?’
‘We’re not allowed jewellery.’
I wanted to scream at him that they weren’t allowed to smoke or fuck either but that hadn’t stopped him. ‘You can wear it under your shirt.’ I undid the lock of the chain and made to put it around his neck but he shied away.
‘I’m not really into . . .’ he paused and I thought I saw a tiny smirk on his face ‘. . . medallions.’
I knew that big heavy gold chains and stuff like that were totally out of the question but this was more like a good luck charm. ‘It’s not a medallion,’ I said.
‘Right.’ He thought of something. ‘Actually, why don’t you wear it yourself? Like a memento-type thing.’
‘I bought it for you.’
He shrugged. I wanted to throw it at him, hard, and watch the blood as the chain slashed his cheek. Instead I just placed my gift in its little box and put the box back in my dress pocket. ‘What do you mean, memento? A memento is to remember something once it’s gone.’ As I spoke I kept my gaze fixed on him. His face seemed to shrink as if I were sucking the air out of it but I went on. ‘Rose says you kissed.’
He blushed right up to his hairline. Then he shrugged again.
‘Well, did you?’
He looked straight at me, challenging me. ‘What if we did?’
My heart, that had been hammering away in my chest, now seemed to have stopped beating altogether. I felt myself go cold and I felt sick. ‘You can’t have.’
‘Oh, come on, Sandra,’
‘Why did you call me that? It’s Cassandra, not Sandra, you know that. You completely know that.’
‘OK then, Cassandra. But c’mon, you and I, we weren’t serious. I never said we were serious. And you’ve been practically stalking me since you arrived at LAGs.’ He smirked again. ‘So what did you expect?’
I stared at him and I don’t know what he saw in my face but whatever it was it seemed to scare him. He took his hand out of his pocket and touched my shoulder, a quick touch as if I burnt. ‘Don’t freak out. I’m sorry, all right. I’m sorry if you thought it was more than that.’ Then his face melted into the sweetest smile and my heart came back to life.
I smiled back, putting my hand out towards him. It was going to be OK. I didn’t know what had been going on but now it was going to be OK.
‘But you know . . . Rose . . .’ he blushed again and still with that sweet smile on his face he shrugged like a coy little boy. ‘Well, it’s Rose. She’s a goddess.’ He shook his head in wonderment. ‘I honestly never thought I was in with a chance and then it turns out she liked me too. I mean. What would you have done?’
I started screaming and as I screamed I ran at him, hammering my fists against his chest. He tried to push me away but I was stronger than he was and I pushed him to the ground and threw myself down on top of him, screeching and pounding as if I were trying to propel myself down though his thin body and right through to the centre of the earth, where I would lie, quite still.
I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew I was lying alone on my back on the ground, looking up at the laughing magpie. I turned my head and watched Julian lope off into the distance. Maybe he felt me looking at him because he turned and yelled out, ‘You’re crazy, you know that? Off your fucking head.’
I lay there for a while and then I picked up my watch and got up from the grass.
Thirty-two
Eliza
Katarina told me that Uncle Ian had insisted on getting up and dressed to greet me. I followed her into the house, that seemed quieter than I had ever found it: no pipes singing, no floorboards creaking as I crossed, no wind whistling through the single-glazed windows. It was, I thought, a respectful, watchful silence as if the house were waiting, not for me, for something altogether more momentous. In the silence my steps grew exaggerated and Uncle Ian called out to me before I had reached the sitting room.
He was in his usual chair by the window. I thought he had lost weight in the weeks since I’d last seen him. His face had the look of an ancient child, his hair stood up in tufts and his eyes were huge behind the reading glasses.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘She scared you into coming, didn’t she?’ He nodded towards Katarina. ‘Interfering old woman.’
Katarina ignored him like you would a naughty child.
I touched his tissue-paper cheek with my lips. ‘I had planned to come over about now anyway. I wanted to see the woods. I remember Grandmother Eva telling Rose and me about the woods in spring.’
‘Katarina won’t let me go for a proper walk,’ he grumbled. ‘She’s always been bossy but now there seems to be no stopping her.’
Katarina sighed and shook her head. ‘I think it’s too far and I’ve told him so but you know, he’s a stubborn old man.’
We talked back and forth and eventually it was decided that I would go with him after lunch but that we would turn around the minute he tired.
The sun’s rays spread like fingers through the branches of the trees and the air was filled with cracking, snapping sounds. I turned to Uncle Ian, who was walking toddler-stepped by my side.
‘Is it really the trees making those sounds? Eva told us about this but we never quite believed her.’
‘It’s the beech leaves.’ He raised a shaking arm an inch or two, pointing towards the canopy of young leaves that seemed to float above our heads like a pale green veil. ‘After the long freeze of winter, when the warm sun comes out, the buds burst into leaf like a series of tiny explosions.’
We stood still for a few minutes, listening. Then, as we walked further into the woods we came upon a sea of tiny white star-shaped flowers. ‘Vitsippor?’ I said. I bent down.
‘You can’t pick them,’ he said, just as I was about to do just that. ‘They’re protected.’
As we went further into the woods I was careful not to trample the little white flowers underfoot – if you weren’t allowed to pick them I was pretty sure you weren’t supposed to crush them to death either – but they formed such a dense carpet that I soon had to give up. A bird, a wood warbler perhaps, struck up its song amidst the snap-crackling leaves.
‘Let’s have a break,’ Uncle Ian said. He leant heavily against the trunk of a tree and fished out a couple of plastic cylinders, of the kind used to keep camera film, from the pockets of his jacket. ‘Here,’ he handed me one.
‘I only have a digital camera,’ I said.
‘It’s drink. Film canisters make excellent containers for akvavit.
’
As I drained the canister my eyes watered. ‘Christ,’ I said. ‘Let’s sit down.’
I took off my anorak, spreading it out on a bit of grass that was more or less free of flowers. I helped Uncle Ian down and then I seated myself next to him on the coat.
‘Here, have the second half.’ Uncle Ian hauled another couple of film containers from his pockets.
Rose never got to walk in the woods when the leaves opened. Her visits to her grandmother having taken place in either winter or in summer. The thought made me feel like a cuckoo – a great big cuckoo who had taken her place.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Uncle Ian asked me.
I shrugged. ‘Nothing in particular.’
‘You were thinking of Rose, weren’t you? You know, Eliza, there has to be a line drawn between remembering the past and living in it. She knows you haven’t forgotten her.’
I turned and faced him. ‘You really do see her?’
He nodded. ‘I do.’
‘I’m sorry but I find that so hard to believe.’
‘I know that too.’
‘You’re sure it – I mean she – is not some kind of hallucination?’
He smacked the ground with the palm of his hand, crushing a whole host of the protected little white flowers. ‘Do you have to argue the toss about everything?’ He turned his head as far as his neck would let him, glaring at me sideways. ‘Eh?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘Sorry.’
‘Then, skal,’ he said, raising his plastic cylinder of akvavit to his lips and draining it.
‘Skal,’ I replied. As the warmth spread down through my chest and stomach I looked around me. ‘You can see why people living in a place like this believed there were trolls and elves and huldras. In fact, I would not be at all surprised if there were some of the creatures here now, hiding behind the trees and in the dead tree stumps, watching us.’
‘Now who’s fanciful,’ Uncle Ian said.
I lay down, making a pillow for myself with the palms of my hands. I might have dozed off but just for a moment or two. ‘ “Briar Rose”,’ Uncle Ian said. And my eyes snapped open. ‘That’s who you look like.’ He sounded triumphant. ‘Exactly like Burne-Jones’s “Briar Rose” lying there on your bed of flowers. My mother always said that we named you girls wrong. You should have been Rose, she said, and Rose should have been Lily. Briar Rose and Lily White.’
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