by Maria Goodin
“Oh, Rosie, that was a terrible journey!” the girl exclaims, swaying dizzily from side to side. “Still, we are here at the church now, and here are all my guests. Hello! Hello!” She turns in circles, shaking hands with apple tree branches. “Oh, thank you. Yes, I do look beautiful! Oh, and there is Prince Robbie waiting for me.”
She starts to hum the wedding anthem, takes a few slow steps, and then kneels solemnly in front of a tree trunk.
“Do you Jennifer Lucy Green, take Prince Robbie Williams to be your husband? Yes, I do. And do you Prince Robbie Williams take Jennifer Lucy Green to be your wife? Yes, I do. And do you promise always to look after her and buy her pretty things, including the new Barbie hairbrush set, and give her the last of your fizzy fish, and let her watch Jessie and the Space Cadets whenever she wants to? Okay, I now pronounce you man and wife.”
She stands on tiptoe to plant a kiss on the imaginary Prince Robbie. Then, scooping up a handful of flower petals that she has stashed nearby, she throws them up in the air like confetti, letting them flutter down over her head. She turns slowly in circles, her face toward the sky, laughing happily as the petals fall on her closed eyelids and stick in her hair. Rays of golden sunlight pierce through the leaves of the apple trees, making her rosy skin glow and her honey hair shine. When all the petals have fallen, she scoops them up and throws them in the air again, laughing.
I watch her closely, smiling. In the hazy shafts of sunlight, I can almost see her wedding dress covered in sequins, the forty bridesmaids dressed in pink, the handsome Prince Robbie, and the unicorn waiting to whisk the happy couple off on their honeymoon to a tropical island. I even find myself wondering where they will be going.
And, just for a moment, I am taken back to a feeling I can barely recall and that I can’t quite capture, like when you wake in the morning with the memory of an elusive dream teasing the corners of your mind, telling you there is a place you have been that you can’t return to, another life that was in the midst of unfolding when it was cut short. What is that feeling playing at the edge of my awareness? As I watch the little girl squealing in delight as she spins beneath the falling petals, I am reminded of…something. Something good.
Beep beep beep beep…
The alarm on my watch sounds sharply, startling me. Time for my mother to take her medication. I switch the alarm off quickly, feeling irritated. What am I doing? I don’t have time to waste standing here watching this child act out her silly fantasies. I have pills to count out, the doctor’s office to phone, bills to sort through. In short, I have reality to deal with, something this little girl better get prepared for, and quickly. Whoever allows her to behave this way is doing her no favors at all, and someone had better help her fast.
“You can’t just marry someone the day after you’ve met, you know,” I say, stepping out from behind my tree. “It doesn’t work like that.”
The girl stops giggling and almost jumps out of her skin. She stands ten feet in front of me, wide-eyed and frozen, a yellow flower petal stuck to her bottom lip.
“Churches have to be booked well in advance, for one thing. And how can you have organized such a big wedding when you had no time? And anyway, you can’t love someone you only met yesterday. Plus, who’s ever heard of a flying unicorn?”
The girl looks around her anxiously, looking for an escape.
“And I really don’t think you would go ahead and get married only moments after escaping from a tornado. Do you know the havoc tornados wreak? People lose their homes. They die. Whole families are wiped out. One minute they’re in bed asleep, and the next, their roof has been ripped off, and they find themselves being flung into the air, everyone screaming, everything crashing down around them, blood everywhere—”
The girl suddenly flees as fast as she can out of the orchard, an expression of horror on her face.
“Hey, come back!” I call. “I want to talk to you about the use of servants and social inequality!”
***
By the time I fumble my way out of the orchard, Ewan has come to the little girl’s rescue and is crouching down by her side, wiping away her tears with the back of his grubby hand. He settles her down on an upturned wheelbarrow and hands her a half-eaten slice of banana cake before striding purposefully toward me.
“Why have you been telling my niece about people being ripped screaming from their beds?”
“She seems to think tornados are some sort of game. Hasn’t she ever watched the news?”
“She’s six!”
“Then it’s about time someone sets her straight. She seems to think people just walk out of tornados unscathed and that unicorns actually exist.”
“It’s make-believe!” he says incredulously.
“Well, of course it is! That’s the problem. Aren’t you worried about the damage this sort of rubbish can do?”
Confused, he rubs his forehead, leaving a streak of mud across his brow.
“Why on earth would I be worried?”
Glancing at the little girl, now happily munching on her cake, I take a step closer to Ewan and lower my voice.
“Look, it might be fake weddings and flying unicorns today, but tomorrow she’ll be telling people she saw a squash dancing in the moonlight or a cauliflower racing a head of lettuce down the garden path. And then what will happen?”
Ewan frowns.
“People will laugh at her, that’s what. They’ll call her a liar and a telltale, and no one will want to be her friend. All the kids at school will shun her, and she’ll have to sit and eat her lunch at a table all by herself because the other children will think she’s odd. They’ll call her a baby and won’t let her join in their games, and she’ll always be confused about what she’s done wrong, because as far as she knows, unicorns do fly and marrows do dance in the moonlight, because nobody ever set her straight. And she won’t be able to understand why nobody believes her until she realizes that everyone else must be right and that things can’t have happened as she thought, and then she’ll feel stupid and more confused than ever.”
Ewan stares at me, bewildered. “Are you drunk? What’s wrong with you? She’s six, for God’s sake. I know you were probably studying the periodic table at her age, but it really is very normal for her to be playing like this. It’s called imagination.”
“No, it’s called confusion. And if it’s allowed to continue, she’ll always be confused. And when she’s grown up and she tries to remember her childhood, all she’ll be able to remember is castles and unicorns and dancing cauliflowers, and she’ll never have any idea what really happened, because her mind will be all muddled up. And she’ll resent you because you encouraged her fantasies, and that will lead to even more confusion, because even though she’ll resent you, she’ll love you at the same time!”
Ewan narrows his eyes and peers at me thoughtfully.
“And I guess,” he says slowly, as if testing out a theory, “that maybe she’ll react to her confusion by trying desperately to ground herself in reality. Am I right?”
“That could well happen!” I blurt out, pleased he’s finally understanding.
He studies me carefully, his face softening as his annoyance seems to fade.
“If you want to contribute to the poor child’s confusion, then fine,” I tell him, “but she’ll be the one to suffer, and she won’t thank you for it. Do you understand?”
He nods slowly, looking at me with what appears to be sympathy.
“Yes. Yes, I think I do understand.”
“Good,” I say, satisfied that for the first time he has backed down and reason has prevailed. “Well, I’ll leave you to deal with the situation as you see fit, then.”
I don’t know why, but as I turn and stride victoriously back up the garden path, I can’t shake the creeping feeling that somehow I have said too much and that perhaps I am not the winner after all.
chapter eleven
It’s the White Giant who tries to strangle me in my dreams. He looms over me, faceless, his shoulders so far above me that his head disappears into the clouds. He’s the one who smells of raw meat. A bloody steak that sits on the chopping board. A red lamb chop before it’s laid on the grill. Pink worms of pork that churn out of the mincer. The innards of a chicken. I hold my breath as he comes near me, afraid that I might be sick.
I don’t know what I’ve done, but I’ve made him angry. Very angry. He swoops down on me, blocking out the light, and grabs me with his enormous hands that tighten around my throat. I try to scream, but there’s no air in my lungs. I can feel his calloused fingers digging painfully into my windpipe, below my jaw, under my ears, squeezing. I try to swallow, once, twice, but I can’t, and suddenly I am gulping like a goldfish on dry land and there’s a pressure in my head like it’s going to explode. I imagine my eyes popping out of my head and shooting out across the room on springs, like in a cartoon. I try to pry the giant hands away, but they are stuck to my skin like glue. The world around me is turning gray, the colors draining away like chalk drawings on the pavement when the raindrops start to fall. The light is fading, disappearing down a narrow tunnel that keeps on shrinking until it is no more than a little white pinprick.
It is going.
Going.
Gone.
***
“Out! Out! Out!”
The scruffy dog sits down in the middle of the kitchen floor and wags its tail at me expectantly.
“What are you doing, you stupid creature? Get out!”
I make a move to grab it by the collar, but it seems to think we’re playing a game and rolls over on its back, its long pink tongue dangling out the side of its mouth.
“Stand up!”
My experience with animals has been fairly limited to date, and I have very purposefully kept it that way. At age thirteen, I became unreasonably attached to a hamster by the name of Jeremy that my mother bought me as a birthday present. For weeks after Jeremy’s death, whenever I thought of his beady black eyes and his tiny pink nose, I would feel tears welling in my eyes, and I had to repeatedly pinch myself to regain control. It was ludicrous that I should be so upset over a little animal who did nothing other than sleep all day and run around in its wheel all night, keeping me awake. It made no sense to keep thinking about him, and I hated that my feelings seemed so disproportionate to what I had lost. I decided there and then that, as animals obviously evoked irrational feelings in me, I was clearly not cut out to own one.
“You shouldn’t be in here,” I tell the dog. “You’re all dirty; please go back outside.”
I point at the open kitchen door and try to think of the command to make a dog go away.
“Leave! Go! That way!”
The dog rolls onto its front, wags its tail furiously, and barks at me.
“I see you two have made friends.”
I turn to find Ewan leaning in through the open back door, an amused smile on his lips. He looks like he hasn’t shaved or slept in about a week, and his hands are covered in scratches and what appear to be teeth marks.
“I assume this is yours,” I say, pointing at the scruffy animal.
Ewan covers his mouth with his hand and tries to stifle a yawn.
“Yeah. But he seems to like you. I don’t suppose you ever fancied owning a dog?”
“Absolutely not. Get him out of here, please.”
“Are you sure? The two of you really seem to be hitting it off.”
Seeing I am not in the mood for jokes, Ewan emits a short, sharp whistle, and the dog flies out through the open door, sits down on the patio at Ewan’s feet, and gazes adoringly up at him. Ewan rubs his eyes and yawns again, and I am so tired myself that I find myself starting to yawn too. Ewan catches my eye and smiles.
“Mine’s down to a dog that howls all night long. What’s your excuse?”
“Nightmares,” I say sleepily, before I even think to stop myself. Immediately I wish I could take the words back. I have never told anybody about my nightmares. I don’t want people thinking there is something wrong with me, that I can’t control the crazy thoughts that invade my head night after night. I don’t want anyone thinking I’m disturbed in some way.
“Oh, nightmares are horrible things,” Ewan sympathizes. He crouches on the patio and rubs the dog’s head so hard between his palms that I think he might do some damage, but the dog is wagging its tail furiously. “Last year I kept having this really bad nightmare where I was falling down a well. I had it for months.”
“Really?” I ask, suddenly flooded with relief that I am not alone.
“Yeah, it was scary. I would wake up in a cold sweat, grabbing at the side of the bed to stop myself falling. And I could smell the slime on the walls of the well and feel cold water around my feet.”
“You could smell the slime?” I ask, feeling reassured that other people can smell their nightmares.
“Yeah, it was horrible. And even when I woke up, I could still smell slime all morning.”
Me too! I almost blurt out. All day, I smell raw beef and pink sausages and uncooked chicken.
“What was your nightmare about?” asks Ewan.
Should I tell him? I can’t. I’ll sound crazy. But here he is telling me about his slimy nightmares and asking me about mine, and I am so tired and I just want to get the images out of my head, to tell somebody…
“This giant man is trying to strangle me and he smells of meat,” I blurt out, “and I can feel his fingers on my throat and they’re squeezing and my eyes are about to pop out and fly across the room when everything goes dark and I think I’m dead.”
Ewan looks startled. I stare at my feet, suddenly wishing I had a rewind facility. What on earth must I sound like, talking about meat and giant men? Ewan may also have had crazy dreams, but then Ewan’s a man who talks to trees. With him, it’s to be expected. He spends most of his waking life having crazy thoughts.
“That sounds terrifying,” says Ewan, gazing up at me from where he is crouched with the dog. He looks genuinely bothered on my behalf.
It is! I want to shout. I feel like I’m dying, like I’m leaving my body and I can’t pry these hands away, these huge calloused hands…
“It is a bit frightening,” I admit modestly, and even as I say the words they feel alien in my mouth. I have never admitted to being frightened of anything. Ever.
“I think I’d be frightened too,” says Ewan empathically.
We look at each other. I notice how tanned his face has become over the past few weeks and the slight reddish glow to the bridge of his nose, where his skin has burnt. His hair, too, has bleached in the sun, a few honey strands running through his chestnut locks. I feel my cheeks flush and look away.
“Anyway,” I say quickly, “how have you ended up with a dog that keeps you awake all night?”
Realizing that the conversation has swiftly changed track, Ewan stands up and peers down at the dog.
“His owner was one of my clients, Mr. Gorzynski, an old guy who lived a couple of roads from here. He died last week. He always said he wanted me to have the dog, so here we are. A new team.”
“Why did he want you to have the dog?” I ask, incredulous that anybody would entrust Ewan with permanent responsibility for a living creature.
“Let’s just say he’s got a special skill that comes in handy in my line of work,” he says intriguingly.
“You mean he likes sitting on his backside drinking coffee?”
Ewan raises one eyebrow at me and pretends to be shocked.
“Why, Miss May, did you just make a joke?”
I bite my lip to stop myself from smiling.
“I’ll have you know,” he says, “that we’ve been out here since nine o’clock without so much as a cup of coffee and a slice of”—he p
eers over my shoulder at the cake that is sitting on the counter—“a slice of chocolate cake to keep us going.”
“How tragic,” I say mockingly, half startled and half amused by his audacity. “You’ll just have to hope somebody takes pity on you and brings you some refreshments before you wither away.”
Ewan smiles. “One can only hope.”
I wait for him to go, but he remains on the patio, looking thoughtful.
“You know,” he says, “I can make you a tincture for your nightmares if you like. Lemon balm, lavender, chamomile—”
“No, thank you,” I say quickly, not wanting to get back on the topic. I already feel as if I have said too much.
“It can help in times of stress. I know things are hard with your mother—”
“I’m not stressed. I’m fine. Thank you. I’ll bring your coffee down to you,” I say to end our conversation.
Ewan gives me a brief nod before turning to head off back down the garden. I lean my elbows on the kitchen counter and place my face in my hands, rubbing my tired eyes with the heels of my palms. I feel exhausted. And I have a terrible headache. Why did I tell him about my nightmares? I feel like I just stripped naked and ran up and down the garden in front of him.
“You know the best thing about Digger?”
I look up with a start, surprised to see Ewan still there. “What?”
“Digger. The dog. The best thing about him is he’s a fantastic listener. If ever I’ve needed to talk about something, Digger’s always been there. He’s really quiet, never interrupts, and he’s very discreet.”
“I have nothing to talk about,” I say conclusively.
I look at Digger sitting on the patio, panting, a thin line of drool hanging from his mouth.
“And even if I did, I certainly wouldn’t waste my time talking to a mangy old dog.”
Ewan shrugs. “Suit yourself. Maybe I’ll just leave him here for the moment anyway. Just in case you change your mind.”