by Julie Corbin
‘If I didn’t do it then why would she be visiting me?’
‘Visiting you?’
‘Every night since it happened, I have dreamed about her.’ I screw up my fists and keep my voice steady. ‘And every night when I wake up, she’s standing at the bottom of the bed and is trying to tell me something.’
‘For fuck’s sake! This is bollocks.’ He grabs hold of me. ‘You’re upset. You’re imagining it. It’s like the monster under the bed. It isn’t real!’
I start to cry. It makes me angry – what use are tears? – and I bang my fists on the bed. I can’t do this on my own. ‘Listen, Euan, please. I need the dream to stop. You have to help me.’
‘Help you how?’
I tell him.
Twice he draws away from me, once he says quietly, ‘This is mad, Grace. Totally fucking bollocks.’ But he strokes my hair as he says it and I know that he will help me. Maybe against his better judgement, but he will help me.
He leaves soon after and for the first night in over a week I am able to fall asleep without dreading it. The nightmare comes as it has every night since I found her body. I’m standing on the bank of a river. I’m surrounded by the ominous shadows of pine trees that stretch up as high as a five-storey building. The sky above me rumbles and rain buckets down on to my head but somehow I never grow wet. The water lingers briefly on my face and hair then rolls off to make a puddle around my feet.
I wait for her, patiently. I listen, turn a full circle, try to anticipate her shape in the gloom until suddenly she’s there in front of me, wet through, the hem of her coat waterlogged and dragged low around her knees. She is trying to tell me something, but as she talks she slides away from me. I reach for her hand and catch hold of the tips of her fingers . . . for a second I have her . . . and then she slides down the bank, and into the water.
I throw back the covers, sweating, gulping a breath. My insides plummet but still I am compelled to look up. She is standing at the bottom of my bed, water dripping from the ends of her hair, eyes the colour of mud. Her mouth moves. I lean forward, con centrate, try to lip-read but still I can’t make out what she’s saying. But this time, I’m able to tell her something. We watch each other for the longest moment and then I blink and she is gone.
7
‘Wasn’t it funny Orla turning up like that?’
I don’t answer. I’m round at Monica’s. I’m returning the food containers she brought to the girls’ party. We’re at the breakfast bar in her kitchen. The work surfaces gleam. Utensils hang in regulation rows on hooks beneath the cupboards. Canisters are labelled – tea, coffee, sugar – and sit squarely behind the kettle. There’s an absence of dust, of clutter, of spilled milk or peeling paint behind the rubbish bin. There’s no egg clinging to the front of the dishwasher or mashed potato trodden into the floor tiles. It’s like a show house. And Monica is perfect to show it off. Her hair is always sleek and sits on her shoulders, kicking up and out like a cheerleader’s foot. Her make-up is carefully applied, her smile the same.
‘Ground control to Grace.’ Monica hands me a cup of freshly brewed coffee. ‘I said wasn’t it funny, Orla turning up like that?’
‘I didn’t ask her, if that’s what you’re implying.’
‘What does Orla have on you?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘If looks could kill, I’d have been certifying her death.’
‘She gatecrashed the twins’ birthday party. I didn’t appreciate it.’
‘You didn’t know she was coming? Really?’ Her eyebrows are plucked to within an inch of their life. She’s trying to read me, catch hold of the lie and wring its neck. I guess it’s part of the training. Doctors are used to patients being evasive.
‘Has my dad made an appointment to see you?’ I say, suddenly remembering about the blood on the hankie.
‘If he had I wouldn’t tell you,’ she says. ‘Patient confidentiality.’
‘I realise that, but maybe you could prompt him into coming? I’m worried about him. When I was with him the other day he coughed some blood on to his hankie. My mum thinks it’s coming from his stomach.’
‘He usually sees another doctor in the practice but’ – she gives a reassuring nod – ‘I’ll have a word.’
‘Thank you.’ I almost mention Ella and the pill but don’t, because apart from the fact that I don’t want Monica to have the opportunity to give me a lecture on parenting, I’m tired. I didn’t get to bed until 2 a.m. and then I slept fitfully. ‘Are you up in the middle of the night cleaning?’ I look around the pristine kitchen and sigh. ‘Seriously, Monica, I don’t know how you do it. You put the rest of us to shame.’
She pulls her back up. ‘I wasn’t brought up like you.’
‘Eh?’ I have a sudden and intense craving for a cigarette and I wonder whether Euan has any hidden at the back of the cupboards.
‘You were completely spoiled.’ She pauses.
I don’t say anything. I’m still thinking cigarettes. If he’s hidden them anywhere they’ll be down in the cabin.
‘You had a surfeit of everything,’ she continues, sitting down opposite me. ‘Whereas I had to bring myself up. My parents’ marriage was a shipwreck for as long as I can remember. All they had time for was their own self-indulgence and misery.’
‘I’m sorry.’ I take a mouthful of coffee and rest the warm cup in my hands. ‘I didn’t know.’
‘And it wasn’t just your own mother who looked after you like you were a princess.’ She’s glaring at me now. ‘But you had Mo, as well. Mo. She was such a favourite with everyone. Everybody loved her.’ She stops talking, looks into the middle distance and says quietly, ‘I was glad when she died.’
‘What?’ That wakes me up and I jerk up straight, watch the coffee rise in the air like a wave and spill down on to the walnut worktop.
She looks at me blankly. ‘How could I ever have competed with her?’
‘You couldn’t possibly have wished her dead!’
‘I didn’t say I wished her dead,’ she shouts. ‘I said I was glad when she died. No.’ She holds up her hand. ‘I wasn’t glad when she died but I wasn’t as bothered as I should have been.’ She sighs. Changes her mind again. ‘Oh, I don’t know what I’m saying.’ She drops her head into her hands and starts to cry. ‘Jesus, don’t tell Euan. He’d be gutted. Please.’
‘I won’t.’ I’m genuinely shocked not just by what she’s said but by the way she’s breaking down. I haven’t seen her lose control since Orla’s sixteenth birthday party. I don’t know whether I should go round the table and hug her. I settle for placing a hesitant hand on her shoulder; a couple of seconds and then I pull away. ‘I think you need to rest more.’
‘Listen!’ She grabs my hands and looks at me with the kind of desperation that I associate with myself. ‘Orla is bad news. I know that you were friends with her but you have to keep her away from the village.’ She’s squeezing my hands and I try to wriggle them free but she tightens her grip. ‘I want you to know that if you need any help dealing with her then I’m willing.’
I don’t need any reminding that Orla has to be kept from the village. My head has not let me forget it since I came back from Edinburgh. Orla turning up at the girls’ party was just another nail in the coffin and now that she’s wangled an invite to lunch, my fate is all but sealed. ‘Please, Monica,’ I say. ‘Let me have my hands back.’
She lets go immediately, sits back and takes a few breaths. Her lips are still moving but now she’s keeping the words to herself.
I wipe the coffee spill, rinse the cloth and put it back beside the sink. ‘Do you have any cigarettes?’
‘Garage. Top shelf. Behind the pots of old paint.’
I go into the garage and find the cigarettes. There’re eight left in the packet. They look past their best but still better than nothing.
When I come inside again Monica hands me a lit match and opens the back door. ‘You know about Orla’s mother and my father?’
I light up and draw the smoke into my lungs. It’s not going to help my headache but when the nicotine hits my bloodstream I feel a different sort of energy that might just see me through the rest of the morning. ‘I saw them in Edinburgh together. He was kissing her. It took me a while to put two and two together, though.’
‘You saw them?’ A shudder passes through her. ‘Where? When? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I was fourteen. I know that for sure because my gran took me to Jenners for afternoon tea. And as for telling you?’ I shake my head. ‘I was a bitch at times. I hold my hands up to that. But I wasn’t that bad.’
‘It had been going on for about a year before I found out then.’ She sits back in her seat and looks at the ceiling. Her cheeks are streaked with tears and she takes a piece of kitchen roll and blows her nose then goes to the sink and splashes her face with cold water. ‘You’ll understand now why I hate her so much.’
‘But that wasn’t Orla. That was her mother.’
‘She’s tarred with the same brush.’
‘Monica, you’re a doctor. That’s hardly scientific!’ I have to shout after her because she’s left the room and is climbing the stairs. I stand by the back door and look down the garden. I can’t see the cabin from here but I know it’s there and it attracts me like iron filings to a magnet. I want to kick off my shoes and run down the path, lock myself inside and never come out.
‘This is the three of us.’ Monica is back and she is holding out a photograph.
I take it from her. It’s black and white and is in a polished, silver frame.
‘I keep it beside my bed.’
She is sitting on her father’s shoulders, her hands resting on his head. His right hand is holding her feet and his left arm is around her mother’s waist. Monica is laughing. They are all laughing. ‘You look happy,’ I say, passing it back to her.
‘I was seven. We were in North Berwick on holiday.’ She stares at the photo and her eyes fix as she drifts into a memory. ‘Angeline took that away from me.’
‘It doesn’t do any good to dwell on the past,’ I say, knowing full well that the past never really lets you go. ‘You were a child. You couldn’t have changed anything.’
‘History has a habit of repeating itself.’
‘Your parents are both dead, Monica.’ I shake her gently. ‘And Angeline lives in Edinburgh now. She can’t hurt you any more.’
‘Secrets are destructive, Grace. You know?’
I feel prickles of discomfort hurtle down my spine. I, of all people, understand the eroding nature of secrets; the slow drip of guilt and remorse that leaves a sticky residue over everything you do or feel.
I wave my thumb in the direction of the front of the house. ‘I need to get back.’
‘Sure.’ She follows me along the corridor. There is a chart beside the coat rack with the children’s timetables on it, their music lessons, sports practice and coursework deadlines. I stop to admire it.
‘We could do with one of those,’ I say.
‘It keeps us right.’ She’s rubbing her hands together. She’s nervous suddenly. It’s coming off her like radiation. ‘Grace?’
‘Mmm?’
‘I’d rather you didn’t mention this to Euan. Any of it.’
It’s on the tip of my tongue to say I thought you were tired of secrets but I don’t because I am seeing parallels between her and me. I don’t want to but I am. ‘I won’t tell him,’ I say.
When I climb back into the car, I don’t drive off straight away. I sit with my head back against the rest and my eyes closed. For the first time in years, I’ve seen a side of Monica that makes me remember she’s human: flesh and blood, like me. We’re not natural friends; we never have been. As children we rubbed each other up the wrong way and that has lasted into adulthood. But adultery respects no one, and when Euan and I were having the affair, I went out of my way to avoid her. It was easier to do that than acknowledge how hurt she would be if she found out. And Paul. What is the matter with me? I have been the worst sort of wife. I have deceived him and I have cheated on him and I have the feeling it will get worse before it gets better.
There’s a knock at the window and I look up, startled. It’s Euan. He climbs in the passenger side and I automatically draw my body closer to the door. ‘What brings you here?’ he says.
‘I took some food trays back to Monica.’ I give him a half-smile. ‘Thank you for yesterday. I appreciate your help. I do.’
‘Pity about the argy-bargy at the end though.’ He raises his eyebrows. ‘I thought we agreed you wouldn’t bait her.’
‘I know.’ I bang my hand on the dashboard. ‘I’m sorry. I am. But she really winds me up. She’s so up herself. Do you think she really intends to be a nun?’
‘Not for one moment. She’s not doing this for the sake of her conscience; she’s doing it to make trouble.’ He is looking thoughtful, sad even. ‘She’s out for blood.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘What priest would advise someone to behave like this? She didn’t even push Rose. It’s none of her business what happened that night. This is one hundred per cent Orla’s idea.’
‘I suppose.’ I take a big breath. ‘I’ve been thinking. I can’t just sit here and wait for her to turn up again. I’m going to go to Edinburgh this afternoon and see whether I can have a chat with her mother.’
‘How will that help?’
‘Angeline always liked me. She might be willing to fight my corner and change Orla’s mind. They often battled over Orla’s behaviour, but in the end Orla always did what her mother wanted.’
‘Do you have her address?’
‘Not exactly but I know she’s married to a man called Murray Cooper and that they live in Merchiston. Can’t be that hard to find them.’
‘It’s worth a try. But what if Orla’s there?’
‘She’s supposed to be at the convent but if she is there then . . .’ I shrug. ‘I’ll talk to her, not lose my temper this time, see if I can find out why. Why come back now?’
He sighs. ‘Raking over old ground will mean everyone has to relive the whole thing. That won’t be good for any of us.’
I shiver. ‘It’s Paul’s reaction I’m worried about.’
Thinking about Paul is difficult. I am so afraid that he will end up hurt by this, hurt so deeply that he will question everything – our love, our marriage, our memories – and he will look ahead and see an impossible future. Despite my secrets, I believe that we have a strong and loving partnership. Could I stand up in court and convince a jury of my peers? Could I take the jury on a journey that would make them understand my actions and so forgive my mistakes?
I think I could.
September 1984
It’s over two months since Rose died and I’m back at school, going through the motions. I quickly realise that I have to pretend to be over it otherwise people watch me and whisper about me and I get no peace. So I do. I do pretend. I pretend to everyone around me but not to myself. Me, myself, I remember everything: her bloated face, waxy skin and staring eyes. And I remember the reality of her father’s grief; gutted. Quite literally. As if someone had emptied him out.
At the start of the new term, Orla doesn’t turn up for school and I find out that she has left the village. Her father has moved to the London branch of the company and they will now be living in Surrey. I didn’t see her or speak to her but I overheard my mother and Mo talking about how Orla didn’t want to go and locked herself inside the house. The police had to be called to break down the door and gossip has it that she was dragged, kicking and screaming, into her father’s car.
I’m glad that she’s gone. I’m glad I’ll never have to see her face again. She sent me a letter with her new address on the back of the envelope. I tore up the letter without reading it. Five more have arrived. I tore them up too.
Euan is fed up with me. He thinks it’s time to move on from ‘all this mithering on about Rose’. I understan
d why he feels that but I can’t move on until it’s sorted, because if I do, the dreams will never stop. And when I wake she’ll be there, watching me.
I have been reading about ghosts and how they can be laid to rest. A ghost will stick around and haunt the living until satisfied that justice is done and that their loved ones will be fine without them. Rose won’t leave me alone until I make amends. I’m sure of it. As sure as I am of my own breath and my own guilt.
So what to do? I can’t bring her back and I can’t go to the police.
My plan is to find someone special for Mr Adams. In less than a year, he has lost the two people who mean more to him than anyone else in the world: Rose and, before that, his wife Marcia. Marcia died of cancer; the fast-growing sort that mushrooms out of nothing and extinguishes a life in less time than it takes for one season to change into the next. Euan found this out for me. Two evenings a week he washes dishes in Donnie’s Bites, the restaurant opposite the university. Mr Adams and Rose were regulars there and at the time of the tragedy that’s all people talked about. How hard it was for Mr Adams. Double tragedy: first his wife and then his daughter.
‘I’m not doing any more spying,’ Euan says.
‘I’m not asking you to spy. Not exactly.’
We’re sitting on the bed in my room. David Bowie is on the record player in the background. I prefer Elton John but I’ve put Bowie on for Euan. My mum and dad think he’s helping me with my biology Higher. The autumn term has barely started but already I’m falling behind with schoolwork. I’ve had to make decisions about what I want to do when I leave school and I said nursing and the careers officer was pleased. She wrote that down and told me what subjects I needed and where I should be applying to.
Truth is I have no idea about what I will do when I grow up. I can’t think beyond this problem. I can’t think beyond the shadow of Rose at the bottom of my bed and how best to please her so that she will leave me in peace.
‘He looks fine. He’s back at work now.’ Euan is toying with the LP cover, flipping it around between both hands. ‘He came into the restaurant last night to have something to eat.’