by Jenni Fagan
—We want to work with the other Sisters who normally teach at Clachan Fells Primary School and of course that involves keeping the children engaged in their education. Clachan Fells Primary School has had long-standing issues with the old boiler systems and there is no way we can heat the place with portable heaters, so we do think reinstating a library source is imperative to the health of the community. We would like donations of all appropriate texts—novels, poetry, cookbooks, self-help, anything you have to spare, please. Do come and leave them in the hall, we’ll set up a table for them.
Appropriate texts.
The nuns look like a row of crows.
Ready to peck a few eyes out.
Constance stands up and Stella’s heart falls. Stella looks at her like she is a stranger, like it is the first time she has ever seen her. There is melted snow on her mother’s clothes and hair and in a slushy pool around her feet. She’s not been eating enough, so she’s bonier than usual, and her skin is pale except for her nose, which is red from the cold. Around the hall villagers give little glances at each other. They are looking at her mother. They are always judging her. She can take the looks at herself, curiously enough, but not at her mum. It’s because she was with Caleb and Alistair for so long. She loved one and also the other, and they say you can’t love more than one person so it must have been about sex, but it wasn’t. Her mum really, really loved them and she is heartbroken and they should never look at her like this! Leave her alone! She’s not your mother! SO FUCKING WHAT if she had two lovers. So what! She HAD two—get fucking over it!
—Mrs. Fairbairn?
—My name is Constance. I would like to see texts in the library addressing issues of intolerance, hate-based crimes and ignorance of anything different.
The whole hall stops like all the air has gone. Stella can hear the blood in her veins and her heart and even her eyelashes drag as she looks up. Villagers are looking at her mother and she doesn’t give even the remotest fuck, and Stella watches that, she takes it right in.
—We are sure that is an appropriate section for the library, Mrs. Fairbairn. We could perhaps discuss it later on.
Constance walks to the front of the hall right past her classmates; she tears the picture into pieces and they flutter down into the bin like she is discarding a tissue. As she walks back she goes as close along the row of classmates as she can. Her boots are heavy and for a minute the only sound in the hall is her steady clunk as she walks by, and Stella can tell that every single one of the kids in her class is shitting their pants. None of the parents or nuns have a clue what is going on. Stella feels her cheeks burning, but she is also ready to rip Lewis’s soul from his body should he ever, ever upset her mum like that again.
—We are going to personally deliver leaflets to everyone in the community this week. We will hold a meeting to discuss the upcoming fundraiser, and those of you in the community who are able to offer time or talent, please get in touch. We need your participation. There will be ideas on how to insulate and heat your homes. Those of you living nomadically will be particularly vulnerable.
—Where’s the nomads, like?
—We mean the caravan community, of course—you all know that’s what I meant.
—We urnay nomadic, pal, our caravans are static.
—That may be so, but you will be the most vulnerable. You are closest to the mountains and furthest from the emergency services.
—We are a bit sick of being differentiated from the rest of the village, you know. We live in a caravan park and most of the units are mobile homes; we pay our taxes, just like youz all do!
—I am sure nobody wants to make you feel there is any difference between how you are all viewed in Clachan Fells, but when it gets bad…
—What? We’ll die first? Fucking bullshit, he mutters.
—Okay, can all volunteers please write your names on the pad at the door!
The Sisters dip their heads to pray and everybody folds their hands. Stella looks down at the floorboards, which are worn and have paint on them in green and yellow circles. The middle of the room has delineated areas for basketball and netball. Even just looking at them, like they have stored the echo of a basketball thwacking off wood. Kids shouting. Rubber shoes. White socks. Someone talking about someone else because they just got a bra, and her wanting a bra and not knowing if she’d ever get one, and the boys trying to swagger on their skinny legs and carol practice in winter, and then going home for mince pies. Stella gazes around at the bended heads and Mother Superior is looking at her—all the heads remain bowed around them and a cross is nailed above the stage and there are smaller crosses above all the doors. Mother Superior has a freckled nose and she is looking at Stella and there is a faint distaste in her eyes, or is there? Stella is tired of guessing, so she does something she wouldn’t do last week; she lets her hands rest in her lap so that she is relaxed and she quietly stares back at her, and after a while she realizes they are simply looking at each other. Snow falls steadily, a shiny white glitter against the dark outside.
The chatter is brighter and louder than before. Stella weaves through the adults. Parents linger, chatting it over, glancing back toward the nuns. Constance puts her hand out and Stella takes it, holds her mum’s hand like when she was little.
—Lewis is a loathsome little bastard; he’ll wake up one night to find me cutting off—his dick!
—Mum, have you been drinking?
—No. Is that the first time something like that has happened?
—Yup, Stella lies.
—That boy stayed over at ours hundreds of times—what happened to you being best friends? I’m going to speak to his mum about that drawing. I’m not having that.
—Don’t, Mum, it will only make it worse.
Down the street a girl is walking home in the snow and she moves so lightly, so easily, Stella stashes it in her brain like she is stealing gestures to try out later or discard like old clothes.
—I got rid of that wardrobe today. How about I treat you to something from the chip shop to cheer us both up?
—Yes!
—If the weather gets too bad, we’ll visit Aunt Agnes.
—Is she still alive?
—I hope so.
—If I had a sister I’d have stayed in touch with her.
—Agnes is pure Satan, as the nuns would conjecture—she is, though, through and through. You’ll see what I mean if you meet her! However, if there isn’t anywhere else to go, we could still try her.
Constance holds Stella’s chin for just a second and looks down. They are almost the same height now. In a few more years Stella will be taller than her mum. They walk into the hot chip shop and Stella puts her hands up on the metal edge of the counter display so they get warm. The man slaps a piece of fish into a big bowl of batter. He glides it through the mixture once to the left and once to the right, then drops it into the fat. The fryer sizzles a sullen gold while bubbles jump all around the batter. He wipes his fingers on his apron and picks up another bit of pale fish. A young girl struggles through from the kitchen with a plastic vat of freshly cut chips. She places it down, then takes her place back at the till. She shovels hot chips onto greaseproof paper and asks the man in front if he wants salt and sauce. He nods and puts his hot chips into a bag and disappears out into the darkness.
—Yes?
—White-pudding supper, two pickles. Mum, do you want fish? A single fish, please—salt and sauce on everything.
They stand side by side watching the girl wrap their food. Stella holds onto the corner of her mum’s coat. Constance’s fish is picked out of the hot display with metal tongs and deluged with sauce and folded neatly into newspaper. Stella points at a Crunchie. The woman looks at her mother and she nods, so it is popped in the clear bag too, but Constance takes it out and puts it in her pocket so it doesn’t melt. Constance counts out change and she even has to count out about eighty pence in five pences. When they step onto the street it is so cold that Stella c
an see her breath on the air.
—
As they walk back up to Ash Lane there is a shape ahead on the path. Stella runs on to see what it is. He is on his pathway. On his side. Like a dead spider. His boots have thick soles that are worn and rubbery and they squeak when he walks on plastic floors, and when she’s over at the industrial estate with Mum, having tea in Ikea, she knows he has walked into the cafeteria without even having to turn around. He looks quite dead. Stella nudges his foot with her boot and then bends down to stare at his craggy face. It has good features. She never gets to see Barnacle from this straight-on angle—and it would seem rude to get a mirror and hold it under his chin when he is talking, just to get a better view of his expression. He has hair up his nose and his nostrils are wide and some of his mostly white mustache hair is ginger. His hair is long at the back and the sides and his beard is mostly white with gray and brown. He has rings on his fat fingers and a harmonica sticks out of his back pocket.
—Barnacle, are you dead?
—Not today, dear.
—Why are you lying on the path? It’s freezing.
—I think I drank a little too much at lunch, with an old friend.
—Lunch was seven hours ago.
—A good lunch takes at least seven hours, sweetheart. Don’t you look pretty tonight?
—Stella, take his other arm.
Constance and Stella lift him up, one arm under each shoulder, and he is heavy but he moves forward with them, silently, his head hanging even lower than usual and an apathy to his movements, like a poorly child. The steps up to Barnacle’s caravan are buckled and her mum has to go through his pockets to find his key and open the door. He smells bad. He smells like his trousers need washing and maybe that he has done a wee on them at some point. Stella tries not to face him, and up on Ash Lane the caravans all have windows lit, with tellies on and people chatting behind the metal walls, so there is always a low murmur out here at night. The stars are bright and she can see Dylan putting a comb through his hair and she wonders if he likes her mum. Imagine that. Her mum just with one person, and a nice one that doesn’t have a wife or go traveling or generally dick about in a triad of endless confusion. Except it wasn’t Constance who used to seem that confused, was it? It was her, and she supposes what she wanted was a normal dad who lived with her and they did usual stuff, and when she became a girl he would have gone over to Fort Harbor and found the boys who beat her up and made them pay. That’s what dads are meant to do. She doesn’t have that and she doesn’t know how any of this works; being a girl isn’t an easy thing, and neither is shoving Barnacle’s bent-over frame through his door and her mum leading him into the living room and sitting him on an armchair and putting a blanket over him. And he is snoring already, and all around his caravan are heaps of magazines, clothes, newspapers, empty tins that haven’t been thrown out, and dirty dishes.
—I’m coming over here tomorrow to clean this shit up, Constance whispers.
The two of them pull the door closed behind them.
There are two benches, one on each side of the table. Stella sits barefoot scuffing her feet on the wooden floor. Dylan smiles again, tucks his hair behind his ear. Constance studies both of them.
—This isn’t aaaaawkward at all, Stella says.
The caravan is warm, the wood stove crackling and the whole place nothing like his bare wee icebox next door.
—We were just sharing some stuff from the chippy, Constance says.
—Honestly, I don’t need to eat. I’m totally fine if there’s not enough, Dylan says.
—There’s enough, Stella says as she lays the table.
—Dylan used to live in a cinema, Mum.
—Really?
—What’s your favorite film? Stella asks him.
—It is too difficult to pin down. I love early Russian cinema, Yakov Protazanov, F. W. Murnau, a lot of obscure stuff, Harmony Korine, Wolf Rilla, Czech animator Břetislav Pojar, The Goonies, David Lynch, early Disney, even a lot of the early talkies—especially Laurel and Hardy. I don’t talk about films much. I tend to like stuff that never gets a major release.
—Don’t you like WALL-E? she asks.
—No.
—I loved that when I was little, Stella says.
Constance flicks the telly on. The way she moves, something liquid about her. Just acting cool, trying not to feel like a giant in a moon polisher’s caravan and the kid happy to see him, actually gleeful.
—Look at this, Constance says.
On the telly there are queues of people at an airport and people sleeping by chairs and a pregnant woman rubbing her tummy and everybody looking worried. The news report flicks over to a weather report. The man points as weather unfolds across Europe and Africa and bits of America—red alerts all the way round, and a band of news rolling across the bottom of the screen—flights are canceled all across Europe. Temperatures are going to plummet faster than everyone thought. The South of England is already struggling. The Thames flashes up, all frozen over.
—There it is! Stella shouts.
Constance zooms the volume up.
Locals have named the iceberg Boo, because it is giving fishermen such a fright to see it travel over the North Sea and it is almost certain now to be heading toward the region of Clachan Fells.
Footage of the iceberg shows a hulk bigger than a hotel; it is bigger than the new shopping center in the city. Stella drops to her knees in front of the telly, shocked.
—I didn’t know it would be that big, Constance says.
—We have to go and see it, Mum!
—I’m in, Dylan says.
—You need to get snowshoes for walking on the mountain soon, Dylan. We have ours in the shed.
Stella starts giggling.
—I think we’re going to need more than snowshoes, Mum!
—I know, Estelle, I’m going to try and get some skis as well—don’t look at me like that! We might well need them. Anyway, Dylan, tell your mum I’m asking after her. We met Vivienne a few months ago—nice woman.
—She’s not here.
—I know that. I mean when you speak to her.
Dylan considers leaving it at that. He is feeling guilty each day they sit in Tupperware and an ice cream box, but when he asked about ferries from Fort Harbor they said sea ice was going to halt all the usual trips to the islands. Stella is studying him now and he doesn’t know why he finds it so hard to say it out loud.
—I mean, she’s not here. She passed away two weeks ago.
—I’m really sorry to hear that, Constance says.
—So, what are you up to this week, then, Stella? he asks brightly.
Constance walks back into the kitchen area, her feet bare. He is aware of everything about her: the cut of her jeans, the way she lifts up a plate, the way she is careful to not look back at him for too long. The brittle around the edges. She is jagged. It makes him want her more. She turns the telly down but leaves the footage on. The three of them eat quickly, not chatting much. Constance sprinkles salt on her chips even though there’s already some on there. He helps her clear the plates away. Would that he would. Not to let her know that, though. Not to make her feel awkward.
—Nothing much, just decaying in utter boredom. Mum, that’s the door!
—I can hear that, I’m not deaf!
—I’m sorry she’s being a bit rude, Stella whispers.
—Come in!
—Hiya, Constance, Stella, hello!
—Hi, Ida! This is Dylan, who moved in next door.
Stella grins at him and he crosses his eyes at her.
—Love the head-to-toe latex, Ida.
—Thanks, Constance. One has to try for these events—you never know when a fan might require an autograph.
—Not every street has their own porn star, Stella says.
Ida shrugs modestly.
—Most of them do these days, sweetheart. When money’s short, the tits come out!
She laughs and something
about the woman relaxes Constance as well, and Dylan is lulled by the warmth of the fire and the fairy lights and sitting in here all cozy, while it gets darker and darker outside.
—I came in to see if you want to put in for the drinks kitty, Constance? I’m nipping over to the cash-and-carry.
—Just let me find my purse.
—Did you hear about this iceberg? Aye. Lobster Jack reckons he has seen it. Nearly all of the fishing boats are back in for winter already. Sea ice everywhere—never seen the like!
—Can you see it from the harbor? Stella asks.
—Not yet, they reckon just another few weeks, though. So, where d’you move from? Ida asks.
—London-Soho-he-lived-in-a-cinema-it’s-quite-boring, Stella says.
—Like she says, Dylan grins.
—Well, you are a breath of fresh air!
Ida gives him a long appreciative look from top to toe.
—See ye, then, girls, she says.
Ida flounces out the door.
—I think I saw you heading up the mountain the other day, Dylan?
—I did, Constance. I went up there again today as well—I saw the coastline on the other side of the mountain. Looked choppy, though, and it is definitely being mapped over with ice. I’ve never seen anything like—any of this! I mean, I know it is a nightmare, but it’s majestic as landscapes go. I found ice flowers in the forest. From the top I could see a few islands out there and lighthouses? And a wee port.
—Aye, that is Fort Hope.
Constance takes a prerolled joint out of a tin and lights it up and her daughter scowls. So she opens the window a crack and blows the smoke out.
—When I was a kid we had a director in Babylon for a screening of his movie. I remember him saying one eye is always looking through the telescope and the other is looking through the microscope.
—Did you work in the cinema since you were young? Stella asks.
—I was checking the tickets when I was your age. I used to check the tickets for Godzilla, then I’d sit in the back row and watch the whole film again and again.