‘Yes, Mum. I have enough towels.’
‘OK, well…’ She sets the cloth down and wipes her hand on her woollen skirt. ‘I’ll probably watch some TV in my room. That’s not going to disturb you?’
‘No. I’ll be fine.’ I try to smile reassuringly. This is all going awkward again, like a frame of snooker where someone has pushed all the red balls up the wrong end of the table.
‘Thanks for making supper. It was delicious.’
I smile at her, hoping to see even a glimmer of warmth reflected back. But her eyes have taken on that cloudy, dazed appearance from earlier. It’s clearly going to be up to me to bridge the gap. I step forward, take her arms, and give her a light kiss on the cheek. ‘Goodnight,’ I say.
‘Goodnight… um… Skye,’ she says.
That pause… it’s almost like the gears in her mind are recalibrating to get the name right. Well, she’s done it. This time.
7
I’m exhausted. Every molecule inside of me is crying out for sleep. And yet, as I lay curled up in the narrow bed, I can’t switch off my thoughts, can’t dispel her ‘presence’ from the empty bed across the room.
Ginny, my twin. The girl with the golden hair and the silver voice. We were born together, raised together, spent most of our waking hours together. And yet, we might as well have been from different worlds.
When Ginny walked into a room, people took notice. Her beauty, her smile, her voice, and when she sang, the other emotions that would play across her face like clouds across a full moon. Always changing, always captivating.
And she was my sister.
When Ginny and I were teenagers, sometimes we barely slept because we’d be up so late talking about our dreams, which, as time went on, became plans. We were going to be famous, a double act. My songs, her voice. We’d see the world, go to New York, we’d meet our favourite boy band members, we’d be celebrities. I was going to make it happen. Once we escaped Eilean Shiel, the sky was the limit – we were going to fly.
On her eighteenth birthday, I gave Ginny a bracelet and matching earrings that I’d made for her from silver wire, shells, blue and green sea glass, and a golden heart charm. I remember how she’d smiled and told me they were the most beautiful things she had ever owned. That she’d take them with us, wear them when we were in America together. I’d felt so proud that she liked them, so proud that she was my sister…
She was wearing the bracelet and earrings the night she died. Out on the rocks below Shiel Point Lighthouse. There were two eyewitnesses who saw her out there, twirling around; singing; happy. And then, she was just… gone. Swept into the water by a wave. Her body was never recovered.
The rain batters down on the roof and a loose shutter bangs outside the window, almost like someone knocking, trying to get in. I bury my head under the blanket, praying for sleep. I wish that I hadn’t flushed all my sleeping tablets down the toilet before I left Vegas. I wish that I had brought her home that night like Mum asked me to. And I wish we hadn’t had an argument, right here in this room, before she left for the party out at the lighthouse. It was the last time I saw her alive.
I turn on the bedside lamp, staring at the circle of light on the ceiling. In the background I can hear the drone of Mum’s TV and the ticking of the travel alarm clock that’s still in my suitcase. How cruel life is that we never know when the seconds will begin ticking down to something that changes us forever.
That night I sat on my bed watching her getting ready for the party: combing out her hair and putting on her Aran jumper and polka dot scarf. I felt so happy. In only six weeks’ time, we’d finally be leaving; finally off to begin the wonderful life that I had planned for us. The life I’d been working so hard to achieve. For two years I’d been sending out demo tapes to agents and record companies. I’d got used to the crushing silence, and had even begun to lose hope. But something that Dad used to say kept me going: ‘The only way you’re sure to fail is if you don’t give it a try.’
The letter arrived in late September. It was from one of Dad’s musician friends who lived in Glasgow, and had stayed in touch over the years. I’d sent him one of our tapes in case he happened to know of anyone who could help us. He’d enclosed a flyer that he’d picked up for open auditions. A Glasgow-based band was looking for a female singer and back-up musicians for an upcoming American tour. When I saw the flyer I felt a surge of hope stronger than anything I’d ever experienced. I screamed and jumped up and down. I picked my sister up like she weighed nothing and whirled her around. This was it – the opportunity we’d been waiting for our whole lives. And Ginny had been happy too. Her eyes had shone with pale fire as she’d laughed and twirled around.
The audition was in early January. On the night of the party, there were only six weeks to go. Our coach tickets had arrived by post earlier in the day. I’d shown them to Ginny. Kissed them, I was so excited. I had them out on my bed as she got ready. I was telling her about the hostel I’d found for us to stay, I was going to call and book it… Ginny put on the bracelet I made for her and put the earrings in her ears. And then she turned to me: ‘I’m not going to the audition, Skye,’ she said. ‘But you should go. You’ll be brilliant.’
My first reaction was to laugh in her face like it was all a great big joke. If I had, then maybe things would have turned out very differently. But when I rewind the conversation in my head, even after all these years, I still feel the same icy ball of anger forming in my stomach.
‘No…’ I’d said. ‘You’re not serious. You… can’t be serious.’
Her smile faded. ‘I am serious,’ she said. ‘I’m not going. I want to stay here.’
‘Stay here!’ The very idea filled me with dread. There was a world out there. We only had to take the first step. Together.
‘Yes, Skye. I’m sorry to let you down.’
‘No… you… can’t…’
She came over to my bed and picked up the coach ticket I’d bought for her. The glass earrings flashed as they caught the light but her eyes were dark and cold. She looked at the ticket, then at me.
Then she ripped it up.
She put the pieces in a little pile on my bed. I stared at her, stared at the pieces of my dream in a little white heap.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, and left the room.
I was fizzing with anger and disbelief. I curled up in a ball on my bed facing the wall. I stayed there until I heard Byron’s Jeep pull up outside to give us a lift to Shiel Point. I heard voices downstairs, the front door close, and the car drive away.
My sister was gone.
And then she was dead.
I roll over, away from the empty bed. My pillow is damp with tears. The shutter bangs again in the force of the wind.
‘Why?’ I whisper into the darkness.
I pull the pillow over my head to drown out the silence that’s the only answer.
8
When I wake up, the room is bathed in pearly morning light. It takes me a moment to realise where I am, and that I haven’t gone through some kind of time warp. All of my old things in this room now seem strange and remote. I glance at Ginny’s empty bed and feel an ache of sadness. But it’s a familiar sadness tempered by years, not the dark, gaping hole of loss that I felt last night. I get out of bed and go to the window. The rain has stopped and the wind has blown away the clouds to leave a perfect ice-blue winter sky. I crack open the window and take a deep breath. The air that fills my lungs is cold and bracing, but with a freshness like nowhere else. I smell mossy earth and sea air. It’s the kind of morning where it’s impossible not to feel a sparkle of optimism.
I come away from the window. My suitcase is on the floor near the bed. I dig through it and put on a black roll neck and a pair of jeans. There’s a chest of drawers in the room and two identical pine wardrobes. If they’re empty, I could move in my things. But what if they’re not? I don’t want to face any more memories right now, so I zip up my suitcase and put it back on the bed. Seeing it th
ere, knowing that I can run away again if I choose, gives me that little bit of extra resolve I need to face the day.
I smell fresh coffee as I go downstairs. Mum’s not in the kitchen, but I find a big pot of coffee in a drip coffee maker. When I was growing up, Mum and Dad drank instant coffee. This is another definite improvement. I pour coffee into one of the old mugs from the back of the cupboard. Cradling it to warm my hands, I go to the window at the back of the cottage. Outside is a panorama of land, sea, and sky. The grass behind the house stretches about thirty metres to a wooden fence with apple trees planted along the side. Beyond the fence, huge rocks jut up from the water below. The sea is a milky blue-grey, the fragile sunlight shimmering on the water like diamond chips. Across the bay, the village is still mostly covered in mist. A fishing boat slowly makes its way out of the harbour towards open water, seagulls circling the deck.
The view is so familiar, and yet it’s like I’m seeing it for the first time. Appreciating the remoteness of this place, hours away from the nearest city. Here, we live at the mercy of the sea and the wind. Any impressions we leave behind are shallow and delible, like footprints in the sand. Fifteen years is a blink of an eye; the land doesn’t care that I once went away, or that I’ve come back again. My life is small, my little dramas and struggles unimportant against the vastness of sea and sky.
There’s a kind of comfort in that.
I sit down at the table. The door to the shed off the kitchen is slightly ajar, and I can hear the sound of running water. Dad built the shed in part for his tools, and in part for the times when he was banished by Mum outside with his bagpipes. After he died, Mum turned it into a greenhouse, growing tomatoes, broad beans, and strawberries for planting outside in the spring. She must be watering them. I decide not to disturb her.
As I drink my coffee, I wonder about Mum in a way I haven’t done before. In the way of an adult, not just a spoiled teenager. Back then, Ginny and I mostly relied on her to do the cooking and the laundry. Though she was quietly supportive of our interest in music, she also encouraged us not to neglect our studies so that if our big break never came, we might be able to go to university. Neither of us listened to her.
Now, though, I wonder about what hopes and dreams she had. A family, children, and a quiet, authentic existence, or something else? Did she ever dream of escape, or was she content with her life until tragedy struck? I’ve never asked her. Would I have asked her if things had been different and we’d been able to have a real mother-daughter relationship? Would I have got to know her as a friend? Is it too late to do so now?
I hear a noise in the shed; slow, laboured footsteps coming towards me.
Instantly, I feel anxious. Dinner was so awkward last night; feeling constantly on edge for the next mention of my sister’s name, the next invocation of her memory. And that awful moment when Mum mistook me for Ginny and spoke to her like she was in the room…
I need to know a lot more about Mum’s mental state before I can assess what our future relationship might be. Whether there are too many bad memories lurking in the shadows for us to have any relationship whatsoever. I have to believe, though, that she wants me here. She asked for me… To me, that makes all the difference.
The footsteps stop, recede. She begins to hum. I hate the sense of relief I feel that Mum seems to be occupied at the moment, and there’s no need for a repeat of last night’s tussle over the teapot. I finish my coffee (washing out the mug before putting it back), eat a banana and then go upstairs to get the decorations down from the attic. Maybe I’m living in cloud cuckoo land thinking we can be like a normal family and have a normal Christmas. It might cheer up Mum, though, so I may as well have a go.
The attic is accessed from a hatch at the end of the corridor. I find the long stick to open it in the airing cupboard, and the hatch comes down with a creak and a cloud of dust. I unfold the ladder and climb up.
I know about the low beam and even put my hand up over my head so as not to hit it. I wiggle into the hatch, feeling for the light switch. As I do so, I hit my head on a second beam that’s hidden behind the first. I swear out loud, feeling close to Dad.
The fluorescent light hums and flickers like it’s awakening from a long sleep. I get onto one knee and then manage to stand up, taking care not to get another bump on the head or cobwebs in my hair. The attic is full of boxes labelled in Mum’s neat writing. The Christmas boxes are near the hatch: she must have had them down at some point in the last fifteen years, probably another time that Bill’s family came round for the holidays.
Snooping around makes me feel like an intruder. Everything seems to invoke a past that’s no longer mine. There are boxes labelled ‘School workbooks: Skye & Ginny’, and ‘Sports trophies: Bill’. There are old amps, cables, and broken microphone stands scattered haphazardly. There’s a box marked ‘music books’, and another box of books without a lid. On top is a book called Celtic Myths and Legends that I must have read a hundred times when I was growing up. I based a lot of the early songs I wrote on those stories. Songs of giants, fairy worlds, and Selkies: sleek, seal-like sea creatures who could shed their skins and become human, their voices luring unsuspecting fishermen to their deaths.
I toss the book over near the hatch. Maybe I’ll read those stories again, see if they might provide inspiration like they used to. In the last few years, I’ve barely done any songwriting. I turned away from my Celtic heritage even before leaving here, trying instead to write catchy country and western songs in the usual theme: my man left me, my dog ran away, my pick-up died, but my boots are good as new. It wasn’t difficult, and I even had a few successes. But it was never really me.
I’m about to go back down the ladder when something catches my eye. Dad’s guitar case, shoved under the eaves behind the amps. The case is covered with stickers from various folk festivals, and the handle is taped with black electrical tape. The handle broke one night when we were dashing from the car to a pub in the middle of a rainstorm. He kept saying that he was going to get it fixed, but he never did.
I stoop down to pull out the case. Once, my hands were too small to play Dad’s guitar, but no longer. I don’t have my own guitar here so if I’m going to do any songwriting, I’ll need to use Dad’s. As I pull it out, another box shifts. It’s labelled: ‘Old Journals’.
I stare at the box. The only one of us who kept a journal was Ginny. She used to get a new one every Christmas and wrote in it almost every day. I never read her journals, but then, we were so close that I felt I already knew what she was putting down on paper. Now that she’s gone, though, it’s a bit chilling. Has Mum read her journals? Did she read through the details of her daughter’s life, trying to keep her memory alive? At least they’re up here and not downstairs on a bookshelf. Maybe she hasn’t read them.
I leave the journals where they are and take down the Christmas boxes and the book. I go back up for Dad’s guitar. As I’m taking it through the hatch, something gives way. The taped-on handle finally breaks. The case crashes to the floor, squashing two of the Christmas boxes. There’s a discordant vibration of strings… and then silence.
In that moment, something cracks inside of me. All the negativity, pain, and regret I’ve been holding inside come rushing back. I’ve tried so hard to put on a brave face and keep moving forward. Tried to get over the death of my sister and build a life without her. I did what Mum wanted and stayed away – so long that it seems like forever. Or it did, until I came back. Now, though, I realise that I never escaped anything. Not the memories, and certainly not the regrets.
I come down the ladder and slump to the floor. I think of my suitcase, zipped up on my bed. A voice inside my head screams that I should just leave. Escape again, keep on running…
But there’s nowhere else to go.
9
I sit staring at the wall, fingering the broken handle. In all the years that I was away, there was a part of me that yearned to come home. A prodigal daughter, returning to find pe
ace and forgiveness. When Mum asked for me, I thought that might finally be possible. Now, though, everything still seems broken. There’s no peace or forgiveness here.
Dishes clatter in the sink downstairs. Mum: pottering about on her bad leg, getting on with life’s chores. As she’s done for all these years, even though she lost a child and her surviving daughter left home six weeks later. I wipe away a stray tear. Mum’s never been much of a crier, and neither have I. I’m beginning to see that there’s more of Mum in me than I’ve ever consciously admitted. A core of steel tempered by loss. I guess that’s what comes of having an ‘old soul’.
Ginny was a crier. She had big emotions written there on the surface for everyone to see. She would cry loud tearful laments whenever she was sad. When she was angry she would go outside and scream into the wind. When she was happy she would run down to the edge of the garden twirling and singing. Ginny said ‘I love you’ easily and frequently. All that emotion, all that changeability, could be endearing, but it was also exhausting. Ginny was an exhausting person.
I open up the guitar case, breathing in the scent of varnished wood. I run my fingers over the steel strings, the small dots of mother-of-pearl inlay and the intricate pattern of Celtic symbols around the tone hole. The guitar is a beautiful instrument, handmade on the Isle of Harris. Dad bought it at a festival. We sat together in the guitar maker’s tent as he tried each instrument out to find the one that was right for him. Ginny had got bored and went off with Mum. Dad had strummed the guitar, and I’d sung, and then we’d switched. The maker had joined in and people had stopped to listen, almost like we were one of the acts. And I’d felt so happy and proud that I was musical like Dad. I was part of a tradition that was important, something larger than just my own life. Thinking back, that must be why Dad bought the guitar, even though it cost a lot of money. The guitar had given us joy.
My Mother's Silence (ARC) Page 5