‘There’s a man downstairs. Brian or something…’
‘Byron.’
‘Yeah, that was it,’ Emily says. She looks around at the empty walls and the bin bags. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Having a clear out,’ I say.
‘Oh.’ Emily sits down on Ginny’s bed. Seeing her there is unsettling. ‘Do I really look like she did?’ she says, as if she’s read my thoughts. ‘Dad says that’s why Nan freaked out last night.’
‘There’s a slight resemblance.’ I downplay my own reaction. ‘Your hair, the colour of your eyes, and your height. But I’m sorry about what happened. Mum – your nan – shouldn’t have done that.’
Emily shrugs. ‘Nan’s just old,’ she says. ‘Maybe she’s got dementia or something.’
I frown but let the comment pass. Mum’s only in her late sixties. Though I have to admit, between the cane and the breaks with reality, she does seem older than that.
‘I think she’s probably just a little overwhelmed having everyone here,’ I say.
‘Yeah, whatever.’ Emily looks down at her hands and begins picking at her nail polish. I get the sense that ‘the incident’ – while disconcerting, and even a little frightening at the time – has now become a bore. ‘Anyway, should I tell the man that you’ll be down?’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I’ll only be a minute.’
Emily leaves the room. I close the door and sink against it. I stare at my sister’s bed, breathing hard. ‘I’m going to find out what the hell you were up to,’ I whisper to nothing and no one.
25
I put the bin bags in the wardrobe and shove the blue notebook underneath Ginny’s mattress. I don’t want Emily snooping around and finding it – or Mum, if she comes into the room. I check my reflection in the mirror, brush my hair and put on lip gloss. It’s not that I care whether or not I look good for Byron, but I don’t want to look as shaken as I feel.
I go downstairs to the sitting room. Between Byron and the Christmas tree, the room seems to have shrunk. Mum’s sitting at a foldout table where a jigsaw has been set up. It’s a thousand pieces and still has the 50p sticker on it from the charity shop. It’s a picture of stockings hung by the fire and presents under a Christmas tree: someone’s ideal vision of Christmas. Lorna is standing by the fireplace doing most of the talking as usual. Emily is standing by the kitchen door just out of Mum’s sight line. The others don’t seem to be around.
‘Hi there,’ I say.
‘Skye.’ Byron comes up and gives me a kiss that’s more lips than cheek. ‘You’re looking well. And I love the tree.’
‘Thanks.’ I frown over at Emily who’s not even bothering to hide her obvious interest in my relationship with this man. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’
‘I can’t stay, I’m afraid.’ Byron looks apologetically at the two older women. ‘I’m on my way to Fort William to pick up Kyle. Thought I’d save the little blighter the coach ride. He gets car sick, or coach sick, whatever you want to call it.’
‘That’s a bother,’ Lorna chimes in.
‘I don’t mind the drive,’ Byron says. ‘Gives me a chance to clear my head.’ He looks back at me. ‘I just came by for a quick word. It’s stopped raining now.’
‘OK,’ I say. ‘Let’s go outside.’
Byron goes out onto the porch. I put on my coat and follow him outside. In truth it’s a relief to get away from Mum. Did she know about the coach ticket? Surely not. Although… Ginny and Mum were always close. I think of the conversation Mum was having with Alice Thomson: I never told her. It’s probably unrelated, but right now my worldview is completely off-kilter. If Ginny wasn’t confiding in me in the months before she died, does Mum know something? Something concrete that’s made her question whether or not Ginny’s death was an accident?
‘You OK? You seem a little preoccupied.’
Byron’s comment distracts me from my thoughts.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘It’s just that there’s a lot going on at the house. It’s all pretty chaotic.’
‘It’s that time of year,’ he says jovially. We go around to the back of the house. On one side there’s an old swing set. Byron and I used to sit out here sometimes. The chains are rusty and the seats are wet but I sit down anyway. Byron sits on the other swing.
He clears his throat like he’s planning to address a weighty issue. ‘Sorry to be a bother,’ he says, ‘but I just wanted to ask again about the festival. See if you’ve changed your mind. One of the band member’s mum is having her hip done. Been on the waiting list for months. They really could use you—’
Ignoring his question, I make a snap decision. Byron is a little like Annie MacClellan – in fact, they’re distantly related. He has a lot of friends, and he knows just about everything that’s going on in the village. Maybe he’s heard something over the years that might explain what Ginny was thinking. It’s worth a try.
‘I found something in Ginny’s wardrobe,’ I say. ‘A coach ticket to Glasgow. And a name: Ellen McCree.’
He glances at me warily. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I just wondered if the name rang any bells. Or if there was any gossip at the time that I might not have known about. Like about her leaving… with someone.’
‘Well, yeah, she was leaving with you. For that audition.’
‘No.’ I shake my head. ‘The ticket I found was for the day she died.’
‘The day she…’ He lets out a low whistle.
‘It’s odd, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. But I’ve no idea. I guess you’d need to ask someone who knew her better than I did.’
‘I thought I knew her.’
I’m expecting him to agree, but instead, he turns and stares at me, his eyes strangely cold. ‘I thought you didn’t want to dredge all that up again.’
‘I don’t… but…’
I think of Mum and that glassy, haunted look she gets in her eyes when she loses her grip on reality. Has not talking about Ginny over all these years helped her? Or has the uncertainty made the wound fester beneath the surface. I think of how unsettled I’ve felt in my old room, living among the memories, but with the most important memory – of that night – being nothing more than a gaping hole.
‘If she was supposed to be on a coach to Glasgow,’ I speak my thoughts aloud, ‘then that means she wasn’t supposed to be at the party. So why did she change her mind?’
‘Well, she was like that, wasn’t she?’ He sounds annoyed now. ‘On a coach, at a party. It was all the same to her.’
I shake my head. Once again I’m surprised at how negative he sounds. ‘I have no memory of that night,’ I say. ‘Nothing but flashes. I want to fill in the details of what happened. Then, maybe, I can put it behind me.’
‘To be honest, Skye, I think you should stop picking at old scabs. What happened was terrible – a tragedy. But frankly, all of us in the village have tried to move on. Get past it.’
‘By lying, you mean?’ I turn and stare at him. ‘By telling a nice “story”? Is that what Jimmy and Mackie did? Because they didn’t see anything at all, did they? There was no “rogue wave”. The whole thing is complete and utter bollocks.’
He looks stunned. ‘Why… would you think that?’
‘Because Mum heard a rumour about it,’ I say. ‘People drink, and people talk.’ I repeat her words. ‘People lied about that night.’
‘Your mum heard that?’ He clenches his fists tightly around the chain of the swing.
‘It was pub gossip, apparently. Your cousins… shooting off their mouths. What exactly did they say? Were they boasting about it – how nicely it wrapped everything up? Or about how they got away with fooling the police?’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Byron says tightly.
‘So what was it like, Byron?’ I’m not going to let him get away with dodging my questions. ‘Because your finger is on the pulse, isn’t it? You were there that night.’
‘I wasn’t there,’ he bristles. �
��Not for most of the time. I was off to get the keg. Remember?’
‘I don’t remember. I only know what I’ve been told.’
‘Yeah, so there you have it, then. You had a few drinks at the campfire, and then you left without her.’ He sits back in the swing staring straight ahead. ‘It was a good thing that Donald McVee was on the case. He was the officer in charge. Otherwise, you might have got done for drink-driving.’
‘Donald McVee?’ I frown. The weeks following my accident and Ginny’s death are little more than a desperate haze of grief and confusion. I recall a big policeman coming to the house and asking me questions I couldn’t answer. Mum intervening: telling him I was in no fit state. The name is familiar, but not because he was a policeman. ‘Isn’t he your… I don’t know… something?’
‘Godfather,’ Byron clarifies. ‘You met him once, at my cousin Meg’s wedding. Sadly, he’s passed on now. He was on duty that night. And believe me, that was a good thing. Your family had been through enough with Ginny dead.’
Oh God. My head is starting to pound.
‘You were a complete mess when I found you that night. Blathering on about lights and bracelets and getting help. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. Then you passed out. It was clear that you were badly injured and I didn’t want to move you. I went back up to the lighthouse to use the emergency phone. That’s when I realised Ginny wasn’t at the campfire. No one could remember when they last saw her.’ He clenches his teeth. ‘The whole fucking thing was chaos. The boys helped me search. When we found her scarf and her jumper, I just felt a hole open up inside me.’ He shakes his head. ‘I mean, we weren’t supposed to be out there. We were trespassing, and we had… stuff. Without Donald on the case to pull some strings, heads might have rolled. It made sense for everyone to get their stories straight. Jimmy and Mackie had seen her earlier, out on the rocks. They may not have seen a wave take her, but it was pretty clear what had happened.’
‘So no one saw her go into the water? They don’t know if she was swept away or if she…’ I can’t say the word.
‘That’s exactly the point.’ He turns on me suddenly. I can only remember Byron being angry once or twice – always with his mates, never with me. But now I recognise the look in his eye. The same one as before he broke Jimmy’s nose for cheating him out of a twenty quid bet at the pool table.
‘You know how Ginny was. She did something stupid – like the shite she was always getting up to. She went out onto the rocks. She was taken by a rogue wave, but people might have thought she fucking jumped.’
I sit back, stunned.
‘They did it for you.’ He sounds almost desperate now. ‘Don’t you see that? For you, and your mum.’
‘They barely even know us.’ I stare at him, challenging him. ‘But they’re your cousins.’
He lets out a long sigh. ‘OK. We did it. And I would do it again. Your mum wouldn’t be half the woman she is now if she’d thought even for a second that her daughter jumped. An accident isn’t great – obviously – but you can sleep at night. So I suggest…’ he glares hard at me ‘… that you just leave it alone. Tell your mum that Jimmy and Mackie were just mouthing off that night at the pub, and nothing’s changed. Quit rocking the boat.’
Quit rocking the boat.
The swing creaks as he stands up, his face flushed and stormy. I stand up too. And burst into tears.
‘Hey,’ he says. ‘Look, I’m sorry.’ He reaches for me. He takes my arms, and gently draws me near. I stiffen and he lets go. ‘I know how painful it is. But you have to let it go, Skye. Really, it’s for the best.’
‘How can I let it go?’ I say. ‘The whole thing has Mum in an awful state. And now, I’m starting to question everything too. I feel so… helpless.’
He laughs grimly. ‘I know how that feels. I mean, I hated my old man. He was a complete bastard. But when I think of him, strung up on the boat, I just wish that things had been different, you know? Especially now that I’ve got Kyle. I just don’t understand how he could have done… that.’
‘Do you think that’s what Ginny did?’ I stare out at the grey haze. ‘Did she decide to end her own life?’
‘No, I don’t think that,’ he says emphatically. ‘It was an accident. A terrible accident. And everyone else thinks that too. Why wouldn’t they? Ginny was happy.’ He smiles grimly. ‘I can picture her out there on those rocks. Singing her head off. She just got a little too close to the edge.’
I nod slowly. I’m beginning to understand. Fifteen minutes ago, my sister’s death was open and shut. A ‘rogue wave’. Everyone believed it and everyone got past it. And now… it’s all a lie. The black pit of unanswered questions has yawned wider, doubling in size. I wish it was possible to wind back the clock. I wish it was possible to un-know. Jimmy and Mackie have a lot to answer for, and not for making up a story on the night…
‘Now… shit.’ He checks his watch. ‘I’m late.’
‘Go then,’ I say. ‘Thank you for telling me the truth.’
Our eyes meet and for a moment, he brightens. This time, when he moves closer to me and puts his hands on my arms, I don’t pull away.
‘When Kyle’s here,’ he says, ‘I’d love it if you would meet him. I’m going to be taking some time off from the pub to spend with him. Maybe we could all go for a pizza. I mean… only if you want to.’
‘I… OK. I guess so.’
He smiles. ‘Good.’ He lifts a finger and traces a line lightly down my cheek. ‘I remember us from back then. We were good together. And I’d like to get to know you again. As you are now.’
I keep my expression neutral. ‘We’ll see,’ I say. I just want him to leave.
‘Good,’ he says, like it’s settled. I walk with him to the Landy and he gets inside. ‘Thought I’d get in and ask you before Lachie does. He always had a thing for you, you know.’ He rolls down the window and starts the engine.
‘No,’ I say. ‘I don’t.’
‘Aw, come on.’ He winks at me. ‘Now you’re lying.’
My smile is a wince. ‘I guess that makes all of us then.’
26
I feel shaken to the core. Angry, desperate. I want to go back to the way I was only days ago when I arrived. I’d felt regret and guilt, but those were feelings I’d lived with for years: negative, but comfortable.
Now, though, I feel like fifteen years, and any perspective I’ve gained during that time, have been erased in one fell swoop. I’m angry at Byron and all the others – for knowing much more than I do about the most important night of my life and reducing it to a ‘nice’ story, supposedly out of concern for Mum and me. I’m angry at Ginny and the things I found in her room that have upset my long-held version of her memory.
And, most of all, I’m angry with myself. For my lack of memory, for the decision I made to run away from what happened leaving Mum to face everything alone. For refusing to acknowledge that there were obviously cracks in my relationship with my sister that I chose to plaster over, both at the time and in my memories. If I hadn’t done so, would things be different now?
I can’t go back inside and face Lorna’s chitchat, Mum’s tense silence, and Emily’s curious looks, so instead I walk to the beach. Everything that Byron said and didn’t say plays in my head like an infinite loop. His godfather part of the investigation, deciding to look the other way over my accident. People getting their stories straight – lying to the police. Could that possibly be true?
I know it could. Byron was right. The ‘rogue wave’ story tied everything up neatly and simply. And part of the story involves me. Now that I know that part of the story is a lie, how can I believe the rest of it?
I rub hard at my temples willing the mists to clear but the fog is as dense as ever. More than one person gave a statement that I arrived at the party, came to the campfire and had a couple of drinks. Whiskey and Coke. Even now the half-remembered taste makes me nauseous. Ginny wasn’t there, and I was told she was off somewhere with James. It
was cold out, I was upset at Ginny and I wanted to go home.
But would I realistically have sat there at the fire, socialised for a while, and then just left? The problem with the ‘story’, that I’ve never wanted to acknowledge, is that that just isn’t me. I would have gone to look for her. Maybe even had another row with her. Told her that Mum sent me to bring her home, so could she please get ready to leave? And maybe she would have laughed at me, and maybe then I would have told her to get a ride with someone else. At least I would have been able to tell Mum that I’d tried and failed – Ginny chose not to come home with me.
Which leaves my ‘vision’ of Ginny on the rocks. My head hurts as I conjure it up in my head as I walk up the steep path. Ginny on the rocks, her arms outstretched. Daring me to rescue her. When Ginny engaged in one of her attention-seeking escapades, there was always an audience. Usually me. Ginny was happy as long as everyone loved her and was fawning over her. It was only when she felt angry, or slighted that she had to do something daft. There were very few or no incidents when I wasn’t close by.
Is it possible that that my ‘vision’ is a real memory? That people lied about my going directly to the car and leaving without her? What other lies were told about that night that I believed?
I have absolutely no idea. I’m breathing heavily as I reach the pass between the hills and begin the descent down to the beach. Before I get all the way down, however, I stop. Nick is down there, walking slowly along the tideline. Kafka is streaking back and forth retrieving a ball.
I stand for a few minutes watching them, imagining what it would be like to have a peaceful, happy moment like they seem to be doing. Of course I know nothing about Nick and his situation but it strikes me that whatever he’s been through, he hasn’t ended up too badly. He’s in a beautiful place, with inspiration for his art and a dog for company. Watching them takes me out of my own troubles, until he looks up and spots me.
My Mother's Silence (ARC) Page 15