Sandy Ross says, ‘Rain, eh. You can say that again.’
‘Why do they no wrap it in newspaper any more?’
‘Oh aye. You’ll have to ask Lindsay!’
‘Never tastes as good these days.’
‘Well, you can say that again. Hie, listen. I’ve just thought you might be able to help me with something.’
‘Aye? On you go.’
‘What it is, right, me and the boys are playing a gig on Tuesday. One of these charity thingmies they have, up at the Castle Hotel. Good money, like, all the same. Onyways, Alec has only gone and broken his wrist.’
‘How’d that happen?’
‘Well, the thing was, he was painting that new house up on Kirk Street. He was up the ladder, and he says that woman comes in, just opens the door like that’ – Sandy does a quick door-opening gesture – ‘and of course he’s behind the door. Up the ladder. Boof!’
‘What?’
‘Aye, stupid bint. The ladder sort of collapses like that and luckily he’s not too far up it, like, it’s just a stepladder, but he falls off and tries to put his hand out like that. Crrrack! Done for! Very bruised he is too, I believe.’
‘He’s lucky that’s all that’s broken.’
‘Aye, that’s what I said. He’s all right; he’s fine. The boys obviously won’t stop with the jokes about his wrist though.’
Niall gives a laugh that sounds more like a sigh.
‘So. We’ve been looking for someone to take his place on guitar.’
‘You need a guitarist for a ceilidh?’
‘Aye, that’s how we’ve arranged it. I canna mind, have you seen us? I’m on the fiddle, like.’ His smile creases his smooth, tanned skin.
‘Aye. I know.’
‘And if Alec isna there it’s going to throw us off. Course it’d make splitting the cheque easier, eh.’
Niall smiles. ‘Aye. True.’
‘Well, I’ve got the set list in the van actually. So are you wanting a look?’
‘Sure. Tell me what to play and I’ll play it, then.’
Sandy Ross leans on the open door and takes Niall through each song on the set list. He fetches his new guitar from the boot, which Niall admires. He takes it under his arm, going through some of the chord progressions.
‘That’s a nice instrument you’ve got here. Beautiful.’
‘Thanks very much. One of these Ovations. You wanting a shot of it on Tuesday?’
‘Seriously?’
‘Aye. Just to say thanks, like.’
Niall thinks about this. ‘No, you’re all right actually. I’d be best just using my old Bessie, you know? Just in case I … fuck it up.’ He laughs.
‘Ach, come off it now, how will you?’
‘I don’t know, but I just know what suits me.’
Large, grey drops of rain begin to fall again.
5
When Lauren finally comes home from Billy’s in the dark, her dad is gone. She takes the wet sheets from the dark line and puts them back in the washing machine. They smell awful, or maybe it’s the utility room. She pushes back the unsettling feeling that brushes the hairs on her arms and the back of her neck and stays still, listening. The house feels untrustworthy. She wonders what her dad might be doing and if the woman is hiding somewhere still. They don’t have an attic or a basement. She has searched all the rooms, or all the rooms she can open.
Whenever Lauren feels scared in the dark, she lets it wrap around her, opening up her other senses until she becomes part of it, moving as silently as she can. She creeps to the stone hearth and sweeps out the grey ash into a dustpan. Then she piles the fire with kindling, as she often does when her father is out in the evening, laying down a piece of firelighter with half a peat block and striking a match. A burnt match is one of Lauren’s favourite things and she breathes it in, wafting the stick around with its thin trail of smoke. She wants to feel protected.
As the fire takes hold, she grabs the apple she took earlier from Billy’s house and forest birch twigs from her pocket and scatters the pieces of wood out in front of her, with a few dry leaves. She lays the apple on the stone hearth and cuts across its circumference, splitting through the core, pressing down hard on her pocketknife with the heel of her hand. She opens the two halves, revealing a five-pointed star shape in the middle of each. She flicks the seeds on to the floor with the tip of the knife and takes a stubby pencil from the table. She draws a question mark on to the curled strip of birch skin, then throws these birch pieces into the fire, whispering:
‘Birch in the fire goes.
Tell me what the Lady knows.’
She watches them crackle and dance, then throws the apple seeds into the fire. They pop in the flames and she loses her thoughts to the heat.
When the flames die to embers she feels warm and safe in the dark house. The numbness in the walls has gone. She chops up the browning apple in the kitchen and puts the pieces on a plate with a blob of peanut butter.
She begins moving between rooms, switching on the lights, another ritual she saves for when she is alone. The only door she cannot open is the one to the locked room, by the front door.
She goes into the back room again. She wishes her dad would buy them a big TV like Billy’s. Maybe if he took on more jobs. She could make posters to advertise. He is sporadic with the work he does take on, but likes it that way. She wishes she could read his palm, too, to find out what kind of person he really is. She wonders if bad people’s hands are different to everyone else’s.
But there are other questions too that his hands cannot answer.
She wants to play her CD, the soundtrack to Frozen, her guilty pleasure, but she cannot find it. Has her father really tidied it away? She rummages through the cupboard on one side of the fire in the back room, running her finger along her father’s albums, a strange mixture of heavy metal and folk. She remembers that the last time she looked in this cupboard it was a mess, with CDs lying out of their cases and odds and ends of guitar paraphernalia: string packets, picks, the black snakes of electric leads. When she opens the cupboard an overpowering smell, like rotting meat and honeysuckle, hits her in the back of the throat. The cupboard is very neat and, after reading the names of several CD spines, she realizes they have been arranged in alphabetical order. With her hand over her mouth and nose to mask the putrid smell, she finds the Frozen soundtrack in between a group of albums by Faith No More and Na h-Òganaich. The shelf has also been decorated with a line of small polished stones, pale yellow and a glassy purple. Lauren holds one of each up to the light and puts them in her pocket.
She plays the CD in the stereo of the alcove. At first the music makes a strange, mournful noise and she thinks she must have taken the wrong CD. A woman’s voice wailing. She takes it out and rubs it with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. The second time around the music plays clearly.
She goes upstairs to get another jumper and is taken aback by her tidy room, filled with a similar heady scent, sweeter than before. Her books are ordered by her bedside table and the bed itself is made, with her stuffed duck, Webster, sitting happily on a pillow patterned with octopuses and jellyfish. There are no clothes on the floor or any of the little horses she likes to play with. All her clothes are in her cupboard and her wooden menagerie marches along her windowsill as though they are heading to Noah’s Ark. Thanks, Dad, she thinks, feeling sure he must be a good person, who doesn’t hurt anyone. She is pleased she made him a cup of tea before she left that morning.
She sits and thumbs the pages of the spaewife’s leatherbound book on her bed, to find what she must do. She realizes it has become very late, as she goes out into the black garden, scooping up four jam jars on her way.
For a brief moment, a bat flutters in the trees. At the back of the overgrown shrubbery is a patch of lavender and herbs. Imagining her mother planted these, she tries to tend to the plants while keeping them hidden. She wants to make sure it’s neat in case her mother returns, but she tells herself off for t
hinking this.
She picks three stems of lavender, three of sage and three of double-flowered camomile for each jar. Back in the house, she throws rice and salt into the jars and places them at the four points of the compass, touching each with a wish for the safety of the house. As she walks through the hall, she tries to look for clues: drops of blood or strands of hair. But the house is clean.
She takes three stones and places them on the hearth. She listens carefully, but there is still no sound of her father’s truck in the drive.
She goes up to his messy room and watches the dark stretch of road below. Sometimes there are absences she can’t explain. She has tried to stop feeling worried if he doesn’t come home right away. There’s a game she plays. From his window she can make out the shape and colour of the cars as they pass a lamp post on the single-track road. Their headlights between the fir trees and endless fields beyond. She speaks one word of a sentence with the passing of each car. Sometimes ten or twenty minutes might elapse between vehicles. It depends which day it is. Sometimes the traffic vanishes mid-sentence.
A small car. ‘Where …’
Empty road. She sees a large bird, a buzzard, swoop down and sit on a fence post.
A white van from the bakery. ‘Is …’
Empty road. Her dad is a good person.
Alan Mackie’s jeep is coming back from the town. ‘My …’
Empty road. She hopes he’s safe.
Empty road.
The pickup. The pickup. The pickup. Jameson starts barking and runs down the staircase with her.
Niall comes through the door: a cold, wet coat and beard and hat. He lifts Lauren in his arms and swings her round.
‘DAD.’
‘You’re home early!’
She observes his face closely, its lines and pores. ‘No. You came home late.’
‘Sorry, toots. Ran into Sandy Ross. He wants me to play with his band on Tuesday. How about that?’
‘Can I come?’
‘I think it’s too late for wee lassies like you.’
‘I’m not a wee lassie.’
‘No. You are a very grown-up lady who likes … wait, is this that Frozen again?’ He laughs and swings her once more, teasing her that she’s too old for the likes of Disney; then he goes to the kitchen to stoke the boiler and put the kettle on.
‘Dad,’ she shouts through to him.
‘Aye?’
‘Thank you for tidying my room.’
‘What?’
‘Thanks. For tidying my room.’
‘I didn’t tidy your room – you did. Nearly tripped over those stones. They’re in the garden.’
‘What? No, I was out—’
He has disappeared back into the kitchen, clattering pots and pans as he serves up their dinner. She notes that he didn’t look sad, angry or secretive when she spoke to him. He didn’t look any way at all.
Over a plate full of sausage and mash Lauren asks carefully, ‘So when are you playing the ceilidh?’
‘Tuesday.’
‘And I’m not allowed to come?’
‘Afraid not. I’ll play you a private gig and you can dance to that. You and Billy. And Jameson.’
‘No way.’
‘No way, José.’ Her father smiles into his plate. ‘So. You won’t mind staying at Billy’s that night then?’
‘When?’
‘Tuesday.’
‘No—’ She picks at her mashed potato. ‘Dad. Billy’s not even going to be there. They’re away.’
‘Where?’
‘Disneyland Paris.’ She forks a small cloud of potato into her mouth. ‘So can I come with you?’
‘Ach, no, Lauren. We’ll have to find someone else. How about Vairi, eh? Know how much you love her.’
‘Dad, stop joking me.’ They eat the rest of the potato in silence. As Lauren picks up the plates, she says, ‘Can I go to Angela’s house?’
‘No, you cannot.’
‘But why? They’re not on holiday. Ann-Marie is home.’
‘Aye. Maybe Ann-Marie can come around here. I don’t know. You’re just not going to Angela’s.’
‘Why not?’
He sighs. ‘Just … Now’s not the time, Lauren.’
She knows better than to say any more and dries the dishes as he hands them to her one by one. ‘Do You Want To Build A Snowman?’ plays for the fourth time.
6
Lauren waits with Billy in the rain for the school bus, dirty white with peeling letters: Lighthouse Coaches. Everyone calls them Shitehouse.
She takes her place in one of the middle seats next to Jenny Gunn, from the year above. Lauren steals a glance at her fake leather jacket with its black studs.
‘It’s from New Look,’ Jenny says.
Lauren has never been to New Look. Jenny always dresses more like the older kids at the back of the bus. She looks up to Diane and her friends who wear a lot of dark eyeshadow with bright nails. Lauren wonders if Jenny has only made friends with her because she knows Diane. She knows next year when Jenny starts the secondary school, she will be smoking with those girls at the bus stop in Strath Horne.
‘See that old lady who lives across from me,’ says Jenny. ‘I think she’s a witch.’
‘How?’
‘She scares me. Vairi Grant was over at hers the other Sunday and we heard these noises coming from her house. Cackling.’
‘Maybe they were just chatting?’
Jenny tips her dark curls back. She leans closer to Lauren, her baby-blue nails catching the fluorescent light as she cups her hand to her mouth conspiratorially. ‘We knocked on her door once and all these cats came out? She is like’ – Jenny changes her voice to a reedy old lady’s – ‘He-l-l-lo … Ca-n I hel-p y-ous?’
Lauren giggles, but really she feels nervous. She can’t imagine what Jenny would say if she ever found her granny’s book. People think she and her father are weird enough already.
‘I think that Vairi Grant is in on it too. Think they hexed me. You’re to watch out for them. Hu-bble bu-bble …’
‘Och, quit it.’ Lauren says this good-naturedly, as though she isn’t really bothered. She turns and wipes a patch of the misted window. In the pane along someone has written GRANT MACBRIDE IS GAY I.D.S.T. which stands for If destroyed, still true. Lauren draws a stick man that begins to trickle lines of water from his body.
The bus passes black goats on the steep hillside. A buzzard hovers high over an empty field. An abandoned croft with a rusty roof sprouts tufts of grass. In the distance the hills rise into mountains and the rocks grow bigger and more jagged. They stop at the Murrays’ farm and Eilidh Murray climbs on to the bus. One girl is telling someone, over three rows of seats, that she has 205 pets: ‘Two dogs, two cats, a rabbit … and two hundred sheep.’ Lauren starts inking stars on her pink rucksack until she feels sick. She always wears a grey skirt and green sweatshirt for school, with any T-shirt she likes underneath. The T-shirt she is wearing today is midnight blue with a wolf standing on a crag in the moonlight. Another wolf, made of mist and stars, looms large in the sky behind it.
A hand yanks her plait from behind. She turns towards the seats behind her and sees Maisie MacAllister and another girl from her class looking carefully out of the window.
‘Em, what are you looking at?’ Maisie says. ‘Mind your own beeswax.’
Her classmate, Katie, laughs beside her. Lauren turns around and sinks back into her seat.
In front, Maisie’s brother Stuart is telling Billy about oil rigs. It is all he will talk about, given the chance. ‘It’s semi-submersible, see. You’ve to watch it doesn’t sink.’
‘When I go to Disneyland Paris tomorrow I think there’s gonna be a ride that’s semi-submersible.’
Lauren wonders whether the MacAllister kids were in the forest the previous day after all. She is about to ask Stuart when the hand yanks her plait again, to more laughter. Jenny, a blur of black hair beside her, whips round in her seat, pointing a pastel fingernail.
‘I saw that. Yous two quit it.’
‘What are you talking about?’ comes the reply.
‘Leave her alone.’
Lauren pulls her knees up towards her. ‘It’s OK.’
The day passes quietly. Lauren’s Primary 6 class draws pictures of ancient Egyptians on coloured paper and sticks them to the walls. Lauren draws Tutankhamun with a blue and yellow headdress. She learns how to spell ‘sphinx’ and writes it six times in her best handwriting.
In Maths she helps their textbook’s series characters, Olivia and Rajesh, to solve puzzles as they trek through the rainforest. She has to separate blue spiders from red spiders and see how many stones they need to build a temple. How high it will be. At what angle it slopes.
At morning interval, she buys Highlander crisps from the tuck shop and eats them sitting against the radiator in the girls’ cloakroom, licking salty crumbs from her fingers. Most of the children are playing outside, but she prefers to go unnoticed here, in the warm. The space is empty today, apart from her classmate Rachel Munroe, who is practising the fiddle over by their row of coat pegs. Rachel comes to school every day with a sleek, high ponytail that swishes back and forth when they play sports. She writes everything in scented gel pens.
If people play a musical instrument at school, it’s usually the fiddle or the chanter. Each student learns the same tunes in the same order, by ear. The chanter players like to huddle together in the playground to practise together. Mr Muir, with his puffy red cheeks, is their teacher, priming them for the high-school pipe band.
Marching around the village on a Saturday night, playing the bagpipes while everyone watches, is Lauren’s idea of hell. She loves the fiddle though. The school fiddle players prefer to play alone at lunchtimes. If two are in the cloakrooms at the same time, they’ll compete with each other. Rachel is now running the gamut of the primary-level repertoire, each song a little faster and more complex than the last.
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