Pine

by Francine Toon

  Lauren doesn’t have official lessons like the others but their teacher, Sandy Ross, comes to her father’s now and again to play guitar with other men. He usually teaches her something on those nights and she is allowed to stay up later and listen. The songs they play most are about travelling round the world and missing Scotland and learning things the hard way. Songs that bring most men to the brink of tears, before they belt out a chorus to stop themselves. Lauren will sing along too and let her feelings ride high. Just as certain songs are only played at certain midnights in Scotland, particular emotions are only permitted in particular circumstances such as these. Whenever the men grow rowdy with drink, she takes herself to bed.

  Lauren has stopped recognizing the songs Rachel is playing, so when she pauses, Lauren asks, ‘What was that? After “Merry Boys O’ Greenland”?’

  ‘“Da Full Rigged Ship”. Are you still playing.’ This sounds like a challenge rather than a question.

  ‘Now and then.’ Lauren is determined not to feel small.

  ‘Can you play “Mairi’s Wedding”?’ Rachel replies. ‘I just learned it.’

  ‘No. I can play “Bonnie Tammie Scolla”.’ This is the second song you learn on the fiddle after ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’. It’s respectable, Lauren thinks, it means you’re not a baby. She thought it was called ‘Bonnie Tammy, Scholar’ at first and imagined a girl who was pretty and cool walking around with a pile of books.

  Where have you been all the day,

  Bonnie Tammie, Bonnie Tammie?

  Where have you been all the day,

  Bonnie Tammie Scolla?

  Her father had soon put her straight, explaining that Tammie was a boy’s name, the same as Tam or Thomas, and Scolla was a Shetland surname. It was disappointing. Boys are not bonnie, in Lauren’s view, not bonnie enough to sing about.

  Rachel does not think ‘Bonnie Tammie Scolla’ is respectable. ‘Oh, that’s easy,’ she says, cocking her head to one side.

  Lauren wants to tell Rachel her gel pens smell like hot puke, but instead she says, ‘And “Donald Blue”.’ This is a lie. ‘Donald Blue’ is a complicated tune, like lots of bright boats bobbing at different times. She always imagines Donald Blue at the helm of one of them, wearing a navy Guernsey.

  ‘Are you serious? You want to play it?’ Rachel holds her fiddle out, calling her bluff.

  ‘Nah. Play “Mairi’s Wedding” then.’ This song is one of Lauren’s favourites, one of the most advanced for kids their age, and Rachel plays it faultlessly. Her fingers dance over the neck of the fiddle, so fast Lauren can hardly follow. While she plays, Rachel’s eyes stare ahead vacantly.

  You learn fiddle tunes by watching what your teacher does, again and again, until your body knows the music without thinking. If you do stop to think, you usually make a mistake. The lyrics run through Lauren’s head:

  Plenty herring, plenty meal,

  Plenty peat to fill her creel,

  Plenty bonnie bairns as weel,

  That’s the toast for Mairi.

  When she is older Lauren wants to be a woman like the one who comes alive in this song, someone with a generous smile, someone everyone loves.

  Red her cheeks as rowans are,

  Bright her eye as any star,

  Fairest of them all by far

  Is our darling Mairi.

  Lauren wonders if a song about her mother would sound the same. Maybe it would be very different.

  Rachel finishes on a flourishing chord and gives her foot a little stamp.

  ‘Is Sandy teaching you?’ Lauren asks.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘He’s my dad’s friend.’ She hopes the tone of her voice says I know him better than you. Next time he’s round, Lauren will ask to learn ‘Mrs McLeod’, the third tune in sequence. Lauren imagines Mrs McLeod like her Primary 3 teacher, with big skirts, round glasses and black hair in a bun.

  When she comes back to class after interval, she finds each of her coloured pencils have been snapped in half. Her father bought them as a treat from the supermarket.

  She looks around. Maisie is watching her from another table and swivels her head back to face the teacher.

  At lunchtime Lauren stays in the cloakrooms, their walls an oak tongue and groove. She watches the girls from the year above kneel on the coarse grey carpet in a huddle and pull their coats over their heads to tell ghost stories.

  ‘What are you doing?’ asks Lauren, knowing fine well. She stands close to them, then kneels gingerly.

  Jenny sticks her head out and a giggle rises from under the bed of winter coats. ‘It’s just for P7s. You can’t join us, sorry. I’ll get a row.’

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘My mum.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Because.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘Because of your mum, Lauren,’ a voice says from under the coats.

  That evening Lauren sits eating cheese and beans on toast on the sagging sofa, her legs curled to one side. She watches her father tuning his guitar.

  ‘Dad.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you ever hear people say things about us in town?’

  ‘Say things about us?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Why would they be saying things about us?’

  ‘Dad.’ She waits for him to speak and he doesn’t. ‘Stop being like that.’ When he still doesn’t respond, she carries on, feeling tears prick the corners of her eyes. ‘You know they speak about us. You’re pretending everything’s OK. Well, I’ve been pretending to you. People at school give me so much shit.’

  ‘Hey. Lauren. Watch it.’ She’s got his attention now.

  ‘How can you tell me not to swear? You don’t care. Have you even got me a babysitter for tomorrow?’

  He shakes his head with a plectrum between his teeth. ‘Oh God, Lauren. Have you not asked Ann-Marie?’

  This was never something he told her to do, as far as she can remember. She tries to stop herself from crying, tracing a piece of toast on her fork around the geometric pattern on her plate. ‘No.’ She sniffs. ‘You never said anything. Can I go round there?’ She hates the way her voice whines like this; she sounds so young.

  He gets up, gives her a hug and then goes back to his plate. ‘Jameson. Stop begging. Lauren, come on now. No. Give them a phone. She can come here.’ He begins to play ‘The Mountains Of Mourne’. So I’ll wait for the wild rose that’s waiting for me.

  ‘When will you be back?’ She had thought she was going to confront him, but he has managed to slip away, again.

  He stretches. ‘Need to get my capo.’ He stands up to retrieve the guitar clip. ‘Early enough. Maybe eleven.’

  She knows he will be closer to four in the morning.

  7

  Lauren is opening a packet of Monster Munch when she sees Jenny standing in the playground. The neat primary school sits on the top of a hill built in Victorian sandstone, with high square classrooms, separate entrances for boys and girls, and a large brass bell in an arch on top of the slate roof. There are only a few houses to each side and bare playing fields stretching to the woods. The wind is rattling the flagpole. Skinny boys play football. A haar is coming in from the coast.

  ‘Jenny?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you want a crisp?’

  ‘Cheers.’ Jenny takes one and crunches it. Her lip gloss catches some of the crumbs.

  Lauren tightens her ponytail. ‘Will you tell me a ghost story?’

  Jenny shakes her head.

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I told you yesterday.’ Jenny cocks her head to one side.

  ‘What did you mean, though?’

  ‘I don’t want to make you upset.’

  Lauren looks down at the black tarmac. A chocolate wrapper blows past them. ‘I’m not upset about … that.’ She tries to sound as though she knows exactly what Jenny is referring to.

  ‘It made your dad really sad. My mum said he wasn’t seen in town for weeks after.’<
br />
  ‘Just tell me? I’ll read your palm.’

  Children race around them shrieking in the playground, echoing in and out of the square concrete shelters in the centre.

  Jenny stares at her gloomily and helps herself to another crispy claw from the packet. ‘I’ll tell you this one story, OK?’ she says mid-chew, ‘but don’t tell anyone I did. People say there must be this guy, who lives up in the woods. OK?’ She looks over her shoulder. ‘So, my uncle was telling us, his friend, he saw something strange when he was walking his dog up in those woods one night. The ones near where you and Billy stay. He’s walking up there, deep, deep in the trees as it’s getting dark and the dog goes off for ages.

  ‘So. He shouts her and nothing. Starts to think she must have gotten lost. It’s getting really dark and he can hardly see his own hand in front of his face. Then he hears the dog come out of the trees at last, panting. He can make out she is dragging this huge big stick she’s got from somewhere, poking out both sides of her mouth, you know. Trailing along the ground.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ Lauren doesn’t like this story.

  ‘When he gets to his car, he opens the boot for the dog and the light comes on. He notices that the stick is wrapped in some kind of material or some sort of thing. Some rags. The dog is staring up at him, really pleased. Her tongue hanging out, you know. Then the man looks down and notices a shoe, a trainer, on the end of the stick. He realizes it’s not a stick at all, but his dog has dragged out a human leg.’

  Lauren squashes the crisp packet into her pocket and feels the same as when the tide is sucking away from her feet, drawing her into the sand. ‘I’ve got to go to the bathroom,’ she says.

  ‘I thought you were going to read my palm,’ Jenny says, but Lauren is already walking back to the overheated girls’ cloakroom, angry at herself for being such a baby. The place is empty and feels cavernous compared to the sharp winter light outside. She takes off her coat, sits on the floor and presses her back hard into the white-ridged radiator. She lets the heat seep into her skin until it scalds.

  It is lunchtime at Catriona’s farmhouse, but Niall still has to get rid of some built-in cupboards from the living room. His stomach is cramping with hunger, but he pushes on against the blaring radio. His conversation with Lauren has stuck in his craw. He did his best to make light of things, keep things moving. The truth is, he hadn’t known she was getting stick at school. She had never said much about the place. He had an inkling but he couldn’t bring himself to ask her more. Not much of a dad, he thinks to himself. His mind skips over to the drinks cabinet in Catriona’s kitchen. Not much of a man. Not much of anything. She has Jura single malt and Harris sugar kelp gin; he’s looked. No wonder she left you. He tries to focus on unscrewing a cabinet from the corner of the living room, reaching into the dark corner, feeling for the bracket. Lauren will too. One day. The screws have been drilled in too tight. He tries over and over to take the little bracket apart, but his fingers feel thick and dirty against the rounded edges of the plastic block. Not much of anything. He puts pressure on the screwdriver until he is almost shaking, his teeth clenched.

  The screwdriver slips and stabs him in the hand.

  ‘Fuck’s sake.’ He wheels back, his jumper catching on a nail that is jutting out from the back of the handle. He throws the screwdriver against the wall and twists round to free himself.

  He tries to wrench the cabinet door off its hinges with his bare hands. It doesn’t come off, but just scrapes against his skin until it bleeds. ‘Piece of shit.’ He thumps the cabinet hard and tries again, with no luck. He grabs the hammer from his tool kit and launches himself against the wood, hacking it with the claw. ‘Fucking piece of shit!’ His voice is loud over the radio.

  He hacks until his back is slick with sweat. The cabinet starts to come off the wall through sheer force, ripping patches of the plaster. It’s come apart now but he keeps hacking, because it feels too good. ‘Absolute fucking bastard.’ He is stamping on wood and tearing plaster, his arms and hands catching against splinters. He can’t let go of the hammer. His hair is sticking to his skull and his shirt is clinging to his back.

  He kicks the remains of the cabinet with another groan and peels back, teeth bared, to see Catriona standing in the doorway.

  For a second, he sees terror has exploded across her face. She dips her head and shuffles off to the kitchen, gently closing the door. Niall is left panting, surrounded by shards of wood and snowy flakes of plaster. ‘Fuck,’ he breathes. The clouds are moving fast outside. He switches the radio off. Shadows leech through the filmy window. He can feel the blood pumping in his ears. ‘Fuck.’

  He begins to tidy up his tools carefully. Catriona is the kind of no-nonsense woman who wears corduroy trousers and pays him cash in hand. When he first started the job, he had to arrive at 7.30 a.m. as she was leaving for work. She always looks so fresh-faced in the morning, with smartly ironed shirts that give him a clean, warm feeling as he lays down his tool bag on the terracotta hallway tiles.

  He had no idea she would be home this early. They have fallen into a pattern on the days that Niall works on the house. When Catriona is home from the surgery and he is finishing up, Niall will switch off his radio and look up towards the hallway. Usually the milk-white kitchen door is closed, but sometimes it is a little ajar. He doesn’t usually hear her arrive, only the fuzz of the radio and the rumble of the kettle. He always waits for a few moments behind the door with its cold brass handle before entering the pristine kitchen. The smell of fresh paint will be hanging in the air and he will tell Catriona he is popping out to grab more adhesive or pipe surrounds, or simply that he is heading home. She never seems to take much interest, or minds how sporadic he can be. A few times he has gone into the kitchen to say he needs things when he does not. She will barely look up, her laptop open like a clam on the wooden table, its flat screen illuminating her clear-skinned face.

  This has fucked up everything.

  ‘Catriona,’ he says quietly against the closed kitchen door.

  He hears a murmur in return and lets himself in. She looks up in her round tortoiseshell glasses. Her caramel foot is high on the table’s newspapered edge and she is stretching forward to paint her toenails peach. He notices her hand is shaking. A glob of polish is stuck to the newsprint over a story about a car crash. He can’t think of what to say. Every time he opens his mouth he remembers how loud his voice was and how the plaster was hanging off the walls. She has untied her black curly hair, bringing out the smooth curve of her eyebrows.

  ‘That’s me off,’ he says.

  ‘Excuse me?’ The eyebrows raise.

  Niall clears his throat. ‘That’s me off.’

  She stares at him hard. ‘Right. That’s it, is it? You’re off. Charming.’

  He wants to evaporate. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were … I’ll make sure there’s no damage done.’

  She is shaking her head. ‘Have a bit more …’ Her arms gesture around her helplessly. ‘I mean, I shouldn’t have to … you know?’ She is being brave, but the fear is seeping through.

  He coughs. ‘I’m sorry. It’s been a bit of a tough job, aye.’

  She looks at him as if he’s the last line on an optician’s wall chart. He drops his gaze to the ground and reaches for the door.

  ‘People talk, you know,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  She shakes her head and says, ‘See you Wednesday,’ then goes back to painting her nails, as if he has already left the room.

  The afternoon passes slowly at school. The teacher chalks words on the rolling blackboard. They take turns to read from a children’s novel about the Highland Clearances and the Countess of Sutherland. She used to live up the road in a white turreted castle full of deer heads and lion skins. The story is about the villainous Patrick Sellar and his flaming crofts. There are scared mothers, hungry children, sheep, dirty tenements, girls at harsh looms, lost fingers, seasickness, the windy deck of a ship, Hudson’s
Bay, trading posts, fur and pine. Lauren thinks of the empty fields that stretch around them like patchwork and imagines twin landscapes in Canada. In under two hours, you can reach the most northerly part of the Scottish mainland and stand three hundred miles west of Norway. Lauren wonders why the crofters didn’t go there instead.

  Before art class, the children spread newspapers over their tables and put on their fathers’ old paint-stained shirts. The teacher tells them to paint their favourite fairy tale. Lauren carefully paints a cow leaping over a crescent moon while the dog plays a fiddle under jagged stars.

  ‘Did you know’, says Lauren to Gary, the boy who sits next to her in an Aberdeen shirt every day, ‘that you can see shapes and animals in the stars? Star signs. They tell you what will happen to you in the future.’

  Gary is busy painting a black horse and doesn’t answer.

  The light starts fading before three o’clock. Lauren watches it from the vertiginous sash window. The bell rings. Girls and boys separate and mill out to their cloakrooms at opposite ends of the building. The lights flicker and the narrow corridor is extinguished into black.

  The sudden dark makes the girls bleat and shift close together. The teacher’s raised voice can be heard, telling them to keep calm, she is getting a torch. ‘Everyone this way to the main door. Everyone this way. Turn around.’ Children jostle Lauren on both sides, shrieking and chattering. She finds it hard to breathe. An instinct to run floods her, but she’s hemmed in.

  Someone to her left pushes Lauren and laughs. The torch beam passes over the crowd and she sees Maisie MacAllister at her shoulder. ‘Lauren! Are you afraid of the dark, Lauren? Are you?’ Maisie disappears again as the torch moves on.

  ‘Scaredy cat!’ another girl whispers behind. ‘Scaredy cat!’

  ‘She’ll be bawlin’ her eyes out.’ Maisie, back beside her, gives Lauren a harder shove and she stumbles. She feels another leg hit her shin and falls hard.

  ‘Uh-oh!’ Snorting laughter. Her face is hot and she starts to cry without a sound, her burning cheek pressed against the ridged, itchy carpet. She tries to reach for something against the moving forest of legs around her. Her hands brush against one and another kicks her. Someone takes her outstretched palm and pulls her up. The hand is adult, but delicate. It lets her go and she feels a light pat on her back as she is carried along by the stream of noisy children, following the torch beam which has now moved in front of them. She tries to look for the figure who helped her up as she moves away but sees only the shapes of little girls behind her pushing out of their cloakroom. Another taller girl blocks her view and she realizes she has reached the light of an external door.