‘I was?’
Lauren nods.
‘And you know who she is?’
Lauren hesitates. ‘I think so.’
‘Who, then?’
‘No. I don’t. Really. It’s hard to explain.’
‘Right. I was calling the dogs. They were running off too far. That’s who I was talking to.’
‘There was a girl, a woman.’
Ann-Marie looks out of the window. ‘Whatever happened, I think you should get some sleep. I’m texting Diane up the road, to see if she’s on her way. Rowland’s still outside. God, he’s never normally like this.’ Her phone begins to buzz.
‘Ann-Marie?’
‘It’s Diane calling, sorry.’
Lauren talks quickly. ‘I saw this lady the other night and—’
‘Sorry, I think I should answer. We can talk about this tomorrow? Try and get some rest. I’ll tell my mum and she can tell your dad.’
It looks a bit like her, Lauren doesn’t manage to say. Ann-Marie snaps the light off and closes the door with a hush of air. In the pitch black Lauren falls into a hazy sleep. The last thing she thinks of is white candles.
What could be some minutes or hours later, Lauren hears two voices downstairs against music that sounds like an angry factory. She climbs out into the cold room and puts her ear to a ridge between the floorboards. There is a third voice, male and scratchy.
Out on the landing and hiding behind the heavy bannister she squints into the yellowy hall below. Diane, who lives up the road, is swaying her black ironed hair, a green bottle in her hand. ‘Let me talk to him!’ she is saying in her croaky voice.
Ann-Marie appears by the fire, licking her thumb. They have been toasting marshmallows again. She is talking on FaceTime to someone Lauren thinks must be Rory, her boyfriend. She catches him saying, ‘What you up to? Couple of dafties.’ The music rasps and drones.
‘We’re having a party,’ says Diane. Each of her eyelids has a perfect black flick of liner and her mouth is the shade of blackberries. ‘We found her parents’ booze.’
‘But we haven’t found my dog yet,’ says Ann-Marie. She tosses the phone on to a ratty velvet cushion. ‘He keeps cutting out.’ She looks at Diane. ‘You’re pissed.’
‘I amne,’ says Diane, too loud. Her tone of voice makes Lauren want to laugh, as if she’s inviting an audience. She takes off her tartan shirt, so she is just wearing a black cropped vest. The fire is making the room too hot. Lauren creeps down a few more stairs. Ann-Marie is facing away from her.
Diane says, ‘So you got sent home for a tattoo, is that it?’ Her voice is drawn out with wine. ‘See, when I got that one on my arm, nobody gave it a second glance, man. I wouldna last two seconds, like.’
Lauren can tell she’s pretending to be amazed and dumb, but her voice is hiding something meaner. She carries on. ‘Sounds like you get a punny eccy for as much as fartin’.’
Lauren shoves her hand over her mouth in silent, almost painful laughter. A punny eccy is what secondary pupils are given when they’re in trouble.
Ann-Marie flushes. ‘There were other reasons.’
‘Yeah, like what?’ Diane is chewing on something.
‘They caught me smoking on the roof.’
Diane rolls her eyes.
‘And they said I was being too “aggressive”.’
‘Huh?’
‘With a teacher. That Mr Hutchinson I told you about.’
‘Old Hutchy.’
‘Yeah. I drank too much one night and I “made a scene”. He said he had reason to be worried about me. More like scared.’
Diane laughs and Ann-Marie relaxes. ‘But hey. About that thing, anyway,’ she says, putting a hand on Diane’s shoulder. ‘That thing you told me about, in the pub?’
‘What?’ Diane is already distracted by her phone.
‘Shhh.’ Ann-Marie touches her friend on the shoulder and points to the ceiling.
‘She can join us! And her dad.’ Diane raises her eyebrows.
‘Diane. Look at me. I’m talking about …’ Ann-Marie still has her back to Lauren and half mouths or whispers something to Diane – it’s hard to tell. ‘You know? I just couldn’t stop thinking about what you’d said.’ She points to the ceiling again. ‘She doesn’t seem to know anything about it either. So I just wanted to tell you. I’m gonna find out. See if it’s him or not. We owe it to Christine.’
‘You’re mental.’ Diane looks towards where Lauren is hiding.
Lauren’s heart starts thudding and she scrambles back up the stairs, the carpet burning her palms.
‘Hiya!’ shouts Diane and Lauren freezes like a lizard. ‘It’s past your bedtime, isn’t it? Hey, come down here for a selfie, c’mon.’ Diane’s voice sounds like it is flowing out of a jar. Lauren clambers down shyly, her bare feet slipping on the hardwood floor.
‘Come here, yous two, it’s for my Instagram, eh.’
Lauren feels a small bubble of joy as the two older girls huddle around her. She smells nylon, hair products and something else, a mulchy-sour smoke.
‘Amazing, guys,’ says Diane in a way that is making fun of them or the situation, Lauren can’t quite tell. She always sounds like she is about to lose her voice. ‘Hey, Ann-Marie says you were doing spells, candles and that?’ When she speaks Lauren sees silver flashing out of her mouth, through her tongue.
‘Kind of,’ says Lauren.
‘Can you do one on me?’
‘OK,’ says Lauren, secretly pleased. ‘Sit down. On that chair, there.’
Diane looks at her as though she is wondering how tall she is.
‘Here.’ She grabs Diane’s palm and stretches it out flat. The underside feels dry and chunky silver rings graze Lauren’s own smaller hand. One is coiled like a snake around Diane’s finger. ‘Why are you laughing?’ Lauren asks.
‘Because I’m hungry. Hey, come on. Can you really do this?’ Her breath smells like burnt lemons.
‘Yeah,’ says Lauren. She peers at Diane’s palm. ‘Your heart line has a lot of disruption. You have had a lot of hardships in your life. You fall in love easily.’
Diane looks at Ann-Marie, then back at Lauren, her pupils as big as beetles. ‘Is that it? I already kinda know that stuff.’ She smirks.
‘Hey now,’ says Ann-Marie.
Lauren drops the pale hand. ‘No, I can. I can do it. I can tell you your future.’
Diane frowns with her marker-pen eyebrows.
‘Give me a card deck. I know how to read cards,’ says Lauren.
‘Like a – what? Like a magic trick?’
Ann-Marie cuts in. ‘She means like tarot or something.’
Diane’s face changes. ‘You’ve got tarot cards?’
‘At home, yeah.’ Lauren’s voice is rising like water. ‘But I can do it with playing cards. Have you got some?’
‘Hang on.’ Ann-Marie jumps up and skids in her socks to the games room. She slides back with a battered pack of cards.
Lauren feels their anticipation like energy that wakes her up. She closes her eyes and feels something else, another sense waiting. She picks up the card pack in her left hand, turns it on its side and begins to shuffle with her right, looking from one hesitant teenager to the other. ‘OK,’ she says. ‘Let’s start with something simple.’ She always remembers a phrase from the spaewife’s book: You don’t read it, you re-form it. Lauren has memorized the meanings in each number, the emotions and the power of each symbol.
Out of the corner of her eye, she sees a woman standing in a grey-white robe by the flickering fireplace, but when she turns her head it’s just the shadows dancing.
‘The clubs are the clubs as in Tarot,’ she says, cutting the deck in three and shuffling. ‘You know, the sticks, the wands. The hearts are the cups. Think of your heart like a cup of, er, feelings.’ The girls are drinking in her words. ‘The diamonds, they’re shiny like stars, like coins, like pentangles.’
‘Mind that shop Pentangle,’ says Diane. ‘In Inverness.�
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‘Hey,’ says Lauren, feeling a flow of something commanding, snapping Diane back to focus. ‘So that’s three of them, right. Clubs, hearts, diamonds. Then, last, we have spades, right? You cut with a spade; you cut with a sword.’
‘OK,’ says Ann-Marie, trying to understand.
‘Right,’ says Lauren. ‘Think of three questions.’ She has so many questions, bubbling up inside of her, as she tries to focus. Why can’t Ann-Marie or her father remember what she remembers? The young woman’s eyes were so piercing, so unforgettable.
‘But wait. Don’t tarot cards need to be, like, magic ones?’ says Diane.
‘No, this is fine, honestly. Tarot is a card pack. An old card pack, from Egypt. But then those other pictures got added.’
‘Yeah, so what about the death card and that?’ asks Diane.
‘I can’t do those now, but it’s fine anyway. Think of three questions.’ She feels the same power as when she rides Kirsty’s horse, bringing it to focus, moving it forward as she lays out three cards face down in front of her. ‘Ask a question. The answer has to be yes or no. Or maybe.’
Diane gazes at the ceiling. Her lipstick has nearly all been washed off with beer. ‘Um. OK. Am I going to pass my exams?’
‘That’s your question?’ Ann-Marie says.
‘Yeah. What else am I gonna ask?’
Lauren turns the first card over. ‘Ten of spades.’
‘Is that good?’
‘You don’t really need exams to go far.’ She smiles hopefully, and Ann-Marie starts to laugh.
‘What the hell? OK. Does anyone bloody fancy me then? Will I have a rich husband if I fail all my exams? Am I going to marry a rock star?’
‘That’s three questions.’
‘Will I marry a rock star? Man or woman, I just want them to be rich.’
Lauren lifts the next card. ‘Four of diamonds.’
‘Is that good? Diamonds should be good. Like, with four diamonds, I’d be well on my way.’
‘Yeah, it is good. But don’t get too greedy. That’s what it means.’
‘I’ll be fine.’ She laughs and sucks on her roll-up. She’s enjoying this now. There are embers in her eyes.
‘You’ll be rich, but you might not share it.’
‘OK, fine by me. Next one. I’ve got a question. Am I ever going to get out of this shit hole?’
Lauren feels taller, older. She turns the final card. ‘The joker.’
‘You’re fucking kidding me.’
Ann-Marie splutters, balled up in the armchair.
‘It’s all right for you, you live in Edinburgh, Auld Reekie.’ Her voice is veiled in insincerity, as though she is making fun of the world, always.
‘It isn’t that bad,’ says Lauren. ‘You’ll travel. Either in a real way or in your dreams. It’s a “maybe” card.’
Diane blinks. ‘Oh my God, that’s amazing. I fucking loved that, Lauren. And you’re only, like, eleven years old. Jesus.’
‘I’m ten and a half, actually.’
‘How good is that, Ann-Marie? Do you want yours done?’
‘No, I’m tired. I’m going to shout the dog again. Lauren, you should really be in your bed.’
Ann-Marie leaves and the flames in the fireplace flicker and drop and a cold draught passes through the room. The air feels sharper, as if it has metal edges. Lauren has a feeling there are still three people in the room.
‘Hey,’ says Diane. ‘Do you want to try?’ She holds out her smoking roll-up in the pinch of her thumb and finger. It doesn’t smell like the bus stop.
Lauren knows her father would hate her doing this. It seems dangerous, yet for a brief moment, she inhales the coarse smoke that burns a trail down her throat. The scent is good, like a dry, burning garden. It follows her up the stairs to bed.
That night her dreams are close and cold and she can hear someone walking over gravel. The capercaillie is stretching its throat out in its glass dome. There is a rising and falling of syllables, stretching in long waves of sound. The names of the dogs being called. The floor of the bedroom is covered in pebbles and someone in white is walking towards the bed. She sits up and the lace curtains fall from the window. The room is the same temperature as the woods before snowfall.
9
There are six men in the band, two Niall has not met before: one old and portly with a full grey beard and the other young and gangly with ginger hair cut into a mullet. Another man he recognizes from a Burns supper a few years ago, lean and rangy with a Rob Roy shirt. And Don from the ironmonger’s, a short, neat man. Niall watches them as they climb the small set of stairs to the stage and shake hands. The ginger-haired boy is wearing tartan trousers.
‘And what are those?’ asks the old man.
‘These? Thought they’re pretty good, like.’
‘This is the Nae Troosers Ceilidh Band, son! Did y’not think tae wear a kilt?’
The old man laughs and begins to play his accordion, which protrudes like an extension of his belly. The rangy man and Sandy Ross set up their electric fiddles. Don takes out a few yellow cans of Tennent’s from his backpack and offers them around. He drinks one sitting behind the drum kit as the ginger boy takes a swig and picks up his bass guitar.
‘Is it legal for you to drink that?’ the old man says.
‘Hey, Sandy.’ The rangy man is ignoring the ginger boy and nearly everyone else. ‘You’re in a good mood the day. New bird on the scene?’ A couple of jeers rise from the band.
‘I couldn’t possibly comment,’ says Sandy, raising his hands in mock innocence, before smirking into his beer can. His eyebrows are so neat, Niall wonders if he waxes them.
Niall shakes his head and takes out his guitar, a few paces from the rest of the group. They are the kind of men he might spot in the pub or the post office but would not say hello to, except for Sandy Ross, who seems to be on good terms with everyone. A moth-eaten deer’s head hangs above the stage, its glassy eyes frozen forward. The hall is dim, the thick castle walls decked in red tartan banners that match the tablecloths in the dining room next door, where the guests are eating cranachan.
A woman enters the hall with a tray of wine. ‘I’m Aileen. Welcome.’ She looks around at the cans of beer. ‘I see you’ve already made a start!’
The guests enter from the dining room to the ceilidh hall. The women wear dresses in shades of autumn leaves and holly. The men wear Bonnie Prince Charlie jackets and kilts, their long socks the colour of moss.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, good evening!’ Sandy’s voice reverberates into a microphone. The audience cheers, tipsy. A few people shout back amid a current of chatter.
Niall catches sight of Angela and Malcolm whispering to another middle-aged couple, weary and grey-haired. He hopes he won’t have to talk to them. Angela always acts friendly, but he knows she looks down on him. Sandy Ross strikes his foot against the stage, a sign to play the opening song. Niall comes in on the guitar at the right beat and steadies himself. He grins at the men around him as if they are old friends. They finish the song. Niall picks up his can from the floor and takes a long gulp.
‘And we are …’ Sandy calls out, ‘the No. Troosers. Ceilidh. Band!’
Applause ripples. Someone whoops.
‘To start off the night, we’ll play one everyone knows … Gaaay Gorrrrdons!’ His voice rises and falls in an arch. ‘Go on, ladies and gentlemen, find your first partners for this evening. Anyone here need told how to dance this? Nope, good … C’mon! Don’t be shy now!’
The crowd begins to assemble itself into pairs, making a border of couples around the edge of the room, the men with their arms over the women’s shoulders, the women holding the men’s hands, ready to be turned around the rectangular hall. The chords sound and they are off, their footsteps smothered with the music. Niall’s eyes follow Angela and Malcolm as they parade stiffly through the dance, turning one way and then the other. He stops watching them and becomes lost in his own movement of fingers and arms and
keeping rhythm with the rest of the band.
It isn’t long before everyone is up on the dance floor. The music, as ‘heuchter-teuchter’ as it is, soon takes him over and his body starts to work with the group. Sandy Ross and the other fiddle player thread in and out with the accordion player while the drummer keeps him right. They are men who know what they must do: keep time, keep together and get drunk people up on their feet and out of breath. That is it.
Women soon dance without shoes, their hair falling loose from chignons and clasps, their make-up smudging. Men’s faces turn ruddy as they clap or clump along sets of six and flex their arms, turning women. Niall smiles at men, often older, who proudly curve their free arm above their heads, fingers pressed together. He sees teenagers not taking the dances as seriously as their elder relatives. Instead of setting to their partners during the Dashing White Sergeant, one group mimes ‘Night Fever’ moves before carrying on in the traditional way. Niall’s brain sinks in and out of the music. For a few moments he feels strangely elsewhere.
When the band takes a breather, setting down their instruments and spreading out across the stage, Niall says to Sandy, ‘I could do this every day of the week.’
Sandy shakes his head, laughing. ‘Aye, crowd’s not bad the night, eh.’
‘You know,’ says Niall, animated, ‘Lauren hates this.’
‘This?’
‘Well. No this, she’s no been old enough to go to these. She hates it in PE, you know, the social dancing. It’s starting again soon, for Christmas.’
‘Oh aye. I remember that. Remember it well.’
‘It is all right for you, the girls had to form a queue back then.’
Sandy laughs. There’s something steely about it.
They stand for a while and watch the other people drink and talk. The hall is large but has heated up too quickly, the narrow castle windows coated with steam. The old man in the band comes to join them. Niall says, ‘I was just telling Sandy, my daughter, she hates, you know, dancing with the boys. I can’t say I blame her.’
The old man coughs thickly. ‘Well, that’ll soon change! But aye, I remember. It’s terrible, all that carry-on. If you’re the last one to be picked, it’s terrible. I used to stretch out my sleeve for girls to hold, instead of my hand.’ He laughs with Sandy. Another man, the one in the Rob Roy shirt, comes up to the stage carrying pints from the bar. Niall takes one. A hip flask of whisky is in his back pocket, for later.
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