Pine

by Francine Toon

  He smiles and shakes his head. ‘So, do you have homework today?’

  She is about to eat another forkful of pie, but stops. ‘Dad … you sound really serious.’

  ‘I can be serious.’ He is looking down at the plate of his own cooking.

  There is a soft knocking noise. Lauren’s shoulders lock and her voice comes out as a whisper. ‘Dad.’

  The smell is overpowering now. Their heads turn sideways to the sliding doors. A gaunt face comes forward out of the dark, peering in.

  Lauren shrieks, bolting back in her chair.

  When the figure moves closer out of the dark, they can see it is the woman in the dressing gown.

  Nausea roils in Lauren’s stomach. Niall puts a finger to his lips as he slowly gets up from the table. The woman takes a step back, her face expressionless. Lauren grips the seat of her chair. ‘Dad?’ she whispers. ‘Don’t open it!’

  Before she can stop him, Niall carefully turns the key and slides the door open, making a slow shhh. The young woman reaches up and takes hold of his hairy face in her slim hands. He looks down at her with curiosity as he did on the road.

  She looks past him, with her huge eyes, at Lauren. She is beautiful, if gravely ill. Her jaw is slack and her skin clings tightly to her skull. An icy draught blows in from the back garden. The woman takes a seat at the candlelit table and Lauren looks over at her dad, who is sliding the door shut. As she opens her mouth to speak, Jameson starts a howl that turns into a chain of barks as he runs into the room, then out and up the stairs.

  Niall walks slowly to the kitchen. The woman follows him and Lauren stays seated, too scared to look over, hears them murmuring. He brings out a large white plate, a glinting knife and fork. The woman takes a seat again and he puts the plate down in front of her, at the head of the table. Lauren gets up from her chair, the blood rushing in her ears. The room has grown darker.

  The young woman reaches out for her hand, but Lauren backs towards the door. ‘Dad? What’s going on?’

  Niall strokes the woman’s hair. The temperature has dropped, despite the burning fire. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’ He is talking to the woman, not Lauren, and then kisses her hard on the dry mouth, his hand in her scraggly hair. Lauren feels as though she is sinking into the carpet, but then she realizes it is the tables and chairs that are rising, floating off the ground.

  Lauren runs out of the room to the top of the stairs and sits there panting, remembering everything Vairi told her. When she finally opens the bedroom door the woman is sitting on her neatly made bed.

  She turns her head to one side and smiles at Lauren. She is missing several teeth. She looks kind.

  At once, the room feels warmer and Lauren doesn’t feel so afraid. The woman pats the duvet beside her and Lauren sits. The edges of the room feel fuzzy. She feels the warmth of tears against her eyelids as she pushes her face into the woman’s dressing gown. When she is up so close, she can see there is a translucent quality. Light shines through.

  The woman strokes Lauren’s hair and Lauren curls into her body. She doesn’t smell unpleasant, but familiar, of how she imagines the moon might smell, or a flower that only bloomed in winter. The woman shows her a silver ring on her finger, two hands holding a crowned heart, and then holds it out in her palm. They hear distant explosions.

  Lauren pushes the ring over her finger but it slides off again. She props herself up against her pillow, relaxing. The woman puts the ring on Lauren’s thumb, gently closing her fist. Lauren’s body feels heavy and tired. The woman, with her gaunt mouth, sings a gentle, familiar song. Lauren lies back on the bed and rests her head on the pillow. The woman stops singing and pulls the duvet over Lauren. As she begins to fall asleep, Lauren sees the young woman looking down at her in the low light and realizes then that they share the same colour eyes.

  12

  After Lauren has left for school, Niall goes out to the work shed, taking a cheese sandwich with him and a small jug of milk. Clear flakes of sleet are falling softly, sticking to the cobwebbed window. He turns the heater on high and sands and varnishes cabinets for a few hours. They are for another local woman, older and widowed, who lives in a croft up the coast. Alternating jobs means he never gets bored. He’s not avoiding Catriona. At around three o’clock the sleet stops, and he hears a bird call outside. He stands tall, blinking at the sudden interruption, breathing out the sawdusty air, dry from the plug-in heater. He carries on varnishing, listening again for the bird call, but it doesn’t come. The shed door creaks open with a ‘Hello?’ It is Kirsty, Billy’s mum. She sounds out of breath. Her face looks washed-out without her usual make-up and her red-squirrel hair is wild.

  ‘You OK? How was your holiday? Sorry, been in here all morning. Take a seat. Mind that axe.’ He points to a new oak chair he has made.

  ‘Wow, this looks beautiful.’ Kirsty gazes at him for a brief moment, relieved. ‘Oh, the holiday was fine,’ she says. ‘Lovely. Really lovely. Craig and I haven’t been getting on so well recently, so I know the holiday was for Billy and Lewis really, but, you know, it gave us some time together and I think we needed that. The food was awful though. Never mind. I brought Lauren a little something.’ Niall notices now she is holding a bright plastic bag. ‘We … we got back late last night. There were delays from Manchester to Inverness. We didn’t get in until around three a.m., would you believe? And Billy had school this morning, you know. It’s an early night for him tonight.’

  He feels sorry for her, looking so washed-out and a little haggard. ‘Are you wanting some tea as well?’

  ‘Oh. Yes, please. Thank you,’ says Kirsty.

  ‘I’ve got the full works here.’ He points to a scratched kettle in the corner and a box of Scottish Blend, next to the jug of milk.

  ‘No sugar for me, thanks. How’ve you been, then?’ Kirsty asks above the hot bubbling of the kettle.

  ‘Fine, aye.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Sure, sure.’ He leans back on the work bench.

  ‘It seems some odd things have been happening while we’ve been away, don’t you think?’

  Niall adjusts his position a little. ‘How?’

  ‘I ran into Angela. Well, she was on her way to see me actually, when I was taking the horse out.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’ He starts to make the tea.

  ‘And … she was a wee bit shaken up. She says that there was a strange sort of … something strange has happened to their house.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She showed me. It’s … it’s like there has been a storm, I suppose. Can you remember? Was there a storm last night? We were straight to our beds and dead to the world. There was a circle – and I mean a perfect circle – of debris. And quite large rocks actually. Around the outside of their house.’

  ‘Debris? I didn’t hear a storm.’

  ‘Yes. You know when it’s low tide and there’s a line of seaweed and that on the shore? The debris? The same thing has happened in a circle around their house—’

  ‘Seaweed?’

  ‘With leaves and sticks and rocks. Around the house. No seaweed.’

  Niall sips from the hot mug, frowning.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Kirsty, to herself more than Niall.

  He crosses one free arm over his chest, tucking his left hand under his right armpit thoughtfully. ‘Is this someone having a laugh?’

  ‘No – well, I don’t know, it looks too kind of natural for that. I was wondering if there was something in the ground. The way the rocks were in a circle like that. And the ground was burnt.’

  ‘The ground?’

  ‘Just the way it had formed. And burnt like, you know, when you’ve had a bonfire, but in a circle. Big. I went and saw it myself earlier. It was weird.’

  ‘Maybe there was a storm, or a wind of some sort, aye. I don’t remember last night.’

  ‘I … I don’t know. I didn’t hear anything, to be honest.’

  ‘So, what are they doing ab
out it?’ He scratches behind his ear and runs a hand over his long hair.

  ‘Well, I think … I think she mentioned calling the police.’

  ‘The police.’

  She folds her hands on the table. ‘I think maybe someone broke into their house.’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘Well. She doesn’t remember a thing, but apparently Ann-Marie heard things breaking in the house, she said. This was before she saw the circle.’

  ‘Things were breaking?’

  ‘Plates and dishes,’ she says. ‘Downstairs. When they were up in bed. Well. Ann-Marie told her this, this morning. And loud noises. Screaming, apparently.’

  ‘Screaming.’ He looks up at her. ‘And the plates were broken?’

  ‘Yes, but only Ann-Marie heard them breaking. Maybe those two had had a big nightcap.’ She laughs hopefully, before becoming serious. ‘Ann-Marie thought someone was in her room. It was dark, but she says she heard her desk being dragged around, towards her door.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Yes, she was terrified. When she woke up, her desk was up against her door. And her room was a mess, or that’s what they’re saying.’

  ‘A mess how?’

  ‘Angela didn’t go into too much detail.’

  ‘Ann-Marie. Sleepwalking. Or drunk. She’s how old now?’ He leans back again.

  ‘Niall. I don’t think she’s like that. But then, what do I know?’

  Niall gulps half his tea down.

  She pauses. ‘Teenagers do like to get drunk.’

  ‘Maybe that’s it.’

  ‘I’ve seen them, down at that bus stop in town. And the other strange thing that happened was that apparently Sandy’s house was set on fire. Did you hear about this?’

  ‘Kirsty. You’re having me—’ He stops himself as he remembers the stones in Lauren’s room. Hesitantly, he pulls a chair next to her, over snaking wires.

  ‘No, I’m not. That’s what I’m saying: it sounds as though they’ve had a time of it. Someone was saying they saw smoke coming from his house, or his garden. A lot.’

  ‘Not his bonfire,’ he says flatly.

  ‘It started off as a bonfire, I think, yes, but then something happened, and the fire caught the downstairs. One of the windows is black, apparently. Or maybe it was his door.’ Kirsty stares down into her mug and traces her finger over a chip in the ceramic, chewing the dry skin on her bottom lip. ‘I don’t know if that’s related to the break-in or whatever it is at Angela’s. But we need to be a bit more careful round here. The Walkers are thinking of getting a new security system.’

  ‘Is that right?’ He hesitates. ‘The fire, at Sandy’s, that just sounds like he isn’t keeping an eye on things. Bonfires can be dangerous. I had one the other month, burning scrap, and, you know, you’ve got to be careful. The circle around Angela’s house, that could have been teenagers, playing pranks again. Or a storm, as you say. The winds.’

  ‘What?’ She looks up at him.

  ‘Have you seen any teenagers up here?’ he says.

  ‘No, well, there’s Diane. I mean, who knows about her friends. But she wouldn’t do that to Ann-Marie now, would she? They’ve been such friends since they were wee.’

  ‘Thick as thieves.’

  ‘But then the house is so big, who knows who she – Ann-Marie – was inviting over, eh?’

  They sit with their own thoughts for a while, in the golden gloom.

  ‘She’s always been a nice girl,’ Kirsty says. He notices how she looks at him sometimes. A shy sideways look, like a sparrow.

  ‘True. I suppose I’m saying there could be a simple explanation.’ Niall tries to recall a shred of anything that she says happened which he could have noticed, but his memory has emptied out like a bucket.

  ‘It sounded strange to me. I think Angela was right to call the police.’

  ‘Hmm,’ says Niall, knocking back the tepid dregs of his mug. ‘She’s a one, that one. Angela.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. As long as she’s not wanting me to go and fix something, that’s fine.’

  Kirsty rubs her eye and shifts in her seat. ‘Well. I do feel calmer now. I mean, we’re just literally in the door from Paris and – I usually feel so safe here, you know. Paris is a different matter. Police, guns, everywhere this time.’ She crosses her legs and props up her chin with one hand. ‘And now I’m coming round yours for a blether like a mothers’ meeting.’ She sighs and his face softens for a moment. ‘Craig left early for work,’ she continues. ‘Anyway, you haven’t seen anything strange, then?’

  ‘That Angela,’ he says, shaking his head, remembering her odd voice on the end of the telephone. ‘That Angela is full of stories.’

  On the school bus home, Lauren can’t find a free seat at first. The rain pelts the roof while the fan heater hums at full tilt. She is carrying a cumbersome collage of a bonfire, made from red cellophane and brown felt stuck to thick cardboard. She hopes her dad likes it.

  She spots two empty seats together, which is strange when the rest of the bus is so busy. As she shifts over towards the window, a drip falls from the ceiling and trickles down her neck. She hoists the artwork away from the water, propping it against the steamed glass.

  The bus doors gasp open and a boy, Callum McColl, climbs into the aisle.

  ‘Here, Callum,’ yells Maisie from a few seats behind, ‘you take my seat, I want to sit beside Lauren.’

  Lauren freezes and jerks her head at the boy to come and sit beside her and ignore Maisie.

  ‘Don’t do it,’ Maisie carries on to Callum. ‘And she fancies you anyway.’ Maisie swings her body round into the seat next to Lauren’s and thumps down with her heavy Disney rucksack. ‘Hey, Lauren! How ya doin’?’ The mock sincerity in Maisie’s tone is light, but present. ‘How’s it going there, pal?’

  ‘What do you want?’ says Lauren.

  ‘Excuse me, Lauren, that sounds a bit rude!’ Maisie scoff-chuckles and looks sideways at an imagined audience.

  Lauren folds her arms tighter and focuses on the window and the trees blurring by like smeared paint. Maisie’s braying is difficult to tune out.

  ‘Oh my God, Lauren?’ She makes a choking sound. ‘Did you have … an accident?’

  Lauren looks round slowly and sees Maisie pointing to a large damp patch at the edge of her seat, below the ancient Shitehouse roof that is patched with gaffer tape.

  ‘Oh my God,’ Maisie says again. Then louder, standing up to address the rest of the bus: ‘Oh my God, Lauren’s wet herself.’

  A cruel sneer rises from some unseen children in nearby seats. A few begin to crane their necks, as if Lauren is a strange animal. She sees Jenny, near the front, gawking at the commotion. Lauren feels her cheeks grow hot and pulls her knees up to her chin. She is angry and starts to explain, but her words are drowned out by chatter. Lauren looks for Billy, in his familiar red woolly hat. He is turned away, on purpose she thinks. Maisie prods her shoulder. ‘You’re disgusting … Here—’ She grabs hold of the hair on the back of Lauren’s head and tries to force her face down into the damp, scratchy seat edge. Lauren headbutts Maisie’s shoulder, hard. A gloating cheer rises again, from a couple of boys in front. Lauren feels like a cow locked in a feeding fence and thinks of her pocketknife, hidden in her bedroom. She jerks back and her foot stamps against the bonfire collage, crumpling the card and cellophane. Maisie jams Lauren’s head low, her hands scratching either side of Lauren’s ears, pulling her towards the puddle of leaking water. Grey drops trickle down her neck, smelling of stale rain mixed with rotting food.

  The bus jolts over a pothole and Lauren feels a surge of nausea. Then Maisie tugs out a little clump of her hair as someone else drags her away.

  ‘Hey. Hey.’ A throaty voice. Lauren peers up at the lanky figure of Diane, her black hair falling over one side of her face. Her clothes always look like they have been worn for two days running. Diane slams Maisie back in her seat, with a hand firm against her shoulder. ‘He
re, Maisie’ – she speaks low and close and smoky – ‘stop being such a lesbian.’

  ‘Get off me,’ Maisie says, snatching her shoulder back and squirming in her seat. Diane turns around to the back of the bus, without looking at Lauren. Maisie is silent for the rest of the bumpy journey, staring across the aisle at the fields rushing by.

  13

  On Saturday afternoon, Sandy passes by Niall’s house to pick up a cement mixer. Niall hasn’t been over to Sandy’s for weeks, even months. He lives in a detached cottage closer to the town and has told Niall he is building an extension.

  Lauren seems mesmerized by Sandy, the way someone might watch flames dance or snowflakes fall.

  ‘Hiya,’ he says. ‘Look. You’ve got something—’ He reaches behind Lauren’s ear and a five-pound note materializes between his fingers.

  Niall shakes his head, stammering, ‘Look – Sandy …’ He remembers their conversation at the ceilidh and wants to ram the fiver down his throat. Lauren is giving her best polite smile. He can’t take it away from her. ‘What d’you say, Lauren?’

  ‘Thank you, Sandy.’

  ‘No bother, champ. How’s that fiddle coming along?’

  Niall wonders what it is about the man. He always looks tanned, so much so that Niall thinks he must use a sun bed. He has hair to match his name and a bench press in his front room.

  ‘Did you have a fire up at your house the other night?’

  ‘Fire?’

  ‘Yeah. Someone mentioned you had a fire the other night and it set the downstairs alight.’

  Sandy’s laugh is generous. ‘You’re having me on. God, no. Just shows you, doesn’t it? How the rumour mill works, eh? You can come and have a look. Not a sausage.’

  Lauren giggles.

  He continues. ‘I am going to a firework display later, but … Hang on, I remember this. I heard it was here in the village where this fire happened, now you mention it. A couple of guys down the pub were talking about some kind of bonfire, but that was back last week. They were saying it was down at Alan Mackie’s house, as a matter of fact. And then this week it’s me.’ He shakes his head, raising his eyebrows. ‘Anyway, thanks again for your help the other night, pal.’ He lifts a clinking bag. ‘I got us some beers.’