by Daisy Pearce
No, wait. That sounds worse than it was, makes her sound like Mike Tyson. It’s true that there was a fight and it’s true that Edie, quick to provoke, got this girl into a headlock. At some point a small chunk of flesh was taken from the top of the girl’s ear, the part where it curves sweetly like an oyster shell – a tiny crescent, the slightest disruption of the curve. Edie didn’t know what happened to it, thought she may have swallowed it. Apparently, the sight of her blood-smeared mouth cleared the classroom and the headmistress found all thirty-odd children standing silently in the corridor as she raced towards them. Then I got a phone call. There had been an incident, they said. She was becoming feral, they said. Impossible to manage. They told me I was lucky the other parents weren’t pressing charges. Edie was there in the office, stony-faced in the hard-backed chair, her jaw rigid. There were scratches on her neck where the other girl had clawed at her. She’d cleaned the blood off her teeth but there was still more on the collar of her shirt, her cardigan.
Afterwards, the newspapers had asked me if I’d given up on her. Given up on her? What the fuck do you think?
I’ve read that there are creatures below the surface of the sea in the dark, uncharted parts of the ocean that have evolved to survive the crushing pressure the water exerts on them. I envy them. Some mornings I wake to a weight of such intensity pinning me to the bed that I feel like my bones will liquefy. It’s a sickness, a blight, a thorny plant crawling towards sunlight through my guts. It’s her. I miss her. She is my trigger.
I talk about triggers a lot. I’ve been in a lot of behavioural therapy where the search to find your trigger is as inexorable and precise as conception. My trigger is Edie, always and always, but sometimes I find myself wondering what her trigger was. I think I know, and like all important things it began very small, and grew like a seedling.
We were slipping into the summer of 1997 and his name was Dylan. Such a waifish, dreamy name. I was expecting a golden-haired hippy who carried a guitar painted with flowers, so I was surprised when Edie brought home a tall stocky boy who could easily have passed for nineteen. He was a rugby player and had been on family holidays to places that Edie could only dream about: Florida, the Gold Coast, San Tropez. She was fifteen and absolutely in awe of him. Dylan smiled easily and referred to me as ‘Sammy’. He wore his school tie to one side and had a rangy, hungry look in his eyes. Fuck the pleasantries, it said, and show me your tits.
I tried to give them room. I tried to show Edie that I trusted her. I was told that this was important. Personal space, you see.
The problem was that Edie, while funny and bright and often deep-thinking, had her father’s narrow, suspicious gaze, thin lips and ruddy cheeks like fillets of meat. She’d inherited my wild hair and short, rounded torso. Added to that, the previous winter she’d started hanging round with a group of girls who dressed all in black; thick, heavy eyeliner, lace and velvet and silks, chipped nail varnish on bitten nails. They called themselves the Rattlesnakes and drew tattoos on to each other’s arms in thick felt-tip. That winter I’d watched her morph into something vampiric, all funeral pallor and choking, Victorian clothes. In the evenings she would leave the house to meet her friends, trailing black scarves like kite ribbons, her perfume a suffocating mixture of patchouli and nag champa, and I would watch her from the upstairs window, arms folded over her chest, her back stooped as though trying to diminish herself, to turn to smoke and fade away.
One muggy July night, just before the summer storms had come, Edie and I sat outside in the yard, chairs pushed close together, her bare feet hanging in my lap. Some days we barely spoke, such were her moods. But today was not one of those days.
‘It’s too hot,’ she moaned, peeling her T-shirt (black, full of holes) away from her chest and fanning herself with it.
‘The weather’s about to break,’ I told her. ‘They’re forecasting big storms all the way up to the weekend.’
‘Oh, great. I’m meant to be meeting everyone tomorrow.’
‘In town?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘In the park?’
She shrugged.
I let a moment or two pass. In the distance, thunder.
‘Will Dylan be there?’
‘Yeah. He plays football in the mornings but he’ll be finished by lunchtime. He’s making something for me.’
‘Is he?’
‘Yeah. Nancy reckons it’s a mixtape, but he gave me one of those last week, so I don’t know, maybe a painting or something. It’ll be cool, whatever it is.’
‘Because he’s cool, right?’
‘Right. Only don’t say it like that.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you sound like Nonno.’ Nonno was her grandfather – my father – in Italy. She poked me with her long toes to indicate that she was teasing. ‘Dylan speaks Italian. French too.’
‘Does he?’
‘Oui. Il est bon à French.’ She laughed again. I always remember her laughter, slow-moving and heavy as honey.
‘I used to speak French. Un petite.’
‘It’s un peu.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Please don’t do this around him.’
‘You wouldn’t give me the chance. I’ve barely said more than two words to him.’
I waited. The air was cooling noticeably now, and I wanted to say something else before the moment was washed away.
‘What else does he do?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, football, mixtapes, French. Anything else?’
‘He’s into everything.’
I bet he is.
‘I mean,’ she added, ‘he’s not, like, totally into music but he listens to it. He doesn’t really like science, but he knows about stuff, you know?’
‘Ah. He dabbles, you mean?’
‘I guess.’
‘Are you two serious?’
A pause. It was a question designed to trick her, to elicit the answer I wanted. No, I wanted her to say – it’s only been two weeks, Mum, don’t be crazy! But I could never catch her out. She shrugged to show her indifference, but I was her mother. I knew she wanted it to be serious. That was the danger.
‘Because if you are – serious about each other, that is – then we need to talk about getting you some protection.’
‘Oh, Mum, come on.’ She covered her face with her hands. The backs of them were scrawled with her spiky writing.
‘No, listen, listen. It’s important. I know this is about as much fun for you as a poke in the eye but my mother never had this conversation with me and look how I turned out.’
‘Oh, thanks.’
‘I didn’t mean you,’ I said, instantly agonised because of course I had meant her. ‘I meant that I had a baby young with no clue, no money, no support.’
‘Apart from Nonno—’
‘Yes, and he was great, but he disapproved and it showed. It still does sometimes. I’d hate for that to happen to you. You have such a bright future.’
‘So I can’t have a bright future with Dylan in it? Is that what you’re saying? You do realise that your idea of a bright future and my idea of a bright future are very different, don’t you? I don’t want to end up like you, in a crappy job.’
I ignored her cheap dig, her rising voice. I hadn’t taken my A levels because my morning sickness meant I hadn’t been able to move further than a few inches without vomiting. When I’d finally returned to work I had a handful of scrappy qualifications and no experience. I don’t mind the clerical work, but, as Edie often pointed out, what little girl grew up dreaming of data entry? Still, I’d hurt her feelings and I felt bad about it. I tried to divert her.
‘I think Dylan is a nice boy, I do, but I just want you to be aware of how much you’re giving away.’
‘Mum, seriously, please shut up.’
‘I think we’ll go to the doctor after the weekend and speak with him about contraception, because if you’re going to do it—’
I heard her starting to w
ail – it was a frustrated, angry sound, primal – but I spoke over her just as the first fat drops of rain began to fall.
‘Because if you’re going to do it then I am going to make sure you are both as safe as possible. It’s ridiculous to think otherwise. What on earth would you do if you got pregnant?’
‘We’d manage, okay?’
I laughed. ‘Oh, brilliant. Where would you live? Where would all the money come from? You’re aware babies need someone there all the time, aren’t you? You can’t just leave it in the cot while you go and hang out with your mates.’
‘Fucking hell, Mum! Why are you talking about babies? We haven’t even had sex yet!’
Ah. Yet. There it was. I let the word hang in the air. She was glaring at me, her cheeks flushed, her eyes glittering.
‘Monday,’ I told her. ‘We’ll go on Monday.’
She stormed off, slamming the door so hard the glass shivered. I dragged both the chairs in just as the rain became a downpour. Dark clouds the colour of charcoal. For a moment I stood, letting the water trickle over me. The curls of my hair plastered themselves to my skin. I hadn’t handled that very well.
Three days later it was all over with Dylan. I caught Edie, eyes streaming, make-up running like black ink, at the bus stop in town. She wouldn’t tell me what had happened, just that she hated him. He was a bastard; a sketchy, horrible bastard. That was fine by me. Boys, young boys, are mostly fickle. I bought her a pot of tea in a nearby cafe and let her cry on my shoulder for a bit, her head turned towards the wall so that no one could see her. I kissed her and smoothed her hair. In that moment I wanted to hurt that young man. I wanted to gut him and leave him lying in the road. Ropes of bloodied entrails, leaking sacs of testosterone and the smell of Lynx deodorant. That would be all that would remain of Dylan, breaker of my daughter’s heart.
Of course, my anger burnt itself out by that evening, and over the next few days Edie regained some of her buoyancy. A week later she was even smiling and singing along to the little radio on the kitchen windowsill. I watched her making herself a peanut-butter sandwich and swinging her hips to the music, all glands and tall hair and hormones. And I knew.
‘Who is he?’
She smiled at me secretly, but she could never stay quiet for long. ‘I met him at the youth club. He doesn’t go to our school.’
‘The youth club at St Mary’s? I didn’t think you still went there. Thought you all thought it was for losers.’
She made an ‘L’ shape with her left hand and held it to her forehead, laughing. ‘Yeah, sometimes it is. There’s nowhere else to go, though.’
She was right. God save any fifteen-year-old in a small town with no money. I felt for her.
‘What about Dylan?’
She frowned as though she genuinely had to think about who he was. Maybe she did. ‘Oh yeah, no, sure. He’s got a new girlfriend now.’
Ah.
‘But he’s history, he really is. Truly.’ She took a bite of her sandwich and smiled at me. ‘He goes to St Andrew’s.’
For a moment I can’t work out who she means. Then I remember. The new boy. Not Dylan. He’s history.
‘The private school? Really?’
‘Yup. He’s gorgeous. Very intense.’
Uh-oh.
‘Is he coming over tonight?’
Tonight was my night out at my women’s group. I would be out for a few hours. I narrowed my eyes at her, watching a pink blush stain her cheeks.
‘He might do,’ she sang coyly, and I rolled my eyes.
‘You stay downstairs. You leave all the lights on. Your body. Your decision.’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ She was walking up the stairs.
‘I mean it, Edie.’
I heard her bedroom door slam and a moment later her music started. I sighed, considered having a cigarette and thought better of it. I was meant to be giving up. I’d even taped an image of a blackened, diseased lung to the fridge in an effort to quit smoking and eat less. It hadn’t worked in either case.
I still wonder how things could have been different. If I had arrived home later, or earlier, or hadn’t gone to my group at all. If it hadn’t been raining, maybe. I still think about the little things – the way my foot slipped on the wet pavement as I got off the bus, the way I allowed a man on crutches to use the cashpoint in front of me. If I hadn’t done these things, how much would have been different? How many triggers could I have avoided? But you can’t think like that. It’ll kill you.
So here’s how it happened. I took the bus to my women’s group – which was really no more than a handful of us sipping instant coffee in a church hall and talking about the lack of good, meaningful, fulfilling sex – and got off at the high street. I waited in line for the man on his crutches to negotiate the cashpoint. It was not raining yet but it would start soon, the forecast said.
I headed down Eastleigh Avenue and took a right at St Mary’s church. Here, on the eastern side, the high stone wall was choked with ivy and star jasmine. The perfume cloaked the evening air, so thick I could almost touch it.
Round at the back of the old church an ugly, flat-roofed prefab building had been tacked on, used for the youth club and neighbourhood meetings. The spaces beneath the windows were stained with rust, which ran like teardrops down the pale walls. Inside it smelt like damp towels and sour milk, the hot metal of the tea urn. It’s a smell I find at once repulsive and comforting. When I reached the door, however, the first thing I noticed was the sign, handwritten and covered with clear plastic so the ink did not run in the rain.
Women’s Group Cancelled Tonight due to illness – Call Kath for details of next week
Below that was drawn a smiley face in a large, irregular circle. The smile had been formed out of the word ‘sisterhood’.
‘Bollocks,’ I said, turning up the collar of my denim jacket as the rain fell harder. The sky had darkened to a dull chrome. It felt like winter had arrived already and it was only August. I turned to leave and that’s when I saw him. Standing beneath the towering gingko in the middle of the churchyard. He was wearing a dark overcoat and wellington boots and was staring right at me, his face as pale and round as the moon. I felt a shiver of discomfort. The man was holding a bag in his hands, swinging it as he started to walk towards me, his expression as still as a stopped clock. I lifted my hand.
‘Hi, I’m here for th—’
‘It’s closed.’
‘I know. I just saw the sign.’
He looked me up and down. There was a smell coming off him, like old clothes in a trunk, mothballs. He had pink scar tissue stretched thin across his neck, fine lines cobwebbing his eyes.
‘I got the keys here. You come in, out the rain.’
I stared at him. His eyes were silvery blank pennies. ‘No thanks. I have to get back.’
‘I’d better draw the curtains. Getting dark. More storms rolling in.’
‘Yes.’
We stood there silently as he rifled through the ring of keys he’d produced from his pocket. The keyring had a little pink plastic bird attached to it, rubbed almost smooth with age. It was the kind of trinket you’d find in a Christmas cracker and it was so incongruous, given the man holding it – broad and stooped with only a clutch of brown teeth still left in his mouth – that I almost burst out laughing. The caretaker pulled at the handle and the door wheezed open. I took a step back, calculating the distance between me and the iron gates. I couldn’t tell you why I was so nervous, but the one thing I’d learned from my women’s group had been written on a T-shirt Kath had worn one evening: ‘Trust your gut – that bitch knows what’s up.’
I looked over at the gates again. They were a long way away but I could make it, if I sprinted. If I needed to. If he reached for me with his big, callused hand.
‘The graves’ll flood.’ He was looking up at the sky. ‘Sink right into the ground.’
I was looking at the white plastic bag he was holding, the handles stretching with the weight of what
was inside. And what is inside? I thought, with a feeling of creeping horror. My stomach somersaulted as I caught a glimpse of dark wet fur and a glassy, staring eye. There was a smear of blood on the wall of the bag like a streak of brown paint on canvas. He looked down at it, then up at me.
‘We’ve got a rabbit problem,’ he said, ‘but they’re too clever for traps. Don’t like the poison, though, no sir. They come out the ground to die, because they want to see the stars.’
‘Do you have to poison them? Can’t you find a more humane way?’
It was as if he hadn’t heard me. He had a strange, faraway expression, looking past me, back towards the trees. ‘You’d want to see the stars too, wouldn’t you? In your last moments. Better than down there, in the earth. In the dark.’
My eye was drawn again to that bag, bulging with small leporine corpses. There was the faint smell of blood, a coppery tang, and something else too, carried on the wind. Sweet and awful at the same time, a rot like overripe fruit. Fear tasted glassy and metallic in my mouth. I pulsed with it, feeling his shadow creep over me like a cold wind. There was something wrong with this man. I knew this as simply as I did my own name.
‘Bagged a whole warren,’ he continued, as I started moving away, walking backward through the long grass. ‘You know rabbits scream when they know they’re close to death? It’s like they see it coming. Sends all the others into a fr-fr-frenzy.’ He was starting to stutter. There was spittle collecting on his lips. ‘First time I heard it I screamed right back.’
‘I have to go.’ I started to jog over the damp spongy grass. My heart was hammering in my chest, that smell of decay thick and gluey in my sinuses. My hand reached for my back pocket, instinctively. I was as jumpy as a hare in spring. He still wasn’t done, still talking to my retreating back.
‘Told ’em to stop coming here. All of ’em, but it don’t make a difference.’