Something Like Breathing

by Angela Readman

  They’re all buzzing around. Buzz. Buzz. Buzz. I gaze at the ground like it’s a night sky with one star. There’s a tooth on the pavement someone must have lost without noticing it fall. Milk white on the concrete. Some lassie kicks it along the hopscotch, coming over to ask Lorrie if she puts in plaits before bed. To ask where she lives. Who her brother is.

  ‘That weeny kid with the tousie hair? The one with the lugs?’

  ‘That’s him… I like your ponytail,’ Lorrie says. ‘I like your skirt.’

  She likes everything about everyone. I can tell she’s smiling even without looking. I keep staring at the tooth, wondering if some wean somewhere is bawling to his mammy he missed his chance to make a mint off the tooth fairy. I won’t look up. I can’t. The lasses are all giggling at the pinafore Ma made me wear. Some are making that goldfish face at me. I hear their lips smackety smacking and wonder if Lorrie’s still smiling. I bet she is.

  ‘Why do they make that fishy face at you?’ she says once they’re gone.

  I open my gob and nowt comes out. It slaps shut like haddock. The kids are all wandering across the playground, back to jumping elastics and juggling balls against the wall. Lorrie shuffles towards the skipping ropes.

  ‘You want to join in?’ she’s asking. ‘Over there.’

  I peek up at the lasses who laugh at me as they twirl both ends. Skipping so fast my feet feel like hooves. I’m dead slow compared to other folks, I reckon. I’m too scared I’ll fall and rip my dress. Ma would wallap me for getting clatty.

  ‘Do you mind if I… ?’

  Lorrie hops off to join the skippers. I watch her jump and not fall, jump and not fall, until Miss comes out and shakes the brass bell to herd us into class.

  ‌

  ‌Lorrie

  The school was a squat building surrounded by a stone wall. To get there, it was impossible not to pass the harbour. Lobster pots piled high, glimpses of fishing boats rocking in the wind. Even the teachers stared out the window most afternoons, aware of the sea so close by, locked outside. There was only one school on the island. The children came from all sides. A few from the north side streamed off a small bus, but most walked. It was one of the first things I noticed about people who were born on the island. The girls all had calves stocky as June lambs, sturdy from walking uphill. Even the smallest girls looked solid and wary, ducking away from their mothers’ kisses and instructions to behave. They were all curious about me. Or, rather, where I’d been, what I’d seen. They saw me as a walking encyclopaedia of distant lands. Only a few had ever left the island, in their fathers’ vans packed with supplies, or gripping the hands of their mothers on the way to pick up spectacles or dentures from the mainland. They saw the smoky outlines of factories and were ushered onto the ferry, venturing no further into the city than necessary.

  The kids all shuffled towards me now, posing questions about massive roller coasters, zoos, department stores as big as cathedrals, toy shops with life-sized bears in the windows and train sets that ran around and around on tracks above their heads.

  ‘Is it true there are shops that sell nothing but wedding dresses?’ a girl called Marjorie asked. ‘I heard there were thousands of them all in a row, all different shades of white.’

  ‘Don’t be daft. How can there be more than one shade of white? White’s white,’ someone said.

  I reassured Marjorie, yes it was true. There were bridal shops with dresses as different as snowflakes, sparkling, plain, high-necked or low, in lace, or in cotton. In cities, there were more shades of white than the island had seen winters, anything was possible. I stretched the truth and made everything bigger, and brighter, and louder, and faster than it was, but I loved being an expert on something. It gave me a glamour that faded as soon I traipsed back into the classroom with Sylvie.

  Miss Jones chalked a lily on the blackboard and pointed out each part.

  ‘Does anyone know what this is called?’

  The wooden ruler dipped from leaves to petals and settled on a long strand reaching out of the flower. The class nibbled their pencils, inspecting their teeth marks in the wood. I glanced at Sylvie writing S t a m e n on her page in spidery letters.

  ‘Sylvie?’ Miss Jones softened her voice and looked hopeful.

  Sylvie opened her mouth, closed it and shook her head.

  ‘Goldfish!’ The children giggled.

  I glanced at Sylvie’s page and my hand shot into the air. ‘Stamen,’ I said.

  If she was angry I stole her answer, I didn’t care. People loved me. It was a giddy feeling. I could make anyone adore me without trying. I’m still that way. I’m not being vain, they just do. I have the sort of manners that put smiles on faces I’m not even sure I like.

  An Evaluation of Sylvie Tyler

  Nose: There’s a scent of wood shavings on her fingers. It’s from the pencils she insists on sharpening before they get the chance to snap, and closer still, there’s a damp sort of smell that reminds me of coming in from the rain. If you sat close to her, you could smell the strand of hair she swirls and swirls, running it across her lips and sucking it all day.

  Palate: The cucumber in the sandwiches her mother packs in tight plastic boxes, caramel wafers with shiny Tunnock’s wrappers she always saves, and milk that warms in her satchel. The plastic boxes pop when she opens her lunch, breathy as the gobstopper-scented laughter of kids walking past. I only ever saw Sylvie look disgusted once. It was seeing a boy take a lollipop out of his mouth and giving a lick to a friend. ‘I’d never do that,’ she’d said. ‘I wouldn’t dare. Just seeing it makes me feel sick.’

  Finish: Pale as the lighthouse, skinny, with a voice that shuffles up to her mouth, if she speaks at all. She folds her shoulders inwards, wearing a sweater that would prefer to be on the shelf. She knows how many floor tiles are between her desk and the blackboard. Or she should do, she looks down often enough. I asked once, as a joke, how many tiles there were. ‘Twenty-six,’ Sylvie replied, ‘and eighteen to the door.’

  Overall: This isn’t someone I can see myself with, if I’m honest. There are other girls who are more fun. I wander around with Sylvie without allowing myself to look as if I want to, determined not to catch her unpopularity and let it seep in.

  The stone bounced along the lane. Sylvie kicked it and let it roll wherever it wanted. The distillery churned steam into the clouds as we passed it. I finally let out what I’d wanted to say all day.

  ‘Why didn’t you answer that question in class?’ I asked. ‘You had the answer.’

  The words drifted over us without seeming to touch Sylvie. For a long time, she didn’t reply. When she did, it was a whisper.

  ‘I wanted to’ – she scratched her knuckles – ‘but I couldn’t, couldn’t get the words out. It happens sometimes, it happens with loads of people… except you.’

  The slightest smile from Sylvie was a fluffy elephant at the fair. It had to be won with a clear aim, it wasn’t given away. I’d won her trust without knowing what I was winning, and not unlike that fluffy elephant I’d once won throwing balls at a coconut stall, now it was mine I wasn’t sure I wanted it.

  ‌

  ‌25th September 1957

  One false move and squish. Bam! Ma claps her hands around the moth and lets it out in a jar. I’m watching it flutter fast as my heart, battering against the glass. Ma lifts the suitcase off the wardrobe and cracks on with folding my clothes. The black cardigan. The grey skirt. The dress the colour of a sack of tatties. The jumper with the sleeves that make my arms feel like Frankenstein. It’s no wonder he went a bit doolally. The fella that made him could have at least knitted him a sweater that fit.

  ‘I don’t want to go,’ I say. ‘Please, Ma.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’ She’s balling socks and stuffing a pair into my shoes. ‘We always visit your Nan at this time of year. It’s lovely to have a change of scenery. She’ll be so pleased to see you, you know that.’

  I do. And I know I’ll be off school for a week. A
nything can happen in a week, a week’s a lifetime. I’ll miss people falling off the swings and skinning their knees, class projects, fights, bogies getting flicked. And sides being taken. And some kids falling out, and others deciding to be pals for life. That’s what worries me.

  Lorrie gets this look after playtime like Irn-Bru losing its fizz. She breaks away from the other lassies, pulls out her chair from the desk and makes a face worse than nails on a blackboard, like it hurts to sit near me. If she could, she’d be somewhere else. Off and away with Robin Macleod and the cattle her folks keep. I don’t blame her. I’d be like Robin myself, if I could. Loud. Funny. Bonnie. If I could get the words out, anyhow. The jokes I want to tell always sit on my tongue for so long someone else always gets them out first. I’m forever practising everything in my head. Just to make sure it doesn’t sound wrong.

  ‘I can’t go anywhere,’ I say to Ma. ‘If I do, when I come back Lorrie and Robin will be pals and I’ll be left out.’

  ‘You can all be friends together. If being away for a week makes someone forget you, you don’t want them to be your friend.’

  She doesn’t get it. The lassies at school don’t flit around in flocks. They flutter into pairs like giggly lovebirds practising mating for life. I keep trying to explain, but it comes out all wrong. If lassies were the same when Ma was my age, she’s forced herself to forget. I reckon it’s the only way mas can be mas.

  My nightie flaps into the suitcase soft as a bird giving up flight.

  ‘Don’t make something out of nothing!’ Ma says.

  I’ve got a face like a slapped arse and I know it, if the wind changes I’ll stay this way forever. ‘It’s not the end of the world. It’s just one weekend.’

  It’s never just a weekend. And she knows it.

  Slam! The case snaps shut. The blouse hanging out of the side looks a bit like I feel. Trapped. I’m dying to say: Ma, I wish you’d listen. I hate Nan’s house. It reeks. I hate the pong of fusty lavender and mouldy bread. The pinch of her Baltic fingers clawing for a cuddle, wrinkled mouth puckering up for a peck. I can’t stand her cigarettes, all that smoke and ghosts swirling around her. Everyone she talks about is dead. I can’t stand her. I can’t say that though. Ma would wash my mouth out with soap like the day I kissed that boy in the wee park with the swings.

  The case stands by the standard lamp like a signpost saying: You’ll do what I tell you to do. You don’t get a say.

  Ma picks up the jar with the moth and carries it out. I listen to her open the back door and release it. The door creaks. The moth flies free for a minute, before I hear it battering at the window something rotten. It beats itself senseless trying to get in again.

  ‌

  ‌Lorrie

  Bunny had a diamond on her finger and no need to chop her own firewood. Seth Johnson had proposed on a Sunday. Everyone was looking. Outside the church, a cluster of rust- and mustard-coloured hats twisted to face the couple, slow as sunflowers searching for the sun. Seth got on one knee, crushing fallen leaves on the ground.

  ‘I wanted to do this now, not on a workday. This doesn’t feel like work. Mrs Tyler, will you marry me?’

  It was strange to see him address her as Mrs Tyler when we saw him at her place so often. Every week, he would wander up Bunny’s path carrying a toolbox, a few bottles of beer, and something for the lady of the house: a cabbage, a jar of honey, a coat rack, a pot of varnish for her fence. He always knocked once, then strolled right in. I could only put it down to everyone watching: Mrs Tyler sounded more suitable for an audience. The congregation grinned, some were already clapping. Bunny placed her hand over her mouth and studied Seth on his knees, ferns marking his trousers with damp streaks she’d have to remove with Stain Away – We Promise to make Everything Good as New.

  An Evaluation of Seth Johnson

  Nose: There are strands of wire wool clinging to his cuffs. The steely scent of straight rows of paint pots mingles with the aroma of the sawdust that catches on his clothes. Outside the hardware store, he saws planks into lengths to fit into his customers’ carts. Lifting a dusty hand, he says, ‘No problem. No extra charge,’ and waves people off to their homes in need of repair, lengths of timber and ladders sticking out of their vans.

  Palate: He tastes of the casseroles various women from church kept bringing around after his wife passed away. Bunny Tyler stood out from the others. There was no pussyfooting around with her. She didn’t treat his grief as something wrapped around him that would rub off if she brushed past it. She came in one day and pulled a boiled egg out of her handbag to demonstrate a slicing device he simply ‘had to’ stock. It seemed she always had what he needed in that bag of hers, bits of kitchenware that could lure fresh brides into the hardware store, solutions for paint stains he’d never heard of before, and a packet of candles. Twelve for the chocolate cake he’d bought for his son’s birthday a year after his wife passed away. Seth hadn’t felt like celebrating, but he’d bought the boy a chemistry set, blown up a few balloons and said, ‘Make a wish, son,’ praying he wouldn’t say what he really wished for out loud.

  Finish: A flannel-shirted species of man, the kind no one ever sees cry. The kind who returns a casserole dish without it being properly washed, a crust of gravy scorched to the lip. Watching the woman who brought him the meal, he’ll wonder why she brought it, attempt to decipher her smile and have no idea what it means. In the end, he’ll stop trying to figure out why she keeps stopping by. Bunny Tyler is a decent woman – small waist, light as air, decent cook. He’s forty-one. Kindness is kindness. He’ll take it wherever he can.

  Overall: A man destined to be a husband. He appears occasionally to remember a time before he was married, sometimes in the store. Chatting to other men, organising a sly card game, he remembers a part of himself he forgets as soon as his son walks into the room. In the absence of being able to smile much himself following his wife’s death, he clings to the smile of a well-meaning woman until it infects his own face and the boy’s.

  Bunny studied the beaming congregation and said ‘Yes, I think. Yes!’

  Everyone applauded. Women would applaud the beauty of it for years to come – the widow being lifted off her feet by the widower, being held by him, briefly, appropriately, outside the church. It was as close to romance as the island ever saw. Everyone would remember it. Nobody would remember the ‘I think’.

  Bunny pulled away from Seth’s bristly kiss and laughed. People began to trail away to their Sundays, chicken and lamb in the oven and cabbage and potatoes peeled in water-filled pans. Sylvie wandered away from her mother shaking hands with the minister and discussing wedding plans. Finding some rice outside the church, she held out her palm to feed a limping pigeon on the wall. She made cooing sounds, trying to learn the language it spoke.

  I didn’t go over to her. I hadn’t seen Sylvie all week, other than a glimpse on Sunday night. It had been late. Bunny’s tyres shushed over the gravel and I looked out to see Sylvie stumbling out of the car. Bunny guided her in, lead-footed and sleepy as a child after a day at the seaside.

  I could have knocked when she was off school the following week. Or brought her the latest issue of Bunty, but I didn’t. Robin Macleod was teaching me elastics. She jumped, and criss-crossed, and wove with her feet, chatting about castrating ponies. She was the only girl in a family of four brothers. Her whole life was a competition; she ran as fast as a boy, spat as far, too, and made a point of being ruder and smarter. Rabbits meant nothing to me. I wanted a friend who could break in a horse.

  ‘That Sylvie’s always off.’ Robin spat her distaste for meek girls out of her mouth. ‘I hate people like her, acting shy and thinking they’re better than everyone else.’

  She whipped her elastics into her pocket and held out a hand. Other girls loved playing hopscotch or whispering in alcoves; Robin loved proving she was stronger than anyone else. We arm-wrestled and I felt myself give. I was barely trying, I didn’t want to win.

  Miss Jones ca
lled me over after class and gave me some work to drop off for Sylvie. I crumpled the pages and threw them into a hedgerow after school. I didn’t want to stop at Sylvie’s. I didn’t feel like pushing anything through her letter box. I decided to let her fade into being no more than a pale face at a window next door.

  ‌

  ‌5th October 1957

  Ma plops the rabbit on the bed. It honks of straw and wee. When it rests on my knee it’s warm as damp mittens drying by the fire.

  ‘Look who came to see you!’ she says.

  The rabbit’s nibbling the bedspread. Ma’s waiting for me to cuddle it, I know. I roll on my side. I won’t look.

  It’s the only pet she ever named. Mr Churchill. But I can’t love it like she does. When I was wee, the rabbits kept dying. Any rabbit could go any day. I reckon it’s easier if I don’t feel how fluffy they are.

  ‘You still poorly, hen?’ Ma’s palm on my head feels for heat. ‘You seem alright to me.’

  ‘I’m a tad limp, that’s all.’

  I stand and wander to the window, all wobbly. But I’m tonnes better than I was when we left Nan’s. Fit enough for church and school on Monday anyway.