Something Like Breathing

by Angela Readman

  ‘A portion of chips,’ Cal said.

  ‘Go on, ask him, ask them all,’ Harvey Roe was calling across the café to his wife.

  Elizabeth rolled her eyes. ‘Give me a minute, the poor kids are starving. They just want chips! They don’t want to be bothered by us. They’re on a date – look at them, it’s written all over them.’

  ‘Just ask.’ Harvey put down his spatula and came over to us. ‘Hey, kids, which is better do you think, as a name for the café: the Ugly Mermaid or the Hungry Squid?’

  Elizabeth sighed. ‘Ignore my husband, he’s been asking everyone who walks in the door!’

  ‘I like the mermaid,’ said Cal.

  ‘Not sure about the ugly,’ Dobby said. ‘What about the Busty Mermaid?’ His hands made the shape of a pin-up. Blair whacked his arm.

  ‘Ha! Another vote for the mermaid anyway!’ Elizabeth said.

  Harvey marked another line on the chalkboard where he usually wrote the specials. Today, a squid and a mermaid were using the space to fight to the death.

  I ate off the same plate as Cal and wondered if I could ever fall in love with him. Probably, at the same time I wasn’t sure he was someone I’d ever really like. He linked his arm into mine as we left, our fingers slick with the chips we’d dipped into a puddle of ketchup.

  ‘What about the Happy Squid?’ Harvey called after us, his wife swatting him with a rolled-up newspaper.

  ‘Ignore him, kids, he just hates to lose!’

  We agreed to meet again the following Friday. Dobby showed us to a car only an optimist wouldn’t call a wreck and wedged a screwdriver in the door.

  ‘Only way she’ll open,’ he said. ‘She needs a bit of loving, but she flies.’

  ‘She won’t fly like mine,’ Cal replied.

  ‘Oh yeah? Wanna bet?’

  We disappeared then, Blair and me. It was a moment for our dates and their contest of who could fix up the best wreck. Blair climbed into the car, the wind whipping a sheet of her hair covered in hairspray across her face. I ran, the scarf around my neck lifting and streaming off across the street. I chased the rippling chiffon in my kitten heels.

  ‘Lorrie?’ Zach clutched a crate of bottles under one arm. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Oh, I lost my scarf.’

  I didn’t need to ask what brought him here. On Fridays, Zach did the beer run for the card game while the older men bickered about the stakes and who got the wobbly chair. I clutched my scarf. Zach glanced at Cal and Blair rolling down the window.

  ‘Come on, Lorrie!’ she yelled. ‘What you waiting for?’

  I ran to the car, praying Zach wouldn’t tell Sylvie he’d ever seen me. Sylvie might tell her mother, who might tell my parents I hadn’t been sewing at Blair’s house after all. The rusty car started with a jerk, a puff of smoke coughing out of the exhaust. I looked out at Zach. Everything looked just as it was to him, I was sure. I was on a date with someone else. Being caught made me feel I was cheating, if not on Zach, then myself.

  ‌

  ‌13th May 1960

  What Will You Be in ten Years’ Time?

  In ten years from now I’ll be a nun. I’ll live in a convent and get into sing-songs with women who grow their own scran. There’ll be apples to peel, pears, and plums. The fruit will grow behind a huge wall surrounding the convent. The walls will shade us from seeing ambulances and folks toppling over in the street. The sisters will be nifty with a knife. They’ll chop fruit like holy samurai warriors and never cut themselves. We’ll all be rosy with digging. And cautious when we wash the glasses and cups. There’ll be no mirrors in the convent to crack. If our faces aren’t pretty, we won’t have a clue. Our kisses will only be for the apples we pick and polish on our chests with our breath. The order will know about singing, and jam making, and prayer, and hard work. We’ll all be pals and laugh at just about anything as long as it’s holy. We’ll laugh a lot. Our lives will be small. And there’ll be loads of stuff we don’t know, but that’s OK. We’ll all be dead good at learning to shrug and say, ‘the world is a mysterious place’.

  When I’m a nun Ma will still go to the hairdressers every six weeks. She’ll sit there listening to women under the driers slipping wee photos of their daughters and grandbabbies out of their purses. They’ll all be comparing who’s the bonniest and who married the best man.

  ‘My daughter’s a nun,’ Ma will say, and Bam! All conversation will stop. The women will all shut up for bit to think about it. It’s a wonderful thing. Cracking, aye. It’s also sad. What can anyone really say about that? There’ll be nothing for it but to change the subject to kitchen gadgets. The Wonder Spinner for salads, the latest Tupperware pot, big enough to store a human head. Ma would love that, I reckon.

  I scribble a wee sketch of a nun and surround it in inky flames. That’s me, who I’ll become. I’m practising now, sitting on my tod in my cell while other folk are swanning about.

  It’s dark now, or something close to it. It won’t be long until it stops truly getting dark at night. In June, it will only get duskier. The sky is a shelf of dark blues and silhouettes starting to lose their sharp edges when Lorrie gets out of the car with her date. They face each other, making small talk. Wondering if the bird they can hear is about to shite on their heads, or declaring their undying love for each other, I can’t tell. The lad bows his head and kisses her for long enough to persuade her to put her bag down on the car roof. Then Lorrie pulls away, latches the gate and flits off, wiping her mouth.

  I wonder what it’s like to have to put down whatever you’re carrying for a kiss. It looks nowt like the kisses Lorrie used to practise on her hand like she was giving the kiss of life to a sock puppet. It looks like something charging through you, making you realise you can’t be doing with carrying your pens and wet-weather hats any more. I picture Joe Clark’s sulky mouth and licking it into a wee smile. I shiver. It’s alright. When I’m a nun I won’t think this way.

  I shove my assignment in the drawer. In a decade, I’ll be Sister Sylvie and Lorrie will be loved. Being loved is something she’s auditioning for now, I suppose. I reckon that’s all courting is, just a series of small auditions. On second thoughts, I place my What I’ll Be in 10 Years on the desk, so Ma can spot it and never have the foggiest about the funny thoughts that spin around my head.

  ‌

  ‌Lorrie

  I’ve never been sure precisely when my father went missing. No one is. He got up, brushed his teeth, put on his ferry uniform, polished the buttons, the same as always, and left. I don’t know if he’d already decided this was the night he wouldn’t return, or if something decided it for him on the way.

  It had been a crazy week at the distillery; a batch of rare single malt was finally ready. Grumps held a labelling party similar to the ones his father had hosted. Men and women came from all over the island to slap labels on bottles in exchange for a few bottles to stash away for Christmas. The distillery was awash with chatter and laughter, small samples of the whisky being passed around. It was so loud we could hear it along the lane. My mother had been at the distillery all week, consulting order lists, screwing on lids, and dragging away the odd volunteer from work for the day when he started putting labels on the bottle upside down.

  Rook Cutler was with her. Just yesterday, they’d been swept into a dance, right there. One of the old men insisted on pulling out a harmonica on his break, and for five minutes the volunteers all danced, stamping their feet up and down, the bottles jittering in their crates.

  ‘How’s it going over there?’ my father asked at breakfast in the morning. They had never discussed the idea of his wife working. She fell into it taking Grumps his lunch every day. Looking around, she saw she could be useful and rolled up her sleeves.

  ‘Not so bad, I’m in charge of orders now. I’m better with the clients. I’ve more patience for listening to them, I suppose,’ she said. ‘How’s work with you?’

  ‘The same, all waves, weather and delays.’ />
  The cottage was so old the windows distorted the view. It was possible to see ripples in the pane, the glass shifting over the decades. Mum poured coffee and looked out towards the barn where Rook was standing on a ladder, reaching up to the gutters in leather gloves. Clumps of moss squelched in his fists and fell to the ground. The barn door was ajar. Inside we could see a stack of used barrels waiting to be chopped. Outside, Rook scooped moss from the gully and bobbed his blackbird-dark head out of the way of the sodden leaves. He leant back, losing his footing, the ladder wobbling beneath him. He fell with a clank.

  ‘I’ll be in tonight at about—’ my father was telling my mother.

  ‘Oh my God!’ She dashed out, dressing gown flapping behind her, belt trailing on the grass. ‘Rook, Rook, are you alright?’ Her voice was an octave higher than we’d ever heard it before. It poured out into the still air and lingered, the crows falling silent.

  Rook pulled himself up, staggered and fell. She gripped his hand, attempting to keep him awake. ‘What day is it?’ she asked. ‘What did you have for supper last night? When’s my birthday?’

  It was just me and my father in the kitchen. He looked on, but didn’t join her outside. Just as, last night, he had passed the distillery on his way in, heard music, saw everyone dancing, and lingered in the lane, watching through the window without coming in.

  ‘Sometimes I wonder if anyone would notice if I wasn’t here.’ He lifted his cup and mumbled into the dregs of his coffee.

  ‘Pardon?’ I said.

  ‘Nothing.’

  He shrugged on his jacket and left. I didn’t tell my mother what I’d heard. I didn’t think it mattered. I didn’t even mention it when she peered in at the casserole and slammed the oven door at dinner time.

  ‘What’s keeping him? Where could he be?’ She looked out for my father and grabbed a ladle. ‘Well, we’ll have to start without him. I can’t wait any more. I’m starving. Rook, if you want to stay for something to eat you’re welcome, someone should appreciate it.’

  I considered telling her what my father told me that morning and thought better of it. It wasn’t important. I probably misheard it. I wanted to mishear. I had plans of my own.

  The boat churned. I gripped the sides, stomach lurching. It was supposed to be a surprise. We weren’t going to the mainland to see Village of the Damned after all. There’d be no popcorn and waxy boxes of fruit gums but a picnic on one of the islands. To get there we all had to clamber into Dobby’s rowing boat with the motor on board.

  ‘That’s where we’re going, that island over there, see?’ Cal pointed across the water. ‘You said you’d never been anywhere.’

  Blair looked at her clothes, a spray of water on her sleeve, the lingering smell of fish in the boat crinkling her pretty nose.

  ‘You could have told me, I’d have worn something different.’

  It was quiet on the island, other than the screech of terns and the portable radio Dobby had brought. He fetched a blanket and a flask of whisky out of the boat with a grin.

  ‘That’s all you brought? No sandwiches? Strawberries? Nothing?’ Blair asked. ‘What sort of picnic doesn’t have any food?’

  Dobby pulled her towards him. ‘The fun kind.’

  ‘You’re crinkling my blouse. Quit it.’ Blair made to pull away before accepting his arm around her. ‘OK, you’re blocking the wind anyway.’

  We huddled together, sipping whisky and wandering around looking at the buildings that remained on the island. The cottages had long been abandoned. Some gave the impression someone had left in a hurry, leaving their doors open, the furniture still inside. Pigeons roosted above items that had been left as they were: a bed, a pair of shoes, a table, a colander, a rusted tin of beans on a shelf, a crib covered in a canopy of cobwebs. The boys looked around debating the worth of everything and decided there was nothing they could sell.

  ‘What happened? Why would anyone just abandon the place?’

  ‘The winters, work, illness. The larger islands started getting electricity and shops, people started drifting over.’

  ‘I don’t blame them.’ Blair wrapped her arms across her chest. ‘It’s creepy here. It’s like a horror film.’

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ said Dobby. ‘What’s going to get you out here? Killer puffins? Seaweed? You’re perfectly safe.’

  ‘I’m not scared,’ I said. ‘They’re just buildings. It’s sad if anything.’

  I wandered on with Cal, Blair and Dobby behind us. Every so often, we heard a light slap. ‘Are you an octopus? Keep your hands where I can see them, Squid Boy!’ There was one cottage that caught our eye and we wandered towards it. It didn’t look quite as derelict as the rest. It had a red door and the cracks in the windows had been taped over with paper.

  ‘I dare you to go in,’ Dobby said. I cupped my hands across my face, looking through the cottage window. Whoever had left the place must have dashed off towards cinemas, heated swimming pools and factory work so suddenly they hadn’t had time to pack all their clothes. A bag and a man’s coat remained hooked to the door.

  ‘Why would I want to go in there?’ I asked.

  ‘Because you’re not scared, apparently. I dare you to go in, go to the top window and wave at us,’ said Dobby.

  I walked in on my own, leaving the laughter of my friends behind me. I moved slowly, eyes straight ahead. The stairs groaned beneath me. The sound of a pigeon pattered on the landing roof. The cottage was filthy, littered with paper and bottles. Whoever had left it hadn’t been bothered to carry their bedstead downstairs, even though it was brass and someone would have saved up for it once. It would have been a new bride’s pride and joy. Yet they had left the bed with a grey blanket and a grubby pillow on the mattress, a pair of reading glasses perched on a newspaper beside it. I headed towards the window and waved, cheering. ‘There, I did it! I told you I wasn’t scared.’ The door opened behind me. I turned. The man stood so close his face was inches away from my own.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’

  He wore braces and a grubby shirt. The stink of cigarettes and stale drink billowed from his mouth. The only clean thing about him was his beard, whiter than washing powder.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone lived here. I thought the island was uninhabited. I was just—’

  ‘Just what?’ He stepped closer. The fusty smell of him reminded me of winter, clothes draped over bannisters taking too long to dry. ‘Who are you? Where you from?’

  ‘I’m Lorrie, Lorrie Wilson. I just came for a look around. I’m sorry, I’ll be out of your way now.’ I made for the door. His wrinkled fingers clamped onto my shoulder, holding me back.

  ‘Wait a minute.’ He spun me around to face him. ‘You’ve the look of a West girl. From the distillery? You Joseph West’s daughter?’

  ‘He’s my grandfather,’ I said.

  ‘Shit! I should have known. You’ve got the West nose alright.’

  The man turned sideways and tapped the bridge of his nose. I covered my own with my hand, sharp as a ski slope, the same as Grumps’ – and the one belonging to the man in front me.

  ‘How is the bastard?’ When the old man swore his face was almost gleeful. ‘Did he get my messages?’

  I gawped, failing to understand. Grumps never wrote letters and he didn’t trust phones. Whenever the phone rang at the distillery he would bellow ‘What do they want now? There’s always something!’ He bemoaned the day my mother ever convinced him to have it installed. I never saw him make a single call.

  ‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘I’ll send him your regards.’

  ‘Tell him no such fucking thing. Haven’t spoke to him for donkey’s years, don’t intend to start now. That business of his should have been mine. Our fathers set it up together. And what did my father get? Sweet fuck all.’ He spat when he spoke, I winced. It took all my energy not to wipe my face in front of him.

  I’d heard the story before. Everyone had. Whenever anyone on the island warned someone
about the dangers of gambling they would point to the chimneys in the distance. The brothers who owned the distillery couldn’t get along. One worked hard. One had a fondness for women and song. It got to a point of the pair fighting so much they couldn’t go on. Since neither could afford to buy the other out, they dragged out a deck of cards and selected one apiece. Whoever drew the lowest card would walk away from the business. A jack and an ace. My great-grandfather won.

  ‘So you must be Abel,’ I said.

  ‘Too right.’ Abel spat on the floor.

  An Evaluation of Abel West

  Nose: The whiff of fires he keeps stocked beneath a copper pot, the spirit he distils in a shack drop by drop. The scent of gobstoppers he and my grandfather shared suck for suck as boys is long gone. His father upped and moved off the island with him. There’s only the heat of moonshine on his tongue now and a dozen grudges he mutters to himself, lost as the angel’s share of the spirit evaporating in the air.

  Palate: Roasted bird, chicken, raven, pheasant, plucked and plunged into a sizzling pot. Every meal he cooks lasts for days. There are two kinds of animals alone to him. The ones who bark if anyone approaches your still, and the ones that do nothing for you. Those are for eating.

  Finish: Thin as the streams he follows to set up a still in a shack with ‘None of Your Business’ painted on the door. He has a beard longer than Santa’s, hands drier than stone and a face just as hard. There’s no shortage of work on the island, but he prefers to be on his own. He’d sooner die than make money for someone else. He’d rather make something than buy it, and sees making moonshine as a right. He regrets little, yet ponders some nights what life could have been, if things had been different and his father hadn’t lost the distillery. It could have been his life.

  Overall: Looking at him, I see who my grandfather could have been, if his father had lost a bet and set off to live alone in the middle of nowhere. That’s the only difference between the men, when it comes down to it: luck. One was lucky in business and love. One never seemed to be in the right place at the right time; it appears imbedded in every line in his face.