Something Like Breathing

by Angela Readman

  ‘Tell the bastard you saw me,’ Abel said.

  ‘It was a pleasure meeting you.’

  ‘No it fucking wasn’t.’

  I rushed out to the fresh air and my friends. They stared at the old man glowering out of the window, unsure whether to wait for me or run.

  ‘You alright? What happened? Is that Abel West? Shit. I thought he was dead.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Everyone knows him! He’s a legend, crazy fucker. Keeps himself to himself, comes to the village every now and then, loads up his boat with supplies, sells some of his moonshine and kicks up a stink.’

  Cal slipped his arm around me, oddly impressed. ‘You feisty like him?’

  I took a mouthful of whisky from his flask, shaking, the dust of the cottage settling in my lungs.

  ‘What do you think?’ I laughed until the shaking stopped.

  ‌

  ‌17th May 1960

  I’m pushing my hands over my ears like I’m crash-landing in an aeroplane or something. The world’s spinning. The air’s rushing in my ears. I’m falling, and falling, and nothing will ever be the same ever again. Bam! It’s only paper I can hear but it’s deafening. Ma’s scrunching the note in her fist and waggling it in my face.

  ‘What’s this I found on your shelves?’

  I stare at her clutching the picture of a droopy flower and Would you like to…? The Definitive Guide to Birds book I’d sandwiched Joe’s note between lies on the bedside table. I have no idea why Ma picked it up. I would have thought she let birdsong wash over her.

  ‘It’s nothing. Just a wee thing Joe wrote ages ago. I didn’t even reply,’ I say.

  Ma’s mouth keeps moving like a lousy ventriloquist. I stare at her like a busted dummy. The more she keeps talking, the less I can open my mouth. It flaps open and shuts. She’s harping on about the problem with lads, and keeping secrets, and how I need to be careful and keep to myself. I count the birds on the wallpaper. One. Two. Three. Four… Forty-five. She keeps yammering on and on. There’s no one to shush her. Seth and Zach had a hankering to paint the stock room the colour of a pool table and off they went. They’re there now, sprucing it up to look like a pub, but with racks of varnish and wrenches all over the walls.

  ‘Is there anything else I should know about?’ says Ma.

  The drawer rattles. She’s jerking it out of the dresser. Raking for love letters, wee notes, whatever I might be hiding from her. The bottom drawer clatters to the floor. Shite. The scrapbook sits on the carpet surrounded by dust bunnies. Ma opens it with a frown. I look around for her cold cream, all ready to hand it to her.

  ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ She’s flick, flick, flicking through photos of folks kissing the Blarney Stone, blue tits dropping food into baby bird mouths, VE Day, Superman and Lois, and Marilyn blowing a kiss over a birthday cake, just wishing a year of her life away.

  ‘It’s nothing. They’re just pictures,’ I say in my head, but the words won’t come out. They’re all clagged together in a tight ball in my chest. I feel them rise, but they can’t find a way to my mouth. They bounce around my head. There’s no sound in the room but Ma. And my shame. My shame sounds like paper rain. Ma’s ripping up the scrapbook and letting the pieces fall.

  When she can rip no more, and bits of paper are snow on the carpet, she sweeps them all into her palm. Stuffing them into her apron pocket, she carts them out to the bin, unable, even when she’s furious, to stop herself clearing up as she goes along.

  ‌

  ‌Lorrie

  There wasn’t a dance floor, yet we found ourselves dancing. The radio stood on the picnic blanket facing the water. Blair jumped up and grabbed Dobby’s hand, a song she knew well coming on.

  ‘I’m bored. It’s dead here. Dance with me. Please…’

  Cal and I watched them sway to a slow song and got up to join them, loose with whisky and feeling more able to be close. I danced with his hand on my waist, my ear a whisper from his mouth.

  ‘I can’t stand your friend,’ he said. ‘I almost didn’t come on that last date. I didn’t want to be set up with someone like her.’

  ‘Someone like what?’ I asked.

  ‘You know, the sort who think they’re the queen of everything just because they’re pretty.’

  ‘You don’t like pretty girls?’

  ‘Course I do, but not the ones who know it. Blair’s like a movie that looks amazing until someone turns on the volume, then it’s all downhill. I wish she’d shut up sometimes.’

  I laughed. I don’t know why. Who needs a reason? I had whisky and was out with a boy. I could feel him pressed against me, a hardness digging into to my hip. I knew what it was, though we were never taught it at school. I’d heard enough gossip to realise. I was an avid listener to girls in corridors whispering and making scandalised faces after going on a date. ‘I’m not seeing him again, I could see his thing in his trousers! Standing up, stiff as a dead snake. We were just sitting on the sofa eating cheese on toast for God’s sake! What sort of pervert gets it up for Cheddar?’ I pondered every word, memorising it for when I’d need the information.

  The song faded. I stepped away from Cal, unsure where to look.

  ‘We’re going for a walk,’ Dobby wrapped his arm around Blair and she tottered away with him for some time alone. I sat on a rock facing the water, pretending I couldn’t hear her giggling behind the abandoned boathouse. ‘That tickles,’ she said. ‘Stop, not that way, my skirt will get grubby.’

  Cal sat beside me, slipped his arm around my shoulder and kissed me. We’d kissed once before, so suddenly I hadn’t thought about it. He’d reached for me when he dropped me off and I’d let him. The kiss had been smoky and wet. It wasn’t unpleasant, but there had been no fireworks either. No shooting stars or flipping in my stomach. Nothing. I’d put it down to being so nervous I could feel nothing else, but this kiss was the same: wet and empty. I jerked away, feeling his fingers sliding over my knee, creeping up my dress.

  ‘No.’ I grabbed his hand and placed it on his own leg. Cal looked shocked to see it.

  ‘I want to go,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t be silly.’ He squeezed my shoulder, pulling me closer. ‘Not just yet.’ He gestured towards the boathouse. ‘Your friend’s a bit busy, don’t be a spoilsport.’

  I stood up and called to Blair, ‘Can we go now? I’m freezing. I don’t want to be late.’

  There was no answer. I called louder, ‘I want to go. Blair, I’m serious…’

  ‘Hang on a minute…’ Dobby called. I waited on the shale beach, feet crunching on the gravel, my heels digging in.

  ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with you, we’ve got loads of time.’ Blair came out from behind the boathouse straightening her skirt, clicking open her compact and checking her lipstick. ‘You’re being a total killjoy.’

  We stepped into the boat. I kept my eyes on the mainland, the curve of the coast. The water rippled with light. I clutched the seat under me, the wind whipping around us. I gritted my teeth, determined not to complain.

  ‘What’s the matter? You scared of the water? Seasick?’ Cal lurched to one side, the boat tilting under him. He lurched to the other.

  ‘Stop it.’ I was shaking. ‘It’s not funny. I can’t swim.’

  ‘Relax, it’s fine.’ Dobby laughed with Cal. There was no danger in anything for them. They knew these waters the way a boy knows how much he can get away with before making his mother cry. I jumped out of the boat before it anchored. The land was only a few feet away, but I couldn’t wait. I waded knee-deep through the water with my shoes in my hand.

  ‘Come on! What you doing?’ Blair called after me. ‘Where you going?’

  I ran with their voices following me.

  ‘It was just a joke! We weren’t really going to tip the boat. Don’t be stupid. Wait and we’ll give you a ride. You can’t walk all the way.’

  I kept running, miles from home, and not caring. I’d die before I went back. I’d
rather walk all night than be locked in a car with Dobby at the wheel and Cal at my side.

  I passed a deer, or a deer passed me. The stag charged out of the woods and paused a few feet in front of me, breath steaming around its nose. I watched it pause by the roadside, sniff the evening and bolt into the trees. There was nothing here but me, the deer and a light in the distance. I froze in the headlights. The approaching car slowed.

  ‘Lorrie? What you doing out here?’ Rook Cutler leant out of the window. I climbed into his van with my shoes in my hand. I could smell the fish he’d been catching. The bottom of my sodden skirt dripped onto one of them, flopped on the floor beside the passenger seat.

  ‘I was out for a walk and lost my direction.’ I shivered, rubbing my feet.

  Rook twisted out of his jacket and handed it to me. I pulled it over myself. The insides were still warm. He watched me pick grit off the soles of my feet, opened the glove compartment and gave me a flask of water and a cloth. I sipped the water. Dabbing some on the cloth, I wiped my face.

  ‘You’re freezing,’ he said. ‘My place isn’t far. We’ll stop there, then I’ll take you home.’

  ‘No, it’s alright, I’m fine.’ I spotted myself in the rear-view, streaks of mascara on my face and lipstick smudged around my mouth. I was already late.

  ‘I was just—’

  ‘I don’t have to know what you’ve been up to.’ Rook held up a hand the way a policeman stops traffic. I didn’t say more. He was right. It wasn’t far to his. He lived in one of a pair of cottages on their own near the loch. I followed him in.

  ‘Come in, get yourself dry.’ I sat by the fire, the embers crackling. He threw on another log. I stretched out my legs to let my skirt dry, pulled off my stockings and stuffed them in my bag. Rook looked away. He didn’t sit with me. Looking around, he couldn’t if he wanted to. There was only one armchair. There was only one of everything. One chair. One fire. One bowl. One plate and cup on the dresser. One small table. One hunting knife and a breadboard.

  ‘You want something to drink?’ he asked.

  He looked relieved when I shook my head. He wouldn’t have known what to give me. There wasn’t enough china to join me.

  ‘It’s nice in here,’ I said. ‘Simple.’

  Rook looked around his house. ‘It’ll do me, anyway. I don’t get a lot of company. It’s just me and the dog.’ The greyhound slept under the table, jaw flat to the ground.

  ‘How come you’re not married?’ I said. It probably sounded rude, but I couldn’t stop myself asking. I was itching to know.

  ‘I don’t know. I never met anyone I preferred to my own company, I suppose. Or, maybe I did once, but it was the wrong time.’

  ‘You and my mother go back a long way, yeah?’

  ‘Aye.’

  The fire spat a cinder onto the rug. It glowed and paled under his boot stamping it out. Every so often, I’d think about this, years later I’d still regret not asking more during my one time alone with Rook Cutler. I didn’t quite know what to ask or how to. I wasn’t sure what I should know.

  ‘I found a photo of you and her once,’ I said. ‘When you were younger. You had my mother on your shoulders, giving her a piggyback. You looked happy. Were you her boyfriend or something?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘Why not? Didn’t you like her?’

  ‘I did, but I didn’t like myself much. I was too selfish to be anybody’s boyfriend back then. There’s no story to it, I just wasn’t ready yet.’ Rook repositioned the fireguard. ‘That skirt looks dry enough now. Come on, I’ll drive you home.’

  He pulled his keys out of his pocket and I followed him out. I’d have loved to know more, but he didn’t speak any more. I had other concerns. I was late and I had to figure out a lie about why. It had better be good.

  The lights of the house blazed as if someone was afraid of the dark. I got out of the van, certain Rook would follow me and speak to my parents in that low adult voice I’d come to hate: I found her out on the south side of the island. I think she’s been drinking. Lipstick all over the place, wet skirt, filthy feet.

  Rook didn’t get out the car. He waited in the lane until I reached the door and pulled away. Occasionally, afterwards, I’d see him at the distillery and nod. Adult or not, if he suspected I’d been up to no good he never breathed a word.

  ‘That you Lorrie? You in?’ my mother called to the click of the door.

  I looked at myself in the mirror. In the light of hall, my attempt to wash my face didn’t look as convincing as it had felt in the moonlight. I poked my head around the door without going into the lounge.

  ‘It’s just me.’

  Grumps was asleep in his chair, one hand moving, swatting the flies of his dreams. Toby was already in bed. My mother was doing nothing but waiting.

  ‘I’ve been listening out for your father,’ she said. ‘He never came in from work. When I phoned, they said he didn’t show up this morning.’

  I waffled my excuses about being late, but she was only half listening. One ear was fixed on outside, waiting for the sound of my father’s brogues on the path.

  ‘Blair’s mother dropped me off along the lane,’ I said.

  ‘Can she drive OK?’ My mother knitted her fingers together. ‘With one hand, I mean.’

  ‘She can. They gave her an artificial hand with a driving glove on it.’ I was aware of her inspecting my face, noticing my smudged lipstick and streaks of mascara on my cheek. ‘Blair gave me a makeover,’ I said. ‘And to think she wants to work at a beauty counter in a department store in the city. She’d be better off doing horror films. I look like Vampira.’

  I was back to knowing what to say, even if it wasn’t the truth. I didn’t want the sandwich my mother offered me, or the cocoa. I wanted only my bed and the day to be over with.

  I brushed the aftertaste of cigarettes and spirits out of my mouth. Courting made me think of swimming lessons. I had dived into the deep end. I wanted someone who would make me feel I was floating but could still put my feet on the bottom of the pool. Gripping my toothbrush, I looked out towards Zach’s bedroom. The lamp was lit in Sylvie’s room. I saw a flicker of curtain and her light going out. It reminded me of my mother leaving all the lights on until everyone was here. I wondered if Sylvie had been waiting to see if I’d got in OK, if she’d have been up all night, if I’d been the one who never made it home.

  ‌

  ‌25th May 1960

  There’s loads and loads of stuff to do when you’re grounded. It doesn’t bother me that much. It used to be worse before Seth came and Ma could lock me in. Just knowing there was a key in the other side of the door bugged me, but I kinda like my room. I can spend ages and ages just staring at stuff and wondering. I stare at the wallpaper and think the scrolly pattern between the birds kinda looks like someone water-skiing. It’s a wee thing I noticed once while Ma was nagging. I was about six. It was only discovering the secret life in the wallpaper that had stopped me crying. Sometimes it’s only the small things I find for myself that make sense. I asked Lorrie once what she thought the shapes on the wallpaper looked like, and she said ‘just swirls’. I suppose normal people don’t stare at everything and find other worlds. Sometimes I think I’d love to be like everyone else, just to fit in. But sometimes I think I’d miss the wonders of wallpaper. I don’t hate that part of myself.

  Ma wants me to spend time reading the Bible, chipping in with the housework, and thinking about what I’ve done. I wander about the place like a hound dog, all droopy-eyed and fearty looking. It’s the only way to keep her happy.

  Seth’s sitting with her in the kitchen. They don’t hear me and start gabbling about mashed potato as soon as they see me, but it’s too late. I’ve heard everything.

  ‘What you punishing the lass for this time? You’re too hard on her,’ Seth says.

  ‘I dislike her attitude,’ says Ma.

  ‘She seems alright to me, always got her head in a book,’ Seth says. ‘She’s
not fighting, or swearing, or stealing. It could be worse.’

  ‘She could be better,’ Ma says. ‘But she won’t be, unless I lay down the law. You don’t know her. Give her an inch…’

  Seth shrugs. He’s done all he can. He can’t push it, or she might start griping at him to quit playing cards again.

  ‘Jesus, lass!’ He notices me and jumps out of his skin like he just saw a ghost with a duster. ‘I didn’t see you there! You’re a wee creeping Jesus! Don’t be scared to make a sound, lass, and let folks know you’re here! Come in, we were just trying to decide what to have for tea.’

  Seth’s smiling. Ma’s not. I stay where I am in the doorway. Not quite able to come in and join them, and having nowhere else to go neither.

  ‌

  ‌Lorrie

  Miss Stone stood at the front of the class, arching her fingers. ‘Today, most of you will be ready for buttonholes.’ She glanced at Marge. The girls giggled at the upholsterer’s daughter picking her blistered fingertips. I didn’t join in. I was waiting for Blair to breeze in late, smelling of Juicy Fruit, cigarettes and excuses. She wouldn’t be happy at the way we’d left things at the weekend. I’d been a baby, dashing off the way I had. I was no fun. I’d agree rather than get into a fight with her. I couldn’t explain why I had to get away from there. It had nothing to do with logic and everything to do with a shiver running through me, standing by the water, sitting in that boat beside Cal. I could think nothing but: I have no control, I don’t want to rely on these people to get home.