I turn around and turn back. I’m picturing Lorrie’s lip liner going all wonky. I let her slather make-up all over me, but it still didn’t cheer her up. When she gripped an eye pencil she got this look on her face like a lassie with a colouring book concentrating on staying inside the lines, but it wore off fast. The sadness caught up with her.
‘What if they’re right and Blair never wakes up?’ Lorrie held up a mirror.
I didn’t know what to say. I still didn’t when Ma came in later and saw me all dolled up. ‘Look at the state of you,’ she said. ‘What do you think you look like?’
I thought: I look like a lassie doing something for her pal, but only a smidge of what she can.
There’s a load of folks with balloons, flowers and bags of grapes in the hospital corridor. I suck a sour plum, check my flask of water and wander along. God, I want to leg it. None of this has anything to do with me. I could scarper and no one would be any the wiser. Then there’s Lorrie… I keep walking along past the wards. There’s a lady with a balloon visiting a toddler in a small room with an open door. I won’t look. I can’t. There’s so much heartache I feel I’m breathing it in. It reeks. I can’t stop it. I can’t cheer everyone up. Not now. I just can’t. I wish I could.
‘Sylvie?’
I kinda know it’s Joe before I even look up. I’d recognise his feet anywhere. The loops of his laces are perfectly even, like a wee lad who does everything carefully, fearty of getting it wrong.
‘What you doing here?’ he’s saying.
‘Nothing. Just visiting someone. What about you?’
Joe lifts his arm and lets it do all the talking. The cast is finally off. Underneath, his hand is so skinny and pale it doesn’t look like it’s his. It’s the hand of a bairn.
‘This useless thing.’ He tries to make a fist and his fingers barely move. ‘Nerve damage or something. I’m getting another opinion. They doubt I’ll be able to play guitar any more, not the same way anyway.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
I look down the corridor at Joe’s ma punching a vending machine for a bar of Turkish Delight. I creep past her without looking up.
There’s a bee hovering by the open window in Blair’s room, deciding whether to come in or buzz off. I stare at it for ages instead of looking at her. The lass is peely wally. Her breathing’s soft as an airbed going down. It’s funny, she doesn’t look mean when she’s asleep. She just looks like a lassie who could do with a wee bit of sun. She doesn’t look snidey or slutty or wild. She doesn’t look that different to me. I put my fingers on her wrist and feel her pulse through my fingertips. I gulp and lower my head, so close a wisp of her hair wavers when I whisper in her ear.
‘Blair, can you hear me? If you want to wake up, now would be a good time.’ I wait for her to wake, pray for it. Beg. God, she doesn’t move. I swallow, only vaguely aware of a face at the door as I lean in and kiss the girl.
Lorrie
There was no one to ask about the vandalism in the toilets. Sylvie was absent from school again. I called for her, but Bunny wouldn’t allow her to come to the door. The closest I could get to Sylvie was hearing her name being whispered everywhere. Girls crammed into the toilet stall and stroked the word on the door they’d never dared say out loud. Sylvie Johnson is a…
‘Now, enough dawdling. You’ll be late for class.’ Miss Stone checked the toilets for stragglers and marched us to gym, where the vaulting horse was already set up. Blair was back. She walked along the beam, every eye in the room on her.
‘What was it like, being in a crash?’ Marjorie Swift asked. ‘When you were unconscious could you hear us? Did you know what was going on?’ The class queued at the climbing wall, inspecting Blair for injuries. Her skin was flawless, her eyes were bright as a smashed windscreen.
‘It was odd, it was like being locked out of the house and seeing what’s going on inside through a foggy window,’ Blair said. ‘I couldn’t find my keys and walk in. I could hear my mother sniffling though, and friends talking to me, but I couldn’t sit up and join in. I couldn’t move.’
I suspected Blair was making it all up, relishing the attention. She hadn’t spoke to me since she left the hospital. Whatever friendship we’d had was as crumpled as the bumper on Dobby’s car; it was easier to rip it off than beat it into shape. I was right about one thing, she insisted no one was drinking. Quite the opposite, Dobby was a gentleman. The pair had officially become an item. Blair told everyone they didn’t fall in love, they crashed into it.
‘You’ve got to hear this, you wouldn’t believe what happened when I woke up.’ Blair lowered her voice, a cluster of girls in PE skirts huddled in. I’d heard it before. The urge to gossip had been building up inside Blair while she was sleeping, and no one could stop it all bubbling out. ‘I started to wake up and I felt something, someone’s lips on mine. I opened my eyes and guess who I saw? Sylvie.’
My classmates turned towards me in the absence of Sylvie to stare at.
‘You have to wonder, she’s Lorrie’s friend. Do you think they’re…?’
Blair laughed. I knotted the laces of my plimsolls before walking over.
‘What’s your problem?’ My fists curled at my sides.
‘Nothing. I’m having fun with my girlfriends.’ Blair laughed. ‘You know how it is. You and Sylvie are girlfriends, aren’t you? In a different way though.’
‘Ladies…’
The teacher clapped her hands for us to move the gym mats into the alcove. Blair and I took one side of a mat apiece and sloughed it across the floor.
‘Your little friend kissed me,’ Blair said. ‘She ran off as soon as I opened my eyes. But I saw her. She kissed me right on the lips.’
The mat slid onto the pile. Blair strolled away. I placed a hand on her shoulder, pulled her around and punched her face. I’d wanted to do that to someone all my life, to know how it felt. It was a let-down. The punch made no cowboy smack. The girl didn’t land flat on the floor, her fingers stroked her cheekbone, more surprised than wounded. I was more damaged than her. Walking away, I uncurled my fingers and saw crescent moons, every fingernail snapped, clutched in my hand. I saw them all fall to the ground.
I stood under the shower letting the anger wash out of me. Blair was a liar. She loved being the centre of attention and would say anything to keep it that way. Sylvie would never visit her. And yet, I considered it. I had thought Sylvie was going to kiss me once. I’d burnt my hand making caramel, the skin had glowed and blistered, fire red. It was so painful I held my finger under the tap, wincing and hopping from foot to foot. ‘You poor thing. It looks sore.’ Sylvie came closer to inspect the wound, put her arm around me and stood so close her face was only inches from mine. There was an aroma of sour plums I could almost taste. She’d stared at my mouth and pulled away suddenly. ‘It’s just a burn,’ she said. ‘It hurts, but it will get better on its own.’ I don’t know why, but I thought about it later, alone in my room. I wondered what it would have been like to kiss her, she’d have done it softly, I thought. I’d have laughed afterwards and felt quiet for a long time.
I fumed in the changing rooms, forced to sweep sweet wrappers and dust out from under the benches for fighting.
‘You can go,’ Miss Stone said. ‘I won’t send a letter to your parents this time.’
I wandered through the school. The chairs were piled on the desks. The deserted corridors made my footsteps hollow. The building was quiet, other than for the sound coming from the music room. Joe Clark was sitting on a desk with his legs crossed, holding a guitar, one hand clawing the strings. He attempted to pluck, found he couldn’t curl his fingers and shouted ‘fuck’. I waited a second before going into the room.
‘How’s Sylvie?’ he asked. ‘Is she OK?’
‘I don’t know, haven’t seen her. Bunny says she’s got a stomach bug.’
‘I hope she’s alright. I saw her pass out last week. She didn’t seem to know where she was.’
>
‘At the hospital?’
‘Yeah. I was in physio. My ma saw her fall. She had to phone her mother.’
‘What day? When?’
‘Thursday. I’m always there on Thursdays.’ He held up his hand. ‘Because of this stupid thing.’
The day Blair woke up, Sylvie was there.
I raced to Bunny’s, wanting to ask Sylvie about Blair. I also wanted to tell her about punching someone, how it felt, and how I knew, now I’d done it, I’d probably do it again. It was a relief to let it all out. Bunny stepped onto the porch, closing the door behind her and blocking my view of a cardboard box in the hall.
‘I need to talk to Sylvie. Can I pop up and see her?’
‘She’s too poorly for visitors,’ said Bunny. ‘She needs her rest.’
‘Please, for a second, I have to see her.’
‘Lorrie, you’re sweating.’ Bunny was the sort of person who usually said ‘ladies perspire, horses sweat’, but today she forgot this. ‘I’ll let her know you called,’ she said, closing the door. I began to walk away and heard it open behind me. Bunny rushed after me. ‘Oh, I forgot. I baked more than I need. Take some of these for your mother and Toby.’ She handed me a box of biscuits shaped like rabbits with raisins for eyes.
I said ‘thanks’, omitting the ‘for nothing’. I was always saddled with manners, even when I was fuming. Just as Bunny would always be the perfect neighbour, even when she wouldn’t let you in.
The sun never really set that night. When I arrived on the island I could barely sleep during summer and my mother had to line my curtains with blackout fabric. Sylvie was never bothered by it, nor did she share my sense of injustice when it started to get dark at 3 p.m. in November. ‘It all balances out, the sky’s saving itself for June,’ she would say. ‘We get longer days than anyone then.’
I looked at Sylvie’s window from mine, pointing a torch, unsure whether she could see it in the dusk. I switched the light off and on, using the same code we’d had when we were kids. One flash for, ‘it’s me, I’m here’. One flash back for, ‘I know, so am I’. I’m here, I flashed, I’m here, I’m here, but nothing flickered back. Bunny strolled to the window, knotted her dressing gown and snapped the curtains closed without leaving a chink.
9th June 1960
Everything swirls. The stairwell, the tiles under my feet, the double doors leading outside. The sky spins around the open mouths of strangers. Every ray of light swirls into one like a Van Gogh night full of stars. I don’t know where I end and everything else begins. I don’t know nothing, except Ma’s shoving the strangers out of the way and kneeling on the grass.
‘She’s fine. Stand back. She needs air,’ she says. ‘I’m here now, don’t worry, hen. I’ll get you to your bed.’
I shut my eyes. Ma’s dragging me up. I look down at her pointy shoes with the scuff on one toe. We’re stepping all over the daisies. They’re bleeding sap all over our shoes.
‘Perhaps she’s really poorly. The hospital’s just there…’
The lady I saw with the balloon points to the building. Ma steers me clear of her to the car.
‘There’s no need. She’s just a wee bit anaemic. You know how lassies are, always skipping lunch.’
I look out the window. The whole world’s like an overexposed photograph, folks overlapping all over, a blur of stares and mouths. Mrs Clark’s in the centre of the crowd, yattering to the woman who no longer has a balloon.
‘That’s outrageous…’
The woman’s gasping and shaking her head. Sheesh! Mrs Clark’s smirking and nodding.
‘I’ll just get her home,’ Ma calls out the window. Teeth gritted into a smile. ‘I appreciate you calling me, Mrs Clark, and letting me know you saw her.’
The car is screeching away with a salute of a wave. I press my face against the cold window. The clouds and grass are rushing at me so fast I get dizzy. Ma’s smile snaps off like a lamp as soon as we’re out of sight.
‘What have you done now, Sylvie? What have I told you? For Christ’s sake. That vile Mrs Clark saw what you were doing. She’ll tell everyone. Damn it, Sylvie.’ Ma blasts the horn at a post van outside a farm forcing us to stop at a passing place. ‘Just wait until I get you home.’
She’s storming, but I can’t watch her change colours. My eyes keep wanting to close. I can’t keep them open if I try. Even she knows that. The repercussions of my actions will have to wait until the world stops spinning. Ma keeps yelling anyway. She yells until we pull into the lane and we’re staggering upstairs.
‘This was so much easier when you were little, and it was only wounded robins and butterflies you kept finding everywhere. Christ, you’re a dead weight.’ She pants with the effort of lifting me into bed. ‘A girl, of all things, Sylvie. What will people say? These things get around.’
Ma’s nose goes all shiny when she’s fuming and doesn’t know how to let it out like a lady. She’s a kettle bubbling on the inside with only the weeniest spout to let the steam out. I can’t watch her boil. I can’t move my gob and my head’s pounding even when she puts a wet flannel on it.
When I wake up she’s wearing her least favourite dress. It’s laundry day, and she’s had time to calm down, but she’s not forgotten anything. She’s pacing my room waiting for me to wake up. The arm on my wee record player’s been snapped off and she’s been rummaging through the shelves.
‘I don’t think it was wise for me to get you this… some wee lassie wandering off chasing rabbits, getting crazy ideas from grinning cats. I have a mind to go through all your books and see what else can go.’
I boak over the bed. Not the books. I’m gagging and gagging and nothing comes up. Ma brings a bucket and rubs my back, baby style.
‘Honey, I’m home!’ Seth calls the same greeting he’s been using for years. He saw it in a movie somewhere.
‘Put the kettle on, I’ll be right down.’ She fixes a smile on her face and hisses. ‘This isn’t over.’
Click. The door locks behind her on the way out. I can hear her singing while she cooks tatties. She’s singing so no one would guess she’s dying to shout.
Lorrie
There was more graffiti when Sylvie returned to class. It was scratched into her chair with a compass. It was a word no one spoke, though some mouthed it in slow syllables after the ladies who sold wool left the craft shop. The women kept llamas. No one on the island had ever seen one before. When the animals had arrived in a shipping container, a crowd gathered to see them spit and hiss at anyone who looked their way. People watched the women direct the crate to their field and stand by the fence admiring the strange creatures, leaning against one another and smiling. They’d had a plan to breed the animals, and they were successful. They really did produce the softest wool, though some refused to buy it. They disapproved of the women living together like that, without men. Sylvie liked them though. We used to go up there with apples in our pockets, stretching our hands over the fence to feel the llamas snuffle our palms. One time, the woman with the shorter hair saw us and waved, calling her friend out from her spinning wheel: ‘Hey, Peggy, we’ve got visitors. Peggy.’ She called again and started singing ‘Peggy Sue’ to the woman walking towards us. She laughed, ‘Her name’s Peggy Anne, but I still can’t help singing it!’ The woman had a strong voice, louder than the wind.
‘Don’t mind this lunatic,’ Peggy said. ‘Maggie will sing to anything! I hear her singing from dusk till dawn. It’s not even just songs, she sings what she’s doing! We’ll make supper, and she’ll make up a song about chopping onions. We’ll milk the goat, and she’ll sing a song about goats.’
‘What’s wrong with that? If you’ve got the voice, you may as well use it.’ Maggie grinned.
Before we knew it, we were all singing, stroking the llamas. The women told us we could feed the llamas anytime, but we never went again. Bunny forbade it, even when Sylvie offered to drop off a kitchenware catalogue and poten
tially get a sale.
The staff spoke in assembly about the importance of valuing school property, without wanting to mention precisely what the graffiti said. They didn’t need to, we all knew. Last Sunday in church, Bunny had been forced to sit at the back with the coughers. For as long as anyone could remember she had sat in the second row from the front, but no one scooched up for her. The women sitting there had spread their legs, put their bags on the pew and said, ‘There’s no room, Bunny, you’ll have to sit somewhere else.’ Bunny smiled, but everyone had been able to see she was blushing. She’d stood up straight and gone elsewhere, pretending not to hear The Island Mothers whispering what Mrs Clark had told them she’d seen Sylvie do. The women had one or two things to say about Bunny Johnson. ‘And she sold me a duff biscuit barrel too, airtight my arse.’
I kept my distance from Sylvie in the corridor, not wanting to be dragged into the gossip about her.
‘Did you visit Blair?’ I asked.
‘Course not.’
‘Joe Clark said he saw you.’
‘He probably saw someone who looks like me,’ Sylvie mumbled.
I inspected the long dress and cardigan Bunny had made for her: shapeless and beige. It reminded me of saints who wore hessian as penance. Only Sylvie would ever wear something so drab. It didn’t seem possible Joe could have mistaken her for anyone else, but I didn’t get the opportunity to push it. Bunny was charging through the double doors at the end of the corridor, followed by a line of mothers carrying cardboard boxes. Bunny was a wonderful saleswoman. With baked goods and passionate speeches, she’d found a way to win them over since they snubbed her in church. The problem wasn’t her daughter. Oh no, look around, the problem was the notions being put into young heads about sex. Their children had to be getting their ideas from somewhere. The women began a crusade.
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