‘I never got that impression when she was here.’
‘I didn’t speak to her much, but when we were in the infants we sat together. There was something so calm about her. Once, I fell in the yard and she bent down and kissed it better. I never forgot that, it was so sweet.’
Marjorie left with a lotion I told her fishermen secretly buy, claiming it was for their wives. I walked home swinging my bag. Passing the church, I saw one of the posters asking for Sylvie’s whereabouts. Beneath it, someone had lit a candle and placed a few flowers. Praying you’re OK, Sylvie. Come home safe.
There were a couple of girls in kilts bumping along the lane in roller skates. They stopped at the shrine, lowered their eyes and folded their arms in the same way as their mothers.
‘That poor lass. No one’s seen her. I bet she’s dead.’
‘She might not be. I bet she fell off a cliff and hit her head and is wandering somewhere wondering who she is.’
‘Yeah right! I highly doubt it.’
‘It happens.’
‘Where?’
‘It happened in a book my Nan had.’
‘I knew her, you know, she cured my sister’s pet goldfish once when it had the fin rot.’
‘What did she do?’
‘I dunno, I wasn’t there, she whispered to it or something.’
‘Your sister never had a goldfish. Your ma won’t have anything that dies in the place. Not even plants.’
‘Well, it wasn’t my sister’s, it was someone she knew though. I heard that lass fixed it like Saint Francis of Assisi or something.’
The girls picked a dandelion and placed it by the candle.
‘Some say she was funny, you know, crazy or something. I don’t know though. What if she wasn’t? And she could do stuff?’
‘Like Superman and that?’
‘Just like that.’
One of the girls patted the photo. ‘Well, we’re praying you’re OK, Sylvie. Say a prayer for me, say a prayer for all our goldfish, and one for my sister too. She’s got a wicked zit and is going out dancing on Saturday. Let it clear up, so she’ll get married soon and I’ll get my own room.’
I walked on, leaving their whispers and prayers for superheroes, giants and girls. Every so often, I’d hear something similar. Even years after I’d left the island and returned for my father’s funeral to stand beside my mother and Rook, only inches apart, finally allowed to hold hands but not quite able to, a lifetime of restraint keeping them apart. I kept seeing roadside shrines dotted around the island long after the ink on the posters had faded and the paper had been lost to the wind. The schoolgirls who left dandelions and dolls at the shrines didn’t know Sylvie’s name. They only knew there was a girl who once lived here who could make you better. They heard she was so tall she was practically a giant. They heard she was mute. One day, she simply vanished. The facts were unclear. They only knew they had somewhere to wish their small ailments away. They had someone to understand all their prayers. It continued for so long it became part of the island, a story as whispered as the stories of selkies on the rocks and the lady in white by the lighthouse.
I found the diary a few days after Bunny visited the chemist. I snuck over with potato peelings, slipping our surplus rubbish into Bunny’s dustbin before collection day. It was right there, covered in coffee grounds. I saw Sylvie’s writing surrounded by the red and gold stripes of the Tunnock’s caramel wafer wrappers she’d glued to the cover. I once asked her why she always saved them. ‘I like feeling I have a sunrise in my pocket,’ she’d said. ‘They’re a beautiful thing.’
I brushed off the cover with my dressing gown and snuck the diary inside. I could see why Bunny would want to get rid of it. It didn’t contain who she saw Sylvie as. It didn’t paint a pretty picture of herself. I placed the notebook on my pillow and read it. Sylvie believed she was different, her mother did too. I wondered if believing it consoled Bunny after she lost her husband, and if Sylvie would be more like everyone else if she hadn’t been told there was something wrong with her. I almost felt sorry for her, until I remembered her with my father, mouth to mouth. I flicked a page and found myself at the end.
This is the last page of this diary. I might buy another. Or maybe it doesn’t matter. I haven’t a clue where I’m going now. Wherever it is, it won’t fit here. I don’t know if I’m going to be the sort of lassie who writes down her life. I reckon I’d rather be the sort of woman who’s too busy living to make notes. The notebook is full. I don’t need it any more. I’m done with it and the lass who wrote it. I don’t fancy carrying her around wherever I go. So long.
I closed the book and got out the photo I’d kept in my drawer since the photographer had dropped off Bunny’s wedding pictures and she’d slipped one into the bin. It was a blur of a girl with blood on her skirt, feathers in the air. Whoever she was, she was gone. She’d left her canary, her rabbit, and stepped out of the cage she’d built around herself. She was my friend, then she wasn’t. She sometimes seemed stupid, and sometimes she was the wisest person I’d ever met. I’d often think about it and question who the girl really was. She showed me only a small part of herself – the rest was elusive as the angel’s share of the spirit drifting in the air. I knew her, and I barely knew her. Honestly, that’s all anyone can say about anyone.
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Current & Upcoming Books
01
Juan Pablo Villalobos, Down the Rabbit Hole
translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
02
Clemens Meyer, All the Lights
translated from the German by Katy Derbyshire
03
Deborah Levy, Swimming Home
04
Iosi Havilio, Open Door
translated from the Spanish by Beth Fowler
05
Oleg Zaionchkovsky, Happiness is Possible
translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
06
Carlos Gamerro, The Islands
translated from the Spanish by Ian Barnett
07
Christoph Simon, Zbinden’s Progress
translated from the German by Donal McLaughlin
08
Helen DeWitt, Lightning Rods
09
Deborah Levy, Black Vodka: ten stories
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10
Oleg Pavlov, Captain of the Steppe
translated from the Russian by Ian Appleby
11
Rodrigo de Souza Leão, All Dogs are Blue
translated from the Portuguese by Zoë Perry & Stefan Tobler
12
Juan Pablo Villalobos, Quesadillas
translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
13
Iosi Havilio, Paradises
translated from the Spanish by Beth Fowler
14
Ivan Vladislavić, Double Negative
15
Benjamin Lytal, A Map of Tulsa
16
Ivan Vladislavić, The Restless Supermarket
17
Elvira Dones, Sworn Virgin
translated from the Italian by Clarissa Botsford
18
Oleg Pavlov, The Matiushin Case
translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
19
Paulo Scott, Nowhere People
translated from the Portuguese by Daniel Hahn
20
Deborah Levy, An Amorous Discourse in the Suburbs of Hell
21
Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, By Night the Mountain Burns
translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar
22
SJ Naudé, The Alphabet of Birds
translated from the Afrikaans by the author
23
Niyati Keni, Esperanza Street
24
Yuri Herrera, Signs Preceding the End of the World
translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
25
Carlos Gamerro, The Adventure of the Busts of Eva Perón
translated from the Spanish by Ian Barnett
26
Anne Cuneo, Tregian’s Ground
translated from the French by Roland Glasser and Louise Rogers Lalaurie
27
Angela Readman, Don’t Try This at Home
28
Ivan Vladislavić, 101 Detectives
29
Oleg Pavlov, Requiem for a Soldier
translated from the Russian by Anna Gunin
30
Haroldo Conti, Southeaster
translated from the Spanish by Jon Lindsay Miles
31
Ivan Vladislavić, The Folly
32
Susana Moreira Marques, Now and at the Hour of Our Death
translated from the Portuguese by Julia Sanches
33
Lina Wolff, Bret Easton Ellis and the Other Dogs
translated from the Swedish by Frank Perry
34
Anakana Schofield, Martin John
35
Joanna Walsh, Vertigo
36
Wolfgang Bauer, Crossing the Sea
translated from the German by Sarah Pybus
with photographs by Stanislav Krupař
37
Various, Lunatics, Lovers and Poets:
Twelve Stories after Cervantes and Shakespeare
38
Yuri Herrera, The Transmigration of Bodies
translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
39
César Aira, The Seamstress and the Wind
translated from the Spanish by Rosalie Knecht
40
Juan Pablo Villalobos, I’ll Sell You a Dog
translated from the Spanish by Rosalind Harvey
41
Enrique Vila-Matas, Vampire in Love
translated from the Spanish by Margaret Jull Costa
42
Emmanuelle Pagano, Trysting
translated from the French by Jennifer Higgins and Sophie Lewis
43
Arno Geiger, The Old King in His Exile
translated from the German by Stefan Tobler
44
Michelle Tea, Black Wave
45
César Aira, The Little Buddhist Monk
translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor
46
César Aira, The Proof
translated from the Spanish by Nick Caistor
47
Patty Yumi Cottrell, Sorry to Disrupt the Peace
48
Yuri Herrera, Kingdom Cons
translated from the Spanish by Lisa Dillman
49
Fleur Jaeggy, I am the Brother of XX
translated from the Italian by Gini Alhadeff
50
Iosi Havilio, Petite Fleur
translated from the Spanish by Lorna Scott Fox
51
Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, The Gurugu Pledge
translated from the Spanish by Jethro Soutar
52
Joanna Walsh, Worlds from the Word’s End
53
César Aira, The Lime Tree
translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews
54
Nicola Pugliese, Malacqua
translated from Italian by Shaun Whiteside
55
Ann Quin, The Unmapped Country
56
Fleur Jaeggy, Sweet Days of Discipline
translated from the Italian by Tim Parks
57
Alicia Kopf, Brother in Ice
translated from the Catalan by Mara Faye Lethem
58
Christine Schutt, Pure Hollywood
59
Cristina Rivera Garza, The Iliac Crest
translated from the Spanish by Sarah Booker
60
Norah Lange, People in the Room
translated from the Spanish by Charlotte Whittle
61
Kathy Page, Dear Evelyn
62
Alia Trabucco Zerán, The Remainder
translated by Sophie Hughes
63
Amy Arnold, Slip of a Fish
64
Rita Indiana, Tentacle
translated from the Spanish by Achy Obejas
65
Angela Readman, Something Like Breathing
66
Gerald Murnane, Border Districts
67
Gerald Murnane, Tamarisk Row
68
César Aira, Birthday
translated from the Spanish by Chris Andrews
ANGELA READMAN is a twice-shortlisted winner of the Costa Short Story Award. Her debut story collection Don’t Try This at Home was published by And Other Stories in 2015. It won The Rubery Book Prize and was shortlisted in the Edge Hill Short Story Prize. She also writes poetry, and her collection The Book of Tides was published by Nine Arches in 2016. Something Like Breathing is her first novel.
Something Like Breathing Page 20