The Unmaking of Ellie Rook

by Sandra Ireland

  I kept low beneath the parapet of the bridge, so no one could see me. Far below, the water was a cauldron of foaming white. I stuck to the path like glue as it snaked between the trees. The edge of the gully has eroded in places, and you have to step with great care over tree roots, avoiding the slippery bits. It’s treacherous, but Mum knew that. She’d always known it. The nearer you get to the waterfall, the more dangerous it becomes.

  I negotiated the path, placing one foot in front of the other. Baby steps. It had been raining and the going was mucky, but I took my time. I knew which bits to avoid. I remembered the parts that have slipped away into nothingness, where you have to clamber up onto the slope, holding on to the tree trunks, working your way round like a commando. To drop your gaze is fatal. The dizzying depths of the flooded gorge will stop you in your tracks. Don’t look down, Mum used to tell us. Don’t look down.

  There’s a point where the path ends, and a tributary, hurtling through the fields from the south, tumbles into the gully in a haze of thunder and spray. Finella’s waterfall. The path evolves into a ledge of sorts, which some long-dead Victorian decided would make a splendid viewing platform. Most of the dressed stone has long since collapsed into the abyss. There is nothing between you and the spitting water, and if you lean over, you can see the messy confluence of the two rivers, sixty feet below. But who would want to go that close?

  I imagine the jump, the river closing over me. Water in my nose, my mouth, stopping my breath . . . Panic jerks me back to the present. I’m still sitting on the bench in the garden, my ears filled with birdsong. The hedge is alive with sparrows and the crows are waiting in the pear tree.

  My mother has been in the newspaper only twice in her life. The first time, she was campaigning against council budget cuts. I must have been around nine or ten, because it was before River, although when her photo was splashed all over the Gazette, there was the suspicion of a bump under her peasant top. There she was, one hand on the remains of the Victorian wall, the spray from Finella’s waterfall stippling the background.

  She wanted the council to upgrade the paths around the Den of Finella. I think Dad’s nagging had spurred her into action. He’d tried to ban us all from the den, but in a rare act of defiance, Mum continued to take us there. She swore us to secrecy, made us shake on it, spitting on our hands and everything, like real showmen. Everyone knows that’s binding. We’re good at keeping secrets. Treacherous, Dad had declared. One day, someone will fall to their death.

  I don’t remember much about the photo shoot. A guy in a thin jacket that smelled of pies. A few slick phrases: Fluff the hair up a bit, hon. Tilt your head. Where’s that lovely smile? I remember Dad being furious when he opened the paper. What was this? The Rooks plastered all over the press? She tried to explain that she hadn’t really wanted her photograph taken, but he wouldn’t listen. I’m not sure what happened after that, but there was a horrible atmosphere about the place for ages, and Mum never went public with her thoughts again.

  And now that same photograph has resurfaced.

  I hear voices on the road. Still clutching the damp cushion, I get up from the bench and sleepwalk to the gate. I recognise Sharon Duthie’s voice. The other one is younger, and very determined.

  ‘Give that back, Mrs Duthie!’ The paperboy snatches the Gazette from the woman’s hands. ‘You’ll get me into trouble. They always get the Gazette. Auld mannie Rook’ll be phonin’ my boss if he doesnae get his paper. And anyway, that’s censorship.’

  ‘Censor, my arse!’ There’s a brief tussle. Sharon raises her walking stick, and then they both spot me, standing there at the gate. The paperboy gives up and walks his bike away, muttering darkly, as Sharon folds the newspaper and tries to hide it.

  ‘Ellie!’ Her voice is sharp with embarrassment. She’s still in her dressing gown, an unflattering yellow that clashes with her auburn bob and pink cheeks. I look past her, to her white bungalow on the other side of the road. In the triangle between the gable end and the garage, I can see the North Sea.

  Leaning heavily on the walking stick, her gaze drops to the paper in her hand. ‘I – I just didn’t want you to see it.’

  I’ve already seen it. Even upside down, the headline screams at me.

  TRAGEDY AT LOCAL BEAUTY SPOT

  The sea is the colour of pencil lead. It looks so, so cold.

  A hand brushes mine. ‘Ellie, are you okay, lass?’

  Anything washed downstream ends up there, in the leaden North Sea. I let my gaze sink back to Sharon, and I say the first thing that comes into my head.

  ‘Cold water carries heat away from the body twenty-five times faster than air of the same temperature.’

  I’d tucked the newspaper under my arm and refused Sharon’s offer of a cuppa. Warning bells always go off when I see Sharon. She has ailments I’ve no intention of asking about and eyes the colour of fudge, which suck people in. My mother was a captive audience, but right now I don’t have time for her drama. Besides, she reminds me too much of her son.

  ‘Pop over later then,’ Sharon had said. ‘You know Liam’s back home? Like a bloody boomerang. Ach, I never liked Katie anyway. Ellie, what am I thinking? Away you go in. I just didn’t want you to . . .’ She took a breath and I could sense a loaded question looming. ‘They’re saying she just lost her footing.’ A huge sniff, crumpled tissue to the nose, and those fudge-brown eyes as sharp as pins. ‘Is that what happened, lass?’

  I brushed her away. ‘That’s what they’re saying. I wasn’t here.’

  ‘Are you sure it was an accident, hen?’

  I’d already turned to go, but this stopped me in my tracks. The saliva dried in my mouth. ‘What do you mean by that?’

  She reached for my hand, but both of mine were taken up with the cushion and the paper, so she just squeezed my wrist awkwardly. ‘She’d been a wee bit down lately, what with River playing up.’ Her fingers had teased through the cluster of beach bracelets on my arm. I pulled away abruptly. ‘My depression – I’ve never hidden it from anyone. I’m an open book, as you know, but your mum was good at hiding things. I spotted her crying the other day. She tried to hide it, but I could tell.’

  I’d had to prise my teeth apart. ‘So what are you saying? That she wanted to drown?’

  Sharon held up her hands, and her yellow fleecy dressing gown gaped at the bosom.

  ‘I’m just saying – maybe she was depressed. River was with her, wasn’t he? Even though it was a school day?’

  I’d already turned to go, barging through the old gate with such force it shuddered on its hinges. ‘My mother was fine. I’d have known.’

  Her voice followed me up the garden path. ‘But like you say, you weren’t here.’

  6

  My mother tidied me away long ago. When I lived here, my bedroom resembled River’s, all clothes mountains and cereal bowls under the bed. Now, I can only find myself in the dust on top of the wardrobe.

  There’s an old suitcase of my grandmother’s up there that contains all the bits of me my mother thinks she should keep: school jotters with gold stars, concert tickets, diaries, old copies of Seventeen. I have to stand on a chair to drag it down. Hefting it onto the bed, springing the old-fashioned latches to slowly lift the lid, the empty smell of nostalgia hits me like a pain.

  My scrapbook is right at the bottom, tucked beneath an envelope of faded black-and-white photos (Grandma Rook’s) and my yellow Brownie cap, a small thumbprint on its peak. Alongside it is the sash with all its badges. Arts and crafts, first aid, culture – I liked that one. I’d cooked haggis, neeps and tatties and told my unit about the legend of Finella.

  I sink down on the bed. I have a silly urge to put the cap on, but instead, I pick it up and examine it, turning it over and over as if it will transport me somewhere else.

  I’m seven and all eyes are on me. A ring of fidgety, cross-legged little girls and Brown Owl smiling from the sidelines. I’d tried to explain to my mother that morning how I felt, but she
’d said everyone gets butterflies, even big people. You’ve just got to swallow them down and get on with it. I swallow and open my mouth and pray that the butterflies won’t stifle my voice.

  ‘So there was a warrior princess called Finella and she lived in Aberdeenshire in the year 995.’ I have them at princess. Eight pairs of eyes widen, and I press on, ramping up the drama. ‘She lived not far from here, actually, and she had a son. She loved him very much, but he was a rebel . . .’

  ‘What’s a revel?’ says Katie Coutts, her thumb in her mouth.

  ‘It means you don’t like being told what to do.’ I glare at her for interrupting my story. ‘Anyway, he plotted against King Kenneth, and the king said that the boy had to be hexecuted and Finella got as mad as anything. She was a hunter, so she had lots of weapons.’

  ‘What did she hunt?’ asks another girl, like it matters.

  ‘I dunno. Deer, maybe.’

  ‘Aw, I like deer.’ Katie again.

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Finella lured the king to her castle and shot him with a crossbow.’

  ‘Ewww!’ My fellow Brownies screw up their noses. A certain power steals over me and the butterfly wings fade in my throat.

  ‘Yes, she shot him and there was blood everywhere. Pouring out of him.’

  Our leader coughs, and I take the hint. ‘Yeah, so the king’s men came after her and chased her through the glens.’

  ‘Was she on a horse?’

  ‘No, she—’

  ‘Maybe someone gave her a lift in a getaway car.’

  ‘No!’ Tears spring to my eyes. I knew they wouldn’t listen. I hadn’t even remembered the gruesome part that Mum told me about the statue and the apple. Brown Owl stirs.

  ‘What a lovely story, Ellie. Well done. Big round of applause.’ She begins clapping like a seal and the girls join in.

  I flop down beside Katie Coutts. I never even got to the good bit, where Finella bravely leaps from the waterfall to escape. Katie Coutts leans towards me, breathing sickly Ribena fumes. ‘You have dirt on your cap,’ she says. Now, I pick up the yellow cap, place my grown-up thumb on the oily mark. Sometimes you just don’t get to say the things you want to say.

  What I’m really looking for is loose in the scrapbook. A newspaper cutting from the time before. It’s gone yellow with age, but that same image of my mother stares out at me. She is young, defiant. Real. I wish I’d taken more time to get to know this woman. Sharon was right – I wasn’t here. I should have been. I should have seen what was happening, and come home sooner.

  I flatten out today’s paper and place the cutting alongside it on the bed. TRAGEDY AT LOCAL BEAUTY SPOT. I trace a finger along the outline of my mother’s body, then I fold both pictures into one neat package and stow them away in Grandma Rook’s suitcase. No point in getting Dad all worked up about it.

  7

  Six Days After

  By Monday, the yard is open for business.

  The words hover unspoken around the breakfast table: too soon. My jaw is set as I fry bacon and eggs for my father and Shelby and River. Mum’s absence is there when I can’t find the old black pan. It’s there when I spill hot oil on my flip-flops and burn my toes, and when the egg yolks burst. It’s very much there when my father assesses his plate without comment.

  ‘Beautiful that, my love.’ Shelby winks and hangs his hat on the back of his chair.

  ‘Dad’s mustard.’ River widens his eyes at me like I’m missing a trick, inclines his head towards the dresser. Oh yes, the mustard. He has it at every meal – a fiery concoction he mixes himself and keeps in a little glass Colman’s pot. The pot is stored in the dresser, to be offered up on a vintage saucer with a dainty silver spoon. Sighing, I head for the dresser.

  Afterwards, I follow the men outside, my feet stuffed once again into Mum’s daisy-print wellies. The huge steel gate is open for the first time since the accident. That iron bird still has its beak to the ground, and there’s an inky black crow perched on the highest part of it. I expect they’re both in the mood for carrion.

  Shelby reckons that people remind him of vehicles. He’s got a point. Mum’s little Fiesta is crowded out by tougher, newer vehicles: a filthy white Hyundai van and a smart lilac Mini. A bicycle that looks like it’s been rescued from a skip is chained to the railings. I know what I’ll see in the white van: piles of fast-food wrappers and yellowing copies of The Sun. The wedge between the dashboard and the windscreen will be stuffed with everything Offshore Dave needs most in his life. He calls it his filing system. Dave’s fluorescent boiler suit, too, is crammed with invoices, receipts and empty fag packets. His face, like the vehicle, is a stranger to water. I suspect he goes through the motions with a heavy-duty garage wipe, but you could grow potatoes in his crow’s feet.

  I peep in the window of the white van. From nowhere, an explosion of barking makes me jump. I’d forgotten the Guardians of the Van – Bill and Bono, two German shepherds, with sharp teeth and wet jowls. The glass is filthy with new spittle and old smears, and the whole cab is rocking with the power of their fury. I back away and the commotion subsides.

  I don’t expect them to recognise me. They’d arrived as puppies, not long before I left on my travels – I think Dave had acquired them in lieu of some gambling debt – and they became part of the yard fixtures. At first, we all gave in to some serious puppy-cuddling, until one of them peed on the kitchen floor and Dad beat it with a rolled-up newspaper. Mum wouldn’t let them into the house after that – not to protect the floor, but to protect them. Dave left them to patrol the yard at night and they stayed in the van during the day. He took them home at weekends, and occasionally for a walk, but he has turned them into stereotypical junkyard dogs. No one remembers now which is Bill and which is Bono. They wear studded collars and stink of shit and old oil; like Dave, they’ve never been troubled by shampoo.

  The little Mini, by comparison, belongs to Julie, who does the accounts. She wears short skirts and black tights and complains about the cold a lot. She colour-coordinates her eyes, nails and handbags, but isn’t scared to out-man the men when the need arises.

  I spend a few minutes staring at the bike. There’s a loop of seaweed hanging from the frame.

  Shelby comes up behind me.

  ‘Another day, another dollar.’ He slaps a large spanner against his palm.

  I make a face. ‘It’s too soon. Don’t you think it’s too soon? It’s like he doesn’t care.’

  ‘He cares. He cares too much, that’s the problem.’

  His eyes meet mine for a moment, and then I turn and enter the yard for the first time in years.

  Julie is already making herself at home in her Portacabin world. I slouch in the doorway and watch her switch everything on in order of importance: electric heater, overhead light, kettle, computer. She turns and spots me lurking, and suddenly I’m squashed against her purple leather jacket, trying not to breathe in last night’s perfume and artisan gin.

  ‘Och, Ellie.’ She holds me away, squashes me some more. ‘Ellie.’

  I wriggle away out of reach, blinking in the artificial light. The Portacabin has only one small window overlooking the yard, and that’s partially covered in promotional stickers from various oil companies. Someone’s made a half-hearted attempt to pick them off. Probably Julie, with her gel manicure.

  ‘Any news?’ She’s regarding me in that nervous way people do when they don’t know how you’re going to react – head on one side, teeth pinching her glossy lower lip.

  I shake my head, stare at the corkboard on the wall behind her. Loads of invoices and memos speared with coloured pins. And photos: Christmas drinks at the local; Julie’s cats; Julie and her husband on holiday somewhere hot and sunny.

  Julie supresses a shiver and sets about making tea. What would we do without tea in a crisis? I let her chatter wash over me. A stout mug is pressed into my cold hands.

  ‘Take a pew.’ She shoves over a stool and perches on the swivel chair, hunching into her thin j
acket. ‘Jings, it’ll warm up in a mo. Bet you’re feeling the cold after . . . where were you again?’

  ‘Vietnam.’

  ‘Vietnam!’ She looks at me like I’ve just offered her a fancy cocktail, reaches out and tweaks a lock of my hair. ‘You’ve gone so blonde! A regular beach bum. Can girls be beach bums?’ Her face changes suddenly, like she’s decided it’s too early for cocktails. ‘We’re all here for you, Ellie. If you want to talk about it, come to me. I know what those eejits can be like.’

  She glares out of the window. I can make out movement between the car stacks: a bogie piled with car parts being wheeled out; River disappearing into one of the sheds with half an exhaust pipe under his arm. The stacker – the nippy little forklift – whizzes by. Julie’s face clears. ‘We do have a new recruit though.’

  I don’t see anyone unfamiliar outside – just my father calling the shots and Offshore Dave lighting an illegal fag behind the toilets. Four days off and he still looks like he’s been dipped in a tar pool.

  ‘Don’t tell me. He rides a bike.’

  ‘Yes!’ Julie’s claps like I’ve just won a grand on a daytime quiz show. ‘We call him Rocky and actually . . . Ooh, speak of the devil!’ She’s spotted something through the window. Her expression goes all coy. She taps at the glass and makes an exaggerated beckoning gesture.

  She winks at me, mouthing Rocky! as the door opens. I think of all the Rockies I know: the boxer guy; the mountain range; the bull terrier at the post office. The young man who comes through the door resembles none of these. He’s about my age, with close-cropped hair, high cheekbones, blue eyes. He’s lithe, rather than muscular, sort of light and flexible. I can imagine him toiling uphill with ease on that battered old bike. I bet he takes his feet off the pedals on the downhill run, just for the sheer hell of it. He has that sort of smile.