The Unmaking of Ellie Rook

by Sandra Ireland

  ‘What the fuck are you on about?’

  His face turns ugly for a moment. The child River slips further away, and I’m left with a stranger. A pissed-off stranger. He swears some more, a string of words so offensive I find myself wincing. If Mum were here, she’d have chucked him out the house, but she isn’t here and now I have to deal with it. I tell him to calm down, which doesn’t help.

  ‘Where is this coming from?’ he yells. ‘I bet it’s Mrs fuckin’ Cunty.’

  ‘River! You can stop swearing, for a start.’

  I’ve always wondered why someone with a name like Cundy would go into teaching. According to the authorities, she’s an inspirational head teacher, and she’s about due a long-service medal. But she’s never had a high opinion of the Rooks, not since I tried to kill Katie Coutts in first year. ‘Violence never solves anything; and cursing might make you feel better, but we need to discuss this in an adult way . . .’

  River mutters something about having nothing to say to me, but I have so many things I want to ask him. Was my mother afraid of him? Is this normal teenage behaviour, or is there something deeper going on? The unexplained stash of money in the fridge leaps into my mind. Could my brother have something to do with that? Is he involved in dark dealings – stolen stuff, drugs? There’s so much I don’t understand, but my brother has already slammed out the door.

  An hour later Dad comes in, after an early morning tinkering session in his garage. His hands are cold. I make him a milky coffee and listen to a lecture on his latest renovation project, a vintage Mercedes.

  ‘It’d been left up on blocks in an old stable for two years. No antifreeze. I was a bit worried about corrosion in the cylinder heads, but I stripped the engine back and jet-washed the waterways. No fouling of the spark plugs, so that’s all good.’

  ‘Dad, I think—’

  ‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’

  When I look at him blankly, he gestures to his mug. ‘My digestives?’

  I sigh and reach for the tin. He always has two digestives with his elevenses. ‘I’m going out for a walk. I just need to get out, clear my head.’

  ‘Aye, you do that.’ He dunks a biscuit in his coffee. ‘I’ll have some soup for my lunch, about one thirty. There’s a good girl.’

  I’d thought about trying to share my worries about River with my father, but I know it’s pointless. He’s never been a hands-on parent, unless you count the back of his hand. As far as he’s concerned, kids are women’s business. The news that my mother had contacted social services is sure to send him into a rage, and then a massive sulk, so it’s easier to say nothing.

  Instead of walking, I find myself sitting in my mother’s Fiesta, listening to the radio and trying to make sense of it all. The riddle of the money hidden in the freezer is chipping away at me. Chances are there’s a rational explanation – or rational for our family, at least – but my gut feeling says otherwise. I can’t stop joining the dots, and the picture’s pointing to River. My brother has more freedom than I ever had. He goes places with Dad – into bars and other men’s garages. Who knows what dodgy contacts he’s been making while I’ve been away?

  I sigh heavily as a familiar track riffs into life – Avril Lavigne’s ‘Sk8er Boi’. I hum along for a bit and catch myself smiling, but the smile fades as quickly as the song. It’s a tune from a less complicated time.

  A movement in the wing mirror catches my eye. Twisting in my seat, I catch sight of Piotr disappearing into the house, with what looks like a laptop under his arm. His bike, minus the seaweed, is propped up against the back wall. It’s a Saturday and the yard is closed. It seems odd, but I no longer know what’s normal here. I listen to a few more tracks before deciding fresh air would do me some good.

  I used to frequent the woods with Liam. After that first kiss, we had to make sure my dad wasn’t about. He was gunning for Liam. Get off my property! He couldn’t bear me having a mind – or a body – of my own. But I was my father’s daughter – resourceful and good at hiding things. My relationship with Liam went underground.

  We started meeting in the woods, where we wouldn’t be spotted. Dad rarely ventured to the far reaches of his kingdom, so we had the run of the wild places. We wandered for miles, just talking, about things I can’t even recall. We sat on fallen logs, leaned up against trees, kissing for what felt like hours, until guilt drove us home.

  Only the crows saw me sneaking into the house. I’d slip my boots off in the hall, and Mum would spirit them away. She knew everything, but she never breathed a word. Upstairs, I’d wash away all traces of the outside, change my top, run a brush through my hair. When I crept into the kitchen for supper, Dad would be sorting through a box of dirty, rusty parts on the kitchen table, and he’d look up and tell me I spent far too much time in my bedroom, it wasn’t good for me.

  The day he found out about what Liam and I got up to in the woods was the worst day of my life.

  17

  Piotr catches up with me as I pick my way across the patch of wasteland that lies between the yard and the woods. I’m secretly pleased that he’s spotted me. There’s a feeling of unfinished business between us that I can’t quite fathom. I want to know more about him, about how he came to end up in a scrapyard in the wilds of Aberdeenshire.

  ‘I just wondered how you were doing? After the search yesterday?’

  I lift my shoulders and let them sag with a sigh. ‘I never expected to find anything. It was a waste of time, but Liam wanted to do something. Come with me?’

  He falls into step beside me, and we walk on in silence. The grass is like jute matting; it covers all kinds of things that threaten to trip you up or bang your shins. I guide Piotr past the worst of the obstacles – various bits of chain-link, steel tines from something agricultural, a rusty engine, a battery of old tyres. As we weave our way into the woods, I slot into my old landscape as easily as a cog into an engine. A slight sense of ownership makes me even more sure of my step. I can hear him following, the soft shuffle of his work boots in the grass.

  My mother once kept a couple of goats here when I was small. Two orphaned kids, one white as a swan, the other piebald, like a traveller’s pony. She’d found them tethered in the woods one morning, bleating mournfully. We never found out how they got there, and even though Dad was against them from the start, he allowed her to keep them. One died of natural causes. The other drowned in the pond. We never kept pets after that.

  ‘This is where I come to sort out my head.’

  ‘Your head is not sorted?’

  ‘No. I had a row with my brother this morning.’

  ‘His head is not sorted also.’

  It’s not a question. We are near the pond, and I come to a halt so abruptly that Piotr nearly crashes into me.

  ‘What do you mean by that? Have . . . have you seen something? Have you seen him lose it?’

  ‘Lose what?’

  ‘His temper! Try and think.’ My own voice has gone up a notch.

  Piotr shakes his head. ‘He is very quiet around your father. Respectful.’

  ‘Because he’s scared of him. Have you seen him with my mother?’

  Piotr shakes his head, and I swing back to the pond.

  ‘River loved it here, sailing boats, playing at pirates.’ I sigh, gazing at the water. It reflects nothing back but broken jigsaw pieces of daylight. The pond has always had a tendency to flood, breaking out in patches throughout the woods like a sky-coloured rash. Trees are reflected in brackish pools; the bits that look solid are not. It’s almost like the Everglades. I used to tell River that alligators lurked here, making him deliciously afraid, until he grew too big to be fooled and told me to piss off.

  ‘I’ve been away too long. I’m not sure I know my brother any more. It’s like I see him in my head as this little kid, and now . . . I kind of don’t recognise him.’

  I pull some seed pods from the nearest twig. They’re prickly and hard to shred. I’m aware of how intently Piotr is l
istening to me, and it’s a strange sensation. No one ever listens to me in this place.

  ‘You left him.’ The words are so quiet I think I’ve misheard, but he says it again. ‘You left him here.’

  His words are a punch in the stomach. ‘I didn’t abandon him. It wasn’t like that!’

  Piotr is looking at me in a new way, like he knows too much. I’m having a hard time breathing.

  ‘Shit. It’s so difficult being back. When I went away, my mother said it would be the making of me, but now I feel like I’m being unmade, like I’m a stranger and everything’s different. Does that make sense? Or maybe it’s me that’s different.’

  Piotr makes a sympathetic face. ‘The same is true for me, when I go home. Nothing is as we remember.’

  I try to imagine him on his own turf, with his family. His blue eyes have gone as dark as the water. He has a wee scar down low, near his chin. Hidden depths. I realise I’m staring at him and switch my gaze back to the pond. Nothing moves. The steel nose of a shopping trolley pokes upwards like the prow of a sinking boat, and the only thing to break the silence is the creaking call of a bird.

  ‘This place feels a bit . . .’ Piotr searches for the right word.

  ‘Forlorn? I always think it feels forlorn.’

  I have a sudden unwelcome image of the little goat being fished out of the water by Offshore Dave, it’s white fur the colour of rust. Funny how you can block out your worst childhood memories, only for them to bloat and pop up to the surface when you’re least expecting it.

  His gaze falls away from mine. ‘Sometimes you have to leave a place behind to see what’s really going on.’

  We plough on in silence. Piotr’s words really dig themselves in. I know what’s been going on; I just can’t admit it. I had reasons for leaving home, reasons I’ve never admitted, not even to myself. And now, like River, those home truths have grown up and become unpredictable. I don’t want to confront them.

  We come to the car cemetery. We always called it that as kids. No one can remember how this drunken line-up of abandoned cars came to be here in the middle of the woods. All I know is that they feature frequently in my nightmares, nestling in the

  bracken like broken eggs. Soft things ooze from the brittle shells: ribbons of leather, padding, chewed seatbelts, organic and sinuous, knitted with ivy and bramble.

  Piotr slows as he catches sight of the long line of abandoned vehicles, but I march on, chanting my way down the line, like a child reciting lessons: Austin, Ford Cortina, Spitfire, Jaguar, Mini, Morris Minor, that Triumph Herald. I can’t look at the Triumph Herald any more. I think of grit, mouse droppings, chips of glass, leaves. And what happened afterwards.

  It’s starting to rain: a fine mist. I lift my face up to the sky.

  ‘When I was a teenager, I kissed Liam Duthie on the drive,’ I tell Piotr. ‘My Dad caught us at it and bellowed, “GET OFF MY PROPERTY!” Like that, at the top of his voice. I always liked to think he was referring to the land. But the truth is, he was talking about me.’

  Piotr winces. I can tell he’s wondering where I’m going with this.

  ‘He has a garage behind the yard,’ I continue.

  ‘I’ve seen it,’ Piotr says quickly, as if he wants to steer me in a more palatable direction. ‘He has a Mercedes in there, and an old Morris.’

  ‘A Morris Minor. Oh yes.’ I stop for a second. My heart is fluttering like a bird’s wing. So delicate. So easily fractured. ‘My mother and I – we’re his property. Like vintage cars. Lovingly cared for until we step out of line.’

  I’ve said too much. Such thoughts are not for speaking aloud. I’m still staring at the Triumph. I try out a faint laugh. ‘If only cars could talk.’

  In silent agreement, we turn to go back the way we’ve come. I imagine the empty eye sockets of the Triumph burning into my back. A sharp pain in my temple threatens to burst into a full-blown headache. The rain has come on a little heavier. Fat drops plop from the trees.

  Unexpectedly, Piotr reaches out and touches my arm. It makes me stop and turn, and we stand like that for a moment, his hand warm on my elbow.

  ‘It’s difficult,’ he says. ‘Maybe there will be news. Today. Take a minute. Before you get back.’

  He hands me a clean tissue, and I realise I’m weeping. I’ve probably got week-old mascara all over my cheeks. People say they’re beside themselves when they’re upset, but this is worse. I am inside myself, looking out. I’m trapped, banging on a windscreen. Screaming, but no one can hear.

  Maybe Piotr can hear. He looks like he’s seen sorrow before; he has compassion in his eyes. He doesn’t speak, doesn’t tell me everything will be okay, because, of course, it won’t. There’s a movement between us, a leaning in. When he opens his arms, I’m there. His embrace is not comforting, like I thought it would be. It’s edgy, thrilling. When I raise my face, I’m not sure what to expect. He looks at me for a heartbeat before moving away.

  18

  Twelve Days After

  Liam has sent me a message, asking if I want to have another search of the beach. I don’t particularly want to go there with him, but River is skulking in his room and Dad is watching snooker. I fidget with my phone, wondering what to say. I have a vision of him ringing the front doorbell and Dad answering with a face like thunder. Quickly, I type: ‘I’ll pick you up out the front in ten. Better not come round here.’ What am I doing? We’re not sixteen any more. I delete the last bit with a small spark of rebellion.

  We drive to the coast in near silence, the car radio tuned to some phone-in programme. I let myself get wrapped up for a while in other people’s problems. It’s easier than dwelling on my own. I pull into the clifftop carpark and cut the engine with a sigh.

  There’s one other vehicle there – a black Golf with steamy windows and a thumping bass beat. Liam glances at me, but I avoid his gaze. I don’t want to go back there. We scramble down the cliff steps. Halfway, there’s a bench, dedicated to the Victorian benefactor who built the pathway. We perch on the edge of it, neither of us knowing quite what to do next. The panorama is familiar but always breathtaking: dunes rolling down to the shore and the vast swathe of the sea. There are buildings down there, too: a row of fishermen’s bothies, tiny from our bird’s-eye perspective. They’re all derelict now, long since boarded up by the council.

  ‘We could check the bothies again,’ says Liam. I glance at him, wondering if he remembers, but he’s looking out to sea. ‘Tide’s out too. We can do another search of the shoreline.’

  I nod, still mapping the place with my eyes. Nothing stirs; even the gulls are muted. The wind is holding its breath. ‘The guys searched them last time. I think it was Steve and—’

  ‘There’s no harm in looking again.’

  ‘Fine.’ I throw up my hands. ‘Let’s look again.’

  He glances at me oddly as I get up. ‘It’s just a suggestion. I’m only trying to help.’

  I force a smile. ‘Yes, I know. I’m grateful, honestly.’

  ‘You just don’t think there’s much hope? Hey, don’t give up . . .’ He reaches for me but I ignore his hand and carry on stomping down towards the beach.

  We check the first bothy. The windows have been kicked out and the door forced in by kids looking for a squat to do drugs and other things. We’d done our share of that years ago, drunk and giggling. I sneak another glance at Liam. The fumbling. Buttons, zips. The deliciousness of it all. The interior always reeked of waste and violence and the dregs of things I don’t want to think about now, but back then it was one of the only places we had privacy.

  We crush into the doorway, reluctant to enter such a squalid dump. Floorboards have been ripped up for illegal bonfires, and the joists infilled with years of cans and bottles, cardboard, old socks and sleeping bags. It stinks of piss. The only reminder of domesticity is a fireplace at one end and an open staircase at the other, creeping up to a floor that has long since collapsed. There’s evidence of it on the ground: skelps of plaster
with the wooden slats sticking out like bird bones.

  Liam’s whole face wrinkles. ‘Gross. I can’t believe we used to—’

  ‘Don’t.’ I hold up a hand. So he does remember. ‘We were young and desperate. And anyway, it wasn’t as bad then.’

  He sighs, muttering something about still being desperate, but I ignore him and walk on.

  The grass is short and very green, close-clipped by rabbits. They’ve left fairy rings of poo, and a musky smell which is preferable to the one that’s stuck in my nose. I take a huge breath of salty air. There are tiny toadstools, like splashes of blood, and the violet flowers Mum used to call self-heal.

  Liam catches up with me at the second bothy. I’m hesitating, scenting a change. The chipboard on the left-hand window has been daubed with red paint: ‘BLADZ’. And across the door, ‘COZ SUCKS DICK’, the last word scored out with thick black marker. On the window to the right of the door, the boards have been taken down and plastic fixed to the inside, the sort of heavy-duty clear stuff that is wrapped around new furniture. Someone has left a random collection of objects on the window ledge: a smooth white pebble; half a bird’s egg; a razor-clam shell; a twist of leopard-spotted driftwood. Sea glass as blue as the sky. My mother’s presence hits me so hard I can hardly breathe. I’m rooted to the spot.

  Liam doesn’t get any of this. He presses on, shouldering the door. I hear the solid creak of it, and Liam’s low whistle.

  ‘What?’ Suddenly I’m in on top of him, crowding him. ‘What can you see?’

  ‘Someone’s living here.’

  We step inside. It’s a mirror image of the last building, but this place has been cleaned up. It smells of woodsmoke and there is fresh ash in the fire. Clothes on metal hangers are suspended from the staircase: shirts, tees, folded jeans; one of those black suit carriers you see in the backs of company cars. I stare at the mattress, the torch, the water container.

  ‘Jesus.’