Cala

by Laura Legge

  Let’s try not to use that language, child, Mrs Macbay said. Then she softened her tone. I can’t believe this is happening in our town.

  Lili looked trodden. Muireall was right, she said. She told me no one would believe my stories. She crammed her mouth with an overly ripe banana that had fallen on the ground by her feet. She put its blackish peel on her head as a little bonnet. With her huge, gloomy eyes and her mouth full of pulp, she looked odd, adorable. Aram wanted to hug her.

  Of course I believe you, Mrs Macbay said. You’ve suffered so much. I just can’t imagine that it was happening nearby, and I didn’t do anything to stop it.

  Lili asked, Do you really believe me? Mush was pushing through the gap between her lips. Sorry, I’m being rude. Do you want some banana?

  I’m quite all right, Mrs Macbay said. But thank you, that is very sweet.

  The word sweet made Aram squirm. He’d already forced himself to sit with Aileen after her friction with Carson. He couldn’t gag down all this touchy talk without some roughage. A few shallow words, a bit of bran. He watched Lili eat. Maybe she was thinking precisely the same thought he was, in her own literal way.

  Well, Aram said, it sounds like you’ve got this under control, Mrs Macbay. Lili, would you consider staying at the church for a while, until things are safer at home? I’m hoping to do the same.

  Lili did not look up. Now, on the back of one of her winged horses, she traced the figure of a young girl. The girl was ducking so that, as they flew, she did not hit her head on a low-hanging chandelier. No, she said. I’m not like Euna. I won’t run away. Grace needs me.

  But don’t you want to be happy?

  No, she said. I mean, I don’t think about it too much. But I do know that Euna is a coward and I am a very, very brave girl.

  Lili stood up and took the creel from Mrs Macbay. As she did, the banana peel fell from her head onto the ground beside her sneaker, and she came close to comically slipping on it. Thank you so much for these, she said to Mrs Macbay. See ya, Aram.

  Come by if you need anything at all, Mrs Macbay called out, as Lili skipped off toward the door.

  The girl turned back for a brief moment. Thank you, she said. She pointed to the ground where she had been drawing. Save my house for next time! I don’t have any paper left where I live.

  Mrs Macbay smiled with hermetic lips, as one does when her heart is a bit broken. Yes, she said, I will be glad to do that. Lili gleamed. She angled herself against the forcing-house door and pushed and pushed. The damp warmth had sealed it tightly, but when her body was well canted, its slant enough to work against the pushback, she managed to get out.

  Aram could sense that Mrs Macbay was going to press him to tell her everything he knew about Lili, to fit what she had just seen into a larger context. He hated nothing more than to talk about a person when they had just left the room – it made him feel uncomfortable, and a bit cruel. This may be rude of me, he said hastily, to avoid that particular line of questioning, but I’m looking for a place to stay for a few weeks. Do you think I could sleep in the church basement?

  You’re welcome to stay, she said. But I insist you sleep in the house with us. We have a guest room, and my husband will even groom you to preach, if you like.

  What Aram wanted was a hideaway. Peace and quiet, penetralia, a place where he could read and pray when the mood consumed him. But he reached down into himself and found the other Aram, the one who was only alive on docks laden with people, in flings with new womenfolk. That Aram, since mislaid, would have taken Mrs Macbay’s offer without thought. Thank you, he said.

  Welcome to the family, Mrs Macbay said. She took Aram by the hand and led him down the aisle of the forcing house, past mandevillas, majesty palms, flame trees, trimmed and partitioned moss. We’re sure glad to have you.

  Together they leaned themselves against the door until it gave way. No rain was falling, but Aram felt as if he were being submerged in ice-water. Air was not often so cold, so much like the whale-road. He could hardly wait to be in the house. They walked quickly over the heather and the earthwork, then into the cool interior, full of folk art and Shetland lace. Aram’s first thought was of his paternal grandmother, though he had never met her or heard mention of her in his father’s stories. Then he thought of an old figure his father used to spin into lore about the weather and water – a woman who had been killed, skyclad. Aram could not remember her name. He did not know why these women had occurred to him right then. It was as if the house had a consciousness and he had simply slipped into it.

  Aileen came to the entryway to welcome them, holding slippers for her mother and a smoking jacket for Aram. He accepted the jacket, and once its cool silk was on him he perked into his body. So silked, so skinned, he saw how much space he was taking up. He had dragged in some bindweed on his boots and now he knelt to collect it. Weeds did not belong in the house. Then, of course, he was left holding that dirt, those roots, with no place to set them down.

  III

  Within a few days of welcoming Aram into their home, the Macbays had assigned him a central role in the function of the church. He was to lay the groundwork for worship: to mop the sanctuary, distribute the hymnals, stock the tea cabinet in the basement, adjust the height of the pulpit based on who was set to deliver that week’s sermon. Today, Sunday, he raised it to his own six feet. The Macbays had heard word of the suffering inflicted on those confined at Dungavel, and though that may have dismayed them before, with Aram temporarily in their family, their care had a stronger tenor. The problem of detention, to them, had a new immediacy, and so they had invited him to share his experiences with the congregation. He had said yes, hoping the words might feel better on the outside.

  It was seven in the morning now, and worship began weekly at nine thirty. He had always found the best remedy for tension to be exhaustion, especially as an outcome of labour, so he set to work early. He retrieved an old, hand-crafted broom from Minister Macbay’s office. He had learned from Mrs Macbay that, in Celtic custom, brooms held firm import – once, to sweep was not simply to clean, but to demarcate the borders of a home, to set a boundary between domestic and wild. When families lived together on dirt floors, they needed to sweep them several times a day, to keep the space looking liveable. The importance of that act was not lost on Aram, who had survived in a stone castle, who had squatted just recently in an abandoned hut.

  So Aram set about his duties. He was amazed by the range of debris that had ended up on the ground, shards of flame shells, even loch lettuce. The old broom was nearly threadbare, its horsehairs gone hard and unruly. He had to reach around corners, under pews, with both care and force. He found the best way to offset the broom’s resistance, and he managed, ultimately, to present the room as a sanctuary again. Looking down the aisle between the pews, he admired its absence of herbs, dust, dead insects.

  He sat in the front pew and looked up at the pulpit, settled imposingly in the middle of the raised stage. Behind the podium, the pipes of an organ radiated upwards in a sacred kind of starburst. On either side, the walls were adorned with scenes hand-stitched on felt banners, one of the nativity and the other of Jesus crucified, long, bloodied nails hammered through both of his hands. Aram looked from one to the other, the baby brought into the world without sin, then turned into man, persecuted, treated as a heretic. That arc, Aram knew. That arc, many knew, to some degree. So Aram had found the small mirror in which other congregants might see themselves, even given they had never been incarcerated. He was clear then on what he would say later that morning, after Minister Macbay had warmed the pulpit and called him forth, to cast his own sacred starburst.

  *

  An hour or so later, as Aram was placing a hymnal in the back of each pew, he heard a child’s voice calling into the sanctuary. At first, he thought he was imagining the sound, having studied the felted nativity scene for too long. But when the voice came again, it was distinctly real. Hello? the boy said.

  Aram turned
. All the tension he had banished from his body with the broom returned then, tenfold. A young child was there, green-eyed, pigeon-toed, but he was not alone. He was holding the hands of two women. One was unfamiliar to Aram, but the other was unmistakable, as known as breath.

  Euna? he asked, though it was not a question. He had simply lost all language beyond her name.

  She was there, not phantom but true flesh. She wore a long-sleeved gauze dress, despite December. No gloves, no jacket, just a guitar on her back. One earring was pearl, the other misplaced. She was, of course, lovelier than she had been at eighteen. The bones beneath her face had sharpened slightly, just enough to make her seem settled in her skin. She stood tall, cocksure.

  You’re here, she said. She let go of the child’s hand and hurried toward Aram.

  In the castle, time had often come unfastened. It had moved in loops, moments appearing again and again; or sometimes drifting so they seemed interminable, untethered to any clock. But that morning Euna managed to unfasten it in an entirely new way. Suddenly, events made no sense to him. He was a lonely young boy at sea, grabbing brown crabs for his mother, and he was an elderly man, burying a casket in the Pullhair boneyard, and he was a forebear a thousand years before, a hero saving his beloved from a town dank with plague. Time was not floating, nor repeating. It was everywhere.

  Euna had at some point, in the swimming of time, arrived by Aram’s side. He slid down the pew to make room, and she sat down beside him. She turned her body toward his and put her hands, her soft, hard musician’s hands, on his face. To be touched like that…

  You look wonderful, she said.

  Good, he told her. And what he meant was, Good, because I feel as if the whole world’s history just landed on my head.

  I didn’t expect to see you, she said. She moved her hands to her lap.

  Aram gestured to a stained-glass window above them, the Lord rendered in red and gold. He must have brought us together, he said.

  Euna scoffed at this, not hostilely, but noticeably, at least to Aram. She said, This is my first time coming home.

  The way that word lingered on Euna’s tongue. Aram wished time would come unspooled again so he could stay there, living in the echo of Euna’s home. But it had gone linear, and he was aware of her, there, waiting for him to speak. He tried to say so many things at once they dammed his mouth; from that logjam came only silence.

  Behind them he could hear the other two talking. The child was asking, Who is that? and the woman was replying, not unkindly, Someone your mother used to know.

  He leaned in close to Euna. He did not want her to hear the others’ conversation, in case she placed any words like used to. As he neared her, he noticed the gooseflesh on the back of her neck, her high arms. You must be cold, he said.

  She told him she was fine. She sloughed off her guitar strap, a length of velvet with bronze stitching, and rested the instrument on the pew beside her. It made a mild sound as she set it down, the strings softly ringing. Relieved of her guitar, she moved into Aram’s body. He cloaked her shoulders with his arm. At first he could feel her faintly shivering, and then she settled into his warmth, his fisherman’s sweater.

  After a few minutes sitting like this – it was so easy, not talking, it was so much simpler just to touch – the other woman came to interrupt them, the little boy in tow. They sat on the pew in front of Aram and Euna’s, sideways, so they were looking directly at them.

  Hello, the woman said, extending her hand toward Aram. I’m Muireall.

  He shook her offered hand. I’m Aram, he said. You may have heard about me.

  Muireall squinted for a moment, making a show of thinking. Not ringing a bell, she said. He hoped desperately that she was teasing him.

  Euna laughed. That’ll take you down a peg, she said to Aram.

  The boy started to squirm. He clambered onto his knees, facing Euna. And this is Lachlan Iain, Muireall said. The boy was maybe four years old, redheaded, with cool gold skin. As soon as he heard his name, he dropped his head below the pew. He peeked out above the wood backrest as if a loch creature, lurking.

  He’s shy, Euna said.

  Glad to have you here, Lachlan Iain, Aram said. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you for a long time.

  The boy showed his face up to the tip of his nose.

  By the way, Euna said, she was messing with you. Of course she knows who you are, bloody amadan. Having learned that word in the castle, Aram knew Euna was calling him an idiot.

  Actually, Muireall added, I have a few things to say to you. And they’re not all child-friendly.

  This, he had expected. Actually, he was thrilled to know Euna’s dearest friends were angry with him. Anger was alive. And so, sensitive, submissive. Excellent, he said, not at the anger, but at the image of them on the tour bus, saying Aram. Whenever the time is right, I’m all ears.

  Muireall squinted again. She made her suspicion plain. Now the boy, his mouth still behind the pew, repeated, Bloody amadan.

  Looks like someone inherited your dirty mouth, Aram said.

  This gave them all pause. They knew the boy had not inherited anything from Euna, at least not directly. Unspoken, this shared knowledge settled as silt over their conversation. Are you here for the service? Aram asked.

  Euna looked panicked. Is it Sunday?

  Aram nodded. I’m actually preaching shortly. Would you stay and listen, Euna? It might explain a few things.

  Muireall spat into her hands and started to pat down Lachlan Iain’s hair, shaping a clean centre parting. When his hair was perfectly arranged, fit for any church service, Muireall reached into a leather duffel bag she had been carrying over her shoulder. In it was a tasselled, hooded tunic, a silk work of art. She offered the garment to Euna, who luxuriated in its folds, looking royal.

  Thank you for the invite, Euna said. But I don’t think it’s a good idea.

  Please, Aram said. Don’t go away.

  Euna straightened out of Aram’s hold. She tucked in the corners of her lips, which she did when she was considering something deeply. Knowing Euna, she thought she was unreadable, but he saw her more attentively than he did any other part of this world. He remembered her tells.

  Lachlan Iain said, Màthair, you promised.

  Muireall said, Hush, honey. Give her a moment.

  You said I don’t have to go to church. You said I was a Hammer.

  Aram was intrigued. This was the light spilling from under his old lover’s door, a hint at the intimate. What’s that? he asked the child.

  Lachlan Iain began to sing an unusual refrain. A chrostag! Today I was so mad at my màthair! A chrostag! Muireall turned the boy around so he was seated tidily on his behind. It’s okay, little one, she said. She rubbed his back to calm him.

  Aram wanted to hear more from Lachlan Iain, but he did not want to agitate either woman by egging the boy on, so he kept quiet. He placed one hand finely on Euna’s knee and stroked the peak of the bone, waiting patiently while she considered his invitation. He had waited so many years, there was no need to rush her now.

  At length, Euna said, We’ll sit at the back.

  Aram’s joy was sudden and forceful. He said, without knowing he was going to say it, I missed you.

  She looked as if she wanted to respond. Instead, in silence, she strapped the guitar to her back. Bumping his knees, she rushed into the aisle, Muireall and Lachlan Iain following closely behind. Sure enough, they all settled in the final pew, the boy between the two women. Euna pulled the tunic hood well over her intricately braided hair, far enough to cover her identity. Aram wished she would come out of hiding. But then, it was because of him that she had to confine herself, to curtain her beautiful eyes, even on the occasion of her homecoming.

  *

  Half an hour later, Aram stood at the church entrance with Minister Macbay, welcoming a gentle trickle of congregants. He tried not to think of Euna, of the little family unit in the final pew. Moths were flitting in his stomac
h. He was nervous because he did not feel inspired, and he believed a preacher could only speak from a place of divine vision. Some days stirred the holiness in him. But now his sense of sàimh, of ascendance, was gone – by being there, red-blooded and human, Euna had grounded him. He could not raise himself to the floating place, parcel of sense and essence, where words moved through him by a greater spirit’s hand. Around Euna, the world was made of matter, and that was a world Aram could not leave, not even for the length of a sermon.

  Good morning, Aram, said a woman with blue-tinged hair, one of the oldest villagers.

  Well, good morning, he said. He was flattered that someone knew his name. Welcome to worship.

  Thank you, the woman said. And will you be speaking to us today?

  Yes, ma’am, he said.

  The elderly woman took both of Aram’s hands into hers, which were frosted, unbending. She looked up at him through cataracts, a creamy film over her pale eyes. It occurred to him then that he was not the only one to ever live. This woman had walked the earth for a mythically long time, had almost certainly lost someone she treasured, maybe not a Euna, but someone. I don’t hear too well, she said. But if you feel it, I will, too.

  Aram cupped his hands around hers, trying to offer some relief, to release her fingers from their tight fate. Though the fingers remained rigid, he did feel an energy move between him and the elderly woman, a gentle alleluia. He was no longer so afraid. He believed in unassuming saints. The congregation having mostly arrived by then, Minister Macbay invited Aram to follow him onto the raised stage. Minister Macbay was meant to deliver his sermon before Aram’s, but he changed the order. He must have noticed the moment between the elderly woman and Aram, the confidence it had revealed in him. After the prelude, the processional, and the opening hymn – ‘Nations that long in darkness walked’ – Minister Macbay offered a short reading from Job, 19:26–27.