by Laura Elliot
The sky was cloudless, the day balmy when I trekked through the shady trails of Monsheelagh Forest with Karin and her father. It was a tough, uphill climb and Monsheelagh was spread like a green patchwork quilt below us when we finally emerged from the trees. Max pointed to a white dot in the distance. Cowrie Cottage, he said. I pictured Joan sleeping in her rank-smelling bedroom. I hoped the windows were open to the healing breeze. She was supposed to come with us on the trek but she’d changed her mind that morning. We pretended not to notice the smudges of mascara around her bloodshot eyes, the stale smell of alcohol on her breath. Karin behaved as she always did on such occasions, scornful and untouchable.
We stopped to picnic by a river. After we had eaten Max rested his back against the trunk of a tree. Karin, her eyes closed, lay with her head resting on his thigh. He told us about the journey he would soon take through the Sahara Desert with a tribe of nomads. He’d ridden camels before but this would be a long journey over mountainous sands where buried cities would one day be excavated. The long grass tickled my cheek as I lay on my side, elbow propping my chin, his melodic voice lulling me into a light doze. A rustle of wings startled me and a bird flew so close I felt the wind in its wings. We watched it dive into the water and reappear. The shimmer of blue feathers, something silvery wriggling in its beak before it flew away.
‘That was a kingfisher.’ Max plucked a feather from the ground and ran his finger along the quivering barbs. He told us a story. A Greek legend about the lovers Alcyone and Ceyx, lost to each other through death. He spoke as he wrote, a mesmeric spinning of words into pictures that transformed the strippled rush of the river into a surging ocean and the twitter of birds into Alcyone’s keening grief as she sought to be reunited with her drowned husband. I imagined the waves closing over her head, her body riding on the crest of a wave before it dragged her down into the dark nothingness. The gods, taking pity on the doomed lovers, transformed them into kingfishers. I saw them rise and reel above the waves. Their blue wings whirred as the thunderous waters fell calm and lapped tranquilly to shore so that Alcyone could lay her eggs on the sands. Those were the halcyon days, Max said. The calm before the storm.
‘We’ve had our halcyon day,’ he said when the story ended. ‘It’s time we were heading back to the cottage.’
Karin stood and stretched lazily, her hands raised in a salute to the sun. I knelt on the grass and gathered the wrappings from the picnic.
Max slipped the blue feather into my hair. ‘Alcyone,’ he whispered or, perhaps it was just his breath escaping fast as he rose to his feet.
Karin lowered her arms and stared into the river.
‘Come on, lazybones,’ he said to her. ‘Time to move.’
‘I don’t want to go back,’ she said.
‘What do you want to do?’ He chucked her under her chin. ‘Live in the forest?’
‘Take me to the Sahara with you?’
‘We’ve been through this already, Karin,’ he replied. ‘You know that’s not possible.’
‘But you promised I could go with you when I was fifteen.’
‘I made no such promise. You’re still way too young for such an arduous trip.’
She faced him, eyes blazing, fists clenched by her sides. ‘Liar! You did… you did.’ Her mood change was sudden but I had become used to those unexpected outbursts.
I picked up apple and orange peelings, cheese wrappings, butter melting gold into the grass. Eighteen was the age she planned to leave with him. She spoke about it often enough.
‘Why are you doing this?’ Max asked. ‘We’ve had a perfect day and you’re spoiling it by making a scene.’
‘I’m going with you,’ she shrieked. ‘You can’t leave me alone again with her.’
‘Don’t refer to your mother as “her.”’ I thought he would lose his temper, as my own father would have done, but he never raised his voice. ‘She loves you and has always taken care of you. Why are you pretending otherwise?’
‘But you don’t love me. If you did, you’d take me away. You never keep your word. It’s all your fault that she’s an alco – ’
‘Stop it at once.’ This time I heard his anger and Karin paused, her mouth open on that ugly word.
I emptied out the dregs of tea and screwed the top back on the flask. The ripples the kingfisher had made were still visible in the flow of the river.
‘Tell him, Nadine.’ She dropped to her knees before me. ‘You heard him promise. He said fifteen.’
I bent my head, afraid to look at her, and fastened the straps on my backpack. She leaned forward until I was forced to meet her eyes.
‘Tell him to his face that he’s a liar,’ she said. ‘I want you to say it.’
‘You’re the liar.’ I straightened my shoulders, stared her down. ‘He never said any such thing.’
She pushed me backwards with such force that I lost my balance. I think she would have pummelled me if Max had not pulled her away.
‘Have you finished?’ he demanded when she stopped struggling. ‘If you’re still determined to behave like a sulky puss then go into the forest and shout at the trees. We’re going back to Cowrie Cottage. Whether or not you come with us is no concern of mine.’
He lifted his backpack and slung it over his shoulder. The leather was scuffed and covered in stickers from places he’d visited. Karin walked on ahead, almost running in her effort to get away from us. The breeze blew my hair before my eyes and the feather was tossed lightly on a current of air before settling on the water. I watched it flow downstream and out of sight. We returned in silence to Cowrie Cottage, each of us wrapped in our own private thoughts.
The remaining days slid together in a blur of sunshine and days on the beach. I played volleyball and swan until I was exhausted. The sun played over my body when I lay face down on the rug to recover my breath, an intoxicating drug that pressed my thighs hard against the yielding sand and filled me with unfamiliar stirrings. I was in thrall to the wonder, terror, bliss, achiness, illusions and splendidness of first love. At night I wrote love letters, secrets outpourings for my eyes only. I cut a slit in the lining of my anorak and hid them deep inside it. Soon it would be time to go home. We would be returning to Gracehills on the day after Shard’s much publicised gig in Barney’s pub. Like Karin, I was in the grip of mood swings, wanting the holiday to end, longing for it to last forever.
CHAPTER 11
On the morning of the gig we met Reedy and Daryl in the small village supermarket. They were stocking up on beer for a party after the gig and the trolley was filled with six-packs, crisps and frozen pizzas.
Karin had begged her parents to let us go to the party. Joan refused to even consider it. We could go to Barneys to hear the band but we were returning with her and Max to Cowrie Cottage afterwards. He agreed with her. Subject closed. We were too young… always too young for everything, Karin raged. Joan was an ‘alco–’ she almost spat the word at me, and had no moral authority to refuse permission. The abbreviated word sounded harsh. I imagined Joan ending her life as a bag lady, sitting in doorways, a bottle hidden in a brown paper bag. We seethed together, united in our sense of injustice but things had changed between us that morning. Karin hadn’t spoken to me at breakfast, nor did she speak to me as we walked through the supermarket where the locals were pretending not to stare at Daryl’s dreadlocks or Reedy’s jeans with the slits across the backside. Joan was pale but sober, her lipstick a red gash against her pale skin, her long, black hair matted. Her dress was torn under one arm, not deliberately, like Reedy’s jeans, but uncaringly, as if how she looked no longer mattered. She reminded me of a Goth, not glamorous or exotic, just defeated.
Karin grabbed Daryl’s dreadlocks and shrieked laughing when he lifted her and pretended to throw her into the shopping trolley. But once she left the supermarket she became quiet again and went immediately to her room.
The hot spell of weather had broken. Sullen clouds covered the sky and the tide rode on a grey swel
l. I spent the afternoon in Monsheelagh Bay, sheltered from the wind by the rocks. I’d knocked on Karin’s door and asked if she wanted to come with me but she’d shouted at me to go away. I’d packed my clothes. We had an early start in the morning. I tried to concentrate on the book I’d brought with me but I was unable to think of anything except the reality of leaving Monsheelagh. How would I cope? What had been a magical time would end as soon as we drove from the cottage. Small children ran naked into the wind and fathers struggled determinedly into the water. I watched out for Jake but no one from Shard appeared. I figured they were probably rehearsing for tonight.
By evening the rain had started to fall. The smell of roast chicken wafted from the kitchen. Joan was peeling potatoes at the sink. She peered at me through her tangled fringe and I knew immediately she’d been drinking. Max was on the phone in the little parlour. I could hear his voice but not what he was saying. Lynette, his editor, rang every day to talk about the nomad book.
‘Where’s Karin?’ I asked Joan.
‘Sulking in her room, she said. ‘She’s still annoyed about the party. Do you understand why I won’t let you go?’
‘You’re afraid we’ll get drunk.’ Like you, I almost added then felt ashamed as I hurried from her into the privacy of my bedroom.
She called us for dinner. Max put a record on the old-fashioned record player. Dubussy, he said. ‘Clair de lune’. French for ‘moonlight’. He looked towards the window. ‘No stars tonight.’
We helped with the washing up then went to our rooms to get ready for Shard. I heard a sudden crash, as if something fragile had been shattered against a wall. I moved quietly past Karin’s room and along the corridor to the parlour. Max and Joan were arguing. Their voices slid under the door and brought me to a standstill. Joan’s high-pitched voice was hardly recognisable. She didn’t believe Max was going to the desert. He’d make it up like he always did, she said. Spin a yarn from a few encounters. Oh, he had a way with words all right. And his way with women. I ran back to my room and locked the door. I wanted to hide somewhere deep and safe. I opened my journal and tore out a page. The words I wrote made no sense. Unable to concentrate I pulled my anorak from the hook on the door and shoved the crumpled sheet of paper into the lining. My fingers probed deeper into the torn slit. All I felt was an empty space. I tore at the lining, the material ripping as I turned it inside out. My letters were missing. I broke out in goosebumps and pressed my face into the anorak in case I screamed out loud. Only one person could have taken them. Karin must have searched my room while I was on the beach in the afternoon. How could I ever face her again? The lash of shame, I’ve never forgotten it. As if someone had taken a blade and sliced into my heart, exposing its secret for all to see.
They were still shouting. Karin must also be able to hear but she stayed in her room. A door banged. Max was leaving. Joan shrieked something after him. I huddled under the duvet. Rain struck the walls in flurries and the wind whistled against the thatch. I thought about the three little pigs and the house of straw but the roof held strong. Only the furious rattle of the window frames disturbed the silence that settled over Cowrie Cottage. I knew we would not be going to the Shard gig tonight. I couldn’t wait for morning, to be on the road and in the warm circle of my mother’s arms.
An hour passed. I knocked on Karin’s door. She refused to answer. I knocked harder, called her name. When she didn’t come out I went into the parlour where Joan was curled in an armchair, a rug pulled over her shoulders. Broken glass covered the floor beside the back wall. Her face was red and blotchy, her eyes slitted from crying. The bottle of vodka on a small table beside her was half empty. She was drinking it neat. The room stank of alcohol. She was incoherent when I persuaded her to go to bed. I helped her into their bedroom. She was so light I could have carried her. I thought of deadwood, ready to snap. The bed was unmade, the indent of two heads still visible on the pillows, the sheets tangled. She tripped over Max’s mountain boots – the ones he’d worn when we did our trek through Monsheelagh Forest – and sprawled forward onto the bed.
I pulled the duvet over her and listened, really listened, to the gale outside. It reminded me of an orchestra, shrill musicians without a composer to keep them in tune. Joan’s hair covered her face. Her eyes, when I pulled the fringed aside, were closed. I wasn’t sure if she was asleep or unconscious.
I waited for Max to return. Another hour passed. Was it the front door he’d slammed behind him? If so, he’d probably gone to the village. If it was the back door and he was on the cliff he should be wearing his boots. I banged again on Karin’s door. Still no answer. I turned the handle. The door was locked.
I shook Joan awake. ‘Where’s Max?’ I kept shouting into her face. ‘Where has he gone?’
‘Gone to hell… to hell,’ she muttered. Her head lolled to one side, her clavicle a taut outline against her throat.
I checked the kitchen press where the torches were kept for walking home at night from Barney’s pub. One was missing. I took the red one I always used and zipped up my anorak. I walked along the top path. I was drenched in minutes, my feet sodden from the long grass. The steps were slick with rain. I held tightly to the railings as I descended and was almost swept off my feet when I shone the torch on the dark ocean below. The tide was full in, higher than I’d ever seen it. Savage white horses dashing against the cliff. I called Max’s name repeatedly but the wind buffeted my voice and pitched it into the waves. Spume moistened the air, salted my lips as I clung to the railing and made my way back to the path.
I was frantic when I reached the gate leading to the cottage. Could Max have taken the steep path to the cove? My trainers skidded on the mud when I tried to find the trail. I sat down heavily, grasping heather and bracken to stop my fall. Lightening flailed like a whip in the pitch black sky. I huddled into my knees as the thunder roared. He would never have taken this path. Nor would he have used the steps. He must be in the village, drying off in Barney’s pub.
I crawled back to safety and returned to the cottage. Somehow, Joan had pulled herself together. She’d showered and wrapped her hair in a towel, smeared on lipstick and made black coffee.
‘I can’t find Max.’ I was sobbing, terrified by fears I was unable to utter aloud.
‘He’ll be back.’ Her voice was still slurred but I could make out what she was saying. ‘He always comes back… like a rolling stone he’ll roll back to me. A bad… bad rolling stone… he’ll roll back to me and lay all his moss at my feet.’ She rocked back in the chair, a mug of coffee between her hands, and laughed. Her amusement only added to the wretchedness of her sad, clown face.
‘He’s been gone nearly two hours.’ I tried to make her understand. ‘What if he’s on the cliff?’
‘He can walk it blindfold,’ she said but she slopped coffee on the table when she put the mug down.
Water dripped from my anorak and pooled at my feet. I sat on the edge of the bed and peeled off my wet jeans. When I’d changed into track suit bottoms I pressed my ear against the wall. The silence from Karin’s room was absolute.
‘Your father is missing,’ I shouted. ‘I’m afraid he’s on the cliff.’
Still no answer. There was only one explanation. She must have gone out earlier. Maybe she was with Max. They could be in the village listening to Shard, relieved that they had escaped Joan’s drunken tantrum. Was she showing him my letters, laughing at me for my foolishness?
‘The phone’s dead.’ Joan stood on the threshold of my room, the towel wrapped like a turban around her head. ‘I’m going to the village to ring the guards.’
‘Maybe that’s where he is,’ I said. ‘Karin’s not in her room. She must have gone with him.’
She was scared at last and sobering fast as she walked unsteadily towards the front door. I ran after her. The wind gusted through the hall and slammed the door from her hand. She swayed against the door jamb then straightened and stumbled into the night. The towel loosened from its turban
and flapped like the wings of a demented bird as it was blown away.
Her driving was erratic. I covered my eyes as she swerved wildly around corners but, thankfully, there was no traffic coming towards us. The waves were dashing so hard against the harbour wall it was impossible to park near it. She found a spot in the next road and held onto my arm as we ran towards the pub. My first time to hear Shard. Loud, raucous rock, so very different to the usual traditional music played in Barneys. The pub was packed. We pushed our way through the crowd surrounding the bar and into the back where Shard were crowded onto a small stage. The walls vibrated with the energy of their music. Karin was on the stage beside Jake, her hands raised about her head as she slapped a tambourine. She had tied her hair in a ponytail and her resemblance to Max was clear in her sharp profile and the slant of her determined chin. Jake hugged her when the music stopped.
‘Let’s hear it for Karin,’ he roared into the microphone and the crowd roared back. I looked around. Max was not there. Otherwise, he would have been in front of the stage cheering her on. My knees gave way. I grabbed the back of a chair and steadied myself. Joan’s lips were puckered, as if frozen on words she was afraid to speak.
She pulled my arm, drawing me down to her level. ‘I have to phone the guards,’ she shouted in my ear. ‘It’s too noisy here. I’ll ring them from the harbour phone. Get Karin down. We’ve got to get back to the cottage.’
The exultant glow in Karin’s eyes darkened when she saw me. She blinked, as if the effort of looking at me required too much effort. She ignored me when I gestured at her to come down. The band was about to start a new number. I stepped onto the stage and grabbed her arm. Jake had signed his name on her skin. She jerked away from me and smacked the tambourine against my face. The crowd howled, their laughter thick with anticipation.
‘Fight… fight,’ someone roared and the cry was taken up.
Jake came between us. My lip was bleeding where one of the metal zils had cut the skin. I wiped the blood with the back of my hand, hardly aware of what I was doing.
