When They Lay Bare

by Andrew Greig

  The evening star rests in the topmost fork of the tallest tree, it will grow brighter as the dark comes on. Some days your life’s a letter written by the one who delivers it, and some days that one is you.

  *

  Propped up in his bed, Sim Elliot groans and drinks the tea Annie has brought up as he waits for the paracetamol to cut in. He’s been bad, he’s been a damn fool. It’s the pressure emanating from Crawhill. He can see her lying on the mattress staring at the wee photo by her head, or reading too much into the Corbie Plates. If she meant him well, she would have called straightaway. She knows who took the photo of her mother, herself and Davy. She knows everything, or thinks she does. She must come to him, that’s all he knows. He needs that.

  He ate with Young Love last night. Shaved and unstoned and on best behaviour till the drink caught up, he talked and listened and watched. The lassie had a high laugh and voice but was right bright, no doubt about that. Something hectic about her said she wasn’t too well, the way a power-saw engine will race just before the fuel runs out. Whiles she seemed angry, at other moments she eyed Davy like he was a lifebelt in a gurly sea. Her hips are too narrow, he’d thought vaguely as he raised his glass. She’d slip right through a lifebelt.

  She ate very little and drank less. But she laughed and was lively and sought his opinions. When he talked he felt his mouth obscenely big and fleshy.

  She told him their plans and made plenty eye-contact. Once she was married and had citizenship, she could stay on and chase another lecturing job. If her new book did well, she might even get tenure. David would stay with the Forestry Commission at first but look to go freelance as a consultant. And the boy had nodded and agreed, drunk more wine and kept his head down. Clearly the evening was something to be got through because she wanted it. Simon had watched how their elbows chapped off each other, the way they said sorry, and wondered if that was his son’s vision of marriage: a healing operation, a minimum of disaster. They didn’t face into each other as he and Jinny had. They sat side by side like houses in an orderly terrace.

  Bairns? Is there room for them in your career?

  A third bottle of wine question, he regretted it soon as it came from his mouth. David looked down, then to her but she was concentrating on peeling her grapes.

  We’ll see what happens, she said.

  David glared across at him. Since when are you concerned about children?

  No, it’s a fair question, from the fiancée. It’s just not high on the agenda right now.

  Bloody nosy if you ask me.

  Another pause. He lifted his glass and drank more blood-red wine and watched the pair of them. Something was happening and not happening there. He drained his glass and poured another.

  You do intend to have a sex life, eh?

  The girl had reddened but laughed.

  For God’s sake, Dad. Get a grip.

  The boy’s right hand shook with his fork and the colour was high in his throat.

  Just asking, Elliot said. There’s the estate to think on.

  Give what’s left to Tat, I don’t give a fuck.

  The lassie put her hand on her man’s arm. Let’s not get uptight, she said.

  It’s tainted. The boy pulled his arm free. I dinni want it.

  Elliot winked at her. You’ll notice how the accent changes when he riles up.

  David’s the gentlest man I know, she replied. That’s one of the things I love.

  The girl was pale. She was that thin, those wee bony wrists, she was vibrating like a tuning fork at the raised voices. Elliot looked at her too-big eyes, her clever, quivering mouth, and felt something stir in his stomach. So his son wanted to give her the kindness he’d never had. And she was grateful and edgy with it, and more intelligent and focused.

  Elliot raised his glass again. Projection, he thought. I’m just seeing my marriage again. He cleared his throat.

  Aye well, I wish you luck. He swallowed, felt the redness rise into his skull and couldn’t stop talking. Tell you this though, you can swear to be kind, keep your temper and all that. You can swear to be faithful and – he raised his hand – you’ll make a better fist of it than me. Surely. Fine. But it’s not love.

  His son was standing up. The girl had gone white under that spiky blonde hair.

  I’m not listening to this.

  The girl was squeaking in her throat. Elliot put out his hand, clamped on the boy’s arm.

  Sorry, Davit. I’m just haivering. Too much wine, eh?

  Too much dope, more like. I don’t know how you live with yoursel. Give the fucking estate away.

  Language, laddie. You’ll frighten the lassie. Heh, you look like a reiver when your blood’s up.

  David’s fist grabbed his shirt. The boy had a grip on him.

  Gie the estate to Marnie, you auld cunt, if you want to keep it in the family.

  The girl moving away from the table now.

  I’ll not have my … body … insulted.

  She looked about to throw up.

  Hold on a minute!

  The girl stopped then looked to Annie Tat, come quietly in the door with a tray.

  Hold on, Elliot said more quietly. What was that about family? Did she say that? It’s a damned lie!

  The boy looked straight back at him, said nothing.

  Who’s Marnie? Jo asked.

  The woman staying in Crawhill Cottage, David muttered. I mentioned her.

  Calm down the lot of you, Annie said. This is a stushie about nothing. Elliot, behave yourself.

  David looked at her. He’d never heard her speak to his father like that. She shrugged, put the tray on the table and began gathering in plates.

  The one you went to visit once? Jo asked.

  Couple of times. I told you.

  But who is she?

  A long silence. Annie clattered with the knives.

  Her name’s Marnie Lauder, dear, Annie said. If you’ve all done, there’s coffee in the sitting room.

  So what’s this about family? Is she a relation, David?

  Better ask the old man about that.

  Annie’s hands stopped. The room was very silent. All eyes on Elliot.

  If she said that, she’s a liar and I’ll have her out the morn. Did she, eh?

  David hesitated, then shrugged and turned away.

  No. She never said that. My mistake.

  Elliot’s head went down. Annie moved in and cleared his place.

  Will you be wanting a dram with your coffee? Not you, Sim.

  David put his arm round Jo’s shoulders. I’m sorry, he said to her quietly. He winds me up something rotten.

  Elliot looked up. It’s true, he said quietly. She’s no mine. Worst luck, but she can’t be. If she was mine, d’ye no think I’d have gone to see her?

  Forget it, Dad. I believe you. Sad old bastard.

  Feared you fancied your half-sister, were ye?

  Annie cut in quick.

  Marnie is Jinny Lauder’s daughter, lass. But it’s ancient history now. Jinny was …

  Dad’s hoor.

  Tsk, laddie. That’s not awfy politically correct.

  Okay. Adulterous lover, then. Though I don’t know if love came into it.

  Elliot rose from the table. He stepped round the edge towards his son.

  Oh, so she’s the woman who, uh, died, Jo said. You never said her name.

  I didn’t want to.

  Yes, the poor soul’s dead and that’s an end to it, Annie said. Now are you all coming through or what?

  Elliot leaned on the side of the table, still half a head taller than his son. His breath expelled then he looked old. He shook his head vaguely.

  My, Davy, but you’re a pious wee shite.

  He straightened up with Annie’s arm at his elbow guiding him towards the door to the sitting room. He shook her off and stumbled towards the door to the back stairs. He ducked his head, mumbled Sorry, and was gone.

  Love, they heard him mutter as he went up the stairs. They ken
nothing of it.

  Annie looked back at David and Jo.

  Don’t heed him, she said. He’s had too much. He’ll be right sorry in the morn. He’s not been keeping well, and this woman turning up … A thud then a clatter from upstairs. I’d better put the old fool to bed, she added.

  Jo and David in the silent dining room. Scuffed old panels, spilled candlewax, half-full glasses. She moved away from him.

  What the hell is going down here, David? What’s the sub-text? Is it because of me?

  He hesitated then took her thin hand and squeezed.

  No, I think the old goat quite likes you. Private hell is the sub-text and we’re getting out soonest.

  *

  Simon Elliot groaned again and reached for his morning pills, the ones that would keep his heart going a while longer, though the only part of it that mattered was long dead.

  *

  After that burning day on the moor, he stayed close to the house and the home farm for a week and went through the motions of his life. He even managed to make love – no, he managed to have sex, he knew the difference now – with Fiona. It was half-hearted, half-cocked, an embarrassment to them both. Little wonder she gave her time to wee Davy and the county set, and lately she’d begun to have a couple of gins before lunch and more in the evening.

  Perhaps because of the booze one very hot afternoon she found him up by the dyke and sat down in the bracken by him. She said how hot it was then unbuttoned her shirt. She said she might as well get a tan and took the shirt off.

  She sat a couple of feet away in her heavy nursing bra. Her feet weren’t bare and she would never not wear a bra like Jinny. He rolled back his sleeves and a minute later agreed it was bloody hot and took off his shirt. They sat on for a while then his hand went out and touched hers. She squeezed his hand, slippy with sweat, till her ring pressed painfully against his knuckle. Speech had become impossible. He put his free hand on the knee of her new lime-green linen trousers and tried to want her. There are many things can be willed in this life but a hard-on isn’t one.

  Her other hand came into his crotch and he willed himself, a fraction too late, not to flinch away.

  You’re jumpy, she said.

  Sorry. He laughed the worst phoniest laugh of his life. It’s these sleepless nights with the bairn.

  But it’s worth it. Isn’t it, Simon?

  He patted her hand, hoping she would stop scratching at his leg before he jumped away. Well, it’s reality, he said. That’s got to be worth something.

  It’s what you wanted?

  He hesitated and knew himself lost. He couldn’t lie, he couldn’t tell the truth. The silence went on too long, her fingers were still, her shoulders very set as she didn’t look at him.

  It’s what’s happened. I’m glad about Davy, you know I am.

  A long pause in the afternoon before she nodded. Her fingers fiddled with the strap of her bra. He wished she wouldn’t do that.

  I’d hoped it would be better, she said. And because her voice was low and hopeless, not an accusation or a plea, and it was the first true thing said between them for months, he leaned across and kissed her ear. Her hand came up and held his head to hers and for a time they seemed to be consoling each other at a funeral.

  Then she lay back in the bracken. I know we’ve not been very adventurous, she said.

  His heart lurched. He had no choice but to lean across and slip off one heavy strap then the other. As always she lay passive, waiting. In the early days he’d once or twice suggested she could lead. So you don’t fancy me, she’d said. You’re a man, I shouldn’t have to excite you. Jinny slid sideways into his head, her fingers running over him like blown leaves, stripping him root and branch. His erection lasted through him lowering the cups of the bra. He saw the blue veins and tried to like them. He bent to suck. Ouch, she said. That’s not nice.

  Then it was too late, though he tried. It seemed his cock was the only part of him that couldn’t lie. He tried to perpetuate enough hard-on as he unzipped the lime-green trousers. Tried to move himself so her fingers brushed his cock. She was trying. He was trying. There is nothing sadder than two people trying.

  Trousers round his ankles, he lay on her, a sad remainder of an erection pushing at her dry entrance. He even tried thinking of Jinny but that was disgusting. His wife’s face was red, she pushed and pulled and made small huffing sounds. He tried to find her clitoris, which was small and temperamental and prone to hiding, but she pushed his hand away.

  Not that, she said. Just do it.

  They rocked back and forward in silence for a while. Silence was about the only thing they shared, and they didn’t even share that. God knows what she was thinking. He tried again to will himself hard again. Think of anything, anyone, anywhere else but here.

  She stopped moving. He slowed and stopped. His cock slipped out of her.

  It isn’t going to work, she said. Her voice was flat, resigned. His heart went out to her and to himself, lying foolish and useless in the bug-ridden bracken. She sat up briskly, brushed bits and pieces from her hair. Oh well, she said. Better get back for Davy. I always thought it only happened in films anyway.

  Tenderly, he did up her bra, straightened the collar of her shirt.

  Sorry, he said. Let’s try again later.

  She stood up, smiled briefly back at him. You know it’s not very important to me, she said. I think it’s overrated, actually.

  You could be right, he said as a bit more in him died. He turned away from her and pulled himself together. Hid away his prick, good only for peeing and once or twice in a lifetime making a baby. He’d always known he was unlovable and unloving. Only with Jinny had that been untrue.

  They set off down the hill together. He took her hand in sympathy and need, she squeezed it once. After a while they began to talk about the estate. After all, they were a good team. God knows what she was thinking. He was trying to tug himself away from a black tarn that had opened up somewhere in his heart. This wasn’t going to work.

  *

  What the maps call Breckan Hill is known in this isolated corner of the Borderlands as Creagan’s Knowe. It is a well-known beauty spot, with a fine outlook from the top of its high red escarpment. Down below, in mixed woodland, a stream settles in shallow linns then winds down to farmland. It is a place of Sunday picnics, for the rest of the time visited only by the odd solitary walker. The low round green mounds are not Iron Age forts but ruined sheep fanks (pens). The bigger green hillock by the lowest pool is the remains of an old mill that was sacked one time too often in the Border wars.

  The local legend is that one Neb Creagan, fleeing a hot trod pursuit, came on his horse to the top of the crag with a pack of bloodthirsty Grahames at his heels, looked at the drop before him and the men behind, then jumped his hobbie down the cliff. By some miracle he made it to the bottom, turned and gestured – we may imagine how! – back to the riders crowding the top of the cliff, then rode for the Border and safety.

  It is probably nonsense, you might think as you stand looking down the knowe. Or maybe not, for on closer inspection from below, the cliff is not a sheer fall but a series of ledges and drops. Someone desperate enough might roll his weird (fate) into one ball, launch himself off and make it to the bottom unharmed – though unless the horse had wings, that part of the story is surely impossible. As so often in the Borderlands, it is impossible to separate history from myth; so much is forgotten and only a name and a brief tale remains.

  Curiously – or is it purely by accident? – this spot was in recent times the scene of a family tragedy that led to a trial still talked about in the area …

  The wind keens and rolls the drum on the window frame as she puts the guide-book aside then settles down again with the rose plate. A thin line of briar curls towards the scene her eye has been avoiding, to the fatal place: the high bluff, the pine trees above, the woods below. This is where it happened. She stares until her eyes unfocus and the light grows thick in the m
orning kitchen.

  *

  In the dale we used to cry it Creagan’s Knowe, but for the last while folk call it simply Murder Hill. The morbid wifies all went for a look, to point and gasp, imagining Jinny Lauder bouncing and breaking, crawling to the edge of the ledge and falling again. But only a tractor orra-man, two drunks from the pub, Elliot and myself saw it, and I was closest. I’d followed Elliot and Jinny to their last tryst, saw them arguing at the brink, saw his arm come out, her break away and go down.

  I’ve no need to go there again to see her fall and hit each ledge then crawl, stand twitching and jerking like a daftie, then waver and fall again. It wasn’t canny. I couldn’t believe she wasn’t deid. It looked as though, like Creagan, she would make it down alive, and I was on my feet and running from the trees till she fell the last thirty feet and burst open at my feet. Her thrapple opened, her shattered jaw moved, then as I hunkered down at her head I heard her last tiny wind move through the darkening grass.

  It’s much in my mind of late, as I think it will be with Marnie Lauder holed up in Crawhill. She’s been to the town and read through the old papers. She may have found the court transcripts and read my say. As the day goes on and she doesn’t set foot outside, I’m wondering what she’s about. I work here at my bench by the window, keeping an eye out for her stirring, and from time to time I have a wee grue, thinking I feel her mind stroke over me.

  *

  Elliot made himself a sandwich and wandered through the empty house. Annie wasn’t in today, David and the fiancée had gone off early in the Land-Rover, he’d heard the rev and rattle fade and been relieved. He’d apologise later, but for now all he was fit for was to drift through the house hearing the wind circling round it. Quietly opening the doors into room after room as if he was already his own ghost, listening for the voice he didn’t expect to hear again, then closing the door again on silence. Time there was when Jinny could reach him wherever he went. The first time she did that, he’d thought he was cracking up. Even now, he has no explanation for it.