When They Lay Bare

by Andrew Greig

  I’ll treasure it always, she said quietly. You too.

  Then she turned away and padded through to the kitchen. He followed her and watched as she crouched to rummage through her box of household gods. He remembered everything of the person she’d been with him, the light of dawn spread across her cheek, the secret shadows beneath her arms, her moist words in his ear. His palms were prickling as he reached for her. She turned round and he stopped, waved his arms like he was just loosening up.

  Mum gave me this before she died. It’s the most personal thing I have.

  She held out a small flat stone disc. It had a circular hole in it, off-centre. He picked it off her palm. It was cool, smooth, speckled, very dark. Meteorite, he thought. It’s been polished and worked. He tilted it to the light and made out faint grooves, lines that could be a formalised pillar or tree with, yes, a serpent twined round it. Yggdrasil. The world tree. Knowledge of eternity. He stared at it, feeling the weight grow, feeling it brand into his hand.

  He squeezed his fist and opened it again. Ran his thumb over the faint feathery markings along the rim.

  Family tradition says it first came from the neolithic burnt mound up on the moor, she said. The one near where we …

  He nodded.

  It makes the Ninth Legion seem recent. I’ve never seen the like.

  She put her hand formally over his, slipped her other thumb through the hole in the stone disc then looked up at him, eyes shining.

  A draught went round them and young Tat was standing in the kitchen, shiny head angled like a radar disc picking up invisible signals.

  *

  There’s no one to hear the sleeper’s breath quicken. She begins to turn over, her arms come protectively round her head. A moan starts in her chest and rises in pitch as it expands in her throat, then from her mouth bursts the howl of something that knows itself abandoned for ever. Outside in the night small animals edge away from the cottage.

  Her cry stops as though a guillotine has dropped. She is awake. Her lighter rasps then the candle spits and sways by her bed. She is, as at all times, utterly alone.

  She won’t dare sleep again tonight. She hugs herself deeper into the blankets and stares at the candle flame. I am awake, I am awake and in my right mind – she repeats it over and over so it may be true. Gradually it becomes so, her breathing settles, and she again passes into a summer dead but living yet.

  She stood on the bright grass headland, wind in her hair and the sea behind her – my childhood pal, my other half, my first lover, back in my life again. She surveyed along the coast as I lay looking up at her, blessing the minor fracas that had led to my picture in the papers and her finding me again.

  No one coming?

  I’d say we have twenty minutes in each direction.

  So let’s not waste it, I said, like we’ve wasted the last ten years.

  She knelt beside me, put her fingers lightly on my mouth.

  Are you sure about this? she asked.

  I grabbed her by the waist and yanked her down.

  Sure I’m sure. We never did it outdoors. God there’s so many things to do!

  But, she said, we must talk.

  I rolled her over, pinned her like a wrestler with my weight. She always used to love that. She tensed then went oof! and was soft under me.

  Twenty minutes, I said. Whatever you have to tell me, give me twenty minutes first. Give me everything.

  She looked into me for the longest time. Then a quick grin, the one I remembered, the devilment that made her never boring, never defeated.

  Okey-dokey, she said. You’re the boss, guv.

  I sat up on her groin and began to unbutton her shirt.

  I want you mother naked, I said. As the day you were born. The watch too. And those girly earrings come off.

  And when I had done I looked at her sprawled dazzling on the salt-coarse grass. She stared back like she was memorising me for a future I wouldn’t be in. I kissed her so she wouldn’t look at me like that.

  Beautiful her shoulders, her neatness against the blue sky above as she opened me to pour the love in. Then beautiful her tanned skin against green grass as I gave it back to her. She rolled like a surfboard on the sea of grass, so responsive and buoyant as I rode her all the way in.

  Now me you, I murmured into her shoulder. I licked her salty skin. Now me you, darling.

  She sort of laughed. I guess, she said.

  She turned slightly, began reaching for her clothes. In her stirring I felt time about to resume, with all its shitty, restless normal service. I clung onto the last of heaven in her shoulder.

  I’m going away, she said, very neutral and casual. That’s why it’s so lucky I found you again in time, because I had to tell you. She paused. New Zealand.

  I’ve often wanted to go there.

  There’s a man. He’s waiting for me.

  Oh, I said. I picked bits of grass from the sweeter parts of my anatomy, the ones she’d seemed to love so well. I hope he’s broad-minded.

  I don’t think so.

  She sat up and my head slid from her onto the coarse grass. I kept my head down and watched an ant struggle through its forest world as she pulled on her sweater and explained she wasn’t really bi, she just loved me. The usual guff. How there’d been no other women. And no other men now, just the one, for it was time to stop floundering and start swimming.

  New Zealand’s a long way to swim, I muttered. Then she held my head as I cried, stroked the spot on the crown as she used to when we were lost babes in the bad girls’ home. So I cried some more and watched the ant struggling past my gluey tears.

  I don’t expect you’ll tell him about this.

  I have to. He’ll understand it’s a last time. He knows about my past.

  Her voice was soft and low, almost soothing. She was my twin, I was her other half.

  I’m not your fucking past. I’m now!

  Someone’s coming, she said. Some twitcher. Please get dressed.

  She pulled on her knickers then jeans. I lay on my back.

  Let them come, I said.

  Please, she said.

  Our promises, I said. Remember those? All the things we were going to put right.

  I’m sorry, she said. Things change.

  Not in my world.

  I gripped her hand. I forced her hand between my legs, began to push her limp fingers against me. Please, she said. Don’t do this. He’s coming.

  I’m not. Then I pushed her hand away. Forget it. Pass my jumper. As I pulled it over my head I added Fuck off to Kiwi-land.

  I’ll always love you. Don’t spoil it.

  I felt the thump and swish of footsteps. The ant put on a spurt to the top of its grass. I stretched my jumper down over my waist as the man walked past our heads, hesitated then moved on. I reached out and squished the bug between thumb and big finger to put it out of its misery. She looked shocked. She was always too tender-hearted, except when it really mattered. Then she was unbending, hard. Not as strong as me, but harder. There was no point arguing.

  I pulled on my knickers and looked around at our headland, the sea folding the shoreline, grass bending in the wind. It should have been paradise.

  I won’t forget.

  Nor will I, she said. But I’m letting it go. You understand? I’m letting go all of it.

  Socks, trainers. Straightened my hair. I never let go, I said. I never forgive. Take away anger and there’s nothing left of me.

  She shook her head, bent forward to lace her boots. I would never see her naked feet again. Never her belly melting into mine. Never her hands in my hair. In this world everything is never again. No wonder I prefer to live in Spook. In Spook everything is now for ever.

  I stood up and looked back the way we’d come. The wind was stronger now and my knees were trembling. She stood beside me, put her arm round my waist despite the man twenty yards away. Leaned her sweet cheating head on the crook of my neck.

  Please come and see me off when I
go, she said. I want you to be the last person I see here, you’re that important.

  Let’s go, I said. We’ll miss the boat back to the mainland.

  She grabbed my hand as I moved off. Please, she said. For us.

  And because the water in her eye seemed salty, I said yes. I rubbed the smudge off my thumb, smelt her smell on my lips and said I wished her well, and then we scrambled down from our headland and never returned.

  I didn’t wash my face for days but kissed the smell of her into my pillow before I punched and hugged it through the nights that followed. Sad event that I am, I wake to find I kiss and hug it still.

  *

  Now the Lovers’ Plates rest unread on the table in Crawhill Cottage where a woman curls like a dark tadpole on the mattress by the window, uncurls and is asleep. In Ballantyne’s Farm, Smiler slumps in the big chair by the range, scowling yet as he dreams of the wife who drove off. Elliot, his son, the fiancée, all lie in their separate beds in the big house. It is the dead hour of night, when even weasel, owl, and lover rest. Of all these only one blinks his eyes open in the dark.

  The Tarot’s influence is strong in the plates, Jinny was explaining to young Tat as they all picnicked by the river one day that summer. Do they tell us the future? he asked, wide-eyed. I’d like to ken that. Jinny had smiled briefly over at his head and Sim lying nearby had to draw on his roll-up and look away. Some folks think so, Tat, she said. But I think they show what we nearly know is happening now.

  And so she spread her pack of cards on the grass that hot afternoon as Sim lay trying not to look too much at her. Most of what she said travelled inside and disappeared like summer rain, but as he lay resting in the shade of her voice he glanced over and one card jumped out at him and he knew at first glance it showed himself.

  Simon Elliot lies awake in the tower, long after midnight, thinking of questions he’d let slumber for years. The card comes to him now: The Ten of Wands. By God it truly showed that summer.

  A man is kneeling inside a cage of burning oars. Behind him on the shore his ruined boat lies beached. He’s still young but clearly exhausted. His voyage, his adventure is by with. Nearby his wife and his heir play in the grass. His boat can never sail again, his adventures are over.

  How do his friends see him? As someone come to man’s estate. A serious, responsible, mildly prosperous man with a family and a title. He has been around, he has travelled a little, and now with his father’s death he has come home. The rest of his life is mapped out. He is a fortunate man, no doubt, though his hair is getting long for someone in his position.

  His friends see the big house and the conservatory, but they do not see the burning cage of oars he kneels inside. They see the Land-Rover and the Volvo, but they cannot blink and see the ruined boat, the threadbare tattooed sails, the bowsprit splintered on the sand.

  Even his wife knows nothing of it though perhaps she sometimes senses the deep fatigue in the arms that hold her, and for some mornings last summer she was mystified to find sand gritting the sitting-room carpet. But her father died young and was sometimes distant too, and for the most part she has got what she wanted. She has the estate and a child of her own. She has told her husband that seeing Jinny growing bigger, her hand resting on her belly as she sits cross-legged on the grass, makes her rather keen on having another, a girl would be nice. For the time being she keeps busy and makes sure her husband does too. Time passes, everything vanishes, that’s her motto. She pours another glass to help it on its way.

  Sim looks to Patrick helping himself to more wine, rolling another cigarette. This is one of several weekends since the Crawhill house-warming that they have hung about together. People in the village are beginning to blether. A smell of burning seems to hold in Elliot’s hair and he speaks slower and mirky, but the drug helps him kiss his wife goodnight and turn away to live again the time that is past.

  Sim sneaks a glance at Jinny as she talks quietly with young Tat. Perhaps she can’t see the ruined boat or the burning oars or the exhausted man in the Ten of Wands. She seldom looks directly his way these days. She just smiles a wee secret smile and slidders her hand over her belly again. But Sim doesn’t have to look up to see everything, perfectly well. He can see wee Davy restless in his mother’s shade, smell the burning behind this high summer, and on this bonnie afternoon he can see brown floodwater creep over the grass round their feet.

  Fiona has another glass, Patrick chucks his cigarette into the river. Jinny is sitting smoothing her bump and it is her that Elliot is looking at from inside his burning cage. Then he sees Tat’s sharp eyes jump his way then flicker towards Jinny, and Sim knows he has seen everything.

  Elliot stretches and sighs, leans over and puts his hand on the boy’s shoulder. His hand is heavy but his voice is low and soft.

  Fancy a spot of fishing?

  Tat must know it’s way too bright for fishing.

  Eh, sure, he says.

  Downstream, at the head of the beat, the two lines flick out, drop and drift slowly sinking.

  The bairn’s no mine, Tat. Canna be. Take my word for it. Women’s stuff, I’ll explain to you later. It’s been over since that time you saw us at the cottage. Since before then.

  Elliot’s eyes drop on him, looking for a response.

  Eh, right.

  The tip of Elliot’s rod rises, then Tat’s. The two lines whip back, run out again, settle to the current.

  Appreciate your silence. Me and your folks have been talking. He teases the line back, lets it run on. All things considered …

  He retrieves and casts again, notices how his knuckles whiten on the rod.

  Would you like to stay on here and finish your schooling?

  Tat keeps him waiting now. Says nothing.

  I mean, we like you being here. Gives me an excuse to do things like this, eh? And you can learn how the estate runs, help keep an eye on things. But not a word, not a hint.

  Tat waits on till the end of the drift then brings the line back with wrists suddenly supple and canty. He kens it now. He has the feel of it, Sim can see that.

  Aye sure, Sim. I’d like that fine.

  Elliot’s cast quivers then runs out and plops a bit heavy. They fish on a while for the look of it, but everything has been recast atween them.

  Now below Ballantyne’s Farm the Tattersalls snore in unison and even Sim Elliot is finally still. Woods and moor are silent as the snow melts. Only weasel and owl stir again, and small creatures shrink deeper in their hiding. The night becomes mild in the Borderlands, a change is coming with the dawn.

  Plate 6

  In this plate a readiness gathers. It is taut with movement, partings, hurried meetings, sudden changes of direction. You run your fingers over images of lovers, spies, the dreamers and the betrayed, wondering who to identify with next. Like a pond-life water-skater you skitter over the surface of Spook, and only the thinnest of membranes keeps you from falling through.

  By the river, sunlight falls on bright green winter wheat. In the wind-bleached grasses below the cottage the last wads of snow slip and are gone. Late ewes move ponderously, bulging with the unborn. High on Creagan’s Knowe the piny woods bend and spring back. A force gathers in her hips as she rises and works through her wake-up routine, pummelling kicks and blows at invisible assailants, moves learned long ago in the bad girls’ home.

  If this is God’s hand at work, she thinks, it conceals death in it like a magician palms the black ace. Warm wind flows over her hands as she stands blinking and panting in the cottage doorway, looking down over Ballantyne’s fields that once were Elliot’s and before that belonged to the Lauders. In her mood today, she wonders if it really makes much difference whose name is on a deed. Some days just to wake and breathe and be here now is enough.

  A change has come, silent and unexpected. Perhaps her time here is almost done. Spring has come, and with it she’ll be leaving.

  Bright flecks of colour and decoration here, especially round the framing bo
rders. Green buds force through black-ended twigs of thorn hedges. Blue-and-yellow birds mate and fight in the beech coppice. A kestrel hangs high above the corbies, its russet wings tremble like rapid eye movement, as though it too were hunting in a dream.

  This new season brings dew in the morning, a chain of glitter clasped round a bare anklebone. In a tilt of sunlight, a grey-silver cloud of spiders’ webs streams from the hawthorn bush, visible for a moment. They coat your wrist and palm as you reach to touch the first struggling bug of the year. In the top corner a tiny spider waits. And any day now the quick light birds will be back to gorge themselves on bugs and spiders alike, hunters and prey moving as if deep in love, so complete is their complicity.

  Henna-red smooth willow twigs, and soft on your fingers their furry ends. The beech coppice twigs are bone-grey and seem entirely dead. But look closer, hold one in your hand and see along its length tiny red pointed eruptions pushing from their sheaths.

  You worry about Nature sometimes. It’s not a pretty thing.

  *

  She sits so still against the dyke she could have been there for centuries.

  Light scours out the dark hollows round the eyes, her shoulders relax and drop in the new warmth. As she reads, her hand comes up and undoes the top button of her shirt to let heat into the hollow of her throat. The first lark of the year is moving up its scales. Smells of turf, heather, moisture rising steaming from the ground, and the faint sweetness of rabbit-shit all black and glistening.

  The first sudden warm day of the year. She’d forgotten what it’s like. It’s been a long cold lonely winter and at times she’s been near the edge. She feels at home here though the plates are more disturbing than expected, the voices in the wind so easy to receive and so hard to turn off. Too many days and nights of listening to the corbies pour rumour and memory into her ears, as though she were an empty space old forces could at any moment inhabit.

  But today it’s possible to hold a book loosely and flick back through the past. Today she’s in her right mind, relaxed and clear. Today she can tell the difference between inside and out, between fantasy and history, the past and the present. Perhaps she’ll leave soon, just take the plates and return into the mist while that’s still possible. The moments of intersection still bother her – Elliot with his torch going by at night as though she’d summoned him. The details Tat has confirmed to her. The things she invented that turned out to be true. The voice that has just spoken so clear and amused. You know how this must end. After all, it’s traditional.