When They Lay Bare

by Andrew Greig

  She spread her legs and leaned further out over the rail and the shake in me wasn’t fear of the place any more. Behind the roar of the fall, the multi-voice going down that rock throat, I could at last hear myself perfectly well.

  I closed my eyes and called on my Friend and Maker but in that place I couldn’t call loud enough. I put my hand on Jo’s soaking crew-cut, felt her damp scalp as she jerked away for she hated having her hair touched.

  Sorry, I said into her ear. Past her head I saw Marnie’s mouth twitch again, saw the gleam of the teeth that had gripped my lip.

  *

  Maybe it was the falling water of the linn through that dark place, but I felt queer as I keeked out at Elliot’s son and Jinny’s daughter standing either side of wee blondie like they were competing to guard her.

  I told myself Jinny liked this place for all that her ancestor had met his weird here. I’d been sitting with Elliot in his study one dreich afternoon some months after the bairn was born. We were going over bills and VAT when his head came up and he sniffed and turned like a hound that’s heard a call beyond human ears. His head went down again and his pen wandered down the column, but I kent it was only a matter of time.

  Sure enough and soon enough he’d muttered about a headache and going to get some air and would I check over his sums till he got back. I watched him in the yard, turning this way and that in his welly-boots and tatty Barbour, raised but vague like someone caught up in a dwam. It had been near on a year since I’d seen him like that but I minded the signs well, and when he set off on the path to the woods I left the life of sums behind, sneuk down the stair then ran up to the higher trail and shadowed him on his way.

  He came, as I knew he would, to the bridge over the Liddie. He paused there and gazed about. I stayed still as a stookie by the whiskery lichened trees but he wasn’t looking for me. To this day I don’t think he kent what he was looking for, he’d just felt the call and he had come.

  She came out of the mirk at the far side of the brig in Patrick’s long army coat. She half raised her hand and it could have been a wave or a warding-off. Then she dragged her feet onto the slidderie planks, then he did, and they closed towards each other.

  They met in the middle. Her lips moved. His hand came up slowly, so lightly on her shoulder, then she laid her head to his chest and was hidden from me.

  There was no snogging nor foolery. They parted and stood next to each other, hands on the rail looking down into the drop. They stood there a long time and I know not what they spoke, but I saw that though what was atween them had been buried near on a year it wasn’t dead and could yet walk again.

  At last he put his big paw on her white hand then turned away and walked back off the brig and his face was more distractit than joyous. She stood a long time, her bonnie head bowed, then turned and set off with slow dragging steps back to the cottage, her bairn and her man. And I ran to get ahead of Elliot, my eyes still full of falling and mirk, and my heart sair in ways I couldn’t understand.

  Elliot came back into the study pulling on a roll-up like he needed to eat it. He put his hand on my head and shook his fingers gently in my hair. Most times I liked that an awful lot.

  How’s the estate doing then, loon? Are we still in business?

  I looked up from the figures. His eyes weren’t on me, his hair was wet and sleekit down.

  Dinna ken yet, Simon, I said dead cheeky. I made a mistake and had to start over. You ken how it is.

  Aye Tat, he said. Aye I do. And he looked away past me, so lost and gone I can see that pale wild look yet.

  And still the three stood in the middle of the brig. The two women were scraping big dods of moss off the rail and lobbing it out aiming for the black pool at the bottom. Davit had let his hand drop from his fiancée and stood staring out at the trees. I’d seen Elliot stare that way after he and Jinny started trysting again, fixed on a black drop like it was tar dripping from another world. Now Elliot’s son and Jinny’s daughter stood above the drop with only the skinny foreign lassie coming between them.

  Why not? I heard myself think. Why not? But as the dark one bent to put her mouth to blondie’s ear, I stepped out onto the planks towards them.

  *

  Tat! I said and nudged Jo. Marnie didn’t blink but I knew she’d felt the vibration of his feet on the bridge. She didn’t move a muscle but her hands whitened on the rail. She became dense, a dark star. For once I was pleased to see the wee ferret, for he broke the unholy feeling that had settled around us, hanging on our shoulders and hands like the fine spray. Otherwise I don’t know what would have emerged from someone’s throat.

  He nodded to Jo, had a long look at the back of Marnie’s head then pivoted very light on his feet and came up to me.

  Aye aye, laddie, he said dead friendly. He put his arm up on my shoulder and spoke near my ear. I’m away to see Elliot – you’ll chum me along?

  Sure, I said. We were just going that way.

  I followed him, very carefully, off that creepy bridge. At the far end I looked back. Marnie and Jo were leaning over the drop talking, but I couldn’t hear for the torrent that rushed below their heels. A grue went through me. I just wanted out of there into the light of day, but Tat wouldn’t budge until they finally straightened up and came to us across the planks and onto solid ground again.

  *

  A hand parts the alder saplings and Tat steps out of the wood. He holds a branch back till David emerges. It’s still bright day, sweet smelling and some warmth in the sun. David shivers and Tat nods.

  It’s no a canny place, Davy. You’d do well to stay away.

  I’ll be leaving in a few days anyway.

  Glad to hear that. Your dad’s pleased to see you and the fiancée but you can see he’s no well.

  David nods and looks down. The two men are standing close together waiting for the women to emerge. A certain sort of silence settles in. David looks down the trail towards the big house, but there’s no sign of Hawk. Odd.

  Eh, about the estate, Tat says. Is that settled?

  David shakes his head.

  I really don’t want it, Tat. Most of me wants shot of all this. To be honest, it’s a millstone. But he looks off down the dale to the river and the Border, breathes in and stands taller. Then again, it’s a bonnie enough place and the family have been here for ages.

  Along with the Lauders, Tat says quietly.

  David laughs and looks up to the sun. The two men aren’t looking at each other, that’s how they know it’s intimate.

  Yes, it’s been a right old tussle. Maybe it’s time to let it all go.

  Or settle it once and for ever.

  In the silence they can hear the women’s voices in the wood, a high laugh and a low one.

  Tat, tell me true. She’s not my dad’s kid?

  Now Tat looks at him. Holds him in his colourless eyes.

  Davy, your faither’s told me everything when he’s been fou. The precise details are a bittie embarrassing – women’s business, ken – but convincing enough. And mind I was mostly thereabouts keeping an eye on them, I ken when they got thegether and when they didn’t …

  He stops and swivels his head without moving his shoulders, an owl’s trick, a hawk’s.

  She’s no sister of yours, Davy, take it from me. Elliot’s sure of it, and short of a DNA, that’s the best you’ll get. But there’s no need for that unless you were planning on jumping the lass yoursel …

  The voices of the women in the wood are getting clearer. High flapping laughter wrapped like ivy round the dark trunk of Marnie’s voice.

  Don’t be fucking disgusting, Tat.

  Tell me you’re no tempted.

  David turns to look him full on, breathes deeply and forces down the fist he yearns to smack into Tat’s grinning face.

  Temptation’s one thing, acting on it is another. You’ll know that, Mister Tattersall. Those jaunts to the city? And what exactly does Annie do for Dad these days?

  He hears th
e hiss through Tat’s teeth. It had just been a poke in the dark but he’d hit on something. His heart is thick in his neck. He needs to say something irrevocable, unforgivable. He needs to do something to quell this roar in his ears.

  Jo pushes through into the light, twigs in her hair and looking flushed. She holds back a sapling branch then releases it as Marnie comes through. Marnie’s hand comes up in a blur, gripping the branch inches from her face, breaks it off with a hard snap of her wrist and starts chasing Jo round in circles, beating her on the head and shoulders.

  The two women are laughing and flushed, playing like bairns. David watches, thinking he never does that with her. It’s always gentle or serious. Good to see Jo being loose, playful, physical. Pity they can’t do that with each other. Pity he has to hold back so as not to frighten her.

  The estate, Tat, he says more gently.

  What of it?

  If it becomes mine, you stay on as factor. But I don’t want it. It’s up to Dad and Lord knows what he’s up to.

  Jo grabs his arm and hides behind him. Marnie looks David full in the eyes, then grins and lowers the branch.

  Peace, she says. Pax vobiscum.

  The four begin to walk the path towards the big house. The warmth is just starting to go from the day as David passes on his father’s invitation, loud and clear for Tat’s hearing. Marnie is asked to eat at the house tomorrow evening.

  Why does he want to see me?

  You’re his lover’s daughter, aren’t you?

  His dead lover’s daughter.

  They have all stopped at the stile into the garden.

  Please come, Jo says. I think he really wants to see you. He said it’s time to put things straight.

  Tat is standing very still at the edge of the group. David twists one foot into the hard ground. Marnie looks away the way they’ve come, back into the woods as if her answer hides there.

  On one condition, she says. Her voice is flat and expressionless as though she is passing on someone else’s message. You two come down to the pub in the village with me afterwards and get rat-arsed. Then she looks up at them and smiles. It’s my birthday. See you.

  *

  David and Jo wandered up through the garden in search of Hawk while Tat hurried to the back of the house to find Elliot. But the tower door was locked against him and no matter how loud he banged on the door he got no answer. He ran to the side of the house and lifted his binocs, picked up Jinny’s girl at the entrance to the woods. She stopped. Turned to look back towards the house. Her right hand came up like some sort of salute, then she was gone.

  High barred clouds turned pink over the hills. Tat’s shadow stretched long before him as he thought about it. Birthday. He sniffed the air. Had it been much this turn of year yon afternoon he and Elliot and Fiona had driven the old drove road to see Jinny back from the South? She’d gone back to her family for the baby, though she seemed to have no further connection with them and they never visited. She must have been away a couple of months.

  He tried to remember that drive. The smoky guff off Elliot – no, more than that, there’d been fire on the moor. Sim silent, Fiona chattering away to wee Davy on her lap as they bumped and shoogled along. Through the gate and up the garden path. Patrick and Elliot had gripped hands at the door then they all went inside. But he’d looked back to see the smoke and flames where the men were firing the heather.

  Jinny in the kitchen folding her shirt over her breast as they came in, then looking up at them over the white bundle in her arms. Tat wondered yet at her expression, still can’t read for sure the flight of Jinny’s glance over them all before her head went down over the bairn in her arms, all proud and protective. Defiant. But heather is fired in autumn for the next year’s grouse. The woman at Crawhill had lied again.

  He hesitated, looked up at the peel tower then down the drive that led to the road and the village, then over to the woods where the mist was beginning to rise as the mirk came on. The signals were mixed, no doubt about that.

  He went round the back and picked up the bike he kept in the lean-to, then pedalled off down the drive. Elliot had taken a turn and wouldn’t change his mind. Tat hunched over the handlebars like his own netsuke goblin, the wind reddening his eyes. The faster he went, the more sure he was. The lassie who cried herself Marnie was lying again, about her birthday at least, and what for would she do that? He’d need to check with Annie. If she agreed, there was only one thing for it, and it needed done right soon. It needed done tonight. The woman had to go.

  Who’s betrayed, who is betraying here? The plate is crawling with figures, flights and pursuits, hurried whispered conferences, babies and drunks and even what may be a ghost from the expression of the man confronting it. Here a bright bird, perhaps a kingfisher, jerks upriver, sewing the opposite banks together. Here a room full of heads bends towards a fight.

  There is more here than you bargained for. It seems the time for bargaining is over.

  I pick up another razor-sharp blue shard very lightly between three fingers and thumb. Interesting to see the skin fold in minutely but not break. You can handle the most dangerous things if it’s done lightly with no hand shake.

  When Tat left an hour back, I couldn’t have done this. I’d have cut my palms in many places and let blood pour from my cuts like that girl whose name I’ve lost. She’d hold her hands out like Christ and let blood drip onto the wooden floor, which wasn’t clever because she knew the staff made her scrub it later.

  I press the sliver lightly into the plaster of Paris, stand back, adjust it with slowest pressure.

  When Tat finally left, loose in the hips and his head swivelling for unseen watchers, I was exultant and exhausted. It had taken all my powers and even as I called my last instruction after him my knees began to quiver and that old metal taste was bitter in the runnels of my mouth.

  I knew what I had done and why, but Spook knows what it will lead to. The evening air is soft, the light is going in the bedroom as I select a large sail-shaped fragment. It shows, or hints at showing because so much is maddeningly uncertain and shifting here, two lovers strolling through a wood arms linked. Behind the next tree a man waits with something silver in his hand. Already the woman’s glance is going towards him. I look at how her arm is linked round her lover’s, and now it looks like she is not his follower but his leader, she is leading him like a gentle sacrificial bull to this appointed place. When that assassin steps in front of them in the gloaming I do not think she will protect her man, nor plead or bargain for his life. I think she will smile in recognition and step away.

  I press this fragment into the hardening plaster and twist very very lightly. Two layers of skin peel back, but no blood. This kind of work is my therapy, it’s how I put myself together again. Reassembling this broken plate and making new patterns from it takes such healing concentration. I am trying to heal by doing something well, hoping to be guided.

  I’m putting the exploded fragments back together, laid into plaster on the wall beneath the window by the devastated bed on the floor, the screwed-up sweaty sheets. As always there is something lost, some ground to dust, some vanished pieces. Despite this, the plate ends up bigger than it was before, an exploded diagram of itself, an effect of all the tiny gaps between each piece.

  I too have grown in this way. Each time one cracks up and reassembles in time, one is bigger than before. If one were not a person but a focus of forces, an instrument of Fate, would anyone know it? Would I?

  If Tat hadn’t threatened me I might be sitting on my doorstep on a pleasant spring evening thinking about my pleasant neighbours, the pleasure of my young visitors, and feel happy-sad that I must refuse Sir Simon Elliot’s invitation and leave this place soon. But I respond well to threats. They bring the best of me out, like an indolent preening lifeguard jerking upright then suddenly sprinting across the beach and slicing into the undertow.

  I lift another broken piece and twist it gently into place.

  *
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  He stood in the doorway with the light behind him. She kept her eyes on the plate and blue mug by her hand.

  Top of the evening to you, Tat.

  It’s your last here.

  Her hand shook the mug very gently. He was in the room now like he’d slid in on grease.

  This time I mean it, lassie.

  She steepled her fingers and put them to her bottom lip. She nibbled her fingertips as she looked vaguely his way.

  But I’ve an invitation to tea tomorrow, followed by a session in the village with my young friends. I was looking forward to it.

  Tat said nothing. He was now at the dresser. His free hand ran over the plates there but he didn’t seem to want to look at them.

  So Elliot doesn’t want to see me. He wants me out?

  The man doesn’t know his own mind. I want you to leave. Now. I ken what you’re about.

  Heh, that’s more than I do.

  This canna be your birthday. I was about when Jinny brought her bairn home, and it was autumn. You slipped up there.

  She stared back at him, her hand resting on the plate before her like it was her Bible and she was taking the oath.

  I lied, she said lightly. About my birthday. I’m a Virgo, though personally I think that’s mediaeval nonsense. I just fancied a drink with my new friends, and that was the best excuse.

  You’re no getting your hands on Davy or the estate.

  She glanced up at him, seeing he was no bigger than her but he was a man. He had the power and the assumption of it. He also had the shotgun hung loosely in the crook of his elbow.

  She looked down and swigged some cold coffee. You’re the boss, she said.

  Aye, right. Get your things together the night. I’ll run you to the village and put you on the bus with fifty quid in your hand.

  Uh-huh.

  She stood up slowly, both hands on the table and keeping her shoulders down and defeated.

  Does it have to be now?