When They Lay Bare

by Andrew Greig

  Jo stabs her fingers into his ribs. He jerks and jabs her back. Squeals of laughter in the cab as he swings onto the winding narrow road into the village up ahead. So this is why Dad had that affair, for the burning wild feeling. We aren’t so different. I too want to feel like this more often, to burn my life instead of stolid sullen smouldering.

  Lord pluck me from this fire.

  He swerves into the car park outside the first pub, aware that somewhere along the way – and he’s never quite been able to pinpoint exactly where – they have passed through that invisible doorway out of the dale. They’re now in the recognisable world. They pile out, Jo jumps up and crooks her arm around his neck, clasps the other round Marnie, and between them they carry her to the front door. Through small dirty windows the lights burn too white and hard. The place is packed with young locals scowling round the pool table, jabbing the jukebox and shaking the electronic bandit, pushing for pints at the short dark bar.

  A word, he says, and puts Jo down. This isn’t necessarily a nice place. The women hoot with laughter. Not nice! No, seriously, he says, we must tone down a bit. I’m from here but I’m not. We’re from the big house. I’m supposedly posh and you’re two uncowed half-pissed gorgeous women and that’s not common round here, right?

  Right right right! So let’s get rat-arsed!

  Marnie already has her hand on the door. Fine, David says. Just remember this is their village, not ours, so we go canny.

  You make it sound like Dodge City, David.

  Put it this way, Jo – just a few years back one cowboy here killed another because he took the last chicken supper in the chip shop after the pubs had closed. Unfortunately I’m not joking. So we just keep our heads down in the corner, right? I’m not wanting to get into a fight on your behalf. I’m no fighter and anyway it’s against my religion.

  Hmm, Marnie said. As she pushes down the handle she looks back at him, eyes black tarns in the shadow cast from above. Are you sure about that?

  There are of course scenes of drinking on these plates. You never paid them much attention before, that not being your weakness, but certainly you’ll wince in the morning and avert your eyes from the trio staggering down a country lane, one waving down the moon, the second raising a squat bottle to his? her? lips, the third turning away to throw up over a wall. You’ll look away but still glimpse the fourth one, the one who waits behind the tree, weapon drawn to cover their passing.

  The challenge came as it had to. Since their entrance David had met and nodded to certain eyes and taken care not to meet others, shepherded the women into a corner table out of the ruck and tried to keep them from being too loud and outrageous. A round of pints went down without incident, he went for another and started to relax. He turned from the bar with three full glasses, stepped round a foot that happened to be sticking out, swerved away from an elbow jabbing back by chance, and made it back to the table.

  Marnie and Jo were arguing about borders and frontiers. Nationality. Born in one country, living in another, educated in both – what is David? Does it matter? Where exactly is the border, and does that line divide a unity or connect a diversity? David suggested the peoples of the Borderland had more in common with each other than the rest of their own country, then drank and listened while monitoring the situation around them. He wasn’t a stranger, faces turned their way, mouths moved, muttered, turned away. The lads with women weren’t a problem as a rule. The ones to watch were the teenage drunks though they mostly fought their own. Worse were the ageing nutters, the ones whose pals had settled, leaving a lone bewildered belligerent, the one whose violence and fearlessness the girls had fancied in their teens and as women now kept well away from.

  Or masculine and feminine, another kind of borderline, Marnie was saying.

  Well there’s all kinds of trespass can go on there, Jo said quickly. Mucho ambiguities and ambivalence.

  Marnie glanced at her over the rim of her pint glass then nodded. So the outstanding question is, she said, whether you like borders or think we’d be better without them.

  It’s all one to me, David said but no one took much notice.

  For myself, she went on, I like having these lines drawn – Scotland, England, male, female – so I can raid across them. Much more exciting.

  That’s terribly unsound, Jo said, but I like it.

  Thought you might.

  Marnie grinned sloppily, tilted her pint again to her face. David took his eye off the bar.

  It was only the Border that allowed the reivers to operate for so long, he said. Like crossing the Rio Grande or the state line in westerns. That’s what made it ungovernable, and it suited both countries having this buffer zone. With the union of crowns it all came to an end very quickly.

  How did they end it? Jo asked.

  By hanging a few hundred and deporting the rest to the New World, where some of them did pretty well. Once the Border no longer signified, they had nowhere to run to. The Border made it all possible. You may well be descended from them.

  The chair squawked as Marnie got to her feet.

  I’ll get this one. She looked over at the bar then down at them. There’s a strip of forest just along the road from here, she said. Not a wide one, just a belt of trees. But one side of the forest is England, the other is Scotland – right, David?

  Aye, right enough. He must be drunk, his voice was starting to echo in his head and his tone to change.

  Jo stared at Marnie, apparently riveted.

  And inside? she asked. Inside in the middle of the wood, which country is that?

  It’s … debatable. I think they’re still arguing about it. I took a walk there the other day, right down the middle of the wood. It’s … an interesting place to be.

  Jo drained her pint, eyes shining.

  I’d like to check that out, Marnie.

  Then we’ll do it. But right now I need a drink.

  She moved easily through the ruck towards the bar, turning sideways, meeting some head-on, not pushing but not yielding. David watched her go, feeling he’d missed something.

  This is great, Jo said. It’s good to get out of the glen and I really like her, you know? I can see why you kept hanging round her place.

  I did not! Twice at most.

  Jo put her hand on his, splayed her pale thin fingers.

  I’m not jealous, she said. In the least. That’s what I’m telling you. If Jinny was anything like Marnie, I can see what your dad saw in her.

  A stir, a cool draught as the door opened. Tat slipped in with his bike padlock and chain in his hand. David hadn’t thought Tat socialised in the village, raised his hand in greeting. Tat nodded to them then his head twitched as he stared hard across the room towards the bar, and it was only then David picked up the vibe. He stood up to better see Marnie with a group of men crowding her and a couple of lassies looking on.

  He moved quickly in on the group, heart thumping. She’d got herself into an argument about the boundary ridings that had split the town over women riders. Daft to have offered an opinion. The two girls were sneering at her, one flicked ash into her drinks. Though Marnie’s accent was mongrel and hard to place in country or class, she wore black wool trousers, shawl, tan boots and no make up. She was definitely not one of them.

  It’s all fuckin lesbians causing the stooshie, the curly-haired man crowding her on the left said. Anybody kens that.

  David was still trying to push through. With her hands full of pints, she was vulnerable. Blessed are the peacemakers, he thought, but I’m ready for a fight. I want to hit somebody.

  The other man knocked her elbow and drink slopped onto the nearest girl’s dress.

  Look what the bitch has done, the girl said. You’ll be paying for the cleaning.

  The smaller man, one David minded as one of the village nutters from his time, said You’ll be a lezzie and all, eh? You and your pal wi the bog-brush hair.

  As David edged in, he saw her eyes flicker. He was sure she was choosing
between putting the drinks down to free her hands, or making a joke, or chucking the pints over them. Then anything could happen.

  Hey, we’re getting thirsty over here, he said and tried to make a gap for Marnie to get away from the bar. But she stretched up and whispered something into curly’s ear. David saw his face go red, he even moved back a step, and they might have got away but the wee nutter’s hand clamped on his arm.

  You’ll be here to push another of our women off a cliff, hey Davit?

  David blinked, saw the other arm come up to go behind his head. He knew this move: the head butt, the Glasgow kiss, and he felt the energy rush through him as he stepped sideways, clasped both hands across the back of the man’s head and slammed his face down into the bar. The crack was not pretty, the fella began to slide down to the floor, the girls screamed at blood on their dresses as two more bodies were moving in and he had no room to back off. Three to one, oh Jesus. Then there was a whirling glitter and a louder crack on the bar as Tat slammed down the padlock chain and retrieved it in a flash to face the group in a fighting crouch.

  Out, he said. On ye go, man.

  A way opened and he and Marnie walked through it towards where Jo was sat round-eyed, her lips bloodless. Marnie put the pints on the table and seized her hand to pull her up.

  Time to go home, my dear, she said.

  David looked back at the bar and hesitated. Wee Tat was facing three big men. The other was stirring on the floor. The rest looked undecided, it could go either way. He couldn’t leave Tat, not while the adrenalin still shook through his body and a fight was there to be had.

  Aye, away hame, young Elliot. That’s enough shenanigans for one night.

  The man who spoke was still sitting down but indefinably in charge of the room. Big red amiable face, thinning curly hair. MacIver the local policeman, off-duty but still a presence.

  Let them go, he said calmly to the crowd. They didna start it.

  Marnie pushed Jo towards the door. Then she lifted her pint, took a look round the room with her head high, and folk fell silent where she looked. She smiled and drank deeply then smacked the glass down on the table.

  Come on, Davy, she said, and tugged till he followed her out through the door.

  *

  In the rattling silence in the Land-Rover, David checked in the mirror but no lights were following. The excitement ebbed and left him shaky.

  That was just disgusting, Jo said quietly. She was sitting well away from him. I couldn’t believe that was you. You know how I feel about violence.

  She was shivering. David swung onto the dirt road but said nothing. He thought it was pretty disgusting himself and he was frightened and exhilarated by this stranger that had been born, fully grown and dangerous, inside him ten minutes ago. Marnie put her arm round Jo.

  Davy was right, she said. There was no other way out. It was my fault – should have kept my mouth shut but it’s hard when people talk shite.

  Horrible, Jo whispered. Is this deliverance or what? I thought this was a nice quiet place.

  Marnie smoothed her hand across Jo’s rigid neck. In the cab dimness David saw her fingers stroke and knead.

  Nice? she said. It’s anything but that. What do you want, Jo? Me just to accept insult humbly and know my place? David to be humiliated – and believe me, he’d had to have grovelled. It’s not in Elliot blood. Nor Lauder, she added.

  In the blood, Jo said. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. What century are you living in?

  But her head began to drop and her shoulders slacken.

  No, Marnie said, believe me the boy did right. If you’ve got to do violence, it must be quick and total, it’s the only way. Did you hear the sound his head made!

  David winced in the dark. It was not something he cared to think of. He heard it again, crack of bone on solid wood. Worst, he caught the retreating savage joy of it. Tomorrow he must pray. And then leave here, leave this place which seemed like a dark mirror reflecting back things he’d rather not see, leave and never come back.

  Tat saved us, he said. Without him we’d be mince. I must thank him rightly the morn.

  You must. Our guardian angel, eh?

  Marnie reached into her pocket and drew out a half bottle of whisky. I think we all need a wee medicinal, she said. For the shock.

  She cracked the cap, held the bottle to Jo’s mouth until her lips opened and she swallowed.

  Good deep swallow. And again. She stroked Jo’s head then held out the bottle. Here, Davit.

  Somewhere along the way they crossed the invisible frontier and were back in the different atmosphere of the dale. They crossed the bridge by the hornbeam, still passing the bottle as they went round the hill, and by the time they were bumping along the drove road towards Crawhill they were singing loudly In Scarlet Town where I was born, there was a fair maid dwelling.

  As Marnie led the singing, David had a whisky vision: bright morning, a dusty drove road, a dark young man on a horse singing. And then a woman stands up from behind the dyke, young woman in a long green dress, fair hair and a good voice high and clear as she sings the response And her name was Barbara Allan. The rider stops, looks down, and David sees the young man is Marnie, and knows the woman as himself and it feels good to have these hips, this body, this triumphant heart and a voice so pleasing to herself and to her lover looking down smiling in the morning of the day.

  *

  He stood alone in the dark by the Land-Rover, swaying slightly as the stars drifted and swirled overhead. Somewhere in the valley a barking dog grew hoarse then stopped. The women’s voices faint from the cottage, a lamp coming on at the bedroom window like a reiver’s signal. It was time he went home. It was time they all went home. There was something he had to say to someone, it had been just off the edge of his mind all evening. No matter. He felt warm and muzzy and tall under the night sky. He looked up again and saw the Hunter mid-leap across the northern sky, the scalp of another galaxy hanging from his belt.

  Bonnie fight, my Lord Elliot.

  She was at his shoulder, a darker blackness, only the gleam of the brooch and lavender in the night air.

  It wasn’t one I sought.

  But it found you just the same.

  A long pause. She passed him the bottle and he felt the burn on his lips. Fact was he felt challenged and complete with her standing there. He thought again of the young man rising and the woman behind the wall. It made a secret warmth in his chest like whisky going down. It could have worried him but it didn’t. If that was part of him, so be it.

  Spook, she said quietly. The night’s full of it. It can be beautiful.

  You’re of the night, aren’t you?

  She laughed quietly, stirred in her black sweater and black trousers. She touched his arm, lightly, once.

  I love the night, she said, but I’m not of it. Not entirely. I just like to be in it sometimes.

  A long echoing pause, big and intimate as the night. Yes, he said at last. I understand. The distinction she was making seemed to illuminate all that was rich about her. What was it like seeing my father?

  She stirred at his side, made some deep sound in her throat. Again the silence, faint singing of Jo in the cottage.

  He’s just a man, Marnie said, though once a sexy one. Her voice was low, deep brown but clear, like the burns coming off the peat moor. He looks pretty wasted and worried and not happy. But I still believe he killed Jinny.

  You can’t know that, Marnie. If he loved her, why should he kill her? Come on!

  To keep the estate. To keep the affair secret. Because he’d tired of her. She sounded doubtful. Oh I don’t know. Maybe I should let it drop, go back to where I came from.

  Where was that anyway?

  He waited. She didn’t reply.

  Why don’t you ask him? David said eventually. Ask him about Jinny.

  Maybe I will at that.

  But first ask yourself what she would want.

  He heard her breath cough out in the
dark. Then she breathed in deeply at his side.

  Thank you, she said. It’s time I did that.

  Talking of time, he said. I’d best be getting back.

  What, and leave your lady fair in my clutches?

  Don’t be daft. We’ll head off.

  You’re in no state to drive, she said. And certainly not for walking the brig over the falls in the dark. Jo’s put the kettle on. Here, have a cookie – made them myself this afternoon.

  He felt in her hand and took the biscuit. It was crumbly and earthy in his mouth, with little chips that didn’t taste like chocolate. Nice enough, but.

  *

  A long night and it wasn’t by yet, not for me anyhow. I’d a notion Davy was coming to his end once I heard the door bang and spied him veering across the garden, birling slowly round like a falling sycamore seed. He found the gate, couped over it and got up again, still mumping away to himself. Dad, listen to me, eh, right? Something to say to you, you gotta hear this. Important, canna wait.

  The loon was far gone, right enough. I seldom seen a man so fou, if that’s what he was. I kept my head down and scried over the dyke, watched him wave his arms up as the moon tummled from the clouds and he thumped into the Land-Rover. Curses and blasphemies I’d never heard from him afore. He got the door open and fell in.

  I stood up, minded to loup the dyke and stop him. I couldn’t let him drive like yon. More sweirs but no engine starting up. I jaloused he couldn’t find the keys or one of the women had taken them off him.

  I hunkered down by the off-side wheel and waited and wondered what for the best. The boy was raving away but seemed quite blythe. Best for who, anyhow? Best for me and Annie, best for young Elliot, old Elliot, Jinny? Or her that I was in thrall to? Even crouched behind the wheel I felt yet the soft heat she’d left inside me, the peace she’d brought when she opened me up like a whelk. In the bar – I did that for her as much as young Elliot, she kent that and the flash of her eye made it worth. I never much liked drinking there anyhow.