by Andrew Greig
So I crouched and waited, trying to sort my thoughts and strategies while the laddie haivered on.
*
We might not really exist – that primal terror we wake to in the night. When she was really guttered my mum could look right through and not see me. As a boy I was scared to pass mirrors in case I looked and saw no one.
But it’s not that. I certainly exist, this consciousness in this body in this cold cab and mind spinning out among the stars and the black night.
But what if David Elliot, forester, fiancé and stuffed shirt, is the fantasy, and the brawling callant in the pub and the young woman I was behind the wall are at least as real? Perhaps it’s true and Spook exists, invisible but ever-present as the air and the Mercy, and the dead lean into us.
We were sitting round the cottage table blethering then I was looking at Marnie and saw a host there, flickering and shape-changing in the bones of her face. Saw the young man riding and my dad and all the women and companions I’ve ever wanted, the sister I never had. Saw all the people she had met and been in this lifetime and others.
She looked back into my eyes, smiled slowly and it was clear she didn’t exist, and she knew it and that was the source of the glow that hung about her. That was what made her different or plain mad.
And I felt myself plunging into her eyes like twin peat-dark lochans set on a pale moor, and I didn’t know if she wanted to destroy or have me, and just for a minute I saw she doesn’t know either. And then I had to be out, get some fresh air, drive home and talk to Dad. Leave Jo and Marnie, they’d know what to do.
It’s cool in the cab, some stars are out now, the Hunter is keeling into Lang Rigg and something is snuffling around my wheel. Above our heads a shooting star stravaiges and I wish that all might be redeemed. Consciousness isn’t so much a stream as a falling weir, silvery and dark. I feel myself on the edge of a great freedom, some great knowledge, and then I am falling and I go with it without fear, for all is fated and is good.
*
Silence from inside the cab, the boy had passed out at last. I stretched my shanks and listened to the great wheesht of the night blowing over the moor. Then the cottage door opened and blackness came out.
I heard her footsteps come over the grass, heard the cab door clunk open. Imagined her looking down at young Elliot, wondering what to do. I read and hear signs like no man, but I didn’t know what she would do with him.
A soft rustle. I keek up round the wheel, she is spreading something over him. And she is crooning like a mother to a bairnie Where hae ye been, my blue-eyed boy? Where hae ye been, my darling young one? Then she was gone, back to the cottage. She’d happed him in a blanket. She may mean well.
I would serve a cause and have done most of my life, but I am lost not knowing now whose cause I serve. What will the woman do now, whose cause does she follow? The breeze reishled one time through dry grass as I padded up to the cottage.
*
The lady fair was dancing alone to the radio, arms wrapped round herself and thin hair like cut grass, shaved short into the soft of her neck.
He’s passed out, I said. I put a blanket on him.
She giggled. The hash cookies were too much for him, Marnie. She pirouetted past me. Looks like it’s down to the hard core now. I’m blasted but not tired.
Me neither, I said, and put the kettle on again.
I was standing at the sink waiting for the boiling and washing up the morning’s bowls, very aware she’d been peeking at the plates while I was out. The silence was like after a bell has rung and faded. I glanced round. The pink plates, of course. People always go for the Lovers’ Plates. Her small fair head was bent over them. She’d taken off her sweater while I’d been out and was just wearing a skinny white T-shirt. With the stove blazing, the room was very warm.
These are like icons on a screen? she said. You feel you could kinda click on them and it would all open out and there’d be action.
Then she was standing beside me. An owl hooted outside, the room was quiet but for the pulse in my ears.
You were very brave, she said all throaty. I thought it was wonderful the way you stood up to them.
I shrugged like it was nothing. I’ll not be bad-mouthed, I said, or have women be. Actually it was very stupid.
Very strong, she insisted. I wish I could be like that, brave in my body, but I’m not. She laughed. Not when it comes to a fight, anyway.
She was leaning against me now, her hip fitting in below mine. I stopped the washing and stood with my hands in the water. Her hand stroked my forearm, the dark damp hairs there, and I shivered from the hashish sensitivity.
Strong, she said. I always want to be close to women’s strength.
And when I didn’t move one way or the other, she ran her hand up my arm, paused on my shoulder. She let her hand drift down onto the brooch above my breast. As we looked at each other, she opened her eyes very wide. Her pupils were huge, her nervous swollen lips parted. It’s a long time since a woman looked at me like that, and no man, for that is not a man’s look.
Her hand came up slowly to my cheek. Such a soft touch, I had forgotten. She touched my lips, my mouth opened of its own, a little finger slid inside my upper lip.
I let her think it was all her doing, for that was the only power she had. I let her lips come to mine, then closed my eyes.
*
She was stronger than I could have guessed. Thin limbs smooth and hard as carved wood, the only woman I’ve known with a flat stomach, a runner’s legs, tiny breasts with long nipples that embarrassed her and delighted me between my teeth.
She was fierce in her way, my first Canadian, my little Jo. She sucked on my mouth till my lips swelled, and then her hand in me pushed and turned, and her other hand teased so lightly I was near pleading for her, then her wee red tongue spreading brush-fires through the undergrowth. My little seductress looked up at me through the bedroom lamplight, big-eyed and pleased with my state, sure she’d made me hers. And I let her think it awhile until I grasped her head and clamped her there till she had drunk off all the sweetness within me.
Which is a lot, by the way. And to some extent renewable.
We lay awhile, her head damp on my belly. Now me you, I said, and pulled her up alongside me.
I began at the top and worked down. Good her cries and hands gripping in my hair. I gave her the pleasure once then put my legs between hers, turned her over and started in on her again. I wanted her to remember this, and it had been so long I was greedy, and I was savage from trying to punish by magic the lover who has me.
*
The cries of women mating mind me of hawk and weasel with their claws into each other. Thin high skreeks mounting up and up the scale to a final squeal, a long tearing from the throat. With the blanket hung across the window, I couldn’t see them but I could hear, and picture well enough. Then it began again, the cheips and groans deep in the thrapple. They have sic stamina, women at their loving. And me, I hunkered down with my hands at the laich of my belly, and burned and burned for her uncanny force.
*
There came a time I realised she was not moving, that thin body finally slack and soft. Fair stubble hair on my pillow, her mouth open, passed out or asleep. She looked a child and I held her for a while for sake of all the children needing held.
I drank some water at the sink, scooping it up into my mouth. We’d been somewhere out among the galaxies, and I had almost forgot myself and lost my name. But not quite. I splashed cold water over my head. Great sex, raw and subtle, long and even tender, but I had not lost nor found myself in it, and I stood at the sink and wept.
*
At last, no soun. I saw her shadow at the window where Jinny had stood lang syne, waiting for Elliot to dress and slip away to his rightful bed across the Liddie water. Then she fuffed out the lamp and I saw no more.
I stood and stretched, wakeful yet though the dawn wasn’t far off. I could rouse young Elliot on a ruse, get him into
the cottage to see what was sleeping there. But I couldn’t figure the outcome of that, nor what way it would fall, nor even how I’d want it to. So I checked he was still away with the fairies, and set off for some early breakfast. Let it fall as it will, I thought, or maybe as she wills.
I jigged down across the loaning in the half-dark, thinking again of Jinny and Sim Elliot. To this day I ken not exactly when they started up again. Some time I think after that meeting on the brig when she turned away so tired and dreary. It’s hard doing the right thing and it makes us weary. It’s like an alkie off the bevvy, it’s the right way to live but in a world so dreich that often as not we reach for that fire again. I ken, I ken.
But Elliot and Jinny began trysting again in the year afore she died, I’m sure of that. You’d have to be blind not to see the distracted dwam in Jinny’s eye as she dandled the bairn on her knee and taught me the pattern of the plates, head and eye aye cocked towards the door. Deaf not to hear the waewan in his voice when he talked to Fiona or Davy, and the desperation in his song as he went about the yard.
It couldn’t go on. The lovers were peelie with lack of sleep. Not fou with joy and randiness like before, but weighted down like their trysting was a penance. Fiona was drooping or sarky, right tired. That’s when she took on Annie as a school wean new come the village, evenings and weekends, and we first set eyes on each other. And Annie saw my position here and what it might lead to, and I saw what she had in herself.
Sense it has made, good enough. We each turn the blind eye to the other’s wee fooleries. I dinna mind. It keeps her happy, and whiles it rouses me to lie aside her and think of Elliot’s cock moving atween the douce braes of her arse, and then sometimes I can do it and that seems to please her. We shoogle along fine and we raise the kids. Only lovers dream of mair.
As I louped the last gate I thought too of Jinny’s note for Elliot round the time they thought she was with child, and wondered what Marnie would make of it. Then in for a right good bacon buttie and a quick lie-down in the workroom, surrounded by my latest netsuke goblins, their beady siller and ruby eyes winking in the mirk.
Here in a panel off to the side, so discreet you have to peer and wonder, are two heads in a bed, one fair one dark. It was foreshadowed in the early plates too. Thirsty and hungover in the halflight, you rub them lightly with your thumb and wonder what next.
Go back to the bedroom, naked and shivering, very fragile. There’s a man in the Land-Rover who might wake anytime. There’s his lady fair curled up in your bed. There are many many options here.
Now the moment comes, you are divided and unsure. Revenge, yes, but on these innocents? They have not harmed you. Just who and what do you want for yourself?
The cold decides it. You pull on jeans and sweater and go back to bed. She stirs once, her arm comes out your way and rests across your breast. Let it be so. Let the world make of it what it will.
David woke up and banged his head on the steering wheel. Grunted, grasped the blanket to his face, studied it. Jo must have laid it on him. Kind of her. She must have crashed out in the cottage.
He half fell out of the Land-Rover. The weather had changed again, brisk wind from the east shaking the corbie nests in the flayed beech trees. That woodland was in poor shape, it should be coppiced, thinned, replanted. Though it wasn’t his problem it bothered him. Grey cloud shrouding the dale, cold wind through dry branch. Spring postponed.
He walked cautiously towards the cottage, feeling he’d missed or forgotten something. There’d been some kind of comprehension last night, some momentary understanding of how things were and had to be. Or maybe just hallucination brought on by whisky, wine, beer then hashish. Of course he’d known perfectly well, had recognised the taste immediately from student days, but because he was pissed and greedy had gone for it anyway.
He went into the kitchen, half expecting to see them slumped over the table, or else brisk and hideously cheerful making breakfast. No one around, perhaps they’d already gone out. The bedroom door was ajar. He hesitated, tapped on it, went in.
David looked for a long time. With the blankets askew, he saw more of Jo than he’d ever seen, her naked back, one little pink-tipped breast flopped over, her hand across Marnie’s chest like a child clutching her teddy. Marnie facing away, still in the black sweater from the night before. Jo clinging to her.
He looked for a long time and he didn’t know what he was seeing. Surely this was innocence, a lovely picture corrupted by his dirty mind.
He stepped closer, his eyes adjusting to the curtained halflight. He saw a breast that he’d kissed only once in a moment of weakness, he saw new livid streaks on Jo’s back scored across the old pale injuries. He could see nothing of Marnie’s face, just the side of her cheek, her ear, the dark hair parting over its lobe.
He could be looking at innocence or wickedness. At everything he wanted and all he couldn’t have. At love, ambiguity, betrayal. Spontaneity, accident, calculation. He could as well be looking at his own soul.
Or perhaps it was just two women asleep together.
As he left the room, Marnie opened her eyes again and waited.
*
Room service!
He stood in the doorway holding two mugs of tea, a plate with toast and honey. Marnie turned her head to him.
You’re an advanced life-form, Elliot, she said. Thanks.
She sat up and Jo’s hand slid off her.
I’m afraid we were all rather bad last night, she said.
She reached out for her tea and as she stretched David saw the waist of her blue jeans. Jo’s head swung round, eyes opened, stared up at him. Looked to Marnie.
Marnie raised her mug. Top of the morning to you, kid.
I think you need this, David said and held out her mug.
Jo didn’t move. She blinked. Far as he could tell in the poor light, her face darkened. Then she sat up. Two brief white slopes he might have sledged down as a whooping joyous boy, but never had. She pulled the blanket up with one hand and passed the other over her eyes. Silence in the room, somewhere a faint creaking of corrugated iron.
I’ll leave this with you, David said, put down the mugs and toast and left the room, closing the door behind him.
*
Great, honey! Marnie said and reached across Jo. Jo put an arm round her shoulder, nuzzled against her neck. Marnie sat more upright and bit into her toast, swigged the tea. God I need a pee, she said and got out of bed.
Marnie?
Yes?
Jo let the blanket fall.
Last night …
Just one gaudie night, Marnie said. Don’t think about it. She paused at the door. Maybe you need to review your options, but I’m not one of them. God I need that pee.
She went through into the kitchen. David was standing looking out the window at the morning.
Nice one, she said. You’re a star.
He turned and looked at her. Black sweater, blue jeans, bare feet. Hair sweat-sculpted, sticking up in little horns. The dark and the fair, he thought, sometimes we have a choice, or think we do.
Can’t have too many nights like that, he said.
She nodded, almost grinned, glanced sideways at him as she made for the door.
I wasn’t planning on another for a while, she said and was gone, leaving him remembering that last night she wore black trousers not jeans.
*
A hungover breakfast once Jo had come through, no one saying very much, pale faces and eyes down. A brief chat about the scene in the pub and Tat’s intervention.
I’ll not be going there for a while, David said. Anyway, we’re leaving in a couple of days.
Marnie looked up at him.
Me too, she said. I just need to settle something with your dad then you’ll not see me here again.
Then there seemed nothing to say. Marnie stood at the door and waved as they got into the Land-Rover. A long pause, then David got out again. He walked back to her. A long moment of blue eyes look
ing into black. Then she held out her hand, the keys hanging from the stone disc. Her fingers uncurled slowly and she dropped it into his hand.
Thanks, he said. See you.
Uh-huh.
Then they were gone down the drove road, grey dust rising and settling in grey light.
*
Elliot lay alone on his back in his bed in the tower, stretched out full length, feet sticking up, hands clasped over his belly, eyes not opening as the morning light grew. All he needed was a small loyal dog – or perhaps Tat – curled by his feet to look the effigy of a mediaeval knight in a forgotten corner of a church, the image unchanging as the body below collapsed slowly into goo and bone then powder. But he hadn’t had a pup for years, and Tat had abandoned him – why else would he have stolen Jinny’s note?
So his last loyal follower, his shadow and accomplice, had deserted. Sim had known the end was coining when he finally lay down the night before and closed his eyes on visions of Jinny’s daughter. The last time he’d seen her she was a little girl in someone’s arms as he came out of the court, staring round-eyed at him with a wooden parrot clasped in her pudgy hand. She’d stared into him and he looked back, even opened his mouth to speak – then Patrick had broken away from the police and started swinging blows into his face, and Sim let him hit till the men in blue separated them. He’d looked then to the child but she’d already been whisked away, and the small crowd around the courthouse turned away from his eyes and bleeding face as though to look at him might be contagious, as though he were already dead.
But he wasn’t dead, not yet. He unclasped his hands, wiggled his fingers, stretched his cramped toes. Nothingness would have to wait a bittie longer. On the whole he was looking forward to it, he had been since the moment on top of Creagan’s Knowe when his arm came out and Jinny fell away from him with that last look. Since then life had been one long crawl over broken glass. Enduring the trial, Patrick’s death months later, the poor drunken sot wandering in front of a bus, the dale condemning and mocking, Fiona’s rage. The divorce and half the estate gone, his son growing up a sullen stranger. Waiting for one thing only: the boy to grow up and Marnie to return so he could explain. Or was that two things?
