by Helen Slavin
“Hey! That was good timing… I thought I might miss you.” Even then, even though he moved towards her she understood that he had been waiting for some time, he was not hurried, he was certain. But she didn’t know then, her mind did not have all the information, it was busy gathering, the red hair, not bright and orangey like some, but a rich coppered umber shade and his beard, clean and clipped but those eyes, the colour, the way they looked at her and made her feel that she was the only object in the world worth looking at.
She had accompanied him to the wedding she fitted him for and she was filled with champagne until she fizzed around him, and, in his mind, there were no other options. He was older and more sure of himself, and it was not very long before he had, by a toothbrush here, a pair of shoes there, moved her into his house.
He struck her, the second time, with his temper.
She let her own flat go when the tenancy agreement was up. She hadn’t been going to renew it because as Tighe said: “You’re wasting money renting the place… you’re here, with me, don’t put any more cash into the landlord’s pocket.” He’d talked sense, with smiles and kisses. Most of the bits of furniture belonged in the flat, she had rented it furnished, but there were a few pieces, a small armchair and a sewing table and chair. She liked to do her sewing and she moved the couple of small items into Tighe’s house one afternoon.
She hadn’t worked for Villette then of course, she was still at the outfitter’s doing small seamstress tasks, alterations and things.
“Do you have to do that now?” Tighe would say. “Come and watch TV with me.” Except that he was watching the football and she had a couple of dresses to finish.
“What dresses? They’ve got you doing stuff on your own time?” Tighe was standing in the doorway of the smallest bedroom. The largest space in there was taken up with his gym equipment but Seren had taken the corner by the window. She was putting the finishing touches to two prom dresses she was making for clients.
“Clients? Seriously, they’ve got you working on your own time now?” Tighe’s face was looking red and angry. “Fuck me. I’m going in there tomo—”
“No. This is my stuff, commissions I’ve been asked to do. I designed them, and I’ve made them… what do you think?”
She held up the first, a 1920s style inspired by The Great Gatsby, she’d done so much beadwork. She loved the way the bugle beads caught the light.
“Commissions?” His voice was hard, and he was not blinking now as he looked at her over his coffee mug. “Like a side-line sort of thing? A business?” He blew on the hot liquid. Seren felt tense and nervous suddenly.
“Hey… got to start somewhere….” She was trying to be breezy and she had to put the prom dress on its hanger on the rack because her hands were shaking and Tighe would see.
“Start? So where are you thinking of going with this?” He moved into the room, his hand reaching to feel the fabric of the other dress and make a questioning face at her. “Is this a business venture?”
Seren shrugged, still smiling. “Not sure it’s as big as that yet but that’s what I’d like. There’s a market for prom dresses now and there’s always bridal. We’ll just have to see.” She felt as if she was addressing the headmaster.
“No… it’s good. A good idea. You’re good at this…” He lifted the dress in example. Then he leaned down and kissed her. “Just hurry it up and come on down.”
She grew busier at the dressmaking business. More of her evenings were taken up with cutting and sewing. Clients visited the house for fittings.
“Who was that?” Tighe asked as a young woman headed back down the drive. “I hope she’s paying you.”
“Of course. I’m not an idiot.”
“Whatever. This is messy. There’s bits of thread everywhere. It’s like living with a spider.” Tighe was sort of joking but sort of annoyed and Seren began to find it hard to know where the balance was.
They were saving for a new house, one they would choose and buy together.
“I thought we could go house-hunting today?” Tighe said one Saturday, but Seren just needed to finish off a dress.
“That can wait. Get your coat on, we can head into town.” He lobbed her coat at her but Seren did not put it on.
“I have to finish. It’ll take me an hour tops…”
Tighe was grumpy about it, he’d got the car keys in his hand, had pulled his jacket on and was standing in the door of the little bedroom.
“Right, which translates as three hours. I hope you charge by the hour.” He looked at his watch, a new chunky looking steely one he’d come home with last week.
“I won’t be long. Anyway, we didn’t go house-hunting last week because you had to go to the football… at least this is work.”
The silence was like a blade in the room. Seren’s foot pushed down on the pedal and whirred at the machine because she could hear Tighe’s muscles tensing. He was on her in a matter of three steps, and his foot came down on hers so the machine whirred and veered and the fabric snarled into the foot and the needle. He picked up her coat from where it had landed on the floor and handed it to her.
She began to finish her seamstress jobs on her day off, working flat out. They had opened a savings account and Seren put all her money into it, trying to please Tighe, trying to show him how she was contributing. She kept her work things scrupulously tidy so that he couldn’t complain about threads and scraps and pins.
None of the houses they looked at were right. Too narrow. Too square. Too few rooms. Too many rooms. Too old. Too modern.
Then the money vanished from the savings account.
“I put it into a bond Birdy, for our future, for the house. It’s sorted.” More kisses, more smiles. Seren did not smile.
“What bond? Where? I can’t access that money?”
He looked serious then, his eyebrow rising in a way that she knew meant trouble, that he was getting hard off the anger, off the way he was winding her up and she wasn’t backing down.
“You don’t need to access it. It isn’t ‘your’ money is it? It’s ours. I’ve taken charge of it.”
“Don’t you get it?” she asked him, aware of the danger but her own anger was flaring now. “Don’t you understand what I’m saying?”
“Yes. I’ve told you. The money’s in a bond. For us. End of.”
“No. This is not the end of. You had no right to…” She was flying at him, but she didn’t scrape the surface of him, her fists as effective as wings might have been and he was laughing, a cold, hard sound.
“Whoa now, hold on a minute little Birdy…” And his hand was raised, and it was supposed to be pacifying but the hand came down on her shoulder in the way of a talon taking hold of a mouse. “I don’t think you understand what is going on here…” Kisses and fingers, his mouth on her skin. “My beautiful, beautiful Birdy…” And his eyes flashing with fire and desire and his hands tighter around her wrists, his body pushing down on hers, “… you’re weak and you’re fluttery and sometimes Birdy, it is all I can do not to break off your wings.”
Later, he made a bonfire of the sewing table and the armchair and they stood in the garden by the heat of the flames and he poured wine and she drank wine and he poured more wine and he was iron and flames and red, red wine.
Shortly afterwards she left the bridal hire shop and got the job with Villette at her little bespoke boutique ‘Bride’ because Tighe thought this new endeavour wouldn’t last five minutes.
A year rolled by and every hour that Seren spent at the little workshop making wedding dresses was bliss. She loved the fabrics and the scent of the bales of silk and satin. She loved the froth of lace, the sparkle of the beads and jewels and embellishments. She loved the company, of both Villette herself and of the clients. Gradually Seren began to stay a little bit late and a little bit later.
“I just need to finish this last little…” She was intent upon her task. Villette was ready to leave, bag in hand, car keys chinking.
“It’s been a long day, Seren, and we’ve got an early start tomorrow with the fittings… seriously, you should go home.”
“I can lock up,” she said brightly to Villette. It became like a magic spell, a spell to not go home. Villette began to notice that Seren found it hard to go home.
* * *
Tighe struck her next with the back of a heated spoon, a dessert spoon he had stirred and stirred his coffee with as he told her she would have to stop working at Bride with Villette.
“No. We need the money. For the house.” It was the only argument she had that she could win. He took in a deep breath and gave his cold hard laugh.
“The house.” He grinned, still stirring. “We have a house, Birdy.” He looked around the kitchen, black and white and bare. He moved to kiss her, and, as he did so, he scorched her with the spoon, holding the bowl of it against her arm and when she struggled he pinned her and his arms around her were like chains.
Her struck her again with the handcuffs.
“I want to take care of you, Birdy,” he’d said, clipping her to the bed so she could not leave the house for three days.
“You could work part time?” Villette had an anxious edge to her voice “… Yes? Doesn’t have to be as drastic as leaving, does it? Fewer hours, you get home when you need to…”
Tighe had been to “speak to” Villette during the three days that he had ‘taken care of her’. Seren was uncertain what had been said and was frightened for Villette. Seren had come this morning imagining it was the last time she would see the workshop or Villette because she would now have to leave. She could not subject her friend and employer to this. Danger. She thought the word at last.
“Don’t leave.” Villette reached out a hand “…We can sort this out between us. We can. I promise.” Villette squeezed her hand tightly and then let go. Seren began to work shorter hours and the pay she got she put into a new account that Tighe knew nothing of.
* * *
He struck her, finally, with the nail gun.
“Think you can go up against me? You think you’ll win against me?” He was all over her, hands and mouth and there was no getting away from him, he was like a skin stretched over her. “Your place is here Birdy, with me… you know that… you know it.” And he put the nail gun to her head. “You’re mine.”
He nailed her to the wall through her left hand.
* * *
She had gone back to Bride as soon as she had bandaged herself up. That afternoon she was not going home, she was scouring the internet on the workshop computer for car hire and realised that she had left her driving licence at Tighe’s house. She had left everything at Tighe’s house. Her passport. Her heart. Her soul. She was looking up train timetables when Villette gave her the keys to her own car.
“You can lock up,” was all Villette said.
* * *
It was dark inside Cob Cottage and as Seren finished speaking a silence fell. The women, grouped around the living space, looked not at each other, but out at the wood and the lake, at the way that the evening light bronzed the surface of the water and softened all the edges of the world.
Anna wiped at her left eye but said nothing. Charlie sat for a long time with her eyes closed, her lips pinched tight. Emz sat with her elbows on her knees, her head bowed, her hands together as if she might be praying. The light sank lower, and despite all the electricity they were burning, a darkness silted into the edges of the room.
Seren was folded into the chair, legs drawn up, her face tense. At that moment she felt she had nothing left in the world.
“Seren, you must stay here as long as you like.” Anna rose from her seat.
Seren shook her head.
“Can’t. Not now he’s found me.”
“He can be dealt with.” Charlie spoke, opening her eyes for the first time in many minutes. “And I can put you in touch with a friend of mine, Iona, she has a bridal business in Castlebury…”
Seren was taken aback. “But… you don’t even know me…” She was tearful, distressed. “It isn’t that simple… you can’t deal with him… I don’t want… he would hurt you… trust me… it’s too…”
“Dangerous?” Emz asked. Seren looked at her and nodded. She seemed to have a burst of energy then, her nerves almost visibly fizzing as she got up and started to gather bits of belongings from around the room.
“Yes. Dangerous. Yes. I have. I must. Got to.” Her voice was hard and breathless “…Go. He’s. Must go. He will. Can’t. Must. Dangerous. There’s no choice. I have no choice.”
“We’ll stay here with you.” Anna laid a hand on Seren’s shoulder, the touch seemed to defuse all the febrile energy in her.
“Protect you.” Emz put in. Seren was shaking her head.
“I can’t ask that… I can’t ask you…”
“You’re not asking.” Charlie was decisive. “We’re telling.” At her use of the word, the three sisters exchanged a look.
* * *
Later, with Seren asleep in her room, the Way sisters sat in the dark on the front porch and talked a little, keeping their voices low and, they realised, keeping watch on the landscape beyond, aware of any movements: there an owl, here a bat, this is a fox.
“The lake,” Anna said, “…it’s like a sounding bowl, as if the noises roll around it.”
Charlie looked at her.
“Is that all you’re going to say?” She sounded disappointed. Anna stared back at her. As she did so, the old, almost forgotten feeling squeezed at her heart.
“For me… it started when Grandma Hettie died,” Emz stated, confident that she’d be understood. “I feel like the volume got turned up somewhere.”
“Okay. That’s what I wanted to talk about,” Charlie said. “I feel like I’ve been tipped over. Ever since… Grandma died.”
“The feeling I got tonight… it was like an alarm in my head… like a…” Anna struggled to find the word.
“…Warning sign?” Emz put in. She and Charlie both looked at Anna. She nodded.
“We knew she was in trouble,” Charlie said. “We knew where she would be.” She recalled the vivid map that had appeared to be written into the mess of hops at Drawbridge.
“This isn’t new,” Anna said. “This is old. I’ve felt like this before. A long time ago.” She let the thoughts settle out. Her mind was a pick and mix of memory. Charlie stared at her and then stared at Emz.
“Yes.” She said it as a fact. There was something very simple and clear standing close by and they could not yet see it. Emz’s own mind was arranging memories like a deck of cards, sorting out the suit that belonged to her childhood, to Grandma Hettie, to her sisters.
“I remember this from before, too,” Charlie said. Emz and Anna looked at her. “You do too.” There was no denying it. None of them tried.
“Like when you haven’t ridden a bike for a while and then you get on one and try pedalling…” Emz said. Anna smiled at the way Emz had pinpointed the sensation.
“Afraid you might fall off,” Anna finished.
That was a fact too. They were all unsettled, uneasy, off kilter.
“I think we have to try and think of all the things that Grandma Hettie told us…” Emz had been thinking about this a lot over the last few days. “I’ve heard her voice…”
“Me too,” Anna confided, “I’ve seen her… well… her ghost, I suppose…”
“She’s part of this.” Emz’s voice sounded lifted for a moment.
“Mum would say that Grandma is dead and that, neuro-scientifically speaking our mind is placing Grandma into this situation so that we can deal with it.” Anna didn’t believe this for a moment, but it seemed only fair to throw all the arguments into the circle they were drawing.
“Grandma’s death sparked something,” Emz said.
“A chain reaction?” Anna smiled. “Would that pin it with science?”
Charlie gave a snorting laugh.
“How did we all get the mental message that S
eren was in trouble? Can you come up with some scientific bollocks to teabag that with?” Charlie asked. Anna gave a short laugh and thought hard. Emz furrowed her brow.
“Muscle memory? Feminist Primal Cortex synchronicity?” she offered, not entirely seriously.
“The Strengths,” Anna said quietly. “Remember?”
Her sisters hesitated for a moment and then nodded.
“Whatever it is… it’s starting. Ever since Grandma died… I’ve felt…” Emz took in a deep breath, stretched her shoulders, searching for the word to express this.
“More.”
Having all spoken the word at once they exchanged another look before slipping back under the blanket of silence for a few moments.
“Do you think we have the Strengths to deal with Tighe Rourke?” Charlie asked.
* * *
An outsider might assume that after all the night’s events and revelations the residents of Cob Cottage might have a restless night. An outsider would be wrong.
Inside the curved walls the occupants slept deeply, restfully, whilst outside, the shadows stretched and lengthened their watch until dawn took over with a bright pink and watchful eye.
22
Fight or Flight
This morning Anna had risen, she thought, before everyone, to pull together breakfast but as she’d put the kettle on to boil and turned to the basket of groceries Charlie had brought in the previous night, her eye was caught by movement at the lake’s edge.
Seren Lake was rising out of the water having clearly already been for a considerable swim. It seemed to Anna much colder today and yet Seren was naked and unconcerned. She had placed a towel on the post of the jetty, but she didn’t use it, and as Anna watched, the daylight glittered off Seren’s skin so that she looked as if she was wearing a gown made of diamonds of water. The glints and glimmers danced and blinked and seemed to reach right into Anna so that she found tears welling in her eyes at the sight. Her head felt full as if there were voices calling and the noise intensified until she had to look away and as she did the noise wasn’t singing anymore, it was simply the whistle of the kettle on the stovetop. She felt shaky as she lifted it off and tried to ground herself in her breakfast tasks.
