She looks so forlorn. Something in me wants to poke at her with a sharp stick. I begin to read.
The sisters go down the mill den one last time. Elspeth is wearing her new kid gloves and that buttercup silk dress, and her hair is shining with a fresh gleam.
‘I can’t believe we will be separated,’ she sighs, ‘now I am to be Lady Musgrave.’
Bella doesn’t reply. She is quieter these days, darker. The girls follow the path of the lade to the millpond. Elspeth is chattering about weddings and dresses and her young lord and how much he adores her.
There is no one else about. They stand on the edge of the deep, dark pool.
What happens next is a blur, and sudden. There is a single irrational moment, and Bella sees her hand pressed into the middle of her younger sister’s back. She feels the yellow silk, the softness of it as she pushes, the lack of resistance. There is a splash, heavier than the splash of the largest pike, and the next minute Bella is plunging thigh deep into the water, clutching at her skirts. There are strong currents and deep channels; the yellow silk sinks out of sight. Strands of beautiful blonde hair . . .
She winds her fingers in her sister’s hair, but the water is stronger, and Elspeth slips from her grasp, slick as waterweed. She finds a hand, then, unresponsive, in the softest kid leather. Clasping it in her own, she pulls with all her might, toppling backwards into the shallows. She’s still grasping the glove . . . but it is empty.
Only then does she realise what she has done.
Lucie is weeping now, her wet chin buried in her hands. I move my chair closer and enfold her in my embrace, squeezing her narrow shoulders. I feel the stiffness of bone beneath my grasp. I close the notebook.
‘Enough of the past. Let’s think about the future, Lucie.’ She is unresponsive under my arm. I give her a bracing squeeze. ‘You’ll meet someone, I’m sure. Someone who cares about you.’
She pulls away from me, wipes her cheek. ‘I’m better off on my own.’
‘Nonsense. We all say that. Humans are not designed to be alone.’
‘It’s a massive design flaw, then. And the chances of meeting someone buried out here are zilch.’
I clear my throat. ‘Maybe you already have.’
‘What?’ She stares at me.
‘Maybe you don’t have to look very far.’ I raise my eyebrows in a tantalising fashion, waiting for the penny to drop.
‘What? Arthur?’ She laughs in a way I find quite offensive. My brows sink and my mouth clamps into a thin line. What’s wrong with Arthur? I don’t want him to be disappointed again, not after Nancy. If things developed, could Lucie be trusted? I don’t say anything, but I resolve to keep a closer eye on their friendship.
Lucie
June
There’s something very comforting about a hot bathroom – all that just-out-of-the-shower steam and the shampoo scent. It takes me back to a time when things were okay, a time when the only thing I helped myself to behind my sister’s back was her very expensive body lotion. We had the usual bathroom spats, the two of us, about who had used up all the hot water or taken the last of the big bath towels, but on the whole a hot bathroom smelled of excitement, of going out. Of happiness and hope.
I used to think that, anyway.
Now I stand on a damp bath mat in my underwear and try to see my reflection in the condensed mirror. I wonder what Reuben is doing. It’s Saturday, and when he’s home he doesn’t get up until lunchtime. I’m thinking about Reuben, but I can’t get past the scared look on my face. I am a bird on a wire in a strong gale, clinging on for all I’m worth. It takes a special kind of grit. Or stupidity.
I’ve always hated water, but since the millpond incident, and the nocturnal, creaking waterwheel, I seem to have developed a sharp new wariness. I realise now that it can be tame, like the hot shower I’ve just taken, or it can be feral. If I open the bathroom window, the sound of it will force its way inside – the lade surging underground, overground, hitting the still, silent wheel at speed and sliding around it. It is only the work of a minute to shift the lever and open the floodgates. Likewise, it only takes one little push to submerge a rival in deep, dark water . . .
This tale of two sisters. Is Mac trying to tell me something? Does she know how I’ve betrayed my own sister? It’s hard to look her in the eye – this story sits between us like a pointing finger. When I’m in Mac’s company I feel like she’s waiting for me to unravel, to confess. Perhaps that’s my own guilty conscience, although it’s never bothered me much before.
Shivering, I write in the steam in the mirror. Automatic writing, almost . . . My finger feels numb, skidding over the cool damp. February. February, the last time I slept with Reuben. Four long months ago. Here, in the little bedroom. February, and the sun filtered in through the curtains and stained his skin.
I squeeze my eyes tight shut, touch my face, gently, with wet fingertips. Tears or condensation, I’m not sure. I grab a towel and swipe the steam from the mirror.
Break the spell.
Arthur is waiting for me in his car outside the cafe. He’d wanted to pick me up, but I’d said no, I’d get there under my own steam. To be picked up felt a bit too date-like. This bears no relation to a date in any shape or form, just two almost-friends having a little road trip.
‘How far is this? I don’t want to be out all day.’ I snap my seat belt shut, and catch the tail end of his grin.
‘Oh, you’ve got things to do and people to see?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Here’s a map. You can navigate.’
A folded roadmap falls into my lap. I sigh heavily. This smacks of involvement. Fettermore is circled clumsily in pencil. The car revs slightly, and Arthur leans towards me. He smells of flour, mixed with a faint, fresh cologne. It’s not unpleasant, but I shy away from him all the same. He doesn’t notice, too busy tracing a short arc with his finger between the village and a tiny black tower at the edge of the sea, marked on the map as Castle Binnorie.
‘Hope this isn’t a dump. Bet it’s full of weed-smoking weirdos. Or Satanists.’
‘Or it might be full of the memories of the past,’ Arthur says. ‘I thought you were curious about the Cruel Sister thing?’
‘Only as far as it’s about a dysfunctional family.’
He sighs and puts the car into gear. We drive along winding roads in near silence, me staring out of the window, and Arthur commenting on passing landscapes. I realise a part of me has been looking forward to this, but the dark, brooding part won’t let me go.
According to Arthur, who seems to have taken on the role of tour guide, the castle sits out of sight on a rocky promontory above the beach. It was built in 1539, although the era in which it was inhabited by the two sisters is uncertain; lost in the mists of time. Or the sort of sea fog that descends as soon as we park the car. Arthur calls it a haar.
We have to negotiate a steep and sandy path. More than once, my trainers skid on small pebbles and there’s an awkward patch where a clump of tree roots has eroded everything and you have to pick your way over the knots and ridges. My canvas bag is hampering my ascent, and I wish I’d left it in the car. What was I thinking, bringing a picnic? Hearing my own loud sigh, Arthur offers me his hand. I ignore it. The place stinks of foxes and is littered with sheep droppings, bottle tops and fag ends.
The castle rears up in front of us. The sandstone is very red against the pale sky and threads of mist encircle what’s left of the battlements. Only two parts of the fortress remain upright: a jagged tower to the left and a tumbledown curtain wall to the right. It’s just a shell, the abandoned casing of someone else’s past life, but I experience an unexpected thrill of excitement.
‘So, what do you think?’ Arthur turns to me, waiting patiently for my verdict.
‘Mmm. I’m trying to picture them – the two girls. What it would have been like when they lived here. It’s very isolated.’
The castle seems to be growing out of this place, th
e walls flush with the edges of the rock and the steepest drop that I have ever seen. I wander to the edge and the view takes my breath away. Way down below, the river loops its way through the mist. There are reed beds on one bank, ancient woodland on the other. Midstream, a pair of swans ride their own reflections. I can see a white crescent of sand, marred by the dots and dashes of pebbles and shells, and, in the opposite direction, the wide expanse of the sea.
Arthur appears beside me, making me jump. ‘Look at the playground they had, right on the doorstep. And the mill too.’
‘So the mill – our mill – is upstream?’ I nod towards the river. Our mill. It sounds oddly intimate.
I can almost see them, the two sisters, picking their way along the riverbank, skirting the reeds, chattering and giggling as the swans hiss and rear up at them. They break into a run. I can see the hem of a yellow dress disappearing into the trees. Out of sight now, they are drawing closer to the mill – to our mill – straining to hear the telltale rumble of the waterwheel.
As I look down on the tops of trees, gulls swoop so close that I can see their mottled grey backs. I’m conscious that one false step could send me tumbling to my death. Just one step. All it would take would be the pressure of Arthur’s hand in the small of my back.
‘I’ve seen enough,’ I say quickly. ‘Let’s go.’
Mac
There was a thick sea mist the day Jim died. The haar, the locals call it. A real pea-souper. You could barely see your hand in front of your face. The ambulance got lost on the way up the lane. They had to ask old man Clark for directions, and the rumour that my husband was dead shot round the whole village before they even loaded him into the ambulance. Sneeze at one end of Fettermore and you’ll have the plague by the time you reach the other. Such small-town minds.
The time of death is on his certificate, but I’ve always pulled away from it. I don’t want to know when that severance took place – the last breath, the fading of the light. Was he aware of my anguish? Could he see the next world forming, rising up, in the dark corners of the mill?
I look around the place now. I promised Arthur I’d stop coming in here. He’d threatened to take away the key that last time and I’d thrown a bit of a tantrum; told him not to be so patronising, treating his old ma like a geriatric. ‘You’d love to lock me away, wouldn’t you? Stick me in a damn care home and forget about me?’ He’d winced. I’d taken a fit of coughing – another symptom that has presented itself in the last few weeks – and he’d gone to get me some water. His hand was shaking a little as he’d transferred the cold glass to mine.
‘You need to stop this,’ he’d whispered.
‘Stop what?’ I’d sipped the water and looked at him keenly.
‘Tormenting yourself. The past is the past.’
I’d pulled a notepad from a pile stacked on the kitchen table. ‘I’m an historian. The past is an open book. An ongoing case.’
‘Just don’t lose yourself in it,’ he’d said.
Just don’t lose yourself in it. Inside the mill, it’s dark, but the dimness has a shifting quality about it, as if the mist has seeped in through the cracks. I don’t put the lights on; I know the place off by heart. I know this steep timber staircase, the way the bottom two risers are unevenly spaced. In old houses, that was a device to trip up unwary robbers. Here, it’s probably just a result of human error. As I slide my hands over the rail, my fingers recognise the familiar knots in the wood.
In the basement, the blackness is full and perfect. Its presence overwhelms me as I step down onto the stone flags. I move into the centre, circle carefully on the spot with my hands held out, letting the dark close over my head like water. My fingertips tingle. He’s down here somewhere, the miller. I can smell him: the stink of stagnant water and old sweat. He’ll never give this place up, not after all these years. There’s still potential for mischief here. That’s what he feeds on – potential. He just needs a weakness, and he’ll find a way in.
Come on then. Finish the job. You might as well take me too.
There’s a noise above me, the scrape of the mill door opening. My heart stops for a beat. Is that Arthur back already? What time is it? I’m not wearing a watch and even if I were, I’d never see it in this pitch black. I come slowly to my senses. What in the world am I doing down here? Arthur will be livid. What if she’s with him? Lucie?
Anxiety tickles my spine. Lucie shouldn’t be here. Lucie should not be allowed to come in. Remember what happened to the other two girls. I feel my way to the stairs, shuffle my toe onto the first step. Of course, Elspeth and Bella would have known the mill well. It would have been the centre of the community, back then. They would have known the miller, and he them. Oh, he would have known them.
One step. Two. Should I call out? Three. Four. I’ll tell Arthur I was just spraying for flies again. Yes, that would work. Or perhaps I’ll say I left my watch here the last time, and I had to come back. I’m at the top of the stairs and trying to figure out a reason why I would have left my watch here. That’s a very feeble excuse. But Lucie must not come down here. She must be protected. I feel responsible for her.
‘Arthur? Before you say anything . . .’ Out of breath, I emerge into the almost-light of the main floor. But it isn’t Arthur standing there in the doorway. I experience a little shock.
‘Oh,’ I say. ‘I wasn’t expecting visitors.’
Lucie
Arthur persuades me to stay a bit longer. We go and stand within the castle’s broken corner, avoiding fallen masonry, nettles and empty beer bottles. Someone’s had a barbecue and left a burned-out silver foil tray alongside the sodden cardboard box from their carry-out lager. I inspect the walls, leaning back a little to assess the ferns growing on the stone ledges, the solitary crow preening in a high arch. I try to imagine where the bedrooms might have been, the fine oak staircases, the tapestries, but the world of Bella and Elspeth is so far removed from mine that I cannot conjure it up. It is a story perhaps best written down.
Just beside me, there’s a low window, a ragged hole in the wall, really, but the perfect viewfinder for the scene below. I lay my hand on the sandstone frame and drink in the landscape. They would have seen this same picture: the haar and mirror-dark river and the swans.
‘Does your mother come up here?’
Arthur moves to stand beside me, leans in a little, and I shuffle over so he can enjoy the view.
‘She used to. Before her health started to fail she would roam the countryside in her Volkswagen, collecting stories, interviewing folk. She visited all these old places. This was one of her favourite haunts.’ He pats the stone window ledge as if it’s a faithful old horse.
‘I can see it.’ I can hear the excitement in my voice. I root around in my shoulder bag and produce Mac’s notebook, the one I’m working on. I’m not quite sure why I packed it. It feels slightly sticky and I hope the lemonade hasn’t been leaking. ‘She writes so well . . . I can see the castle as it was, the girls flying down the passages and –’
Arthur’s looking at me, lips twitching. I smile back. ‘Seriously. Listen to this . . .’ I flick through the dog-eared pages. Mac says her handwriting looks like a hen’s scratchings, and she has a point, but I’ve grown used to it. ‘Here’s a good bit. Listen to this . . .
‘The castle keep is a sprawling edifice, and there are no shortages of places to go. They visit the kitchen when it’s cold, and stand before the great black cavern of the fireplace, where the flames eat up whole tree trunks and spit out the sparks. It’s deep enough to roast an entire flank of pork, and Cook serves them up slivers of meat so hot they flip them from hand to hand like live minnows before wolfing them down. Bella takes care to wipe her sister’s mouth and the grease spots from her gown. A little boy turns the spit, but he doesn’t speak or meet their eyes. The servants’ faces are red and sweaty, even when the snow is on the ground, and they never pause from their chopping and hacking and fetching and carrying. They are swarthy and suspicious
, like the guards on the battlements. The girls climb up there too, at Elspeth’s insistence. The younger girl leans out as far as she dares, with Bella clinging to her bodice, and the wind whips their hair into their eyes and carries away their laughter.’
There’s something odd about reading aloud to someone. Again, that spark of intimacy surprises me. I look up to find Arthur’s eyes tracking the movement of my lips. I’m not given to blushing, but the top of my chest grows a bit warm. I snap the book closed, slightly embarrassed by my own enthusiasm.
‘I was enjoying that. Read some more.’
I hand him the notebook. ‘It’s all yours.’
I wander away, staring at the walls as if, miraculously, the cavernous fireplace might manifest. I want to hear the cook banging pots and sharpening knives and swearing at the spit boy. I want to see Bella’s name carved in a lintel. I want proof that these two girls lived out their lives here, just like we live ours, doing the best we can.
Arthur wants to go to the beach, so we retrace our steps and find a way down. There’s something about the space, the surf-sound in my ears, that soothes me. As we trudge along the shoreline I lose myself in my thoughts.
Can you talk yourself out of being in love? I suppose you can train yourself not to think about love. I’ve been aiming for a certain numbness. Numbness is good.
It really is beautiful here: the sandy beach, the endless water, the horizon a faint navy line many miles out. To my right, the castle, still wrapped in mist, stands on its gothic rock, observing me, just as I, minutes ago, surveyed this very scene. It’s all a matter of perspective. The white-threaded waves make me draw back my toes.
I’m convinced there’s a knack to being alone. There needs to be a blank page where the past should be, otherwise you drive yourself mad with the what ifs and the might-have-beens. Alone is okay. I need to do alone things and make myself enjoy them.
The numbness is slipping a little, a slow sliding that makes me flex my shoulders. I take a deep breath. I seem to have become a shadowy soul, bounded by stone walls and damp trees. I feel myself unfurling, just a bit. Arthur is kicking pebbles into the surf. He looks up, and we make eye contact. I don’t know what he’s thinking, and the not knowing is strangely delicious. I allow myself the fleeting, subversive thought that this might be my last experience of total aloneness.
Bone Deep Page 11
