Bone Deep

by Sandra Ireland

‘Is this to do with your story, the one Lucie is typing up?’

  ‘Not at all. This is cold, hard fact. We had bone mills all over the place, for processing animal bone. Dundee revolved around the whaling industry, you see. Think about whalebones – used for corsetry, of course, but nothing was ever wasted. And there was cash in it. We used to have rag-and-bone men here. They’d go around the houses with their carts, collecting old clothes, dead dogs . . .’

  Anita pulls a face. ‘My only interest in bones is anthropological and forensic.’ She bundles up her tea towel and turns to go. Piqued at losing her attention, I rap the table.

  ‘You can mill human bones, girl!’

  The other diners look up. Anita glances briefly towards the kitchen, as if she’d rather be there than here.

  ‘You can grind human bones?’ she repeats.

  ‘Fee-fi-fo-fum!’ I deliver this with the aplomb of Brian Blessed. ‘I smell the blood of an Englishman! Be he alive or be he dead, I’ll grind his bones to make my bread!’

  The ramblers are arrested in the middle of their fry-up. The man – an Englishman, perhaps? – lays down his knife and fork and looks around for back-up. I spy their wholemeal soda bread, one of Arthur’s specialties, and point to it, laughing uproariously.

  ‘I’d check out the origins of that flour, if I were you!’

  Arthur replaces Anita at my side. His face is rosy from the oven. He is not smiling.

  ‘I think we’ve all heard enough, Ma.’

  ‘But it’s part of our history. I visited a bone mill in Norfolk a few years ago, and in the 1800s they actually rendered down exhumed skeletons imported from Germany. Can you imagine the outcry if we did that now?’

  ‘Enough.’

  ‘“One ton of German bone-dust saves the importation of ten tons of German corn.” That was the maxim.’ The gentleman at the next table is glaring at me, and I wonder vaguely whether he might be a German tourist.

  Arthur picks up the nearest piece of A4. I can see my scribbles projected through the back as he holds it up, as if I’ve been writing with a stabbing, urgent passion. Have I? His face creases as he scans it. The lamplight bounces off his trendy specs, so I cannot read his thoughts.

  ‘Is this to do with your collection of stories? It’s gruesome.’

  ‘History is gruesome, son. We don’t progress by being nice to each other.’

  He replaces the paper in front me. ‘Are you sure you’re well enough to be out, Ma? Let me run you home.’

  ‘If that’s your clumsy way of getting rid of me, don’t bother. I will get home under my own steamed chai, thank you very much.’ I shuffle my papers together and drain the last of the drink. Perhaps they’ve put something in it, to calm me down? I think of the pills I still have in my bedside drawer. I must get rid of them. History is predicated on evidence. I must put them down the loo. Flush them into fertiliser.

  ‘I just think you’ve been overdoing things.’ Arthur’s tone softens, but I brush it away, busy packing my notes and pens and books into my holdall. I get stiffly to my feet.

  ‘Well, I’m up and about now, but I’ll go and have an early night, if that will make you happy. No doubt Anita’s concoction will put me out like a light.’

  Arthur is distracted. He’s gazing out of the window and I can see his eyes clearly now. They gleam with that rare warmth that manifests when you catch sight of someone you love. I once caught Jim gazing with that sort of warmth at Anna bloody Madigan. I want to warn him off, but I know he won’t want to hear what I have to say about women like this. I confine myself to a hard stare as the girl crashes through the door, but she doesn’t even notice.

  She always seems so distracted, as if her head is full of thoughts she’s bursting to share – but she never does. Even after all these months, Lucie remains a closed book. To me, at least. Perhaps she opens up to Arthur, which is a worry. I’m not quite sure how far this relationship has gone.

  ‘I’m just going,’ I say pointedly. She looks suddenly awkward, as if she’s not sure of her welcome. I put on my coat and leave, lugging the heavy bag along with me. I’ve taken my eye off the ball. Things are definitely progressing between the two of them, I can tell. I feel a loss of control which makes me all too aware of my own pressing and very mortal deadline.

  Mac

  September

  There’s a nip in the air now. I’m used to shivering in big woolly cardigans, but Arthur chides me for not putting the heating on. I refrain from pointing out that the walls here are so thick, the window frames so crumbly, that the cast-iron radiators barely make a dent in the chill. Far better to keep to one room and make yourself as warm as you can.

  In the front room, I assume a prayer position on the hearthrug and build a fire in the draughty grate. First, twist greasy old newspaper into fat croissants; next, add a firelighter that makes your fingers stink of paraffin; build a little tent of kindling, paper-white slivers of pine and ash. Always keep your axe sharp for the kindling. Don’t leave it embedded in the block – the sap will rust the edge. Chopping kindling with a good, sharp axe should be effortless, like slicing through a Viennetta.

  There’s something timeless about building a fire. It’s a meditative act. I could be my mother going through these motions, or my grandmother. You can stand outside of yourself, watch your fingernails turn black with soot, let the flames warm your innards as well as your extremities. I’ve given up on my extremities, to be honest. The old ticker has forgotten how to pump blood and I’ve been reduced to wearing fingerless woollen gloves when I write.

  My notebook is balanced on the arm of the leather armchair. I slant a waspish eye at it. I can hear the miller’s voice, critiquing my every word: That’s not how it was. You have the details all wrong, old woman.

  ‘I’m doing my best,’ I tell him.

  Sometimes I think I should like to chuck the damn notebook on the fire. Watch it curl and blacken and ignite. You’d hate that, wouldn’t you, my friend? You’re desperate to have your voice heard. His voice is in my head all the time now, until sometimes there is no space for anything else.

  The dogs bring all manner of slobbery sticks into the kitchen, abandoning them as soon as treats are produced. Their offerings invariably find their way into the kindling basket. I snap bits of ancient willow into pieces, strike a match with damp, grubby fingers, observe the flame lick around the paper, take hold, burst up through the twigs. The bleached withies are like bones, human ribs, poking out of the darkness, hissing and spitting and succumbing.

  I make it back to the armchair, my knees and feet protesting mightily. Pick up the notebook and my pencil.

  Lucie

  Since the weather changed, Mac has taken root in her sitting room, pulling her battered leather armchair as close as she dares to the hearth. She sits there for ages, feeding the fire with bits of twig and old magazines. The log basket has somehow been supplemented with chair legs and broken pictures frames, and once I walked in to find her tearing pages from an old diary – 1997. She was watching the whole year go up in flames, one day at a time.

  I’m about to leave after yet another day of editing, of dusting, of sifting through the debris of someone else’s life. I’ve started locking away all the notebooks, just leaving her the black, hard-backed one, in the hope that she’ll actually write in it.

  I knock gently on the door. I know Mac is in there, but there’s no answer. I’m about to turn the handle when I hear her, deep in conversation. The dogs are in the kitchen, but I’ve been pestering Arthur to arrange a GP visit. Maybe the doctor has popped in, and we can get to the bottom of her erratic behaviour. Mac’s GP is old-school, a man with a waxed moustache, a knowing twinkle and bad breath. I met him one day in the cafe and made a mental note never to ask for him in the event of thrush, cystitis or anything below the neck.

  Now, however, relief makes my shoulders sag. I wait, ear pressed to the pine panels. There’s a short silence. Mac starts up again.

  ‘She fell asleep. Out l
ike a light. I tucked her up on the very couch you’re sitting on. No, don’t move, dear. You look very like her. Must be the red hair.’

  There’s another silence. My hand grips the brass knob. The hairs on the back of my neck prickle. A new unpleasant word unwraps itself in my head: evidence.

  ‘She was guilty as charged. Blame will find you in the end. There’s always one bird that starts off the dawn chorus. The bird with the most persistent song gets people to listen. You can never hide from blame, Bella.’

  I burst through the door. The sofa is empty. There is no one here apart from Mac. She’s perching on the edge of her leather armchair, stoking the fire with pages from a children’s picture book. She regards me with surprise.

  ‘Anna? What are you doing here?’

  Mac

  After Lucie left, I came across a photograph frame at the bottom of the log basket. I don’t know how it got there. The glass is cracked right across but it’s otherwise intact, a Sunday-best smiling family group.

  I blow the sawdust off and trace the faded faces with my finger. It was taken outside the Miller’s Cottage, our home for many years before Jim’s parents died and we inherited this sad pile. Perhaps Jim senior was the photographer that day. There’s my mother-in-law, Patsy, seated at the front with the baby on her knee. She’s beaming, the proud grandma. And behind her stand Jim and myself, close together, arms touching, as if nothing could come between us. Arthur would be about eight months there. Patsy passed away when he was a toddler. What a sad loss. How I missed her help and sage advice. We enjoyed a special relationship, Patsy and I, as you do when you love the same man.

  There’s a stinging irony there. Anna Madigan loved that same man too, though our relationship could hardly be described as special.

  I let my mind drift back to that bitter confrontation.

  Christmas Eve, 1997. The turkey is in the oven, Arthur’s Nintendo carefully wrapped and hidden away. I am feeling neither festive nor full of goodwill. I snatch my keys from the satsuma bowl, gun my Volkswagen into gear and head for Dundee.

  Anna Madigan opens the door and we’re face to face for the first time in months. I’d been wondering why her social invitations had stopped. Now I know. I wipe my feet fiercely on her doormat and push my way inside. Her house is neat magnolia. There are no draughts, there’s no dog hair. Everything is carefully cushioned with fabric; the soothing tones of some carol concert echo from another room. Anna Madigan’s ginger mop is all over the place, as if she just got out of bed, and my gut twists.

  ‘Where is he?’ My gaze swings to the staircase, follows the line of each beige Axminster step.

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’ Her skin is pale, freckled. Not a hint of a flush.

  ‘I think you do.’ We are eyeball to eyeball. Her brows have a bold arch to them. ‘Where is my husband?’

  ‘He isn’t here.’ She gives a small, slightly victorious smile and I want to knock her perfect teeth in. But I believe her. I don’t think he is here. We probably passed on the road – he’ll have gone home to wrap up my non-stick pans. I’ve left the oven on, and I fleetingly hope he checks on the turkey.

  But I’ve spied something else, a carefully concealed glint at the neckline of her blouse. Like her smile, it is victorious, and I reach out and grab it, yank the sapphire pendant from her white neck, snapping the chain. She squeals. I snarl words of abuse and we tussle for Jim’s gift of love.

  She wins. Triumphantly, she stuffs the evidence into the back pocket of her tailored slacks.

  ‘I found the receipt for this in his wallet, you . . . you shameless whore! I knew it!’

  ‘Oh, that’s sad – such a cliché!’ she sneers.

  I’ve suddenly had enough of her. I feel weak, but I have to have the last word. ‘You are such a cliché, madam,’ I tell her, as I let myself out, quietly. ‘And you’re prepared to put up with it. That’s the saddest thing of all.’

  I place the photograph gently on the mantelpiece and lean in closer, despite the fire’s fierce heat. It depicts the sealed family unit I want: never to age, never to betray each other. Never to grow sick and die. Never to stop loving. How I wish we could all be protected under glass, like tender plants. A single cool tear tracks its way down my heated cheek.

  All I can do now is protect the living, protect Arthur. He doesn’t deserve to be hurt, and that would most certainly be on the cards if he throws in his lot with that girl. It’s not going to happen – not on my watch. The thought stiffens my spine. I may have been sadly lacking as a mother, but it’s never too late to make amends. I can make up for all the times I neglected him. Poor Jim, waiting for me to spare some time for him. I never realised how lonely he was. But Anna did. There’s always an Anna or a Lucie waiting for you to take your eye off the ball. I suddenly sweep the old photograph from the mantelpiece, snap off the sides of the frame and feed them into the fire. A movement on the sofa catches my eye.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that!’ I toss the photo into the flames. The glass bursts and the faded photo curls into tongues of blue. ‘You’re about to get your comeuppance too.’ I tug the black notebook out from where it has lodged itself in the side of the armchair and hold it aloft. ‘The bird of blame will sing its song for you in the end, Bella.’

  Lucie

  I traipse back to the cottage. It’s only four thirty, but the light has that wintery quality that makes people turn up their collars and moan about the nights drawing in. As I hit the mill path, Floss appears from nowhere, tongue lolling, bits of undergrowth sticking to her fur. She looks overjoyed to see me. I fumble in my coat pocket for my phone and she wags her tail.

  ‘No biscuits,’ I tell her. ‘Come home with me and I’ll smuggle you a Hobnob.’

  I have a text from Arthur: Busy day. Just cashing up. Fancy some pecan brownies? He just can’t help himself and it makes me chuckle.

  I text back: Maybe. But we need to talk about your mother.

  I know.

  I feel suddenly cold, and button up my jacket.

  Floss has raced on ahead. As I emerge into the mill den and head towards the cottage, I can see her at the waterwheel, staring through the iron grill. Her head is slightly tilted, as if she’s waiting for it to move, and she pretends not to hear me calling her, even when I mention biscuits.

  ‘Floss! Come on, it’s getting cold.’

  I walk over to her. The steady flow of the diverted water fills my ears but there’s nothing to see; the wheel remains motionless. On a sudden whim, I head for the bridge behind the mill. Its walls are short and stout; Mac told me once that it was built with stone appropriated from much older buildings that once stood here. I’ve no idea what the buildings were: tumbledown cottages, perhaps, or the village inn, or the bakehouse, or the church. The place has a timeless quality; I can see the past in layers all around me, and the bits I can’t see are buried in silt, just out of sight.

  If I lean over the bridge, just a little, I can see the brown swirl of the burn far below, and the meeting place where the lade hurries from the wheel to join it. Downstream, the dippers bob from bank to boulder. If I lean a little more, I can see the entrance to the tunnel that Arthur was telling me about. Curiosity creeps up out of nowhere. I have a sudden, irrational urge to investigate, even though my hatred of water makes me hold back. I’d have to clamber into the burn and walk under the bridge, but it can’t be that deep.

  Floss nudges my knee. I glance down at her. ‘Want to go walkies?’ She wags her tail and smiles at me in the way dogs do.

  It takes me five minutes to nip back to the cottage and don my wellies. We have to go upstream, a good bit past the mill, to find a place where the bank is low enough to clamber into the burn. Floss plunges into the water like a duck, but I have to summon all my courage to follow. I plod through the shallows, breathing hard, boots sliding on the pebbly riverbed. Several times I nearly lose my footing, and I start to panic, but Floss’s enthusiasm drives me on. I stagger under the cavernous stone arch of the
bridge, until we come to the place where the waters meet.

  Floss is belly deep in water, barking at the tunnel, but I have to take my time wading through the strong undercurrent. The eddy coils around my wellies like a serpent, and Mac’s stories have never seemed so alive. It’s easy to imagine kelpies and trolls and other strange beasts on an evening like this, when the light is fading. It’s easy to imagine that something is watching from the high, dusty windows of the mill.

  Floss begins to whimper. The iron gate that seals off the mouth of the tunnel is heavy and resolute.

  Mac

  I need to keep an eye on Lucie. I’m not sure why she’s being so odd with me. Does she know I’ve guessed her dirty little secret? I bet she’s in my cottage right now, getting her claws into my son. I can’t have that. I just can’t. I leave the fireside, closing the door of the sitting room firmly. The phone on the hall table explodes into life just as I’m leaving the house. It’s one of those horrid digital affairs that sits bolt upright in its cradle, and the ringtone jangles my nerves. I dither, half-in, half-out of the front door, irritated by the notion that it’s probably someone wanting to sell me a new boiler. Or maybe it’s Arthur. Sighing, I let the door swing shut and snatch up the handset.

  ‘Yes, what is it?’

  The caller clears his throat. ‘Hello there, Margarita. It’s Doctor Mackay here – um, Henry.’

  ‘Hello, Henry. Is everything all right? Did you get my latest test results?’ My heart beats a little faster. My hand grips the phone.

  ‘No, no. Everything’s fine, Margarita – um, Mac.’

  The good doctor obviously can’t decide whether this is a social call or a professional one. I decide to help him out. ‘Did Arthur ask you to call me?’

  A beat or two of silence. ‘We did have a few words, last time I nipped in for a latte, yes. The thing is, Mac – the thing is, he seems to think you are a little . . . stressed. Do you think that could be the case?’