by RL McKinney
‘I’m used to it.’ She tilted her head, closed one eye, looking at Catriona as her hand moved across the paper.
‘You’ve never been married?’
‘No. I don’t have a good track record with men. I lived with a guy for a few years in my twenties. Stuart was a fair bit older than me. He was … a very well-established artist and teacher, he was passionate and brilliant and gorgeous. I was totally enthralled by him. The first year was like the most perfect honeymoon and then when he thought I was his forever, he let his out inner bastard. He was controlling and abusive. He was known for it, apparently, but none of our so-called friends could be bothered to tell me until I found out for myself.’
‘Oh God, I’m sorry, I’m asking too many questions.’
‘No you’re not.’ Her hand stopped moving, the sharp point of the pencil poised above the page, and her eyes were open wide and round. Catriona’s breath quickened. Julie knew something. Calum had told her something. He suspected … what? What did he suspect? It wouldn’t be so hard to guess. He’d sent Julie to fish it out of her.
‘He shoved me around and slapped me. Someone pissed him off at work, he had a glass too many on his way home, he overheard me arranging a meeting and thought I was two-timing – any old time he felt like it, really. It took him breaking my arm before I got off my arse and left.’
‘Honestly?’
It was hard to imagine. It seemed like something so bad would show – like you could look at a person and read the history like words tattooed on their skin – but it didn’t. Not on Julie.
‘Where did you go?’
‘The women’s shelter first. Then London. Then Paris. Then Sydney. I was afraid to stay in any one place too long. Maybe I still am.’
‘So where is he? Glasgow?’
‘Yip. Married, with a son. I bumped into him and his wife at an opening a couple of years ago. He made out that we were old friends, and she made out she was the adoring wife. Fuck, I wanted to get her alone and ask her if he was still at it.’
‘You could have just told her, right there in public.’
A slow nod, and for the first time a shadow of regret crossed Julie’s face. ‘I could have. I was too weak to confront him. I didn’t want to make a scene. I doubt he has any idea how badly he hurt me. We’re not fully human to men like that. I couldn’t be with a man for years after that. I had a lot of girlfriends before I hooked up with your dad.’
She started drawing again, a long spiral of hair hanging over her forehead. Catriona leaned forward a little to try to see the paper, but it was tilted away from her. ‘So why my dad?’
Julie lifted one shoulder. ‘He doesn’t ask for more than I can give him. He’s gentle. He knows what it’s like to have this monstrous black thing inside you. He has his weird moods and so do I and we get each other. I might even go as far as to say I love him, but don’t tell him I said that.’
‘How come?’
Julie picked up her wine glass and smiled at it. She took a moment to think about how to answer this, but before she could, there was a soft knock and Calum came in the front door.
‘Speak of the devil,’ Julie said. ‘His ears must have been burning.’ She laughed at him. ‘Did you lose someone?’
‘I wondered where you’d got to,’ he said to Cat. ‘You all right?’
Catriona raised her wine glass towards him. ‘Just fine.’
Julie put down her pencil and gently tore the sheet out of the pad. ‘Here. Your daughter.’
Calum looked at the drawing and smiled. He stared at it for ages. Catriona could see his body sway with each breath.
‘Let me see, Dad.’
He handed it to her. She saw a girl with full lips and deep eyes. She was intelligent, rebellious, strong. It looked like her but didn’t feel like her. It felt like who she wanted to be.
‘I wish I could draw like this,’ she said, offering the drawing back to Julie.
‘It’s for you.’
‘Oh … okay. Thank you.’ She stood up. They’d want to be alone. They’d want time to talk about her. ‘I’ll just go. I think I’ll have a bath. Thanks for the wine, Julie.’
Sitting on the edge of the tub as the bath filled, she thought about Julie’s story. Julie would be around Calum’s age, maybe slightly younger, and it had taken her since her twenties to want to be with a man again? That was as long as Catriona had been alive, or maybe more. A life sentence.
Maybe women were the answer. Who really needed men anyway? She didn’t think she wanted children, so why bother with men at all?
It had never crossed her mind to be with another girl.
She swirled her fingers in the water and wondered what it would be like.
She didn’t suppose it mattered. A girl would still touch her. A girl would still say trust me, and that was the problem. That was never going to happen.
NIRVANA
‘I want you to have it,’ Julie said. She set the sculpture of Finn and the angel on the coffee table in front of him. ‘I don’t care what you do with it. You can bury it, you can put it on his gravestone, you can leave it out in the woods somewhere, it doesn’t bother me. It’s up to you.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course. It’s yours.’
Calum wanted to tell her to put it back into the studio, chip the images away and use the remaining stone for something else. Or otherwise just take a sledgehammer to it. He could wait until she went down to Glasgow and do it himself. Except it was Julie’s art and he was no iconoclast. She had her own reasons for making it, and for giving it to him. She wanted him to do something meaningful with it.
‘I don’t know where it should go.’
‘It’ll come to you.’ Julie turned him by the shoulders and began to massage his back, making circular motions down his spine with her callused sculptor’s fingers. ‘I told Cat about Stuart.’
He glanced back at her. ‘What did she say?’
‘Not much.’
‘She’s good at saying not much.’
‘I think she wants to. She asked me a lot of questions. She’s not antisocial, she’s just afraid.’
‘Afraid of what?’
‘I don’t know. Of being judged? Maybe of being let down.’
‘Or dropped.’ He touched Finn’s stone face.
‘You didn’t drop him.’
‘Mmm. I know I didn’t. I just about killed myself trying to catch the bastard and he didn’t even want me to.’
He turned and slipped his arm around her shoulder. She nestled into his side and they sat together for a while as the light outside dimmed and the water turned from turquoise to gold to silicon. They sipped wine and didn’t talk. They didn’t do this very often – maybe it was too domestic for comfort – but it was nice for as long as it might last.
Julie dozed. She reminded him of the cats they’d had as children: affectionate but only on their own terms. They might sit in your lap and purr for twenty minutes and then slash your hand open without warning.
He closed his eyes. Julie’s drawing of Catriona materialised behind his eyelids. It was Catriona without the personal storm cloud hanging over her. It was also the spitting image of Jenny as she’d been at eighteen, that first hungover morning in his flat in Aberdeen.
Aberdeen, November 1993
The girl was there again when he went back to the pub with his fiddle the following week. The girl with the white hair and kissable lips. Tonight they were painted dark burgundy. She’d done herself up a bit: motorcycle jacket, black and white striped skirt, purple tights, ankle boots with kitten heels. She and her pal had settled themselves at the table nearest the snug where the musicians sat. They were already merry with drink by the time he arrived. He threw back a whisky at the bar, carried his Guinness over to the table, went through the obligatory meet-and-greet and got his fiddle out. He fielded a hundred questions about the accident and his convalescence as he rubbed rosin on the bow and tuned up, replying that he didn’t want to talk abou
t it but would accept drams of condolence. These were supplied with such generosity that he knew it would rapidly become a messy night. He was not going to be capable of moderation. All the while, the girls watched him. When they played, the girl with the white hair tapped her heel and rattled her thumb on the table. She looked like she wanted to get up and dance. Sometimes she and her friend would lean in and say something, and they’d both giggle. Her face turned a brighter shade of pink as the night went on.
After a while he went outside for a smoke, hoping a blast of icy air would settle the tide of whisky already running high in his blood. He inserted the fag into his mouth, flicked the lighter, drew deeply, exhaled an opaque lungful into the night. The smoke hung there in a shocked cloud, like it was having second thoughts.
‘Hey,’ she said, materialising behind him. There was no mistaking it; she’d come looking for him. She tapped her own packet of cigarettes and slid one out. ‘I’ve lost my lighter. Have you got one?’
He pulled his Zippo from his pocket and she bent towards the small flame.
‘Ta.’
‘No worries.’
They stood there as smokers do, united in vice. ‘Where did you learn to play fiddle like that?’
‘Home.’ He drew on the cigarette again and wondered what had happened to his chat. Even on a relatively good day, the structure of language seemed to melt into a formless puddle as soon as he tried to articulate it.
‘Where’s home?’
‘West coast. Glendarach. Near Arisaig.’
‘Never heard of it.’
He shrugged. ‘Most people haven’t.’
Her lips flickered into an uncertain smile. His bluntness had unsettled her. I’m not really like this, he wanted to say, but what would be the point? She’d be scared off before he would manage to explain himself.
‘So what brings you to Aberdeen, then? Don’t tell me oil.’
‘Oil.’
‘No! How come the only guys I ever meet are roughnecks?’
‘You must be hanging around the wrong bars,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’m an engineer, not a roughneck.’
‘It’s all the same to me. I’m Jenny, by the way.’
‘Calum.’
‘Nice to meet you.’ She offered him a hand. ‘Sorry, my fingers are frozen. Why’d you come out here to smoke?’
‘For the fresh air.’ He laughed. ‘Why did you?’
‘To talk to you, obviously.’
‘Oh good. These things can be misinterpreted.’
He woke up beside her, the bed listing on an unstable earth. After that first conversation amidst the frosty night vapours, he remembered thinking or perhaps saying bugger it and launching into a headlong drinking session, embracing the whisky like a cliff diver reaching for the deep water beyond the rocks. It had been a long time since he’d allowed himself to get so drunk.
Somehow they’d made it back to his flat. He couldn’t remember inviting her, couldn’t remember coming up the stairs, couldn’t quite remember what had happened next. There were lingering sensations: mouth on mouth, skin on skin, her smell: clove cigarettes and Poison perfume. The fact that they were both now naked suggested that they had not stopped at polite first-night exploration, and a throbbing ache in his knee hinted at the kind of exertion it had become unaccustomed to.
A faint sense of unease added to the hangover. In the cold light of morning, with eyeliner smudged below her eyes, she looked vulnerable and very young. Far too young, in fact. The queasiness in his gullet threatened to become full-blown nausea. He sat up slowly, let his feet rest on the floorboards for a few seconds before testing his ability to stand without falling over. The effort brought a sweat to his forehead; it was going to be a grim day. The best thing would be to go back to bed, but he suspected he didn’t smell very good and didn’t want to lie beside her anymore. He scooped up last night’s jeans and shirt, washed his face, dressed, forced down a couple of paracetamols with a pint of water, filled the kettle and smoked out the window while he waited for it to boil.
Tea brought some of the details into sharper focus. They’d walked her friend (name now lost) home and then Jenny had said, ‘I’d invite you back but I’m in halls. The bed’s barely big enough for half a person.’
‘They do that on purpose. It’s called contraceptive furniture.’
She’d laughed at this: a joyful sound. They’d walked slowly, holding on to each other, ending up back here without any real discussion. He remembered trying not to limp obviously; he didn’t want questions or a sympathy shag, and he didn’t want Finn spoiling the party like he’d been doing for years. You could never have a girl back here when Finn was around.
Jenny appeared, wearing his dressing gown, her hair standing up on one side of her head and flattened on the other, her cheek creased from the pillow. He lifted his head from the wall. ‘There’s tea in the pot.’
She poured herself a cup and wrapped her hands around it. ‘How are you?’
‘Penitent.’ He closed his eyes and crossed himself for emphasis. ‘And a bit sick. I hope we didn’t … ’
‘We did.’
‘Do anything you didn’t want to do.’
‘No … don’t worry.’ She sat down across from him and almost managed to make the morning after look sexy. ‘And I am eighteen, because I know you’re wondering.’
‘That’s … good to know.’
She sipped her tea and looked around his kitchen, surveying gig posters and clutter, a peroxide-dipped detective gathering titbits, waiting for him to offer further conversation. ‘You don’t talk very much, do you?’ It wasn’t a challenge, just an observation.
‘You’re not seeing me at my loquacious best this morning.’
‘Loquacious? That’s a good word.’ She raised a thin black eyebrow. ‘Are you ever?’
‘Not often.’
‘I like your flat.’
‘My mother was here a few days ago and cleaned it for me. You wouldn’t have liked it much before.’
‘Do you always get your mum to clean your flat?’
‘No. She’s just trying to be helpful since I broke my leg.’ Helpful. Maybe Mary thought so, with her bags of shopping and her venomous advice. He was still nursing the wounds from their last conversation. She’d phoned him twice since then, but he’d taken to screening his calls and wasn’t in the mood for making up.
‘I was going to ask you about that. What did you do?’
‘I had a bad day climbing in the Cairngorms, back in July.’
‘Oh.’ She shrugged this off with the carelessness of her age. ‘D’you mind if I look around?’
‘Go ahead.’
She wandered off and he stayed in the kitchen, gingerly swallowing tea and exhaling anxiety. The flurry of visitors he’d had immediately after the accident had died down quickly, and the flat had become quiet and still as a monastic cell. He could spend days on end alone. He could spend a day without uttering a word and another talking to himself in Pig Latin if he wanted. He couldn’t see his life any more, he could only feel it from the dark place in the middle. He didn’t know what she might see.
The strum of a guitar came from the lounge. He was protective of it after the disappearance of his predecessor, and he hurried to its rescue. Then he stopped abruptly in the doorway. She was playing Nirvana, gently but competently. ‘Lithium’. Jesus, of all the hundreds of songs she might have chosen.
‘Can you sing that?’ he asked, stepping into the lounge.
She lowered the guitar. ‘Sorry, I should have asked.’
‘It’s all right.’ He sat down across from her.
‘You like Nirvana?’
‘Not really, but go ahead.’
Pink splotches appeared on her cheeks. ‘You’re making me nervous. I don’t sing in front of people.’
‘Close your eyes and pretend I’m not here.’
She picked up the guitar again, shifted on the sofa so that her shoulder faced him, and sang in a husky voice that might fly if s
he allowed it to. Her hair fell over her eyes as she played and there was a raggedness in her expression that spoke of more than a hangover. She understood the song, and for the first time in six months, he was curious about someone.
When she finished, he said, ‘You’re not a bad singer.’
‘Thank you.’
‘My brother used to think that song was about him.’
‘That’s worrying.’ She held the guitar close against her chest, her fingers still on the strings.
‘Aye, it was.’
‘I hope he’s better now.’
‘He killed himself.’
Jenny lifted her eyes and met his. ‘Oh fuck. Honestly?’
Suddenly he knew it was true, as if he’d seen the event again in slow motion: Finn’s deliberate neglect of his protection, the breakneck speed, the wild reach for a hold that was so far above him he never stood a chance, his body launching itself upward, then out, then down. It was always going to happen. Finn knew it was going to happen, if not that day then another. Maybe that had been the whole point of his climbing from the very beginning. He had been practising the art of a beautiful suicide.
He carried the stone angel home, wrapped it in an old towel and stowed it at the back of his wardrobe. It couldn’t stay there forever; it would sing at him every time he opened the door and he’d be compelled to unwrap it and look at it. It would have some weird hold over him, like a magical object in an old story. Julie had no idea what power she had.
He listened at Mary and Catriona’s doors. Both rooms were silent, so he felt safe to bring out the little bag of cannabis and roll himself a thin joint. He smoked it in his bedroom with the window open, watched the moonlight shimmering on the black water and tried to figure out what to do with the damned statue.
THE PIPER OF GLENDARACH
The birches had developed their first golden fringes. Mary looked up from the sink and thought of Jack. Every year, the first signs of autumn brought memories of his final weeks. After he died, she pinned up her hair and carried on. Just keep going: that was what he did, and what he would have wanted her to do. She was praised for her strength. That was something to be proud of. But still, she would never know how she survived that first winter without him.
