by Sarah Dalton
“Only if yer sit on me knee.”
As Lila climbed over into the front seat, I gripped the arm rest harder than I’d gripped anything before, so tight that my knuckle bones shone through my skin, and my fingernails left half-moon marks on the leather. I remember her high-pitched laugh as she took the steering wheel, and the screeching of brakes as she worked the pedals, all the time with my stomach churning and Lila’s boyfriend’s hand on my knee.
Somehow we made it home safely that night, but we never went to the stars.
* * *
There was a comet in the sky the night Lila was born. Aunt Izzy always told us the story when we went for fish and chips on the seafront.
“Oh, Mum, not this story again!” Lila would roll her eyes.
“I saw it, you know. I saw it moving through the sky, and I knew that the person inside me wanted to come out, and I knew that the person I’d created was going to be worth it all. And you are.”
And as the two of them laughed together, their giggles infectious, I thought about how there are some people born for whom the world seems to stop. They are such a presence that they create a marker. They are a trail blazing through the sky. Izzy and Lila Quirke are those people. I’ve always been the girl grasping onto their tails, clinging to their particles with my fingertips, and by allowing myself to be dragged along with them, I bring light into my own life. Perhaps their brightness rubs off onto me sometimes, too.
And because they are such vibrant creatures, we forget to look deeper.
I’ve always thought this about the situation with my mum and Izzy.
Mum is the oldest, by seven years. She went to school every day. She did her homework. She went to university and studied maths, which was where she met Dad and the two of them fell in love. Mum has always lived her life like you’re supposed to, by being good, working hard, finding the right man, and settling down.
It was Izzy who told me about Mum’s troubles to conceive me. Right after University ended for my parents they were married, and Mum wanted to begin her family. She’d spent time looking after her young sister, and she’d always wanted to have a baby.
So when Izzy fell pregnant at sixteen years old, it was a dagger to Mum’s heart.
It seems so trivial now. I am only five months younger than Lila, but for my mum it was a betrayal. Izzy had the baby first. Her irresponsible, spirited sister ended up with the responsibility first, and Mum was jealous. Those five months were fraught with tension. My highly-strung mother still lived with her parents, and Dad lived with them too. She refused to speak to my poor knocked up aunt.
When I imagine what it must have been like for them all, I can’t help but wonder if neither of the two sisters could see the pain beneath the surface of the other person. A sixteen-year-old Izzy could never understand what it feels like to feel inferior. A twenty-three-year-old could not see how her naïve sister was afraid.
And when Lila was born, she had all the firsts Mum wanted for me. She breathed, walked, and talked first. She captivated my grandparents before me. I’ve never cared, but Mum did, and that tension has never gone from the two women.
And what an entrance my cousin had into this world! Izzy’s labour was as unconventional as her conception. Drawn out under the night sky by the comet, a young and inexperienced Izzy had mistaken labour pains for Braxton Hicks all day and didn’t think much of it. When her waters broke an hour after twilight on a hot summer’s eve, she had only one choice—to try and walk home as fast as she could.
Lila was faster.
Izzy pulled her own baby out from between her legs on a grassy knoll under the trail of a comet. Back at home, Mum watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the lap of her husband, sipping a hot chocolate, with me snuggled and content in her womb.
So you would think it would be she who would grow up to be special. You would think Lila would have been granted the strange abilities I’ve been offered by the Universe, or the Powers-That-Be, or embedded in my genetics, whichever it may be. But no, that responsibility landed on my shoulders instead.
I told Lila all about it one day. It was over the phone. I called her out of the blue.
“Mary,” she said. She always sounds so excited to hear your voice, and she speaks as though you are the most important person in the world. She’s always shunned modern slang in favour of the way people spoke in old movies. “I’m so glad you called, I was just thinking of you.”
“You were?”
“Of course! You’re always two thoughts from my mind, you know that.”
“Something weird happened to me today.”
“Honey, you sound frightened. What’s the matter?” I imagined her talking to me with the phone in the crook of her neck as she did something else with her hands, probably something glamorous like flicking through Vogue or painting her toenails.
“You’ll think I’m crazy.”
“Well, I should hope so,” she said. “I like crazy.”
“I had some sort of vision,” I replied. “I saw something, and I think it was dead.”
She didn’t even skip a beat. “Dead like how? Zombie dead? Or ghost dead?”
“Zombie, I think. But the thing is, no one else saw it.”
“I knew it!” Her voice raised as though she had just had amazing news. “I knew you had something like this inside you.”
“You did?”
“Of course, honey. Remember when we were little and we walked through the graveyard of the church on Castle Road?”
“Yeah I remember that place. It was creepy.”
“You just looked so at home, darling,” she said.
“But, I was just scared.”
“No, you weren’t. You held my hand, remember? And you said, ‘it’s all right, they’re only sleeping’.”
I remembered it the other way, but there was something about the way Lila spoke that made you want to believe everything she said.
“So you think this is something special?”
“Are you kidding? I think this is the best thing that has ever happened to you. Big things are going to happen for you. I can feel it, and my instincts are never wrong,” she said.
“As if. I’m nothing special, it’s you with the bright future,” I said, and I remember laughing, too.
“No, I see something very different for my future,” she replied. There was something about her tone that stopped the laughter.
My head is full of Lila on the drive to Izzy’s. Every song on the radio reminds me of her. Every flash of a smile from neighbouring cars makes me think it’s her. Only when the motorway has me sweating with nerves do I begin to calm and concentrate.
That day when she told me that I would have an important future, she’d talked me back from the brink of fear. There had been a storm brewing inside me and she helped to calm it. I just wish she had been around to help me through a few other crises.
A sudden prick of tears fills my eyes as an angry driver beeps at me whilst overtaking in the centre lane. I hadn’t realised how slow I was driving. Perhaps I am nervous to see them, and my subconscious has me slowing down the inevitable.
I shake it off and carry on towards Aunt Izzy’s.
There was one thing Lila was right about when we discussed the Things I see. They are special to me now. They have progressed, too. It’s not just visions of zombies. I can speak to the dead. Ghosts talk to me. Sometimes I help them, too.
The problem is: people think I’m crazy.
When I had a month-long stay in a mental institute, Lila would have really helped me. Instead, I had to deal with it alone.
But then there are times when Lila has had to deal with things alone, too. The thought makes my stomach squirm. I should have been there for her.
We don’t always look deep enough.
I’m as guilty as Mum was all those years ago.
It doesn’t matter now. All that matters is getting to Izzy’s without creating a pile-up on the motorway.
With my foot more confi
dently on the accelerator, the countryside whizzes past me in a blur. I was going to stop and eat Mum’s sandwiches for dinner, but I decide to press on instead. The air is warm enough for me to have the window open, and the smell from the fumes spoils the summer afternoon. I should get to Izzy’s for early evening.
Her house is isolated on the hills leading up to the cliffs. It’s a small house, a three bedroom bungalow, with a long-reaching garden that seems to disappear into the surrounding countryside. It’s hard to believe that once my grandparents, my parents and my Aunt Izzy all crammed into the house, all those years ago.
When we were children, Lila and I would run and run down the hill towards the neighbouring field, pretending we were the last remaining humans on the Earth as Izzy’s cottage disappeared behind us. I wonder if Izzy and Lila still feel that way.
Only once do I have to consult the map, even though I have never driven to Izzy’s before. I’ve come many times, but what child ever remembers the exact roads and turnings? They only stare out of the windows, making up stories in their minds, staring at the faces that go by in a blur, wondering what stories there are amongst them. At least I always did.
The narrow lane that leads up to Aunt Izzy’s is one I remember with total clarity. I remember the shape of a strange tree that arches over the road, its trunk covered in creeping ivy. It always looked like a crooked Y shape, with a split trunk and two long branches extending out like spread fingers.
Once, Lila climbed that tree and hung from it like a monkey, her legs dangling over the road. I screamed and screamed at her, terrified that a lorry would come careening around the corner and kill her instantly. I remember how the image of her battered body popped into my mind and how my blood ran cold. But then Lila pulled herself up and climbed back down the tree, giggling the entire way. I’d joined in with her laughter, but it wasn’t genuine. She was the only one who found that funny.
I shake my head now, as I think about it. She had no fear whatsoever. Dad always says that a little fear does us good, and I think he’s right.
Is it better that I’m a little afraid now? I’m not sure which it is I’m afraid of, though, the past or the present.
* * *
They are both waiting for me as I pull up. Lila wears her favourite shorts, cut dangerously high up her thighs. As far as I know, she’s never had a haircut. She doesn’t need one. Her hair hangs loose and lovely, almost to her waist, so much glossier than the unruly hair Mum and I inherited. Izzy always said it was from her Brazilian father, who had come to Scarborough as a child prodigy football player and left the season after. But then sometimes she told us that Lila’s father had been the son of a Russian immigrant who was killed by the Bratva. Either way, Lila has managed to skip our dark mess of hair, and has a brown curtain of loveliness instead.
One thing we do share are our dark eyes. We both have taupe eyes with chestnut flecks.
Izzy is like Mum, but with softer features. Her hair is long and wild, too, but not quite as thick as mine or Mum’s. She always wears skinny jeans and loose vest tops, and at thirty-four years old she is as beautiful as she was at sixteen. I’ve seen the photographs. Her smile comes easily, and she’s never still, but she moves in languid motions with her arms: a flick of the wrist to remove a stray hair, a sweep of her hand to get a crumb from her top, a stroke of her fingertips as she greets you.
Lila waves, but not just with her hand, with her entire arm, like a person lost at sea. Her eyes are bright in the evening sunshine. Izzy leans on one hip, a crooked smile on her face.
“Mary!” Lila shouts as I exit the car. I smile to her.
“What’s cookin’, good lookin’?” Don’t ask me why, but that’s been my Aunt Izzy’s greeting for me since I was seven years old. We meet each other halfway and she runs a finger down the scars on my neck. “I’m so sorry, Mary.”
I pull away. “It’s nothing.”
“What happened to you?” Lila asks. She stands next to Izzy with her arms folded and her brow furrowed.
“It’s from the fire. But at least I got out okay. Not everyone did,” I say.
“The one in the hospital?” Izzy asks.
I nod.
She shakes her head. “Su should never have sent you to that place.”
“Mum thought she was doing what was right—”
“By sending you to a psychiatric ward?” She lets out a hollow laugh. “I should have talked her out of it. I would never send Lila to a place like that.” Izzy’s eyes fill with tears and I give her an awkward hug.
“I’ll let you two catch up,” Lila says as she walks away to Izzy’s cottage.
“It’s not your fault,” I say. I pause and add, “My time in hospital wasn’t so bad, you know. I met some great people.”
She brushes away her tears and smiles. “You seem different. You’re more grown up.”
“I’ve made some decisions lately,” I say. “I feel better for them.”
“That’s good, kid. Come on up to the house. I’ll open some beers.”
“Cool, I’ll get my things,” I reply.
Izzy is one of those “cool” adults who lets you drink alcohol before it’s legal. I had my first beer at Izzy’s when I was sixteen. I had my first vodka and Coke here too. Mum lets me drink now I’m almost eighteen, but I’m not supposed to with the medication I’m on.
Anti-psychotics.
I don’t take them, so it’s okay.
At the door I’m greeted by the over-enthusiastic wagging of a tail connected to the worst guard dog in the world—Bentley. Izzy’s golden retriever. I lean down and scratch his ears.
“Aww, Bentley missed you,” Izzy says. “It’s been too long, Mares. I’ve missed you too.”
“And don’t forget me!” Lila rushes into the kitchen and goes to pat her dog, but Bentley backs away, his hackles raised and his teeth showing.
“It’s so strange, he keeps doing this recently,” Izzy says. When she reaches for his collar, he runs from the kitchen. “I just don’t get it.”
Lila sniffs her armpit. “Maybe I’ve been using new perfume or something. Crazy dog.” She shrugs off the strange behaviour of the dog and climbs onto a stool by the breakfast bar.
Izzy hums as she opens the fridge and pulls out a bottle of beer for me. “So what’s new with you, chick? Tell me everything, boys, booze, bad behaviour, the lot. I want to live vicariously through you as I approach middle age a spinster.”
I pull up a stool next to Lila, who has pulled her feet up and rests her cheek against her knees, sitting precariously close to the edge.
“There was a boy,” I admit. “I met him on holiday.”
“And?” Izzy asks.
“It’s complicated.”
“It always is,” Lila says, with a wicked grin.
Izzy tosses a tea towel in my direction. “Is that all I get? You’ve not seen your Aunty Izzy for months and then you leave out the juicy details?”
I catch the towel and laugh. “It’s really not that juicy. He had issues and it only lasted the week.”
“Did you screw him?” Lila asks.
“I didn’t screw him,” I say.
The three of us burst out laughing and I toss the towel back to Izzy. “Oh, Mary, you’re too sensible. You’ve got to throw caution to the wind sometime. Hold your hand out of the car window and get some air. Feel the world speeding around you.” She points at me. “But always use a condom.”
My cheeks burn with embarrassment. “Stop!”
“If you think this is bad, you should try living with her,” Lila says.
Izzy sighs. “I am a little too much sometimes, aren’t I? Sorry, Mary. I guess I just feel a little…” She chokes up, then controls herself.
“Like she needs a man,” Lila mutters under her breath.
“Have you considered internet dating, Aunt Izzy?” I ask.
Izzy almost chokes on her beer. “Me? Internet dating? Honey, have you seen the kind of men who live around here? And the ones on t
he Internet are the dregs. No thank you.”
“Then let’s move,” Lila says, her head snapping up from her knees. “Let’s move to a big city!”
“What’s stopping you from moving?” I ask.
Izzy picks up her beer and moves around the breakfast bar in the kitchen. “Nothing exactly, I just…” She wanders out towards the window and I follow behind. “Will I be able to see the sea when I move?”
I follow her gaze out of the window. A strong breeze plays with the grass. Where the grass ends, the distant sea begins. It’s grey in the slowly emerging twilight. It’s funny, but whenever I see the sea, I hear it, too. It makes no sense because we’re too far away to hear any of the waves, and there aren’t any windows open in the cottage anyway, yet still I can hear the gentle lapping, and the call of seagulls. My mind has a perfect loop of seaside noises, and whenever I think of the sea, those sounds pop into my mind and I instantly feel at ease.
“It is beautiful,” I say.
“Not as beautiful as Manchester looks at 2am on a Saturday night,” Lila calls from across the room.
I turn and offer a smile to her. But then, a feeling from the pit of my stomach has me turning back to the window. It’s one of those gradual feelings that builds up as though something is very wrong. I turn back to the window and gasp. My fingers go slack, letting the bottled beer clash against the kitchen tiles. Broken glass bounces against the tops of my feet.
“Don’t move,” Izzy orders. “I’ll get a dustpan and brush.”
Suddenly I hear Lila’s whisper by my ear. “You saw something, didn’t you? We’re not alone here, are we?”
“No,” I reply. “I don’t think we are.”
I turn and face Lila and neither of us breathes for a moment. She’s so close to me that I can see the freckles on her nose. We’re almost exactly the same height. We have been since we were children.
“What did you see?” she asks.
“I saw one of them,” I say. “I saw a Thing.”
Sweat builds on my forehead as I continue to stare out of the window, my eyes locked on where I had seen it. The Things that reveal themselves to me are not ghosts or zombies or ghouls, they are warnings.
