Guilt Trip

by Maggy Farrell

  I shivered from the cold, sitting myself down on the bench trying to warm my hands on my paper cup, thankful that at least we’d be going by car.

  But as I sipped the overly-brewed drink, I couldn’t put off thinking about it any longer. About the poster. Why had I imagined such a thing when it had nothing whatsoever to do with the accident? I mean, I could understand if one of the band’s songs had been playing in the car when we skidded off the road, and that I had subconsciously tuned in to it. But I knew that that couldn’t be true, as Mum had just switched the radio off.

  So, like the bear, was it just a weird, random creation of my mind?

  I shook my head. Even then, it made no sense. How could I imagine a band I didn’t really know? I must have seen them before. I must have. I looked across the street at the pub, the Fox and Hound, trying to work out which of the second floor windows was mine and whether it allowed for a clear view of the T-shirt stall. Maybe the T-shirt had been on more prominent display yesterday or the day before and I’d seen it as I’d looked out? That must be the answer.

  Finding my room, I supposed that it was possible; but that wasn’t exactly proof was it. It was a bit like the drawing pin marks on the wall. Maybe I had seen them. But maybe not. It didn’t really prove anything at all.

  But by now my eyes were idly wandering further along the second floor windows. I wondered which room Luke slept in. What it was like. What he wore in bed. Then I laughed to myself as I remembered how he’d raised his eyebrows, pretending to look scandalised, that we slept on the same floor of the building.

  But it wasn’t really the weather for sitting on the metal bench for too long, so, having finished my drink, I got going.

  I browsed round a few more stalls, but there was nothing for me to buy. Typical. Money in my pocket, and nothing to spend it on.

  But then, spotting a make-up stall I went over for a look. There was a good selection. I mean, not brands I knew, but loads of interesting colours. Not your usual run-of-the-mill stuff at all.

  “Hi!” The stallholder was chatting with her friend over a cuppa, but greeted me as I approached. Maybe in her early forties or so, she smiled a bright scarlet smile, her big, stiff lacquered curls bouncing as she put down her mug and drew nearer.

  She looked down at the pearlescent eye shadow I was now inspecting. “Nice one, that,” she said. “Want to try it?” She indicated the tall stool she’d been sitting on next to a mirror under the awning at the end of the stall.

  I shrugged, nothing else to do, and climbed up into the seat as she gathered her tools about her. Taking a cleansing wipe, she removed my gold eyeliner.

  “You on holiday here?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shame the weather’s turned so bad for you.”

  Her chunky bracelets clunked together as she opened a box of testers and began to dab the silvery powder on my eyelid.

  “Maybe we could try defining it with something darker too,” she said to herself, considering, her finger running across her selection of eyeliner pencils and tapping on a glittering charcoal grey.

  Having outlined my eyes, she began blending the two colours together, explaining what she was doing all the time, gradually easing them towards the outer edges of my eyelids.

  “There,” she said. “All done.”

  “That’s lovely, Paula,” her friend complimented her. “You’ve made her eyes look huge.”

  “Yes,” Paula smiled happily. “She’ll have all the boys after her now.”

  She stepped back and I peered in the mirror. Her friend was right. My eyes did look much bigger and bolder now. And I looked older. Mum wouldn’t have been pleased.

  “Thanks,” I said, “I love it.”

  Shoving my hand in my pocket, I brought out some of Dad’s cash, and, smiling, held it out to her.

  However, ignoring the money, she suddenly stepped back, as if something had startled her.

  But she quickly recovered, patting my arm apologetically. “Sorry, love. Don’t mind me. It’s just that, for a second there, you didn’t half remind me of someone I used to know. A customer.”

  She turned to her friend. “I’ve told you about her,” she said in confidential tones. “The one who had the accident.”

  I smiled, uncertainly, as she took the money.

  “Do you mean the one whose mother was the waitress?” her friend asked as Paula handed me my change and the products now in a leopard-print paper bag.

  “Yes,” she answered, pulling a sympathetic face. “That’s right. Before Sandy.”

  <><><>

  It was even colder now as I wandered round the last couple of stalls, and there was nothing else to buy.

  I hesitated, shivering, wondering what to do; but when I looked over at the pub, there was Luke, leaning in the doorway, watching me. Instantly my stomach filled with knots.

  I don’t know if he could sense the effect he was having on me, but, running a quick hand through his hair, he gave me a smile which made the knots twist and tighten. And then he mimed at throwing a dart.

  As I neared him, he nodded at my makeover. “Trying out a new look?” he smiled, his tone approving. And I could feel his eyes examining me, taking me in.

  I blushed, remembering what Paula had said about all the boys being ‘after’ me. I hoped he didn’t think I’d done it deliberately - for him.

  But then, he seemed to like it…

  I smiled to myself as I followed him inside: he’d been waiting for me. Actually waiting.

  So maybe he didn’t see me as a burden after all.

  <><><>

  It turned out that I was hopeless at darts. Useless. While Luke seemed to be able to manipulate his darts into doing exactly what he wanted, mine wouldn’t obey me at all. It was as if the target and darts were fitted with magnets of the same pole: they just repelled each other. I would aim at the board and they would start off fine, but somewhere in mid-flight they always managed to veer off, missing the spot completely and slamming into the walls instead.

  In the end, I was so frustrated that I forgot to be shy. “It’s not my fault,” I complained. “I’ve still got numb hands from being out in the cold. I can’t even feel my finger ends yet.”

  Luke shook his head, laughing at my excuses. “Let’s have a look, then,” he sighed dramatically, moving closer and taking both my hands in his, a tiny shock of electricity crackling down my spine at his touch.

  “Actually, they are a bit cold,” he said.

  “See,” I cried. “You can’t expect me to throw darts properly when I’ve practically got frostbite.”

  “Frostbite?” He raised one eyebrow at me and grinned. “Getting worse by the minute isn’t it?”

  Bringing my hands together, he enveloped them in his own which were large and warm. And then he began to rub. His fingers were rough and dry, and made a slight sandpapery sound as they chafed against my skin. And despite the cold in my fingers, I felt a warmth spreading through my body.

  “Right,” he said after a few moments, “let’s see what you can do now.”

  But it was no good. I was still hopeless.

  Taking aim for my final shot, I huffed and puffed, resigned to failure. But before I could throw it, Luke moved in behind my right shoulder. Leaning forward, his face down at my level, he wrapped his hand gently around mine as it held the dart.

  I stopped breathing, all my senses alert. He was so close that I could feel his body heat, and the tickle of his breath as he whispered next to my ear.

  “Now, eyes on where you want it to go.” He began rocking my arm backwards and forwards, rhythmically, in a smooth, gentle arc. “And …go…”

  I watched as the dart left my hand and flew through the air, straight at the board… only to hit it with a mighty thud and fall to the ground.

  I heard a snigger next to my right ear. “I don’t think that was frostbite, you know,” Luke said, letting my hand drop. “I think you’re just rubbish at darts.”

  Then, laughin
g at my squeal of outrage, he strolled over to the bar where he poured us a Coke each and threw me a bag of crisps.

  And so for a while I sat at the bar, quietly picking at my snack, watching him as he practised some shots on his own.

  It was a peaceful-enough scene, but inside, my mind was in turmoil. What was going on? We had been so tinglingly close, and yet now he was acting as if nothing had happened.

  Had he not felt it too?

  And what about our understanding? Our connection? Wasn’t he aware of that either?

  But no - he had been aware of it. I’d heard it in the tone of his voice. Seen it in the look in his eye. I was sure of it.

  So what had gone wrong? Was it that, after only an hour in my company, he was already bored? Had I failed to meet his expectations?

  As the silence lengthened, I began to feel more and more uncomfortable, like I should say something, fill the void. But everything I could think of sounded dull. Then I remembered what I’d heard in the market. About how someone had had an accident. Someone whose mum had been the waitress before Sandy. I wondered if that was the same Sandy I knew. The waitress at the pub.

  “Luke…” I began.

  “Mm?” He was concentrating, aiming for the bull’s-eye.

  “How long has Sandy worked here?”

  “Sandy? Dunno. About five years. Why?”

  “Oh, nothing. Just something I heard.”

  “About Sandy?”

  “No - about the waitress before her. Someone with a daughter.”

  Crash. Luke’s dart went wide, hitting the wall with some force - the first shot I’d seen him miss. He swore angrily.

  “You shouldn’t listen to gossip,” he said, looking at me seriously, an edge creeping into his voice. “Small towns like this are full of it.”

  I was horrified, wishing the ground would open up and swallow me whole.

  If only I’d stayed tongue-tied and pathetic; at least I’d been silent. But now I’d finally opened my mouth, I’d ruined everything - said completely the wrong thing. Given the impression that I was an idle gossip, tittle-tattling about other people’s affairs.

  Suddenly the silence was shattered by a blast of tinny music: my phone. It was Dad letting me know he was on his way back to the pub to collect me for our afternoon exploration of the caves at Hell’s Mouth.

  Relief flooded through me at the sound of his voice.

  Obviously, I should have done the mature thing: apologised to Luke; set things right. But I was a coward, and Dad’s call gave me the ‘get-out’ I needed.

  So, avoiding Luke’s eye, I quickly made my excuses and dashed off to meet him.

  12

  By now, the whole sky was smudged with sooty-grey clouds which stifled the sun so that the world seemed darker. And maybe this was what affected my mood. Or maybe it was the humiliation I felt over what had happened with Luke. But as Dad and I drove up and up, into the landscape of the Devil’s Lair, it seemed to me to be a hostile place, barren and cold. A land strangled by coarse bracken and strewn with broken rock. The hills which reared up on all sides seemed forbidding, their summits hard and grey and uninviting. Other landscapes had filled me with awe at their beauty and power, with a sense that I belonged to their huge, natural world. But here I felt nothing but a strange sense of foreboding.

  And then we drove over a cattle grid and up into the highest fells: and straight into low-lying cloud.

  Dad swore and switched on his headlights.

  “Maybe we should turn back,” I suggested tentatively.

  But he wasn’t listening, too busy concentrating on the road ahead, switching on the wipers to clear the thin drizzle which clung to the windscreen. He had no intention of turning back; he wanted to see the caves.

  He clicked the radio on, tuning in to one of his factual shows. This one was about animal defence techniques.

  And so, as the mist enclosed us in its gossamer shroud, we listened to a voice informing us about the bombardier beetle and how it sprays boiling toxic bodily fluids at its predators.

  The topic, while fascinating to Dad, obviously did nothing to raise my spirits. It simply increased my general feeling of unease.

  Nature certainly had a cruel side.

  My mind flashed back to the story of the changeling girl; then that poem about kittens being drowned in a bucket, the teacher calling it a fact of nature.

  I thought about my own cruel nature recently: how I’d labelled a woman a witch; how I’d casually judged the man in the bow tie to be a total prat; how I’d angered Luke by poking and prying into things that were none of my business.

  Sighing, I looked out at the mist, at how it was wrapping itself so thickly around the surrounding hilltops, concealing them from us.

  <><><>

  Finally we began to descend, driving down and down, out of the clouds, until, eventually, Dad turned right into the car park of the Hell’s Mouth Show Caves.

  Walking up a short flight of covered steps, Dad tapped on the little ticket window. When he explained who he was, he was invited into the office to confirm the arrangements for his photography session. He stepped in, leaving me in the cold outside, idly reading the notices stuck to the glass, about opening times and suitable clothing.

  While I was waiting, more people turned up in their cars, and then a local bus pulled up at the stop beyond the car park, depositing a number of tourists on the roadside before driving off. They headed up the steps, buying their tickets at the window.

  When Dad came back, we queued up with everyone else by the entrance, waiting for the next scheduled tour.

  “I’ve agreed to go on a public tour first,” he said, “just for a quick look. But then if there’s anything particular I want to shoot, they’ll arrange for another guide to go back in with me and help carry the right equipment and stuff. That way I can take my time getting the lighting just right et cetera.”

  “Okay.” My heart sank. It sounded like we were going to be there for forever. I blew on my hands, trying to get some warmth into them while the damp air plastered my hair in thick strands to my face.

  When our guide showed up, he began doling out the regulation safety helmets from a crate.

  “A large group today,” he smiled, collecting another crateful. “You can always tell when the weather’s bad. All the holiday-makers head underground.”

  Listening to him chatting and joking with the tourists, I thought he seemed pleasant enough. But not as cheerful and funny as Luke would have been when he was a guide in the area. I bet the caves would have been much more exciting with him.

  And then I cringed, remembering his reaction when I’d mentioned the waitress and her daughter. Why hadn’t I kept my big mouth shut?

  When everyone had a hardhat, the guide began: “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mike and I’d like to welcome you to Hell’s Mouth, a fascinating group of passages and caverns formed over the last million years.

  “And how were they first formed?” He paused, looking round at us, but I sensed that we weren’t supposed to answer him. “By ice-age glaciers melting, the water gradually dissolving the porous limestone which was first laid down in this part of the world 350 million years ago.”

  He continued his set speech: “This is of course a show cave, open to the general public, but still, it does involve a few tight squeezes; so if anyone feels at all uncomfortable at any time, please just let me know.”

  He led the way through the entrance, the crowd shuffling after him in eager anticipation.

  But, stepping through the metal gate, I paused for a moment. I felt odd. Strangely nervous. Not about caving: I’d done that loads of times before - and not just in show caves. No - it was the same feeling I’d had on the journey there, only stronger now. Like some kind of sixth sense. A vague notion of unease.

  There was something disturbing about this place; I could feel it in the air.

  And yet no one else seemed to notice it. Many had already herded inside quite happ
ily. And behind me, people were starting to mutter about the delay, wondering why I wasn’t moving forwards.

  So it was just me, then. Me and my overactive imagination.

  Breathing out slowly and deliberately, I told myself not to be so stupid. It was just a cave for God’s sake, like the many caves Dad had dragged me to. And then I took one step, and then another, and I was inside Hell’s Mouth.

  The already-low temperature dropped further still as we made our way down the narrow passage. We were on a metal grid walkway, following the natural path of a stream which we could hear gushing beneath us. I shivered, trying to pull my coat collar further up my neck.

  On either side of us, limestone walls glistened, thick and pale, as if something had oozed down from above, congealing into a heavy sludge. And in a few places it became more bulbous, its surface lumpy - bubbled. It was as if we’d somehow stumbled onto the pages of a child’s storybook - the tale of the magic cooking pot which boils over, covering the land with a never-ending river of porridge.

  Gently, I put my finger out and touched it. It was very cold and hard and covered in a thin film of water. I shivered again.

  At the head of the throng, Mike paused. He pointed up into the darkness above us, to where a spotlight shone through what looked like pieces of cloth hanging down in folds, shot through with bands of orange and brown.

  “Cave draperies,” he called loudly, trying to reach us all. “Sometimes called curtains. Made from calcite deposits. They get their colouring from minerals in the soil.”

  I stared up at them. They were very delicate and beautiful. But, in my current mood I found them unsettling. Otherworldly. Surreal.

  But then someone called out from behind me. Apparently the people at the back couldn’t hear, so those at the front began to relay the information down the line to them. As their voices echoed back and forth, like rubber balls bouncing from wall to wall around us, I started to feel oddly cramped and confined.