by Paul Magrs
I made sure Katy was out of earshot. “I think Josh is doing something he shouldn’t.”
“Jesus God.”
Then we drove out of early morning Edinburgh, leaving the ruined Royal Circus and Colin behind. The country unfurled before us into ranges of hills mottled with the startling colours of marble sponge cake. We were quiet with each other at first, till Timon relaxed into his driving, put on a tape and started singing to it. The atmosphere became lighter the further we drove. The roads wound about the hills, the day crept on and we sang along. Rather gradually, it became a holiday.
They stopped halfway for tea in the garden of a pub. The tea things were brought to them on a tray by a woman who couldn’t stop laughing. “Don’t mind me!” she went, and left them to it.
“I told you,” said Timon, “that we’d see the biggest hedge in the world.” For the past hour in the car he’d been telling them about this café, on the roadside beside the world’s biggest hedge. The hedge was in the record books. Thirsty, they had kept an eye out for it.
“That can’t be it,” Wendy had moaned. “That hedge is only about four foot tall.”
Until, eventually, they drove alongside a green wall one hundred and fifty feet high. They crawled along in its shadow, peering up out of their windows. Wendy couldn’t help but imagine this was the perimeter to the most terrible maze in the world. There would be no light whatsoever inside.
And here they were at a picnic bench, with Katy fetching Astrid’s cigarettes, which she’d left in the car. Katy and the German woman had taken a shine to each other.
“Is Joshua still filling the house with bric-bracs and nick-a-nacks?”
“Oh, yes,” said Katy. “More than ever. His taste is even weirder than before. I said, Dad, you’ll never get old. And he won’t. He’s always finding out new stuff.”
“And Wendy,” said Astrid. “What have you been permitted to do to the house? Have you filled it with your obsessions too?”
Wendy smiled. “I haven’t contributed much. Joshua has taste enough for both of us.”
“But that is no good!” burst Astrid. “We are like the animals, you know, and we must mark our habitats. Otherwise it means we are not staying. You remember, of course, how I have my launderette full of my pictures?” Pictures mostly of Marlene Dietrich, Wendy recalled, including the picture of Marlene leaving the private jet in Edinburgh, smiling on the arm of her fancy man. The very day she was abducted. How often the younger Wendy had started at that picture, imagining Belinda just off the edge of it, breathless at all the glamour.
After ten and before setting off again, Katy wheeled Astrid off to the loos inside the pub.
Timon looked at Wendy. “Hon, something’s chewing you up.”
She nodded.
He said, “Sorry I’ve not been much use. I’ve been sleepwalking for ages. Years.”
“You’re my oldest friend, Timon.”
“Besides your sisters.”
She exhaled loudly. “Haven’t heard from our Linda in ages. And Mandy… I don’t know, Timon. I don’t trust her. That sounds awful, right?”
He looked at her levelly. “You’ve been reading the book, haven’t you?”
“Yes. On the train.”
“I read an earlier version, but I think it’s the same. Like I said in my card, I don’t think it’s up to much. But it’s got you worried, hasn’t it?”
“How can it not? How can she do this to me?”
“You think it’s about her and Joshua.” Timon shook his head, smiling. “But if that was true, how could she be so up front about it? Could Mandy be two-faced like that?”
“I think she could. Really, she’s only ever been out for herself.”
“Oh, hon,” he said.
“But she hasn’t opened his file from the adoption agency. I know that much.”
“All that was true?”
“Even down to the drawer he kept it in. That’s what I mean, Timon. It’s like she’s trodden right through my life. But I know she hasn’t seen inside his file.”
“How?”
“Because I’ve got it. It’s untouched. I’ve…” I looked at Timon. “I’ve nicked it.”
He was shocked. “You can’t go stealing Josh’s stuff like that! It’s his! It’s important… his past.”
“I bit my tongue, in case I said too much here. “Josh has some funny priorities of his own about things like that.”
“You shouldn’t have told me this, Wendy. It’s his birth-mother inside of there. Her name… everything he doesn’t know about her.”
Katy and Astrid were emerging from the pub, into the sun. Astrid waved. “We are getting back into the car!”
Timon stood up. “I think you’re acting daft, Wendy. Joshua loves you. You’ve got all het up about something you’ve read in a piece of fiction. Allow Mandy to have an imagination, hon. And stop yours going mad on this.”
I wanted to tell him all sorts of things, but I couldn’t.
“Let’s get on,” he said, and led the way through the garden to the car. “Don’t look in that file, Wendy. If you did and used the information, Josh will never forgive you. I wouldn’t if I was him.”
Of course: Timon was an orphan as well.
There were more of the unicorn people than we had bargained for. Luckily we had booked the hotel rooms in advance, and moved easily into our own twin rooms above the bar. Last time he was here, with Belinda, Timon had had his eye on this hotel, in the shadow of the almost completely pyramidical mountain. The hotel had looked luxurious to them and at that time they couldn’t afford it. We were shown directly to our rooms. The kind of place that puts bowls of pot pourri by your bed and you end up putting your hand into it in the middle of the night. The management knew who we were and we were escorted neatly away from the others in the foyer, all of them wearing black appliqued sweatshirts.
“They must be the richer unicorn people,” said Astrid disgustedly as we sat on the beds. “The others are sleeping out in old tents.”
Timon was peering out of the chintz curtains. “The day’s turned gloomy. Just like it was the last time we were here.”
I hope he wasn’t banking on a repeat performance. I’d noticed his video camera in the car boot.
“I hate those unicorn church people,” Astrid went on. “They have opened a church down Leith Walk.”
“I didn’t know that,” said Katy, who liked to keep up with this business.
“Jesus God, yes. And they come into my launderette—not to wash and talk nicely, oh no. They want me to talk about Belinda, to pick my brains, as if she was a goddamn goddess or a saint. And she was just my friend.” Astrid was getting herself upset. “They do not really love Belinda. Not like we did. I think they are using her.”
Timon said, “Come and see this.”
In a field just close enough to see, their ragged encampment was staked out. And, as the light lowered, you could still make out individual figures on the glen. Someone was exercising the horses. They were a startling white against the murky land, and running in a wide and endless ring.
FORTY-ONE
Jesus Jesus God.
This is my part of the story now, my account of it all that night of the vigil. This is the testament von Astrid.
And the first thing, the worst thing I must recount as I launch off into this piece is to complain about the rutted fucking ground, the terrible Jesus-love-it place with its bogs and creeping damp and long grass that stuck in my wheels and spokes and tried to snag me down as we headed off into the night to see the vigil. To be the vigil, I mean, we would have been the vigil anyway, we were there for our beloved sister Belinda. And the others, the rabble of hangers-on were making a spectacle of themselves, but we couldn’t help that, we couldn’t help looking at them.
They cavorted and danced whirling dervishes, that’s what they were doing, the selfish things, making a sport of poor Belinda. Their camp fires were up and roasting, some of them shooting flames straight up twenty
feet into the sky and so the sky was darkened anyway by the smoke and glare, so how could we see anything at all, should it start to happen? Did these people have any sense and Jesus God, apparently not. Katy the youngest, strongest in our team was pushing me, her heroic effort getting me through the quagmire and Timon was finding it hard too but he wasn’t swearing and cursing like I was at the hazardous trekking we did. He was wordless and filming all of this going on and you couldn’t help feel sorry for him. I always feel sorry for people capturing their former glory, for it is always a mistake, a big embarrassment. Yet there is a fascinating thing about seeing them in decline, these people, at the big ending when all is gone and you see them lying in the same muck as we all of us live in. Like seeing Marlene at last behind the green door in Paris, up the crawling cranking life shaft. She called out Belinda old girl, she was the same as us. But now Belinda is a long-vanished goddess as well.
They had an effigy in bracken and twigs stuffed with fruit and god knows what. They raved and danced around it in all the smoke. They drummed and the noise came rolling out without stops and added to that the wailing of the people, who had thrown off their horrible unicorn sweaters and many now were barechested, with black horses daubed on their breasts. Their skins were painted, plastered white, white clay powder. Their faces sweated, their limbs were wet, they whirled and danced. We came to watch and Wendy was disgusted.
“They’ve got a wicka-Belinda,” said Timon.
The effigy stood tall and goggled its horrible May Queen white queen eyes. Its face was ghastly in rotted and stinking vegetables no good even for soup and nasty fruit. Acrimboldo. Its arms flailed and it shed feathers and crumbs of dead wood each time the dancers shook it and turned. No mistaking it for anyone other than Belinda, though, her wild white hair, indeed, her fatness, even yards of pink cloth for one of her funny dresses. Oh, poor Belinda up there and would they set fire to her? Is that what they were meaning to do? The horses shrieked and brayed, running circles about this encampment all the while, it was terrifying in the noise and murk. The horses were corralling us, these shiny splinters of bone, ivory tipped, nailed into their foreheads. Cross-eyed horses: they circled the dancers’ den.
“They’re all on something,’ Wendy said.
Timon said, “The Silver Unicorns are well known for it. They’re always off their tits.”
“But when I met them before, six, seven years ago, they seemed harmless. Pitiful cranks.”
Katy snorted. “It’s taken off since then. Since they got the Professor in, and let him take over. This is their New Age. Things have changed since they adopted Belinda as their masthead and personal saviour.”
Wendy shook her head. “Belinda couldn’t even get her shopping in for herself. Some saviour.”
“It’s true.” Timon smiled. “I had to go with her every time. She was always distracted down some other aisle.”
No sign of the Professor as he still called himself though by now, of course, he was the High Priest, the Big Cheesy. Self-styled priest and scaremonger, he like to tell all, to tell all the world and sundry that Belinda’s visitors were imminent and that he and his herd were the ones going, galloping off with that bandwagon. And Belinda had shown them the way. Seven years since Belinda had gone and seven was their—they reckoned—sacred number.
“Where are we going to go?” asked Wendy. They’ve filled the place. I don’t want to be here at midnight, with all them going daft.”
Katy was fascinated and pulled in. “I like watching them.”
Timon looked defeated, the way I’d seen him looking a lot lately when he comes down to the launderette and he has not much to say for himself. “Jesus God, Timon,” I try to goad and egg him. “You life has to go on. You have people to meet! Books to write!” The trouble of course was his book is Belinda, all about Belinda, all Belinda’s pieces and he can’t as a consequence and result shake off her hold. You have to try and distract Timon away from his sombreness. I try to make people like that look forward to something and often it works. But I told Timon to look forward to coming to this vigil, to make his final fond farewells to Belinda, farewells in peace and be ready to move on again. But this circus has come up now and Timon looks despondent. They are drumming false hope into him and shattering his peace of mind. When he says, “We should never have come,” I believe in him and I think he is right.
Belinda looking down from on high will think we are turncoats and fools, tootling and footling with these—Jesus God—these maniacs. Playing with fire, with a burning brand each, brandishing and tossing them into the dark and dropping them so that sparks rush out of all quarters and it’s a bloody old dangerous place to be. I’m thinking especially if you are confined to a wheelchair and stuck in the goddamn mud.
We decide to look for a quiet spot. We push off and try to move us away from these mad people and loonies. The horses are rushing out of the night, and they are terrified, you can hear their squeals and we could be killed and dashed beneath their hooves when they come pushing and pelting out.
We make a special effort, hard pushing through the dire terrain. Until we rest on a small hummocky tussock and can see more of the sky, lemon scudding clouds and the moon licked clean underneath, creamy like taking a milk foil bottle top off when the fat rises to the top. From here the party mad people, dancing and drugged stand out alone in a ring around their fires and the wicka-Belinda, goggling her fruity eyes, watching her horses, the fake unicorns trampling around, held in the unity of that ring by someone’s power of will, I don’t know, maybe the Professor’s power of will. They are rowdy and shocking, making themselves heard and now they are nude but at least up here we can listen to ourselves thinking.
“What time is it?” asks Katy, the child.
It was almost half past eleven and midnight was our marker again.
The dancers sing:
I beg you to hold me
while I am slippery
between her and the Indescribable Witch
then such a grand grown up lady
in this valley between her thighs
out of the fire come essences
weather and the money
out of the fire comes
everything
forced to go against the Indescribable Witch
and get bruised in her service
We’ll leave you here, to practise
your progress of stories
while I get my thoughts together, pack a bag
a tempest’s coming up
with long afternoon walks and expensive boxes
of chocolates
the beckoning waves
let the devil
let the devil
take the rest.
I had this goddamn throwback or is it they call it a flashback, yes. I had this flashing back anyway in all the brilliance and plumy fury of our vigil and the singing and we were alone with our thoughts of god bless Belinda. I saw me and Belinda at Leith Walk Juniors, which is still there, looking a lot smaller these days, grey beside the extra red of the post sorting office. Me in school with no legs and even smaller, Belinda already fat and spending break times cramming her face with sweeties I swear she would give you anything though, even her last bit of chocolate. And he would fling herself over the railings if she heard the ice cream van coming. The kids would laugh and call there she goes and she would vault with extra cunning prowess over those railings and come back with a wafer ice cream sandwich, cream all around her mouth.
I was living at the foot of the Walk and Belinda would come to eat with us. I think she had it rough at home, especially while her brother was away and gone a-soldiering. We bonded as girls at school when one of her fathers says to his daughter, “You’re hanging aboot with a lassie with nae legs. A kraut and a paki with no legs tae boot!” And the other’s father says to his daughter, “Jesus God, Astrid, that girl is a monstrous blemish. A size she is, my eyes, what a size!” Yet she came to ours, to our flat above the launderette where my mother
kept everything going, churning and churning, everything clean.
Belinda saw her first UFO with me. We walked and toiled up Arthur’s Seat up all the crags and it was tough work for us with a chair and much extra ballast to heave and push. We looked out over the city and the docks and the castle and we let it get darker and later than we ought and we got scared. And it was—is it a comet? Is it a bird or is it a plane? But it was none of those and it was Belinda’s first sign and glimpse of her visitors.
Ah, my eyes were always duff and no good. I squinted and squirmed, but Belinda said that the lights had passed. Jesus God.
After midnight the moon was clouded over and the revels hadn’t ended. The group on the small, separate hill waited a half hour.
At last Astrid said, “Look at those cocksuckers. Still dancing and blazing. Have they no respect for the dead?”
Wendy actually flinched at the word ‘dead’. That’s what it took, though. Someone had to say the word, and brutally break the spell.
“That’s that then,” Timon turned on them with a smile. “We’ve seen her off in style. I reckon she’s with Marlene and Pat and Wendy’s mum and they’re having a whale of a time somewhere. Somewhere much more fun than this.”
“More than that lot could ever have,” said Katy, nodding at the unicorn people.
Down there they were torching the wicker effigy. There was a puff of luminous flame, small exploding fruits and gourds and a nimbus of burning leaves, pulling Belinda into horrible life. “I want to go back,” Astrid said. “I want to go back to the hotel.”
Katy started to push her through the grass and down the hill. Wendy and Timon were lingering. “We’ll see you there,” Wendy said quietly. Astrid nodded and waved Katy on.
“I know we were a joke,” said Timon. “When we were set up, when everyone waited to see us meet. I would see she was fat and she would see me and maybe it would be a shock I was black. But we’d told all about ourselves really. We already knew that we loved each other. And all the visitor business, we knew that made us jokes, too. But we didn’t care.” They watched the fires. Then they watched Astrid and Katy vanish into the dark fields, hotel-bound. Faintly, Astrid’s voice: “Jesus God!” in frustration. They watched the revels again. Belinda’s vast dummy caved in, her rib cage cracking in numerous golden splinters and gouts of flame spurting up.
