My Mother's Silence (ARC)

by Lauren Westwood

  ‘Great.’ I manage not to wince.

  ‘Our own hometown girl made good,’ Byron says. ‘God, fifteen years! I can’t believe it’s that long since…’

  I brace myself. He cuts off. Lachlan’s eyes meet mine. There’s a moment of recognition: that this conversation can go nowhere, other than down paths that are best left deserted and overgrown with weeds.

  ‘… since I left,’ I finish for him.

  ‘Hey, are you staying on for Hogmanay?’ Byron deftly changes the subject. ‘We could use you. You remember the fire festival, right?’

  As if I could ever forget. The fire festival is a big local event that takes in five villages on New Year’s Eve. There’s a bonfire on the beach, food stalls along the front, carnival rides on the sports field, and a parade of boats trimmed with lights in the harbour. The boats are blessed for winter by the vicar, and one lucky teenage girl gets crowned Queen of the Fleet. The year we turned eighteen, it was Ginny. I remember how beautiful she looked as she sat on the bow of the first boat, her long hair billowing behind her. Not my sort of thing, but I guess I was a little jealous that it wasn’t me. And then later on that evening, Byron took my hand by the bonfire. Kissed me and told me that to him I was Queen of the Universe. And even though I knew we couldn’t be forever, it was enough. I wonder if he even remembers that night.

  ‘I’m helping organise the stalls and the entertainment,’ he says. ‘We’ve got a ceilidh band lined up. It would be brilliant if you could perform with them. Just a song or two. Our own celebrity!’

  I doubt he remembers, and I wish he would drop the groupie act. Byron always had the knack for saying what you wanted to hear exactly when you needed to hear it. I can’t let him strip away my defences and reduce me to that needy teenage girl again. The one who wanted praise and recognition for herself, not just to bask in the reflected light of her twin sister. The one who was proud that he loved me best.

  ‘I’m taking a break from performing just now.’ I smile casually. ‘Recharging my batteries.’ Now it’s me who’s sounding fake, like this is all some kind of restorative trip before I’m on to the next big thing. But what am I supposed to do? Trot out the fact that my Vegas gig dropped me a few months ago? Does that constitute small talk among old friends – first loves – who haven’t seen each other for years?

  ‘Right, well, speaking of recharging, what can I get you to drink?’ He stands back and peers at me. ‘Let’s see, what was your poison…? Ah, yes: whiskey and Coke.’

  Bile rises in my throat, though I know he’s just being hospitable. I like a drink or two – maybe more than I should. But I haven’t had so much as a drop of whiskey since leaving here.

  ‘Just a beer, please. A half.’

  Byron frowns like he’s expecting me to stay all afternoon for a piss-up instead of going to Mum’s. Then again, maybe he suspects that I’m here at the pub to delay the inevitable. And maybe I am.

  ‘Actually, I came to find a taxi,’ I say. ‘There weren’t any at the bus stop.’

  He goes behind the bar, takes a half pint glass and fills it with rich, amber beer. I take out my card to pay, but he waves it away.

  ‘Lachie can give you a lift,’ Byron says. ‘Whenever you want.’

  I glance over at Lachlan. He’s talking to an old man in a deerstalker hat on the stool next to him. He doesn’t break off his conversation.

  ‘I don’t want to be a bother,’ I say. ‘Isn’t there someone I can call?’

  ‘Lachie’s the cabbie,’ a woman at the end of the bar says. ‘Officially.’

  I look over her way and do a double take. She’s about sixty, with a wrinkled, heavily made-up face and dyed orange hair that’s loose and unkempt around her face. She’s wearing a big necklace with macramé beads, and chunky rings on every finger. She wouldn’t be out of place at a trucker bar in Tennessee or Arizona, some sad dive where a man passing through can get almost anything for ten bucks. I feel guilty for thinking that, because I also recognise her.

  ‘Aunt Annie?’ I say. Byron hands me the half pint.

  The woman gives a phlegmy laugh. ‘More like grandma now.’ She bats a ringed hand in my direction. There’s a big gap in the front of her mouth where she’s lost a tooth. ‘It’s been a lot of years, love.’

  ‘I know!’ A tiny tear forms in the corner of my eye. Somehow seeing Annie MacClellan makes my being here seem real, even more than seeing Byron.

  She cocks her head to look at me. ‘You were always in such a hurry to leave. Why bother to come back now?’

  There’s a barb in her voice that puts me on edge. It’s true that when I worked for her, I was always banging on about the life I was going to have once I escaped the misty veils of Eilean Shiel. How Ginny and I were going to become big stars, somewhere better than here. But that was so long ago…

  I give her a warm grin to dispel the tension. ‘I missed your clootie and black bun, Aunt Annie. They were calling to me from across the miles.’

  She laughs again, but her kohl-lined eyes are guarded. I hold the half pint of beer up to my nose and breathe in the hearty, yeasty smell. I don’t really want it, but I drink it anyway. I should have laid low and avoided the pub. Eased into things more gradually. Byron, Annie, Lachlan – all here, all different. What will Mum be like after fifteen years?

  I choke down the dregs of the beer and put the empty glass on the counter. ‘I just need the loo,’ I say. ‘And then I’m really sorry, Lachlan, but could you give me a lift to the cottage?’

  Lachlan turns back, studying me in a way that’s a little uncomfortable. We used to think of him as an ‘almost’ kid. He almost played football at the regionals, got a couple of A-levels and almost went to university. He was never as cool as Byron, or as rich as James. He was never as fun, witty, or clever as the rest of us – or as vain and conceited. Yet Lachlan was always there in the background. Observing. Judging. I’m not looking forward to getting a lift with him.

  ‘Sure,’ he says.

  ‘Thanks.’ I go to the other side of the bar where a door leads to the loos and the pool tables upstairs. The corridor is unheated and the cold is startling after the warm bar. In the loo I stare for a long time at my reflection in the mirror. When I left here I had just turned twenty. Now, I’m thirty-five. My face is thinner, my dark hair longer. My eyes are my best feature: green flecked with hazel. But in this light, they look almost blue. More like Ginny’s.

  For the most part, Ginny and I never looked that much alike. She was blonde and fair, and stunningly beautiful. Most people were surprised to learn that we were sisters, let alone twins. Though most people weren’t surprised that I was the eldest, if only by a few minutes. Dad used to say that I had an ‘old soul’. Ginny, in contrast, was like a little girl who didn’t want to grow up. A free spirit; unruly and untameable.

  I splash water on my face and put on lip gloss. It’s time to go. I can’t delay any longer. I need to see Mum. Face Mum. Find out if it’s really possible to come home after all the years.

  As I re-enter the noisy bar area I imagine that, just for a moment, there’s a hush. I hear a voice: Aunt Annie talking to the man next to her: ‘… dead sister.’

  I need to get out of here. Panic begins to well up inside of me, just like earlier on the coach. Panic laced with resignation. Here, I will always be that girl, even when I’m as old as Annie MacClellan. Some things you can never escape. I should know. I’ve been running away for fifteen years. Now I’m right back where I started.

  3

  Outside the pub the wind is relentless, whipping the rain diagonally. The boats at anchor creak and groan, and waves batter the stone wall along the front. Almost as soon as I step outside, my coat is soaked through by rain and spray. The good thing about the weather is that there’s no question of idly shooting the breeze with Lachlan. Both of us bow our heads and hurry along as quickly as we can.

  Lachlan’s vehicle, a Nissan Qashqai, is parked up near the bus stop. He beeps the locks and I heft my bag
into the back. The Nissan is freezing, but at least it’s dry. As soon as I close the door, I experience an odd sensation of light-headedness. I hate being a passenger in a car, with someone else driving. It gives me a panicky sensation of being out of control. At least it’s a short journey.

  When Lachlan starts the car, the stereo blares on. I recognise the CD: ‘Capernaum’ by the Tannahill Weavers, a traditional Scottish band. I feel an unexpected rush of nostalgia. When we were teenagers, Ginny knew the words to all their songs, and I’d pick out the chords on the guitar.

  Lachlan switches off the music abruptly. ‘So how long you back for?’ he says. He turns the windscreen wipers on full tilt, but there’s still a wall of water in front of us.

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  He nods. We drive out of the car park and turn onto the main road that hugs the coastline to the north. I don’t need to look at the road signs, written in English and Gaelic. I know the way in my sleep.

  ‘Been a long time that she’s been gone,’ he says.

  It takes me a second to process that he said ‘she’ instead of ‘you’.

  ‘Gone?’ I say. ‘You mean Ginny? Ginny’s dead.’ The word echoes through the car, drowning out the sound of the rain. I grip the door handle tightly wishing I could get out and walk.

  ‘Yeah. That’s what I mean.’ He sighs. ‘A couple days ago on the radio I heard that song you two used to sing. You know, “The Bonny Swans”? Man, that is some dark shite,’ he gives an awkward laugh. ‘The part about the harp?’

  I laugh too, because it’s either that or be freaked out. ‘The Bonny Swans’ is based on a traditional murder ballad called ‘The Cruel Sister’. In the song, the dark-haired eldest girl drowns her sister because she wants her lover, a prince, for herself. A miller makes a harp of the dead girl’s breastbone, using strands of her golden hair for its strings. He takes the harp to the castle and sets it before the king and the dark sister who is now the queen. The harp begins to play alone, singing that the queen murdered her sister.

  The version we used to sing was by Loreena McKennitt, the Canadian folk singer. Ginny had a pure, clear voice just like hers – a special voice that was destined for great things. We’d sing that song, and we’d laugh, and it would be funny and silly. We loved to sing macabre songs. Back when we had no real experience of death.

  ‘It’s a very old song,’ I say. ‘A lot of them were pretty dark.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Lachlan says. ‘Maybe I’m too sentimental, but I like the old songs. I wish they had a traditional music session here. I keep telling Byron he should start one at the Arms. But he’s tone deaf. Not interested.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ I say. In truth, I’m relieved that there isn’t a local session. When Dad was alive we went to one nearly every week at a nearby pub or village hall. Musicians would come from miles around to play music, talk Gaelic and have a few laughs. People took turns leading and calling the tunes. There was no written music; if you didn’t know the song, you improvised. Depending on who turned up, the same tunes might sound completely different from one week to the next. As the night went on and the pints flowed freely, the songs would start. I remember Dad, tears running down his face as he sang ‘Ae Fond Kiss’, or ‘Ye Banks and Braes’ in his raspy voice, while all the other stalwart, hard men joined in. Those nights were magical. The best of my life, I think.

  Thanks to Lachlan, ‘The Bonny Swans’ lodges itself firmly in my head and repeats over and over in an endless loop. I sit in silence as we continue to drive. The road weaves its way around small coves dotted with houses and then turns to single track as it curves out towards the headland. As the rain sheets down in front of the headlamps, it’s as if we’re driving to the edge of the world.

  ‘I’ve thought a lot about that night,’ Lachlan says. ‘I guess it changed me. It was such a terrible thing. So… unexpected.’

  I don’t answer. I suppose I have to accept that this is all part of my punishment. For staying away and… for coming back. In a way it’s a relief to have it out in the open. That he’s not simply going to pretend, the way Byron did, that we’re all just old friends, happily reunited.

  ‘I mean, you probably don’t want to talk about it,’ he adds. ‘But sometimes I wonder what really happened, you know?’

  ‘No,’ I say flatly, ‘I don’t. We all know what happened.’

  Everyone but me, I don’t add. I have no memory at all of that night.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right…’ He hesitates for a second. ‘It’s just that there was some talk in the village, a while back now—’

  ‘Please, Lachlan,’ I say. ‘Can we talk about something else?’

  ‘Sure, sorry.’ He squints at the dark road ahead.

  ‘No, it’s fine.’ I swallow hard. ‘It’s just that I’m here to see Mum. Not to dredge up what happened back then. I miss Ginny every second of every day. She was my twin. And I don’t know – maybe it sounds harsh – but I’ve tried to move on. You know?’

  ‘Yeah, I get it.’ He glances at me with a smile that’s almost wistful. Byron used to tease that he had a crush on me. I never believed it then, and it’s totally irrelevant now. ‘Anyway, it’s good to see you.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I say. I can’t quite bring myself to return the compliment.

  ‘I’m sure your mum will be happy you’re back,’ he adds. ‘We haven’t seen much of her lately. Not since her fall.’

  The mention of Mum’s fall catches me a little off guard. I know I shouldn’t be surprised – in a place like this there are no secrets. In fact, he probably knows much more than I do about Mum’s general ‘state’, which my brother has alluded to in his emails without saying very much at all.

  ‘Yes, well, I’m hoping I can help her out while I’m here.’

  ‘Yeah. I guess she keeps busy with the holiday lets,’ he says, signalling a clear change in subject. ‘Good decision she made on those.’

  I know a little about Mum’s renovation of the two stone farm buildings on the property that she did a few years back. Apparently she took out a mortgage on the cottage (that in itself was a big deal: my parents always despised things like banks and debt) and got a local builder to gut everything other than the outer walls. She got planning consent and the necessary licenses all on her own. I’d thought at the time that if she did all that, she must be fine. I wanted to believe it…

  ‘She’s had them rented out all summer,’ he adds. ‘One’s even rented now.’

  ‘Really?’ I manage a little laugh. ‘Who’d want to come here in December?’

  ‘Some artist from down south.’ He wrinkles his nose dismissively. ‘Haven’t seen much of him.’

  ‘He’s probably frozen solid.’

  ‘Yeah.’

  Lachlan turns onto a gravel road that runs along a narrow neck of land jutting out into the sea. Beyond, the dark hills of the headland rise up. Technically, the headland where Mum’s cottage is located was once an island, but a nineteenth-century crofter filled in the narrow inlet with boulders and rubble to build the track. On the other side of the inlet, there’s a small tract of woodland: mossy oak and rhododendron. The track dips down into a little sheltered area where the cottages are located. We reach a gate. I’m about to brave the rain and climb out to open it – something I’ve done thousands of times. This time, though, Lachlan jumps out first.

  He opens the gate, gets back inside the car soaked, and drives through. I stay put as he gets out again and closes it. No point in us both getting wet. A few minutes later, we pull into the yard of Croft Cottage. There’s a yellow glow of light coming from inside. A figure at the kitchen window. My stomach is tied in knots. Mum.

  4

  Lachlan parks in front of the cottage and tosses my bag out onto the wet gravel. I sit in the car staring at the rain streaming down the windscreen. Now that I’ve come all this way, it seems impossible to go the last few metres that will take me back to the place where I grew up and reunite me with the most important living person i
n my life. My own mother, whom I’ve conveniently allowed to slip into the mists of the past like those childhood memories… because that’s the way she wanted it.

  The words that were spoken so long ago gouge their way into my head:

  I know it’s wrong, but I do blame her…

  My hand is clamped to the door handle like a claw. Lachlan frowns as he comes back to the car. ‘You OK?’ he says.

  ‘Fine.’ I loosen my grip; make an effort to smile. ‘Just delaying the soaking. How much do I owe you?’

  ‘There’s no charge.’ I sense he’s not fooled by the brave act I’m putting on. I’m terrified. I’m sure he’s noticed. ‘Buy us a round down the pub when you get settled in.’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ I say. ‘Thanks so much for the lift.’

  ‘Sure thing.’

  ‘And now… I’d better make a run for it.’

  I get out of the Nissan, grab my bag and run to the porch. I’m relieved that he doesn’t wait around until I’m inside. The yellow beams of the headlamps pass over me as the car reverses and drives off with a crunch of gravel.

  The cottage is different than when I was here last. The door is painted a pretty shade of cornflower blue, and on the step there’s a pair of floral-patterned welly boots and a basket with seashells and pebbles from the beach. Before, there were always pairs of muddy boots, old skates, fossil rocks and bicycles cluttered around the porch. Even the stream of water coming from the gutter seems orderly. I guess that’s what Mum’s like now that she’s been living on her own for all these years. The tide of guilt surges again and I close my eyes until it passes. I’ve done what I’ve done, and I have no idea what kind of reception I’m going to get. Will I see judgment in her eyes, recriminations? Will she look at me and immediately think of Ginny? Or will there be no recognition at all?