‘But why?’ Lauren’s eyes and nose have begun to grow moist in frustration. She has never wished so fervently to be an adult.
‘Why? Exactly. It’s something that really bugs me. It doesn’t make sense. Diane’s been saying the same. We’re so sorry and we just don’t know.’ She twists a section of her fringe. ‘I remember Christine from when you were a baby. I was very wee. She was lovely. I really liked her a lot. She sometimes looked after me.’ She sighs and squeezes Lauren’s shoulder. ‘She loved you very much, Lauren, don’t you forget it.’
‘What was she like?’
‘Well, she was quite unusual. She had this long hair that was’ – she laughs softly – ‘all over the place. She wore cool clothes. She liked things like this,’ she says, nodding towards the candles. ‘Like candles. And I remember once I had a headache. She put her hands on my head, like this.’ Ann-Marie puts her hands over the crown of Lauren’s head, her fingers joining at the hair parting, the heels of her hands pressing Lauren’s temples. ‘Then she lit a candle and got rid of bad energy with her hands.’
Lauren feels a slow burn of anger that she tries not to show. ‘How?’
‘By moving them around and throwing away the bad energy, getting it away from me. It made me feel calmer – relaxed and not so anxious and in pain. She made me laugh doing it; it was like a game. I remember her being a very warm person, your mum.’
Lauren’s eyes are huge in her face.
‘Maybe you should talk to Vairi about her. Vairi was good friends with her.’
‘Vairi?’ Lauren asks.
‘Yeah, I know. She doesn’t seem like the friendliest person at times, does she? But she believes in some of the same superstitions that your mum believed in. My mum says they used to cook together.’
‘What did they cook?’ She feels detached and as if she wants to be back at home.
‘I don’t know – you should ask Vairi. I’m sure she’ll tell you. She was nice though. I remember this one time, at the beach. It was really cool.’
Lauren feels a dark wave pass through her.
‘We were walking the dog, drawing in the sand and stuff. Then Christine told me to stay still and close my eyes. When I opened them, she had drawn a circle around me, and covered it with rocks, pebbles, seaweed and shells. She said it was a special circle, called a cairn. No, wait, a “caim”. It was giving me power to, like, protect me.’
‘Protect you from what?’
‘I don’t know. It was just, like, magic stuff. Superstition. Protect me from bad spells. Bad witches. Bad people.’
Lauren picks some dirt out of one of her fingernails and doesn’t look up. She wants Ann-Marie to stop bothering her.
Ann-Marie puts her arm around Lauren. ‘I’m sorry, I said too much. I don’t know. Believe me, I’m trying to find out more. Christine was so lovely. She wasn’t like anyone else here. That’s why I remember her so well, even though it was a long time ago. I always remember her.’ Ann-Marie pauses. ‘She gave me birthday presents.’
‘Why did I never get birthday presents?’ She feels her nose sting.
‘No … no. So … listen a minute. I was about seven – or eight – when she gave me the last one, the summer before she went away, a bit younger than you are now …’
Ann-Marie pulls herself up and takes the curving red stairs two at a time. Lauren follows her reluctantly. As she climbs she is sure she can hear dripping from the basement down below. The staircase is cavernous and dingy, and she drags her hand along fleur-de-lis wallpaper. At the top, Lauren sees a splinter of light from Ann-Marie’s bedroom.
The walls are dark purple and stuck with glossy posters of actors Lauren doesn’t recognize and a blurry Magic Eye picture. An art nouveau fireplace blossoms with flower-shaped fairy lights. A lava lamp bubbles above. In the corner of the room is an orange labyrinth of plastic tubing for rats. Ann-Marie is pulling a candy-striped shoe box from underneath her big iron bed. She brushes off a layer of beige dust from the lid. ‘Guess it’s been here a while.’
She thumbs through a pile of papers and cards. ‘Ah, look,’ she says, ‘here’s a card from Alan Mackie. I thought I had chucked them all out. And here it is – a birthday card from your mum and dad.’
‘Doesn’t Alan creep you out?’ Lauren asks.
‘He did send me a lot of birthday cards,’ she replies. ‘Well, one every year, from when I was about ten. And some presents. Two years ago he sent me a swimming costume and my mum asked him to stop.’ She shrugs and holds out the other card. It is light green, with a Celtic knot hand-stamped on the front. ‘So sweet, eh? Happy birthday with love from Christine, Niall and baby O.’
‘Baby O?’
‘That means you.’
A strange feeling rises up as though Lauren is being made to wear something she hates. Ann-Marie continues: ‘She gave me a ring with that kind of design on it one year. I loved it, but I don’t know where it’s gone. Maybe in my jewellery box. Here.’ She takes out a circular quartz pendant on a silver chain. ‘How cool is this? I remember she gave it to me for another birthday – I think it was that summer – and she said it had special powers. It was gonna be good luck, to protect me – the circle, you know? I believed in it. I used to, like, run around the garden casting spells and stuff. Sorry, Lauren.’ She holds it out. ‘Here. You should have it. I want you to.’
Lauren feels nothing as Ann-Marie fastens it around her neck. She may as well have picked it up off the pavement. ‘Talk to it. Talk to it and maybe you will be talking to her.’
‘I don’t want it,’ Lauren says, then louder, trying to tear off the necklace, ‘I DON’T WANT IT.’
The clasp snaps and the pendant springs across the room.
‘Lauren.’ Ann-Marie kneels down.
‘No.’ She flinches and ducks away.
Ann-Marie takes a deep breath. ‘I am going to try and help you – I’ve decided. It will just take some planning. I—’
‘No, I don’t need … help! She doesn’t care, she never, never cared.’ She spits out the words and wrenches open the bedroom door. She looks for somewhere to hide and be alone, scratching her nails along the bannister as she stalks the tartan carpet of the corridor. She hates the house, hates every old inch of it.
She slams herself inside the bathroom on the landing and leans her hot back against the cracked white paint of the door frame. It is a cold room, with thick towels draped on a rickety railing and green potted plants, lined up next to cloudy glass bottles that skirt the room. She moves to a faded yellow bathmat in a sea of delicately painted blue tiles that flow into tangled floral wallpaper. Still clothed, she climbs into the empty claw-foot bath. Her jeans brush against the ceramic. A copper-coloured shower head looms like a poisonous flower. Sitting with her knees tucked under her chin, she pulls out the pocketknife and snaps it open then shut, over and over, listening to the swish and click. Water drips from a corner of the ceiling. The black mildew around the edges of the tiles melts away, as does the rest of the bathroom, its wallpaper peeling in the corners. She feels her chest gently pumping air in and out as if she is observing another body. She wills herself to be like a creature in a shell at the bottom of the ocean. As she levers open the knife again she begins to whisper the words:
‘Strength of dark,
Strength of light,
Give me power beyond my sight.’
The words become a loop of sound against the slap of the knife that echoes in the bath. After some time, she becomes aware of a gentle knocking against the door.
‘Out in a minute,’ she says. Lauren runs the cold tap slowly, so the water creeps to meet her toes. She holds the knife under and watches the water cascade off the metal. As icy water slides under the soles of her feet and up to the edge of her jeans, she hears Ann-Marie creak away outside. She closes the knife and lays it ceremoniously on the side of the bath. Taking a few more breaths she splashes the tap water over her swollen eyes and mouth, pressing her fingers against her eye sockets and lips. H
er clothes get splashed, but she doesn’t care. She gets up and looks at herself, expressionless in the mirror, measuring how still she can make herself, how unblinking, how cold.
The dripping is getting faster; the pipes rumble within the walls. There is a clear full moon shining into the room, a reminder that things will change. On the dresser is a bottle labelled crème de corps. She wants to try some on her forearm, but has to hit the end of the bottle, like ketchup.
On one wall in the bathroom is a photo collage behind glass. She didn’t notice it earlier when she was angry. There are pictures of Malcolm, Ann-Marie’s father, when he had more hair, holding Ann-Marie and her brother Fraser’s hands on a skiing holiday. He is a surgeon and Lauren hardly ever sees him. Angela looks very similar in the pictures to the way she looks now, but thinner and with bigger glasses. Lauren’s eyes move between pictures: puffball dresses, white birthday cakes, Siamese cats, Christmas lights, banana-boat rides. Ann-Marie and Fraser grinning in a rubber dinghy with four of their cousins, all with short dark hair and orange lifejackets. In one photo, Ann-Marie is a little girl standing next to a grown-up girl, who is smiling broadly with sunglasses. A bit more grown up perhaps than Ann-Marie now, and with glowing, henna-red hair. She is smiling, in an indigo tie-dye dress. Lauren looks at it again. The faces are tiny, and the film is over-exposed, but Lauren is drawn to it, squinting.
Downstairs one of the dogs starts to howl. Ann-Marie starts to shout at them and sounds more childlike. Lauren tries to find her phone and then remembers she left it in her bag downstairs. In the half-light on the landing, she sees a glass dome encasing a stuffed bird. It is sitting on a gnarled branch with peeling lichen. The bird is large and pheasant-like but obsidian black, with red, leathery eyebrows and a tail that looks just like a Spanish fan. Its long neck is stretched upwards, as if it is reaching for something with its blunt white beak. It looks too dusty to come alive. She can see its eyes are fake.
When she finally goes to find Ann-Marie, she is sitting by the fire, acting as though Lauren has only been away for a couple of minutes.
‘Those pictures in the bathroom. Ann-Marie, is one of them my mum?’
Ann-Marie thinks for a second. ‘Yes, sorry, I didn’t realize.’
‘Do you have any more? We only have one in the house and …’ The photograph sits on a table on the landing, her mother’s young face looking hopefully off camera, her hair decorated with tiny plastic butterflies.
‘What? You only have one photo of your mum?’
‘Yeah. I think my dad has more. I’ve tried to get him to show me but it makes him upset. He—’ She was about to say, He drinks too much, but stops herself.
‘If I find any more, I’ll give them to you, but I’m not totally sure we do, sorry. Hey,’ the older girl says, looking into the flames, ‘do you want to know a secret? You can keep a secret, can’t you?’
‘Yes.’
Ann-Marie looks at her.
‘Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a nee—’
‘OK, yeah. Look.’ She pulls up the side of her T-shirt to show a large black tattoo on her hip. There are tendrils, tentacles of some creature, similar to an octopus but a stranger shape, with a pointy head. There are dark-blue ink splotches over her stomach.
‘Oh my God! When did you get that?’
‘In Edinburgh.’
‘When?’ Lauren can’t take her eyes off the twisting limbs.
‘A month ago.’
‘What is it?’
‘A squid. It captures its prey with its two front tentacles, like this.’ She wraps her arms around Lauren, who tries to twist away, tries not to laugh. ‘Then it tickles them. Like this.’
Lauren pushes her off, not able to keep a straight face.
They sit in silence for a while, then Lauren says, ‘Was it sore?’
‘A little. Actually, yeah, really sore.’
‘My dad says it’s sore. He has some. But he says I’m not allowed. Do your mum and dad know?’
‘They found out. The school told them. No one’s very happy with me right now. My mum’s trying to pretend everything’s fine, but she went mental. Yeah.’ She looks out of the window. ‘They sent me home. Coming home’s weird. It feels so empty. My dad—’ She catches herself mid-speech.
Lauren realizes she must be too young to talk to about these things, but she tries. ‘You got in trouble?’
‘Um. My dad doesn’t want me to tell anyone, but I’m suspended. Like, banned from school for a while.’
Lauren reflects on this. ‘Why did you do it?’
‘Sounds stupid now, but I thought it was beautiful.’ She pauses. ‘Don’t say anything to my mum and dad. Or my brother. They don’t want anyone to know. They made me promise.’
‘When you take a shower, will it hurt?’ Lauren points to Ann-Marie’s side.
Ann-Marie laughs. ‘No, it’ll be fine.’
One of the dogs runs into the hall, agitated, howling softly at her. ‘What’s wrong? Hey. Do you want to go outside?’
The dog runs into the games room and paws the corner of the door that leads outside to the garden. Eighties pop bounces out of a room somewhere.
The dog, either Rowland or Fergus, turns to look at Ann-Marie and barks. Lauren sees its brother hiding under the billiard table. It crawls towards the door and starts to howl too.
Ann-Marie sighs, ‘OK then.’ As she reaches for the door key, the porch light comes on outside.
Ann-Marie stops. ‘Hello?’ There is no sound. She rolls up the blind and looks through the square panes of glass. The outside light stretches over the gravel into the dark trees.
‘No, you’re not going outside.’
The dogs start a cacophony. One goes back under the table, whimpering, and the other dog begins to scratch at the door again as it barks.
‘Quiet.’ She turns to Lauren. ‘Oh! Look at these guys. It’s nothing. Probably just a bird. Or a bat. They’re such numpties. OK, so do you still want to stay over? I’ll text my parents. They’ll be fine with you sleeping in the nursery upstairs.’ She goes over to the kitchen window. ‘There’s an extra blanket in the wardrobe. I’d better stay and sort those dogs. I don’t know what’s gotten into them.’ Lauren doesn’t ask why she’s not letting them outside.
The nursery is full of lace. Lace over the brass bed, lace curtains. Lace on the dresses of the dolls that sit on a rocking chair with teddy bears. The walls are cream and there is a white enamel sink in one corner. A grey dolls’ house sits under the window. The floors, like most of the floors in the house, are polished wood, covered here and there with old rugs. In this room, by the bed, is a large sheepskin. Lauren kneels down to touch it. It is softer than any sheep she has met.
She reaches around in the cavernous wardrobe and finds the blanket. Then she wraps it around her, sitting cross-legged on the edge of the white bed. Under the counterpane is a grey quilt. It’s so quiet. She looks at the rocking chair of toys and they look back at her. A bald baby in a long christening gown, its skin the colour of a peeled apple. There is a little girl with black ringlets under a straw bonnet and a teddy bear with glinting buttons for eyes. A light, the porch light, comes on outside. She gets up to look. Below, a dog shoots into the dark. Lauren tries to see out. Through the single-glazed glass, she hears Ann-Marie calling ‘Rowland!’ Then, more quietly, ‘Oh. Oh my God.’ A bush obscures the porch light, but she can see the edge of a female figure and, when she looks more closely, the bunched white towelling of a dressing gown.
‘Are you …?’ Ann-Marie’s voice rises.
The back of the woman’s head is nodding. She spreads out her arms to each side, the palms facing away, and shakes her head.
‘What? I’m sorry … You look so cold.’
The woman turns, her arms still half stretched, and begins to walk away. Lauren notices the porch light shines in a different way upon her. She is solid but not quite opaque.
‘Where are you going? Hello?’ Ann-Marie sounds frightened. As the woman turn
s, she raises her head to look straight up at Lauren in the window. She smiles and Lauren ducks down out of sight. The photograph from the bathroom glimmers in her memory.
Frightened, she slides under the cold counterpane and switches off the lumpy bedside lamp.
The outside door clicks shut. There are footsteps on the stairs and snatches of a familiar song. ‘Where have you been all the day …’ Lauren shrinks down into the bed covers. ‘Where have you been all the day, bonnie …’ The bedroom door creaks open.
‘Hello, Lauren? Are you asleep?’ Ann-Marie whispers.
‘No,’ Lauren breathes back.
‘Are you all right?’ Before Lauren has a chance to answer, Ann-Marie begins to sing in a low, lullaby voice.
‘Up a hill and doon a brae,
Bonnie Lauren, Bonnie Lauren,
Up a hill and doon a brae,
Bonnie daughter Lauren.’
Lauren sits bolt upright. ‘What?’ She switches on the bedside lamp. She realizes the base is covered in seashells.
‘Hey. Sorry. It just popped into my head.’ Ann-Marie looks puzzled.
‘Daughter Lauren?’
‘I said Bonnie darlin Lauren. What’s wrong? Where is that song from again? I’m sure I know it.’ She sings again. ‘Bonnie Lauren Mackay. Happy?’
‘Please, don’t. Who were you talking to?’
‘What?’ Ann-Marie comes up to Lauren’s bed, her silver jewellery catching the lamplight.
‘Who was it?’
‘Huh?’ Ann-Marie’s face is blank.
‘The woman you were talking to. Outside.’
Ann-Marie stares at her. ‘Lauren,’ she says in a half-whisper, ‘I wasn’t speaking to anyone.’
‘Yes, you were.’
Ann-Marie sits on the edge of the counterpane, pulling the ends of her jumper over her hands. ‘No, I wasn’t.’
‘Why won’t you tell me? I’m not lying. I saw you.’
Ann-Marie sighs. ‘What did you see?’
‘A girl. You were talking to someone.’
Pine Page 9
