Along the back streets, Magnus walks in step with me. The air is frosty, making me shiver, and as we walk through the gloom I take his gloved hand in my own. I catch his eye and he smiles. Relief floods through my chest, and just for that moment I wonder what I’ve been so upset about. Then a throng of drunks bursts, singing, round the corner, and Magnus yanks his hand from mine. In the space of two seconds, he’s put several paces between us. Reeling, I fold my arms round myself. Has the
just friends
act begun already? Magnus parades ahead, as if I was not there, and, feeling like a fool, I trot after him.
Råkk is a squat timber building adorned with a lightning-bolt-shaped sign. Through the darkened windows I see heads bobbing. As we approach, someone comes out of the door and the sound of AC/DC fills the street. Without a backwards glance, Magnus flounces down the steps and makes his entrance. It seems like he knows every person in the place, and under different circumstances I might have found that adorable. But not tonight. I stand awkwardly by the door, waiting for the hellos to stop and the girls to stop pawing him. A long-haired guy in a Motörhead cut-off nods at me and, grateful for some recognition, I smile back. He hurls a string of words at me, which I can only assume is a greeting. He looks at me for a reply. But at that moment, Magnus dives between us and throws an arm round the guy’s neck. They exchange words.
‘Don’t mind him,’ Magnus tells me, in English. ‘He’s drunk.’
Then a fresh barrage of friends greets him, and he’s gone again. I stand near the door, scanning the room, and suddenly it hits me that I have absolutely no friends here. Not a single one. I look round for Magnus and see him laughing with two stunningly beautiful women. One of them, a redhead with pixie-like cheekbones, is playing with his tie. At his side, a really young girl is vying for his attention, and with rising anger I recognise her as the girl from Loop the Loop.
‘It was n-ai-ss too meet yoo,’ sing-songs a voice, and I whip round to find the Motörhead guy in my face. His accent tickles me into laughter. Until this moment I have never heard anyone sound so Norwegian. With a big smile, I shake the huge, pale hand he has thrust out.
‘I am Håkon,’ says the guy. ‘Yoo are Magnus sin friend?’
‘Yes.’
‘Yoo are Scot … uh … Scots …
Scot-tish
?’
He looks so pleased with himself for remembering the right word that I don’t have the heart to correct him. Anyway, he’s not the first to misplace my accent. Sometimes even British people think I’m from Scotland. Smiling broadly, I nod.
‘
Train-spot-ting
!’ exclaims the guy, and to my astonishment he reels off a heartfelt, perfectly remembered Sick Boy soliloquy. I gape at him, impressed.
‘Whisky! Yoo like whisky? Single malt …’ He gestures enthusiastically, sloshing me with the contents of his pint glass, and in an instant the front of my top is soaked.
Swearing, I shoot backwards. But Håkon hasn’t even noticed. I look round for Magnus, hoping to extricate myself, and see him by the bar, handing a drink to the Loop the Loop girl.
‘Excuse me,’ I tell Håkon, and drift over to Magnus’s side. The girl’s hand is on his chest now. She sways slightly, and Magnus pulls her upright.
‘Hall-lo,’ I say, as brightly as I can. They turn to look at me. I’d hoped Magnus would notice the warning in my tone, but as far as I can tell, he has not. Suddenly I feel nastily sober. The girl tugs at Magnus and says something that makes him laugh. Then she takes a pack of cigarettes from her pocket and puts one in Magnus’s mouth. I stare at the packet and a surge of longing passes through me. I can no longer afford my own cigarettes.
‘Hold this,’ says Magnus, and puts his glass in my hand, before following the girl outside. Dumbstruck, I watch them go.
‘Sin-gull malt!’ blares a voice into my ear, and I turn to find Håkon beside me. I shove Magnus’s glass into his hand. Then I storm to the ladies to dry my top.
#
For forty minutes I try to talk to Magnus’s friends. Occasionally I recognise English words and jump on the chance to join in. But it never lasts more than a few seconds. People get bored of me, or don’t understand my humour, or return to speaking in dialect. I try in vain to identify words, to get some gist of the conversation, but it’s useless. My bottle goes and I get sick of grinning into empty air. I retreat into the corner and sit on a stool. By the time Magnus comes back to my side, I am sober.
‘Whatssz wrong with yurr face?’ he glowers. There’s a beer in his hand. I glare at him, wanting to slap him, but he’s so drunk by now he wouldn’t even realise why I’d done it.
‘Nothing.’
‘Why won’t you speak to people? I’m sick of you … be-ing so …’
‘So what?’
‘Cheer
up
, Kathy! For
helvete
!’
I push Magnus and he teeters off balance, taking a bar stool with him. The clatter makes people look. Magnus looks at me with undisguised contempt and drags himself upright. Suddenly I realise I’ve never seen him as drunk as this. In fact, I’ve never seen this level of drunkenness in
anyone
. People usually pass out when they reach this stage, or puke, or start drinking water. But here he is, still on his feet. For a moment, the pain is so great I can barely breathe. I close my eyes, do my breathing exercise and try to hold the tears in. When I open my eyes again, Magnus is glaring at the floor.
‘Can we go home?’ I ask.
Magnus tuts. I look at his hands, wrapped tightly round the stool, and try to lay mine on top. He jerks away, swears and returns to his friends.
For some time I sit with my head on the bar. No one tries to talk to me or move me on, so maybe this is a normal sight in here. My head starts to throb, and with growing bitterness I realise the hangover’s already kicking in. Until 3 a.m., the clock on the wall keeps me company.
From here I can see the top of Magnus’s head. He’s been sitting with two well-dressed men for a while. They’ve moved to a table at the back, so I can’t see them well. The big guy with the black hair has his back to me, and over the bulk of his frame I only catch narrow glimpses of the thin one’s face. Magnus is slumped between them, barely moving other than to sip from his glass. I watch his face for a while, trying to work out if he’s falling asleep. If he does pass out I might need a hand getting him home. Maybe those guys could help. The big secret would be out then, wouldn’t it? I laugh to myself, bitterly.
Suddenly, a commotion draws my attention. I look up. The black-haired guy is on his feet, in the corner by the door to the toilets. Some girls are pushing him, without much effect. He tilts to one side, and I see then that he has a girl pinned against the wall. Blonde, pretty, falling out of a low-cut dress. The Loop the Loop girl. She stands there, visibly trembling, as he speaks into her ear. Now and again she tries to respond, but her jaw is hindered by the huge hand he has clasped round her face. Slowly, carefully, he turns her face from left to right, and inspects her as a vet would an animal. Then he slides his thumb down her cheek, croons some more and uses it to part her lips. For a moment she lets it rest there. Then, quite suddenly, she bites.
The man yells, draws his hand far back, and wallops the girl in the face. She falls to her knees. The girls around them go bananas. I get to my feet. But in the bedlam that follows, Loop the Loop girl makes a break for it. I follow her through the exit and run up the stairs to the street.
At first I don’t see her. Then a wail cuts out of the shadows, and I see her on the ground behind the bus stop. Rivulets of mascara stain her face, and she is spitting something red – either blood or lipstick – into the gutter. I run to her side, just as her band of friends bursts out of Råkk.
‘Sølvi!’ they yell. ‘
Sølvi!
’ Then they see her, and run towards us.
‘Is she okay?’ I gasp, but no one replies.
The girl cries and cries. Someone is dabbing her face with a napkin. Another strokes her knee. Just then, Magnus blunders through the door and Sølvi pushes all of us aside. As she runs into his arms he makes a meaningful face at her friends, and like a troupe of butlers they shrink away.
Magnus leads the girl into the alley behind Råkk. They sit down on a doorstep, and for a long time he just rocks her backwards and forwards. I stand by his side, waiting. When she’s stopped crying I whisper, ‘Is she okay?’
‘Fuck off,’ slurs Magnus, and goes back to stroking her hair.
‘Why did your friend do that?’
‘This is not your business.’
I retreat to a doorway on the street corner and hug myself against the wind. Magnus and the girl talk in hushed tones. Eventually I sit down on the ground.
Tuesday.
‘I want you to bring that lady back,’ I tell Rhona.
She lowers her notepad an’ stares at me. ‘
What
?’ she says.
‘That hypnotist lady. I want to talk to her.’
Rhona’s mouth drops open. For a moment she jus’ stares. Then a lovely smile spreads across her face an’ she pushes her hair behind one ear, like she does when she’s thinkin’ hard.
‘Are you sure?’ she asks.
‘Yes.’
‘Well …’ says Rhona. ‘Well …’
‘I’m sure.’
‘I’ll have to give her some notice … maybe a few days … You
do
mean Susan, don’t you? Dr Harrison?’
‘Yes, Dr Harrison.’
‘Right! Well … I’ll give her a call,’ says Rhona. Her eyes are sparkier than they were all day yesterday, an’ I’m proud to be the one who made this happen. Huh. Maybe this
isn’t
such a bad idea …
I play with the hem of my sleeve while Rhona writes some notes. When she’s finished she pulls her feet up onto the chair edge an’ hugs her knees. She smiles at me, an’ again I feel good.
‘I’m glad you came to this decision,’ she says. ‘You know, I’ve been dying to talk to you about Inverness. You may not remember this, but you made some real progress in those sessions.’ She pauses, as if amazed I haven’t stopped her yet, an’ asks, ‘Is it okay for us to talk about this?’
This is hard to answer, cos Rhona usually knows when I’m lyin’. But my
yes
seems to satisfy her.
‘I still have the transcripts, if you’re ready to read them,’ she says. Then she adds, ‘Or one … We could start with one, if you like.’
‘Yes please,’ I blurt, before she can withdraw the offer. One at a time is as much as I can handle anyway.
Rhona looks at me more closely, an’ I wonder if she’s seen through my fake bravery. But she jus’ says, ‘Righto,’ an’ goes to root though the filin’ cabinet.
I watch her back as she stands on her tiptoes, there. Her hair is knotted tightly at the base of her neck, an’ I can’t help wond’rin’ if iss as painful as it looks. She never used to wear it that way. After a minute she comes back holding a cardboard folder.
‘This is the main one,’ she says. ‘It’s a summary of the most important parts. We have the full-length version, of course, but I think it’d be hard for you to make sense of.’
I stare at the file, tryin’ to keep my eyes dry. Rhona kneels at my side.
‘I know you’re afraid,’ she says. ‘You’re not as good an actress as you think. But trust me. The sooner you face these things, the sooner we can get you home.’
I nod. My throat feels like iss full of tissue paper.
‘I’m here for you,’ says Rhona.
I nod.
Rhona hands me the file. I hold it in my hands, breathin’ hard. I square my shoulders. Then I open it.
MmhorGDRegP89/10
Name: Katherine (Fennick?)
Gender: F
DOB: Unknown (Est. age 30)
Date of session: 16/06/2006
Duration: 55min
T: Therapist, P: Patient
Excerpt 1:
T: So the farmer lives in the other half of the house?
P: Yes.
T: Was this the house where you were born?
P: No. I come in the summer. With Mummy and Daddy.
T: Is it the first time you have been here?
P: We come every year.
T: Does your daddy work here, on the farm?
P: No. He looks at the birds with his telescopes. But I work sometimes. I help push the sheep in the big bath. I get the eggs, with Coral.
T: Who is Coral?
P: My friend.
T: Did Coral come here with you, in the red car?
P: No, silly. She lives in the caravan with her mummy.
T: Which caravan do they live in?
P: The brown caravan. With the swing.
T: Are there other caravans there?
P: No. It’s got nettles under the steps. I play with Coral on the swing.
Excerpt 2:
T: Why are you afraid of Daddy?
P: He shouts. Loud.
T: Has your daddy ever done more than shout at you?
P: He’s not like the other daddies. Sometimes he acts funny.
T: What does your daddy do when he acts funny?
P: He cries. He hits me when I haven’t been naughty.
T: Why do you think your daddy cries? Is it because he is sad?
P: He hits Mummy too. She says she’ll pack her bags. She’ll leave us at the bus stop.
T: Which bus stop is that?
P: Mummy doesn’t say. But she says it a lot.
Excerpt 3:
T: How far is the farm from the sea? Is it a long way?
P: No. Usually we drive there. I get tired when we walk. We drive to the post office too.