T: What does the post office look like?
P: White. It’s long. With postcards.
T: Can you see the words on the postcards? Can you see the name of the town?
P: No town. The towns are far away. We buy the shortbread in Edinburgh.
T: You drive to Edinburgh to buy shortbread?
P: No. We drive there on the way. We walk round the fountain. The other kids are at school.
T: The other kids? Who are they?
P: The Scottish kids. They aren’t on holiday. But I am. So there’s no one to play with.
T: But you play with Coral?
P: We play on the swing. And I help Mr McLennan.
T: Is Mr McLennan the farmer?
P: Yes.
Excerpt 4:
T: Why don’t you like taking a bath?
P: The water’s dirty. The hot tap makes brown water.
T: The water is brown when it comes out of the tap?
P: Yes.
Excerpt 5:
T: Maybe you make sandcastles at the beach?
P: [Laughs.] No, silly.
T: What do you do at the beach, then?
P: Climb the rocks. I saw little jellyfish … they were all round my feet … they might sting me, and Daddy’s walking away … I’m calling and calling and he won’t come back. He won’t lift me up. [Patient becomes agitated.]
Excerpt 6:
T: But you felt safe when your mother was around?
P: Yes.
T: Do you think she was a good mother to you?
P: She tried her best.
T: Do you remember the last time you spoke to your mother?
P: [Patient makes sounds. Facial tic. Seems confused.]
T: When you parted with your mother, were you on good terms?
P: She was happy for me.
T: What had happened, to make her happy for you?
P: I was happy. I was getting on the boat.
T: Was your father there too?
P: No.
T: Where was the boat going?
P: [Facial tic intensifies. Further prompts are unsuccessful. Patient wakes.]
*Session ends*
In the corner of my eye, Rhona’s face looks on. I lower the beige folder to my knees an’ look into the floor. Water falls an’ falls from my eyes. Down my cheeks, down my nose, into my collar, onto my knees. Rhona does not speak, an’ neither do I. The folder turns moist in my fists.
‘I need to be alone,’ I whisper.
‘I understand.’
I feel myself floatin’ down the hallway. My shoulder bangs into a door frame, hard.
‘Do you need help?’ asks Rhona’s voice.
‘No.’
I go into the darkness. I go past Mrs Laird’s sittin’ room. I go upstairs, close my door an’ crawl into bed. I pull the covers round my head an’ bury myself far beneath.
Wind brays at the window, an’ for once this does not sound beautiful to me. I push my head deep, an’ swallow, an’ try to think of nothin’.
#
Wednesday.
This mornin’, Rhona brings a cup of tea. She doesn’t hang around. Jus’ sets it on the nightstand, looks at me a little too long an’ heads back to the door.
‘Come to me when you’re ready,’ she says.
I lie on my side, lookin’ at the wall. The tea is cold by the time I reach for it, but I drink it anyway. Rhona has brought the mug with the blue stripe, an’ if I half close my eyes I can trick myself that iss the green one.
As I sip, I try to get my head in order. The shock I felt last night has died down, but I’m still pretty shaken, an’ need to make sense of things before talkin’ to Rhona.
Part of the Inverness transcript really struck the bullseye. The rest jus’ puzzled me an’ sounded exactly like what it was. A story told by someone else. I know I should remember ev’rythin’, cos those words came out of my mouth. But I can’t connect the dots. In the end those things happened to that little girl, not me.
My memories of Coral are the clearest of all, an’ I think that’s because they are good ones. The swing by her caravan was blue, with rustin’ chains that squeaked. I remember sittin’ on it with one foot up an’ one down. Playin’ acrobats. Takin’ turns to hold the frame steady. In a barn we made bird’s nests out of hay, an’ tried to make the chickens sit in them. We ran in green wellies, rubbed dock leaves on nettle stings, an’ raced twigs in a beck. I remember callin’ by too early one morning, an’ her mother’s mouth shoutin’ at me through a frosted-glass window. I remember lyin’ on my back, with a black an’ white dog runnin’ round me an’ a woman with veined cheeks peggin’ sheets to a clothes line.
But that’s the end of the good memories. Cos on the other side of the spectrum, there’s my father. The parts about him chilled me to the core. I remember him. Or I remember the
fear
of him. The anger an’ shame an’ frustration that were never to be spoken of out loud. I remember knowin’ his behaviour wasn’t normal. That when he lashed out, it was not really allowed.
The more I think of my father, the jumpier I become, an’ though his image is hazier than Coral’s, it has glued itself onto me. I’m scared, cos I know this is jus’ the beginning. Why did I ever read the transcript? I should have known I wasn’t strong enough yet.
#
‘Well. What do you think?’
We are sittin’ against the old sheep fold, huggin’ our knees to keep warm. A bank of thorn bushes shields us from the house. I trail my fingers down the scratchy grey stones, trying to distil my feelin’s into words. Bits of lichen crumble off, stickin’ to the sleeve of my jumper.
‘It made me sad,’ I say.
‘Your father?’ asks Rhona.
I shoot her a glance. I nod.
‘Can we talk about the farm?’ asks Rhona. ‘I really think the farm is the key.’
‘I don’t remember much. The bits I remember are sort of useless.’
‘None of it is
useless
,’ she says brightly. ‘Just talking about it is a step in the right direction. Let’s get it all out in the open.’
‘All?’ I say, an’ regret it straight away. Then the wind blows my hood down, an’ my hair billows out. It whips round my mouth like iss trying to gag me, an’ for several seconds I find myself engulfed. When I’ve battled it back into place, my hair smells like gorse.
‘You do realise,’ says Rhona, ‘that that farm you described was probably in this area?’
‘Why do you think that?’
‘Well … the peaty water, for a start.’
The thought of my old life being so close by makes me uncomfortable. I drop my eyes from Rhona’s an’ look past her instead, to the sun-spotted hillside. It looks dark an’ bright at the same time. Golden an’ peach an’ black. The gorse bushes startlingly yellow against the horizon.
‘I don’t want to leave this place.’ I say. ‘Please don’t make me leave.’
Rhona doesn’t answer for a long time. I watch the side of her face, but iss her turn to be evasive now, an’ she keeps her eyes well away from mine. Wind toots through the gaps in the wall.
‘If we find your mother,’ says Rhona, ‘you could go back home.’
‘
Have
you found her?’ I ask, a bit too sharply.
‘No,’ says Rhona as she plays with a piece of grass. ‘But I think we might be able to.’
I imagine sittin’ at a table with a strange woman, watched on all sides by newspaper men. All of them holdin’ tape machines. Lis’nin’. Waitin’. In this vision I feel nothin’ for the woman, an’ I know she feels nothin’ for me.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t think she’d want to talk to me.’
‘Why ever not? You’re her daughter!’
‘She hasn’t come here. I jus’ … I jus’ don’t think she cares …’
Rhona sighs. We look at the sky. A black cloud is advancin’ from the sea. I think it’ll rain soon.
‘If we find her, you can
ask
her where she’s been. It couldn’t do any harm, could it? Just to talk?’
‘I don’t want to see her if she doesn’t care.’
‘She’s your mother!’
‘I don’t want her! I want to stay with you.’
Rhona doesn’t look up for a long time. I wait desperately for her to answer. But the black cloud beats her to it an’ empties the first spats of rain.
‘Quick!’ says Rhona. She jumps up an’ grabs her raincoat, which we’ve been sittin’ on. I tumble sideways as she shakes off the grass stalks an’ hurls it over her head. Within seconds, the sky is alive. We make a break for it over the boggy ground. Both of us fall at least once.
#
Thursday.
After breakfast, Rhona tells me ev’rythin’ has been arranged. Dr Harrison will get here on Saturday morning.
‘Great,’ I tell Rhona, when in truth I’m scared witless. I’m supposed to read the rest of the transcripts to prepare for my first session. Or, well, that’s what I agreed. All mornin’, my belly’s in knots.
Is it too late to change my mind? I want to make things easy on Rhona. She’s been unhappy, an’ doin’ this stuff will make her feel better. But I also have to protect myself.
When lunchtime comes round I’m too scared to go the dinin’ room. What if Rhona’s there, with the transcripts? My belly’s growlin’, but I can’t take the risk, so I sneak outside an’ hurry across the moor. When I reach the bite I feel calmer. Here, I am hidden from Gille Dubh. I stop an’ let the wind push me onto my back. The bracken crunches under me as I land, an’ gladly I raise my arms to the sky. Clouds cavort like a magical, untouchable landscape, an’ suddenly nothin’ feels quite real. I’m a girl in a paintin’ hung on a sittin’-room wall. Part of a lush, overgrown dream. I lie on my back with my legs danglin’ over the edge, an’ for a moment it feels like I am floatin’.
Am I able to swim? I’ve tried so many times to remember. If I really travelled here on the Gulf Stream, I suppose I must be able to. Sometimes when I’m lyin’ in bed I move my arms an’ legs like the people we saw on television. But it never feels familiar, an’ iss hard to believe such small motions could prevent me from sinkin’. I have come to regard swimmin’ in the same fanciful way I regard flyin’. Maybe I did fly here. The thought somehow seems less ludicrous. If the water could have delivered me here, then why not the air?
I push my palms together an’ practise my swimmin’ movements. As always, it doesn’t feel right, so I lower my arms an’ look at the clouds. If only I could fly away. Imagine that! I’d watch from far above as Dr Harrison’s car wound its way to Gille Dubh. Search parties would be sent out when she realised I’d gone, an’ I’d smile downwards as they fumbled round the grounds. How long would they bother for? One day? Two? I’d wait as long as it took, till Dr Harrison got mad an’ drove back to Inverness. Then I’d ride back down on a gust of rain, an’ come inside for supper. Hah! That’d teach them!
Wait …
Tremblin’, I lower my hands. Something above me is shiftin’. A dark cloud barging down, pinnin’ me here on my back. My beautiful vision shrivels away, an’ as my heart rears up in shock, a tremendous rip cuts the clouds in half.
Bam
, goes my heart.
!!!
A wet screech clogs my throat. I grab sideways.
Spilling through. Dripping towards me. A soft black tendril, searching to take root. I gasp. The tide turns. Then it’s in me, lodged hard and growing. I think I make a noise. I turn and fill my hands with bracken. I can’t get away. The sky crashes down, taking the landscape with it, and suddenly I’m alone in an empty frame. Stuff bleeding from my fingertips. Reassembling itself. Turning back into something real … What is the picture? I know it … A black ship, half swallowed. I see it there, scratched in the clouds. All around me. The sad masts. The waves. The rushing sky. I trace them with my fingers. I’ve seen them before. But it’s slanted … Falling … Falling towards me … I want to make the picture straight … To push one corner up … But it’s too high … Too far … No … My fingers scream … I cannot grab it … I cannot make it right …
The motion makes me sick …
No!
Darkness punches my chest. Rain hits my face. A long, slow fall. Then I know no more.
#
I wake into twilight an’ a cold, solid drizzle. Water pools in my eyes, makin’ me blink, but I’m too weak to roll over. Cold crawls from the ground like a livin’ creature. Climbin’ through me, stealin’ heat from my flesh. It’s tryin’ to freeze me, as it freezes the thorn bushes. It doesn’t know I’m a person. That such treatment would kill me.
I’m still on the lip of the bite. Summoning all my strength, I rise to my knees an’ the house swings across the horizon. Just an orange glow from here, an’ I know the sight of it should comfort me, but no. No …
Unseen grasses whip my hands. Rain dribbles through my hair.
What …
My ears start to pound.
No … Please … Not again …
The shakin’s uncontrollable now. My feet rooted fast. The taste of metal on my tongue. Is that ice below my knees? A figure framed in blood. Suckin’ me into its arms. I screech. A rush of acid. Then I’m breathin’ hard, an’ runnin’. Wet foliage smacks my knees. The house swings back into view, an’ as it does a voice appears in my head. My
own
voice. Disembodied.
Everything has gone wrong.
I stumble. Bite my tongue. Get up. Keep runnin’.
He can see me …
I skid across the gravel. Flounder round the outhouses. Claw at the back door. For one dreadful second I think it’s locked. Then it flies open, an’ I spill onto the carpet.
Friday.
I wake late – still dressed an’ still wearing my shoes. My bed is full of dead grass. I know something scared me last night, but I still can’t make sense of what happened. Sooner or later Rhona will turn up, demanding answers, and I haven’t the slightest idea what to tell her. At one o’clock there’s a knock on my door. I lie very still. But nobody speaks or comes in.