Authors: Eleanor Thom
Dawn
One is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do
Two can be as bad as one
The music made the task feel less endless. Sorting and tidying her aunt’s possessions, she hoped she would come across the missing key – and open the cupboard. But there were so many places the key could hide. Her aunt’s home was one of endless bits and bobs, jam jars rattling with different coloured beads and buttons, a jewellery box with a broken dancer under the lid, a brown plastic bracelet, used dress patterns, someone’s war medals, a ring with a red stone, and a silver brooch that said ‘mother’. Sleeping in a small box was a concertina that wheezed a groggy dischord when she lifted it. There were umpteen bottles of scent gone fusty, faded yellow like plastic cemetery flowers. Everything smelt of the golden perfumes, sickly-sweet as second helpings of syrupy dumpling. It made her treasurehunting flustered and nauseous. Her fingers scratched at the lids of shortbread tins grainy with rust; inside every one, more lost or forgotten ‘bonnie things’ tucked away in no particular order, most of them bound for the dustbin. Still no key.
She picked up a dressing table mirror, mock Victorian with gaudy embellishments on the back. She spun it round to check her face and pursed her lips. Her features didn’t suit the frame. She was a woman who only made herself up with lipstick but smiled timidly. Her body wasn’t what it once was. Not that it was bad. She still got the odd compliment. Pretty face, folk said. But since having Maeve she could never find clothes that fit right. She needed a haircut. She could see that now, looking in the mirror, frowning at herself. But those salons were a
nightmare, the sitting still, the questions, not least the cup of coffee they always placed just out of reach so taking a sip would always need an apology. She sung along to a couple of lines before letting the mirror drop.
Two can be as bad as one
It’s the loneliest number since the number one
Dawn had strewn the contents of a small box onto the bed. Earrings, safety pins, shells from Findhorn, fragments and shards and pieces of grit. The tiniest grains were pushed along the wavy tufts of candlewick bedcover like silt washing down a hundred streams.
Maeve had no friends but Dawn didn’t either. That was what happened when you moved house too often. All morning Maeve had sat with her, picking things up and chattering. Dawn had tried to second guess the objects that would keep her daughter interested, anything that wasn’t sharp and couldn’t make a mess. She’d handed over a pretty embroidered handkerchief, some old coins, a stuffed toy. She’d hidden the waxy-looking lipsticks and a rusty box of gramophone needles. The old concertina was Maeve’s favourite. She was in the garden with it now, pulling and squeezing, the instrument braying like a donkey.
The cassette reached the end of the side and clicked off. Dawn thought about turning it over but decided against it. She liked this album. It would be a shame to ruin it by listening too many times. Instead she would concentrate on the task, turn keepsakes over like stones, looking carefully as though she’d left something hidden there. She’d made games of these things herself once; left small, clammy fingerprints on them.
Her aunt had told her what was in the cupboard was none of Dawn’s business. Auntie Shirley’s secrets. She’d always said it playfully, a finger tapping her nose. She’d liked to tease Dawn,
wind her up to see what would happen. But this had been an uneasy game. Dawn had sensed the secrets, put her palms against the chilly paint of the door, pressed a cheek to a panel, tried to peek through the crack. She’d wished the secrets could whisper themselves out loud or peer back at her.
Shirley had everything recorded, evidence of a life stored willy-nilly. Her flat was dark, heavy with notes-to-self implying long forgotten appointments, outings and meaningful gestures, full to bursting with the tat she’d amassed. Now it lay in every drawer, unlabelled and unexplained down to the last scrap. Sometimes a few scribbled words would uncrumple in Dawn’s hands and she’d hear Shirley’s voice in her head. Dawn would miss her then; a pain like a hand pressing down on her breastbone. She hid those moments from Maeve. She’d say she had a snuffle, a cold coming on, and then she would push whatever it was that had set her off into the bin and go back to the search.
A key turned up in a cutlery drawer and Maeve found another in the pocket of a doll’s dress. Dawn held them in her hands, weighing them. They looked too new, and she was not disappointed when they didn’t fit the lock. The cupboard was old and whatever was inside, the secrets she imagined, suggested a key that was tarnished and heavy. She wanted a key with personality; something that couldn’t be forged twice.
What’s in there? Maeve said.
I don’t know. Maybe nothing.
Maeve twisted her comforter, Blue Scarfy, giving it a Chinese burn. She was turning the soft, fragile silk into something hard and strong.
Don’t worry, we’ll open it, Dawn said into Maeve’s silence. I want to find out. She felt suddenly ridiculous, the way she had when her aunt once caught her rummaging for the key.
She’d tried to pick the lock once. Dawn laughed. It was a strange noise in the emptying flat, so she muffled it with her
hand. She ran her tongue over the tooth that had chipped. It was so smooth now you’d never know she’d damaged it once, not knowing how to pick a lock or what shape to make the wire. It was a coathanger she’d tried with, bending it into a vague key size in her mouth. For months after her tooth had felt rough, a shard missing; but it had been satisfying, feeling the splinter in the enamel with the tip of her tongue.
She could always use a crow bar. Would that be wrong? Shirley wasn’t even in her grave yet.
The cupboard was in Dawn’s old bedroom, but her aunt had re-decorated after Dawn married, and Dawn’s room had become the good room. It was a room for entertaining, which had never been in Shirley’s nature, so the room was never heated. After ten years it still had a new-carpet smell. It was full of best things, china ornaments, paintings, embroideries pressed and stretched behind glass, crystal decanters in display cabinets, family portraits.
Shirley had loved Maeve. The first baby photo Dawn ever sent had been enlarged and hung on the wall in here, and over it a more recent snap had been tucked into the corner of the frame – Shirley on a bench at Edinburgh Zoo with Maeve cuddled into her side. Maeve was a blur of black hair, red dress and bright green, slethery lollipop. The sweetie hovered like a flying saucer halfway along its trajectory to Maeve’s mouth. Dawn remembered the few seconds after that picture had been taken, the lollipop crash-landing on the gravel, stuck with dirt, and Maeve’s tears, the wail that went on till her eyes were dabbed with a hanky and a replacement lollipop was pressed into her hand. Then they went to see the camels.
Do you remember Shirley? Dawn had asked on the journey up. But Maeve had stared blankly the way she always did when she didn’t know the answer to something and didn’t want to say so.
Something beginning with ‘Shhh’, Maeve had said.
They’d just been playing I Spy.
Sheep, it must be. But Dawn played along and pretended not to know.
It was a year since they’d seen Shirley last, and that was too long. Maeve was still so small.
I’m going to see Granny and Grappa? she’d said when the game was finished. Grandpa was a new word for her. It always came out sounding like the Italian drink.
You’ll meet your granny and grandpa soon, Dawn had told her, and then changed the subject.
At two o’clock Dawn and Maeve ate their lunch in the good room. It was the only place left that wasn’t strewn with bursting bin bags. Opposite them was the mysterious cupboard. It was quite small, built into an alcove, a heavy lock sealed with a thick layer of paint. Shirley used to dust down the outside of the cupboard, but asked what was inside she’d always do the same thing – touch her nose and say it was her secret, tell Dawn to stop nosey-poking.
Keeps a tight ship, your auntie Shirley, Dad had always remarked. Dawn’s father’s real name was Gordon, but everyone had always called him Dad, even his younger sister Shirley and Dawn’s mother, Wilma.
Dawn had been seven when she’d gone to live with Shirley. She remembered Mother insisting it was for the best, that Dawn and her aunt would be good for each other. Dad had been unsure at first but eventually he was forced to agree.
It’s nerves, eh? New babbie on the way and whatnot, Dad had said. It’s just for a wee while. And it’s for the best, eh, pet? Ye ken how mammy worries. Daddy’ll take everyone tae the pictures on your birthday. How’s that? Ye might even have a wee sister or brother by then.
Dawn had been a lazy lump, a ditherer, a wee liar, always causing her mother Wilma worries. ‘Wilma Worries’ was what
Auntie Shirley had always called Dawn’s mother behind her back.
Dawn hadn’t shopped yet, so all there was to eat was cold chicken from the fridge. Maeve thought it was slimy. She grumbled and hunched over her plate, pulling with her fork at something stringy. Dawn took it away and began to cut the meat into tiny pieces, removing everything but the whitest flesh. As she scraped some of the meat off the drumstick and stared at it on her fork, she thought about Maeve’s pickiness, and felt put off. A pink dot blushed in the meat, a broken blood vessel like the one over Dawn’s left eyebrow. The food looked a bit dry. Shirley had always overcooked things. But it smelt okay. She pushed the plate back to Maeve, who stabbed a tiny mouthful and looked at it beadily. It was then, trying not get cross, that Dawn noticed her sister, Linda. The high school photograph sat on the mantelpiece, the smile fading in its tiny frame. She’d almost forgotten there was an auntie for Maeve to meet as well.
Maeve had just finished chewing her miniscule bite when she pointed at the clock on the sideboard and jiggled in her chair. The clock was an old digital one in a wooden case. The time was 2:12.
Look! Mummy, look! Two. One. Two. Two. One. Two, Maeve said, not taking her eyes off the numbers.
What do you mean?
The numbers flicked to 2:13.
Maeve’s face changed. You missed it, silly! When can we go home?
You’ve not met Granny and Grandpa, yet. Or your auntie Linda.
Dawn’s throat tightened round the words but it was all she could think to say. Maeve just nodded.
Is your chicken all right now?
Hmm.
Have a bit more.
Dawn turned to the window, which was trickling with raindrops. She was remembering the dingy city flat she’d been renting for four months. She’d been glad to see the back of it. And they’d have their own place now too, if it all worked out.
After lunch she wrapped the chicken bones in a copy of the local paper. There was a hole in one page where a story had been neatly snipped out. Dawn tucked the corners of the paper in round the leftovers, the smell of newsprint mixing with chicken fat and swimming in her head.
The ringing started as Dawn was washing up. She stood beside the phone.
Letting it ring.
Letting it ring.
She could hear Maeve in the living room, laughing at the afternoon kids’ programmes. Lifting the receiver she smelt Fairy suds on her fingers, tasted them on her lips. The line was lifeless.
Yes?
There was an odd static pause. She thought she heard an intake of breath, or was it nothing but silence? ‘Guess who?’ it seemed to say.
Dawn slammed the receiver back on its cradle. She breathed through clenched teeth and the words she had wanted to say into the phone, ‘Go to Hell’, stuck and furred in her mouth like the overcooked chicken. She was sure it would be Warren, her husband. Husband. She’d always thought it was a horrible word.
The phone cable came free of its socket when she wrapped it round her wrist and yanked two or three times. Plastic lashed through her hand, the sting of it making her eyes water. The connector dropped to the carpet, wires ripped out of the wall. ‘I’m a can of worms!’ it laughed. Dawn wiped her eyes and pulled her favourite black cardigan tighter, linking her hands through the sleeves. The pulse in her wrist hammered against
the tip of her index finger and she pressed down on it, feeling the vein and cartilage, the tapping like Morse code.
In the living room Maeve was cradled between the cushions of the huge armchair and Dawn threw herself into a corner of the sofa. She reached for her cigarettes, lit up and blew smoke towards the ceiling. On the television a hairy purple puppet was clanging a frying pan, laughing hysterically from its red gash of a mouth.
The living room was done up in an old-fashioned way. Very little light came through the window and even on a bright day this place would lull her to sleep. The sofa covers were olive green velour and its squashy cushions were well-muscled, pinned in with silky fringe and buttons. The hungry cracks were a good place to find pocket money, probably enough to buy sweeties for Maeve and a packet of cigarettes. She’d search them later.
From her corner of the sofa Dawn noticed the silver dog ornament. It had a stumpy tail which rang like a doorbell if you pushed it down, and he used to be her favourite thing in the house. Once her wee sister had tried to pinch him, but Dawn had seen her and told Auntie Shirley. The dog had been standing in the same place on the mantelpiece ever since.
Shirley had kept him shiny. Dawn smiled, remembering the care her aunt had taken with all the ornaments and pictures, spraying and wiping them one by one every weekend. She’d done it without a thought, making things clean, like an actress sweeping off face paint. Dawn sensed a sadness in the quiet that was settling on those things now.
She balanced her cigarette on the edge of the armrest and picked up the dog. It was ugly close-up. She shined its back across her sleeve before pushing down the tail and bringing the dog to life. A strangled buzz was trapped in its belly like a bee under a glass. Maeve climbed up beside her, nudging in to have a closer look, and Dawn pressed the tail down again.
Bzzz, went the dog. Bzzz. Bzzz.
Maeve cuddled into her and stroked a finger between the dog’s ears, and for a second Dawn felt a little guilty for not surrendering it to Linda all those years ago.