To the Devil - a Diva! (5 page)

Here in Kendal I was made to know I was different. Not in any bad way, it was just clear to all of us that I was cut from different cloth. Isla Figgis and Michael and Katy would talk about things and I'd hear their voices raised before I walked into the room. They'd lower their voices or change the subject when I came in. I didn't really feel left out, but I had the vague sense that I had failed some sort of test. And that they were being kind to me. Like I was going to miss the boat. When the day of reckoning came, they would be forced to bid me a fond and regretful goodbye. I've had a similar feeling, in the years since, from certain hardline Christians. People who, though not setting out to convert you, let you know that they are putting you into their prayers. That's how it was with the Figgises and Katy in those last days of the war.

Since she's the reason for all this spilling out of my past – she's the excuse, the alibi for all of this – I ought to say a bit about how Katy had changed through that time.

It was clear that she was in utter possession of herself. The way she talked, the way she carried her whole body,
there was a confidence there. A quiet self-regard. She had gone from being nothing: being the poorest kid on our street, whose mam was beyond help and who smelt of days-old wee, into being what was to all intents and purposes a young woman. All proud and, if not stuck up, someone who knew her own worth. She had turned slim and curvy and her hair had grown glossy and long. All the Irish had come out in her and she was dynamite, even in the clothes Isla stitched out of remnants and hand-me-downs. Heads turned on the High Street when Katy went by. They all knew her.

I, meanwhile, had gone dumpy. All puffy-faced and short of breath. I had eyes like two currants stuck in a soft white barm. I cursed my luck and hated myself for not being a bonny kid anymore. Mam would never recognise me. I'd turned into a hefty girl who came from the countryside. All those eggs and fresh, rich cream. And the chocolate bars with which the Figgises tried to buy our love.

Not that they needed to bother bribing Katy. She adored the two of them without question as time went on. She was their adopted daughter and she let them kiss and pet her and she looked ever so smug about it. She, who'd always bridled and hissed like a feral cat when anyone had tried to make a fuss of her. Now she'd settle and look primped and pleased at their attentions.

Then came the day they took us both to one of their solstitial celebrations.

It was what they had instead of Christmas, just a few days before, in the middle of the night in the woods and Katy was their chosen winter queen. She was a natural choice and she revelled in all the preparations, as they fitted her in a white dress; silk spun as fine as Isla's frizzy hair.
Neither of us had seen such a garment before. Katy stood on a wooden chair in the front room as Isla pinned up her hem, and I knew what she was thinking. It all went back to the nativities our school used to put on, back when we were little kids. Katy had never been chosen. She had glared in utter contempt at the Marys and Josephs and angels of all those years. Even at the shepherds in their tea towel turbans. I'd always been picked for a shepherd, taking my role very seriously.

Now Katy was the star. For this celebration she was Mary, the Angel Gabriel and Jesus all rolled into one. Isla made her a little coronet woven out of mistletoe and holly. It prickled a bit, you could tell, but Katy looked ever so festive.

When I looked at Katy in those days I had some awful thoughts. I was jealous. Of course I was. It was my age back then, the age of both of us: when everything whizzes around in your blood and it stirs you up and you wonder if you'll ever be worthy of love.

What I remember is tingling and fizzing all over, just under my skin. As if great things were going on beneath the surface and no one could tell. They just saw Sally, covered in puppy fat, covered in shame. Even I only half knew what was going on inside of me. I felt special and like no one else and only I knew about it. Of course I was going to look enviously at Katy, whose every gesture and word were credited as unique and amazing. They thought she was marvellous and I started to resent that. Why was she worth so much love?

They lavished love upon her.

I told myself it was because she'd been neglected as a child. She'd only just dragged herself up. I was still obeying
the words of my mam, and keeping an eye out for the young MacBride girl. Making sure that Katy was all right. So I watched as Isla sewed Katy into that silky white dress in that run-up to Christmas. I watched her place that tiara of briars and holly and plump mistletoe berries on her head and wreath her hair through it so that it tangled and fell in these wild, ravished locks. They had her up on that chair like a goddess and Katy basked in their attention. The fire was crackling. Outside the snow was bashing against the windows and the wind was singing through the gaps in the badly-fitted panes. And we were going out that night, to celebrate, in all that weather.

I was sitting in my duffel coat with the hood up. I was in a pair of Michael's old wellies with the tops rolled down and newspaper stuffed around my feet. I watched the Figgises gasping and oohing over Katy and I decided that I was going to lose all respect for them. They were silly old people. They were freaks, just like Katy had said, right at the start.

Isla was broiling up some foul-smelling wine in their tiny kitchen and she came hefting in the smoking pot. She ladled it into china cups for us. Heavy wine, mulled in strange spices. They cajoled me into taking some and I couldn't refuse. It would keep out the cold. The fumes were heady and acrid. At the first sip I could feel them curling and twining around inside me. It was the weirdest sensation. After half a cup of Isla's solstice wine I felt almost removed from myself. I was a few paces behind, peering out from deep within this plump girl's eyes, observing the others in my adopted family getting tipsy and excitable. Aunt Isla fetched out her musical saw and gave us a quick tune. Michael danced a little jig in front of the fire. I'd never seen him do anything like that
before. He looked too jolly to be himself. He was giddy and sweating, hopping about on one foot, then the other, so that the old floorboards rattled and rumbled. Then he bade Katy dance with him. She twirled very carefully and proudly in her new winter dress.

Then it was near midnight and time to go out. They had been passing the time, quelling their excitement. We had to leave. It would be the last time I was ever in their house. Though, of course, I didn't know that then.

I was surprised because it was the butcher's van we were going in. I'd known the Figgises had friends in the town, special friends who shared their beliefs, who greeted them and nodded with respect at them in the street. Sometimes these neighbours and townspeople came to sit in the front room and they'd make a night of it round ours. Michael would take down some of his heavy, musty books and read to them, just as he would read to us. They would listen just as we listened, rapt at his growling voice, half-understanding what he said. I had never seen the butcher at these gatherings and, even if I had, I'd still be surprised that he'd offer the use of his van, of which he was very proud.

It was really cold in the back. They let Katy sit up front in the cab with the butcher, on account of her pristine frock. The rest of us, meanwhile, were shoved standing up in the back. It was dirty and it smelt funny. A heavy oily smell like blood and poo all mixed in.

Other people were joining us. They shuffled up out of the dark and the whirling snow on the High Street. They were greeting each other, and us, in low, gruff tones. They were going on like they were just getting on a bus. But it was
midnight. It was the longest night of the year and there was a blizzard in the offing.

Isla pulled me close to her as the butcher's van filled up. We were pressed against the walls and when I touched them they felt slick. ‘It isn't far,' she whispered to me. ‘We won't have to stand for long.' Even in the murky light her silver hair still glimmered and shone. That was the last adopted mother-like thing she ever said to me.

The wine was making everything dreamlike. I decided I would pretend that's just what it was.

Some of these faces I recognised. Most of them I didn't. None of them talked to me, even the ones that had been to our house. I was quite unimportant. As the van choked and wheezed into life and we were all flung together and jolted and rattled along, I was squeezing my eyes tight shut. I wasn't really there.

But I was. And Katy was up in the front of the lorry, preening herself. I had one of those weird sensations, where it's as if you're looking back on yourself. Like what you're living is the memory of what you did. That makes you feel safer.

That rattling journey was endless. There weren't any windows in the back, so after a while I didn't know where we were headed to. It must have been further out of Kendal than I'd been in ages. I had been stuck there, in a small radius, for what seemed like most of my life. I had a little fantasy that the van would go so far it would take me back to Manchester. The doors would open eventually and show us the streets I remembered. I'd drift out and wander back up to our front door. Maybe they really were taking me home.

Wherever it was, it was uphill for a long time. We were
clinging to the insides of the van, onto each other. It was like the metal was ripping the nails off my fingers. It was knocking me sick. Aunt Isla tried to gather me up, to bundle me and steady me, but of course she was too small. At last we came to the woods.

When the doors opened it was eerily bright. The snow had stopped falling and the moon was full over the network of stark black branches above our heads. No one spoke. That was the oddest thing. They hung around as if they were waiting for someone to tell them what to do. It was just like being cattle led off that truck. I kept my eyes down and wouldn't look at them. I kept my hood up as well.

They all turned to watch Katy getting out of the cab in her dress. Again, that special treatment for her. More oohing and aahing. She did look special, though, even I knew that. I still hated her. That look on her face. Those stupid twigs and berries in her hair. The way she took in how all the Kendal midnight people stared at her. She took it as her due.

She always has known how special she is. Then I had a nasty thought.

I thought, maybe they're going to sacrifice her. Perhaps that's what it was all about. She doesn't know it, the daft mare, she's afloat and excited on all their flattery and what they're planning on doing is ripping out her throat and her belly and pulling out all her insides and eating them. That was surely the kind of people they were, with their old books and their talk of demons and spirits. Could she not see? They might be falling over themselves to pay homage to her now, but soon enough they'd be dancing around her bloody and ruined remains.

See? Kids can be vicious with what they think.

It was Michael Figgis, of course, who took the lead and who started walking into the woods, between the thick and wide-spaced trees, crunching through the snow, through that old and frozen light.

It had to be sacrifice. The way they were caring for her. The way Michael took her little hand and drew her into the forest. I was remembering what those two daft girls had said, ages ago, when we had that fight, the day we were getting nettles for tea. They'd said about the stuff they reckoned the Figgises got up to. Horrible things. I hadn't thought about it much. They were just silly girls. They had kept right out of our way since then, though we'd seen them in the street. They looked away when they saw us. Now that Katy had come into her own, she'd stride right by them, defying them to stare.

I wished I was with them now. Somewhere normal. Away from this lot, up in the hills, quiet in the forest.

We came to a clearing at last. For a while we had seemed like some strange and unfortunate folk who had been turfed out of their homes and set to walking through the night. Looking for a new place, like we'd been walking forever in fear, never looking back and never going back to human civilisation. This was just our lives now, trudging through heavy snow, with the frost-rimed branches slashing at our faces.

Of course I know now that, just at that time, there were people all over Europe doing just the same as us. They carried a few things from home, some clothes, a bit of plate, their babies on their backs. They had been turned out for real and they didn't dare look back. But we had chosen this.
The Kendal people were doing this because they wanted to.

In the clearing they busied themselves unpacking the bags and hampers some had been lugging through the woods. A midnight feast. With that old pale eye of the moon peering down at us. Soon there were delicious smells, warm smells insinuating themselves on the frigid air. The butcher had done us proud. I could taste sausages, game pie, rabbit in rich gravy and jelly. We really were to have a feast. And a
knees-up
, it turned out. From seemingly out of nowhere, Aunt Isla whipped out that musical saw of hers. I saw others tuning up battered violins. Someone had some jungle drums, which he started pounding into resonant, primitive life. Another was tootling away merrily on a kind of flute thing. People began to sway and then Michael was cajoling them into building a great fire in the centre of the clearing.

Then I knew what I'd suspected was going to come true. Katy's goose was cooked. Silly little cow: stood there feeding her face with sausages. She didn't have a clue what was coming to her.

‘Hey,' I jabbed her, as the first tongues of flame went writhing through the pyramid of branches and old crates. ‘Aren't you scared?'

She looked at me in scorn. The music around us was harsh and like nothing I'd ever heard before. They were making a symphony from the weird notes Isla drew from her musical saw. Great bubbles of discordant noise rose up from the players, up above our heads and out into the clearing: clashing and blending in curious harmonies.