The Gloaming Read online

  ‘Thanks, Mara,’ she said, grinning as she chewed, pretending that the pear wasn’t sour and underripe and grainy with dirt. ‘So kind of you.’

  Mara resisted the urge to kick Islay in the face. She was barefoot, so it wouldn’t even hurt. She pulled down another pear for herself. Bee wouldn’t eat one; he wouldn’t eat anything that looked like it had grown rather than been made in a factory. They crunched their spiteful fruit among the silent trees.

  They waited. Before long an assortment of insects emerged, tempted by the sugar. Blood-bright ladybirds, oily beetles, spiked and fidgety caterpillars: all convened in the dirt. Bee leapt forward with a shriek and grabbed a fistful of ladybirds. Islay followed, plucking up a caterpillar. Mara trusted to luck: she laid her hand palm up on the soil and waited to see what would climb it. A black beetle, pincers twitching. She closed her hand tight. The inside of her fist tickled and she clenched it harder, so the beetle was all nice and cosy and couldn’t move.

  ‘What now?’ she said.

  Bee mimed a dance, then raced out of the orchard and across the grass. With his ladybird-filled fist he did heads, shoulders, knees and toes (knees and toes). He tried somersaults. He shook his hands like maracas.

  Islay joined in, turning flips and cartwheels, her red curls twisting in the breeze, her dress flipping up to show her silky black underwear – and where had she got that? It wasn’t fair! Mara’s underwear was all white cotton, little bows, stitched pink flowers. She wanted black. She wanted silk. She watched from the shade of the trees.

  Bee ran to Mara and opened his hands, spilling ladybirds at her feet. ‘Look,’ he signed at the ladybirds. They lay tumbled, legs twisted at the sky.

  One by one, Bee flipped them red side up. ‘Look,’ he signed again. Still they lay.

  Mara didn’t want to open her hand. She knew without looking that her beetle was dead. It died the moment she clenched her fist.

  Bee pushed away the dead ladybirds, which, being dead, still weren’t looking at him. His face twisted goblinish. His chest expanded as he pulled in a scream, ready.

  ‘No no no, Bee! Hush hush hush.’ Islay ran over and put her arm around his shoulders. Mara copied her, enveloping Bee’s chubby body.

  His chest softened as he pushed down the scream. He extricated himself from the arms and prised open his sisters’ hands to extract the insects, which he arranged in a neat line at the edge of the orchard. He dropped cross-legged to the ground.

  ‘Where?’ signed Bee.

  ‘Maybe they’ll go to the cliff,’ said Mara. ‘Maybe everything goes there eventually.’

  The day was already too hot; sweat pricked behind Mara’s knees. From the orchard, a muffled thump as a ripe pear fell. Islay picked a daisy and pierced its stem with her thumbnail, ready to chain. Before you could count to ten, Bee got bored.

  ‘Sea,’ he signed.

  ‘Good idea, Bee,’ said Islay. ‘Let’s go and give the bugs to the sea. Maybe it will give us something back.’

  Together they scooped up the dead bugs and ran back through the jaws of the house, leaving Mara alone on the grass.

  Hame

  THE ISLAND IS not neat. Not a single straight line on it. Not edged with tall white cliffs like meringue, or skirted with little beaches patted flat as the edges of a pie. You couldn’t compare it to any foodstuffs at all, and definitely not sweet ones.

  It’s cliffs and clusters of defiant trees and rain-blown sheep bunched around wire fences. It’s a low row of stone cottages painted chalky pastels. It’s a harbour, a shop, a cafe, a pub. It’s green and grey and the orange bob of buoys between the pale sky and the silver sea.

  It’s not so far from the mainland, but travel is tricky: no flat hilltops for planes or helicopters, no calm bays for ferries. It’s all rocks round about, nasty spiked ones just under the water’s surface.

  But it doesn’t matter how hard it is to get there, or how dark and rocky the sea. We’ll all still try. What other choice do we have? Every childhood is an island.

  Chapping

  HE ARRIVED THROUGH the front door apologetically, the hem of his trousers catching on a tooth. His suit had been his father’s suit, and perhaps his grandfather’s before that; although it fitted him fine, the fabric was faded to shining at the elbows and knees. His name was John, or Joe – James? He was so forgettable. It’s an achievement just to be able to mention his existence. Most people forgot him moments after meeting him. Even Mara forgot about him sometimes. Not his existence, of course, not his name – but the heft of him, the details. What colour were his eyes? Did he smell of soap or sweat or aftershave? What kind of shoes did he wear? Nobody knew. Just think of the blandest teenage boy you know, remove any identifying features, and imagine him standing gawkily in the ramshackle hall of a dilapidated guest house, smiling at his girlfriend’s mother. That’s John. Or James.

  Mara had been waiting for him at her bedroom window, so she could get the timing just right. She’d watched him approach the house, his polished shoes dulling as he scuffed up the path, bouncing on the balls of his feet. She’d smiled to herself, in the indulgent and affectionate way she sometimes saw Signe smile at Peter.

  She counted to ten to give him time to settle himself in the hallway; to catch his breath before she took it again. Then she arranged herself at the top of the stairs, ready to make her grand entrance. Of course she was still clumsy and sharp; still boxy as a woodlouse in her party dress – but why ruin the illusion? She hadn’t even looked in the mirror, to better preserve the vision that she was Cleopatra, Cinderella, Scheherazade. It was probably for the best that Islay chose that moment to clatter out of her bedroom and down the stairs, obscuring Mara just at the moment that her boyfriend glanced up.

  ‘Hello, Islay,’ he said, trying not to look at the way that her too-tight, too-short floral frock showed a rather large quantity of skin. Trying to look, in fact, as if not only was he not looking, but he hadn’t realised there was anything there to be not-looked at.

  ‘Hello,’ said Islay, breathing deep so her cleavage rose like bread. Just to wind him up, of course. Islay got so bored, so starved of consequence, and it was satisfying to make men look. This one was a boy, not a man, just a silly bit of nothing; but it was fine to toy. Islay thought his name was Joseph, Signe and Peter thought it was Jonathan, though it didn’t matter as none of them ever used it. He was My Boyfriend to Mara, Him to Islay, The Boy to Peter and Signe.

  Mara took a moment to collect herself, then continued her grand entrance. She paused after each step and trailed her fingertips along the banister. She was an illustration in a storybook. Her nails weren’t bitten and her hair didn’t frizz and her chin wasn’t spackled with spots and everything she saw in the mirror was a lie because this – this was her true self.

  ‘Mara,’ said J (which we’ll call him, since we can all agree that whatever his name was, it began with a J). ‘You look beautiful.’ And Mara smiled, because if he said it then it must be true. She reached for his hand, which was large and damp. She held it anyway. She swung their linked hands slightly to catch Islay’s attention.

  Signe hadn’t noticed her younger daughter descend, as she was too busy frowning at Islay. ‘Your dress,’ she said.

  ‘You told me to put it on.’

  ‘Well, let’s get you a few new dresses, shall we?’

  ‘Now?’ asked Islay in confusion.

  ‘Later. We’ll order them, get them posted. The same, but … with more coverage.’

  Islay plucked at the front of her dress as if trying to stretch out the fabric.

  ‘Peter,’ called Signe, her tone sweet and high, ‘Mara’s boyfriend is here!’

  A squeal from the kitchen as a chair was pushed back. Three thudding footsteps.

  ‘Welcome!’ boomed Peter, smiling so his eyes crinkled, trying to hide that he had forgotten anyone was coming. In his defence, the promise of J was no more memorable than his physical presence.

  Peter shook J’s hand and clapped hi
m on the shoulder. ‘Welcome, welcome. We’re so glad to have you here. Please do come on through so my wife can feed you up. It’s her favourite pastime.’ Peter grinned and patted his belly, which was large, but no larger than the rest of him and solid as packed earth. He scooped up his family and deposited them around the kitchen table. The room was thick with steam and the smell of lamb stew.

  Signe had already set the table, and although she knew its pine surface was scudded and stained, the embroidered tablecloth was thick enough to hide it. She’d brought out the second-best cutlery, the ones with the bone handles. The coasters were silver, engraved with thistles.

  ‘We won’t always eat here,’ Signe murmured as she scooped the stew into bowls. The cupboard doors were still mauve. In one corner, she’d started to steam off the floral wallpaper, only to reveal two other wallpapers underneath, each with a different floral pattern. ‘There’s a dining room,’ she said.

  ‘And what a room it will be!’ Peter reached for his spoon. ‘What do you think, my dove? Would you like some reclaimed cornicing? Stained-glass panels in the window?’ He was still reaching for his spoon, having not quite managed to grasp it the first time. ‘Stained glass would be nice.’

  Peter had got a start on the roof, but he was only one man, no matter how huge his plans. He’d gone outside straight after breakfast and climbed the ladder and made his unsteady way above the choked gutters and started work. After a few hours he decided to go down for a tea break. But before that break, he’d need a break. He got a shake in his hands sometimes – nothing serious, nothing to worry the wife about. A shake in his hands, and sometimes his legs and body and brain. He would give himself a moment, just so he didn’t wobble on the ladder.

  And then something had happened. He wouldn’t have been able to tell you what, exactly. He knew that he sat on the tiles and raised his eyes to look out across the house and garden. He knew that he saw the driveway, sweeping and structured but clogged with dandelions – he must get some weedkiller on that. And the shed, one window broken – a new pane, easy enough. The trees around the sides and back of the house – too close, they’d need pruning back. He’d do all of it, fix every broken thing. He’d make the perfect home for his family. But why was he on the roof? Was he meant to be clearing the gutters?

  And then, somehow, his wife was calling him in so he could get washed for dinner. Where had today gone? Where had all of the days gone?

  Telt

  WHEN MARA WAS little, she thought that babies hatched from eggs. When mums were making the eggs, their bellies got bigger and bigger, and when their bellies were tight and round and the egg was ready, they went into hospital where the egg was removed somehow (through the belly button? some sort of hatch? the details were unclear). The mums had to stay in hospital for a few days while the egg sat under a heat lamp to make it hatch, which was why when new babies were brought home, they were red and wrinkled like they’d just come out of a hot bath.

  In Mara’s defence, this was what Islay had told her. Long before Signe began to fatten with Bee, Mara put down her dolls one winter morning and asked where babies came from. Islay told of the eggs (though she left out the detail of how the egg was removed, as she wasn’t sure herself), and of the heat lamps (if Islay had stopped to think about what she was saying, she’d realise she’d invented this, though as it did make sense she took it as fact). She added a further fingerprint to the tale: the mums kept mementos, and in every mum’s bedroom there was a container with little bits of shell inside. And that was the proof.

  Mara kept watch at the door while Islay crept into Signe and Peter’s bedroom. She crawled under the bed, but found only lost socks. She laddered her way up the wardrobe shelves, but found only a dead fly. She stretched to tiptoe and ran her hands along the mantelpiece and her hand caught on something cold: a little china box in the shape of a heart. She kept her back to Mara so she wouldn’t notice – just for a moment, she wanted these shards of their beginnings to belong to her alone. Islay opened the box. It fell to the carpet, spilling its contents as she ran out of the room.

  ‘What? What?’ whisper-shrieked Mara as she passed. Too afraid to go in and check what had frightened her sister, Mara ran to her bedroom and slammed the door. Later, Islay crept back into the room to return the teeth, counting them into the china heart. The teeth smelled sweet and bad. She slipped one into her mouth to feel its sharp edges on her tongue.

  Mara never told Islay this, but she went back into Signe and Peter’s bedroom to open the box and see the thing that had given her sister such a fright. She was disgusted and disappointed by the teeth. She’d wanted something other-worldly, something horrifying, something that would teach them a truth. But it was just old pieces of herself.

  Although neither of them found the pieces of shell, for years after that both Ross girls still believed that babies hatched from eggs.

  In Islay’s defence, this was what Signe had told her. And as the hallway of their house featured a photo of a young Signe on stage, crowned with feathers, her limbs as thin and pale as bird bones, this seemed perfectly believable. If their mother were part bird, then of course they’d come from eggs.

  In Signe’s defence, the subject of pregnancy was a difficult one, and it seemed easier to make up a story. Soon after she met Peter she fell pregnant with triplets, and all the beauty and possibility of life was laid out in front of her. She should have known that nothing is that simple. During Signe’s sixth month of pregnancy, one of the babies died. She would have done anything in the world to keep the other two, or even just one of them. Any living child; it did not matter which. She would have promised anything, climbed anything, killed anything, eaten anything, avoided anything. But we cannot make deals with nature. Just when Signe thought she’d suffered the worst possible grief, another triplet slipped away, and a further depth was revealed. But one child held on and Islay emerged, wrinkled and wailing, into a world that would never contain her sisters.

  Two years later, another girl-baby followed without fuss. Signe had never told anyone that she planned to name two of the triplets Islay and Iona, a pair of islands; and the other Mara, to be the calm one, the sea between. Surely there was no harm in using one of the names for this child – and so she named her Mara.

  Signe felt lucky enough with two living children, and was content to stop – but Peter wanted a boy, and she wanted what Peter wanted. They tried again, and lost two more. She agreed to one more try. One, and then her heart could not take it. And then came Barra, her little Bee, as solid and beautiful as the island for which he was named. He was her seventh child, the one blessed or cursed, depending on which stories you believed.

  But Signe didn’t need stories to love this child. He was her final creation, her last grasp at perfection. The marble-carved mounds of his cheek, his thigh, his shoulder, showed her where she’d fallen short before. She thought she knew love and grief already – but the thought of losing this child was past bearing. She would do everything she could to keep him in this world with her.

  Signe never did tell her daughters that children were not hatched from eggs. They must have found out the truth somewhere else. When she thought about it, she felt sad that she’d missed that moment: the flash of realisation, the firmer grasp on the world, the click as things fell into place. The letting go of old fairy stories. But then, she soothed herself: we cannot be held responsible for every pretty lie we tell to our children.

  Dram

  ‘SHALL WE?’ SAID Peter, standing from the table and leading them away from their empty plates.

  In the front room, Islay plopped down on the smaller couch, which was scratchy with horsehair but meant no one would sit beside her. Peter took the leather armchair, rubbing his thumb over the white ring stained onto the arm.

  ‘A drink?’ said Peter.

  ‘No thank you, sir,’ said J, though he must have wondered whether it was actually more polite to say yes.

  ‘A wee one,’ said Peter. ‘Puts hairs on
your chest.’ He nodded at Signe, who took two glasses from the sideboard and tipped whisky into them. One finger for the boy, four fingers for the man.

  When Mara was little, Peter always took warm cream in his whisky. If she was good, he’d let her collect the silver jug from the kitchen, where Signe stood at the cooker heating pans of milk and cream for their bedtime cocoa. Mara would carry it through with perfect posture, head up, back straight, like she had books on her head. Peter’s face would light up to see her step so ladylike into the room, the jug held before her like a prize. ‘My best girl,’ he’d say, and scoop her into his lap, where she’d pour the perfect dollop of cream into his glass, watching it swirl. Peat, warm cream, her father’s soapy cheek. It was still her favourite smell.

  Signe considered going into the kitchen, taking down a pan, fetching the cream from the fridge, heating it, finding the silver jug … she lost the pattern of her thoughts to the white whoosh in her head. This endless house and its endless demands. She handed the glasses to Peter and the boy.

  ‘Slàinte,’ said Peter, tapping his glass against the boy’s.

  ‘Story,’ signed Bee, because Signe had sat down in the story chair.

  ‘Not now, Bee,’ she replied. ‘We have a guest, and I’m sure he doesn’t want to hear me wittering on.’

  ‘No, I would,’ said J. ‘If that’s all right with you. Not that you witter. I mean, a story might be nice.’

  ‘Go on, Mum,’ said Mara, who had realised that if Signe told one of her stories, then she wouldn’t be able to tell an embarrassing anecdote about Mara, of which she had a wide stock, and which Mara would like to hide from her boyfriend for as long as possible. Most of them involved her as a small child, puking or shitting at an inappropriate place or time. Mara didn’t know whether Signe thought the stories were cute, or knew that they were embarrassing and relished it.