The Gloaming Read online

  The hours slipped away as Mara pulled pints, lined up packets of crisps on the bar, took orders for the kitchen, and read her book when no one was looking. Which is exactly what she was doing when she saw a pair of hands on the bar. She looked up – into one blue eye, one brown.

  ‘Hello, Pearl,’ said Mara, trying hard not to smile, to keep her face still and beautiful-ish.

  ‘Hello, Mara,’ said Pearl. ‘Isn’t it a thoroughly shitty day?’

  Mara, surprised, laughed. ‘It is, actually. How did you know?’

  ‘I just know. Is it okay to get a drink? Red wine – and one for you?’

  ‘I can’t,’ said Mara, her hands and feet already moving without conscious direction from her brain, measuring out a glass of wine, sliding it across the bar, counting out Pearl’s change. ‘Not when I’m working.’ Typically, the scatter of dozing men in the pub had chosen that moment to all come up to the bar at once.

  ‘Then I’ll have to come back,’ said Pearl, ‘when you’re not working. But for now … ' She pulled a chunky paperback out of her coat pocket and held it up. ‘For now, I’ll get to work on this. Thanks for the drink.’ She picked up her glass and turned away.

  ‘That book you gave me,’ said Mara.

  Pearl turned back. ‘Did you like it?’

  ‘It was different,’ said Mara. ‘I didn’t know stories could end like that.’ In the corner of her eye she saw a queue beginning to form at the other end of the bar. It seemed like every regular from the whole island, as well as a clump of strangers, had chosen this moment to come in for a pint.

  ‘I know,’ said Pearl. ‘I thought it might be time for a change. A new story. A love story, maybe.’

  She wanted to smile at Pearl, but if she smiled then her scar would pull down the corner of her eye, and her face would twist into its mask again. She kept her voice neutral so she wouldn’t be tempted to smile, not even a little. ‘You think it was a love story?’

  ‘You don’t?’

  ‘It can’t be a love story. At the end, you don’t know if they end up together. Love stories have a happy ever after.’

  ‘But in a book,’ said Pearl, ‘love is like death. No matter how it ends, you can go back to the start. It never has to end. They can fall in love again, as many times as you like. I mean, as they like.’ Pearl flicked her gaze down to her hands, and back to Mara. As their eyes met, Mara’s body beat in twin throbs, in her throat and between her legs: one-two, one-two. She wanted to turn away from Pearl, to cover her face, to hide her scar. She swallowed.

  ‘I should –’ She motioned to the restless drinkers.

  ‘Sure, sure. I’ll just …’ Pearl lifted her drink and cheersed the air. ‘I’ll see you around.’

  ‘I did –’ Mara’s voice caught, and it was too quiet, and Pearl was already walking away. She swallowed again, tried to steady her hands, and Pearl was further away now, and she’d have to say it louder, and maybe the whole pub would hear and they would think … they would think … She raised her voice loud enough for Pearl to notice her and turn. ‘I did,’ she said. ‘I did like it.’

  Mara was kept busy with customers for the rest of her shift, and when Ida arrived to take over, hair tangled and cheeks pink from the wild night, there had been no chance to do more than get Pearl another glass of wine. She counted out her tips and pulled on her coat.

  ‘Are you leaving?’ Pearl was grinning her dimpled grin.

  ‘Yep. Shift’s over.’

  ‘Maybe I could buy you that drink now?’

  Mara smiled. ‘Maybe you could.’

  She automatically went for the darkest corner, where she’d be hidden away, but Pearl carried the wine bottle and glasses to the brightest and warmest spot in the pub: a table in the middle, just vacated by a giggling couple.

  It didn’t take them long to rattle through the basics. Mara: lives with her parents; one sister and one brother, neither of them on the island; spending her days on the exciting pursuits of pulling pints and home renovations; waiting for the house to be done so they could let the rooms to tourists; waiting in general. Pearl: performs in a show travelling all around the world; born on the island but only comes back every few years; no family, on the island or anywhere else. Perhaps it wasn’t all true, but it was true enough for now.

  After they’d emptied the bottle together, Pearl slid out of her chair. ‘What do you want?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t know, I …’ Mara’s head was spinning from the wine, skin glowing warm, thinking: I don’t know if I want you, or want to be you, or want to peel back your skin so I can see inside.

  Pearl leaned over the table towards Mara, her hair soft on Mara’s cheek, her words only breath. ‘I think that you do know. I think you want the same thing I do.’

  Mara, breathless, just stared.

  ‘Wake up, daydreamer!’ Pearl, laughing, waved a hand in front of Mara’s face. ‘I’m asking what you want from the bar. The same?’

  When the pub closed at midnight, Mara and Pearl found themselves stumbling up onto the cliff with a bottle of red wine. Their breath came out in clouds, their fingers already numb from the cold. Stars and satellites careered above them. Mara led Pearl through the mass of stone figures, right to the edge of the cliff. Unsteady, Mara leaned on a stone figure, reaching for its hand as if to hold it. The stone was as smooth as skin, but cold. She reached for Pearl instead, and together they tumbled to the grass. Mara propped the wine bottle between them. A rain too fine to hear settled around them, sudden and bright. It fell on their faces, into their eyelashes, blurring their vision, and in the damp moonlight it seemed to Mara that Pearl shimmered.

  ‘What do you think happens after?’ said Mara.

  ‘After what?’

  ‘After you’re gone.’

  ‘Come up here to the cliff, I suppose. Other places have graveyards, and when you walk across the grass you’re stepping over dead flesh, all rotting and being eaten by worms, and that’s bad enough – but these statues. I know the flesh and blood has all turned to stone, and there’s nothing rotting, so it should be better. But it’s not.’

  ‘Is it what you’ll do?’ Mara drank deep from the bottle and handed it to Pearl.

  Pearl scrunched up her face. ‘Never thought about it,’ she said, ‘and I’d like to keep it that way. I don’t usually stay long here.’

  ‘But what if you’re not here? What if you’re not anywhere?’

  ‘Everyone is somewhere,’ said Pearl, still cradling the bottle, not drinking.

  ‘Not when you’re missing.’

  ‘I think …’ said Pearl, sighing. ‘Okay, it’s daft, but I’ll tell you what I think. And no laughing. I think that when we’re dead, we do the things we could never do in life. I think that if we always wanted to breathe underwater, or go to the moon, or have a dozen children, or explore the North Pole, or do a perfect somersault, or ride a horse across a desert – after we die, that’s what we get to do. I think that if we always wanted to be right in the middle of a big noisy family, then we are. If we always wanted to be alone and quiet, that’s what we get. We get to know all the things we never knew, and understand all the things that were mysteries to us. We can get right inside other people’s heads, and they don’t know we’re there, but we’re with them, and we can finally understand them.’

  ‘Is that what you want, after? To be with your family?’

  Pearl shrugged. She drank deep from the bottle and pushed it at Mara. Rain sheened Pearl’s cheeks and forehead, made spiderwebs on her hair.

  ‘I wish,’ said Mara. ‘I wish I believed that too. I wish he could see, now, how much we – But I don’t believe it. I wish I – Why do you keep coming back to the island?’ Mara struggled to force the words out; her tongue felt swollen, her lips hot. ‘Why, if you don’t want to come up to the cliff?’

  Pearl shivered and took the bottle back from Mara. ‘You know, I read somewhere that in the American Civil War, soldiers died of homesickness. Nothing wrong with them, no physica
l illness. They were away from home for too long, and it killed them.’

  ‘Do you think of the island as your home?’

  ‘Somewhere has to be. And it’s good to come up here and see everyone on the cliff, to remind myself of the person I could have been. Stuck forever on this dying little island, telling myself that that’s all there is. Telling myself that I don’t need to see the world because I can just read about it.’

  Pearl lifted the bottle to hand it back to Mara, then saw the look on her face and put it down again.

  ‘Oh God, not you! I didn’t mean you.’

  Pearl was too close, and the moonlight would shine bright on her scar, and Pearl would see the ugliness of her, and even though she knew she couldn’t be beautiful she still wanted to be beautiful for Pearl. She pulled her hand away and tugged the bottle out of Pearl’s hand, ducking her head so her hair curtained her face. She drank deep, letting the wine sour on her tongue. She tilted her head back, blinking until the stars steadied. The darkness made her bold. The bottle was empty now and Mara threw it over the cliff, not waiting to hear it shatter on the rocks below.

  Pearl put her hand on Mara’s. ‘I really didn’t mean you.’

  ‘Why did you come to the pub tonight?’

  ‘I wanted to see if you …’ Pearl leaned closer on the grass. Their fingers twined. ‘I just wanted to see you.’

  The world was spinning and the stars fizzed and the grass was as soft as a bed and Mara wanted – she wanted –

  ‘Does it hurt?’ asked Pearl.

  Yes, thought Mara, yes yes yes, all the time. ‘Does what hurt?’

  Pearl tucked Mara’s hair behind her ear and pressed her hand to Mara’s cheek. She stroked her thumb along her scar. Her hands were cool, rough, solid.

  ‘You don’t have to hide. I want to see you.’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ said Mara. ‘It doesn’t hurt.’ Pearl leaned in closer, and they met in the middle. Pearl tasted of wine and salt. Mara closed her eyes. And it didn’t hurt.

  Sickling

  SIGNE KNEW SHE didn’t have to fuss so much over Mara’s scar. At first there had been so much to do, so much busywork. She had to check Mara’s stitches and monitor her painkillers. But now the wound was long healed. The pain a memory.

  Signe caught Mara first thing in the morning as she stumbled down to the kitchen for breakfast, her eyes crusty, her breath sour. Signe, of course, had been up for hours, cleaning things that she knew didn’t really need to be cleaned. Mara, surprised and not awake enough to say no, followed Signe into the front room.

  They sat politely on the horsehair couch, which was lumpy and scratchy but was right beside the tray with the coffee pot and cups. Signe had arranged it beautifully: a cafetière of dark roast espresso, a jug of warm milk, and two bone china cups so fine you could see through them when you held them up to the light. She knew that Mara hated those cups, sure they would shatter, but she only remembered that now when it was too late. Mara’s cup – a thick ceramic mug, the sort that comes in packs of four at discount shops and only shattered if you threw them hard on a tiled floor – was still in the cupboard. Signe poured the coffee. Mara lifted the cup like it was a bee about to sting her, but she still sipped from it.

  ‘I ordered you some samples of make-up. No, Mara, don’t look at me like that. It’s proper stuff, medical grade, for burns and deep scarring. Lots of patients have had success with it. The coverage is very good.’

  ‘No thanks, Mum,’ said Mara.

  ‘How about you try it before thanking me?’ Signe splayed out a selection of beige tubes. ‘Give me your hand, and I’ll test them and see which is the right colour for you.’

  ‘Do I need it? Medically speaking.’

  ‘Oh, Mara.’ Signe tried not to sigh. She held her coffee cup delicately, as if balancing it on the surface of water. ‘You want to look pretty for when your boyfriend comes home, don’t you?’

  ‘I don’t care,’ said Mara, draining her cup and pouring another.

  ‘Your boyfriend will care. Don’t you want to be pretty for him?’

  ‘I don’t want to be pretty for anyone.’

  The thing was, since losing Bee, Mara was pretty. Well, not pretty, but striking in an old-fashioned way. She’d never be fine-boned and exotic-eyed and full-breasted and long-limbed. She’d never have small hands or small feet. She’d never walk as if she could slip into a slow dance at any moment. She’d never be so beautiful that a man would lie to her just to keep her close. She’d never, in short, be her mother.

  Islay had come closest: she had grown up equal parts scornful and sensual, ready to set fire to anyone who got too close. But losing Bee had made her softer, kinder. There was a void left for a distant beauty, and although Mara didn’t quite fit into it, there was no one else there.

  ‘I don’t think that’s true,’ said Signe, who had always been beautiful and always would be, and so never had to wonder about the value of it. She sipped her coffee – black, strong – and closed her eyes as the caffeine thrilled through her blood.

  ‘It is true. And he’s not my boyfriend anyway,’ said Mara. ‘I hope I never see him again.’

  They finished their coffee, and Mara obediently put out her hand so that Signe could test the contents of the beige tubes on her skin, and later when Signe went to throw the coffee grounds away she saw all the tubes in the kitchen bin.

  Skite

  MARA RAN THE hot tap until the water turned cold. The claw-foot bath juddered with the effort of the pipes, shivering ripples across the water. She turned off the taps and slipped her nightgown off her shoulders, letting it pool around her feet. She looked down at her body. She was not in the habit of looking at herself; she couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her face in the mirror. She’d developed a method of looking in the mirror without really seeing – could brush her teeth and hair with her gaze on the glass, looking at her features separately, as parts, individual things to be rearranged or cleaned.

  Now the mirror was steamed over, opaque, safe. She could look at her body the same way: just parts. The dark nipples, almost purple against the pale skin. The cold toes, pale blue, marble-carved. The road map of veins on the belly and thighs, indigo and violet and mauve. A stranger’s body to go with her stranger’s face.

  She stepped into the water and stood calf-deep for three breaths, testing to see if she could stand it. The water was so hot it made her shiver. Her ankles were already numbing to the heat. She bent her knees and knelt in the water, watching her thighs redden, then sat. She let the water settle. Steam lazed up towards the ceiling. The bathroom was tiled in rose pink and teal to halfway up the wall; after that it changed to bare plaster, lumpy and mottled. Signe was going to retile it all in white ceramic, or put in dove-grey panelling, or salvage hammered tin tiles, or rip out the whole thing and have en suites instead.

  Mara’s skin juddered against the bath’s cast-iron sides as she settled. She slid down until her ears were underwater, her face cupped by the water. Her scalp tingled with heat. She traced the blue-green veins at her wrists, the underground rivulets of her body, her own salt blood. The milky water made islands of her breasts and knees. She could hear the muffled thud of her heart, the ebb and flow of it. She tried to put the parts of herself together, to see herself as an island floating on an island. But it was hard to think of her own body, the functions and parts of it, without comparing it to Pearl’s. How ridiculous that Mara could want Pearl to look at her body and desire it. Her purple threaded veins like jellyfish innards, her spindly limbs. What was she, compared to Pearl?

  Mara had never done any of the things she read in books. She’d never fallen asleep in a lover’s arms. She’d never broken a heart, or had her own heart broken. She’d never got drunk on sweet aniseed liquor and woken up in a sweaty hostel bed in a tangle of her friend’s limbs. Never got on the first train leaving the station without checking where it was going. Never gone walking through a strange city without a map. She didn’t even hav
e a passport.

  But Pearl – she was a world made flesh. She was a universe in the shape of a woman. If Pearl had left the island to make sure she didn’t turn out like Mara, that meant it had been a possibility. And if Pearl could have been like Mara, did that mean that Mara could be like Pearl?

  She took a breath and held it. She closed her eyes and slid down further, so her knees angled up out of the water and her head was submerged. She listened to the boom, boom, boom of her blood.

  She flattened the small of her back against the bath. The water pressed heavy against her closed eyes. She bubbled air out of her mouth, then breathed in through her nose, slowly so the water droplets wouldn’t go into her nostrils. She kept breathing like that until she felt steady.

  She slid her hands between her legs. She felt Pearl lay her down at the edge of the sea, snowflaking kisses down her neck. She put her hands alongside Pearl’s, touching where she touched. The water stroked Mara’s cheeks. Pearl’s hands were gentle and strong at the same time, slip-squeezing, lick-teasing, nipping at the edges of her. She moved firmer, stronger. The sea shushed a lullaby. Above them, the sky was sunset – no, sunrise – no, a warm black night with stars and satellites twinkling white. Pearl was touching her, loving her, owning her. Their bodies merged, became one. Mara was Pearl and Pearl was Mara and they were both – they were both –