The Gloaming Page 8

  Mara’s heartbeat pulsed louder in her ears. She breathed hard through her nose. The feeling was building, getting closer – almost there, almost peaking, knees pressed hard to the sides of the bath, knuckles tensing, releasing, the water heavy, hot, hands slick, and just as she tipped over the edge she lost her grip and slipped down: seawater in her nose, her mouth, her throat, seawater freezing and salty, her eyes blinking blind, and she panicked, splashed, she couldn’t breathe, she was drowning, she was dying.

  She sat up gasping, her body pulling in two directions at once, pleasure and panic shuddering through her from throat to knees before settling again, low and throbbing.

  Her whole body shook. Steam clouded the room and she blinked against it, letting objects take their shape.

  She breathed in and out, letting her heart slow. She lay back in the water, letting it lap around her shoulders. She felt good and bad and good. The water grew cold, her fingers became as wrinkled as puppies, and then finally, finally, she trusted her legs to lift her out of the water.

  Messages

  THE ISLAND SHOP had everything you needed and nothing you wanted. At one end, a fridge of hard waxy cheese and vacuum-packed venison sausages. At the other end, a congregation of wine and whisky bottles, every label decorated with images of stags and misty hills. In between, shelves stacked with solid white loaves wrapped in paper. Little cardboard boxes of nails and screws and tampons and light bulbs and tea bags and washing-up gloves. Waxed jackets and wellington boots and fishing rods. The hum and flicker of strip lights. Empty rat-traps lurking in the corners.

  Mara stood just outside the doorway and stamped snow off her boots. A bell jangled as she pushed open the door.

  ‘Morning,’ mumbled Mr Pettersen, then bent his long body back over the newspaper spread out on the counter. His neck was long and pale and freckled. His hair was buzzed short, the rusty red of fox fur. Mr Pettersen had owned the shop for years, as far as Mara knew, so the shop being called McConnell’s was a mystery. Mr Pettersen also had a fishing boat and bred sheepdogs, none of whom seemed to be dozing behind the counter today.

  ‘Morning,’ Mara mumbled back. She hooked a basket into the bend of her elbow and browsed the shelves, even though there was nothing of interest to browse. She already knew what she had to buy, but it was so boring that she couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  Once a week, Signe phoned her order through to the shop, and then a boy on a moped chug-chugged round the next day to deliver it in a wicker basket, which he unpacked onto the kitchen table, his feet leaving a flecked double-trail of mud and snow through the hall. Milk, eggs, tea bags, butter, bread. Red meat and vegetables. A whole chicken. Sometimes sugar and flour, so Signe could bake a cake. The boy sometimes changed, but the bike never did. This week, Signe had forgotten to add toilet paper to the phone order, and Mara volunteered to walk to the shop and get it. At first she’d thought it would be a good excuse to swing by the library bus. Now that Pearl was there she felt awkward about it. It felt too much like trespassing. But maybe if she dawdled past, and dragged her feet or coughed, Pearl would hear her and come out. They could have tea. They could talk. She could lean in close and smell the scent from Pearl’s throat. But halfway there, she’d lost her nerve.

  Behind the counter, Mr Pettersen turned a page of his newspaper. It felt grand to call it a newspaper, really; it was more of a pamphlet, published fortnightly and covering the island’s vital news. The results of shinty matches, which days the post was coming, adverts for seal-watching tours, a wedding announcement, a crossword. Unmissable. And yet Mara quite happily missed it every single fortnight. When Islay had first left, Mara sent her the newspaper as a joke, to show her the thrills she was missing. She’d soon stopped; it didn’t feel so funny after all.

  She put toilet paper into her basket. It seemed stupid to walk so far just for that, so she added a box of sticking plasters, because they seemed like a useful thing to have that no one ever thought to buy before they needed them. Then she added a block of cheese and a loaf of bread. They could all have roasted cheese for dinner, and Signe wouldn’t have to cook anything, and she might smile at Mara. She put her items on the counter, on top of Mr Pettersen’s newspaper.

  ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘You for?’ asked Mr Pettersen, nodding at the counter.

  Mara stood, her face neutral, her mind frantically turning over the sentence, trying to figure out what it was asking. Are you four years old? Do you want these four items? Do you know about U4, a submarine, a secret code? Have you met Yufor, a new resident on the island?

  ‘Yes,’ she said, trying not to make it sound like a question.

  ‘Huh,’ said Mr Pettersen. ‘Fair enough.’ He picked up the items and typed their prices into the till, one by one. Mara kept her head down, still turning over the sentence, puzzling over its sounds, trying to see it from a familiar angle. As Mr Pettersen lifted the last item off the newspaper, the headline was revealed. RESIDENTS DIVIDED OVER FINAL PLANS FOR MAINLAND BRIDGE. The meaning of his sentence clicked into place.

  ‘Oh!’ said Mara. ‘Am I for the bridge!’ She didn’t know the details, but had heard the regulars in the pub rumbling about it.

  Mr Pettersen regarded her steadily. Mara smiled wide, feeling her scar tug. She took a newspaper off the rack and put it on the counter.

  ‘I mean,’ she said, ‘are you for the bridge?’

  Mr Pettersen added the newspaper to her bag. ‘Doesn’t matter much what I think. It’ll happen or not happen.’

  ‘That’s true enough.’ Mara handed over the money, letting go of her smile with relief as she took her bag of shopping outside. She paused in the doorway, trying to decide whether to take the long way home.

  It would just be to stretch her legs. It would just be to get some air. It would just be to exist for a moment in the same airspace that Pearl had inhabited. Or – or it could be to run into Pearl’s house and grab hold of her and throw her down on the kitchen table and kiss her and kiss her and kiss her. Mara couldn’t help smiling, and with that image flashing bright in her mind, she turned – and bumped into Pearl. Every muscle in her body panicked.

  ‘I wasn’t –’ she said before she could force her mouth to stop.

  ‘Wasn’t what?’ Pearl was dressed all in black again, gloved and scarfed against the cold, a woolly hat pulled low to frame her face. Those eyes, that skin. Mara wanted to look at her so much she could barely stand to.

  ‘Wasn’t …’ She mentally searched through her bag, trying to decide on the least awful thing. Plasters? No. Toilet paper? God, no. ‘I wasn’t,’ she said, ‘planning to get a newspaper. But then I saw it and I wanted to read about the bridge. Everyone seems to have an opinion about it, and I want one too.’

  ‘Well,’ said Pearl, and her smile was like the sun coming out. She reached out a hand, and for a heart-thud moment it seemed that she was going to press her fingers to Mara’s lips, and then she would … and then they would … But instead she motioned to the shop. ‘I’m glad you got a newspaper. That’s what I came to the shop for. Maybe I could share yours?’

  ‘Sure. Of course you can. But then haven’t you had a wasted trip?’

  Pearl smiled. ‘No, I haven’t. Not at all. And I can buy two from Stefan next time to make up for his lost business.’

  ‘From who?’

  ‘Stefan. From the shop. Tall? Redhead?’

  Realisation dawned on Mara. Mr Pettersen’s first name, after all, was not ‘Mister’. But ever since she was a child, Mr Pettersen had been Mr Pettersen – nothing more, nothing less, give your sweeties to Mr Pettersen so we can pay for them, Mara; say thank you to Mr Pettersen, Mara; the name so familiar it fitted neatly into her mouth, the consonants tucked behind her front teeth.

  ‘Right,’ said Mara, ‘right, Stefan.’ Perhaps it was time to spit old words out to make room for new ones.

  ‘Walk with me?’ said Pearl.

  Mara looked around at the grey-walled shop, the almost-empt
y harbour, the row of chalky-painted cottages, the path furling out under the low sky. ‘Where?’

  Pearl nodded to the harbour wall. ‘Sometimes there are seals.’

  Mara followed Pearl across the scrubby grass by the harbour. The fishing boats were mostly out at sea, pulling in their nets and creels. The scattered boats in the harbour were the leftovers: the between-owners, the weak-hulled, the rotted, the old. Traditionally they were named for the most favoured girls on the island. Mara had never seen a Mara.

  Pearl stumbled over a notch in the grass, and without thinking Mara reached out for her arm.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Pearl, righting herself. ‘I’ve got sea legs; never was as steady on land.’

  They kept walking, and Mara kept her hand just behind Pearl’s back – not quite touching, but close enough to steady her if she stumbled again. Her fingers still tingled where they’d touched Pearl’s skin.

  There were no benches on the harbour wall, because you weren’t supposed to sit there. The point of the wall was to stop storms from sweeping right in and taking the village out to sea. But someone from the cottages had put out two folding chairs, because people did sit there, because it was beautiful and because no islander would be daft enough to sit there during a storm anyway.

  The few hours of winter daylight were almost over, and the light was silvered and pale. The harbour wall was just wide enough for Mara and Pearl to walk side by side. To their right, the dozing island. To their left, the restless sea. Mara lowered herself into a folding chair, shivering as she settled, the metal cold on her thighs even through her clothes. Pearl was right: there were seals. Unless – no. It was just the kicked-up waves, sheened black, peeping.

  ‘I can’t stay long,’ said Pearl.

  ‘That’s okay,’ said Mara. ‘I should get this stuff home anyway.’

  ‘No, I mean –’ Pearl turned and looked at Mara for slightly longer than was comfortable. Mara felt her scar burn. ‘I mean I can’t stay long on the island. I have work.’

  Mara remembered the feel of Pearl’s hand on her cheek, the taste of her mouth. She leaned in. Then she thought of Mr Pettersen in his shop, newspaper abandoned, watching them through the glass. The row of cottages stared, the low sun making the windows blink. She leaned away again.

  ‘Where do you work?’ she asked.

  ‘Far away,’ replied Pearl. ‘I work in lots of places, but they’re all far from here.’

  ‘What’s your work?’

  ‘I told you. It’s a travelling show.’

  ‘I know, but that’s not very specific. What kind of show?’

  ‘Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s not interesting.’

  Mara opened her mouth to tease, to start guessing what sort of show it could be, but then a thought seeped cold into her head. ‘Is it –’ She couldn’t meet Pearl’s eye. ‘Is it an adult show?’

  And it didn’t matter if that’s what Pearl did for a living – it didn’t change what Mara saw when she looked at her. But she didn’t want it to be true. She wanted people to look at Pearl the way she did: with wonder.

  Pearl tilted back her head and laughed. ‘No! No. It’s not that. Though I do sometimes wear a bra made of shells.’

  ‘So you perform in a bra,’ said Mara. ‘But you’re not …’

  Pearl sighed. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you. But don’t laugh. I’m a mermaid.’

  ‘A mermaid? Really?’ Mara didn’t feel like laughing. She felt like she’d been asleep, and had woken to a harbour full of seals, a sky full of stars, a fleet of pretty boats all called Mara.

  ‘Not a real mermaid,’ went on Pearl. ‘Because, you know, mythical and all that. I’m a mermaid performer. It’s like underwater acrobatics, but wearing a mermaid tail. There are five regular girls. We each have a solo show, and there are some group shows too. It varies depending on the venue. Sometimes it’s a daytime show, kid-friendly, Disney tunes and big smiles. We do residencies at aquariums and water parks, stay there for a month, two shows a day. Even cruise ships – we perform in a big container of water on the deck of a big container floating on water, if that makes any kind of sense. And there’s money in the corporate stuff, too. For a while I was at a hotel in Vegas. They had a huge tank in the middle of the restaurant, and me and another performer would do our mermaid thing while everyone ate their fancy dinners. Seafood, of course.’

  Mara was so busy gaping awestruck that she didn’t realise Pearl had made a joke. It was too late to laugh, so she asked: ‘Do you miss it?’

  Pearl sighed and shifted on the folding chair. ‘I miss the weight of it. The water above you is heavy, and it makes you feel grounded. When I’m out here’ – Pearl gestured to the clouds, the sea, the air – ‘I feel like I could just float away, like all around me is nothing. And at the same time I’m stuck.’

  ‘But at least you can breathe here,’ said Mara.

  ‘I can breathe in the water too.’

  ‘What? You never said you could – you said mermaids weren’t – what?’

  Pearl gave a tiny smile. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to be an arse. There’s a breathing tube. Clear plastic, in the middle of the tank. Timing is important, because going to the tube for breaths has to look like part of the routine.’

  ‘I wish I could try it,’ said Mara. ‘Someday.’

  ‘You can,’ said Pearl, and with a scrape and a screech of metal on stone, she shifted her chair closer to Mara’s, as close as it would go, and she laid her head on Mara’s shoulder. ‘You can do anything you want.’

  But Mara didn’t see how she could ever go beneath the water again. Her memories of Bee felt like a mass of pebbles that she always carried with her. Every time she moved, she felt a pebble spike in her shoe, making her stumble. Every time she spoke, she felt a pebble sitting sour under her tongue, making her stutter. How could she ever be safe in the water with all that weighing her down?

  After a moment, Mara tilted her head to rest it on Pearl’s. The coolness of the rain crowning Pearl’s hair soothed the ache of her scar. She looked out at the sea, at the bobbing peaks that might be seals or might just be waves.

  Loupin

  ISLAY HAD NEVER loved the island. But the further away she got, the more she felt its pull. An island is always a destination; you never pass through it incidentally on your way to somewhere else. Arriving feels like crossing over an invisible boundary; the sudden jolt of land after the lull of the sea. The island’s secret was its stone statues, but the more she travelled the more stories she heard, and it seemed that every place has its own small magic.

  In one place, where she fell in love with someone unfortunate, she heard that people could rent clockwork hearts and return them when their relationship ended so they were not heartbroken. She considered trying to track down one of the heart rental shops, but decided that her own heart was strong enough already. It was certainly strong enough to recover from being dumped by a pathetic man-boy who, as she said in an eerily calm voice during their final fight before clicking the door shut and walking away down the corridor with one tear rolling cinematically down her cheek, really needed to grow the fuck up.

  In another place, where she worked nights in a 1950s-themed bar and had to wear a circle skirt and squeaky shoes and cat’s-eye glasses with prescription lenses that made everything looming and blurry, everyone grew miniature horns: goat, rhino, giraffe, deer or unicorn, depending on their personality. Most people filed them down flat, though increasingly there was a movement to display them with pride. Islay hadn’t actually seen anyone with horns, but the stories were common. Perhaps everyone just styled their hair over them.

  One entire island was apparently the body of an enormous giant – the rolling hills his ribs, the seaweed his hair, the coast his circled arms. Every hundred years the giant would get hungry, and his rumbling belly would cause earthquakes until a suitable sacrifice could be made. Islay’s time there, where she tried becoming a professional shoplifter but realised that was no good since everyone remembered her re
d hair, and instead tried working as a lookout for a small-time drug dealer which worked well as her hair was a great distraction for his activities, didn’t coincide with the giant’s waking. She’d have liked to go back in the future to feel the earth move, but when she had to leave suddenly after the dealer disappeared, she thought it best to cross that whole island off her mental map.

  Islay fell in love and out of love. She worked many jobs she hated and one that she liked. She got bored, and she moved on. Every place had its own stories. Smoke from chimneys formed ghosts that came tapping at the windows at night. Or a woman could lie with a wolf and a man together and give birth to something halfway between the two. Once, after three days without sleep trying to work multiple jobs and party with her new friends the rest of the time, Islay swallowed some mystery pills and saw small pink flowers growing from cuts in people’s skin, mushrooms that grew so huge that people carved them into houses, corpses that rotted down to form mice and moths and miniature rabbits. She’d heard plenty of stories about these things so she knew they were real, even though after catching up on sleep she could never find them again.

  She phoned Mara, ready to tell her about how it looked to see a fist-sized white rabbit emerge from a dead man’s mouth. But when her sister answered, Islay realised that the image – which had seemed positive and reverential to her, a way to live and love the earth beyond your own life – would seem horrific. Instead, she mumbled something about being busy, and rang off.

  Everyone who lived in these places found these small magics ordinary. It’s easy to keep a secret when you don’t know it’s a secret.