This Dreaming Isle Read online

  The sun dies low on the land. It sinks behind the hill to the south-west, bathing us in flame. This is the sunset for which the village and the house and the loch are named. Ardentinny, the hill of fire.

  ›•‹

  Jamie waits by the Land Rover, arms folded, cigarette sending up a spiral of blue in the dusk.

  The journey back seems too short to account for all those hours of walking. We have supper of venison and potatoes.I eat a quarter of what I am given. I refuse wine. We play cards until Estelle’s head nods. A storm is building outside, I can feel it.

  In the red bedroom Anthony kneels to say his prayers. ‘Our Father, who art in heaven,’ he begins. I watch him surreptitiously over the top of my book. I am secretly fascinated by this nightly ritual. I had never seen anyone do this until I met him.

  ‘And protect the souls of those you have gathered to you: Dad, Lisette and Imogen.’

  He finishes his litany of the dead, gets in beside me and is asleep almost immediately. A walk of five miles is tiring at his age. I lie for some time in the dark. The glowing doorway taunts me. The cupboard light is still on.

  The cupboard is next to the bedroom door, leading to the darkened hall. Two doors, one light and one dark, like a choice at the beginning of a fairy tale.

  The bedroom door gives a quiet click behind me. I shiver in the draughty hall. A lamp on a table at the head of the stairs gives out some light. I go to the end of the corridor then hesitate. Two passages lead away in either direction. One is carpeted in royal blue. The other is uncarpeted, cold. I follow that one. I have never before been to the flat above the old kitchen but I can guess the way. At the end of the bare hall, there is a line of light under a door. I smell cigarette smoke. Music plays from a radio, tinny.

  He answers my knock as if he knew it was coming. His blue forearms bear a red stripe as if he has been leaning ona windowsill or a mantel. What was he looking at?

  ‘Could I have a cigarette?’ I ask. ‘I can’t sleep.’ Overhead, thunder sounds. The storm is upon us.

  ›•‹

  My first memory is of kissing my mother’s face during a snowstorm. She was unconscious on the pavement outside a pub. The flakes landed on her cheeks, her eyes, covered her lashes. She didn’t move. I was afraid that she was dead. She wasn’t, not that day. I grew up poor, often hungry. My mother and I moved around. We lived in cold, abandoned places – derelict warehouses, unsold Barratt homes, once a ruined church – with other people who had nowhere else to go. One day when I was thirteen Mother didn’t wake. They came for me then and put me in care.

  I took care of myself as best I could. I learned to type and use a computer. I got a job as a receptionist at a bank. I learned early on the value of my beauty. It was all I had. I have been looking for my husband since I was fourteen. It took years and many errors but I knew when I saw Anthony that I had found him.

  What does it matter that I gave the cloakroom girl £50 to mix up the tickets? It is not a crime. I will make a good wife. I have trained for it, just as I have trained myself to do without food in case I must go hungry again one day. I am prepared for anything.

  ›•‹

  After breakfast I want to go back to bed but Estelle starts talking about the wedding. Anthony sits with a resigned look and I can afford to be generous. We return to London tomorrow.

  ‘You know,’ Estelle says, ‘you could have a part of the house for your own if you liked. I’d love the company. We could make the west wing into a lovely flat for you. And I would be nearby to help with – you know – babysitting and so on.’

  ‘My God,’ Anthony says. He is somewhat white. ‘Stop it, Mother.’

  Jamie comes in. He gives Estelle a colourful envelope. ‘Your things from Thirsk.’ He goes. We don’t look at one another.

  Most of the photographs are blurry images of a finger. Estelle leafs through them as she talks, dropping some, putting others back facing the wrong way.

  ‘I wouldn’t interfere with you,’ she says. ‘Honestly. It would just be so nice to know that you were close by—’ She screams, a high cracked sound, shocking in the drawing room with its Wedgwood china and eau de Nil wallpaper. A photograph flutters to the floor. Estelle points, covering her heart with her hand.

  Anthony goes to her side. He picks up the picture. We are sitting on the pier at Ardentinny. A strand of hair blows across my chin. Anthony’s eyes are closed, his mouth open. The lake is calm, arrested forever beneath a blue sky. Our legs swing, our toes almost brush the shining water. In the darkness beneath the pier there crouches a white figure.

  The girl squats. Loch water ripples around her thin ankles. Her face is turned to the camera. She crams half a scone between sharp, stained teeth. She looks at us through time and space. Dark hair hangs in rat-tails about her shoulders. One eye is dark and deep as a hole. The other is covered, her head bound in what looks like dirty flannel.

  I remember that day. Mother blacked my eye because I went with a man and didn’t give her the money. I wrapped my head in flannel to hide the bruise. I did it clumsily because I was twelve. There I am, captured – my true self.

  I am not aware of fainting.

  ›•‹

  I come to with Anthony’s hand on my cheek and the scent of lavender water everywhere.

  ‘She barely eats,’ Estelle is saying. ‘Poor, poor thing.’ I must be at a low ebb because I detect only kindness in her voice. ‘I am sorry that I frightened you, Irene. I was surprised, that’s all. Old McRae’s daughter must have crept under the pier as we were picnicking. She likes to hide. A sweet-natured girl but— I don’t know what one is supposed to say these days. Touched, we used to call it.’

  ‘Well,’ says Anthony, ‘now I know where my scone went.’

  I look again at the photograph. The girl’s features are more pointed than mine, scattered with vivid freckles. Her eyes are smaller, her hair a milkier shade of brown. She is not like me at all.

  He puts me to bed, stroking by brow. ‘Never fear,’ he says. ‘I’ll stay while you sleep.’

  I weep.

  ‘Irene,’ he says, serious. ‘You can tell me the truth, you know. It won’t change things between us.’

  I cry until I cannot breathe, held in his arms. I tell him everything.

  ›•‹

  Dandelion clocks dance in the warm dusk. Estelle was right, it is beautiful here in the summer. Everything is ready for tomorrow. The pavilion sits white on the lawn like a great bird. Three hundred ivory candles stand on tables draped in ivy. Ribbons flutter on the ranks of white chairs.

  Anthony was wrong, that day. What I told him did change things between us. We showed ourselves to one another. I have grown into someone who can trust.

  I go to the red bedroom. A man is standing before the mirror, his back to me. I make a slight sound. He turns. It is Jamie.

  ‘I brought you this,’ he says, pointing to a silver dish which sits in front of the mirror. It is filled with water.

  ‘I don’t want it,’ I say. ‘Take it away. Go.’

  He pauses as if to say something. Instead he brushes past me and is gone.

  Anthony laughs when he sees the dish. ‘Loch water,’ he says. ‘The old tradition. I don’t need to look.’

  ›•‹

  The last of the guests are leaving in the late dusk. It was a decorous wedding, heavy with cream linen and silver. It was a wedding suitable for Ardentinny House. No one got drunk.

  My ivory silk is damp with sweat. It’s done now. I feel light, as if I am about to evaporate or transform.

  We undress by candlelight. Everything in the red bedroom glows warm and lustrous.

  ‘The cupboard is dark,’ I say. ‘Look!’

  ‘The bulb must have burnt out at last,’ he says. ‘Come here.’

  ›•‹

  Afterwards I get up and go to the mirror. I feel so different these days that I am often visited by the urge to check for outwards signs of it.

  In the mirror I see myself,
a youngish woman tired of living by her wits. I glance down at the still water in the bowl. It shows me back in black and silver.

  Behind me Anthony rouses and begins to say his prayers. ‘Our Father…’ he begins. I smile. Even tonight, he will not neglect it.

  ‘And protect the souls of those you have gathered to you: Dad, Lisette, Imogen and Irene.’

  ‘I am not dead yet, darling,’ I say. It has been a long day.

  He says ‘Amen’ and comes to me. ‘Not yet,’ he says and squeezes me until I can hardly breathe. ‘I will have my fun.’

  ‘Too tight,’ I say, ‘too tight…’ His grip does not slacken, it grows stronger. My ribs creak. I gasp. ‘Let me go.’

  ‘No.’

  It is only then that I look down into the still bowl of water and I see what I have married.

  Through the pounding in my ears there comes a knock on the door.

  ‘Are you two all right?’ Estelle’s voice is wavery, vague. She had four glasses of champagne earlier.

  ‘We’re fine,’ the thing that holds me says. It breathes hot in my ear. ‘Tell her.’

  ‘We’re fine, Estelle,’ I call.

  Old Trash

  Jenn Ashworth

  The day of the trip was hot, the sky clear and nearly cloudless. There’d been a train from Manchester, then a local bus service called ‘the Witch-Hopper’ which took them on a circuitous route through the little towns and villages around Pendle then finally dropped them within a mile of the lower Ogden Reservoir, beside which they planned to camp. It wasn’t an official site, but there was a pub nearby where they could use the toilet, and it was only going to be overnight.

  Rachael struggled with the tent pole, trying to push it into the fabric socket where it, apparently, was supposed to fit. Mae was sitting in the long grass nearby leaning against her rucksack and swiping furiously at her mobile phone, resolutely not helping. The pole escaped Rachael’s grasp and sprung onto the grass. She silently counted to five, then bent to retrieve it.

  ‘At least we’ve got nice weather,’ she called, feeling the sweat on her hairline. There were midges, but there was no point in complaining about them. The pole whipped backwards and forwards, a thing possessed, and Rachael sweated and swore under her breath until – nipping the skin between her thumb and finger in the process – she managed to force it into place. There. Rachael stood back and admired the tent: bright against the sun-baked grass and the dark, hazy rise of the wooded hill behind them. Ta da.

  ‘Shall we unpack? Make a cup of tea?’ She winced at the sound of her voice – eager and high-pitched. Mae grunted and Rachael risked a glance at her. Her face still tilted phonewards, her bare legs bent at the knee and gaping wide like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Just beyond her, the grey square lip of the lower reservoir; behind them, Fell Wood.

  ‘Or we could just dump the stuff in the tent and go downto the pub? Cold drinks? Some chips?’

  Mae huffed and tucked the phone into the front pocket of her shorts. She’d made them herself, cut down from a brand-new pair of jeans with a pair of kitchen scissors.

  ‘Do you want to get changed?’

  ‘No. It’s too hot.’

  She must not stare. It irritated Mae and was likely to provoke an argument. Instead, Rachael heaved her own rucksack up from the grass and put it inside the tent. Threw the sleeping bags, still bundled up tight, in after them. Mae slapped at a midge on her bare thigh. What she was wearing didn’t matter, Rachael told herself. What Mae wore fell into the category of things over which she was no longer willing to pick a battle.

  ‘Mae? Mae, love? What do you reckon?’

  ‘Will they have Wi-Fi in the pub? I can’t get any signal up here.’

  ‘They might,’ Rachael said. ‘But I thought we could—’

  ‘Are we going then?’

  Mae had already set off, striding along the footpath that hugged the concrete edge of the reservoir. There was no guardrail. It would be possible to sit on the edge and touch the water with the toe of an outstretched foot. Maybe they would do that later. Rachael looked at the grey-indigo surface of the still reservoir, and knew that no matter how long this rare summer’s succession of hot days lasted, the water down there would be very, very cold. Then she retrieved her purse from the tent and hurried to catch up. The air was still and hot and thick with insects; she walked quickly through a cloud of them, feeling them in her hair.

  But things were going well, she thought. The trip had been a good idea. Rachael had not allowed herself to hope that this would be a time in which she and Mae would build bridges, only that perhaps – if she handled it carefully, and if everything went without a hitch (she’d checked the weather forecast hourly the day before they were due to leave) it would be a period of time – just twenty-four hours was all that Mae would agree to – where hostilities would cease. And yes: she knew it was unlikely Mae would be able to get a signal on her phone and that’s why she’d chosen Pendle Hill, the shadow of it falling onto the reservoir, the steep bank of its foreside overlooking Newchurch and Sabden and Barley. She had no interest in the tiny old villages and their little pubs with brooms over the door and post offices with adverts from crystal healers stuck in their windows and racks of cheap postcards with comedy friendly witches. She cared only about the hill, and its special property of cutting off the data signal that Mae relied on.

  The footpath met the road. Mae vaulted over the stile, her boots slapping the pavement as she landed.

  ‘This is nice, isn’t it?’ Rachael clambered after her.

  ‘It’s boring,’ Mae said.

  ‘How can you be bored?’ Rachael knew what she sounded like, but couldn’t stop herself. ‘There’s all this scenery, and the birds – I think I saw a kite earlier – and this is a lovely walk, and,’ she paused, panting, ‘we’ve got each other to talk to.’

  ‘That’s what I’m talking about,’ Mae said. Then, in one of her turn-on-a-sixpence mood changes, smiled – a smile as flimsy as a trick of the light – and waited for Rachael to catch up. ‘We’re going to eat at the pub?’

  ‘We can if you want,’ Rachael said. ‘Or we can make a fire and do some potatoes in tin foil. Would you like that?’

  Mae put her hand over her face to shield her eyes from the sun. ‘Pub. Pub tea, definitely.’ She looped her arm through Rachael’s, and they walked alongside each other like that for a while, along the centre of the road, flanked by hedges.

  When Mae stopped to pick cow parsley and thread it into her hair, Rachael waited for her, saying nothing, and hoping that she’d take her arm again when she was finished. And she did. It had the effect of making Rachael feel grateful, absurdly chosen. Rachael stroked Mae’s arm, smelled her sweat and the bruised cow parsley, ignored the reek of cigarettes from her hair and walked onwards, the pub, according to the map, just around the crook of the road.

  Was this how Mae’s boyfriend felt? The one she snuck out to meet, late at night? The one that drove her around in his car? Chosen, like that? Or was it the other way around? Was it Mae herself who felt chosen? Was it about feeling special? They trudged in a silence not quite companionable, and the pub appeared.

  ‘Come on,’ Rachael said, ‘let’s go inside.’

  ‘Mum,’ Mae said, gently. She wanted something. They hesitated in the doorway, the light picking out the fine hair on Mae’s arms and turning the rest of her into a silhouette.

  ‘Can I have something to drink as well? A proper drink? Seeing as we’re on holiday?’

  Delay. That was the advice from the keyworker. Don’t get drawn into an argument; don’t fall into the trap of conflict.

  ‘Let’s look at the menu, shall we? See what they’ve got? Come on, love. I’m starving. Aren’t you?’ Rachael held her breath.

  ‘They’d better have something vegetarian,’ Mae said.

  ‘I’m sure they will. And you can order the drinks for both of us,’ Rachael said. ‘I’ll give you the money.’

  They went inside. br />
  ›•‹

  He wasn’t a boy, though – the one Mae had chosen, or who had chosen her. He was a man. Rachael had been able to do what was needed with a keylogger on her daughter’s laptop. She was still paying for that laptop, which meant that she still owned it, really. It was a possession of the household, and not quite Mae’s private property, not in the same way an email account was. Though she’d got into that too – and the second mobile phone tucked inside a slit in the side of her daughter’s mattress. She had seen the messages. The photographs Mae had been sending. The presents, too: trainers still in their shoeboxes under her bed, drawers full of perfume bottles and make-up sets, mainly untouched. Vodka bottles, half empty.

  Rachael watched her daughter’s back as she stood at the bar: the way the soles of her trainers were worn unevenly, the coltish length of her legs. She looked around the pub. No danger – by which she meant, no men. A young woman reading a newspaper and thoughtfully eating chips with her fingers. No threat at all. A couple of female hikers sitting in a nook beside the unlit fireplace – probably an actual couple, judging by the way they sat together, sharing a plate of sandwiches in a kind of unfocused intimacy she felt guilty observing – but there was no one else. The pub was safe.

  ›•‹

  Mae came back from the bar. Plonked two bottles of Perrier, two ice-filled glasses, on the table. Flung herself onto the seat.

  ‘She wanted ID,’ she said sullenly. ‘Stupid bitch.’

  ‘Never mind,’ Rachael said, mildly, ‘maybe next year.

  You do look…’ Mae was distracted, already fiddling with her phone, and Rachael caught herself in time and let the sentence tiptoe away into the shadows, unspoken.

  You do look underage…

  You do look like you need a hair wash…

  You do look – lovely.

  ‘Mum? Mum? You hear me? No Wi-Fi. Nothing. Can you believe it?’

  She sat, fidgeted on the stool, then stood up again. Always so restless. ‘I’m going to the toilet,’ she said. ‘Order some food for me, will you? I’m starving.’