The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
“My reflection shows a pale, subdued girl. I look cold, shivery, as if nothing will ever warm me up
Arthur is behind the counter, polishing a glass. No dogs, he mouths, but I ignore him and sit by the window.
The collies creep under the table. The café is Monday-quiet, just a couple of women from the church gossiping in a very genteel way.
They glance in my direction. No doubt I will be their next topic. Anita, the waitress, appears at my side. Anita ticks all the boxes on my fantasy Girl Friday wish list.
She is quiet, competent and highly intelligent. Her parents are from somewhere in India, and rather well off, I believe.
They take a very dim view of her little job here in the café, but Anita goes her own way, enjoying a rather hectic student life up at the university, when she’s not brewing coffee.
Ah, to be back on campus. I experience a little tug of regret.
“I’ll have a latte, dear. And maybe a cake. Just a small one.” She smiles, her head slightly tilted. Her eyes are dark, lustrous and slightly unnerving.
I always feel that Anita sees much more than you’d like her to. “A pancake? A Bakewell tart?”
“Maybe a little bigger than that.”
Cautious
She trots off and Arthur comes over. “Well?” “Lucie’s fine. Got her settled in the cottage. I said she needn’t start properly until tomorrow. She seems a bit out of sorts.”
Arthur makes a noise that resembles a snort. “Great. You’ll end up looking after her!”
“Not at all. There was something about her at the interview that I liked.
Give her time to come out of her shell, and I’m sure we’ll rub along very nicely.”
It will be nice to have someone young about the place. For a man in his early thirties, Arthur can be a bit middle-aged at times. He’s cautious, like his father, inclined to think things through.
Lucie seems to have an impulsive streak, the way she applied for the job like that, fully prepared to up sticks and take on a new challenge. So like myself at that age.
Anita approaches with my coffee and a meringue the size of a large grapefruit. My mind is already leaping ahead to all the little jobs I can now delegate. “Thank you, dear.” I smile at Anita.
Yes, I think Lucie and I will rub along quite nicely. Lucie
I never knew tears could be so hot. All those trashy novels I read as a teenager? Scalding tears in every one. Heroine meets hero; hero dumps heroine. Cue scalding tears.
I feel like everything has turned to stone, but still waters boil up inside me and overflow. When I’m in bed, alone, they escape, burning trails down into my ears, matting my hair. And in the morning my eyes are on fire.
I put on a brave face, use make-up to hide the shadows under my eyes, pin back my hair because it’s too much effort to wash it.
My reflection shows a pale, subdued girl. I look cold, shivery, as if nothing will ever warm me up again.
In the night, a baby’s cry wakes me. At least, that’s what it sounds like to me – a thin wail, out there in the black night – and I come out of sleep shaking inside, my heart hammering.
I lie in the narrow bed, cold but sweating, eyes straining, trying to place myself in the dark. I see the loom of a strange wardrobe.
The air smells unfamiliar. I make out a thin strip of yellow light where the curtains don’t meet, and recognition comes slowly.
Familiar
The security light is on. That’s it, that yellow sliver of light. I lie still, soaking up the heat under the duvet.
The noise has stopped, but I can’t settle. I’ll have to get up, investigate. Security lights don’t just come on by themselves.
The rug is cold beneath my feet. I can feel the hard ridges of the stone tiles beneath.
I root around for my slippers and wish I’d taken the time to unpack my fleecy dressing gown.
I’d dug out an oversize T-shirt for sleeping in, and I hug that more tightly around my chest.
Flicking on the lamp, the room comes into sharp relief.
Not familiar, yet, but normal. The furniture has its own new landscape, and the only thing I’m sure of is my suitcase, now gaping open, with my clothes spilling out.
I should have unpacked, but I’d been so tired. Maybe I could do it now?
Sleep already feels pretty distant. I might make a cup of tea. The baby starts crying again.
It’s outside.
Wrenching open my bedroom door, I run down cold passages, skidding to a halt in the kitchen.
I can still hear it, a soft sobbing that scrapes at my insides like nails. It’s coming from the back door. Carefully I make my way through the maze of wellies and baskets and boxes, searching for light switches, snapping them on.
My breathing is beginning to calm. I’m trying to listen to the rational part of my brain.
It isn’t a baby crying. It isn’t a sob. It’s a whine. I find the back-door key and poke it into the lock.
“This had better be good,” I mutter, turning the handle. The whining stops. I can hear excited snuffling.
“You’d better have a bloody good excuse.”
I open the door and Floss, Mac’s spaniel, bounces in, wagging her tail like it’s morning and everyone should be up. I make tea. We go back to bed.
Floss leaps onto the duvet before I even take my slippers off. I’m too tired to argue.
I turn off the light and squeeze myself into the space that’s left.
We find a kind of shape; I bend my knees, she spirals into the back of them. Within seconds she starts to snore softly. It’s oddly comforting.
Mac
I put down my pen and sag against the back of the chair. I’ve been sitting here since 6 am, and now that the words are finally flowing I can’t let them go.
Things have been a bit stuck of late, ideas bobbing around like fish, and me grown too slow to catch them.
But this morning things feel different, as though Lucie’s arrival has brought a gust of fresh air, stirring up the leaves of my imagination.
I’d asked her about her family a couple of times, but her replies had been rather muted. I gather she has a sister, but there’d been no warmth to her description.
I’d nodded knowingly at the time. Sibling rivalry. You get that with sisters. Best not to dwell on it. It had reminded me of something though, this sister thing.
What was it now? That evening I’d gone through all the dusty old volumes on my bookshelves, not quite sure what I was looking for.
I stretch my arms out in front of me, flex my fingers and rotate my neck. Something cracks, and my insides shrink accordingly.
I’m getting paranoid, waiting for the next little blip, holding my health up to the light like a badly stitched seam. I’m getting frayed.
More on Monday.