The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Bone Deep: Episode 14
There’s something wrong. I can feel it. Dread begins to crawl down the back of my thighs
When I lost my virginity to Robert Guthrie at a tender age, my verdict never found its way into print. Was that it? Was that what all the fuss was about, this dry, painful fumbling business? It put me off for a long time. There were one or two other experiments. If I had to write a review, they’d probably all be three star. Until Reuben.
After that first boozy afternoon on the couch, that first kiss, I never did think about Jane. It was strange.
The whole thing with Reuben – it was such a perfect fit, I never paused to consider how Jane fitted in with us.
There was a new us in town, and that was real life. Jane was my fantasy sister, relegated to the dark recesses of my conscience; I never brought her out to the light.
Maybe that was my coping mechanism. Maybe I’m just a bad person.
Anyway, the day after that kiss, I had to go to work as usual in the DIY shop.
Mrs Black looked at me curiously, probably because I couldn’t stop smiling.
Laughed
I behaved like an absolute loon. I smiled at the grumpy old man who returned a battery-operated alarm clock.
“It doesn’t work,” he growled. “I was late for my bowling match.”
“Did you put a battery in it?” I asked sweetly. He stared at me. “Aren’t batteries supplied?”
I pointed to the small print on the box. “I’m afraid not, but I can sell you a battery.”
There was some swearing. The man demanded a refund and huffed away. I laughed, and squirreled the encounter away to share with Reuben.
We would have a giggle about it later. But as the day wore on, a coldness settled around me.
What if that was it? A drunken kiss that meant nothing.
I didn’t have Reuben’s number; I knew nothing about his plans. Maybe he was already on the helicopter bound for the rig?
We never even got to say goodbye. Tears came down like a black cloud and I struggled to hide them. Mrs Black kept staring at me and I retreated to the loo for a long time.
Eventually, blowing my nose, I returned to the counter and there he was. There was Reuben, examining some rawl plugs.
“Gentleman to see you,” Mrs Black said pointedly. My face broke into a wide grin.
Reuben’s eyes kindled with the special heat he would keep especially for me. Mrs Black retreated stiffly to her office, and Reuben pulled out his phone.
“I just realised you don’t have my number,” he said, punching his keypad.
He looked up and stole my breath away. “We really need to keep in touch.”
My thoughts drift back into the room, and I realise I’ve picked up a pencil, worrying it between my fingers.
It’s a curiously flat pencil, rustic, and looks like it may have been sharpened with a knife. My father had a pencil like that. He called it a carpenter’s pencil.
Gingerly, I tuck it behind my ear. It doesn’t feel natural or workmanlike. I begin to wonder whose ear it belonged to.
Mac’s dead husband, perhaps. I imagine him methodically going about his chores, knocking up bookshelves, fixing machinery.
Emerging from the mill, white with flour, to sit for a moment in the setting sun.
Awkwardness
To have that sort of comforting presence ripped from your life... I can’t imagine how Mac must have felt. How she feels. Perhaps that’s why she writes, to fill the gap.
When Reuben first came to stay, and I realised my feelings for him ran way deeper than they should, I started to write in earnest.
I wrote about how I felt when I saw him, the crippling shyness, the awkwardness. The way he looked, the things he said.
Like a lawyer, I recorded every scrap, every thread of conversation. The words he used, and the way they related to me.
Sometimes I would take a notion that I’d got it all wrong, that the phrases I’d thought so meaningful were actually just misinterpretations on my part.
Of course he hadn’t meant it that way. I was reading things into it, slanting everything so that it was about me, when really it was encoded for Jane.
I thought I could get it all out on paper, purge myself, and no one need ever know. Reuben was my sister’s boyfriend.
He was a secret crush. A fantasy. In this way I talked myself out of Reuben for a long time. I told myself his interest in me was a figment of my imagination.
If his eyes smouldered a little bit darker when he looked at me... forget it. Don’t listen to your intuition.
Ignore your gut feeling. Why would he ever be interested in me, the mousy older sister?
Sometimes it is necessary to spill your feelings onto a white page, to try to put them in order. It’s a safety valve, I guess.
A way of releasing the pressure, if you can call it that, this deep-seated ache.
I find an old scrap of paper and scribble furiously for five minutes with the fat stub of a pencil. Words.
Some meaningless, some so heartfelt I cannot read them. A goodbye to Reuben.
Just as I place a final full stop, my phone begins to vibrate in the back pocket of my jeans. I fumble for it, peer at the screen.
My sister’s name flashes at me: Jane, Jane, Jane! As always, guilt nibbles away at my gut. My thumb hovers as my brain completes a quick scan.
Heartbeat
Not in bed: check. Dressed and decent: check. No Reuben on the scene: check.
“Hello?”
“Lucie, it’s me.” Sniff. Is she crying? Why is Jane crying?
“What’s wrong?” My innards drop. There’s something wrong. I can feel it. Dread begins to crawl down the back of my thighs.
“It’s Reuben. He’s been in a car crash.”
My legs give way. I sink into Mac’s leather chair. I can’t speak.
“Lucie? Are you still there? Did you hear me?” “Yes, yes.” My voice is a croak. “How bad? Is he... ?” “They’ve taken him to Ninewells Hospital. I don’t know yet. I don’t even know what he was doing in Dundee.
“I thought he was in Aberdeen. He’s unconscious. I’m on my way down now, Dad’s driving. Lucie, can I stay? Can I stay with you? I need to be near him.”
My breath stops. I can hear my heartbeat in my ears. “Of course,” I hear myself say.
“Of course you need to be near him. Where exactly did it happen, the crash?”
I can hear her weeping now, openly.
She can’t speak any more, she says, but she’ll call me as soon as she gets news.
She hangs up.
I’m glad. I can’t trust myself to speak.
More tomorrow.