The Courier & Advertiser (Perth and Perthshire Edition)
Not for the first time, I wonder what she’s hiding and why she seems so agitated about the Cruel Sister story
Iease the notebook from Lucie’s cold fingers, and motion to the table. We pull out chairs and sit down, and I fish my spectacles from the breast pocket of my blouse. “These are not children’s fairy stories, Lucie,” I say. “We must record them faithfully, whether we like the content or not.” Letting my specs slip just a tad, I observe her reaction over the rim of them.
“Myth reflects the human condition. Jealousy, betrayal, revenge... it’s all there.
“We cannot escape it. These old stories sometimes make sense of the things we can’t; they hold up a picture of ourselves.”
“There’s something not right with the picture,” Lucie whispers. A solitary tear slips down her nose.
I suppose she is thinking of her mysterious gentleman caller.
Not for the first time, I wonder what she’s hiding and why she seems so agitated about the Cruel Sister story.
Have I hit a nerve? The idea gives me a curious sense of power over her.
She looks so forlorn. Something in me wants to poke at her with a sharp stick. I begin to read.
Shining
The sisters go down the mill den one last time. Elspeth is wearing her new kid gloves and that buttercup silk dress, and her hair is shining with a fresh gleam. “I can’t believe we will be separated,” she sighs, “now I am to be Lady Musgrave.” Bella doesn’t reply. She is quieter these days, darker. The girls follow the path of the lade to the millpond. Elspeth is chattering about weddings and dresses and her young lord and how much he adores her. There is no one else about. They stand on the edge of the deep, dark pool. What happens next is a blur, and sudden. There is a single irrational moment, and Bella sees her hand pressed into the middle of her younger sister’s back. She feels the yellow silk, the softness of it as she pushes, the lack of resistance. There is a splash, heavier than the splash of the largest pike. The next minute Bella is plunging thigh deep into the water, clutching at her skirts. There are strong currents and deep channels; the
yellow silk sinks out of sight. Strands of beautiful blonde hair... She winds her fingers in her sister’s hair, but the water is stronger, and Elspeth slips from her grasp, slick as waterweed. She finds a hand, then, unresponsive, in the softest kid leather. Clasping it in her own, she pulls with all her might, toppling backwards into the shallows. She’s still grasping the glove... but it is empty. Only then does she realise what she has done.
Lucie is weeping now, her wet chin buried in her hands.
I move my chair closer and enfold her in my embrace, squeezing her narrow shoulders.
I feel the stiffness of bone beneath my grasp. I close the notebook.
“Enough of the past. Let’s think about the future, Lucie.” She is unresponsive under my arm.
I give her a bracing squeeze.
“You’ll meet someone, I’m sure. Someone who cares about you.”
She pulls away from me, wipes her cheek. “I’m better off on my own.”
“Nonsense. We all say that. Humans are not designed to be alone.”
“It’s a massive design flaw, then.
“And the chances of meeting someone buried out here are zilch.”
I clear my throat. “Maybe you already have.” “What?” She stares at me.
“Maybe you don’t have to look very far.”
I raise my eyebrows in a tantalising fashion, waiting for the penny to drop.
“What? Arthur?” She laughs in a way I find quite offensive.
My brows sink and my mouth clamps into a thin line.
What’s wrong with Arthur? I don’t want him to be disappointed again, not after Nancy.
If things developed, could Lucie be trusted? I don’t say anything, but I resolve to keep a closer eye on their friendship.
Lucie
June
There’s something very comforting about a hot bathroom – all that just-out-of-the-shower steam and the shampoo scent. It takes me back to a time when things were okay.
It takes me back to a time when the only thing I helped myself to behind my sister’s back was her very expensive body lotion.
We had the usual bathroom spats, the two of us, about who had used up all the hot water or taken the last of the big bath towels.
However, on the whole a hot bathroom smelled of excitement, of going out. Of happiness and hope. I used to think that, anyway.
Now I stand on a damp bath mat in my underwear and attempt to see my reflection in the condensed mirror.
I wonder what Reuben is doing.
It’s Saturday, and when he’s home he doesn’t get up until lunchtime.
I’m thinking about Reuben, but I can’t get past the scared look on my face.
I am a bird on a wire in a strong gale, clinging on for all I’m worth. It takes a special kind of grit.
Or stupidity.
Wariness
I’ve always hated water, but since the millpond incident, and the nocturnal, creaking waterwheel, I seem to have developed a sharp new wariness.
I realise now that it can be tame, like the hot shower I’ve just taken, or it can be feral.
If I open the bathroom window, the sound of it will force its way inside.
The noise of the lade surging underground, overground, hitting the still, silent wheel at speed and sliding around it.
It is only the work of a minute to shift the lever and open the floodgates.
Likewise, it only takes one little push to submerge a rival in deep, dark water...
This tale of two sisters. Is Mac trying to tell me something?
Does she know how I’ve betrayed my own sister? It’s hard to look her in the eye – this story sits between us like a pointing finger.
When I’m in Mac’s company I feel like she’s waiting for me to unravel, to confess.
Perhaps that’s my own guilty conscience, although it’s never bothered me much before.
More tomorrow.