The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
I’m haunted by the fear that my secret is about to be exposed. I cannot sleep for it
That night I hear the now familiar crying. Half asleep, I creep through the silent house and let the little dog in. She bolts into my bedroom and burrows into my back as soon as I lie down. She stinks of river water and nettles, but I’m too exhausted to care.
I wrap the duvet round us both and eventually her soft doggy snores kick in.
Her entire body twitches from time to time, and I can’t decide whether she’s chasing dream rats or trembling.
“There’s something going on with your mother.” Arthur lifts his gin and tonic. The cardboard mat sticks to the bottom of the glass, and I peel it off, mopping at the scarred tabletop with a serviette.
I pick up my own glass of soda water; the ice chinks and the slice of lime pops up to the surface like an exotic fish.
“Are you sure you don’t want a wine?” asks Arthur, wiping his mouth.
“Too much to do.” I’m already rooting through my bag, hauling out jotters and sheaves of paper and piling them onto the dry bits of the table.
“I don’t even know where to start. She’s talking to herself. Her study is a mess, and she’s been writing the story in different books and stuff.
Tangent
“This is her original notebook.” I hold up the black hardback. It’s dusty and dog-eared.
“This is what I’ve been working with. It contains all the folk tales that she wants to include in her new book, but halfway through The Cruel Sister, she’s suddenly gone off on a tangent.
“It’s like the story got away from her. Look...” I pick up an exercise book and open it. Mac’s scribbles disappear off the page.
Arthur takes it from me and reads.
“‘The yard is dark. The cloaked figure is some way off, and by the light of a full moon’ – Jesus, there’s
always a full moon – ‘Bella can see the tracks that he has made in the dirt.
‘She follows the trail of the stranger’s boots in the earth, thinking about the jute sack, wondering what’s in it.
‘She looks at the footprints without seeing the very thing that should have sent her running back into the hall . . .’”
There the writing peters out. Arthur glances up. “What? What is she not seeing?”
I choose another notebook, spiral-bound with red tulips on the cover.
I’ve been through them all. Silently he takes the book from me and reads on.
“‘The footprints are not solid like the prints of a normal man. Each one is distinguished by a deep cleft that runs from toe to heel.’”
The writing stops, and Arthur stops too. “What is this guy? And where’s the rest of the story? This is the ultimate cliffhanger.”
I produce a third book. This one is a reporter’s notebook full of meaningless calculations and meter readings.
There’s a shopping list too: potatoes, spring onions, Winalot. I flick through until I find a few more paragraphs of narrative and read them out loud.
“‘The stranger stops, as if he can feel her eyes on him. “Who are you?” Bella wants to know. “You seem familia ...”
‘The man pushes back his hood. The shadows about his face remain, as if they have always been there. His eyes are the fathomless black of river pebbles.
‘Bella gasps. “I do know you. You’re the miller!” He does not reply. Instead he asks the girl a question; a question she does not want to answer.
“Tell me. Did you drown your sister in the millpond?”
‘Lucie remains tight-lipped. Her eyes grow as black as his. “That,” she says, “I will never tell.’”
Secrets
“Lucie? What the hell am I doing in there? What’s she trying to say?”
Arthur scratches his head. “A misprint, obviously. Secrets never to be told. Where’s the rest of it?”
“Do you think she’s guessed, about me and Reuben? She must have.
“That’s why she’s writing all this stuff, about secrets and sisters and betrayal.” I wave at the books. “I’m still piecing the rest of it together.”
I’m haunted by the fear that my secret is about to be exposed. I cannot sleep for it.
I am both the dark older sister and the golden child entangled in the waterweed.
But that anxiety has been overshadowed by something else. I slip an old newspaper cutting from my pocket.
It’s yellow and criss-crossed with knife- edge creases from being folded between the pages of The Scottish Miller’s Tale.
“You need to see this. What do you know about Anna Madigan?”
My question catches Arthur off guard. He takes a sip of his drink; frown lines gather above his spectacles.
“She and her husband were friends of my parents. I remember she had red hair and baked really good brownies.”
I allow myself a smile. “So they were quite close then?”
Arthur sets down the drink and leans back in his chair.
“I suppose so. I remember Ma and Dad going to dinner parties at the Madigans’, but only because my babysitter let me stay up to watch Twin Peaks.
“It must have fizzled out. I don’t think I remember the Madigans being around when I was growing up.”
“Twin Peaks?” I tilt my head and fix him with a look that makes him chuckle.
“You must have been a strange child. Anyway, Anna Madigan.
“Over the last few weeks, your mother has sort of lost interest in what I’m doing, like she’s in her own little world, but I’ve been trying to sort out all the mess.
“There are cuttings everywhere, but these ones . . .”
Dramatic
The clipping is from five years ago. I spread it out on the table and make a dramatic gesture with my hand.
Arthur peers at the newsprint. “Anna Madigan disappeared? Was she ever found?”
I lift my shoulders and make a face. “Not that I can see.” Arthur blows out a breath. “I’ve never heard about this.”
“These cuttings chart Anna’s disappearance over a period of years. Every time a body was washed up, the papers rehashed the whole thing.
“Must have been a nightmare for the family. If your mother wasn’t close friends with this Anna, then why has she kept them all?”
“Maybe Ma just had a passing interest in what happened to an old friend. Wouldn’t you?” “Depends who the old friend was.”
I’m thinking of Reuben. If they were dragging the river for him . . . yes, I’d want to know.
How would I feel if they found a body? My mind refuses to go there.
I would be bereft, of course. But it would be a freedom of sorts.
The thought is so unwholesome I push it away. “You need to read it.”
More tomorrow.