22
Primrose
Mamó is giving us a lift to the pub in her cherry-red Toyota. She has to go to Ballyfrann anyway, for ‘various reasons’. I’m almost annoyed that Catlin’s here. I want to know exactly what Mamó’s doing. How her work fits in to the world of the village. Who is dangerous here, and who is not.
‘She probably means the bank or something, Mad. Let her have her little mysteries,’ is Catlin’s take on it, which doesn’t work because banks aren’t open that late, so she is clearly doing something witchy. Possibly with wands. I have much fear of missing out. I could be finding out information about an elderly woman right now instead of going to the stupid pub. The actual dream, like.
We messaged back and forth inside the car. It’s cleverer than whispering where Mamó’s concerned. I have a sense her hearing’s awful keen. Every now and then she meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror. Her gaze is very steady, and knowing.
She told me to be wary, and I am.
My eyes are heavy and there is a weight on me this evening. Last night I borrowed back the dress I gave to Catlin, sewed salt and flakes of rowan bark in the hems. I feel as if there is something to be guilty about. Ashamed. I have been warned. I have not passed it on. Perhaps I should.
‘Who’ll be there tonight?’ asks Mamó, glaring at the road, as though it were a thing she could defeat. The traffic lights turn green almost immediately. Probably out of fright. I wonder what it would be like to glare at everything and everyone. To never wear a face you didn’t mean.
‘Everyone. People,’ says Catlin.
‘Oona, Charley, Layla, Fiachra, Cathal. Lon,’ I say, trying to be open with her. And not to follow it up with, ‘TELL ME MAGICS!!’
‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘Lon.’ It is the most contempt I have ever heard pumped through one syllable. Her eyes still on the road.
I suppress a smile. That is the correct amount of contempt for Lon, I feel. Catlin disagrees and is having a rage-gasm in the back seat, fingers flying off a rant to me. It has nine swears in, some of them surprising.
I see her swallow, gather and collect.
‘Why the tone, Mamó?’ she asks. Mamó doesn’t dignify her with an answer. I wish she dignified more people with answers. And also gave better answers. We’re driving up a small, steep mountain road. Catlin kicks the seat in front of her, softly but with venom.
‘Mamó?’ she asks. And I can tell she’s going to begin stirring.
‘Yes?’ Mamó’s voice is curt. For not a change.
‘What about Oona?’
What about Oona? How is Oona any of Catlin’s business?
‘Oona Noone? The mother’s a bit odd. Artistic, like. The father’s got a temper. I don’t know much about the young one yet. Well able to go, I’d say. The Noones always were.’
She nods. And that’s as much as she says until we’re halfway up the mountain.
‘What a bitch,’ exclaims Catlin, once we’re free of the car.
‘You’re not wrong,’ I say. ‘But why did you have to bring Oona into it?’
‘Well, she talked shit about Lon, and you didn’t look annoyed enough about it.’ She turns to me. ‘And Oona is your new best friend.’
‘Oona is not my new best friend.’
‘She is. Look at the grinning head on you. You think she’s class. You want to lesbian-marry her.’
‘Shut up,’ I say. It’s true though. I’d wear pale grey and she’d wear white with the faintest tinge of blue to match the little flecks around her pupils. We’d honeymoon by the ocean. But that is all beside the bloody point. The cheek of her.
‘Don’t be a homophobic prick, Catlin.’
‘You can’t be homophobic to straight people, Maddy.’
‘You totally can. You don’t, like, need a gay person to be around for it to be homophobic. That’s not a thing.’ I can feel my face flushing. If she knew how I felt, maybe she’d be nicer about it all, but how even do I put it into words? I feel like Ballyfrann is jumbling up my headspace. Making everything a little warped.
Catlin’s looking at me with her mouth wide open, like a sentient gif.
‘You’re properly annoyed at me,’ she says, as if she really can’t believe it.
I glare at her, taking it all in, from head to toe. She looks like a young lady. It could be fifty, sixty years ago. In that dress, with her hair down, make-up simple. She could be Bridget Hora, Nora Ginn. Another girl they find upon the mountain.
I try to shove the stubborn thought away.
‘I’m not annoyed,’ I tell her.
‘You so are.’ She smiles at me. ‘You think you’d know by now, the way I am.’
We venture up the road towards Donoghue’s. It’s your typical old-man pub, wooden seats with maroon upholstery, whitewashed walls with different things stuck on. Some of them are weird. A bracelet made from braided hair. A cat’s skull. Others are just jugs or glass spheres half draped with netting. I wonder where pubs get all the random stuff they put on walls. Is it bit by bit or in a job lot?
The pub smells of spilled beer and turf. Some old guys sit in the corner, sipping their pints. There’s an open fire in the corner, with colourful bean bags around it. They seem really out of place. A surly-looking man is wiping down the counter. Lon is in a small room at the back, and, BUT OF COURSE, he is DJing. There’s an elaborate sound system hooked up. The music pulses through the lino of the floor. It’s hard to tell what colour it is, what with the combination of dim light and stains.
Layla greets us, flushed with drink and energy. She points out where the toilets are, the people that we know, and those we don’t. She’s moving differently tonight, weirdly buoyant, bopping her shoulders along to the music. Lock-in Layla’s fun, I think. I like her.
‘Hi. We’re allowed to drink soft drinks and beer or cider, but not what my dad calls hard liquor, or they won’t let us do this again. And we have to pay for everything, obviously. If you don’t recognise someone, they’re probably a Collins,’ she tells us.
Catlin’s eyes are fixed on Lon, as though he were the most important thing. She used to be her own most important thing, I think. I hope that I’ve reminded her of that. At least a little.
‘Whose is the guitar?’ Catlin asks, nodding to one propped up in the corner. ‘It’s not Lon’s. Lon’s is black.’
‘Shocker,’ I snort, and then do a little smile to try to soften my contempt. I don’t want to get into a row.
‘Fiachra brought it along – he was trying to impress Charley, but she wasn’t super into it.’
‘Why?’ asks Catlin. ‘Fiachra’s cute enough.’
Layla looks at us. ‘No, he isn’t. Ugh.’ She says it fondly. ‘My brothers are both idiots. Most of his songs are about his mountain bike. He uses girls’ names, but a sister knows. Charley deserves better. Plus, she needs to be careful around boys and things.’
‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Is she OK?… I mean, did something happen?’
‘No,’ says Layla. ‘Nothing like that. It’s just. She’s a Collins.’
‘What difference does that make?’ Catlin’s voice is high. She doesn’t get it.
Layla lowers her voice. ‘They marry each other.’ We look at her, aghast. She flaps her hands. ‘Oh, not in an incest way. In an arranged-marriage-to-distant-cousins way. It’s what they’ve always done.’
‘That still sounds a bit …’ Catlin looks at me.
I close my mouth. Reserve my judgement.
Layla starts to say more things but is immediately interrupted by Lon, because no one speaking could ever be as important as what Lon has to say. I tense my eye muscles.