A useless creature.
When I go back up, Cathal is talking about a dirt-jumping competition he won this summer. I’ve just worked out it’s mountain bikes when she arrives. Dressed in jeans, a little black T-shirt. A necklace made of copper wire and smooth green sea glass. Her hair is scraped into a tiny little ponytail. It’s really cute. I smile at her, she says hello and comes in for a hug. She kisses my cheek on one side and then the other. I freeze.
Every part of me is waiting for more.
‘Excuse,’ she says. ‘I forgot and did the bises. In France, when we say hello, we do a kiss.’
I nod. I’ve heard of this. It is a thing. I smile at her. Her eyes meet mine. I see the little flecks of palest blue. For a second they seem to move around, silver fish inside a deep brown pool. I’m conscious that I’m staring. I lower my gaze.
But when I look back up, she meets my eyes.
‘Come outside with me,’ she says. ‘I want to show you something.’
‘I need to get my coat,’ I say.
‘I’ll wait.’
On the way to get it, I grab Layla. ‘I’m going out for a bit,’ I say.
‘With Oona? Say no more.’ She grins.
‘Yeah … Would you mind, keeping an eye on Catlin?’
‘Madeline,’ she says, ‘we’re all below. She will be grand. Go. Chat.’ She takes a sip from her pint glass. ‘I mean, we hate him. But she’s safe. Go on.’ She nudges me, as though I were a domino. ‘You can worry tomorrow.’
And I will. But, as I reach the door, I feel something like hope.
I put away the things I should be scared of.
And venture out with Oona, in the night.
23
Deer’s Tongue
We walk through the village, past the lit-up places, into darkness, and it doesn’t feel dangerous, but quickens my breath. Oona’s moving at a faster pace than normal. Even with my slightly longer legs, I have to trot to keep up with her.
‘Come,’ she says. I follow her through trees and over rocks.
We walk for ages till we reach the lakeside, water flat and dark. The water’s moving. I can barely see it but I hear it, see the little tilt of moon on flow.
‘Here,’ she says, ‘is where I swim each morning. It is like my church, a sacred place.’
I smile at her and see it’s not a joke. She places the flat of her hands against the water.
‘I wanted to come back to it with you.’
My heart is beating so quickly.
‘Today,’ she says to me, ‘has been so hard. I need a friend.’
I ask her what is wrong. And so she tells me. I hear it but there’s something else as well, a kind of panic rising and then dulling.
Oona is worried Claudine might be losing interest. She hasn’t been replying to her messages. She’s worried that she’s met someone else. I can feel my heart beat in my chest, can feel my ribcage opening. Widening to let in loss and hope.
‘I was always the one who was more in love,’ she says. ‘I knew this.’
Her tilted chin. I know it too, I think. I tell her that it’s hard and that I’m sorry and that I’m here. She smiles at me, and tells me that she knew I’d understand. She turns out towards the dark and shining water, as though it were a friend who could explain. I try to think of something else to say or do. A helpful thing.
She pulls her top off, over her head, and smiles that half-moon smile. So soft and bright. I want to tell her that she’s mad, it’s freezing, but it’s like I’ve been put on pause. I want to be her friend. I want to kiss her.
I don’t know what to do. Or how to move.
She is wearing a little lacy bralet. It is green. Her panties are brown. Her skin is brightly dappled in the moonlight, like the water in a swimming pool.
‘Come on,’ she says, and runs into the lake. She doesn’t look to see. She knows I’ll come.
I take a breath, remove my coat, and pull my dress over my head. It is exactly as cold as I thought it would be, but I try not to show it. I’ve never really liked the sensation of being surrounded by water. Swimming is an awful lot of work. I’m wearing a sports bra and black boy shorts. It looks like a bikini, I tell myself. I always worried when we went swimming. That people would look at me, compare. And find me wanting.
I am wanting now.
Catlin didn’t mind as much as me. She’s very unselfconscious. Oona’s pretty unselfconscious too. And that makes sense. She’s perfect. She looks like the title character in a film about beautiful people. I look like the title character in a film about a girl who has a spot the size of a hillock on the corner of her chin.
I peel my tights off.
Where has Oona gone?
And suddenly I see her head rise like a tiny Loch Ness monster in the middle of the pond. She moves so quickly, flicking and twisting like a beautiful eel. I put a toe in.
‘It’s freezing,’ I say into the silence. I don’t think I’m expecting a reply. I swallow. Nothing worth doing in life is easy, is a thing that Mam says sometimes. And it isn’t always true. And I don’t think that she meant it for right now. But I say it and it makes me braver. I take a step. I take another step.
Be bold, be bold, but not too bold.
And I’m submerged. I can feel my skin goose and pucker. I can feel my teeth begin to shake. I kick my legs and close my eyes so tight and power through it.
And suddenly her body’s next to mine. She grabs my hands and loops them round her neck. She’s stronger than I thought. And she is swimming, pulling me along. My breasts and ribcage pressed against her back. I can feel the strong flick of her legs. The sureness of her body, in the water.
I sense her smile. I hope she senses mine.
She pulls me under.
24
Yarrow
Catlin is furious with me for going off. Of course she is. Everything in the world is all about Catlin. Before anyone makes a decision, she must be consulted or everything will crumble into dust. It is the way of things. It was foolish to rock the boat by making choices. I understand this, but she’s also wrong.
‘You weren’t even around most of the night,’ I say. ‘You were hooking up with Lon the whole time.’
‘Not the whole time. Not while you were gone,’ she says, all pale and tense and doing that thing where she over-enunciates words to show how calm she is. How reasonable she’s being.
‘So it’s OK for you to go off with Lon and leave me alone, but it’s not OK for me to go for a walk with Oona?’ I ask, although it’s not a question. Not really.
Catlin glares at me, and wipes down the surface of a battered steamer trunk with a J-cloth. It looked pale grey, but it was really black. We’re cleaning out the unused rooms for Mam. To ‘surprise Brian’, when he comes back from yet another work trip. As if we need more secrets in this place. How much will Brian tell me, if we get the chance to speak before he’s off again? I wonder what he’s told Mam about it all. I spray some glass cleaner on an old foxed mirror. The veins and stains of ancient rotting glass. I peer at Catlin’s reflection. She’s sitting on a dusty ottoman, waiting, but I’m waiting too. For something.
I can’t explain myself. I am voiceless. Full of wanting things I cannot have. I don’t know what, but some of it is Oona.
The moon was fat on our way back to Donoghue’s. We didn’t speak. Outside of the water. But we held hands and everything was charged, and I could feel the distance between my body and her body, as though it were another part of me. A phantom limb.