“So we need to wait for her sister to phone again,” Gus said, “and then put our heads together.”
“Agreed,” I said. “And don’t tell her the news from Dumfries.”
He frowned.
“You didn’t watch the local news today?”
He shook his head.
“That drowned guy didn’t drown-his throat was cut. And he was Polish too.”
“How’d they know that?” said Gus. He seemed to have paled. Why would that be? Well, he’d stood there and watched the frogmen that day. Or maybe he was squeamish about blood and guts and things.
“It must have been pretty obvious. From the body.”
“I mean, how’d they know he was Polish? Is he like something to do with Ros or something? Some connection?” He really was a white as a sheet.
“Charity bangles with Polish writing,” I told him. “The cops came to work with the guy’s clothes to see if maybe we’d provided them. ‘Looked like one of yours,’ the sergeant said. He seemed okay when he was here, eh? But he was dead sour today.”
“The same cop?” said Gus.
“Small town.”
“The same cop that came here brought that drowned guy’s stuff to show you, and you told him Ros was missing?” He seemed really struck by it, like I’d been. Only I knew about Kazek being a link between them. Gus didn’t, so what was his problem?
“Are you okay?” I said.
“There’s a lot of Polish folk about,” he said. “There’s no reason at all the cops would connect them.”
“Why would that matter?” I asked him. “Why would you care if they did or not?”
He watched me for a long time before he answered. And, when he spoke, it was slow and soft, as if he was trying to hypnotise me.
“Like you said. So’s they don’t worry Ros’s sister. So they don’t tell her about him and make her scared for Ros. Just like you said to me.”
That made perfect sense and I smiled at him.
“I need to ask you something.” His voice was back to normal. “I need you to tell me something.”
“Okay,” I said. He slid out of his chair and came shuffling over on his knees to just in front of me. He reached out and put the flats of his first two fingers on my cheek, right on top of the old dot where the puncture mark used to be.
“I saw it when you were sleeping,” he said. “And I want you to tell me what really happened when you pulled the feathers out of your granny’s quilt. Tell me the truth, eh?”
Inside
She was filthy now. She could smell herself with every breath, even over the stench from the dry toilet. She had tied a biscuit wrapper up into a jagged little ball of knots and spiky edges and she chewed it, like those dry toothbrushes you get in machines at motorway services. It kind of worked. But she stank. God, she stank. So she wasted some water and the sleeve of her t-shirt. Bit a hole in the seam at the shoulder and unpicked the stitching. Ripped the sleeve into two. One she kept, carefully folded inside her cardboard pillow. The other she wet with a glug of precious water, pouring it like anointing oils in some holy temple. She kneaded the cotton until the water was all the way through it, damp and cool, and then she washed herself, her face and ears. Her neck, under her arms, scrubbing hard, the stubble giving her some friction. She took off her jeans and pants and wept at the smell of herself. She turned the cloth and washed gently, lovingly, like a nurse would cool a patient after a fever. She turned the cloth and wiped her feet. It was nearly dry now. More water? A little. And her feet tingled as she scrubbed them.
She waited until she was dry before she put her clothes back on. Inside out. And tried to imagine she felt refreshed. She picked up the cloth with part of a wrapper over her hand and dropped it down the drain hole. And she made herself not touch her hair, not scratch her scalp. Keep her clean hands clean as long as she could. She would save the other part of the sleeve until the water bottle after next was nearly empty. She was good at making things last. It was her way. Good at distracting her thoughts too. Try countries: India, Kuala Lumpur, Laos, Malaya, Nepal, Oman, Poland. She curled herself into the shape of a nut-the lozenge shape of a child inside its mother-and wept the pain back into something she could bear. Try animals: rat, snake, tarantula.
It could be worse, see?
Eighteen
He put the lamp off and we sat in the firelight, side by side on the couch. It still had a bit of a creamy smell when you shifted.
“Okay. Well, first, my granny wasn’t angry,” I said.
“No?”
“But my mother was furious with me.”
“What for? For upsetting your gran?”
“My granny wasn’t upset. She laughed. She thought it was funny.”
“Really? She wasn’t pissed off?”
“Look, I’m sorry I lied before. I’ll tell you the truth this time.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay.” A log shifted and fell and the flames burned brighter. “So my mum, right? One of her favourite bits of the Bible is, He who spareth the rod spoileth the child.”
He reached out and touched my cheek again. “What did she hit you with to leave a wee hole like that in your face?” he said. “I can’t understand parents who hit their kids.”
“Really?” I said. “You’ve never lashed out?” I remembered the day with the cakes and how angry he’d been.
“At the babies?” He sounded shocked. “Ruby’s the size of a button.”
“Did Becky?”
He was silent. “You’re telling the story,” he said at last, which was my answer in a way.
“Okay, so, my granny should have known better probably, but she told my mum the funny story of little Jessie making a snowstorm in the spare bedroom, and my mum went ballistic. She asked what punishment I’d had and my granny said none. Ballistic squared. Granny had been going to chuck the quilt but my mum stopped her.”
“Christ, she never made you stuff them all back in again.”
“I’m telling the story,” I said, nudging him. “And a bit of hard work wouldn’t have screwed me up as badly as I am.”
“You’re not screwed up,” said Gus. “You invented a phobia to stop yourself getting screwed up. Clever girl.”
“How come you know about phobias? You said to me the very first night you didn’t know anyone else-”
“I looked it up yesterday,” said Gus. “And a wee bit today. ‘A mistake in adaptive learning’, isn’t it? And not even that much of a mistake. You’re dead right to be scared of feathers after what feathers did to you.”
He sounded like every self-help book and website and first appointment in the world.
“After what feathers did to me,” I agreed.
“Which was what, exactly?” said Gus. “Go on with the story.”
“Yeah, okay, so, my mum, right? She put the quilt-dead thin now-on my bed and made me sleep on top of it. And to make me not me pick at it… she tied my wrists to the bed.”
A log settled in the fireplace. Gus reached out and took my hand.
“How old were you?”
“Five,” I said
“And how many times did she do it?”
“Just once.”
He was stroking my hand very softly now, like that game we used to play in school where you tried to tell when someone’s tickling finger reached your elbow and you never could. Just like that game used to do to me, his fingers tracing my skin made me pop out in goosebumps and I had to make myself not pull my hand away. He’d said something.
“What?” I asked him
“Your cheek?”
“A feather end was sticking in it,” I said. “It made a hole. Made me bleed, cos of leaning on it for hours and hours.”
“Why didn’t you turn the other way?”
I remembered it with the kind of sharp crystal-clear remembering you only get after hours and hours of regressive hypnosis. I’d looked at that bloody room from every angle: the bed, the floor, the ceiling, close up and far away, in colour, in black and white. Play the tape forward, play the tape backwards, double-speed, triple-speed, shrink it down, fold it up, put it in a box, and lock it away.