Falling For You (23 page)

‘Guard dogs?’ he asks. It’s farming territory. Enough people have working dogs around here. I nod.

‘Ferocious ones,’ I say.

‘No one who can go with you, Rose?’ I shake my head. Shona’s Dad Matt Dougal, might help. But then he’s always been a bit ambivalent about aligning himself with us Clares because he gets a lot of work come his way from Rob Macrae.

‘I could go with you,’ he offers after a while. ‘I’m good with dogs …’

I smile, taking in the fact that he’s just alluded to a future beyond this place, beyond today, when he and I will still have a reason to be in contact with each other. Does he want us to stay in touch?  

‘You’ll get there, Rose, to that University and … everything else you’ve been waiting for. You just mustn’t be afraid.’

Afraid? I shrug my shoulders as if that is the very last thing I am but deep down inside I know that it is true.

Afraid of what?

Afraid of staying on here with my father getting frailer, my own chances slipping by year on year and me just getting older. Afraid of going away because it will mean huge change and I’ve already had such a lot of unwelcome change thrust into my life there’s a part of me that longs to cling to the familiar. Even when it’s horribly uncomfortable. Afraid of never having any power in the world. Afraid of my Mum’s powers that I’ve quashed, pushed down so deep into the shadows but which threaten to jump up every so often and overwhelm me.

Afraid of being alone.

And afraid - I glance at handsome Lawrence as he sits back on his heels and surveys his house of cards, three storeys high, crooked as hell but still, miraculously, standing - afraid, most of all afraid, of falling in love. 

‘Whatever scares you, owns you,’ Mum’s sitting cross-legged on her straw mat in our garden, her eyes closed, like she might just be making an observation to herself but I know she’s talking to me. I must be coming up to my birthday because the crocuses are just pushing up in their little nooks and crannies all around the farm, promising spring but it is still cold.

‘Let’s talk about what scares you,’ I shoot back. Her hair is so straggly, it irritates me. Brush it, I think, tie it back with a comb or a band like you used to. Her mane is still dark but the long silver threads laced here and there within it, tell a tale of someone who has got suddenly much older, someone who cares a lot less than she used to and it pains me to see it.

‘Going for some medical treatments, for one. That scares, you right?’

A small smile plays on her lips at my childish haranguing. As if she is so far away and at peace within herself that nothing can touch her. That’s what too much meditation does for you, I think. Too much communing with nature; it makes you float away like a puffball on the wind and then nobody can get hold of you. She calls it being serene.

‘So - I’ve told you about me.’ I look up as Lawrence has just deliberately flicked a card right into the middle of his edifice making it collapse and bringing me back to earth with it.

‘How about you?’

‘What about me?’ Oh, he’s a cagey one, isn’t he?

‘Tell me a bit about yourself. Your family?’

‘My family.’ Lawrence swoops in with his arms, gathering up all his cards. ‘I’m not close to them. As I told you, I haven’t been, in years. Otherwise …’ He makes a gesture with his arms that includes both him and me. ‘Most people wouldn’t be wandering around in a snowstorm on Christmas Day, would they?’

Even if they had to save a little Sri Lankan boy, that’s true …

‘Was it always like that?’ I ask softly. When he spoke yesterday about not having seen his
m
um for a long while, I thought he mentioned it with regret.

‘I was close to my brother, once upon a time. When we were kids, I used to look out for him, you know …’

‘Younger brother?’

‘Younger, yeah.’ He gives a shy laugh. ‘I remember when he was born, how pleased and proud I was to have a brother. I was four and a half years older than him, not all that old myself but I never knew that at the time. I thought four was big, almost grown-up.’ He almost visibly puffs out his chest. ‘He was the baby,’ he continues, ‘I was the one who had to keep an eye on him. I always did.’

‘I never had any siblings.’ I say a little enviously. ‘What was he like?’ I ask. ‘Your brother?’ He puts the cup he’s been drinking from down onto the canvas sacking.

‘Trouble!’ he remembers, but there is a pained amusement in his voice. ‘He used to hide all over the place when he was just a toddler. I had a job keeping a look out on where he was - Mum used to dress him in bright colours so you could spot him a mile off wherever he was on the farm, but I’d walk deliberately past him, scratching my head and saying loudly
where can he be
?’

I laugh, imagining Lawrence as a six-year old, a seven-year old, playing the grown-up with his little brother.

‘He had a laugh …’ he smiles back at me, ‘that reminded me of … of chocolate coins at Christmas.’

‘Chocolate coins?’ I look at him, amused.

‘I used to think that. It was special and bright, full of something sweet and good … can you imagine that?’

‘It sounds like a beautiful laugh.’

‘It was.’

I lean in a little closer. ‘Tell me more about him.’

‘Man, he was trouble, Rose. He was always getting into places he shouldn’t have. One day my attention must have wandered, I got distracted by something and he disappeared. He’d have been about five years old. It had snowed - like this - and he wanted to go out and play. Mum said no, so he went to his bedroom window and he jumped.’

‘
Serious
?’ I pull a disbelieving face.

‘She went mental, looking for him. Called the police over and everything.’ His voice suddenly gets slower, changes. ‘Not something she’d do lightly. My father wasn’t too fond of …’ Lawrence’s eyes glaze over a little at the memory. ‘She was sure someone must have come in and taken him but he’d fallen head-first into a snow-drift. I was the one who found him.
’

‘Conscious?’

He shakes his head slightly.

‘Not breathing.’ When I pulled him out by his boots he was as limp as a rag doll. I watched one of the coppers do CPR on him for over fifteen minutes. He kept going, long after everyone else had given up hope. I’ve never forgotten that ...’ his voice catches a bit, ‘how that guy brought him back from the dead. A miracle. It was what first got me interested in all this…

‘That’s … amazing. So if it weren’t for your little brother jumping out of the window maybe you wouldn’t be here right now?’

He smiles slightly.
‘True.’

‘How about now? You don’t see him?’ The smile fades a little.

‘I left home when he was just twelve, Rose. By then he was already becoming someone else. He liked to take my gear; my watch, my bike. If it was mine, he wanted it …’

‘Little brother rivalry?’

‘Maybe.’ He’s digging his thumbs into the sides of his temples now, as if his head is sore. ‘Maybe he just had the makings of a thief,’ he mutters. ‘I’d hoped to take him with me when I left, Rose. I’d hoped …’ his voice falters, cuts out.

‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m sorry, Rose. I’m just a little tired.’

Maybe he has overdone it? He was doing all that digging before, I don’t think he slept well.  Or maybe - it’s time to change the subject? I lift myself up and shuffle over to sit a bit nearer to him.

‘So; how about if I could grant
your
Christmas wish, Lawrence. What would it be?’

‘I’d like a little peace,’ he comes back immediately, sinks his head into his hands for a moment.

‘I’ve wanted peace for a long time,’ his muffled voice comes through his spread fingers. His voice sounds unbelievably weary all of a sudden.

‘Christmas is a good time to find peace,’ I say gently.

‘Is it, Rose?’

‘It says it on all the Christmas cards, doesn’t it?
Peace and Goodwill to all men?’
I rush on, wanting to make things okay again. ‘Up here is a good place to find peace.’ No telly and no computers and no music and no internet and no news of any kind, our mobiles switched off to save the batteries. Up here we only have us. I lean forward, and then, after just a moment’s hesitation, begin rubbing at the back of his neck with my fingers, gently, slowly, easing away the tension as if we had known each other for months or even years, rather than just hours. It doesn’t feel strange to do it, and if he thinks it’s over-familiar, he doesn’t object.

Is this what it might be like to have a boyfriend, it occurs to me? I like the feel of the muscles of his shoulders and neck beneath my fingers. I like the way the little short hairs on the back of his neck feel so soft. I like the warmth of his skin. After a while, still slightly marvelling at my own bravery, I realise reluctantly that my legs have gone numb from sitting in the same position and I have to get up, picking up the mug as I go. He lies down now, pulling the fire-warmed sacking right over him and I wish… I wish I could lie down and curl up beside him.

‘I’m expecting a call. If I sleep, will you wake me up in a couple of hours?’

‘I’ll wake you up,’ I promise. There’s a little bit of tea left in the bottom of the mug, l notice. I swirl the liquid by rocking it between my hands gently. It’s a thin metal mug painted white on the outside, blue on the inside and at the bottom there are the dregs of the leaves from the tea he just drank.  Mum would have looked at them, seen the pictures they formed in her mind, and teased out the meaning … Maybe if I looked into the tea leaves I could learn something of the truth about you, Lawrence?

Why did you ask about getting your fortune told just now? Why did you get so upset when we started talking about your brother? You left home so young and you seem so driven… I want to know more about you.  I’m itching to look at those tea leaves and yet something is telling me no; this isn’t the way to find out what you want to know about him, Rose. It isn’t
your
way. I hesitate.

I don’t look.

Instead, I dunk the cup straight into the melted-snow bucket to wash up.

Strange girl. Strange little girl, get out of my mind. Why did you even come up here? You shouldn’t be here. I should be up here by myself like I planned. This place is my hideout. I needed to be here alone so I could think, so I could focus. What I’ve got to do next, it’s not going to be easy. It’s going to take all my courage and all my attention. I’m only going to have a small window of opportunity to get this right and I need to be ready. I need to be strong.

I don’t need to be hindered and you, Rose, you hinder me. I pull up my rolled-up t-shirt that’s serving as a pillow tucked under my neck, I’m trying to make myself more comfortable but it is not comfortable no matter which way I turn. I’ve got my back to her. She’s rinsing out some clothes - maybe those sodden jeans from yesterday? I can hear her, dunking them in and out of the washing up bucket, then the sound of the water splashing as she wrings them out. As she works, she is singing faintly under her breath. Her voice is sweet. It’s some sort of child’s bed-time ballad, I think. A lullaby.

I am not used to companionship. My fingers go up to close around my shoulders, the place where she was massaging me before. There is not usually someone there to say;
you need to go back inside, you’ll catch your death.
There is not usually someone there to trouble about how I take my tea. No one to rub my sore neck. Her little fingers on my aching neck muscles were surprisingly effective, gentle, not painful but warm and supple, just right.

But
also, I know, all wrong.

All wrong
, Rose. She knows it, as well as I do. She wonders what I’m really doing here, I can see it in her eyes. I’ve shown her the pictures of Sunny and she’s gone along with that and yet she’s too intelligent not to be asking herself all the other questions.
Why is he here? Why not stay over with that sponsor he speaks of, whoever they are? 
It’s a logical question. We haven’t come to it yet but I know that we will. Then she has that secret of her own that she’s nurturing close to her heart, doesn’t she? I still don’t know …

But I don’t want to know! Don’t tell me, for God’s sake, Rose. Don’t tell me anymore about yourself. Don’t pull me in. I can’t be involved with you. I can’t accept any more of your kindness, either, it’s way too painful for me, can’t you see that? Your kindness is like … it’s like the cutting edge of a fisherman’s knife opening up a sea clam. Your kindness will make me weak. I can’t accept it, I don’t want it. I have to remain strong.

I’ve got to rest now, Rose. I’ve got to stop struggling with it all and let it go because I am so dog-tired and now at last …
at last,
the hardness that is the flagstone floor beneath me is melting into my bones.  Joaquin is here. He’s telling me that I’m late, he seems to be angry that I didn’t turn up. My mouth is so dry. Did no one tell him I was coming away to England? Joaquin fades. I want to find Dougie. I’m walking down the muddy main road at West Camp, it’s early morning and the sun is beaming through the mist and I’m trying to find the place where Dougie is and I can’t find him. In my heart, I already know I’m not going to find him, that he’s nowhere to be found. I’m frustrated, thwarted. Then I remember I’m supposed to make a phone call to him, that’s the way to get to him, but I can’t recall the number.

A loud spit from the fire half-awakens me now. I turn, look up and the white plaster patch where the repairs were once so badly done on the chapel ceiling, beams down at me. I have sunk so far into the stupor of sleep I barely know the time, the date. I know where I am, though. I have lain beneath this chapel roof so many times before. The fierce, one-directional heat from the fire, the familiar scent of pine cones burning, the cool damp smell of the centuries-old chapel walls mean I could only be in one place; my sanctuary. And if I am here - my thoughts swim through the sea of fog in my brain - that means that I am hiding out again.

I don’t know what happened this time. I don’t remember. But I am here, playing cat and mouse once more, vying for survival. When my father blows a fuse, it is the only way to come out of it intact. I have had black eyes from him in the past; a little finger bent back so far I’ll never properly bend it again, broken ribs. Now I don’t wait around. I run. I come up here and I stay out of sight because Rob Macrae is like a weather vane. Wait long enough, and the storm blows over. He forgets he was ever raging. He goes back to being simply unpleasant. After a while, it’s as if
he
goes into hiding. Then I can come out. I can creep back down to my bedroom at Macrae Farm, where I’ll listen out for a bit, hyper alert to any tiny signs or sounds of disturbance. If there are none, I will hear them talking, my
m
um and my
d
ad, like nothing, like nothing’s ever happened. They paper it all over, do the content couple bit. She’s relieved and she likes to forget. For a while, things might be calm because that’s how it always goes but you know the calm won’t last. It’ll never last. And I can never forget.

I pull up my legs beneath the sacking, trying to calm myself, trying to quieten the rate of my own breathing.
It’s gone, it’s all gone Lawrence
, I tell myself but the memories are so powerful, they live on still inside of me. I can’t forget. I hate my father with every breath, with every bone in my body, with every waking thought. I hate his great red ex-boxer’s fists and his snarling teeth and his big barrelled chest that’s so filled up to the brim with blackness and temper and his need to destroy anything or anyone who ever gets in his way. 

I groan out loud and the singing I have been hearing on the edge of my mind stops in an instant. There is a taut silence, but the silence is in the chapel and I am not there, I am somewhere far away, remembering all the things that hurt me. I can’t get them out of my mind. How he used to pummel my mother into the ground. She was so weak. She was nothing, a wisp, a feather in the wind, but one small word from her was enough to send him into a frenzy.

I used to lie awake in my bed at night and dream of how I would stop him. I used to think; if I can only find some way to stop him, our misery will all be over. I used to lie there tying myself into knots at my own inaction, hating myself for hearing her cry and doing nothing but hating equally the thought of what I’d have to do to bring her misery to an end. And then … in the end, hating her too because she didn’t have the strength to leave him.

She
wouldn’t
leave him.

I turn around now on the canvas sacking, my shoulders aching, the skin on my face exposed to the full warmth from the fire and the girl has started singing again, hesitantly, quietly, almost beneath her breath but I strain to listen to her. Such a sweet voice. She sings it first in some ancient tongue - Celtic, Gaelic, I don’t know. Then in English. It tells the story of some warrior who’s been fighting in the wars far away and when he gets back he’s scared it’s all going to be gone, everything he left behind but it’s not; his sweetheart is still waiting for him.

Do things ever really work out like that in the real world, Rose? My eyes flicker open for a few seconds and the sight of her makes me happy. She tucked me in just now. I shouldn’t care, but I do. She opens up a ray of sunshine in my heart, makes me believe, just for a fraction of a moment, that things could ever be different.

I believed that once before, though, didn’t I? There was a time we were all going to have a fresh start, away from him. All we had to do was bide our time and be patient.  All Mum had to do was save up for a bit, help  me get the money together so we could take ourselves and Pilgrim to some other place that was far enough away from here. I thought she’d do it, help save us. I thought she’d have the courage.

In the end, she didn’t though.

I close my eyes and Rose … Rose fades as I dip back into a deep, forgetful sleep. Right now I know that is the only place where I will find any peace.