Cala Read online

  Ìosa Crìost. Was I really just sleeping on the floor of the library? This baby’s an energy leech.

  Euna stroked Aileen’s temples again, this time beaming. It had not occurred to her before Muireall said it, since Euna had always been the one to split, but it was true that Aileen had made no promises, nor had she ever seemed smitten in the same way Euna was. Euna had to accept that, as Samhain gives way to Nollaig, then Eanáir, people follow their own seasons, and between them the climate can change. Let’s get you the tidiest coffee in Glasgow, she said.

  Aileen seemed eager to do that, tramping to her feet and leading the way outside. Euna had not had a chance to read the final book with the inscrutable name, the one she had initially been so drawn to. So, with her heart hammering and her conscience a two-edged sword, she hid it in the folds of her tunic, then followed Aileen into the dowdy day. Though she had stolen the book, the dust around her did not turn suddenly to lice, nor did frogs begin to fall from the sky or boils to cover the intimate parts of her body. She puffed out her relief and took Aileen’s hand. To steal and not be caught or punished, it turned out, was pretty fun.

  So they went on their way to the cafe, as if they were two normal women, not rank ones from a cocked-up little village, troubled ones with DAMAGED GOODS signs around their necks. Not saints or whores. Not sorceresses or scum-witches. Just two ordinary, coffee-drinking women on an ordinary, coffee-drinking date. As they moved down the street, Euna smiled and smiled at all the people who hardly seemed to notice them. It was wonderful to walk and not be looked at.

  In the pale white cafe were a handful of people wearing headphones, absorbed in the still life of their notebooks. Euna was struck by the handsome plants in every corner, a fiddle fig, a maidenhair fern, well and bright as anything in the Cala greenhouse. And then, she was struck again: from sleek speakers around the cafe came a song she had heard first in the Moog circle, ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’. Until now it had been immobile in time, held in that stone room full of women and synthesizers. She had only heard Lili singing the words in her motley, overly emotive way – and now, to have a woman singing them beautifully, her voice both sensitive and assertive, Euna was entranced. She led Aileen as far as the cash register but then stood there mute, held hostage by the single. Aileen seemed to have no such problem. Biggest mug you’ve got, she said. Full of hot and sweet.

  Euna pointed at the chalkboard behind the barista to order a coffee and cranachan. She had spent the past weeks studying the way Muireall and Aileen spoke, trying in turn to mimic their lilts and diction. But she was not ready to test herself in public yet, especially not while surrounded by this exquisite song.

  Drinks in hand, they tucked themselves into a booth across from a pair of strangers who were clearly besotted with one another. Euna felt a need to outperform them. Especially after what Muireall had said, about the whipped cream and the splitting. So she played with Aileen’s tangled red hair, lifted the mug to her lips and tipped the coffee down her throat. Aileen coughed. What the hell! she cried.

  Euna felt terrible for spilling such a hot mess on Aileen’s chin and tartan. But she ignored her instinct to say sorry, and as soon as she did, the whole thing took on a fresh absurdity. She laughed. A big, bubbling, dumpling-in-a-pot laugh. Whoops, she said. That was really weird of me.

  Aileen looked pissed off, briefly, before her expression eased and she started to laugh, too. For the first time with real intention, she leaned in and kissed Euna. The electric cage around Euna began to light up again. The pleasure was so fast and frantic she was afraid to lose herself in it. She pulled back. The voice she had lost by the chalkboard now came out without strain. I love you, it said to Aileen.

  You’re a fecking nut, Aileen said.

  The song changed. This next track sounded more like Deliverance, though it was likely a different artist. Euna drank her coffee, and under the bitterness was a sweet trace, of blackberry, or syrup from a silk tree. Aileen kissed her again, this time with less passion and more care. Euna was wary of that warmth, having just had her feelings scorned.

  Aileen looked at Euna. Her expression was blunt. My life was rubbish before I met you, she said.

  And now?

  I mean, honestly, she said, it’s still not great. I’m as big as Castlemilk and I’m carrying a random man’s baby. Sometimes when I’m hanging out with you I forget that.

  Euna felt as if she had just eaten henbane, the way her arms roasted and reddened, her body clammed and clotted. She could not stop showing Aileen her missing molar.

  I’m not such a sap about it, she said. But you took me in at my worst and didn’t want anything in return. Do you know how uncommon that makes you?

  I don’t see why that would be uncommon, Euna said. You needed help.

  You haven’t met enough people yet, I guess.

  Euna drank the rest of her sweetbitter coffee with one neat little finger pointing all the way to the sky. She could not look Aileen in the eyes. And if you haven’t noticed, Aileen said, pinching Euna’s little finger, you’re quite pretty.

  She had, of course, never noticed that. Grace was the attractive one, and she had made sure everyone knew that undeniable fact. Euna tried to peek at herself in an upside-down teaspoon, but the reflection was distorted. Instead she pulled the stolen hardcover from her tunic and turned it over, to see herself in its shiny laminate.

  See what I mean? Aileen asked. She traced the reflected features, which did look quite pleasant now, at least as long as Aileen was touching them.

  Aileen picked up Le miroir des âmes simples from the table. She started to flip through the book, and as she did Euna tried to read it over her shoulder. Euna struggled with the obscure words, some of which she had never seen in her life, maybe because they were old and out of fashion. Aileen pointed to a passage partway through the book. Hey, wee tutor, what does that say?

  The first part was easy enough to read – I am God, says Love, for Love is God and God is Love – but Euna had to wrestle with the rest of the passage. Thus this precious beloved of mine is taught and guided by me, without herself, for she is transformed into me, and such a perfect one, says Love, takes my nourishment.

  Euna turned to Aileen. The couple across the table paled in her periphery. The two women were alone in the white room. Euna played with Aileen’s hair not because anyone was watching, but because she wanted to. Bliss was not possible outside of the red tangle, the two inches Aileen’s head tilted when touched. To stroke that surface, alive with kinks and knots, was to rocket very close to heaven.

  Mid-touch, Aileen spotted a stain on her blouse. Oh, fur fuck’s sake, you’ve spilled coffee aw ower me.

  Well then. This particular heaven had fences. This particular heaven had sea-lice. This particular heaven had curfews, rules regarding speech and touch, prison guards to keep folks under control – and yes, blouse stains and romance slanted to the left, so that love tended to roll in one direction.

  Aileen went to the bathroom to wash herself off. As she was walking away, Euna had a double sense, grief on the one side and relief on the other. While Aileen was gone, Muireall, as promised, came to find them. She had something in her hand, a large, hard case curved like a waterbody.

  I got you something, she said.

  There was that Christmas morning feeling again. Euna started running around inside of herself. She took the case and cracked it open, and in it was something she had fantasized about, though she had been too afraid to give voice to that vision – a guitar, a gorgeous, polished bass guitar. Ink black, with humbucking pickups and a lean neck. She touched the object and was shocked.

  Euna wanted to show her gratitude but did not know how. She had never seen anyone perform that act. Then Aileen came back from the bathroom with her shirt doused in water and partway see-through, and started to jaw at Muireall for taking so long. She did not seem to notice the guitar, warm, no, aflame, in Euna’s hands. She did not seem to notice that in the time it had taken her to scrub one
shirt clean, Euna had grown a new set of veins, made only for rafting pure, red light.

  Let’s get out of here, Muireall said. I left the motor running. We don’t want some numpty making off with the camper. The three women left together, Muireall winking at Euna as thanks for the cranachan.

  Back in the camper, Euna started to finger the fretboard. She did not know, at all, what she was doing. And though these first notes were ugly, what they aroused in her was not. She spent the rest of the day doing this, playing without an amp, making small and half-formed sounds, while her friends rested and stewed mutton and scoured their summer shoes until they shone.

  It was in this afternoon of half-formed sounds, of humdrum chores, that Euna found her âmes simples. She could do her lyric work while a few paces away someone puttered, someone ran the tap – not speaking, of course, just making those soft hums of I’m here. This sense was different from làn but no less vital. She decided this was beathachadh, benefice, nutrition, living. Here, after all, was her heaven without fences.

  V

  Two months passed with their requisite ups and downs. The ratio of làn to beathachadh to assorted bad-sad feelings was comfortable enough. Làn was exceedingly rare, but when it did happen, its effects flowed deep and far. The rest was fundamental in building her being-house. Foundation, grouting.

  When, two months after she got her guitar, Euna woke in the middle of the night completely soaked, she could not have known she was headed toward the highest moment of làn her life had, to that point, offered. Aileen’s péire was in her lap, and, pulling back and flipping on the overhead lamp, she saw that Aileen’s striped nightshirt was wet. Euna poked her awake. Mè bheag, she said, I think it’s happening.

  Aileen reached a hand back to feel her nightshirt. Well, shite, she said. I need to get to a hospital.

  Euna helped Aileen to sit upright, no simple task, given how swollen and top-heavy she had become. Muireall straightened up from her cot, where she had been sleeping before Euna turned on the overhead lamp, and came to sit between the two women. She clapped her hand onto Aileen’s far shoulder. Hey, kiddo, she said. This is why some civilized folks go for check-ups when they’re pregnant. To avoid nasty surprises.

  Shut up, you stupid bawbag, Aileen snapped. Euna felt a bit of a chill. For a minister’s daughter, the girl sure had a filthy mouth.

  Muireall stroked Aileen’s cheeks. They were at this point in the pregnancy dappled with acne, and Muireall was careful as she touched each pink mark. She said, You know what, I was asking for that. Euna, make sure she’s comfortable. I’ll get us to the hospital.

  She went to the driver’s seat and buckled herself in tightly. The radio was still broken, so Muireall started to sing her favourite driving tune, ‘Flower of Scotland’. She had taught it to Euna, who joined in, though this earned her a bladed glare from Aileen. Muireall pulled out of the greengrocer’s car park, where they had established for themselves a pleasant little setting – a lawn of primroses poking through the concrete, a few blue tits as pets – and burned down a series of roads en route to the university hospital. She parked illegally across two doctors’ spots and, with a twinkle over her shoulder, said, Off with you. Aileen, do you have identification?

  Yes’m, she said. But aren’t you coming with us?

  Oh no. I don’t do well in these places.

  I need you, Aileen said. I’m scared.

  Muireall paused to consider the girl’s plea. Something was clearly drawing her away from the hospital, while Aileen’s call for help was binding her. Euna could not bear to see that tension. Muireall needed to know she could come and go as she pleased; that anyone should hold her against her will, even Aileen, was too much for Euna to tolerate. So, against her nature, Euna interfered. Don’t go too far, hey, she said. We’ll look for you here when we have a happy baby in tow.

  Okay, Muireall said. She sounded relieved. You know, one of these days I’m going to buy you a phone.

  As long as you pay for it, Euna said. Which was not actually much of a joke, considering Muireall paid for all they did, going to museums, eating chips and cod, with her furtive cash-stream.

  You know I will, you cheeky brat, Muireall said.

  Aileen was by then gritting her teeth, so Euna gripped her waist and helped her down the high camper stairs. She strapped her guitar onto her own back, sure she would have some downtime to practise while Aileen was birthing the child. She said a rushed blessing to Muireall and closed the door. Outside it was raining, romantic. Euna longed for string music. She helped Aileen into the hospital, a tall, four-winged erection, all colourful and modern. Where Cala had been full of cobwebs, literal and figurative, of stinky books and knickknacks and vintage tincture bottles, everything here was minimal and new, chosen partly for its clean aesthetic. Get me some fecking painkillers, Aileen barked.

  Euna took her by the crook of her arm to a reception desk and, drawing great attention to Aileen’s belly and damp nightshirt, had her transferred straight away to a bed in the maternity wing. Euna asked the nurse for painkillers, flat ginger ale, gossip magazines. She knew what she had witnessed in the passion and dissolution of Grace and Muireall’s relationship – from that she had tried to collage an image of loving: tea, touch, bounty, stories, then potions, silence, abstention. So she helped Aileen to fluff her pillows and braid her hair, and then, fearing she had made herself a wee bit too available, reclined in a chair on the far side of the room’s gossamer screen.

  On that far side was another woman set to enter into labour. She was nearing middle age, and she looked like some of the troubled residents of Castlemilk, anaemic, malnourished. The nurse came back to deal Aileen her magazines and soda, and to sedate her, as she had demanded they do. On his beeline to Aileen, he slighted the other woman. She did not cry out to him, nor did she press her call button after he had left. And so she stayed where she was in bed, sweating like a kettle about to shrill, invisible.

  She gave Euna a look she could not quite parse. She sensed this woman was being judicious with her silence. At times when Muireall was clutching the ruler back at Cala, Euna would latch her lips, locking the voice inside. She had not started off doing that. But after a while she had learned.

  The woman refused to break her look. It was awful to have those eyes on her, as if Euna were complicit in something monstrous that she could not possibly understand. Or worse, that she could understand if she risked burning down the life she had just started to build. There was something under the woman’s irises, imprecise and prickly, and it linked to the lack Euna had seen in Possilpark, and before that to the kids running around in Bucksburn, mucky and scraped, knees too large for their skinny, unfed legs, and for that matter, to the desperate mam at Dungavel.

  After a while of being watched, Euna went back to Aileen, who was young, and moneyed, and beautifully drugged. She was sleeping deeply on the white sheets, bleached as they had been to hide other patients’ stains. Euna curled up beside her and laced their fingers together, singing a lullaby into her creamy ear. When she was ready to join Aileen in dreamlain, she pulled the shared blanket over their bodies. There they were warm and far from harm. There they were insulated from the things they did not understand.

  *

  A full day later, on the first of October, Aileen gave birth to a tiny blue thing, a ghoulish boy. Euna counted back the months to when the girl had first climbed through the Cala window, showing her swell, and gathered that the child was premature by about two weeks. This seemed significant. This seemed like something Euna could have helped to prevent, had she nourished Aileen properly. But there was no room for shame now. The boy deserved a better welcome.

  Aileen was recovering in the maternity wing. Euna did not want to be there any longer, not as long as that distressing woman was sharing Aileen’s room and the baby, so small and so blue, was in an incubator nearby. She went outside. She sat on a bench in front of the hospital with her guitar on her back and waited for Muireall to return. It was sti
ll raining, and Euna only had on her tunic, her plain, cotton trousers, and a pair of slip-ons Muireall had bought her on a solo jaunt downtown. Euna was getting soaked, her collarbones cold, nearly iced. And yet there was a looseness in her not fussing, in her simply sitting there and letting the clouds clean house. She held her tongue flat and took in a mouthful of the water. She had been too tuned to Aileen’s needs to ask the nurse for a drink for herself, and besides, she had got quite good at standing thirst.

  By some miracle, Muireall did show up, some time later. Her face was noticeably bruised. She started at every sound, starling or car alarm, and her eyes darted from place to place. Aileen’s newborn baby had that same energy, raw-nerved, verging on panicky. What happened? Euna asked.

  Muireall said, Some caveman just robbed me at work.

  Rain filled in the frown lines of her face. Red lipstick was caked across her cupid’s bow. It was only in seeing this compromised version of her that Euna understood how much she had come to rely on Muireall’s starch and stability. She was an adult in a world of halted children. Euna put her hand on her friend’s shoulder and rubbed it gently. I know first aid, she said, if that would help.

  You don’t understand, Muireall said. He’s taken the camper.

  She was right that Euna did not understand. You told me it happened at work, she said.

  Muireall lifted her nose in order to look down it. I don’t know why you’re so thick, she said. But since you don’t seem to have it figured out yet, I work in the camper. I sleep with men for money.

  Euna had learned to sort intent, as a way to maintain faith, and Muireall’s intent had never been to hurt her. Right now, she was just scared, and so she was using the mouth of her worst self. Euna did not want to do the same, so she stayed quiet.

  Remember the drunk when we first got to Glasgow? Muireall asked. He’s a client. He’s the one who took the camper.