Cala Read online

  You left me alone with him that first day.

  I had to go out. I locked the door. Better that you knew the threat, or better that you took your shower in peace?

  Euna considered the question.

  Anyway, you had the mattock, Muireall said. I’ve chopped off a wandering finger or two.

  One thing had just become clear to Euna. Muireall worked, day after day, to be as poised as she was, to build a loving and lived-in camper realm, and to fill it with food and kin. It was not some act of magic. It had taken sweat and forfeit, and now blood. Euna wanted to ease Muireall’s burden, even as she wanted everything to go back to how it had been, before this man had stolen their home.

  Aileen had our baby, Euna said. He’s not looking too hot yet, but I think he’ll fill out nicely.

  Muireall inhaled. She seemed to be straining to contain a whole mess of sentiments, or sounds, or tensions. Surely a person could not hold all that inside without becoming a cloud eventually, dimming, dumping down a skyful of rain. She took Euna’s hands into hers, which were cold and quivering. I’m so happy to hear that, lamb, she said, word by pinched word. How’s Aileen doing?

  She’s tired, Euna said. Like, tired as hell. But you know her. She’s been insisting on the best pillows and painkillers.

  Muireall clutched Euna’s hands more forcefully now, crushing their finest bones. Where are we going to take them? she asked. She sounded desperate.

  Anyone else would abandon us now, Muireall. You said it yourself, people split all the time. You don’t have to make this your problem.

  I never told you this, Muireall said, because I wanted you to like me. But I lost a child years ago at this same hospital.

  Why would that have made me dislike her? Euna wondered. But then, Euna had withheld her own story for the same reason. She approached Muireall, very slowly, as she used to approach the most skittish horses. I can’t imagine how much you’ve suffered, Euna said.

  Muireall was crying now. I was eighteen and out on a long tour, she said. I never slept. Drank too much. The boy would have been your age by now.

  I see why you didn’t want to come in with us, Euna said.

  You girls deserve a good life, Muireall said. As does the child.

  Euna stood with the cold wind mincing her skin. The way ahead looked sick and dark. I have no idea how to make that happen, she said.

  Nothing in my life is free, Euna’s mother used to say. That must have been it. Maybe she had reasons to get rubbered. She used to throw things at Euna’s father, New Testaments, collection plates. Maybe he had reasons to moor their lives with scripture. Euna was a mother now, a kind of mother, anyway, and though she could not redo her own childhood, she could do everything in and out of her control to make the newborn’s right the first time around.

  She held Muireall close, while the woman cried from some ancient place inside. Euna plumbed her own body to that same depth, to find the place from which courage would certainly come. And between her ribs she did find the muck, the heartbreak. Let that be the origin, she thought. Let that be the aolach, the rain the rain, and let a new, young world sprout from so much shit and hardship. In the middle distance, Euna saw a nurse wheel Aileen to the hospital exit, a snugly wrapped infant in her lap. The parcel was hardly larger than her two hands. She looked flyblown, her skin blotched and her hair dirtied, but her air was rather serene.

  Euna waved. The nurse rolled Aileen over to them and helped her to stand before heading back into the hospital. Isn’t he a bit small to be sent out already? Euna asked, once the nurse had gone. Surely he’d do well with a few more days in the incubator.

  Aileen said, There’s no space for us. If he were sicker, they’d make room for him.

  So they’re sending him out before he’s fully cooked? Muireall asked.

  Aileen laughed. Then she noticed the tears on Muireall’s face. Awright? she asked.

  Awright, Muireall said.

  Euna put her arm around Muireall’s shoulders and gestured to Aileen with a wink of the neck. Euna started to walk north, in the direction of the River Clyde, and the other women followed her.

  Hey, Aileen said a few minutes later, why’d you park the camper so far? You have no idea how much my tits weigh.

  Here’s the thing, Muireall said.

  Euna said, We’ve had a bit of misfortune.

  Aileen rolled her eyes. You’ve got to be feckin’ kidding.

  Their squad pushed ahead through a miserable airstream. Euna dreamed they were back in the Hebrides, where such foul weather could be mythicized, spun into song and story. Head in the mist, she whistled a tune that came to her, an abstract one full of sharps and flats. She knew their route was both far and uncertain. She knew, likewise, they could survive an epic trek. They were too odd and obstinate to give in to despair. And besides, when Aileen grew tired, Euna would take the baby into her own arms.

  Part 2

  I

  The day Aram was released from Dungavel, after nearly five years without counsel or trial, he walked ten kilometres to get a milkshake. For weeks he had been thinking only of that thick dairy, the suck it took to earn the drink. He supposed it was a kind of perverse reach back to childhood, a substitute for a mother’s comfort. His own mother was in Sketimini, wherever that was – she had once pointed to it on a map, vaguely, and brushed him off when he’d asked her to point again – if she was still living at all. He had not heard. Anyway, she had never fed him from her breast. When he was very young, she had diluted the milk of their Highland goats with saltwater, while his father was at sea, shackled in the hold of some trawler.

  Aram had not had many visitors to the castle. Only Euna, chaste and handsome Euna, and two or three of his other womenfolk. Though she had only visited once, a disastrous scene, Euna had never drifted far from his thoughts. He hallowed her. He wanted her. Even after she sent him that shocking postcard, a sketch of his own son with the note: Lachlan Iain Macbay. Born the first of October. Mother and mother and baby healthy.

  In the first restaurant he found by the road, dingy but generously dotted with booths and tables, he chose a cramped stool at the counter. The stool was directly beside that of the only other patron, an older woman with a cherubic face, wiry, retreating hair, a lower half spilling well over the stool’s rim. On the sandwich board was a single flavour of milkshake, malted. A repulsive vinegar, the only condiment to be offered in the detention centre. But his craving was such that want trumped reason, and he ordered the shake. The woman slapped a few pounds onto the counter before he could pull out his slim money clip. Looks like you could use it, she said, with a smoker’s chuckle.

  What a gift from a princess like you, Aram said.

  The woman propped herself on an elbow and leaned in so that when she spoke, she grazed his stubble. Having double- and triple-bunked in the castle, he was most comfortable this close to others. Pressed like domestic creatures. No room for the holy ghost. You in a rough spot, sailor? the woman asked.

  You could say that, he said, with a little grin. He knew he was a bit unkempt, not having showered or shaved in weeks, but he was sure his allure ran deeper than hair grease and grey sideburns.

  I’m Fenella, she said. We’ve never met, which means you’re not from around here. And I like that. You haven’t seen my laundry on the line.

  I like a bit of dirt every now and then, he said.

  She flushed red. Though the years of being held without trial had been dismal, soul-dimming, they now offered him one advantage. He was not on parole. He was free without condition, and he could roam from home to home. He would call his womenfolk soon, at least those whose numbers he could remember, but in the meantime, it would do no harm to milk a few pounds from a kind stranger.

  A television in the corner was showing a broadcast split into quarters, each with a splinter of the news. It seemed a new world had been forged in the five years he’d spent inside. The United Kingdom had been tabled and redrawn. His first thought was of Gainntir, of
Muireall’s face the time he came to see Euna and she instead opened the door. The face had been stiff. So full of fear the actual skin had hardened, as in a mask.

  His shake came, and he drank it down without pause. When he was finished, Fenella asked, Shall we go back to my shack?

  He hoped she was ribbing him. But he had learned in this charming part of the country never to assume. By all means, he said.

  I’ll get my mare, she said, as she went out the door. Again, he could not read her deadpan.

  But indeed, as he gathered his trousers around him, which had become loose and unsuitable during his time at the castle, he heard the whinnying of a horse. Before heading out, he palmed some sachets of syrup and a set of cutlery. He was obeying his father’s adage: only a fool goes off on a stranger’s horse without some syrup in his pocket. Or some slight variation. The sachets and utensils went into a rucksack he had been awarded on his way out of Dungavel, though, with its blue tint, red stripe, and star, it clearly belonged to one of the men from the DRC. The guards had not seemed bothered.

  Out front Aram was gratified to see, in newly pouring rain, his new friend Fenella. She sat on the grey mare with her head dramatically thrown back, looking as if she were going to erupt into an aria. With his waistband in one hand, he climbed onto the horse behind her. She smacked the horse’s flank and together they cantered down the road.

  *

  She had not been joking about the shack. Fenella lived in one room, without plumbing, and with only an occasional lurch of electricity from a small windmill. Her place was no larger than the Salmon Company hut had been, and it was certainly far more crammed. Inside were at least five hundred books, stacked to the ceiling in pilasters. The shack, not far from the shoulder of the road, was bounded by rows of wych elms. A single wildfire would have razed her whole realm.

  So, she said. I like a man to cook for me and then read one of these books out loud in one sitting. I like when a voice gets hoarse from too much reading. So you must keep going, no matter what. I’ll pay you.

  And sex?

  Not really my thing, she said.

  He had never cooked, and though he would never admit it to any of his womenfolk, he could only read at a rudimentary level. In the castle he had learned by reading the Bible, both in the worship group he had joined and on his own. That book had kept him sensible. If only he had discovered it before Euna came, maybe he could have shown her a forgivable version of himself.

  There was a scratching at the shack door, a small set of claws raking up and down the wood. I have a pet, she said. Are you allergic?

  He shook his head. He had never met anyone with a pet. Farm animals, of course, but never an impractical thing, kept as a companion. Fenella opened the door and in came a little mutt, no higher than Aram’s knee. The dog had a bird in his mouth that looked to be a crow, and he whiffed of the wet. Aram kept his distance from the dirty creature. He had grown too thin to get sick.

  What’s your name, then? she asked.

  Aram.

  I like to change his all the time, she said, to keep him on his paws. Do you mind if I call him Aram for a while?

  Aram had lost sight of the world for half a decade, sure, but this particular favour did not seem polite. Anyway, it didn’t matter whether it was polite, because he did not like it. He simply said no.

  She happily accepted his no. And the rest of what I said? she asked.

  He had ten pounds in his pocket and a mental Rolodex, but nothing more. He wanted the woman’s money. Yes, princess, I’ll read to you. But you’ll have to pay me a hundred pounds a day.

  Seriously? Get over yourself, Aram.

  I’m a man with needs.

  She thought about it for a while, absently petting the mutt’s head as she did. I’ll name him New Covenant, she said. You’ll take fifty pounds a day, no more, and I’ll teach you how to improve your reading.

  How’d you get so rich? he thought to ask. And then, How’d you know I have trouble reading?

  Inventor, she said. And you are a completely transparent man. You may as well have glass for skin.

  And so it was that Aram found himself, a few hours later, peppering a pot of baked beans while Fenella reclined on a deeply grooved armchair, book in lap, waiting for him to finish. The woman had little in her fridge and pantry, and all he could find to supplement the beans was some tinned salmon. Now the sight of that pink tint disgusted him, having been linked to it for so many working years. But he wanted to do right by Fenella, who, for all her peculiarities, seemed genuinely to care for him. Baked beans alone made for a sad supper. They’d been given better meals in the castle.

  So he prepared the dish as beautifully as he could, in her choice rice bowl. It was hand-painted with the likeness of her dog, in the manner of a royal portrait, the mutt even wearing a bustier. Aram’s mother had taught him to paint when he was young, and together they had mixed the dyes using iris root, sundew, peat soot, all collected on strolls through the Highlands, mother and son, preparing to make potions. His favourite part had been peeing in a jar, or collecting the goats’ pee in one, so they could use the urine as a fixative.

  After they had been displaced by his father’s death from Scotland, and created a life for themselves on the sea – his mother insisted no country would welcome her, and she refused for obscure reasons to return to Sketimini – she had become creative with her tints. Ultimately she’d settled on red algae, maerl, salmon skin. But being forced from the Highlands, after the sacrifices she had made to get there as a young woman, truly washed her out. Her paintings were bad from then on, made as they were by insecure hands.

  He brought the dish to Fenella, who slurped her tongue across her lips to show her appreciation. Where’s yours? she asked.

  Oh, he said, I didn’t know that was part of the deal. I just wanted to make sure you were fed.

  She rolled her eyes. You fancy yourself some kind of hero, don’t you, she said. Real rough-and-rugged Caledonian. It’s romantic, and it’s nonsense.

  Awright, awright, he said, laughing. I’ll have a damn bowl of beans.

  They ate together in amicable silence, while the dog licked the salmon tin clean. The beans were rubbish, but at least they were warm. You’re a pretty bad cook, she said, when they were done eating. I should probably have checked before I hired you.

  If you think I’m a bad cook, wait ’til you hear me read.

  Her laugh turned into a cough. We’ll start out easy, she said, and threw a thick work into his lap. The Hammer of Witches which destroyeth Witches and their heresy as with a two-edged sword.

  Are you serious?

  I told you I would help. And I will. I love to teach old dogs new tricks.

  He opened the book, and already in the first sentence he found two words he could not understand. They seemed old and mouldy, and besides, he did not know any that were not in the Bible. Fenella patted the arm of her chair and he sat there, close to her, while she spoke the words he did not know and waited for him to repeat them several times, until he was comfortable recognizing them. For many hours and pages they followed this routine, until his voice was, as she had desired, hoarse. She did not forbid him to drink water, but he knew how to decipher the wants of womenfolk, so he kept his throat dry.

  Very late at night, after hours of this exercise, she said, That’s plenty.

  She went to feed and groom her horse while he brushed his teeth with a finger dipped in baking soda, using water from a bucket by the sink. There were separate cots in the shack, each with pillows and a duvet, and he curled into the smaller of them. He had never felt a more comfortable embrace. He listened to Fenella rustling around outside while he drifted toward sleep. He was happy here, in an odd way, and he knew he could hold on to that happiness for a while. But even with his every need met, some part of him remained phantom. Mother and mother and baby healthy. He hid the postcard under his pillow, hoping, as he slept, it would bring dreams of his son.

  *

 
The weeks passed quickly as Aram and Fenella followed this same routine, riding around on her horse during the day, coming home so he could cook and read to her at night, all the while building his nest egg. The books she chose were many and varied: novels of Mishima, Müller, Mahfouz, memoirs of architects, office-bearers, old-world warriors, transcripts of important political meetings, translated screenplays, classical sheet music. Her tastes reflected a woman separate from the world but in love with its every nook and fork, and anything she had, he read. He felt he was receiving some kind of private tutorship, and though Fenella had the diction of a piece of fried cod, she was smart and thoughtful.

  Aram found that when he flirted with her, in a way that worked on most women, even chaste and handsome Euna, he was chastised. Playfully, but still. Despite their first encounter, she did not seem interested in his magnetism or his advances. And so he had to find a way to relate to her that did not involve sex or any of its attendant tensions, and in so doing, he felt himself struggling, asking questions of himself that he had never asked.

  One evening, as he was closing their novel for the night, he made the mistake of using the sketch of Lachlan Iain as his bookmark.

  Who’s that? Fenella asked.

  Just a dumb drawing I did, Aram said.

  No, she said. That’s a real person.

  How did she perceive so much? It was eerie, though mostly annoying. He dog-eared the page they were on and tucked the postcard into his breast pocket, where it belonged. He tried to put the book back into its pilaster, but by driving the spine too hard he caused the whole carefully erected tower to fall.

  I’m going to sleep, he said.

  Good luck with that, Fenella said.

  The cot that had so comfortably embraced him before was oppressive that night, the pillows too full of down, the duvet stale and fusty. He did not dream of Lachlan Iain, as he sometimes did, but of his father. The conditions at sea had been dire, he knew, because his father would return from each fishing mission with gashes and infections, which his mother would clean as best she could with witch hazel and shredded potatoes. The trawler hold was said to be so fetid that fishermen, locked down there as punishment, would often suffocate.