Cala Read online

  Sorry, guv, Aram said.

  He did not acknowledge that Aram had spoken.

  Now a man wearing a brimless, rounded cap entered the visits room. He was reunited with another man in the same cap and a linen body shirt with toning trousers. Though Aram had seemed handsome compared to the scraggy man in the blackhouse, compared to these men he was gaunt, unremarkable. The two men engaged in an intricate handshake, hovering just beyond the point of contact. As this happened, Euna watched Aram in her periphery. He seemed slowly to wilt, his brow bowed toward the linoleum.

  What’s wrong? she asked.

  His response came straight away, as if he had been holding the words for months, waiting for someone to give him the occasion to speak. I’m the only one from Sketimini, he said. There’s a block of Afghan guys, for instance. They speak Pashto to each other all day, and even though they get treated like trash – he paused to look at the guard, who did not react – they don’t give a meall cac because they’re here together.

  Her lust for him was resurrected when he used his foul Gaelic. Her body had been trained to respond to those sounds, as to the dong-dong of the Cala dinner bell, or the ding-ding of the Cala cowbell.

  You’re from Pullhair, too, she said. And Glenfinnan. Maybe there’s someone like you, if you think a bit more broadly?

  The guard moved his chair closer to hers so he could hear what she was saying. And just as the guard became more attentive to her, Aram’s face went stony again. His lust was lost behind that flint. Smothering her with that aolach breath, he said, Euna, you wouldn’t understand.

  This shocked her. She had walked a week to be with him, maybe hexing her whole existence. Worse, he was now a disappointed daddy, calling her by her Christian name. The room felt newly small, cell-like. Why are you pushing me away? she asked. Her mind had started to heat, as if her skull were full of coal, smouldering.

  As if mirroring the guard, Aram did not acknowledge that she had spoken.

  I came so far to see you, she said. I blistered my feet for you.

  And still he held his silence, stayed locked inside. It was only months later that Euna realized he had been protecting her, that the guard’s sudden interest was tied to her threat and to his authority to deal with threats.

  She tried to jolt Aram one last time. I starved myself for you, she said.

  Aram did not break. She could not be ignored by the one man who was supposed to make her feel seen. So she grabbed him by the chin, as she had seen Muireall do to his precious Aileen. You know what, Aram? she said, forcing him to look at her. You don’t know anything about me, or what I understand. Rach thusa.

  Now the guard leaned forward on his stool. She thought he was going to bracelet her, force her out of the facility, but instead he put his hand on her knee. Whatever heat was rising from her was hypnotic to him. He made his pleasure apparent, flashing his teeth, massaging his thighs with long, deep-tissue caresses. As soon as she saw this approval, a cold black came over the coals. His respect, his clear and sinister respect, raked out her inner fire. She let go of Aram. She was disturbed by whatever hag had just emerged from her hollows. This prison pulled something delirious and illogical from inside her. She needed to leave.

  I’m tired, she said. And I have a true friend who may still be waiting for me. For the record, I don’t regret seeing you.

  Aram did not appear to be shaken by what had just happened, and this distressed her more than her sudden break had. Her anger had moved over, not through, him, and so he had in his soundless way denied it. Whether he’d done this intentionally or instinctively, having been inured to anger after many months here, she did not know. He said, simply, Thank you for coming, my happiness. He did not ask when she would return, nor did he seem eager to stall until she could leave on a more loving note. For all she knew, he had another visitor on the way.

  Euna waved to him as the man down the sealoch had waved to her, plainly. Slàinte mhath, she said.

  She asked the guard to escort her out, and he did, through a metal detector and past some mastiffs with dense, muscular haunches, to the other side of the barbed-wire fence. She started back down the road, heart stark, as the wind worked into her nerves. This was not the first time in her life she had been bereaved, but nothing had ever carved her this wide open. The night air moved through her as through a cave.

  Occasional headlights cast shadows onto the road, which stretched in front of her, infinite and hostile. The landscape was fictive. The bell heather and hazel could well have been made by Lili’s hands, special effects of sgàilich. Euna had nothing, trusted nothing, was nothing. As the headlights of a juggernaut approached, she drifted into the vehicle’s path. It would have been so simple.

  The driver swerved and she found her way back to the road’s shoulder. Her walking was a task like any other, bleak, weak of spirit, and with this in mind, she forced her way through the kilometres of null. Head down and braids back, she parted the void. This was not death. This was the first breath after death. She kept moving, for the second time, away from Aram. On a crushed-rock shoulder she had long dreamed of walking together.

  *

  In a long hour, she was by the mire at Drumclog. To her relief, to her profound relief, she saw that the camper was parked in precisely the same place as it had been before. The curtains were drawn, the lights at their full brilliance. Euna could see Muireall clearly, back hooked over her crocheting. She had waited, despite Euna’s inability to do the same. She had not assented to eye-for-an-eye. Euna had to plant herself in the wet peat and breathe, so sudden and dense was her gratitude.

  Muireall missed a stitch and cursed. Then quite calmly she held her effort to the light, fixed the stitch, and kept on crocheting. Euna smiled. She walked to the camper, stopping to scrape her boots clean on the stairs. Inside, Muireall glanced up at her with the warmth of Christ and then looked back at her craft. I left baked beans for you on the stove, she said, and a tin of Irn-Bru in the fridge.

  She may as well have told Euna a pair of sheepskin slippers and a gilded copy of The Witches Speak were in the inglenook. She had so quickly secured a world that seemed to Euna today, for the first time, gimcrack.

  Euna filled a bowl with beans and a stein with the Irn-Bru. She settled herself onto the couch cushion beside Muireall’s and set her stein on the armrest. Unhooking her back, Muireall looked at Euna. Next time, just be honest with me, she said. It would save me some worrying. Why did you go alone?

  Euna took a moment to adjust, as a person’s eyes do when exposed to a new and brighter light. At Cala it had been a guessing game. Locking up and choking off and archiving for later. Or never. Or straining to read shifts in energy. Steeping. Creeping around the cause of whatever discord, refusing to look right at it, choosing instead to let the thing ingrow, like a bad hair.

  I just wanted to see him on my own first, Euna said. And then, tentatively, Are you mad at me?

  Muireall put down her crocheting so her attention was entirely on Euna. When she spoke, her voice was placid and sincere. I was disappointed when I saw you were gone, she said.

  And now?

  Now we’ve chatted about it. She kissed her fingertips and then touched them to Euna’s forehead. If it had been bigger, we may have taken longer to move on. But this is just minor. Have some supper and try not to fret.

  Euna could not believe this: the passing dissonance had been just that, passing, as opposed to a noiseless, days- or weeks-long build that would end either in catharsis or lasting bile. Muireall, she said, thank you. She forked into the beans, still warm, spiked with pecks of white pepper. Muireall had reduced the tomatoes they were immersed in, which had clearly taken patience.

  How did it go, anyway? Muireall asked.

  Euna hesitated. It certainly had its good moments, she said.

  And your man?

  Let’s not talk about him.

  Muireall wrapped her arm around Euna’s shoulders. Days can be kind of shitty, can’t they, she said.
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  Really, Euna said. Measgachadh caca.

  Muireall clapped her hands together. There’s that lovely Gaelic again, she said. You’re such a special girl. Muireall’s use of the word had a different feel than Aram’s. Muireall seemed unmoved by whether Euna believed her or returned the sentiment. In her special there was no sale.

  I can teach you some time, Euna said.

  Muireall glimmered. Oh, I’d love to hire you, she said. Always thought it a shame that it should die off with my nana.

  Euna had never dreamed she could make a coinage of her language. At Cala, her words had seemed routine, similar as they were to all the other sounds around her. But now they were a means. Now airgead was actual silver.

  So listen, Muireall said, I rang a few of my friends in Glasgow.

  In her head, Euna finished the sentence: … and I am going to see them without you. The shift was quick and instinctive, and as ever, ended in her exclusion. I’ve been thinking all of this was too good to last, Euna said. I’ve had a wonderful time here with you. And I thank you for everything you’ve done.

  Muireall, her arm still around Euna, began to knead her friend’s shoulder. I’m inviting you to come, goofball, she said.

  The whole heavy day came down on Euna’s head. Her eyes were suddenly full of tears. She didn’t care if she was that kind of woman, now that she was here in this little, well-lit interior, now that she was no longer bound in leather to the Life Grammar. Muireall, she said, when she could. ’S toil leam gu mòr thu.

  What’s that mean, hen?

  I like you very much.

  Then I suppose, Muireall said, we have a mutual admiration society.

  Euna nuzzled into her friend’s shoulder. She felt Muireall’s breath, soft as cushion pink, on her cheek.

  This band I used to roadie for is playing in Glasgow, Muireall said. Kind of Celtic punk. Good show of pride. Will you come with me?

  Pride was a thing to be ashamed of, to spurn at all personal cost. To Euna’s family, as to the women at Cala, it was a sin worse than sloth. And yet she trusted Muireall deeply, and if Muireall said pride had its place, then Euna would follow her there. She told her, Yes I said yes I will Yes.

  Joyce, Muireall said, smiling. My favourite, back when I was a hell-raising teen.

  That brick from Cairstìne’s bookshelf, someone else had read it? The odd thing about her Ulysses was that half the words had been darkened with lampblack, presumably by Cairstìne. Sentences would dangle, thoughts would hang. All questions – What in the water did Bloom, waterlover, drawer of water, watercarrier, returning to the range, admire? – would end in blank space. At least as far as Euna could tell, with her stunted reading skills. Now she knew a woman who could tackle those troubling blanks. We have so much to talk about, Euna said.

  We sure do, hen. But for now you should sleep. You’ll want to be rested for this show, trust me.

  Euna nodded. She finished her beans and rinsed the plate under a stream of running water, which, after years of the latrine and well, was all but numinous. She removed her tunic without embarrassment.

  Another sip of the Irn-Bru and she was lying down, teeth a bit woolly, but soul full. Muireall wrapped Euna in a downy throw and dimmed all the camper lights. In the near dark Euna’s heart pumped, as she conjured the concert in Glasgow. Men with glittering guitars, a glorious crush of dancers; the images dimmed and became dreams. But unlike the cranachan and the burning church, these held her in a safe and soothed place. A real cala. These were dreams she would have, given control, chosen.

  *

  Euna woke to the violent sound of someone vomiting. The curtains were still drawn, and through the windows she could see a city, steep and monolithic, lit by a sullen sun. Muireall must have driven to Glasgow while Euna was sleeping. She looked down. On the cobbled street was a young man, head between his knees, pants low enough to show half of his péire. She did not have any artichoke tincture or lemon balm on hand, but she would comb this unfamiliar place as if it were her mission. The man needed a nurse, and who was she to neglect another’s needs?

  Muireall, bent at the dinette over a cryptic crossword, must have noticed Euna’s interest. He’s drunk, she said.

  What time is it? Euna asked. She had seen folks malkied a few times in her life, mainly her mam, but those moments had mostly happened in the guest room after lights-out, with the requisite sum of shame. Now Euna was appalled, though Muireall seemed calm about the man’s immorality.

  Eight in the morning, Muireall said. Why, are you hungry?

  I mean, yes, Euna said. Then she gestured to the man. But I was mostly asking because of him.

  Muireall put her pen down and came to perch on the couch beside Euna. You’ve never seen a man out his nut? I must ask again, little Gaelic-speaking, loch-bathing lady, what stone have you been living under?

  The last time Muireall asked, Euna had been too reticent to tell the truth, and for good reason. No one wants to be abandoned in random woodland. But now she was in a city and, having survived acreages of Highland and bog, every home and museum seemed to gleam with promise. The people may have been bare-péired and moonshined too early in the morning, but among them must have been at least one true friend. Besides, Euna had a sense that Muireall was with her for the long haul.

  So, she revealed to Muireall a small part of her story, a few scenes from Cala. She turned from charm and glamour. She used her plainest tongue. Still she held back all that would make her sweat or suffer from an overbeating heart – the church, her family, Muireall’s worst abuses, Grace’s suspicion, Aram’s sex. When she was finished, Muireall embraced her. Swatch at you, she said. You’re a fecking badass.

  Despite her kind sentiment, Euna bristled against the embrace. She had said so much, while Muireall had offered nothing in return. With all that rambling, Euna had dug herself down to a new level of unlovable. Muireall was only pretending to be supportive. Before long Euna would reveal her real self not through word but through deed, and then Muireall would heave her onto the street.

  Euna detected on her own bare shoulders and her trousers and even on her downy throw a scent, a kind of gritrock, linked closely to Dungavel. She longed for the perfumes she used to wear at Cala, big and bloomy as they were, unbecoming as they often were. At least they had covered her.

  Awright? Muireall asked.

  Euna said, I need a wash. A smell keeps clinging.

  Muireall did not press on this. She said, Sure thing. There’s the tap in the corner, and I can get you a fresh sponge. Or if you want a real bath, I’ll go and bat my lashes inside one of the hotels.

  A hotel sounded immoderate. Euna said, A sponge is fine.

  Okay, hen, Muireall said. She fished a clean sponge from a sideboard and threw it into Euna’s lap. I’ve a few errands to run, and I’m sure you’d like some privacy. I’ll be back in a while. If it suits you then, we can go to the show. She put on sunglasses and some busted-in combat boots, which gave her an unruffled affect, and blew air kisses from the doorway. Euna felt little heat streaks run down her cheeks.

  This time when Muireall left, Euna did not feel stoned by her freedom. In this camper, even with Muireall around, she was free to romp and move as she pleased. If she wanted to pray, she knew she could do that at any time. After years of pining for these precise comforts – running water, a private space with a locked door, a forbearing friend – she now found them, bird in hand, a bit intimidating. The man on the cobblestone retched again, and she felt a stitch of envy that he was in such discomfort, which, at least, was familiar to her.

  She tried to open the window but found that it was fixed. So she rapped on the glass and hollered in her highest register, Hello. Good morning. I see you there, sir.

  The man looked up with his eyes half closed, the world for him surely blurred. He yelled, Taigh na galla leat.

  Euna was more thrilled than she should have been that a kerbside arse was telling her to piss off. But his Gaelic was perfect, his filthy mou
th alluring. She grinned. A thrustair nan seachd sitigean! she called – you rotten piece of shit! She gave him a thumbs-up through the glass. He burped and passed out.

  Hey, wee willie, she yelled. She banged on the window, but he seemed to be impervious to all sound. Beyond his wilting body, she could see a few other people – a woman arranging finger limes outside of a greengrocer, a man and child farther down the street, carrying glitter-filled balloons. She considered going out to whack the man awake, as she refused to be neglected any longer, but she felt safer on this side of the glass.

  She took the sponge to the corner and saturated it under the tap, then removed her clothes. She scrubbed herself until she turned real bright, the colour of an uncooked steak at Cala. She liked it this bit rough, this bit skin-peeling. That little bugger, she repeated as she scrubbed, until it became a mantra.

  After a long bout of polishing, she ended up pink as a baby and just as pure. Only then did she stop washing. As she beat her tunic with a backhand, trying to smack out the Dungavel stink, she looked down at the man lying on his bile pillow. She fixated on how clean she was, how alone and superior in her sealed motorhome. And, though she knew the feeling would at some point fleet, it did make her feel fitter to be so far above this man. If she was a mess, at least she was less of one. If she was sad and aimless, at least she was strong enough to face that darkness with a clear head.

  *

  Euna stayed in the camper all day, waiting for Muireall, who returned around dinnertime with whisky, an eccentric set of canned foods, and a few hardbacks she had borrowed from a place she called the Women’s Library. To Euna it sounded so charmed, so full of tall shelves and yellowing novels and tender, feminine guardians, that she almost forgot how lonely she had been all afternoon. Her imagination started to rewrite that real experience. But she put a quick stop to that. She wanted to be like Muireall, who spoke directly, who refused to let hairy feelings ingrow. I didn’t think you were going to come back, she said. I got worried.