Rise (37 page)

Despite the telly and Ross’s chatter, the house is hushed. Expectant. Surely Mhairi will have passed the message on to Hannah by now? It’s been two days. Fuck, Duncan wasn’t far off the truth. This does feel like a war zone; with Justine stuck in no-man’s-land. She could text Hannah direct, or phone her. But she senses that would enrage her more. Man, it’s frustrating. Now would be perfect timing too – Michael has finally succumbed and gone to see a doctor. Justine is no specialist in headshrinks, but it appears she does an excellent line in nagging. Never had the balls to nag before, not really. Not to push beyond that initial first wheedle without fear of getting your teeth to play with. She stretches out on the couch, toes pressing into soft velour. On his belly, on the carpet, Ross blethers away.

‘Mhm. It is on Duncan’s nice picture. He has to practise it for a secret.’

‘Does he? Duncan? Duncan’s nice, isn’t he?’ Stretches deeper. Gets a wee sparkle up her legs when she thinks of Duncan.

‘
No,
silly. Johnny.’ He waves a piece of white card.

‘Scruffy Johnny? Johnny with-Buddy-the-dog Johnny?’ Justine takes the card Ross is brandishing, turns it over. It’s the postcard Duncan gave him when they were at Cardrummond.

‘What is cruffy? Is it a colour?’

For the first time, she properly studies the design on the front. Three interlocked spirals. Unlocking and waving. Waving, not drowning; their black and white fronds in anemone whorls.
Le Breton triskèle
is circled round the symbol in ornate print. Copycat fronds uncurling in her stomach.

‘My name is not a colour. What does annersons mean, Justi?’

‘Uh-huh.What, sweetie?’ Her attention is diluted. Pumping. The pattern on the postcard is the same symbol from the car. The car towed by the van that struck Euan.

‘Green!’ says Ross, triumphant. ‘Johnny’s other name is Green. Not cruffy. But his mummy’s name is not. Isn’t that funny?’

She flips the card again. In tiny print below Aunt Effie’s handwriting, she reads:

Dans la mythologie Celtique, le Breton triskèle peut représenter les trois éléments primordiaux: l’air, l’eau et la terre. Aussi, c’est un symbole solaire ou lunaire. Visitez Bretagne et appréciez!

You put stickers on your car to say where you’re from, not where you’ve been. The vehicle that hit Euan was from France. In all the days since the accident happened, the same fraught thought has helixed in her head:
This is stupid
.
You need to tell them what you know
.
This is stupid. You need to remove all trace.

All around Justine is muddle and pain; she suspects she carries it like the plague. Man, the least she can do for them is this. She has to tell the police. She turns the volume down on the telly. She’ll need to get that stupid mobile off Johnny first. Where was her head; what had she been thinking? If she phones, then he phones, they’ll think she’s . . .

Well, they’ll know she’s a duplicitous cow.

Do the thing you’ll regret not doing.
Does that work but, if you’ve already not done it? This ‘thing’? If Justine could sort this properly, if she finally had the balls to go: I’m sorry, I got it wrong. I was scared and stupid. I didny know yous then. To tell them, just open her mouth and say:
It was me that saw the crash. Me that left him lying there.
The relief of it being out, the relief of the hole she’s smashed open to breathe, and then the rush of air coming in. She thinks beyond the saying of it, to the moment after; it’s what she always does:
in five minutes this will be over. This time tomorrow, this will be past; by next week, it won’t hurt.
Then
she thinks past her relief, past their slow hurt faces, to the coldness and the hardening and the words she can’t take back.
Them,
uniting against a common enemy – which might effect a reconciliation, so kudos there, Justine. But what happens after that? What always happens. The villagers drive the enemy out.

‘Did you say Johnny’s been practising it for a secret?’

‘Mhm. To make Euan better. It is a magic spell.’

‘Is it? Well, that’s good. Did he tell you how he knows it?’

Ross shakes his head. Tongue out as he laboriously scribbles round a new picture. ‘It’s just magic. Oh! Look at the telly, Justi. Look! It’s Auntie Mhairi!’

The sound is low, but if you strain, you can still hear it. Mhairi, surrounded by a phalanx of dreadlocks, plenty of flushed faces, a few dark suits. Her fist is up and pumping, her face an angry balloon. ‘Breach of the peace?’ she yells. ‘It’s them that’s breaching our peace!’

Justine finds the remote, punches the volume back up.‘They’re stabbing the earth!’ wails a posh lady. The scrolling type underneath reads: ‘Protesters arrested at Argyll windfarm site. Earlier today . . .’ Then they cut to footage of a wind turbine.

‘That’s of our hills, Justi! That’s where you can see the sheep!’

The film is shot from below, and you see immediately why the television might want to cover the story. It will become an urban myth that Mhairi made it to the top: she’s only about twenty feet up – as high as a decent extending stepladder might take you, and there’s a fire engine in attendance. The fireman is leaning out, trying to reach her as Mhairi hangs like a crucified Jesus, or a witch being burned at the stake. It’s bright, breezy; she’s wearing one of her hideous dirndl skirts, a flame-red fabric which bunches and billows over her head. Although chained, she also teeters on a tiny platform, perhaps it’s just a rim where two portions of the turbine join together. You can see the folds of fat at her knees. You can see her pants.

‘Oh God,’ says Justine. ‘Poor Mhairi.’

‘
Full coverage of the windfarm debate tonight on
Newsnight,’ scrolls the band beneath.

Then the next item glides on, a piece about tractor theft. ‘
Remember
,’ rolls the accompanying text, ‘y
ou can call Crimestoppers free on 0800 111 555. All calls are anonymous, and you may be eligible for a reward
.’

Her mate Francine used Crimestoppers once. Got £500 for grassing up her ex. And a week in hospital when she got pissed and shouted her mouth off about it. Daft cow. Very daft. C’est bon d’être anonyme.

Chapter Twenty-eight

‘
What I hear you saying is that you try too hard; to be all things to all people?’

Bright, sharp Sally, Michael’s pocket-sized psychologist, who tempers each truth with dimples. ‘You see yourself as a receptacle?’

‘Like a drain, you mean? For everyone else’s crap?’ He shouldn’t be rude; it was kind of her to fit him in.

Sally considers him, with her bright bird head. ‘I wonder if you think that’s a little harsh?’

‘Not really, no.’ Michael can speak here with anonymous honesty. It is refreshing. Like a shower. Sally is all for him, just listening, not judging. Expecting nothing from him but the truth. His vertebrae shift one notch higher, clean air pumping to his lungs. This must be how it is to have confession.

‘How do you feel about that?’

‘About what? That nobody gives a damn about me?
Boo-hoo
. That my marriage is unlikely to recover? That I’m having visions? I’m schizophrenic?’

‘As I said, Michael, many mental-health professionals no longer take the view that hallucinations are part of a psychopathic disease syndrome. How would it be if we considered them as a variation in human experience – a special faculty, if you like, that doesn’t require a cure?’

‘Believe me. I need a cure.’

Sally smiles, professionally. ‘There are many varied circumstances, what you might call coping mechanisms, that can cause us to believe our own thoughts are separate voices speaking to us. It might be painful, overwhelming even, but these experiences can speak to us in a meaningful way about our life, emotions or environment. The imagination as illumination, so to speak.’

‘There is
nothing
meaningful about my condition.’

‘You tell me it’s one cogent manifestation. Always this ghost. You joust with him. You say you’re not experiencing multiple voices, or being told that you should harm anyone. Are you?’

‘No. But he was different shapes at first.’

‘Pardon?’

Michael clears his throat. ‘The Ghost can . . . does, take different shapes – birds, animals, light. But it’s always the same voice. Same man.’

‘Ah. And you know this because . . .’

He rubs his nose. ‘I just do, all right? I just know it’s the same voice.’

‘Is it a voice you recognise?’

‘No.’ His nose is itchy. Too stuffy in here. ‘Just the same voice. Always the same voice.’

‘I see. As you know, the orthodox treatment is with tranquillisers.’

‘No! No medication. I . . . I don’t want my brain fuddled. I need to be . . . sharp. For my wife. They’re talking about decisions. About my sons. My children need me. And I have far too much on at work, I couldn’t possibly—’

She raises her hand. ‘Michael. Please focus.’

‘I’m not—’

‘Acknowledge your agitation, and let it pass.’

‘Doctor, I’m fine.’

She smiles again. Waits for him to comply. ‘All right?’

‘Yes.’

Sally’s office is in a pleasant Victorian townhouse in Oban. They are two floors up. Outside her window you can see the port. There’s the cheery red CalMac lion on the lumbering ferry. There’s a long brick chimney, reaching for the sky. It’s not that high. But it is high enough. There’s a squawk of gulls and the perma-smell of fish. Shadow-tails move across the wall as a lorry passes. Michael ‘acknowledges’ a ripping sickness in his stomach, which does not pass.

‘In any case, tranquillisers do not get rid of the voices,’ says Sally.

‘Yes. Exactly. So what am I meant to do? I can’t go on like this. My wife’s gone mental. My boys need me to be strong. My eldest boy’s in hospital still, and we’ve never even found out who put him there, and now she’s wanting to take them from me. Accusing me of fucking all-sorts—’

‘That aggressive language makes me uncomfortable, Michael.’

‘Me too.’ He gulps some of the water she poured him earlier. ‘This isn’t me. Why am I like this? You have to help me.’

‘Is it here now? The ghost?’

Michael pauses. Listens for the sneery commentary he’s been automatically blocking, but there’s nothing.

‘No. Not at the moment. I don’t think. But he’s always around. I . . . there’s a weight.’

‘You say these visions began before your son’s accident?’

‘Yes. So?’

She puts her hands in a neat knot, lays them on her desk. Fleetingly, he sees Justine make the same gesture in his car. ‘Just as trauma can trigger an hallucinatory experience, so a major shift in our emotional landscape can silence it too. I’m trying to ascertain if there’s been any obvious catalyst.’

‘Nope.’

‘I see. You seem very sure of this.’

‘I am.’

‘Do you accept that the ghost exists?’ she asks.

‘
No
.’

‘What about the Devil then?’

‘What? Of course not.’

‘But you believe in the existence of God?’

‘I’m a minister. Was. Am.’

‘That’s not what I asked.’

‘Yes. I believe in God,’ Michael replies.

‘OK. And, given that, do you
see
this deity? Can you envisage a God, or is he simply a “concept”?’

‘Really? Are we going to have a theological debate? Look, I’m sorry, doctor, but questioning my belief system isn’t helpful. Would you ask a . . . I don’t know, a farmer or an accountant if . . .’

Tell yourself the truth.

Sally puts down her pen. ‘Michael, voice-hearers and visionaries seek explanations to account for what they’re experiencing. Understanding where the hallucinations come from, and what triggers them, can be helpful in developing a coping strategy. In the process of taking responsibility for yourself, the first stage is acceptance of the voices as belonging to you. Do you understand this? This is one of the most important steps to take.’

‘Yes.’

‘And do you agree with this statement?’

‘Yes.’

No. Do you think I encourage him?

‘Voices can express what you’re feeling or thinking: sadness, aggression, fear about an event or a relationship. It’s the feelings that are important, not the voices. It can be very beneficial to discuss the messages, fully, with someone you trust. If you’d rather not do that with me, do you have someone else you can talk to?’

He thinks immediately of Justine, then feels ashamed. Only because he and Hannah aren’t speaking. Only that.

‘Not really.’

‘Well then. For our next session, I’d like you to consider exactly when these hallucinations first began.’

You mean when I sat trembling in my car, examining blood that was not mine, observing the blood become snakes and the snakes become limbs?