Read The Closet of Savage Mementos Online
Authors: Nuala Ní Chonchúir
The Closet of Savage Mementos (2 page)
‘You did a great job, Lillis; everyone’s saying so. Didn’t she, Robin?’
‘She did,’ said Robin, putting his arm around me.
‘He looks so good in those photos you took,’ Mrs Spain said, ‘so like himself. He was mad about the two of you. Always.’ She shook her head, still afraid to open her mind to the fact of the accident; to realise that Dónal was gone.
‘We were mad about him too, Mrs Spain,’ I said, and she nodded. It was hard to look at her and I wished she would go away, back to where her husband was sitting with his limp, empty face.
‘I’ll go over to Daddy. He’s not in the best at all. Devastated.’ She nodded and gave me a tight hug. ‘You’re a smashing girl, Lillis. Give my love to Verity.’
‘She was at the church this morning,’ I said, but I knew my mother had slipped away after the Mass. She always said that graveyards made her feel guilty for being alive. Mrs Spain squeezed Robin’s arm, forced a smile and then she was gone.
Me and Dónal, collecting snowberries in October, tramping around inside the bush in black wellies, filling the scooped-up fronts of our jumpers with the fat, white globes. We throw a few at each other’s heads, then snap the rest between our fingers – pop, splat – until our hands are sticky with their pulpy insides.
Me and Dónal, playing with the heavy cushions we have pulled off his mother’s sofa. We heft a cushion each onto our backs and pretend to deliver coal to Mrs Spain in her kitchen, in exchange for biscuits, or bread dappled with sugar; she always plays along. The cushions smell like sour apples and farts.
Me and Dónal, stripping the brambles of blackberries, putting as many into our mouths as into the bowl, decorating our faces with their mulched juice. Verity screeches at us when we surprise her with purple-painted faces. Me annoyed with her for being annoyed with us.
Me and Dónal, visiting our elderly neighbour Miss Salmon, to see what goodies we can get out of her. We listen to her girlhood stories of fêtes and dances, charming men and carnivals. Swizzing back the lemonade she gives us, we throw each other looks over the rims of the dusty glasses, and leave Miss Salmon’s cold parlour as quickly as we are able.
Me and Dónal and Robin, jumping in and out of the edge of the river, with bellies full of egg-and-cress sandwiches and diluted orange. Both sets of parents drinking beer and smoking on the riverbank, looking young and happy. The boys throwing a beach ball over my head in the water, making me the endless piggy-in-the-middle, until I cry. ‘Sissy’, they say and ‘Sap’ and ‘Girl’, as if being a girl is the worst possible thing. Mr Spain chases them and takes the beach ball away. Me sitting on a picnic blanket close to Verity, listening to the adults’ coded talk about The Big C and how much the Spains sold a car for, until my mother shoos me away like a wasp.
Dónal and Robin, pissing in high yellow arcs over my head and giggling madly, then shaking their willies in front of me to get rid of the last few drops. Them making me feel bad because I have to squat to pee; me wetting my knickers, because I need to do it quickly, so they won’t catch me there in the bilberry bushes. Me miles behind them when they run off to explore the riverbank, my calves scraped by the low branches of each bush.
Me and Robin, sitting on Dónal and thumping his arms, his face red with fury, until he can wriggle away from us and run home. Him calling back to us, ‘You’re a pair of bastards’, from a safe distance up the lane. The three of us back together again later the same day, hunched on the ground concocting plots and plans, schemes and adventures, soaking hand-drawn maps in tea. Later, we set fire to leaves and twigs with stolen matches, hoping for a blaze.
Me and Dónal, racing our bikes over gravel and skidding hugely, then we compare the marks in the churned-up stones. We cycle to his granny’s house in the next village, swallowing the diesel fumes from the buses and lorries on the main road. Cosy at Granny Spain’s table, eating shop-bought cake drowned in pink icing, with the sweetest of jam sponging the halves together. Me warily watching Granda Spain who sits by the fire, dribbling onto his shirt like an overgrown baby.
Dónal lying on the grass after a fall into a stand of nettles, crying quietly, his legs a honeycomb of red and white welts. Me rubbing at them with a dock leaf that leaves a snot-coloured trail on his skin. Robin standing over the two of us. ‘I never pushed him,’ he says. Me giving him a look; an I-know-all-about-you look.
Me and Dónal, sucking on fag butts together, choking and smelly-mouthed, pretending to enjoy them. Robin inhales noisily and blows the smoke into our faces. Me ratting to Verity that Robin smokes. Both grounded for a week and Robin taking it out on me with sly digs and pokes that leave bruises like ever-changing tattoos.
Dónal and Robin, down the back field on a damp afternoon, swigging cans of lager culled from Verity’s stash; they topple and laugh, sing and talk gibberish. Soon, lavish vomiting all over the grass. More laughter. Me keeping my distance, hugging my anorak around me, the tip of my nose cold and drippy.
Dónal and Robin, posing for my camera: preens and primps, frowns and grins. Robin, prancing like a pop star; he puckers his lips and minces. Dónal, hazel eyes merry under a crown of red hair, his face a smiling moon. Me enjoying my first shot at portraiture.
Dónal who loves a lake of parsley sauce to go with bacon; who calls socks ‘stocks’; who doesn’t read books. Dónal who talks about his big brother Cormac like he is a god.
Me and Dónal, walking home from the school disco through the dark, his arm sneaking around me when we stop outside his house. His hands grip my elbows and he rushes a kiss: dry, hard and passionless. He runs inside and slams the door. Me awake all night, running my fingers over his imprint on my mouth.
Dónal working. Me still in school. Him swaggering with the big boys in the village, smoking and spitting, slagging and cursing, calling out to girls. Me stopping to say hi and him looking right past me. Sniggers from his new friends send me skeetering away, hot cheeked and hollow.
Dónal lobbing stones at my bedroom window until I open it, him shouting ‘I’m sorry, Lillis’ over and over, waving a flagon of cider in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. Me saying, ‘Shush, will you?’ and laughing. ‘Go home, you dope.’
Dónal in my bedsit, me under him. The wet from our sex seeping beneath me. Him begging, ‘Be my girlfriend or I don’t know what I’ll do.’ Me saying, ‘Stop hassling me, Dónal.’ Some of my last words to him.
Dónal, manly in leather, head snugly helmeted, speeding on his motorbike on an icy New Year’s Eve, smashing into a wall. Dónal, the photogenic. Dónal, the energetic. Dónal, the funny, the silly, the adventurous, the clever. Dónal, my first love. Lovely, gone-away Dónal.
There is a loud knock on my door and someone calls my name. I pull away from Dónal, roll off the bed and open the door; Struan, my boss, stands there.
‘Hi, Lillis. I know you weren’t to start until tomorrow officially, but we’re short of staff in the bistro tonight. Any chance you’d come over and dig in?’
‘I’ll get changed and be there in ten minutes.’
‘You’re a life saver,’ Struan says, and claps his hands. ‘Excellent.’
He walks down the corridor, shout-singing ‘Everything I do, I do it for you.’ Struan Torrance is the way I thought he would be but older; he is a lean fifty-something, nearly bald, full of chat and energy. In his advertisement he called himself ‘an artisan hotelier’, which made me think his place might be interesting even if he sounded like a bit of an eejit. The Strathcorry Inn is more of a lodge than a hotel and there is a smoky, den-like feel to it. Odd artefacts, like fossils and geodes, sit on rickety antique furniture all around the hotel. It has a small art gallery. Verity would love it.
I go through the reception area to get to the bistro and Struan is at the desk; he jumps out of his chair, waving an envelope.
‘Lillis, this came for you, I’m so sorry, I forgot; it’s a telegram.’
‘A telegram?’ I grab it and tear it open:
Happy 21st, sweetheart, love Verity
, I read. ‘Oh Jesus,’ I say.
‘Not bad news, I hope?’
‘No, no.’ I laugh. ‘My mother is such a drama queen – it just says happy birthday.’
‘Is today your birthday?’
‘It is.’
‘Och, well then, happy birthday. We’ll have a drink tonight.’
I’m not sure if the ‘we’ means him and me, or everyone on the staff, or what; I thank him anyway and rush through to the bistro to start work. There are only two of us waiting the tables – me and a Scottish girl called Sam. The head chef, Dulcie, is slow and crabby and all I can do is tip-toe around her bad humour.
‘It’s my bunions – they’re
killing
me,’ Dulcie shouts, then laughs and points to a waiting order; I am not sure if I am meant to laugh too. ‘Hey, new girl, chop, chop,’ she barks, and I hoist the plates and swing through the kitchen doors.
Sam tries to train me as we go. She is patient and officious, but it is so busy that I can only muddle along after her, sweating and nervous. I try to carry a plate on my wrist and one in each hand like Sam shows me, but I am terrified of dropping the lot so I revert to the safety of carrying a pair. I attempt to answer questions about the menu from the diners, but Sam has to rescue me every time. Struan helps us out when we get swamped and the night passes quickly in a fug of burnt fingers, the waft of venison and clanging plates. By the end, my feet feel like someone else’s feet and all I want to do is lie down. It is a while since I have waitressed and I had forgotten about the aching, overheated feet and the go-go-go.
When the last guests leave, Sam and I clear the bistro tables and set up for breakfast. Struan comes back in.
‘Will we jog down to The Windhorse for a drink or will we stay here? It’s Lillis’s birthday.’
‘Oh, happy birthday,’ Sam says. ‘What age are you?’
‘Twenty-one,’ I say.
‘Aw, hen, why didn’t you say?’ asks Struan. ‘That’s a proper birthday. And it’s Midsummer’s Night. Twenty-one on the twenty first. That’s special, eh?’
He clears the dishes from one of the breakfast tables and tells Sam and me to sit. He goes to the wine locker and takes out champagne; he gets glasses from the bar and pops the bottle.
‘These are Martini glasses,’ Sam says, wiggling hers by the stem.
‘Aye, right enough, Sam, but they’re fancy,’ Struan says, and he pours. We lift our glasses. ‘To Lillis. Happy birthday, wee hen.’ He kisses the top of my head and I giggle. I see Sam looking at me; I smile but she doesn’t return it. We all drink and Struan pours again.
I am lonely as all fuck. I thought I was lonely when I got here, a few evenings since. The bus rattled up from Inverness and, when it stopped on the pier, I looked at the loch and the hills – everything so still and clamour free – and wondered if I would survive more than a few weeks. Struan met me off the bus and walked me up to the inn. He introduced me to some of the other staff and they nodded and I smiled, but none of their names have stayed with me. Now I am disgustingly homesick and I am not sure there is any cure for that. I even miss Verity.
I left Dublin airport thinking
Ya-boo-hiss, I don’t give a shit if I never see this place again,
but I would do anything to be back by the Liffey now, soaking in its brewery and weed stink. I am looking out the window of my tiny staff bedroom: below there is a street of white houses, and beyond that I can see the edge of the sea loch where the water is the plum colour of veins; I can hear ropes thwacking off boat masts and the wheening of gulls. If I crane further, I can see where the hills huddle over Loch Brack and lead it out to sea. I would go for a walk only I have been around the village three times already and I know there is nothing new to see. I can’t seem to lift my hand to anything.
Verity warned me I would be lonely.
‘You’ll miss home, Lillis – the city, Robin, everything,’ she said. She was putting the finishing touches to one of her art works – sewing silver buttons onto a tiny waistcoat – and I was standing over her. ‘You’ll even miss me.’
‘I don’t think so, Mother.’ She reared her head and looked at me. ‘No offence,’ I added and hugged her. Her body closed against me like a bird folding itself under its wings. I put my hands into the hair at the nape of her neck the way I always did when I was a kid; I sniffed deep on her patchouli and glue smell.
‘Come home if Scotland doesn’t agree with you,’ she said, ‘if it doesn’t work out.’
‘Why would it not work out?’ I said. ‘It’s a waitressing job, Mam, not a career move. I only want to escape for a while.’
‘I’m just saying. You’re not yourself yet. Dónal’s not long dead and you’re not back to normal; you couldn’t be. And it’s a big deal, anyway, going abroad.’ She put her sewing down, pulled her hair into a ponytail and smiled. ‘Ah, go and enjoy it,’ she said, ‘you’re young. The young are blessed.’
Yes, I do miss her; I miss our sparring. I miss Robin too. And I miss Dónal something rotten.
Chapter Two
K
inlochbrack is a fishing village with a Presto supermarket, a gaggle of craft shops and cafés, and obedient seals that bob in the sea loch for the tourists. There is a Caledonian MacBrayne ferry to take you across Loch Brack and the open sea to the Isles, smaller boats provide pleasure trips, salmon farms clutter up the bay, and the rampant smell of fish hangs over everything. Four pubs sit in front of the harbour wall and a group of frowsy B&Bs vie with each other for business. The village swells in the summer with visitors and seasonal staff from all over the world. Struan opened the Strathcorry Inn five years ago and, he says, it is doing better than he could ever have hoped.
I take my camera out early in the morning to catch sunrise over the loch, hoping for dramatic light. The streets are empty. A vanette pulls up beside the bakery and I see Tom the delivery man hoiking baskets of bread and trays of buns in the door; he waves and I salute him. He has been down to Inverness and back already for the bread and it occurs to me that he must never sleep because he was in The Windhorse until midnight with the rest of us. A few herring fishermen in orange waders heap their nets on the pier and call to each other; their laughter lilts like music across to where I sit on the harbour wall, waiting for the sun. I watch them load their gear and smoke cigarettes before chugging out to sea, unzipping the water with their boat.
The loch is flat calm and the navy humps of the hills opposite are like whales, huge and motionless; the air is sea-reeky and cool. When the sun finally pushes up from the horizon it is hidden because of a bank of cloud, but the sky changes from slate to a watery grey. A dazzling line of white appears at the top of the cloudbank. The clouds move up and the sun appears, orange-shimmery, huge and rising fast. I snap and snap, standing on the harbour wall then jumping off it to move up and down Shore Street, looking for the best angles. The sun is a broken wavering blob and I hope some of the weird effects will come through in my photos. The sky turns from salmon to deep yellow and, too soon, to an ashy white. I put the lens cap back on the camera, feeling that disappointment that always settles over me in the aftermath of a beautiful sunrise; the grey morning is, by then, always too grey. But the shots will be good, I think.
Cold has seeped into every part of me so I go up to the inn. I sit in the staff hut that squats in the yard behind the kitchen, to read and drink tea before my shift starts. The Superser, which is always on, burbles in the corner like a contented animal; I enjoy its queasy heat and flickering blue flame. Struan comes in, balancing a scone on top of a mug, a cigarette in his other hand. He sits opposite me and grins like he has something he wants to say, but he pulls on his cigarette and doesn’t speak. I look up from my book.
‘Yes, Struan? I’m waiting. You look like you’re going to explode.’
‘I’ve just realised what it is that your hair reminds me of,’ he says, waggling his cigarette, before taking a long drag. ‘I have been trying to figure it out for weeks. It’s Medusa.’ He blows the smoke sideways.
‘Medusa? With the snake hair? Wow, thanks.’ I look at Struan and he laughs. ‘No, really, I’m flattered. What girl doesn’t want that comparison made?’
‘You’ve a fine head of hair, Lillis: all those tumbling waves, snaking out from your head.’
‘Well, Struan, all I can say in reply is that you have a fine head of skin.’
‘You cheeky Irish wench.’ He throws a piece of scone across the table and it lands on my book. ‘Do you know the Rubens painting
Head of Medusa
?’
‘We studied that in art; it’s fairly grim. Are you saying I look like her?’
The hut door swings wide and Sam troops in. She is a closed-off girl, I have discovered, superior and watchful. I haven’t had to work with her much but, when I do, she is mostly silent. I had thought that we might become friendly but I can see she doesn’t want that.
‘Is this a private convo or can anyone join in?’ she says, sitting beside Struan and looking up into his face; she bites into a piece of toast and talks through it. ‘How are you finding the work, Lillian? Feet still sore?’
‘Her name is Lil
lis
, Sam. I think you’ve been told that about a hundred times already,’ Struan says.
‘Lillis, Lillis,’ Sam says, testing my name in a bored way. ‘Is that French?’
‘Greek,’ I say.
‘Greek indeed,’ Struan says. ‘Go on, Medusa, you have cutlery to polish and breakfasts to serve. Get thee to the bistro.’
‘Yes, off you go,’ Sam says, lighting a cigarette and staring at me. She sucks a froth of smoke up her nose then blows it out through her lips.
‘I’m gone,’ I say, getting up and squeezing past Sam, who has pushed her chair in front of the door.
Struan follows me out. ‘Some girl Sam, eh?’
‘She can be a bit rude.’
‘Complicated love life,’ he says, holding open the kitchen door for me.
‘My heart bleeds.’
‘Now, now, be nice. Hey, do you fancy a drive later? I got my car fixed and I need to take her out for a run. We could head up north, towards the peaks.’
‘Sure,’ I say, delighted at the idea of a spin; an hour or two away from the village, a chance to see what lies beyond Kinlochbrack. ‘Just don’t refer to the car as a she anymore and we’ll be laughing.’
We park above Loch Lurgainn and sit looking at Stac Pollaidh, a lone mountain with a scooped peak. It squats – a huge, immoveable tent – blood-dark against the white sky.
‘Totally gorgeous, isn’t it?’ Struan says, stretching his body.
‘It’s red,’ I say. ‘The same as Uluru.’
‘Sandstone.’
I take photos through the windscreen, feeling too lazy and warm to get out of the car into the windy afternoon. The lake below us is black and I watch a line of gulls follow each other like sheep along its shore. Inside the car the air smells earthy, like a greenhouse. Struan takes two dream rings from a paper bag and we eat them in silence; the white icing makes my teeth ache. I pull the sweet, bready halves apart and lick at the baker’s cream that is liberally painted on both sides.
‘Fucking yum,’ I say. I suck the cream off my fingers. ‘Look at me, I’m a total mess.’
Struan holds up his sticky hands. ‘Me too; like a wain.’
I lick the sweetness from my skin and mop at the wet with a tissue. ‘Tell me something interesting, Struan.’
‘Em, let me see,’ he says, tapping the steering wheel, ‘something interesting. Oh, I know: my father had webbed fingers.’
I look at him and laugh. ‘Did he really?’
‘Honestly.’ He stretches out both hands and dips his index finger through the valleys of the fingers on his left hand. ‘They were as webbed as any duck’s foot.’
‘Jesus, that
is
interesting.’
Struan smiles at me. His looks don’t make a great first impression, I think, but they soften as you spend time with him. He is porcine, in ways, with his small eyes and almost bald head, but he is definitely one of those men who, the more you look at him, the more attractive he gets.
‘You tell me something now, Lillis. Something
entirely
fascinating.’ He lights up a cigarette and rolls down the window a crack.
‘Oh, God, pressure.’ I think for a moment. ‘Well, when I’m reading a book, I always notice when I’ve reached page one hundred. That page number dances up to my eyes but none of the others do.’
‘Hmm. That’s sort of interesting,’ he says. ‘Another thing now.’
‘Well…what? Oh, I know, the smell of lavender oil makes my throat close up.’
Struan frowns. ‘I have one, this is a good one: there are three golf balls on the moon.’
I laugh. ‘No way! That’s bollox – no way is that true.’
‘It
is
true. I read it in the
Reader’s Digest
, so it has to be true. Can you imagine the sound they’d make if you hit them?’ He swings an imaginary club. ‘Phluck, phluck, phluck.’
‘I have one now: my mother stuffs dead animals for a living. She’s a taxidartist.’ I smile and prod him in the belly. ‘Is that fascinating enough for you?’
‘It is, actually. What kind of animals?’ He squints at me, scratching his cheek.
‘She’ll use anything really. People know about her now, so she’s always being offered road kill and dead pets. Though she usually refuses pussycats and Jack Russells because of what she does to them.’ I look down at the lake and wonder how cold it would be for a swim; I shiver.
‘Why? What does
she do to them?’
‘She skins and mounts them and dresses them in costumes. She turns them into works of art. Ultimately, she sells them.’ I laugh. ‘It sounds a bit obscene when I explain it like that.’ I look at Struan. ‘She was presented with a monkey recently; she gave it a pipe, a pinny and high heels.’ I smile. ‘People want to see their pets as they were in real life, not morphed into something weird. So she usually says no to pets and general taxidermy work. Verity prefers oddities.’
‘I love it. When do I get to meet this artistic genius? Would she sell me a piece for the Strathcorry?’
‘I don’t know. She might come over to Scotland sometime to visit me; she’s often busy with exhibitions and things.’ I wave my hand absently.
‘Maybe she’d show in the gallery at the inn? Her work sounds great.
She
sounds great.’
‘My mother has her moments, believe me.’
‘So much for me and my web-handed dad. He was a bus driver who rarely spoke. I think he thought speech was a kind of affectation. What does your father do?’
‘University lecturer; Marine Science. My parents are separated.’
‘My mum was a tea lady. The glamour.’ He flicks ash out the window. ‘Now she’s half mad.’
‘In fairness, your folks were probably a lot better at being parents than mine ever were.’
‘Maybe. No, I doubt it.’
Struan stabs his cigarette butt into the ash-tray. He turns to look at me, leans across and gathers handfuls of my hair. He lifts it to his mouth and nose and sniffs.
‘What are you doing?’
‘I fancy you, Lillis.’ He leans over and puts his mouth to mine. His lips are firm but soft and we kiss slowly. He pulls away. ‘I’ve been wanting to do that for weeks.’
‘Me too.’ We both giggle and he puts his head on my shoulder; I stroke his neck.
‘I love your voice, your accent. It comforts me. My mother had an Irish friend when I was a boy; I can’t remember her name – it might have been Maura, something like that. Nora, maybe. She was exotic, like a woman from a film. Her nails were always pink, like the inside of a shell, you know? Listening to you talk reminds me of her.’
I move my shoulder so that he has to lift his head and I take his cheeks in my hands; I kiss him. ‘Glad to be of service.’
Struan pecks me on the lips, laughs and starts the engine. ‘We’d better start moving so we’re back in time for the evening shift. We don’t want our Lady Sam in a sulk.’
We are quiet on the return drive; the road is narrow and Struan drives fast, swerving into the passing places when other cars approach. The road winds and dips through valleys of rock where sheep teeter, chewing contemplatively. He takes hairpin bends like a rally driver and I cling to my seat. The mountains rise and fall with the meander of the road, sometimes looming hugely, other times seeming smaller, less domineering. Struan names them for me: Bein an Eoin, Cul Beag, Cona Mheall. I spot Highland cows here and there, their faces stuck downwards in never-ending grazing; bog cotton sways festively in dark ditches full of water. I can taste Struan on my tongue and I glance sideways at him while he drives. My mother would approve of him, I think; she is a sucker for a confident man.
Verity is on my mind – Robin has written to say that she is drinking too much again and he is worried about her. This is the never-ending story of our mother, the binge-and-rest pattern of her life. Part of me doesn’t want to know and part of me needs to keep one eye open to her peaks and troughs.
Back in Dublin, I worked part time in a camera shop. Verity came to see me there one of the last days before I left for Scotland. Even without studying the dough-puffed skin of her face, I knew she had drink on her. Walking from the door to the till, Verity slapped her toes to the floor with aggravated care. Her head was thrown back to give the illusion of control; she stopped when she got to the desk and gripped the counter. I looked at her mouth – set tight like a turtle’s – and her squinched up eyes. It had been a quiet day; the shop floor was empty. The air was heavy with the smell of technology and warm from the display lights. I waited.
‘I’ve been thinking,’ Verity said, swinging on her feet, ‘you should have a baby. That would sort you out.’
‘Sort me out?’
‘You wouldn’t need to go running off to some poxy village in the Scottish Highlands. Why do you need to go there anyway?’
‘I like tartan, Mam.’
‘You like tartan? God almighty. Be serious, Lillis.’ She swiped at her mouth, dragging her lips sideways.
‘You’re drunk, Mother’
‘I had a glass of wine with my lunch,’ she said slowly, looking past me; her head bobbed.
‘It’s four o’clock – it must’ve been a long, late lunch.’
‘Anyway, I want to be a grandmother. All my friends have little ones to fuss over. Tiny doteens to dress up and take around in prams. I have no one, no babies to mind, and it doesn’t look like Robin is ever going to get married, so you…’ Verity seemed to lose her words; she let her face collapse, then looked at me. ‘I’m tired, Lillis. Take me home, sweetheart.’
‘I’m working.’
‘Lil.’ My mother put out her hand: it was big, vein-roped, useless. ‘Please, I need to go home.’ The small, pathetic voice she used made me move. I told her to sit while I locked up the shop. Verity waited in silence, not speaking again until she was hunched in the back seat of a taxi, oozing the sweet-sick smell of alcohol.
‘I hate Mary Cantwell,’ she said.
We pulled up in front of my childhood home and stopped. ‘How many grandkids has Mrs Cantwell got now?’
‘Seven.’
