The Closet of Savage Mementos (8 page)

‘Ah, Lillis.’

‘And also to stop bitching about my mother. She has no right.’ I sat on the bed and started to cry. ‘Oh fuck. What am I going to do, Dad? I think I’m going crazy.’ Anthony sat beside me and pulled me to him. ‘I let Dónal down and he might have killed himself over it. I feel so rotten about it all the time, so guilty. It’s bad enough missing him without thinking it’s all my fault as well.’

‘Look, it seems like the end of the world at the moment, but it isn’t. Things will get easier. Dónal’s death was an accident.’ He kissed my hair. ‘You will survive this, I promise you will.’ He hugged my side to his. ‘And Lil, fuck the guilt – you only live once.’

I kissed Anthony on the cheek. ‘Thanks, Dad. Verity’s a basket case at the moment; she’s acting like Dónal’s death has affected her really deeply, but I know it’s just an excuse to get gee-eyed. She won’t tolerate
me
being sad either; it drives me mad.’

‘Your mother is one of my favourite people on earth, Lillis, but, like all supremely selfish people, she’s very, very hard to live with. I still have such huge love for her, but I know what she can be like.’

‘And India? What sort of love do you have for her?’

‘India is a wonderful woman, I love her to bits. But Verity was my big love. The love of my life.’ Anthony sighed. ‘And don’t you dare tell India that I said that.’

‘I wouldn’t, Dad, you know that. Do you have regrets?’

‘Regret, like guilt, is a wasted emotion. Don’t bother with it, Lillis. I try not to.’ He hugged me again. ‘Come on, my angel girl, you’re staying on here, as planned, because I refuse to let you go back to face Verity yet. You’re supposed to be getting away from things.’

‘Thanks, Dad. I love you, you know?’

‘I know you do, Lil, and I love you too.’

We sat on the bed watching a bevy of swans move along the river through the rain, their shiny, paddling bodies bright against the dark water.

‘Look at them, shaking their fat arses,’ Anthony said, cocking his head at the swans. ‘I always think they must be constipated from all the stodgy white bread they eat. You’re supposed to throw them cabbage you know, not bread.’ He stretched and yawned. ‘They get these pink bits on their wings when they eat too much wheat – it means they’re not well.’

‘Dad, am I like Verity?’

Anthony leaned away and looked into my face. ‘You’ve always had something of that melancholic air that she has. It’s actually the first thing about your mother that I noticed and it’s probably why I fell in love with her. The difference is you don’t need alcohol to come alive, like Verity does. People have always done it for you: your school friends and Robin. I see how tuned in you and Rob are to each other still – he knows how to get you laughing, he brings you out of yourself, makes you glow.’

‘And Dónal – do you think he ever did it for me?’

‘No, darling, not Dónal, not in the way you need. But I sort of only see it now.’

He took my hand. A shiver juddered through me and I sat on to watch the families of bobbing swans turning for shore and home.

Chapter Nine

I
know Struan doesn’t want to have sex again, but I push a bit anyway, just to see; he leans in, looks into my eyes, and unpeels my hands from his skin. He yawns.

‘I’d better get over to the inn,’ he says.

Other times I would persist, kissing him deeply and tucking my body over his while pinning his arms to the sides of his head. It annoys him to give in, but he seems glad when he does. Sex is our connection – the one thing that binds us when I feel like I haven’t a clue what is going on with him. If he won’t be open with me, I think, at least we can have decent sex.

He jumps out of the bed and pulls on his trunks. I watch the movement of the skin over his bones: Struan is slim with a firm fleshiness that I love. Whether we are lying, sitting, or standing together, my hands always find their way to the taut pouches of his chest, with the curls of grey hair thrown there like a scatter of question marks. I love to knead and press the skin there and, when he is naked, I kiss his chest over and over, tugging gently on his nipples with my teeth.

Traffic noise rises from Clanranald Street to the window and grows louder; a tight breeze makes the net curtain come alive. The chlorine smell of morning winds into my nose and makes me want to sneeze. I plough the bed covers around my arms, snuggling deeper to cover my cold shoulders.

‘Come here,’ I say, and Struan sits. I climb out from under the quilt, push him onto his back and lie down on top of him, the length of my body heavy on his. I plunge my lips to his neck and kiss it.

‘You’re my
strupac
,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that a great word? Margaret taught me that, it means “sup of tea” in Gàidhlig.’ I snuggle against his skin. ‘I love you, Strupac.’

‘Mmm,’ he says, and kisses my nose, flicking at it with one finger, then he heaves himself from under me and stands. ‘I’m gone or I’ll be behind. See you later.’

I stay on in bed, listening to Kinlochbrack rouse itself. I doze and wake, and think about Struan, about that remove he keeps; he has slotted something small but immoveable between us. If I press him, he reels away. But, tomorrow he is taking me south to visit his mother and that means something, surely.

A low moon, like a leaping fish, hangs in the sky above the city and drizzle fuzzes the edges of buildings, cars and street lights. Everything feels different in Glasgow, I think, even the rain. It is a proper city with its odd mix of old and new: roads on stilts, flats, factories, chimneys and spires. It has a grubby aura – not dissimilar to home – but Glasgow scares me a little because it is so vast; bigger by far than Dublin and more industrial in its make-up.

I tuck my arm into Struan’s and put my head on his shoulder. We are in town clothes: a dress and pumps for me; a light suit for him. It feels good to be out of jeans and sandals, out of my waitressing uniform; it makes us both buoyant, being away from the inn and its concerns. We are more inclined to laugh, to be kind to each other. The niggles of work and Sam and busyness are left behind in Kinlochbrack.

Carnival lights bump and whirl above and around us; the thumping music grinds into my brain. I peck with my fingers at the candyfloss in my hand. Pulling a clump of the sticky pink mess, I push it between Struan’s lips; he grunts and lets it melt on his tongue.

‘This stuff is vile,’ I say. ‘Do you want to go on the bumpers?’

We are lingering in front of the booth that has ‘Dodgems’ bannered in green letters below a neon woman’s bare breasts. My stomach is a bit iffy after the Crazy Jumper. And my head. I have had too much sugar; too much spinning like a dervish on the rides; far too much fear that the whole shebang was going to collapse and kill us all. I plop the candyfloss into a bin. We stop and stand in the middle of a straggle of teenagers and young families; we hold each other face to face.

‘You have a halo,’ Struan says, and wipes the soft rain that clings to my hair. He takes me in his arms and kisses my mouth, while people flow on all sides of us. ‘So how do you like Glasgow so far, Miss Yourell?’

‘I love it,’ I say, ‘and I love you.’

Struan’s mother lives in his childhood home off the Byres Road, a brick two-up, two-down which is painted a shrill pink. The poky, skewed front garden is lush with weeds; we stand outside the gate, looking at the house.

‘My father would spin in his urn if he could see the state of the place,’ Struan says, and sighs. He rings the bell and his mother opens the door instantly; she must have been waiting behind it.

‘There you are, pet. It’s dreich out there.’ She kisses Struan who has bent his face to hers. ‘Hello, dearie,’ she says to me, grabbing me to her chest and kissing both my cheeks.

‘Mum, this is Lillis. Lillis, Pearl.’

‘It’s lovely to meet you, Mrs Torrance.’

‘You can call me Pearl, hen.’

She is a dolly-bird gargoyle, hunched over and wearing too much makeup; her dress is the soft grey worn by nuns but she is dripping with gold chains and she wears long, hooped earrings. She has clearly hemmed the dress herself – crooked blue stitches make a track around the skirt end like an unmade road. She looks wrong in the dress, odd and sort of sweet. She ushers us through the tiny hallway into her lounge.

Pearl asks how the drive was; if we saw any crashes. She says she will never get into a car again. She puts us sitting on the sofa, folds her arms and keeps her eyes off me as she chats to Struan – she relays news of relatives, sick and out of work; bits of local gossip: Mrs McKenzie is dead; the postman took a stroke and can’t speak anymore; Napier’s stopped stocking the crispy morning rolls Pearl loves until she complained and now they have them again. I focus on her mouth: she is wearing a frosted pink lipstick that makes her teeth look green.

‘We all thought Struan was a fairy, of course. For years,’ she says, turning to me. ‘Then he married that Sheena. Well. We all know how that went.’

‘Mum, don’t start,’ Struan says, and looks at me.

‘Oh, she was a besom, that Sheena,’ Pearl says, climbing into her armchair. ‘Money mad and ugly as a man.’

‘You were married?’ I say.

‘Briefly.’

I pull my eyes away from Struan’s and look around the room. It is filled with gew-gaws of every level of tackiness: porcelain frogs, Spanish dolls, shell covered ashtrays, and a Niagaric fountain feature that makes me want to pee. A TV hums in the corner, the sound turned down low.

‘You’ll have tea,’ Pearl says.

‘Great,’ I say, eyeing a hip-height statue of Jesus that jostles with a china Alsatian beside the hearth. Christ’s mournful eyes are tilted heavenward, begging deliverance, probably, from the kitsch-fest.

‘Struan, go and make the tea,’ she says.

‘You have a lovely home, Pearl.’

‘Och well. You’re from Ireland, hen. You lot love your guns and bombs, eh? Shooting children and all that.’

‘I don’t approve of any of that. It’s got nothing to do with me.’

‘Nothing to do with you? I was sure Struan said you were Irish. Whatever you say, hen.’

She turns to the TV and I rub my palms together and wonder how long we will have to stay. I flick my eyes across her boast wall: her wedding photo is there – she looks impossibly hopeful and her husband looks smug; beside that there is a picture of Struan and his brother Lewis in Communion outfits; then their Confirmation pictures, both wearing the same fawn suit with a scarlet rosette on its wide lapel; next to that sits Lewis in a cap and gown. There are no pictures of their sister, who died as a girl. I try to remember her name but it won’t come to me.

Struan teeters in with a tray, a rigor-mortis-like grin on his face; he serves us and we sip in silence. Pearl sits, eating a biscuit, staring at me. Her mouth seems to cause her trouble; the chewing looks like an ordeal. She snaps a piece of biscuit with her fingers and sucks it.

‘How many bairns has your mother got, pet?’

‘Two. There is myself and my brother.’

‘A pigeon’s clutch.’

‘My father calls it “a gentleman’s family”.’ I laugh.

‘And is he a gentleman, your father? That’s the question.’ She turns away. ‘I take it you two will marry? Every woman wants her big day, Struan. Even if she’s modern in her outlook. You know,
young
. People look down their snot at you when you’re not married. I want my day in the sun as mother of the groom, and I want it while I can still walk.’ She gives her tea a clanking stir and reaches for my hand. ‘Talk sense into him, hen. He can’t go on like this, it’s not right.’ She looks around and whispers. ‘People will think you’re living in sin. Or worse.’

‘We don’t live together,’ I say, looking at her hand on mine, at the sun-aged skin.

‘No one gives a shit about that stuff anymore,’ Struan says. ‘Lots of couples live together without being married. People don’t care.’

‘I care,’ Pearl says, slapping the coffee table with one palm. ‘
I
care.’ She picks up a cigarette and waggles it at me. ‘I hope to God there’s no improper conduct in the bedroom.’

‘Ah, Mum,’ Struan says, ‘for goodness sake.’

‘What was it your father used to say about people who lived together but never married? “Why would a man buy a cow when he can get a pint of milk?” That’s what he’d say.’ She wheezes. ‘See that now; you’d need to think about that.
Why would a man buy a cow when he can get a pint of milk?
’

‘Charming,’ says Struan.

‘I live in the staff house, Pearl, belonging to the inn. And Struan has his house on Clanranald Street.’

‘Well, anyway.’ Pearl flicks her lighter to the cigarette and puffs; she looks at me. ‘If you play along with some men, they turn on you. You try to do what you think they want, then bam, they get nasty. Struan’s not like that; he’s a gentleman. Unlike his father. You thank your lucky stars, pet.’

I feel tired with her and for her. ‘I know how lucky I am,’ I say.

‘That’s tip-top, hen. Tip-top!’ Pearl drags hugely on her cigarette and smiles her green-toothed smile. ‘Oh, and you needn’t tell Struan about our little conversation, all right? Promise?’

‘I promise.’

Struan looks at me over the top of his tea cup and tosses his eyes up to Heaven.

‘You’ll eat with me,’ Pearl says.

‘We will; we’d love to.’ She goes to the kitchen and I let out a puff of stress through my lips. ‘Jesus Christ. What was all that?’

‘Mad as a brush. She’s worse than the last time I saw her.’ Struan scratches his head. ‘Her mind just lets loose. Along with her tongue.’

‘So, you have a secret wife,’ I say. ‘
Sheena
.’

‘It’s no secret – it didn’t come up.’

‘You might have mentioned her.’

‘It was thirty years ago, Lillis; not exactly to the forefront of my mind.’

‘I suppose you have slip-of-the-mind kids too?’

‘Nope, no kids.’ He looks at his watch. ‘Jesus, I wish we could go.’

‘Well we can’t. Where is she now?’

‘Mum?’

‘Sheena.’

‘Here somewhere, I think, in Glasgow.’ He pushes the heels of his hands into his eyes and rubs for a long time; he looks at me. ‘What do you make of the house?’

I glance around and grimace. ‘Loch Ness meets the Vatican.’

Struan laughs. ‘Tartan and saints a-go-go.’ He puts his arm around my shoulder.

Pearl comes back in and serves toast and beans by candlelight, with silverware and orange juice and real napkins.

‘Is this it?’ Struan asks, when she has us all set up with trays on our knees.

‘This is great, Pearl; perfect,’ I say, ‘don’t mind him.’ But she sits, her limbs wobbling, in silence. We start to eat but Pearl gets up slowly and leaves the room, carrying her tray before her like a sacrifice. ‘Struan, what the fuck did you say that for?’

He goes after her and is gone ages; I hear the low thrum of their conversation coming through the wall. I eat my food and watch the silent TV, trying to lip read. There are no bookshelves; no newspapers or magazines to idle through. Struan comes back; Pearl doesn’t reappear.

‘She’s having a wee lie down,’ he says, his mouth in a grim line. ‘She said to say goodbye. I had to promise that we’ll stop by before heading for Kinlochbrack tomorrow.’

‘That’s OK.’

The hotel corridor smells like vinegar, reminding me of Verity’s homemade cleaning products. Our room is stuffy, the heavy curtains and zealous central heating make the air dry and hot. I wake, irritable from trying to breathe in my sleep, but I am too lazy to get out of bed to open the window. My mouth is stale and my head throbs. Struan rolls over on top of me and slides my knickers down on my hips. I kiss him, ask him to go slow, be gentle.

‘No fucking, just loving, OK, Struan?’

‘OK, babe.’ He licks my neck, dipping his tongue into the hollow at the base of my throat. ‘You’re so beautiful.’

‘All that business with your mother freaked me out; I feel sick.’

I turn my head away from him and stick my nose into the stiff cotton of the pillowcase; I am glad it smells of nothing. Struan moves down my body, caressing and sucking. I pluck at the bedclothes with my hands and stare at the window, willing it to open and offer me some air. Struan is parting my thighs with his fingers.

‘Lil, are you all right? Do you want me to stop?’

‘No, no, don’t stop. I need you; I need to feel you inside me.’ I take his face in my hands, pull his body up along mine and kiss his forehead. I push my pelvis forward and guide him in.

Struan told Pearl we would call at lunchtime; again, he rings the door bell. It is one o’clock and when Pearl opens the door, she is still in her nightdress, her hair in rollers.

‘Mum?’

‘There’s something terrible going on in London,’ she says; she turns away from us and goes into the lounge.

‘The old pair spent their honeymoon in London,’ Struan says, as we hang our jackets in the hall, ‘no doubt there’s a tiny catastrophe to do with some place they visited; a tea shop closed down or something.’

I follow him into the lounge and, on the TV screen, see the destroyed front of Harrods department store. There is a wave of black smoke and a lone Bobby standing on the glass-strewn street.