The Tin-Kin (26 page)

We were told the story of Elgin Cathedral at Sunday School, how the Wolf of Badenoch torched it and stole all the treasures inside, which definitely
was
a sin. I asked Father O’Brien if the Wolf of Badenoch was like the Black Dog in the story Granny told me, the one where the dog is the Hornie in disguise. Father O’Brien didn’t know the story, so I told him how the Black Dog steals into churches when there’s a thunder storm and mauls everyone inside to death. The end of the story is that if you look close on church doors, you can see the dog’s bloody claw scratches in the wood. The Black Dog would be much more frightening than Dotty, the wee bitch over the Lane.

Up until that day I’d thought the Black Dog was a story from the Bible, but Father O’Brien was raging at me when I told him. He said I was a pagan and gave me a clip round the ear, and ever since then I’ve gone to the Baptists for Sunday School instead.

I’ve ripped up a good bit of grass by now, so I stuff the cuttings up my jumper and lie back pretending to be pregnant. I put my hands over the bump just like I’ve seen Big Ellen do, and then stroke them up and down. The grass tickles my skin through my blouse, and I pretend it’s the feeling of the baby moving inside. I wonder when Uncle Jock will marry the girl from the bridge, and if they’ll fit into our wee house. Maybe we’ll all have to live in tents again. Can you have a wireless in a tent?

When Granny’s in the right mood, she tells me what it was like when she was on the road. Other times she just laughs when I ask her, and says, ‘The past is the past,’ or sends me out to play. When she does tell stories, I don’t know what’s real and what’s made up, especially the bits about the horse deals and magic, and murders and shipwrecks, which sound like the fairy tales we read at school.

Granny remembers so many people you never know who’s who in her stories of the old days. There were hundreds of lassies called Betsy or Maggie, and boys called Jock and Georgie and Willie. They all moved about together, one big family living in the woods or up in the mountains, or huddled in the caves by the beach. Sometimes I imagine them swinging in the trees, especially the McPhees, and I don’t know if that’s real, or a story, or something I just dreamed up. When they stayed in the caves there would always be a fire at the entrance, so if you went out for a pee at night, you could always find the path back.

I realise I’m needing myself, so I get up, holding onto my belly of grass and groaning like Big Ellen. I look for a bush to go behind, but there are none nearby, so I head in the direction of the cathedral. When I find a spot, I take my knickers off. I don’t
want to wet them by mistake. I squat down, turning my back to the cathedral and checking the shadows cause the Wolf of Badenoch must be prowling about somewhere. The pee is just starting to splash between my feet when a strong beam of light flashes over me. I nearly soak my shoes with fright. The Wolf!

A huge fanged beast lurches into the beam. I fall backwards as a long, coughing bark fires from between its jaws. Every bone in my body and every skeleton in the cathedral graveyard trembles. Even the stones of the cathedral shiver. I taste the grass from up my jumper going into my mouth. It’s gone everywhere. I’m trapped between the hedge and the beast, watching a glistening string of slether swinging from its gums as it lunges forward again and again, in and out of the beam of light. Even though I know I’ll be clawed to death against the cathedral door, I still feel embarassed at the warm dribbles running over my knee. I didn’t really have time to finish what I was doing.

‘Down! Enough!’ a voice shouts.

The Black Dog suddenly disappears, the beam of light steadies on my face, and my eyes adjust to the light. I scramble to my feet and I don’t know which way to go. I can still hear the monster panting somewere very close, licking its lips.

‘It’s all right, girl. Poli
sss
!’ The man’s voice comes again, a whistle.

I’m not sure if I’m more or less feart, or whether I should run. I try not to greet as sweaty handfuls of grass tumble out the bottom of my jumper, loot tipped from a robber’s sack. It tickles my shins on its way to the ground. The tobies tell you off if you pick the grass.

The beam of light slides from my face, down over my damp legs, onto the pile of grass cuttings at my feet, then across the ground to where I’ve left my underwear. The dog barks again, and for a second it springs back into the beam. I scream and press myself into the hedge.

The toby hauls the dog away and asks my name. He asks me in an angry voice if I have been tampered with, but I don’t know what that means. I say no, just in case it’s a crime I might’ve done, and I start to greet because he might throw me in the quad with the McPhees.

‘I’ll need to have a wee chat with your father, won’t I? You been picking the gras
sss
?’ he says, looking at the green clippings stuck on my face, down my kilt and all over my socks. His dog appears back in the beam, growling and snapping, and this time the toby doesn’t pull it away so fast cause he’s waiting for some answers.

The Black Dog pins me against the hedge. It’s hard to breathe with his fangs so close, and somehow, something I don’t mean to say turns into words. In between the breaths I feel them slipping out my mouth like torn-out stuffing, and in a few gulps I’ve told the toby the really big secret. He gets it out of me like water from a tap. Straight away I know I’ve made a mistake. I want him to forget about it so I also tell him about me going back on the road, and about my teacher Miss Webster, how Jock was going to marry her one day. I keep explaining, but in the end I’m greetin too much for the words to find a way out. I want the toby to take me home and not lock me in the quad. He hasn’t said a word all this time.

‘Sorry for picking grass,’ I say, when I can get a breath.

He points to my underwear. ‘
Sss
ort your
sss
elf out and we’ll get a move on,’ he says, turning his back and lighting a cigarette while I put my knickers back on and brush off my clothes. I stay as far from the dog as I can, and try to see the man’s face, but it’s too dark. All I can make out is his grey hair, which glows in the moonlight, and the red circle at the end of his cigarette. The dog is quieter now.

‘I thought it was the Wolf of Badenoch,’ I sniff. This makes him laugh, and I think then about taking his hand, but before I can he puts it into a pocket.

‘Where do you live?’ he says.

‘Lady Lane,’ I tell him.

He takes a suck on the cigarette. ‘Lay-dee-Lane,’ he hums. He yanks the dog hard on its lead and marches off at a pace, whistling back over his shoulder that I’d better
sss
kip and keep up.

Dawn

Dawn had found a small magnifying mirror. She was standing in the light of the window by the door, using the mirror to get a better look at the photo Ma Batchie had pointed to. She was sure she’d come up with the only explanation, that the old woman had somehow seen the picture in Dawn’s hand, and made an assumption. But the old woman’s eyesight would have had to be perfect.

It would be easier to examine the photo with a proper eyeglass, the kind stamp collectors used, but the mirror did the trick once she held it steady and got the distance right. The focus was soft, but Dawn could still see what she was looking for. A beauty spot on the girl’s left cheek, her right cheek in the mirror image. Shirley’s chocolate chip, proof that she had once been Lolly. There could never be two people more different than the girl in the picture and Dawn’s aunt. But there was no doubt. Dawn swallowed a lump.

In Shirley’s bedroom, the clothes were still hanging, arthritic ghosts in the overstuffed wardrobe. Heavy wool and stiff cottons fought against Dawn as she heaved them along the rail. The familiar smell was here too, the same scent of talc and drycleaned tweed that had been in the bag from the morgue. Underlying it was the musty walnut of the wardrobe.

The blue coat was at the back. Shirley had kept it. Dawn recognised the unusual round collar, the darker velvet trim making a ‘U’ shape over the bust. It was the same one that Lolly was wearing in the photographs taken at the beach. She’d kept it all that time.

Dawn remembered years ago, she’d snuck in one day on tiptoes, wondering where her aunt was. She’d found Shirley
sitting on the bed, smoothing her hands over some piece of clothing. Was it the coat? She was crying, and Dawn tiptoed out again without being noticed.

Outside the weather had got up again. Branches of the tree were stroking the bedroom window, cold bones. Dawn put the blue coat over a chair. In the bedroom mirror she found herself staring at her reflection, studying it again, the bridge of her nose, the curve of her upper lip and the soft pastilles of her ear lobes, which she could peer at out the corner of her eyes. She lay down on the bed. Maeve had been dropped off at Dad and Mother’s house, and the flat felt too still. Dawn pushed her face into the bedcover. She wanted to sleep.

The phone rang.

Warren?

The first thing she thought, even now. But that was silly. When the phone rang it was always Dad. Dawn dragged herself up and cleared her throat.

Hello?

Dawn, that you?

It wasn’t Dad. It was Mother. There was a quickness to her voice, like in the old days.

You’d better fetch Maeve away, the voice said. I don’t know what you’ve been telling the child but she’s upset him . . . Yes, really! She’s said terrible things. I never heard anything like it. He’s left to take a drive and I want her gone before he gets home. I want her gone.

Mother began to cry.

I’ll come now, Dawn said. I’m on my way. But Mother had already hung up and the line was ticking. Dawn put down the phone. She felt dizzy. For a few seconds she stood there wondering what she needed; her keys, her shoes, her coat. She suddenly couldn’t remember where she’d left them or which way to go first. Then she saw the keys, lying right by the phone. Her shoes were on her feet already. Dawn walked into
the bedroom. She grabbed Shirley’s blue coat and threw it over her shoulders.

Dad couldn’t have gone far because he was back by the time Dawn arrived. He was in the sitting room smoking, something Dawn hadn’t seen him do in years. Maeve had been sent into the garden like a naughty pet. They’d put her into her coat and shoes, ready to go, and her shoes were muddy so she wasn’t allowed back in the house. Dawn could see her playing through the back window, piling armfuls of fallen leaves by the trunk of the tree.

Dad wouldn’t look at Dawn, but he nodded to the garden.

The bairn’s out playing.

What happened? Dawn asked.

She got some funny ideas in her head, he said.

Dad stood up and began beating the cushions on the sofa with one hand, raising the dust. There was a smell of tobacco and digestive biscuits. He sat down again.

Mother was in the kitchen, shouting through to Dawn.

I’ve lined her toys up here for you.

She appeared in the doorway and stopped dead.

What on earth’s that you’re wearing?

Dad looked at Dawn in the blue coat and he started to say something.

Was that nae . . . ?

We ken fine whose it was, Gordon! Mother snapped.

Dawn smoothed her hands over the blue coat. She fiddled with one of the buttons that was coming loose. Mother leaned towards her and sniffed. She looked like she would be sick. It did have a faint smell, old waxy make-up and wet wool.

You look just like she used to in that, Mother said eventually. Apart from the hair. It’s creepy.

Dad was watching them and slowly finishing his cigarette.

Will someone tell me what happened? Dawn said.

Mother turned to Dad. She pursed her lips and when she spoke she was on the verge of tears again.

She’ll not call him her granddad any longer.

Ach! Dad said. It’s nae matter.

But Dawn knew when he’d had his feelings hurt.

Oh, Dad, she said, Maeve doesn’t know what she’s saying! I’m sorry, but she’s only four. You mustn’t take it that way.

But that’s not the half of it! Mother shouted. She said some awful things. And it wasn’t like that. She’s been acting strange all day.

Wilma! Dad said. Leave it!

I’ll talk to her, Dawn said. She had a shock yesterday. I told you about the old woman, didn’t I?

Mother sat herself down beside Dad.

That poor old lady died. Did you nae hear the news? Mother said. We saw it this morning. It made the national round-up.

Aye, it did, said Dad.

They were quiet now, and for a few moments Dawn could hear Maeve singing to herself outside, a song she’d never heard before. She felt a strange kind of relief to hear that the old woman was no longer alive. She tried to remember Ma Batchie’s last words. Gone in a blink. Something like that. To think a hundred and twenty-one years could go so fast.

Did you tell Maeve? Dawn said.

Mother blew her nose.

No, of course not, Dad said. No one’s said a thing.

Mother sniffed, balled up her tissue and stuffed it under the cuff of her sleeve. She patted Dad on the leg and the conversation seemed to be over.

Dawn said she’d go and get Maeve.

Half an hour later they were climbing the hill to the caravan site, Maeve in front and Dawn following. Maeve liked the woods and they didn’t rush. The trees seemed to lean together to
whisper about them as they passed, and the rain had left a rich smell of earth and moss. But Dawn had too many thoughts in her head to relax. She wondered what she was doing, being led by Maeve’s insistance, and by the ravings of the oldest woman in the world, who had died yesterday.

Maeve had still been heaping up leaves in Mother and Dad’s garden when Dawn had gone outside. She’d also been babbling in a funny voice, as if she had a mouse or a kitten in her hands.

Dawn had asked her what she was building, was it a nest?

Maeve had shaken her head.

What is it?

It’s a house.

Well, isn’t a nest a sort of house?

Maeve nodded.

We’re going to go now, Dawn had told her. Do you want to say sorry to Granny and Grandpa?