The Monster's Wife(57)

Oona marched after him, racking her brain for a job she must see to right away, a reason to tell him to leave. “I must get supper ready.”

Granny frowned and turned to the fire as if to check that her food was still a certain fact, however the rest of life tipped and tilted. When she saw the old black iron pot the Scollays had cooked in for centuries, she nodded, seemingly reassured. “It’s already done, Oona.”

“Oh.”

“And what will you eat today, girls?” Stuart lifted the lid of the pot and peered in.

Granny looked at him, affronted. “Cockaleekie. You’re welcome to a dish if you’ve not eaten, Stuart.”

Oona took the lid from him and put it firmly back on the pot. She stood between the two of them, hands on hips. “We mustn’t spoil Stuart’s supper, Granny. I’m sure Ma Flett has been cooking all day.”

Stuart nodded. He went to the table by the window and sat down turning his neck from side to side as if he had a cramp. He smiled that oily smile of his and beckoned Oona over with his head. She went to the table and sat down, keeping her trembling hands folded in her lap. Between them lay a lump of cheese and a blunt-ended knife, home comforts that looked out of place with him here.

“It’s a sad case, how Ma must cook for me still. The plan was that May would be doing it.”

Oona shrugged, unable to keep the bitter irony from her voice. “Well that’s likely the worst thing about her not being here.”

His face turned from charming to cruel in an instant. “Be clever all you like, Oona. You’ll be punished for it, you and your doctor friend. I’ll see to that.”

“Why should we be, when we’ve done nothing?”

“Do you have any proof of that?”

“Do you?” she snapped back. But as soon as she did, she saw how hopeless things were if it became her word against his. He was trusted and loved by everyone on the island and who was she really, to anyone here? The misfit, the dying girl. Worse now that her greatest ally was Victor.

She stared down at her lap and picked at her thumbnail. Ever since she was a child, Stuart had always seemed invincible to Oona. He was the big boy who climbed along the crags and stole puffin eggs and shot snow hares with a sling. If he lit a fire it always caught and when he told a joke everyone laughed. They all wanted him to like them, even grownups. The scrawny orphan everyone pitied, Oona had envied Stuart his swagger and ease.

Then one day she and May were playing hide and seek out at the Flett place and they heard shouting and thumping loud enough to shake the snow from the mountain and send the birds squawking into the sky. They peeked in through a window and saw Old Man Flett beating Stuart with a battledore, saw his thin back covered with thick, purple knots of scars. His Ma cowered in the corner crying and his Father just kept on hitting and hitting him until they couldn’t watch any more. After that day, May took a shine to Stuart, the seed of pity sprouting into love. For her own part, Oona was wary of him. She’d seen dogs that had been beaten all their lives, knew how when they sunk their teeth in it was sudden and fierce and they were loathe to let go. The only way with a dog like that was to let it know you were giving the orders.

Oona stared Stuart in the eye. “I’ve searched everywhere for May. I don’t know any more than you do.” She spoke the words with a guilty sense that she did know more: the scarred man, the monster. Had he rowed May out in the Elver to further revenge himself on Victor, tipped her over the side somewhere? How could she tell Stuart she thought that? The first thing he’d do was lead a mob to the big house to finish what he’d begun at Scollay.

“I can’t credit that, Oona. I believe you were jealous. May was your boon companion all those years and after all that, she was about to marry to me. I think you couldn’t stand it.”

Her throat pulsed, choked with anger. She thought of May’s sad eyes the last time she saw her, the coin hidden in her skirts. Whatever had happened, she hadn’t seemed so keen on marrying Stuart in the end. “I think she couldn’t stand you. She was saving, maybe to run...”

The warmth died out of his throat and face until he was pale as whey. “That’s not the reason she’s gone.”

Oona kept staring, forcing herself not to blink. “Then what is?”

Stuart’s eyes began to water. He looked as if he might cry again, then he reached under the table and took her hand. If Victor had done that, it would have been romantic, holding onto her where Granny couldn’t see. But with Stuart it was like a slug oozing over her skin.

Granny’s wicker chair creaked. She turned round, crumpled, as if she’d been dozing. “Want some soup now, Stuart?”

“No, thank you Mrs Scollay. I’ll be off home, soon.”

“Oona? Set the table for me?”

“Yes.” The bones in her hand crackled like twigs. She tried to pull herself away, but he wouldn’t let go.

“You know, May was always your shadow, doing your bidding.” He took her hand between his and stroked it gently. “How do you know it’s not you she’s gone from? Maybe she wished to be free of you.”

“Or perhaps you thought she had another lover, so you killed her—“

Stuart pushed his chair back from the table. He took a step towards the door as if he was going to leave. Instead, he turned to her, hand poised and trembling level with his face. She was cornered, back flat to the wall. He grabbed up the cheese knife and stroked his thumb along the edge of the blade, his eyes on her throat.