The Monster's Wife(71)

She lifted her hands to her cheeks and smoothed away tears of rain. When she’d gone into the yard, everything had smelled and looked and felt like home and she’d known how it was to have Granny hold her and Toby lick her face, but Toby had snarled as if he’d seen a fox and Granny had talked to her the way you’d talk to a beast. It hurt to remember the words.

She should have grabbed that dog and squeezed his soft neck until the last weak cry, then Granny would be sorry. Tears ran and soaked the neck of her dress. She cried until there was no water left.

There was a laugh, the ring of boots hitting the hardening earth, the sounds of men’s voices talking low and easy. They’d be coming to the fields to shift hay and mend stooks after the storm. They were coming nearer, their voices growing louder. They came so close she thought they were sure to smell her, but then their footsteps passed by, fading as they plodded down the hill towards the crofts.

Before long, Granny would tell other people about the demon. The men would come back to the field armed with sticks and knives. She crawled out of the stook, staying down on her knees, out of sight. A brown mouse scampered out with her and turned, stood on its hind legs its currant eyes gleaming then ran away with a squeak, like the dog, like Granny.

As she rose to a crouch, a red thing fell to her feet. The scarf. She folded it and wrapped it around her head, tying a clumsy knot at the nape of her neck, remembering that weeks or months or years ago, she’d used this to keep the sun off when she worked in the fields.

She took one last long look at home, the place where smoke twisted from the chimney and chickens scratched in the dirt. The two men were almost there. She began to walk, feeling the looseness of her dress, as if she’d shrunk in the night the way fruit does.

She walked for a long time, watching her bare feet moving between stalks or over grass, not following any particular direction. Crows called to her from the stumps of trees, their hoarse voices mocking, their grey hoods warped by the wind. She followed the path the burn cut through pastureland down to the beach. Where the grass thinned, runnels of brown water cut grooves in the sand. The rains had glutted the burn and all its channels, toppling pale towers into the flood. She heard the splash of them falling, the burn gurgling, her feet padding steadily on.

At the stepping-stones, she stopped and looked down. Her face was a distant moon lost in a halo of red hair and wool. The water flowed through it, making it look as if her lips and nose had been worn down. She held her body still, trying to see the demon inside.

Sighing, she pressed on, clambering through tussocks of spiky grass onto a stretch of beach where a lone boat rested on a bank of black seaweed. The sun was high. Most of the fishermen would have been out for hours, casting nets, hauling up creels. Soon it would be time for their meat and they’d lie across the boat with their brown feet hung over the side, drinking beer. She kicked at the sand as she went, until she stubbed her toe and sat down like a child to cradle it.

That was when she heard their voices. At first she couldn’t work out where they were hiding, but then she saw the coils of white smoke drifting up above the lip of the boat. Some fishermen must be leaning on the far side, passing a pipe between them. A picture of them doing just that filled her head, real as life. She even saw their faces, sucking on the blackened clay.

In front of her was a big piece of driftwood, sun-bleached as a bone and smooth from the sea’s caress. She crouched down behind it, her head resting on the salt-smelling surface. There were round grooves that had been worn into the wood by people sitting on it to watch the sea. Maybe she’d sat on it once, too. From her hiding place she watched the smoke and listened.

“He said she stole the boat and that was why God struck her down, but this one’s Uncle’s. It won’t be stealing at all.” The voice tangled in her head with a picture of a dark-haired boy flailing a stick.

The other blew out smoke and spat. “Aye, it is, Roy. You know we’re banned from it. I don’t want the belt again, thanks.” He picked up a stone and skimmed it into the shallows. Jamie. Jamie and Roy. They were something dear – not to her, but to someone she cared for.

“He beats us for everything since Aunt May left. Might as well be hung for a sheep. I say we row out now. We’ll be back for our meat. No-one will ken.”

“And what if a ghost comes and finds us and drowns us?”

“Oona’s or May’s?”

“They both drowned, isn’t it? They’ll both be ghosts.”

Drowned. They were talking as if she was dead.

Roy laughed. “Great big lassie you are. I’ve no fear of of finmen, don’t believe in ‘em.”

“Well then, what of the demon Cormick saw chasing after Oona? He might come after us.”

“You’ll believe anything, you. Cormick’s only an old drunky, making up tales.”

“Then why did she have that face on her when they buried her, as if she was frightened to death?”

“Well…I s’pose it’s no céilidh to drown.”

Oona needed to talk to them. She got up, and with trembling hands brushed the sand off her dress and smoothed the scarf over her hair. She took one step closer, then another. When she was almost in reach of the boat Roy appeared by the prow. His mouth fell open.

“What have you seen, Roy?” Jamie stumbled after him.

They both stared.