Perfectly Preventable Deaths

22 Primrose

Mamó is giving us a lift to the pub in her cherry-red Toyota. She has to go to Ballyfrann anyway, for ‘various reasons’. I’m almost annoyed that Catlin’s here. I want to know exactly what Mamó’s doing. How her work fits in to the world of the village. Who is dangerous here, and who is not.

‘She probably means the bank or something, Mad. Let her have her little mysteries,’ is Catlin’s take on it, which doesn’t work because banks aren’t open that late, so she is clearly doing something witchy. Possibly with wands. I have much fear of missing out. I could be finding out information about an elderly woman right now instead of going to the stupid pub. The actual dream, like.

We messaged back and forth inside the car. It’s cleverer than whispering where Mamó’s concerned. I have a sense her hearing’s awful keen. Every now and then she meets my eyes in the rear-view mirror. Her gaze is very steady, and knowing.

She told me to be wary, and I am.

My eyes are heavy and there is a weight on me this evening. Last night I borrowed back the dress I gave to Catlin, sewed salt and flakes of rowan bark in the hems. I feel as if there is something to be guilty about. Ashamed. I have been warned. I have not passed it on. Perhaps I should.

‘Who’ll be there tonight?’ asks Mamó, glaring at the road, as though it were a thing she could defeat. The traffic lights turn green almost immediately. Probably out of fright. I wonder what it would be like to glare at everything and everyone. To never wear a face you didn’t mean.

‘Everyone. People,’ says Catlin.

‘Oona, Charley, Layla, Fiachra, Cathal. Lon,’ I say, trying to be open with her. And not to follow it up with, ‘TELL ME MAGICS!!’

‘Hmm,’ she says. ‘Lon.’ It is the most contempt I have ever heard pumped through one syllable. Her eyes still on the road.

I suppress a smile. That is the correct amount of contempt for Lon, I feel. Catlin disagrees and is having a rage-gasm in the back seat, fingers flying off a rant to me. It has nine swears in, some of them surprising.

I see her swallow, gather and collect.

‘Why the tone, Mamó?’ she asks. Mamó doesn’t dignify her with an answer. I wish she dignified more people with answers. And also gave better answers. We’re driving up a small, steep mountain road. Catlin kicks the seat in front of her, softly but with venom.

‘Mamó?’ she asks. And I can tell she’s going to begin stirring.

‘Yes?’ Mamó’s voice is curt. For not a change.

‘What about Oona?’

What about Oona? How is Oona any of Catlin’s business?

‘Oona Noone? The mother’s a bit odd. Artistic, like. The father’s got a temper. I don’t know much about the young one yet. Well able to go, I’d say. The Noones always were.’

She nods. And that’s as much as she says until we’re halfway up the mountain.

‘What a bitch,’ exclaims Catlin, once we’re free of the car.

‘You’re not wrong,’ I say. ‘But why did you have to bring Oona into it?’

‘Well, she talked shit about Lon, and you didn’t look annoyed enough about it.’ She turns to me. ‘And Oona is your new best friend.’

‘Oona is not my new best friend.’

‘She is. Look at the grinning head on you. You think she’s class. You want to lesbian-marry her.’

‘Shut up,’ I say. It’s true though. I’d wear pale grey and she’d wear white with the faintest tinge of blue to match the little flecks around her pupils. We’d honeymoon by the ocean. But that is all beside the bloody point. The cheek of her.

‘Don’t be a homophobic prick, Catlin.’

‘You can’t be homophobic to straight people, Maddy.’

‘You totally can. You don’t, like, need a gay person to be around for it to be homophobic. That’s not a thing.’ I can feel my face flushing. If she knew how I felt, maybe she’d be nicer about it all, but how even do I put it into words? I feel like Ballyfrann is jumbling up my headspace. Making everything a little warped.

Catlin’s looking at me with her mouth wide open, like a sentient gif.

‘You’re properly annoyed at me,’ she says, as if she really can’t believe it.

I glare at her, taking it all in, from head to toe. She looks like a young lady. It could be fifty, sixty years ago. In that dress, with her hair down, make-up simple. She could be Bridget Hora, Nora Ginn. Another girl they find upon the mountain.

I try to shove the stubborn thought away.

‘I’m not annoyed,’ I tell her.

‘You so are.’ She smiles at me. ‘You think you’d know by now, the way I am.’

We venture up the road towards Donoghue’s. It’s your typical old-man pub, wooden seats with maroon upholstery, whitewashed walls with different things stuck on. Some of them are weird. A bracelet made from braided hair. A cat’s skull. Others are just jugs or glass spheres half draped with netting. I wonder where pubs get all the random stuff they put on walls. Is it bit by bit or in a job lot?

The pub smells of spilled beer and turf. Some old guys sit in the corner, sipping their pints. There’s an open fire in the corner, with colourful bean bags around it. They seem really out of place. A surly-looking man is wiping down the counter. Lon is in a small room at the back, and, BUT OF COURSE, he is DJing. There’s an elaborate sound system hooked up. The music pulses through the lino of the floor. It’s hard to tell what colour it is, what with the combination of dim light and stains.

Layla greets us, flushed with drink and energy. She points out where the toilets are, the people that we know, and those we don’t. She’s moving differently tonight, weirdly buoyant, bopping her shoulders along to the music. Lock-in Layla’s fun, I think. I like her.

‘Hi. We’re allowed to drink soft drinks and beer or cider, but not what my dad calls hard liquor, or they won’t let us do this again. And we have to pay for everything, obviously. If you don’t recognise someone, they’re probably a Collins,’ she tells us.

Catlin’s eyes are fixed on Lon, as though he were the most important thing. She used to be her own most important thing, I think. I hope that I’ve reminded her of that. At least a little.

‘Whose is the guitar?’ Catlin asks, nodding to one propped up in the corner. ‘It’s not Lon’s. Lon’s is black.’

‘Shocker,’ I snort, and then do a little smile to try to soften my contempt. I don’t want to get into a row.

‘Fiachra brought it along – he was trying to impress Charley, but she wasn’t super into it.’

‘Why?’ asks Catlin. ‘Fiachra’s cute enough.’

Layla looks at us. ‘No, he isn’t. Ugh.’ She says it fondly. ‘My brothers are both idiots. Most of his songs are about his mountain bike. He uses girls’ names, but a sister knows. Charley deserves better. Plus, she needs to be careful around boys and things.’

‘Why?’ I ask. ‘Is she OK?… I mean, did something happen?’

‘No,’ says Layla. ‘Nothing like that. It’s just. She’s a Collins.’

‘What difference does that make?’ Catlin’s voice is high. She doesn’t get it.

Layla lowers her voice. ‘They marry each other.’ We look at her, aghast. She flaps her hands. ‘Oh, not in an incest way. In an arranged-marriage-to-distant-cousins way. It’s what they’ve always done.’

‘That still sounds a bit …’ Catlin looks at me.

I close my mouth. Reserve my judgement.

Layla starts to say more things but is immediately interrupted by Lon, because no one speaking could ever be as important as what Lon has to say. I tense my eye muscles.

‘Did I hear twincest?’ He smiles.

‘No, Lon,’ I say, with what I hope is a neutral expression on my face that hates him very much. ‘Just plain old-fashioned incest.’

He grins a toothy grin, pleased at having made me feel uncomfortable. The kind of grin a weasel would grin. If it had perfectly straight human-sized teeth. And if I hated weasels.

I look at Lon. I wonder. I reach into the compartment, slowly. Take out some of the feeling in my bones. Push it through my eyes. Just a little hint. To not mess with us. A Mamó glare.

I would rather ingest a maggot than kiss you on the mouth.

His smile freezes.

I change my expression, bat my eyes, like an innocent forest creature. Catlin looks at me.

‘What’s going on, you two?’

We both say, ‘Nothing,’ at the selfsame time.

Her voice is high, and loud across the room. ‘So, Charley, Layla was telling us you’re going to get arranged married. How do you feel about that?’

I close my eyes. I hate it when she does this.

Charley walks across the room. Says, ‘Yup.’

‘Does it ever bother you?’ asks Catlin. ‘That it could be an old guy, or a creep?’

Charley starts to speak, ‘Look who’s bloody …’ but Lon murmurs, ‘Catalina, be nicer.’

She mutters a sorry and she shuts her mouth.

I look at Lon. He smiles at me. Does that thing where he uses the small of Catlin’s back as though it were a steering wheel. He ushers her up the stairs, so they can ‘talk’, in his apartment.

I look at Charley.

Charley glares at Layla.

Layla shuffles.

‘I’d rather be arranged married than go out with Lon,’ I offer. It only breaks the tension just a little.

Charley snorts. ‘True.’

‘He’d call you Madelina?’ Layla offers, and I laugh.

‘Urrgh. He would and all.’

Layla turns to Charley. ‘I’m sorry I’m a gabby drunk. I didn’t mean to tell people your stuff. I just think it and all of a sudden I say it, and sometimes I think, Don’t say this thing, Layla, but it’s already out. Like a greyhound, or a pony. My mam loves gambling. I’m worried about her. There I go again.’

She sinks into a chair, still looking like a graceful ballerina but one who is utterly, utterly ashamed of herself.

Charley cuddles in beside her. ‘It’s fine. I mean, it’s the truth. It’s just my truth. And I don’t always like it. The idea. I’d like to, like, “play the field”, and stuff.’

They curl together, having a best-friend moment. I sit on a stool, wondering how much they know about this place, and what it would take for them to tell me. This makes me feel like a crap spy, so I head up to the bar and order a lemonade. Awkwardly. I might build up to cider later on. Like, I have no issue with underage drinking, it’s just it feels weird being in a pub and that being OK. Like, it’s all a bit sanctioned. When I get back to the table, Eddie has joined the girls, looking scandalised.

‘I only went up there to get my coat,’ he says, ‘and I saw a lot more of your sister than I wanted to see.’

I gasp. ‘Is she all right?’

‘Yeah, she’s grand. Laughed at me.’ He turns bright red at the thought of it. ‘I felt really creepy and awkward though. Like, what they do is none of my business … But the way Lon smiled – I think he liked me seeing them like that.’

Ugh. That is the worst thing I ever heard. I resist the urge to storm up there and pull him off my sister. She’d never speak to me again.

‘Why are ye even friends with him?’ I ask, typing a quick ‘u ok?’ into my phone.

‘He has a pub?’ he offers.

‘Fair enough.’

Catlin sends me back a lot of aubergines. She is the worst, but definitely grand. We spend the next few hours chatting and drinking, while Lon and Catlin stay in his apartment. It’s not like Catlin to miss this much of a thing. I drink a pint of cider, and feel the sugar harsh on the top of my stomach. I need to pace myself, seeing as she’s left me here alone.

‘C’mere,’ I say to Layla. ‘What’s the story with his crazy ex-girlfriends?’

She shrugs at me. ‘Dunno.’

Fiachra cracks open a can, his face dark. ‘Who – Helen?’

‘Like Helen Groarke?’

‘Exactly like Helen Groarke.’ He opens his mouth, and starts to speak again, but Charley shushes him, and clears her throat.

‘I don’t really like that word. Crazy. It usually means girls who ask boys questions.’

‘Or message them twenty-five times in an evening.’

‘Shut up, Fiachra.’

The conversation shifts. I’m still no wiser. I listen to the hum and dip of talk, and think, I know so little about these people. Their motivation, history. It’s new to me, but it is far from new.

And there are secrets, big and small, they’re keeping.

Her name was Helen.

What did Fiachra mean with his exactly? They might have known her, Helen Groarke. Who moved away and came back as a corpse. I suddenly feel cold. Lon is only nineteen. He would have been fifteen. When she was found. A little younger than she was. But still … it’s the same age difference between him and Catlin, pretty much. It could be, could have been. I try to slow my heart and parse my thoughts.

There are things you should be wary of …

I think of the first time we met Layla, when Catlin brought up the corpses in the hills. I look at the bodies of my classmates, hearts beating, eyes blinking, muscles tensing and relaxing, and scroll through my phone and start to type a message. How to put it …?

‘Did u know …’

‘Lon’s ex-girlf …’

‘We need …’

But nothing that I want to say is right. I feel a sickness creeping up my throat. A dull sick ache that’s creeping like a vine through me. There is ivy on the walls of the castle and it ferrets through the rock and brick, it curls in everywhere, invading space and causing problems, cracks. Brian says it shouldn’t have been planted there, not in the first place. Once it’s introduced, it’s hard to kill.

I close my eyes.

I blink.

The room is loud.

The voices, rising, falling. I feel like I am watching on a screen. I amn’t one of them. I don’t belong here. I wish that I could leave. I cannot go.

I take a breath. My hands inside my pockets, fingering at lavender and bark.

‘Where’s Oona?’ Charley asks. ‘I thought that she was coming?’

‘She will.’ Eddie blushes. ‘She’ll be a little late. Her dad was being grumpy about lifts.’

I look at him. His face is red, and smiling. I don’t like it.

‘I … er … messaged her to ask.’ A little grin. I’ve never noticed before how much his face needs smacking. Those cheeks and eyes.

I bite down on my lip and check my phone. Three messages.

I smile.

And something crystallises here, inside this room, looking at the boy who likes the girl that I might be in love with.

As close as I have come to love, at least.

Eddie is still saying things. I take a break, and venture down the stairs to the grimy little bathroom. The walls are old and once white, and covered with writing. Scraps of poems, and people’s names entwined in marker hearts. I scan the wall for names I recognise. I don’t see Lon, but Helen’s there. The second name scraped out, gouged through the paint.

I put my hand over the writing, close my eyes and try to do the thing I did with Lon. The hard stare. It doesn’t work. I’m just a girl, leaning on a wall.

A useless creature.

When I go back up, Cathal is talking about a dirt-jumping competition he won this summer. I’ve just worked out it’s mountain bikes when she arrives. Dressed in jeans, a little black T-shirt. A necklace made of copper wire and smooth green sea glass. Her hair is scraped into a tiny little ponytail. It’s really cute. I smile at her, she says hello and comes in for a hug. She kisses my cheek on one side and then the other. I freeze.

Every part of me is waiting for more.

‘Excuse,’ she says. ‘I forgot and did the bises. In France, when we say hello, we do a kiss.’

I nod. I’ve heard of this. It is a thing. I smile at her. Her eyes meet mine. I see the little flecks of palest blue. For a second they seem to move around, silver fish inside a deep brown pool. I’m conscious that I’m staring. I lower my gaze.

But when I look back up, she meets my eyes.

‘Come outside with me,’ she says. ‘I want to show you something.’

‘I need to get my coat,’ I say.

‘I’ll wait.’

On the way to get it, I grab Layla. ‘I’m going out for a bit,’ I say.

‘With Oona? Say no more.’ She grins.

‘Yeah … Would you mind, keeping an eye on Catlin?’

‘Madeline,’ she says, ‘we’re all below. She will be grand. Go. Chat.’ She takes a sip from her pint glass. ‘I mean, we hate him. But she’s safe. Go on.’ She nudges me, as though I were a domino. ‘You can worry tomorrow.’

And I will. But, as I reach the door, I feel something like hope.

I put away the things I should be scared of.

And venture out with Oona, in the night.