Perfectly Preventable Deaths

25 Agrimony

I was in a cavern. I wasn’t sure exactly how I’d gotten there. Implausible things were happening all over the shop in Ballyfrann, I mused, deciding to go along with it. Maybe the cave would be full of self-esteem and biscuits. I peered around hopefully. In a world where teleportation was possible, biscuits could definitely happen. I mean, biscuits are not an impossible dream, defying God and science. My stomach growled.

This place was wide, and large, and dimly lit. Filled with stalagmites and stalactites, the points of them a-drip. Everything was velvety and moist. I didn’t feel drunk. Not exactly. But I certainly felt something. Not myself.

Through the dim, I could make out the tall figure of a man. I moved towards him, dispersing mist. I knew the way it smelled, this fog. It belonged to somewhere, or someone maybe. I couldn’t place it though.

It wasn’t real.

I looked down at my hands and they were still mine. My feet too, though they were bare. The ground should have been cold, but it was warm and soft. More like a rug than gritty cavern floor. Where was I, really?

He smiled at me. I couldn’t see him smile but I could sense it, trickling through my body like relief. He beckoned with one hand and I approached. There was music playing. Something like a theremin, or a synth. Hard, high sounds through soft moist air. I felt the doughy ground part beneath my feet and I was falling. I was falling down. He caught me.

Strong arms tight around me, pressing against the white cotton of an unfamiliar nightgown. Lifting me up. Carrying me somewhere. To a bed. A big soft bed, with silky black sheets. I could see the cavern around me. Something written on the walls. The letters chipped. I couldn’t make out what they were exactly, like I had forgotten how to read. Or like English was Cyrillic. I knew the shapes meant words, but not which ones. I tried to focus on them, but the more I worked at it, the fuzzier they grew before my eyes.

A needle on a record player. The music changed, to something older. Throbbing. I tried to get up but it felt like all the blood had left my body. Like I was light and heavy all at once. Black and grey and spattered red on white. I closed my eyes. The world was spinning. The mist, when I tried to part it, was thicker. There are things I’m not supposed to see.

The man was there beside me. And his face … I knew that face. I knew him.

It was Lon.

He was wearing black, a T-shirt and waxed denim jeans. He smiled at me. His hair was slicked right back like he had recently climbed out of some sort of sexy swimming pool or hot tub.

‘Hello,’ he said. ‘My dove.’

In one swift motion he removed his shirt. His chest was hairless, lithe. He wore a little chain around his neck. I glanced awkwardly at the rock formations, pointing up and down. Dripping on me. There wasn’t really anywhere to hide. Nowhere to look. The awkwardness was clearing out my head though. That was something. I wished I were a dove to fly away. A fox to bite him.

‘You are not normally so reticent.’ He smiled. ‘I kind of like it. Playing hard to get. And I will get you. In the end.’ He lay beside me, running bony fingers through my hair. I could feel his breath. It smelt of spearmint. Tin. I looked down at my bare arms. They were very pale, and I could see the fat blue veins weaving through them like green ones on a leaf. It’s weird how plants and animals have veins. And rocks as well. There were ribbons of limestone, granite, quartz running through the walls. Not lots of them, small neat lines, like seams.

‘I –’

He put a finger to my lips. His skin was very warm and very dry.

‘Shhh … my doe. Don’t be afraid of me. I’ll protect you.’ I looked at him. It felt so nice and warm. Like I was safe here. Like I could believe him. But he was Lon, and this place wasn’t real. I couldn’t move my arms. I tried to blink.

‘I’m not your doe,’ I muttered.

He swallowed.

‘… Maddy?’

‘Lon …’ I said, and noticed that my voice was different here, all soft and purring. I sounded like a kitten. Like a dream. He leaned towards me, his eyes darkening.

‘Have I been here before?’ I asked him. Something in the smell, the look. This place. I knew it. He leaned in to me. I felt the urge to run my fingers all across his skin. It was difficult to remember that I hated him, that Oona is the one I want that way. That he was my sister’s and not mine.

I tried to think of solid things again. Of salt. Of water. Metal, blood and earth. Tea. Of cups of tea. The sitting room in our old house in Cork. Of comfort things. I sucked them in like breath.

He bent to kiss me. Everything was slow and fast at once. I could see his lips, parting like the entrance to a cave. The glimmer of his teeth. I took it in.

Not mine. I blinked as if my eyes could hurt the air.

Could impact.

I blinked again, as though I had an angry eye infection. Outraged, repeated blinking.

The veil around his face became less gauzy. He was clearer now, and so was I. What was I – what were we – doing?

‘You’ll need to leave, if you are going to be like that,’ he snapped at me. ‘If you can’t be a good girl, then get out.’

His voice sounded deeper, harsher, older as he said that. I saw him wave his fingers over my face.

Then nothing till I wake. The morning pouring bright through the windows. The green of garden and the black of furze. The grass rust-coloured towards the mountains. I wonder if I could find that lake again. I think I could. It wouldn’t be the same though.

I walk the seven hundred or so miles to the kitchen and check the shelves. The box of salt I left under my bed has been replaced.

It’s Mam. I know it is. Always tidying. She’s hidden it away from prying eyes. The evidence. The oddness of her daughter. And it is odd.

I am odd.

Do I, deep down, so deep down I shudder at the thought of it, somehow fancy Lon? Is that what that dream was? An explanation for why I don’t like him, that I’m jealous?

I drum my fingers on the hard oak table. I’m not going back to sleep, I know. I put the radio on and make fancy coffee in Mam’s French press. I’m worrying about the salt again, thinking of a secret place to hide it, when Brian comes in.

‘Hi, Madeline,’ he says, in his sing-song voice, as if it were perfectly normal to have a stressed-out teenager sitting in the kitchen all alone so early in the morning.

‘Welcome back,’ I mumble, hoping he will go away and leave me to my stress.

‘Thanks. I only got in late last night. A few hours ago, really. Tried to sleep but –’ he shrugs his shoulders – ‘nothing doing, as the fella says. Can I have some coffee, please?’ he asks. In his own house. He’s always so polite.

‘Help yourself,’ I say, gesturing towards it.

He does, and sits beside me. He’s wearing flannel pyjamas and a navy blue towelling dressing gown. He looks like a dad in a television show.

‘What has you out of bed?’ he asks.

‘I had a bad dream,’ I tell him. ‘You?’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Madeline. I wanted to get up rather than continue to disturb Sheila with my tossing and turning. And there’s a phone call I’m expecting in –’ he checks his watch – ‘half an hour or so. But coffee first.’ He takes a sip and smacks his lips. ‘This is very helpful. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I say, and I smile at him. Then, ‘Brian?’

‘Yes,’ he says, his face is open, honest.

‘You know the way you told me to come to you … if Mamó was … strange or something?’

His shoulders straighten, and I see him put a new self on, like a suit. Something authoritative. He sips his coffee, waits for me to speak. He knows I will.

‘We found this dead fox. Me and Catlin did,’ I begin, feeling stupid articulating it. ‘And there was something wrong about it. It wasn’t like badgers on the road, rabbits in the field. A person did it. Sliced it open, in the middle of the crossroads.’

He nods stiffly, and says, ‘Go on.’ I notice the sing-song tone underneath his words again, and something else, flitting over his features. Only for a second. Barely for a second. But still. There. I don’t want to say too much, I realise. But what exactly is the right amount?

‘And Mamó – she told Catlin to wait, and ye would come home. And I … we went back there, and cleaned it up. And she told me to be wary of Ballyfrann, but that it wasn’t her place to tell me why. Brian, why should I be wary? Should I be afraid for Catlin or for Mam?’

He lets out a long, distracted sigh. I can see him composing the answer in his head. Not lying, but deciding what to tell me. I get the sense it won’t be all he knows.

‘I’ll answer the second question first. No, Madeline. You don’t need to be afraid for Sheila or your sister. This can be a complicated place, and its secrets aren’t mine to tell, and some of them are … difficult to put into words for people who haven’t grown up here. But one thing is certain: everyone in Ballyfrann was terrified of my father. Self included. And, because I am his son, there is a certain level of respect accorded to me and mine.’

‘OK,’ I say. ‘This all sounds a bit criminal.’

‘I’ll be honest with you, he wasn’t far off it … There’s too much to go into this early in the morning, but he was not a good man, Madeline. And I am trying my best to be one.’

‘We never knew our father, not properly.’ It comes unbidden.

‘And, sometimes, I’m not saying that it’s so in your case, that can be a good thing.’ He closes his eyes. ‘I find this stuff excruciating to talk about, and I’ve done a lot of therapy … which, if he were still alive, would be enough to get me written out of his will, most likely.’

I smile politely. I don’t know how we got from me asking questions about Ballyfrann to unpacking Brian’s childhood issues, but I don’t feel qualified to have this conversation, and it’s very warm in the kitchen. I sip my coffee, to give me time to think. To clear my head.

‘What was the fox?’

Brian swallows. ‘From your description, Madeline, I’d say it may have been a sort of prayer. Something similar to what Mamó does with her … workings, and to what you do yourself – the salt Sheila found under the beds.’

I look at him again. His eyes are fixed on a point above my head, his face is stoic. He looks like he is wearing a mask. Maybe Brian just doesn’t like talking about his feelings. A lot of people don’t. I don’t. His tartan slippers drum against the flagstones. I look down at my toes. One of them has dirt under the nail. A little grey. When I lift my feet, there are little sweat marks in their wake. His voice still going, weaving up and down.

‘… I know I probably haven’t given you everything you need to know, but this is an old place. A lot of history. And, it will take time.’ He swallows again. ‘I don’t want to ask you to keep anything from your mother, but I will say that I was hoping to share with her gently, and in my own time, the more unusual aspects of the village. And it would feel odd, to have you as my confidant and not her.’

‘I get that, Brian,’ I say. ‘But I still have a lot of questions.’

‘I know.’ He reaches his hand to my arm and squeezes it gently. His voice is higher now, and quieter, and I feel a sense of calm. He understands. He will take care of us. It will be fine.

‘And thank you for your patience, and your honesty,’ he continues. ‘You’re coping well, with all this change. Much better than I would, in your place, I think. Madeline, I really want this to be successful. It’s important. The two of ye are important. When I married your mother, I kind of married both of ye as well …’ He exhales heavily. ‘… That sounds creepy, doesn’t it?’

I crack a smile. ‘Yeah. I kind of know what you mean though, Brian. And I appreciate it.’

He looks at me. ‘I told Sheila if you need to put salt under our bed to feel like you’re at home here, that’s fine by me. But she’ll do what she thinks is best. She’s a good mother.’

‘She is,’ I say. ‘And you’re a good stepfather.’

‘I’m not sure that that’s true. But I am trying.’ He looks calmer now that he’s said his piece. He pours another cup.

‘I’ll take this with me. Fecking Tokyo.’ He shuffles off upstairs. I didn’t hear the phone ring. Maybe he just wanted the conversation to be over. The kitchen’s cooler now that he is gone, I realise.

The stars are out, but technically it’s morning. How desperate would a person have to be to kill a fox, I wonder. What were they after? I wish there was a way to just make people tell me straight out what I want to know. It will be hard for Brian, to tell Mam whatever else there is. She hates my salt, and my salt isn’t a weird pagan murder village or a terrifying dead father.

I drain my cup and switch on the immersion for a shower.

I need to clear my head, still muggy from the dream and kitchen heat.

It’s all too much, and somehow not enough.