The Visitors (31 page)

‘I’ve finished, Miss.’

‘Already? This isn’t due until half-term.’

‘I know. But …’

God, I felt so low.

‘But?’

‘I don’t think I can handle any more, Miss.’

Concerned, she peered at me above her glasses, and started flicking through the report. I leaned back on one of the classroom tables, crossed my legs and looked out the window. Bed and breakfasts, hotels. Grey vacancies.

Welcome to Tanno. Please Come Again Soon.

‘This is clearly very good,’ she said, quietly. ‘I’ll read it properly later, and give you some notes. But … tell me, Flora. What’s wrong? What can’t you handle?’

‘I’m not sure, Miss. It’s just so … dark. It’s all so negative.’

‘The selkie stories?’

‘No. They’re just daft. It’s history itself, Miss.’

She smiled, blandly, and shook her head.

‘I don’t follow.’

‘There’s no more mystery,’ I said, blurting it out. ‘There’s no more magic.’

She traced her fingers over the front sheet.

‘I heard the stories,’ I said, ‘and I was hooked. They were really exciting. I was hooked, Miss. I wanted to know more. And now, I’ve analysed them, and contrasted them, and explored them, and explained them, and now … the magic’s gone, Miss.’

Frowning, she thumbed through the report.

‘It’s hollow,’ I said. ‘It’s all so empty.’

Fragments of words echoed on the whiteboard. Nothing survived entire.

‘That’s all part of growing up, Flora. You know that, don’t you? You must know that? It all goes in the end.’

‘I’m not sure,’ I managed, thickly, ‘that I want that for myself.’

‘You may not have a choice. You’re a clever girl. The best student I’ve had in years.’

I shrugged.

‘But we’re worried about you, Flora. This report is obviously
a long way above the standard I expect, but then Mr McLaggan tells me you’ve been skipping English. What’s going on?’

A gull screamed inches from the window, and Izzy’s voice echoed in my head.

‘If you put a bear in a cage,’ I said, ‘it stops being a bear.’

She looked exasperated. ‘You’re too smart to believe in this … magic, as you call it.’

‘I can try,’ I said.

‘Then you’ll be lying to yourself.’

Somewhere in the school, a bell rang. Moments later a horde of first years streamed into the room.

‘Goodbye, Miss.’

‘We’ll talk some more next week,’ she urged. ‘I’ll see you then.’

I smiled, but couldn’t bring myself to say it back.

The playground was deserted. Wind caught crisp packets in eddies, turning them in circles, scooting them into walls and drains. The chatter of classrooms fell away completely as I stepped beyond the gate. Killing time, I turned into Tanno’s posh streets and walked the long way to the harbour, old stone buildings all around me.

An ugly tortoiseshell cat hissed at me, then scuttled low beneath a parked van. My sneakers were quiet on the pavement. Turning at random down the avenues, the sharp ring of footfall on stone sparked my attention, sounding out behind me. I turned, casually, but there was no one there. The footsteps had stopped. I watched the empty street. Parked cars and thick sycamore trees lined both pavements, stretching back forty or fifty metres. Plenty of places to hide. At the far end, a car passed across the T-junction, the noise of its engine receding in a purr. Leaves tumbled in the middle of the road.

I turned and continued, newly alert, ears pinned back.
Again, I heard the scrape and step of footsteps, echoing my own, the street ringing quietly with the clicks of shoes on stone. They dogged my own. I rounded another corner and accelerated, ducking down a muddy alley between two houses. I splashed through ruts and puddles, emerging into a little courtyard, bounded on all sides by garages. The alley continued through the yard to the other side of the block, but I waited, peering back towards the avenue. I could just see the road. Heart rate up from the run, I waited to see who’d been following me, who’d been hiding. And I waited. And waited.

I heard the footsteps behind me a moment too late. I spun round even as she shoved me in the back, and I fell, twisting, landing on my hip in the mud. I looked up. She’d doubled back and taken the other alleyway, sneaking round into the courtyard from the other side. She was wearing uniform. She should have been in school. Tina Robson stepped closer.

‘What the hell?’ I gasped.

Last time I’d seen her, she’d been crying about Lachlan. I’d felt sorry for her. Now she loomed above me, glaring, and she looked vicious.

‘I heard something, Flora Cannan.’

‘What are you playing at, pushing me?’ I spluttered, heaving myself to my knees. I stood up, cold where the mud clung to my clothes, and started brushing myself down.

Her eyes glinted with malice.

‘I heard about you and Lachlan,’ she said.

I froze. I couldn’t blink, or breathe. She leaned in closer, closer, until she whispered directly in my ear.

‘I heard you shagged him,’ she said, and the heat of her breath was clammy on my skin. ‘The night he disappeared. I heard you were with him all night.’

‘You heard wrong,’ I said, stepping back, barely croaking the words.

‘Naw. Naw, I don’t think so. Karen’s been seeing this Polish guy a few times. His mate was the guy Lachie took to pieces. They’ve all been talking about it. He told us things he never told the cops. He saw someone who looks a lot like you, Flora, out on Bancree.’

‘You’ve got the wrong idea,’ I said, and pushed her away from me. ‘I couldn’t stand Lachie. I thought he was a prick.’

‘Oh, he was a prick, all right. But he was mine.’

‘I didn’t. Look, I never. I did nothing with him. He tried it on, plenty of times, but I always said no.’

‘So why were you with him that night, then?’ Her breath smelled of bubblegum.

‘It was …’

It was an accident, was what I wanted to say. I was supposed to be with my friend. It was Lachie’s fault. Someone smashed his head in. Someone put him in the sea, and I don’t know who, and every day is limbo.

I closed my mouth.

‘… or maybe I should just take it to the constabulary,’ she hissed, ‘and let them ask you themselves?’

I glimpsed an escape route.

‘Aye, that’s an option. And while you’re there, maybe you can explain about you and Lachie being an item, too.’

‘Why would that bother them?’ she sneered.

‘You’ve been seeing Lachie for a couple of years.’

‘So what?’

‘So you were fourteen when it started. Or thirteen, even.’

Now it was Tina’s turn to freeze.

‘And he was … how old? Twenty-two? Twenty-four?’ I said, as casually as I could, flicking the grit from my shoulder. ‘I’m sure they’d like to know all about that, wouldn’t they? Bound to be a big fuss. That sort of thing gets around.’

Her face morphed from bafflement to understanding.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘Awful young for a trophy girlfriend, Tina.’

‘That’s nothing compared to murder.’

‘Maybe not,’ I said, ‘but I didn’t do it, and you know that, and he’s gone. I’m leaving as soon as I can. It’s not my reputation the town would be chewing over.’

‘It’d blow over in a week,’ she faltered.

I shook my head.

‘No. You’d be that girl for the rest of your life.’

‘Bullshit,’ she said, suddenly pale. ‘That’s bullshit.’

‘What was it you told me? Something about time going slower when everybody hates you?’

In the muddy courtyard, we stared at each other.

Tina broke first.

‘Fuck you, Cannan. Fuck you. Don’t you come near me. Don’t speak to me again. Not a word. You or your creepy pal.’

‘That suits me fine,’ I said. ‘Leave us alone, and we’ll have nothing to do with you.’

Cats, the pair of us, come together, fighting to be left alone. She turned heel and stormed away, footsteps measured in tight beats. Once she was out of sight around the corner, the courtyard seemed a lot bigger. I looked down at my hands. They were trembling, but I was hot with anger. I’d grazed the heel of one palm when I’d fallen, and blood welled from the skin. A film of sweat chilled on the nape of my neck, but my pulse was hard and high.

Rain fell in isolated drops, spitting and then gone. Single beads struck my head, my face, but the clouds didn’t yet have strength enough to burst. Everything was drawing closer. The circle around me was tightening, quickening, still invisible. I could feel it beginning to squeeze.

The clouds streamed low, racing on offshore blasts. The post bus trundled out of Grogport. Hunched low against the sky, a solitary figure sat on my headland. I dumped my bag on the doorstep, and walked towards her through the dune grass. Ailsa sat cross-legged, leaning back, the wind flapping hair into her face. She smiled when I sat down beside her.

‘This is my favourite weather.’

‘Aye, me too. It feels like anything could happen.’

‘So,’ she asked, eyeing up my spattered clothes, ‘new look?’

‘Do you like it? Rockabilly meets muddy puddle. It’s all the rage in Paris.’

‘Suits you.’

‘Cheers,’ I grinned. Gulls hurtled a carousel over the bay.

‘Want to talk about it, then?’

‘I bumped into Tina. She’d heard about …’

I bit my tongue. Ailsa still didn’t know I’d been alone with Lachlan.

‘About …?’ she prompted.

‘She’d heard some daft rumour,’ I said, carefully, ‘that I’d been seeing Lachlan Crane. Turns out she had a thing for him herself.’

Ailsa frowned. The expression made her seem precocious, a serious six-year-old despairing at the affairs of grown-ups.

‘That’s mad. You’d never have anything to do with him.’

I hesitated. At least she hadn’t pressed me on it. I wouldn’t be able to outright lie to her face. I couldn’t. And with that, I realised that I cared desperately what she thought of me. I wanted to be better, and to be a better friend, but my secrets still hung between us. Even as I healed, Lachlan polluted me. I felt dirty to sit beside Ailsa. I couldn’t tell her. She’d hate me. I felt sick to have to watch my words.

‘The police wanted to see me.’

‘What about?’ she said, suddenly urgent.

‘No big deal,’ I said. ‘They were trying to find out more about Lachlan, that’s all. I explained that he tried to chat us up, then left.’

‘That must have been tough.’

‘It wasn’t too bad. I just told them. You know. What happened.’

Her face relaxed, the frown melting.

If John was a killer, Ailsa had to know about it. She had to. Sitting beside her on the headland, I simply couldn’t sense that malice in her. But still I had the sense that she was hiding something. I tried to shake the feeling off. I was becoming paranoid, with every waking minute haunted by doubts and questions.

‘That Marcus Mutch is in the clear, by the way,’ I ventured. ‘I asked around, sent some emails. He took the huff with Scotland years ago. Last seen in London. So that’s a dead end.’

She nodded.

‘Good,’ she said. ‘In a way, I’m relieved. Dad would have been impossible if he’d actually had a name to pin it on.’

‘Back to square one.’

‘Or maybe he’s still chasing ghosts.’

The gulls screamed at each other.

‘I finished my selkie report. Handed it in this morning.’

‘Did you use Izzy’s stories?’

‘They’re all in there somewhere. He may not believe in books and writing, but I do.’

‘That’s been your life the whole time I’ve know you,’ she said. ‘So … what will you do now, Flo?’

From the headland, I could reach out and crush Grogport between my fingers. I found myself thinking of the folk tale about the girl who became a goose and simply flew away.

‘Flora?’

‘Life doesn’t get any easier,’ I said, quietly.

‘Did you really think it would?’

I shook my head.

‘The way I see it,’ said Ailsa, ‘you’ll be shot of this whole place inside a year, right?’

‘Can’t come soon enough.’

‘Ach, jog on. With your whole life to come, what does a few more months matter?’

‘Not much, I suppose.’

‘And look around, look at all this. There are worse places to live, aren’t there?’

‘Aye. I guess so.’

‘Grand. And you can handle Tina?’

‘I think me and her have an understanding,’ I said, grimly.

‘So we’ve a few more nights on the cherry schnapps to come, right?’

‘Oh Jesus, no. Never again. I was puking pink all day.’

‘I told you at the time,’ she grinned. ‘You should’ve had a swim.’

I smiled and shook my head. Neat terns hung on the breeze.

‘I’m glad you came here,’ I said.

‘Aye. Me too.’

The barrier was still in place, but friendship settled on me like a blanket. I trusted her. I liked her. Whether I’d wanted it
or not, we were friends. She tied me to Bancree. And as much as I wanted to flee, I felt good about it.

She offered me one of her headphones. I fitted it into my ear. She grinned and winked, then gazed into the sky. I studied her. The earpiece trailed against her white neck and hid beneath her hair. Her ear was a shell, whorled and sea-washed into smooth twists. We didn’t speak, but listened to the music smoulder and build, burning, washing through static into nothing.

‘I’d better go,’ I said, unplugging the earpiece. She removed her side and stowed the headphones in her bag. It was only when we stood up that I noticed how strong the wind had become. Out of the lee of the headland, the wind buffeted and shoved. I looked at Ailsa. Her hair streamed from her face.

‘There’s a gale blowing up,’ she said.

‘Been brewing for days. Something’s changing, isn’t it?’

‘I think so too. But I don’t know what.’

I followed her down onto the beach.

Together, we unstaked the dinghy, and flipped it right way up. I sat on the windward side of the inflatable to keep it from blowing away, and Ailsa kicked off her sneakers. Turning half away, she reached beneath her denim skirt and found the hem of her tights, tugging them down, her thighs startlingly white where she stepped out of the dark material. We carried the dinghy down to the sea. The tide was on the ebb, and we walked across metres of cold wet sand, saturated and compact.