Chapter 57
When the building surveyor called, she said the destruction was so total she could see all the way down to the basement from outside.
I had braced myself for news of what they found down there; images of the boneyard I’d seen in the apple grove crept their way into my mind.
But there had been nothing. It was empty now.
Just lonely old stones, worn and blackened with age.
When I asked about the door in the basement, there was a small pause, then she said something about all doors being completely destroyed. So, I guess I’ll never know for sure. Probably for the best.
A few weeks later, the estate agents who’d sold me the building got in touch.
Apparently, the fact that the house was semi-detached wasn’t the only thing they’d missed from the details.
They’d sourced the original survey from an old friend and known property cowboy in the area who’d sign off on rural properties for cheap; of course, never actually making their way out to survey the place at all.
I quickly got the impression they were concerned I’d take them to court for this.
As a sign of good faith, they gave me a cheque for damages plus some.
If I kept my expenses modest, I calculated the money would last a year or two.
Time enough to figure out a new path for myself, a different way of living.
Fergus’s Aunt Sheila reckoned I could get more if I wanted, but I didn’t.
I had fought enough for a lifetime. This was one battle on which I was happy to call a truce.
Fergus started dragging me along to antiques fairs and car boot sales under the guise of getting some fresh air and helping him pick out stock for the shop.
I almost always come back with some bargain piece of furniture.
I have a proper bed now, a wingback chair, and a set of vintage curtains we got for a steal.
I’ve yet to find a round dining table that fits my kitchen, but Fergus says we can keep trying.
As I recovered at home, I watched next door recover, too.
People in hi-vis jackets and hard hats came to tear it down to the bones. They ripped out the old rotten beams, floorboards, doors, countertops and plaster, and threw them into the successive skips that came and went via the driveway each week. But the stones, I noticed, they stacked to the side.
Once I grew steady on my crutches, I went outside to ask about the stones under the guise of offering tea.
Thanks to Fergus’ near-weekly interference, I now had enough cups to cater for a small army.
They were setting the stones aside because they were still good, the builders told me.
They just needed to be put back in the right place, with the right support.
Once I was able to, I started going with Rowan to one of his group meetings.
Fergus calls them Angerholics Anonymous.
Everyone sits in a circle and talks about what makes them angry, when they last lost it, how they’re learning to listen to and express their anger in more ‘productive’ ways.
To my surprise there were a couple of other women there.
One of them shared how she once took a shit on her manager’s chair.
We’re supposed to share stories for accountability, but I think she shared that one for clout.
I meet up with her for coffee every other week.
I also started attending online anger management sessions in earnest. I talk about my dad, and what happened at the office, and the ringing I hear in my head. It’s actually alright.
Every now and then I find new alerts on my phone.
GO SEE PEOPLE.
TAKE A WALK.
EAT A VEGETABLE.
I don’t know how Fergus keeps sneaking these things on, but I don’t mind.
When I was able to, I walked back into Carlinsrest. All of the ‘improvements’ had disappeared, and it was back to looking as it always had.
Maggie from the café gave me a wave when she saw me and helped me to a seat at the window, the same one I’d had that first day.
The bunting and the flowers had disappeared overnight, she told me.
Round about the time when 1a’s roof fell in.
I realised that she didn’t smile at me with her mouth like she did for customers, but she raised her eyebrows like how she did with her waiting staff and regulars.
A weary kind of ‘Can you believe this?’ at the world in general.
I raised my eyebrows back at her and nodded.
She patted my shoulder and got me a macaroni pie.
I hadn’t been in the mood for one, but I was happy enough just to be treated as a regular, so I didn’t say anything.
I took a bite.
It wasn’t gourmet. No critic would be writing home about it. But it was warm and cheesy and delicious. Every bite a comfort, like a light being lit in the pit of my soul.
I let out an involuntary, “hmmmm.”
I looked back at the counter and Maggie nodded.
See. Best macaroni pie in the area.
After I was done, I came across the group of teens again back at the monument. The main boy stood up when he saw me and barked in my direction. The others around him laughed.
I barked back.
And then it was me and the teens barking at each other across the street, until the red-faced man, Dave, came out of the pub on main street.
“Leave it off,” he said. “You know that one’s not right.”
It was said in the same tone as, Don’t kick that panel, it’s loose.
Sometime later, I caught the boy sitting sullenly outside The Curtyard.
I’d heard from Fergus that Dave, his dad, was often in there longer than he should be and the boy would have to come and collect money to buy his tea.
The boy saw me looking and crossed his arms and looked at the wall nonchalantly.
I wasn’t heading into the pub that night, so I didn’t need to pass by. But I felt… different for the kid.
I howled for him. Long and sombre.
He blinked at me. Frowned. Looked away. Looked at me again. Then stood up and howled, too.
We howled together until someone inside the pub yelled for someone to see to their dog. I walked off just as his dad appeared to give him some cash.
Now we just howl whenever we see each other. I’m not sure if it counts as an understanding, but it’s something.
As my legs got better, I started working a few different jobs around town.
I’ve taken some cleaning shifts at The Curtyard.
I help out at the hardware and supplies store.
Fergus’s collection of cacti and succulents have grown.
I got him an aloe vera for his birthday.
I told him he can use the gel in it as a topical skin treatment, but he didn’t care.
He just likes its shape. Eventually Rowan let me set up social media pages for the store.
I give updates on the store’s channels about stock levels, new products and changes to opening times, but that’s about it.
I write the posts as myself, even sign my name at the bottom so folks know.
I offered to show Rowan how to do all this himself, but he was happy for me to take it on.
For his birthday, I built him a basic website with a map, opening times and a description of what we sold.
I don’t know if it’s improved sales yet, but it feels tidy and I like that.
On weekends, I help Rowan at the forestry. The quiet up there has yet to get old. It’s my favourite place in the world.
I only spoke to Roger once after everything that happened.
I’d looked for him and Callie-Ann, wanting to let them know I’d survived my journey into the dark, but I hadn’t been able to find them.
Until one day in late autumn, on my way into Carlinsrest, I saw him standing in the middle of Bodach’s Brig, plucking acorns out of a plastic bag and throwing them into the river.
Keen not to miss him, I rushed over. Then I noticed he was alone.
No sleeping wife in her wheelchair. No dog.
“Is she ok?” I blurted out as I got closer to him. “Callie-Ann. Is she alright?”
He blinked up at me for a moment then asked, “Who?”
“Your wife.”
“Oh!” He rapped his knuckles against his head. “She’s fine. Just at her labours. Always busy this time of year.” He dumped the rest of the acorns over the side of the bridge. “And you! You’ve returned from Neverland in one piece. The pirates didn’t give you too much trouble, did they?”
I shook my head. “No. Not too much.”
“And you’re still who you say you are?” He leaned close, his gaze flicking between my eyes as if looking for something. A flurry of leaves passed by on the cold wind that came down from the north. His eyebrows raised.
“Oh, I see,” he said. “You’ve decided to share. How lucky. Dolly never got that option.”
It made about as much sense as anything Roger said, so I just nodded and smiled.
“Very good of you to fix it without dying, too! Village has had enough to deal with, what with all that flower nonsense.”
“Wait, I have to know. What was with all the flowers anyway?”
He shrugged “Don’t ask me. It’s your shadow.”
Then he strode past me and out into the countryside.
A few days later, I spied them, Roger and Callie-Ann, on my drive into the village—windscreen now mercifully fixed.
They were up on the hills that hung over the river, peaks now wreathed in a heavy mist. Callie-Ann was up out of her chair and trudging slowly but steadily toward the crest of the hill, beating the ground with her curious walking stick.
Roger followed behind, his wiry hair looking even more like antlers, his clothes tattered and flapping like a bushel of leaves.
After New Years Eve at The Curtyard, I crashed at Rowan and Fergus’ place and in my post-party lightly-buzzed state, I decided to finally check in on my old agency.
I’d been avoiding it, as if the sight of the company logo alone might trigger me back to my old ways.
But lying there on Rowan’s old sofa, looking up at the dark outlines of Fergus’ cacti guarding the window sill…
I don’t know. I felt ready. I looked the agency up online and was surprised to find the office had relocated.
For some crazy reason I’d forgotten that things other than myself could change.
I’d assumed the agency would still be in the same building, in the same part of town.
That that era of my life would be there forever, ready and waiting to drag me back.
But it was gone. I considered looking up the new location but decided against it. That wasn’t for me. Not anymore.
Instead, I looked through past photos. The old office didn’t look like how I remembered it.
The people not as unfriendly. The last picture in that office was a group shot with everyone huddled around the director, all big grins from some client win.
The director had a new haircut and her fingernails were painted teal. All eight of them.
I searched her smiling face for signs of trauma. Resiliency. Bitterness. Vengeful rage. For the life of me, I couldn’t tell what she was thinking. I don’t think I ever really could. In the blue light of my phone, in the quiet of the new year, I thought again about Rowan’s words up in the hills.
A splinter of glass. A timebomb.
But a timebomb with a mind of her own. A will of her own.
My fault. And now, out of my control.
I put my phone away and went to sleep.
Back at Sgàthan Sìth, 1a got a new foundation. New beams pencilled in the skeleton of the house. The design stayed true to the original, just with improved wiring, plumbing and insulation. It leant against 1b for support as the bricks went back up. Soon my home had its twin again.
And then everything seemed to sit for a while, poised and ready, for another period of waiting.
The next summer, a car pulled up to the rebuilt house. I was sat on the lawn, stretching my recovering tendons when it arrived. A woman got out of the car, hair travel-worn, eyes squinting. She looked at her phone and frowned back at the house. She caught sight of me, surprised to see me there.
“Hi there. Everything alright?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Sorry, hello. Is this Sgàthan Sìth?”
“This is 1b Sgàthan Sìth.” I pointed to my half. “That is 1a Sgàthan Sìth.” I gestured to the other half of the house.
She looked down at her phone again. I watched her mouth ‘1a’ and slump.
“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t realise that it was—”
“A semi-detached?”
Look, we’re already finishing each other’s sentences.
She laughed nervously, then went back to the car, face falling the moment she turned away from me.
She could have at least looked pleased to see us, that old voice whispered in my head. We were nice and everything. No one was nice to us when we arrived. Maybe she hates us.
Eh, I said to my shadow. Give her time. She doesn’t know us yet.
And if she doesn’t want to?
I rubbed where the dotted scars made a line along my arm.
Then, that’s okay, too.
You’re sure?
Positive. I’m still here, aren’t I?
I thought about holding my shadow in the basement, the rising sun bringing light into that dark place.
After all, you’re worth sticking around for.
END