Chapter 34
I stumbled down onto the main street, focusing my gaze on the pavement, my head abuzz with that high ringing.
Cars and people passed me as if in a dream, fast flashes of colour and faraway sound.
The whole world was drowned out by that dreadful high whine.
I tucked my chin down into my chest and tried to avoid any eye contact, any hint that something was wrong, any chance of being noticed at all.
I clenched and released my fists, trying to shake off the growing inferno shuddering through my limbs.
To shake off the thoughts of violence from my seething mind.
I marched alongside the river. My reflection refracted and jerked on the rushing water like a glitching screen.
Moving here had been a mistake. What an idiot I’d been, thinking I could get a quiet, rural life, flitting about in the background of village fetes, becoming a regular at the local pub.
My gut turned in on itself. Forget the old man, forget my neighbour!
I would go back to the house and pack my things and leave today.
Fuck the smashed windscreen. I’d knock it out myself if I had to.
Then I’d drive to the nearest train station, report the car to whatever garage was close enough and have them take it.
For parts, for scrap, I didn’t care. I couldn’t go back to Edinburgh.
Not after everything. I’d get to the nearest town and pay for a hotel room on my credit card and figure out what to do after that.
The only thing that mattered right now was that I was leaving.
That’s right. Run away again. Coward.
“Fuck you,” I hissed at my thoughts. “Why are you never on my side?”
Oh God, I’d said that out loud. Fine, whatever.
I suddenly became aware of Viv, the barmaid—no, landlady—a simple sweatshirt with one neon pink zebra in the centre of it today—sashaying over to me from Maggie’s Café.
“Hullo, hen, did you get your scarf back?”
I kept walking.
“Not my scarf.”
Viv kept pace with me.
“Yes, it is. You were wearing it in the pub last night.” She searched my face for a moment. “Oh, have you changed your hair?”
“No.”
“Oh.” Viv shook her head, slowing down. “Sorry, hen. I must have mistaken you for someone else. Though I swear I’ve seen your sister. You look uncannily like—”
I briefly heard the giggles of the Grayson girls in my memory. My dad pushing them on the swings.
“I don’t have any sisters,” I said sharply.
“Sorry,” she said sheepishly. “I really thought you were someone else.”
I pulled away from her. Why had I thought I’d be any different in the country than I was in Edinburgh? Why had I thought it would be easier out here where I couldn’t hide among the crowds? Why couldn’t I just be normal? What was wrong with me?
I was so wrapped up in my thoughts, I barely noticed the calls from across the road.
“Alright, pal? Wet your knickers again?”
Braying laughter. It was the group of teenagers from before.
They stood around the flower display on the war monument, laboriously moving the tubs and planters into a crude cock and balls arrangement.
They had plenty of material to work with.
Somehow there were even more flowers today than yesterday.
The same boy who’d jumped out at me and yelled on my first visit was snarling my way, surrounded by his court of lanky, pallid mates.
Him.
That high-pitched noise screamed in my ears.
It was as if my body had been taken over by another force.
I stepped out into the road, causing a car to screech to a halt, horn blasting the air with annoyance.
I marched across to the boy and his friends.
I saw his expression freeze slightly. Was I blinking?
I don’t think I was blinking. The high-pitched buzz pounded in my ears. The teens laughed nervously around him.
“What do you want?” he said, all puffed up insolence.
I realised up close, he wasn’t that big at all.
Good.
In my pocket my hand closed around something long and sharp: the curved needle from the basement attached to my keyring.
I envisaged myself plunging it deep into his cocky sneering eyes.
One-two, pop-pop. Like two jellied balloons.
Like a staple through Fergus’s hand. Like a hammer through the unce-unce-unce flat-owner’s skull.
“What?” the kid demanded, though his fear was palpable now.
Delicious.
My fist trembled around the needle.
Stab him in the eye stab in the eye stab in the eye cocky little shit little shit stain little fucker little twat little no-eyed twat.
“What?”
Do it!
No.
I pushed the needle through my hand. A stark blooming flower of pain.
Then I leaned right into his face and barked.
He startled backwards and fell right into the shaft of the cock and balls flower arrangement.
I didn’t stop. I barked, loudly, madly, like a rabid dog, a woman possessed, right there in the street.
I didn’t have the words anymore. Only sound.
Only the great animal fuck-you and leave-me-alone uproar, exploding from my lips and leaving my throat ragged.
I stopped only when I ran out of breath and coughed.
The high-pitched buzzing sound in my head had stopped.
“What the fuck?” One of the other teens stared at me, the whites of her eyes bright.
Over my shoulder I saw people coming out of the café, ready to intervene, to help, to stop the danger.
To stop me.
Before anyone could say or do anything, I straightened my back, looked away from the onlookers and marched over the bridge and out of town in the silence I had made.
I took my hand out of my pocket. The needle had punctured the webbing between my thumb and forefinger, key dangling on the end.
An impromptu piercing. A self-maiming. Flesh throbbing, the adrenaline kept the pain at bay.
I slid it out in one short, sharp movement. Then I tucked the needle back in my pocket and kept walking.