innocent Catriona, he said. Are you a child playing adult games or a woman caught in a child’s mind? Why does such anger radiate from you? He talked about the accident. No one ever does but he asked questions and it was like drawing splinters out of my skin.
Sometimes I wake from a dream and hear Julie screaming. I jump out of bed and crash into the wall because your room is different to the room I slept in then. Rebecca should have been minding me but she’d sneaked off to Sheila’s party. Jeremy explained how she feels guilty about disobeying you and not being at home when the police called to the house to tell us about the accident. He said that’s why she tries so hard to do what’s right.
I wish she’d stop trying. She can’t make it different, no matter how hard we pretend. Then I told Jeremy the most dreadful thing of all. How my anger sometimes makes me hate you for being dead. It’s not true. It’s me. I hate myself for thinking such awful thoughts but they go like a skewer through my brain.
He said the line between love and hate is as fine as a wire vibrating. I don’t understand what he means but it sounds right. He understands how things can happen in a part of your mind you never knew existed.
He kissed the tears on my cheeks and on my eyelids. When he kissed the tears on my lips he opened his mouth and pulled me closer. Then he was kissing me for real, tongue touching tongue, and even though I was frightened, I didn’t want to pull away, ever. I thought about Rebecca and all her dreams coming true. The wind nearly blew me over when I opened the door of his car. He said, Don’t be silly, Catriona. Get back in! I’ll drive you to the house. He feels as if he’s playing with fire when we’re alone. It would be the end of everything if Rebecca found out about his moment of weakness. She won’t…she won’t find out.
Don’t warn me against him. Don’t remind me of his age, of Rebecca, a whole life I’m too young to understand. I’m in love with him. The age difference doesn’t matter. That’s nothing where love is concerned. I’ll dream about him tonight. And tomorrow I’ll daydream through the waking hours. His eyes are so piercing they can see right into my soul. Even now, when he’s not with me, I feel him beside me, feel his touch on my skin, his fingers stroking mine, and the thunder enfolding us. Is that how it was with you and Daddy? Tell me what to do!!
Catriona
10 Feb 1993
Dear Mother,
Kevin’s bedroom is now painted white. The skeleton has gone from the ceiling. Ask me how I know. I’m not supposed to be there. Off limits, isn’t it? Go on, ask! I’m going to tell you anyway. I lay on his bed and listened to The Cure but it was different to before, like he could stop being my friend and be something else. He took the tiny little dagger from his lip and put it under the pillow. When we kissed I closed my eyes. I kept seeing Jeremy’s face. The way he combs his wheat-yellow hair straight back from his forehead yet there’s always a bit hanging down. I could see his eyes, blue like the sky, and his voice soft when he said, Catriona…Catriona…Catriona.
I lifted my black dress above my ankles so that Kevin could see my net stockings and my shoes with the silver buckles. He parted the lace at my throat. He opened the buttons on my dress. So many buttons down the front but he didn’t mind struggling, one button after the other, stopping to kiss me in case I was bored it was taking so long. Then I saw his blond roots where he’s growing out the black and I had this terrible feeling that I was ruining our friendship by allowing him to open buttons and kiss my neck, his tongue licking the hollow in my throat, making shivers on my skin while all the time I was thinking about someone else.
Then the buttons were open and he was able to take off my bra. My heart gave a skippy kind of jump when he touched my nipples. He pressed me deeper into the bed. His face was hard, a stranger’s face. I didn’t know him any more. I wanted to hug my breasts away from his eyes and be safe in my room with you in the kitchen making dinner and Daddy’s key in the front door, and the way he used to shout, ‘Hey, you parcel of beauties, I’m home.’
I shouted at him to let me go. He didn’t hear me. My dress was down around my waist and he kept whispering my name…I love you Cathy…Cathy…Not Catriona. I hit his face with my fist and he jerked back, his eyes opening wide. Then he slumped beside me, breathing fast, as if he’d been in a race that went on too long.
Nothing happened, Cathy, stop crying…calm down…calm down…His words came from far away but eventually I heard him. He kept apologising, said he’d misread the signals, thought I felt the same, nothing happened, nothing to stop us continuing to be friends as before. But I knew he lied. That he, like me, could see our friendship dissolving with every promise we made.
I can’t think of anything else to tell you tonight. Watch over me. I’m in a dangerous place.
Catriona
16 March 1993
Dear Mum,
Jeremy’s kiss is like a dream. Perhaps it was. I don’t ever want to think about it again. I saw Kevin this evening when I was walking along the estuary. The dagger’s gone from his lip. We haven’t talked much since that night. A girl was with him. She has swinging fair hair like a shampoo advertisement. I was afraid he’d told her about the time in his bedroom and could feel the shivers coming just thinking about it. Her name is Andrea and I just know she hates The Cure.
Tomorrow is St Patrick’s Day. Remember the parades and the sleet and us dancing on floats in our Irish dancing costumes? Blue knees? The parade has changed a lot since your day. I’m going to watch it with Melancholia and her friends.
I’ve kept the worst news until last. Rebecca flew out this morning to see Lauren. How does she always know? She’s determined to bring her home and make her better again.
X
Catriona
Chapter Nineteen
Rebecca’s Journal–1993
I never should have allowed Olive Moran to send Lauren away but, truthfully, I was secretly relieved she was leaving us. I wanted nothing to come between Jeremy and our happiness. I convinced myself it was a good idea to let her handle life on her own. I’ve enough on my hands with Cathy and her Goth friends.
It could have worked out. She sent me sections of her novel. It was raw and revelatory, and was, I suspected, giving her an opportunity to release her feelings. I read her tutor’s critiques, his belief that it would be recognised as a serious work of fiction. If only she hadn’t been knocked from her bike. It happened so easily–a driver opening the door of his car without looking. She went flying and the second car had to swerve to avoid her. The squeal of brakes brought it all back. She was still screaming when the ambulance arrived. They sedated her in hospital, then discharged her.
She swore she was OK. I believed her because I wanted to. Is it like drugs, I wonder, the sweet swooning oblivion that comes over her when the drip drip drip becomes a flow? There were men; I met some of them when I was there. They brought her flowers and chocolates, and fluffy animals with love notes embroidered on their fur. They make her forget. Why then does she send them away and reach for the only relief that gives her comfort?
I knew as soon as the poem arrived. Just a verse but it’s all there. Her cry for help.
Rage river rage
Rage towards the night ocean
Where the tide waits
To crest you towards distant
Reefs of coral
Sharp as the lover’s blade
When it sinks into the flesh of a barren moon.
Chapter Twenty
Letters to Nirvana
18 March 1993
Oh Mum…Mum!
I need to tell you what happened. I can’t tell anyone else, never, ever until the day I die. Rebecca will kill me stone dead…what have I done?
We