When They Lay Bare Read online

  She nods towards the sink. Pass us that cloth, eh.

  She sits down and starts to caress the cloth over her bloody feet. She cocks her head, raises a heavy eyebrow at him.

  Left alone for a start, she says. And then some justice in this world.

  Tat finds himself at the door. He tugs it open.

  And, Tat. He stops. Tell Sim Elliot I’m Marnie Lauder and I’ve more besides plates to prove it.

  Plate 3

  Today a smirr of rain and mist shawls down across the window. Stove hisses, feet are bare, radio murmurs and the chair is comfortable. Everything is happed up, inside and out. No one will call today, you’ve made sure of that.

  In a while you may take a walk, just a little stroll. But for now the first plate is laid aside and the pieces of the second are wrapped in a polythene bag in the corner, and this one has ‘3’ written on the back. Turn it over, trace a finger over its pale icons until one stirs and the yellow-haired man enters the dark wood.

  David folded away Jo’s letter and looked up into the arch of trees. A grey yet shining day, very Borders, light drizzle swaying in from the west. Her letter – hassles with builders, progress on the bathroom, her paper on aboriginal land struggles nearly complete – began and ended with her loving and missing him but seemed to come from a long way off. She had gone dim on him.

  He might just call in briefly at the cottage, have tea and see how Mary Allan was doing.

  He hesitated at the edge of the wood, recognising that quickening in his chest. Temptation was always an open doorway and whenever he passed it he heard his name said soft and low.

  David Elliot turned away and set off uphill, willing himself deaf to everything but the sound of his heart and the rain.

  *

  She smirks down into the void, runs her hand through her hair and flicks the spray from her fingertips into the falling smash of water then walks steadily across the bridge. She isn’t scared of drops, she’s fascinated by the quickening of water just before it falls, and the end of motion when it does.

  She comes fast and whistling out of the far side of the woods. Halts, blinking at the light. It’s a day of weak sun and drizzle, a silent manufacturing of rainbows. There’s one hung over the river. Another melts into the green mound of what her Border guide-book identified as an Iron Age fort. She shakes her head and a pair more are lowered over the standing stone leaning squint on the brow of the moor.

  She notes how the outer bow reverses the colour order of the first, with a dark gap in between. This may reveal something about generations, how they repeat by reversing qualities but the shape is always the same. Old Elliot and young Elliot …

  And then she sees a tall greenish smudge moving up by the stone. She also believes she saw the face turn away. If it hadn’t been for the rainbows she never would have noticed him. If he hadn’t turned away she wouldn’t have set her feet uphill after him, into the spooks of sun and rain.

  *

  David Elliot sat back against the standing stone and let it shelter him. It was quiet up here, just the hiss of light rain and wind over acres of heather and shorn land, a faint endless tearing sound as if the winding sheet of the world was being slowly ripped open.

  He shook his head, cracked a chocolate bar and pushed it with his tongue into the roof of his mouth and waited for the sweet dissolve to trickle down his throat. He’d escaped up here often as a boy home for the holidays. He looked down the dale to the battlement of the peel tower over the trees, then out over the whole Borderlands fading into uplifts and downfalls of grey-green, knowing he might well never come back here again, except for his father’s funeral. Sell the big house, give the estate to the Tattersalls and walk away.

  He leant back on the worn grey stone, bare of Celtic knotwork or Pictish symbols. It had absolutely nothing to do with the Covenanters. It was just there, from some much older time. He’d once spent days digging round its base, taken fright when the stone began to shift, quickly shovelled the dirt and small animal bones back and left in a hurry. Now he cupped and shifted his balls inside rough tweed. Something about high lonely places visible only to the sky, and the thick earth smell, always made him randy and alert, ready for action of some kind.

  But he wanted to disown all that. Disown too the displaced boy who’d been the hero of countless rescues of violated maidens, had rescued, tended, held one when she wept, accepted gently her grateful kiss then led her away on his short-legged hobbie pony over the moor. Sometimes they were on the run and had to sleep nights in hollows on the moor or in the thickets, and as they cooried together for warmth she would slowly, shyly, offer of herself to him in thankfulness and eventually love. Fugitives and comrades by day, then at night inching towards trust …

  He sat up, following the thought. In Jo he’d found a hurt, clever, sickly woman whose trust could heal him, so long as he was always gentle, never too sexual, never passionate and raw. Not making love with her made him feel good about himself, and he was touched by her acceptance of it. Her sexual past was varied enough, she’d hinted, and she welcomed a break from all that. She almost seemed relieved. His Faith had nothing to do with it. He was celibate because it was safer.

  He stood up, kicking the tingle from his knees and the devil of doubt from his mind. He saw a flicker of movement on the lower moor. It dropped from sight, then reappeared. Someone coming this way. Not Tat. Not Dad. Her.

  Fuck. He really did not need this. He turned and set off up the brae. At the top he’d cut left and drop down into the Lang-wast. At the far end was Shankheid Pass. Let her follow him into that if she dared.

  *

  She came over the top of the moor and looked around. Not a tree or bush, just desolation of heather and cropped turf, dips and hollows and boggy oozing. No sign of him, and up here columns of mist rose around her like the dead. She had no compass and this wasn’t her territory. She should turn back while she knew the way.

  Then she saw him half a mile off, almost loitering before he dropped into a declivity and disappeared. She pulled the damp cloak tighter round her shoulders and hurried after.

  The plates never discuss the causes of love. They never explain. They just show, and even that ambiguously. They are concerned with actions and events, with the patterns, the inevitable. The shape of things past and to come.

  But one thing you could learn from them is the danger of pursuit. You could for instance have hurried in anger to recover what’s yours, then stop, look round and know yourself lost.

  She’d heard the stories, she’d read about it in the book. She knew now where she was though not how she’d been led here – and looking round trapped in the throat of this lost valley, unable to see out in any direction, she was sure she had been led.

  She hesitated, stepped and pulled up onto a flat-topped boulder and lay chest down in the middle of the pass. Despite the absence of cannon, horses, and screams, the place reminded her of a childhood illustration of the Valley of Death from the Charge of the Light Brigade. A tight valley, steep and loose with scree on either side. Blocked off ahead with the turf and boulder terrain of a terminal glacier moraine. She squirmed and looked back. The mist was already drawing across the way she’d come through a maze of choices and channels, old stream-beds and swires, drawn on by his yellow head that never turned to look back. She doubted if she could find her way back from here.

  A rattle of stones up on the left. She cowered down, squinting across the rock. She saw no one, but a little run of stones pushed down the scree, slowed and stopped.

  There was so much cover up there among the eroded outcrops. The valley was scored with stream-beds. At the head of the glen a black path twisted between two mounds like giant ant-hills. No doubt now – this was Shankheid.

  SHANKHEID PASS: Here five Lomax men in overeager hot trod pursuit were ambushed and cut down by a group of Kerrs. It had been feud and the reiving had been a ploy to bring the men out – a classic Border manoeuvre. The one survivor had his tongue severed at
the root, was sent home tied to his hobbie with a note in his mouth and the business end of a pike lodged you may imagine where.

  In a subsequent episode more reminiscent of Romeo and Juliet than the Wild West, two young lovers made the attempt to defy their families’ long-standing feud. They disappeared together at the end of a market day in Carlisle and headed for a safe house across the Border. Unfortunately Jenny Lomax had confided in her elder sister Margaret, who had strong views on the subject of the Kerrs of Westholmeford.

  So after Jenny had eloped (or been abducted and raped, depending whose family you were allied with), and the lovers were found, the notorious Meg Lomax had her men bring the young man to Shankheid Pass. His name was Wat, or Wattie the Beau, and it was said he had once unwisely rejected her advances, which may account for the action she took now. He was strung up from one of the two mounds at the head of the pass (the Black Yetts), his hands tied behind his back as Lady Meg primed the big-bore pistol known as a dag, rolled in the ball, put the muzzle carefully to young Kerr’s groin. According to local legend she looked up into his eyes and smiled before pulling the trigger. Revenge hot trod for rape and abduction, she claimed. The Lomax family had powerful allies and she wasn’t prosecuted, just a resigned sigh from her cousin the Warden of the Middle March.

  These are just two of the episodes that give this desolate spot its particular atmosphere …

  Shankheid Pass – even reading about it in her warm bed, she’d shivered.

  Then at the corner of her eye, to her right, a flicker of grey. A shoulder and arm turning and vanishing into the boulderfield. The wrong side of the valley, the wrong colour – young Elliot had been in his tatty green Barbour jacket.

  Two of them, then. She gripped the rock as her insides went liquid. She’d thought she was pursuing but she’d been led here. Who was the other? Tat? Sim Elliot? One thing for sure: this was a wicked place and they could do anything. She was unarmed, in the wrong place, asking for trouble. She was a fighter but without a knife or even a stick and without surprise on her side, she hadn’t a chance.

  Out of here. She wriggled backwards and down off the boulder, pretty sure it was useless. Still the two were ahead and she could maybe lose them. Crouched and crawling and panting with nerves, she worked her way back into the boulderfield she’d come through. A sharp bang on the inside of her knee brought water to her eye. She knelt, panting and nauseous for a moment, then set off again. Glancing behind left and right. No sign, no movement. If she got out of this, she’d bloody kill him. Nobody did this to her.

  Sharp crack up ahead. Perhaps she’d imagined the puff of stone but the rattle that followed was real enough. Three of them, then. And a rifle? She was sealed in.

  Her legs had the strength of wet newspaper as she crawled deeper into the boulderfield then turned down a stream-bed, knowing it useless. Blood on her hands, her knee aching, water running from her hair and eyes. Easy to forget what physical terror is. It feels like someone has pulled the plug on your being.

  Three men could do anything to her here. They probably would. And she’d asked for it. She’d been insane to give Tat the name. That’s what this was about, she was sure. Simon Elliot knew who she was and what she’d come for. He’d killed once. And yes, she had been threatening him. She’d enjoyed being at the cottage, making sure he knew she was there, letting him stew. Then Tat with his darty eyes, tiny ears and long shiny head …

  A rattle behind, left side. A low hooting whistle off to the right. She was too scared to look, that’s how bad it was. Davy had liked and fancied her. Likely he was a parfait Christian knight in normal circumstances. But this wasn’t a normal place. He was in the end his father’s son. She’d glimpsed in him flashes of another much more forceful and unpredictable man. She’d even played up to it. Stupid stupid girl.

  She jumped from the stream-bed, ran crouching round an outcrop, tripped and rolled down into a pit of loose stones. She gripped a jagged quartz rock in her fist as she pushed up onto her knees. She’d hurt the bastards before they did for her. After that it didn’t matter.

  She was rising to sprint for the path out when the hands came over her eyes, the strong expert grip round her shoulders and neck. She went absolutely still.

  So how do you like being followed?

  His voice. David. Amused, not-amused.

  Not much fun, is it? You should have left us alone, Marnie.

  So he knew. Of course he did, Tat would have told him. She said nothing but twisted her head away from his hand so she could see the slopes on either side.

  Looking for my friends? he asked.

  Bastards, she said.

  Drop the rock.

  He squeezed tighter and she did. He gave a piercing whistle. She waited, shivering. Let it come. Let it be brief. He whistled again.

  She looked round but no one was emerging from the rocks or hollows or stream-beds. No Tat. No gaunt dark Simon Elliot.

  It’s an old trick, the voice said behind her. Tat taught me when I was a laddie. She felt herself released. She turned. He’d reversed his Barbour, grey side out. He was grinning.

  A rock lobbed here, a stone there … Very effective, isn’t it?

  You had not bargained on this when you began. At this point it would be good to break away but that isn’t possible now. You must let this run and continue to believe you of all the people in this story cannot come to harm. After all, your soul, you must believe it, is your own.

  She went for his eyes.

  He was quicker but only just. He turned his head and her nails scraped over his eyebrow then he had her by the wrists. For a moment they were staring into each other, then as she went to knee him, he pressed in close. She stumbled back. He followed her, held her close and tight so she couldn’t get her knee up.

  She struggled to free her hands. Twice her nails went by his eyes. Already a red trickle was coming down his cheek, mixed with rain. He was unexpectedly strong and for the first time she felt the heat of him. His father’s son all right. His eyes were sparking like mica, she could see the separate flakes of blue. Her breasts were flattened against his chest. His legs were either side of hers as they swayed and struggled.

  She folded at her knees then head-butted where his ribs divided. He stumbled back and fell among the stones, was up in a flash as she grabbed a rock in her right hand and came forward.

  Are you really her?

  She hesitated. He hadn’t picked up a stone but his eyes were nailed on hers. His voice was hoarse.

  Are you Jinny’s daughter? Is it true?

  All her life had circled round this moment. She had no choice.

  Yes.

  He leaned back on the stony bank, put his hands on his knees and she heard his breath go out. The rock dropped from her hand and clattered between them. His head came up, the yellow hair plastered to his forehead, some of it catching the blood from his cut. He looked as though seeing her anew. She could feel herself being recast, felt her identity waver.

  I can only just remember, he said. I think we played together. I think I liked you. Maybe I was jealous too.

  She looked down at her hands then stuck them in her pockets to stop them shaking.

  My, how you’ve grown, she said. Can’t say I recognise you.

  Me neither. Not really.

  She cleared her throat.

  I’ve this feeling …

  She looked away as she spoke. Her voice didn’t sound her own. It was some ancient longing, a bit of history that never aged.

  Marnie … He came towards her. His hands were open, palms up. She looked him in the eyes before her hand came up to wipe blood from his forehead.

  Come back to the cottage and I’ll show you us together, she said.

  *

  They came over yet another crest and there was the valley below, the cottage, the forest, the distant river. She flopped down onto the turf and lay out straight. He sat down beside her, took out chocolate and handed her half.

  You’re a pal, sh
e murmured, popped it in her mouth and closed her eyes.

  Beyond the trees by the heuch that split the brae, he could just see the topmost chimneys of the big house and the battlement of the peel tower. Off to the west, at the furthest outpost of the next dale, the sun lit red on the prow of Creagan’s Knowe. He looked away. There were some things he wasn’t ready to talk about, and he was hoping she wouldn’t ask.

  Your friend Carol at the home, he said – what happened to her folks?

  Her eyelids flickered but stayed closed.

  Why are you asking? she said at last.

  Because she seemed important to you.

  She sat up abruptly and hugged her knees. The moorland over her shoulder was full of diffused refracted light. He waited until he realised she wasn’t going to offer more, and he stretched to go.

  The short version, she said. Her voice was flat as ice. Carol’s father was a piss-artist alcoholic, mother epileptic with severe depressions. She had delusions, sort of religious ones. Old Testament with her own extras. Who knows, maybe she believed in Spook.

  She nearly laughed but it was more the hiss of a stone sent skirling over a frozen loch. Then silence, damp air sizzling quietly into the heathery land.

  But she was all right most of the time, Marnie went on. Or so Carol said. Anyway, her father announced he’d fallen in love or at least in bed with the woman next door. Then he moved out. So a few weekends later her mother gave Carol and her sister – she had a sister, did I say?

  No. David sat with his insides dropping, wishing he hadn’t asked and not sure why he had.

  So she takes most of a bottle of pills and gives the kids the remainder, ground up in their juice. Then she locks the front and back doors, takes them into the kitchen with some toys for them and the old man’s whisky for herself. When the kids start getting slow, she opens the oven door, turns on the gas and says they’ll have a sleep while waiting for the invisible man. Her sister falls asleep, then her mum does. But Carol wants to stay awake because she really wants to see the invisible man, and she crawls over to the window where there happens to be a draught …