Bluff, page 11
‘What kind of plants?’ she asked, looking out to the tendrils that pressed against the window.
‘Well, we’re pretty sure they used henbane, as I spoke about at the library. I’m looking for some volunteers to help me prove this theory. We had a lot of interest after the talk.
‘Volunteers?’ asked Joanie. ‘To try henbane?’
David laughed. ‘Oh, it’s a bit more scientific than that. We’re still figuring out the details. It used to be a commonly used analgesic for everyday things such as stomach ache, coughs, asthma, that sort of thing. It’s a really misunderstood plant. It’s linked to the transcendental experience. Like a meditation aid. I think, with more work, we can really harness these findings and re-examine the use of these ancient herbs, even in our everyday lives.’
‘Have you tried it?’ Joanie asked.
She noticed Vik shift in his seat.
‘I’ve experimented, yes, in small doses. Totally changed my way of seeing the world.’
‘I love all of us hanging out like this!’ Erin butted in, sounding like she was trying to move the conversation along. ‘Joanie, I asked you here with a bit of an ulterior motive,’ she said, laughing. ‘I’m going up north soon, to David’s family’s cottage, to further my meditation practice.’
‘What she means is, she’s skiving off work,’ said Vik. ‘Baking bread, strolling through fields.’ Joanie had not seen this side to him. He was like an annoying big brother.
‘Oh my God, Vik, shut up. This is a business I’m running. I have to improve my technique sometimes. I have to practise what I preach,’ Erin snapped back, busily gathering up her surfer hair into a messy bun that looked effortlessly chic. ‘Anyway, Joanie, I just wondered if you wanted to come with me, up to Caithness. It seems like you’re really enjoying the classes. I could teach you and then maybe, maybe, you could take over some of my classes. We could see how it panned out.’
‘I’d love to!’ Joanie flushed with excitement. ‘You don’t mind, David? Is your family still there?’
‘Oh no, it’s a holiday let,’ said Erin. ‘In fact, I was thinking all four of us could go. You’re better at driving long journeys than me, Vik. I’m asking some of the new recruits to man the fort.’
Vik caught Joanie’s eye and her stomach flipped. ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I love baking bread.’
‘Vik, are you kidding me?’ Erin said. ‘It’s more about experiencing the … wilderness. Just being. You know?’
‘I think I know what you mean,’ Vik said. ‘Lounging.’
‘David?’ Erin asked with an eye-roll. Joanie could tell she secretly loved the way Vik spoke to her.
‘Of course,’ David replied. ‘Nobody’s been up there for a while. In fact, I think the site of the Olrich settlement is still there and—’
‘OK, OK, can we wrap it up for now with the monk chat?’ Erin said.
A look passed between them. David smiled. ‘Of course, darling.’
For the rest of the meal, the group spoke about the new local bookshop, Sands & Sons, and how busy the town was. Vik described how much his parents had enjoyed their trip to St Rule last month from India. Joanie noticed he kept looking at her from across the table as he spoke. She looked away, her stomach tight. She wondered whether this was meant to be a double date.
The candlelight was soft on her eyes after the sunshine outside. And without people constantly checking their phones, like her friends, the dinner felt more intimate, even secret.
When David passed Joanie the last of the cauliflower, she noticed an intricate tattoo edging out from under his rolled-up shirt sleeve. A band of runic symbols.
Erin jumped in again, only to tell them it was time for pudding. She brought out a flourless, dark chocolate cake, decorated with violets. Despite her best intentions, Joanie reached for her phone instinctively, only to remember it had been relegated to the hallway. There was no clock in the kitchen, so she had no idea how late it was. Time had seemed to ebb and flow. She could picture herself now, as a student, as a young woman.
When the night finally came to a close, Vik offered her a lift home. She was unsure if he was just being polite, as she sleepily recited her address. The car was old, second-hand but cool and retro. Not what she really expected for a student. He looked much more awake than her in the driver’s seat, turning on low indie music. ‘Are you going to give up your phone and become vegan too?’ Joanie asked.
‘Well, what David says goes.’ Vik paused. ‘He has his ways. He’s actually my supervisor, for my PhD. We’re friends now and everything, of course. He is just …’ he thought for a moment ‘… a very persuasive man, I would say. He has helped me a lot, in my field of research. Everyone in the department loves him, of course. Some people think he’s a genius, in fact. He definitely believes that.’
He spoke with a conspiratorial air, as if they were two outsiders talking.
When he dropped her off at her small, suburban house, Joanie had felt a pang of shame. She wished she lived somewhere big and old like Erin and David. Vik didn’t seem to notice. He parked the car to let her out. ‘It was nice hanging out. Perhaps you’d like to meet up again. Maybe we could go for a walk on the beach or something.’
‘Sure,’ Joanie said, trying to sound cool. ‘Why not?’
22
Cameron, 27 December 2023
I had booked my train back to London for just after Hogmanay, but was starting to wonder how to fill the time. I had imagined that home would provide a refreshing distraction from my break-up, that I would no longer be someone who wanted to stay in their pyjamas, listening to podcasts and raiding the fridge. Yet there I was in my dressing-gown at eleven a.m., eating salami and cheese on a posh cracker and listening to two comedians discuss the French Revolution.
My mind began to drift. I searched for Joanie’s name online yet again. This time, I clicked through friends and places on various social-media sites. Nothing.
Mia had sent me a message: Hey, great to see you the other night. Any luck finding out what Joanie’s been up to? Are you in town for long?
I clicked on to her profile page and saw the latest photo she had posted was a pile of young-adult novels in front of a fancy bookcase, a ladder to one side. They were the kind of books some of my students liked to read, about dragons and love triangles. Well, she would know about the latter.
I was deciding whether or not to reply when Tatey messaged to say he was waiting outside.
‘I knew you’d be in the house,’ he said, as I got into the passenger seat. ‘I was passing, and I thought, Morris will still be sat on his arse, watching telly, guaranteed.’
‘No, I wasn’t,’ I said. I had been lying down scrolling on my phone.
‘Your London pals might think you’re this man of the world, Morris, but I know the real you.’ He was joking, but I was glad he didn’t elaborate further. Nobody thought I was a man of the world. Since breaking up with Vanessa, I barely felt adult enough to be a man.
The van smelt bad. Whether animal, vegetable or mineral, I wasn’t yet sure. ‘Been up to much?’ Tatey asked, backing the van out of the drive.
God, he almost ran over my mum’s flowerbed. ‘Dunno, really,’ I said. ‘Ate a lot of Quality Street.’
He gave me a side eye. ‘The plot thickens. Now where, in the Kingdom, d’ya want to go?’
I had assumed he had somewhere planned. ‘Buddy. The rock,’ I said, without thinking. ‘How about there?’
‘Excellent choice,’ he replied, turning towards Boar’s Raik. ‘Let’s go the scenic route.’ It felt like old times again, two inconsequential pricks in a mystery machine.
As we drove, I noticed a small holy figure hanging from his rear-view mirror.
‘St Christopher,’ Tatey said, as I took a closer look. ‘Patron saint of car drivers. I’m not kidding. Also doubles up if you have toothache.’
‘I thought he was for lost people,’ I said, as he drove along the quiet country road. The barren fields sparkled with frost either side of us.
Tatey shook his head. ‘Nah, that’s St Anthony. I like St Christopher. Way back, they found a giant tooth that was said to belong to him. A relic. People worshipped it. Turned out to have belonged to a hippopotamus.’
Trust Tatey to know something like that. ‘What’s St Rule’s deal?’ I asked. I had never bothered to find out.
‘Golfers. Obviously.’
I smiled, but I couldn’t quite relax, as my mind wandered back to the Christmas card that had been pushed through my door. Tatey was the only person I could think of who lived nearby.
‘Patron saint of fudge doughnuts also, St Rule,’ Tatey continued, alluding to a local delicacy.
Could he be hiding something? He didn’t seem the sort to send weird messages but you never knew.
‘No,’ I said, speaking in my teacher’s voice, before I could stop myself. ‘A saint has to patronize someone,’ I say, ‘not things.’
‘You’re doing a pretty good job of that yourself,’ Tatey muttered, with his eyes firmly on the road, and we lapsed into silence.
After a while, Tatey put on a classic metal album and the mood changed. I started nodding along, ironically at first, but then I got into it. The lyrics were about lust and magic and shadows. Everything Father Thomas had warned us against. Tatey turned up the volume at the complicated solo. I let out a whoop as he swung round a corner, one hand on the steering wheel. We sped along more winding roads, lost in teenage air guitar, as the December sea dipped in and out of view.
As we started to walk through the field towards the beach, I wondered how many times I had trodden this path. I thought about my dad coming here when he was a boy. And how many others before him? There was a timeless quality. Where the rocky coast met the ocean, I could almost see pagans standing in their white robes against the grey waves, preparing a human sacrifice, with sprigs of mistletoe like the one over our door. Clearly Tatey’s choice of music had gone to my head.
We were nearing the edge of the field that ended in a rocky downward path to the beach. ‘Do you think there were, like, druids and shit here?’ I asked Tatey. If anyone knew, it would be him.
‘Druids? Like in Asterix times?’ he replied.
‘Yeah,’ I said. That lesser-known time period.
‘What was the druid guy called in that?’ he asked, as we walked in the cold wind. ‘Jetafix?’
I laughed loudly. ‘Getafix. Like taking drugs. Maybe a little inappropriate for nine-year-olds.’
Tatey looked at me. ‘Like “Get a fix of his magic potions, children”? That’s too good, man.’
Now I was on a roll. ‘He’s called Panoramix in French. Not as good at all.’
‘Do you ever stop being a teacher? But Getafix, man. When were these books written? The swinging sixties?’
‘Yep.’ I knew my Asterix. We had reached the end of the field and were scrambling down the banks to the shore. Buddy the rock was in sight.
Tatey ran out ahead of me. ‘The magic potion made them really strong, right?’ He threw a stone far into the freezing water, as though hoping for super-strength himself.
I ran against the wind to catch him up, shouting, ‘So they could go and beat people up.’
He started galloping across the sand like a fool. ‘Like a blind rage … roid rage?’
‘No, no, don’t do that to Asterix!’ I covered my eyes and fell upon the sand, like an invisible arrow had hit me.
I opened my eyes and Tatey had disappeared. The frosty beach stretched out around me and I remembered the party, the towering bonfire. My teeth chattered.
I looked up and saw Tatey balancing high on a ledge that jutted out from Buddy. He jumped, hit the sand and sprang up, triumphant. I was at once eighteen and twenty-eight. Someone who had never had a girlfriend and someone who had been a fiancé, even for a brief few months.
When Tatey came over to sit next to me on the sand, he was out of breath.
‘Hey,’ I said. ‘Do you remember that party we had here?
‘Which one?’ said Tatey. ‘We had a bunch.’
‘The one at the end of school. That time Adam Deuchars got off with Mia.’
Tatey was looking out to sea, frowning.
‘You remember?’
‘I think so,’ he said, distantly, then looked at me out of the corner of his eye. ‘Then you pissed off to Glasgow.’
The change in tone took me by surprise. ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Not much I could do about that, really. I keep thinking about Joanie’s mum. Didn’t you think that was weird? I wonder where Joanie is, these days.’
He shrugged. ‘Search me, man.’ I had known Tatey a long time and something was off in his voice. Just a tiny hesitation that echoed to the rocks and back.
I watched him carefully. ‘OK. I just thought you might know something.’
‘There are no facts,’ said Tatey, tilting his head back, ‘only interpretations.’
‘Let me guess,’ I replied. ‘Nietzsche.’
He pretended not to hear me.
‘Well,’ I continued, ‘talking of facts, something super-freaky happened on Christmas Day, when my parents were out.’
‘Oh, aye?’ He sounded interested now.
‘This creepy Christmas card came through the door. The message said not to try looking for Joanie.’ I sighed. ‘I haven’t told anyone about it, but it was fucking weird.’
He looked genuinely affronted. ‘What the hell? No way. Who would do that?’
I shrugged. ‘I’m trying not to think about it too much.’
‘Why would they even say that? Were you looking for her?’
‘No, not really, I mean …’ Then it hit me like ice water. ‘I was talking to Adam about her. About Joanie. At the drinks.’
‘Adam.’ Tatey gave me a look that said, Well, there’s your problem, right there.
‘I haven’t told my parents. Don’t tell them. I’m wondering about telling the police, but I don’t even know if they’d take me seriously. The way it was written, it was sort of accusatory, you know. Like I was the one doing something wrong. What if the police thought that too?’
‘Put up cameras,’ said Tatey, as if that was the easiest thing in the world. ‘In case the guy comes back. Then you’ve got evidence.’
‘Yeah.’ I sighed. ‘You’re probably right.’ I got up, shaking sand off my boots. ‘Let’s go and get some beers at The Boar. My round.’
An Adele song was playing as the barman pulled me more pints. We were about six drinks in between us and it was dark outside. The song was one that Vanessa used to sing when she was processing her invoices. Chasing Payments, she called it, and I rolled my eyes every time. In spite of my best intentions, the memory made me miss her. I wasn’t even an Adele fan. I liked the way Vanessa sang, though. The way she would wear her glasses when she was working at her laptop. Before I knew it, my phone was out and I was composing a message. It didn’t matter that she hadn’t replied to my last one. Or that we had blocked each other on social media.
Hey. I’m here if you ever feel like talking about stuff. I resisted pressing ‘send’. It wasn’t the time. I should just enjoy myself. There was something so cosy about this old drinking hole. As well as serving good local beer, The Boar and Barn even had its own resident dog, an old collie cross, which had wagged his tail enthusiastically when we had arrived, as if – I told myself – he remembered me from years ago. Vanessa would have loved it here.
I set the two beers on our table and asked Tatey an open-ended question about the latest Final Fantasy game, just to distract me, but before I could think better of it, I shoved my hands under the table and pressed ‘send’.
‘Mildness, is what I’m trying to say. The side quests suck.’ Tatey looked at me emphatically, taking a drink as punctuation.
‘I hear you, man,’ I replied, a little sloppily. The pub’s playlist had changed to a nineties rock ballad. Tatey was a good friend. In my opinion, a good friend is someone you can hang out with for extended periods without wishing you were somewhere else. Being a low-key great hang is a vastly underrated quality. Yet I noticed that no matter how long we talked, he always remained monosyllabic when I mentioned Joanie.
Just then the door opened, and my neighbour Stuart Dunn walked in with two other middle-aged guys I didn’t recognize. His front teeth protruded slightly and his face was ruddy. I wondered why my mother had any time for him at all. He gave me a nod and I pretended not to see him. Twat.
My stomach had started to feel bloated by the beer. I’d indulged a bit too much over the past few days. ‘Think I’d best be heading off,’ I said to Tatey. ‘My turn to cook for my parents this evening.’
‘Nice one,’ he replied. ‘Remember to get a camera. Look out for any jakey bastards hanging about the hoose.’
I glanced up at Stuart. He was a middle-class retiree who was as good as teetotal, but something wasn’t quite right. I was sure of it.
I took some time to pass by the local Co-op to pick up a few things for dinner. I was making moules marinière or, as my dad called it, mussel stew. (If he ever found a particularly big one, he would call it a ‘clabby doo’.) I needed some decent white wine and crusty bread. If you couldn’t eat mussels by the sea, when could you?
‘Something came for you,’ my mother told me, as I dumped the shopping bags on the kitchen counter. She handed me an envelope and immediately I knew what it was.
‘Must be another Christmas card,’ I said, shoving it into my pocket.
I went upstairs to the bathroom to open it. The same wintry scene, the same handwriting.
This is your second warning.
STAY AWAY.
Extract from ‘Who’s Afraid of the Dark?’ by Joanie Sinclair, 2012
The heavy footsteps got louder as they started creaking along the landing. I wanted to silence my body. I wanted my heart to stop beating. I wanted to stop breathing. For my organs to disappear into mist. Instead I was a piece of meat, waiting to be eaten. I’m not here, I thought. Don’t come into my room.
