Verge, p.13
Verge, page 13
He smells of sweat and grass. She notices a large mole on his neck that she’s not seen before. ‘Stop fussing. I’m okay, Halim, it’s just a bump.’
‘It’s a concussion. You need to keep still and rest. I’m going to head up the road to try and get a signal and call a tow-truck.’
‘I’m coming with you.’
‘No, you’re staying here.’
‘No, I’m coming with you. I don’t want to be left alone.’
‘You’ll be fine, this place is deserted and you can’t see the truck from the road.’
She frowns, scratches at the plaster pinching her skin. ‘It’s not people I’m worried about, it’s … the other thing.’
He looks at her with something like pity and she hates it.
‘This place is a black-spot,’ he mutters, ‘it could be a long walk to find a signal.’ He empties the glove compartment and puts the rest of his things in the small metal locker behind the seats.
Rowena opens her backpack and pulls out her clothes and the library book on Lochs and Mountains of the Highland Borders that her pa gave her years ago, and starts repacking it with the food they were given.
‘You taking that?’ Halim asks, pointing to the urn that’s nestled between the wrapped cheese and a cob loaf.
She looks at the tear-stained sticker listing her pa’s name and date of cremation. ‘I’m not leaving him alone either.’
Outside the truck, Rowena waits for Halim as he stands in front of the old metal trough that they ploughed into. It lies on its side, wrenched from the mud and dented from the impact. She waits as he just stares at the hunk of rusted metal, his shoulders slumped, defeated. He takes a few steps and kicks the trough with his good foot, sending out a dull metallic gong. He kicks it harder, then picks up a rock and slams it down – except the rock is more chalk than stone and it crumbles into powdery white pieces, enraging him even more, and that’s when he starts with his fists … Rowena knows to stand back and let him have this, knows that it’s the lava inside him splitting open and catching fire.
They make their way back across the field, its lush grass stippled yellow with the pom-poms of dandelions and pentacles of buttercups. The temperature drops as soon as they enter the huddle of trees lining a hollow beside the road.
‘Bloody hell – is that what I think it is?’ Halim scowls.
Rowena follows his finger to an ancient-looking elm, its thick upturned branches resembling a tarnished candelabrum. Nestled into one of the nooks is a milk-white human skull. A collarbone and shoulder blade are also wedged into the trunk, as if the whole body was consumed by the tree: Rowena’s vision made real. A chill passes through her, leaching her strength for a moment.
Ignoring Halim’s protestations she climbs down the slippery bank to get a better look – gripping roots and saplings to steady herself – and peers into the gnarly grey folds. The skull is female by the size and shape of it, most likely a young woman. Moss and bark have crept over the skeleton like a shroud and, as a final macabre touch, droplets from the leaves above are sliding past her empty eye sockets like mock tears. Rowena imagines her own skin stretched over those bones and reaches out to touch the woman’s dirt-filmed teeth. ‘Who did this to you?’ she whispers. ‘What does it feel like where you are? Will it hurt when it’s my time?’
A sudden flutter of wings catches Rowena off-balance and a second later Halim has her in a rough grip and is half-dragging her back up the slope. ‘That’s enough,’ he snaps. ‘I want to get out of this armpit of a county. We can report the body when we get to Butsfield.’
‘No point,’ Rowena sighs, filling her nose with the scent of a million living and dying things. ‘No one cared about her for decades, why’d they care now? Well, no one except whoever tied that scrap of white silk to the branch over there.’
They walk on in silence for a while, Halim’s brooding anger filling the air like lightning straining for a place to strike.
‘I’m sure your truck can be fixed,’ Rowena says.
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ Halim’s voice is more like a rumble than actual speech.
Shafts of midday sun cut through the light drizzle, reminding Rowena of the glass fragments falling into her lap – and then she remembers the swell of her belly and how it made her feel like she wanted to be that crow at the window, making a desperate escape.
‘You okay?’ Halim asks as she stumbles. ‘Let me carry your pack.’
‘No, I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look it. Let’s rest here for a bit and get some food in you.’
They sit next to each other on a stile at the edge of the road and unwrap the bread and cheese. The public-footpath sign points to another overgrown field, left fallow for so long that saplings are sprouting amongst the cornflowers and poppies, and the air is filled with the soft hum of bees and the zip of dragonflies.
‘Right before you passed out you said, “Everything I love dies,”’ Halim says, spitting out an apple pip.
Rowena touches the lump on her forehead. ‘Did I?’
He nods. ‘You’re a smart girl – woman – Rowena, do you really think you caused your boyfriend to fall down a hill and your dad to have a stroke? Don’t you realise how dumb that sounds?’
She wrinkles her nose. ‘After what just happened with the truck you still don’t believe that I’m cursed? We could’ve died back there and it was my fault! I’m marked, touched by Death: anyone I get close to I drag towards It.’
‘We’re hardly close, Rowena, I’m just your “ride” – isn’t that how you described me back at Dingle? I overheard you that night, my room was above the garden.’
She looks away. ‘I was cursed since I was born,’ she says. ‘My mother says that on the day she had me, two hundred and fifty starlings dropped out of the sky and hit the main road. If that’s not a bad omen I don’t know what is.’
‘It was probably just the glare from the concrete – had it been raining?’
‘How would I know, I was a newborn.’ Rowena grabs her pack and stands up. ‘I’m done resting.’ She heads off up the road, as Halim’s phone beeps with a flurry of delayed messages.
‘That’ll be four quid.’ The barman places the pint of ale on the counter.
Halim fishes some coins out of his pocket. ‘I don’t suppose you know anywhere cheap to stay around here, do you? We need a couple of rooms.’
The barman glances over at Rowena sat in the corner, eating crisps while scratching something into a white candle. ‘You mean one room?’
‘Sure, fine, if that’s all you have.’
‘Nah, nothing round here.’ The barman continues serving a hairy ox of a man with arms the size of logs. ‘That’ll be three quid, please, Gabe.’
Halim looks at the identical pint of ale placed on the bar next to his. ‘Sorry, I thought you said it was four pounds a pint?’
The barman squeaks a dirty-looking cloth around a glass. ‘Locals get a discount.’
Halim glares at him, bristling. He grips his pint and turns away.
‘You’re drinking – that means bad news.’ Rowena puts down the candle as Halim joins her.
‘The garage won’t have the truck ready until this coming Wednesday,’ he says, ale slopping over his hand. ‘They said it can take up to four working days to get parts in.’
‘So that means we’re stuck here for like, six nights …’ She counts on her fingers. ‘So that would make it the fourteenth of May!’
‘We’re stuck here? So you’ll wait here with me? Even if it means we might not make it to Culcrith in time for your birthday?’
‘I made a contract with you, didn’t I? Besides, there’s still time if we can fast-track some jobs. We’ll figure this out.’ She frowns and chews the inside of her cheek. ‘We have to.’
Halim picks at the beer mat under his glass and then fishes out his phone and rereads the half-composed text to his mother.
‘Must be a relief to know your truck’s not a write-off,’ Rowena says, taking a sip of his untouched pint.
He snorts and buries his phone in his pocket. ‘The call-out fee itself was a hundred and eighty-five, brakes were a patch-up job, and the chassis was only scratched, but a replacement windscreen could cost between four and eight hundred pounds.’
‘So, you’ve got insurance, don’t you?’
‘Of course, but I can’t afford the excess so I’ll have to default on my truck payments again, and I won’t get any slack if I’m late a second time. That means repossession.’
‘Can’t you pay the repairs in instalments?’
He shakes his head. ‘Bad credit rating. That’s what happens when you work erratic contracts and don’t have a steady income. And they won’t release the truck until full payment’s been made, so basically I’m fucked whichever way you look at it.’ He clings to his glass and stares at the dartboard on the wall opposite. Something large obscures his view and he refocuses on the ox-like man from earlier, who’s now standing in front of their table.
‘Name’s Gabriel,’ the man says with a smile, his three-quid pint in his meaty hand. ‘I’m the local blacksmith. I own the forge down the road. Mind if I join you?’
‘I’m Rowena, and this is Halim,’ she says, pushing out a stool with her foot before Halim can object.
Gabriel sits and turns to Halim. ‘I couldn’t help overhearing at the bar – you still looking for a place to stay?’
Halim knows by now that everyone has an ulterior motive and everything comes at a cost, but he’s tired to the bones and has nothing left to lose. ‘Yeah, for six nights, as cheap as possible.’
‘Great, well, I’ve got a barn near my forge, kitted out with beds and electrics. My kids use it when they come and stay, but they’ve grown up now and don’t visit so often. That’s what happens when—’
‘How much?’ Halim asks.
‘You can have it for free if you agree to help me out at the forge a bit – May’s a busy time of year, see, and with my arthritis and that I can’t go full pelt like I did in my younger days.’
Rowena nudges Halim under the table and raises her eyebrows at him.
‘Sounds interesting, thank you. We’ll think about it and get back to you,’ Halim says.
Gabriel looks at each of them in turn. ‘Ah, right. Well then, I’ll be over at the bar.’
As Gabriel gets up Rowena kicks Halim.
‘Ow!’
‘What’s wrong with you?’ she hisses.
‘How can we trust him? What if he’s part of a mob? What if he’s another racist prick?’
Rowena rolls her eyes. ‘Look at him, he’s practically an old man, a lonely old man who’s offering us a place to stay. For free.’ She places a hand on Halim’s arm and leaves it there. ‘I know we’ve had a shit time of it with strangers, but I’ve spent my whole life reading signs, so I also developed a knack for reading people. I’m pretty sure he’s one of the good ones, Halim. And you can’t spend your whole life avoiding everyone.’
The warmth from her hand seems to spread up his arm and across his chest. ‘Fine,’ he sighs. ‘But if I get bludgeoned to death in my sleep I’m coming back to haunt you.’
21
9 May
rowena narrows her eyes against the bright, butterscotch light and yawns as Halim comes into the barn. He’s shaved off his stubble, is dressed in tailored navy trousers and a crisp white shirt unbuttoned at the neck. He looks … different, she thinks, sitting up. ‘Whose funeral is it?’
‘Probably mine. I’ve got a meeting at the bank to see about a loan. Gabe says there’s coffee and breakfast in the cottage if you want it.’
‘Oh, it’s “Gabe” now, is it?’ she grins.
‘How’s the head?’
‘Throbbing a little.’ She touches the bump, acutely aware that the skin around it has turned a putrid purple.
Halim frowns as he taps furiously into his phone.
‘So, I had an idea about the money,’ Rowena says, wrapping the blanket around her. ‘I know you don’t want to ask your parents for help, but there’s no reason I can’t ask mine—’ she catches herself, ‘my mother.’
He looks up. ‘Why would Tessa help? If anything she’d be mad that I had an accident and put you in danger. No, I can’t risk her cancelling this contract. Not now. This job’s hanging by a thread as it is.’
It irks Rowena that he still refers to her as a ‘job’, but she brushes it off. ‘You didn’t put me in danger, it was all my fault.’
He pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘Not this again.’
‘No, no curse – just the reckless behaviour of a seventeen-year-old who drank too much and decided to take a joyride and crashed your truck into a tree.’ She tilts her head and watches her words register. ‘I take the blame. You phone Tessa and explain that there’ll be an amount added to your fee, for the excess or whatever, or you’ll ditch me here and terminate the contract. Call her bluff. She’ll believe it, coming from you.’
Halim seems to think about it for a minute, then shakes his head. ‘I need more money than that anyway – I have to try the bank, even if it is a long shot.’ He spits on his hand and starts polishing his mud-flecked boots. ‘I wish I hadn’t pawned my brogues,’ he mumbles.
‘You sleep okay?’ Gabe asks as Rowena sits at a wonky little table in his kitchen eating black-edged toast. ‘I know it’s a bit cramped for the two of you, but my boys used to tell me the mattresses were comfy enough.’
She smiles. ‘Slept like a log, thanks.’
‘Speaking of which, do you know how to chop wood?’
She nods.
‘Good, you can start in the yard today, I need to get my stores up before more of this blasted rain comes. Then Lucy – that’s my horse – could do with mucking out and a brush down. That sound okay?’
‘Sure. I like horses. My pa taught me to ride when I was five.’ She waves her fingers through the light that’s sneaking in under the net curtain.
‘Smart man,’ Gabe says, ‘a good skill to have these days, what with cars costing the earth.’
‘I suppose he was a smart man,’ Rowena mutters. ‘Though my mother always used to say that the man might think he’s the head of a household, but the woman is the neck – and where the neck turns the head follows.’
Gabe chuckles, his eyes barely visible between the wrinkles. ‘Where are your folks now?’
‘One’s in my backpack and the other’s in Pickbury, Dunfordshire. Halim and I are on our way to my gran’s farm in Culcrith.’
Unsure how to respond, Gabe scratches his chin. ‘There’s the Flora Dance in town tomorrow afternoon, where everyone gets dressed up in their finest. Halim scrubs up well – you two would make a right handsome pair.’
Rowena feels her cheeks redden. ‘We’re just friends.’
‘Right, well, there’s more coffee on the stove.’ The table shakes as Gabe gets up. ‘I’d best get on and stoke up the forge.’
As he leaves, Rowena spots a neat line of dried blood across the doorstep. If his protective wards have held, she wonders, how did they let a cursed girl cross the threshold?
‘Are you checking out my arse again?’ Rowena doesn’t turn around but can feel Halim’s eyes on her as she brushes the flank of Gabe’s horse in the yard, her free hand following each stroke of the brush.
‘No, I was just thinking I’d never seen you work so hard before,’ he replies. ‘But now that you’ve drawn attention to your arse …’
Rowena wipes her forehead with the back of her arm. ‘How’d it go at the bank?’
Halim slumps down on a nearby hay bale, his tie bunched up in one hand. ‘As expected. They said no. As did your mother.’
‘You spoke to her?’
‘For all of thirty seconds.’
‘So what now?’
Halim stares at his hands and shrugs. ‘Sell my soul?’
‘You could call your parents.’
‘Same thing,’ he says. ‘I can’t do it. I just can’t.’
‘Your pride’ll screw you over, you know that, don’t you? That’s your curse.’
When he raises his head he has a strange look on his face like he’s thinking so hard he doesn’t even see her. ‘My family’s money is blood money,’ he says, rubbing the back of his neck. ‘My father owns a pharmaceutical company and years ago he withheld essential medical supplies to artificially inflate stock prices. That’s how he got to where he is. Countless people have died because of him, children included. My mother feigns ignorance, and it’s never mentioned, but I can’t ignore it. He wants me to follow in his footsteps, thinks I’m the same as him because we share a few genes, but I’m not. I’m nothing like him.’ Halim twists the tie around his knuckle like a boxing wrap. ‘Being a good guy in this world, though, following the rules – it all feels like a disadvantage.’
Lucy pushes her soft nose into Rowena’s shoulder and flicks her mane. Rowena takes the hint and goes over. ‘It’s okay,’ she says, sitting next to Halim. ‘We can get more jobs, or stay on here with Gabe and save up so that the garage releases your truck. I’ve got some money I can put towards it – I was saving to rent my own place in Pickbury one day so it’s not like I need it now. And I can sell more charms, Gabe says it’s the Flora Dance tomorrow, so the whole town’ll be out.’
‘We don’t have time though – my contract was to get to Culcrith before your birthday, and I only have five weeks before …’ He shakes his head, looks uncomfortable.
She watches him toy with the dog tag around his neck. ‘What is that?’ she asks. It looks like real gold and she wonders why he hasn’t pawned it already.
He tucks it under his shirt. ‘A reminder that other people let you down. When I was little my parents promised me a dog if I aced my exams; they even bought me the gold tag for its collar, said they’d engrave it with whatever name I chose.’
‘So you failed your exams?’
He shakes his head. ‘Got straight A’s.’
