The Tin-Kin (17 page)

This isn’t right! We don’t even get to lie down. We’re on our feet in front of big round metal lamps on long legs. The face of each one has a grill across like a dartboard, and inside it’s all shiny. A bit at the back has tiny wee springs wrapped round, and in front are two black metal fingers pointing at each other like they’re getting ready to touch. The whole thing’s like a bowl of the strangest bits of scrap we’ve ever carted away.

‘It looks like a flying saucer, miss,’ Shona says, and speaking of flying, I remember.

‘Where’s our goggles, sir?’

‘Goggles. No, only I wear goggles. You won’t get those. No need for such a short treatment. I’ll just ask you to keep your eyes closed. Right, are we ready?’

I frown at Dr Grey as he snaps his own set over his eyes, grinning like Biggles. I’m not giving him a smile like that stupit wifey in the picture if he’s not going to give me goggles.

‘Come on, now. Uncross your arms, please, and close your eyes.’

I look to one side. Shona’s standing with her face tilted up, eyes closed already. She must’ve done this before. Elsie’s on my other side, giggling but looking feart, standing way back.

Miss Webster’s voice says, ‘Come on, now, girls. Do as the doctor says, please. Quickly.’

I shut my eyes. When the lamp gets switched on, the colour behind my lids goes from black to brown to red. It’s not painful, but I don’t like it that much. I want to cover them with my hand but Dr Grey shouts to someone, ‘Keep still, please!’, and it might be me cause folk sometimes say I’m a fidget.

There’s a heat off the lamp. That’s the nice part. It really does feel like the sun on the hottest day of summer. Like the days when Jock takes us to the beach and we have a picnic on our favourite rock. He points out the birds as they fly past, telling us the names, and he chases planes through his binoculars. I rock a wee bit on my heels, thinking of the waves lapping in and out, in and out, whispering, the sun beating down. I imagine I’m there at the beach with Uncle Jock and Miss Webster.

CLICK. CLICK. CLICK.

‘You can open your eyes now.’

I blink-blink. The room’s all funny colours, bluish blotches floating over the walls in shapes like ink blots. My skin cools and it feels cold, and it’s darker than normal, like it’s about to thunder and lightning.

Elsie and Shona are rubbing their eyes and blinking too. The
rain’s battering against the window and blue blotches glide over the drips on the pane. They sail by, everywhere I look. Shivering, the three of us jump into our clothes before being led to a bench in the green corridor. Here the nurses are chased along by the blue blotches. What are they? I wonder if they’re there all the time and you just need the lamp to see them. Maybe they’re ghosts, like Granny says she sees, or maybe they’re diseases. Whatever they are, though, I hope none touch me. As I’m thinking this, one of them slides over Shona’s face. She doesn’t notice.

Miss Webster waits with us while the boys have their shot on the lamps, and Shona and Elsie start quietly singing a hymn, one we do at school assembly.

‘Do you have a boyfriend, Miss Webster?’

I want to tell her that if she doesn’t, maybe Uncle Jock could take her to the pictures this weekend. I think he liked her. But Miss Webster doesn’t answer. I look into her face and see I’ve made her go all red.

‘That’s a very personal question,’ she says at last, sounding strict.

I stare at my knees and wonder how Miss Webster and my uncle are ever going to get together. I’ll need a plan.

I’ve had enough of the hospital. I want to go home and listen to the wireless with Uncle Jock. To pass the time I play a game with myself. I see how many seconds I can stay totally still, without even breathing or blinking. I get to thirteen, but then spoil it by scratching an itch on my head.

‘You were good girls, all of you,’ Miss Webster says suddenly, and when I look up I see she’s not blushing any more and my question’s been forgotten. She catches my eye and smiles, and then takes a scrunched up bag out her pocket. Sweeties! I reach in quicker than any of the other girls and pull out a chocolate éclair, curl my fingers round it.

This one’s for Wee Rachel.

Dawn

The door of the auction rooms was clasped with a chunky padlock and there was no notice of opening hours. Dawn walked all the way round the building and got on her knees to peer through a gap. The space inside was chilled with inky light, a ray of sun filtering through a crack in the roof. There was a hint of livestock in the air, a smell which must have clung for decades. The floor was a giant sand-pit, and somewhere inside was furniture waiting to be sold, cabinets and drawers all empty except for shadows. But she was lucky. Someone was scuffing their shoes in the dirt behind her, coming up the path.

It was Maggie Marbles. Dawn’s memory of the woman had come back out of the blue, under the strange light of the sunbed. Maggie used to sit on the steps of the church at Plainstones, one eye keeking round the corner while the other was away up the road. That’s how Shirley used to put it. And then Maggie had disappeared entirely one day. Folk assumed she’d died. She’d liked a drink, and there were often accidents with people like that.

But here was Maggie, back from the dead. It was her who’d begun all this, bringing back that ugly wee shoe. Maggie had become duck-like in her middle age, her belly rounded, shoulders slightly hunched, wearing that crown of matted hair and an oddly assembled winter wardrobe. The grey yeti jumper. Buttonless cardigans stretched round her middle, layers of lines and triangles in random colours.

Dawn had asked Linda when she’d arrived back in the shop, and Linda had sworn it was the same woman. Maggie had come back to town about three years ago, and Linda had first seen her slouching on a bench by the lake in Cooper Park. Maggie hadn’t
announced herself. She’d just let herself be found as if she’d been there all along, like a lost sock.

Today Maggie had the same hairy, grey jumper tied in a pouch round her waist and she was carrying a box of mismatched crockery, one eye pinned on Dawn and the other on the auction-room door.

Dawn took the photos from her pocket and waited for some sign that Maggie remembered coming to see her. Maggie’s eye rolled, but it did that all the time. Dawn didn’t know what to say and suddenly it seemed like a stupid idea to have come looking. These were Shirley’s affairs. But Maggie might be the only person who knew the people in the pictures, the girl, the boy, and the children with the slipper. Perhaps the pictures would mean something to those people. They looked like a happy family. At the very least, maybe someone would like them back. Eventually Maggie reached out and took picture.

Dawn desperately needed a cigarette. When she pulled out the pack Maggie looked up from the photo and grinned like a pumpkin. Dawn slid out two smokes and rummaged for matches.

Do I ken your name? Maggie said with a deep breath once she’d got her cigarette lit.

Dawn Dunn.

Maggie nodded then, smiling like she’d heard of her. Dawn Dunn, she said, two thick puffs of smoke.

Whit’s aw this? Polis matters?

She leaned in for a closer look at the picture and laughed, a graveyard of dirty teeth.

Ha ha. Thon’s the Whytes. Wha kens whit happened tae that lot! I thought someone would come asking sooner or later.

She took a long suck on her cigarette.

Why?

Maggie shrugged. Ask Big Ellen. If she’ll talk tae the likes ae you! Bides near thon Halfway place.

Maggie had unlocked the auction door. She looked Dawn up and down and then gave her a last-minute bit of advice before slamming the door shut behind her.

Ca’ canny!

The Halfway Café was a short drive away. It always looked deserted. Several times it had caught fire and made the papers, and Dawn had never been inside. It was a one-storey building and there was a new car park in front that didn’t have a single tyre mark on it yet. The sign said ‘Halfway Cafe! Pool table.’

She parked next to a Ford van and looked up and down the road. Halfway to nowhere. There weren’t any houses or landmarks, no street lights, no road signs. There was no turn off either. As far as she could see it was just tree after tall tree, white dashes and cats’ eyes that seemed to move even as she was standing still. A dizzying smell of fresh tarmac mingled with pine. It was making her head spin and her forehead sweat.

The pool table was near the door and you had to walk right round it to get to the bar. No one was playing. Three walls were boarded with bare slats and the fourth was tacked with Territorial Army posters, men’s faces smeared green. There were pull-out shiny Christmas decorations strung along the ceiling which no one had bothered to take down, and a couple of fruit machines flickered bright colours in the corner. A group of men were propped at the bar and another two nursed pints at the nearest table. They stared. An Alsatian lay on the floor, tied to a table leg.

Dawn wished she had someone with her. She’d gone home for the car and Ally had waved to her from his front-room window. He’d have probably come with her if she’d asked. He seemed to like helping out.

All the conversations stopped and the Alsatian was panting. A lorry passed outside. She wouldn’t be ordering a drink.

I’m lost.

They nodded.

Is there a turn-off near here?

The barman thought for a second, pulling down the corners of his mouth with a thumb and a finger. The others were leaning in, eyeballing. The nearest man put his hand on the bar and bent towards her for a word, so close his nose was almost parting her hair.

You needin a place tae stay?

He pointed over his shoulder to the group.

You can stay at his place, he said.

Laughter. Dawn watched the lights flashing up and down the slot machine. They climbed the buttons like rungs and then all the colours came on at once. Flash! Flash! Flash!

Forget it.

She let the door slam behind her, left the car and started walking. She found one path behind the trees. At the roadside there were two filthy trail bikes left leaning against a post. She was probably close to a house, and didn’t really care, she just wanted to walk now. Higher up the path joined with a potholed dirt track which was as wide as a road, and still she followed it, stepping inside a groove that tyres had driven through the dust and stones.

Maeve and Dad would be on their way home now. They were probably abandoning a sandy boat and feeding leftovers to seagulls. Mother would be putting dinner in the oven for the four of them. She was a good cook.

The top of the hill came suddenly and Dawn was looking down at a caravan site. It was surrounded by a white fence, and inside it ten to twenty vans were moored round three portacabins. Near the entrance was a train wreck of vehicles and spare parts. The site was divided into smaller plots so each caravan had a kind of garden with a gate. Most areas were concreted over and broken with patches of stubby grass where dogs were tied and barking.

Dawn stopped. Maggie had told her to watch herself, and
perhaps the best thing would be to hang round the fence till she was noticed. The people would come out when they were ready. It was the advice given to birdwatchers, the softly-softly approach of bear trappers. It was what she told Maeve to do when going up to strangers’ pets. ‘Ca’ canny!’

These places were like cobwebs, found in corners and along edges, hidden in the outskirts of cities and squashed onto verges of dual carriageways. Normally she’d be driving by and all she’d have time to see was a flash of colour in the trees, washing fluttering on a line. Passing a second time she might notice the hulks of metal, marooned, heavy with use like shipyard sheds. Another time she might catch a glimpse of a beach ball, a small bicycle, a rabbit hutch. The traffic was never slow enough to get a good look or make out any faces.

There was rattling. Movement. A boy in a red cap appeared by a van and Dawn tried her best to look harmless as she made her way down the path. When she got closer he took off his hat and a tuft of hair stuck up.

Hello. I’m looking for Ellen.

Oh, he said, standing straighter. I thought you were lost. People mostly come here by mistake.

Like Maggie, he had brown marks like wheat chaff on his teeth, a scuff on his cheek, but other than that he was nothing like her. He was a young boy with a nice face. His voice wasn’t what she’d expected either. It was shy and polite with an accent from nowhere in particular. The boy was looking from her to the nearest van, where a rust-coloured dog was straining on its rope.

Quiet, Beanz! he shouted. He turned back to her. You know Big Ellen?

No. I don’t think so.

I’m not sure she’s here, he said. Are you from the council? The papers?

She shook her head.

We’ve had a lot of bother with the papers.

She was just about to make some excuse to leave when the boy started walking towards the far end of the site.

Come on.

They passed a tortoiseshell cat that was eating from a bowl, licking bones.

I’m not sure if my gran’s in, he said. But we’ll see.

He pointed at the cat. That one’s been hanging round all summer, the boy said. She got dumped by someone. Take her, if you want. It’s hard for us to keep her. You want a cat?

Not really, I can’t.

He shrugged. Suit yourself.

A blue van slid past and the boy lifted his hand to the people inside, a couple with a child snuggled between them. The man and woman nodded, keeping their eyes on Dawn till they’d disappeared down the track. There was a smell of dust from the passing wheels but other than that there was only the fresh, warm air and food cooking in vans.

Another door swung open and a man came out. He lifted a hand to his mouth and shouted something. The boy put a thumb in the air and the man took a good look at Dawn before making a gesture and disappearing back inside.

It’s okay, the boy said. My dad.

There were three fold-down steps. The boy went first. He didn’t knock, and walked in without stopping to take off his work boots, which were cracked with pinkish dust from the track. Stepping in after him, Dawn had to duck so she didn’t hit her forehead.