Perfectly Preventable Deaths

36 St John’s Wort

I wake up to the ringing of my phone. It’s three o’clock in the morning, but also – it’s Oona. I pick up, dry-throated, tongue thick with whatever grows in your mouth while you sleep. I’m glad she isn’t here. I need my toothbrush.

Her voice is strange, deeper than it normally is, something in it that I can’t quite place.

‘Is everything all right?’ I ask, as if it’s perfectly normal for her to be calling me in the middle of the night.

‘Are you busy?’ she asks. And I say no. She asks if I can meet her in the forest. There is a little shed, halfway up the mountain, past the crossroads where Catlin and I found the fox. I’ve seen it on my walks, but never gone in.

This distraction is a sort of blessing. I press my hand against the windowpane and look out at the mountains and the sky. Something rustles in the wall behind me. A brittle, scratching sound. It could be rats, I think. That’s all we need.

I brush my teeth and pad down to the kitchen, boots in hand. The sky is dark tonight, and I use the light of my phone to pad around, trying to keep as quiet as I can. This house is big, but Brian could be hanging out in the walls or something, because I wouldn’t put it past him, what with all the secrets he’s been keeping. Ugh. I’m so sick of the lot of them. Except for Button.

I pull on one of Brian’s big logo fleeces. My coat is clean, but it reminds me of torture, broken foxes. I walk and walk. The forest’s dark and full of night-time sounds. Ripples and clicks and my boots on the leaves marching through it. It takes me around forty minutes to get to the right place.

The wind is harder on the sloping road. It mashes grass and plants down horizontal. I zip the fleece right up. It’s past my nose. My hands are in the pockets. There’s a fat brass lighter there. Does Brian smoke? I wonder. What don’t we know about this quiet man who’s in our family?

The shed is small and stone with a corrugated iron roof that’s rusted into red. Someone definitely lived there once. There is a crumbling old wall all around it. A wrought-iron gate so warped it doesn’t close, just swings and flakes. A lonely place. I hope Oona’s all right.

My heart. I think of the night we had that walk, of swimming in the lake. Her hand in mine, her shoulders and her smile. She let go, and maybe she was right. I don’t deserve a precious thing. I’d break it. My fat hands on the handle of the door. My thick tongue in my mouth. My heart is beating hard. I breathe in deep before I venture in.

The place is nicer than I thought it would be. There’s electricity, for one thing. A bare light bulb swings in the middle of the wooden-plank ceiling. The floorboards bare, and grey mould on the walls, but there’s a heater someone has plugged in, some cushions and a beanbag on the floor. There are some cans and old packets of crisps inside the fireplace. They must hang out here, the kids from school, without us, I think. And Oona knows about it, and we don’t. And it hurts a little, being left out in another way.

I know I look a state; I run my fingers through my snarling hair and bite my lips to try to make them pinker. My cheeks are flushed. I should have made more of an effort.

Her voice says, ‘Madeline.’ And then I see her. Curled up on some cushions on the floor. Her face is very blotchy. Her eyes are ringed with black. Her hair is wet. Her hair is always wet.

I go to her. I put my arms around her and I say, ‘Tell me what happened.’

Oona cries. I hold her and she cries. I tell her that she’ll be all right. That it will change. That things always get easy in the end. I believe that when I say it to her. I stroke her hair. She snuggles in beside me, and she speaks.

‘Claudine broke my heart,’ she says. ‘She broke my heart. It’s finished.’

Then she says some other things in French. My French isn’t very good and her voice is fast. I think there is another person. And they have been to the cinema. And it isn’t fair. We talk and talk for ages.

‘She’s an idiot,’ I tell her softly.

‘You’ve never met her.’ Oona sniffs a bit.

‘She was mean to you,’ I say. ‘She had you and she lost you. She’s a fool.’

‘I hate him and I hate her. But mostly I just hate myself. I might as well be dead.’ She starts to sob again, and curls towards my chest. My body pulses. I stroke her back awkwardly. She’s crying and she needs me. I need to be a friend to her right now.

‘We could go to the castle?’ I suggest. ‘Sneak in and watch a film? Look at cat videos? Photoshop her head onto a dinosaur?’ I waggle my eyebrows, trying to seem fun. I’m rarely fun, but I could try, for her.

‘I am too melancholy for such pursuits,’ she says. It is the Frenchest, Frenchest sentence. ‘I think that I might have to swim it off.’ She sighs, and squeezes out her hair, as though it were a little burnished sponge. She’s standing up.

I stand up too.

And then she looks at me.

We are facing each other and I can feel the blood rush through my skin. She doesn’t move. I cannot even blink. Every part of me is waking up. I might get sick.

She looks at me again. What big eyes she has.

I can’t help it. I lean in, kiss her gently. On the mouth.

Just once.

Her lips are very soft.

‘She’s an idiot,’ I say again. Her hand snakes to my waist, she pulls me closer, and we are kissing properly. There’s nothing tentative at all in this. It’s fierce and warm and soft and, oh, I want her and I want her.

So many ways to make a person ache.

I always thought that when I had my first proper kiss, with someone I felt things for, I would be worried that I was doing it wrong. I was wrong. I cannot think at all. I’m just a body. I am just a mouth. And she is Oona.

Her hands snake inside my hoodie, underneath my T-shirt to the small of my back. She traces the notches on my spine. I shiver. Everything about her is clean and soft and fresh. I breathe her in. Our skin is touching skin and we are kissing. I need her and I need this. We are touching on the cushioned floor and I am hungry. I didn’t know that bodies were a thing. That they could fit like this. That there was magic.

‘Madeline,’ she says. I murmur something back. She sighs forever. I can feel her shoulders, tense, collapse. Her ribcage pressing in against my torso. Her soft, damp skin.

She says my name again. She moves away.

I hate the stupid world for rushing in.

‘I don’t think we can do this.’ She looks at me. Her face is calmer now. Her hair all mussed. Her eyes are bright. I did that, with my hands, to her, I think. I made it better. Even for a while.

‘Why?’ I ask. But I already know.

‘I think …’ she says. Her voice trails off. She thinks. Begins again. ‘I think that you could be a good friend, even a best friend, to me. And I think you’re beautiful as well. I mean, I loved that. What we just did. I loved it … but there is another thing that must be there. I don’t know what it is. But something’s missing. I couldn’t fall in love with you, Madeline. Whatever love grows from, it isn’t there …’ She’s playing with my hair while saying this. Her hands are tender. I feel a helpless weight begin to build. Her mouth shapes words like me and you and sorry. There’s a pause. I can’t think what to say.

‘So I’m beautiful. And a good friend. And you want me. And that’s not enough.’

‘It sounds strange when you put it like that.’ She smiles. ‘But something here and here –’ she touches hands to stomach and to heart – ‘it isn’t there. And I can’t make it grow.’

‘Maybe it’s too soon after Claudine?’ I say, my hand still on her leg, tracing the soft denim up and down. I feel a panic mounting. I can’t discover this and have it gone.

‘That could be it. I’m not sure. Maybe it’s my destiny to love people who do not love me back,’ she says.

And mine as well, I think.

Because I love you.

‘My mother and my father, they fight all the time,’ she tells me. ‘About me. It’s scary. I don’t like it. That was why I wasn’t in school. Things were bad, with them. And with Claudine. Sometimes, when things are very bad, I find it difficult to manage in the world. I stay at home. I swim, I cry, I sleep …’

‘I’m sorry, Oona,’ I say. ‘I hope you know, if things are hard, if you need someone outside your family, that I’m here. It doesn’t always have to be like this. We’re friends. We’re still friends now. It doesn’t have to go any further.’

‘I wish I was a normal girl like you.’ She sniffs. ‘I thought it would be easier when we moved, but things are hard no matter where you are.’

‘But I’m not normal,’ I say. ‘There are so many things that I’m not telling people. About who I want, about what I can do – Mamó …’

And suddenly, it all comes out of me in waves, the offer that she made, the things we’ve seen. The warnings to be wary in the village. The thing with Lon. All of it, all at once. Oona hasn’t said anything in a while, I realise. She’s holding my hand, stroking the inside of my palm with her thumb.

‘I’m sorry,’ I finish. ‘You needed to talk about your stuff, and here I am burdening you with mine.’

‘It’s OK,’ Oona says. She looks at me. I fall into her eyes. The pull of them. I blink away. ‘I want to tell you something. You have a thing – this talent – but you are not alone. Most of the people here in Ballyfrann have things like that – their own strange way of being in the world.’

Her face is very serious. Grave, I think. That’s the French word for it. Like a grave. Our hands are still touching, and our heads are close – an inch apart.

‘My way is that I need the water. Properly I need it. It’s like the only time I’m fully calm is when I’m in there. It’s part of me …’ She looks at me. Her silver-fish eyes dance. ‘I love it, but without it I would die, and that’s a hard thing to explain to people. That difference. That is why we moved here. For understanding, space. My father has his people and my mother has the water – she’s like me. The same as what I am.’

I don’t know what to say. What do you say to something that unusual, that honest?

‘What are you?’ I ask.

‘A lesbian,’ she says, and we crack up. She curls in beside me, and looks up at my face. ‘I know that’s not what you meant. But it is similar, I think. I have so many parts of my identity that people do not like, that can be dangerous: how I look, who I love, and this, also. I will try … My father is … a little like the Collinses. Sometimes, he becomes an angry thing. It was hard for him, when he met my mother. They had to struggle – both their families did not approve. And then … real life is not like in a story. There is more to it. After you have won, you have to live and love and keep on loving. That’s where he fell down, I think, a bit.’

‘And your mother?’

‘She is … she needs the water, more than even me. Being away from it too long can really hurt her.’

‘Wow,’ I say. It’s not the most eloquent of responses. But what do you say when confronted by a thing like this?

‘I know. Even for me, it is not easy. I would like to be more typical.’

‘Me too,’ I say.

‘It’s true.’ She smiles. ‘Being in the world is a lot, Madeline. All of this is …’ She sighs and flops onto her back and lies staring at the ceiling. I stare at her.

‘Remember when we swam?’

I nod.

‘It all seemed very clear that night. I felt that, without words, you understood me. That it didn’t need to be in words …’ She trails off, and then turns her head towards mine. Her hair is sticking up. It’s really cute.

‘… I really wished that you would kiss me then.’ Her voice is low, her gaze is very soft.

I catch my breath. ‘In the lake, you looked like coming home feels,’ I say, and lean my head to kiss her. Knowing that I’m only second best. Her hand reaches out to stroke my waist and lingers there. She doesn’t touch me like she couldn’t love me. I’m wrong to hope, but still. I want to hope so badly.

‘Is everyone here something else as well?’ I ask.

‘Pretty much,’ Oona says. ‘The families who are here for a long time, they all have their …’

‘Secrets?’

‘It is not so much a secret, as a thing that is only for the people that you trust. A part of you that very few would understand.’

‘And how do you find out, what people are?’ I ask.

‘The best way is to wait for them to say it,’ Oona tells me. ‘And it will take some time, but, Madeline, they will. They like you here. Something about you fits in to this place, I think.’ I snort, but she waves her hands. ‘No, no, it’s true, I think – I mean, when we first met, I thought you might have something … I mean, the way I felt about you. There was an affinity there, a recognition … maybe you felt it too?’

I nod. I cannot think what else to say. Her head is on my shoulder and I feel her hair soaking through my top towards my skin. The smell of her.

Her hands scratch fabric, searching for the words.

‘… But I get the sense that I could really hurt you, Madeline. And I don’t want to do that.’

‘I’ll be fine,’ I say. I’m used to hurting. My smile is stretching painfully on my face. I don’t know what to do. This is new, so new and already it is dying.

‘Maybe we could kiss again sometime?’ I say to Oona. ‘Not in a love way. In a friendly way. Until there’s something else for me or you?’

‘Would that be safe?’ she asks, and I see the little crescents at the base of her fingernails as her hands smooth out imperceptible creases.

I nod, and tell a lie that serves us both. ‘I think it would be.’

Her smile a happy half-moon, wide and soft. I walk her through the forest to her home. The woods are deep and dark and intricate and magical and something. There is a certainty within me now. I know a little more of who I am. Of what I can do. We live in a big world, where things can change and doors once closed can open.

Her stomach and her heart. I was bitter. Now I’m bittersweet.

I wish.

I wish.