The Blackhouse by Carole Johnstone

Author:Carole Johnstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scribner
Published: 2023-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

* * *

I lean heavily against the wall of the phone box, watching two gulls chase a crisp packet down towards the ruined church as the phone rings and rings. I keep seeing that newspaper photo in my mind’s eye; keep thinking, What if Mum lied to me? What if none of it was ever true? What if she made me believe it? Keep remembering Mum’s tear-streaked face, all the times I heard I’m sorry, Maggie, I’m sorry. How little I cared in the end, how rarely I believed her.

It rings and rings. My heart is beating too fast and my throat is too dry; I keep having to swallow.

Don’t take this away from me, Mum. Don’t. Because—even despite that “9th of April” on the death certificate—I need her not to have lied. If I wasn’t Andrew MacNeil in a past life, then I need Mum not to have known it. Otherwise, I’ll never be able to forgive either of us.

Just like outside the Harbour View, when the rings click over into an automated voice mail, my relief is far too big. But I take the reprieve anyway. I don’t leave a message. It’s not as if Gordon Cameron can phone me back, and I don’t want to have this conversation over email. I want to hear his voice. And I want to hear the tone of it when he answers my questions.

I hang up and let out the breath I’ve been holding. A gust of wind rattles the phone box door, making me jump. The day outside has grown gloomy, but I jump again when I see that someone is standing in one of the cottage gardens, staring at the phone box. At me. I open the door and step back out onto the street. And I realize, with a sinking heart, that it’s Alec. The cottage is farthest from the junction, but I can still see the hostile set of his shoulders and his folded arms. I can still see his narrowed eyes, the open anger on his face. It occurs to me that I don’t actually know what he looks like without it. I consider going over to talk to him for only a few seconds; it will do no good. I may not like Sheena much, but I can’t deny what she said the night Alec attacked me outside this very phone box. At best, I’m a reminder of what happened to his son, and that’s more than reason enough to hate me.

I zip up my yellow mac, turn away from the village, and jog back towards the main road without looking at Alec again. About halfway to Ardcraig the heavens open, and I pull up my hood, lean into the rising wind. I hear something suddenly—a new sound, out of place—and I spin around, searching the gloomy road, the stony foothills of Ben Wyvis. There’s nothing, no one. I resume walking, a little faster, and then it comes again. Footsteps, maybe hooves. Something moving and then stopped.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.