Bella and Ginny

Bella Skinner gathered her bags and stepped off the train into a
niggling northern day, the sun scathing in its winter glow. Plane trees
pierced the low ceiling of sky.

Looking along the platform, seeking out some solitary man who is coming
to meet her. He knows she is here waiting, he is playing with her,
dragging out this torture&;#8230;

(The trained has pulled away from the platform. A few people look at
her from the departing carriages, sad faces shadowed by the dull
window. She sees herself mirrored, her face blank in the grey
surface.)

Then there's a man next to her, his face obliterated by the glare of
station lights, her with her hand fisted into a ball, beginning to
sweat, beginning to get a dry mouth. But he walked past and so it
wasn't him. She'd recognise his shadow anyway.

The crowds, the passengers, the people waiting - all gone, all gone
from the platform and not another hour till the next train.

The ironclad bench is empty now the two old women have left. She sits
down, small hands beating out a jittery rhythm on her lap. Waiting is
always hard for her.

(And as the dusk of the day falls over the station a sound from afar
grabs her, a rusty vroom of a car, two lights searching her out as it
came slowly towards her. This is he.)

This is him: not handsome anymore but crooked, a veritable question
mark querulous in this downtime dusk. (Across this vista that is rural
northern Britain lights turned on and curtains closed and fires stoked
up one more time, one more night of TVs turned on and we imagine it as
cosiness complete but then what do we know of what goes on behind
curtains when they've been closed).

His dark hair falls thick across a worried brow. His grey eyes dulled
by the approaching night.

- Sorry I am late.

- It's ok, she says. It's okay Uncle Geoffrey.

And he looks at her, looks at this niece of his and thinks: well, she
could be my sister. But she's not. She's not my sister. He picks up her
luggage and walks ahead of her to the car.

- Aunt Ginny's waiting at home, he said. She's looking forward to
seeing you. Again.

***

Ginny stood at the window. The lights were off and the TV was off and
the curtains were open, and in the distance she could see the orange
glow of semi-urban Durham. She could hear the running water of the
stream at the end of their garden. She was waiting for her husband and
his niece. She had a slightly sick feeling in the pit of her
stomach.

***
So now night is here and I'm in the car next to him and as I look at
him from the corner of my eyes I see that his face is set in a forever
frown. And I can't believe this was the smiling uncle of my childhood,
who met us once at the station and led us joyously to the car, which
he'd filled with petals and flowers and mum was so happy and I was so
happy, only I didn't understand why he kissed my mother like that,
kissed my mother in the same way as my father would.

***
320 miles away David Skinner has tears in his pale blue eyes. The dizzy
scream of London dies down but sirens slice through the night. He knows
where his daughter is at this precise moment in time and his throat
pulls close, then that knot of tension tightens in his stomach. Him.
She was with him. He is craving a drink and craving a cigarette. And
carving some escape from the nightmare his life is.

***
But by the time Isabella and her uncle arrive at the house Ginny has
lit the fire and has dinner on the go and the news is on, with the wars
and bombs of the world let into this small domestic domain. The poor
girl, she thought. Knowing what she knows, knowing what she half knows.
Guessing what she can't know at all. All ready to forgive the innocence
of a once-child, the last thing to expect was that in the ten years
since she'd seen her, she'd turned into the image of her mother. And
the demons of the past have rooted deep in this girl's heart, so she
carries all their pain with her constantly, and she likes to drink and
dabble with drugs and she dances with her eyes closed; a loose woman. A
woman so loose her limbs could fly away at any time.

Eating their wholesome meal, Ginny making small talk with Bella about
her journey. Bella making small talk about the college she's applied
to, the art she loves to best, the sculpting of shadows as they leap
from the light. They share one bottle of wine, and then another, then
they start on the whisky, by which time Bella has her cigarettes out
and is blowing smoke discreetly above the heads of her relatives. They
see their niece, this girl on the verge of beauty, and they see her
sadness and her loneliness and he knows it is probably his fault that
this sadness will cling like a fatal cancer to her for most of her
life. Ginny admires the brave face she covers up with.

They are walking the next day, through the cold fields of County
Durham, a fox fleeing through a field, their breath a cloud above them
permanently. They agreed - he in his age, she in her youth - that a
drink would warm them back up again, and while supping on a pint of the
realest of ales he brought into the conversation his sister, Bella's
mother. Poor old Eileen, now in a psychiatric hospital.

-So when did you last go and see her?
-A year or so ago. She was so thin, hair lank and greasy, red slash of
paint smiling from her face but no light in her eyes. Couldn't bear it,
so haven't gone since. I've kept in touch with one of the nurses there,
and she emails me occasionally, tells me things haven't changed and I
know won't change till she dies.
-Do you want her to die?
-I suppose I do.

But she had always been a bad girl. Even when she was little she used
to steal into mummy's room and try her clothes on, slash her face open
red with the lipstick, pour Chanel over herself. And look into the
mirror and slowly see herself slip away.

***

The trees with the skinny brown branches clutched at her as she walked
one morning. The sun was pallid in a thin sky. God help her, but this
wasn't the way she wanted it to be. She came across an old woman who
lived alone in the depth of the skinny brown branches in a hut, which
was tumbledown. She came across this old woman who saw her and could
tell she was a dancer. She was invited back for a cup of tea to the
tumbledown hut. She was to have a cup of tea and show the woman how she
danced.

She says to the woman - I am so loose limbed sometimes I fall apart and
what scares me is that when I come apart and put myself back together
again something's not quite right, somehow I don't fit anymore.

And the old woman, Val, replies - it happens to us all at one time or
another. My heart is back to front.

They sit and sip their tea and the sunshine floods the small room in
the tumbledown hut. Her leg starts to move with the rhythm of the
skinny branches knocking against the dirty windows. There's a tall
mirror in the corner of the room and Bella can see her reflection
staring smudged back at her, laughing.

***

Aunt Ginny looked at her husband's niece and studied the sadness.

-Let's go shopping, she said to her. Let's go shopping for new
clothes.

So off they went in the car to Newcastle, the shopping centre of the
North East. Driving along the A1 it was a Wednesday morning so the
roads were relatively quiet. Driving past the rigid iron Angel, the
solid wings hovering over them, the rust of the rigid form tinting the
Angel red. Bella watched the Angel approached, and then turned her head
to watch it recede.

-Do you know Val, the old woman in the woods? Bella asked Ginny.

Ginny smiled. Yes, I know her. Bit of a madwoman, but sweet really.
Your uncle's not too keen on her, though.

-Why's that?

-Because she's never liked him.

***

It's been a while since I last saw him
and now that he's here the fear traps a nerve
and my spine shivers
and my courage quivers
and I look at the pointed tips of the trees
touching together
and I'm stuck in a cage of pine with this man
who puts his finger tips through my ribs
and grabs himself a handful of heart and squeezes
and all the blood pours forth till we drown together,
holding hands.

***

-Sometimes I wish I slept next to the sea, so I was never alone with my
thoughts.

(They're walking along Northumberland Street, laden down with
bags.)

-But then when I'm in London dad's house is off a main road so the
whoosh of the cars reminds me of waves and I lull myself to
sleep.
-Do you miss your father?
The young woman looks at her uncle's wife. I have always missed my
father, she says.

Bella has relaxed around Ginny. There is something she likes about this
woman who although is mild-mannered is made of stronger stuff. She
looks at Bella and sees more than teenage angst and attention seeking.
She sees through the sorrow somehow to what lies beneath, or what could
lie beneath, or what is going to lie beneath.

***
Back in the house Ginny lies down for a while because since the cancer
all those years ago she gets tired quicker than she used to. She thinks
about Bella and wonders what will happen to the girl.

***

Bella is in her bedroom, looking into the mirror and painting her lips
red and filling out her eyes and making her lashes longer. She dances
in front of the full length mirror and she comes apart once again and
her mouth now detached from her body sucks in Uncle Geoffrey and her
teeth crush him into pieces and then she spits him out and grinds him
into the carpet with her bare heel.