Lullaby Girl Read online

  ‘Ka— Is that your name? Katty? Your name is Katty?’

  I look at her. That clear, kind, familiar face. Suddenly, I know iss true. I look her right in the eye, an’ I take a breath, an’ I nod. Rhona’s face changes again. She opens her mouth a bit. We look at each other. Then she stands back an’ puts out her hand. I’ve never seen her smile like that. Her eyes are alive.

  ‘Well,’ she says. ‘It’s a pleasure to meet you. I knew you’d show up sooner or later.’

  #

  ‘Katty? Katty. You remember Vera, don’t you, Katty?’

  I look at the blonde lady who’s talkin’. We’re in a whitish room. A pale-green sofa, like before, an’ I’m sittin’ on it.

  ‘My … name … is … Car-o-line,’ says the blonde-haired lady, all loud. She points at me an’ says, ‘Your … name … is … Katt-ee.’ She points at the white-haired lady an’ says, ‘This … is … Vee-ra.’

  Why’s she sayin’ Vera? Rhona said the white-haired lady is Mrs Laird.

  I look at Mrs Laird. Thur’s lots of paper on her knees. My head hurts, like iss squashed. I close my eyes an’ put my hand on my eyes. That helps. My hand is sweaty-hot. Caroline’s started sayin’ Katty a lot. They all have, since me an’ Rhona were in the pink room. I don’t know how long ago that was. That day’s jumbled up with the rest an’ iss hard to work out what came first.

  Mrs Laird’s the one who always talks at me. I don’t know why Caroline’s here too. I think they want me to talk back. Sometimes I open my mouth an’ see ’em waitin’. Then my head starts hurtin’ an’ I have to close my eyes. My knees itch in the place where the scabs are. I wish Rhona would take me outside more. My head feels better out there.

  Caroline an’ Mrs Laird look at the papers. They whisper. Caroline leans forward, holdin’ a bit of paper, an’ says, ‘Kattee. Verstehst du mich?’

  They wait. Caroline’s lookin’ at me all super careful. I bend to scratch my leg, an’ her eyes whizz after me.

  Caroline looks at her paper. ‘Singen sie gerne?’

  Mrs Laird shakes her head. Whispers to Caroline. They look at the paper again. I don’t know what’s goin’ on.

  ‘Er du dansk, Katt-ee? Forstår du mig nu?’

  A pain goes through my head. Like someone whacked me from behind. I stand up, fast, an’ get my legs muddled up. Suddenly Caroline is in front of me. Her eyes are excited. I back away, grabbin’ my head, an’ before I know what’s what I’m on the floor. What’s hap’nin’? Why can’t I breathe right? Those words did somethin’. Iss like a magic spell. I start singin’, to make the bad feelin’ go away.

  ‘Danish,’ says Mrs Laird.

  When I’ve stopped bein’ scared they put me back on the sofa. They talk at me for a long time, but now they jus’ talk with the funny words. Readin’ out stuff. Waitin’. Writin’ stuff down. When they talk about me they don’t whisper. Iss like they think I can’t hear ’em any more.

  ‘I don’t know,’ says Mrs Laird. ‘I’m still not convinced she understands.’

  ‘Come on! That’s the biggest reaction we’ve seen in a month.’

  ‘We’re close, I’ll give you that. But no … I don’t know. I think the truth’s more subtle. That lassie’s British. You mark my words.’

  ‘She hasn’t uttered a word of English.’

  ‘Call it a gut feeling …’

  Mrs Laird puts her chin on her fist. My scabs itch. I look at the window.

  #

  I wake up to twilight an’ the sound of a bell. Far away, for ages, the bell tinkles. Chingle-ingle-ing, chingle-ingle-ing, chingle-ingle-ing.

  Sometimes the bell stops, an’ voices fill the silence. Other times it keeps goin’. I fall in an’ out of sleep. The voices I hear get angrier. At some point I hear shoutin’. Crashin’ noises, stompin’, an’ a door slammin’. For a while after that iss quiet. But later on the bells come more an’ more. When I wake up prop’ly, the room is bright. Rhona sits in the chair by the bed. I watch her for a while. Her face is frownin’, even though she’s asleep. The bell rings, jus’ then, an’ her eyes open.

  ‘Morning,’ she says when she sees me. ‘Or should I say goddag?’

  She looks an’ sounds exhausted, an’ she doesn’t smile. In the background, the bell keeps goin’.

  ‘That’s the phone,’ says Rhona, without breakin’ eye contact. ‘The newspapers have gone bananas for you.’

  Chingle-ingle-ing, chingle-ingle …

  ‘Shut up!’ yells a voice, from somewhere close by.

  ‘Why?’ I whisper. A short silence. One corner of Rhona’s mouth curves up.

  ‘I knew it,’ she murmurs. ‘Your song, I’m afraid. One of the cooks filmed you and sold the video to the Daily Post. Now everyone and their dog’s calling up to tell us you’re Danish.’

  I frown.

  ‘I’m sorry, sweets. She filmed it on her phone. We sacked her this morning.’

  ‘The … cook.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I try to understand what this means. Iss hard. I don’t remember seein’ any cook. When my eyes open again, Rhona’s lookin’.

  ‘Why do you sing a lullaby, Katty? Why a Danish lullaby?’

  I look at her, an’ frown.

  ‘Katherine,’ I say.

  Rhona’s mouth opens a bit. Then she closes it.

  ‘You’re not Danish, are you?’ she says.

  I look at her, an’ wonder about this. Am I?

  ‘I … don’t …’

  ‘But you understand me, now, don’t you? Your first language is English?’

  ‘Mmmmgh,’ I say, an’ hold my head. I’m not used to mixin’ my thoughts with someone else’s. Iss like bein’ forced to do maths. Unfinished problems, with a tickin’ clock an’ jus’ one right answer.

  Rhona smiles, in a sad sort of way. ‘Sorry, hon,’ she sighs. ‘Overload, huh?’ She frowns at the floor for a while. ‘It’s a long road,’ she murmurs.

  I look round the room an’ see a clock on the wall. I never noticed it before. A quarter to eleven, it says. The quick hand’s gone round once by the time Rhona talks again.

  ‘This … newspaper. They’ve got a picture of you now. No one was meant to have that. They printed it with a fuzzy patch on your face, but still …’ She puts her hand on her head, the same way I do, an’ goes quiet for a minute. Then she says, ‘They started a sort of fan club for you, a fortnight ago. People give money to help you, and they’ve been sending it all to Gille Dubh. You’re quite popular, you know. Since this video turned up they’re calling you Lullaby Girl.’

  ‘Lullaby …’

  ‘It’s a lullaby. The song you sing. Don’t you know that?’

  She stares me out. Tears come to my eyes.

  ‘No,’ I say.

  Rhona holds her head. She keeps lookin’, but her eyes have gone tired.

  ‘Well,’ she says, softly. ‘You’re the only one in Britain who doesn’t.’

  2

  MmhorGDRegP89/10

  Name: ‘Katherine’

  Gender: F

  DOB: Unknown. (Est. age 30)

  Date of session: 20/04/2006

  Duration: 15min

  T: Therapist, P: Patient

  [Note: Patient is now in a hypnotic trance and has just visualised stepping through a door …]

  T: What do you see?

  P: Too bright. White.

  T: Can you hear anything?

  P: Birds.

  T: Can you hear any voices?

  P: Not sure. No. Hear self breathing.

  T: Is it still bright?

  P: Can make out shapes.

  T: Let your eyes adjust to it and then you can tell me when you start to make things out.

  P: Sitting on something hard. A suitcase. Snow. Outside. Lots of snow.

  T: Look around you. What else can you see?

  P: A street. Wooden houses. Yellow. Red. Green. Candles in ice.

  T: Are there any people in the street?

  P: No.

 
T: What can you see in front of you?

  P: A house. Curtains closed. I want someone to come to the window. Want them to let me in. It’s so cold.

  T: Is it daytime?

  P: Yes.

  T: How long have you been sitting here?

  P: Not sure. Came on a bus.

  T: Do you live in the wooden house?

  P: No. Came a long way. It’s very cold. Too cold. Scared will die. Fingers. Freeze.

  T: What did the bus look like?

  P: High up. Dark. Travelled in night.

  T: Can you see the front of the bus? Can you see the name of the destination?

  P: Not sure. Looks wrong. Funny words.

  T: Who do you want to come to the window?

  [No answer. Patient sobs.]

  T: Can you see their face?

  P: Yes.

  T: Can you describe this person?

  P: Handsome. He is smiling. Lines around eyes. But he is not old.

  T: Do you know this man?

  P: [Pause.] Yes.

  T: Why does this man upset you?

  P: [Long pause.] My fingers hurt.

  T: Do you know the man’s name?

  P: [Sobbing. No answer.]

  [Patient is brought out of hypnotic trance.]

  *Session ends*

  #

  Breakfast goes on in the dinin’ room. I don’t like it down here, with all the people. I’ve been here every day, I think, but I didn’t really notice till now. Like my body was here without me inside it. I sit close to the door. Heart bumpin’. Tryin’ to eat. Thur’s people all round. It feels like thur’s hundreds of ’em, but now I know thur’s jus’ fourteen. Fifteen includin’ me. All women. I try not to look at their faces. I don’t like this room. Not by myself. I want to get out.

  Where’s Rhona? She said See you at breakfast. Why’s she not here? I want her to be here.

  I see somethin’ bright, an’ risk a peek. Iss a doorway on the other side of the room. Oh. I’ve been through that before. Iss the room with the glass roof. My legs are shakin’. I should jus’ go upstairs. But the glass room is callin’ me. I remember the tree, an’ decide I need to look at it.

  I stand up, put my head down, an’ walk quickly at the light. Someone laughs, from somewhere.

  ‘Hey Katty, gizza song!’

  Other voices. I feel eyes on me. Then the doorway comes up, an’ I’m through it. Away. Under the glass. No one is out here. Jus’ me. I breathe an’ feel much better. Thur’s tables an’ chairs, like the dinin’ room. I walk right forward, to the end of the room, an’ sit down. Here, I can’t see into the dinin’ room, an’ they can’t see me. The tree is right through the glass. Iss like I’m outside, without Rhona. But it doesn’t feel scary. Iss lovely.

  ‘Katherine,’ I say, quietly. Testin’ my voice out, an’ that word. The name that I know is mine now. Katherine. Kathy. Katty. All three of ’em are inside me. It feels funny to have so many. Rhona said the people over the fence made up lots of ’em. She said they know I’m Katherine now, but they’re hangin’ on to the names they made up. Lullaby Girl. Lock-oss-ki Girl. Viking Girl. An’ more I can’t remember. Rhona says they like Lullaby Girl best.

  Outside, the moor fills most of the window. Iss greyish purple, runnin’ all the way down to the sea. I can see for miles. Past the perimeter fence. Across to the dark-brown mountains. Wind blasts the heather. Clouds the size of countries cross the sky.

  Jus’ then, somethin’ twists against the purple, an’ a thin shape unfolds from the ground. I jump an’ move back. Iss her! The quiet girl. She hasn’t seen me yet, cos her eyes are pointed down. She walks forwards, gettin’ battered by the wind.

  Rhona said the girl’s called Mary, an’ that she doesn’t talk at all. She used to talk, long ago, but some bad stuff happened, an’ after that she jus’ stopped. Her mum an’ dad stuck her in here, but they never come to visit. Poor Mary Rhona always says. She says her dad’s a priest.

  Mary’s reached the gravel now. Her eyes come up, towards the glass room, an’ without thinkin’ I take a step back. Mary’s eyes go straight to me. I gasp. Both of us go still.

  For a second, nothin’. I don’t move an’ neither does she. Wind makes her hair whirl round. I can see her face better from here, an’ she looks real sad. We look at each other some more. Then she lifts her hand. Sends a tiny wave.

  I wave back.

  A big whoosh hits the window, an’ thur’s a splat above my head. I look up. The tree’s dumped a clump of leaves. Narrow. Silv’ry brown.

  I look back at the gravel, but Mary’s gone. Rain starts pattin’ down. Soft at first. Then the clouds come down low, so I can’t see the moor any more, an’ the roof comes alive with noise.

  I sit where I am, lookin’ up. It feels great to be out here without gettin’ wet. Like I’m cheatin’. The clouds get lower an’ blacker. When I can’t see the moor any more, I come inside. The dinin’ room is dark, an’ thur’s no one in it.

  Iss taken me a while to find my way round the house. Even now, I don’t always remember where stuff is. I’ll walk left at the bottom of the stairs instead of right, an’ end up down the wrong corridor, or in the toilet instead of the dinin’ room. Usually this happens in the mornin’, when my head’s still fuzzy. Rhona’s office is easiest to find, along the long, straight corridor that’s painted blue. The blue corridor’s where all the important rooms are. Rhona’s office, Joyce’s office, Mrs Laird’s office an’ private sittin’ room … When that doctor lady came here, she sat with me in Joyce’s office. I didn’t like it in there. It was the wrong colour, an’ it smelled funny. Caroline doesn’t have an office. I sometimes think she might be mad about that. But the computer room’s sort of hers. I’ve never seen any other staff in there.

  I walk through the hall an’ stop at the bottom of the stairs. Iss darker in here, cos no one’s bothered to put the lights on. The ceilin’ has wooden panels with pictures carved on ’em, an’ iss higher than the other ceilin’s in the house. The stairs are made from the same wood as the ceilin’. Dark an’ shiny, with smooth oval hollows in the middle of each step. Like a heavy person walked up ’em once an’ left footprints. Above me is the landin’, which leads to the corridor where the bedrooms are. On each wall of the downstairs hall thur’s a doorway. One leadin’ to the day room, one to the offices, one to the dinin’ room, an’ one to the outside. The dinin’-room corridor has a bump halfway along, with a glass door. Through that is the back porch.

  Where is ev’ryone? I don’t want to be with ’em, an’ I don’t want to talk to ’em, but I want to know where they are.

  A noise comes from my right, so I go through that doorway. This is the way to the day room. Another noise, now. A voice. Music. I edge along the corridor an’ peek through the day-room door. There they are. All sittin’ down on chairs. I can’t see what they’re doin’, an’ I kinda want to know, but thur’s no way I’m goin’ in. That’s the place where I used to sing. If I go in, they might make me do it again. Then ev’ryone would laugh.

  No chance …

  I creep away from the door.

  Wait though. Wait. What’s that?

  I stop. At the end of the corridor, thur’s somethin’ I never noticed. A little door at the top of three steps. Library, it says. Have I been in there before? I can’t remember.

  I look back into the day room. No one’s lookin’ this way, so I sneak past an’ climb the three steps. The door at the top has a handle with a six-pointed star. I go in.

  Books, of course. They’re everywhere. The room’s not much bigger than my bedroom, but iss packed tight with novels an’ manuals an’ picture books. Shelves from floor to ceilin’, saggin’ in places. I sit cross-legged on the floor an’ grab a book called Native Woodland of the British Isles. In it, thur’s a drawin’of a tree that looks like the one outside. Common ash, it says. (Fraxinus excelsior.) Thur’s two more drawings beside it. One of green leaves, an’ one of the brown things that dropped on the roof. They’re not leaves at
all, it says. They’re called keys.

  I like the library room very much. I sit in it for a long time. At one point I hear voices, but nobody comes in here.

  #

  Some men ring the bell at the perimeter gate, an’ Mrs Laird lets ’em in. They’re news men, from a paper called the Western Courier. When I see their faces, I know they’ve been here before. I don’t know when or how many times. That whole time is fuzzy in my head. But I remember them bein’ here, drinkin’ tea. Specially the biscuit man. I remember him sayin’ Any wee treats? an’ Mrs Laird bringin’ the chocolate biscuits out. Then he ate half the tin, an’ there weren’t enough left to go round.

  The men are old an’ they smell like tobacco. All of ’em wear pullovers an’ these stretchy band things round the arms of their shirts. Biscuit man’s teeth click when he eats, an’ his hair looks funny, like iss slidin’ off the front of his head.

  I watch ’em write with the blue biros. Watchin’ me all close. Waitin’ for me to say somethin’, or cry, or do somethin’ they can put on the front page. But I don’t say anythin’. I jus’ sit here, squashed between Rhona an’ Mrs Laird. Mrs Laird does all the talkin’. The worst bit comes when they try to take my photo. A man stands up, without askin’, an’ sticks a cam’ra in my face. ‘Smile!’ he says. Rhona puts her hand in the way.

  ‘We already told you, no!’ she says.

  ‘We can blur it afterwards. It’s really no big—’

  ‘Then why bother?’

  Photo man sighs. The man with the blue biro gives him a look.

  ‘You don’t mind if I take one, do you, Kathy?’ says photo man. ‘Pretty girl like you.’ He reaches out. A big, red, hairy hand. I watch it comin’, in slow motion. All the way to my face. Closer. Closer.

  Somethin’ electric goes through me. Suddenly I’m movin’. My chair goes over, knockin’ a mug off the table. It smashes. Tea goes everywhere. Over their shoes, into my socks, over the cam’ra, under the sofa. People suck in breath. I stand behind Rhona, shakin’.

  ‘I wouldn’t try that again, if I were you,’ Rhona snaps. Silence rings out. The man blushes.

  ‘All right, gents. I believe that’s enough for today,’ says Mrs Laird. She takes ’em away.