She smiles at this thought. In some corner of her mind, school is still ticking over. The giggling, the snickering, the laughter that happened behind her and would stop if she turned. She didn't care, she absolutely didn't. She wasn't interested in those girls and their grouse weekends, their coming-out balls, their notes from the prefects at the boys' school. She could lose herself in listening to the teachers, in knowing that her marks were good, better than anyone else's, almost. But there were days when she found the girls wearisome. Tell us about India, Esme, they would chant, pronouncing it 'In-di-ah', for reasons Esme never understood. And this only because she had once mistaken their questions as sincere and described for them the yellow mimosa dust, the iridescent wings of the dragonflies, the curved horns of the black-faced cattle. It had been several minutes before she realised that they were all stifling laughter in their jumper sleeves.
The laughter. Erupting behind her during lessons, following her like a dress train as she walked down a corridor. Esme could never really tell why, what it was about her that afforded them such hilarity. Does your hair curl naturally, they would ask, and then start giggling. Does your mother wear a sari? Do you eat curry at home? Who makes your clothes? When you leave school are you going to be an old maid like your sister?
That had done it. Esme had turned at that one. She had snatched up the protractor of Catriona McFarlane, high priestess of the tittering club, and pointed it at her like a divining rod. 'You know what you are, Catriona McFarlane?' Esme had said. 'You are a sad creature. You are mean-spirited, soulless. You are going to die alone and lonely. Do you hear me?'
Catriona was astonished, her mouth slightly open, and before she could say anything else, Esme had turned away.
On the wooden decking, the girl Iris is shifting in her seat. A little uneasily. Has Esme been staring at her? She isn't sure. Two teacups, plumed with steam, have appeared on their table. Iris is sipping from one, holding it between both hands, which makes Esme smile because it is something her mother would never have allowed and Iris looks so like her: it is as if Esme has been given a vision of her mother in some idyllic afterlife, relaxing in the sunshine, with a new haircut, tilting a teacup towards her mouth with all expansive ten of her fingers. Esme smiles again and slaps the wooden barrier with her palm.
It was Catriona who switched the blazer. She is sure of it. And the only possible person who could have told was-
The girl is leaning forward in her chair, saying something, and the vision of Esme's mother enjoying a celestial cup of tea dissolves. It is just her and the girl, Iris, in a cafe by the sea, and all that was a long time ago. She must remember this.
But she is certain that it was Catriona. When Esme had got to the cloakroom that evening, it was jammed with girls pulling hats and coats off their pegs. As she had walked out into the corridor, she struggled to put on her blazer, pushing one arm down the sleeve and trying to find the other armhole. It wasn't working. She couldn't find it. She put down her satchel and tried again but her fingers slipped on the lining, unable to find the opening. She will think later that at this point she saw, dimly, in the distance, Catriona flitting away along the corridor. Esme tore the blazer off her arm – horrible thing it was anyway, she didn't see why they had to wear them – and examined it. Had she picked up the right one? It looked the same, but then they all did. And there was her nametape, E. LENNOX, sewn into the collar. Esme hooked both arms into it and yanked it on to her back.
The effect was instantaneous. She could barely move, barely breathe. The felt of the blazer was stretched over her shoulders, pinioning her arms to her sides, nipping her armpits. The sleeves were too short, showing the bones of her wrists. It looked like her blazer, it said it was her blazer, but it wasn't. It wouldn't close over her chest. A pair of younger girls stared at her as they passed.
As Esme takes the seat at the table, Iris says, 'I ordered coffee for you but I don't know if you'd rather have tea.' She is gesturing towards the cup. Esme looks down at it. It is overflowing with white froth. A silver spoon sits in the curve of the saucer. And a small brown biscuit. Esme doesn't ordinarily drink either tea or coffee but thinks she will make an exception this time. She touches the fingertips of one hand to the scalding porcelain, then touches it with the other. 'No,' she says, 'coffee is fine.'
Kitty was waiting for her as she stamped down off the tram, leaning against the wall by the corner.
'What's the matter?' she'd said, as Esme approached.
'This isn't my damn blazer,' Esme muttered, without stopping.
'Don't swear.' Kitty tagged behind her. 'Are you sure it isn't yours? It looks like yours.'
'It isn't, I tell you. Some stupid girl has swapped it, I don't know-'
Kitty reached out and folded back the collar. 'It's got your name in it.'
'Look at it!' Esme stopped in the middle of the pavement and held out her arms. The sleeves reached just below her elbows. 'Of course it's not mine.'
'You've grown, that's all. You've grown so much recently'
'It fitted me this morning.'
They turned into Lauder Road. The lamps had been lit, as they were at this time every day, and the lighter was passing on the other side of the street, his pole over his shoulder. Esme's sight seemed to close in at the sides and she thought she might faint.
'Oh,' she burst out. 'I hate this – I hate it.'
'What?'
'Just – this. I feel as though I'm waiting for something and I'm getting scared it might never come.'
Kitty stopped and stared at her, perplexed. 'What are you talking about?'
Esme lowered herself on to a garden wall, flinging her satchel to the ground, and looked up at the yellow flare of the gas-light. 'I'm not sure.'
Kitty scratched at the pavement with her toe. 'Listen, I came to tell you – Mr McFarlane's been to call. Mother's livid with you. He says… he says you put a curse on his daughter.'
Esme stared at her sister, then started to laugh.
'It's not funny, Esme. He was really angry. Mother says that when we get home you've to go to Father's study and wait for him there. Mr McFarlane said that you prophesied Catriona's death. He said you flew at her like a wildcat and put a curse on her.'
'A curse?' Esme wiped her eyes, still laughing. 'If only I could.'
After lunch, Iris and Esme wander away from the cafe, down the path towards the town. Wind bullies them from both sides and Iris shivers, buttoning her jacket. She sees that Esme bends herself into it, face first. There is something about her, Iris reflects, that isn't quite right. You wouldn't necessarily think she'd been locked up for her whole life, but there is something – a certain wide-eyed quality, her lack of inhibition, perhaps – that marks her out from other people.
Ha,' she is saying, with a grin, 'it's a long time since I felt wind like that.'
They pass by a ruin, bedded into the grass like old teeth. Esme stops to look at it.
'It's an old abbey,' Iris says, poking at a low, crumbling wall with her toe. Then, remembering something she'd read once, she says, 'The Devil is supposed to have appeared here to a congregation of witches and told them how to cast a spell to drown the King.'
Esme turns to her. 'Is that so?'
Iris is a little taken aback by her intensity. 'Well,' she dissembles, 'it was what one of them claimed.'
'But why would she say it if it wasn't true?'
Iris has to think for a moment, wondering how to put it. 'I think,' she begins carefully, 'that thumbscrews can make you pretty inventive.'
'Oh,' Esme says. 'They were tortured, you mean?'
Iris clears her throat, which makes her cough. Why had she begun this conversation? What had possessed her? 'I think so,' she mumbles, 'yes.'