Out of the Depths

  OUT OF THE DEPTHS

  CATHY MACPHAIL

  For a Beloved Sister, Teresa

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

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  35

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  37

  38

  Why I wrote Out of The Depths

  Meet Cathy MacPhail

  Q&A with Cathy MacPhail

  Cathy’s Choice

  Acknowledgements

  Also by Cathy MacPhail

  1

  I saw my teacher in the queue at the supermarket last Christmas. Miss Baxter. I was surprised to see her. She’d been dead for six months.

  She saw me. I know she saw me. In fact, I could swear her eyes were searching me out. As if she was watching for me.

  As if she’d been waiting for me.

  I hurried towards her, pushing people aside, but you know what it’s like at Christmas. Queues at all the checkouts, crowds with trolleys piled high with shopping, everything and everyone blocking your way. By the time I got to where I’d seen her, she was gone. No sign of her anywhere.

  And when I told them at school no one would believe me. ‘Typical Tyler Lawless,’ they all said. ‘You’re always making up stories.’

  Even my best friend, Annabelle, agreed with them. She’d sounded annoyed at me. Wanted me to be just an ordinary, run-of-the-mill best friend who didn’t cause her any embarrassment.

  I had let my imagination run away with me, everyone said. It was just another of my stories. It’s true I want to be a writer, and I do look for stories everywhere. You’re supposed to do that. But this time I wasn’t making it up. I really did see her.

  Miss Baxter had died abroad during the summer holidays. A tragic accident, they said. An accident that should never have happened. Her body had been brought back and she was buried somewhere in England.

  But I had seen her!

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her. Trying to find an explanation for the unexplainable. And I began to think … what if she hadn’t died at all? What if someone else’s body had been identified as hers? What if it was all a scam to get the life insurance?

  Or what if she was in the witness protection programme and had had to change her identity?

  ‘She’d hardly be likely to pop into the local supermarket then, would she?’ Annabelle scoffed at me. And if she couldn’t believe me, what chance did I have with anyone else?

  I had also seen Miss Baxter making furtive calls. At least to me they looked furtive. Snapping her phone shut when she had seen I was watching her. And I thought, what if she had a secret life, was an undercover agent, and she’d come to the school for some dark purpose? And then had to fake her own death so she could move on to her next assignment.

  It was those ‘what-ifs’ that were always getting me into trouble. My imagination had caused me a mountain of problems at my last school.

  I saw the French assistant, Mademoiselle Carlier, and the new science teacher going home together in her car one night after school. I had noticed them before, sharing a look, a smile when they thought no one was watching. But the science teacher was married.

  ‘What if they’re having an affair?’ I whispered.

  I whispered it to the wrong person. She passed it on and I was pulled into the head’s office and warned about spreading rumours. That had been my first warning. The first of many.

  But it was this story, this one in particular, my insistence that I had seen Miss Baxter, that had caused the most trouble. I wouldn’t let it go. I wouldn’t let them say I was making it up. I had seen her. It hadn’t been a mistake. I began to get angry when people ridiculed me. And that just got me into more trouble.

  My parents finally decided it would be best to take me out of that school and find somewhere else. It was a case of leaving before I was pushed. I was already on my final warning by this time. Unfair, in my opinion. I never caused real trouble. I wasn’t a bully. I was never disruptive … I just noticed things other people missed. And, in the end, I had been right about Mademoiselle Carlier. Her and the science teacher had run off together, causing no end of scandal. But, of course, no one remembered that! Oh no. In fact, it only seemed to make things worse. As if by telling people about my suspicions I had actually made it happen. As if I’d done something wrong.

  Sleekit, one of the teachers called me.

  Sleekit. A great Scottish word – it means sly and underhand and untrustworthy. A great word, but not when it was applied to me. It hurt. I wasn’t sleekit at all.

  I had promised myself that here, in this new school, St Anthony’s College, things were going to be different. No more stories. I’d keep my imagination for the pages of my notebook. Here, I wanted to make a good impression. This was a clean slate, a new page.

  So, why had I suddenly remembered seeing my dead teacher that day?

  I shivered. The corridor grew colder. Didn’t they say that happens when a ghostly presence is nearby? I pushed the thought away, determined my imagination would not ruin things for me again here.

  2

  I was sitting in the corridor outside the Rector’s office. Mr Hyslop had popped his bushy head round the door only a few minutes ago. He had smiled at me through an equally bushy beard. ‘I’ll try not to keep you waiting too long, Tyler,’ he had said. ‘I have someone in with me at the moment.’ And I had smiled back and nodded, quite happy to wait.

  I looked up at the high, ornate ceilings, at the wooden pillars lining the walls. Angels had been carved into the dark wood. Angels with trumpets heralding Judgement Day, angels holding open prayer books, angels flying with outspread wings. Angels everywhere. There was a window near the roof, in the shape of a wheel, a beautiful stained-glass window depicting scenes from the Bible.

  Another sudden cold shiver ran through me. It was the cold in this old school corridor, that was all, I told myself. Bone-snapping February cold.

  At that moment, I wished Mum was here. She’d wanted to be. She had driven me right up the winding gravel drive to the entrance this morning, past a long line of elm trees and a mist-shrouded lake. She had almost begged to come in with me. She worries about me, especially since the dead teacher thing. That had really bothered Mum. I had seen her face crease with concern whenever I talked about it. She must have thought her only daughter was going crazy. I didn’t want her to worry about me any more.

  And anyway, her and Dad had already been to the school, checked it out, met up with the Rector. There was no need for her to come in with me this morning. I was a big girl now, I assured her. And I knew she was already late for work. ‘I’ll be fine, Mum,’ I kept telling her. ‘I’d much rather go in by myself.’

  St Anthony’s College seemed to loom over us as we came up the drive, its carved contours etched against the dark clouds.

  ‘Isn’t this is an imposing building?’ Mum said.

  I had to agree with her. St Anthony’s was the kind of place that spun stories. It had originally been built as a boarding school for poor boys, and had been run by a religious order of monks. That had been way back in the 1800s. It was built of red brick that seemed to give out a sunset glow, even on a dar
k, misty morning like this. Almost as if it was lit from within. It had a gothic look, with arched windows and richly carved spires, and those wheel windows on either side of the elaborately decorated front doors. There were even gargoyles jutting out under the roofs. Red, devilish gargoyles, each one of their grotesque faces different. One grinning, one spitting, another with red fangs exposed ready to bite. And every one of those monstrous faces seemed to be watching me.

  ‘They were supposed to frighten off evil spirits,’ Mum told me. ‘Keep them from entering the building.’

  ‘I think it’s working,’ I told her. ‘I don’t want to go inside there myself now.’

  And, though I was joking, the faces of those gargoyles did give me the creeps. It was as if they were warning me to stay away from here. Warning me that if I stepped inside that front entrance, bad things would happen.

  Imagination! Tyler! I forced the thoughts back into the box. The box I had promised myself I would keep locked until I needed to open it for a story.

  ‘Bit like Notre Dame, isn’t it?’ Mum said, breaking into my dark thoughts.

  She was right. That was exactly what it reminded me of. We’d been there, her and me, only last year. And the cathedral and the stories behind it had fired my imagination. Especially the gargoyles. Now here they were again, as if they’d followed me all the way from Paris. I was half expecting Quasimodo to appear between them, peering over the roof at me.

  ‘I’ll phone you at lunch, Mum,’ I told her as I got out of the car. ‘Tell you how I get on.’

  ‘OK, honey,’ Mum said. She even insisted on kissing me goodbye. I just hoped no one spotted her. But she’s a brilliant mum. Dad’s great too. Even after everything that I had put them through at my last school, they were right behind me. Didn’t believe me either, of course. They thought it was only my vivid imagination playing tricks on me. They’re so down to earth. Same with my big brother, Steven. He’s training to be a car mechanic, like my dad, and you don’t get more down to earth than that. Dad says he doesn’t know where I get my imagination from. He says I come from a long line of car mechanics.

  So, here I was, waiting for Mr Hyslop, on my own. Trying to rein in that imagination of mine. I looked around again at the high, ornate ceiling, at the wooden pillars, at the tall stained-glass windows. And I shivered again. As if icy cold fingers had tiptoed down my spine. It was only the cold, I told myself. There just wasn’t enough heating in this big school.

  I sat back in the uncomfortable plastic chair. A plastic chair. Here. It was totally out of place in these ancient and elaborate surroundings, and I looked at all the dark wood pillars again. At the saints and the angels, and the devils luring them into sin. No wonder this was a listed building. Couldn’t be pulled down or altered. I could see why. All this could never be replaced.

  Across from me there was a glass cabinet displaying all the sporting trophies the school has won over the years. Plaques and quaichs and shields. There was a photograph of Mr Hyslop, a younger Mr Hyslop, his hair not so grey, his wild beard black as coal, proudly holding a School Sports Championship trophy. From the newspaper article displayed below, it seemed Mr Hyslop had been a champion athlete himself in his younger days. There was a picture of the Pope on the wall above the cabinet. Which Pope I don’t know. I’m not a Catholic, and actually, nowadays, neither is St Anthony’s a Catholic school. Long ago it became not only co-educational, but non-denominational too. Up until about thirty years ago, though, it was still a residential school run by monks.

  I looked at my watch. Mr Hyslop was taking his time. Teachers walked past me in the corridor. Some nodded and smiled. Others ignored me. The odd pupil slouched past.

  I wondered if I would like it here. It was so different from my last school. That had been bright and modern, with wide spaces, and open staircases leading to the floors above. St Anthony’s was dark and old, with alcoves and nooks and crannies and statues everywhere. The kind of school where you could imagine anything might happen …

  Shut up, Tyler! There you go again. New beginning. Remember!

  There was a statue standing on a plinth against the far wall. There seemed to be statues everywhere in St Anthony’s. This one was holding a baby gently in his arms. One hand was raised in a benediction, and his eyes were looking down fondly at the baby.

  I could hear chairs scraping across the floor inside Mr Hyslop’s office, as if whoever was in there with him was standing up, getting ready to leave.

  I stood up too and turned to the wall behind me. It was covered with framed photographs of graduating classes. They stretched right back to the early 1900s. Went from black and white to colour. In earlier years, the teachers had all been priests or monks. I wondered how many of those faces, priests and pupils, were still alive today. There were years when everyone looked so happy. 1950 they were throwing up their hands joyfully. But 1979 looked like a grim year. I looked closely at all the faces, pupils and teachers. There was a much younger Mr Hyslop again, but looking sullen this time. And there was a tall priest in black, his face set in a frown. Hardly a smile, in fact, from any of them, just steady gazes at the camera.

  I turned back as I heard the handle of the door being opened just a fraction, as the Rector and his visitor finished their discussion.

  ‘Yes, that will be absolutely fine. We’ll get that sorted as soon as possible,’ Mr Hyslop was saying.

  Something drew my gaze back to the statue. What made me look up at his eyes? I don’t know.

  But they were no longer looking at the baby …

  Now they were looking directly at me.

  3

  I stumbled back, fell against the chair and sent it crashing to the floor. My head cracked against the case that held the trophies. Blackness closed in around me. I was drowning in blackness. Like dark smoke swallowing me, till all I could see was the face of that statue, and those eyes staring right at me.

  I came to, didn’t know at first where I was, and the Rector, this Mr Hyslop, was standing above me, looking concerned. I was so glad he was blocking my view of the statue. I was too terrified to look at it again.

  ‘What happened, Tyler?’

  I could still see black spots in front of my eyes. My head ached. My first thought was to tell him. Blurt it all out. Point to the statue and yell, ‘The statue moved. The eyes moved. The statue was looking at me.’

  But what would he say to that? I could picture the look he would give me. I’d seen that look so many times on other teachers’ faces.

  ‘I saw Miss Baxter in the supermarket …’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Tyler. She’s been dead for six months.’

  I could still hear their cold voices, see their disbelieving eyes.

  How could I possibly tell the Rector the statue had moved?

  Mr Hyslop was waiting for an answer. ‘Tyler? Shall I call the nurse?’

  The last thing I wanted on my first day at the new school. ‘I just fell.’ I knew my voice trembled. I could feel cold sweat bead on my skin.

  ‘You’re very pale,’ he said, helping me to my feet. ‘Sure you’ll be all right?

  I moved with him inside his office, making sure his big form blocked my view.

  ‘I think you should sit down for a bit. I’ll take you up to your class shortly.’

  I kept my eyes on the ground as I stepped behind him.

  It was only your imagination, Tyler. I kept telling myself that. Over and over. Your freaky imagination.

  I wanted this school to be different. Well, it was up to me to make things different. I would not let my imagination ruin things for me here.

  Mr Hyslop brought me a glass of cold water, and motioned me very gently to the seat in front of his desk. On it was a brass plaque – Dr Robert Hyslop. Rector. Rector. It sounded so grand, so much grander than headmaster. I kept my eyes fixed on that plaque and barely listened as he explained about the school ethos and the rules, and how he hoped I would be happy here. And he asked me again and again if I was sure I wa
s all right. He sounded genuinely concerned. I knew if I didn’t pull myself together he would insist I go to the nurse. So I assured him, with a strained smile, that I felt fine. As if blacking out in school was something I did on a regular basis.

  By the time he stood up to take me to my class, my head had stopped throbbing and I’d steeled myself to face that statue again.

  Mr Hyslop moved aside so that I could leave the office before him. My eyes were drawn to the statue. I couldn’t not look at it. My gaze moved slowly from the sandalled feet peeping out from under his long robe to his raised hand … and, finally, up to his face.

  I gasped at the gentle eyes: they were resting on the baby again.

  The Rector followed my gaze. ‘St Joseph,’ he explained. ‘I hope you don’t mind statues, Tyler. You’ll find they’re everywhere in St Anthony’s. They’re part of the school’s heritage. The whole building is listed, so we try to keep everything intact.’

  I only nodded and said nothing, and as we passed up the long, tiled corridor, there were statues on every side. Saints and monks and nuns and angels.

  I would have to get used to them.

  Anyway, it had only been my imagination. The kind eyes had only ever rested on the baby. Why would they look at me? How could he have moved? It was impossible.

  By the time I walked into the classroom, I was determined to forget the incident. It was nonsense, I convinced myself. And I even managed a smile as Mr Hyslop introduced me to the teacher, Mr O’Hara.

  He was a good-looking man, couldn’t have been more much more than forty, with a thick mane of rich grey hair. Bet a lot of the older girls had a crush on him. He walked to the classroom door with Mr Hyslop and spoke for a whispered moment with him before he left. Then he came back to me and smiled. ‘So this is Tyler Lawless. Our new girl.’ He turned to the class. ‘Now I want you to make her feel very welcome.’

  I looked round the classroom taking in all the faces. It was hard not to be drawn first to the raven-haired girl sitting in the front row. Her hair was too black to be natural, and it stood up in wayward spikes. Her eyebrow was pierced with a silver ring. She was biting on the end of a pen, and she had the greenest eyes I had ever seen. They were staring straight at me, sizing me up. She looked bold and a bit scary, and yet there was something I liked about her right off. And when I barely smiled at her, she flashed me a grin right back.