A Small Death in the Great Glen (30 page)

“I can't believe you're still interested in that wild fancy.”

“I was reminded of them again this afternoon at the funeral.”

They both looked into the fire for a moment.

“They get all this from their grandad.” Joanne explained. “He's a known storyteller, has a great reputation at the ceilidhs, and he's always filling the girls' heads with tales of faeries and bogies and hoodie crows pecking out eyes, golden eagles snatching babies. Not that I mind; it's good for them to know the old legends. I just wish they weren't so bloodthirsty.”

“That's the Scots for you.” McAllister raised his glass.

“In the Highlands, there are so many superstitions I can't keep track. But if I spill salt, I always throw some over my left shoulder to keep the devil at bay.” She laughed at herself.

“Aye, I do the same. Can't get out of the habit.” He smiled. “And Halloween, only two nights away, is another of our fine traditions. I loved going guising as a boy.” Next day is All Souls' Day, he remembered, but didn't say. That was an anniversary of another funeral. “So all the ghosts and ghouls and lost souls will be out in force and the devil will be on horseback. Woe betide poor
Cutty Sark.
” They laughed, enjoying the whisky, the fire and the company.

“But surely you must have a feeling as to whether your daughters were telling the truth—or the truth as they saw it?”

But Joanne had an instant flash of that awful night, of Annie's sobs, her accusations and the unhealed wound still between mother and daughter. Joanne knew that the common belief was that when your husband hits you, you must have done something to deserve it. When a parent hits a child, it's for their own good; a teacher hits a pupil with a leather belt, it's to teach them a lesson. A dispute over business, a bet, an altercation of any kind—there's nothing that can't be fixed by a good fight. And she knew that she could no longer hide her disgust at these accepted conventions. There must be a better way.

“A penny for them.”

Joanne shook herself back to the present, to the novelty of breaking all the rules, of being a working woman, wearing trousers, having a drink at the end of the day, in a bar, with a man who's not her husband.

“Sorry, I was away in a dwam.” She finished her glass, refused another. “The hoodie crow—well, for them, the bird stands for anything nasty, anything that can't be explained.” She glimpsed the clock through the serving hatch.

“Heavens, it's a quarter past nine, I have to go.”

Joanne cycled home through a very dark dark, no moon, no stars, the rain alternating with sleet. She seldom drank, and whisky was not her tipple—too many bad associations—but tonight it fortified her from the worst of the weather. Wheeling her bicycle around the back of her house, she was surprised to see a light on in the kitchen. Maybe her father-in-law had come around to collect something for the girls, left it on to help her in the dark. She struggled with the key, having trouble finding the lock. The door opened.

“Oh, it's you.” The outline of Bill stood in the doorway. “I thought you'd be out west by now,” she continued blithely. “I didn't see the van.”

“Where the hell have you been?” Followed by, “You stink of whisky.”

“That makes a change. It's usually the other way round.” The whisky had lessened the extra fraction-of-a-second gap between brain and tongue that, through the years, she had cultivated, to avoid riling her husband.

He slapped her straight across her left cheek, catching the corner of her eye. Dizzy, face burning, ears buzzing, she stumbled backward into the kitchen, hands held in front of her. But his anger was spent. Or maybe he had heard an until-now-unheard outrage in her yell. “Don't you dare!”

She leaned into the sink. A wave of nausea rose. It passed. The stale taste of whisky coated her tongue. She turned on the cold tap, full force, lapping the crystal-cold water from her cupped palms, splashing in her eye, over her face, feeling it running down her arms, cold sobering water. The nausea evolved into plain simple heartsick; sick of violence, sick of the contempt and sick of his need to control and humiliate. But he had heard right. Her overwhelming emotion was new, as fresh and cold and clear as the water she splashed on her face. Defiance.

“I will not put up with this anymore,” she shouted at the closed sitting-room door. “I'm sick of it. Do you hear me? I've had enough.”

Silence. Then she surprised herself. I am not going to say sorry. I will not grovel. I will not take any more of this shite. It was probably the first time in her life that she had used a swear word—even though it was said to herself. This time it was she who slammed the back door, she who stormed out of the house. It was not until halfway down the street that she became aware that one eye was closed, that she had forgotten her coat and that she had no idea where to go.

Pedaling half-blind through tears and rain and a throbbing
headache, she found herself at the river. Pedaling across the bridge, pedaling hard up the hill, on through the empty town, past the closed bars, the shuttered shops, struggling over the wet cobblestones, she could pedal no more. She lugged the bicycle up the brae, pedaled past the Academy, round the crescent, arriving at McAllister's house. Why here of all places? She flushed in humiliation. But the bone-chilling, wet-right-through cold, and a shivering she couldn't control, and a headache so bad she could hardly see through the one good eye, left no other option. She rang the bell.

No lights showed at the front of the house but in answer to the ring, a dim light came on and footsteps came to answer. He stared at her, standing there on his doorstep, trying to hold on to her dignity and her bicycle.

“I don't suppose a nightcap is on.”

He took her arm and led her through to the kitchen. He asked no questions; she didn't explain. A towel, aspirins and a drink later, a suggestion of a hot bath refused, directions to the spare room given, still he asked no questions. Then alone in the dark, toast-warm under an eiderdown, safe, exhausted, humiliation dismissed until the morning, she slept. And the tears that soaked the pillow didn't wake her.

T
HIRTEEN
 
 

McAllister rose at eight o'clock and it was still dark, being October. He presumed their first encounter would be awkward so he raked the still-glowing cinders in the kitchen range, added coal, found the heavy plaid dressing gown that his mother had bought in a sale on Sauchiehall Street seven years ago and that he had never worn, left it neatly folded outside the spare bedroom door, wrote Joanne a note saying he would be back later, left it on the kitchen table, and using his key instead of banging the door to, he left as quietly as he could, then, feeling strangely cheerful, he strode off into a watery dawn, down the brae and along the High Street to the
Gazette
office.

For the first time ever, he was the first in the reporters' room. Mrs. Smart from downstairs brought him tea. He paused to smell the new edition of the newspaper before reading it. Hands around the mug of thick peat-brown tea, he went through the
Gazette
page by page and was reasonably satisfied with what he saw.

Don arrived about an hour later, saw McAllister at a typewriter and heard Rob clattering up the stairs whilst still carrying on a conversation with Mrs. Smart downstairs. But no Joanne.

“Joanne won't be in today.”

Don read between the lines of McAllister's frown and didn't say a word.

“Not too bad, this.” McAllister waved the paper, then rose and tucked it under his arm and left with a “Catch you later.”

He and Rob jiggled around each other in the doorway and
Don folded onto a chair, staring at the vacuum left by the departing editor.

“What?” Rob stared at Don.

“McAllister. He said he liked the paper.”

McAllister walked down to the covered market, to the butcher with the best bacon and the baker with the best rolls. He fetched the milk in from the doorstep, glad to see it was not frozen and that the birds had not attacked the gold foil top. He opened the front door, again making as little noise as possible in case she was till asleep, and made for the kitchen. It was the smell of frying bacon that awoke Joanne. He heard the toilet flush and poured another cup of tea. She came through wrapped in the dressing gown.

“I didn't know what to do with your things,” he started, “soaked through, so I put everything to dry on the boiler, but they'll probably be a mess.”

He kept his back to her as he spoke, busy with the frying pan.

“That's your tea on the table.” He shoogled the pan to coat the eggs with bacon fat. “One roll or two?”

“I couldn't manage a thing.” Even the smell made her queasy.

“Fine, have a plain roll instead, they're still warm.”

He kept busy. She kept still. But sooner or later they would have to look at each other. He made up his own rolls, put them aside and went over to her.

“Here, let me see.” Confront it straight on was the best way. “That's a real keeker. Purple, shot through with delicate shades of black, red and green, as a poet would say. Just as well I gave you the day off or you'd never hear the end of it in the office.”

She tried to smile but it hurt. “McAllister …”

“Only tell me if you want to. No need for explanations.”

“Thanks.” And that was that.

McAllister left after tidying up the kitchen.

“Pull the door to. I hardly ever lock it.”

Joanne felt that she had no right to ask, but Chiara was the only one she could call. Shivering in the drafty hallway, she picked up the phone.

“I'll be right over.”

No hesitation, no demands for an explanation; the reaction made Joanne deeply ashamed of the neglect she had shown her friend.

When they were settled together in McAllister's kitchen and after Chiara had whistled at Joanne's black eye, Joanne began to apologize.

“I am so sorry, I didn't heed you when you called, when you needed a friend, I … Chiara, I feel so terrible I didn't help you, I was so caught up in my own problems. I am so sorry.”