A Small Death in the Great Glen (53 page)

“Mum, Mum, come on. We're going sledging.”

The girls clattered in the back door, the happy shrieks cheering Joanne immensely. She had slept in till ten and, waking to the clear magic snow light, had made tea, singing to herself, “We're gonna rock around the clock tonight,” and had taken a mug up to Bill.

“What time is it?”

“Twenty past ten.”

She left the tea on the bedside table, then crossed the room and swept back the curtains.

“Dah-da. Look at that; snow on the hills, a clear sky, a beautiful day.”

“Shut the curtains, you stupid bitch!”

He jerked the eiderdown up over his head, sending the cup flying over the linoleum. She fled, abandoning the puddle of tea and her hungover husband, repeating over and over, “I will not let him get to me, I will not cry.”

Grandad was waiting outside, the children having run ahead to join a group of friends making their way toward the canal crossing and the hills beyond. Pulling on her hat and coat and scarf and gloves, she escaped down the path.

“Bill no coming?”

“Having a lie-in. We were late back.”

Joanne's eyes were pink. Grandad noticed but didn't say a word. She was silently kicking herself: I wish I'd never helped Bill out with his problems.

“He'll have a hangover when he wakes up.” Annie had popped up at Joanne's side as she inevitably did when a subject she was not meant to hear was being mentioned.

“Where on earth did you get that expression from?”

“Well it's true,” Annie informed her mother. “Sheila Murchison told me. Her mother says my dad's an alkie.” Annie saw the reaction from the adults. What had she said wrong this time? It
was
true. Everyone knew.

Grandad came to the rescue.

“Would you look at the sun. It's getting low already and it'll be dark afore you know it. March on, ma lasses, hep, one two three.”

Crossing over the canal locks Joanne hoped no one would mention the boy. She scanned the skyline. The dense pine forest that hid an ancient vitrified fort dominated the northeastern end. The pines on the northwestern end gathered in ranks around the asylum, now spotlighted in a biblical ray of light. Joanne loved her adopted town.

“Mum, Mum, over here!” Annie rolled off the sledge and with excellent last-minute timing let it career on into the dyke.

“My turn.” Joanne grabbed Annie's snow-crusted mitten in one hand, the sledge rope in the other.

“Wee Jean's a fearty-cat,” Annie informed her.

“She's only little. I'll take her down with me.”

“It's a'right. She's with Uncle Rob. He's got a great sledge.”

Wistfully, she looked across the slope. A terrified and delighted Wee Jean, enveloped by a figure in a postbox-red ski jacket, went hurtling down the hill, then veered sharply to the left in a perfect racing turn, stopping just before the drystane dyke. The resultant shriek rattled Rob's eyeballs, switching his hangover back on.

“Rob! Over here!” Joanne shouted and waved.

“How do all girls
do
that shriek?” he asked Joanne. “It's a killer.”

“Our secret weapon.” She took in the green tinge that a combination of high speed and aching eardrums had resurrected. “Grandad brought a flask of tea and cocoa for the girls.” She took it out of her bag, then laid a tartan rug on the wall. “Want some?”

“Absolutely! I'm knackered as well as hungover.”

“You're not allowed to say that. Hangover is a rude word,” Annie told him sharply.

Rob raised an eyebrow at Joanne. She lifted her eyes to the heavens.

“Listen, why don't you two go and find Grandad?”

“There he is, over there.” Rob waved at the distant figure stamping his feet at the edge of a huddle of grandads on sledging duty. “You can do me a favor. Look after my sledge, eh? You can have a shot, if you like.”

Annie grabbed the rope with one hand and wee Jean with the other, off before Uncle Rob changed his mind.

“Great wedding.” Rob perched beside Joanne on the wall and they shared the tea.

“It was fabulous. It felt like a Highland coronation.”

“And you chief lady-in-waiting. I'm glad McAllister could make it.” He glanced at her and wondered, not for the first time, if she fancied the editor. Naw, he thought, he's too old. They drank their tea, laughing at Rob's chatter; the convoy, the wedding, the dancing, all safe subjects for a bright winter's day. Not once did Rob ask what was wrong.

“Come on, let's get the girls, poor Mr. Ross looks half-frozen. One last go and then home for me. I'm exhausted.”

He held out his hand to help her down off the dyke, then couldn't resist.

“Race you!”

Laughing and pushing, they stumbled and tumbled across the field to join her family for the long walk back. Halfway home, tired and strangely calm given the start to the day, Joanne, giving Jean a piggyback, lagged behind. She nodded and waved at neighbors, acquaintances, all tired and exhilarated by an afternoon in the snow. This is happiness—she smiled to herself—and I like it. A turning point had been reached but she was yet to acknowledge it.

Rob, carrying the sledge over one shoulder, walked ahead with Annie.

“You can borrow the sledge any time there's snow.” Annie gave him a Brownie salute to seal the deal. “And, I'll let you in on a wee
secret; the hoodie crow—he's gone, flown away. Father Morrison will not be coming back.”

“Father Morrison? The minister?”

“Well, he's a priest, same thing really. Yep, the hoodie crow is gone, left town, so no need to be scared anymore.”

Annie turned her green eyes on Rob and, staring at him, hesitated a second or two, then burst out, “He's not the hoodie crow! And anyhow, there is no hoodie crow. It's only wee bairns believe thon kind o' stuff. The bad man who picked up Jamie lives at number sixty-four down your street.” It was his turn to stare. “I never saw him properly, I just saw a big man lift up his arms”—she spread her arms wide—“and he had on a great big coat wi' a kind o' cape thing like thon detective. …”

“Sherlock Holmes,” Rob said automatically.

“Aye. An' I told Wee Jean it was a hoodie crow to scare her 'cos she's a wee clype an' my dad would thrash me if he knew we were ringing doorbells.”

She stopped. Her whole skinny body went rigid with fury, her fists tight with anger at herself for saying as much as she had.

“An' if you say I told you, I'll say I didn't and that
you're
the one who's lying.”

Rob stood in complete shock, watching her run off so no one could see her tears. He knew without any doubt whatsoever that he believed her completely. He also knew that she had said all she was going to say. Ever.

They were invited to the Ross house. I won't be a minute, Dad; I'll let Bill know about supper, she told him. Grandad walked on with the girls. She went in, not bothering to take off her coat. The house was cold. Bill was slumped by the unlit fire, an eiderdown around him, a glass of whisky at his feet, snoring. This is it, Joanne told herself. Bill's outburst this morning is a godsend, she repeated
to herself. Everything is as clear and as crisp as the glass ice on the puddles. And as fractured.

He couldn't even strike a match, she observed. Fire all laid, ready to go, and he couldn't even manage that. She stood across the sitting room, with the sofa between them for safety.

“Bill.”

He came to and glared at her as she stood, feet together, arms folded as though she was about to dance the hornpipe. It took a while for her words to penetrate. The gap across the room and between husband and wife was wide and deep.

“I've had enough,” she started. But she'd said this before so he took no heed.

“I want you out of this house,” she continued. “And if you don't leave, I will, and I'll take the girls.”

He looked up. It didn't bother him where the girls went, but Joanne giving him orders, that surprised him.

“I don't care what anyone thinks anymore. I will not put up with your drinking and your lying and all your shenanigans and I will not be your punching bag.”

He was out of his nest of fabric and feathers and across the room with the speed of a viper strike. His hand came up. She dodged to the other side of the sofa, standing her ground.

“Bill. One thousand pounds.”

That stopped him.

“I know all about it, you borrowed one thousand pounds. I have no idea how you are going to pay it back but if you touch me, even the once, I will set your pals the Gordons from Glasgow onto you.” None of this made any sense but it didn't matter; what mattered was that he had been found out and that she knew, and that she knew Jimmy Gordon.

He didn't move. Only his eyes in the unshaven face showed the struggle to comprehend how he had lost the advantage.

Joanne waited and as she watched she noticed a tiny patch of gray hairs on the left cheek. No longer the charming soldier boy, she noted, it's time to grow up.

“I could give hundreds of reasons why I can't live with you, but what's the point? You always justify everything to yourself. I don't love you and I don't even like you and I know that's not a good enough reason to leave your husband but I will not be beaten and I know you think it's your right to hit me but I won't put up with it ever again and if you ever try to hurt me or anything else, well, I have friends and, thanks to you, I have met other people who are not nice and they …” She stopped. “Well, maybe two of them are not so bad but …” What on earth am I saying, she thought, stick to the point.

“Bill. I want you out of this house. I will not live with you anymore.” She backed out the door just as he made a move toward her. She saw the raised fist, she saw the fury, and in that second she knew that this was it. It was over. Then she fled.

She tried to run down the street but kept slipping. She walked as fast as she could but kept slowing, slowing to laugh and grin and talk to the rapidly closing day. The air was charged with the smell of newly lit coal, the smoke hanging low; the sky was darkening from pink to red to crimson to purple, the evening star a guiding light on her walk toward the unknown.

“I did it. I did it.” She laughed at herself. “You sound just like the girls—I did it, I did it.” Good job no one is around, she thought, when she realized she was shouting.

When she reached the corner of the street where the solid unadorned unimaginative council house where her parents-in-law and her girls waited was, she had to stop for a moment. In the dim between streetlights, she felt a not unfamiliar tightening band of panic. Bending over to get her breath, she watched miniature clouds of condensation form and re-form. The warm vapor had a
blue tinge. She filled her lungs with cold air and blew toward the light, watching the essence of herself form, then evaporate, another breath, form and evaporate. I feel so light I could fly, she thought, laughing; probably all this oxygen going to my head.