Faith (73 page)

In the New Year they went down to Edinburgh for a few days to buy furniture and see some old friends. They took a trip out to Crail to visit Barney’s grave, and while they were there they met Ted Baxter for lunch in St Andrews. It was good to find him much happier: he and Peggie were getting along much better, she was cooking again, going out with Ted in the car, and their first grandchild was expected in a few weeks’ time.

They had only been back at the cottage for one night when Meggie rang to say June had been taken to hospital with a heart attack but died on the way there.

They drove down to London, and though Laura believed she would feel very little sorrow at losing her mother, once she was there with Meggie and Ivy, she found that wasn’t so. All three of them went through a whole gamut of emotions – relief that they no longer had to feel guilty about the way she had lived in the last twenty years, anger at past neglect and selfishness, but love too. Stuart had people to see while they were there, and the sisters spent the days before June’s funeral talking through their memories, bitter and sweet, together.

James used his police contacts to try to trace Mark and Paul, without success, but Freddy came up the night before the funeral, and Laura was able to make her peace with him at last. It was so odd to be confronted with a man of forty when all her memories were of a chubby toddler. He was tall, fit and handsome, still retaining his thick dark hair, a good family man and a well-respected naval officer, and once she’d had an opportunity to talk to him alone and say how much she regretted not keeping him in her life, he hugged her and said it didn’t matter any more.

There were few mourners at the crematorium, just a few of June’s neighbours and family. Freddy had put together a few well-chosen words about her, focusing on humorous anecdotes from the long distant past that touched everyone. They went back to Meggie’s house afterwards and it became a real party after a few drinks had flowed. At one point Stuart had an arm-wrestling competition with Freddy in the kitchen.

‘Mum would’ve liked this,’ Ivy remarked, looking around at her boys playing Snakes and Ladders on the floor while all the adults milled around chatting nineteen to the dozen. ‘She loved nothing better than dressing up and going to a party. I think we should just remember her like that, drink in one hand, fag in the other, blonde hair, high heels and a dress with a bit of glitter on it. Let’s forget the rest.’

It was on the long drive back to Scotland after the funeral that Laura began reflecting on the way her, Meggie, Ivy and Freddy’s lives had turned out. All four of them could easily have ended up like some of the people she’d met in the Glasgow centre, for they had all been vulnerable, exposed to crime and poverty, and without parental guidance.

She started to trace back and find reasons why they hadn’t and she came to the conclusion that each of them had had a good influence during their adolescence.

Freddy had joined the Navy at a young age, Ivy had Meggie pushing her into college and lifting her horizons. Meggie had her older sister’s influence, and Laura had had Lena, Frank and Jackie.

It struck her then that this was what she should be doing with the rest of her life, and the knowledge she had. To concentrate on equally vulnerable children, to give them something in their lives that would lift them up and give them a glimpse of a better way of life than they’d been born to.

She continued her work at the centre right through to May, but each time she went over to Glasgow she was putting out feelers, talking to people, thinking deeply about what could be done. Yet it was the four days a week back by the loch that gave her the idea she was now burning to start on.

For her the first summer here, waking to birdsong each morning, tramping through dew-soaked grass, revelling in the majesty of the scenery, the total lack of luxury, shops or man-made entertainment, had been a healing process. She’d learned to saw wood, to lay a few bricks, to dig, and had acquired some knowledge of plumbing. If she could give inner-city, deprived children just a little taste of that, along with the healthy fun of swimming, boating, climbing trees and campfires, maybe they wouldn’t want to spend afternoons in back alleys sniffing glue and gravitate to other even more dangerous drugs, prostitution and crime.

She had the money from her inheritance from Jackie in the bank – she’d only spent a little of it on furniture and curtains – and Stuart was so proud of keeping his woman that he’d always want to be the main provider. She was also expecting to get compensation for being wrongfully imprisoned.

She could buy a piece of land somewhere beautiful and if she approached the right people she’d obtain the support and further finance to get it going and keep it going.

Jackie would have wholeheartedly loved the idea of holidays for deprived children, so it seemed a fitting thing to put her money into. The kids could camp at first while helping with the building, spending whole summers learning useful skills while they had a great time too. Students would gladly come and help out for pocket money, teaching orienteering, canoeing, climbing, and heaven knew what else.

She had half expected Stuart to scoff at her idea, or at least to say that now they had a lovely home he was hoping that they would just do nothing but enjoy themselves.

But he didn’t.

His eyes lit up, and the next thing she knew he was suggesting he’d like nothing better than to spend six weeks a year playing Boy Scout leader.

‘David would like it too, and maybe James and Meggie as well,’ he went on. ‘I could get some of the companies I’ve worked for to donate building materials or plant hire. They’d love it; they might even take on some of the keen kids as apprentices later on. The only real problem would be getting the council to agree to use land in an area of outstanding beauty for such a project, because you’ve obviously got to build some permanent structures, toilet blocks, kitchens and stuff. But they might be okay about it if it was log cabin-style and only used for part of the year.’

It occurred to Laura later that they both wanted this because they had no children of their own. Maybe she needed to lavish some love and care on neglected children as a way of proving herself to Barney. Stuart too had a surplus of love and patience that needed an outlet.

She said goodbye to the drop-in centre in the middle of May, and since then, when she wasn’t working out in the garden, she had been planning her project. She had good people now lined up to help, a whole raft of ideas for fund-raising and promotion. The next step was to find some suitable land and buy it.

Later that day she and Stuart intended to tell everyone about the plan, but for now they had a barbecue to organize.

James and Derek arrived back from the shop with enough drink to launch the
Queen Mary
and a carrier bag full of different cheeses.

‘Why so much cheese?’ Laura asked James. ‘Is this some sort of secret vice you want to tell me about?’

He laughed, his soft brown eyes crinkling up at the corners. Laura liked him so much – perhaps at first it was just because he had made Meggie radiant and youthful again, but now she found him a pleasure to be around. He was calm and steady, chatty enough not to be dull company, but not the pushy kind who likes to take centrestage.

He was an unlikely policeman really; he looked the part – brawny, tall and fit – but he was gentle, his voice as soft as his eyes. A deep-thinking man, kind and sensitive.

‘You’ve got me banged to rights,’ he said. ‘I just love all kinds of cheese, so when I’m faced with a huge selection I have to have some of each.’

‘But so much of each one?’ Laura laughed. ‘We’ll be eating it for weeks.’

‘I’m the same about beer,’ Derek chimed in. ‘Got to taste every single kind, and my God, there’s a lot of Scottish beers to choose from.’

‘Well, go easy on it today, we don’t want you falling in the loch,’ she said. Her brother-in-law was a party animal. Fifteen stone of noise, laughter, jokes and fun. He could be relied on to keep the party going into the early hours. Laura often thought he should have been a publican, but in fact he was a personnel officer in an insurance company. Ivy claimed he had to suppress his real personality all week and that was why he broke out at weekends and on holiday.

‘Maybe I should put on a life jacket just in case,’ he laughed, then, looking out at his boys in the boat, he remarked how well they were rowing now. ‘Your Stuart’s a good’un,’ he said. ‘The boys really like him.’

As Laura prepared some salads later in the kitchen she thought of that remark of Derek’s. Stuart had got the boys to bring the boat in now, and he’d organized them into helping him set up a trestle table for the food, and now they were lighting the barbecue. It wasn’t just children who liked Stuart, it was everyone, and that made it so easy for her. She thought he wouldn’t get along with the people who worked alongside her at the drop-in centre, for they were in the main oddballs, earnest, very left wing and opinionated. But he had, even if he did laugh at some of their ideas later. He could converse just as easily with the rich barristers and Harley Street surgeons who had holiday homes around here as he could with bricklayers and plumbers at the pub.

Not a day went past without her offering up a little prayer of thanks that he came back into her life and gave her all this.

She looked around her beautiful kitchen, ran her fingers along the silky-smooth drawers and reminded herself it was all his work. Whatever she wanted, whether it was a high rail to hang pans on, a special rack for herbs and spices, wardrobes or bookshelves, he did it, with love.

It was laughable really that she’d once gauged a man’s love for her by the monetary value of his gifts. Stuart didn’t go in for lavish gestures like jewellery, but what he gave her was far more valuable – his time, skill and care.

Looking down the garden, she could see him now presiding over the barbecue. He’d built that too with bricks left from the house, on the same spot she’d lit the fire the first time she came here. He was wearing khaki shorts and a check shirt, and his legs, though thin and, as he always said, ‘unsuitable for kilt wearing’, were as brown as conkers.

They’d kept the old bench by the jetty, and they often sat out there at night watching the sun set over the loch. Somehow she knew they’d still be here together in another twenty or thirty years, just like the old couple who’d lived here before. Still in love with each other.

She had just got all the salads ready to take outside and Meggie and Ivy had been in to collect plates, cutlery and sauces, when Stuart came in, bringing her a glass of wine.

‘I was just coming out,’ she said, but took an appreciative gulp of it.

He came closer and hooked her hair back behind one of her ears. ‘Marty me, Laura?’ he said.

She giggled in surprise. ‘What brought that on?’

‘Because I’ve got everything a man could wish for, except I can’t call you my wife. I’d like to, it makes a public statement about how I feel about you.’

Laura had quite often been a little embarrassed when talking to people about Stuart. Calling him her boyfriend sounded so juvenile; partner sounded so businesslike. She knew Stuart referred to her as ‘my lady’, which was lovely, but there was no equivalent expression to use for a man.

‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Will you?’

She flung her arms around him. ‘Yes, oh yes,’ she said gleefully. ‘There’s nothing I’d like better.’

‘That’s a relief,’ he said and kissed her tenderly.

‘Why is it a relief?’ she asked after the kiss.

‘Well, I told Derek to buy some champagne when he was at the shop. He asked why and I said we might have something special to celebrate later. What a chump I’d look if you’d said no.’

Laura laughed and hugged him. ‘Only a complete fool would turn you down. So let’s take these salads out, check the boys aren’t burning the steaks, and when there’s a lull in the jollity we’ll tell everyone.’

‘Are you absolutely sure?’

Laura looked at those kind grey eyes and smiling mouth and saw again the hesitant, rather shy, much younger man she’d fallen in love with two decades earlier.

‘Two hundred per cent sure,’ she said. ‘And we’ll grow old and doddery here together. But right now it’s party time!’

Acknowledgements

A huge thank you to Alan Hamilton at Cornton Vale prison in Stirling for giving me his time and expert knowledge about how it is for women in prison.

His work at the time of my visit was mainly focused on young offenders in countering their behaviour by challenging attitudes and conduct, giving them the opportunity to learn new skills and enhance their learning and awareness of current affairs. Part of Alan’s role was in Restorative Practices, new work which in 2006 earned Cornton Vale prison the Butler Award. This, as I understand it, is to help offenders understand the short-term and long-term effects that their offences and behaviour have had on the people harmed by them. They do not just look at the victim alone, but the families of victims and offenders, witnesses, friends and peers. While this scheme is voluntary for the offenders, most do take part, and it is a worthwhile way of making amends or restoring the harm done, and an addition to their punishment.

Many of my previously held ideas about women’s prisons were challenged by my visit to Cornton Vale. Aside from Alan Hamilton, whose deep commitment to the women in his care was very obvious. I was also impressed by the compassion and enthusiasm of all the staff I met there. I was left with the feeling that a good proportion of the young offenders were being given the help they need to ensure they do not re-offend.

I’d also like to thank all those good people, too numerous to name individually, in Anstruther, Cellardyke, Crail and Edinburgh, who helped and inspired me during my stay in Scotland while I was researching the background for
Faith
.

And finally a huge and very special thank you to Gordon Erasmuson, without whom I would never have even got the idea for the book, let alone written it. Your belief in me, encouragement, those wonderful little Scottishisms you fed me, and all the laughs along the way, helped more than you’ll ever know. Bless you, General Gordon.