Just a Fan (37 page)

'Oh, Connor...' I murmured, not knowing whether to be traumatised by all that I had found out and all that had happened, or whether to be sympathetic with him. I didn't have long to think; a short moment later he gave a bitter sigh and went around the bench, sitting himself down heavily, head in his hands.

'What've I
done
...' he whispered, sounding so full of shame and self-disgust that pity flooded me, and I knelt down beside him on the bench.

'It's alright, Connor...' I tried to reassure him, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. 'Oh, God, are you hurt?' I tried to get a good look at him, but he shied away from me, covering his face dejectedly, unable to look me in the eye.

'I cannae believe I
did
that...' he moaned, sounding bitterly ashamed. 'And in front of
you
, too...'

'He provoked you,' I reasoned with him. 'He should have known that you get angry easily -'

'That's the
thing
!' groaned Connor. 'That's all I'm known for, round here...Crazy MacGowan, completely uncontrollable after ten pints, and a savage bastard at all other times!'

'Connor, don't...' I said softly, hearing the deep depression in his tone. I stroked his wild curls gently to soothe him, and noticed him shivering, his hands trembling involuntarily. He seemed as shaken by this as I was.

I heard him give a tremulous sigh, his voice oddly thick. 'You don't understand, Lilly...' he murmured. 'I've tried so, so hard to change who I used to be - to take away all the bad habits I had when I was stuck here. And I thought I'd managed to get rid of it all...but now I can see that none of it's gone away, not really - I'm still no different from how I used to be.'

'Connor, of course you're different,' I told him. 'You're such a wonderful person...just because you got angry doesn't mean you haven't changed at all since the time you lived here.'

'Oh, Lilly,' Connor sighed miserably, leaning back against the bench. 'I wish I could believe you...'

He was inconsolable; worse still, I could see he was injured.

'You're bleeding,' I remarked quietly, my eyes lingering on his cut lip and bloodied nose.

'I know, I know,' he replied heavily, then groaned, a note of helpless desperation entering his voice. 'Oh, God, I cannae go home like
this
!'

'Here - I'll clean you up,' I reassured him, disconcerted by how suddenly vulnerable he sounded. I took a folded tissue from my pocket, wetting it slightly and using it to gently wipe the blood from Connor's poor face. It was hard to believe that only a few minutes ago he had been so fierce and wild, when now he was so unguarded and despairing. He was still shaking, and I did my best to comfort him. Taking his hand, I quickly noticed by his wince that he had hurt that as well; on second glance I could see that his knuckles were bleeding as well and were slightly swollen.

As I dabbed gently at his hand, I noticed him finally looking at me. 'I'm sorry I called you delicate, ages ago,' he apologised quietly. 'I don't know many lasses who'd do this for me just after seeing me act so bloody vicious...'

I gave him a small, encouraging smile, kissing him softly on the cheek. Connor merely gave a heavy sigh, hanging his head.

'I don't know what came over me,' he confessed. 'There's just something about this place that makes me go crazy...there're so many awful memories still around here, that I just can't forget. It just all gets to my head - the longer we stay here, the less I can stand it...' He gave another shuddering sigh. 'We've got to get out of here, Lilly...'

In the lurid orange lamplight, I noticed his left cheek glistening with something far too clear to be blood.

I whispered his name sympathetically and took him into my arms, resting his head gently against me as I soothingly stroked the side of his face and quietly wiped away his tears of shame. I cradled him there for a long time, letting him show his old weakness here in this silent, gloomy park, where nobody was there to see it but him and me.

By the time the two of us got home, a brief shower of rain sweeping over our part of the city had washed away all remnants of the blood that had covered Connor's face, and also soaked us completely. We must have looked a sight standing together on the doorstep of the house; Connor with his hair curling into wet ringlets, self-consciously hiding his hurt hand out of sight while I stuck close to his side, coat dripping and shoulders hunched against the rainwater threatening to pour down my neck...

'Look at ye! The rain's got the both o' ye drookit!' Kathleen gasped when she went to open the door for us. Distressed in a motherly fashion about our drenched state, she immediately began fussing over the pair of us, flapping about radiators and towels and dry clothes. I couldn't help a smile of amused thankfulness from stealing over my face, but when I glanced up at Connor, expecting his usual expression of fond exasperation, I was mildly startled to see that he still wore that haunted look he had had in the park, his normally vivacious blue eyes brooding and serious. He obviously wasn't going to be forgetting this evening in a hurry...I slowly began to realise the full extent of just how much his youth had affected him. It was like he had broken some important, unspoken promise he had made to himself...and now he seemed wary, almost afraid of his own actions. I looked down; his right hand was still firmly kept out of sight, his lips pursed slightly to hide the cut upon them.

When Kathleen finally left us alone after handing us a pair of large, fluffy white towels, we went upstairs to get changed and dried. Connor still did not say a word, the look on his face distant. He seemed to be doing a lot of thinking, but was reluctant to share his thoughts. Knowing he needed to mull things over in his own way, I let him do so, deciding that he would speak to me about it when he felt ready.

Connor waited until everybody else had gone to bed before he left me to go downstairs and patch up his hand, which had now purpled unpleasantly around the sore, split skin of his knuckles.

'Are you sure you won't be heard?' I whispered after him anxiously, feeling childish. Connor turned his uncharacteristically serious eyes back to me, his face pale and luminous in the dark bedroom.

'Of course I am,' he replied quietly, then continued with a hint of bitterness: 'I've done exactly the same lots of times before...I should know.'

I closed my mouth in defeat, leaning back against the bed's headboard. I should have anticipated his answer; it was glaringly obvious now that some times ago he had often had to sneak downstairs to treat some knuckles injured in a fight. But I had simply felt reluctant to let him go when he seemed so disheartened and in need of company...

I barely heard him going down the stairs, and I didn't even hear the door to the downstairs bathroom open.

However, it seemed like somebody else
had
, and what I did eventually hear was a pair of muted voices downstairs.

Biting my lip, I silently left the bedroom, pausing in the doorway. The house was quiet enough for me to hear the muffled, hushed conversation down below:

'...how bad is it, then?' I could hear Kathleen asking grimly in a low voice. There was a slight pause, and an indistinct, male mumble from Connor.

'Here, ye're no' puttin' the cream on right...I'll bandage it up for ye,' she replied.

More silence, then Connor murmured on the edge of hearing: 'It was tha' Rob...ye can imagine what he's like when he's had a few...he said some stuff and I just lost it. In front of Lilly, too...'

'Oh, Connor...' his mother gasped, sounding shocked and disapproving. 'Ye skelped wee Rob in front o' tha' sweet lass? I know the ladies today like tae see a man's strength, but I didnae think it goes tha' far...'

He sighed.

'I'm no' proud,' he answered dully, in a voice so wretched I wanted to run downstairs and tell him everything was fine.

'Connor,' Kathleen said in a gentler tone, 'ye've made yer father an' I
so
very very proud these past few years. Just aboot every place we go we see how succesful ye are. It's only natural tha' ye hae a few faults - an' dinnae think for a second tha' yer temper means ye've no' moved on from where ye were before! Ma side o' the family's alwies been known for haein' short fuses...it takes time to get used tae yer own temper.' Another pause, and then she went on: 'If it's gettin' a wee bit hard for ye back here, ye can alwies go with yer Lillian someplace nice...aren't ye stoppin' by at the Willow, sometime soon?'

'Aye,' came Connor's muted response. 'We'll probably be takin' the train on Monday - I've already got the car hired to take us to Torridon.'

'Tha's guid,' replied Kathleen. 'Ye go an' hae fun, an' forget all o' the glaikit lads who give ye trouble back here.'

'Thanks...' Connor sounded far less conflicted and despairing, and a short while later he silently went back up the stairs and came back into the bedroom, his right hand wrapped with a white bandage.

I raised my eyebrows at him. 'You got found out?' I ventured. Connor sighed, looking exhausted.

'It doesn't matter,' he replied, coming over and getting into bed. 'She understood.'

I nodded wordlessly, and moved up close as he lay himself down, putting an arm around him gently.

'It was a bit like the old times,' Connor mused quietly, melancholy stealing into his tone. 'Before I moved out...brings back memories.' The darkness had crept into his voice again, and I felt his tiny, involuntary shiver. Anxious to comfort him, I took his arm and placed it around me, silently telling him I was there for him.

I stroked the side of his chest gently, and then murmured: 'Your life when you were younger sounds so sad and serious...I don't want you to be upset anymore. Tell me something
positive
about it...'

Connor thought for a moment, then replied: 'Well, I suppose I always had friends. And there were my nicer, college friends...But I suppose the best came when I was about twenty-six, and starring in my third ever movie role...' I heard him give a small chuckle beside me, with made me curious.

'Go on,' I said.

'It was this low-budget, weird indie film - the only type of film I really got roles for at the time,' Connor told me, smiling reminiscingly. 'But it was so much fun because of that...The casting director wanted me in it because I'd been part of some heavy drama film the year before, and knew me as "the serious Scottish guy with the hair". I needed the money, so I accepted the role. It turned out that for that film, I only had a minor part, but for the main scene I was in they dressed me up in yellow lycra, then bundled me up in a giant lemon suit and rolled me around a golf course.'

I burst out laughing beside him, muffling my giggles with a hand. It was hard to imagine the man who had played a suave gentleman, a dangerous assassin and so many other serious roles being pushed around a golf course in a lemon suit.

'That film never really made it into big cinemas,' chuckled Connor in agreement. 'I never understood why I had to wear the lycra leggings and lemon costume...people on set never really remembered my name, either, so for the whole time I was called "the Lemon". Even in the credits at the end, I was "the Lemon".'

I grinned up at him, still laughing. 'And now you're on the red carpets, wearing sexy suits and properly choosing which roles you'd like to take,' I finished, impressed.

'Lemons or otherwise,' Connor added, and laughed with me, hugging me close. I fell asleep still smiling, glad that I'd managed to dispel that black mood of his for now...