The Day She Died (6 page)

“Divorce,” he said. “Dad took off. Me and my mum and my brother came to stay with Dave. She met a new guy, moved in with him, took my brother. I stayed here. Moved out when we got married. Came back after he died.” He looked around himself at the fire brasses, the pipe rack on the mantelpiece, the print of highland cattle standing in a loch above it. That explained the walnut veneer and the Bakelite handles.

“You called your grandpa Dave?” I said, like I was competing against my personal best for dumb stuff to come out with.

“He was a dude,” said Gus. “Not what you'd think. He totally got my work. Supported me.”

“What do you do?” I said, hoping he wasn't a strip-o-gram or a bailiff or something.

“I'm a sculptor,” he said. I must have looked surprised. “What?”

“Nothing,” I said. “You just seem dead … normal. Sorry.”

“I only wear my lavender smock and my velvet tammy when I'm in the studio,” he said.

“Right,” I said, letting him laugh at me.

“And Ruby and Dillon are really called—” he broke off, couldn't think what to say.

“Iolanthe and … ”

“Tarquin!” he said. “Becky wanted to call him Porter.” I raised my eyebrows. “Her maiden name.” He finished his tea and set the cup down. “What am I going to tell him?”

I thought it over. “Same as Ruby,” I said. “Even if he doesn't really get it. You need to tell them straight and answer all their questions. There's books … ”

He was nodding, but his bottom lip had started to tremble. A tear fell, then another and then, for the first time, he really started to cry. Great big painful sobs. I went over, sat on the arm of his chair, and rubbed his back hard with the flat of my hand.

The flames were dying down by the time he stopped. Gulping and coughing, he sat up, leaned back, and let his head fall against the chair mat again. We were pressed close down our two sides.

“If there's anything at all I can do,” I said. That useless thing folk say.

“There is,” he told me. “You can stay.”

Shit! What was I going to say now?
Oh sorry, I didn't mean it?

“Please, Jess,” he said. “It would mean a lot to me.”

I could hardly answer,
try again with something smaller
. “Of course,” I went for. “I can bunk down on the couch.”

“No,” he said. “I couldn't ask you to do that. I put Ruby in my bed. You can have hers.”

I was on my feet before I knew it.

“I can't!” I said. “I mean, I'm fine on the couch, honest. In case she wakes up and wants to go back to her own room.”

“You're kidding!” he said. “She'd never sleep in her own bed if she had her way.” He peered at me. “What's wrong, Jess?”

“Nothing,” I said. “Absolutely nothing. And even if there was, think I'd bother you about it now? Look, I really should get a taxi. I'll call you tomorrow if you give me your number, but I really should go.”

“Tell me what's wrong,” he said. “Jesus, you're shaking. What's got you this scared, eh?”

Seven

Which is how come
I wound up telling my troubles to a guy I'd just met, who'd hours before ID'd his wife's body after she'd killed herself after years of depression, which makes me the biggest spoilt selfish evil bitch that ever drew in breath to whine with.

“Take your time,” he said.

“You really don't need me dumping my crap—”

“I'm asking what's scaring you,” he said. “Throw me a bone and tell me, eh?”

So I focussed on a spot in the distance and after two deep breaths, I said it very calmly.

“Feathers.” It took ten weeks of counselling (well, seven years of counselling and then the ten weeks that worked) to learn to do that without gagging.

He tried not to look surprised, but he failed.

“Pteronophobia,” I said. “I'm sorry. I know it's nuts. I know it's nothing. I'm sorry.”

“Pteronophobia,” Gus said slowly, trying it out in his mouth. “Is that why you wanted to stay in the kitchen? When we got here?”

All the breath left my body like someone had punched my guts. Never before, not once, had anyone ever done anything except laugh or tell me they preferred foam pillows too.

“Yeah,” I said. “Pillows, duvets, cushions. Those big Ikea couches you get. None of the worst stuff is ever in the kitchen.”

“Is this place okay?” he said, twisting in his seat to look around. “I've never even thought about it.”

“Of course you haven't,” I said, “because you're not insane. This place is fine. I wasn't too keen on the Playmobil knights. Plumes, you know. And I checked that there wasn't carving on the sideboard.”

“God, that must seem sick to you. Carving … them … onto furniture.”

“Just a bit,” I said, still reeling.

“But listen. Ruby's duvet's micro-whatsit, like ours, and her pillow's foam. You'll be fine.”

“Has she got a Barbie?” I said. “Fairy costume? Anything like that?”

“I can't think,” said Gus. “I'll go and check.”

“You shouldn't have to bother,” I said. The guilt was killing me, like it always does but worse. He was off, though. I listened to him quietly open a door and close it again. Waited. He came back into the hall, went out the front door. I could hear his boots on the path. Two minutes later he was back in the room.

“It's fine,” he said. “Come on, I'll come with you and show you. It's all okay.”

“Where did you go?” I asked. He hesitated. “It's all right. You can tell me.”

“Novelty pen,” he said. “It's in the wheeliebin, wrapped in a bag. I didn't want to walk through here with it.”

I gave him a long hard look. I was used to indifference and ridicule. This was freaking me. “Does someone else you know have this?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Why? Is it common?”

“Hardly. Just … nothing. You're … good with people.”

“Look who's talking,” he said. I had no idea what he meant. I had done nothing but boss him around, try to crap out, upset him with my brilliant wrong deductions, and burn his children.

“You were going to tell me how to break it to the kids,” he said. Was I? He had some recall for the state he was in. I couldn't have told you what we were talking about before the …
feathers
… with a gun to my head.

“How far had I got?” I asked him.

“Tell them straight and answer their questions. Mummy loved you both very much but—”

“No!” I said. “God no. That's what my dad always said to me after he left. Don't tell them that whatever you do.”

He put his head on one side and kind of crinkled up his face, looking at me. After a bit he nodded. “My dad said that too,” he told me. “Once. In a letter. Well, a card. He wasn't that touchy-feely, as it goes.”

“It made me want to scream.” I had screamed once, in Abington Services actually. “ ‘I love you more than life, Jessie. I'd die for you, Jessie. I didn't leave you, Jessie. I left your mum.' I always wanted to say, ‘I live in Dumfries, Dad, and you live in Glasgow. How'd you manage that without leaving me? And I don't need you to die. I need you to stay until I'm more than seven.' ” I took a deep breath. “Sorry.” But he was still nodding, a bit faster now.

“No, you're right,” he said.

“I am, as it happens.”

“I totally agree. I don't think it's okay for people to leave. Married people. Dads.” His face clouded. “Mums.”

“Here's what to say,” I told him, thinking Steve would die if he could hear me. “You should tell them that Mummy loved them as much as she could, but she wasn't very good at loving people.” He was nodding again, so I said a bit more. “That she was ill in the bit where the love comes from. That way they won't think loving means leaving. And they won't be as fucked up as—”

“You and me,” he finished for me. “You're totally right.”

“You're totally not fucked up,” I said. But he was thinking, not really listening. I wondered whether to chance my arm all the way. In case I never saw them again after tonight, I'd better.

“You know what they will ask and I've got no idea how to answer?” I said. His head jerked up. “Why you were having another baby if it made her so low she'd do this instead.”

He relaxed a little, but then groaned and shook his head. “You don't know the half,” he said. “After Ruby, I said no more, like I told you. Rubber raincoats.” I blushed and hoped the low light—one lamp and the logs burning—would hide it. “Until one night she jumped me. I'll let you off with the details … but eight months later, Dillon appeared.”

“Weird,” I said. “You'd think she'd be really caref—
Eight
months?”

“Nine pounds five ounces,” said Gus. “Straight blond hair. I'm a ginge and Becky's dark. You tell me.”

“Lots of kids start blond,” I said. “But . . . yeah.”

“And as for this one, she pounced again about three weeks ago,” he said. “And she did the test today. If they do a post-mortem, I'm thinking seven weeks.”

“So Dillon
… ”

He bent over and pressed his head to his knees, like he'd suddenly got cramp out of nowhere. “I forgot him,” he said. “Wee man, waiting in his cot. Oh Christ.”

I stood to come over and sit close to him again, but he waved me back. “I can't cry anymore,” he said. “I'm too tired.”

“It's been some day,” I agreed. This morning I hadn't known him beyond a face to smile at and wish I hadn't. I might have thought I'd known him, from thinking daft things months back, but he was a stranger, really. And now here I was, in his house, talking like his best friend, rubbing his back while he cried. What the hell had happened?

“All in one day,” he said, but of course he didn't mean me. “Pregnant, leaving, missing, dead.” He was frowning into the embers, and he might have said he was too tired to cry but I could see he wasn't too tired to think. His eyes were darting back and forth like he was doing sums in his head or something. “I can't believe how quickly they found her. On that road. She should have lain for weeks.”

Something low down inside me shifted at the thought of it.

“Could have, you mean?” I said.

He nodded absently, then blinked. “What did I say?”

I shook my head, no way I was starting to nitpick again about this now. I didn't understand why talking to him made me so persnickety. “How come she didn't?” I asked instead.

He heaved a sigh that was half a groan, like the first note of a bagpipe striking up, a creepy sound. “A hill walker,” he said. “His dog slipped its lead and went down the bank. I need to try to get in touch
with him and say … thank you, I suppose. For getting it all over
quickly.”

“Better this way?”

“All in one day,” he said again. “Even if it leaves you too tired to cry.” He looked up at me and gave an exhausted smile, all the quick darting looks totally gone. “I'll make a note to cry tomorrow.”

“Safe bet,” I said. “Why don't you go through to your bed? You know where I'll be if you need me.”

I used the bathroom first. Brushed my teeth with my finger, washed my face with my hands, and dried it with Ruby's bath towel. I took some baby lotion for moisturiser and slipped into Ruby's room.

The bed was short, but so am I. I switched off her Ariel lamp and watched the shadows jump as the moonlight took over. I had just closed my eyes when I heard him leave the bathroom and then a knock came at the door.

“Jess?” he said. “I just thought of something.”

“What is it? Come in. Don't wake the wee ones.”

He put his head round the door. “We're right on the beach here,” he said. “There's gulls everywhere, oyster catchers, ducks come down the estuary. Flipping geese sometimes, this time of year.”

“I'm fine with birds,” I said. Now he'd laugh. Surely.

“Oh,” he said. “That's good. Good! I'll just nip out first light and check for sandcastles. You know, sometimes kids decorate the turrets … well, you know. Night-night.”

“Night-night,” I said.

“And Jess?” I waited. “Thanks. Thank you.”

I put my hands behind my head and lay thinking. If it wasn't for the note, if the cops knew about Dillon and the new baby, they'd be asking Gus where he was at three o'clock for sure. Or if her car
had
lain there unnoticed for days and they'd never pinned down the time. But they'd have searched for her after he called, when he found the note. Except he'd never have called if I hadn't made him. And it was a chance in a million that I'd got involved. And heard him talking to her. Like an alibi. Except it was a voice-mail message.

I turned over on my side. Who does that? Talking to a voice-mail message like it's a person.

I curled up tighter and closed my eyes again. Who won't go in a wee girl's room in case she's got Marabou Barbie?

Don't beat yourself up
, I told myself, just like Lauren coached me.
You drove him home. You stayed with the kids. Even if it was because you couldn't get away. You helped him get ready to tell them. You agreed to stay the night, for God's sake. With a complete stranger. And the last thing he said was thank you.
I ran over it again in my head, feeling a little smile start at the memory.
And Jess? Thanks. Thank you.
In the morning I'd tell him it was Jessie, or Jessica for Sunday best. No one except my mother called me Jess. Had I said Jess when I introduced myself? I'd never. Had he just shortened it without thinking? I sat up on my elbows. Something was bothering me. Something was making my heart beat faster. What had I forgotten?

My eyes popped wide open. Of course! That creepy guy that I thought knew my name. I'd never managed to tell Gus he'd been here. What had he said his name was? Started with K. Maybe a C. He'd said he was a friend, but he seemed pretty keen to be sure Gus was out. Maybe he was just Becky's friend. Maybe he was even Becky's
special
friend. No point upsetting Gus about him, in that case. Not when I couldn't even remember his name. Ka-something. Ka-zakhstan, was all I could think of. Kalashnikov, Cossack, kazoo …