Watch Over Me (27 page)

‘I didn’t mean I’d look after her myself. I meant I’ll get a private nurse, for as long as she needs one.’

‘And who’ll pay for it? She hardly has a penny to her name, she won’t take anything from Tom. And don’t expect us to pay if she stays up here.’

‘I’ll pay, of course.’

‘Yes, sure, you’ll pay. For a private nurse,’ she said sarcastically.

‘Actually, I will.’

She stopped for a second, surprised.

‘She’s coming back with us,’ she repeated.

‘Ask her.’

I left Rhona standing in the hospital car park and drove away in a rage.

‘She just wants to make sure Eilidh’s well looked after …’

‘No way, Shona. She’s got an agenda, I’m telling you.’

‘Jamie, it’s not like you to speak like this. I think you’re misunderstanding her. Give her a chance.’

‘You should have seen her face.’

‘The priority here is Eilidh’s well-being.’

‘Exactly. They want her back in their clutches. They’ll eat her alive.’

‘Jamie, what are you talking about? That’s Rhona Lawson, we know her. She’s all right, she’s not a monster.’

‘I just want Eilidh to choose where she wants to be.’

‘I know. I know. Don’t worry. Right, have to go. Must get girls ready for bed. I’ll phone you tomorrow. Oh, and Jamie?’

‘Yes?’

‘I’m so glad you’re staying.’

After I put down the phone, I sat on the sofa, both agitated and shattered, full of relief and worry all mixed up. At least she’s alive and there’ll be no long-term damage. That’s what the doctor said. And she wants to be with me.

She wants to be with me! This called for a celebration. I poured myself a glass of sparkling water and squeezed some lemon juice in it. I looked at the glass in dismay.

This does call for a celebration, a real one. Not a lonely pouring of glass after glass but not sparkling water either.

I went to the kitchen and unburied my treasure. Twenty-five-year-old Lagavullin. Drinking it is like a long, lingering, passionate kiss. Fire and wind and peat and sea, all mixed together.

The fire was on, the lights all out but a couple of table lamps and the blue reflection of Maisie’s night light on the landing. No noise but the wind outside and the occasional shiver of fire, the way peat fire does, like a hissing shudder, not like the crackling of logs.

I closed my eyes to savour the first sip …

Then someone knocked at the door. Oh, no. Please no small talk tonight.

But thankfully, it was Silke.

‘Hi. You ok? Wasn’t sure you’d want company but I was driving by and I thought I’d stop for a moment.’

‘Great, come in. I just opened a cracking whisky, you have to taste this. Come and sit down. I’ve got quite a few things to tell you …’

One dram later, I’d told her everything. About Eilidh asking me to stay and Rhona’s reaction, how I was hoping Eilidh would choose to stay with Peggy and I’d get a nurse to look after her …

‘Fiona could do it.’

‘Do you think?’

‘Yes, you know she’s a qualified nurse, don’t you? She qualified a wee while ago.’ I love Silke’s Scottish sayings delivered with a German accent. ‘She found a post down south but didn’t take it up because of me. Then she looked after Mary for a bit. I don’t know what she’s doing now, we haven’t spoken since we broke up.’ She was looking into her glass.

‘Do you think I could phone her?’

‘Sure, why not.’

‘But if she accepts, would you mind having her around here?’

‘I would love having her around here. God, I would just totally and completely
love
having her here. I miss her … You see …’

We were up talking until two in the morning. There was one dram of whisky for me, two for Silke, and the rest was milky tea. I wasn’t taking any chances. The smiler with a knife, even in its beauty and infinite pleasure, will always be out to get me.

And I won’t let it.

It’s always strange when the real person crosses paths with its memory, the shadow trapped in the traumatic moment. It’s like seeing double. As if being a ghost wasn’t surreal enough, we see all these things – many that I have no words to describe.

And now, I see one Fiona sitting on that step again, on the phone, right next to the other Fiona, the broken-hearted one, holding the necklace.

‘Yes, we heard. Thank goodness. No, I’m not sure what I’ll do next, I’ve just been helping my mum in the salon really. Yes. I’d love to do that. Will I be able to stay with Peggy? That’s kind of her. Great. Give me a call when Eilidh gets out. Oh and Jamie? Can you thank Silke from me … I mean, so nice of her to get me this job. Yes, I do have her number. Yes, of course, you must be snowed under, and of course, she’d like to hear it from me. Will do. No, seriously, I will. Seriously.’

One Fiona smiling, one Fiona sobbing, sitting side by side …

A summit had been called. A meeting on neutral ground, Peggy’s house.

It was ten days since Eilidh had woken up and she was doing well, so well that the doctor said she could come home soon. But, whose home? Her parents wanted her in Southport with them, she said she wanted to stay with Peggy and I was fighting her corner. For both her interest and mine.

We were all sitting on Peggy’s sofas, an untouched cup of tea in each of our hands.

‘It’s very simple really. She’s a grown woman, she says she wants to stay, let her stay.’

‘Jamie, you must understand. She nearly died. She has to be with her family.’

‘Simon, Peggy is her family, too, and this is her home.’

‘What are you talking about?’ shouts Rhona, ready to turn it all into a fight. ‘Southport is her home! She only came up here because she lost her mind.’

‘She came here determined to build a new life and she did.’

‘Look, Jamie,’ said Simon, trying to sound reasonable. ‘It all comes down to Eilidh’s safety, really. Where do you think she’ll be better looked after, here with an elderly woman’ – indignant noise from Peggy – ‘and someone we barely know—’

‘Your wife’s family has known me since I was born!’

‘Actually, I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about this nurse, this … Fiona. You’re not even in the equation. You’re not her family – what
are
you, her new boyfriend?’ All pretence of civility gone.

‘I’m not her boyfriend. But we’ve been close since she came up. I’m just trying to stick up for her—’

‘Now everybody QUIET!’

Peggy?

‘This is my house you’re shouting in. I won’t have you behaving like this under my roof. We’re all going to calm down … Excuse me. …’ The doorbell had gone.

The second Peggy left the room, Rhona started again.

‘If you think you can do this, Jamie, you can think again. She’s had a bloody breakdown, she was in hospital, now she ends up under a car, she’s clearly incapable of making decisions for herself. She’s coming to Southport with us, whether she likes it or not. Any doctor would say so—’

‘Eilidh, under a car? What are you talking about?’

A tall, blond-haired man had entered the room and was staring at us, his eyes darting from one person to the next. He looked shocked.

‘Tom! What are you doing here?’ exclaimed Rhona.

‘What happened? What happened to Eilidh? Why didn’t anyone call me?’

‘Call
you
? You lost the right when you went off with that woman!’

‘Can someone tell me what’s happened?’ Tom’s hands were shaking. He was as pale as a ghost.

‘Eilidh had an accident. She was hit by a car,’ intervened Simon.

‘Oh my God! Is she ok?’

‘She is now. She’s still in hospital. She’s due to come home soon …’

‘Can I see her?’

‘Over my dead body, Tom, you’d just upset her and she’s too weak right now,’ growled Rhona.

‘
She
asked me to come up. To discuss … our divorce.’ Peggy had sat him down with a glass of whisky, his hands were shaking and he was pale, but he was remarkably calm.

‘You can discuss things when she’s better. Now is really not the time,’ said Simon.

‘I understand. I won’t upset her. But if only I could see her—’

‘You
can’t
see her,’ said Rhona and then turned to me. ‘
And
she’s coming down with us.’

‘It’s her call, Rhona. She decides if she wants to see Tom and where she wants to be.’ Peggy’s gentle voice silenced everybody.

‘Like I said, she’s incapable. Any doctor would say that she can’t look after herself, that she can’t make decisions—’

‘What?’ intervened Tom. ‘Eilidh can very well make decisions, Rhona. She sounded … fine when we spoke on the phone. She was determined. She wanted things to move forward, a fresh start.’

‘And that’s why she threw herself under a car?’

‘She didn’t! It was an accident!’ I said, trying not to raise my voice. ‘There was sleet on the road, she slipped and fell …’

‘Rhona, on the phone with me last week, Eilidh didn’t sound like someone who wanted to die,’ Tom intervened, in a calm, authoritative voice. He had a subtle Manchester accent that made his voice pleasant to the ear. ‘When we spoke, she was well determined to live. I believe … him …’ He looked at me. ‘I believe that this was an accident.’

‘I’m Jamie,’ I said and awkwardly shook his hand.

Our eyes met and he knew. We both looked away. This wasn’t the time to start locking horns and we both understood that.

‘Rubbish. We’ll speak to the doctor, they’ll say she’s not in her right mind and we’ll take her with us.’

‘I
am
a doctor, Rhona,’ said Tom calmly. ‘And I’ll say that she is indeed in her right mind and that she can choose where to stay. I’ve known you for quite a few years now and I think you’re using this suicide farce to get your own way.’

Silence.

‘Are you siding with
him
? Her boyfriend?’

Tom winced. ‘I’m siding with
her
. I’ve hurt her enough. She needs me now. I’m going to the hospital, she’ll choose whether to see me or not. I’ll ask her where she wants to be and that you’ll comply with.’

Nobody spoke.

‘Thanks, Peggy. I’ll see myself out.’

And he left.

Oh my God, I thought. What if she sees him and realises she still has feelings for him … What if the shock of the incident made her change her mind about the divorce …

An abyss opened in my mind and I needed some fresh air. I walked out with a muttered farewell to Peggy, away from the Lawsons and their power games.

I couldn’t wait to see him. I couldn’t wait to face the pain, the grief I’d feel looking into his face and knowing it was all over, then get on with the rest of my life.

People were surprised I didn’t seem angry about the affair but the grief for my lost baby was so all consuming, it didn’t leave room for anything else. I had no feelings left for him. Actually, no feelings left at all.

That night when I had knocked at Peggy’s door, I barely had the energy left to exist. It was such a huge effort just to breathe, and to eat, and to keep myself alive. But as life started flowing back into me and I started feeling things again, the anger came. Not because I loved him – love had gone a long time ago – but for the sheer humiliation. I was positively furious. With him, for cheating. With me, for putting up with it so that we could get on with our IVF.

But when he walked into the room, there was no anger. It was Tom, the Tom I’d known forever, his blond hair sticking up on one side as it always did, his eyes full of concern. It was my husband and all the anger somehow flew away.

‘Eilidh …’ He came to sit beside me and held both my hands, as if nothing had happened, as if he’d never hurt me.

To my surprise, I held his.

‘How are you feeling? I just found out now, I was at Peggy’s … I tried to phone you but your mobile had been switched off for ages …’

‘I’m so glad you’re here …’

‘You
are
?’

I nodded.

‘Darling, you won’t believe how much my life has changed. I’m on my own. It’s over … you know … It’s all over. I resigned from a few things, I’m ready to spend more time with you.’

‘Remember the cradle?’

‘Our cradle? Yes …’

‘It was made here. I mean, in Glen Avich.’

‘Oh, Eilidh … That is so weird … I can’t believe it … When Ian gave it to me, he didn’t tell me … What a strange coincidence that it’s been made where your family’s from …’

‘I saw it in Jamie’s workshop. It was like a nightmare. I ran out and didn’t see the car. I tried to jump out of the road but I slipped in the snow …’