Watch Over Me (29 page)

A few days before, I’d received a letter from him with some documents attached. It was a statement from a fund opened by Tom, with me as its beneficiary. The letter said that I’d left my job to concentrate on undergoing fertility treatment, a treatment that took so much out of me, physically and emotionally, that it’d left me unable to work – that much was true. He argued that I’d done that for both of us, that he felt responsible that I had no provision for the future and that the time left in my working life wasn’t enough to provide for my old age comfortably.

I felt a hand squeeze my heart and the little spark of affection I still had for him stirred inside me, a feeling I knew would go away.

I wasn’t going to accept. In a way, I knew he was right in saying that I sacrificed many years trying to achieve something we both wanted. On the other hand, I didn’t want anything from him. I felt sure that once I’d found a better paid job than helping Peggy and looking after Maisie, I was going to be able to look after myself into my old age, as far away as it might seem now.

I knew I’d be all right. My idea of comfort and Tom’s are completely different: he seems to need an awful lot in order to find his life acceptable, while I’m happy with very little, which is something I inherited from Flora and that I’m very proud of.

I’d decided to take some time to think about it and see how events turned out. In the meantime, though, we had to get on with the divorce papers. That involved me going to Southport.

In a way, I was looking forward to it. I hadn’t seen my nieces and nephews in a long time. And I couldn’t wait to go back to my old house and get a few things I’d missed … my books and clothes, lots of bits and pieces that belonged to my old life but that I still wanted to carry into my new one.

I had one ear on Kipper’s adventures, read by Maisie’s silvery voice, and one on my mobile sitting on the table between us. Finally, the phone rang and we both jumped. It was Tom.

‘Sorry, darling, you keep on reading. I won’t be long. Hello?’

I sat on the stairs while Maisie obediently went on reading, occasionally raising her head to look at me.

‘Yes. Yes, I’ll be there first thing. I’m staying with Harry. I’m driving. I don’t know how I feel about going back to Southport. Good and bad, all mixed up. Don’t really want to leave Maisie and Ja … Peggy but they’ll be fine without me. Yes. I’ll see you then. Thanks for letting me know. Bye bye.’

His voice was as familiar as a brother’s. I sat still for a few seconds, contemplating the fact that soon he was to be out of my life forever. Surreal. As if someone had told me that Harry or Katrina were to be out of my life. For a few moments, I felt lost.

I put the phone down and Maisie was looking at me. She was pale and had a strange expression on her face.

‘Maisie? Are you ok?’

She shook her head.

‘Are you not feeling good?’

She shook her head again.

That moment, I heard the keys in the door. It was Jamie.

‘Hello, how’s everyone?’

Before I could say anything, he saw Maisie at the table. With the instinct of a father, he knew something was wrong.

‘Are you ok, sweetheart?’ he said, kneeling in front of her.

‘I have a sore tummy.’

‘Why don’t we go and lie down for a bit, then maybe if you feel any better later on you can have some dinner with us?’ he said, taking her by the hand.

‘I can’t stay, Jamie, I need to pack. Can you phone me later to let me know how she’s doing?’

‘NOOOOOO! DON’T GO!’ Maisie burst into tears and ran to me. Jamie and I looked at each other in shock.

I gave her a cuddle and held her trembling little body.

‘You
can’t
go!’ she wailed.

‘Baby, I’ve got stuff to do tonight, you’ll see me tomorrow and then I’ll only be away for a couple of days. I’ll be back before you know it.’

She disentangled herself from me and looked me in the eye, pale and solemn.

‘You won’t be back.’

‘What? Of course I’ll be back, darling, you don’t need to worry about that!’

But Maisie turned away without a word and ran upstairs.

Jamie and I were left, frozen.

‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset her …’ I whispered.

‘She’ll be fine … I think she’s just worried you’re going for good, you know, like Janet. Or my mum. I suppose she’s got quite a history of people leaving her, in her short life …’

‘Maybe I should stay the night …’ I blushed. ‘I mean …’

Jamie laughed. ‘I know what you mean.’ He put his hands on my shoulders. ‘I want you to stay the night and the night after that and all the nights to come, but let’s do it on our own terms. Go and sort out all you need to sort out, then we’ll be free.’

Free. And a little bit lost. He must have seen something in my face because he held me tight, very tight, as if to state once more that this was where I belonged.

‘Do you want me to come with you? I can come down and back in a day …’

‘No, I have to do this on my own.’

He took my face in his hands and kissed me, a little bit harder than he normally did. With a touch of … possessiveness.

I went out into the windy, chilly spring night and Maisie’s pale wee face haunted me all the way home.

Nobody had seen that coming, not even me. I had no idea that Janet leaving and then me leaving had left such a deep wound in Maisie’s heart. It was so awful to see her like that, pale and frozen with fear, lying awake in her bed.

Jamie and Eilidh had no idea of the depth of her terror. Seldom we realise how intense children’s feelings can be, the intensity of their fear of being abandoned, of being left alone.

Jamie did all he could, brought her a cup of warm milk, tried to convince her to come back down, snuggle up with him on the sofa and watch TV as a special treat, though it was past her bedtime. He told her over and over again that she had nothing to worry about, that Eilidh was going to be back soon.

She didn’t believe him.

Maisie is a happy-go-lucky little girl, more prone to joy than to sorrow, but she had inherited her mum’s intensity of feeling and her emotions can be so strong that they shake her like a gale shakes a young tree.

Jamie went on about his night, had his dinner, tidied up and folded some washing away, and all along, Maisie was sitting on the stairs quietly, waiting for the right time to go.

I sat beside her and whispered in her ear, ‘Don’t go, it’s dark, it’s cold, stay here with Daddy and me … you don’t need to be afraid, she’s not leaving you, she’ll be back.’ But Maisie pretended not to hear me and then she said, with a strong, cold voice that I’d only heard in her mother: ‘I don’t believe you.’

She waited for the right time and, while Jamie was talking to Shona on the phone, she walked out, ever so quietly, out into the night in her pyjamas, and ran on into the street, a little pink figure against the darkness.

Running away from home. The ultimate cry for attention, the ultimate bargaining tool. But actually, I realised, that wasn’t why she’d done it. I followed her as she walked up St Colman’s Way, past the well and into the woods, and saw that she was looking for something.

‘What are you looking for?’ I whispered in her ear.

‘The brooch.’

I knew what she was talking about. She was looking for Eilidh’s brooch, the one that Jamie had made for her when they were children. I recalled the conversation they had that day they went to the Ramsay’s estate, while watching the red deer. How Jamie had told her that he’d made the brooch hoping Eilidh would stay but then didn’t have the courage to give it to her, and she’d gone. He told Maisie that he’d hidden it in the woods behind the well, waiting for her to come back.

Sometimes we forget how children live in a parallel reality, a literal world that has its own logic. This is what Maisie had heard from her dad’s story: I made a brooch for Eilidh so that she wouldn’t go, had I given it to her, she would have stayed, but I didn’t and she went away. In Maisie’s mind, the logical consequence of this was that if she found the brooch and gave it to Eilidh, this time she would stay. The brooch with the deer on it had become magical, it had the power to bind Eilidh to them, and she had to find it. It’d cast a spell on Eilidh and make her stay.

She couldn’t see that the spell had already been cast, that Scotland and Glen Avich and the little family of two had bound Eilidh and that she would never leave. In Maisie’s experience, love or family ties hadn’t been enough to keep the people she loved from leaving.

Maisie was digging with her bare hands, moving dead leaves and branches out of the way. She was cold, her lips were blue and her cheeks were white. I took myself back to Maisie’s room and threw all her books down from her bookshelves, so that Jamie would come upstairs and see the empty bed.

It worked. I watched him jump up in fright and run upstairs to search for Maisie and then, when he didn’t see her, he frantically searched the bathroom, then his room, then downstairs. He flew out of the door to bang at his neighbours’ doors, all the way to Eilidh’s house, and every single person he called came out to look for Maisie.

‘Jamie?’

‘She’s gone!’ His eyes were wide with panic.

‘But how? How did she get out?’ Eilidh’s voice was cold with fear.

‘I don’t know. She was in her bed. I was downstairs. Oh God …’

They hugged briefly, then started searching again. The streets were echoing with Maisie’s name.

I had to find a way to take them to Maisie.

I went to find the fox and whispered to her. She was so brave, so loyal, she ran among all those humans in spite of her instinct begging her to stay away. She stopped in the middle of St Colman’s Way, yellow eyes shining in the darkness. Eilidh, Jamie and the others that were with them stood frozen.

‘That’s the fox I saw just before I had my accident. And that night …’ Eilidh whispered, putting a hand on Jamie’s arm.

The fox was trembling with the effort to stay put, overwhelmed by the voices and the human smell. They recovered from the surprise and walked on towards her. She couldn’t take anymore, her instinct overwhelmed her and she disappeared, as quick as lighting, into the bushes.

‘Wait,’ said Eilidh urgently. Jamie stopped.

The others were a few paces in front of them and Eilidh and Jamie were standing in silence, Jamie’s torch pointed at the ground.

‘Come on, let’s go …’ Jamie shook Eilidh’s arm and went to make a step, but tripped into a small, hard body. A pair of yellow eyes met theirs. The fox jumped aside, into the wood, but was still visible. Then she jumped back onto the road in front of them, then into the wood again.

‘We need to follow her,’ said Eilidh. Thank God, thank God Eilidh had understood.

Jamie looked at her.

Alice through the looking glass, I thought. They’re about to step into my side of reality.

And they did.

I was upstairs packing when I heard the voices in the street. Jamie’s neighbours, Malcolm and Dougie Ross, father and teenage son, were standing outside my window, a torch in Malcolm’s hand, talking loudly to someone I didn’t recognise. A brawl? Malcolm and Dougie? Unlikely. And then I saw Jamie, running down towards our house with a panic-stricken expression. I ran downstairs.

‘What’s going on?’ Peggy came out of the living room while I was opening the door.

‘I don’t know. Something’s wrong.’

‘Eilidh! Maisie’s gone!’ he called.

I quickly put my jacket on and stepped out. ‘Jamie?’

‘She’s gone!’

It took a minute for his words to sink in. How could this have happened?

‘But how? How did she get out?’

‘I don’t know. She was in her bed. I was downstairs. Oh God …’

I held him in my arms. I knew he blamed himself. But how could he have gined …

‘Let’s go,’ I said, and we started walking, calling out her name. A few other men and women had joined us. I looked at my watch: past midnight. It’s so cold and damp, I thought as we walked on. My little Maisie’s in her pyjamas. Please God, please God, let us find her soon.

Please God, keep her away from the loch.

The familiar, comforting words of the prayers I used to recite with my gran at night came back to me and I found myself praying silently, for the first time since I’d lost my baby.

The loch and its dark, still waters …

Jamie and I must have had the same thought because he looked at me.

‘I called the police. They’ll take us down to the loch.’ The last word was a strangled whisper. I felt my knees give way.

‘Don’t go thinking of that now, Jamie,’ said Malcolm gruffly and he walked on, followed by a wide-eyed Dougie, shivering in his denim jacket.

That second, we all froze. A fox had stepped into the street and was watching us, trembling, her eyes reflecting the light of the torches.

A few seconds and the spell was broken. The men walked on. But the fox stood still. When she didn’t move, I realised it was
my
fox, the one I’d seen that time I’d gone up the St Colman’s way at three in the morning, the one I saw just before my accident.