‘What is it then, tell me,’ Alice said once the man had gone, already feeling a wave of relief rushing over her at his passionate denial, able to muster a weak joke: ‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’
He took her hand in his and looked into her eyes. ‘That’s not so far off the mark… On Tuesday last…’ he swallowed, but continued speaking, ‘I discovered that I’m a father. I’ve got a three-year-old son. I knew nothing about him, I promise you. Nothing, I promise you. His mother, Paula, never let me know that she was pregnant. I lived with her for a little while on and off when I was in St Bernard’s Row, but it was never serious for either of us.’
‘Why is she telling you about the boy now?’
‘She isn’t. She didn’t. It wasn’t her. She didn’t tell me, it was her sister. Paula died in a car accident about two months ago…’
‘So, why didn’t you tell me that, about the boy? Why lie?’
He sighed. ‘I don’t know, I’m sorry. I was ashamed, having a child, and having done nothing for it – for him. Like some kind of deadbeat. I did go to London, I promise, but it was to meet his grandparents, talk to them. Before that, on the Wednesday night, I went to the sister’s house, that’s where I was. I saw him for a little while before he went to bed, I talked to her.’
‘So what are you going to do?’ she asked, still trying to digest the news.
‘I don’t know. Get to know him, first of all, I suppose.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘Hamish. Hamish John Melville.’
‘No, Pippa, I’ll do it,’ Heather Brodie said, making no effort to disguise her impatience at her sister’s ineffectuality, ‘I know how it works. It’s got its own idiosyncrasies…’ So saying, she almost barged her sister out of the way, turned the key in the lock and simultaneously pushed the door with her right shoulder. Her forceful tactic worked, and the pair of them walked into Harry Brodie’s flat, a dark and dingy basement in Raeburn Mews. Heather Brodie was feeling annoyed. She had not wanted company on this occasion, particularly on this occasion, and was finding her extended stay with her sister rather a trial.
Pippa was far too neat, too quiet, too set in her ways, and seemed to have nothing better to do than mope about re-arranging her immaculate possessions on a daily basis. And she seemed to have sunk into a decline, ever since that interview with the police. But how many times would she have to repeat ‘It went fine,’ and explain that they had been believed, reassure her that the police would never discover their lies. How much more bloody reassurance could she give? And, for that matter, how much more silent resentment could she endure? And today Pippa had taken to shadowing her. Had she no life of her own? No friends? Were they not living in each other’s pockets enough already?
The cursory inspection Heather Brodie made of the place revealed the expected mess: unwashed clothes strewn on unhoovered carpets, dirty dishes stacked beside the sink, and books and papers scattered throughout as if a strong wind had blown them there.
She was quite accustomed to the sights and smells of her son’s quarters, since every fortnight or so for the past year she had gone there and cleaned them out. Today, however, the squalor of the place struck her with new force. In the company of her sister, she suddenly saw it through her eyes and imagined the thoughts that were likely to be passing through her mind. And Pippa, of course, only had dealings with six- to eight-year-olds, and then only during school hours, so she had, could have, no real experience of a normal nineteen-year-old boy and his habits.
And Harry was certainly entirely normal, the state of his flat testified to that, although it would, no doubt, be considered an abhorrence, an abomination, by his spinster aunt. And, actually, for the record, no amount of discipline, chastisement or reward would have turned him into a tidy boy, she thought crossly to herself, so it had nothing to do with his upbringing or lack of it, and everything to do with his… his character and his heredity. Gavin had been an untidy creature, too, always was.
‘This is disgusting,’ Pippa said, stooping to pick up a greasy frying pan from the top of the television set in the boy’s bedroom.
‘But quite normal – for students,’ her sister replied, evenly.
‘Ella doesn’t keep her flat like this. It’s always immaculate.’ The riposte was immediate.
‘Ella, Ella, Ella! Ella can do no bloody wrong, though, can she, Pippa?’ Heather Brodie said, unable to stop her annoyance bubbling to the surface and exploding as it did every so often. ‘She’s always been your favourite. I know that, Gavin knew that, Harry knows that. Ella too. You don’t even try to hide it. Ever since she was born she’s been perfect as far as you’re concerned, hasn’t she?’ The injustice of it rankled. Only a childless woman would be so blatant in her partiality.
‘Yes, perfect,’ the spinster replied defiantly, bending over Harry’s unmade bed, lifting the duvet up and emitting a horrified gasp as she did so.
‘What is it now?’ Heather Brodie asked.
‘What on earth is that?’ Pippa Mitchelson replied, sounding appalled and holding up a copy of Nuts magazine between her thumb and forefinger, an open centrefold showing a naked girl smiling and cupping her breasts in her hands.
‘They all do it, read it, I mean,’ Heather Brodie said in as matter-of-fact tone as she could muster, taking the magazine from her sister and adding, ‘though not Ella, obviously.’ As she took it a scrap of lined paper fell out and floated down to the floor. In a trice Pippa Mitchelson picked it up, her face breaking into a smile as she said excitedly, ‘It’s a poem, Heather. I’ll read it out, shall I?’
Without waiting for an answer, she cleared her throat and then began chanting out loud in a sing-song voice:
‘In the olden days,
In the golden days,
You held my hand in yours
And led me to the sea,
You did that for me.
But in the new days,
Such black and blue days,
I held your hand in mine
To lead you to the sea,
May the Lord forgive me.’
‘It doesn’t scan very well,’ she said dismissively. ‘D’you think he wrote it? It seems to be in his handwriting.’
‘Yes, yes,’ Heather Brodie answered, impatient to get on with the job in hand, ‘he’ll have written it. He likes poetry. He’s written his own since he was a very little boy. And it scanned perfectly well, Pippa, I thought. He’s good at rhythm, always has been. His English teacher even told me.’
‘No,’ Pippa said, looking at it again, ‘let me see. First line six, no seven, syllables. Second line the same. Third line, nine syllables…’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Pippa!’ Heather Brodie remonstrated angrily, ‘I don’t care how many syllables. We haven’t got time to analyse the poem. We’re supposed to be tidying up his flat. Couldn’t you just finish making the bed?’
‘Very well,’ her sister answered huffily, pulling the rest of the duvet back inch by inch as if afraid she might expose a severed body part. On the other side of the room Heather Brodie opened the curtains, letting daylight flood onto the disordered interior. She lifted a baseball bat from the carpet, disentangling three wire coat-hangers which had become attached to it and each other, and walked towards the door, intending to put it in the hallway. As she was doing so the telephone rang. She dropped everything immediately and picked it up, curious, but also determined that Pippa would not be the one to answer it.
‘Harry Brodie’s flat,’ she said, tension making her sound slightly hostile.
‘Oh, is that you, Mrs Brodie?’ a surprised voice asked, and Heather Brodie immediately recognised the high-pitched tones of Vicky MacSween. The girl was a friend of both of her children and Harry’s current girlfriend.
‘Yes, Vicky, it’s me,’ she said, and hearing the impatience in her own tone, added, in an attempt to make herself sound less intimidating, ‘Can I help you?’