“She was so happy!” said Miss Colquhoun, over the rabble. “Out at that cottage, by the sea. Making her garden, fixing the place up. She was a really lovely person, you know. So much to live for and such a great mum.”
I nodded, turning my lips down at the corners, mirroring her look, agreeing. Of course Becky King would suddenly be a wonderful mum, devoted and blissfully happy, so much to live for. Or maybe she had talked a good game while she was alive and had the teachers fooled. It wouldn’t be the first time.
“What time d’you call this?” said Dot, “as my friend Irene would say.” She always does that. If she gets nippy, it’s in Irene’s name. Dot herself-this is the idea-wouldn’t say boo.
“I know, I know,” I said. I dumped my bag and started up the computer before I even took my coat off or went through to the scullery to check the scone situation. “But I’ve had a very unusual time since I left here yesterday.” And it seemed more unusual than ever now that I was back in my real life again. Like a dream. I jumped at a sound coming from the back room. The bosses-Father Tommy and Sister Avriclass="underline" they who can sign cheques-usually stayed in the office up at St. Vince’s and left us alone as long as we filled in our sheets on time.
“Is Monsignature here?” I asked.
Monsignature was one of Dot’s best near-misses, and a better name for a priest with a chequebook I couldn’t imagine.
“Steve’s doing the bags,” said Dot and fluttered a hand at her neck. “We got a wee bit muddled.” In other words, Dot turned up for Steve’s shift. “I’m meeting my friend Irene for lunch, so there was no point me traipsing home and back. I’ll just stay. How d’you mean, unusual?”
“Did you hear on the radio that a car went off the road at Wanlockhead?” I asked her, deleting all the junk mail from the inbox.
“I did,” said Dot. “That’s a terrible road. Makes me as carsick as anything.”
“Well, it was a friend of mine,” I said. “Or the wife of a friend of mine anyway. I was with him.”
“You were in the car?” said Dot on a rising shriek. “Oh dear. Oh Jessie pet. Steve! Jessie’s been in a car crash.”
“Dot, no!” I said. “You’ve picked up the wrong-”
“What’s up?” said Steve, coming through from the back with the water cup for our iron in his hand.
“Did they keep you in? You shouldn’t be at work straight out of the hospital, Jessie.”
“I was with my friend Gus when he heard that his wife had been killed,” I said, very slowly and loudly, the way you need to when Dot’s really birling.
“Is that who the police were fishing out the Nith at the Whitesands?” she said, clutching me.
“Why were you in the hospital?” said Steve.
“I wasn’t. I had to babysit their kids while he went to identify the body, and then I stayed the night in case… ”
“Oh dear goodness me,” said Dot, which was quite strong language for her. “A local lass was this? What was the name?”
“King,” I said. “Local, I think. Gus King. Don’t know her own name.” Although Gus had said it, hadn’t he? She’d wanted to give it to Dillon. I tried to remember, and Dot started clacking through her mental rolodex for Kings, but it was Steve who came through.
“Gus King?” he said. “Our age?” I nodded. “Big guy with red hair? Artist.”
“That’s him,” I said.
“I didn’t know you knew him,” said Steve.
Until that moment, I hadn’t realised I’d lied. I’d said “a friend” because… because over the course of the night and morning it had started to seem that way.
Many times since, I’ve thought back to that moment. That fork in the road. If I had put that lie back in my mouth right then, if I’d said: Hang on. Rewind. I didn’t actually know him this time yesterday. If I’d tried to explain it to Dot and Steve, I’d have failed. And failing to get them to understand, I’d have started to question it myself. And then I’d have climbed back up the cliff I was falling down, stepped away from the edge, and got clear. And what would have happened then? Who would have lived, and who’d have died? I’ve wondered many times and I’ll never know.
“So you know him too?” was what I said.
“I know his brother,” said Steve.
“Is he another artist?” said Dot. “Talented family.”
“No, the other one’s a headcase,” Steve said. “Or he was when he was wee.” That explained the language, then. It was a throwback to Steve’s childhood, when people were headcases instead of Mental Health Service users.
“Were you at school with him?” I said. “Gus doesn’t say much-makes you wonder.”
“Cubs,” said Steve. “And the less said, the better.”
“Whae’s this?” We hadn’t noticed a client coming in. It was one of our repeat customers-Buckfast Eric. He was a harmless alcoholic who could always rely on Father Tommy when his overcoat got the usual “organic stains.”
“Honest to God, Eric,” I said. “If you’d have a bag of chips and a pint of milk before you started, you’d keep it down.”
“It’s not that this time, ye cheeky besom,” Eric said. “I fell over in the park and sat in dog’s dirt.”
Dot shuddered.
“Nice,” I said. “Just gets us in the mood for our coffee.”
“You’re very kind,” said Eric, settling himself down on the shoe-trying-on chair. “And who are we bitching up today, pardon my French, ladies.”
“Gavin King,” said Steve. “Jessie knows his brother. Stayed out Heathall way. His dad worked at Hunter’s.”
“Oh, I know who you mean now,” said Dot. “But they moved years ago. I think it was”-she lowered her voice-“divorce. Very sad. And he got a transfer, and she wasn’t far at his back and went to Lancashire. Somewhere on the coast. And so this is her daughter-in-law, is it? And children too?” She went clucking off to make the coffee.
“But Gus isn’t like the rest of them,” I said. “He’s a sculptor.”
“A sculptor,” said Eric. “A right sculptor-marble and a chisel-or does he put stale bread in a old toilet and sell it for millions?”
“You’re a Philistine, Eric,” I said. Going by what had been said about seaside scenes, though, I reckoned he’d got Gus’s number.
“I might well be, but I’d rather be a Philistine with no shite on me. So if you can show me what you have in a 40/32 trouser, I’d be very grateful.”
Steve and I both recoiled.
“Are you telling me you’ve got kak on those breeks you’re wearing now?” I said. “Get up off our chair then, you manky old toe rag. God almighty!”
“Jessie!” said Steve. “Your tone is completely inappropriate and unprofessional.”
“Our Lord himself washed the feet of the poor,” said Dot, coming back with the coffee tray.
“He wouldn’t have touched Eric’s,” I said.
Steve glared, but Eric only said, “You’re not wrong, Jessie hen. I’ve an infected toenail that would turn the milk.”
In other words, it was a pretty typical morning. Dot with her shift wrong, Steve bugging me, Eric being Eric. And the comfort of it all stopped me thinking. I nicked some undies from stock and changed in the toilets, and only for a little sliver of a second did I look at myself in the mirror and ask the questions that were rumbling away deep down inside. How did I get so far into something that was nothing to do with me? Why did I lie to Dot and Steve? How would I phrase it when I went back tonight, my kind but firm good-bye? Then the phone rang and I went to answer it, expecting Father Tommy or a donor or the usual. But it was Miss Colquhoun from Townhead Primary telling me to come right away.
Ruby had lasted through the morning song and chosen a jigsaw for her quiet time, but then she’d had a pretty nuclear meltdown, going by Miss Colquhoun’s account, when one of the other kids said her mummy was dead like a ghost and the worms would eat her.