“She’s gone,” he whispered. “She’s left me.”
“Your girlfriend?” I whispered back. I’d assumed he was a divorce case that night with the cakes, assumed he was going round to see his kid at the mum’s, not wanting to turn up empty-handed. “Could take your wee one back to her-” He needed to get over himself and stop spooking his daughter was what I was thinking.
“My wife,” he whispered. “Ruby’s mum. She’s gone.”
“Oh,” I said. Big help.
“Dad?”
“Can you call someone?” I asked him. He lifted one of his feet and his phone was under it, smashed and flattened. “Here,” I said, rummaging. “Use mine.”
“I don’t know any numbers.”
“God, I know,” I said. “Everybody’s on speed dial. If you-” If you stamp on your phone you’ve had it, was what I was going to say.
“I’ve got to go,” he said, pulling himself up, holding onto the shelf. But he swayed, and his ruddy face went grey in streaks under his eyes.
“Yeah,” I said. “Go out and get some fresh air. Do you actually need any of this stuff?” I nodded at the bags of apples and bread rolls around the wee girl’s feet. He nodded. “Do you need anything else?” He just stared at me. “Milk? Tea? Bog roll?”
“Nappies,” he said, and I flicked a glance at the kid in the trolley. I was usually great at guessing ages. “Pull-ups, I mean. Twenty-four to-Oh my God!” And his feet went out from under him again. He sat down like a load of washing someone had dropped there, right down on the floor.
“Okay,” I said. Too bad if I offended him. I twisted the cap off the posh juice. “Have a slug of this, it’s pure sugar. Are you in a car? Yeah? Well, you can’t drive. Take the wee one outside-Ruby, is it?-and I’ll get your shopping and meet you. I’ll drive you home.” I lifted Ruby out of the trolley, setting her down on her feet, waiting for her hands to let go of my arms, once she was steady. “What kind of car is it?”
“Skoda,” he mumbled, standing again.
“Go,” I told him. “I’ll get this. For real this time.”
“What?” His eyes were blank in his blank face.
“Doesn’t matter.”
He didn’t remember me. No clue. Not from the cakes day, or the time he’d been in the Project, or even the day I’d been skulking about the library when he was getting those copies done, and I thought for sure he’d clocked me that time. He must have looked away like that, quick and sure, because… because he doesn’t smile back at strange women who smile at him in Marks and Spencer’s food hall? Because he’s a happily married man? Not anymore he wasn’t, from the sound of things. Or maybe his wife was the jealous type? Only it looked like she’d set him free.
I stood and watched as he walked away. He was bent over to one side a bit so he could steer his daughter with a hand on her back, and it made him look kind of broken, like he kind of was.
There was no sign of them at the back door. I scanned the street both ways, looking for a Skoda, wishing I’d asked what colour instead of what kind. But there was no one sitting in any of the parked cars. Maybe he’d hoofed it; maybe these apples and nappies were mine to keep now. I almost went back inside to get a refund-good old Marks-and go out through the front and home. Then I wondered. Irish Street, the back street, was all offices and permits. He’d never have parked right here. He’d be down in the proper car park at the Whitesands, like everyone else. Because, even while I was standing there, I could see that this time of day, half-past five, everybody was headed down there. Like Irish Street was draining out through the side alleys, people all pouring the same way down to the river.
Worth a try, I told myself. Last thing he needs is another let-down now. So I hoisted the shopping bags off the wall and joined the stream. Funny thing, though. You’d think at half-past five folk would be tired-plodding back to their cars-but I was getting passed, people hurrying nearly, and there was a bit of a thrum going. At the bottom of the street, they all crossed the wide road, edged around the rows of parked cars, and made for the railings. I followed them with my eyes, and there he was. His car-a battered hatchback, no hubcaps, paint dulled down to a matte finish with age-was right by the edge, and he was leaning against the door, facing the water. Staring down into the water, in fact, so I hurried, scuffling over the four lanes with the bags hitting my calves, swept up in all the crowd hurrying with me.
Ruby was strapped into a booster seat, still holding the bag of figs-shoplifted without me noticing-but not eating, and he was looking straight down into the water, like I said. He was the only one, though. The folk who’d hurried down the alleys were staring at the far bank and taking pictures with their phones. On the other side of the river, a police van and an ambulance were parked on the grass, half a dozen guys in high-vis jackets milling about.
“What’s going on?” I asked him.
“Divers,” he told me. As he said it, two heads popped up like seals from the rolling grey of the river, and the high-vis jackets lined up at the fence to look over. The crowd on this side made a noise all together like they’d been practising.
“Poor buggers,” I said. “It’d take more than a wetsuit and mask before I’d jump in the Nith. Has somebody hoyed a dead dog off the bridge again?”
He shrugged. I put the bags in the boot and got in behind the wheel. He slid in to the passenger side.
“Seatbelt,” I said. He didn’t move. “Seriously, when you see me reversing out of this space, you’ll wish you had.” But his lips didn’t so much as twitch. “What’s your address?”
“That’s a lot of cops for a dead dog,” he said.
I looked in the mirror. “What’s your address, hunny-bunny?” Fingers crossed it wasn’t too far.
“Fifteen stroke three Caul View, Dumfries,” she said, triumphant.
“Clever cookie,” I told her. Caul View was just across the river. Five minutes away, even in Dumfries’s excuse for a rush hour, as long as the road wasn’t closed for the divers. In fact, if the dead dog had been lobbed in off a balcony instead of the bridge this time, a Caul View balcony was a contender.
As I had that thought, I felt a wee cold trickle of something down inside. Why would that be? Maybe it came from the way he was staring at the cops and divers. And what he’d said too. That’s a lot of cops for a dead dog. Just for a minute I was glad we weren’t alone, him and me. I caught Ruby’s eye again and smiled.
“Caul View, eh?”
“Only but we moved,” she said. “To the seaside.”
“Right,” I answered. “Okay. Listen, sweetie, what’s your daddy’s name?” He was still sitting like a carved rock beside me.
“Daddy,” she said. I remembered thinking that about my dad too.
“Okay, Daddy,” I said, tapping him on his knee. I started the engine and put the car in gear. “Where am I going? Eh? Say Becky’s not finished packing yet? Where will we go to find her?”
“Bypass,” he said, at last. “A75 to Stranraer.”
“Right,” I said again, thinking I’d already shelled out for Marks and Spencer’s pull-up nappies and, even if I felt like a pig for asking, I’d need him to chip in for my taxi back. The chances of getting a bus after dark were exactly nil.
I’d no idea how long it would be before the next time I went home.
Three
And how weird is it that I enjoyed the journey? He never said another word for twenty miles and Ruby went into a car trance, thumb in her mouth and eyes glazed, but I like driving and I don’t get to do it much. I hadn’t been out of Dumfries for weeks, hadn’t been west since spring, and I could feel the town lifting off me in big grey flakes, like that kiddy-on microscope film from the washing powder advert, that shows the dirt floating away.