‘God almighty, Douglas, is it you? Is it really you?’
I nodded and stood like a child in front of his torn dreams. Her long river of black hair had been chopped at the neck by a pair of blunt scissors. A fringe sliced across the pale skin of her wrinkled brow. Her black eyes were framed by sad shadows and crow’s-feet. It was as if a bad fairy had cursed her and sprinkled ageing dust over her. The fire and challenge in her eyes had been replaced with all the cares in the world. And who was I to say she didn’t own them? Her slim frame in her cardigan and loose skirt looked thin, pinched. Was this the lithe body I’d once held? Did she once wrap those dancer’s limbs around me? Her heat enough to scorch my defenceless skin?
In that defining instant, all the anger and longing dissolved and I was left with nothing but pity for this stranger who’d stolen some of the features of a girl I used to know. She was shaking her head and putting her hand out in front of her like a blind woman feeling her way. Her huge eyes were filling and the dark pools underneath each one became more pronounced.
‘It’s too much. It’s a’ too much. I cannae… I just cannae…’
I went to her and pulled her to me, and felt her thin breasts press against me and wept inside for what had happened to her and for what might have been.
‘Fiona, whisht, it’s OK. It’s just me. Just Douglas. Can we talk? For a wee while?’
She shuddered and pulled away. She took a hankie out of her sleeve and dabbed her eyes. She straightened. ‘Sorry. There’s been that much. I never thought I’d see you. Not here. Not now. I’m such a mess, look at me. Look, you’d better come in.’ She smoothed her skirt and blew her nose and held the door open.
It was a typical two-roomed house. Kitchen cum living room and good room beyond. The curtain was pulled across the bed in the wall in the living room. We sat at a tiny wooden table with a blue and white checked waxcloth covering. The place was heavy with smoke. She bustled around and made us tea, all the time with a cigarette going. While we waited for the tea to mask, we began our dance.
‘How have you been, Douglas. What happened to your face?’
‘I’ve been fine. The face? A sort of fishing accident. And you? How are you keeping…?’
And so on, until we came to the heart of the matter, the unquiet heart.
‘I can’t tell you how sorry I was to hear about Rory. It was just terrible.’
Her eyes filled and she shook her head, too charged to speak.
‘Look, I’d better tell you why I’m up here. Hugh got hold of me. He phoned me-’
She waved at me to stop. ‘I ken, I ken. I heard you were helping that lawyer woman.’
‘I’m sorry, Fiona-’
‘It’s OK, so it is. It’s OK, Douglas. You’re doing the right thing.’
I looked at her. I’d been expecting her to turn into a wild woman, accusing me of helping her son’s killer. But she was calm and gazing at me steadily.
‘Am I?’
She nodded. ‘That pair man. What happened to his lovely face.’ She forced a teary smile on her face. ‘You and Hugh were that handsome. The pair of you could have had ony lassie at the dance. You still could.’
‘I only wanted you.’ I regretted it instantly.
She shook her head. ‘Douglas Brodie, if I had a pound for every time I wished I could have turned back the years, why, I’d be sitting in Culzean Castle the now.’
I smiled, remembering our youthful fantasies of the high life. ‘With butlers bringing high tea. Fancy cakes and hot scones.’
‘And cream and strawberry jam.’
We gazed at each other in a smiling thoughtful way for long seconds. I wondered what she meant. Had she just said she wished we’d never parted? I’d never understood. Never asked her why. Was she saying it had been a mistake? That I should have fought for her instead of walking away? That would be too cruel all round. I blinked.
‘About Hugh…’ I began.
She waved me quiet. ‘He didnae do it, Douglas. I know that.’ She sat upright in her certainty, and dared me to argue. How could I? For a brief moment her eyes flashed with the nerve and defiance of the girl who’d speared my open heart on the dance floor.
‘How do you know?’
‘It’s no’ in him. No’ Hugh.’
‘He might have changed.’
She shook her head. ‘Folk don’t change. No’ really.’
‘It’s not much to build a defence on.’
She gazed at me for a while. ‘He told me never to say this…’
‘What?’
‘It doesnae matter now.’
‘Tell me, Fiona. We need anything and everything we can.’
She studied her teacup, and then looked up at me. ‘Have you seen a photo of Rory?’ She got up and walked to the mantelpiece. She took down a cardboard-framed photo and placed it on the table in front of me. I held the black and white in both hands. A young boy with a big cheeky grin and dark hair.
The boy I used to play soldiers with.
TWENTY-SEVEN
At last I spoke. ‘Did Hugh know? I mean before you left him? I mean…’
She sat down. ‘Hugh and I were always having rows. Half of them were about you, Douglas Brodie, if you must know. He was drinking a lot. All that free stuff from the cooperage. We finally broke up and I met another fella, an older fella, Jimmy Hutchinson. His wife had died. I didn’t know I was pregnant. Jim and me got married. He was a good man. I always think he knew about Rory.’
I took out my cigarettes and we both took one. ‘Did you tell Hugh?’
She blew smoke into the air. ‘No. Sleeping dogs and all that. Then the bloody war came. The bloody Nazis took my Jim and they… well, you saw what they did to Hugh.’
‘When he came back, when you saw him again, did you tell him then?’
She scoffed. ‘There was nae need. The first time he saw Rory, he knew.’ She pointed at the photo.
I took my time working out how to ask her the next question. There was no easy way.
‘You don’t think, even though he knew he was Rory’s dad, that…?’
She said calmly, ‘That he did it to spite me? That it was some horrible, revenge thing? You should have seen them together, Douglas. And after, when Rory went missing, he was like a wild man. Worse than me, even.’
‘But why didn’t this come out at the trial, for God’s sake! It could have changed everything!’
‘You think so? You never saw those polis. They were going to get him no matter what. Besides…’
‘Besides what?’
She sighed. ‘Hugh didnae want it brought up. Said it wouldnae help and might look even worse for him. A father doing that to his own son. And how the Procurator Fiscal would spin the story, just like you were suggesting. And any road…’
‘And?’
‘He said I’d had enough. That I didn’t need bad things being said about me. And Rory shouldn’t have his name linked to his, if things went really bad. As if it mattered.’ Her eyes were filling again. ‘As if it bloody mattered!’
I let her dry her face. ‘What about the drugs? You knew about the heroin?’
‘Oh aye. But he was coming off that muck. It didnae really affect him. No’ like when he used to be fu’, for example. He just went calm and easy after he’d taken some stuff.’
‘So there was no time you were worried about leaving Rory with…’
‘With a junkie? Is that what you mean? No. It wisnae like that. Never.’
‘Fiona, did you ever know who gave him the stuff? Who was the dealer?’
‘Oh aye. Everybody kent that.’
I knew the answer of course.
‘Gerrit Slattery.’
*
I left the tenement and began walking back to Sam’s place. I left behind a great big pile of ‘if only’s’. But that way madness lies. Once we take certain turnings, once we make certain choices, there’s no way back to a time or a place or a person. We start down diverging paths and become changed in the process. Distance lends objectivity, but distorts perception. And then it’s gone. No turning back. The seventeen-year-old part of me would never be over the young Fiona. But the woman of thirty-four held no answer for me.