With his scientist’s knowledge, he had been able to show them layers and layers of life that most people never even imagined existed, let alone experienced. She smiled as she remembered the day, soon after that awful scene on the street with the Johnsons, when they’d taken Beckie to the Botanic Gardens and Alec had picked a leaf off a beech hedge and explained that two cells shaped like lips formed the pores that let gases and water in and out of the leaf. When the cells were swollen with water, they were like the lips of women who had had too much Botox and couldn’t close their mouths: the pore was forced open. And when there was a drought, enzymes and hormones acted to expel potassium ions and water from the pore cells so that they shrank and closed the pore to stop water escaping.
‘The world is a wonderful place, Beckie,’ he had said. ‘And when you take notice of something wonderful in it – how this leaf protects itself, or what a fossil inside a rock did when it was alive millions of years ago, or why a bird sings – you get a little bit of the wonderful to have for yourself, no matter what not-so-wonderful things might be going on in your life at the time.’
And then Beckie, of course, had wanted to know all about why birds sang, and they had gone round the Gardens listening out for robins as Neil explained that robins had territories all the time, not just in summer, so they sang all year round – except when they were moulting in late summer and felt vulnerable – in order to tell other birds to keep off.
Was there a robin where Beckie was, to sing for her? Did you even get robins in Spain? And Beckie would probably object: ‘It wouldn’t be singing for me anyway. It would be singing to tell other birds to get lost.’
She set the binoculars down on the windowsill.
Was she happy, with Caroline? Did she hate Flora now? Or was she wondering Why?
Why doesn’t Mum come and get me?
Flora’s hand went to her pocket, her fingers closing round the smooth length of the flick-knife Wendy’s partner Sol had procured for her.
I will come.
I will come for you, my darling.
I will come.
38
‘Corrigan!’ I yell.
Wee fucker’s jumped in the pool on Jordaine’s head and she’s yowling.
‘Right yous, picnic’s ready so get your arses outta there, aye? Ryan son, you coming?’
‘Naw Maw, I’m gonnae hit the gym.’ He’s never out that fucking gym.
‘Carly and Willow are gonnae be done at WaterBabies 12:20, 12:30 at the latest, but dinnae get there till one, aye? Place gets locked up so she’s gonnae have to fry her arse out on that pavement. Maybe teach the bint a fucking lesson.’ Princess Fucking Carly cannae drive cos why should she, she’s got three fucking brothers chauffeuring her arse any place she needs to go.
Ryan chuckles. ‘She’ll be a wee ray of sunshine, eh?’
‘Aye, and that reminds me, go and tell Madison she’s fucking coming on this fucking picnic.’
Ryan sits up on the lounger and takes off his shades. I cannae get used to the shaved head and blue contacts. Aye, he needs to lie low, but Christ on a cheesy biscuit. He looks like a fucking skinhead.
‘Can Connor no go? Or Mandy?’
‘Better coming from you, son.’
He loves Bekki to bits and he’s gutted she’s feart of him and doesnae want a bar of him because of all the shite she’s read on the net about Ryan being wanted for murdering her da. After all he’s done for her, it’s a kick in the fucking teeth. He cannae ever go back to the UK.
And aye, I’ve telt Bekki over and over that it’s all shite, that it was Flora killed her da and she knows it, but just in case that wean’s got it in her heid she’s going to the polis and that? I’m ‘Polis catch up with us, you’re going into fucking care, Bekki, cos that fucking woman doesnae want you back, right?’
Ryan gets up and gets on his flip-flops but then here’s Bekki running out the patio doors giving it ‘He killed Dave!’
Dave’s her hamster. She’s got the wee fucker in her hand, and I can see from here it’s an ex hamster right enough. Brains chirted out its wee heid.
‘Aw Jesus,’ goes Mandy.
I yell, ‘Corrigan!’
‘It wasn’t Corrigan,’ goes Bekki. ‘It was that fucking old alky bastard!’
And there’s Jed coming out the patio doors behind her, pissing himself laughing. ‘It was an acccccc-ident so it was.’
‘No it wasn’t! I poured his vodka down the sink and he must have gone and got Dave out of his cage and stood on him!’
‘Right you.’ I’m in Jed’s face. ‘This is your last fucking warning, right? You leave the wean alone, and that includes all of her belongings, right? You leave her be or you’re outta here, and you think I’m fucking joking? Aye, go to the polis then, you think we havenae got a contingency plan? They’re never catching up with us but you go to the polis and that’s your arse back in the Big Bar L before you can say I’m a fucking fuckwit.’
Jed’s effing and blinding, shuffling back in the house.
‘Sorry hen,’ I goes, and I pull Bekki into my chebs. ‘Poor wee Dave, eh? But it would’ve been quick right enough. He winnae have suffered.’
‘How do you know?’ she’s gasping.
‘Aye,’ goes Corrigan, coming out the pool and getting a good deek at the late lamented Dave. ‘He was maybe going “Fuck’s sake” when Granda’s size ten was coming down on his heid, and then he’s like that: “Where’s my fucking brains?”’
‘That’s what you say every day, isn’t it, Corrigan?’ Bekki’s back at him. She’s pulling away from me, standing there with the manky dead hamster in her hand, chin up like the wee fighter she is. ‘You know you were wanting a tattoo? How about that right across your forehead? Where’s my fucking brains?’
Ryan and Connor and Mandy are pissing themselves.
‘Da!’ Corrigan goes to Travis. ‘She cannae say that, eh? That’s a fucking hate crime! I’m fucking dyslexic!’
‘Aye son.’ Travis is giving Bekki evils but he cannae think of a comeback, so he cannae.
‘If it was a crime to hate you, Corrigan,’ goes Bekki, ‘they’d need to build like a hundred new jails because everyone who’s met you would need locking up.’
‘Belter,’ goes Ryan.
‘Shut it yous!’ I goes. ‘We’re leaving in five, right, so get your shit together and let’s get to that fucking beach.’
‘I’m not coming,’ goes Bekki.
‘Aw Madison-hen, but you’re gonnae like this wee place, right, there’s a barry wee café serves Coke floats like me and Mands had when we was bairns, and there’s a wee harbour and that.’
‘I’m not coming.’
And she’s running back in the house.
I give her ten and then I go to her room. She’s got Dave’s remains in a cardboard box that had biscuits in it, and she’s got a wee pink scarf tucked round him.
‘Aw, that’s nice, eh?’ I goes. ‘Wannae have a wee funeral and bury him in the garden?’
She’s no saying nothing.
‘I’m sorry, doll. Jed’s a f… a mentalist, eh? But he’s no gonnae do nothing like that again, I can promise you that.’
‘I want Mum.’
I puff. ‘Bekki darlin’, Flora’s no your mum. She’s just a fucking random, and if she finds out where you are, I’m no gonnae lie to you, hen, she’s gonnae try and kill you an’ all.’ I’m in her face. ‘So shut it about that bitch. We’re your family that loves you to bits, and we’re all you’ve got, so you’d better start fucking appreciating us and what all we’ve done for you, right? We’ve put it on the line for you, Bekki, we’ve had our lives turned upside down by that bitch but we’d do it all again for you in a heartbeat because we fucking love you, right? Now get your flip-flops and get your arse in that fucking people carrier.’