Scrap Metal (16 page)

I pulled off my jacket and wrapped it round him. “Cam?”

“Go back to the car. I’m a mess. I…”

“Hush up.” He was surrounded by nettles. I grasped a few and tore them out of his way then offered him a handful of tissues. “What’s the matter? Was it that business with Archie in the shop?”

“Dunno. No, not that—just a flu bug, or something I had for breakfast. Oh, God.”

I held his shoulders. Breakfast had been put paid to as far as I could see, but he was still struggling, his efforts painful. I stroked his back. This was my fault, whatever was causing it—I’d really twisted his arm to come, and then I’d subjected him to Doreen’s caff—where they stopped short of frying Mars bars but only just—a punch-up in the street and an impromptu police interrogation. “Do you want me to run you back into town, love, find a doctor for you?”

“No. I’m okay.” He sat back on his heels, coughing and making unsteady use of the tissues. “I just want…”

“What?” If he told me, I’d organise it. Rip it down from heaven or fish it up from hell.

“I wish I could be somewhere quiet for a bit, away from people, and not think, or feel, or…”

“Okay.” I could do that for him—part of it anyway. My ma’s living room was peaceful. I could field Harry and the farmhands and the dogs. Get myself out of his way too, because I assumed
people
included me, and I didn’t blame him one bit. “Are you up for driving home? I’ll take it easy.”

“Yeah.” He blew his nose. “You shouldn’t call me
love
.”

“You don’t like it?”

“You hardly know me. I’m not lovable, particularly…” He let me help him to his feet and wiped gingerly at the front of his shirt. “Particularly not right now. And I do like it—too bloody much.”

I couldn’t figure him out. I gave up trying, for the moment anyway. His deathly pallor had given way to a flush, and I felt heat radiating off him as I aided his scramble back into the truck. Maybe he
was
coming down with something. “Don’t worry about it. Don’t worry about anything just now, okay?”

I set off at a much more sedate pace along the coastal road. The rain continued steadily, and the squeak of the truck’s rusty wipers set a rhythm to the silence, kept it from awkwardness. I’d found we could be quiet with one another anyway, though just now the air between us was too fraught for that kind of peace. We were halfway through Whiting Bay before Cam spoke again. “Shona really likes you, Nic.”

“I like her too,” I said cautiously. “She’s always been a good friend.”

“No. Not like that. And your mate Archie—that’s who Kenzie was yelling about in the street, wasn’t it? Your first boyfriend.”

“Long time ago. Lot of water under the bridge.” I stopped for a file of school kids at the zebra crossing. “Archie’s a ladies’ man now.”

“Could’ve fooled me. You’re a popular lad, Nichol Seacliff.”

I blushed. “Oh, yeah. Golden boy of Brodick, that’s me. I especially felt that when Kenzie was banging my skull off the fish-shop wall.” Why did it matter to him anyway? It wasn’t as if he’d arrived too late and found me taken, sharing a police house with PC Drummond or ruling supreme over next door’s farm with Shona’s babies tumbling round my feet. I was embarrassingly free. I thought about pointing that out to him. But when I glanced across, his eyes were closed. He was shivering finely, his beautiful profile unreadable. The last of the kids scattered off the crossing, rear guarded by a lollipop lady who glared at me as if I’d been revving and honking my horn. I put the truck back into gear and focussed on getting us home.

Chapter Nine

A pile of post was jamming the door. For a farm on the edge of ruin, we didn’t half attract a lot of credit-card offers and glossy junk mail. I pushed a handful into my pocket and guided Cam ahead of me into the hall. “Come on through. There’s nobody around.”

“It’s all right. I’m better now.”

“Yeah, you look it. Just come and sit down here for a bit.”

My ma’s front parlour wasn’t the sealed-off shrine the upstairs rooms had become. It didn’t get much use, but we’d take the occasional veterinary health inspector in there, and Harry would sit in state there for an hour on Sunday mornings, the
Farming Times
spread on the polished table where a Bible might once have been, as if in distant memory of Sabbath idleness. It was very quiet. The deep, cool peace of it stilled Cam’s protests as I gestured him in. Time had faded what once must have been some fairly eye-popping chintz wallpaper to the ghosts of roses, and the light fell gently through the tall windows.

“Sit down,” I said, gesturing to the big armchair by the fire, and watched in concern while he obeyed me. The vigour was gone from his movements. He curled up in the chair—shoes off again—and wrapped his arms round his chest.

“Are you cold?”

“A little bit. But I’m fine, Nichol, really. I can work.”

“No, thanks. Don’t want you passing out in the sheep dip.” I knelt by the hearth and put a match to the kindling, which blazed up cooperatively. There was a blanket folded up on the sideboard. My ma had been working on embroidering it, and her mother and grandma before her, but none of the female Seacliffs inclined to the feminine arts, to judge from the sepia photos I’d once seen of these formidable elders out in the fields, looking more at home with scythes in their hands. The pattern had never been finished. There was still a needle attached. I couldn’t see how to undo it without breaking the thread, and I hesitated. Then the air around me seemed to stir, and the thread untangled in my hands.

“Nichol?”

I brought the blanket over to Cam. He was wide eyed, watching a place by the sideboard. “What’s the matter?”

“Maybe I’m not fine. I saw…”

“Someone standing near me.” I shook out the blanket and wrapped it round his shoulders while he was too distracted to object. “A woman.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t worry about it. I don’t, not anymore.” I smiled, turning a caress of his hair into a diagnostic touch to his brow. “And you are a bit warm, so you can put her down to fever if you like. Now, could you face anything to eat?”

He made a face and shuddered. “Sorry. No.”

“Cup of tea and some aspirin?”

“Sounds good. But I can get it myself. Seriously, I didn’t mean to go all Marlene Dietrich on you. There’s no need to—”

“Listen.” I crouched beside the chair and took his hand. He could make of that what he wanted. If he needed a loving friend without complications, that was what he could have. “If you’ve got some kind of bug, you’ll shake it off faster if you rest for a bit. And I know my so-called mate scared you half to death back in the shop. If you ever want to tell me why, I’ll listen. And if not, that’s fine too.”

Reluctantly I let go of his hand and went to make him his tea. I encountered Harry in the hall. He looked at me as if it were midnight and I’d fallen through the doorway reeking of booze. “Ah,” he grunted, patting Floss proudly as she snarled at me. “Back, are you, after your morning of idleness?”

“That’s right, Granda. The dissipations of Brodick proved too many for us.”

“Good. I’m away out this afternoon, and the baler wants fixing again. Yon lad can do it.”

Irritation stung me. Harry was getting to me much less badly these days, but I twitched at the threat of exploitation to Cam. And as for this bloody affectation of not being able to remember his name… “No, he can’t. I think he’s getting flu or something. He’s not well.”

“What?”

My God, was that concern on his face? I wasn’t sure, never having had an example to work from. I dug in my pocket for the baccy I’d brought in from the truck. “Here. He bought you this. You could’ve told me you preferred this one, you know. I’m sure we could’ve stretched to it.”

“Where is he?”

“In Mam’s parlour. He’s having a rest, so don’t you bother him or let the dogs through. I just came to make him a cup of tea. Have we got any aspirin down here?”

“Aye, somewhere in the
preas
.”

I turned away to search for it. I could sense him behind me like an old volcano on the boil, brow dark with thunderclouds, searching for words.

“This is what comes of racketing about
am baile
,” he began.
In those damn towns
, as if Cam and I had spent a morning with whores in Bangkok. I ignored him. “He’d no’ have caught flu out here in the clean air.”

“Granda, we went shopping.” I had my head deep in the cupboard and paid no attention to the angry thump of china on wood, the rattle of the fridge door. “Toilet rolls, sheep pills. We weren’t exactly…”

“That’ll be how you got the black eye, then—buying toilet roll?”

“No. Ran into the barn door.” I doubted he’d avenge me for my own sake, but God knew what he’d do to Kenzie if he felt there’d been an insult to the clan. I found the aspirin, straightened up. “Oh. Are you making Cameron’s tea, then?”

“Doesn’t it look that way? Och, Nichol, you’re a clumsy lad for a Seacliff, aren’t you? It’s as well that God looks after bairns and idiots. Your ma used to say the
sidhe
had swapped you for a fairy child.”

“Well, play your cards right and they might bring the real one back some day.” I watched while he spooned enough black tea into the pot to give poor Cam hallucinations. “Er…that looks a little bit strong.”

“It’ll do him good.” Fiercely he stirred the cauldron, then when he was satisfied, poured a dark stream into the mug he’d set out. “Will he take some of Driscoll’s elixir, do ye think?”

I repressed a shudder. Driscoll’s—a kind of paste that tasted of horse liniment—had haunted my youth. It was Harry’s favourite cure-all, and worked damn well since nine times out of ten it scared everyone out of being sick in the first place. “Best not. His stomach’s a bit off too.”

“Aye, aye. You took him to that Borgia queen Doreen’s, didn’t you, instead of having your
min-choirce
here… There. Take him that.”

“Why don’t you take it yourself? He likes you, for reasons best known to himself. And I think he might be missing his own granda.”

To my astonishment he turned away, as if he would actually break the habit of a lifetime and indulge the tender feelings I knew sometimes stirred in his flinty old bosom. But he stopped in the doorway. “I never once brought you
your
tea.”

This was true. I shrugged, smiling. “I can overlook it, if you’re being good to him.”

“You’re no’ a jealous boy, I’ll give you that. All those years I had to favour your brother, since I knew I’d never make a farmer out of you…” He glared at me suspiciously. “What’s so special about yon lad in the parlour, then?”

“You tell me. You’re the one taking him his tea.”

“Ach, no.” He thrust the mug at me, so hard the top inch of its contents went overboard. “It softens the young, to have their elders wait on them.”

“I don’t think once would have ruined him. Where are you off to this afternoon, then, all dressed up?”

“None of your business. Make sure the pasture troughs are sound, to make the most of this rain. And you can have a try at fixing the baler yourself.” With that he stalked away. He
was
rather dapper for a Saturday afternoon, his Barbour exchanged for an ancient but respectable tweed. The wild thought struck me that he might be heading for Shona’s, and I shook my head, imagining myself with little—what would they be?—uncles and aunts, I supposed, provided Shona hadn’t fled the island screaming…

I eased the parlour door open. Cam was curled up where I’d left him, but the room was filled with a low, rich purr, and when I looked more closely I saw that my fickle cat had settled herself on his lap, nothing but her ears protruding from the blanket. “You have company.”

“Yeah. She brought a couple of kittens in too, so mind where you stand.”

“I will. I gave the old man your present.”

“He was properly touched, I hope.”

“I’ll say. He made your tea. He nearly brought it to you himself before he remembered his dignity.” I handed Cam the mug and a foil strip of aspirin. “I’ve got a million things to do, so…” Absently I began sorting through the mail in my jacket pocket. “If you’re okay, I’ll leave Clover in charge of you, and… Oh, shit.”

“What’s the matter?”

I sank down in the chair opposite him. The logo on one of the envelopes was familiar to me. I’d first encountered it around this time last year—a bank in Edinburgh, one of several with whom Alistair had taken out loans to get us through what was meant to have been a brief rough patch. Last year they’d only wanted a percentage and their interest. I’d scrawled them a cheque and forgotten about it. Now the whole lot had fallen due.

I ran a hand into my hair. “Shit. Fuck. Shit.”

“Is this sudden-onset Tourette’s, or is it something I can help you with?”

I looked up. My first reflex was to hide the letter—a bill this size really would break the farm, and I was ashamed. I knew I’d let things slide. My mouth was dry. “It’s nothing.”

“Let’s have a look.”

He was holding out his hand. Slowly I extended the letter to him. His expression was so kind that I could hardly help it, though I was mortified by the way the paper shook in my grip.

“Sorry,” I said. “No reason I should be inflicting my financial disasters on you.”

He scanned the letter. After a moment he gave a low whistle. “Okay. That’s a bit of a bugger, isn’t it?”

“Yeah. I—I just forgot about it.”

“And these guys, the Midlothian—their interest rates are something fierce. Would nobody else make you the loan?”

“Alistair took loans out everywhere. He was great at that kind of thing. We’d have gone belly-up ages ago if he hadn’t kept finding ways to squeeze us through.” I swallowed. “He’d never have let this happen. Shit, Cam. I’m such a screwup.”

I felt a gentle pressure on my ankle. When I looked, Cam had extended a sock-clad foot to rest against me. A kitten promptly shot out from under the chair to pounce on him, and he picked it up gently, detaching the wicked little claws. “Ouch, you wee sod,” he said without rancour. “Nichol, if I tell you a bit about my desperate past—Bren McGarva and all that—will you try and hold off on calling the police?”