The Darkness and the Deep (47 page)

‘I wouldn’t argue. I still do believe everyone has a choice, but I guess I’d say I was looking for a reason, not an excuse. The moral dimension isn’t the business of science.’

‘Nor of the law, really. Lucky for Enid that the judge won’t be sentencing her on the basis of the anguish she’s caused.’ Marjory was slowing down now, and Laura looked at her sharply.

‘Is it time we were turning back? You shouldn’t overdo it.’

‘Discretion might be the better part of valour. As of today I’m driving again – they’ve been having to send a car for me and like everyone else I hate being driven, so I’m prepared to be careful. Still, it’s been good to get outside again.’

She looked lovingly across the slopes of the low, rolling hills, then turned back towards the farmhouse. In the stone-walled orchard the apple trees were losing their leaves and only a few wizened apples still hung from the branches; a burst of cackling from the hens suggested there had been a new, hotly disputed windfall.

‘How’s Cat doing?’ Laura asked. ‘When she came in to see me on Tuesday she said Kylie had left the school.’

‘Yes, gone to stay with her father. She’s another poor, sad little creature; she actually had a miscarriage after the accident and at least that gave her social worker leverage to suggest she might benefit from being in someone else’s charge. She certainly hasn’t a chance in life if she stays with the MacEwans, though whether being with her father will give her one, I wouldn’t like to say – the new partner will have to be very understanding. But in fact, Kylie seems to have been glad of a fresh start. She hadn’t many friends in school apart from Cat and quite honestly I think Kylie felt she was a bit uncool – for which I have to say, I am profoundly grateful.’

‘Is Cat eating any better?’

Marjory sighed. ‘A little.’ Then she corrected herself. ‘Yes, definitely better, it’s just still not the way she used to. But at least we’ve talked about it and we have a sort of contract, that she can discuss beforehand what she’s going to eat and once it’s agreed she’ll stick to it and not go and throw up. The best thing is that she’s going around with the girls who were her friends before—’ She stopped. ‘I still feel it’s my fault that she’s having this problem.’

‘But you believe in personal choice, right?’

‘OK, you made your point. It’s just going to take patience, isn’t it, which has never been my strong suit. Still,’ Marjory brightened, ‘the other day she came to me, rather sheepishly, and said her black bedroom was pants and if she used her own money could she do it over? I said I’d give her a present of the biggest pot of paint money could buy and help her put it on, too.

‘I got started this morning. I hate to think how many coats of paint it’s going to need, but,’ she smiled at her friend, ‘I will admit I’m enjoying it.’

‘A therapeutic wiping out of the past?’

‘Psychobabble,’ Marjory said dismissively, reluctant to confess to just that thought as each successive coat covered more completely the darkness which had so dangerously touched her daughter’s life. ‘Look, there’s Bill with the shepherd who’s giving him a hand today heading back for their tea. I’d better get the kettle on.’

The sun was low in the sky, turning the sea to gold and dazzling Tam MacNee so that he had to put his hand up to shield his eyes as he walked down the High Street in Knockhaven and reached the shore. The sandstone of the harbour walls had taken on a honey-coloured glow and with the soft light on the white-harled houses it made a picture-postcard scene. On the foreshore, two seagulls were having a raucous squabble over a crust of bread.

Tam’s mouth twisted. You’d never know to look at it that this was a town in shock and still in mourning. You couldn’t tell that the Anchor wouldn’t be opening its doors for the evening session in half an hour or so, because Katy Anderson was in a hospital, silently staring at a wall. You would see the lifeboat shed, without realising that it was empty until a new cox and rescue team could be trained up to man another boat. You wouldn’t be aware of the job losses because Ritchie Elder’s building empire had collapsed and Jackie Duncan hadn’t the heart to go on with her hairdressing salon.

Tam glanced at his watch. He’d arrived a bit early; he continued his walk, deep in thought.

You’d still find Muriel Henderson presiding over the Medical Centre, of course, revelling in her starring role in the recent drama, and for Lewis Randall and his mother life was probably going on in much the same controlled, bloodless way. And there was maybe a chance the new doctor they’d get would be a bit more patient-friendly than Ashley had been.

Thanks to Jon Kingsley, there would be an interruption to the drugs supply of – what? A few weeks, a couple of months if they were lucky, before someone else moved in and it started all over again. It wasn’t what you could call a favourable balance sheet for this wounded community.

With a start, he glanced at his watch again. It was time he headed for his destination, instead of wandering along here in a dwam. He took the road leading to the back of the Anchor, cut up Baker’s Brae with its sad ghosts and turned along the street at the top towards Willie Duncan’s house.

He tapped on the door which had been slammed in his face on his last visit. This time, it was opened promptly as if Ryan Duncan, a tall lad with his mother’s build and colouring, had been watching out for his arrival.

‘Thanks for coming, Mr MacNee. D’you want – would you like to come in?’ he said awkwardly.

MacNee, still in the dark as to what he was doing here, followed him into the sitting room. A big photograph of a younger Willie was propped on the mantelpiece, taken in the wheelhouse of his boat while he was still a skipper, and looking from it to his son Tam could see a resemblance there too: Ryan had the straight gaze of the man in the photograph, whose greatest high was the adrenaline rush that came from a rough night in the Irish Sea. Tam would be prepared to swear Ryan was clean now too.

He sat down on one of the black imitation leather armchairs. ‘So what can I do for you, lad?’

Ryan perched on the edge of the seat opposite. There was a fine sheen of nervous sweat on his skin.

‘You know I’ve had – well, a few bits of bother with the police, Mr MacNee. OK, I was asking for it. But I’ve seen what happened with my dad and I’ll not touch the stuff again.’

‘We’ll get you help, no problem, if that’s what you’re wanting,’ MacNee offered, but Ryan shook his head.

‘I’m fine. What I wanted—’ He broke off.

MacNee said nothing, and after a few moments the boy went on, ‘You’ll maybe just laugh, but I want to join the lifeboat. I know I’ll have to tell them about my record and they’ll maybe tell me to get lost, but I just thought if I could say to them you’d speak up for me, Mr MacNee . . . Oh, I ken fine I’ll have to wait to show I’ve really put it all behind me, but one day I’d like there to be another Duncan cox of the lifeboat. To – to make up, sort of.’

Tam MacNee found he had to clear his throat. ‘Och, I think we could maybe manage that, Ryan. Given time.’

Later, as he walked away, looking down over the roofs and gables of the ancient town, he found himself silently repeating the comforting phrase. Given time, the wounded community would heal itself, as communities always do.

Epilogue

When Laura left and the men had finished their tea and gone out to make use of the last of the light, Marjory glanced at her watch. Cat had signed on for a late hockey practice – another encouraging sign – and Cammie was having tea with a friend. She could pick them both up and still have time beforehand to look in on her parents.

She’d spoken to Janet several times since her accident but during the time she couldn’t drive her mother hadn’t been out to the farm. It was ridiculous to feel in the least resentful that she hadn’t come dashing out to see how her only child was: a sprained ankle wasn’t exactly life-threatening, Bill was more than capable of looking after her, Marjory was forty years old and anyway all she really wanted was the chance to say, as usual, ‘Oh Mum, don’t fuss! I’m absolutely fine.’ Why should she feel so unhappy at not having had to say it?

She’d even wondered if Janet could be ill, but her voice sounded strong enough and when asked – casually, of course – if she was all right, had been robust in her insistence that she was. But then she would, wouldn’t she?

It was with an unspecific feeling of unease that Marjory opened the front door. The house seemed abnormally quiet; usually the first thing you heard was the sound of the TV which her father affected to despise but watched incessantly. She put her head round the sitting-room door but there was no one there and the big screen in the corner was blank.

‘Mum?’ she called and heard her mother’s muffled voice respond from the kitchen. When Marjory opened the door, Janet was sitting alone at a table set for two, with pots simmering gently on the stove.

Marjory did her Bisto Kid impression. ‘Mmm! Smells good! Where’s Dad?’

‘He’s out a walk.’

It was a simple enough statement. Why shouldn’t Angus go out for a walk? Hadn’t Marjory been telling him for years now how unhealthy it was to sit all day in front of a flickering image? It was just that she’d never had any success in persuading him to take exercise, apart from the occasional walk with Janet after Sunday lunch.

‘Well, that’s good,’ she said with forced heartiness. ‘A lot better than being glued to the telly.’

‘Yes. Yes, it is, I suppose,’ Janet said, and burst into tears.

Her mother’s attitude to problems had always been that if you ignored them, they tended to go away of their own accord, and even if they didn’t, by the time you had to deal with them you’d adjusted to the idea so that it didn’t seem as bad as you would originally have thought. It was a principle which had served her well over the years; Marjory was far from being the only person to rely on Janet’s calm, reassuring competence. Now her daughter, professionally experienced in dealing with human reactions to everything from being given a parking ticket to being told of sudden death, found herself completely at a loss.

‘Mum,’ she said feebly, ‘so he’s gone for a walk? Why shouldn’t he?’

‘It’s – it’s time for his tea!’ Janet sobbed. ‘You know what he’s like – his dinner at half-past twelve, his tea on the table at five o’clock sharp. These last couple of weeks I’ve never known when he’s coming back.’

The fear which lurks at the back of the mind of every child with ageing parents gripped Marjory with a cold hand. ‘What does he say when he comes in?’

She could see the struggle in her mother’s face. Love, loyalty – even when Marjory’s father was being unreasonable, her parents had always presented a united front. How many times, over the years, had her father been offered a graceful retreat from an untenable position? Janet might occasionally intervene openly, but never without the face-saving gloss which would leave his pride intact.

Which made it all the more shocking now that she should say helplessly, ‘I don’t think he knows where he’s been. Marjory, I don’t know what to do about Angus!’

Angus? She’d always called him ‘Dad’ or ‘your father’ when she was talking to Marjory. Suddenly, her mother was just another woman who had problems she couldn’t deal with, asking for help. She wasn’t any more the person who knew all the answers, if only you could persuade her to tell you what they were. Marjory had so often reflected, ruefully, that when she was at home she went back to being her teenage self; in that moment, she aged twenty years.

She didn’t want to ask the next question. She wanted to say, ‘Oh, I’m sure he’ll be back before long – when he’s hungry!’ and laugh. She wanted to say, ‘I’m still worried about Cat. Do you think she’ll be all right?’ so that her mother could make her feel safe with her assurance, ‘Don’t you worry, pet. She’ll be fine.’

Instead, she said, ‘What’s been happening? Tell me all about it and we’ll see what’s to be done.’

Reluctantly, with a terrible finality, Marjory Fleming said farewell to the last, precious vestiges of her childhood.

About the Author

Aline Templeton has worked in education and broadcasting. She grew up in Scotland, read English at Girton College, Cambridge, and now lives in Edinburgh. She has a grown-up son and daughter.