Weekend (23 page)

He stood before her like a penitent for whom there could be no absolution. Her ignorance could never forgive him. She was a shrine to emptiness at the end of a pilgrimage he had rendered meaningless. He hadn’t paid Mhairi for the weekend. She hadn’t asked for the money and probably never would now but he should see to that. No. It shouldn’t have happened like this. Not like this. This wasn’t the way it should have ended.

He remembered how it had started, as a casual little accident in a kitchen. ‘It’s a good thing we don’t know what’s in front of us,’ his mother used to say. She had meant what’s in the future. But that moment in the kitchen had literally been right in front of him and he hadn’t imagined what it meant. But life is deceitful. It fills our time with countless, successive minutiae and suddenly one of them develops elephantiasis, overwhelms everything else and comes to dominate our entire existence. A careless step into the road that leaves us crippled. The pallor of a child that becomes meningitis. The minute lump that is cancer’s calling-card.

He remembered that day clearly now, the brightness of the sunshine flooding the kitchen, the laughter they were sharing, the bottle of wine that was rubied with light. Thanks to the wisdom of retrospect, it was all imprinted on his mind like the memory of an ordinary Eden from which they had been expelled. Did he truly remember those things or had regret constructed them? It didn’t matter. Either way, the loss was just as sore.

He had been chopping vegetables on the breadboard, which he had placed on the worktop, when he heard the noise. He turned and saw her face vaguely bemused, as if she had no idea how what had happened could have happened. The broken cup was lying on the floor. The brown ingredient for the sauce
she was preparing to mix had spread on the tiles like the map of an unknown country. And that was it. Catriona had dropped a cup and their lives were smashed. The casual remorselessness of it gave him hurt still, for both of them.

The incident was erased with laughter at the time. He kidded her about the side-effects of menstruation. But, like the other early responses they were to try, kidding proved to be inadequate. Being deliberately more careful didn’t cure her growing clumsiness. Diet didn’t help her lethargy. Being tested for spectacles offered no way round her deteriorating eyesight. There was no diversion they could take to avoid the road they were travelling. Catriona had multiple sclerosis.

The term had closed round them like a shared strait-jacket, inhibiting the movement that their lives could have. Once he knew, there was, of course, only one reaction he could have. He was devastated for Catriona, for the dimming that would come to the brightness in her eyes, for the slow congealing of the vivacity of her nature, for her outgoingness relentlessly turned inwards. He felt both rage for her and determination to help her to defy the disease as far as possible.

But he had also learned, against his will, how the only thing to do can be a terrible thing to do, how contracting your life to one natural response can painfully, over the years, blunt and suppress so many other natural responses that you lose touch with who you might have been, even with who you are. He could never regret devoting so much of his life to Catriona’s illness. He couldn’t not regret the effects of the devotion on himself. You had misgivings either way. Maybe that was why his life had become a guilt-machine, manufacturing doubts like small obstacles to everything he did.

There were no obstacles now. He could do anything he wanted. But there was nothing he could think of that he would
ever want to do. Why couldn’t he feel what he should feel? She lay there like a final demand for all his love and he had nothing to offer. He stood there, a stranger contemplating a stranger. Nothing was happening. Something more than this had to happen. He walked round the bed, leaned over her and kissed her forehead. It wasn’t a final meeting, it wasn’t a final parting, it wasn’t anything. Stone was kissing stone.

He came out of the bedroom and came slowly down the stairs. He went into the living-room and sat down in the darkness. He had phoned Aileen. She had arrived at the house and looked at Catriona and cried for her sister. He and she had embraced across a void that had only ever been bridged by Catriona. She would tell her mother, who had dementia and was in a home. That would be a strange meeting.

He had to do something. He would phone somebody. Catriona had been so isolated for so long that he wondered who might find her death remotely meaningful. As far as most people were concerned, she had probably been dead to them for a long time. He thought of how much she had enjoyed the presence of Harry Beck. He got up and put on the light and looked for the list of those who had gone to Willowvale.

As he was dialling, he stopped, as if the phone had given him an electric shock. He had begun to dial the number of Vikki Kane, which was on the same sheet of paper. He stared at his hand the way he might have looked at a friend who had betrayed him. He very deliberately dialled Harry’s number. The connection was made at the second ring.

‘Hello?’

‘Harry? It’s Andrew.’

‘Andrew. How are you?’

‘I hope I’m not disturbing you.’

‘No, no. I’ve been trying to do some scribbling. Listen.
Thanks for having me on the weekend. It was … an experience.’

‘Harry.’

Andrew instantly felt the finality of what he was going to say, as if the silence were stone on which his words would be carved.

‘Catriona’s dead.’

He was waiting for Harry’s reaction like confirmation of something he didn’t quite believe.

‘My God. Andrew. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ There was a pause. ‘When?’

‘It happened when we were on the way home. I suppose it’s been imminent for a while.’

‘That doesn’t make it any easier when it does happen. Ah, that’s hellish news, Andrew. I only met her a few times. But she was such a nice woman.’

‘A lot nicer woman than I’ve ever been a man, I’m afraid.’

‘No, Andrew. I can’t go there with you. I’m sure Catriona couldn’t either. Would you like me to come round?’

‘Thanks. But no. I’m all right.’

‘Are you sure? I can get a taxi and be there in twenty minutes. Not a good time to be on your own. Maybe you need somebody with you just now.’

‘That’s kind. But I think I have to be alone tonight.’

‘Do you want to talk a bit?’

‘No. I just wanted to tell somebody she liked. And liked her.’

‘At least I qualify for that. I thought she did terrific with what she got. And so did you. You’re two of my heroes, Andrew. I’ll be thinking about you both.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’m sorry, Andrew.’

Thanks.’

He had to put the phone down quickly. He was crying. The warmth of Harry’s voice had thawed him into feeling. He had touched the reality of what had happened by proxy and it had come home to him. He didn’t know whether he was crying for her or for him or for everything.

He took another After Eight, placed it carefully on his tongue, sipped his whisky and let the two tastes argue pleasantly in his mouth, before kneading them into unity, and swallowing. He did it again. He liked the economy of it, recycling waste into consumption, turning his folly into sustenance. That’s what he would have to do. There must be ways.

The obstacle is the path. He had read that, somewhere he couldn’t remember. He hoped it wasn’t in a self-help book. Sandra had bought a couple of those recently and he had glanced through them. More full of shit than a blocked toilet. He hoped he hadn’t picked up any germs of hand-clapping optimism from them. The obstacle is the path. He thought it might be from Eastern thought. He supposed it meant that being required to solve a problem resulted in creating new possibilities, that an enforced diversion could open up another direction. At least he had his career.

He adjusted his position on the big comfortable bed. He felt relaxed in just trousers and a woollen sweater. He studied his bare feet. He took another thoughtful sip of whisky, wayfarer at the crossroads. Fair enough. This was a good hotel. He liked hotels. They asked no questions, except those to which the answer was a credit card. The meal had been good and
now the mini-bar attended, a barman who never said a word, just silently dispensed maintainers of your mood.

This was all right for a night, but provision had to be made for tomorrow and after. He had to think about that. Veronica Hill was dead to him. He drank to her interment in the past. He had successfully extricated himself from Jacqui Forsyth. Calling out Veronica’s name had been more effective than hours of argument. One word had amputated them from each other. He was free. He liked the feeling. Now there were other possibilities. He wondered about Alison Miller. She had been interesting. But he needed a temporary safe-house, a vantage-point from which to plan ahead in comfort. The flat was the only available option. It might not prove easy but it would have to be done. He couldn’t afford to stay too long in this place, and he would need time to transfer as much money out of the joint account as he wanted.

He would have to phone. He would use the mobile. Every time you used a hotel phone, they seemed to link you up via America. He reached across and took his mobile from the bedside table. He lay jiggling it in one hand while he held his whisky in the other. He was preparing himself for the call. But he didn’t want to overprepare. Flexibility was the key, preparedness to manipulate whatever responses you received. He touched out the numbers carefully, as if they were the combination to a safe.

He came upon instant profit. The vulnerability of her voice on answering made it seem easy to persuade her not to put the phone down. He kept talking quietly but steadily, explaining that they had to meet and the sooner they did the better it would be for both of them. She answered monosyllabically in a dead monotone. She agreed that he could come to the house tomorrow and they would talk. Killing the connection with
his thumb, he dropped the phone on the bed and punched the air. He took another After Eight. As well as the chocolates, maybe he should have kept the flowers as a peace offering. Crossing to get another miniature of whisky, he caught himself in the wardrobe mirror. Staring at his reflection, he put a clenched hand inside his sweater at the shoulder, so that it looked like a hump. He made a demonic face at himself.

‘I’ll have her,’ he said. ‘But I will not keep her long.’

When she had put the phone down, she crossed to the fridge and took out one of the bottles of champagne. Uncorking it with difficulty over the sink, she filled a glass and sipped. What she was celebrating, she decided, was the departure of naivety. If she could maintain for long enough the appearance of a successful marriage, surely she would still be able to adopt Angela. As far as she was concerned, they were already divorced. Their past was a mockery of what she had thought it was. But she would play him any way she could until she had the only thing she wanted from the emptiness between them, the child they had never had. She sipped again, noticing the similarity between an effulgent sunset and a dawn.

The pub was quiet except for a small man who seemed to be arguing half-heartedly with the barman. There weren’t many other people in the place besides themselves. Three older men were talking quietly at the bar. She and Mickey were sitting at
a table. At the only other occupied table two old men were staring ahead in unison, like matching ornaments. It wasn’t the kind of place she could remember having been in before but she felt safe being here with Mickey.

‘You all right about coming back?’ he said.

‘Of course,’ she said.

‘It’s not exactly a penthouse.’

‘I suppose it’s got a bed,’ she said, surprising herself.

‘Two, actually. And it’s not as bad as it was before Donnie moved out. I’ve made a few kind of gestures towards housework. You’ll be fine if you keep your eyes shut. You feel all right about not going back to your own place tonight?’

‘Maybe I feel all right about never going back. Jacqui was weird today. She didn’t want me to sit beside her on the bus. And all that crying. I hope Alison can cope with her. Anyway, I’m fed up sleeping on the fold-down bed. What about Donnie?’

‘He’s still alive. That amounts to a triumph for him. You know why he slept in the lounge? Couldn’t remember the room number. Got fed up trying doors. Good thing for us, eh?’

He stood up.

‘Need to hit that hole-in-the-wall,’ he said. ‘Finance our amazing lifestyle. You okay? Won’t be long.’

‘I’m fine,’ she said, and smiled.

But when he went out she had an immediate sense of risk, the vulnerability of being alone in a strange place. She felt herself as an unprotected presence. Maybe that was one thing losing your virginity meant. Brute reality had found a way in. She was aware of its proximity now, the harsh truth of its nearness in this garishly lit room. Perhaps fantasy had its uses. She thought of a time in the flat.

Jacqui and Alison had been talking about sexual experiences
and the conversation came round to the first time you had done it. When they had finished laughing and turned towards her, she waited for a moment and then told them about Davy.

He was a boy who was at school with her, who had since become a professional football player. She described the place where they went one night – under a bridge in Inverness during a school trip. They did it standing up. She said she felt he was assaulting her with some kind of object.

‘Well, that’s what sex is,’ Alison had said. ‘Benign assault with a blunt instrument. And sometimes not so benign.’

There was water dripping all around them, she said. She described it as like doing it in a cave. Then she was dripping, too. He was very concerned about the blood. She still looked occasionally for his name in the papers, under the results, where they put the goal-scorers but she didn’t know which team he played for.

‘He certainly scored that night,’ Jacqui had said and they had all laughed.