Authors: Karen Campbell
‘Och, we’ll still get
Dr Who
, you know.’
‘Just being British. No one’s got the right to take that off me. That’s what boys like my Uncle Alec are lying dead in France for.’ Back of his fingers, dusting imaginary crumbs from the table. ‘I don’t want Scotland to shrink away to nothing. I’d much rather be part of a family, you know?’
‘You not think it’s good, but? To be alive at the start of something new. When history’s cresting?’ Another thing she’s heard Michael say. But finds that she likes the sound, the sense of it. It mimics how her belly felt when she looked out over the glen.
‘You think?’ says Duncan. ‘A lot of folk are scared of change.’
She sees herself, crouched on the rim of the bath. The thickening dread of moving. The greater, rising terror of inertia. A slop of tea splashes on her lap.
‘Can it not be all change?’
‘What?’
The spilled tea burns a circle on Justine’s thigh. It heats the piece of skin on which her number is tattooed. Own Brand Hoors. Charlie’s little joke. For as long as you are breathing, there has to be the chance to start again, to do it better. She presses down the sick tastes, the shivering. ‘Life,’ she says. ‘Otherwise we’re done.We’re stuck.’
‘You OK?’
She gives him a big, sexy smile, which is a default, yes. Which she could change, yes. But it is a useful bright, deflective thing, mostly. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Fire away.’
‘Do you work for Sentinel because you think the windfarm’s a good idea, or because you need the money?’
‘Ach, I do it for love, obviously.’ Duncan gestures at the tatty cupboards. ‘What would I want with money? Fix the roof? Maybe I like knowing if it’s raining without going outside?’
‘No moral dilemma then?’
‘About what?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Anything? What gets your morals going?’
‘Ah, now that would be telling.’
‘Ross, don’t.’ A shoe is kicked, skites across the floor. Then bare, wiggling toes. He must get that urge from her.
‘I amn’t doing it.’
‘I can see you under there. Take your sock off the doggie’s ears.’
‘But he likes it.’
‘No he doesn’t. You want to go home right now?’
A wee sad voice. ‘No.’
‘Well then. Behave.’
‘Kids,’ says Duncan. ‘Knacker you, don’t they?’
‘You got any?’
‘Nope. Well, two actually. Billy and Nanny. They’re in with the lambs.’
She puts her hands behind her, twisting her fingers through the spindles of her chair. ‘You live up here alone?’
‘Yup.’
‘Who do you talk to?’
‘Ah, well, I’ve no pals at all, you see.’
‘No, I didn’t mean that. Sorry. I don’t . . . there’s not really folk I speak to. About stuff. You know?’
His heavy-lidded eyes drill through her. ‘Yup.’
‘I’ve got a bit of a dilemma.’
‘There’s this guy you love—’
‘
No
.’
‘Girl?’
‘That turn you on, does it?’
‘Might do.’
‘More than goats?’
‘Ooh. You are one nasty lassie.’
She half-laughs. ‘Gonny listen?’
‘I’m listening.’
‘What would you do if—’
‘You can’t find the loo . . .’
‘Who said that?’ says Duncan.
A strangled chortle from beneath them. ‘Meee!’
‘Je-
sus
.’ Justine leans back in her chair. ‘Never work with children or animals.’
‘Sorry. That was his fault, that time. What were you going to say?’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘No, come on. Tell me.’
‘Right. This is just a hypothetical, OK?’
Michael has his work, his status. The Andersons will still keep living here long after Justine has fled the scene. Normally, the joy of flight is that you don’t care what you leave behind; that is the point of the moonlit flit: you shit, get up, go. But she’s already made them gossip-fodder, Michael and Hannah. And she knows the cruelty of being labelled wrong.
‘A hypothetical?’ says Duncan. ‘Will that hurt?’
‘You’re really funny, you know that?’
‘I aim to please.’
She lowers her voice. ‘See, in theory, if you thought a person was sick, but they thought they were fine. What would you do?’
‘Talk to them about it.’
‘And if they wouldn’t talk?’
‘Leave them be.’ He chucks a piece of cheese in his mouth. ‘Or risk getting your head bitten off.’
‘But what if they could be at risk? Or other folk could?’
Good work, Justine.
At risk
is a phrase social workers frequently use. It is suitably vague, and threatening, and comes wrapped in connotations of superior knowledge, that they know you better than you know yourself. Aye, like that’s possible.
‘Mm. That’s different.’
When Duncan eats, the muscle in his jaw goes taut. She follows its rope-line down his throat. He swallows neatly, takes another bite. He has a compact way of moving, expending just enough energy for the task. If Justine is
odd
, she would describe him as sensible. Not in a I’m-Michael-and-I-have-a-favourite-jumper way (
though I’m really a bag of crazy
). It’s about warmth and solidity. A big brick wall? She is aware that she is staring. Flustered. She chews the last of her sandwich.
‘Talk to someone else, then?’ he says. ‘Someone they might listen to?’
‘Tried that.’
‘Just-eeh! I am a doggie too.’
‘Good for you.’
Ross has climbed fully in the dog basket. ‘I am called Spot.’
‘Good for you.’
‘Spotty Botty.’
Duncan stacks their mugs on to the wooden platter. ‘At the risk of sounding like a tool, my Aunt Effie always says: “Do the thing you’ll regret not doing.”’
‘What?’
He leans in to get her plate. ‘Effie’s answer to everything. I think it means go with your gut.’ Moving closer as he says this. ‘Finished?’
In his basket, the pup sticks up his leg, begins to lick his balls. Ross gasps in admiration. ‘Can I lick myself as well for cleaning too?’
‘
No
,’ they say in unison.
Michael fits his key in the lock.
Unfit.
He’s been in the church. Which doesn’t work.
Unfit mother.
No hiding place from the rage.
Unreliable, unloving.
From the painful noises and faces and the absence of his wife. Hannah not being part of Michael is like a missing limb.
Unadulterated, adulteroussshe’s a lying HOOR!
Seems that’s your speciality, Michael.
She’s gone. Hannah has finally gone. You had a lovely dance, skin flitting and your eyes in hers and it was there again, you saw her eyes pour delicately into yours, you felt it flood your limbs and you were sure.
And now she’s gone. She hates you. And you hate her.
They all hate you.
Christ you’re a moany bastard.
He slams his hand against his head. For a moment, the singular pain is dissipated, becomes a burst of sharp droplets. Then regroups.
That fact-finding mission was an ambush. Escobar and Donald John had cornered him. Quick, pointless tour of an established Sentinel windfarm over at Cordyke, much mud on his trousers, Ghost gibbering at a hundred miles an hour, then off to Donald John’s lair. As the membranes of his life shift and blur, Michael has no option but to go with the flow; and try not to speak out loud.
Donald John to Michael:
Come in, Michael. How’s yourself?
Ghost to Michael:
Can you hear him, Michelangelo? What he’s saying about us?
Ghost to Michael, in a very convincing approximation of Donald John’s lilt:
Looks like shit, thon. Well, you would if your wife’d left you. Gaunt, cadaverish streak of pish. Scare the voters, so he will. On appearance alone, the man is a liability. No tae mention his marital mess.
Donald John to Michael:
Take a seat, son.
Donald John to Escobar:
How was your site visit?
Escobar to Donald John:
Interesting.
Donald John to Michael:
How can I put this?
Ghost to Donald John:
Eh . . . bluntly is probably best.
Donald John to Michael:
Cards-on-table time. Michael, I thought you’d be a shoo-in. Bobby Binns dying was a disaster; our majority, as you know, is slim. Folk telt me I needed a safe pair of hands. Instead, I go for a newbie.
Ghost to Michael:
Thought he could mould this soft flesh into the man he needed for the job.
Like a PUPPET on a striiiiiiiing
.
Pause here for the shrilling to make Michael jerk, and for Michael jerking to make Donald John and Escobar uncomfortable.
Donald John to Michael:
I kent you were a minister. A fine orator. Knew your faither and your grandpa, for God’s sake. Keen as Colman’s mustard, so you were, all talk of ‘making a difference’ and ‘being at the sharp end of society’. Upstanding background, pedigree, the works. Now there’s rumours you’re pumping the nanny
.
Michael to Donald John:
That’s not true.
Donald John to Michael (steepling his fingers):
What’s going on? We’re losing lots of public support for this windfarm scheme – no damned thanks tae being on the evening news.
Escobar to the world:
Phhu.
Donald John to Michael:
We’re at the stage we need big thinking,
positive dynamics, aye? I canna have one of my lead councillors embroiled in some love-tug scandal triangle.
Ghost to Michael:
See what he did there? You’re just a big tongue-twister, DJ. A big tongue-tease.
Michael to Donald John:
It’s not like that, I promise.
Ghost to Michael:
Aye, but you would, wouldn’t you? You’d do her in a fucking minute.
Donald John to Michael:
It never is, son. But your wife is out the house now, aye?
Michael to Donald John:
Yes.
Donald John to Michael:
Uh-huh. So, Michael. Plans?
Michael to everyone:
Eh?
Donald John to Michael:
What are your plans then? This a wee hiccup? You and the good lady effecting a reconciliation?
Ghost to everyone:
No way, José. Not fucking again. No fucking way. When she knows him so little? When she thinks my Michelangelo’s a cheating bastirt comme elle, elle what’s that smell
—
Michael to Donald John:
SShNo.
Donald John to Michael:
Then I’d like you to talk tae ma cousin
.
Fergus is a top-notch lawyer. Very discreet an’ a’. Because we need to get this sorted, son. Quick and clean.
‘Michael?’ says Justine. ‘Is that you?’
He goes downstairs. Michael would love to sleep, just turn his out-of-control brain off, just for a tiny second. Justine follows him, down into his study. She’s holding the cordless phone, the one that looks like an old-fashioned dial-up. You think it’ll be heavy when you pick it up, but it’s lightweight. Another expensive piece of crap. ‘
Michael.
’ Her hand’s over the mouthpiece. ‘That’s the man from Yes Scotland on again. And are you remembering that lady Ailsa? Her son’s phoned twice now. He sounded pretty desperate.’
‘I’m not here.’
‘What will I say?’
‘Tell them I’ll phone them back. Has Hannah phoned?’
Her pointy chin quivers. ‘Oh for Godsake.’ Door slam.
‘Would you look at that, Michael. Those peachy buttocks in Boden cords, chewing away at themselves. Winking at you, so they are. See how they’re just that wee bit too tight, too short. So the juice of her’s spilling out. They’re Hannah’s trousers, by the way.’
Michael sits at his desk. An important man.
‘
Hannah-nah-nah.
Bitch took your balls. Now she wants your boys?’ The Ghost gives his ear a playful lick. ‘If they are your boys.’
Justine doesn’t know her father. He wonders how that feels, to look at every man you see, thinking
they could be my dad
. Not knowing your lineage, not knowing all the weight of expectation and generations to be proud of. Pretty much any man could be your dad. That tramp was called Frank, maybe he was her dad. Maybe it was him right enough, why not? At least he was a decent man. Is Michael old enough to be her dad? Is Michael Ross’s dad? Oh Hannah. To make the shrilling quiet, to make her laugh, make her love him again. He would have done anything, just anything to salve the raw stump of their marriage.