Rise (36 page)

‘He’s got a solicitor already?’

‘According to his solicitor, he believes this is in Ross’s best interests, to maintain normality. Particularly as it was you that walked out.’

‘I’m sorry, but that’s bullshit. He will not let me into the house.’

‘I see.’ He makes a note. ‘But you did leave the marital home?’

‘Because of his unreasonable behaviour.’

‘Which was?’

She shakes her head. ‘He’s sleeping with the au pair.’

‘I see.’ He makes another note. ‘This woman’s name is?’

‘Justine Arrow.’

‘What details can you give me about this young lady?’ A clipped smile. ‘I’m sorry. I’m assuming that she’s younger?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, let us build up a little picture of this Justine. Date of birth, last known address, her previous employment.’

‘I don’t . . . I don’t have any of that.’

He stops writing. ‘But you were employing her as your nanny?’

‘It was very casual.’

‘You employed a woman to take care of your children, without doing any form of background checks at all?’

‘It was Michael, really . . .’

‘Just to clarify. It is your husband that takes to do with all childcare matters?’

‘No! No. Just this time.’

‘I see. And did he coerce you into receiving this woman? Is it your belief that the relationship may have been a pre-existing one?’

‘What? No.’ She thinks harder. ‘No. I don’t think so.’

‘And have you proof of when exactly their liaison commenced?’

‘No.’

‘But you say you caught them, in flagrante?’

‘I didn’t . . . They were just . . . talking. But it looked intimate.’

‘You have no evidence that any sexual intercourse took place?’ Mr Clarence taps his pen against his teeth.

‘No.’

‘Any kissing? Embracing? Lewd intent? Suggestive comments?’

‘No.’

Her lawyer turns the stiff white pages in his file. Rows of neat-typed words flash past, words about her and Michael, that neither of them have written. ‘I understand that, previous to this instance, you yourself experienced extra-marital relations with one . . .’ He glances down, ‘Gil—’

‘Christ! Did he tell you that? Did Michael say that?’

‘According to Mr Anderson’s solicitor, the liaison took place over a period of months, and, at termination, resulted in considerable emotional and physical upheaval, requiring the family to move home, and your husband to relinquish his professional status as a Church of Scotland minister?’

‘No! That’s not the way it was. Michael didn’t want . . . he wanted a change. That isn’t fair what you’re saying.’

He takes off his spectacles. ‘Mrs Anderson, I’m on
your
side, please remember that. I’m simply pointing out the information which will be led in court. As I said, if you’re undecided as yet regarding how you wish to proceed with the marriage, then mediation may be the best route in the first instance.’

‘I just want to see my son.’

‘Which your husband says you can do at the marital home.’

‘That’s a lie! And that . . . he’s still got that woman there anyway.’

‘I take it you would prefer that contact is in a different location?’

‘I want Ross with me.’

‘And your husband feels it best that the boy remain with him. An impasse.’ Both hands go wide, an expansive shrug like he is a Mafia don, with his thin-rimmed specs dangling from one finger. ‘Ergo: we will need to take a court action for contact. I’ll begin the preliminaries right away.’

‘How long will it take?’

Another, smaller shrug. ‘A week? Maybe two? Both parties require to be interviewed – and the child, of course.’

‘Oh no, I don’t want—’

‘Your other son remains in hospital, I understand?’

‘Yes. He should be home by . . . the end of this week. Friday . . .’ Hannah tails off as she realises the implications.

‘So, we’ll also need to consider what provisions he’ll require. Euan, is it? He’ll still be immobile?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you’re currently residing in the spare room of your friend Miss Mhairi Cowan?’

‘Yes.’

‘I see. And, is it your intention to keep the two boys together, or are we seeking custody only of the youngest child?’

Custody. Solicitors. Camps. How have they got here, her and Michael, with such horrible rapidity? Is this how lawyers work, where they lob questions at you you’d never even thought of, then package neat answers and chuck them back while you’re running on a moving pavement that deposits you miles from where you began? She just wants to lick her wounds. Michael’s refusal to see or speak to her or give her Ross is causing more pain than she can bear. Self-righteous, self-inflicted wounds; that’s what Mr Clarence is implying. But that’s bullshit. She knows what she saw. How, for all these months, has Michael shared her bed? Feeling how she feels now. How could he bear it?

‘Both,’ she says. ‘Of course I want both my boys. Look, I can rent somewhere. It doesn’t need to be in Kilmacarra, I can come back here to Glasgow: I could move in with my mother. I’m sure.’ She repeats it, more firmly. ‘I’m sure I could.’

She stayed there last night, so she could make this morning’s appointment. And it was fine. Her mother thinks she’s down for a day’s shopping: big-city goodies to cheer Euan up. Her mum knows nothing about what’s going on. Her mum thinks the sun shines out of Michael’s arse.

Mr Clarence replaces his spectacles. ‘Which action the court may then consider as deliberate attempt to deny Mr Anderson reasonable contact. He’s a local-authority councillor, I understand? A man wedded to his community, no?’

‘He’s not stable!’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘That’s what I’ve heard. Since I left. His behaviour’s become irrational.’

‘On whose authority have you heard this?’

‘The nanny’s.’

‘The same nanny who . . . um . . . ?’

‘Yes.’

He rubs at the corner of his eye. ‘I see. And would she testify to this? Do we have evidence?’

‘He won’t let me in the house, will he?’

‘That’s hardly proof of insanity, Mrs Anderson. Especially in a marital dispute.’

‘Well, what should I do? Go to the police? Camp on the doorstep? Just tell me what to do to get my boys back. Please.’

‘Leave this with me, Mrs Anderson. I will speak with the other party to, um, clarify the situation re visiting your son at the manse. I’m sure Mr Anderson’s solicitor will ensure there is no confusion between what agreement his client
says
is on the table, and the actuality. I suggest you return to Kilmacarra in the meantime, and agree to the conditions your husband imposes in order to see your son. The court will view that favourably.’ He smiles, revealing the tiniest of teeth. ‘A little self-sacrifice is always attractive in a woman.’

‘Thank you, Mr Clarence.’

‘Please. Call me Dick.’

The light outside the solicitor’s office is like tissue-paper. Hannah’s neat leather handbag swings from be-ringed fingers. They look like capable fingers. They don’t feel like they belong to her. She walks the bustling length of Byres Road, licking salt away from her cheeks. Michael has transformed into a man who will use cheap shots and tender places to get his way. She never knew that about him. He says she’s abandoned her children. And he’s right. She did. She did it first when she slept with Gil.

She turns into University Avenue. It teems with multicoloured students, with bearded lecturers, the odd stray OAP. The whole world going about its business, and Hannah, in it, and yet not. She is careful to hold her own pocket of air around her. Fixes her face to vacant. That way, even the casual onlooker will know that her presence is merely temporary, and that they, all this brightness, is banal. The blackened spire of the university points skywards.
Aim higher
, it intones.
Don’t make your alma mater sad.
Glasgow Uni is covered in knobbly bumps. It is all curly towers and jaggy bits and arching bits and cavernous bits, like Mary Shelley had thrown a craw-stepped, gargoylicious confection into one big cauldron, flashing mortar instead of electricity. To the right, as the road curves, a small demo is assembling outside the Union. The place where she and Michael met. A wan boy in a tammy beats time on a drum. The tartan trim on the posters gives the game away.

Scottish Students for Independence

Other students mill past; some accept the leaflets thrust on them, others decline. A girl who’s all raven hair and cheekbones shouts:
In-di-pendence. Here to stay!

In-di-pendence. Won’t go away!

Hannah aches to join them, not for the protest. For the being. Certainly not for the protest. This urge to unpick; all the bad places it can lead to. Were Britons not as ancient as the Scots? Only names, words we pick to call ourselves to make more divisions. Is the wind going to stop blowing when it gets to Gretna? Does the rain change colour at Berwick? She likes to think she’s a feminist, but she made Michael’s branch teas and cast half-hearted votes just as she washed cassocks and hosted Bible Study in her front room. To please her husband. Now the referendum is thundering closer, she feels like she’s scrabbling in air, backtracking on a cliff edge that scares her. Which is a metaphor for her life, in fact.

She envies these students their skinny vibrancy. Lives that are fresh and hectic choices. Their hips will never be this angular, their skin so luminous again. Before them lies unrippled water, waiting. From a second-floor window, a bulging bomb plunges through air, striking the concrete paving. A volcano of water douses drum and drummer. Yup. It’s a condom. A slow voice follows from the window: ‘Would yous shut the fuck up?’

They first kissed here, she and Michael. Up there somewhere; a Christmas all-nighter in the Union. Made love that first night too – see, no one would suspect that about him, that he could be fast. Decisive. Oh, but he was. His hand, spanning her breast. That’s how they used to sleep. Did he sleep like that with Justine?

Does he? Michael’s hard body is softer now. Life has smoothed their corners; it should’ve made for a better fit.
Are you sure?
said her mum when they got engaged.
It’s awful quick
. But she’d wanted to discover him, find the truth behind his eyes. When you sleep beside another person, when you lean up on your elbow and regard the full silent length of them, stay awake to drink the contours of their face. That is love. That she thought he was destined for
God –
and, by default, her. How romantic. That he knew all the things she wondered about, was confident and quiet, that he would be her lodestone. That he was so
good
. Then, how she broke that goodness, shattered it like a mirror in which she cannot bear to look. How she see flashes of them, Hannah and Michael, still, in the pieces that she finds.

Is that how Michael’s feeling? She’s aware of his self flowing on without her, deep and strange, his surface altered. Beneath it, he goes to places she can’t follow. She thought it was only her that did that.

Chapter Twenty-seven

East, West

Home is best

Frank’s tapestry rests on the mantelpiece. It’s quite big. Justine doesny really know where to put it. What if it’s melted by the fire? More vibrant in daylight than it appeared in the pub, there’s a border of strawberries and holly leaves; each corner has a different wee bird: an owl, some kind of hovering bird of prey and two nondescript ones with heads too big for their bodies. Man, it’s ugly. She will persuade Michael to give it to Hannah as a peace offering. Hannah loves old stuff. You only have to look around this house: most of the contents are old, or cunningly crafted to seem that way.

All right, doll? I know you think I tapped your husband, so here’s a scabby piece of sewing to make up for it.

The embroidered words make her think of a big starburst, or a compass, where all points gravitate to home. Sixteen hundred and something. You wouldny think thread would last that long. Fair chance it’s a fake.

‘How’s it going, wee man?’

Ross is lying on his tummy on the floor, colouring in. They’ve been doing paper rubbings of the gravestones. Macabre perhaps, but he is fascinated with the way the rough shapes emerge. She’s surprised he’s never done it before. Now he’s copying the pictures of birds and animals in his sticker book. Or doing crappy squiggles instead.

‘
No
. Draw round the shape of the sticker, daftie. Put the paper on top like we did with the gravestones and draw round the shape of the birdie.’

She puts her feet up. Unwraps a Penguin biscuit.

‘But I done the squirly whirlies! Look!’

A whole page of curly flourishes, none remotely like a bird.

‘I made Johnny’s secret sign.’

‘Did you? That’s lovely.’