2015
Fiona slammed the passenger door shut and turned for one last look at the village where they had lived for the past two years. There was a low mist so she could not see the hills, only a shadowy tunnel of trees, leaves dripping with morning dew. She waved again at Mrs C and Doug, standing at the entrance to the hotel. Doug gave her a thumbs up and beamed. Mrs C bent her head down and waved with both hands at Jamie who sat in the front, unsmiling.
‘Wave at Mrs C, Jamie!’ Fiona whispered, slipping into the car beside him.
He turned and lifted his hand, attempted a half-smile, then returned to face straight ahead. As they drove away, Fiona looked back in the mirror. The winding road from the village up the glen was still steeped in the lingering mist. She saw the two figures disappear into the hotel and the wooden door shut.
‘So, here we go, off to stay with Granny and Pa. Excited?’
Fiona glanced at her son’s features, rigid with indignation, and put on the radio. It was the same Radio 4 programme she had heard four weeks before when she discovered Pete had gone.
She had given up trying his mobile and had had nothing back from his email. She had spoken to the two guys he knew in Alyth who insisted they knew nothing and, strangely, she believed them. There was one other person she was going to try once they were settled in Dundee, but until then, she had her son to consider.
The previous day had been the last day of school and she had been so proud as Jamie crossed the little stage in the hall to collect the prize for art again. He had smiled when the teacher had given him his prize but that smile had become rare. Ever since Pete had left, Jamie had been quiet, often morose. She hoped that living with her parents would bring him out of himself. When they had stayed at the house in Magdalen Yard Road for a weekend, he had loved playing with Jack next door. Perhaps the long summer holidays would help him move on from their life up the glen. She wished she too could move on, forget about Pete. Had he just taken her for a ride for three years? Told her he loved her even though he didn’t? Did she ever really know him? She shivered as she contemplated the fact that he might be a criminal. If you steal a car and remove £3,000 from a joint account, what else could you be hiding? Every waking moment in the past month, she tried to go over everything he had ever said, searching for a clue about why he might have gone. Nothing.
The only good thing about living back in Dundee was that, once Jamie was sorted and at his new school, she could start work again. She had missed going out and doing something for herself. There had been no chance of finding work as an art curator in or near Glenisla, but in Dundee, with the new V&A opening in a couple of years just along the waterfront, she had hopes of a proper job. Besides everything else, she needed the money.
Fiona slowed the car down as they approached the ring road in Dundee. Jamie, whose eyes had been shut, feigning sleep, sat up. ‘Did you remember to pack my skateboard, Mum?’
‘Of course.’ She peered into the mirror. ‘In fact, I can see it poking up above the plants in the back.’
‘Good, I want to show Jack next door. Will he be at his house today?’
‘No idea, but Granny’ll know.’
Jamie’s face no longer wore the forlorn look of earlier. Hopefully things were going to turn out fine, she thought, as she turned left along Magdalen Yard Road. She parked the car and followed Jamie’s gaze towards the Tay, the water shimmering in the mid-morning sun. On her other side was the home where she had spent the first twenty years of her life, the sweeping driveway leading up to a solid Victorian structure. She chuckled as she thought of a stranger’s first impression of the pediment and pillars, perhaps of a household of stately grandeur. Inside the cold stone exterior, however, was the homespun shambles she knew and loved.
* * *
‘So, this is where we thought you could sleep, Jamie. Right at the top of the house,’ Dorothy said. ‘That suit you all right?’
Jamie tore across the polished floor and straight to the window. ‘Cool, thanks, Granny. I can see right to the end of the bridge!’
‘When we heard you and your mum were coming to stay, Pa said you had to have this room,’ said Dorothy, ruffling her grandson’s hair. ‘He was converting it into another room for all his drawings, but he can carry on using the study.’
‘Thanks.’ Jamie turned back from the window and beamed. ‘It’s huge!’
‘About the size of our entire Glenisla cottage!’ Fiona laughed.
‘Oh, and when Pa gets back, he’s going to set up his old Scalextric set and lay it out for you over there. Remember he had to keep taking up the track when he had it out on the kitchen floor.’
Jamie rushed round the large attic bedroom, opening and shutting drawers and cupboards. ‘They’re all empty.’
‘Just waiting for you to unpack, sweetheart,’ Dorothy said, drawing him into her droopy cardigan. Jamie allowed her a brief hug then extracted himself and started unzipping his bag.
‘Lunch in a bit, Jamie. I’m just going to show your mum into her old bedroom.’
Fiona shook her head and laughed. ‘I’m going to be a little girl again.’
‘Oh, I forgot to say. Pa’s left you a present, Jamie.’ Dorothy looked around. ‘Now, where did he put it? Ah, yes, he said the clue was “snakes”.’
Jamie frowned and looked around, then his eyes lit up and he ran over to the bed and fell to the floor. He lifted up the edge of the duvet and pulled out a package.
‘Snakes?’ Fiona turned back to her mother.
‘Remember Jamie used to be frightened of snakes? Dad said he used to do a weird snake dance for Jamie at bedtime to get rid of any hiding under the bed. Your father’s more than a little crazy.’
Jamie sat on the floor with his legs apart and ripped off the newspaper wrappings. ‘Wow, look at these, Mum!’ He pulled out a pair of binoculars and ran to the window. ‘I can see the bridge really well. I’ll be able to time all the trains coming across.’
‘Maybe not all of them, Jamie,’ Dorothy laughed. ‘Pa said the binoculars aren’t new, but they’re the ones you always used to play with when you were little. He thought you might like them up here.’
‘They’re great, Granny. I can’t wait to show Jack.’
* * *
‘So what are you going to do about a job, Fi?’ Struan walked over to the kitchen window and opened it a fraction before pulling his pipe out of his jacket pocket. He began to pack it with tobacco then tamped it down and lit it, sucking in and blowing out great puffs of smoke.
‘I’m going to see Martha on Monday, she’s at the Museum in Albert Square now, says she’s going to put feelers out. They’re planning a new exhibition on the Tay Bridge disaster, so they might need help with that. Then I need to speak to the V&A people about getting an interview set up sometime in the next few months.’ Fiona took a sip of her wine. ‘Dad, you’re not going to smoke inside when Jamie’s around, are you?’
‘No, Miss Prim, I am not,’ he said, puffing as he threw the match into a bin. ‘My grandson will see only the clean, fit me, not the old wreck who has taken residence inside me of late.’
Dorothy shook her head. ‘Ignore him, Fi, he keeps pestering the GP with his imaginary ailments, but he just needs to give up that pipe.’
Fiona scraped some risotto to one side and put her fork in the middle of the plate. ‘That was delicious, Mum, thanks. Good to be home.’
‘Good to have you, sweetheart.’ Dorothy looked at her plate. ‘But why d’you always leave a tiny amount of food on your plate? That’s not the way you were brought up.’
‘Sorry, I’ll revert to the inner child soon.’ Fiona grinned. ‘Be swapping my jeans for dungarees next.’
‘Nothing wrong with dungarees, I still wear mine around the house, so comfy.’ Dorothy looked down at her thick black tights and poked her finger through a hole at the knee. ‘Hand me the sewing basket, Stru,’ she said, pointing to a corner cupboard.
Struan walked over to the cupboard, lifting an empty Coke can from the counter and throwing it in the bin. Dorothy stood up and opened the bin, extracting the can. ‘Recycling, Stru, how many times do I have to tell you!’ She shook her head and headed for the outhouse.
‘Tell you what, Fi,’ Struan said, studying his daughter while puffing out little wisps of smoke. ‘If you promise to give up that hideous fizzy drink you’re addicted to, I’ll think about giving up the baccy.’
Fiona laughed. ‘Now, let me think, what’s worse for the health? A few cans of Diet Coke every day or an entire packet of pipe tobacco inhaled into your lungs?’
‘Well, I agree with you about the smoking, sweetheart, but have you seen how bad Coke is for your teeth?’
‘That’s why I drink from a straw!’ Fiona downed the last of her wine.
Dorothy took the sewing basket from her husband and sat down, leaning back into her rickety chair as she opened it.
‘You need to superglue these chairs again, Struan, they’re falling to bits.’ Dorothy shook her chair from side to side then pulled out a needle and black thread.
Struan walked back to the table and gave his chair a shoogle. He sighed then returned to his pipe. ‘Okay, how about this, Fi. Let’s start tomorrow after breakfast – no more cans of killer Coke for you, no more pipe for me.’
‘So, no more rancid fumes all over the house?’ Fiona smirked. ‘Sounds like a plan.’
‘I’ll just nip along to the petrol station for a last pack of Condor then that’s it. Sunday is the start of a new life. In fact, I thought I’d teach Jamie to fly that big red kite tomorrow. It’s been sitting in the garage for ages. We could take it onto the Green,’ he said, grabbing his coat from a hook by the door. He put it on and patted his pockets. ‘Christ, no bloody money, where’d I put my wallet, Dot?’
‘Dad, you’ve got to stop swearing when Jamie’s around.’
‘What, like your bloody Aussie fugitive?’ Struan said. ‘First time I met him, I thought he had Tourette’s syndrome.’
‘Ignore him, he comes out with some strange things these days,’ said Dorothy, as Struan disappeared out the door. ‘You know he won’t be able to give up his pipe either.’
She leant down to snip off the thread with her teeth then replaced the needle in the basket. ‘But it’ll be so good for him to have Jamie around, he looked better today than I’ve seen him in weeks.’
‘Good.’ Fiona smiled and started to load the dishwasher. ‘Mum, I was planning to get the train to Edinburgh on Tuesday, got a few things to do there. You okay to look after Jamie?’
‘Of course, sweetheart, any time. That’s why I’m so glad I left the school last year.’ She shook her head. ‘Retirement doesn’t seem to suit your father quite as well though.’