Peebles, 50 miles from Glasgow. After the bells
Colin McMillan wasn’t sure what had wakened him, or for that matter, if he had ever been asleep. He had no idea what time it was. Not unusual these days. Some nights he didn’t make it to bed and came to in the chair at the fire, cold and confused, with another bleak twenty-four hours in front of him. At some point, church bells and fireworks told him it was midnight and he was living in a new year. Since then, he had drifted, not asleep though not fully conscious, through unfamiliar landscapes which brought no peace. McMillan doubted he would ever know peace again. That was all right. Peace wasn’t what he craved. Joyce’s death had left him on fire with anger and the inferno inside him would never be extinguished. The moment he walked into that room, his life ended. She had been a beautiful person but the woman hanging from the door frame was twisted and ugly.
Voices from a passing car, kids probably, loud and laughing, no doubt on their way to a party in Innerleithen, broke his train of thought. McMillan envied them; they had their whole lives still to live. He got up and went to the window. The snow had stopped and the featureless scene was surreal.
He padded in the dark to the main room and wondered about having a whisky. Johnnie Walker was his only friend; recently, they’d become very good friends, indeed. Trouble was – and he couldn’t deny it – one wasn’t enough anymore.
When his wife was alive, Colin McMillan rarely bothered with alcohol. His work required a clear mind and a steady hand. Joyce had had to scold him to take her out, even as far as the pub. When they got there, they’d sit side-by-side, staring into space with nothing to say to each other. What he wouldn’t give to be able to speak to her now.
She would like it here; she’d loved the Borders.
McMillan’s mother left the cottage to him in her will. Somehow, he hadn’t got round to selling the house in Bearsden, though he had no plans to return – even to visit. That was Joyce’s house. How excited she’d been when they bought it and over the years, filled it with love. There wasn’t a corner of the place that didn’t have her mark on it.
He would find her dressed in one of his old shirts – miles too big – painting the kitchen, or sanding the floor; what a mess she’d made. McMillan suggested they get somebody in. Joyce wouldn’t hear of it. Bearsden had more memories than Colin McMillan could handle; he wouldn’t go back. Not ever.
He ran his finger up and down the bottle on the sideboard and lifted a glass. His only friend in the world. Then, he remembered the telephone call, and put the glass down.
He nursed the coffee between his hands, feeling its warmth against his palms. Dawn was breaking on the first day of a new year and through the window, something caught his eye. A fox: cautiously picking a path across the lawn, heading for the woods at the bottom of the garden, its body a vibrant orange against the virgin snow. The sweeping tail obliterated its tracks leaving no sign it had ever passed this way.
Left unchecked, a fox would ravage a chicken coop and go on to the next one to do the same again. Clever and cunning and probably rabid. What alternative did a farmer have except to put it down?
Harsh. Like the coffee.
McMillan ought to be aching with guilt and drowning out the horror of his wife’s suicide with booze and tears. Yet, he was sober and calm. Sipping Nescafe without sugar or milk because he hadn’t stepped over the door in days.
The letter from Joyce was under a floorboard in the bedroom. He brought it through and re-read it from the first line to the last heart-breaking word. Usually, he cried. Not this time. The sheets went back in their hiding place but the story they told stayed with him; there would be no return to sleep for him.
He hardly noticed the bitterness of the coffee, still thinking about the letter and the animal creeping through the snow, un-noticed; unseen.