♬
We were both so out of breath that we couldn’t talk for a minute. Panting and laughing and holding our sides because we had stitches.
‘What if she comes up here?’ I asked.
‘She can’t, Mary. She’s working. You can’t just walk out of your work.’
That made sense. Granpa never walked out of the bookies during his shift. Or if he did, it was to tell the Asian men, who were smoking outside, not to chuck their cigarettes on the floor after they’d smoked them. They were to put them in the bin because Granpa was sick of sweeping up fag ends.
‘We could’ve stayed longer with Brian,’ I said. ‘They were letting us stay.’
‘But it wasn’t exciting once we found them. Why’d you want to hang around with old people?’
‘Andy’s not that old.’
‘Do you fancy him?’
‘I dinnae fancy anyone.’
I felt my cheeks get hot and red.
‘You can still fancy him, even if he’s older than you,’ said Grace. ‘That’s okay. I don’t like his beard, so I don’t fancy him. I fancy Daniel Radcliffe. But I need to meet him so I can ask him out. He’s got a nice smooth face.’
‘I dinnae fancy Andy. I don’t fancy anyone. Harry Potter has a beard sometimes.’
‘Does not.’
‘He does. Big black hairs on his chin and his cheeks.’
Grace wouldn’t believe me, but I had seen it on telly. The Harry Potter man being in other films, where he wasn’t Harry Potter. He grew a beard for those ones, so people would be able to tell that he wasn’t Harry Potter anymore. Harry Potter wouldn’t have suited a beard, that’s why J.K. Rowling didn’t give him one.
We were at the top of the tower. There weren’t any seats up there, so you had to lean on the edges of the stone. I had to go on my tiptoes but Grace didn’t.
‘Can you see Andy’s boat?’ Grace asked.
It was hard to tell from up there. A lot of them looked the same.
‘I cannae tell. It says Stardust on it.’
‘You’ll not be able to read anything from up here,’ Grace said.
‘Unless you had super-vision. Or a pair of binoculars. We should get a pair of binoculars and then we can have a look at the people on the boats. And if they fall in we can go and tell people.’
We could’ve gone and told Andy.
‘That sounds too much like a job, Mary. Like what lifeguards do. I don’t want a job!’ Grace threw her hands up to the sky. ‘I’m never getting a job.’
‘Why not?’ I asked. ‘Jobs can be good things. Like being a spy, or being a plane pilot, or working in the bakers. Think of all the cakes.’
‘Do you know how long you have to do a job for, Mary? All your life.’
‘Not all your life. You dinnae work every single day.’
Grace closed her eyes and nodded her head.
‘My dad’s been a teacher for ages and he’s still going to have to teach for about fifty more years. Maybe until he’s dead.’
‘Oh, he willnae die. Teaching’s not dangerous, not like being in the army.’
‘I didn’t mean he’ll die at work. I meant he might die of old age.’
‘When does that happen?’
‘Seventy, I think. My granny was seventy when she died.’
Granpa was sixty-six. That would mean he only had four years left.
‘But loads of people are older than seventy,’ I said. ‘If you get to a hundred, the Queen sends you a birthday card. My Granpa says that’s her main job, to write out those cards.’
‘If you die after you’re seventy,’ Grace said. ‘When they put your name in the paper, they’ll put “Mary died of old age”, instead of an accident or being murdered.’
‘What if you’re seventy-one and you get murdered by a robber?’
Grace made a scrunched-up face. I could tell she wasn’t sure. She was thinking for quite a while.
‘Then they’ll just put,’ Grace said. ‘Mary, 71, died of old age after being shot by a robber.’
Grace could answer any question, like Granpa could. Maybe once you turned ten you got better at working out questions that were hard to answer. I wouldn’t get shot by a robber, though. Robbers in Scotland didn’t have guns.
‘Anyway, Grace,’ I said. ‘You can ask your work to let you off for the summer if you want. That’s what Granpa’s doing. He gets all the time off he wants.’
‘That doesn’t sound right. My dad only gets the summer off because he’s a teacher. And my mum only got time off because she had babies. Those are the only ways you can get loads of time off.’
The boats in the water didn’t do anything exciting, but they were still good to watch. It was like a postcard come to life and you could dive right into it if you wanted. The noises were hard to explain because there wasn’t really anything noisy happening, only little things like the water swishing and a man laughing every now and then. And the seagulls being screechy, but I tried to ignore them.
‘I didn’t know your parents were dead,’ Grace said. ‘Till you said in the hospital. Did they die a long time ago?’
‘Aye. I dinnae remember them.’
‘That’s better then.’
‘Aye. I suppose so.’
Granpa didn’t say anything about the hospital when I got back to Iain’s. I was in the clear. It was like I was going on my own missions without Granpa. He had taught me all about how to do missions and keep secrets, but I could keep secrets from him too. Grace and me were the new spy partnership and Granpa was old news. We were a girl only spy force, like Charlie’s Angels. The film was on ITV once and Granpa complained it wasn’t as good as the version in his day. But it had Cameron Diaz in it. She was more beautiful than anyone, and he didn’t complain about that. Cameron was really a boy’s name, but I let her off with it.
Me and Grace didn’t have a Charlie telling us what to do because we could come up with our own missions. There were normally three angels but I liked that it was only the two of us. We didn’t need anyone else.
Tea was sausage, chips and beans. It was one of my favourite teas.
‘What were you and Grace up to the day?’ Granpa asked from the kitchen.
‘We were at the Lump,’ I answered. ‘We played Performance and Hide and Seek and Army Women.’
‘Army Women?’ Iain said. ‘What does that entail?’
‘Crawling around and shooting people. We’d see someone on the path, or even as far away as down in the harbour, and we’d pretend to shoot them.’
‘Like a sniper? You don’t get that many snipers in the army, Mary. They’re more special ops. I’ve never heard of any women snipers.’
‘Then me and Grace will be the first.’
‘I look forward to that day.’
Iain didn’t believe girls could be snipers, but girls could be anything they wanted. They could even be football players. It was on the news a lot about how the England Women’s team were doing well and how they had beaten Canada 2-1. I hadn’t known Canada even had a football team, but the England ladies had beaten them. The news never normally cared about women playing football, but the men weren’t playing so the girls got a chance to be on telly. I didn’t care about football and I never wanted to play it as a job, but I was glad other ladies could if they wanted.
Granpa sat our plates down in front of us and joined us at the table.
‘Tuck in,’ Granpa said, scraping his knife and fork together.
‘I heard today,’ Iain said. ‘Gerry from a couple of streets over is in hospital. Apparently, a lad broke into his house the other night and did a right number on him.’
‘Christ,’ Granpa said. ‘And here I was thinking Portree was free fae that sort of thing.’
‘They think it was for money, but Gerry’s not particularly well-off, as far as I know.’
‘What if he tries to come into our house?’ I asked.
‘Me and your granpa are a match for anyone, Mary. We’d not let anything happen to you.’
There was a knock at the door. I got such a fright, I dropped my knife on my plate and bean juice went all over the handle
‘Dinnae worry,’ Granpa said. ‘Criminals dinnae usually knock first.’
Iain answered the door. A wee breeze blew through the living room and went across my bare legs. I could make out some of the words the person at the door was saying. I heard my name.
‘Right, you better come in then,’ Iain said.
Granpa got up and went to the door too. I peeked over the top of the counter. It was Grace’s mum. I recognised her from the pub when I first met Grace.
‘This is Linda MacLeod,’ Iain said. ‘Grace’s mother.’
‘Mrs MacLeod,’ Granpa said, sticking out his hand. ‘It’s nice to properly meet ye. Arthur Sutherland.’
‘Yes,’ she said, shaking it. ‘Have you heard about what’s gone on?’
‘Ye’ll have to enlighten me.’
‘Mary and Grace broke into the hospital today.’
She put her hands on her hips. I felt like my tea was going to come back up.
‘Broke into the hospital?’ Granpa said. ‘First I’m hearing of it.’
‘Kelly, she’s a friend of mine who works the desk, she phoned and said Grace and another girl went in after they were specifically told not to. I assume it was Mary, they’ve hardly been apart these last few days.’
Granpa curled his finger at me, the sign for me to go over and stand with them. Something in the kitchen pinged and Iain went through to see what it was.
‘Is this true, Mary?’ Granpa said.
I nodded. I didn’t want to talk because I could already feel my throat getting choked up like I might cry. Being in trouble was the worst feeling, ever. I had known we wouldn’t get away with it. It was all Grace’s fault.
‘Grace isn’t the kind of girl to do this by herself,’ said Mrs MacLeod.
‘Let’s no rush to blame folk,’ Granpa said. He turned to me with his serious face. ‘Mary, why’d ye go into the hospital?’
I had to concentrate my hardest to make sure I didn’t cry when I started speaking.
‘To see Brian,’ I said quickly.
I had my head down, staring at the floor. I liked Mrs MacLeod’s strappy silver shoes, but I didn’t tell her.
‘Brian? Who’s Brian?’ Granpa said, then realised. ‘Och, Brian! The one who went overboard. Ach well, there ye go, Mrs MacLeod. A perfectly good reason.’
Granpa thought that would cheer up Mrs MacLeod, but it didn’t. She looked like she was sookin a lemon.
‘They were checking on the welfare of an old man who’d had an accident,’ Granpa said. ‘I’d say our Mary here is a good influence, if anything.’
Mrs MacLeod’s nostrils grew into two big, black holes.
‘Are you drunk?’ Mrs MacLeod said.
‘He’s not sober,’ shouted Iain from the kitchen.
‘I’ve had a couple of whiskies,’ Granpa said. ‘No that that’s any of yer business.’
‘And you were in a state on Friday at the pub,’ Mrs MacLeod said.
‘Listen, dear, dinnae paint me as some sort of alcoholic who cannae look after his granddaughter.’
‘Well, maybe if you didn’t let her run riot this wouldn’t have happened.’
Granpa waved his hand like she was talking rubbish.
‘They’re only wee yins,’ he said. ‘They’re supposed to get into mischief every now and then.’
‘No wonder Mary’s like this,’ Mrs MacLeod said. ‘Your hands-off method might’ve worked in the good old days, but it’s a different world out there for children now.’
‘Och, calm yersel.’
‘I can only hope you’ll be disciplining Mary for this incident.’
‘Incident!’ He shouted through to Iain in the kitchen, ‘Iain, d’ye hear this? An incident! Ye sound like these bloody teachers.’
‘You’ve clearly got a problem with authority, Mr Sutherland and you’ve passed it on to Mary.’
‘And now you’re a psychiatrist, too,’ Granpa snorted. ‘Ye ken what, it’s been lovely meeting ye, Mrs MacLeod, but we’re about to have our pudding.’
‘Fine,’ Mrs MacLeod said. ‘But, rest assured, Grace won’t be seeing her again.’ And she took off out the door.
‘Have a nice night,’ Granpa called after her. ‘And dinnae worry, I’ll give Mary ten of the best as punishment. Like the good old days!’
Granpa slammed the door. Iain had been listening to everything and was laughing to himself in the kitchen.
‘Charming woman,’ he said.
‘Mary,’ Granpa said, crouching down and sighing. ‘Ye cannae go into places like the hospital without telling me.’
‘But you just said it was good-’
‘I ken, hen, because it’s my job to stick up for ye. But ye need to check these things with me first, awright?’
I nodded, but I was annoyed because he knew it was a good thing I’d done by going to see Brian. I didn’t deserve a row.
‘Am I not allowed to see Grace anymore?’
‘I’m sure Grace’s maw will calm down in a day or two.’
But I could only think of how fed up I’d be if she didn’t. I would be back to not having any friends. If I couldn’t see Grace, then I wouldn’t be able to see Tom either. Not that I really wanted to see Tom, but I couldn’t even if I wanted to. I would have to go to the pub with Granpa and Iain for the whole summer. And even if I learned the rules, I was too wee to hold a pool cue properly.
‘How is Brian, then?’ Granpa said.
‘He’s fine,’ I said. ‘He gets out tomorrow.’
‘Ye hear that, Iain? Brian’s getting out tomorrow.’
‘Fantastic,’ said Iain. ‘We should celebrate. Would you look at that, the drinks are already poured.’ Iain waved his hand over their glasses of whisky. ‘Should we invite him over?’
‘Who?’ Granpa asked.
‘Brian.’
‘Who’s Brian?’
They laughed. They didn’t care that much about Brian, they only wanted a reason to have another drink. Grown-ups drank alcohol to celebrate things. You knew it was a good celebration if there was expensive alcohol like champagne. And someone popped it and maybe spilled some on the carpet and no one even cared.
Granpa didn’t stay mad at me for long. Iain was making him laugh about Mrs MacLeod and how she had put him in his place. I was trying to work out a way to make sure I could see Grace again.
‘What if I went and said sorry to Mrs MacLeod?’
‘Ye’ll do no such thing,’ Granpa said.
‘But I want to see Grace.’
‘Ye’ll see her, dinnae worry. Her maw’s just angry the night, she’ll be fine tomorrow. If worst comes to worst, I’ll go round to her house when her dad’s in. “Broke into the hospital”. She made it sound like Mission bloody Impossible.’
Granpa wasn’t paying proper attention to me because he was playing cards with Iain at the kitchen table again. They played every night. They put BBC Radio 2 on and Iain had a cigar and opened the window to let the smoke float away.
They played all sorts of games. I didn’t know any of them. It was either whisky or beer bottles or both beside them. But I never saw them stumbling around or falling down like drunk people did on telly. Maybe because they were always sitting down.
Granpa forgot to tell me to brush my teeth. I did it anyway. My tongue felt furry and there were bean skins stuck between my teeth. It felt quite grown up, doing it, even though no one was making me.