17

Donnie Kerr

Fifteen years earlier

I was climbing the walls. I hadn’t had a hit all day and MacDonald had cut me off. My dole money only went so far and no one would give me work. I couldn’t be trusted. My father had urged me to work with him on the fishing boat, but I thought it was just a way to keep an eye on me because there was no way I had the strength to handle the nets and old Lachlan knew that. There was no denying the sea was in my blood. It was one of the reasons I’d come back from Glasgow. I needed to be near the salt water. I needed to feel the breeze from the open ocean on my face. But there was more in my blood than the sea by then. Insects, crawling over each other as they poured through my veins to reach my brain. They were itchy little buggers and the only thing that would soothe them was a hit, just one more, just a wee taste to get sorted and then I could start getting my life together. Just one more hit and then I could fix everything, mend those fences, repair those bridges. Make my dad proud. That’s what I told myself, anyway.

I’d tried to stay in my room, but the itch was too much. I’d smoked the cigarettes I’d lifted from my dad’s pocket. I’d drunk as much coffee as I could, even drained what was left of the bottle of Talisker he’d had been saving for a special occasion. Aye, Dad, good luck with that, I’d thought as I necked it. None of it had worked, though. I still felt those insects crawling under my skin. That’s what it feels like, the need for heroin. Wee ants, with feathery antennae, scratch, scratch, scratching at your veins. Crawl, crawl, crawl. Itch, itch, itch. All I needed was a wee taste, just to settle things down.

I’d searched the house for money but the old man was too canny for that by then. He’d long since learned not to leave any loose cash in the house for the insects to carry away. I had no pals left to tap. Ray was gone. One hit too many. Henry wouldn’t even speak to me. Roddie—well, Roddie had stolen my girl.

Mhairi.

That’s the way I saw it. Roddie had stolen her. It didn’t matter that I’d buggered off and left her pregnant. It didn’t matter that Roddie had been there for her when I wasn’t. He’d stolen her and for that he was a bastard. Even so, I went out looking for him and Henry. They owed me something, in my mind at least. But when I found them, working on the estate—Roddie still doing whatever Henry wanted him to do—they just turned away. I was an addict. I couldn’t be trusted. I’d let them down.

A storm had hit the day before. I’d felt it coming for a week, even the heroin couldn’t dull that sense. It had raged in from the Atlantic and slammed against the island like it was trying to push it closer to the mainland, howling like the banshees they said lived on the mountain. It hadn’t blown over completely, its tail was still swishing, leaving some blustery gusts and cold sharp rain.

The weather meant nothing to me, though. All I cared about was getting the means to scratch that itch. The way I saw it, I had no choice. If I didn’t get some cash and find MacDonald, I’d be dead by morning. I knew it. The creatures coursing through my body, eating everything in sight, would consume me. As I watched Henry, Roddie and the others work I could feel the little bastards hollowing me out, using my veins and arteries as highways to every inch of my body so they could scratch and gnaw and dig.

And then the solution presented itself when Mhairi appeared.

I knew she blamed me for Ray’s death. But on another level I knew she’d help me out. She’d give me something. She was always good for a tenner or so. Just a wee something. She couldn’t say no, could she? We had a bond, a connection that even Roddie couldn’t break. She’d had my little one, for God’s sake. That meant something, surely?

Mhairi.

She was my best bet. She wouldn’t see me suffer. I convinced myself of that. She had exchanged a few words with Henry and was standing alone, off to the side, watching the men work, when I approached her.

‘What are you doing here, Donnie?’ she asked, her voice, even raised against the wind, dull and weary.

‘Mhairi, darling, I need money . . .’

She blew out her cheeks slightly. ‘You always need money.’

She couldn’t even look at me. She just watched Roddie.

‘No, look, I really need it. Fifty quid.’

‘Donnie . . .’

‘Twenty, even! Please, I need it.’

‘To buy drugs?’

I didn’t say anything because honesty did not come easily to me back then. The drugs do that to you. ‘Come on, Mhairi. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate. You know me.’

She gave me a look, a not quite angry, not quite sad, then said, ‘I used to. I used to know you all, but now I’m not so sure.’

I didn’t pursue that. My mind was on one thing. ‘Come on, Mhairi,’ I said. ‘Just give me some cash and I’ll never ask you again. Honest.’

She thought about it. She looked so small, so beautiful. I noticed that, even in the state I was in. I always noticed that. She took one last look at the men, then said, ‘I’ve got to go and fetch Sonya from my mum and dad.’

The guys had made it perfectly clear that I wasn’t needed, so I followed her to the car. It was parked a distance away and she was already in the driver’s seat before I piled in. She slammed the car into gear and pulled away. She hadn’t made any move to give me money and I wasn’t sure if I should mention it again. We drove on in silence. I was fidgeting, I knew it, but couldn’t help myself. Mhairi didn’t say anything about it. Then, suddenly, she said my name. Just Donnie, as if she was going to say more, then thought better of it. When I looked at her I could see what I thought were tears in her eyes. But they didn’t affect me, all I could think of were my own needs. The drugs do that to you, too.

‘So, Mhairi . . .’ I said. ‘About the money.’

‘I’m not giving you money for drugs, Donnie. You know that.’

‘It’s not for drugs,’ I said, but her eye roll told me she knew I was lying. After all, I was speaking. She exhaled, shook her head as if she was trying to clear it.

‘Liars,’ she said, quietly. So quietly I barely caught it. ‘You’re all liars. Every one of you.’

And when she began to cry, very gently, I found that the insects hadn’t taken hold of every part of me. There was still something of the old Donnie there and I reached out and laid my hand on her knuckles where they gripped the steering wheel so very tightly. The addict was only interested in calming the insects, but Donnie—the old Donnie, the Donnie that rubbed that hand—asked, ‘What’s up, love?’

Her head shook again and she couldn’t speak at first. She brought the car to a stop and her free hand wiped the tears from her face. ‘I think I’m in trouble, Donnie,’ she said.

‘What kind of trouble?’

‘Big trouble. And I don’t know what to do.’

‘Tell me, maybe I can help?’

She looked at me, her eyes searching for something in me, I don’t know what. Perhaps she was looking for that old Donnie, the one she’d played with as a child, the one she’d grown up with, the one she’d loved. I wanted to tell her that the old Donnie was still here and he wanted to help, but that damned scratching was too strong and I couldn’t find the words. She was trying hard to find something in my face, I could see that, but in the end too much had happened—I’d left her alone carrying Sonya, the drugs, being with Ray when he’d died, watching him die, being complicit in that. She had no faith in me and I couldn’t blame her, even the addict couldn’t blame her. The truth was, by that time the insects were on the march again and I was focused more on how to get some money out of her.

She said nothing more, merely started the car again and we drove in silence all the way back to Portnaseil. She stopped at the edge of the Square, just out of sight of the windows of her parents’ home above the store.

‘You’d better go, Donnie. I don’t want my dad to see us together.’

I still hadn’t got what I wanted, what I needed, and she knew it. ‘Mhairi . . .’

She pulled her handbag from the back seat, rummaged inside and came up with two ten-pound notes. ‘Take it.’

I took it. Stared at it. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

‘It’s all I’m giving you and I shouldn’t be doing that. Just go, Donnie. Go and do whatever it is you have to do.’

I climbed out of the car, the money clenched tightly to prevent it from running away. I wanted to get into the hotel bar, see if MacDonald was there, see what I could get for twenty. I knew it would be enough, but it was getting late and MacDonald might’ve left, he might be anywhere. I would have to find him. But at the same time the old part of me rose once again to the surface. I could feel the money burning in my hands, could feel the insects scratch, scratch, scratching at my brain, but I leaned back in. ‘Mhairi, you know if you need anything I’m there for you.’

Both hands were on the steering wheel and she was leaning forward over it. She gave a little sardonic laugh. ‘Donnie,’ she said, ‘there’s a first time for everything.’

She started to move before I’d closed the door. I watched the car turn into the Square, then looked at the money in my hand. The twenty quid. And all thought of Mhairi was gone. All that mattered now was MacDonald. All that mattered now was calming those little insects. All that mattered now was me.

I didn’t know that’d be the last time I’d ever see her.