24

Molly Sinclair

Fifteen years earlier

At first I’d put the change in Mhairi’s temperament down to lingering grief over the death of her brother, but the night she came to collect Sonya, I thought there was something more. I always knew when my girl was worried, you see, ever since she was a wee one. Her posture was normally perfect but when there was something on her mind her shoulders stiffened, her eyes lost their sparkle and her laugh, the one that brightened the house, stilled.

This was different. I knew as soon as I saw her that night that something had happened but I didn’t ask what it was right away. She had been a secretive child and she’d never grown out of it. She certainly wouldn’t say anything with her father sitting in his armchair watching some dreadful American TV programme while he waited to go to bed.

Hector had also changed since Raymond’s death, become more introspective. Brooding, I suppose. Raymond had been his favourite—not that a parent should have favourites, but it happens. What happened in Glasgow broke his heart, Mhairi’s too, for she had always been close to her brother. It had destroyed what feelings she had for Donnie Kerr. It was all sad, tragic, but what was worse was that common grief didn’t lead to father and daughter growing closer. There had been a distance between them since Mhairi was a teenager, yet I never knew why. I had tried to find out over the years, of course I had, but neither of them would break the silence. All Mhairi said was that her father simply didn’t understand girls, which was true, and all Hector said was that she was a disappointment to him. Her getting pregnant to Donnie didn’t help matters. So whatever was troubling Mhairi would not be spoken about in his presence.

‘You’re late,’ Hector said, without taking his eyes off the television screen, where some people were shooting guns. Violence, too much violence, I thought. As if there wasn’t enough of it in the world, they had to fill TV screens with it. I didn’t like the fact that Hector had two shotguns tucked away in his gun cabinet down the hall for when he and Campbell Drummond went shooting together. I was island born and raised, guns aren’t uncommon, but the idea of having them in the house made me uncomfortable.

‘I know, I’m sorry,’ said Mhairi, but the words were directed at me. ‘I was held up.’

‘Where have you been?’ I asked.

Mhairi paused and her eyes flicked away. ‘I was down at Feshie, seeing Morag.’ Morag was her friend from school. She had married a dairy farmer and moved to the south of the island. ‘Not seen her in ages. You know what it’s like when we get talking.’

I knew it was a lie, even before the words came out of her mouth. The pause and the looking away told me that but I wouldn’t challenge her on it, not with Hector there. I followed her into her old bedroom, where Sonya was sleeping. That child was always a sound sleeper, something she’d inherited from me. Whatever gene it was that dictated sleep patterns had skipped a generation, for Mhairi was too restless a child to sleep through the night. She used to say the baby would sleep through Armageddon.

I made sure the door was firmly closed before I spoke. ‘There’s something wrong, isn’t there?’

Even in the dim glow of the nightlight, I saw how pale and drawn Mhairi was. And there was something in her eyes that had never been there before, even after Raymond’s death. I don’t know how to describe it except they were haunted, as if she had seen something that had affected her so deeply she would never forget it.

‘Nothing, Mum,’ said Mhairi.

‘No, there’s something. You can’t hide it from me. You never could.’

She fussed a little with Sonya’s blanket. Even then the baby did not waken. ‘I saw Donnie, is all it is. He wanted money.’

‘Did you give it to him?’

‘No,’ she said, but that was another lie. I let it go again. I was convinced seeing Donnie was not what had upset her. We were all used to what Donnie had become by then, sad and disturbing though it was. What was more disturbing was the knowledge that Raymond had become a similar walking corpse. But I tried not to think about that too much. I still don’t. I couldn’t change it then, I can’t change it now. Perhaps, had I known what our son was doing in Glasgow, I could have done something about it, but Raymond had never told me. His calls home, although they grew infrequent, were breezy. He was working, he said. He was fine, he said. But he wasn’t working and he wasn’t fine. And then he was dead.

I didn’t blame Donnie. Hector did, but he’d never forgiven him for getting his daughter pregnant and then swanning off. Even Mhairi blamed the boy. But I never did. Not totally. Raymond had always been his own man. It had been his idea to go to the city, not Donnie’s. Donnie was a follower back then, like Roddie, and although it suited my husband and my daughter to blame him, I knew in my heart that Raymond would have led the way in everything.

I watched as Mhairi bundled Sonya carefully in a warm blanket and laid her into the carry cot. The baby murmured a little but remained asleep.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Mhairi as they left the room. She didn’t say goodbye to her father, who was still in the sitting room. The gulf between them was too wide for anything but necessary communication. He wouldn’t have heard her anyway, for there was too much gunfire and screeching tyres on the TV.

I followed her down the stairs, still wishing she would tell me what was wrong, but nothing more was said. At her car, I felt the need to make one more attempt at getting her to talk. Perhaps, in the night air, her father out of the way, she would open up, even just a little.

‘Mhairi, pet,’ I said, very gently, ‘you know you can tell me anything. After all that’s happened, you know that, don’t you?’

Mhairi straightened up after moving Sonya from the carry cot into her car seat. ‘Honest, Mum, it’s nothing. I’m tired. It’s been a long day, you know? And that drive up from Feshie in the dark takes it out of me.’ The smile she gave me was forced and weak. ‘Nothing to worry about.’

I still wasn’t convinced. The Feshie visit was a fiction, I knew it. ‘Is there trouble between you and Roddie? Is that it?’

Something then. Something in her eyes. Something that appeared and vanished like the fairies out there in the dark. Then Mhairi looked away. Another lie coming. ‘No, we’re fine. He’s fine.’

She walked round to the driver’s door, opened it. Then she stopped and seemed to freeze as she stared at the child sleeping in the back seat. I saw her face fold as tears began to well, so I moved round the car. Mhairi instantly whirled and wrapped her arms around me and held me like her life depended on it.

‘Mhairi, pet, tell me what it is.’ But she shook her head, sobs wracking her body. ‘You’ve got to tell me. Whatever it is, we can sort it.’

‘I’m in trouble, Mum,’ said Mhairi, her voice muffled against my shoulder. ‘I think I’m pregnant.’

I felt shock first, then relief, then the sensation of being here before. I thought of Hector, sitting up there watching that TV programme. He’d been disgusted with Mhairi for sleeping with Donnie out of wedlock; now it had happened again. With another man.

‘But that’s a wonderful thing, darling. Roddie must be very happy.’

Mhairi pulled herself away to avoid my eyes.

Suspicion filled my mind. ‘You have told Roddie, haven’t you?’

Mhairi said nothing.

I eased her back round to face me, forced her to look at me. ‘Mhairi, you have to talk to me—have you told Roddie yet?’

She shook her head, her tearful eyes filled with something else. Fear? Desperation? Panic? I couldn’t tell.

I took a deep breath. ‘Is Roddie the father?’

Mhairi seemed to freeze, the air around us grew heavy. I knew the answer. I could see it in her face; I heard it in the silence.

‘Who is the father?’ I asked.

Mhairi shook her head again, not so much a refusal to answer as a means of clearing her thoughts. ‘I’m not even certain I am pregnant, Mum. It’s just that all the signs are there . . .’

‘But if you were, Roddie might not be the father? So who might it be?’

A smile then. The one that Mhairi threw when she was finished talking about something. ‘Of course it’d be Roddie. Who else would it be?’

Who else indeed, I thought, as Mhairi busied herself with little Sonya. I said nothing further as I took in this news. If she was expecting, then Hector would have to know about it sooner or later and I already dreaded having to tell him. When that day came there would be another storm and it would have nothing to do with the island’s climate.

I knew I’d weather it like I’d weathered everything else. When it came down to it, Hector did love his daughter and he would stand by her. That was the island way. Family stood with family.

I had been through a lot with my children and I knew when to push and when to hold back. I also knew Mhairi was still hiding something. When she was younger she would try to throw us off some misdemeanour by admitting to something else. I couldn’t help but feel that Mhairi had tried to do the same by revealing the possible pregnancy.