2007

Gray light before dawn. Alison stood at Tori’s door, watching her sleep. Had Mum ever watched her like this, her small body at full rest? That little girl who wanted so much to please, who loved the grass and the birds, the soft roll of the sea, the view from the top of the hill. After all these years, she still ached for it, for a life long gone, she thought. Mum dead. Dad, distant, calling occasionally, visiting even less. He spent holidays with his wife’s family. Alison spent holidays with Wade’s.

She fingered an envelope that had arrived from Dad the day before. An early birthday card: Happy 40th. I’m sending this early so you have time to make arrangements. He’d had extra frequent flyer miles that were set to expire. He’d sent a pair of first-class tickets to Glasgow. A week. Happy Birthday, indeed.

The children were easy enough to organize, the boys staying with friends and Tori with Charles and Isadora. Wade, however, seemed unable to organize a week away. Alison suggested she could go alone. His schedule suddenly cleared.

~

Settled into her seat, Alison returned to the last time she’d made this journey, Mum at her side, Papa gone, Vic there to console her, the House of Records and the social worker and that last night in Papa’s flat. Twenty years ago. It hardly seemed possible.

Three whiskies and the first ten minutes of the movie claimed Wade. His head lolled and then came to rest facing her. Headphones in, knitting needles clacking, Alison turned and faced him fully. Beautiful Wade, still. He seemed more open in repose. A flash memory of the first morning he brought her tea in bed, and the second and the third. Had he done that even once since he slid the ring onto her finger?

I don’t want to spend a week alone with him. The thought was sudden and solid, like the stone indicators at the top of so many Scottish hills that pointed out near and far places. They weren’t part of the natural landscape, but, once planted there, were immovable. She tried to attribute it to anxiety at being away from the children for this long, a first.

In the morning, a smooth landing, followed by the journey, just as she remembered it, to Inverkiven, where Papa took her to the sea. Early check-in to the B&B. Wade refused to believe he’d deal better with the jet lag if he resisted the impulse to sleep. Alison left him, settling his fragile, whisky-hindered head.

Down to the sea under a weak sun, only partly there. She counted back the hours, imagined her children sleeping, worried that the boys would take risks, get into trouble without her there, or that Tori would feel abandoned. She took a breath. She’d given up hope of ever returning. And yet, here she was.

She tilted her head back, suddenly struck by a deep desire for her daughter to know this land, and then by the fear that she was now an immigrant in her own country. Perhaps, even, having crossed some border within herself that made her an immigrant in her own skin. The land the same, but her sense of who she was in it altered by time away, by being there with Wade. Alison shook her head. Breathed. Fast clouds passed. Underfoot, the soil itself, at least, felt familiar. A settling, within, a return to a sliver of self. Her breath, in and out. Home. She rested there as long as she dared, turning back towards the B&B and Wade only when she felt she must.

~

They took the ferry to Tursa, walked to the top, over the middle of the island and then down into village and to The Clachan, still there, unchanged. Three men hunched at the corner of the bar. The bartender glanced at Wade and Alison and then leaned into the men, kept talking.

“Nothing like customer service,” Wade snarked to Alison.

“With you in two ticks. Sir.” The bartender finished his chat, laughed as he came towards them.

“Macallan,” Wade said.

“Two?”

“Pint of heavy for me,” Alison said.

“Wouldn’t you rather just a half?” Wade asked. He slid off the stool, heading for the bathroom.

“Where’d ye find him?”

“South Carolina.”

“You’re from here, though.”

“Aye,” she felt the Scottish easy in her mouth. “Home for a wee visit.”

“You’re no really wanting a half, are you?” He lifted a pint glass.

She glanced at the row of half-pint glasses behind him. The memory of Vic and herself, there on the hill. Vic, beside her, at the bar when she’d come home for Papa’s funeral. They’d made fun of women who took half pints.

“Fine. A pint.”

He set it on the counter, dark and foamy. Her mouth watered.

He had the Macallan out when Wade returned. “Just neat is it? Or would you like ice?”

“Yes, ice.”

“I thought you might,” he smiled, as though it was a compliment.

“Thanks,” Wade said. He glanced at Alison’s glass, glanced at the bartender, took a breath as though to speak, lifted his own drink. “Cheers,” he said. “Might as well go all out on vacation.”

After, the sun lowering, they stopped at the chip shop on the way to the ferry: a black pudding supper for Alison, a fish supper for Wade. They sat, side by side on the rock wall, watching the ferry dock. Alison bit into the sausage, one of the silly things she missed. Likely, if she’d still lived there, she’d have shunned them the way she shunned fast food in America. Wade stared. She turned towards him, tucking in a chip.

“You’re not going to eat all that are you?” He asked.

She hadn’t considered how much she might eat. She felt the sudden heat of embarrassment, familiar. And a new sensation with it: a tightening of the jaw, a heat in her gut. Anger. The last car pulled off the ferry. Pedestrians began to board. A different ship to the one she boarded all those years ago, but with the same layout: up the gangplank and in, left at the lifeboats and round the corner. She moved briskly through the crowd, making space between herself and Wade. She hunkered down behind the lifeboats, saw Wade come looking before he saw her, remained hidden, finished every last fucking chip, loaded with salt and vinegar, ran her finger round the edges of the cardboard container, licked them clean. It was the first time she’d ever finished a fish or black pudding supper in her life; she felt more stuffed than she’d felt when she was pregnant. She managed to resist the impulse to put hands to belly, judge what she found. How many times had she let Wade’s glare put her off eating? An hour at the stove and then his disdain cut her down to only two or three bites. You’d think she’d have been thinner. Four children had taken their toll. Not as much as she’d seen on some of the other mothers at the kids’ schools. Not as slim as the sleek women at the country club, though. Fifteen pounds heavier than when she’d sat on the shore with Vic all those years ago.

~

Later, in bed in the dark, his hand on her shoulder. “I shouldn’t have been so harsh about the food.”

She softened. As usual. “It’s okay.” Gray night outside, moonless, cloud covered. A whistle of wind, what the spring says.

“A pint, though. And heavy ale. And then that whole dinner. The thing is, Alison, I love you. I’ll always love you. That’s what I’m trying to say.”

She pulled herself closer to him. He set a hand on her hip.

“But you’re too fat for me to make love to.” He squeezed. “I just can’t get turned on with you like this.” Another squeeze and he let go, rolled over, pulled the covers with him, leaving her exposed to the night air.

When he began to snore, she swung her feet out, dressed, padded into town and down to the shore. Across the water, the lights in the village twinkled. She held them in her sights as she made her way along the promenade, trying to feel her body from the inside, wondering what she looked like to strangers. Are these strong legs like someone else’s? This round tummy—does my mother have one too? She lay down on a bench, thought about her life back in South Carolina: the children, PTA, swim team, soccer, music lessons, cocktails, all she’d been brought up to be. Happily Ever After. Why, then, did she feel like Rapunzel in her tower? Had she kissed the wrong prince?

~

She slid back in beside Wade before he woke. Part of her wanted to be indignant. A greater part wanted Wade to love her, body and soul: the rising of the girl she’d been all those years ago, wanting someone to love her enough to stay, believing she’d found him, nothing worse than the terror she felt when someone left. The anger she had felt when she’d walked out in the night had dissipated. All she wanted was his arms around her, safe. After all, who would she be without him? The gypsy girl, the bastard, the unwed mother. Not. Good. Enough.

A light kiss over breakfast, his smile as he pulled away.

A walk up the hill behind the village. Clear air. Everything seemed fine.

Halfway up the hill, Wade turned. “Horseshit,” he said. “Why is there so much horseshit? And not a real trail?”

Why does there need to be a path? They could see for miles across the moor in one direction. At their backs, a view nearly a hundred miles, up the Clyde and beyond, if they stopped long enough to look. If they stopped at all, breathed in, dung and damp grass and the faint drift of salt air up from the sea. The sky above pale blue, slow moving cumulus.

She wanted to sink down, to connect with the earth, solid and sure, to settle here. She told herself it was just relief from the swirl of work and homework checking and PTA and School Improvement Council and Teacher Appreciation Day baking. But there was something else. She wanted to be here, where she and Vic lay side-by-side.

“Cowshit,” she replied.

Wade turned, still walking, now backwards. Still fucking moving. The sun made his bald spot gleam. He squinted.

“That’s cowshit,” she said. “That over there.” She pointed. “That’s horse shit.” She stopped. “Sheep shit a few yards back.” She smiled. “You may have missed it.”

“I don’t want to know about shit.”

“You brought it up.”

He shook his head, walked on. They climbed in silence, and she felt last night’s anger begin to re-ignite. She distracted herself by looking for shit in the tall grass—large flat bovine pancakes, hard wee ovine balls, the almost-cute bunny bits higgledy-piggeldy over the hill. Easier than looking at their own shit, still steaming and hanging in the air around them. Around her, anyway. Wade marched ever onward, righteous. She’d tried to keep up all these years, believed in his correctness, his legitimacy. She followed his word like a gospel. She paused, put hands to full hips, to fit thighs, a little excess, to be sure, but a strong body within, and a seed of doubt, sprouting. A flutter, low in the belly, like the earliest kicks of a baby, so familiar. The round of approaching middle age. Not round, really, jut a softening—too soft for Wade, apparently. She released her hands, looked down. There was no risk of pregnancy. Those days were long gone. What was that then, that she’d felt, like a phantom limb? As though there was something gestating.

She traced back some of the things he’d said, beginning on their honeymoon. Never anything public. Never a bruise or so much as a slap. Tiny jabs, little bunny balls of crap that should scrape off easily but that had built up over time.

Up ahead, his square shoulders, muscular back, sculpted calves—the perfect man, partner in his law firm, manipulator of rules, always seeing the angles for his clients, always clean. She paused, taken by a sudden impulse to step into a huge pile of cow dung in the middle of the path. She took a breath. She stepped around the dark clump. Ahead, a gull swooped at a glint in the grasses, then rose again. Cows stared, wide-eyed and chewing. In calf season they chase. They mow people down. The year before, in Herefordshire, a herd pinned their farmer to his own recently repaired fence. She recalled reading this, called out to Wade, ran to catch up.

“Wade.” She touched his sleeve. “I was calling to you.”

“I didn’t hear.” But she could see in the flick of his eyes that he had.

“Watch out for the cows. They can attack.”

He replied with a smooth-face, eyes wide at her stupidity. “That’s ridiculous. They’re domesticated. Look at them. Fat girls chewing their cud. They do what they’re told.”

“Suit yourself,” she said. She stepped past him and kept going. She did not look back.

~

The next morning, Wade had a round of golf booked. When he’d first mentioned this, Alison knew what she’d do—what she should have done twenty years ago—get a copy of her birth certificate. Now, she thought of Vic. Could she call? Might Vic have forgiven her? But she was here with Wade. Would it just feel as though she was flaunting her marriage? She’d stick to the plan.

~

The same train from Queen Street to Waverly Station. The short walk to the House of Records, this time prepared for the treatment. She took notes, managed to read beyond the names, the blank space, the place and time of birth, to the occupation of her mother—student nurse—and then her address—15A Lange Street. She froze at the next line: Tursa.

All this time.

They’d told Alison that her mother was an easterner. Leith, that’s where Alison was born—Eastern General. How had she missed it?

How many times had she stood on the mainland shore, held Papa’s hand, looked across the firth not knowing she was staring at where she’d come from? How many times had she climbed the hill? Papa had given her the compass on that hill, told her she could use it to navigate home. But she was already there. She’d gone with Vic. Gone alone. Was Mary there then?

Whatever else she’d thought she might do in Edinburgh fled. She paid for a copy to be mailed to her and then took the next train back. The closer the train got to Glasgow, the larger the fear seemed. Strange to think she’d likely walked past the house. Only now did it seem a terrifying thing to do. She didn’t want to go alone.

Vic. She wanted Vic. Perhaps Vic’s mother was still there. Perhaps she’d speak to Alison, tell her where to find Vic. Perhaps Vic would even be there.

Train to Strathnamurrah, the walk to Vic’s house, the same as ever. The temptation to have a cigarette suddenly there. At the corner of Vic’s street, a view of the little semi-detached house. New curtains. A different car in the front. Walk up the path? Ring the bell?

She retreated, trying to gather courage. What if her mother shut the door in Alison’s face? What if Vic were there, perhaps with another woman, a lover? What if they opened the door—the pair of them, hand-in-hand—would she be happy for Vic, or would her heart break? She approached again, this time committed to going to the front door. As she did, a stooped man with his arm around a broad woman stepped out. He turned whilst she waited. Locked the door. Not Vic’s mother or sister or any of them. Gone. Of course they were. Had she really thought they’d be precisely where she left them?

She pulled her jacket tighter, glanced at her watch. Middle of the afternoon, still. She’d just have to go alone.

Thrum of the ferry motor across the firth. The walk into the village, a spring rain biting at her. She curved against the wind. Past the ice cream shop and the pub, right to the edge. Her house, there: Mary’s house, her mother’s house. She dared not stop. What if she were there? Came out? What would she look like? What did Alison look like, soaked and scarlet? She walked around the curve where the sidewalk ended, paused, walked past again, as though she’d forgotten something and was merely returning to the village to get it.

Mary must have walked this path. Did she still? Might I bump into her? Would we know each other? Too much to think about. Too much to feel. The social worker’s comments echoed in her head. What would she do if she found her mother? She’d just wanted her birth certificate. She picked up the pace, back to the pub.

In the doorway, she glanced around, equal parts hope and terror at the notion that she might see someone with her wild hair and broad hips. The bartender had noted she was from there. She thought he’d meant Scotland. Now she wondered if she looked like someone he knew on Tursa. She hesitated. No one perched at the bar. Two couples huddled in a booth in the back. A middle-aged couple shared a packet of crisps at a table near the front. No one even seemed to notice her. She made for the bar.

“Back again?”

“Couldnae resist,” her childhood voice alive, again.

“No brought your pal?”

“He’s golfing.”

“In this weather?”

Alison shrugged.

“And you couldnae think of somewhere better to go than Tursa?”

“Something like that.”

He pulled her pint and stood, drying glasses and asking her what it was like, living in America, and how she got there, and how often she came home.

The couple at the front called him over before she could answer the last question, leaving Alison to nurse her pint as she thought about the idea of home. If she’d grown up on Tursa, would there have been a papa to bring her to the pub after she’d had her hands in the sea. Would he have taken her up the hill? She wouldn’t have needed a compass; she’d already have been home. She’d made a home for her children, but did she really feel at home? When was the last time she had? She felt tears rise. She swallowed them, slugged down the rest of the pint, turned in the direction of fresh air.

Outside, the sky hadn’t cleared. Even if she knew what Mary looked like, she likely wouldn’t have recognized her in weather like that. They could have passed on the street and they’d never have known—everyone zipped tightly into their coats, umbrellas up, hats pulled down, bodies curved in, faces turned down. She’d have had to recognize Mary by the shoes.

~

By the time she got back to the B&B, Wade had come and gone, leaving her a card: I do love you, Alison. I missed you today. I’ll be waiting for you in The George.

He sat in a booth by the window, rose to greet her as soon as she stepped in, took her hand.

Alison sat next to him. “How was golf?”

“Too damned windy. And wet. I stopped at nine. Took you a long time in Edinburgh.”

Her throat tightened. She cleared it. “I found out something about my mother.”

“On your birth certificate? I thought you already knew her name.” He shoveled in another mouthful.

“They lied.” She gripped Wade’s leg.

“Who?”

“The Church. My parents. I don’t know. She’s from Tursa.”

“Maybe they just made a mistake. Why does it matter where she’s from?”

“She might have been right there the whole time. We might have been on the ferry together. I walked past her house when I was a child. So many times.” One tear escaped.

He set down his drink, pulled her into his embrace.

“It’s just a shock. Makes me wonder what other lies there are. Who knows who I really am.”

“Listen to me,” he said. “You’re Mrs. Wade Earley. You’re Charles’ Mum, and Will’s, and Michael’s, and Victoria’s. And we love you. No matter where you’re from. That’s what’s important,” he said. “Right?”

Of course it was.

~

What Wade wanted to do filled the remaining days: castles and distilleries and monuments. Alison felt as though she was in Primary Three again on a field trip as they made their way through Edinburgh Castle.

She paused in one of the parapets, staring out at the city, where her parents had collected her. Leith lay just to the south, where she’d been born. Who had transported her from one place to the other? Who was the foster mother in the between time? She boiled with questions. They seemed to be all she was made of.

“Alison. Alison.”

She turned, almost shocked to see Wade right in front of her.

“What’s so interesting out there?”

“Just. Wade. I have so many questions.” She wanted to reach for him. He didn’t understand, though.

“About your birth mother?”

“About all of it.”

The sun made his pale eyes seem like an icy winter day.

“Are you sure you really want the answers? Seems like a Pandora’s Box to me.”

“I just wanted a copy of the birth certificate. Her name. Her signature. But now, knowing where she’s from. That we might have been so close. It makes it all seem different.” As though something that had been entirely out of reach now wasn’t.

Part of her wanted to return to Tursa, perch near the house, wait. Was her father, the blank space, from the island, too? Surely one of them at least had her hair. Or had Mary, for some reason, which couldn’t have been good, come to Leith. It was then known for prostitution. Was it there she’d become pregnant? The rising again of her childhood fears. Perhaps gypsy was too good for where she’d come from.

“Maybe best to wait. Let it settle.” He put his arm around her, gently turned her away from the parapet.

“We might not be back.” She pulled away, turned to face him.

“We could figure it out.”

“Could we?”

“If you decide it means that much to you, of course we can.”

He was right. What would the point be, of going to Tursa? Likely she’d get the same result as she’d got in Strathnamurrah: she’d stand in front of the house of a stranger and wish for someone she once loved to come out the front door.

She let it go, finished the holiday items on Wade’s list.

~

In the air—40,000 feet, 800 miles an hour against the turn of the world. The flight, packed. Hundreds of people, shoulder to shoulder. Wade and Alison weren’t able to get seats together. Wade sat ahead, in the next section of the cabin. Alison watched the flight attendant make her way down the aisle, wishing it faster. She ordered a beer.

“Make it two. Save you a trip.”

Shoulders high and tight, jaw clenched, she felt as though it might take the plane’s entire stock of beer to release her. Ten rows ahead, the husband who claimed to love her but was repulsed by a few extra pounds. Still, he’d held her, said she could come back here if she wanted.

Behind and below, a mother she had never known. Not quite right. They had known each other. Once, she’d curled within that body, known every gurgle for forty weeks, their two hearts beating. The rhythms of her mother’s footfalls, the melody of her voice, the drumroll of her tears, the burble of laughter. Perhaps Alison had even seen her, there on Tursa. But she had never seen and known at the same time.

She downed the second pint, thought she’d have another. Fuck that. A whisky. A whisky and a pint chaser. More calories. No one watching.

She sipped her Laphroaig. The peaty taste rolled over her tongue. She could nearly feel it under her fingers, dark and thick. The waters from which this whisky originated cold enough to numb legs, sometimes even in summer. The first touch made her feel completely alive, though. That black soil, that clear water: below and behind, same as that mother from which she sprang.

The rest of the whisky warmed all the way down. When it was finished, she settled into the idea of a pillow provided by the airline, drifted into a twilight between wake and sleep.

Who was she, this Mary MacGilavry Kerr? Who had she really been? Alison imagined her in front of a fierce matron, trying to apply to another nursing school, to get a fresh start after her birth. She imagined the matron peering at Mary in a way that reminded her of the social worker, Mrs. something, who glared months before, the first time she inquired about adoption. Bobby pins clamp the matron’s nursing cap firmly to her head, three on each side. Each pin rests equidistant from the next. They are silver, to match the matron’s hair, and they pull tightly, which gives the matron a bit of a facelift around the eyes. The contrast between the tight skin there and the wagging jowls below fascinates Mary, who, sometimes thinks of herself not as Miss Kerr, but as Not Mrs. Kerr, or, more abbreviated, just Not Mrs.

“You stopped going to the school in Glasgow, at The Victoria.” The matron’s words dart out between the wagging folds of skin. Her jowls slow, then still whilst she waits for Not Mrs. to answer. Was she meek, like Alison, taking everything, burying it somewhere inside herself, ashamed? Or defiant, like Vic. Alison much preferred to think of her in that way.

She imagined her noticing that the matron’s hands bear no rings, wondering if the matron has ever had a man, if the bars wrapping around the white cap satisfy the matron in the way that rings on the left hand would satisfy another woman, or the circling of a man’s arms around her naked body might satisfy yet another.

“I did,” Not Mrs. says.

“It’s good training there.” The matron pauses, leers over her half-glasses. “And yet you stopped, when was it?”

Mary tucks her chin. The matron seems to be goading her to answer.

“Just at the end of last year.” Somehow, it’s the matron’s statements that beg a response.

“Just the end of last year,” Mary repeats, quietly

“December, was it?”

Not Mrs. nods. Her flesh stays firmly in place as the matron’s implication implants itself.

The matron pauses, sips her tea. “What’s the date today?” The matron makes as though to look at her blotter-cum-desk calendar.

Not Mrs. waits. She smooths her skirt. Something about the matron’s breathing irritates her. She just wants to go, now. It’s clear that she’s not getting in.

“Ah yes. The 19th of September. Just about nine months then, since you were in The Vic. And you’re not wanting to pick back up there because?”

“Have you been to Glasgow?” Not Mrs. has had it. She’s been shamed enough, while James has escaped as though he had no part of it. She’s suddenly angry, and surprised at herself. She quite likes the feeling.

“Pardon me?” The matron pushes back the top pin on one side, tightening it and in so doing, making her eyes look lopsided.

“Well, it’s filthy isn’t it?” Not Mrs. straightens her spine. “Filth, filth, filth.” She checks for a facial reaction from the matron but can’t tell if the matron is genuinely confused or toying with her a little more or if it’s the too-tight cap. “From the shipyards, of course.” Not Mrs. pauses. She feels the fight drain suddenly away.

“Aye. Yes. Filthy.” The matron straightens the other side, regaining her facial alignment. “Still best if you finished where you started.”

Alison opened her eyes at the sound of Wade’s voice. “Pass out?” He stood over her.

She wanted to ignore him, managed a small smile anyway. “Just daydreaming.”

“Did you fill in your customs form?” he asked.

She nodded.

He reached for it.

They didn’t even go through the same line. After all this time, Alison still held her British passport.

“Are you sure you did it right?”

She nodded, though she suddenly felt she might need to declare something, but not in customs. The pilot announced a turbulent descent expected. Everyone back to their seats until landing. Alison swallowed whatever she might have said, bile in her throat.

Forced to circle twice, the plane jumped and skidded as it connected to earth, then pulled back harshly on the way to the gate. She had a flashing fantasy of immigration detaining her, forcing her to return, to go home. She shook this away—she wanted her hands on her children.

~

In Charles and Isadora’s driveway, Tori’s arms around her. The boys, each collected one by one from friends’ houses, tolerating a kiss on the cheek.

All of them in the van. These beautiful children. This family. There was nothing in the world she wanted more than to create a place that her children could return to, that they could bring their own children to. A place they could feel fully loved and safe. A family. A home. She would have done anything to keep it together.