It was all going wrong for Jennifer. Douglas had his phone switched off and was out of the office, so Jennifer was leaving messages all over the place to tell him that Gordy was back in hospital hooked up on an antibiotic drip. Doctors kept looking at the cuts on her son then looking at her. At one point they tried to take Robbie into another room to examine him, but the wee lad had stuck resolutely to the sleeve of her anorak. So she watched them as they weighed, measured, bent and flexed her eldest son, waggling all his joints about. They kept asking her questions. They were polite, very polite, listening closely to every answer and analysing her own questions, often answering one of her questions with one of theirs. Where did the boys sleep? What did they eat? How long had Jennifer been on the mainland? Where was her accent from? They seemed to ask all about her, nothing about Douglas and where the hell he was.
Then they stopped and a nurse dressed Robbie so Jennifer could go down to the café for a cup of tea and a sandwich. As she waited to pay, she scrolled through her phone, trying to hold back the tears. They were waiting for somebody to come and have a word with her. Then, and only then, could she go and sit with Gordy, and even then, only if Robbie didn’t cause any disruption. Was there nobody who could come and take him off her hands?
No.
How bad did that sound? She had no family here. She didn’t know any of her neighbours. She wished she had waved to the jogger and the dog, got them in for a cup of coffee. Then they might have come to help. Her mum was no good, still out on the island, not really talking to the daughter who had dared to get out and tried to make a life for herself, away from the smell of the sea and fish. Glasgow too always smelled of fish, with top notes of salt and vinegar. It was a very different kind of imprisonment. She got to the end of her contacts on her phone. It was a very short list.
She pulled Colin Anderson’s card out of her pocket. They came from Partick somewhere. That wasn’t a million miles away. Dared she phone him again? He answered on the third ring, half talking to somebody else as he did, ‘DCI Anderson.’
‘Hi,’ she said, not thinking what else to say.
‘Jennifer? Is that you? Is the wee guy OK?’
‘Yes, yes,’ she assured him, and what was she going to say now? She blurted it out. ‘I had to bring him back to hospital and I can’t get hold of Douglas. He’s in an important meeting and the switchboard kept saying he was unavailable. But this is an emergency and they don’t believe me.’
‘Leave it with me.’
Seven minutes later, Douglas phoned, almost beside himself with anxiety. He was coming back over to the west; he’d be at the hospital in an hour. She was to sit tight. And he had been in a meeting, it wasn’t that he was messing about and avoiding her. She heard a male voice ask if everything was OK, and reassure him it was fine for him to leave.
Two hours later, as she was sitting by Gordy’s cot, holding the dressing that covered his pinkie, the door had opened and Douglas had appeared and given her a hug. The baby had woken up and given him a big smile. The icy nurses had melted and been lovely to Douglas – not that they had been horrid to her, but they were so pleasant to the lovely, handsome man who was so concerned about his wife and his child. Robbie was not so thrilled to see his dad and stuck to his mum like a limpet with separation anxiety.
Before they left, one of the senior nurses had taken Douglas off to a side room, or maybe Douglas had taken the nurse off to a side room. They were joined by a woman who had the words ‘Child protection social worker’ written all over her. She looked worried when she went in, but relaxed and happy when she came out. She didn’t look at Jennifer, but did look at Robbie and gave him a smile. He burst out crying.
Douglas came out of the room and took Robbie, still crying, from her arms. Then he carried him outside and handed him back to Jennifer and said he was going off to get the car. He wasn’t even two steps away when he got his phone out and she heard the words, Hi, how are you? Whoever it was, Douglas was pleased to talk to them.
As soon as they were all in the car, Jennifer had fallen asleep, cuddling into the big warm seat, the gentle noise of the wee one sleeping in the back and the hypnotic swipe of the windscreen wipers.
But they had left the baby at the hospital, her sleep would not let her forget that, and as she woke and tried to look out through the front window, she couldn’t tell if it was the rain or the tears that were blurring her vision. As they drove up Altmore Road to do a U-turn, she looked at the scary big house, in darkness. The Steeles, with the pink Fiat parked half-on half-off the pavement. The drunk’s house had a light on in the hall. Cadena was staring out of the upstairs window of her parents’ house, watchful. Jennifer looked in to the garden of the abandoned house at number 6 with its cracked sinks and bits of car engine. She had seen a rat in there once, but Douglas had told her it was her imagination. Rats liked to live near water, not in front gardens.
As usual, her own house was on its best behaviour because Douglas had turned up. The smell had gone, the closed doors stayed closed, the open ones stayed open.
The heating went on and the radiators warmed up a little; the rain had even eased off. He turned on the water, there was pressure. He suggested she have a bath, put on a nice dress. He would take her out. As she lay in the bath looking at the bad plasterwork on the ceiling, wondering if she could ask him to take them back to Edinburgh tomorrow, she heard him on the phone and held still in the water so she could make out what he was saying. He was booking a table in a restaurant so she wouldn’t have to cook anything. Maybe he had looked in the kitchen cupboards and realized there was not only nothing to eat, but nothing clean to eat it off.
She climbed out of the bath and got dressed slowly, then packed a little overnight bag. Pulling her old coat out of the wardrobe, she realized it was covered in mildew.
So she put on her older, everyday coat, knowing Douglas would frown at it. He had left his jacket hanging in the hall. A thought struck her. He had been lying to her, so why should she be the good wife? She slipped her hand into the pocket and took out his mobile. She retreated back up the stairs and redialled the last number. It went straight to voicemail. It thanked her for calling. It was a counselling service. Douglas was having counselling? She felt guilty, guilty about looking, guilty about what he was going through, something he could not tell her about. She was not a good wife. She put her best smile on as she went down the stairs. Douglas was sitting in front of the fire, his long legs bent in front of him, reading a classic car magazine.
‘I’ve booked a table at Frito’s, the best Italian in Glasgow.’
‘We need to see Gordy first,’ she said, quietly, aware of his scrutiny of her coat.
He looked at her. His face turned to thunder. Then Robbie, sensing trouble, was sick.