by Fiona Gibson
‘Thirty-seven. Same as Katy. He wasn’t planned, but I was delighted and actually, she seemed happy too. She managed to get clean and I admired her for that. She didn’t do meetings or anything – she just went cold turkey.’
‘That must’ve been hard for her,’ Suzy says.
‘Yeah.’ I exhale slowly. ‘It was too hard, as it turned out. Arthur was born and she went back to work a few months later, and it came out that she’d got straight back onto it, forging prescriptions, nicking stuff, stuffing drugs into her bag or her socks or wherever she could without being noticed.’
A sense of calm seems to settle over us. We sip our teas and Scout rearranges himself on the hearth rug. ‘What happened?’ Suzy asks. ‘Was she caught?’
‘Yep.’ I nod. ‘A locum saw her stashing some stuff in her bag at the end of the day, and when she went to the loo he checked it. And then it all came out – the forged scripts, the copious missing drugs. There was a hearing and she was struck off the pharmacists’ register. Only for a year, amazingly, but that was it for her. She never went back. Arthur was about four then, and she wasn’t working. Instead, she was out at all hours because of course, she had to get her drugs from somewhere else then.’ I rub at my eyes, realising they’re wet.
‘Oh, Ricky.’ Suzy pulls me close and I breathe in the scent of her hair. She smells wonderful; of the sky and the hills and the sea.
‘There were rages,’ I add as Scout potters over towards us. ‘Like, she’d really lose it if the flat was messy or Arthur was playing up. One night she took a heavy iron frying pan and smashed up his karaoke machine.’
‘My God, that’s terrible—’
‘I know I should’ve done more to try and help her,’ I continue, ‘but I didn’t. I was at the end of my rope by then, trying to keep up a pretence that everything was normal and that we were a happy, functioning family.’
‘Did she try to get help?’ Suzy asks.
‘No, and I didn’t really help her either. I mean, I didn’t do enough.’
‘What could you have done, though?’
‘I don’t know. Something that might have stopped all the rows and her just leaving like that. Maybe if I’d been a better partner and not driven her away, Arthur would still have a mum—’
‘I’m sure you didn’t drive her away,’ she exclaims. ‘Where did she go anyway?’
‘That’s the thing,’ I reply. ‘No one knows. She just disappeared, leaving no contact details or anything. And she’s never been in touch, not even with Arthur. I tried to trace her, of course, and reported her as a missing person. But there was nothing. It’s been nearly five years now.’
We fall into silence for a few moments. Scout jumps up onto the sofa and settles comfortably in the small space between us. ‘What d’you think happened?’ she asks.
I look at her, so glad I’m here with Suzy, and feeling oddly light, now I’ve told her everything. ‘Believe me, I’ve run through every possibility in my head, including the worst one. But what I try to keep telling myself is that Katy just didn’t want to be found.’
Chapter Fifty
The summer unfolds and Arthur takes to hanging out with a bunch of local lads here, enjoying a freedom he never has back home. He’s become close with a couple of the boys, and they’ve started calling for him, asking him out for games of football on the beach or in the park at the other end of town. Of course he’s old enough now to roam about with his mates, just as I did then. And it strikes me that, on this visit, he’s hardly mentioned Glasgow at all.
Maybe it’s because his football back home is all timetabled and pretty rigid. It’s basically all about training sessions and fixtures with other schools. But here on the island, he can head out and play whenever he wants to; there are no adults organising everything. Arthur seems to love that. He’s always been a pretty independent kid.
In fact, it almost feels as if this is where he belongs now. The whole ‘home’ thing certainly doesn’t even seem as straightforward as it was just a few months ago.
Dad has been a big part of that. Although he’s never been your archetypal all-singing granddad with a repertoire of magic tricks, he’s always been extremely patient with Arthur, making it clear that he doesn’t merely tolerate but actually welcomes him trotting about on errands with him. And Arthur knows everyone here: the fishermen, the shop and café owners and all of Dad’s friends. And that’s thanks to Dad, for letting him tag along, an eager little sidekick from faraway Glasgow, which could be Rio de Janeiro when you’re living out here.
I still know many of the faces around here too. In fact they often talk as if I only moved away last month. (How’s it going in Glasgow, son? Still playing that music?). When I was Arthur’s age I had already formed a clear vision of what life on the mainland, in a city, must be like: filled with McDonald’s and cinemas and spotting famous people in the street. The girls at school regarded Miss Selfridge as some kind of otherworldly concept and the boys talked about Rangers and Celtic games like the stuff of dreams.
On the mainland, I reckoned, you’d be able to do whatever you wanted. Everyone knows each other here. You couldn’t get away with anything without it being reported straight back. I’d scaled a lamppost once, drunk on whisky stolen from a friend’s parents’ drinks cabinet. Mum had heard all about it before I’d even staggered home.
And the teasing I got from lugging my cello about!
Hey, Ricky, that’s a bloody big fiddle, ha-ha!
Play us a tune, Rick!
Have you got a licence to carry that thing?
I yearned to escape back then, to disappear into a world where you could be anything and no one would care.
And now I’m ready to come home.
Frieda and Isaac arrive for a holiday before they both go travelling – together, as it turns out, which seemed to amaze Suzy when she found out. She said they were always bickering when they were little but they seem close now, forever teasing and taking the piss out of each other. But they’re thoughtful kids too (is that all right? To think of them as kids?). Frieda is often out hiking up into the mountains, coaxing Suzy and her brother along and, on one occasion, Cara and Vicki too – planning their trips like the fully fledged mountain leader she aims to be. And Isaac is clearly fascinated by our island’s history; the lighthouse, the remains of early settlements, the ruined castle, all of that. There’s a closeness between the three of them that’s touching to see. I hope Arthur’s still as happy to hang out with me when he’s their age.
On their last day here, Suzy puts on a huge lunch at her place. There’s quite a crowd of us: Frieda and Isaac, of course, with whom Arthur seems to be pretty enthralled, plus Cara and Vicki, and me and Dad.
And Scout, of course. The dog who brought us all together.
After lunch we all take him out on a walk, right round the headland to the secret beach. Dad marches along, looking much more like his old, hearty self, back when he had Bess trotting alongside him. I catch him watching, with a big smile on his face, as Scout zips into the sea and straight out again, hurling his soggy self at me and, as if I’m not wet enough already, giving himself a thorough shake.
It’s early evening when Suzy drives Frieda and Isaac to the ferry. They’ll spend the night in a cheap hotel in Oban, take an early train to Glasgow and fly to Paris from there, and their summer adventure will begin. Six weeks of hopping all over Europe. I’m musing over how adventurous they seem, far more than I was at their age, as Arthur and I start to clear Suzy’s kitchen table and stack the copious crockery and glasses into the dishwasher. Glasgow seemed like enough of an adventure for me, maybe because I’d never really been anywhere as a child. People didn’t even have annual summer holidays back then. At least, they didn’t on Sgadansay – although occasionally we’d trundle down in our van to Dad’s older sister’s house on the Solway Firth. Still in Scotland, yes, but the air was soft, the landscape gently rolling. It felt so exotically warm it could have been the Mediterranean to me.
Arthur hands me a stack of plates. ‘That was fun today, wasn’t it?’ I remark.
‘Yeah, it was great.’ I’ve noticed lately that the hormonal grumpiness seems to have dissipated. Maybe he hasn’t quite reached that stage yet. Or it might have just been a blip. ‘Could we live here?’ he asks suddenly.
I turn and stare at him. ‘You mean here?’
‘Yeah, on Sgadansay,’ he says. ‘I like it. And Granddad’s here and he’s not getting any younger.’ I laugh at his turn of phrase.
‘Nope, and neither am I.’
‘And Suzy and Scout are here,’ he adds, and I detect something in the look he gives me.
‘Yeah, I know.’ I put an arm around him and lead him through to the living room where we sit down together. ‘I’m actually thinking I’d like to be here too,’ I add. ‘There’s a job going here, one I could do – that I’d really like to do …’
‘You should go for it, Dad!’
‘Yeah, but it’d be a massive move, Arthur.’ I pause and look at him, wondering if he’s meaning this seriously or it’s just a whim. ‘What about your friends? What about Kai and Lucas and all the stuff you do back home? Your footie team?’
‘There’s football here,’ he says, ‘and I have friends here as well. And wouldn’t Granddad like us being here all the time?’
‘I’m sure we’d drive him mad,’ I say, laughing. But our conversation is still shimmering in the air when Suzy reappears in the doorway. ‘Hey, are you okay?’ I ask.
‘I’m fine,’ she says with a brave smile.
‘It must be hard, saying goodbye to your kids.’
She nods mutely, and that’s when she does it, in front of Arthur too; she comes over and hugs me, and her eyes are shining with tears. ‘It was terrible,’ she says, pulling away and laughing off her emotional turn. ‘You’d think I’d be used to it by now. But it just gets worse!’
A tear rolls down her cheek. Arthur is too busy sneaking Scout a scrap of leftover chicken to even notice what’s going on right under his nose. I have to summon every ounce of willpower not to gently wipe her tear away.
‘Ricky,’ she murmurs, beckoning me out of the kitchen and through the cottage to the tiny porch. ‘I was thinking, when I saw the kids off at the ferry. Scout’s real owner caught that ferry knowing she’d left him behind.’
‘But you’re his real owner now,’ I say firmly. ‘She made that choice, Suzy—’
‘Yes, I know.’ She takes both of my hands in hers and meets my gaze. ‘But she needs to know he’s okay, at least. And I have to find out why she did it.’
‘Yes, but what if she wants him back? What’ll you do then?’
‘I don’t know,’ she says firmly. ‘Honestly, I have no idea what I’m going to do. But I’m going to call her tonight.’
Chapter Fifty-One
Suzy
I’m scared and worried and feel quite sick. But there’s something else going on too, apart from my fears over who really ‘owns’ Scout; a need to know what happened here on the island last spring. I have to know why she did it. Maybe that’s why I love writing about people – and not just the recently deceased: I’m curious about what makes them who they are and do the things they do. Why would anyone abandon a dog?
And the minute this woman – this Lorraine Sampson – starts to speak, all of my anger and fear dissipates. ‘I just wanted to know what happened to him,’ she says, her throaty voice punctuated by frequent dry coughs. ‘I didn’t want to leave him behind but my boyfriend was adamant that we had to catch the lunchtime ferry. He had a job interview in Birmingham the next day. Pip had run off,’ she adds. ‘I’d spent three hours looking for him and Danny said that was it, we were leaving, and if I didn’t come too it was all over with us.’
‘But why didn’t you report him lost?’ I ask, clutching my phone to my ear. ‘You could have called the vet’s, or the police—’
‘I didn’t want to get into all that,’ she says quickly. ‘I thought we’d be in trouble for leaving him—’
‘So you just dumped him?’ I exclaim.
There’s a coughing episode that takes a few moments to die down. ‘I was in a bit of a state. I didn’t know what else to do.’
A small silence hangs between us. I’m not about to lecture her, because it’s not my place to do so and clearly, she must have felt bad. At least, she hasn’t forgotten him. But what does she want to do now? Come all the way up here and collect him?
‘He wasn’t even microchipped,’ I add.
‘No, we never got around to that.’
It’s the law, I want to tell her, but stop myself. I don’t want to sound like the police.
‘So, what made you call the Oban sanctuary?’
‘I couldn’t find one on the island. That seemed like it was the nearest one.’
‘Yes, but you left him months ago,’ I remind her. ‘I’m sorry, I’m still finding it hard to understand—’
‘I thought it was better to just leave it,’ she replies. ‘Danny never liked him anyway, the way he kept chewing things – his trainers and jumpers and all sorts. He was always eating Danny’s stuff, never mine. And I thought the island seemed so lovely and friendly and someone would probably take him in, and maybe he’d be happier there than with us, with Danny always shouting at him …’ She pauses. I’m aware of a dull throbbing in my head. ‘But I kept thinking about him,’ she adds, sounding tearful now. ‘My little Pip. I miss him so much, you see. I even dream about him running around and all his funny little ways. The way he loves playing stick and chasing tennis balls. Me and Danny have split up now anyway—’
‘Well, look,’ I say firmly. ‘I want you to know that he’s very happy now. With us, I mean.’
‘With you and your family?’ she asks, and her voice brightens.
I consider this, and I’m about to say no. Instead, I explain: ‘We’re a sort of family, yes. We all share him. There’s me and my friends, Cara and Vicki, and another friend called Ricky and his son and granddad …’
‘That’s a lot of people!’ she remarks.
‘Well, yes. He has lots of people who care for him—’
‘Like a kid with divorced parents?’
I pat the space on the sofa and Scout jumps up beside me. ‘Not really,’ I say. ‘We all just love him. That’s all.’
‘That’s nice,’ she says, sounding a little choked now.
‘Lorraine,’ I add, ‘it might sound unusual but it really works. It means he has lots of company and fun and walks, all of that. He seems happy. He is happy, I can promise you that. So, if you’re thinking of—’
‘Oh, I’m not planning to come all the way out there to fetch him,’ she says quickly. ‘God, no, I wouldn’t dream of upsetting him again. I know I can’t just abandon him and expect to have him back.’ Her voice wavers – I think she’s crying – and I’m overcome by a wave of sympathy for her, despite what she did. ‘I just wanted to know that he’s safe and loved,’ she adds. ‘And it seems to me like he is.’
Chapter Fifty-Two
Four Months Later
Arthur
She wrote to me. I never in a million years thought she would, but she did. Maybe it’s because we live on Sgadansay now. Mum loved coming here for holidays. The fires on the Secret Beach, the pirate game – she started those. They were her idea. After she’d gone, me and Dad carried them on, trying to act like everything was normal. But it wasn’t the same without her.
She got in touch with a letter, sent to Granddad’s house. We’d just finished breakfast when we heard the post falling through the letterbox. Granddad went through and came back with the envelope. ‘It’s for you, Arthur,’ he said, looking surprised.
Dad looked at me and then at Suzy. She and Scout had come over to see if we wanted to go on their morning walk. We see them a lot these days. I love that and so does Dad.
I examined the envelope and my heart started beating really hard. My name and Granddad’s address had been written neatly on the f
ront. Everyone was dead quiet as I opened it and read:
October 11
My darling Arthur,
So much has happened I don’t know where to start. I just want you to know that not a single day has gone by that I haven’t missed you crazily. I made a lot of mistakes. I wish I could turn back the clock and make things different, and have been a proper mum to you these past five years. Sadly I can’t. There’s nothing I can do to make that happen. But what I can do is try to make things right from now on.
Arthur, I’ve been all over the place these past few years. I don’t just mean emotionally. I mean in different parts of the country too: London, Bristol, Brighton, the middle of nowhere in Wales. I had a friend and we travelled about, doing odd jobs working in bars, clubs, things like that. It felt okay for a while, but as time has gone on I realised that I wouldn’t feel right anywhere unless I could be with you.
I don’t expect to slot back into your life as if nothing has happened. I’m sure Dad has moved on (I hope he has).
I looked around the kitchen table. Granddad, Dad and Suzy were sitting there as if they didn’t know what to do with themselves.
‘Arthur?’ Dad said quietly. ‘Are you okay?’
I nodded and rubbed at my eyes. ‘Yeah.’
‘Is it from—?’
‘Yeah.’ I nodded again. I looked back down at the letter and read on:
All I’m asking is to see you, my love. I made enquiries and I found out that your dad has a job on the island now. So I assume you’re both living there. How brilliant for you! I know you always loved Sgadansay.
Can I come up and meet you sometime, Arthur? Could you ask Dad if that’s okay? It would make me so happy to see my beautiful boy again.
Love,
Mum xxx
Dad got up and rested his hands on my shoulders and Suzy reached over and held my hand. I like Suzy. I really like her. Meg was okay, and the others I can hardly remember, although there was one who used to buy me T-shirts and got her friend to dress up as Santa for me. That was a bit awkward.