Scot on the Rocks

by Catriona McPherson

  I was sure the receptionist could tell I still had my wisdom teeth. She stared at the hinge of my jaw as I asked whether Dr Towser had a free moment in the next hour or so.

  ‘You don’t have an appointment?’ she said. ‘Dr Towser is extremely busy, scheduled all day, with no breaks.’ But she was still staring at a point just in front of my ears.

  The sensible thing to do was to make an appointment, but I had spoken to Bran on the hands-free while I was driving.

  ‘Brandee?’ he had said breathlessly, after less than one whole ring.

  ‘Lexy,’ I said. ‘You haven’t heard from her then?’

  ‘It’s been four days, Lex,’ he said.

  ‘Have you had any more … deliveries?’

  ‘No, thank God. Nothing.’

  ‘And nothing by way of a follow-up to the last one? They said, “obey instructions”. Have they given you any instructions to obey?’

  He gasped. ‘Oh God. Oh my God. That never even occurred to me. What if the instructions are lost in the mail and—?’

  ‘Wasn’t it hand delivered?’

  ‘What if the instructions blew away from under the porch and they—?’

  ‘Didn’t you fit a camera?’

  ‘But Lexy,’ he said, and his voice had sunk to a whisper, ‘what if she’s dead? What if I never see her again? What if they’ve hurt her and she’s alone and scared? What if she’s crying? What if she’s cold?’

  So I was going to try every way I knew how to get in to see Burt as soon as I could, and then, if that didn’t work, I was going to do every other thing I could think of to find Brandeee and bring her home. Bran would never be my favourite person in the world, unless a pandemic with a sense of irony wiped out everyone else except him and me, and I didn’t much care for Brandeee either but he loved her, I now realized, and love is love. Look at Charles and Camilla.

  ‘No, I don’t have an appointment,’ I said, putting a hand up and pressing the place where the receptionist was looking. I worked my jaw from side to side once or twice, as if it was causing me discomfort. Then I had a brainwave. ‘But I do have excellent dental coverage and, if I don’t use it before I go overseas, it’s going to expire before I’m back again.’

  Dollar signs popped up in her eyes like cherries in a slot machine, and she invited me to take a seat while she checked Dr Towser’s suddenly elastic diary.

  A flicker of recognition crossed Burt’s face as I was shown into his office half an hour later. We had met twice while I was married to Bran and he was married to Brandeee. I wouldn’t have recognized him. He was Mr Generic America, Type A: neat hair; tanned face; professionally ironed blue shirt, showing his vest underneath it; pale chinos; terrible, awful, heinous shoes (where do they get these shoes?); a booming voice and, of course, a dazzling smile.

  ‘Burt?’ I said.

  He frowned slightly at the use of his first name, California friendliness fighting with the constant insecurity of not quite being a doctor. I remembered it from my time with Bran.

  ‘Forgive me for tricking your receptionist. My teeth are fine.’ I waited to see if the look he was giving me would give way to a voiced thought. Because of course no UK teeth are fine, in the view of an American dentist. And not just dentists. Roger and Todd had to stop watching The Great British Bake Off because they couldn’t stand the contestants’ gappy yellow smiles on their huge flat-screen.

  Burt managed to say nothing about my ridged enamel, alloy fillings and lower-set snaggles. He was probably playing a long game.

  ‘I’m Lexy Campbell. I used to be married to Bran Lancer?’

  He narrowed his eyes and clamped his jaw together tight enough to give him a sexy sort of early Clint Eastwood look.

  ‘Did you know that Brandeee was missing?’

  ‘I knew she’d left him,’ he said. ‘He called me two nights ago, frantic, asking if I knew where she was. Maybe he thought she’d come back to me.’

  ‘She didn’t leave him,’ I said. ‘She didn’t take her car and she hasn’t used her cards.’

  That had got his attention. He sat up straighter behind his big empty desk and then grew very still. ‘Is she OK?’

  ‘That’s what we’re trying to find out. Bran told the cops, so they’ve got alerts out for her – I think – but she’s an adult so she’s low priority for them. But … there’s reason to believe she was kidnapped.’

  ‘Kidnapped!’ he said. I hadn’t thought he could sit any straighter. He was practically levitating now. ‘As in … for a ransom?’

  ‘As in for a ransom. They sent Bran a note, with one of her finger—’

  ‘Oh God! They cut off—’

  ‘—nails!’ I said.

  ‘Oh God, they pulled out—’

  ‘Acrylic!’ I said. ‘Her stick-on nails.’

  He slumped now. ‘Oh! Of course. She was always so very well groomed. Such an attractive woman. Such a joy to come home to.’

  I don’t think he meant to draw a contrast with me. I wasn’t on his radar at all, despite being dressed up to the nines – i.e. in my very darkest jeans and with earrings – for my lunch date, but I was intrigued anyway.

  ‘So … you were happy?’ I said.

  ‘Brandee and I?’ A smile spread across his face. His teeth really were fantastic. ‘We were blissfully happy. She was beautiful, energetic, successful, interesting, engaged, resourceful, independent, sweet, caring and supportive. She was the wife every man dreams of.’

  I honestly didn’t know where to start with any of that. She’d had two husbands already – one real and one fake – before she landed in Burt’s lap, all resourceful and supportive. Surely that was a bit of a dent in the credit rating? And anyway who the hell dreams of a wife who’s energetic? Unless he meant in bed? Who dreams of a wife who’s independent? I thought men dreamed of a wife who was beautiful and didn’t nag them for eating onion Pringles. If this was what toilet boy was after, I was in big trouble come lunchtime.

  ‘And did you keep in touch?’ I asked. ‘Have you spoken to her recently?’

  ‘We didn’t,’ said Burt. ‘Too painful for me. She didn’t keep in touch with her first husband, Lenny, either. She’s a remarkable woman all round, Lexy. Tough, clear, sensible. She doesn’t cling or mourn, like most …’

  Functioning humans, I said to myself, finishing it off for him when he realized, too late, that he was saying all of this to a manifestly less tough, clear, sensible, beautiful, successful, blah-blah-blah example of the fairer sex.

  ‘Well, no,’ I said. ‘She wouldn’t have been able to keep in touch with Lenny, would she?’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ said Burt. ‘He died.’

  And she certainly kept in close touch with Bran, I thought but, being very mature, didn’t say. I had seen them in very close touch that time I came back to the Beige Barn unexpectedly.

  ‘So, you can’t help me?’ I said. ‘Or the police, if they come?’

  ‘Why would the police come to me?’ He was sitting up very straight again, not quite levitating yet but definitely activating boosters.

  ‘Um, off the top of my head,’ I said, ‘because she left you and you still love her and someone grabbed her and tried to scare the husband she left you for. I’m just guessing.’

  I swear it was only his knees under the desktop that were stopping him from floating up to the ceiling. ‘Do I need a lawyer?’ he said in a small voice.

  ‘I’m the wrong person to ask,’ I said. ‘But where were you the night before Valentine’s Day? After ten o’clock?’

  This time when he slumped, he almost slithered out of his chair completely. ‘I was doing a night shift in a parking lot,’ he said. ‘All night. Three dozen witnesses.’

  ‘You’re a car-park attendant? As well as an oral surgeon?’

  ‘The parking-lot health centre,’ Burt said. ‘Oral division.’

  ‘The what-what where, now?’ I said. ‘Night-shift car-park orthodontistry?’

  ‘Not really,’ he said.
‘Pretty basic dental work, in fact. For the homeless and destitute. The uninsured. We’ve got a couple of trailers we move around. I do a night a week, usually, and that night was my last one.’

  See, this is why I love American people. They’re just better than us. Every Thanksgiving, they’re handing out soup, and they’re forever coughing up five hundred smackers for a shitty dinner to keep a library open. They don’t spend nearly as much time as I do slumped on a couch, half-cut and re-watching Buffy.

  Of course, like any other affluent American, Burt would have a gardener, ironer, general cleaner, window cleaner, carpet cleaner, pool cleaner, accountant, financial adviser, five different doctors, that lawyer he was itching to phone and probably a therapist. If he had a dog, he’d have a dog therapist too. So obviously if he was going to kidnap his ex-wife, he’d rely on a kidnapper.

  I didn’t say any of that. Instead, I said, ‘Well, thank you for your time. I’m sorry to be the bearer of such troubling news. And if you do hear anything, if Brandeee gets in touch, could you phone Bran and put him out of his misery?’

  He nodded. He really would. He would phone the guy his wife left him for, to spread relief and remove worry. This country would never cease to amaze me. I thanked him again and made my way to the door.

  ‘If she had come back to you,’ I asked, stopping before I opened it, ‘would you have taken her?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said. ‘In a heartbeat. She’s the perfect woman.’

  Her perfection meant that I wasted the time I could have spent starting to grill Elsie and the rest of Bran and Brandeee’s employees on trying to find a hairdresser to fix me up before lunch. They were all fully booked except for one that had had a timely cancellation but who looked at me and said, ‘It’s going to take more than a blow-dry.’

  So, I went early to the restaurant, thinking I could maybe do something myself in the ladies’ loos, but just looking at it made me feel overwhelmed. If I’d had a do-rag, I would have toughed out all accusations of cultural appropriation and just covered that sucker up. As it was, water made it look like a patch of heather; the bottle of finisher I had shoved in my bag made it look like a patch of heather that had been sprayed with glitter; and brushing it turned it into a perfect halo of sticky frizz.

  One of the waitresses came in while I was staring at it.

  ‘I don’t suppose you’ve got any kirby grips?’ I said.

  ‘Any what?’ She was rushing to get her apron off before she went into the cubicle.

  ‘Ummmmm, bobby pins?’ I said.

  She laughed and shut the cubicle door.

  ‘Or are there any hats in the lost and found?’

  ‘Ew,’ she said. ‘Cooties.’

  Would make-up help? I wondered. Or would showing that I cared what I looked like make this mad hairdo seem deliberate and all the more weird? If I left it, I’d maybe come over like Frances McWhatsit, mind on higher things. But would toilet boy be looking for a girlfriend with her mind on higher things? I kept remembering Burt waxing on about Brandeee – resourceful, energetic, successful, supportive and sweet – and I tried to imagine what someone would say about me – disorganized, lazy, struggling, snarky and a bit shit.

  ‘Every pot’s got a lid,’ I told my reflection.

  ‘What?’ said the waitress, through the cubicle door.

  He was already at the table when the hostess showed me over and, since he was looking down at his phone, I had plenty time to study him. His overall aesthetic was certainly more towards the ‘manager of a toilet rental company’ aspect of his make-up than the ‘artistic’ bit: he had a buzz cut, tidy facial hair, T-shirt advertising a brewery, and jeans as dark as my own. On the table beside him, his baseball cap, advertising a different brewery, sat upside down with a pair of sunglasses and a wallet inside it. He was, in short, that category of American male I’ve come to think of as a walking truck payment. The only thing that stopped my heart sinking into my soggy Converse was the fact that his Scottish equivalent would have had worse hair, a scragglier beard, an unfunny slogan on his T-shirt, exactly the same jeans, and no hat or sunglasses because it was never good enough weather to need them. On the other hand, his Scottish counterpart would have been either funny or quiet, understanding that those were the choices. This guy, I was willing to bet, would talk very long and very loud even if the last time he had made anyone laugh was accidentally, by falling over.

  ‘Oh God,’ I said to the hostess. ‘How do I get out of this?’

  She spoke out of the corner of her mouth, like an old pro. ‘Gimme your phone. I’ll take your number and call you in ten minutes with a family emergency.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘But make it twenty. I’m hungry. Hi!’ I went on, in a louder voice, getting to the table. ‘Doug?’

  ‘Lexy?’

  We shook hands. His was large and dry and he didn’t do the knuckle crunch.

  ‘Water?’ he asked, holding up a bottle of fizzy.

  ‘Lovely. Thank you,’ I said.

  He stopped dead. ‘Irish?’

  ‘Close,’ I said. ‘Scottish.’

  ‘Me too,’ he said, sending my heart – which had climbed to my knees – back downwards. Down through my feet, through the floor, through the foundations of the building, to where the earth was still warm. ‘Irish, anyway. Yeah, my maternal great-grandpa was a Dolan from County Cork.’

  I buried my face in my glass and took a big drink to buy some time. I could never, ever, ever work out what I was supposed to say to any of that. It wasn’t interesting. Everyone alive had grandparents and they all came from somewhere and they all had names. And that’s without even thinking about the casual way he’d decided two completely separate countries were the same thing. Briefly, I considered exclaiming, I’ve got friends in Canada! to see if he’d get it, but I didn’t want the evidence, as soon as this, that he wouldn’t. Instead, I played it dead straight.

  ‘My maternal great-grandpa was an Anderson from Glasgow.’

  A quick frown crossed his face as if he wanted to say, So? but was trying not to.

  A quick smile crossed mine as I decided not to say, See?

  Then we both looked down at the menu.

  ‘So how do you know Todd?’ I said, when I had checked for steak and kidney pudding, failed to find it and settled on a salad.

  ‘He did my sister’s makeover after her divorce,’ said Doug. ‘You ever had one of these improbable burgers?’ If he meant that, maybe he was funny after all. If he didn’t, he was barely literate.

  ‘They’re pretty good,’ I said, trying not to think about the ethical ramifications of Todd mining Trinity’s client base for dates. ‘I mean, if you’re going to have raw onion, pickles, ketchup, mustard and bacon on there, why not?’

  ‘And cheese,’ he said. He really might be funny. I smiled, even though I was still deciding.

  ‘And how is she?’ I asked. ‘Your sister. I’m divorced too. It’s not easy, sometimes.’

  ‘She’s pretty good,’ he said, then smiled at himself for nearly calling his sister a burger. He was funny! ‘And her closet is awesome!’

  ‘That’s Todd,’ I said. The server came over then and took our order for two improbable burgers with everything. I thought about how we’d call Impossible Burgers improbable forever now, and so would our kids and our grandkids without any of them knowing why. Then I got a hold of myself. ‘So, you’re in equipment supply,’ I said.

  ‘Actually, I own the company,’ he told me. ‘I say I’m the manager at work so I can tell cold callers I don’t have authority to buy stuff. It’s gotten to be a habit, I guess. But I’m the owner, yeah.’

  ‘It must be a booming area,’ I said. ‘You see them everywhere.’

  ‘I’m doing OK,’ he said, preening slightly; the guy was only human. Now came the test. He should ask me something, if this date was going to be chalked up as successful.

  He leaned in close. ‘More water?’

  That didn’t count.

  �
�And you’re a bit of an artist in your spare time,’ I said. ‘Is that right?’ I still couldn’t square artistic ambitions with the cap full of sunglasses on the tabletop. ‘Do you … paint?’

  ‘Sculpt,’ he said.

  Ahhhhh, I thought. Scrap art. I’d have put my burger on it.

  ‘Have you ever heard of Dora Dango?’ he said.

  Now, here was a first-date dilemma. I hadn’t, of course, and of course I should say so. But pretending to have heard of obscure artists isn’t really lying, any more than pretending to have read Finnegan’s Wake is lying. I could look her up after lunch, or even during, on a bog break. And how amazing that he brought up a female, right out of the gate, like that. This one might actually be a keeper. I should be my best self, just in case.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Is she a sculptor too?’

  He blinked once or twice then threw back his head and laughed like a storm drain in a downpour. ‘Do-ro-dan-go,’ he said. ‘The Japanese art of dirt polishing.’

  I felt a sheen of sweat slick my neck. I had so nearly claimed to love her.

  ‘Dirt …?’ I said.

  ‘You make a ball of … mud, and keep adding finer and finer … soil to fill the rough surface until there are no more pits or cracks at all and it’s completely smooth. Look.’ He plucked his phone out of his hat and swiped it on. His background image was something I’d have said was a planet, if I hadn’t known.

  ‘You did this?’ I said.

  ‘Uhhhhh, I made the dorodango,’ he replied, slightly weirdly.

  ‘It’s …’ Beautiful was obviously the missing word in the sentence, but it was a round ball of shiny dirt. Call me a philistine. ‘Where is it? In your garden? Yard, I mean.’

  ‘Oh no,’ he said. ‘They’re far too fragile to keep outside, or even in a room with draughts and traffic. I’ve got these neat little round tanks, temperature controlled, in my apartment.’