Redemption Road

by Lisa Ballantyne

  ‘We were in there for the longest time. I ran out of fags. It was the middle of the night when my daughter was born, and I remember me and this other expectant father were sharing a flask of whisky in the waiting room. Only… it was his third, and he knew he was going home with the bairn.’ George looked at a spot in the distance as he remembered. ‘I can’t tell you what it was like when I saw her for the first time.’

  ‘The bairn?’

  ‘She was so beautiful. Did you feel like that…?’

  Tam raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Molly. I called her Moll. She has my eyes. Kathleen let me hold her, although her mother and sister were complaining that I stank of whisky and kept shouting at me to mind and not drop her. I don’t know how you felt, but there’s nothing so humbling for a man. My father’ll turn in his grave if he hears me say this, but I just wanted a wee girl.’

  ‘Girls are a lot less trouble, so they say’ was all that Tam would concede.

  ‘After I’d seen that bairn, I was in love. I would have done anything for her. When she got out of hospital me and Kathleen went to register the birth and we went for a walk and I proposed to her all over again. On my knees in Glasgow Green… on my fucking knees, but… she said she was seeing some other guy.’

  ‘How d’you mean?’

  ‘Her family had sorted it all out, I’ve no doubt. No doubt in my mind at all. Some old bastard that was willing to take on a fallen woman and her child. I mean did these people not know it was nineteen seventy-seven. Nineteen fucking seventy-seven!’

  ‘They married her off?’

  ‘Kathleen was upset, crying. She told me it was the only way… Her family were angry at her, but over their dead bodies would they let her marry me. She’d changed. She was cold towards me. You know what women are like. “Forget about her, Georgie,” she told me.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Tam, taking a long sip of beer. The bell for last orders sounded.

  George nodded, looking at a point far in the distance. ‘You for another?’ he asked.

  ‘I’m all right,’ said Tam, looking into the remainder of his beer.

  ‘Ah, go on, it’s payday after all,’ said George, slapping his wallet on the table.

  Tam nodded his assent. George felt his balance wavering as he stood to return to the bar, but he found it again after a second or two.

  ‘Thanks, big man,’ said Tam when George returned, spilling a little beer on the table.

  They were silent for a while, watching the other men in the bar. It was mostly men. The room was tinged blue with smoke and George felt his mind heavy with beer and memories.

  ‘Do you ever think about getting out of here?’ said George quietly, but facing the room of people rather than Tam beside him.

  ‘Sometimes,’ said Tam, hedging his bets, as always. ‘Why?’

  ‘Can I count you as a friend?’ said George, turning to look Tam in the eye. Tam’s own furtive eyes widened for a moment, under George’s gaze.

  Tam swallowed and then licked his lips as if in anticipation.

  ‘You need to keep it to yourself.’

  Tam nodded.

  ‘I found a bit of money. It would only do you harm to know where, so I won’t mention it, but it’s enough – enough to totally disappear with – and I’m planning on disappearing. Now you see me…’ said George, elbowing Tam to coax a smile from him, ‘now you don’t.’

  ‘Where are you going?’ said Tam, his face suddenly grey and drawn.

  ‘North first, then south. I’m not going alone.’

  ‘I… Georgie, I have a family. I’m a quiet man…’

  George allowed another fit of laughter to erupt from his body, although beneath the beer and the joviality he was deadly serious.

  ‘I’m not talking about you, Tam, relax! Christ. I think I’m a worrywart, but I’ve got nothing on you. I mean, I like you and all, but I wasn’t planning on running away with you.’

  Colour returned to Tam’s face. He was too thin-skinned and scrawny for a full blush but he coloured all the same.

  George unbuttoned his shirt again and placed his right palm over the tattoo, as if he were making a pledge.

  ‘I found her, you see,’ said George, his eyes fixed on a horizon far beyond the walls of the Portland Arms.

  ‘Who, Kathleen?’

  ‘I didn’t get to finish my story. Kathleen went north with some old fella and it crushed me, but… well, I tried to get over her. You’ve no idea what I was like when I was younger – pissed every night and going with whatever lassie’d have me. I did all that but I couldn’t get her and the bairn out of my mind. I couldn’t forget how it had felt to hold my own daughter in my arms and to see her face and see my own in hers. It changes a man. Did it not change you?’

  Again George looked to Tam for some kind of validation.

  ‘They’re bonny when they’re young, that’s for sure’ was all Tam would give.

  ‘Anyway, I didn’t care for a few years, or told myself I didn’t. I had no idea where they were anyway. Kathleen was gone – not in Glasgow – and she’d basically said that her and the wean were well shot of me. But then I met Wee Malkie. He’d been on the oilrigs and had done work all over the north of Scotland. Did he not run into Kathleen with the wean? He said the wee one was the spit of me.’

  ‘When was that?’

  ‘Two years ago. I’ve found out where she lives.’

  ‘Two years, people move.’

  ‘People move, but not if you have a big house in Thurso. I know where they are.’

  George downed the rest of his pint and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

  Tam was smiling again – that strange smile he offered when Peter was in the garage. His eyes were scrunched up, which made people think it was a proper smile, but somehow it was out of synch with his mouth. His mouth was wary to commit. When Tam smiled like that, it looked as if he was in pain.

  George turned to him, unsmiling, honest, wishing something worthy of Brendan McLaughlin: wishing that Tam was a bigger man. But George was not his father and George was determined to trust small, thin, terrified Tam, who knew an engine as a surgeon knew a body.

  ‘I have the means,’ said George slowly, leaning in so close that he could smell the starch on Tam’s Friday-night shirt. ‘Third time lucky. I’m going up north to ask Kathleen to be mine and then the three of us can go away together – me, Kathleen and my wee girl.’

  ‘Where on earth would you go?’

  George leaned in closer to Tam, and spoke to him in a whisper. ‘Can I trust you?’ he said, squeezing Tam’s upper arm.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You ever heard of a wee place called Penzance in Cornwall?’

  ‘Cornwall, aye.’

  ‘Well, I want to live there, in peace and quiet, right by the sea. That’s where we’re gonna be – me and my own wee family.’

  ‘Why would you go there? Who do you know from there?’

  ‘No one. My mother’s family were from there. My mum lived there when she was wee and she used to tell me about it – the open spaces and the sea, the tiny wee houses. My mother owned some land there, a cottage on the South West Coast Path, between Sennen and Porthcurno. It’s almost a ruin now, I believe. I’ve never been there although she showed me pictures. My mother left it to me in her will. It was a secret, just between us. My brothers and sister don’t know. If my mother could’ve run away, back to that place, she would’ve. She told me all about it and that’s where I’m gonna be. I’m gonna fix it up – build it from scratch if I have to – and live there with my family. My own family.’

  ‘You’re havering, man. If Kathleen’s married, what makes you think she’ll want back with you?’

  ‘Would you take a look at this face, Tam. Just take a look at this face,’ said George, raising his chin, his eyes brightening.

  ‘I know but…’

  ‘But what? She loves me. She’s always loved me. Plus, I’m that wee girl’s father and I think she deserv
es to know me.’

  ‘What would you do with a baby?’

  ‘She’s not a baby any longer, is she?’

  ‘How old is she now?’

  ‘Seven.’

  3

  Angus Campbell

  Friday 27 September, 1985

  ‘I’ll come when I’m good and ready,’ said Angus, unable even to turn and look at her.

  ‘I was going to serve up.’ His wife stood at the door, her hands folded in front of her body.

  ‘I heard you the first time,’ he said, hunched over his typewriter, waving at her without turning round, as if she were a bluebottle that was bothering him.

  Three days he had been home from his office at the John o’Groat Journal, working on the manual typewriter that had belonged to Hazel’s father, because Maisie was due to calve. The vet had said she would go into labour in about a week, and Angus was keeping an eye on her for signs. Anxious for her to calve as soon as possible, he was spending his evenings pacing the living room instead of reading, terrified that Maisie would go into labour on the Sabbath. The vet had said the calf was breach, although it could turn. When the time came, Maisie would almost certainly need his help.

  ‘I’m sure that God will turn the calf or that Maisie’ll calve before or after the Sabbath and we will help her,’ Hazel had said when he told her of his worries.

  ‘Are you stupid, woman? God doesn’t rise to our commands.’

  All she had were worn phrases of consolation, already stale as the torn pan bread they used at Communion. Every time he cast eyes on the woman he was filled with vitriol. She would test the patience of a saint.

  He was working on a story that would run with the headline ORPHANED OTTER ON THE ROAD TO RECOVERY. He loved animals – more than people, he would sometimes admit – but the story was really beneath him. His searing journalistic talent was yet to be discovered, and now, not long after his forty-third birthday, he was beginning to wonder how much longer before he had passed the window of discovery and entered the door of oblivion. Hazel’s interruption had just caused him to mistype a word. All she did was keep him back. When the article was done, he would have to drive to the Journal’s office in Wick to submit it.

  Angus finished the piece and stacked the pages neatly by the side of the typewriter, then placed them in a file. These stories that he was forced to write belittled him: otters, councillors’ disgraces and winners of prizes that no one cared about. The Lord intended more for him.

  In March, after a full year, the miners’ strike had ended, but the Journal had put the story on page three. Angus had not been in favour of the strike but he would have valued the chance to write about it. The editor had written the article himself: two hundred words.

  Angus could see himself as a reporter, not for the John o’Groat Journal but the The Times. He dreamed of getting wind of a story that would be syndicated worldwide. The story was out there, but Angus knew he could find it within him, as he had found God.

  About six months ago, a researcher from Scottish Television had called the John o’Groat Journal scouting for stories. Instead of his colleague Amanda picking up the phone as usual, Angus had answered. The woman from STV was just an intern, but she had said her boss was interested in any scoop the Journal had.

  Apart from Maisie calving, a scoop was now all that Angus thought about. A scoop was his chance of glory.

  Finally, Angus went downstairs to dinner. Everyone sat down after Angus sat, and clasped their hands when he held his in prayer.

  He closed his eyes and spoke quickly, for he was hungry. ‘We thank the Lord for this food before us. Jesus is our best friend. He is our King. He alone can change our hearts to love Him more. We need Him every day. Our church life is empty if we are not dependent on Him. He alone can open the closed hearts of our unbelieving friends. He wants to hear our prayers. He chooses to act in response to them. This is our privilege – and responsibility – for His Kingdom, for our church, for us… Thank you, God.’

  As they had been taught, the children – Rachael, fourteen, and Caleb, twelve – waited until Angus raised his cutlery before touching their own. Rachael was turning into a gawky teenager: spots on her chin. Caleb was small and furtive: sleekit-eyed. As babies, he had had high hopes for them – especially Caleb – but they both still required a lot of guidance.

  It was roast lamb, cauliflower cheese and boiled potatoes, and it was cold. Angus scooped a spoonful of cauliflower on to his plate and then tested the temperature.

  He threw down his cutlery and held on to the table, facing Hazel.

  ‘What is the meaning of this, woman? Are we animals that we should eat cold slops?’

  ‘It… it… was warm. I- I…’

  He hated her most when she stammered. It was as if all the weakness in her had welled up into her mouth and prevented the words from being born.

  He had given himself a rule: not to hit her in front of the children, and so he merely swiped his plate to the floor and left for the barn.

  ‘I’ll be back in an hour and you know that I expect better,’ he said, as he pulled on his wellingtons and zipped up his anorak.

  As he left, their three faces watched him, blanched and unknowing as uncooked buns.

  The walk to Maisie’s pen was five minutes at full pelt. The sheer expectation of seeing her brought warmth to Angus’s palms, to his whole body. He had raised her since she was six months old. He loved the velvet pink of her nose and the strong tendons on her legs, the curve of her flank, the knowing, loving look that she gave him: passive, adoring, pure. He could see clearly that Maisie loved him, as her master. She trusted him utterly and was devoted to him.

  Angus had been brought up in Northbay on the southern tip of the Isle of Barra – the youngest of three boys, born to a fishing family. His father had a small boat, but the Campbells also kept a few animals by their croft: chickens, some sheep and cows and two ponies. As a child, it had been Angus’s responsibility to look after the animals.

  The Campbells’ main business had been fish and the stench of fish guts assumed the house almost as completely as Angus’s mother’s piety, but the barns had always been the place where he felt safe and most at home. The barns had smelled intimate, warm and alive. Wild kittens scampered among the straw as Angus milked the cows by hand.

  His mother had taught him to fear God and the pain of her wooden spoon. His salty-smelling father, with rough palms and face reddened by the sea wind, had done nothing but abandon him, leaving him alone day after day, taking the older boys out to sea with him, while Angus was left at home with his mother.

  ‘The devil finds work for idle hands,’ she would tell Angus, wagging a forefinger sequinned with fish scales.

  The animals had shown him what was right, more than his parents, or else he put more weight on the lessons the animals taught him: Primrose rejecting his cold fingers on her udders, Bolt throwing him the day he tried to make him jump the stream. He had learned to love through loving animals. They had taught him boundaries, but they had also bowed to Angus’s will. He had found sanctity at last. Love could not be cast back into his face, like sand.

  Maisie was eating when he entered her pen. She chewed her cud with diligence despite the heavy protuberance of her abdomen. Angus entered and ran a palm across the cow’s flank.