Redemption Road

by Lisa Ballantyne

  George had kept in touch with Bernadette after she moved south and they still got together for a cuddle when she went back to Glasgow to see her family. They had even talked about Moll once or twice. The first time he had slept with Bernie, she had thought the name tattooed above his heart had been a lover, and he had told her the story.

  It had been nearly six months since George had seen her in Glasgow. If Bernie was home, he could trust her and she would help him out.

  ‘Directory Enquiries,’ said a woman’s voice.

  George cleared his throat. ‘Hello, I wonder if you have a number for Bernadette Shaw in Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent.’

  ‘I have two listings for a B. Shaw in Hanley. One is B. P. Shaw on Rawlins Street and another B. Shaw on Cavendish Street.’

  ‘Rawlins Street,’ George exclaimed, remembering. His inability to read and write had honed his memory.

  ‘Very well, the number is —’

  ‘Hold on a minute… Moll, pen and paper, please?’

  Moll crouched on the floor of the booth as she took out her exercise book and selected a pencil from a tin box that bore an image of Scooby Doo.

  George wrote the number on the back of Moll’s exercise book. He fed a fifty-pence piece into the slot and dialled. He checked his watch: just after four o’clock. He expected Bernadette to be at work. He stared through a small pane of glass in the phone box, thinking that he could get the wean some food and they could wait and call later when she returned.

  After the fifth ring, to George’s surprise, Bernadette answered. He recognised her voice.

  ‘Bernie? It’s George… How are you?’

  Sweating with anxiety in the cramped call box with Moll, George still flashed his smile, as if Bernadette was before him.

  ‘Georgie!’ she said. ‘This is a surprise. I thought you were allergic to phones?’

  ‘I am indeed, but the thought of hearing your dulcet tones again drove me to it.’

  She laughed.

  ‘How are you, beautiful?’

  ‘I’m very well,’ she said and George could tell from her tone that she was also smiling. ‘I’m kind of rushing at the moment. I’m about to go away for a week’s holiday and you know what I’m like. So bloody disorganised. I can’t find my passport.’

  ‘You’re leaving the country?’ George put a hand against the phone box and leaned against it. He was the unluckiest person he knew.

  ‘I am indeed. I’m going abroad with a girlfriend.’

  ‘Abroad? Get you! And here was I coming to visit you.’ George leaned his forehead against the glass.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m eh, I’m passing through… in Leek just now, would you believe – bloody Leek – and I thought to myself, I can’t pass Stoke-on-Trent and not say hello to wee Bernie.’

  ‘God, your timing’s always off. I need to go in half an hour… unless I really have lost my passport and then I suppose I can’t go anywhere.’

  Pips began to sound and George hurriedly fed more coins into the slot.

  ‘And here was me thinking you’d give me a bed for the night, but you’re right, I should’ve warned you.’

  ‘You’re welcome to stay if you need a place…’

  ‘Is it a trouble, Bern’? How would I…?’

  ‘I can leave a key under the mat for you. If the key’s not there, it means I’m still home because I couldn’t find my passport.’

  ‘You’re a sweetheart, Bernie, do you know that?’

  ‘And you’re the bane of my life. How long will you stay? Will you be here when I get back? I’m back on the eleventh…’

  ‘How could I not wait for you, gorgeous?’

  ‘Where are you off to anyway?’

  ‘I’m headed to London, but I can hang about a few days if it means seeing your pretty face again.’

  ‘I’ll look forward to it.’

  The bus to Hanley was every half-hour, and George bought a newspaper for himself to hide behind, and crisps and juice for the bairn.

  The bus came just as she had opened her crisps. They waited in line and then George lifted her up on board. He took her almost to the back of the bus, setting the holdall on the floor at her feet and helping her into the window seat.

  ‘Why are we going to Hanley?’ she said as the bus pulled away.

  ‘Hush,’ he said, leaning down towards her. The bus was almost full, mostly elderly people, but they had not been in such an enclosed public space since he left Scotland. ‘We’re going to stay at a friend of mine’s house. I’ll tell you all about it when we get there.’

  He helped Moll open her can of juice. The crack and fizz sounded and the woman in front turned around at the noise. She had grey hair twisted into a neat knot at the nape of her neck, and small pink lips. George smiled at her broadly, and she returned the smile and then turned back.

  ‘Drink it carefully and don’t spill it,’ said George as he passed it to Moll, who took it into two hands as the bus left the station. He felt a flicker of nerves after the woman’s attention, so he risked saying, ‘There’s a good boy.’

  Moll turned to him and George held his breath, but she only said, ‘Robin,’ and smiled. He tapped the skip of her cap.

  Trying to relax, he opened his newspaper. There was a photograph of Rock Hudson. George had heard on the news that he had died. There was also a picture of rioters in London. He looked at the photographs and turned the pages, working his way slowly to the back where he would be able to read the cartoons. He took his time, his eyes scanning the pages, as if he were able to read. He had practised the art. Suddenly he stopped and folded the paper over, drawing it closer to him. There, on page seven, near the fold, was the picture of Moll. Her photo was at the top of the article: the same school picture that had been circulated before.

  George felt his throat dry. The bus was full. He looked at Moll. The squint had been mentioned on the radio reports and now, he thought, even in her boy’s clothes, it was obvious who she was.

  He needed a cigarette, but daren’t light up on the bus for fear of irritating someone and drawing further attention to himself. He wanted to ask Moll what the article said, but he didn’t want to upset her.

  He sat hunched on the seat, sweat in his armpits, glancing up and down the bus to see if anyone was watching him.

  When they pulled into Hanley, George helped Moll out of her seat before the bus had come to a stop. He prodded her gently forward, one hand on the back of her T-shirt to stop her from falling as the bus rolled into its stop. They were first in line to exit. The holdall was heavy and George could feel his hands sweating. There was no air and he just wanted off the bus.

  The doors opened, and Moll skipped down the steps. George was just about to follow her when he felt a man’s hand on his arm.

  George turned, his smile slippery, to see an old man with watery blue irises looking up at him. George swallowed, looking down at the man, whose lips twisted downwards. George tightened his fist in panic.

  ‘You forgot the lad’s hat,’ the old man said, handing him Moll’s baseball cap.

  George buckled with relief. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered, got off the bus, took Moll by the hand and strode out of the station.

  Bernadette lived in a tiny one-bedroom terraced house that had been painted pale yellow. There was a thick brush doormat on the step and underneath George found a key. He unlocked the door for Moll and followed her inside.

  George lit a cigarette, feeling the relief of the nicotine and the safe empty house all at once. Bernadette had left a note for him on the kitchen table. He handed it to Moll as he settled into a kitchen chair. He was exhausted.

  ‘What does that say, button?’

  Moll stood with her feet together and her back straight, holding the piece of paper in two hands, frowning. ‘Enjoy Hanley, Georgie. Help yourself to anything. You better be here when I come back, or I’ll come up to Shet… Shettle —’

  ‘Shettleston,’ George guessed.

  ‘She
ttleston and kick your…’ Moll placed the paper on the table with her eyes wide and her lips pursed. ‘A bad word.’

  George blew a smoke ring at her, and she poked a finger through to break the circle.

  25

  Kathleen Henderson

  Tuesday 8 October, 1985

  She did it several times a day, usually when John was out of the house, but once again, Kathleen entered Moll’s bedroom.

  She sat down on the bed and smoothed the cover. It was a cream bedspread decorated with forget-me-nots. Moll had always liked it, and all of the blue items in the room – the lampshade and the rug and the curtains – had been chosen to coordinate with it.

  It was three in the afternoon and Kathleen was fully dressed, yet she lay down on the bed and pulled the cover over her. She held the duvet over her face and inhaled the smell. She had changed the sheets a week before Moll was taken, yet still, if Kathleen concentrated very hard, she could smell her. It brought her momentary comfort and the deepest pain.

  Alone in the big house, curled up in Moll’s bed, Kathleen wept. She cried, pressing the duvet into her face to suppress the noise, and wetting it with her tears and her spit. She pulled it into her, tugging it into her stomach and breasts.

  When her tears subsided, she was exhausted. She lay on her side, watching the bedside Minnie Mouse alarm clock. The hands of the clock were Minnie’s gloved arms. Moll had liked it because the arms were glow-in-the-dark. She had learned to tell the time early – when she was five or six – and now she liked to test herself if she woke up and it was still dark.

  ‘I can still tell the time – even though I can’t see the numbers, Mum,’ she had announced proudly to Kathleen.

  Each second was measured by the twitch and turn of the ribbon bow on Minnie Mouse’s head. Kathleen sat up and swung her legs out of bed. Hot tears flashed over her face. Her eyes still had tears even though she had exhausted herself with crying.

  It was the time that was killing her, slowly. Every second without Moll was agony. It was like being burned from the feet up, like Joan of Arc.

  Kathleen got to her feet and went to the jewellery box on the dressing table. She opened it and a ballerina began to twirl, haltingly, dancing mechanically to a high-pitched plucked melody. Kathleen raked among the jewels: her old strings of sixties beads, plastic children’s rings from Christmas crackers and old ladies’ clip-on earrings.

  Kathleen chose one of the rings and slipped it on to her finger. It was made of cheap metal, painted yellow gold and set with a piece of shiny plastic, but it was meant to look like a diamond ring. Kathleen wiggled the ring on her finger. It was too small to pass her knuckle. She sat down on the low stool before the dressing table and looked down at the ring finger of her left hand, now bearing two diamond rings.

  ‘I do love you,’ John said, whispering across the table at her.

  They were in a posh restaurant in the city centre of Glasgow and Kathleen felt as stiff as the table linen. Her shoulders had been aching since she arrived, just from the effort of sitting up straight.

  Moll was just a month old, and Kathleen was anxious to get back home to her.

  She had started going out with John, at her parents’ urging, before she had begun to show. The last time they had been out for dinner, Kathleen had been eight months pregnant and she had felt uncomfortable, constantly excusing herself because of heartburn or the need to pee. The baby had been kicking and she had just wanted to go home, to the sofa.

  John’s first wife had been young and in good health, but had died tragically after a fall. She had slipped on the ice and banged her head, but refused to go to the hospital and had died in her sleep at his side. He had been friends with Kathleen’s parents for some time, and her mother said that – before he was introduced to her – he had been resigned to spending the rest of his life alone.

  He was bright and funny and kind. Kathleen liked John and she knew that he loved her, but she was not sure she could ever feel anything more than that. Her heart still belonged to George; nevertheless, she had made her mind up early on that her daughter needed a father more than she needed a lover.

  It was just two weeks since she and George had registered Moll’s birth and he had proposed to her in Glasgow Green. Now Kathleen sat smiling at John, feeling a husk of herself but trying to remember what was important.

  I do love you.

  Kathleen took his hand and squeezed it tightly because she did not feel able to say that she loved him too. She didn’t even know if she was capable of loving anyone other than George McLaughlin.

  They had finished their main courses and the waiter cleared their table as John held her hand. They asked for the menu for dessert and coffee and when it came John put it to one side, then reached into his jacket pocket. He said nothing, but opened the ring box and placed it beside the candle on the table.

  Kathleen looked straight at the ring, feeling sick. It was not dissimilar to the ring which George had chosen for her: a solitaire diamond, set in gold. John’s ring was larger, and, Kathleen imagined, significantly more expensive. She would have been with George, ring or no ring, house or no house, but things with John had to be navigated more formally. Her parents approved and she had Moll to consider.

  They spoke of Moll often. John talked about the good schools up north and how safe Thurso was, and close to the sea, so they could take Moll to the beach when the weather was fine.

  John smoothed the hair over his head. At thirty-four years old he was thinning and greying already, yet his cheeks, especially above the line of his stubble, seemed young as a boy’s, and flushed when he drank or was overcome with emotion.

  They flushed now, as he clasped his hands and looked at the ring on the table.

  ‘You would do me a great honour,’ he said, without meeting her eye. Kathleen swallowed, but finally he met her gaze. ‘I can sense that you have been through a lot, and I know that is something you may never wish to discuss with me… but I love you and I will love Moll and I think that we can be happy together.’

  He blinked, waiting for her response.

  Kathleen inhaled.

  ‘I know you don’t feel as strongly as I do, but sometimes that can come with time.’

  ‘I will marry you,’ said Kathleen, snapping the ring box shut, taking it and clasping it in her palm. ‘There’s a lot that we need to work out, but… I would love to marry you.’

  She had managed this. It was as close to I love you as she could get. Her soul was a wasteland. Apart from Moll and her strong need to care for her, Kathleen was no longer sure of anything.

  Kathleen slid the cheap metal ring from her finger and closed Moll’s jewellery box. She remembered John from those days: hesitant, insecure, asking for her love. She had been wrong about him. It had taken time. Moll had been a toddler, at least two or three, before it hit her, but she and John had finally fallen passionately in love.

  She had always loved his smell and even now, in these dark days, she felt comforted when he was close.

  They had come to Thurso before Moll’s first birthday and John had the house ready for them. It was a small town at the very top of the country and Kathleen was lonely initially. She missed Glasgow and all her friends and family, but she made new friends at the children’s playgroup and was soon drawn into a community of young families.