Strangers at the Gate

by Catriona McPherson

  ‘Thanks, Mum,’ said Paddy. He sat down backwards on one of the dining chairs and leaned his elbows on its top spur. ‘But it was more than that. It turned out the partner and his wife – she was a partner too – wanted to hand the business over.’

  I was staring at Paddy. This wasn’t at all what we had decided. He was starting at the wrong end.

  ‘Hand it over? For free?’ my mum said. She really was better if she was materialistic again. When she started haggling in the hospice shop I’d know she was out from under.

  ‘And then they … went away,’ Paddy said.

  ‘Went away?’ Elayne said. ‘When?’

  ‘Monday,’ said Paddy. ‘My first day. As soon as I had signed the papers of partnership.’

  ‘What?’ Elayne said. ‘That’s terrible. What a trick to pull on you. Getting you down here and then leaving you high and dry. What a rotten thing to do.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ Paddy said. ‘They’ve passed ownership of the firm to me. Passed ownership of quite a lot of stuff, actually.’

  Both my dad and Elayne perked up at that. My mum was quivering like a deer in a clearing.

  ‘But there’s a problem,’ I said. ‘Questions, Elayne. About Lovatt Dudgeon.’

  Elayne, brushing shortbread crumbs out of the openwork stitches that decorated the neck of her jumper, froze suddenly, so that she looked as though she’d put a hand to her throat in shock.

  ‘What’s this?’ my dad asked.

  ‘The law firm specialises in adoption,’ Paddy said. ‘Like the church where Finnie’s the deacon does too. Special adoptions.’

  ‘Special how?’ said my dad.

  ‘So I caught their attention, I suppose,’ Paddy said, ignoring him. He was back on script. ‘Mum?’

  Elayne was looking sick. She drained her sherry glass and set it down with a little rattle on the side table. ‘Dudgeon,’ she said faintly. She had been gripping the arm of the couch. She let go now, leaving a dark mark from her sweaty palm.

  ‘Are you all right, Elayne?’ my mum said. If things had been different my heart would have soared to hear her taking an interest in someone else that way.

  ‘Fine,’ Elayne said, then ruined it by jumping, like an electric shock, at the sound of our doorbell.

  ‘You get Jehovah’s Witless all the way out here?’ my dad said.

  ‘It’ll be Shannon,’ I said. ‘A neighbour. She’s joining us.’

  ‘Who?’ said Elayne. ‘I thought it was just family. This is no time to be having strangers in.’

  ‘She’s not a stranger,’ I said. ‘She’s involved. She’s adopted too. And it was Lovatt Dudgeon that did her adoption. She’s part of this. Whatever this is.’

  ‘Lovatt Dudgeon,’ Elayne repeated. Her face really had paled. Her make-up was standing out, swipes of pinkishorange all around her jaw line. ‘Is he coming too?’

  ‘Like we said, he went away,’ Paddy told her. He flicked a glance at me.

  ‘He died,’ I said. ‘And – Dad, this is for you – no funny comments when Shannon comes in, okay? She’s sensitive about her looks. Her condition. Actually, I’m not sure it’s a condition. Her looks.’

  ‘What’s wrong with her?’ my dad said. ‘Is she one of these transpeople that are all over the place, these days?’

  ‘Shut up!’ I said, going to answer the door. I didn’t know for sure if Shannon was sensitive about her looks. The hats and shades were functional. ‘Shannon!’ I sang out, opening the door wide and giving her a smile. ‘Welcome. Come through and meet everyone.’

  She wasn’t wearing the wig today. Her hair was still the bright platinum sheet I had seen through the rain at the graveyard. And, as she came into the living room, she took her glasses off too, to polish the steam away.

  ‘Oh, my God.’ The voice sounded so strange, guttural and wavery, I didn’t know who had spoken. My mum was smiling at Shannon and looking around as if to work out where the newcomer could be squeezed into a seat. My dad was as bright-eyed as a blackbird, holding in all his wisecracks for once, since I had warned him. Paddy was staring down at his lap. It must have been Elayne. And, as if to confirm it, as Shannon put her shades back on and came forward to greet everyone, Elayne closed her eyes and slithered off the couch, boneless as an eel, to lie in a dead faint on the floor.

  Chapter 27

  ‘Mum!’ Paddy was on his knees at her side, patting her cheek. Slapping it, really. Her eyes fluttered open and she put up a hand to stop him.

  ‘You should have said if you were feeling ropy,’ my dad said. ‘Finnie, have you got a drop of port and brandy for her?’

  ‘Maybe I better go,’ Shannon said.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘You stay put.’

  ‘Upsy-daisy,’ said my mum as, between them, she and my dad hoisted Elayne back onto the couch.

  ‘Do you want to go to the out-of-hours, Elayne?’ my mum said. ‘Where’s the nearest out-of-hours to here, though, Finn? Is it away back to A and E at the Infirmary?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Elayne said. ‘I’m not ill. I don’t need a doctor.’ She looked over at Paddy. ‘I’ll take that port and brandy, though. That’s good for shock.’

  It was me who went to get it and my dad followed me through to the kitchen, whispering fiercely. ‘You get on at me for being loud,’ he said, ‘but I’ve never passed out from some poor soul looking a bit strange. What the hell’s her problem?’

  ‘It wasn’t Shannon,’ I said. ‘God’s sake, Dad. It was all that stuff about adoption suddenly coming out. You know she never talks about it.’ I ripped a sheet off the kitchen roll and wiped my forehead. It was searing hot from the oven being turned right up to roast the potatoes.

  ‘You’re wrong,’ my dad said. ‘She took one look at your friend there and she was done for.’

  Elayne was halfway through a fairytale, for Shannon’s benefit, that she’d fainted from hearing so baldly that Paddy’s boss had passed away. She gave me a pointed look as she said it was the sort of news that should be softened and led up to.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘But the truth is Lovatt and his wife both died on Monday. They left a suicide note.’

  ‘And a will,’ Paddy said, defying me to argue.

  ‘Of sorts,’ I said. ‘They did their best to wind up their affairs. I’ll give you that much.’

  ‘But they took their secrets to the grave,’ said Shannon. I thought maybe Elayne paled again, but she was only midway through the gargantuan glassful I’d poured her and took another pull at it.

  ‘Did they, though?’ Paddy said. ‘I wouldn’t be so sure. I reckon the secrets are there to be uncovered.’

  ‘Dinner’s ready,’ I said, ‘if you’ll all come to the table.’

  ‘And let’s not talk about suicide,’ said my mum. ‘Not while we’re eating.’

  ‘It’s that or worse,’ I told her. ‘It could be murder.’

  ‘It wasn’t murder,’ Paddy said. ‘They left a note.’

  ‘Shhh,’ said my mum. ‘I’m feeling better but not better enough for this, Finnie doll. And Elayne’s still looking peaky.’

  So we got through the soup on how much of a difference it makes when you grill the tomatoes first.

  ‘No hardship if the oven’s on anyway for a joint,’ my mum said. ‘This is lovely. And garlic bread!’

  I beamed and felt my eyes fill. Hearing her voice with a touch of enthusiasm in it, knowing she could taste her food, even if we knew it would overbalance soon, was nearly as big a joy for us as it was for her.

  ‘I’ll have a plain cracker instead of garlic bread, if you’ve got one,’ Elayne said. ‘The soup’s rich enough without a lot of butter as well.’

  Paddy went through to the kitchen and came back with a packet of oatcakes. Wrong on two counts, I thought, as he put them down.

  ‘Have you forgotten about my diverticulosis?’ Elayne said. ‘And have you run out of plates?’

  But Paddy had had enough. He sat down without going in search of a third option. ‘Finnie’s
cooked half a stone of spuds,’ he said. ‘You can fill up on the next course.’

  It was when I was clearing the soup plates, my dad opening red wine and my mum having another fag at the open back door, that I heard Shannon speaking.

  ‘So Paddy tells me you adopted him, Elayne. Did he tell you I’m adopted too? I was one of the very few children handled by Lovatt Dudgeon’s pet project, St Angela’s. It didn’t take off the way he expected it to. But, give him his due, he didn’t flog it. He was just as happy to support the other agencies. Isn’t that right, Paddy?’

  There was silence from the other room. I went through with the meat platter, plenty of Yorkshire puddings and roast potatoes around the edge trying to disguise the niggardly size of the roast itself.

  ‘There’s been some shrinkage,’ I said. ‘I won’t judge you if you go out for chips.’

  ‘There would have been plenty for the family,’ Elayne said.

  I had never heard her abandon passive aggression for good old-fashioned aggressive aggression before and I couldn’t think of a damn thing to say. I went scurrying back for the veg dishes.

  ‘Cut it out, Mum,’ Paddy said. ‘Shannon’s a guest here, same as you. Don’t be such a bag.’

  ‘Jesus!’ my mum said softly, stubbing out her fag and shutting the kitchen door. ‘Not like your Paddy to talk to Bootface like that, is it?’ She went back through, not wanting to miss anything.

  My dad had got the cork out at last. He looked at me over the top of the open bottle. ‘What’s going on, chicken?’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it’s long past time to get it all out on the table and sort it through.’

  I put down the veg, the two gravy boats, the ketchup for my dad. And then they all just sat there with empty plates. Paddy spoke first.

  ‘I think my adoption’s dodgy,’ he said. He was looking at Shannon.

  ‘Dodgy how?’ said Elayne. I couldn’t quite believe she was sitting there taking this. I would have expected her to set off in the rain in her slippers, assuming Paddy would come after her in the car, full of apologies. But, then, after a sherry, a port and brandy and some white wine with her soup, and the way she was glugging into her first glass of red, maybe her sensibilities were blunted.

  ‘It was the best thing that ever happened to me,’ she was saying. ‘I was happily married for ten years and then I nursed my poor Eddy through a long illness. It wasn’t until after his chemo we ever thought to be tested, in case he was…’

  ‘Firing—’ my dad began, but stopped at a matching pair of looks from my mum and me.

  ‘And it turned out it was me,’ Elayne said. ‘It was me. And I didn’t see him for dust.’

  ‘Scumbag!’ Shannon said. ‘He left you?’

  ‘He still sends a Christmas card,’ she said. ‘Or his wife does. A photo of their children and grandchildren.’

  ‘Tosser!’ said Shannon.

  ‘It was a nurse at the … at the … at the mental-health clinic who told me I could still have a little baby all of my own, even without him.’

  Paddy and I were staring golf balls at each other. If Elayne Lamb was admitting to mental-health issues, we were right through the looking glass. She took another slug of wine and went on, ‘Of course, she was just trying to cheer me up, that nurse. A woman the age I was then, all on her own, was never going to get a tiny healthy baby.’

  ‘But you did,’ I said.

  ‘No, she didn’t,’ Paddy said. ‘I was nearly school age.’

  ‘What?’ I said, looking between him and Elayne. ‘I’ve seen all your photos. Newborn.’

  Elayne shot a look at Paddy, but he was staring straight ahead and refused to meet her eye. ‘Not with me in them,’ she said. Her voice shook. ‘If you think about it, Finnie. I’m not in any of the pictures, am I?’

  I couldn’t have sworn to it either way. ‘But that’s surely just because you took them,’ I said. Elayne was shaking her head, a sad smile on her lips. ‘So Paddy wasn’t a baby?’ I was still half asking, still unbelieving.

  ‘I didn’t care about a baby,’ said Elayne. ‘I wanted a child – I could still hope for a child. Especially if I was willing to take one that was a bit—’

  ‘Squashed,’ said my dad. ‘Like the cheap cakes at the City Bakery. Bashed bargains, we call them.’

  ‘Chrissake, Eric,’ Paddy said. ‘Go on, Mum.’

  ‘And Lovatt Dudgeon helped me,’ Elayne said. She didn’t blink at Paddy’s language. We were through the looking glass and down the rabbit hole.

  ‘So, you just happened to approach St Angela’s?’ I said. ‘What took you to them instead of one of the other agencies? The bigger ones.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t like that. I met Lovatt through his wife. She and I were very pally at one time.’

  ‘You were?’ I said. ‘How?’ It made no sense to me that Denise Dudgeon, horsy countrywoman, could have run across Elayne Lamb, suburban housewife, who rode nothing but her knitting machine.

  ‘At the hospital,’ Elayne said, ‘if you must know.’

  ‘The hospital?’ I said. ‘When your husband was ill and she was ill?’ If Elayne had poured her heart out to Lovatt in the waiting room when Eddy was in the midst of his chemo and Denise Dudgeon was in the midst of whatever treatment they give you for Huntington’s, that could make a lasting bond. If Lovatt remembered the sadness of the woman, aching for a child, he might seek her out when St Angela’s was getting off the ground.

  ‘No, Finnie,’ Elayne said, sounding like her usual snippy self, which was comforting in a way. ‘The psychiatric hospital. How many times are you going to make me say it? I was there and she was there. It’s a bond.’

  I reached over and took her hand in mine, squeezing it and wrinkling my nose at her. Of course Denise Dudgeon would have tried some counselling or therapy or something before she decided it was all a bust and killed herself. And Elayne was there trying to recover from the tosser behaviour of scumbag Eddy.

  I still couldn’t work out the timeline, though. If Lovatt Dudgeon only got interested in second chances for children after his wife killed his own, how could a woman she met before her final descent be in touch with him? If it had been Simmerton, it would be different. But the Dudgeons lived in Edinburgh then. Or did they? They owned Jerusalem House and Denise died there.

  ‘Where was the clinic?’ I said. ‘In town or down here?’

  ‘Why would it be down here?’ said Elayne. ‘But no, it wasn’t in the city. It was a private clinic, out in East Lothian, if you must know, because I didn’t want to run into anyone I knew. Neighbours or that. So I used to get the train down the coast and go to a wee clinic there. I sometimes think the journey, sitting looking out the train window at the sea view, was what did me most good, not the endless yak-yak-yakking once I got there.’

  She sounded like herself again. With one last squeeze I let her hand go. ‘Look, let’s eat,’ I said. ‘By all means, keeping talking but let’s eat too, eh?’

  ‘Don’t need to tell me twice,’ my dad said, digging into the potatoes. ‘So this St Angela’s,’ he went on, ‘it was an agency that dealt with…’ I was glaring at him and he came through for once in his clueless life ‘… special-needs children? Why was Paddy on their books? Elayne, do you know?’

  ‘Don’t mind me,’ Paddy said.

  ‘It might not have been anything to do with the child himself,’ I said. ‘It might have been that Paddy’s birth parents wanted to deal with St Angela’s for some reason. Maybe they knew Lovatt.’

  ‘That’s it,’ Elayne said. ‘It came from the birth parents. It was a surprise to me. A gift from the gods.’ She had put the smallest amount of everything on her plate that you could put on your plate and still claim to be eating a meal. One potato, one floret of cauliflower, a slice of beef where the knife had gone off-course and shaved a thin sliver, like a nail paring.

  ‘So you adopted Paddy through St Angela’s when it was brand-new,’ Shannon said. ‘I wonder how many
of us actually passed through its hands. That’s at least three now, including me and my brother, if we’re right about him.’

  ‘You and your brother weren’t adopted together?’ my mum said. ‘That’s not nice, lovey. That’s a shame.’

  ‘Sibling groups are harder to find homes for than single children,’ Shannon said.

  ‘Is that right?’ my mum said. ‘I’d have thought a wee perfect family, a boy and girl, would be just what anyone wanted. Wouldn’t you, Elayne?’

  She hadn’t eaten a bite of her midget dinner. She hadn’t even picked up her fork. She was sitting back with her hands in her lap. ‘I’m very happy with just my Paddy,’ she said. Her voice was shaking.

  ‘You didn’t want a girl too? To dress and spoil?’ My mum smiled at me. ‘Not that this one let me dress her. She had that pudding-bowl haircut when she was six and there’s never been a ribbon or a bobble since. Now, if you’d been mine, Shannon – with all that lovely long hair!’

  ‘Well,’ Shannon said, ‘perfect wasn’t really the word for Sean and me. My brother’s got more severe ocular albinism than me. He was pretty well blind. I’ve been lucky really.’

  ‘When…?’ Elayne said, before her dry voice gave out. She took a small sip of water and tried again. ‘When was your adoption?’

  ‘Me?’ said Shannon. ‘Why? I mean, it was nineteen eighty-six.’

  ‘That was earlier than I thought St Angela’s started up,’ I said. ‘That was really soon after the Dudgeons died.’

  ‘After the Dudgeons died?’ Elayne said. ‘What do you mean? They died last week, you said. What are you talking about?’

  ‘Elayne, didn’t you know?’ I said. ‘Your friend – Mrs Dudgeon. She killed herself and her two little children. Years ago. Just before St Angela’s started. Right before. It’s hard to believe Lovatt was in a fit state to do anything except grieve, actually.’

  ‘They were definitely up and running, though,’ Paddy said. ‘I was adopted in ‘eighty-six too.’

  ‘A woman killed herself and her children?’ my mum said. ‘As long as I live I can’t believe the wickedness of this world. Let’s go to church tomorrow, Eric, eh?’