The whistle goes for full time and I stay there on all fours, recovering my breath, until a hand lands between my shoulder blades. Davie Blair’s swollen face appears beside mine.
‘Alright, son?’ He may only be two or three years older than me, but he always calls me son. I nod and he extends a hand, pulls me to my feet.
‘Thanks Davie.’
‘Well played, Sean. Nearly did it, eh?’
Our last game of the season has been a war of attrition, ending 10-13 to Gala. Already I can feel the tender places on my ribs, which by tomorrow will have turned purple. We line up for sweaty handshakes, then start off toward the clubhouse for icepacks and showers. A few spectators mill around, chatting in the soft sunshine, holding plastic cups of beer. I look around for anyone who might have bothered to come and watch me, but there isn’t anyone.
It was that way when I was young too. For Mum, watching me play would have meant getting her stilettos dirty. She came down to the clubhouse one time, to the annual Ne’er Day Party, when I was ten or eleven. She was still pissed from the night before, and she just carried on knocking back vodka and coke until she passed out in the toilet and cracked her head open on the bog. I didn’t know anything about it until the paramedics arrived and took her away on a stretcher.
I ended up being taken home by one of my coaches, fed, given some spare clothes and allowed to sleep on their son’s bottom bunk. He was alright, big Gav, but his wife was a cold fish. I could tell she didn’t want me there. Quite likely, she thought I would try to sneak away in the night with her silver under my jersey.
When Mum came home the next day and lay on the settee, smoking, her sunglasses on and a massive, stitched lump on her forehead, I told her I never wanted her to come to the club again. She never did. I threatened to batter anyone that gave me a hard time about her, so mostly people just pretended I didn’t have any parents at all.
In the changing room I strip off my shirt and body armour, then press an icepack against my ribs and sit there with my head against the wall and my bare feet on the cold, concrete floor. The guys are whipping each other with towels and laughing, cursing loudly about their various injuries, and something about the acoustics of hard, bare room makes it hard for me to pick out anything they’re saying. I am in my tunnel again, and I’m not sure whether I want to come out of it and be in the room with them or not.
‘Oi, I ken ye can hear me, McNicol. Your captain is speaking.’
I open my eyes. Davie’s standing in front of me with a towel stretched around his hips, gaping open down his left thigh like a prostitute’s skirt. He’s just out of the shower, standing with his legs apart and his fists on his hips, all fierce pink flesh and reddish, matted hair.
‘It’s all sorted. Clubhouse, The Oak, The Raj for a feed, then back here. You’re in, aye?’
‘Davie, I . . . mate, I dinnae drink.’
‘Fucking result, lads,’ he shouts over his shoulder. ‘Sean’s driving!’
I stand up. ‘Nah . . . sorry, I’ve got stuff on.’
‘Aye, you’ve got a night oot wi’ yer pals. Captain’s orders.’
‘Next time, yeah?’ I turn my back on him and rummage in my bag for shower gel.
‘Sean, ye dinnae get away wi’ all that depressive nonsense here, right?’ he bellows, to avoid any possibility that I could claim not to have heard him.
‘Leave him, Davie, aye?’ Jack slots his shoulder in between Davie and me and puts a hand on my back. ‘You alright?’
‘Fine. Just . . . got other stuff on, Jack.’
‘Nae bother, Sean. Dinnae worry aboot it.’
Maybe it has finally dawned on them that I am truly an antisocial bastard, because nobody says anything else as I step past them and get into the shower. I stand there for a few minutes, letting the water pound onto my shoulders before attacking my mud-encrusted knees with the soap.
Dried and dressed, I hoist my kitbag onto my shoulder and head outside. The ground has mostly emptied now, but movement at the far end of the pitch catches my eye and I look up. A man stands between the end of the pitch and the copse of trees beyond it, a little stooped, with a black and white dog by his knee. He’s just standing, very still, staring towards us.
From this distance, I can’t say for sure that it’s Duncan but my heart speeds up and I walk toward him. He waits for a moment, then turns away from me and moves into the woods.
I break into a jog, my bag bumping against my thigh, but by the time I get to where the man had been, he’s gone.
‘Duncan,’ I shout into the woods, then listen intently. No voice in reply, no twigs cracking, nothing except the hush of the wind and the birds. I scan the ground and find both human and dog footprints, but this wood is a popular spot for walking so they could belong to anyone.
I follow a set of tracks a little way through the trees. If he was here, he must have moved quickly to get so far ahead of me, and eventually I give up.
There’s no one here, mate.
‘Mitch? I saw him.’
Did you?
‘Didn’t I?’
I don’t know. You hear me, and I’m not here.
‘I thought you’d gone. Where have you been?’
Nowhere. How could I be anywhere, technically speaking?
‘Don’t fuck with me.’
You’re fucking with yourself. You sure you didn’t take a knock on the head back there? Tough game.
‘I saw him, Mitch, I’m not mad.’
If you say so. Did you know you’re talking out loud?
I snap my mouth shut and look around me, seeing only packed earth, pale spring leaves and dappled sunlight. Shaking my head, I walk back out of the woods and make my way home. Janet’s car is in the drive but she’s not home, so I dump my bag at the bottom of the stairs and rummage in the fridge for some leftover pasta and bread. I drink milk from the jug while the pasta is heating in the microwave, then shovel the food down without really tasting it.
After eating, I leave my bowl in the sink and grab Janet’s car keys before I have a chance to think twice. I drive out to Cauldhill Farm and park in front of the house, go straight inside and snoop around, upstairs and down. It is cold as a mausoleum but quiet and undisturbed, mostly empty just as Molly left it. I’ll need to bring Jack and the van up soon and shift the rest of the furniture.
I lock up and have a good prowl around the grounds and outbuildings. A worry had crossed my mind that Duncan might try to stake his claim on the place for real by breaking in and squatting, but there’s no sign of that.
The late afternoon sunshine filters in beams through the clouds, and somewhere in the distance a cuckoo calls. Cauldhill Farm isn’t so bleak on a day like this, and in the suntrap of the yard, it’s verging on pleasant. I imagine horses and dogs and kids playing on rope swings, and the smell of freshly cut hay. Rabbit and his wife digging the garden in the buff. Then over that ridiculous image, I superimpose myself and Paula. Clothed, naked, it hardly matters, just here.
I walk out the gate and up the road, toward the end of the tarmac and the little track leading up the hill toward Duncan’s cottage. The road becomes increasingly broken until eventually it gives way to mud, and then a cattle grid and a rutted Land Rover track between two barbed wire fences festooned with bits of blown wool. The track leads up toward the ridge of the hills, which itself slopes upward for a couple of kilometres to the west. Duncan’s cottage sits on the left side of the track. It’s grey and shabby, with dirty windows and weeds growing in the guttering; you would be forgiven for thinking it derelict. The place smells of wet wool and sheep shit.
I peer through the front window into what looks like a lounge, though the glass is so clouded it’s hard to see more than silhouettes. There is no motion inside or any noise to give away a man’s presence, so I bang on the door and wait a moment, listening as well as I can. There is no response after a second bang, so I try the door and am almost surprised to find that he’s bothered to lock it.
Turn
ing my back on the door, I scan up and down the track and up along the ridge of hills. Surely, if it was him I saw at the rugby club, he’ll be on his way back here now. But then, I don’t have any idea how he gets himself about; it’s a long walk for an old guy in his condition and it seems impossible that he would be driving. The wind stirs some dried leaves in a little spiral against the corner of the house and a buzzard cries overhead.
Satisfied that we aren’t going to pass each other on the road, I head back down the hill toward the farm. Reaching the gate, I shove my hand into my pocket for the car key, then pause and turn around. The trunk is still in the barn; the trunk containing the old veterinary equipment and the little box with the photographs.
I go into the barn, open the lid and remove the little box. Once again, I pick the lock and remove the photos, take them outside and sit in the car with the door open. I focus on the soldier at Edinburgh Castle, and this time I know who he is. Or at least, I know his name. The photo in my hand, I replace the box in the trunk and leave the barn.
I look back up toward Duncan’s house. A cloud has moved across the sun the trees cast long shadows over the yard. The air has cooled and once again Cauldhill Farm feels like a haunted place, where stories are never told but just whispered on the wind.
‘What do you see here, Mitch?’
I see what you see.
‘Are you a ghost?’
If it makes you feel better to think of me that way.
‘Are there others?’
One or two. But you know that.
‘She doesn’t talk to me.’
You don’t talk to her.
‘Oh for fucksake, you’re no help.’
I’ll leave you to it then.
I sigh, kick a stone and watch it bump over the cobbles and splash into a little puddle, then get into the car and drive down the road, the photographs on the seat beside me.
XVIII
I park the van behind the shop after a long shift and head inside to make a cup of tea and check out tomorrow’s jobs. Harry is in the kitchen waiting on something heating in the microwave, looking weary with his arms folded over his chest and his face turned toward the window.
‘Is this your tea?’ I ask. It’s mid-May now and the early evening sun is still high, beaming in through dirty glass, illuminating grease and sticky patches on the table. The light makes the place look even more squalid, if that could be possible.
‘Aye. I’ve got a couple more hours tonight.’ He massages his eyelids. ‘Grant evaluation report due tomorrow. Fucking bureaucracy gets worse every year and I always leave it till the last minute.’
‘Anything I can help with?’
‘It’s a one-man job, really. Thank you, though.’ A smile flickers, fades. ‘Ach, I’d better tell you, Sean. Billy’s in hospital. The Royal Ed. I went to see him this afternoon.’
‘How is he?’
He shrugs. ‘He’s where he needs to be just now, I think.’
‘Bloody hell.’ I mutter and look out the grimy window at the van in the car park.
Harry looks at me. ‘I think possibly you saved his life.’
‘I doubt that.’ I stare at the floor. ‘Maybe just prolonged the inevitable. What about Linda?’
‘Wasted. She’ll never work again, I’m sure.’
I sigh and run my hand over my cheek.
‘Sean, Al told me about your mum. If I’d known, I wouldn’t have asked you to go see Billy. It must have been very hard, and I’m sorry.’
‘No, it wasn’t hard, just . . .’ I look up at him. His eyes are full on my face. ‘Some battles are lost before they start, you know? Some people can’t be saved. Mum couldn’t face life straight. She was in hospital a few times, this or that detox programme. I always wondered how much money they spent trying to fix her when she didn’t want it. She never believed she could stop. She had no intention of it.’
I pull a teabag out of a little canister and drop it into the mug, then switch on the kettle. ‘You know, the thing about it was, Harry, I was relieved when she finally popped off. I’d spent my life trying to get free of her. My sister about killed herself trying to look after us when I was little, and all I could ever think about was leaving.’
‘And so you left.’
I nod. ‘Yeah . . . I certainly did.’ The kettle boils and I pour the water, stir and then press my teabag against the side of the mug and watch the brown liquid slide over white china. ‘And now I’m back here. How the fuck did that happen?’
Harry chuckles. ‘You didn’t have to come back.’
‘The Marines wanted to keep me. You know . . . at first. I could have stayed in as an instructor, spent my time climbing mountains and playing in the snow. I could have got a commission eventually and had a bloody good life, but I was finished. I couldn’t have stayed in to train other guys to do something I couldn’t justify anymore.’
‘No . . . no. Absolutely not. Sean, if there’s any training you’d like or if you’d like to go back to college or university, we’ll find a way to help you.’
‘I . . . well . . . I appreciate the offer. I’ve been thinking lately I might like to move up north. Start a business as a mountaineering guide. I think possibly I’d be a bit saner if I could get out in the hills more.’
Harry smiles. ‘Good therapy, huh?’
‘Something like that. You don’t have time to be depressed when you’re trying to keep yourself alive on the side of a mountain. It’s always where I’ve been happiest.’
‘Then you should do it.’ He opens the microwave and stirs the contents of his bowl, takes an experimental taste of what looks like beef stew out of a tin. ‘We’d be sorry to lose you.’
‘I’m not going anywhere yet, I’m too skint.’ I sit down with my tea and the order book for tomorrow. My eyes flick over the notes on the page, but I don’t really read, and I realise that it’s not so much money that’s holding me back as a reluctance to walk away from the unfinished business I have with this town.
Harry looks over my shoulder. ‘Another big day tomorrow.’
‘Aye.’
He nods. ‘Good.’ Then he pauses and tilts his head to one side, mouth half open. For a second he looks as if he’s not sure whether to speak, but then he says, ‘You’ve got your life ahead of you still. Don’t slip in to thinking this is all there is.’
‘I feel a hundred years old sometimes. But . . . I will try, Harry. I promise you, I’ll try.’
I finish my tea, close the book and rinse my cup, then change into running clothes and leave my work gear in a holdall on a shelf in the staff room. I say a quick cheerio to Harry, leave him hunched over his stew and his paperwork, then stretch out and run along the High Street in hazy sunshine. Dodging pensioners, stout, bristly dogs and weedy boys in hoodies, I eventually clear the small-town rush hour and turn into one of the new housing estates on the eastern edge of the village.
The estate is made up of one wide crescent, curving through what used to be a dairy farm, with little cul-de-sacs off it, treeless pavements with small islands of newly-laid turf, cookie-cutter houses alternating brick and cream roughcast. The tiny gardens are trimmed, the windows are respectably dressed with venetian blinds, the flat screens flicker from inside as women with artificially straightened hair and spray-on tans make tea. Kids play on scooters or bikes, or sit on patches of grass huddled over their iPods and phones.
It’s only a few hundred metres from the centre of Eskbridge but you could be anywhere, any cozy, amnesiac estate in any town in Britain, totally disconnected from the history that has brought you to this place.
Here and there are little fenced-in ponds, choked with weeds and bits of rubbish, and I know these are probably sinkholes from the old mines underneath. The whole bloody place is undermined and I can’t believe they’ve found a way to build houses here and guarantee that one day the earth won’t just devour them. I wonder whether if you were to dive into one of the ponds, you could swim down into the flooded tunnels and hear th
e ghostly shouts of the men with their shovels and picks. I wonder if the orange women wake up at night and hear the sounds of phantom coal cutters rumbling beneath them.
I run faster, reaching the other end of the crescent and turning back up toward the village again, over the main road and out past the rugby club, then toward home. Brenda Fairbairn is shuffling up her path as I turn into our street, leaning on her stick, cigarette drooping from her lips. Her eyes follow me, her mouth turning down as she sucks on the fag.
‘Alright?’ I ask as I drop back to a walk.
‘You’re aye runnin, Sean,’ she says, as if this was yet more evidence of my undesirable quality.
I grin at her, challenging her to lift her cheeks out of that perpetual scowl. ‘Cheer up, Brenda, there’s worse places in the world than this.’
A pang in my chest. We made it through the thirty miler across Dartmoor singing Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, still whistling as they handed us our green berets. Years later, pinned down behind a rapidly disintegrating mud wall with rockets screaming in from the far hillside, the falsetto voice: Aw, cheer up, Brian. Thinking it wouldn’t be so bad to die laughing.
‘I suppose ye think ye ken all aboot it, son.’
‘I don’t know much, but I know that.’
‘Aye, well,’ she concludes, and hoists herself up her front step, a surly badger growling into her den.
Just imagine, if you ever manage to get it together properly with Paula you could have that for a mother-in-law.
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