The Man Who Loved Islands

by David F. Ross

  ‘No need,’ says Laurie. ‘We’ve been good for each other. I wasn’t going to forget that in a hurry.’ Laurie reaches to her side and softly presses a button on a remote control. Bobby looks around, expecting curtains to close, or a massive, flat-screen television to drop down from a narrow slot in the ceiling. But nothing happens until footsteps are heard on the terrazzo outside.

  ‘I’ll meet you outside, Bobby. There’s something I want to talk to you about.’ Bobby is ushered outside and two other, black-clad, helpers begin the task of preparing Laurie Revlon for what could easily be her last stroll before the disease that’s consuming her finally eats its relentless way through her internal organs.

  ‘It’s really, really beautiful here, isn’t it?’ whispers Laurie.

  Bobby doesn’t answer. It is rhetorical; as if Laurie Revlon is justifying the choices she has made with her life before it comes to an end.

  ‘I’ve always been fond of you, Bobby. I know Laurence hasn’t treated you as well as I would have, and I’m sorry about that.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ says Bobby. ‘Ah haven’t exactly made it easy for him, y’know?’

  ‘Still,’ says Laurie, before wheezing. ‘He didn’t understand the background.’

  ‘Que sera, Laurie,’ says Bobby. ‘Ah’ve no’ done badly out ae knowing ye.’

  They sit quietly for ten minutes or so.

  ‘Just promise me you won’t fall back into the old ways … the gambling and the drugs,’ she says at last.

  ‘Don’t worry. Ah know how lucky ah wis tae get out. It took a while but ah’m fucked if ah go back down that road, ah know that.’

  ‘Good,’ she says, patting his arm.

  The crisp air is biting into Bobby’s hands as he sits on the stone bench at the edge of the garden. Laurie is wrapped up tightly, like a tiny baby, and her wheelchair is transporting her and the oxygen tanks that are assisting her breathing. She won’t be able to be outside for long, she has warned him, as the lucid breaks away from the morphine are getting shorter with every passing day.

  ‘So Bobby, what are your plans?’

  ‘Eh, no’ totally sure. But when ah go back there’s some paperwork tae sort out. Tax and registration an’ stuff like that. Folks are bloody mental about tax avoiders in Scotland just now. Aw those Glasgow Rangers bastards, they’ve fuckin’ spoiled it for the rest ae us genuine tax exiles.’ He’s joking, and she smiles even though she’s been away from football too long and the downfall of the Glasgow giants means little.

  ‘Do you have money saved?’

  She knows of the debris of his gambling problems, and he understands this is what she is really asking about.

  ‘Ah’m straight for five years, Laurie,’ he says ‘an’ for one reason or another, me and Hammy have been livin’ like bloody monks up there. Frugal disnae even cover it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, aye … we’re aw’right. This memorial thing for my brother might take a bit ae financial plannin’, but we should have enough.’

  Laurie reaches inside her shawl, and a frail, white, gloved hand emerges with an envelope. She passes it to him.

  ‘Whit’s this?’ he says ‘A bill?’ He’s only half joking.

  ‘Open it,’ she whispers.

  He does. He reads down the length of the papers. ‘Laurie … ah, don’t … what does this actually mean?’ he stammers. He thinks he knows but it seems too unbelievable to be true.

  ‘I’m leaving you the villa, Bobby,’ she says. ‘You’ve been someone I’ve always been close to. You always made me laugh, even when you didn’t mean to. This is a small token of my appreciation for the good times we shared.’

  Bobby is in tears. ‘Jesus fuck, Laurie … it’s a five-million-pound house! It’s hardly a small token.’

  ‘There’s no pockets in shrouds, Bobby,’ she says.

  ‘Christ … ah don’t know whit tae say,’ says Bobby.

  ‘Don’t say anything. Just remember me fondly,’ she says. Bobby leans over and hugs her, kissing her cheek at the same time. How could he ever forget her?

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  January 2015. Troon, Scotland

  ‘How are ye?’ Bobby Cassidy stands as he says this. He feels nervous, tension rising from the middle of his back. It reaches his shoulders and grips them tightly, like a grapple hold from Giant Haystacks. Hammy has informed him that Lizzie knows he’s back and is desperate to see him. He put off calling her for the first couple of weeks but then thought it would be interesting to catch up. Now, though, with her in front of him again, a mild panic has set in.

  ‘Ah’m actually good, Bobby,’ says Lizzie King, in a way that suggests she has imagined he expected her not to be.

  ‘Ah, that’s good,’ says Bobby.

  ‘An’ what can I get you both?’ asks the attentive young waitress.

  Bobby does a double-take. It astonishes him how much this young woman looks like Lizzie when she was a similar age, more than thirty years ago. He thinks Lizzie has noticed this too. They order breakfast. After the waitress wipes their table and leaves, they say nothing for a few minutes. It’s a breathtakingly beautiful morning: freezing cold, as befits the season, but the low angle of the sun is giving a strange, liquid, painterly quality to the evaporating mist that rests over the boats moored in Troon harbour. The view is magnetic, and Bobby and Lizzie seem unable to converse properly with such a serene backdrop.

  ‘Bloody lovely, down here, eh?’ he says.

  ‘Aye, it is,’ says Lizzie. ‘It might only be ten miles up the road, but the air seems cleaner here than in Kilmarnock.’

  ‘It would make ye think about buyin’ a boat,’ he says.

  ‘Aye … an’ sailin’ it away intae the sunset, never lookin’ back,’ she says, laughing.

  ‘Ye haven’t changed, Lizzie,’ says Bobby. He means it, and thinks now that, actually, Lizzie looks not much older than the young waitress, who has just returned with their cutlery.

  ‘Aye, a bit wiser maybe,’ Lizzie says. ‘An’ the roots take longer an’ longer tae hide.’

  Bobby laughs. ‘Aye, mine tae,’ he says, running a painful hand through his thinning strands.

  ‘It’s good tae see ye, Bobby, especially after aw that crap wi’ the papers. Ah wasn’t convinced ah’d ever get the chance. Ah’m really, really sorry about that.’

  ‘Ah know ye are,’ says Bobby. ‘That’s no’ why ah got in touch.’ He instinctively pats her forearm. It doesn’t feel awkward. ‘Look, it wis donkey’s years ago. It’s a bloody tidal wave that’s gone under too many bridges, Lizzie. Ah treated ye badly when ye … when we lost the baby. Too self-centred an’ insensitive. Ah wish ah could get aw that time back an’ dae loads ae things differently. That’s really why ah’m back. Ah want tae save my life while ah still care about it. It’s just … we left it aw on such bad terms an’ ah’m sure a lot ae that was ma fault.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Lizzie to the waitress, who has just brought their breakfast.

  ‘So are ye back for good?’ Lizzie asks. Bobby’s mind immediately jumps to a punchline about Gary Barlow and unpaid taxes, but it’s perhaps not the time.

  ‘Aye,’ he says instead. ‘We’re puttin’ on a big memorial thing for Gary.’

  Lizzie looks up. ‘Christ, ah’m sorry, Bobby, ah didnae ken he had died.’ She leans over and touches his hands. They have become tactile much earlier than both would have imagined. ‘When was it?’

  ‘Eh, November … 2008.’ He sees her reaction. ‘Aye, ah know. It’s taken a while tae get tae it. Ah wis in a bit are a bad way, like. For years. Depressed, an’ that. Addiction issues. Everybody looks at ye like yer jacket’s on back tae front when ye hint at goin’ doolally while yer livin’ somewhere like Ibiza. But ah was. Reminded ae illness an’ fadin’ health everywhere.’ He holds his arthritic hands out and stares wistfully at them. ‘Ibiza’s a tough place tae get auld in, y’know?’

  She nods, but she doesn’t know.

  ‘Ye become sort ae invis
ible tae the young,’ he says. ‘It’s like they dinnae want tae confront the reality that you are what they are gonnae become.’

  ‘Can’t blame them for that, Bobby. Remember whit we were like,’ she says. ‘So what changed?’

  ‘Joey showed up.’

  Lizzie smiles knowingly at this.

  ‘What?’ says Bobby.

  ‘The real love ae yer life, eh?’ She laughs and he does too. ‘When we were together in Spain, near the end, ah kent ah couldnae compete. An’ it wisnae wi’ Hammy; it wis wi’ the ghost ae Joey Miller.’ She says this without rancour; almost pleased for him that, by his own admission, his life seems back on some form of track.

  ‘So what about you, then? Ye must still be beatin’ them off wi’ a big stick.’ He’d watched her arrive, fashionably late, and walk across the Scott’s Restaurant car park, her arse still as impressive as it was the first time he saw it walk away from him at the Sandrianne, on her eighteenth birthday. She was always a lovely-looking woman. Although he knew it made him seem shallow, this fact had helped him assuage any vengeful feelings he had when she ‘betrayed’ him back in the mid-90s. Strange, how attractiveness can help sway someone’s thinking.

  ‘Nope,’ she says. ‘Ah’m an independent woman, always have been.’

  Her conviction, however, masks a sadness – one that many single people of her age work hard to conceal. Bobby Cassidy himself practises that very same public bravado. Hammy dutifully passed on the information that Lizzie is generally fine and now living in Troon, from where she runs her own cleaning business. She was quick to point this out to Hammy, for fear that he might hint to Bobby that this meeting was about money. She’s made that mistake before. It won’t happen again.

  ‘What about … em … Javier?’ Bobby genuinely struggles to recall the name which was central to their break-up.

  ‘Christ Almighty,’ says Lizzie. ‘The minute he kent about Robert he was off. Bullets have left guns slower.’

  Bobby apologises.

  ‘No’ your fault,’ she says. ‘Que sera.’

  ‘So how is he? – Robert, ah mean.’ Bobby quickly does the maths. ‘He must be, what, nearly thirty, eh?’

  Lizzie turns her head away.

  ‘He’s dead, Bobby.’

  This strikes Bobby Cassidy like a baseball bat to the legs. He temporarily thinks he has misheard her. He coughs. He hasn’t misheard. She is wiping away a tear.

  ‘Jesus, Bobby … sorry. Ah wis determined ah wisnae gonnae cry when ah seen ye. Noo look what ye’ve made me dae. Is my mascara runnin’?’ She affects a playfully scolding tone.

  But he remains too shocked to respond. This isn’t the conciliatory chat over morning coffee he had envisaged. Only half an hour in and both have shared news of tragic personal loss.

  ‘When he was wee, he started gettin’ sick regularly,’ she says, more serious now. ‘Loads ae coughin’, an’ pickin’ up daft illnesses that he couldnae shake off. So ah took him tae see aw these different doctors, an’ then specialists. They eventually determined that he had a rare form ae leukaemia. He was only about eight at the time.’ Lizzie stops. Her young doppelgänger is clearing the table. She leaves for the kitchen with their plates. ‘My dad an’ Anne did what they could, but he wisnae well either. Ah was workin’ double shifts just tae keep afloat, an’ then the service got privatised an’ all ae a sudden … nae job. The treatment wisnae really workin’ an’ this doctor suggests we should maybe go private … he recommends a specialist clinic in Switzerland. Ah’m firstly thinkin’ that this daft bastard in the white coat obviously thinks ah’ve got the same background as his.’ Lizzie pauses, takes a drink of water and a few deep breaths. ‘But deep down, ah knew he wis right. It was the only chance we had. Ah’ll no’ hear a bad word against the NHS, they were great, but the waitin’ times for treatment back then, y’know? Then you had the big hit record. Aw these newspaper guys are swarmin’ around Killie, lookin’ for dirt on the two ae ye’se.’ She turns to look at him. Her face is strained.

  He now knows that this moment is why she called him, to hopefully meet with him; to explain. It will be a necessary catharsis for her.

  ‘This grubby tosser fae London offers me a few grand tae say you were Robert’s dad. He said it didnae even matter if it was true … if you ignored it an’ said nothin’ the story would be verified. If ye denied it, folk would probably believe it aw the more.’

  Bobby feels instantly sorry for her and terrible that she had been painted into such a difficult emotional corner.

  ‘Ah was desperate, Bobby. Ye’d do anythin’ for yer wean if they’re sick. Nowadays, ah’d start a social-media campaign, run a marathon, but back then gettin’ cash off the papers seemed like ma only option. My only hope was that ye’d understand, if ah ever got the chance to tell ye in person. Ah’m really sorry Bobby, ye didnae deserve any ae the pain that ah put ye through.’

  In truth, there was little pain. Short of the double-barrelled ire he caught from Hettie at the time, his self-imposed exile from the UK meant that any local opprobrium passed him by. The additional fact that he was out of his head for most of the 90s only made this whole situation feel like it had happened to someone else. It was reminiscent of watching an old television show or a film – one whose plot he couldn’t quite remember, but if he watched it now, he’d recall. It was his turn to take her hand.

  ‘Fuck Lizzie, ah’m so sorry. Losing the wean at that age … Jesus Christ! Ah wish ye had just asked me for the money, though. Better it goin’ tae some positive use than gettin’ tipped away in fuckin’ slot machines or roulette wheels.’

  ‘But he didnae die, then,’ says Lizzie. ‘He recovered.’

  Bobby’s eyebrows rise.

  ‘Took about two bloody years, but gradually the cancer was in remission. He went on tae university. Studied tae be a lawyer in Edinburgh.’ Lizzie smiled briefly, her pride instantly obvious. ‘An’ then he’s out celebratin’ finishin’ his finals. May 2011. There’s a local Hibs an’ Hearts fitba match. Two groups ae drunk fans spillin’ into the same wee pub in the Grassmarket. A big fight breaks out, an’ in the midst ae it, Robert gets stabbed. He died in the Royal later that night. After everythin’ he’d been through, everythin’ he’d beaten … he’s gone because ae some daft wee yobs an’ their tribal rubbish – ’cos he intervened in somebody else’s argument. He was tryin’ to stop these three big lads batterin’ a wee yin. Why could he no’ just have left them tae it, eh?’

  Bobby stares at her. He knows she has gone over this in her mind thousands of times, trying to find a new way to explain it. But she can’t. That most painful and crushing of rhetorical questions: why?

  He doesn’t know what to say. Scott’s upper floor conservatory overlooking Troon marina is empty. They are alone. It’s a quiet time for the restaurant, deep in the winter season. Bobby moves his seat around to be next to Lizzie. He puts his arm around her and pulls her close. He kisses her forehead. There are no words.

  ‘This is me,’ she says.

  ‘Nice,’ says Bobby. He looks up at the three-storey block.

  ‘I’m at the top,’ she says. ‘The view’s good.’

  Bobby turns away from the block and examines the panorama from ground level. They have been walking slowly along the promenade so he hasn’t paid it much notice, but yes, from twelve metres up, a view out towards Arran and Ailsa Craig must been lovely.

  ‘Want a cup of tea?’ says Lizzie.

  Bobby checks his watch. ‘Aye, time for a quickie,’ he says, and she laughs at his unintentional double entendre.

  He has a bus to catch and another meeting to go to, but Lizzie makes him feel far more relaxed and comfortable than he would ever have thought possible. They have a nice time together. Once past the mutual mourning and painful memories, as they remember happier ones, they laugh and giggle like the teenagers they once were. A couple of daft kids; wide-eyed and legless as they discovered a world way beyond their parochial upbringing. Too much too young though. Just w
ay too much.

  Her flat is, unsurprisingly, adorned with photographs of her son. Bobby can track a life from these images: school, hospital, clinics, holidays, football teams, part-time jobs, university.

  ‘Good-lookin’ boy,’ he says.

  ‘Aye, his dad might’ve been a total fuckin’ arsehole but his cheekbones were definitely in the right place.’

  She heads through to the small kitchen. Bobby wanders over to the window in the front room. He stares at the Ailsa Craig, perfectly framed by the Heads of Ayr to the left and Arran to the right. The water is flat calm. It’s unseasonably peaceful. She comes back and hands him a cup.

  ‘Cheers,’ he says. ‘Gary loved lookin’ at that big lump ae rock. He’d have thought this flat was great.’

  ‘How did he die?’ she asks.

  ‘He was run over by a bus,’ says Bobby, matter-of-factly. ‘A total accident. Naebody’s fault. Ah didnae see it like that at the time, mind you. Ah was desperate to find somebody tae blame. But there was nothin’. He staggered out ae a wee shop, blinded by lights and noise, across the pavement an’ intae the path ae a double-decker. Shopkeeper said he just freaked out when the fire alarm went off.’

  ‘God, that’s awful,’ says Lizzie.

  ‘He wis gettin’ treatment for his depression and trauma at the time. Makin’ good progress as well.’

  ‘Aw that’s just terrible, Bobby.’

  ‘Aye. Ye’ll know the worst thing about no’ gettin’ tae say cheerio, eh?’

  She nods sadly at this.

  ‘Ah hadn’t spoken tae him in years. Stupid family shite, an’ my complete an’ utter selfishness,’ he says. But there’s an upbeat tone to this, like he’s come to terms with it. ‘So we’re gonnae dae this right … me an’ Joey. If anythin’, he took Gary dyin’ even harder than me at the time. Ah’d nae idea that they were even mates at the time, that’s how fucked up ah wis.’ Bobby doesn’t want to talk about Gary’s violent episodes, about his prison time and the incident that got him incarcerated there. There are some things his memorial planning doesn’t need to acknowledge.