I raised the shutters, opened the glass door and stepped out on to the terrace, gulping in deep lungfuls of the cold night air, as if it was fuel for my mood. I don’t know how long I’d been there, looking out at the sea, when her voice sounded behind me. ‘I’m sorry about that, but all of a sudden. .’ I shrugged my shoulders, my back still to her.
‘I’ll put on some coffee,’ she volunteered.
I stretched out my left hand, behind me, offering her the Faustino. ‘Open that too, and let it stand for a bit.’ As she took it from me, I said, ‘Remember the last time I stood here, and I told you that I was going back? Back to Jan?’
An indistinct murmur came from behind me.
‘God works in mysterious ways, eh Prim. Let me tell you something, love: something you can believe. There is no God; he chucked it years ago. I think he probably gave up in disgust back in the thirties. Now there’s only the other fella, and he’s got the monopoly.
‘I’ll tell you something about Hell too. They say it’s hot. Wrong: fucking freezing, you take that from me.’
I turned towards her. ‘You got those numbers Dylan gave you?’
She nodded, took one of the restaurant cards from her shirt pocket, and handed it to me, together with my phone. ‘Oz,’ she asked me. ‘Why was it Dylan who phoned you?’
‘He and his bird are friends of ours in Glasgow. He works there now, like us.’
I took the numbers from her, and sat down on the couch, beside Prim’s phone, but before calling Dylan, I retrieved the charge card for the hotel restaurant from my jacket and dialled the number. The night porter grumbled for a bit, but eventually he did as he was told and connected me with Senor Davis’s suite.
Daze lived up to his name as he took the call; he sounded as if he was still three parts asleep. He soon woke up the rest of the way, though.
‘Everett,’ I said, coldly and evenly. ‘Listen up, please. It’s Oz. I’ve had a message from home and it’s bad news: personal. I’ll tell you all about it when I know all the details myself, but I have to go back as early as I can tomorrow. I need Barbara to get on to Iberia and pull some strings to get me to Glasgow as fast as they can, by whatever route.’
‘Sure man,’ he rumbled. ‘Oz, what sorta news is this?’
‘Don’t ask, mate. I’ll tell you when I can. I’m sorry you’re stuck for an announcer for tomorrow’s matches.’
‘Don’t worry. I’ll have Liam do it.’
‘Aye, he’ll love that. By the way, I’m not in the hotel just now. This is where you’ll get me.’ I gave him the apartment phone number. ‘Thanks. I’ll be in touch.’
I hung up, and picked up the restaurant card, just as Prim placed a cup of strong black coffee in front of me. ‘There, drink that,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry about going to sleep. I’ve got some pills here that’ll do the job.’
‘You don’t have enough,’ I told her. ‘Anyway. I never want to sleep again. Just you keep the coffee coming.’
I looked at the card: one number was for a mobile phone, and the other was Glasgow, prefix 0141; Susie’s, I guessed. It was two-twelve local time, an hour earlier in the UK, but somehow I guessed that they wouldn’t be out clubbing. I called the second number.
Susie picked up the phone on the third ring, and she knew who it was. ‘Oh Oz,’ she cried, as soon as I began to speak. ‘I’m so sorry. Mike’s here, hold on.’ I was surprised by the speed with which she handed on the phone, but I didn’t know then that some people are afraid to speak to the bereaved. I do now: I guess they’re afraid it might be catching. Have I got news for them; it is.
‘Oz, how are you?’ Dylan asked as he came on line.
‘I’m okay, Mike. I’m sorry for what happened when you called, but I’ve got it together now. I need you to tell me what happened. Was it her heart? A cerebral haemorrhage? A road accident?’ As I mentioned the third scenario, my vision of Jan from earlier threatened to slip inside my shield, but I was strong enough now to force it away.
‘It was a domestic accident, Oz. She was electrocuted.’ He paused, waiting for me to faint again, perhaps.
‘Go on,’ I said, curtly.
‘From what I’ve been told it was your washing machine. It was faulty. It must have gone live when she switched it on to do a wash, then next time she touched it — she was killed instantly. She wouldn’t have known a thing, the doctor said.’
‘When did this happen, Mike?’
‘Just before six.’ Something tugged at my brain but I ignored it.
‘How was it discovered?’
‘When it happened it blew out all the power in the building. The Scottish Power guys isolated the problem to your flat. When they got no reply to the doorbell they forced an entrance; in case there was a fire risk, as much as anything else.’
‘How did you get involved?’
‘Our people found Susie’s number on a notepad. They called it to see if she knew where you were. I had your mobile number, on that card you gave me, so I said that as a friend, I’d deal with it.’
‘Thanks, Michael,’ I told him, not because I felt any gratitude, but because I knew he expected to hear it. ‘It took guts, I know that.’
He grunted something. I thought it might have been, ‘’S’okay.’ It wasn’t of course.
‘Has anyone been in touch with Jan’s mother?’
‘No,’ he replied, at once. ‘They wouldn’t know how. It’s our job to inform next of kin, and that’s you.’
‘Has there been anything on radio or television?’
‘Clyde carried a piece about the accident, but we haven’t released the name. I told our press people not to, until I’d heard from you that it was okay.’
‘I’d rather they didn’t,’ I told him. ‘If that’s allowable.’
‘That’ll be okay. I’ll fix it.’
‘Good man. Listen, I’ll contact you when I get back tomorrow. Meantime. .’ I knew what I had to ask next, and my shield of disbelief cracked for a moment as I approached it. Until now, this could all have been fantasy: now we were getting close to the point at which there could be no denial.
‘D’you know where she is?’ I asked him.
‘They took her to the Royal, Oz. She’ll be in the mortuary there.’
‘They won’t have done a PM or anything, will they?’ I tried to stop myself from trembling.
‘No. Not unless the Fiscal orders one, and in these circumstances, he probably won’t, unless you ask him to.’ I sighed with relief, then concentrated again. The worst was still to come, and I had to be able for it.
‘Okay. Mike, we’ll speak again tomorrow.’
‘Sure, Susie sends her love, by the way.’
‘Yeah. Thank her for us.’ The plural still seemed entirely natural to me.
As I hung up, Prim topped up my coffee. I told her, in summary, what had happened. She went as white as a sheet and shuddered. ‘As simple as that,’ she whispered.
‘I wouldn’t call that simple at all,’ I barked at her. But I was shouting for the sake of it now. My cloak of disbelieving horror was becoming threadbare. Beneath it, there was anger and I knew that it would sustain me for a while, but afterwards. .
‘Okay, okay,’ she murmured, ruffling my hair with her fingers as I sat there, mollifying and comforting me as best she could.
‘How am I doing?’ I asked her. ‘Come on; you’re a nurse. You must have seen hundreds of people in this situation. How am I handling it?’
‘Too well,’ she responded. ‘You’ve got to let it go soon, Oz. Otherwise when the dam bursts. .’
I stood and walked out to the terrace, carrying my mug, as she followed me. I turned, leaned my back against the railing, and looked down at her. ‘I know that, Prim,’ I said. ‘But I have to hold it together while I do one more thing. I guess you know what that is.’
She nodded.
‘You do one more thing for me, then. Let me be alone while I tell him, and afterwards. Take a couple of your pills and go to bed. Leave
me the Faustino, and a key to get back in. I may go out for a while.’
She reached up, took my face in her hands, drew it down, and kissed me on the forehead. ‘Is there a perverse law of nature, do you think,’ she asked me. ‘One that abhors perfection?
‘That’s what you two were, you know, you and Jan. I knew it in my heart of hearts that day up in her flat in Castle Terrace, when she helped us give that man the slip, and sent us off in her car. I remember looking at the two of you as you said your goodbyes and thinking, This is crazy. The perfect couple and they don’t even realise. But I was in love with you too, and at that point I had you, so I was selfish, and put it out of my mind.’
Her eyes had filled with tears again. ‘I am so sorry, my love,’ she whispered. ‘You did not deserve this.’
I shook my head. I knew that the dam was cracking, and that a sea of grief and despair was barely being restrained. ‘No, Prim. She didn’t deserve it. Now go, please, and leave me to make this last call, while I still can.’
I took my mobile phone from my pocket as soon as she had left the terrace, turning to face the sea as I dialled the number. I knew that there was no chance at all that these two would be out clubbing. The phone rang for a while until, eventually, I heard it lifted. ‘This better not be a wrong number,’ a gruff voice growled.
‘It isn’t, Dad, it’s me.’
‘Eh? I thought you were supposed to be in Spain, son. In fact I know you are; we watched you on telly tonight. What is it? Are you pished?’
I steeled myself to reply. My senses were heightened as never before, so that I could hear my own voice, hard and controlled. ‘Yes, I am in Spain, Dad, and no I’m not drunk. . yet. Is Mary awake?’
‘Yes, she wakened with the phone ringing.’ I had never sensed fear in Mac the Dentist before, but there on Prim’s terrace, I did.
‘In that case, you’re going to have to tell her something that’s going to break her heart — into as many pieces as mine.’
Chapter 31
After destroying my dad’s happy life, I took the Faustino, and a glass, and went down to the beach below the hamlet. I climbed up on the old Greek wall, a relic from the time before Christ — whoever he might have been — and I sat there in the pale moonlight, drinking toast after toast to Jan, and one or two to the child that we never had.
When the bottle was finished, I threw it into the sea, and the glass after it, then lay down on my back on the wall, and, looking up at the stars, I let the dam burst. I cried through all the hours of darkness, shouting the occasional pointless ‘Why?’ into the night, as I stretched out there with a great slab of grief pressing down on my chest.
My weeping had barely subsided as the first light of the new day began to creep into the eastern horizon. To this day, I don’t know what made me do it, but I clambered down off the wall, stripped off my clothes and ran into the sea. I swam three hundred yards across the cove to the jetty which marked its limit then, turning, swam back.
When I strode out of the Mediterranean, and back up the beach, I felt no better — the griefstone was still unbearably heavy — but I knew that I had cried myself out for a while. I slipped on my boxer shorts, gathered the rest of my clothes into a bundle, and ran barefoot up the steep road which led back to the village, back to Prim’s apartment.
Inside, I walked straight across to the sofa, and spread out my clothes, as neatly as I could. When I turned she was standing behind me, in the kitchen doorway, wearing a towelling robe which had once been mine, and with a faint, tired smile on her face.
‘Changed your mind, did you?’ she asked.
‘What d’you mean?’
‘You look as if you chucked yourself in the sea, then thought better of it.’
‘Maybe I did.’
She came towards me, holding out another mug of coffee. ‘How d’you feel now?’
‘To be honest, I wish I was dead,’ I told her, frankly. ‘But I can’t afford that luxury, not yet anyway. I got a lot of stuff out of my system down there though; enough to let me get home and do what I have to do.’
‘Mmm. How was Mac?’
‘As you’d expect for someone who’s lost a daughter. I can’t bear to think of Mary, not yet.’
Primavera looked me solemnly in the eye. ‘You’ll never be a boy again, my poor Oz. You’ve aged ten years overnight.’ It wasn’t the most comforting thing anyone had ever said to me, but it was certainly among the most honest.
‘In that case, I’m ten years nearer. . whatever there might be.’ I cut off that line of conversation, firmly. ‘How’s the hot water situation?’ I asked.
‘Plenty. I’ve just showered. Have a bath and get some heat back into you. You look frozen. Go and soak in there for as long as you like.’
I took her at her word, so much so that when she knocked on the door an hour later, she woke me. I found myself lying in the small bath in tepid water. I had been afraid to fall asleep, afraid of what I might dream, and afraid, I suppose, of waking for the first time into a world without Jan in it.
‘You ready?’ she called. ‘Because there’s a call for you.’
I climbed out of the bath, wrapped myself in a towel and dripped my way across the living room floor. The caller was Everett, with news of my flight. ‘Barbara’s got you booked on an Iberia flight from Barcelona to Paris at eleven thirty-five, connecting with an Air France flight at two fifteen through Birmingham. You’ll be in Glasgow by four thirty. That okay for you? It’s the earliest she could do.’
‘That’s fine, Ev. I can make that.’
‘Good. I’ll have her get into your room and pack your stuff. Your passport there?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay. I’ll have her put it in your bag and leave it at the hotel reception. You just pick it up on the run. And collect your tickets at the Iberia desk, Terminal A. Don’t worry about payin’ for them, that’s done.’ He paused. ‘Can you tell me now what this is about?’ he asked.
So I did; and was left marvelling that my wife had such an effect on people that a seven foot two inch man, who could turn Parmesan to Danish Blue just by looking at it, who had met her on only three occasions, could be struck speechless by her death. He whispered, ‘Oh my,’ then there was silence. The line was still open, but there was silence. I could picture him staring at the phone, then looking at Diane, open-mouthed, then back at the phone.
‘See you in Glasgow,’ I said, and hung up. Half an hour later, we were en route for Barcelona.
We made it to the airport, via the hotel, in plenty of time, even though Prim insisted on driving. I was happy to let her: all the icy horror of the night before had gone. Instead I felt weak and dog-tired, partly from lack of sleep, partly from the strain of bearing my burden of grief. She drove me right up to the Iberia terminal.
‘At the risk of having you shout at me again,’ she said, ‘you will be okay, won’t you?’
I made myself smile at her. ‘I will now. I’m sorry I was a bit scary last night, Prim. It was pretty tough keeping control of myself for a while.’
She chuckled. ‘Listen, I’ve seen scary. You weren’t that bad.’
‘Whatever I was, you being there helped me. I wouldn’t have wished that on you for the world, but still I valued your presence.’ I leaned across and kissed her on the cheek. ‘Got to go now.’ I started to climb out of the car, then paused. ‘Can you do one more thing for me, pal? Phone the hospital where Jerry is, and find out how he’s doing, then give me a call to let me know.’
‘Of course I will, but there’s just one problem — I don’t have your number.’
‘That’s not a problem at all.’ I took a card from my wallet and handed it to her. ‘See you,’ I said, closed the car door and headed into the terminal.
Chapter 32
My dad was waiting for me when I walked out of the International Arrivals gate at Glasgow. I had phoned him from Barcelona to let him know my travel arrangements, and had told him that I would drive up to Anstruther next
day, as soon as I had done everything that had to be done.
I knew that he would be there, though. As soon as I saw him, I remembered coming out of my faint in the restaurant, and my need for him. My dad has always been there for me, as indeed, I have been for him, for all of our lives. But when I saw him at the airport my instant reaction was one of fear. Mac the Dentist had always been a brawny, powerful, vibrant man, yet now he looked old, drawn, shrunken, and I, with all my certainties blown away for ever, had a sudden vision of the day when he would not be there either. Death is a mugger in an alleyway, in a strange city, at night.
I hugged him; we were equals now. For the first time I knew, truly, how he had felt when my mother died. Although no one has a monopoly on grief, it has levels and shades, and it is experienced in differing ways and to different degrees.
‘God, son,’ he said, once we were able to speak to each other. ‘You look forty if you look a day. I was worried about how you’d hold up, until Primavera called, just as I was about to leave home. She explained how she came to be with you when you found out, and she told me that you were okay. She said I’d find you changed, but I knew that for myself.’
‘How’s Mary?’ I asked him.
‘Sedated,’ he replied. ‘Your sister’s looking after her.’
‘What about the boys? Have you told them what’s happened?’
‘I thought that you might want to do that.’
‘Aye, I think I do. I’ll have to tell wee Colin what happened to his idol, The Behemoth, as well.’ I explained about Jerry Gradi’s wounding, and about Sonny Leonard’s disappearance.
‘Did Prim tell you that she saved his life?’ He looked at me, puzzled. ‘No, I don’t suppose she would.’
I took him by the arm. ‘Come on. I’ve got things to do.’
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