No Wonder I Take a Drink

by Laura Marney

  When I saw Mr O’Hare’s tiny wee back room I understood why Helen was so superior. The firm obviously thought more of the receptionist than they did of the partners. So stuck for space was Mr O’Hare that on the floor all around his desk were heaps of files all stacked higgledy-piggledy. He had to shift a bundle to give me a seat. The one narrow window let in hardly any daylight and although it was only one o’clock he had all the lights on. The lack of light was caused by another tenement backing on to this one. The other building had once been tiled white but now, from where I was sitting, I could see the yellow stains that ran down it like diarrhoea.

  The airs and graces the receptionist had put on had given me the impression of a big company, a blue-chip corporation. The kind of business that might have had its own subsidised canteen for staff. As she sat behind her enormous desk I imagined Helen planning lunch, swithering between the lasagne al forno or the vegetarian option. By the looks of things beyond the reception area, the staff facilities would more probably consist of a kettle and a packet of Nambarrie teabags. This wee room was not making me feel good. Everything annoyed me. Three days without fags was making my skin crawl. Day three was my danger day, in previous attempts it was always the day I’d fallen off the wagon.

  Mr O’Hare was older than he sounded on the phone. A tall colourless man in a grey suit, he’d probably had all the colour sucked out of his life from sitting all day in this dungeon. I wanted to find out what the deal was and get out as fast as I could but it wasn’t Mr O’Hare’s way. First he offered me tea and hung up my coat. He was very polite and scrupulous in his explanation of legal terms as they came up. He talked bequests, endowments and annuities.

  I couldn’t concentrate on what the man was saying, all I could think of was a big fat fag. I imagined lighting up with an expensive Colibri, the kind people used to buy in the seventies as sentimental gifts. And while I was on that particular train of thought I fancied a cocktail cigarette. A purple one. I was filled with desire for a cigarette. I wanted to let the smoke enter me and curl into every corner of my body. I wanted the rush, I needed that wonderful smorgasmic sensation.

  Next thing I knew Mr O’Hare was asking me to sign for keys for a business in the West Highlands.

  ‘So, no cash then?’

  Mr O’Hare looked confused.

  ‘There is, as I’ve set out Miss McNicholl, an annuity more than sufficient to cover the running costs of the business but this is dependent on your taking up residence.’

  ‘Residence?’

  What the hell was he talking about? There and then Mr O’Hare stopped being a kindly old gentleman and became a mean keen legal machine. This was more like it.

  ‘Mr Robertson has left you his home and business,’ said Mr O’Hare as he rummaged in the file. ‘Yes, ‘Harrosie’ in Inverfaughie on the west coast north of Inverness, which until Mr Robertson’s recent death has been operated as a bed and breakfast. This he has bequeathed to you Miss McNicholl, on condition that you live there. Under the terms of the endowment you are unable to realise capital by selling it. Neither are you obliged to operate a bed and breakfast business from the premises, Mr Robertson having made generous provision in the form of an allowance, paid monthly, which should comfortably cover all living expenses.

  ‘So no cash then?’ I asked again.

  Mr O’Hare shook his head sadly.

  ‘No cash I’m afraid Miss McNicholl.’

  ‘No, don’t get me wrong, I mean it’s a brilliant deal. If I’m understanding you properly then it’s a house by the sea in the Highlands, a business if I want it and enough money to live on if I don’t.’

  Mr O’Hare nodded this time.

  ‘It is and you have.’

  But there was no substantial lump sum. I wasn’t going to be able to pay Bob off. He was going to walk in and set up his harem under my nose. I’d have to bunk up and shut up. There was another option, I could always kill myself.

  *

  Auntie Nettie took Mum’s death worse than anyone. Since Mum died Nettie phoned me every week, sometimes several times a week. She came round to the flat a few times but mostly I was away on training or I didn’t answer the buzzer. Just when I thought she’d given up, she caught me. I picked up the phone thinking it would be Steven. Oh she was wondering if there was anything wrong, she hadn’t seen me since the funeral, she hadn’t set eyes on a living soul for ages, she was missing Elsie and her ears were giving her gyp. Sick of her moaning at me and just to get her off the phone, I agreed to visit.

  I knew the first thing she would say. She would start on about the damp in the house. Nettie had been singing the same song for over thirty years. The damp was running down the walls or growing in dark moulds and mushrooms in corners of the rooms. Over the years the council had tried everything to get rid of it, every kind of damp proofing there was. They even built false walls inside the house but still it seeped through. Tommy, Nettie’s husband, had died years before officially of a heart attack but Nettie argued his death was damp-related. There was probably some truth in this but the more likely cause was that it was Nettie related. She worked the man to death. But, I reminded myself, Nettie was family. She looked so much like Mum that when she opened the door I found that I was pleased to see her.

  ‘Come away in love, och it’s nice to see you, it’s just nice to have a visitor.’

  She fussed about and brought through a tray with sandwiches and biscuits she’d already prepared. It wasn’t long before she got on to her favourite subject.

  ‘I’d love to get out of this house, the damp is running down the walls, that’s what killed my Tommy, but the council say I havnae enough points.’ And there she went on, bumping her gums about her housing problem.

  Nettie had lived here for thirty-four years. If Tommy hadn’t indulged his wife so much in her hunger for all things expensive – holidays, clothes, soft furnishings, designer kitchen utensils and festoon blinds that eventually became tinged with the grey-green mould that permeated everything – they could have bought their own house. A substantial damp-proofed property in a nice area would have been bought and paid for by the time Tommy retired. Instead he slogged every day in the shipyards working overtime and extra shifts to pay for Nettie’s fripperies until his poor heart gave out and he keeled over.

  Tommy ran about daft after her. He called her ‘Princess’ and there was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. They never had kids, she didn’t want them, so that when Tommy died, reality hit Nettie like a sledgehammer. All on her lonesome, she inflicted her self-pity on Mum and Mum, being a good sister, put up with it. Nettie got a good deal of mileage out of the situation, turning Mum’s illness into her drama. ‘Naebody understands how painful it is for me to watch my own sister dying in front of my eyes,’ was a favourite refrain.

  While her own sister stoically suffered in silence Nettie squealed like a pig about her tinnitus and expected sympathy. She’d seen a specialist and been told there was nothing wrong with her ears but still she complained. A couple of times I could have cheerfully rattled her ears for her just to give her something to moan about. Eventually, Mum and I hit on a good way of getting rid of Nettie when she became a pain in the arse as she so frequently did. Mum would fake a bad turn. I helped her to her bedroom and we both sat, stifling giggles until Nettie got fed up and left.

  As she boffed on about the council’s latest dampness-eradication scheme, I suppose Nettie must have thought me a poor replacement for Mum. I wasn’t paying enough attention to her egocentric bleatings, not making sympathetic enough noises, so she gave up and changed tack.

  ‘Och I’m missing my wee sister Elsie awful bad, I’ve been that lonely without her. I suppose you’ll be pleased to have Steven back,’ she said in an accusatory tone.

  Her loss was my gain she seemed to be implying. As if I was glad that Mum was gone and she was lonely.

  ‘Well, he’s still at his Dad’s for the moment,’ I said trying to take the heat off, but this was a mistake.
/>   ‘Oh, I’m surprised at that. I thought he’d want to come back to you.’

  My face flushed in anger and shame.

  ‘He does,’ I snipped, ‘we’ve just got to sort things out yet.’

  ‘Of course you have dear.’

  Nettie put her head down and picked imaginary crumbs off her lap as if there was some reason to be embarrassed. I decided then that some day I’d get the vicious old bitch back. When the time came, Mum’s sister or not, I wouldn’t show up for her funeral. For the meantime I had to get her off the subject before I lost the rag.

  ‘I’ve come into a bit of an inheritance Auntie Nettie,’ I said.

  That would put her gas at a peep.

  ‘It seems I’ve inherited a house in the Highlands, in Inverfaughie.’

  I told her all about it, about Mum’s cousin and the lawyer, rubbing it in, making it sound wonderful. Nettie was in a quandary, she was too jealous to want to hear about it and too nosey not to. She couldn’t stop herself asking questions.

  ‘Fancy,’ was all she could say.

  ‘Yes, on the west coast, totally unspoilt and fabulous sunsets they say.’

  ‘Fancy.’

  Once the fly old bugger had established the facts she said, ‘you know, I’ve never heard of a Robertson in the family.’

  ‘Yes, Henry Robertson, Mum’s second cousin apparently.’

  ‘And who did you say the lawyers were again?’

  ‘Donovan, O’Hare and Boyle,’ I chirped.

  I was quite enjoying myself now.

  ‘Now,’ Nettie said, moving forward in her chair, holding her hand to her throat exactly the way Mum used to, ‘don’t take this the wrong way Trisha, but do you think you could ask them to look into it for me love? I think there’s been a mistake.’

  ‘What d’you mean Auntie Nettie?’

  ‘Well, no harm to you hen, you weren’t to know, but being the older sister I’m actually Elsie’s next of kin.

  ‘I’m sorry, I don’t get you.’ I got her all right but I could hardly believe it, and I wanted to hear her say it.

  ‘Oh God love you Trisha, I hate to let you down, but you have to see it from my point of view hen. I’ve got to get out of this house, the damp’ll kill me. And with Elsie away there’s nothing for me here anymore.

  ‘Uh huh?’

  ‘Och, try to be happy for me hen, a wee house by the seaside is just what I’m needing. I’ve not got long now, God knows, I’m not long for this world. And you’ll be next in line. Tommy and me werenae blessed with kiddies so you’ll be my next of kin, it’ll come to you in good time hen.’

  Fuck! Talk about shooting yourself in the foot? I’d just blasted my leg off! Or rather Nettie had, and by telling her about the cousin and the lawyers I’d given her all the ammunition she needed. Not long for this world? She was only seventy, she could easily last another thirty years, and she would just to spite me. In thirty years’ time I’d be seventy. If I was right it was going to be a long hard thirty years. I’d have to seriously start looking after myself, the fags would have to go for a start.

  *

  I’d already talked to Steven and written my report for Irene. I just had to finish off the bedroom for Bob and Helga.

  Steven had talked incessantly with a sincerity and intensity that was unnerving. In the last two days I’d learned more about my son’s life, his friends, the girls he fancied and the teachers he hated, than I had in the previous fifteen years. I discovered why Nike was cool and Kappa wasn’t. This kind of previously classified information came tumbling out of him in a torrent of confession and getting-to-know-you fervour. He also asked me lots of questions. It was as though he was five again. Steven had suddenly discovered an interest in and total respect for my personal tastes in everything from my political views to which kind of dogs I preferred. He was my constant companion. He came with me and pushed the trolley round Asda. When I cooked dinner he kept me company, even volunteering to peel the potatoes. I ran a bath and the water was nearly cold before he got the message and left the room. In the end I more or less insisted that he go and help his Dad with the packing. I needed a break and I was gasping for a fag.

  The report had been fairly straightforward. I’d sat looking at a blank piece of paper for hours before it came to me. It came in a sudden exciting inspirational flash. It took not time at all, needed virtually no editing and when it was finished I knew it was perfect. I emailed it, not just to Irene but to the whole team. I couldn’t in all honesty call it a report. It was really more of a statement. In fact it was a resignation. Dear Teammates, it read, Grow the Business has been our watchword. But when shall we stop growing? When we explode? Dear Irene, I added as a footnote, stick your job up your arse.

  I chuckled away, impressed by my own effrontery, as I scraped at the wallpaper. This room, the biggest of the bedrooms, with its built-in double wardrobes and king-size bed, was the obvious choice for Bob and Helga. This had been our bedroom, the room in which Steven had been conceived. The room where we’d had our muted arguments after Mum moved in.

  I knew how much Bob hated scraping wallpaper, we’d had enough fights about it over the years. He’d worked at a rate of about a square foot a week and I’d always ended up finishing it myself. Bob would be severely pissed off if he had to scrape these walls, and bare walls wouldn’t be very welcoming for Helga.

  In between fag breaks, I pulled the bed away from the wall and had almost finished that side of the room when I noticed my mistake. I was obviously getting too good at this decorating carry-on. All the way along the wall I had removed a thick horizontal slice from each strip of wallpaper. The problem was that I was so used to making a neat job of it that I’d scraped it at the same height all the way along. This was no use. Bob would just slap up a border, in fact it would probably improve the look of the room. With the wall opposite the bed, the one they would spend most time looking at, I decided to be a bit more inventive. This wall had a stubborn orange and green paper underneath which had been there since before we moved in and as I scraped I created a kind of batik effect. It was harder and took longer but the overall effect was worth it. I got the camera and took a picture of it. In tidy letters eight feet tall I had chiselled out the words ‘FUCK YOU’.

  Chapter 6

  The Highlands were a foreign country to me. The only words I knew in Gaelic were uisge-beatha for whisky and slainte for cheers. The important ones. Like most Glaswegians I’d been to Spain, even as far south as Agadir in Africa on a package deal, but the furthest north I’d ever been was Loch Lomond. On summer Saturdays the lochside rang with the sound of schemey Glaswegian neds playing ghetto blasters and arguing over who drank the carry-out. And so I found myself an official resident of the Highlands with a proper Highland address and postcode, ready to start living la vida Scotia.

  The drive up was a dawdle, including two stops it only took six hours and the scenery was brilliant. It was tea time when I arrived and despite it being only March, the sun was still in the sky, blindingly bright when the clouds rolled off it.

  The map Mr O’Hare had marked for me was pretty straightforward and I found ‘Harrosie’ without any bother. It wasn’t actually in Inverfaughie; it was about ten minutes along on the road north of the town. Harrosie was middle in a row of three cottages, the only one advertising bed and breakfast. The other cottages looked deserted with all their curtains closed. So, it was going to be solitary confinement, I thought. It was hard to imagine living so removed from human contact. I’d always been intimate with my neighbours at least in terms of space. They were always just a few feet away; above, below and through the wall. Sometimes they were a bloody nuisance but at least they were there. I was going to be out on this country road all on my own. Harrosie’s red and yellow painted wooden sign boasted of the facilities on offer: B & B, TV, sea view, ensuite b and sh, h and c. It felt like a lonely hearts ad and I was going to need a GSOH.

  From the outside Harrosie looked small, hardly big enough for a ho
use but inside it was a Tardis. There were five bedrooms, three with their own bathrooms, another bathroom and toilet, a big kitchen, a wee back room and a long lounge facing the front. The bedrooms had brass plaques on the doors and they were each named after a different famous whisky. The cottages were at the top of the hill before the road swung back down the other side and from the lounge the view was spectacular: to the left the moody purple and grey mountains stood guard around the loch, shiny as a fish scale when the sun hit it. To the right I looked out to sea at the islands, swathed in mist, like tropical islands, but with a sub tropical climate no doubt, sub zero more like. There was a musty smell so I opened all the windows to air the place while I explored the garden.

  Having grown up in tenements a garden was a new concept to me, an expensive time-consuming waste of space, something for posh people. This was huge, you could have put two tenements, living space for a hundred people, in the area I had for a garden. There were bushes and beds and trees and grass, a parkload of brown and green. It made me nervous, especially when I opened the hut at the back. Rusting tools that looked more like medieval weapons of torture were stacked around the walls. I’d never cope with this.

  Think positively. How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step. These and other Woman’s World gems fought for dominance over panic in my head. The tool nearest the door was a spiky thing with three corroded prongs. Merely looking at it caused it to fall off its peg and out the door. I picked it up and placed it gently against the next one. Years of playing Jenga and Buckaroo with Steven had given me the lightest touch and the thing behaved itself. Until I tried to shut the door. Closing the door was enough to bring the whole lot down. Spades, hoes, rakes, crumbling poles and spiky things fell out the door in an orange cloud of rust. Think positively, one step at a time I stacked the tools back in the shed. With my Buckaroo deftness it was going well, only three more to go when the first one, the spiky bugger, couped again causing a domino effect. Now I tried to shove them in any old way but as panic took hold I ran back to the house leaving the rotting tools splayed out on the ground.