Pte McGuire’s face softens into a genuine smile of sympathy. “I’m really sorry, there isn’t. If you contact Mr McLeod’s next of kin–”
“I can’t. I have no idea who they are. Colin never talks about his family.” Grace’s brows arch. “But…you know who they are though, don’t you? You’ll have a telephone number on file, for emergencies–?”
“Yes, but–”
“So you can give it to me, and I can give them a call and get it sorted.”
“I can’t do that.”
“What about an address then, or an email, so I can write them a note?”
“I’m sorry–”
Grace chews on her lip, biting back the hot prickling in her eyes, tears of frustration and disappointment. Picking up on Grace’s distress, Pte McGuire lays a hand on her arm.
“Here’s an idea,” she says, kindly. “How about I call them for you? If they say no, you’re no worse off than you are now.”
“You’d do that for me?”
“It’s not the done thing, but I can’t see it doing much harm. By the way, what’s your name?”
“Grace. Grace Dove.”
Private McGuire indicates a cosy alcove with chairs and a low table and magazines to read. Just like a doctor’s waiting room. “If you’ll take a seat over there, Ms Dove, I’ll see what I can do?”
“Thank you.”
Grace keeps Pte McGuire on the edge of her vision, observing covertly as she pretends to read an information leaflet. The young woman taps on her computer keyboard, picks up the phone and makes a call. At one point she glances over to Grace, speaks into the telephone some more, and then hangs up.
A pregnant pause before…
“Ms Dove?”
On leaden legs Grace approaches the desk. She can see from Pte McGuire’s expression that the call did not go well.
“I’m so sorry.” She doesn’t need to say any more, but she does. “He said no, and without NOK permission, there is nothing more I can do.”
Grace’s shoulders sag as she feels the world crumble about her. Colin could be in the next room, just feet away, waiting for her, yet while these visitation regulations stand in her way, he might as well be on the far side of the moon.
She forces her mouth into the travesty of a smile and directs it at Pte McGuire, and when she speaks, her voice comes out small and fragile.
“You’ve been very kind. Thank you for trying.”
For God’s sake, don’t cry.
“I really am sorry,” says Pte McGuire. “If it were up to me, I’d let you in, but it’s not and you have to appreciate, with the way things are, you know, politically, we can’t be too careful. Our residents are vulnerable. They would be an easy target. If anything were to happen–”
“I know, and I understand. I really do.”
“I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey.”
Pte McGuire reaches for a folder on a shelf behind her and takes out a selection of coloured sheets of paper and staples them together.
“Here,” she says, handing them to Grace. “These are the application forms. It can’t do any harm to complete them. You never know.”
Grace takes the forms, folds them and puts them in her bag, once more on the verge of tears. She turns to leave before she makes a fool of herself.
“Wait! I’ll see you out.”
Pte McGuire comes out from behind her desk and they walk together to the doors, which whoosh aside, letting in a breeze of warm air.
Outside, Pte McGuire glances up at the camera monitoring the door, turns her back on it and holds out her hand as if to wish Grace goodbye and a safe journey home.
Grace feels something tickle the palm of her hand.
“Captain McLeod’s brother’s telephone number,” Pte McGuire whispers. “But I never gave it to you.”
She scuttles back inside to her position behind the desk and Grace presses the paper into her palm, not daring to open her hand until she is well away from the building. Even then she doesn’t look. Instead she slips the tiny scrap into her purse for safekeeping.
Chapter 25
“I waited for you.” Colin stabs his garden fork deep into the compost heap and turns it over, releasing a wisp of steam and the sweet, sweaty scent of rotting foliage. “You didn’t come. You promised.”
“I tried, I really did,” says Grace, from upwind of the smell.
“I thought maybe changed your mind or … had a relapse.”
“No. I was there, but they wouldn’t let me in without a visitor’s pass. If it hadn’t been for Corporal Bob on the gate having a bit of a thing going with the young woman behind the desk, I wouldn’t have got past the main barrier at all. She said I might be able to make an exceptional visit if I had permission from your next of kin, which I didn’t because I didn’t know who they were, because you haven’t told me. She did though, and after a little wheedling from yours truly … she made a call to your brother.”
Colin stops prodding at the stinking pile. “She called Lucas?”
“Yes. Obviously he’d never heard of me, so of course he said no–”
“He would.”
“But we didn’t give up. She gave me some forms to fill in instead, although she did warn me it could take up to six weeks because I’d have to be vetted and referenced to prove I can be trusted. I don’t have a criminal record, but unfortunately I do have a pretty poor track record as regards mental illness, which could very well be a black mark against me–” She pauses and frowns. “I wonder if I can get Dr Mal to put in a good word for me. His professional opinion might carry some weight. Then again he hasn’t known me that long, and we did have a falling out, so I’m not going to put all my eggs in that particular basket … which doesn’t leave me much choice. You won’t like it, but I’m going to have to do it.”
Colin gives her a sideways look. “Do what?” When the penny drops, he looks at her aghast. “Ach no! Please tell me ye’re no thinking of calling Lucas yerself?”
“It had crossed my mind.”
“Ye canna!”
“Why not? If he can give permission, I don’t see why–”
“NO!”
“Why not?”
“Because I say so.”
“It may have escaped your notice Captain McLeod, but I am not one of your underlings. You can’t issue orders to me.”
He draws himself upright and lifts his chin. “Then I will ask you to seriously reconsider your decision,” he says, his words clipped and incisive.
“Not unless you can give me one damned good reason why I should.” Grace spreads her hands, inviting his answer, and gets nothing. “Thought not. I don’t see why we should have to wait for a full six weeks only to get a downright refusal at the end when there’s a perfectly viable alternative at our fingertips that could get it sorted so much quicker.”
Colin huffs and returns to stabbing the fork deep into the compost heap.
Time for a little bluff calling, Grace thinks, because sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind.
She hops down off the wall she’s been sitting on. “So that’s it then,” she says, dusting off her backside. “You’ve made an executive decision, and as far as you’re concerned that’s an end to it. Well, fine. At least I tried so don’t blame me if I don’t come at all.” She pushes past him and sets off toward the gate.
“What? No!” Colin throws down the fork and chases after her. “Grace, please – wait!” He grabs the back of her top, tugging her to a halt and turning her around. “That’s no’ what I meant.” He scrubs his hand through his hair, making the curls stand awry. “Ye don’t know Lucas like I do. He canna be trusted ta keep his word. Never has. He’ll string ye along with false promises and then let ye down at the last minute, jest like he’s been doin’ all his life. I don’t want ye putting yerself ta unnecessary trouble, getting yer hopes up and ending up with nothing but bitter disappointment.”
“Like more time will make any difference,” she says. “I think you’re
being very unfair, to me and to Lucas. I would have thought you would have jumped at the chance of speeding up the process.”
“I would… I want ta, but no if it means –”
“Anyone would think you were trying to make things difficult.”
“I’m no’ –”
“Unless deep down you really don’t want me to visit you and I’ve just given you the perfect excuse.”
“No! I want ye ta, I really do, but …” He gives the nervous twitch of his head Grace has come to associate with him having difficulty expressing what’s on his mind.
“Come on. Spit it out,” she says. “My planning to talk to your brother is not what’s upset you, is it?”
He screws up his eyes and turns his face from her. “No.”
“So what is?”
He looks her dead in the eyes. “What’s gain ta happen if ye do come and ye don’t like what you see when you get there?” He puts his hands on her shoulders. “I’m a mess, Grace. The handsome devil you see afair ye now is long gone. I don’t want ye ta be –”
“What? Disgusted? Shocked? Feel sorry for you?”
He nods.
And there she has it. She lays her hand against his cheek. “Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder, Colin,” she says softly. “So give me the chance to behold you first before I make that decision, eh?”
She sits on the edge of her bed with her phone in one hand, the scrap of paper with Lucas McLeod’s telephone number scribbled on it in the other.
Once she has organised what she wants to say, she pecks out the number on the keypad.
The phone is answered on the fifth ring with a gruff, “Hullo.”
“Hello,” she says. “Can I speak to Lucas McLeod please?”
“Speakin’.”
“You don’t know me, my name is Grace Dove–”
“I dinnae care wit yer sellin’, I’m no buyin’, so ye can save yer breath fer coolin’ yer porridge.”
If anything, his Aberdonian accent is even stronger than Colin’s. This apple hasn’t fallen far from the teuchter tree either.
“I’m not selling anything, Mr McLeod. I–”
“Hud oan a mintie,” he says. “Grace Dove?” A short pause. “Someb’dy called the other day from Pelham Chase and used that name. Something ta dae wi wantin’ ta visit wi oor Colin. Is that yoo?”
“Yes, that’s me. The receptionist agreed to ring on my behalf, to get your permission. Unfortunately you refused me, so she gave me your number, thought I might like to talk to you myself, to make a … personal request.”
“Ye’re no military then?”
“No.”
“So jest how is it ye come ta ken ma brother? Ye one of his fancy women?”
“Certainly not!”
“Then again, ye would say that, wouldn’t you?”
“I am not military, and I am not a fancy woman. I’m just a friend.” Sigh. “It’s quite a long and complicated tale Mr McLeod, and not suited to the telephone. Is there any possibility I could meet with you and have a chat face to face? It really is quite important.”
Lucas McLeod stays in Kincorth, also known as the ‘garden estate’, a suburb of Aberdeen south of the river renowned for its wide roads and open green areas.
As Grace is on the west side, in Ferryhill, they arrange a mutually convenient place somewhere in the middle, the Costa coffee shop in Union Square shopping centre.
They make their introductions, take a table in a quiet corner with their lattés, and date and walnut flapjacks. After a period of small talk, during which Lucas tells her about his wife and kids and work, they come to the real reason for their being there – Colin; about his childhood, his growing up and leaving home to join the army at the earliest opportunity, and his subsequent successful rise through the ranks.
“It was the making of him,” Lucas says. “Took to it like a duck ta water. Jest goes ta show that ye don’t have ta be rich and privileged to be officer material. He worked hard fer it though, earned it. I’m told he had a natural flair for leadership and his men admired and trusted him. Would have followed him to the ends of the Earth. Turns out some of them did.”
He reaches into the inside pocket of his jacket and takes out his wallet, extracts several small pieces of paper and hands them over to Grace. They are newspaper cuttings with photographs of Colin and his regiment, resplendent in their uniforms prior to being deployed to Afghanistan for their first tour. Another reported their return safe and well; another, Colin’s promotion. The last, however, is filled with head shots of the fallen and wounded, Colin among them.
“I haven’t seen these before,” says Grace.
“You can keep them. I have plenty more.”
Grace thanks him and folds the cuttings carefully and tucks them into her bag.
“You’re welcome.” Lucas McLeod’s smile is forced and tight. “I just wish…” His shoulders slump and he sighs deeply. “I just want him to get better, be like he was,” he says. “But I know it’s never going to happen, and I feel so guilty at not being able to support him in his time of need. I’m just so bloody useless when it comes to things like this. I don’t know what to do. He’s a bloody hero, and I’m just a … hopeless, yellow bellied, coward.”
“That’s not true,” Grace says. “It’s a difficult situation for anyone to be in. Not everyone can cope. It’s not your fault.”
“We never got on as kids,” he says. “We fought like cat and dog all the time and I suppose it was on the cards that we would drift apart, but not like this. I keep telling myself to remember him as a fit young lad, playing fitba, bumming a fag behind the bike shed, drinking lager and chasing the quines down by the cut, because the thought of him like he is now, my little brother, that cocky wee swine … blown up, burned, scarred and limbless, it’s too–” He swallows hard. “I sometime think he’d be better off dead. Oh God –”
And suddenly it’s all too much for him and he bows his head and cries with silent secret sobs. Grace reaches over the table and takes his hand. After a while he presses the heels of his hands into his leaking eyes, then blows his nose into a napkin.
“You must think me a heartless selfish bastard,” he says, his voice choked and hoarse.
“No, Mr McLeod. I think it’s a very natural reaction. I understand perfectly.”
“I canna go and see him,” he says. “I’ve tried, but I canna. If I did, if I saw him, I’d fall apart and be nae use to anyone. I talk to the staff on the phone, check up on him regularly, although I told them not ta tell him.”
She thinks back to what Mal had told her, that Alec had been checking up on her while she languished in the Psych Ward, and how comforted she felt when she found out because it meant that at least one person in the world did care about her and her welfare.
“No, they should tell him,” she says. “He should know that somebody outside is thinking about him. He’d appreciate knowing and it would make him feel less … alone.”
“Aye, mebbe.” Lucas looks across the table at her, his eyes bloodshot, red rimmed and filled with sadness and regret. “You tell him then, when ye see him. Tell him I’m thinking about him.”
“I’d love to… but I can’t,” she says. “The centre won’t let me in without a pass and because I’m not family I can’t get one without permission… from you.”
“Then I give it, wholeheartedly. Tell them I said so.”
“Not that simple. They need it in writing. There are some forms –”
“Have you got them with you?”
“Yes.”
He pushes his coffee and plate aside. “Give them to me,” he says, and holds out his hand.
She digs the paperwork out of her handbag and passes it over. He reads through each sheet in concentrated silence, borrows a pen from her and spends a few minutes filling in the various boxes, signing and dating the bottom of each with a flourish.
“There ye go,” he says, passing them back to her. “Go visit wi Colin wi my bless
ing. Do what you can for him and tell him… tell him –” He clears his throat. “Tell him I’m sorry and –” His voice falls to a barely audible whisper. “I love him.”
Chapter 26
It’s a cool and calm afternoon in the hut. Colin is sitting on the floor, back against the cot, reading a book.
Grace is cross-legged on the bed, darning one of his socks, tongue poking out the corner of her mouth in concentration as she weaves the needle steadily between the threads.
“You are very much alike you and Lucas, aren’t you?” she says, examining her work. “Like two peas in a pod. Same eyes, same hair, same ear twisting speech pattern –”
Colin is staring at her, his brows pulled together in a deep scowl. “Ye’ve seen him?”
“Yes.”
“After I telt ye not ta?”
“You only told me not to talk to him on the phone. You didn’t say anything about not meeting with him, and as I told you before, I don’t take orders –”
“Ach! Fer fuck’s sake, Grace!” Colin explodes, throwing the book across the room. “You couldn’t bloody well leave it alone could you? Why did ye have ta –?”
“I didn’t really have a choice. I had to ask him to sign the forms.”
Colin scrambles awkwardly to his feet. “And how much did ye have ta pay him ta dae it, eh?”
“Nothing! He was really nice. We had coffee and flapjacks and a good long chat. He told me about his wife and kids and his work. When we talked about you, he got very upset.”
“Aye, I bet he did.”
“He was genuinely distressed and sorry that he hadn’t been able to see you. He was more than happy for me to come though, and he signed my forms. Even made up a little reference for me.”
“Always was a bloody liar,” he growled.
“That’s not fair!”
A sullen silence falls.
“So fit excuses did he make fer no showing his face?” Colin asks. “An hour away by car and he canna be bothered.”
“Not true. He can be bothered, he cares a great deal, he just can’t bring himself to do it.”
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