House. Tree. Person.

by Catriona McPherson

  I cocked my head and listened to that high-pitched thrumming chord. “Mmmmhhmmm.” Then I jumped up, left all my papers out, left my chequebook sitting there, didn’t even lock my office door. I just ran. I told them in the morning that Marco had phoned to say Angelo was poorly and asking for me. And of course they all understood. If someone’s calling for their mum, you don’t ignore it.

  Those were the days, when Angelo still called for me. Now he skulked at the Abbey every chance he got, as if he knew it was the one place I’d never follow him. The flood had scuppered him for two weekends and all the nights after school, but as soon as the water went down, he was back.

  The rapping on the window made me start so hard I felt my seatbelt bite. It was Angelo, stooping down to look in at me. He mimed for me to open up and then slid into the passenger seat.

  “What you waiting for?” he said.

  “Not waiting,” I said. “Just thinking.”

  When Angelo started conversations with me these days I was careful to match him, tone for tone, as off-hand as he was. And I didn’t ask questions beyond what he wanted on his sandwiches or whether he had any clothes to add to a dark load. It had taken him days to forgive me for trying to send him on a walk that day.

  “No good then?” he said. I turned and shook my head, not following. “Never mind,” he said. “Probly best, eh?” He reached out and brushed the back of my sleeve with his knuckles and I tried not to let my mouth drop open. He was comforting me for not getting the job.

  I could have called a halt to the whole stupid caper right then. I could have shrugged and said thanks and we could have limped on a bit longer. But who said it was simple? The very fact of him trying to make me feel better was like a punch in the neck. He was fifteen. He should be selfish and carefree and looking to Marco and me for lifts and favours, not stifling his hopes and telling me it didn’t matter. And what would it do to Marco to see “the wee man” being brave. It would crush him. So I gave him a cheesy grin and waggled my eyebrows.

  “Major plot twist,” I said. “I got the job. I start on Monday.”

  Angel did a big stagey jaw-drop then he screwed up his face and narrowed his eyes. “And you’re sure it won’t land you in the … ?”

  “Doo-doo,” I suggested, and I felt a warm surge inside me as he smiled. “Nah, it’s fine.”

  “You sure? Because Dad made me read it over for grammar and that. What he wrote, you know? And it’s pretty inventive.”

  And there was another chance to rewind and stop this nonsense before it started. I had only spent sixty-odd pounds of the thousand. But I wanted him happy. And more than that, I didn’t care if he was proud of me, but I wanted him proud of Marco. I didn’t like him thinking his dad had got this wrong.

  “I smoothed all that over,” I said. “I said in my interview that your dad helped me and I admitted he’d gone a bit over the top, and you know what?”

  Angelo gave me that narrow-eyed look again.

  “They think it shows he’s in my corner. Got my back kind of thing. They think it’s a good sign that an employee’s husband is so supportive. Well, you know, they’re psychiatrists. So they see past the surface. They see through to the real stuff underneath.”

  Angelo turned and faced the front. The day was fading and we could see the light from televisions shining out from behind people’s windows.

  “But don’t you need accreditation and everything? Certificates, qualifications?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I need a police background check done, but I’m not treating the patients. I’m just offering … what did she call it? Extra-therapeutic recreational and personal services. It’s really, really fine.”

  “Minty fresh,” he said. He was still staring straight ahead, slumped down so far that his knees didn’t fit behind the dashboard. “What’s the pay like?”

  I knew that tone. He wanted something: trainers or a hairdo.

  “Pretty fantastic, actually,” I said. I had to bite my tongue to keep from asking why.

  “Mouthwash,” he said. He clucked his tongue a few times, but he still didn’t say what it was he had his eye on.

  “Talk English!” I said, to break the mood. There. I was Mum again, nagging him about his slang. He wouldn’t ask me for a penny now. He just snorted, opened the door, uncoiled himself, and went slouching over the road.

  I got out myself and shouted across to him.

  “Oy, shortie!” He stopped. “I’ve got two big bags of shopping here. Give us a hand, eh?”

  He looked out of the side of his eye at the bag I handed him and managed not to smile when he saw the thick pack of bacon and the big bag of frozen pizza bites, but he stepped up his pace and was bouncing as he went up the short path to the front door.

  Marco was home. Must have got the bus. But for once he wasn’t watching the telly. It was on but turned to a radio channel, classical music blaring out loud enough for him to hear in the kitchen.

  He was wearing an apron, one of the flowered ones. I tried not to react. It was a code between us. One time when we were first married I came back to the flat and he was making skate wings, wearing one of my flowery aprons and nothing else. So, once Angelo was old enough to understand when his parents were flirting, Marco sometimes put it on to make me squirm. He was always home before me. McGovern and Son closed at half-past four and my last client slot was six. For years I’d come home to tea on the table. All my girlfriends were jealous.

  I sniffed. “What’s for?” I asked.

  “It’s only salmon,” he said. “But I’ve made a herb crust.”

  “Mu-um!” said Angelo, shaking the bag of bacon and frozen crap at me. “No way! Fish? No way!”

  “I’m starving,” I said. “I’ll eat yours.”

  “You’re having chicken pockets,” said Marco to Angelo. “I’m not a sadist.”

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself,” I said, coming up to look into the pan of rice he was frying. “How did you know we’d be celebrating?”

  Angelo was halfway out of the room but Marco called him back.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “Are you ready for this? You sure you’re ready?” He waved his spatula. “I don’t want to steal your thunder or anything, Als. But I … have got a job.”

  “What?” I said. “Since when?”

  “Since today.” He was still grinning. But maybe 80-watt instead of 120.

  “Why didn’t you call me?” I said.

  Even Angel quirked a look at me then.

  “What, like to run it past you?” Marco said, down to 40-watt.

  “Of course not!” I said. Then I stopped. How could I tell them what was wrong? I was just after saying to Angelo I’d squared away the lies on my long CV. I could hardly turn round and argue to Marco that, if he’d landed a job, I was off the hook at Howell Hall. I could hardly chew him out for not phoning me as soon as he knew so I could get myself out: before Mad Julia had had a go at me; before I had seen that ghost woman sitting there with her Maya Angelou; before Dr. Ferris had given me those crisp hundreds and I’d split one.

  “Sorry,” I said. “It’s been a stressful day. You just took the wind out my sails. But it’s brilliant news, Marco! Fantastic!” I put my arms round his neck and planted a kiss on his mouth. Angelo fake-retched and walked away.

  “It’s only part-time.” Marco turned back to the cooker and shook the pan. The two little squares of salmon didn’t move. He had burnt them.

  “Tell me all about it,” I said.

  “Over dinner,” he said. “You tell me and I’ll tell you. Go and get changed.”

  The staircase to our room was awkward, nipped out of the living room that didn’t have an inch to spare, and it led to a glorified attic with a ceiling that sloped right down to the floor. We slept on a futon that used to be in the playroom, a patch of floor on either side for our bedside tables
. “Like students,” Marco had said, not that he or I had ever been students. We had gone straight from our mums to a house full of wedding presents.

  I stripped off my interview clothes, put my suit back in its zip bag—all my good clothes were in them because our “wardrobe” was actually the hot water cupboard with a rail added and the cladding on the tank was crumbly—then I clawed my tights down and walked myself out of them. I had just picked up the Juicy velour I’d been sleeping in (it was cold up here) when I heard the siren.

  The only window was the original attic skylight, single-glazed with a metal frame and a rusted prop to hold it open. We had to remember to shut it whenever the rain came. I stood on tiptoe but couldn’t see anything lower than the tips of the trees in front of the carpark and the very top of one gable-end of the Abbey. But even as high as the treetops and gable-end I could see the wash of red and blue light and I could hear the car slow and turn onto the access road. I grabbed my dressing gown from the back of the door and went downstairs.

  Marco and Angel were both standing at the front window, all the lights off, to see better. I joined them, huddling up close. It was a police car and I felt the relief like a fairground swoop in the pit of my stomach. An ambulance is always bad news for someone and a fire engine too, but a police car might just be cops getting their knickers in a twist over nothing.

  Hard on that thought, another one struck me: what a good girl I’d always been. What a straight and narrow path I’d led for my forty-odd years that a police car was the best of the three.

  Two cars is different, though. As the first pulled off the track onto the tarmac square another one came from the other direction, this one silent although its lights were on. I heard the door of the next cottage along bang shut and saw the neighbour hurrying down his path, fumbling his gate open and then trotting over the road so fast his walking stick nearly tripped him.

  “I’m going over,” Marco said. “Ali, put some clothes on in case they come to the door.”

  “The cops?” I said, clutching at the neck of my robe, even though I knew it made me look like a scaredy. “Why would they come here?”

  “Because something’s obviously kicking off,” Marco said. “And they’ll want witness statements. You were sitting parked out there ten minutes ago.” He took his Barbour jacket from the back of his armchair and went out, flipping the hood up against the beginning of a drizzle. I hated that Barbour jacket. He said he’d found it cheap in the charity shop and it kept the rain off him, but I dreaded the thought that whatever county-type had chucked out a nearly new Barbour might see him in it and recognise their cast-off.

  “Was that where you came from?” I asked Angelo. “Just now? Were you over there?”

  He nodded. He was staring at the cars, his eyes gleaming. Except no. It was just that the lights were making his eyes gleam. Obviously.

  “And was there anything going on? Kicking off?”

  He shook his head.

  “I’m not stupid, Angelo,” I said. “Was there anyone else over there with you? Is there anything … Is there any reason for you to be worried?”

  “Me?” he said.

  “If your pals dob you in? To get out of trouble.”

  “Mum, what are you talking about? What pals? Dob me in for what?”

  “I know you drink,” I said. Then I said again: “I’m not stupid, Angelo. But is it just drink? Are there roaches over there? Baggies?”

  “Thanks, Mum!” he said. Then he laughed, but with his mouth closed, so it was just his breath. “Two candys with the lights and music for a ‘roach,’ eh? Naw, you’re not stupid, are you?”

  “What’s a candy?” I said. My mouth was suddenly dry. “Pills?”

  He laughed properly now. “A candy car, Mum. A cop car.”

  “Oh.” I let my breath go and he laughed again, hearing me. “I’m going to go and put some clothes on, in case Dad’s right about a door-to-door. Because that was a good point. They wouldn’t be making this much fuss over kids’ stuff.”

  “They’d send a couple of chimps if we’re lucky.”

  “Chimps,” I said.

  “Community support officers,” said Angelo. “Completely hopeless in most policing situations.”

  “Where’d you learn that?”

  “From, you know, being alive and going outside,” he said. The words were soothing: that drawl with the little scornful laugh at its back, just like always. But the way he was staring, tensed like a runner waiting for the gun, nothing moving but maybe his nostrils as the flight-or-fight breaths surged in and out of him? That was anything but normal.

  “Are you sure there’s nothing going on over there?” I said.

  “Not a thing,” he said, looking away at last. “Been a long, long time since that place saw any action.”

  I moved to the bottom of the stairs and started climbing. I was in my bare feet so there wasn’t much of a racket, but I was hurrying a bit so I wasn’t silent, either. I could have sworn I heard him say, “I’d just about given up, as it goes.”

  Four

  Marco came back when I was halfway down the stairs, dressed again. He did that little song and dance people do when they get in out of the rain, shaking himself and huffing like a hen resettling after an upset. When he’d got his coat off he shook it out the front door before hanging it up, but I could still hear drops falling in flat-sounding blats onto the square of plastic spread under the coat pegs.

  “Well?” I said. “What’s happening?”

  “Nothing we need to worry about,” he told me.

  “Mar-co,” I said. “What the hell? Tell me.”

  “Don’t upset yourself,” he said, like he always did.

  He went back into the living room to stand beside Angelo, the pair of them looking like twins in the dark. Angelo was Daddy’s boy from day one. In the hospital he had fixed those milky blue-black eyes on Marco’s face and stared. Marco had tried to hide the swell of pride. He had looked up and wiggled his eyebrows at me, sharing the moment. And he was a great dad. He never said a word when Angel went through that phase with the baby doll. And certainly he always shared Angelo now.

  “You’re really not going to tell me what’s happening?” I said, then I grabbed the Barbour and went out, banging the door shut behind me. I scuttled across the road, hopping clear of the black puddles at both kerbs and keeping to the crest along the middle of the track that led to the carpark. The neighbour was still there, along with a huddle of others. They must have come from other cottages in the row since there were no cars except the two pandas—the candys, Angel had called them—parked up in a vee-shape with their lights still flashing. They blocked most of the view of whatever was going on, and the copper planted just inside the fence did the rest. He was standing like one of the guards at Buckingham Palace, staring over the heads of the little clutch of nosey parkers, trying to look dignified even with rain dripping off the peak of his cap and his nose.

  “Does anyone know what’s happened?” I said.

  “Mrs. McGovern!” the neighbour said, glancing away long enough to identify me and then training his gaze back on the distant view of swinging torch beams. They wheeled and shuddered, filled with dashing raindrops, giving the old Abbey stones the leathery gleam of toad skins. “Your husband was just here,” he said. “Wouldn’t he tell you anything?”

  I bristled at the judgement and an easy lie sprang to my lips. “The phone rang,” I said. “He didn’t get a chance.”

  “I never heard it,” said the neighbour, glancing over the road. “I’ve been meaning to have a word about your phone, as a matter of fact. I wonder if you could turn the volume down and set the machine to catch it a bit quicker?”

  “His mobile,” I said, ignoring the rest of it, refusing to think about our back-to-back fireplaces, the gurgle of his hot tank in our bedroom in the early morning, and the flush of his toil
et three and four times in the quiet night. It was too easy to imagine him with a glass to the wall and a notebook open. “So what happened?” I said again. I looked at the silent policeman, standing there less than four feet away. “Can you tell us what’s going on? Do we need to be worried?”

  “Nothing to worry about, Mrs. McGovern,” he said. I didn’t know if he was taking his cue from the neighbour or if he recognised me. I didn’t recognise him, at least not with his hat pulled low and his face screwed up against the rain.

  “They’ve obviously found something,” one of the others said. “There’s been no one put in a car so no one’s been ‘surprised in the act.’ But they’ve found something that shouldn’t be there, haven’t they?”

  We stood in silence for a moment and watched. The torch beams had stopped wheeling and were pointed at the ground now, the little glow of light making me think of nativity scenes. The rain fell steadily, pattering onto the brollies and waterproof coats of the onlookers, and bouncing off the Barbour hood. I breathed in the waxy stink from the waterproofing. He had definitely said it was secondhand but he must have bought a can of spray-on stuff to re-seal it. Either way, he’d spent more than the price of a cheap kagoul.

  “Could be stolen goods,” said a woman’s voice, cutting in on my thoughts.

  But we all knew better. We knew exactly what they’d found. Even the silent policeman knew we knew and, as we all stood there thinking about it and wishing it wasn’t true, another engine sounded and a high-sided van pulled off the road and dazzled us all with its headlights at full-beam.

  “SOCO,” said one of the men.

  The silent policeman unbent enough to say, “At bloody last,” under his breath and went to direct it towards the gate.

  “I just hope it’s not a baby,” that same woman said. “I heard a funny noise a few days back. I thought it was a kitten, but I couldn’t find it. I checked under all the cars.”

  I left then. When I was halfway to the road I had to swerve off the track, jumping deep into the muddy verge, to let another car go by me. It had a light on its roof too, but one of the ones you keep in your glove box and just reach out the window to stick on top when you need to. A sign propped on the dashboard said pathologist on police business, and all doubt was gone.