Matt held out his hand, a big hand roughened with work and spotted with freckles. ‘Hi there, Peter. Hope you don’t mind your sister bringing me back to the house. She’s quite a girl.’
He was a rangy man, close on six feet, with blue eyes, ginger curls and two days’ growth of stubble. He had not changed to go to the dance and still wore his work clothes, jeans and a shapeless sweater. His age, Peter discovered later, was twenty-five and he was due back in Glasgow with the lorry that same afternoon. Instead, he had followed Valerie up the Sandy Brae and parked in the old quarry where his huge vehicle was hidden from the road.
‘Boss is going to be bloody angry,’ he said. ‘Get my cards most like, but hey, worth it to meet a girl like your sister here.’ At which he smiled, showing a missing tooth, and rested a familiar hand on her neck.
‘Sorry I didn’t ring, Pete,’ she said. ‘I tried to, but the batteries were out on his mobile.’
‘Couldn’t you have phoned from the village?’
‘Well, I suppose but it was lashing and we were in the lorry.’ At last she crossed to Daisy. ‘She didn’t give you any trouble, I hope.’
He was tempted to say, ‘Yeah, she cried all night, hardly slept a wink,’ but a glance at the contented baby made him change his mind. ‘No problem. Wanted a feed at two and I had to change her, then another feed at eight. Good as gold.’
‘This yours then, the one you were telling me about?’ Matt was looking over Valerie’s shoulder. ‘What did you call her – Buttercup or something?’
‘Daisy,’ she said.
‘That’s right. Pretty little thing.’
She looked round. ‘You got any children, Matt?’
‘Yeah, two. Boy and a girl. Live with my wife – my ex-wife that is, like I told you. Don’t see them very often.’
‘How old are they?’
‘Boy was two when I went inside. That means they’ll be,’ he worked it out, ‘six and seven. Stay with Suzy and her partner down in Liverpool.’ He saw Peter looking at him. ‘What’s up? Me being in the slammer?’
Peter was silent.
‘Nothing so very terrible. Nicked a few cars, that’s all. Needed the cash, got in with a bad crowd. Couple of months in Barlinnie. Did me no harm.’ He pulled Valerie to his side. ‘All that’s behind me now.’
She looked up at him. ‘I hope so, Matt.’ Shrugging free of his arm, she lifted Daisy and cuddled her against a shoulder. The baby did not like being disturbed. Her face crumpled and she started to cry.
‘For goodness sake,’ Valerie said. ‘What’s wrong with you now? I’m your mother, you silly girl. Ssshhhh!’ Bouncing her, she walked round the room. Briefly Daisy was comforted but she wasn’t happy and soon began to cry again. ‘Are you hungry then? Do you want a bottle?’
‘Shouldn’t think so,’ Peter said. ‘I fed her half an hour ago.’
‘Does she need changing then?’
He shrugged and she felt the nappy, putting her nose down to sniff.
Peter left her to it. ‘Better go and feed the sheep. Should have done it this morning but I kept thinking you’d be back.’ He went into the hall to pull on his boots.
Matt followed him. ‘Want a hand?’
‘No thanks.’ Peter would have welcomed the help but not from him. ‘I can manage.’
‘I don’t mind, I’d like to.’ Matt persisted. ‘When your dad’s away like Valerie says. It’s a lot to do on your own.’
So she hadn’t told him their dad was dead. ‘It’s OK, I’m used to it.’ He took his jacket and went to the door. ‘There’s only room for one on the tractor anyway and I’m taking the dogs.’
He had prepared the hay and sheep nuts. All that remained was to hoist them onto the trailer. Matt stood watching as Ben and Meg jumped aboard and Peter set off up the track.
A chorus of baas rose from the sheep as the tractor came into view around the side of the hill. It didn’t take long to fill the racks and troughs. Afterwards he stood for a while, filling his lungs with the wind that blew across the moor, watching the colours of the sunset, wondering what his dad would have said about Matt.
When he got home the house seemed empty apart from Daisy who lay sleeping, a dribble of milk running down her chin. He went into the hall and looked upstairs. Subdued voices came from Valerie’s bedroom. The door was closed. For a minute he listened. There was a bump and a creak. The voices fell silent.
Peter didn’t want to know. Noisily he went to the outside door, opened it a few centimetres and shut it again with a bang. He banged the living-room door also and went into the kitchen to make the dogs’ food. Daisy woke and began to cry. He left her while the dog meat came to a boil in the big black saucepan. When Valerie did not come downstairs, he went through and picked the baby up, wiped her face and rocked her until she settled back to sleep.
Still Valerie did not appear. He drained off most of the simmering water and tipped the meat into the dogs’ dishes, added a handful of biscuit and carried it out to the barn. Ben and Meg wolfed it down while Peter attended to his ferret. The second he heard the rattle of his door, Buster came running. He was eager to escape and go hunting, to root out rats and mice from their nests behind timbers, to go exploring through the drains. Peter draped him, lithe and fierce and pungent, round the back of his neck and carried him to a bed of hay in the byre. Lit by the yellow wall lights, he played with him, letting the ferret crawl through his jersey and squeeze up the legs of his jeans. Time and again Buster ran off, chittering and hump-backed like a weasel, and Peter chased after him, fetching him back and rewarding him with morsels of raw liver from the dog meat.
But his mind wasn’t on the game. It was hard not to think about Matt and his sister; the berth in the lorry where they had spent the night; wondering what they were doing right then, up in his dad’s bedroom. He hated it. Ginger Matt in his grubby jeans. Valerie going with him in a moment. Taking over the house without a thought to himself. Leaving him with Daisy.
After fifteen minutes he let Buster capture what remained of the liver, a bloody scrap the size of a golf ball, and returned him to his run.
Lights were switched on in the house and there was a sound of voices. Peter returned, accompanied by the dogs. Daisy was still asleep. As he went into the kitchen, Valerie was pushing Matt’s clothes into the washing machine. He could smell them, sweat and cigarette smoke.
‘Where is he?’
‘Upstairs having a bath.’
‘About time.’
She swung round. ‘It’s just his work clothes. When he’s away he has to sleep in the lorry. Gets a wash and brush-up whenever he can.’
Peter thought about it. ‘Will he be staying?’
‘Tonight anyway.’
‘Just tonight?’
‘I’m not sure. Says he’d like to stay on a few days. Fancies it here but he’s got the lorry to think of, they’ll be looking for it back at the haulage yard in Glasgow. He’s switched off his mobile so they can’t reach him.’ She filled the drawer with washing powder and fabric conditioner and turned on the machine. ‘Maybe he’ll go down and come back, have to see.’
‘I thought you said his batteries were run down.’
‘Eh?’ It took her a moment to recall the lie. ‘Well he charged them up overnight, didn’t he.’
A voice came from the bathroom. Matt was singing. Peter felt sick. His dad used to sing in the bath.
Valerie was unperturbed. ‘I hope you’ll like him. He’s a nice bloke when you get to know him.’
‘When you get to know him? You haven’t known him a day yet and you’ve spent most of the time in bed.’
She flushed and looked away then met his angry eyes. ‘Yeah, I suppose. Sorry, Pete. But he is a nice bloke. Really.’
‘He’s a jailbird.’
‘But he explained that. It’s years ago and he only hotwired a few cars.’
‘Oh, that’s all right then.’
‘Come on, don’t spoil things. Give him a chance.’
Peter considered it and shut the door to the hall. The singing was muted.
‘You making dinner?’
Valerie was hunting in the deep freeze. ‘I thought we’d have pizza then one of them arctic rolls. That OK?’
‘Up to you.’ He returned to the living room. The dogs looked up hopefully. ‘No chance, you’ve just had your dinner.’ He switched on the TV.
A while later, the peat fire blazing, he was watching an old sitcom when the door opened and Matt appeared.
‘That’s better.’ He rubbed his hair with the towel round his neck and lit a cigarette. Clouded in smoke, he watched the screen and laughed. ‘I remember that. It’s the one where he ends up on roller skates, isn’t it?’
Meg sniffed his legs. He ruffled her head with the hand holding his fag.
Peter stared. Matt was wearing his dad’s dressing gown, woollen checks with a thick brown cord. Beneath it he seemed to be naked. Bony red wrists protruded from the sleeves. Bare feet were pushed into his dad’s slippers. He had shaved off the ginger stubble, leaving sideburns to the bottom of his ears. Peter recognised the aftershave. It was the one his dad liked. He’d bought him a bottle for his birthday.
Valerie came from the kitchen. ‘That’s an improvement. Had a good bath?’
‘Yeah, great.’ He took an ashtray and flopped into an armchair, arranging the dressing gown to cover his thighs. ‘That you making dinner? Smells good.’
‘Pizza,’ she said briefly. ‘Fancy a beer?’
‘Got any whisky?’
She brought him the bottle and a glass, a small jug of water and a can of Export.
‘Thanks.’ As she turned away he caught her wrist and pulled her back, looking up into her face with a smile.
Her eyes went to Peter. In some embarrassment she smiled back and returned to the kitchen. Matt wasn’t troubled. As if he had lived there all his life he poured a large whisky, added a drop of water and pulled the tab off the can. The beer foamed. He caught it with his mouth, leaving a white moustache. ‘Ahhh!’ He wiped it off with the towel and settled deeper into the armchair. ‘Tastes good.’ A corner of dressing gown fell from his white knee. He twitched it back and stretched his legs towards the fire. It fell again. He left it trailing.
Peter couldn’t stand it and went up to the bathroom. A ring of scum circled the bath. A wet towel hung over the side. Matt had used whatever was to hand. His dad’s razor was wet. And the can of shaving foam. And Peter’s own toothbrush. He stifled a yell of rage. His heart thudded. Kneeling on the damp mat, he wiped the bath clean. The washbasin was speckled with stubble. He rinsed it away and mopped splashes from the floor. Then carefully he washed the razor and toothbrush under the hot tap, his dad’s toothbrush too, and carried them to his bedroom. But even as he hid them between T-shirts in a drawer, he knew he would have to put them back. Matt would want to know where they had gone. Valerie would confront him. There would be a sickening row.
He switched off the light and threw himself on his bed. Hands behind his head, he thought about his dad and the life they had enjoyed until his ill-health took him away. In its place – he pictured Matt in his work clothes, now lounging there in his dad’s dressing gown as if he owned the place. The look in his eyes when he smiled up at his sister.
Daylight had been gone for an hour. Beyond his window the stars were shining. For a while he watched them then closed his eyes and waited for a shout to tell him the pizzas were ready.
32
Cross My Heart
HE STAYED THREE days.
The worst time was the first night when Peter lay awake in bed and heard the muffled sounds of lovemaking from the far end of the landing. He tried to blot it out: pulled the pillow over his head, stuffed the duvet into his ears with both fists. ‘Shut up!’ he shouted. ‘Shut up!’ and lay shaking. When after a time he removed the pillow, the couple in his dad’s bedroom had fallen silent.
On the nights that followed the noises were not repeated, though for a long time Peter lay listening in the darkness, praying that sleep would overtake him before they started. Perhaps, he thought, the lovers went upstairs during the day when he was out of the house, but at bedtime, to his great relief, all was quiet. He heard voices, tears from Daisy, a flush of the toilet, soft footsteps on the stairs – and that was all.
Matt tried to make himself agreeable, telling jokes, adjusting the tractor engine, hosing down the yard, but despite these overtures Peter could not like him. Jim was too recently dead for him to accept another man about the house, certainly one who used his dad’s razor, wore his dressing gown, drank his whisky and slept in his bed, let alone with nineteen-year-old Valerie. After a few months, had Matt trodden very carefully, Peter might have come to tolerate him, perhaps even like him. Three days was not long enough. And to be fair, the fault lay not with Matt but with Valerie who had so eagerly invited him to share their lives.
But whoever was responsible, Peter wished to spend no more time with them than necessary. So on the Sunday, when to his surprise Matt took the van and drove to Mass at St Mark’s, the only Catholic church in the area, he packed sandwiches and a flask in his rucksack and rode his new bike down through the village to the harbour. There he spent the day pottering about the boat shed, fishing for dabs and exploring pools like multicoloured gardens in the rocks.
On the Monday and Tuesday, dark February days with gusty rain, Matt drove him to the road to catch the school bus and was there to pick him up again at quarter to four. Matt was starting a cold. His blue eyes watered and he blew his nose loudly into crumpled tissues.
That Tuesday evening, as Peter drove out to feed the sheep, he should have been happy because the next three days were half term, but the thought of spending three days with Matt and Valerie – five if he counted the weekend – filled him with dread. How would he pass the time? As the tractor approached, the ewes came bounding down the hillsides. It was the high moment of their day. He filled the feeders and stood watching as they jostled for the high-protein sheep nuts. They were strong and healthy, he had reason to be proud, but in another month lambing would start. How would he cope then? There was no answer. Apart from anything else, how much longer could Jim’s death be covered up?
As he reached the house he was met by the savoury smell of cooking. He was surprised because most of Valerie’s meals were ready-cooked, bought at the supermarket in Clashbay. Today, however, she was preparing one of his favourite meals, stir-fried chicken to be followed by a family-size tiramisu. ‘What do you want to drink?’ she said, surveying the top shelf of the fridge. ‘Coke, lager, cider …’
‘Lager?’
‘Can’t do you much harm once in a while,’ she said. ‘Not as if it’s going to turn you into an alkie. Matt says he used to drink it regular when he was your age.’
Peter remembered how Jim used to give him a little beer in the bottom of a glass. ‘OK,’ he said.
‘Lager, yeah?’
He thought about it. A whole can was a lot. Besides, if Matt used to drink it he’d rather have something different. ‘No, cider.’
It tasted good. But Peter did not realise how much alcohol there was in cider and before the can was empty he felt a bit peculiar. When he rose to clear away the dishes, he had to grab a chair to keep his balance.
‘You and Matt sit down,’ Valerie said. ‘I’ll wash up and make the coffee. I’ve got a box of those chocolate truffles, the ones you like.’
‘What’s all this for?’ He stifled a belch. ‘It’s not my birthday.’
‘We’ve got a favour to ask you.’
‘No,’ he said.
‘You don’t know what it is yet.’
‘Yes I do. You want me to look after Daisy again. The answer’s no.’ He shut his eyes and slouched back on the settee.
Valerie hesitated then returned to the kitchen.
He heard the murmur of voices and rattle of dishes. By the time coffee arrived his mood had mellowed.
Valerie sat beside him and tore the
cellophane from the chocolates.
He chose a favourite and bit it in half. ‘Come on then, what for?’
Her eyes flew to Matt. ‘It’s just the one night,’ she said. ‘You being on holiday and all. I mean, Daisy’s better with you than she is with me and I’m her mother. You’ll not have any trouble and I’ll be back the next day.’
‘Yeah? Where are you going?’
‘It’s Matt,’ she said. ‘If he doesn’t get the lorry back to the yard they’ll be having the police out looking for him. It’s just to Glasgow. If we leave first thing tomorrow we’ll be there by lunchtime.’
‘I’ll get my cards after this, sure as nuts.’ Matt sat close to the fire. He scratched his forearms, tattoos blurred by the ginger hairs. ‘But I know a few people so it’ll give us a chance to look round.’ He sneezed violently.
‘You mean for another driving job?’
‘Yeah, well that’s what I do. There’s a shortage of experienced HGV drivers. Say what they like, my licence is spotless. Get down early, go and see a couple of people I worked with before. Bit of luck I could be fixed up again by knocking-off time.’ He took a mouthful of coffee. ‘Tell them I’ll be able to start in a week or so. Spend the night down there, hire a car next morning and we’ll be back by teatime.’
‘That easy?’ Peter turned to Valerie. ‘You said you wouldn’t be late when you went to the dance – an’ that was just in Brathy.’
‘I know, love, but it’ll be different this time, I promise.’ She put a hand on his knee. ‘Please, Pete.’
He searched for a way out. ‘Why can’t you take her with you?’
‘I thought about that but she’s better off here, really she is.’ Valerie had her excuses ready. ‘The lorry won’t take a baby seat for one thing. And what do I do if Matt has to start going the rounds? We’ll not have a car. It might be raining.’ She crossed to the carrycot where Daisy lay sleeping.
‘But I don’t see why you have to go at all.’ Peter was wriggling. ‘Why not just stay here? It’s not as if he’s joining a ship. He’s not going to be away for months.’
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