by Rebecca Wait
“No.”
Malcolm watched his nephew touching the cutlery in front of him, shifting the fork slightly, running a finger down the handle of the knife, though whether out of nervousness or absent-mindedness, Malcolm couldn’t tell. Tommy seemed to become aware of himself, and stilled his hands on the table, placing one on top of the other. He looked exhausted, Malcolm thought. The shadows under his eyes were almost livid, but the rest of his face had that paleness that wasn’t quite natural, that made you think of the sick or the dead.
Malcolm brought the plates over. Tommy probably needed a decent meal and a good night’s sleep, he thought, unsure whether these were his own words or Heather’s.
They sat across from each other and ate in silence. Malcolm didn’t mind this. He’d never distrusted silence the way Heather had, never felt the need to speak for the sake of talking. But he wasn’t accustomed, anymore, to eating with someone else present. He felt conscious of the failings Heather used to point out, which must surely have grown worse in her absence: hunching over his food, elbows on the table, not laying his cutlery down between mouthfuls as Heather had always insisted was polite.
But Tommy’s table manners weren’t exactly refined either. He ate quickly, head down, as though completing a chore as swiftly as possible. Or else he was ravenous, Malcolm thought.
Tommy said eventually, his food almost finished, “Did you make this yourself? The pie?”
Malcolm nodded, mouth full.
“It’s nice,” Tommy said.
“It was better a couple of days ago,” Malcolm said, swallowing. “Doesn’t reheat so well.”
“I don’t remember you cooking much,” Tommy said. “I remember Heather doing it all.”
Malcolm was surprised at how intimate this comment felt, how swiftly and painfully the past rose up between them. There was Tommy as a child, sitting right where he was now, Heather fussing around him, Malcolm silent, letting her get on with it.
“I learned after Heather died,” he said. “Had to. Wasn’t so hard in the end. You just find a recipe and follow the instructions. There’s no magic there.” He paused, feeling as though he’d been disloyal to Heather without meaning to. “But I can’t cook the way she could. I get by, that’s all.”
Tommy nodded and said nothing else. He’d finished his food and put his cutlery down on the table. After a moment, he seemed to remember himself and picked up his knife and fork, aligning them neatly on the plate. Then he leaned his head on his hand. He looked like he was falling asleep at the table.
Malcolm finished the remnants of his own meal and glanced discreetly at the clock on the wall. It was only eight thirty. Usually now he’d make a cup of tea and read a book in the living room or put the TV on. He wondered how Tommy spent his evenings, but couldn’t begin to picture it.
He stood up to clear the plates, but Tommy said, in a way that was swiftly becoming familiar, “I’ll do it.”
“Just leave them on the side,” Malcolm said. “I’ll wash them tomorrow morning.” Leaving the washing up until the next day was one of the small luxuries he’d allowed himself since Heather’s death. Other than that, he’d been fairly strict about keeping to her routines.
Tommy rinsed the plates and cutlery carefully and put them by the sink. Then he stayed where he was, leaning against the counter.
Malcolm said, “Would you like a cup of tea? We could see what’s on the TV, or I have the papers to look at . . .” (Three days out of date, he remembered, which wasn’t bad for out here, though he wasn’t sure Tommy would see it that way.)
But Tommy said, “Actually, if you don’t mind, I think I’ll go to bed. It’s been a long day.”
“Of course,” Malcolm said, careful to hide his relief. “Have you got everything you need?”
Tommy nodded. “I’ll just take a glass of water up.”
He’d done that as a child too, Malcolm recalled. But it was a habit for many people. “You know where everything is,” he said, unsure whether this was a question or a statement of fact.
“Yes.”
“Well. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” Tommy said. He paused a moment longer, then got himself a glass of water and left the room.
Alone at the kitchen table, Malcolm breathed out a slow sigh. He was glad Tommy was turning in early, avoiding the awkwardness of their carrying out their bedtime routines at the same time, stepping politely past each other on the narrow landing on their way to the bathroom, taking it in turns to brush their teeth, each clad in pyjamas.
He went to put the kettle on and longed again for Heather. She would have known what to do; she would have made all this feel easier. Malcolm allowed himself to admit, just in this moment, just while he was alone, that he did not want Tommy in his house. He knew—he would be the first to say it—how many ways he’d failed that boy. How many ways they all had. But still, he did not want Tommy here, this young man he did not know but who looked so eerily like John. He did not want to talk to him and he did not want to remember. Most of all, he didn’t want to acknowledge that by the time Tommy had left the island, Malcolm had started to feel afraid of him, however much he’d battled the feeling, however much he’d hated himself for it, reminding himself that Tommy was just a child, and such a damaged one at that. But there had been violence in Tommy by then. He had already started to hurt people.
Nevertheless, Heather would have been desperately glad Tommy had come back, and so Malcolm tried to see it this way too. Heather had always been so much better, so much kinder and braver, than everybody else. It must have been a terrible blow to Tommy, Malcolm realized, to return here and find Heather gone. Of course it had not been Malcolm he had come to see.
But besides Tommy’s cousin in Canada, they were each other’s only living family now. That counted for something. And perhaps family still meant something to Tommy as well, even now, even after everything that had happened. What else might have brought him back here, twenty years later, all this way across the sea? Blood runs thicker than water. The phrase came unbidden into Malcolm’s head. It was not an expression he liked. He had spent many years trying not to think about blood.
3
Malcolm had been awake for almost five hours by the time Tommy emerged the next morning. Two of these hours, granted, had been spent lying in bed, where he’d jerked awake a little after five A.M. and lain panicking over what to do about Tommy. But since seven, he’d been in the kitchen drinking tea and reading the paper. There was no work to do that day. He’d helped Robert Nairne on his farm ever since giving up the croft, but the silage was made—they’d grabbed the two dry days last week and worked through the night—and Robert’s son was staying for one more day, so he could help his father round up the last of the lambs. October was a relatively quiet month. The next day, Malcolm would go round to help with repairs. He had originally set aside today to catch up on various odd jobs around the house and do his shopping. Now here was Tommy.
Malcolm tried to be as quiet as possible as he showered and dressed—all the rooms felt so close together in the cottage—but by eight thirty there were still no sounds from Tommy’s room. Malcolm resumed his seat at the kitchen table, but found it hard to settle.
Finally, around ten, he heard Tommy’s door opening, footsteps along the landing, and then the sound of the bathroom door opening and closing. Malcolm winced at the intimacy of this set-up. He got to his feet quickly and ran the taps, washing his mug and cereal bowl, and was relieved when he turned them off to hear the sound of the shower starting up.
Fifteen minutes later, he heard Tommy on the stairs, and steeled himself to appear casual when his nephew entered the kitchen. Tommy was dressed in the same clothes as the day before. Malcolm wondered if he should offer to lend him something, but wasn’t sure how. Tommy did look a little better than he had the previous evening, his face less pale, the bruises beneath his eyes less pronounce
d.
“Did you sleep well?” Malcolm said.
Tommy nodded, running his hand across the stubble on his chin. He said, “I forgot how you hear the weather out here.”
Malcolm nodded. “The wind was up last night.”
“I listened to it as I was falling asleep. You feel so close to the wind and the rain. You don’t notice it so much in cities.”
“More traffic noise instead, I expect,” Malcolm said. He paused, then added, “Cars and so on.” He wondered if all their exchanges would be like this, if in the absence of Heather he had forgotten how to make normal conversation. He said, more briskly, “I have to visit the shop this morning. Do you want to come? We could go in the car, or perhaps get a bit of a walk.”
Tommy shrugged. “Sure. A walk would be good.”
Setting out together an hour later, Tommy now wearing Malcolm’s old waterproof and a spare pair of boots, they followed the track from Malcolm’s cottage until it joined the island’s single road, which circled the middle of the island in a loop. Once you ran out of road, you were reliant on finding your own way across the rocky hills and moorland, but the island was only eight miles by three miles across, and its crags and heaths, its cliffs and beaches and black rocks held few mysteries for its inhabitants.
Malcolm and Tommy followed the bottom of the road’s loop from the west to the east side of the island. The walk was only an hour and the weather was damp but mild. For a while they continued in silence. Malcolm found himself looking around him more than he normally did, trying to see his home through Tommy’s eyes. Hills rose up on either side of them, bracken and heather only half covering the protruding clusters of rocks. As they passed the sheep grazing on the croft that used to be his, Malcolm felt a greater pang than usual.
“How’s Angus MacIntyre?” Tommy said at last. “Is he still on the island?”
Malcolm had to think for a few moments before he could place the name. “The lad at school with you?”
Tommy nodded.
“The MacIntyres left,” Malcolm said. “Went to Mull, as I remember it, when Angus was a teenager. Don’t know if they still live there now.” He stopped, trying to dredge up more from the depths of his memory. “I think Moira left Joe in the end. Or perhaps that was just a rumour. Heather kept in touch for a while, but eventually . . . you know.”
He felt Tommy glance round and then pause fractionally beside him, but it took him a few moments to work out why. They were on the east side of the island now, two thirds of the way through their walk, and were approaching the rough track that led to Tommy’s old house.
Malcolm wasn’t sure whether or not to comment, and decided to take his cue from Tommy. The house had been sold within a year of the murders. John had been in financial difficulties. All of that came out afterwards, Malcolm becoming caught up almost immediately in legal wrangling that bewildered and distressed him. The estate, he was told, was insolvent. The house had to be sold to pay off John’s debts, and to pay the funeral bills; there was nothing left, in the end, for Tommy. It had been bought by an investor at auction and had lain empty for another two years, until it was sold again to Chris and Mary Dougdale, incomers who moved to the island from Stirling. They didn’t arrive until Tommy had already left, though they knew the story, of course. But it didn’t have the same reality for them as for the locals. Before the house was first auctioned, professional cleaners had to be hired to get out the blood.
When Tommy started to speak, Malcolm thought he would say something about the house. But all he said was, “What about the Wilson twins? Sophie and Millie. They were at school with us too.”
“The Wilsons are still here,” Malcolm said. “Una and James, at any rate. The girls both left after they finished school. Millie lives in Glasgow, married with a couple of children of her own.” They were safely past the track now and he felt it disappearing behind them. “Sophie’s down in London, working for a magazine or a newspaper. Happy, her parents say.” Malcolm remembered the twins when they were young, with their matching plaits. Nice lasses. They still came back to visit their parents occasionally, Millie with her family in tow, Sophie sometimes with a boyfriend, and it was always good to see them. He said, “Young people don’t stay long here. Not now. Most all of them leave as soon as they have the chance.”
Tommy shrugged. “No jobs.”
“Aye.” But it wasn’t just that, and Tommy knew it too.
“Does nobody work on the mainland?” Tommy said.
“No. You know how long the ferry takes, and it’s not reliable.”
There was a short pause, then Tommy said, “My father used to do it.”
Malcolm took his time in replying. He did not look round at Tommy. At last he said, “Your father had his own ideas about how things should be done.”
They finished the walk in silence.
The island’s single shop was located opposite the port in Orsaig, halfway down the east coast of Litta. This was the most populous area of the island, with fifteen houses within half a mile of the port, spread at intervals along the loop of the road that curved north from Orsaig, a scattering along the western approach too, and a few more down several tracks leading off the main road. With the post office next to the shop, as well as the port and the small crafts shop that was opened up to visitors in summer (when few visitors came), there were far more people coming and going around Orsaig than anywhere else on the island, where you could often walk for hours without meeting another soul.
Malcolm was surprised not to bump into anyone as he and Tommy approached the shop.
“You remember this?” he asked Tommy.
“Yeah.” A pause, then, “After I came to live with you, I used to help Heather behind the counter sometimes. On her days.”
“That’s right.” How easily Tommy had skimmed over it: After I came to live with you. Perhaps it was down to practice. Perhaps this ability to move round the edges of things had become part of his nature. Malcolm thought of Tommy emerging the day before from the semi-darkness outside his door, as though he had simply materialized there.
Kathy MacDonald, grey haired and solid, was behind the counter when Malcolm and Tommy entered the shop, and Malcolm saw the exact moment she recognized Tommy. First there was a faint look of curiosity on her face as she noted Malcolm coming in with a young stranger; then, as her brain worked out who he surely must be, the shock registered before she could quickly smooth it away.
“Malcolm,” she said. “Not out on the farm today?”
“No, it’s a free day for me.”
“And this must be—surely it isn’t Tommy?” And she smiled.
Malcolm was impressed by Kathy, as he so often had been in the past. She’d always had a way of carrying things off.
“That’s right,” he said. “This is Tommy. Back for a wee visit.” He felt reassured by how normal this made the situation sound.
It was unclear from Tommy’s response whether or not he remembered Kathy. He said, “Hello,” and put his hands in his pockets, his expression unreadable.
“Just stocking up on a few things,” Malcolm said.
“And how are you keeping, Tommy?” Kathy said. “It’s been a while.”
“I’m fine.”
“You living on the mainland?”
“Yes. Here and there,” Tommy said.
Malcolm wondered if Tommy was aware of how evasive he sounded, as though he’d just been released from prison and was trying to conceal it. Then he thought, What if he has just been released from prison? Surely not.
Tommy was staring at the shelves of crisps and biscuits. “Stock’s changed,” he said, to no one in particular.
“Of course,” Kathy said, and Malcolm was grateful again for her cheerfulness, how much more natural she made things feel. “We do make some effort to move with the times here.”
Tommy nodded, and wandered ov
er to the cheese fridge to inspect its contents.
Malcolm completed his shopping as quickly as possible, feeling absurdly self-conscious. “Is there anything you want, Tommy?” he called, but received a shake of the head in reply.
“Well, it’s lovely to see you, Tommy,” Kathy said, once Malcolm had paid and packed the shopping away in his rucksack. “Welcome home.”
Tommy, already heading for the door, paused at this, and Malcolm saw, or thought he saw, his shoulders tense. But all Tommy said when he turned back to Kathy was, “Thanks.”
Outside, he offered to take the rucksack from Malcolm, but Malcolm said, “I’m not infirm yet, lad.”
As they began the walk back, Malcolm glanced towards the coast. “You know, a seal colony’s moved in on the rocks further south. Never seen them in that area before. If you fancy a walk another time, we might go and see if we can spot them. You used to have to go all the way down to the southern tip, didn’t you?”
“Or north,” Tommy said. “Nicky and I used to go north.”
“Did you now? All the way up to Craigmore?” The northern reaches of the island were uninhabited.
“Yeah. The rocks were the best for climbing there.”
This was the most he’d volunteered in a while, and Malcolm waited to see if he’d say more. But Tommy was silent again, staring out to sea.
As they were about to follow the bend of the road out of sight, Malcolm spotted Fiona McKenzie driving the shop’s van down the northern stretch of the road, having finished the day’s deliveries. He was grateful, at least, that they’d left without encountering her, although he knew Kathy would be sharing the news of Tommy as soon as Fiona entered the shop, both of them agog. Better, though, to put off any further meetings for now. Fiona didn’t have Kathy’s ease of manner, and Malcolm hadn’t worked out how to account for Tommy’s presence yet, even to himself.
And he looked so much like his father.
Sometimes at night Malcolm still dreamed of John, and the worst part of these nightmares was that they weren’t nightmares at all. It would be an ordinary day, he and John as boys, kicking a football around or running along the beach; but Malcolm would wake in a cold sweat from these calm, pleasant scenarios, shaken by the knowledge that something terrible was going to happen, and even now he couldn’t see it coming, not in the right way, not in a way that would help, even when it had already happened.