by Rebecca Wait
Catching his wife’s exasperated glance, Gavin said, “I mean, you need death in order to appreciate life. Don’t you?”
“Can we please stop talking about death?” Kathy said.
Malcolm managed not to look at Tommy.
“You started it,” Ed said.
“Ed, I did not.”
“You did. You were talking about winter and spring.”
“It wasn’t a metaphor.”
Chris and Mary Dougdale started laughing, and the atmosphere eased. Malcolm was pleased that another small crisis had passed, but he felt that it was turning into a difficult evening. No one seemed relaxed, and no one was being themselves. The ghost of John Baird was among them.
“Have you caught up with any other old friends, Tommy?” Kathy asked.
“Not really,” Tommy said. “Malcolm told me Angus MacIntyre left. From school. And the Wilson twins, gone too.”
“The youngsters, all gone,” Fiona said, and Malcolm was concerned that the old lament would start up again.
“We ran into Ken,” he said quickly, “out by Alban Bay.”
“And you met Ross on the ferry of course,” Fiona said to Tommy. “Did you remember them, the people you’ve met again?”
“Some of them,” Tommy said, adding, almost apologetically, “I was young when I left.”
“Of course,” Mary said. “I find it hard enough to remember the people right in front of me these days, let alone from years ago.”
“Senility,” Chris said, in his first contribution to the conversation for some time.
“I’d like to remind you that I’m three years younger than you,” Mary said, turning to him, “so there’ll be no more of your ‘senility’ comments.”
Gavin looked round the table. “Who’s ready for seconds? More mash, Malcolm? What about you, John?”
He was looking straight at Tommy. Malcolm felt his whole body turn cold. He saw the moment Gavin realized what he’d said, the way his smile froze.
“Tommy,” Gavin corrected himself quickly. Then, apparently feeling it would be useless to try to brush over it, he added, “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Tommy said.
Malcolm looked desperately for a way to save the situation, but came up with nothing.
“It’s lovely mash,” Kathy said to Fiona loudly. “Very buttery.”
Tommy, perhaps taking pity on them, said to Mary across the table, “Malcolm said you’re from Stirling originally?”
“That’s right,” Mary said, and Malcolm felt the gratitude of the others as strongly as his own. “Or at least, I grew up in the countryside nearby, but Chris was born in Stirling. We met at the FE college there.”
“Many, many years ago,” Chris said.
“Enough of that.”
“My mother was from Stirling,” Tommy said.
Kathy said gamely, “Yes, she was. I remember now. Have you ever visited?”
“No,” Tommy said. “I’ve never been.” He hesitated. “Seems strange now. My mother didn’t have a good relationship with her mother, I think. We never went to see her when I was a child.”
“It’s a lovely place,” Kathy said.
“So I’ve heard.”
“The countryside around there is really beautiful,” Mary added. “Lots of farms, too.”
Tommy nodded.
“And plenty of historical interest,” Fiona said. “The castle, of course.”
Malcolm didn’t think she had ever been. He hadn’t himself, and now he wondered why. So many places he’d never seen. He’d only been to Edinburgh once, and never to London. Sixty-two years old, and he’d never been to London.
By the time dessert was served, everyone seemed more relaxed (or else had simply drunk more, Malcolm thought; he had drunk more than he was accustomed to himself, although he was only on his second or third glass of wine. Better stop soon, he thought—he still had to drive himself and Tommy home. Though perhaps Tommy could do it. He realized he had no idea whether or not Tommy knew how to drive).
Fiona brought out a large tiramisu in a glass bowl and everyone applauded. Gavin fetched a dessert wine for them all to sample. It was so sweet it made Malcolm shudder.
He had thought Tommy would refuse the dessert wine as he had refused all other drinks offers, but Tommy accepted a small measure in his glass, sipped it, gave his polite smile and said, “Very nice.”
Gavin seemed pleased by this and said, “Aye, it is. I got it in Oban. Been waiting for the right time to try it.”
“We’re very touched,” Ed said. “You make us feel special.” His face had taken on that bleary look it got sometimes and Malcolm felt a passing flicker of distaste. This wasn’t the idea of the island he wanted Tommy to take away.
“It’s not for you, Ed,” Gavin said. “It’s Tommy here who’s guest of honour.”
Tommy swallowed the rest of his wine down. Gavin topped up his glass again and something about the quick way Tommy raised it to his lips made Malcolm feel uneasy.
Some time after that, Fiona brought out cheese (Christ, Malcolm thought, they never usually had this much food) and Gavin served yet more drinks. There was a loose, hazy atmosphere in the room now. The talk turned inevitably, for a while, to farming, and then briefly to politics (a subject in which nobody was much interested except Mary, who kept herself abreast of current affairs far more eagerly than anybody else on the island. Probably came, Ross had said once, from being an incomer).
Across the table from him, Malcolm saw Tommy accepting a glass of red wine from Gavin. His nephew was sitting back in his chair now, almost lounging, more at ease—or so it seemed—than Malcolm had seen him since he arrived on the island.
“Let’s have a toast,” Ed said suddenly. He looked eagerly around the table. “A toast to Tommy’s homecoming.”
There was a general murmur of agreement, and everyone obediently raised their glasses.
“Welcome back, Tommy,” Ed said. “We should have killed the fatted calf, shouldn’t we? Instead of having lamb. It’s a crying shame you’ve been away so long.”
“Ed,” Kathy said, a warning note in her voice, as if she could anticipate where her husband might be going with this.
“Well, it is,” Ed said. “He mustn’t let what happened keep him away. He’s an island man, a Baird man, just like Malcolm. Just like John. It was madness, pure and simple. Nobody blames him, Tommy—he wasn’t himself.”
All the air seemed to go out of the room. Malcolm’s eyes met Fiona’s for a second, before she quickly glanced away; she looked horror struck.
For a few moments, Tommy didn’t speak. Malcolm began to think the moment would pass on its own and they could just change the subject—why couldn’t he think of anything to say?—but then Tommy said, “He wasn’t mad.”
“No, of course not,” Ed said. “Just at the very end.”
“I think that’s enough now, Ed,” Malcolm managed to say.
“Yes, love,” Kathy added. “Tommy doesn’t want to talk about this.”
Ed nodded and appeared ready to hold his peace. But after taking a sip of wine, he leaned towards Tommy. He seemed about to lay his hand on his arm, before thinking better of it and letting it rest between them on the table. He said, “We all knew your dad, Tommy. He wasn’t a bad man. He did a terrible thing. A terrible, terrible thing,” he went on, seeming to have got momentarily stuck on the word. “But he didn’t know what he was doing. Can’t have.”
And somehow Malcolm knew this was the worst thing Ed could have said.
He watched as Tommy turned to Ed and said, his voice quiet and cold, “He knew exactly what he was doing.”
Silence. Nobody at this point knew how to intervene, and instead Malcolm felt they were all watching Tommy with nervous fascination to see what he would do next.
“You’re not bein
g honest about who he was,” Tommy said. He’d taken his eyes off Ed and was staring down at his empty cheese plate, so it wasn’t clear if he was addressing Ed or all of them. He seemed to Malcolm to be utterly sober now, unlike everyone around him. “A good man does not murder his family. He wasn’t ever a good man. Don’t pretend it was a moment of madness just to make yourselves feel better.”
There was a long, helpless silence, into which Ed nodded drunkenly once or twice, though he couldn’t seem to look at Tommy. It was Mary who finally spoke, perhaps because she and Chris hadn’t even been here and so were surely exempt from the blame attached to the rest of them. She said, “I’m so sorry, Tommy. It must have been so hard.”
And this simple comment seemed to be as close to the right thing to say as was possible when clearly there was no right thing to say. Tommy sighed, rolled back his shoulders, and gave a small nod.
“Coffee?” Fiona said suddenly. “Who’d like some coffee? Or a nice cup of tea?”
“Aye, that’d be lovely,” Kathy said, at the same time as Gavin said, “Good idea, Fi. That’s just what we need.”
Looking at Tommy, Malcolm felt it was up to him to end this ordeal, not just for Tommy and himself, but for all of them. Nonetheless, he knew they couldn’t leave immediately, not with Tommy’s words still hanging in the air. That would make the thing seem worse, not better. No, they would have to get through coffee—half an hour maximum, he calculated—and then, finally, it would be over.
And somehow they all muddled through the next twenty minutes, sticking to neutral topics as they sipped their coffee (Malcolm gulped his down quickly), Kathy and Mary making heroic efforts to get the conversation back on track by speaking of their children, of who would be home to visit and when. At last Malcolm judged enough time had passed that he and Tommy could make their escape.
He said, “I think we’d better be off, Fiona. It’s getting late.”
“Come on now, Malcolm,” she said. “There’s no rush. Tommy hasn’t even finished his coffee.”
“It’s O.K.,” Tommy said, taking a final sip from his cup. “I’m done.”
Malcolm added, “I have to be up early tomorrow for Robert. And Tommy’s had a long day too.” Why had he added that? Tommy wasn’t a child.
But then Tommy said, “Thank you for having us,” in a low, polite voice, for all the world as though he was still eight years old and his life had never gone off track.
“It’s been so good to see you,” Fiona said faintly, and there were general murmurs of agreement. Malcolm said his goodbyes and tried to disentangle himself and Tommy as swiftly as possible, though Ed seemed particularly eager to shake both of their hands at quite some length, as if to say, No hard feelings, and then finally Malcolm and Tommy were outside in the freezing darkness and the door had closed behind them.
Tommy walked without a word round to the passenger side of the car and got in. Malcolm allowed himself a couple of seconds to breathe the night air deeply, to be alone in the safety of the darkness, before he opened the driver’s door.
He took the drive slowly, afraid of his own disorientation, the blackness of the night, the roughness of the track. He was thankful for the darkness as they passed Tommy’s old house—that, at least, was one sight they could do without at this particular moment. He gripped the steering wheel and stared ahead at the small patch of road lit up by his headlights. It was highly unlikely that they’d meet another car, but even once they were on the tarmacked main road there was the danger of going into a ditch, or into the rocks where the road cut through the hills.
Malcolm didn’t feel they could complete the whole drive in silence, but it was difficult to know what to say to Tommy. He wanted to say something—anything—to dispel this terrible feeling that had come over him, that Tommy had brought over everyone in Fiona’s small dining room.
“The food was good,” he said at last.
“Yes.”
“Fiona’s a good cook.”
“Yeah.”
There was a long silence, then Malcolm finally said, “I’m sorry about Ed.”
“I know.”
“He was drunk. And he’s a bit of an idiot even when he’s sober.”
“It’s not just him,” Tommy said. “It’s all of them.”
“They mean well.”
“Most people do,” Tommy said. Then, “Meaning well isn’t enough.”
“It’s not fair to blame them,” Malcolm said, knowing what he really meant was, It’s not fair to blame me. But of course it was.
“Why not?” Tommy said, his voice savage. “They were there, weren’t they? You all were. It didn’t come out of nowhere.”
“Tommy, it wasn’t like that. Nobody could have imagined—”
“Perhaps you’ve convinced yourselves it was none of your business. But it was your business.”
Malcolm had no answer to this.
When they pulled up outside his house, he turned off the engine and they sat in silence for a couple of moments. Finally Malcolm said, because he knew he had to, “Did he hurt you, Tommy?”
“No. Not in the way you mean.”
“I’m sorry.” The car light went off, so he could no longer see Tommy’s face.
Tommy said levelly, “I hate this fucking island. If I could, I’d wipe it off the face of the earth.”
He opened the car door abruptly and got out. By the time Malcolm had followed him into the house, Tommy had already disappeared upstairs to his bed. Malcolm remained alone in the kitchen for several hours, knowing there would be no possibility of sleep.
16
So not an unmitigated success, Malcolm thought the following morning.
He was relieved to be going out early to work with Robert. No sign of Tommy when he set off at seven A.M. Malcolm left him a note saying he’d be gone a while.
The weather was bad, even by their usual standards. After the calm of the day before, it had turned, and the wind had been hurling itself against the side of the cottage since Malcolm woke at six, bringing with it harsh, freezing rain. Malcolm zipped his coat up to his chin, pulled on a woolly hat and set off into the cold and wet.
A hard morning. He and Robert spent an hour and a half taking the feed supplements out to the ewes on the rough grazing, heaving the bags from the truck and pouring the mixture into the block containers, watched impassively by the sheep through a haze of rain. It was impossible to talk much as they worked; all their energy was taken up with carrying the bags and withstanding the onslaught of the weather. But Malcolm was glad to lose himself in the heft of physical labour. It was difficult to think about anything else with your back and shoulders aching and the wind tumbling around your ears.
“What now?” he said to Robert when they’d finished and were leaning against the side of the truck. The rain had stopped, but the wind was still fierce and although they were half sheltered here, Malcolm still had to raise his voice to be heard.
“It’s all right, I can manage today.”
“I don’t mind,” Malcolm said.
He could feel Robert looking at him. “I thought you’d want to be home, spending time with Tommy.”
“Not,” Malcolm said, “when there’s work that needs doing.”
“Well, in that case, it’s about time I trimmed their hooves. We could do the ones in the pasture.”
On the in-bye land by the farmhouse, they herded the ewes into pens and then caught them one by one, pulling them on to their backs and holding them still between their legs while they dug compacted mud from their hooves and trimmed the ends with hoof cutters. It was a docile flock, but no sheep especially enjoyed having its hooves trimmed. Malcolm kept a firm grip and did the job as quickly as he could, releasing each sheep back into the pasture in turn with a “Good girl” and “There you go”. It took a long time, even with two of them.
“No sign of rot,
” Malcolm said when they paused.
“Not so far,” Robert said. “Touch wood. It’s good to have your help, Malcolm. You keep them calm.”
“I’m well practised,” Malcolm said.
“Gordon’s well practised,” Robert said, referring to his eldest son, “but he still spooks them whenever he does it. You have a way with sheep.”
Malcolm snorted. “Thanks, Robert.”
“I’m serious.”
“Well, it’s more than anyone would say about me and people.” He imagined, briefly, relating this exchange to Tommy. Then he decided he didn’t want to think about Tommy just now.
At noon, Martha, Robert’s wife, fed them soup in the farmhouse kitchen. They ate quickly, both wanting to get back to work, but Malcolm enjoyed the brief respite from the cold.
“How are things up there?” Robert said, sitting across the table from him and making no effort to drink his soup without slurping, however many disapproving faces Martha made at him.
“Fine,” Malcolm said. Then he added, to make it seem normal, to convince himself it had been normal, “We went to eat at Fiona and Gavin’s last night.”
“Oh, aye?”
“Kathy and Ed were there. Chris and Mary, too.”
“Nice evening?”
“Aye. She’s a good cook.”
Thinking back over the night before, he supposed it could have been worse. It had been nothing much at all, really. Just a couple of sharp comments from Tommy, some awkwardness for everyone, a slightly abrupt end to the evening. Beyond that, what? A sense of barely suppressed rage just glancing out at them in the moments when Tommy let it. Nothing that could be easily put into words, and it was this, coupled with their own embarrassment, that Malcolm thought would prevent the others discussing the evening much among themselves afterwards.
He would have to ring Fiona to say thank you, of course. Probably, he thought, neither of them would mention the awkward part, but would gloss over it with general platitudes about the evening. He began to see that Tommy might be right in his suggestion that they didn’t confront things here. But wasn’t that the safest way in the end? Nothing that had happened could be undone.