Our Fathers

by Rebecca Wait

  “No,” Katrina said.

  John was an accountant and had been living in Glasgow since he was eighteen and started his training. But he’d grown up on Litta, he said, in the southern Hebrides. The island was remote and beautiful, with fewer than a hundred residents.

  And now he had Katrina’s attention. “That must have been amazing,” she said. She tried to picture it.

  “It was,” John said. “A wonderful place to be a child—though as a teenager all I wanted was to get away. It was too isolated for me then. I feel differently now. I’d like to go back eventually. Bring up my own children there.”

  “I’ve never been. Not to anywhere in the Hebrides.”

  “You must,” he said with a new intensity. “There’s nowhere better.”

  Somehow it was this that started it, the passion with which he began to describe his home and his childhood, this that won Katrina over more than anything else. She wanted to see it too: those empty windswept beaches, the sea crashing against the black rocks, the cliffs and moorland and hills, the gannets and seals and sheep.

  She started spending her evenings with John, going to the cinema, or to pubs and restaurants all around the city. She liked how he took care of her, and how solicitous he was, asking her what she’d like to do, what film she wanted to see or what food she’d like to eat, and then arranging it all for them. He would order for her in restaurants, choose the wine for both of them, and Katrina enjoyed the peace of not having to make decisions, the feeling of security she had with John. The attention, too. Extraordinary to discover someone could find her so interesting. He didn’t make her laugh, that was true—not like some of her colleagues. And Katrina found that she became a more serious version of herself when she was with him, more thoughtful perhaps, less frivolous. But there were other things besides laughter.

  He’d be there waiting for her most evenings outside her office, and would then escort her to whatever destination he had planned, even when it was close to his own office in the East End, so that he had to travel out of his way to pick her up. Katrina would point out that it would make much more sense for them to meet in the middle, but John would shrug and smile and say he liked to collect her, that he didn’t want to miss a moment with her. Sometimes he’d even get the Herald’s receptionist to let him in, and would simply appear at her desk at five thirty, greeting her colleagues and asking if she was ready to go. Katrina was always pleased to see him, but occasionally these sudden appearances threw her off guard, as though he might catch her in the middle of something (but what, she wasn’t sure).

  Later—much later—it would occur to her that she’d fallen in love simply because she wanted to be in love. It could have been anyone. That was the pity of it.

  It was a long time before she introduced him to her mother. There was an evening with Jill and Chris first, a strained meal in a small Italian restaurant in Edinburgh, during which nobody seemed to be behaving like themselves. Katrina was disappointed afterwards when she asked John if he liked them and he only said, “They seemed fine.” But she reminded herself that John could be shy sometimes, and even she didn’t know Jill very well anymore.

  Introducing John to her mother proved similarly anticlimactic, though for different reasons. Katrina had steeled herself for some kind of scene, for her mother weeping and telling John how Katrina had abandoned her, or else her taking an immediate dislike to John and treating him to her speech on how all men were bastards. Katrina imagined John’s face, white and set, as he endured these indignities, and she could hardly bear it.

  In the event, her mother was civil, though seemingly detached. She offered John sherry and asked him about his work, even listening politely to his answer without turning the subject to herself. She provided a very reasonable tea of sandwiches, scones, and seed cake, and was quick to offer John seconds. All in all, she behaved for the entire afternoon like somebody else’s mother. Katrina was suspicious and perplexed.

  “You were very quiet,” John said as they drove back to Glasgow. “But your mum was nice. I thought you said she was difficult?”

  Katrina felt a momentary prickle of irritation. It occurred to her then that this uncharacteristic, undermining civility might be her mother’s revenge on her.

  She and John had sex for the first time a few months into their relationship. John said it meant a lot to him that it was Katrina’s first time, that she’d saved herself for him. She was worried about getting pregnant, but John said it wouldn’t happen, and even if it did, it wouldn’t matter because they’d be married soon anyway.

  “Unless you’re planning on marrying somebody else?” he added with a smile.

  “No.”

  “Well then.”

  It was better than she’d expected. John was skinny and pale beneath his clothes, and Katrina felt oddly protective of him. She didn’t feel much excitement—she had a suspicion her mother had ruined sex for her anyway—and the act itself was a bit like being poked with a sharp object over and over again. But there was something touching and primal about being naked and wrapped around each other. It felt a bit like being born.

  “I love you,” John told her afterwards, his arm under her head. He said it often, but Katrina still felt delight when the words came. This, she thought, was finally “it”. Now her life could begin properly, and she would be safe forever.

  There was just one unsettling incident, about six months after they’d met. Katrina was attending leaving drinks for Mae, who was moving down to London, and told John she couldn’t see him that evening. She didn’t like doing this; she already knew it hurt his feelings when she said she was busy, and she’d started to miss more and more evenings with her colleagues as a result. But Mae was her best friend at work, and Katrina had promised to attend.

  John didn’t seem to mind at first. He told her to go and have a lovely time, and Katrina felt relieved he didn’t ask if he could come too, because her colleagues already teased her about how much time she spent with him. She said she’d only stay a couple of hours and would meet him afterwards, but as it was she’d been in the pub for less than an hour when John appeared at her elbow saying he’d come to collect her.

  “But it’s too early to leave yet,” Katrina said. Then, thinking she could still save the evening, she added, “Stay and have a drink with us.”

  Mae was nearby and added her voice to Katrina’s, putting her arm around her friend’s shoulders. “Don’t you know I might never see her again after tonight? You’re not going to drag her away already, are you?”

  Katrina could see from John’s face that he wasn’t in the mood to joke with Mae, or to humour any of them for that matter. Instinctively she felt the need to mediate, and above all to get John away from there before he became even more displeased with her.

  He was silent as they walked to the car, brushing off all Katrina’s attempts at conversation. Once they’d got in, she said, “What’s wrong, John? Why are you being so . . .” and then she didn’t know which words to use, and settled in the end for, “unlike yourself.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said with a short laugh. But he wouldn’t speak to her on the drive back to his flat.

  “Have I done something?” she said at last, when they were nearly home. “I can see you’re upset—”

  “I’m not upset,” he said. “You’re imagining things again.”

  Again? she thought.

  His strange, silent mood persisted once they were back in his flat, even though he initiated sex with her. Katrina hoped this meant things would return to normal between them, but John wasn’t loving like he usually was. He was distant and perfunctory, manoeuvring her into different positions in a way that seemed strangely impersonal, and not once looking into her eyes or kissing her. It made Katrina want to cry, but she managed not to.

  Finally, as they lay next to each other, John said, “I can see why y
ou were so keen to shake me off.”

  “Shake you off?” Katrina said. “What do you mean?” She turned on her side to look at him, but he continued to stare up at the ceiling. She hated this most of all, she realized, the way he wouldn’t look at her, wouldn’t seem to acknowledge her presence, even while speaking to her.

  He said in the same quiet voice, “So you could go tarting around with all those men.”

  “All those—? John, there were only two men there!” Katrina said, too baffled even to be angry.

  “Yes, I’m sure you do know the exact number,” he said. “And when did you change into that miniskirt, or have you been showing your legs off like that all day?”

  “It was hardly a miniskirt,” Katrina said, trying to keep her voice reasonable. “And anyway, I don’t think the merest glimpse of my knees will have driven anyone into a wild passion.” She spoke lightly, thinking that now the mood would change and they could laugh about it together.

  But John snapped, “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  At the venom of his voice, Katrina felt the tears starting up in her eyes. “Why are you being like this?” she said. He was behaving like someone else entirely. Katrina wondered how she had driven him to it, and how she could make him go back to how he was before.

  Her tears, it seemed, made a difference. Finally, John turned towards her. “Oh, love,” he said. “There’s no need to get upset. I just don’t want you making yourself look silly. I care so much about you. Perhaps it would be easier if I cared less.”

  “I didn’t look silly,” Katrina said, crying properly now. “I didn’t.”

  “I know you believe that,” he said. “But you have to understand, men see things very differently from women. All those men you work with, they will have been looking at you and thinking you’re a slut, dressed like that and flirting with them in the pub.”

  “No they won’t,” Katrina said. She rubbed her hands across her face. She felt unmoored. “They’re not like that.”

  “Darling, they are. All men are. Almost all, anyway. Look, stop crying.” He took a handkerchief from his bedside drawer and gently reached out to dry her tears. “You’ve been a wee bit naïve, that’s all. This is just a misunderstanding.”

  And afterwards that was how Katrina tried to think of it, if she allowed herself to think of it at all. She tried to exercise better judgment, avoided wearing short skirts or anything too tight, and made such an effort not to behave in any way that might be construed as flirtatious with her male colleagues that Ronald, the one she liked best, asked one of the secretaries to find out if he’d done something to upset her. Katrina was mortified, and realized she’d got the balance wrong again. She was friendlier from then on, without, she hoped, being too friendly. At least Ronald never asked her to make him tea again.

  Katrina and John married the week after Katrina’s twenty-third birthday. When Katrina told Jill about the engagement on the telephone, Jill didn’t sound happy about it. She said, “Are you sure? You’re very young.”

  “I’m sure,” Katrina said.

  “But have you really thought it through?”

  “Aye, of course.”

  At the end of the call, Katrina felt put out, but Jill and Chris came to the wedding two months later, at Glasgow City Chambers, and made a show of being cheerful. They even presented Katrina and John with a case of champagne, and Katrina was worried about how they’d afforded it. But John said it was a cheap kind of champagne, not really champagne at all, and wouldn’t have cost them much.

  The other guests at the wedding were Katrina’s mother, who cried during the toasts afterwards at the George Hotel and said she didn’t feel like she was losing a daughter so much as gaining a son; Katrina’s friend Mae who had come all the way up from London for the occasion; Katrina’s school friend Beth whom she hardly saw by then, but felt she ought to invite; and John’s brother Malcolm with his wife Heather—a quiet, gentle couple who appeared rather out of their depth throughout the day. John’s mother, apparently, was not well enough to make the crossing over to the mainland, and John’s father was dead. The guest list looked a bit sparse to Katrina in the run-up to the wedding, and she had asked John if there were any friends he’d like to invite. He’d shaken his head and said, “The only person I need is you,” and Katrina had been satisfied with this, because she felt the same.

  She had agreed with John that they’d move to Litta to have a family, but she had thought this would be a few years into the future. She’d envisaged spending a while longer in Glasgow, living in the flat he rented, cooking for him, going out to the pub some evenings, reading together by their gas heater, spending long, lazy weekends in bed, luxuriating in their love for one another.

  However, far more quickly than Katrina had anticipated—within a month of the wedding, in fact—she was pregnant. She’d wanted for some time to go on the pill, but John had never liked the idea; he said it was dangerous, and anyway, it encouraged promiscuity.

  “Promiscuity?” she said. “Are you serious?”

  “I meant in general. I didn’t mean you in particular.”

  “Oh, thanks,” Katrina said.

  He laughed and put out his hand to her. “The side effects, my love. It can be really dangerous. Won’t you trust me with this? I’ll take care of it, I promise.”

  Katrina decided to concede. And it was true that usually John would withdraw before he came, though not always. Katrina had given up trying to remind him. He said it ruined the moment, and sometimes it made him angry. A woman shouldn’t be telling a man what to do at a moment like that. Katrina had realized by now how sensitive John could be about certain things. If anything, this only made her love him more, this vulnerability at his core. His mother, from what little John had said about her, had a lot to answer for. Katrina made a silent decision to protect John’s feelings wherever possible. He wasn’t alone anymore; she would look after him.

  Anyway, Katrina couldn’t feel too dismayed at the pregnancy, not when it made John so happy. What kind of woman isn’t delighted to find out she’s carrying her husband’s child?

  John said they could stay on the mainland until she had the baby, but after that it would be time to move. He had already secured a house on Litta and was looking for a job as an accountant in Oban. He intended to work there a few days a week, commuting by ferry when the weather permitted and staying in rented accommodation on the mainland when necessary. He had it all planned out. Aware of her own disloyalty, Katrina secretly hoped he wouldn’t find a job in Oban just yet, and that they would have to wait a while longer. But as John said himself, he was successful in all his ventures—Katrina had almost come to see it as part of his character, like a vein of gold running through rock—and he was taken on by a firm in Oban just a week before Katrina’s due date.

  So six weeks after Nicky was born, they moved out to the island, Katrina still lost in a fog of exhaustion and shock.

  “Are you sure?” Jill said again on the telephone.

  “Of course,” Katrina replied. “It’s what we’ve always planned.”

  “It’s very far,” Jill said. “Two and a half hours on the ferry, is that right?”

  “Just under,” Katrina said, wondering why she suddenly felt so defensive.

  “Well,” Jill said, “good luck to you,” and for the first time in her life Katrina felt as though she disliked her sister.

  3

  Katrina knew no one on the island, and the isolation of her new setting, the bleakness of its dark hills and the endless expanse of sea, appalled her. She was cold all the time during that first winter. The cottage John had taken was draughty and there was no central heating. There was an old storage heater, but it used so much electricity that they couldn’t afford to put it on very often. Katrina felt the dampness of the salt air even inside the cottage, even inside her clothes, even inside her bones.


  She worried about Nicky being cold, and kept him wrapped in so many layers he sometimes looked almost spherical. There was a fireplace in the living room, and Katrina grew proficient at building a fire and keeping it going all day, remaining huddled in front of it with Nicky for hours at a time when the weather was particularly cold and wet.

  On better days, she would put Nicky in his sling and go out exploring her new home, tramping across the moorland and through the hills along the island’s single road. It brought her little pleasure. Everything was a variation of grey, even the sheep who watched her balefully as she passed them.

  Katrina had thought of herself as fairly self-reliant before coming to the island but in those first few months she was desperately lonely, especially as John often stayed overnight on the mainland and left her on her own. When he was home, he was preoccupied, different to the man she remembered, but in no clear way she could put her finger on. Nicky didn’t seem to sleep much and Katrina found herself unable to keep up with the shopping and cooking and laundry. John was mostly patient, but she knew he minded if he came home to find the house a mess and no meal prepared. And these were all basic tasks, she knew. The baby, too, made her angry with his constant crying and she felt guilty for how much she resented him. It had never occurred to her that she would be a failure as a mother, but she began to see how it had always been impossible that she would be anything else. She remembered Jill saying that their own mother had no feelings for other people, and Katrina could see that she herself had never stood a chance at something she had never been shown how to do. She began to wish she had never met John. It wasn’t fair on either of them. She began to wish she had never been born.

  With such a small population, she couldn’t have kept to herself for long, even if she’d wanted to. Malcolm and Heather lived a twenty-minute drive away on the other side of the island, and Heather would drop round from time to time to see Katrina. She seemed surprised at how often John was absent, and Katrina found she resented Heather’s surprise, wishing she would keep away. It made her angry to be caught out like this, with the house a state and Katrina herself a state too, her hair not washed for days, her face haggard with exhaustion, the baby crying as always and refusing to be comforted. She imagined what Heather might be saying afterwards to Malcolm, who would probably pass it on to John: “Of course, she’s trying her best, the poor lass, but anyone can see she’s not really cut out for it.”