In Loving Memory

by Gerald Hammond

  The effort of authorship eventually palled. After all, my life until a month or two ago would have made the average ditchwater look exciting. Small wonder that a state of depression has become so normal to me that I only notice it on those rare occasions when something cheers me up. Then for the past week I have not known whether I was one of the good guys or one of the bad.

  When I went downstairs again, Jimmy had moved to a more comfortable chair in the sitting room. I made us a snack lunch and when the washing-up was done I told him that I wanted to go out for a walk.

  I quite expected him to object that he was comfortable, that it was cold outside and that I was supposed to be kept safe out of the public. I thought that his main motivation would be that we weren’t to be seen together. If he refused, it would be a bad sign. But he looked me up and down and said, ‘You’ll freeze, dressed like that. Don’t you have anything warmer?’ In the end, I pulled up a pair of jeans under my skirt and he lent me a duffel coat that did quite well with a belt round my waist and the sleeves rolled up.

  Jimmy was quite right. When we got outside and away from the shelter of the cottage, there was a cold wind blowing. Lacking gloves, I rolled down the sleeves of the duffel coat and held the cuffs in my hands. I must have been a funny sight but who was to see me? The only people that I’ve seen here have been the few who’ve swept past in cars and one lady who walks two spaniels on leads every afternoon and gives me a shy smile if we meet. It was stimulating, the wind and the wild surroundings, as if we were two quite different people.

  We walked down to the roadside. There was almost no traffic, but when we met the lady with the spaniels and again when the only vehicle, a plumber’s van, went past, Jimmy turned to look over the water. The view was interesting enough, with the sun sparkling on the water and clouds leaving shadows on the distant hills, but not interesting enough to repay so much study. He obviously did not want his face seen, but whether this was vanity or discretion I had no way of knowing.

  Jimmy was beginning to talk quite freely. He turned out to be very knowledgeable about country things, especially birds. He told me that, when he was hardly more than a child, he was sometimes sent to stay with an uncle and aunt at Kilcreggan and his uncle had been a source of country lore. The big birds were geese, he said, mostly greylags. He even showed me the differences between several sorts of wild ducks and when we got back to the cottage I looked in the bird books and he was absolutely right. I wouldn’t have put him down as a country lover, somehow.

  I would have liked to return through the fields, where I thought that there would probably be rabbits, but my only walking shoes would not have been up to a tramp through wet grass. As it turned out, we had to go back by road, the shortest and driest way. While we walked, clouds had been banking up behind us and when we turned round it was to face a blue-black mountain of cloud. Almost immediately, we were struggling into a violent wind and the rain was coming down – I can’t think of a comparison that hasn’t already been over-used. Let’s just say that it was sluicing down.

  A duffel coat is comfortably warm but it is far from waterproof. By the time we had gone fifty yards I was soaked through and the duffel coat weighed a ton. Jimmy, who had put on a plastic mac over a fleece, was a little better. There was no shelter along the way, the few trees being leafless. We arrived back at the cottage in a hurry, just as the rain began to lessen.

  With surprising chivalry, he insisted that I take first turn in the bathroom. A hot shower restored me to warmth and comfort even though the only towels were small and rough. Expecting a windfall, I had got rid of most of my wardrobe. Now, with my workaday dress and my jeans soaking wet, I was left with a choice between a fancy coat with imitation fur and a thin and clinging dress. I put them both on for the moment, but Jimmy had built up the fire in the sitting room in order to dry clothes over the fireguard. The room was insufferably hot and I soon got rid of the coat.

  Jimmy arrived in a woollen shirt and cavalry twill trousers with his hair tidily brushed. I was sitting on a footstool with my back to the fire, trying to brush out my wet and tangled hair. He took one look in the direction of my underwear, which I had draped over the fireguard and, really and truly, he blushed on the side that didn’t have the port wine stain. I had left him some space on the fireguard and he put his more masculine things beside mine, carefully leaving a respectful gap. At least the fireguard now screened much of the scorching heat off me. He gave me his old newspaper to stuff into my shoes.

  My hair always dries quickly. I was glad to get off the footstool. He made room on the settee, still keeping his blemish on the side away from me, and I resumed my efforts to untangle my hair. I don’t know what came over me. Perhaps it was the domestic intimacy of the moment. ‘You know,’ I said, ‘you don’t have to keep turning your left side to me. The port wine stain doesn’t spoil your looks. After the first glance you’re just as handsome on the right as on the left.’

  He made a strangled sort of sound, his blush became almost purple and he dried up completely. I guessed that, because of his port wine stain, he had been shy of girls and had stayed away from them, only going with tarts who wouldn’t giggle at his blemish, at least until after they’d been paid. I couldn’t blame him for that; I knew the feelings only too well.

  When he found his voice, it was evident that I had startled him. His accent became stronger and there were signs of ‘the patter’ – the Glasgow slang – slipping into his words. ‘Ye’re a heidbanger,’ he said in a choked voice. ‘Ye’re the wan with the guid looks. Efter half a minute you canna see the wee plook ony mair and then you’re a wee smasher, so y’are.’

  I couldn’t remember anybody paying me a compliment for my looks before, except for one or two boys who were obviously hoping for a special sort of reward. It was my turn to be tongue-tied. There was no suitable reply without repeating what I had already said. So I half-turned and gave him a sisterly little kiss on the cheek before going back to teasing out my hair. He seemed to have lost his voice altogether. In the end, I turned my back to him and said, ‘You can finish brushing out my hair if you like.’

  I handed my hairbrush back over my shoulder and he almost grabbed it. He worked away in silence and very gently as if he were afraid of hurting me. Even when my hair was smoother and better brushed than ever before, I let him continue. A girl can never have too much of that sort of attention..

  Water had got into my watch, which was only a cheap copy anyway, and it had stopped; but I thought that the clock on the mantelpiece was about right and it seemed that the afternoon had slipped away. It was time to begin preparations for an evening meal. I was about to break up the cosy scene, but wondering whether to give him the chance of an easy and more passionate kiss, when he spoke suddenly. ‘You dinna waant tae get hooked up wi the likes a me,’ he said.

  Somebody once told me that the first sign that an affair was becoming real was when the parties started developing a telepathic link and anticipating each other’s thoughts. His sudden grasp at my secret impulse made me jump. Instead of bridling and insisting that there was no way that I would consider getting involved with him or anybody like him, I heard myself say, ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’m bad news, that’s why not.’

  That was much the answer I expected although the fact that we were still talking and that he was still brushing my hair combined to suggest that the worst of the news was not inevitable. ‘One way or the other,’ I said, turning to face him, ‘I can guess why I’m here. But why are you here?’

  ‘Tae make sure that you’re still here when you’re wanted.’

  ‘I’ll be here,’ I said. ‘I’ve nowhere else to go.’

  He nodded silently. I got to my feet, then stooped suddenly and kissed him on the lips. He froze for a moment and then grabbed me and pulled me towards him. I was prepared for anything from a return kiss to a violent ravishment or even a spanking, but not for a gentle kiss on my haemangioma. It was a tactful but convincing statement th
at he found my blemish acceptable. I managed a quick peck on his port wine stain and jumped up and away.

  *

  We ate without speaking aloud although countless messages were flickering silently between us. Neither of us could think how to break the new silence that was strung between us like a cobweb. I decided that a parallel subject might break the ice without breaking the mood. I kept my tone curious rather than anxious. ‘How did you get into your line of work?’ I asked him.

  He shrugged. ‘Born into it. When I was a wean, I ran errands for a man. He’d been a professional footballer who didn’t make the big time. I found out later that he worked as a runner for bookies an’ that like loan sharks. When I left school I became a boxer but I was just one mair who never made the big time. My friend gave me odd jobs. I must have been seen as reliable because I made my way up the ladder. I’ve been right through the mill, seen all the rackets. Now I work for the boss of all the Glasgow bosses, but I’m a very small fish in a big puddle. I do what I’m told to do, which is whatever he’s being paid to get fixed, and just now that means keeping you safe.’

  I got up and went to the sink to begin washing up. Over my shoulder I asked, ‘Couldn’t you just chuck it? Walk out and get a proper job?’

  ‘No,’ he said again, so sharply that I jumped. He paused. ‘No,’ he said again, more softly. ‘Once you’re in, you soon know too much. Like I said, I’m small fry – but I could still be a gift from God to the law. You see, there’s a new kingpin in the underworld and the days of the old Glasgow gangs are coming back. The police are desperate to turn back the clock, but not too far back.’

  ‘They wouldn’t really—’ I began.

  ‘So they would!’ He paused again, for longer, and I could feel the tension in the air. ‘I’ll say this once. Dinnae you ever tell onythin, assuming you get the chance. There was a time I helped pit a man under a motorway. He’d tried to quit. He was a freen of mine and he begged me for help but if I’d helped him I’d only have gone the same way. There, now! His face still comes back to haunt me. And think of this. How long would it take them to find me, with this stain on my face?’

  ‘You could get a skin graft. Why didn’t you?’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ he asked me.

  ‘I can’t,’ I explained. I had finished at the sink. I went through to the sitting room, knowing that he would follow. ‘It’s not the usual haem . . .’ I struggled to recall the exact word. I had not heard it spoken aloud for years. ‘Haemangioma,’ I said at last. ‘I was told at the hospital that it was inoperable. It has a root and the optic nerve’s involved. Now, tell me why you didn’t get a graft.’

  ‘I was scared,’ he said simply. He joined me on the settee and this time he sat the other side of me so that I was looking at his haemangioma. ‘Shit scared. I’ve had a man come at me with a razor and once a man with a samurai sword and neither of them scared me, or only a little bit, because I kent each time that if I was quick and clever I could get it affa him without getting cut. But a man coming at me with a scalpel gonna cut me up and knowing that I was going to let him, weel, that did frighten me.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can understand that.’

  He turned to face me, only inches away. There was only one small lamp on but I could see the glow in his eyes. ‘Yes, I believe you do.’

  We kissed after that and did all the things that lovers do. He seemed to enjoy exploring my body and giving me the guided tour of his, and we took a long time over it. I had expected him to be rough but when he decided that the time had come it was as if he had melted into me.

  We have had three precious days, and we may have one or two more, walking the shingle and looking at the birds during the day, laughing like children, and making love at night. He makes love so tenderly that I could almost be sure that he means it. Perhaps it’s enough that I can believe him to be sincere if I try hard enough. He gave me a gold watch. He has a camera and seemed pleased to take photographs of me.

  He is nursing his cellphone, expecting word from his boss. Somewhere, they are deciding whether I live or die. I can see it clearly now. The evidence I gathered, with accounts and receipts showing clearly that he had faked his election expenses, could damage the MP, and it could make it quite impossible for him to push for the oil refinery site. The syndicate or partnership or whoever’s promoting that site uses Jimmy’s boss for any strong stuff. My fate may depend on whether the big man would rather earn a fee for getting rid of me or use me for blackmail. If they tell Jimmy to kill me, he must do it. I wouldn’t expect or want him to put his life on the line for me and I know that he’ll try to make it painless.

  However it goes, I know that this golden interval won’t last forever, it never does. Nor should it. I am in a moment of happiness or pleasure, whichever you want to call it. Such intervals can never endure forever any more than a person could live on a diet of honey and wine. I don’t mind a whole lot either way. What future is there in this country for a black girl with a badly marked face? Work, sex, babies and death. At least I shall have had a love of my own and escaped for a while from the black depression that followed me for most of my days. I can take that memory with me, still bright and untarnished by time.

  He’s asleep now and it’s the time for the lady to walk her dogs past here. I’ll slip out and ask her to post this for me.

  Chapter Fifteen

  For the remainder of the evening, Honey was noticeably subdued. Even nursing Minka, which could usually be counted on to make her broody and contented, failed to raise her mood.

  Sandy could hardly have failed to guess what was wrong. He decided to be brisk and bracing rather than invite more melancholy. ‘This isn’t like you,’ he said. ‘I thought you’d learned by now to stay detached from the tragedies. In this job, every case has to be a disaster for somebody. Empathizing with the victim only interferes with cool reason. The most you can do is to take comfort from the fact that you may be helping to prevent it happening again. And consoling the bereaved by letting them see retribution in action, even if it is secondary. We’re not in the revenge business, no matter what people think. Our job is to keep the villains out of society, even if society does its best to make the job difficult.’

  ‘I do know all that,’ Honey said coldly. ‘I’m not entirely an idiot. I know you believe that women think entirely with their emotions.’

  ‘I don’t think any such thing,’ Sandy protested. ‘If you were strictly honest, you’d probably accept that there are certain topics that the average woman and the average man tend to approach from different angles.’

  ‘I can accept that if you can accept that the woman’s approach is often the right one.’

  ‘Granted,’ said Sandy. ‘Provided that we don’t start arguing percentages. Let’s just say sometimes rather than often.’

  Honey looked at him suspiciously before deciding to abandon that argument. ‘But I feel that I was getting to know the girl,’ she said. ‘I was coming to like her. She was being given a glimpse of happiness and now it’s over.’

  ‘And she was dying without regretting its passing. Most people who find happiness will move heaven and earth to keep it, which is impossible.’ Honey moved to interrupt but he hurried on. ‘Either happiness stays or it doesn’t, but the much advertised “pursuit of happiness” is self-defeating. If you chase a fly, you’ll find that it’s quicker than you are, but if you keep still it’ll land on you. Your friend Cheryl had come to terms with the fact that it rarely lasts forever. That was her view, rooted in experience,’ he amended hastily. ‘You and I are the exception that proves the rule. Her writing leaves you in no doubt that she was of a depressive turn of mind. You said that yourself.’ Sandy got up to mix drinks. A stiff brandy and anything could be counted on to improve Honey’s mood. When he was seated and sipping a Glenmorangie, he said, ‘At any given moment there must be in the world say – to pluck a figure out of the air – a million people absolutely miserable. And at the same time there may be anothe
r million who are deliriously happy. A month later, many of them may have exchanged moods. You can’t grieve for everybody who’s sad or rejoice for everybody who’s happy. Perhaps a saint might do so, but perhaps not. The most that we can hope to do is to be sympathetic, help when we can and let it be a reminder that tragedy may strike us later but that it hasn’t touched us yet. Meanwhile, you can continue your subscriptions to Oxfam and the others and rest contented that you’ve done what you can to improve the average of human contentment.’

  Honey choked. ‘I didn’t think you knew about that,’ she said.

  ‘There’s a lot I know that you don’t know I know,’ Sandy said complacently. ‘I asked the bank for a repeat of my last statement and they showed me yours by mistake. I didn’t mean to snoop, but your mandates caught my eye. I don’t mind, why should I? It’s your money and I respect your uses of it. If you felt a desperate need to go out to Africa and throw yourself into famine relief, you’d have to give up your job and I’d have to point out that you do more towards global wellbeing in helping to combat crime here. Last year, didn’t you put away a gang who were beating up asylum seekers? So how do you go from here?’

  ‘Slowly,’ Honey said. ‘The body and the scene are both in the territory of Detective Superintendent Largs, who promises to keep me informed. The girl’s recent history, and probably her background, were hereabouts. However, she must have been afraid that what she wrote down might fall into the wrong hands at the wrong time. She’s avoided naming names. Except, of course, for Jimmy, but every male creature in Glasgow is addressed as Jimmy until known otherwise. There are one or two others, and any or all of them may turn out to be just as illusory. We don’t even know whether the parliamentarian referred to is in Westminster, Edinburgh or Brussels. If we knew the permissible expenses that he’d exceeded, we might be able to work out where his constituency is.’