by Iain Maloney
‘I’m okay, thanks.’
‘You sure?’ said Dad. ‘You haven’t eaten since you arrived.’
‘I had a good lunch on the road.’
Isobel was watching me, the lawyer in there, the look I could recognise from Ash.
‘I’ve been meaning to ask,’ said Dad, signalling to a waitress, ‘did you ever see Graeme Anderson in New Zealand?’
‘Graeme? Yes, I saw him.’
He ordered another round for them all. I ordered a glass of lemonade.
‘I know his dad. Used to anyway. I saw Graeme in Under The Hammer… och, it must be three years ago, maybe four. Quite the celebrity, he was. This is a boy Carrie went to school with,’ he said to Isobel and Gavin. ‘Professional snowboarder, bronze in the Olympics.’
‘How did you know he was in New Zealand?’
Dad looked shifty, embarrassed. ‘I didn’t. I thought he might be. We got drunk that night. Very drunk. End of the night it was just us two. He was staying in a hotel, didn’t want to stay with his folks you see, so we ended up in the bar there. He was asking about you all night. Talking about you. How you helped him out, helped him realise his dream, how he owed it all to your advice. Seemed to have a thing for you. Anyway he was going through something, a crisis, midlife crisis he called it, not even thirty and he’s having a midlife crisis.’ Gavin and Isobel rolled their eyes. Kids these days. ‘Anyway I told him you were in New Zealand. I got the feeling he intended on using that information.’
Graeme. Just like he’d said. Turning up in Dunedin wasn’t an accident. I could see him, standing in that flat as I yelled at him. ‘He did, yes. He’s still there now.’
‘Young romance rekindled, that’s lovely,’ said Gavin.
‘He’s not moving to Hawaii with you, is he?’ said Isobel.
‘You definitely are a solicitor,’ I laughed, feeling no mirth. The only one who never left. ‘He’s running a shop in Dunedin, teaching snowboarding in the season, designing equipment for a company in Fife. We were going out for a while but it didn’t work out.’
‘Why not?’ said Gavin. They were all drunk, the three of them, not an ounce of diplomacy between them. I was trying so hard.
‘He wanted a housewife, Gavin, he wanted someone to do his washing and have his kids. That’s not me.’
‘You don’t want kids?’ said Isobel.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Do you have kids?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Never wanted them either. More trouble than they’re worth.’
‘I wouldn’t swap having a kid for anything,’ said Dad.
‘Yes, but you’re talking about Carrie,’ said Gavin. ‘I have kids,’ he said to me. ‘Off somewhere with their mother. No idea where. When you talk about not having kids, you have to imagine not having Carrie, imagine her never having been born. For Carrie and Isobel it’s different. They’re imagining not having abstract kids with no names, no faces, no memories attached to them. It’s much easier.’
‘It’s not easier,’ said Isobel. ‘There are still biological urges, but you make a choice. Abstract kids or current life. I’ve never found myself in the position of weighing one against the other and finding that kids would make my current life better. I assume it’s the same for Carrie.’
‘Not really.’ I’m not like you. But what reason could I give? That when I thought about kids I imagined someone else with my childhood, someone else living through what I did? That if I brought a child into this world and they suffered it would be my fault? I couldn’t say that to Dad, however true it was.
‘So why don’t you want kids?’ said Gavin.
‘Because I’m bisexual.’
There was silence for a moment, and I’m sure the hotel staff and the other guests were staring at our table. I drank my lemonade, the bubbles fizzing inside my throat.
The thing with problems, with issues as Ash would call them, is that there’s only space for so many inside you at any one time. If you push down one problem another pops up somewhere else. Something’s got to give, something’s going to come out.
Gavin was the first to react. He laughed, a big belly laugh that reverberated off the stone walls. ‘That shut everyone up. Well done, Carrie.’ Dad looked stunned, his forehead wrinkled like he was working something out. Isobel finished her wine, watching me as she drank.
‘But Graeme?’ said Dad.
‘God, Dad. I’m bisexual.’
‘Still hope for me then,’ said Gavin.
‘Gavin, if you have nothing useful to contribute…’ said Isobel.
‘Sorry, Gavin, but no. I have a partner.’
‘In Hawaii?’ said Isobel.
‘We met in Hawaii.’
‘The lawyer?’
‘Yes, actually.’
‘So you’re leaving Graeme for another woman?’ said Dad.
‘Yes. Well, that’s what I do, isn’t it? Leave.’
I could see the blow land, him flinching. The air fuzzed as we looked at each other, love and hatred sparking between. He was trying, pushing down anger, pushing back tears. Part of me thrilled that the power wasn’t one way. But the pain was palpable. Hating an abstract past from the other side of the world was nothing like hating your father sat in front of you. I looked down, away, catching Isobel’s eye in the motion. His defender was ready to pounce, the only one who never left.
‘Just like her mother.’ She stood up, lifted her bag. ‘Looks like these scientists are right. Perhaps there are genes for certain characteristics. Marcus, I’m going to bed. Don’t be long.’
I watched her weave through the tables.
‘I thought we could make it through one night,’ said Dad. ‘You read the book?’
‘I flicked through it. Enough to get a good impression of myself.’
Dad seemed to shrink back in his seat. ‘None of us come out of this smelling of roses.’
‘She does.’ I nodded at Isobel’s empty chair.
‘I shouldn’t have shown it to you. I didn’t think you’d read it tonight. I thought it might help. Clarify things. I want us to start again.’
I felt dry, parched, I sipped my lemonade but it felt flat, weak. I caught the waitress’s eye. ‘A Mâcon-Villages please.’ I didn’t want to look at Dad.
It was Gavin who broke the silence. ‘Well, when families get together, it’s never boring.’
My drink came. I sipped. It tasted of Ash.
I went for a walk before bed, the bitter chill a slap in the face. One of the audiobooks I used to block out the sound of them fighting when I was a kid was Robinson Crusoe. Hannah’s parents had given it to me as a change from those boring science ones. Alone on that desert island, starting from nothing, building a home, scratching out a life, each day, each month, each year a progression. I’d imagine myself there, making rope out of vines, reinventing fire, pulling fish from the sea. I was always almost disappointed when Friday came along. I looked out at the bruised sea, the salt in the air, the rumble of hidden power.
Jet lag. At half four I finally dropped off into a fuzzy doze, woke lost at six to some ungodly beeping. In the shower with my head against the tiles, water drilling into my skull. The face in the mirror needed make-up, eyes like an owl, pallor of pizza dough.
They were waiting in the restaurant for me, three well-dressed hangovers. I took my seat next to Gavin, ordered some camomile, some orange juice and a few pieces of fruit. Gavin had a full Scottish, Dad and Isobel both clasped cups of coffee. We all stared at the grease, bean sauce and tomato juice swilling around Gavin’s plate. The vitamins sank through my body, sparking synapses and cells. I wasn’t going to let Isobel think she was right. I wasn’t going to let her win. For one day I could put the past aside and play happy dysfunctional families.
Dad and Gavin were kilted. Dad’s was Fraser of Lovat tartan, a green, red and purple pattern. He was a good man for the kilt: thick, hairy legs, the stomach and beard of a feudal chief. Gavin’s was green and blue checks with marked red and white lines. ‘What clan is
that?’ I asked him.
‘Sutherland,’ he said. ‘We’re Mowats,’ he nodded at Isobel. ‘An old branch of the clan.’
Isobel was wearing a white skirt suit that looked expensive, definitely not off the rack. ‘You look lovely,’ I said to her. ‘Where did you get it?’ Like I’d recognise the shop. Sure enough she said a woman’s name like I should know it.
‘Is that in Aberdeen?’
‘Edinburgh.’
It was going to be a long day. ‘So, what’s the plan? Dad?’
He looked rough. ‘I was thinking about getting married.’
‘Not too hungover for sarcasm then. I meant—’
‘We’ll drive into Portree, registry office, I do, sign here, witnesses sign here, some photos, back here for the party.’
‘Do you want me to drive?’
‘Aye, could you? We’ve a bottle of champagne but we need a driver.’
‘That’s me. We’ll have to take your car though, my rental isn’t big enough.’
‘You’re a star,’ said Dad, perking up. ‘In that case, Bloody Marys?’ The other two nodded.
‘I’ll see you by the car.’
I took a walk across the lawn towards the sea and really wanted to go down to the beach but this wasn’t the day for crunching through pebbles and poking things in rock pools. When I was in second year the Geology Society organised a trip out this way. It was partly a serious trip to try out some of the techniques we’d learned in the classroom and partly an excuse for debauchery.
It was the first time I’d left Dad alone for more than a few hours. I called a couple of times but he never answered. On the Sunday night we had a party. The stress of worrying about him all weekend got to me and I had a drink, then another. We started playing games, truth or dare, that kind of thing.
That was twice now I’d come out on Skye.
By the time they appeared the vodka had done its work and spirits were reviving. They were much livelier as we got underway, Dad up front with me, Isobel and Gavin in the back. The single-track road was empty apart from a couple of locals who waved as the brush scraped the side of Isobel’s car.
‘I love this countryside,’ said Dad. ‘So dramatic. All the stories, Highlanders fleeing English soldiers, hiding from traitorous Scots, Alan Breck and his like, lads amongst the heather.’ I had an image of Dad, a memory from when I was ten or eleven, the two of us on the ferry from Kyle of Lochalsh, him with one hand on my shoulder telling me about Flora MacDonald and Bonnie Prince Charlie. ‘Talking of Alan Breck, they’re thinking about renaming Edinburgh Airport, Robert Louis Stevenson Airport,’ he said.
‘Nice,’ said Gavin. ‘Waverley Station, Stevenson Airport. Wonder what they’ll name the bus station?’
‘How about Aberdeen Airport?’ I said. ‘What could they call that? Annie Lennox Airport?’
‘Lewis Grassic Gibbon Airport?’ said Gavin.
‘Knowing that city,’ said Isobel, ‘it would end up Sir Alex Ferguson Airport.’
‘Like George Best Airport in Belfast,’ said Dad. ‘Football trumps everything.’
‘Liverpool is now John Lennon Airport, isn’t it?’ I said.
‘Yes,’ said Dad. ‘It was the first place he went when he got some money.’
I was a fully paid-up atheist but there was something about weddings in places other than churches that seemed bereft, the religious underpinning of the ceremony removed. Stripped of the ‘standing before God’ element, it really was just a confirmation of ownership for property purposes. Legal marriage, legitimate offspring, hereditary rights, inheritance. Could love not just be love?
Gavin and I stood back and watched them exchange self-penned vows, holding hands before the registrar.
‘On the ocean of life our rafts met. I pledge myself to you, that we may sail together for the rest of our days.’
It was awful. At least I’d never have to go through anything as sickening as that. If Ash and I ever could get married it’d be, ‘Do you?’
‘Aye.’
‘And you?’
‘Why not?’
And done with. Take the fear of God out and all you’re left with is sentimentality.
They signed their names. Gavin signed below, then I added my name, official witnesses.
Rings exchanged. ‘I had them made by a jeweller in Shetland,’ she said. ‘My own design.’ They looked like every other Celtic pattern I’d ever seen.
We drove back towards the hotel and stopped at Mealt Falls. A famous tourist spot, it was deserted as Dad and Isobel posed for photos in the unhelpful wind, Kilt Rock as the background, the stunning ninety metre basalt columns on a sandstone base that resembled the pleats of a kilt. As the light shifted the colours occasionally resembled a tartan. ‘A geologist’s wedding photo,’ I said, and Dad laughed. Gavin and I took it in turns to take photos, set the timer up for a couple of group snaps. Dad popped the champagne, filled four plastic flutes. ‘I’m driving,’ I said but he handed me the glass anyway.
‘We’re just up the road and that’s all you’re getting. You’re not going to refuse a drink on my wedding day?’
So I took it, the bubbles flushing my nose like wasabi. The shifting sunlight caught the white of Isobel’s clothes and I felt something like warmth towards her. It was strange seeing my dad like this, part of something that had nothing to do with me. He was a different person, a new person. I raised my glass to them.
A car drew into the car park and an elderly couple got out, wrapped up sensibly. They offered to take photos so the four of us posed, serious, silly, ready, caught out. They were retired, touring Scotland now they had the time for it. Dad invited them back to the hotel but they declined, a schedule to keep. We waved them off as if a happy retired couple was the best omen a wedding party could see.
‘I’m getting hungry. What time’s lunch?’ I asked.
‘Whenever we get back. You seem happier today,’ said Gavin.
‘Just exhausted yesterday. I still am but it’s nice to see him so happy.’
‘Isobel won’t apologise for last night,’ he said. ‘That’s not her personality. But she is sorry.’
‘I wish I had a brother like you.’
‘You have an uncle like me now.’
‘Step-uncle.’
‘I used to wish I was an only child, like you,’ he said. ‘Isobel and I fought through our childhood. But the older we got, the more we realised how much we had in common.’
‘When I was really young I was so happy I didn’t have a brother or sister, I could have my parents all to myself. After what happened – you know all about what happened, I assume?’
‘Aye.’
‘After that I wished I had hundreds of them, a whole army of siblings to look after Dad.’
‘It must have been hard.’
‘It was what it was.’
Back at the hotel Isobel went upstairs to change while the three of us went through to a private room. Dad and Gavin ordered gin and tonics and, the bubbles from the champagne still pinballing around my head, I joined them. Dad sat in a plush highbacked armchair and sighed, a content, satisfied exhalation. He looked over at me, smiled.
‘We’ve come a long way, Carrie. Long fucking way.’
I nodded, bubbles trying to push out through my eyes.
‘So, this lawyer of yours,’ he said, ‘what’s she like?’
As I told them about Ash, her auburn hair and tailored clothes, her trips to Hawaii, how we met, the clean version. Isobel returned wearing a turquoise dress in a 1960s Jackie Kennedy style, with a white cardigan. ‘Not ideal for the time of year,’ she said after we’d all commented on how much it suited her, ‘but we’re not going out again.’ Gavin went to the bathroom and the rest of us sat at the table with open menus in front of us. I was suddenly ravenous.
‘So what does she do at the UN?’ Isobel asked, her own gin and tonic appearing through the swing door with our second round.
‘Human rights,’ I said. ‘Just now it’s al
l Iraq.’
‘Any idea what?’
‘Not really, she usually wants to forget about work.’
Gavin came back in looking excited. ‘Have you seen the news?’ he said. ‘They found Saddam.’
‘What will they do with him?’ I said.
‘Back to America for the show trial of the century,’ said Dad.
‘No, they’ll hand him over to the Iraqi administration with instructions: death penalty.’
‘So they can find one guy in the desert but not a supposed stockpile of WMDs?’ said Gavin. ‘They found the oil okay.’
‘That’s not difficult. I can do that. Carrie can do that,’ said Dad.
‘I thought you were volcanoes,’ said Gavin, ‘not oil.’
‘You don’t study geology at Aberdeen without learning a thing or two about oil.’
‘Why did you choose volcanoes?’ asked Isobel. ‘Not many of them in Aberdeen.’
‘Part of the appeal, I’d imagine,’ said Gavin.
‘Partly, but almost all branches of geology require international travel. It’s a global business.’ Dad snorted, laughing while taking a drink. I smiled, pleased he’d got the joke.
‘Harry Boyle,’ he explained to them when he caught his breath. ‘An old friend of mine. He made that same joke a thousand times.’
‘Do you still see Harry?’ I said.
‘Harry now is it? It was always Professor Boyle before. Aye, I see him once in a while. He’s a busy man. Do you come across him at all? Conferences and things?’
‘His name, sometimes, but never the man himself. I used to meet a lot of his PhD students and one of his collaborated with one of my former students on a paper.’
‘You’re supervising PhDs now?’
‘Have been for years.’
He raised his glass. The waitress came and took our order. I went for the venison. The rich dark meat seemed just the thing for the atmosphere, the location. ‘Harry’s going to be the next Head of Department,’ said Dad.
‘Old Cameron is retiring?’
‘Ill health. Lung cancer I think, but that’s just a rumour.’
‘Seems likely.’
‘Would you ever take a job at Aberdeen?’ Isobel asked me. Our food arrived, two soups, a crab, a Cullen Skink and the scallops, and a bottle of Sauvignon blanc. We each had order envy.