He passes Brae Farm Cottage, where he used to live with Alison and Calum. A stone house on the outskirts, now renovated with box dormers and a tidy lawn. He has no idea when this transformation took place. Neal is curiously unobservant about the present world, but he clearly remembers the day he rented Brae Farm Cottage from Alison’s father. And the day a month later when Alison and Calum moved in. Calum had been about five. Nose permanently running, knees always scabbed. Must have been four years, all living together. At least four, maybe five. Neal pauses, as he does the calculations. Could it have been only three years? Three years in those days is equivalent to three decades now.
And a few minutes later, he’s on the High Street thinking, Wow! When did Alness get pretty? How has he failed to notice? Seems the whole town has finally shaken off that discordant feel from the seventies. Several signs announce the Alness in Bloom competition – it’s in the Ross-shire Journal too, but he hasn’t really taken it in. Planter boxes line the high street, no doubt full of sleeping bulbs. Empty flower baskets hang from shiny new antique lampposts. Pedestrians look wholesome and washed, with purposeful strides. The street looks like a stage, all set and waiting for the show to begin. Some of those babies in prams might be the grandchildren of those original oil workers. It’s possible Alnessians and the incomers have already meshed into a new hybrid tribe, perhaps with a lingo all their own. Highland, with a dash of Weegie. Heegie? Pure dead brilliant, so you are Gudgie. Got any Carlsberg?
Neal remembers his first few weeks in Alness. The way the A9 used to run right down the High Street, a constant flow of traffic, noise and exhaust fumes. And the way the pavements had been solid with gum and cigarette butts. The sense of claustrophobia at first, then liking the lack of anonymity. So what if he couldn’t even go to the shop for a bag of milk (yes, pints in plastic bags!) without seeing a dozen people he recognised. A chaotic, rowdy town in some ways, but he remembers a cosiness too. A homeliness to the mess.
And the locals? They were friendly, but he hadn’t mistaken that for acceptance. He knew as far as they were concerned, he was from Mars. Just lucky he had some money to spend. And lucky that some of them, like Alison, opened their doors a bit to incomers. So to speak. By the time he met her, she’d opened her door to quite a few Martians. He doesn’t like to think about that. Anyway, she’d opened the one door to him that really counted. They’d been friends, which on her terms was far more intimate than lovers.
Now the quiet High Street shines in the winter light and disorients Neal while he replaces his memory of Alness with the reality. Enough time has passed for the big picture to emerge, and he wonders how many of the Nigg workers (Nigg-ers, riggers, Sassenachs) had simply been like economic migrants everywhere. Mostly misfits, risk takers, people with little to lose.
For himself, he blames his hair. Not just ordinary ginger like his grandfather, but neon orange – thick and luminous. That in itself, set against his anaemic skin and blue-green eyes, was enough to brand him an untouchable from the day he left his adoring mother’s side and entered the school gates. Ginga, he’d been called. Sometimes Ginga girl. Perhaps there’s an evolutionary purpose for the outcasting of redheaded men. Neal’s theory is that, historically, redheaded men had terrible tempers and were always to blame when the tribe was decimated by the herd of raptors. Redheaded women don’t suffer quite the same stigma, strangely, so perhaps breeding with redheads is not the issue. In any case, his hair and his unhappiness were linked, and somehow liberating. He’d punched the air, reading about Nigg and the Invergordon smelter in the Evening Times. No skills needed! North Sea oil adventures! Helter-skelter in the smelter! Goodbye, Mother; goodbye, Father; goodbye childhood bedroom with depressing odour. He was never going to fit in at home, so why not stick out somewhere else?
Oh sure, he’d been optimistic, he’d even been heroic in a sentimental way. But mainly he’d been desperate. And the incomers like himself who remained here despite the smelter and Nigg closing, were they akin to … rhododendrons taking root in foreign soil and thriving? Or eucalyptus trees? Neal has a brief image of himself as a eucalyptus tree. What’s worse, a eucalyptus or a ginger- haired loser living with his parents? His glorious stint at Nigg had only lasted a year. He’d felt clumsy, sissy, disillusioned, and when the Ross-shire Journal job came up, he’d grabbed his chances. Half the salary, but so what? Nigg had only been the excuse.
Now he gives himself a serious shake, and focuses. It takes him eleven minutes to crack the coded maze of winding streets in Alison’s estate. Number 129 hides, but he finds it at last. He steps up to a mid-terraced, two-storey house and rings the bell. No answer, but he’s there, where she lives, where Calum used to live. She could appear at any moment. These steps have been trodden by her shoes. Her hand has rested right where his rests now – this iron railing. Surely it would feel different from all the other identical iron railings along the terrace. He looks at the two front windows of her house, one downstairs, one up, but the curtains are drawn. She is not here, not here, not a bit of her is here. But she’s been here, and for one minute this is sufficient.
After sitting in his car for a further five minutes, watching her house, Neal drives slowly home. His face drooping, his eyes vacant. If this is love, there is nothing joyous in it.
When he gets home, Sally says, ‘So why are you so late, Neal? Are you alright? You look shattered.’
‘I’m fine,’ he says. Takes his time removing his jacket, hanging it up. ‘Thought I was coming down with flu, but no. I’m fine. Stopped for petrol on the way home.’
Amazing, how he can lie now without his heart racing. Is this what unpremeditated sex can do, corrupt an individual’s very nature? It worries him. Maybe this is the way everyone lives, editing their own lives for public consumption. Maybe he’ll need to look at people differently now. After he makes a cup of tea for them both, he sneaks a hard look at Sally and asks, ‘How was your day?’
‘Oh, fine. The same. Insane.’
But what does she really mean? Sally always refers to her job this way. She works at Marks & Spencer, in the customer service department. Elite, this team. She’s explained they are not like the stockers or till girls, the cleaners or the security staff. Not the tired ladies who measure breasts for bras. Customer service ladies like Sally wield power. People suck up to them all day. Maybe she has sex with disgruntled customers on her coffee break, trades kisses for receipt-less refunds. If illicit sex can happen to him, it can happen to anyone, right? If he can keep it secret, then anyone can. Neal feels tired. It’s a tiring way to look at things.
She’s been watching the news, and now she turns her attention to it again. Neal focuses on the screen and wonders for the first time what it would feel like to have a son and then lose him. But he can’t imagine it. He can only know how it feels to want to imagine it. A kind of guilty hunger, that’s it.
The next day he phones again before he goes to work, while Sally is brushing her teeth. She takes exactly three minutes to do this. She is a serious tooth brusher, and what’s more, she is a flosser. He lets it ring ten times. No answer. Tries again that night, after Sally is in bed. He crouches in the dim kitchen, prepared to whisper, should Alison answer. This does not become necessary.
The pattern of phoning repeats itself all week. He varies times of calls. Once, he returns to her house, but her curtains are still drawn. He stands on her doorstep long enough to draw the curious glance of a neighbour, and he thinks this thought: Life has become stranger than I ever imagined it could be. He tells himself that he loves her. It’s the only explanation for this compulsive behaviour. It has physical symptoms – there is frequently a congestion of blood in his groin and upper chest, causing lack of concentration further up. Love at his age, with his serious and detached personality, is no fun at all, but he doesn’t will it away. He watches it with curiosity. It explains things to him, like why people do foolish dangerous things. Why they humiliate themselves. Like his dad running off to Skegness with a wait
ress called Myrtle, for god’s sake, who is younger than his father by eight years and wears turquoise leggings. And oh! The things a broken heart can lead to. Like his deserted cardigan-knitting mother taking up gin fizzes in her despair, then salsa dancing and Spanish classes, and finally Buddhism. He watches his own emotional transformation as if it’s a lunar eclipse.
And then, with just as much interest, he watches as it begins to fade. He can eat again. His sexual fantasies wilt. His libido slinks furtively back into its dank cave. He begins to doubt Alison wishes to be contacted. His name is in the book too, surely she would phone if she wanted to speak to him, to see him again. He begins to feel petulant, rejected. Humiliated, even. Probably she deeply regrets her behaviour on the funeral day. Probably she never wants to see him again, thinks him a fool. She hates herself. She hates him. He hates himself. Stupid woman – he hates her too! Anyway, he is tired of not feeling like himself. It’s been a huge strain, hardly worth the titillating hours in Golspie, and he will try to forget it happened.
But Sally inadvertently fans the embers one evening, over steak and kidney pie, ‘That poor woman, that old friend of yours – Alison Ross. I worry about her, just thinking about it.’
‘Yes,’ replies Neal, swallowing his steak hard.
‘That A9! Worst road in Europe for accidents. Read it in The Herald last week. Mostly young men.’
‘Aye? Terrible.’
Pause, while Sally has a quick look at Neal. Something about his tone. In fact, there’s been something a bit odd about him for weeks.
‘Are you in touch with her? With Alison Ross? Do you know how she’s coping?’
‘No. I don’t really know her anymore,’ he says, looking away. ‘Not for years. I don’t know how she is.’ Shut up about Alison, he thinks as loud as possible.
‘But didn’t you share a house in the old days? You and her and her boy? When you came up to work at Nigg?’
‘Yeah. You know I did.’
‘Oh. I’m exhausted, Neal. Of course I knew. Sorry.’ Her eyes widen, bewildered.
‘That’s okay, Sally. Hey, I’m sorry too, okay?’
Neal and Sally are always polite to each other. Always.
‘So anyway, you and Alison lived together back then. That’s a long time ago. Twenty years?’
‘Aye.’ He pours a glass of wine, having given up on the pie. He doesn’t even like wine. And his stomach bug seems to be attempting a return.
‘When did you stop being friends?’ she asks, pouring a glass for herself.
‘We’re still friends.’
‘Well, when did you stop seeing each other?’
‘I don’t know. When I met you, I guess.’
‘But you were just friends, right? Not boyfriend-girlfriend.’
‘Aye. Just pals.’ He remembers his finger inside her. Takes his plate to the sink.
‘So why … oh never mind. I remember her a bit, I think. Your hippie days, eh?’
Sally has a way of saying hippie that makes Neal feel defensive. Hippies are a joke now. He feels defensive; they were a good bunch. Better than the footie fanatics or the hunting-fishing-shooting lot or the alkies or worse, the golf-playing Thatcher lovers. Anyway, what had Sally been? A pretend hippie? She’d worn those clothes, had those records too. Traitor! Then suddenly he’s reminded of the way Alison referred to his marital status and Strathpeffer; she’d attached the word posh to them, like something tainting. Christ, women and the way they spoiled things with tones of voices.
‘Poor woman,’ she says. ‘I can’t stop thinking of her.’
‘Yes.’ Why, even at the beginning, has he never had this, this heated yearning for Sally? People might live entire lives without experiencing this visceral kind of love; well, he almost did. He scrapes the remnants of his pie into the bin and thinks of Alison’s kiss, pressing his lips together as he does. Strange that Sally has not noticed this other kiss on his lips. But then, he has trouble remembering the last time he’s properly kissed his wife at all. They’ve skirted round each other’s mouths these last five or six years, as if properly kissing is a stage they can skip now. Like the way they’ve begun to skip hoovering the inside of the car, or inviting folk round for dinner. Things are slipping on many fronts. When did it start?
He remembers the very first time they fell out. There’d been no angry words, just her scary sulk followed by her lecture on his anti-social behaviour. Afterwards, their marriage was never quite the same. As if their relationship had been chemically altered, diluted with a bitter alkaloid. He’d try kissing her properly right now, but she might be suspicious. Anyway, what’s so bad about the way they are? Quite relaxing, most of the time, this friendly distance.
‘Still, I expect she has lots of good friends to look after her. And family. People generally rally round, times like these.’
‘No doubt. No doubt, no doubt, no doubt,’ he repeats stupidly, clearing the rest of the dishes away and nibbling on a hard crust of French bread left on the cutting board. He never mattered to her a bit. The more he imagines Alison surrounded by her friends, her relatives, people he doesn’t know, the more she recedes, till she vanishes. She makes a little muffled pop as she exits, or that might be the noise of his jaws as he chews the bread, despite the fact he should stop eating now, really – all this talk is playing havoc with his digestion. He thinks of Golspie, again, and automatically swells down there, and this ache weirdly becomes a little smear in the air above the refrigerator. Sally seems to notice the smear, and rubs her eyes. It’s been such a long day, even her eyes are tired.
‘Nice pie tonight, Sally. Was it from Cockburns?’
‘Aye. They do a nice pie, alright.’ She yawns. ‘Though you didn’t finish yours.’
‘No. Well, this bug, it keeps ruining my appetite. But the pie was good, I could tell,’ he says inanely. Anything to change the subject. ‘Any pudding?’
‘Ice cream. Was Calum’s father at the funeral?’
‘No. What flavour?’
‘Vanilla. Who’s Calum’s father?’
‘Calum’s father? He didn’t have a father,’ he snaps.
‘Of course he did.’ She frowns, squints thoughtfully. Neal never snaps.
The kitchen is dense with unspoken words (his), and unwanted words (hers). Not to mention the sexual charge (his) that has crept in. Perhaps there is increased electrical energy with all the tension, because the refrigerator becomes audible. Also, the lights have flickered twice since Sally first mentioned Alison. This was unnoticed.
Then suddenly, it’s over. Neal slumps against the kitchen counter, and Sally remembers EastEnders is about to begin. The refrigerator lowers its volume, the lights steady. Neal decides to have a walk and leaves the house.
It’s a clear night with a full moon so white it’s blue. Frost sparkles on car windscreens. The grass under his feet crunches in a satisfying way. He wishes it would crunch louder. He wishes there was a big icy puddle he could go smash up. He wishes he could throw huge stones onto a frozen loch, let the noise of splintered ice and disturbed water wash over him. He wishes, he wishes, he wants … what? Only to hurtle himself, once more, into Alison Ross. Only that.
But when he is walking home again and sees the lit windows of his house, his steps quicken. Because isn’t that what marriage is, after all? A lit house on a dark street. And although it’s exciting for a little while, alone in the lovely dark, who wouldn’t prefer the cosy house?
A9
Roads are compared to arteries for a reason. A road map looks exactly like a drawing of a multi-hearted circulatory system. And like platelets afloat in blood, we flow along roads to our various hearts (homes), lungs (holiday destinations), fingers and toes (work, shopping, dental appointments). All of us in our different moods, our various states of decay, our hangovers and daydreams, get in our cars and head out every morning. And though young men have more chance of dying in a car accident than from anything else, none of them feel fear as they release the handbrake. None of them
anticipate sudden death. Not a single one anticipates causing a shrine.
The quarter moon is low to the earth tonight, lopsided and yellow, and altogether not very helpful. Zara moves carefully. Opens the boot and takes out three saplings, three rose shrubs, a bag of bulbs, a rubbish bag, a spade, puts them all on the ground. Opens the rubbish bag and gathers all the dead tribute flowers into it, puts the bag in the boot. All the time, thinking, Sorrysorrysorry Calum. Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I do love you, I was off my head when I said that. So fucking sorry darling.
Sighs, begins to dig. After five minutes stops. Sits. A car engine begins to be audible from a mile away, and she tenses and lowers her body to the ground, waits till the taillights disappear before she breathes easier. Not much traffic after midnight. Zara is an absentminded girl, and after a while she forgets to chant sorry and begins to chat to Calum. Just inconsequential things. The price of her new jeans. She lights a joint, and rambles on about the fact she saw his auntie in Boots. She mentions that his mum is much younger-looking than he’d made out she was, though she’s only seen her the once, at the funeral. She complains, but not in a dramatic way, that the avocados she bought yesterday were all mushy and bruised inside, and her own head and throat and guts still ache all the time. As she talks, she weeps quietly, and she plants things that can be planted in winter. Two silver birches, a pine tree, some rose shrubs, some daffodil bulbs. The cold snap is over and the ground is not hard. Around her are the winter skeletons of whins, thistles, broom, as well as old beer tins, a few bottles, crisp packets. And what is that under that blackened whin? A shattered wing mirror. She needs a tissue, can’t find one, and in the end uses her sleeve.
If I Touched the Earth Page 5