by RL McKinney
At last he managed to extract her, and they walked slowly along the road to the house. ‘What did you think of that, Mum?’ he asked.
‘What did I think of what?’
‘The meeting we’ve just been at.’
‘It was awfully long and I was needing the toilet. I may have wet myself a little bit.’
‘Oh you didn’t, did you?’ He glanced down at her backside. She was wearing black trousers and nothing showed. ‘Why didn’t you just go?’
‘It’s rude just to get up. I was embarrassed to put my hand up.’
‘Mum, it’s not school, you don’t have to put your hand up. What did you think of the debate, though? The discussion.’
‘I didn’t understand a word of it. These are things that have nothing to do with us.’
‘They have everything to do with us.’
‘Well it’s not right, spouting opinions in public like that. You’re asking for trouble.’
He smiled. ‘Dad wouldn’t have liked to hear you say that. I wish he could be here now. He’d be in his element, he’d have nailed old Angus to the wall. You’ve got to vote yes for him, don’t you think?’
‘I don’t see what it’s got to do with me. What am I meant to be saying yes to?’
‘It’s about Scottish independence, Mum. We’re being asked to vote whether Scotland should be an independent country. Has this passed you by completely?’
‘Independent from what?’
‘Jesus.’ He stopped walking and stared at the water for a minute, sucked in a deep breath, counted to five.
‘Is there going to be a war, Calum?’
‘A war?’ He stared at her. She was so small, with her hands knotting and releasing and knotting again. As irrationally frightened as a child in the dark. ‘No, of course there isn’t going to be a war.’ He placed his fingers lightly on her arm. ‘I promise, there isn’t going to be a war. It’s a peaceful democratic process. We’re voting about whether to become independent from the United Kingdom.’
‘I was never a nationalist. Neither was your father. He didn’t believe in putting up walls between people.’
‘Nobody’s talking about putting up a wall. It’s about democracy. I think Dad would understand that.’
Mary then moved on as if what he’d said had no meaning. ‘They’re spying on us. I’ve heard them.’
‘Who? Who’s spying on us?’
‘Those voices that ring the telephone every day.’
‘What voices? What are you talking about?’
‘The robots. Spies. Whatever they are. They ring the phone every day at teatime. They say they’ve got my name on some list. They want to get inside my walls.’
‘Oh … ’ His palms came up to his eyes. ‘Mum, they’re just sales calls. They’re trying to sell you cavity wall insulation. It’s just a recorded message. All you have to do is hang up.’
She raised her index finger. ‘Either you think I’m stupid or you’re one of them, Calum. I think you are. Don’t think just because you’re my son you’ll get away with it. You won’t find anything on me, I’ve burnt it all.’
‘Aye, too right you’ve burnt it all.’ Anger like a missile seeking a bigger target than her. He got the recorded calls too, but had never bothered to listen to the details. There had to be some way of making a complaint, of letting them know what they had caused her to do.
Who were they?
He was in danger of sounding like her.
His mind tumbled into one of its familiar monologues:
I can’t do this. I can’t look after her. I can’t do this. Somebody take her away, I can’t do this.
I have to. There’s no one else.
Damn you, Finn, you never took responsibility for anything.
It’s up to me. This is my mum. This is my bloody mother.
BACKPACKING
Catriona stepped off the bus in Fort William, swung her rucksack onto her shoulders and followed a group of backpackers onto the ugly precinct that passed as the high street. It had taken her all day to get here, a bus from Aberdeen to Inverness and another from Inverness to here, watching the Scotland she knew, the east coast with its sweeping expanses of sky and field, become mountainous and unfamiliar. The hills sat above the town like the haunches of great brooding beasts, mist hanging around the tops, veils of rain passing over, clearing and coming again. To the west, the sky was dark purple-grey, rumbling with electricity, promising a deluge.
She had no idea how to continue her journey from here, or quite what she would do when she reached her destination, but now she was tired and it was going to rain. This place felt alien, almost like another country, and so for the first time in weeks, she felt safe. Safe enough, anyway, to stop overnight and figure out the rest tomorrow.
She overheard the group of young backpackers talking about a hostel, so she continued to follow them, away from the high street and up a steep residential street, to a shabby bunkhouse overlooking the town. The place smelled of old food but it was cheap enough and there was a bed available for the night, a top bunk in a room with five other women. Catriona climbed up onto the bed and pulled the duvet over herself, listening to her room-mates chatting and rummaging. Two of the girls poured torrents of Spanish as they organised the contents of their luggage. There were two Americans who lay on their bunks, their thumbs twiddling on their phones, and one older woman who sat cross-legged on her bed, writing in a journal. Comforted by the presence of the other women, most of whom ignored her completely, she dozed as the sky outside blackened and the rain lashed into the window.
When she woke it was brighter again, and the room was quiet. The Americans and the Spaniards had gone out, and the older woman was wrapped in a towel, rubbing apricot-scented skin cream onto her wiry arms. Without modesty, she let the towel fall and stood naked as she removed meticulously rolled items from a bicycle pannier and selected clean clothes. She looked about the same age as Cat’s mother, but had a knotty, angular body, tiny pert breasts, short blonde hair that stood out in spikes. Dressed, she turned and approached Catriona’s bed.
‘I’m Anna,’ she said, a musical accent that pointed towards Scandinavia.
Catriona sat up, rubbing her cheek and pretending to be sleepier than she was. ‘I’m Cat.’
‘I am going down to the town to have something to eat. Would you like to come with me?’
‘Oh, I … ’ Cat’s appetite had been strange lately and food didn’t taste like it used to, but she supposed she would feel better with something inside her. ‘All right. Thank you.’
As they walked down the hill, Anna told her that she was cycling the coast of Scotland, from Glasgow to the north coast, then across and down the east side from John O’Groats to Edinburgh. She was from Denmark where it was very flat, she said and laughed, and then embarked on an enthusiastic account of her exploits, including a near miss with a Glasgow bus that nearly ended the journey before it began. Catriona wanted to ask Anna why she would bother but the question felt juvenile. Instead she tried to imagine Jenny undertaking such a trip for fun. The idea was almost ridiculous. Jenny’s idea of a holiday was a sun lounger and an all-inclusive drinks package.
They bought fish and chips and sat on a bench overlooking the coal-black water of Loch Linnhe. Anna was uncomplaining, effusive about Scotland, curious about Cat’s opinion on the referendum.
‘I’m voting yes,’ Cat said. ‘To me, voting no is like saying you don’t ever want to grow up and leave your parents’ house. You have to, even if you … ’ she paused as a terrible pressure grew inside her. She closed her eyes and hot tears formed behind her eyelids.
‘Are you all right?’ Anna asked.
‘Yeah, I … ’ she blinked a couple of times, stuffed a chip into her mouth and focused on its comforting saltiness. ‘I was going to say, you have to leave home even if you really screw up along the way.’
‘This is the truth. Are you leaving home now, Cat? Is that why you’re upset?’
‘I’ve
been away at university for the last year.’
‘And it’s been hard for you?’
‘No … not really. Just … something happened there and it’s changed things for me. I’m on my way to see my dad. He lives in a village, west of here. I’ll go there tomorrow. I think there’s a bus.’
‘He doesn’t live with your mother?’
‘No, he never has. They were never married. I haven’t seen him for a long time.’ She pulled her phone from her bag and brought up a photo she’d found online. Calum was in a pub, playing his fiddle, face alight with laughter. ‘This is him.’
Anna took the phone. ‘So he is a musician,’ she said, and there was some kind of ominous wisdom in her tone.
‘He’s an amazing musician.’
‘Musicians are a special breed of people. Very beautiful and very passionate, but often they have … troubled minds. You know?’
‘Yeah, that’s what my mother says about him.’ Those weren’t exactly the words Jenny used about Calum, though there was a list of other terms that possibly added up to the same thing: unreliable, argumentative, irresponsible, thinks-he’s-cleverer-than-everyone-else, heid-up-his-ain-arse. And crazy. That was her favourite.
Anna nodded and continued to gaze at the photo for a moment, before handing the phone back. ‘He is very handsome,’ she said.
TELEPHONE
There was that blasted telephone again.
It was them.
Mary let it ring out but her heart was going like a bass drum. Why was her heart going? She was being daft. It was only the telephone. It would be Jack. He’d be late home again. Always stuck late on jobs and not taking the money for them. It was his way. Too kind for his own good. It would be nice to sit down to tea together for once.
No.
Not Jack. She kept imagining he’d walk through the door. He’d see her. His eyes would see her and he would smile and kiss her, and she’d wake from this dream. Why him? Why both of them? Why Finn? So long ago. Why did she keep forgetting?
She was left with the one that didn’t care. Calum couldn’t get away soon enough.
She didn’t know where he was. He never told her anything.
What if he didn’t come back?
Who could be phoning at this time? What did they want?
They were trying to get in.
No, they weren’t. They didn’t exist. Calum told her that.
But Calum could be lying. He did that. He lied. He had lied about Finn.
How else would they know she was here, if Calum hadn’t told them?
It would be Iain. He often rang about this time. He’d want feeding, the lazy old bugger. He’d be after a free meal. If ever a man needed a woman. She supposed she’d have to call round. She’d bring him a tin of tomato soup. He’d grumble and say it should have been home-made. Lazy old arse. Beggars shouldn’t be choosers.
She searched the cupboards for soup and eventually located a tin of Heinz. She tucked it into the pocket of her coat, stepped out the front door and walked up the road, into the woods.
WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOUR LOVED ONE HAS DEMENTIA
‘Here he is, Mary,’ Bert Richardson called into the living room, stepping aside to let Calum in. ‘See I told you, didn’t I, they always turn up when they get hungry.’ He patted Calum’s elbow. ‘She’s fine. We’d have brought her back up the road for you.’
‘No, it’s fine, Bert.’ Calum let out a shaky breath. ‘How long has she been here?’
‘About half an hour. She’s in good hands, she’s just scoffed two of Georgie’s scones in rapid succession. Come in, man.’ He brought Calum into the living room. In his Uncle Iain’s day, it had been a gloomy bachelor-cave, thick with old cigarette and wet dog smells. Now it was clean, white-walled with sliding glass doors leading onto a deck, gathering sunlight and shimmering reflections.
‘Take a load off,’ Bert said, motioning Calum towards the sofa where Mary sat with a mug between her hands. Her cheeks were very red but she appeared to have come to no harm.
‘You gave me a wee fright, Mum,’ he said, trying to keep his voice calm. ‘I came home and you were gone.’
‘You gave me a fright,’ she replied. ‘You just abandoned me in the house all day, with no idea where you were.’
‘I was in Acharacle, working.’
‘Well, you should have told me.’
‘I did.’
‘You never tell me anything.’ Then she switched to Gaelic. ‘English settlers in Iain’s house. Who decided to sell to them? I should have been consulted. It isn’t what he would have wanted.’
‘It was years ago already,’ he replied, in English. It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility that Bert and Georgie had learned some Gaelic.
‘A dram, Calum?’ Georgie said, coming in from the kitchen with a buttered scone on a plate.
‘Tea’s fine. Thanks, Georgie.’
‘Get him a dram, George,’ Bert said. ‘And tea. And while you’re waiting, you should come out and have a look at our brood. They’re doing beautifully.’
Calum put his plate onto the coffee table and followed Bert onto the deck, where a telescope was trained on the top of a pine across the tiny inlet. The eagles’ nest was an imposing construction, which the scope brought into such sharp focus that it felt invasive. The two chicks had grown nearly to adult size and had traded their downy fluff for sleek dark feathers. Their heads bobbed around as they kept watch for their parents.
‘They’ve been spreading their wings,’ Bert said companionably, ‘Ready to fledge soon. Ah … here’s a parent.’ He raised his binoculars. ‘Mum, with a fish. She’s a good mother, a better hunter than that mate of hers.’
Calum watched the adult eagle swoop into the nest and the voracious youths hop onto the fish, bumping each other out of the way and tussling. The mother stood on the edge of the nest and watched.
‘There won’t be much left for her when those two are finished with it.’
‘Always the way,’ Bert said beneath his binoculars, allowing Calum another quiet minute on the scope. He dropped his voice when he spoke again. ‘Mary said she was looking for your Uncle Iain. She got a bit upset when we told her.’
‘I know … I’m sorry about this, Bert. She’s had early-stage Alzheimer’s for a while, but it’s … moving on, I think. She seems to be forgetting that most of her relatives have died.’
Bert moved his fingers through his beard. ‘We wondered.’ He was silent for a moment. ‘My dad had it. The middle stages were the worst. Once he lost everything it was a blessing in a way, awful as that sounds. You’re in for a rough ride, I’m afraid.’
‘Aye.’ Calum leaned his forearms on the railing, stared down at the water and thought again about the faulty batch of brains his family had been given, terminal glitches hardwired to kick in without warning. Maybe it was some kind of twisted proof that God existed after all, that he was actually just a hack programmer with a sick sense of humour. All you could do was hope that your own glitch would be catastrophic, a haemorrhage or aneurysm that took you out so fast you wouldn’t even know it had happened.
‘Are you thinking of keeping her at home with you for good now?’ Bert asked.
‘She had a fire in her flat. I’m hoping she can go back, but she was in hospital for a little while and I think it’s made her worse.’
‘It always does. Look, Georgie and I are happy to help, call in on her from time to time, take her for a walk or a drive if we’re going over to town, that sort of thing. Don’t be afraid to ask, Calum.’
‘I hope this is going to be short-term, but … thanks.’
‘Take it from me, Son, you don’t want to deal with this alone. Come and have your dram, and don’t tell me you don’t need it.’
‘What happened, Mum?’ he quizzed her when they got home.
‘The telephone rang. I didn’t reach it in time, but I thought … ’ she paused, lips working, ‘I was sure it would be Iain. He used to do that, you know … ring and then hang
up. When he was lonely.’
‘You remember Iain’s dead, right?’
Mary nodded slowly. ‘Everyone’s dead. I suppose I’ll just have to get used to the fact that the village is full of strangers.’
‘Bert and Georgie aren’t strangers. You’ve met them before.’ But they would be strangers to her soon enough, he thought, along with everyone else.
‘They were nice enough people in their way, but not really the sort to fit in here.’
‘They fit in fine.’
‘Iain wouldn’t have liked what they’ve done with the house. It’s so modern.’
‘I don’t suppose Iain will be caring what it looks like now, and it was an utter tip when he lived in it.’
She tutted. ‘Well what do you expect of a man on his own, Calum? You were no better when you were young.’
‘I think the fact he was pissed most of the time had something to do with it.’
‘He was fond of a dram, but I never saw him drunk.’
‘Oh Jesus Christ, you never saw him sober!’
‘Language!’ she crossed herself, then sighed. ‘You’re so coarse. I never raised you to be so coarse. You’ll have learned that from the roughnecks.’ Her lips were pursed, her brows drawn together, deep lines scored into her forehead. ‘I’d like to go to Mass on Sunday. Maybe you’ll come with me for once?’
‘I’ll take you, but you know I won’t go to Mass.’
‘Will you ever explain to me why, Calum?’
At last, and where he least wanted to find one, a thread of continuity. They’d been having this same argument since he was fourteen. His refusal to be confirmed had caused an argument of Biblical proportions between his parents, and from then on, he’d quietly decided that his dad had been on his side and his mother on Finn’s. He decided that the conversation was finished and stood up. ‘I have tried, Mum, many times. I’m going out in the kayak for an hour. Please promise me you won’t go anywhere.’