‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘Argyll or somewhere.’
‘Well, wherever it was they don’t have phone signals so I imagine they don’t have trains or buses either. So you came in a car.’
‘Your logic is impeccable,’ I say, but I don’t think she hears the irony. ‘I came in somebody else’s car. They gave me a lift.’
‘So they have a car. Can you bring it? To help get Magnus home. Or they can, this somebody without a gender. They can bring their car and we’ll get Magnus back home where he belongs.’
In my days away I have forgotten how impressive is Sonya’s ability to shift a question into a statement of intent in one breath, whilst simultaneously slipping in some pointed social commentary. She presumably thinks I have attached myself to a female driver and for some reason this irks her. If only she knew the truth!
‘They could. They might. I would have to ask.’
Poppy is washing dishes. Corryvreckan is drying them. They are both hearing my side of the conversation, and probably most of Sonya’s too.
‘Could you do this one thing for me, Douglas? Could you ask?’ she pleads.
‘What about a taxi?’ I suggest.
Corryvreckan says, quietly, ‘We can take the car.’
‘What about a taxi, Douglas? Have you seen the weather? Even if I can get a taxi, I don’t know how long it will take to fetch Magnus from the ward to the exit. I’ll have to let one taxi go and then order another while Magnus is waiting around on crutches, probably in agony. I mean, have you thought about that at all?’
‘I don’t think they’ll let him home if he’s in agony,’ I say.
‘We’ll go in my car,’ Corryvreckan says. ‘Tell her that. I’ll park as near as I can until everybody is ready, then we’ll take her and her son home.’
‘You are cruel, Douglas. You have a cruel streak in you.’
‘No I don’t,’ I say. ‘And as it happens, my friend Corryvreckan has offered to come with me, collect you and Magnus from the hospital and take you home.’
‘Your friend who?’
‘Ed,’ says Corryvreckan.
‘What?’
‘Say “Ed”,’ says Corryvreckan.
‘My friend Ed Corryvreckan,’ I say.
‘Just “Ed”.’
‘Just Ed.’
‘Just Ed? Who is “Just Ed”?’
‘A man of honour and integrity,’ I say.
‘Well, please thank him for his offer,’ Sonya says, calling off her inner foxhound. ‘Which I gratefully accept. Eleven-thirty. Don’t be late.’ And she is gone.
I have been instructed: I am not to be the late Douglas Elder. Nor will I be: my choice. All I want is to get this over with.
‘She says thank you,’ I tell Corryvreckan. ‘And so do I. It’s very kind of you. Ed.’
‘My pleasure,’ he says, and I realise that it is not only his name that has altered. All the way down the road last night, I was puzzled by a sense that some subtle transformation was coming over Corryvreckan. The further we got from Glentaragar the stronger that sense was, and again over breakfast this morning I felt it. His voice has shifted, gone down in pitch. Those overwhelming, not quite authentic West Highland intonations have faded, and now his accent is … not exactly neutral – for neutral is not a neutral term in this context – but less pronounced. That’s not it either, for how can one accent be less pronounced than another? He sounds more southern, more – I hesitate to use the word, for what too does this really mean? – English.
I think Corryvreckan is reverting to his Edward Somethingness. To his original state of being a Friend from the South.
‘We’ll go in about half an hour,’ I say.
‘Very good,’ says Ed, and retreats to the living room.
‘Ed?’ Poppy says. ‘Who the hell is Ed?’
‘It’s complicated,’ I tell her. As if I should have to!
We return to the parental bedroom. We have both slept well. In the middle of the night we woke at the same time, made love, fell asleep again. There was no talk of anybody else being in the room: no talk at all, in fact. We were alone, together.
Her overnight bag and my suitcase on wheels are not unpacked. She opens a drawer and finds it full of clothes my father no longer needs. She closes it again.
‘Sorry,’ we both say.
‘Don’t apologise,’ we both say.
There is work to be done, clearly, but not yet.
‘We won’t be long at the hospital,’ I tell her. ‘But I do need to see her.’
‘Sonya?’
‘Yes, and Magnus, and his sister if she’s there. Do you mind?’
‘Of course I don’t. Don’t be too hard on Sonya.’
‘She’s pretty hard on me.’
‘Well, she’s been under a lot of stress. And you sound bitter and I don’t think that’s who you are or who you want to be. And maybe, Douglas –’
‘Yes?’
‘Maybe you weren’t the easiest person for her to be with.’
I consider this.
‘You’re right. I’d have chucked myself out years before she actually did.’
‘Well, then. You were incompatible.’
‘Like a cheap ink cartridge.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. You might find the same thing. That I’m not the easiest person to be with.’
‘Perhaps, but there’s a difference.’
‘What’s that?’
‘We’re compatible.’
‘Do you think so?’
‘Yes, even if we aren’t the easiest people, we’ll be all right.’
‘Poppy?’
‘Yes?’
‘What about Xanthe? Where does she fit in?’
‘I don’t think she will.’
‘I’m not sure I could cope with you going off to be her every once in a while. Don’t get me wrong, I liked her, but that was before I met you.’
‘I’ll tell her.’
‘Don’t be too hard on her.’
She smiles. ‘Okay.’
‘Right,’ I say, ‘I’d better go. You and Rosalind make yourselves at home.’
‘We will.’
‘I’ll need to see my father as well.’
‘Perhaps we could come and meet him?’
‘That would be good. I’ll phone you later and we’ll arrange it. Here’s a spare key. Will you be all right?’
‘We will.’
There is somebody else I need to see too, but I don’t mention him.
DESTINY
Ed drives me to the hospital. It’s a wet Saturday morning, and the city is heaving with revving, hooting, highly competitive traffic, but it doesn’t seem to be bothering him. Would it have bothered Corryvreckan, a man for whom Oban is too busy? Ed, I note, is still wearing Corryvreckan’s clothes, but sans deerstalker.
‘How are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Fine.’
‘You seem quite detached.’
‘It’s my default state.’
This is not something I can imagine Corryvreckan saying.
‘Ed, do you ever feel that you’re in a dream and want to wake up, but you can’t? Or do you ever feel that you have just woken up from a dream, even though you know you haven’t?’
He taps the steering wheel as we sit at lights.
‘No,’ he says at last. ‘But sometimes I feel I am in a dream but it isn’t my dream. That’s an odd feeling. Quite unnatural, in fact.’
I glance at him and he glances at me and there is a sharing of something between us. Horror, perhaps. Then the lights turn green and we are moving again.
There is nowhere to park on the streets around the hospital but to our surprise we find a space in the hospital’s own car park, not far from the main entrance. Ed switches off the engine and looks as if he is preparing for a long wait.
‘Why don’t you come in with me?’ I suggest. ‘I don’t know if Magnus will be in a wheelchair or on crutches or what. There might be things to carry.’
Neither of us has brought a coat but fortunately the rain has eased off. We enter the building and ask at the information desk where we can find Magnus Strachan, then start the long walk to Ward 28 along corridors decorated with children’s artwork and posters advertising helplines for obesity, smoking and sexually transmitted diseases. There are lots of people going in all directions, the professional, medical ones marching with purpose and confidence, the visitors and patients looking bewildered or resigned, as if they have entered a maze by mistake and must now see it through to the end, however many hours it takes. It’s like walking through an airport. Ed and I swap glances again: clearly he is still detached. Oddly enough, I feel quite detached too.
We come to a kind of concourse. Across it, heading straight for us, is Clan Strachan: Magnus in a wheelchair, holding a pair of crutches and with his left leg sticking out before him in a cast; Sonya pushing the chair; and Paula alongside clutching several plastic carriers, with a sports bag over her shoulder.
‘Hello, hello, hello!’ I call cheerily. One for each of them.
‘You’re late,’ Sonya says.
‘No, you’re early,’ I reply, for it is not yet half-past eleven. ‘Magnus, how are you? Paula, let me take some of those. Ed, this is Magnus, Paula and Sonya. Everybody, this is Ed.’
Greetings are exchanged. Magnus says he’s fine, and he doesn’t look too bad apart from a few scratches and a neck brace, and the stookie of course. He doesn’t even have a bandage on his head, but then, being old-fashioned, I belong to the Beano school of picturing what people look like who have had knocks on the napper. He seems genuinely pleased to see me, and even Paula smiles grudgingly and lets me relieve her of some of her bags, but it is the interaction between Sonya and Ed that is most intriguing. Abandoning the wheelchair and ignoring me, the former makes a beeline for the latter. And something happens. It’s hard to describe precisely what, but a kind of glow comes over her.
‘Ed,’ she says breathily. ‘I can’t tell you how grateful I am. I am so grateful.’
‘It’s not a problem,’ Ed says, and a glow comes over him too. His voice has deepened further and his chest seems to swell a little under the green tweed waistcoat and, in a shabby-chic, eccentric kind of way, Edward Something strikes rather an impressive pose there in the middle of the hospital thoroughfare. I have to remind myself that he is in his early sixties. He doesn’t look it – but again, what does that mean, not to look your age? It’s meaningless.
‘It is so kind of you to do this for us,’ Sonya is saying, launching charm-offensive missile number two. ‘We mustn’t detain you any longer than is necessary. I’m sure you’re a busy man, but if you’d care to … That is, if you’d like …’
‘Let’s get Magnus home first,’ Ed says, scoring maximum points with minimum effort.
‘You’re absolutely right. That’s our priority. But then … but only if you have time … some lunch?’
I’ve never seen her so tongue-tied. It’s as if she can barely suppress her desire to offer him hospitality. I am almost persuaded that she means it, she really wants him to stay for lunch. At least for lunch. What is going on? I may doubt her sincerity, but that’s because I’m tired of her. Paula isn’t convinced either, judging by the mask-like expression on her face, although that could simply be too much make-up. I can see, however, that to somebody else – like Ed – the full Sonya still packs quite a punch, and that’s without taking into account that she is looking at her very best. I have mentioned before her long dark hair, the delicacy of her ears and the slenderness of her fingers; but not the unblemished bloom of her skin, the neatness of her nose, the bigness of her eyes, the fine proportions of her figure and the casual elegance of her dress sense.
‘It would be a pleasure,’ Ed growls, and Sonya practically expires on the spot. And something else is happening. That age thing: Sonya and Ed both seem to be shedding years by the second. I glance from one to the other, and I even see in Sonya that elusive resemblance to her daughter, and in Ed that elusive resemblance to someone else, as he smiles calmly at Sonya, and as Magnus smiles bemusedly at the pair of them. What? I glance again, but this time between Magnus and Ed. Yes, it cannot be denied: Ed carries a shade of Magnus about him, and Magnus carries a shade of Ed!
‘Stuart?’ Sonya says, wide-eyed.
‘Stella?’ Ed says, narrow-eyed.
‘What is going on?’ I say out loud, but to no one in particular.
‘Nothing, nothing,’ Sonya says. ‘I must have … You are quite … Oh, what were we saying?’
‘We were talking about lunch,’ Ed murmurs. ‘The only problem,’ he continues, assessing us through those narrow eyes, ‘is how we’re all going to get into the car. It’s not a big car. Magnus in the back seat, I think, and one in the front with me, but …’
‘I’m not coming home,’ Paula says. ‘I’ve got to go to work. Early shift, Mum, remember? I’ll catch a bus up the town.’
Sonya gives me a look. Ed, only slightly apologetically, gives me another.
‘It’s not a problem,’ I say, echoing his earlier tone of insouciance but not really bringing it off. ‘I’ll give you a hand to the car, then I’ll leave you to it. You won’t need me at the other end if Ed’s with you, Sonya. Anyway, I should really go and see my father.’
‘Yes, you should,’ she says, closing the deal instantly. ‘Somebody phoned me the other day from that home you put him in, trying to get hold of you. How they thought I could help I’ve no idea, especially as they already had your number. And anyway, that was after the attempt on Magnus’s life so I had quite enough on my plate.’ She is speaking very fast, as if intent on recovering lost ground.
‘It was an accident, Mum,’ Magnus murmurs, sounding just like Ed.
‘Accident? I don’t think that hearse was full of drink by accident! The idiot driving it was engaged in criminal activity and everything flows from that. And the worst thing – Ed – is the injustice of Magnus having to share the same ward with the very man who tried to kill him.’
‘We were in separate rooms,’ Magnus says.
‘It’s the principle,’ Sonya says. ‘He only broke his leg too, which seems so unfair.’
‘Actually he has a broken pelvis and damage to his back, so I was told,’ Magnus says. ‘It’s quite serious.’
‘Well, whose fault is that?’
I watch Ed carefully during these exchanges. I’m looking for signs of hesitation, panic or retreat. There are none. On the contrary, he seems to be quite happily lapping up everything Sonya says, and regarding her with a kind of fond, dreamlike curiosity. And he is eyeing Magnus with almost paternal concern.
But Magnus’s father is in Australia. Isn’t he?
‘Are you okay with that, Ed – if I leave you to it?’ I ask, checking one last time, giving him one final opportunity to snap back into reality.
‘I’m fine.’
‘Very well. On your head be it.’ No, I don’t say that. I lean in and say, ‘You take care of her.’
‘I intend to,’ he says.
We are now even. He’s a grown-up. So am I. I am not responsible for him, nor for Sonya, and he’s not responsible for me, nor for Poppy. Nor, it seems, for Ruaridh MacLagan or Stuart Crathes MacCrimmon.
If that makes sense.
Or even if it doesn’t.
Sonya reluctantly separates herself from Ed and returns to chair-pushing duties. We continue to the car. On the way, I ask Paula how she’s getting on at work.
‘Fine.’
‘How’s Barry?’
‘Who?’
‘Barry, your colleague at the Lounger.’
‘Oh, I’m not there any more. I’m at the Blue Bonnet on the High Street.’
‘Is that so? What went wrong?’
‘Nothing. I just didnae like it there. That Barry was a tube. He wanted to get off wi me so I told him to stick his job and went and got another one.’
‘That’s i
ncredibly enterprising, Paula,’ I say. ‘And quite courageous, if you don’t mind me saying so. Was he angry?’
‘Aye, but that’s just what he’s like. When he realised I meant it he just about started greetin.’
‘Barry?’
‘Aye. He’s a big bairn really.’
I am impressed. The cool nonchalance of this nineteen-year-old is amazing.
‘And how’s the Blue Bonnet?’
‘It’s all right. It’s mostly tourists and students. They’re nae bother at all.’
‘That’s great, Paula. You’ll probably end up running the place.’
She laughs. She actually laughs. ‘Not for a while, Douglas.’
‘Tell me,’ I say, ‘if it was a tube competition, who would win, Barry or me? Which one of us, in your opinion, is the bigger tube?’
No I don’t. I’ve learned my lesson. I quit while I’m ahead, and Paula and I part on good terms.
With Magnus safely stowed along the back seat and all his belongings in the boot, Sonya installed in the front passenger seat, and Paula having left for a fun-filled shift at the Blue Bonnet, I wish Ed luck and wave them off. Then I retrace my steps to Ward 28, which I manage to do without the aid of either an actual or metaphorical ball of wool.
A police officer is sitting on a chair outside a closed door on the ward. I think about all the kids’ comics, Carry On films and other deep springs of life’s lessons from which I have imbibed, and recognise that to get past this policeman, even in what appears to be his state of near-comatose boredom, I will have to find a disguise. I retreat, and go in search of a white coat and, if possible, a stethoscope.
I have to report that white coats which aren’t already occupied are surprisingly hard to come by in big hospitals, and unattended stethoscopes impossible. I walk for miles looking for staff changing rooms, laundry rooms, store cupboards and other likely sources, until finally, in Haematology I think, I pass an office with its door open and there, draped over a swivel chair, is a doctor’s white coat. I lean into the room: nobody suggests I should knock or wait. I step right in: nobody demands to know what the hell I think I’m doing. I swipe the coat, tuck it under my arm and hurry back to the other end of the hospital. Halfway there I nip into a Gents and slip on the disguise. I have noticed that many doctors favour the open-coat look, but my checked shirt and lack of tie are a bit too casual so I button up, noting from the name-badge on the lapel that I am, for the next few minutes, Dr Rodriguez. Not perfect but, I hope, sufficient.
To Be Continued Page 37