The Day We Meet Again

by Miranda Dickinson

  ‘And the words?’

  ‘It was a day I was really missing my friends. I wanted to mark that, so the snowglobe was the perfect emblem for the love I’ve left behind.’ I stroke the pebble and tell them Giana’s story. ‘The best part of being in Rome was sneaking around the city leaving painted pebbles for people to find. Tiny bits of our lives scattered for strangers to find.’

  Lisabeta beams. ‘We could do that here. In the garden. Paint our hopes and dreams for the years to come and leave them there for our future guests to find. And then when people stay, we’ll encourage them to paint a pebble, too and leave it here. It can be like coins in the Trevi Fountain – leave it in our garden to make sure you return.’

  So, that’s what we spend our evenings doing. We paint pebbles to nestle between the plants and flowers that will appear in the terrace garden. Each one will have a date painted as part of the design – either a date we want to remember or a date we’re looking forward to.

  I love how one simple idea Giana was given in a community group has grown to become something personal to everyone it has touched.

  In the middle of all the dates passed around Villa Speranza’s table during the long winter nights, there is one I can’t wait to arrive:

  14th June 2018.

  The day Sam and I have promised we’ll meet again.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Six, Sam

  I’m sitting with a bunch of musicians in a Tobermory pub, my head a little woozy from festive drinking and my stomach blessedly full of the landlady’s famous beef and ale pie. I’m a Mull lad but this is the first Hogmanay I’ve spent on the Island as a man. That seems wrong somehow. But it’s changed. I’ve changed. And not just the beard, which is Niven’s favourite thing to mock and the cause of Phoebe’s double-take when she saw it in our last video call.

  I hope she liked the Christmas tree note. I planned it as a surprise to bridge the gap that’s opened between us. My attempt to step up where I could. She has to know nothing’s changed about wanting her in my life, despite the dreadful way I’ve handled things. I hate not sharing news of my search. Not that there’s been any news – but that’s beside the point. I want to talk to her about it. I hate that I can’t. But until Doug finds anything – if there’s anything to find – there’s nothing I can say.

  We finish the song to cheers and promise to be back in twenty minutes. Tattooed Joe the barman declares Happy Hour and a swell of bodies presses to the bar. I reach for a glass of whisky as a hand pats mine. Julie Pritchard smiles and I move to let her squeeze onto the bench seat beside me.

  ‘Love your playing, Sam,’ she says, her voice several tones higher than usual, no doubt due to New Year whisky, the same as the rest of us. ‘Like an angel you are.’

  ‘Pleasure.’ I clink my glass against hers. ‘You having fun?’

  ‘As ever. I love Hogmanay.’

  I smile. ‘Me too.’ I see her smile flicker and take the cue. ‘I’m guessing Doug’s heard nothing?’

  She pushes her lips together and pats my knee. ‘I’m sorry. He’s not giving up, though.’

  We’ve had the same awkward exchange every week since Julie asked her husband to look for Frank. But at the turn of the year, knowing I’m halfway through my time here and aware of how fast the first six months have passed, it’s a blow. Worse, because I haven’t just been waiting for the police to uncover information. I’ve tried doing my own searches in Tobermory’s library, too, trawling old internet sites that list former bars and music venues and the musicians who played there, searching for death notices in newspaper archives. No mention, not even a passing reference. For someone regarded as such a legend here he’s startlingly absent from any kind of online record.

  Ailish catches my eye from the other side of the pub and raises her glass. I do the same. I won’t tell her yet what Julie said, although I reckon she’s already guessed. Since our row about Frank she’s made a determined effort to be on my side. I think she shocked herself with what she said to me. And she knows I’m trying to find Frank now.

  ‘Looks like we might be stuck here,’ Niven says as Julie leaves. ‘The snow’s coming down fast.’

  ‘I can think of worse places to be stranded.’

  ‘There is that. Everything okay?’ He nods at the seat beside me where Julie was sitting.

  ‘No news.’

  ‘Ah. Maybe they’ll get lucky soon?’

  Do I want them to? I’m getting used to not knowing. And what do I hope they’ll find out, anyway? That Frank’s dead? Or that he’s still around, causing trouble for someone else?

  I don’t have any answers to that. Like a lot in my life right now, I just have to trust that I’ll know what to do when the time comes. Overthinking achieves nothing for me. It makes me more likely to run, and I don’t want to run this time. I’m better when I play by heart.

  Niven’s right: we are snowed in. Those who live near enough struggle through heavy snow back to their beds. But for those of us left behind, Tattooed Joe offers accommodation in the pub. He declares a free bar and we help him fetch pillows, cushions and blankets from upstairs to make the pub comfortable for an overnight stay.

  * * *

  When Niven is chatting to Joe over a triple dram, I find a corner away from the bar. It’s late and I don’t know if I’ve sufficient signal, but there’s someone I want to talk to. I don’t know if it’s the unusual place where I’ll be sleeping out Hogmanay, or the effects of Tattooed Joe’s hospitality, but I’m suddenly brave. I don’t want Phoebe to be in any doubt of what she means to me.

  ‘Sam?’ Any remorse I might feel for waking Phoebe up is lost in the joy of hearing her delightfully sleepy voice.

  ‘Hey, sorry to wake you.’

  ‘You didn’t… Well, you did, but it’s okay. How are you?’

  ‘Good. Missing you.’

  She makes a happy murmur. ‘Miss you, too.’

  ‘I’m snowed in.’

  ‘In Fionnphort?’

  ‘No, a pub in Tobermory. With Niven and Ailish. And a free bar.’

  ‘Sounds like heaven.’

  ‘It is. It would be – if you were here.’

  ‘I wish I could be.’ There’s a pause and I wonder if she’s drifted to sleep again. Then: ‘Sam, are you sure you still want this? I know you have stuff going on…’

  ‘Yes, I want this. Things might be complicated now and I can’t say why. Just believe me that it doesn’t change how I feel.’

  ‘That’s hard when you don’t talk to me.’

  That cuts deep. ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  I hear her slow exhale. ‘It’s really late…’

  ‘Yeah. Go back to sleep.’

  ‘Thank you. For calling me.’ I hear the smile return to her voice. ‘I miss you.’

  I close my eyes, the first dull ache of the night creeping across my brow. Sleep won’t be far from me either. ‘I miss you too. Happy New Year, beautiful.’

  * * *

  Over the next eight weeks the music club restarts and so do our house gigs, when the weather permits. Shona rents a house not far from Niven. One silver lining to divorcing a high-profile rugby player who isn’t keen on details of his private life leaking to the press is that their out-of-court settlement has provided Shona with a valuable nest-egg. She plans to invest money in the music school, too. It’s good to see her putting down roots, even if part of me is nervous about her becoming a permanent feature of life on the Island.

  Phoebe and I resume our regular texts and emails, a little of the earlier ease we enjoyed returning. Thinking of her makes me not think about Shona and that works for me. At New Year I promised myself I would be better for Phoebe and I’m determined to step it up. Shona is a complication I don’t need.

  I settle into a good rhythm – until a phone call at the start of March blows everything out of the water. Doug Pritchard calls and asks me to meet him at Tobermory Police Station. Suddenly, all my carefully laid foundations are shaken.
But I need to know what he’s found.

  Ailish insists on making biscuits ‘for the boys’. It’s a little strange to walk into a police station with a flowered tin, even if the police station in question looks more like somebody’s bungalow than the crime-fighting hub of the island. But hardly anything on Mull works the way it would on the mainland, so I just go with the flow. Besides, this is Ailish’s way of showing her support and I appreciate it.

  Sergeant Doug Pritchard greets me at the front desk, his eyes sparkling over his impressive red beard when he sees the gift from Ailish.

  ‘She’s a star,’ he grins, opening a hatch in the counter that would be better suited to a pub bar than a police station reception. ‘Ailish used to babysit my sister and me when we were bairns. Her shortbread biscuits are the stuff of legend. Come on through, Sam. Can I get you a tea? I’d offer you coffee but the stuff PC McNulty makes is thicker than peat.’

  A middle-aged female officer reading a newspaper at the front desk tuts and turns the page.

  ‘Tea would be good, thanks.’

  ‘Great. Do the honours, Dora, would you?’

  ‘After that glowing endorsement how can I refuse?’ she mutters after us.

  I suppress my smile and follow Doug through to a glass-partitioned office with just enough room for one desk and a chair on each side.

  ‘Take a seat. Biscuit?’

  I decline. My stomach has been in knots since he called me this morning and tea is about the only thing I dare ingest.

  Five minutes later, Dora arrives with two incredibly strong mugs of tea, not stopping to accept my thanks when I offer it.

  Doug pops a shortbread biscuit in his mouth and places another on the desk as he closes the tin. ‘Cheery, she is. Good in a chase, though.’

  The mind boggles.

  ‘My kids love your music club, by the way,’ he continues, dunking a biscuit into his tea. ‘It’s all the wee one talks about. Shona’s great with them.’

  ‘Thanks. It’s been fun to set it up.’ Small talk is great, but waiting to discuss what I came here for is threatening to make me sick. ‘You said on the phone you have some news?’

  ‘I do. Tricky bastard to find, your da, so it’s a bit of a result, if I say so myself.’

  This is it.

  I take a breath and settle myself.

  ‘What have you found?’

  Doug’s smile softens for just a moment. ‘I’m guessing this hasn’t been easy for you. What with him high-tailing it when you were a bairn.’

  ‘I’d just like to know what happened to him,’ I say, the chair suddenly granite-hard beneath me. ‘It’s taken me a long time to come to that.’

  ‘I’m not surprised. Pardon my saying so, but what kind of a callous bastard walks out on his family like that, eh? I couldn’t imagine breaking contact with mine. Even if Julie turfed me out – which she may well do one day – I’d have to stay close so I could see our girls.’ Checking himself, he raises a hand in apology. ‘Forgive me. So, I contacted my superior at Oban and called in a favour. Unless we have reason to believe the missing person is either suspected of a crime or in personal danger, we don’t usually authorise searches. But Caroline is an old friend and she’d heard the stories of your father, too, growing up here. So, she pulled some strings.’

  At least Frank’s mythology has proved useful for once. It doesn’t make me feel any more comfortable, though. ‘I appreciate it, thanks.’

  ‘Pleasure.’ Doug takes a stapled set of A4 sheets from the tray on his desk. ‘Now before we start, I have to say we don’t know whether your father is still alive. Having said that, there’s no death certificate registered in his name that we could find. We didn’t manage to locate him in person, but we have good reason to believe that we’ve found his most recent address.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Edinburgh. The phone number you gave us was that area, so we worked on the assumption that while the number was no longer operational, Frank might still be in the city. Eventually, after more than a few blind alleys, we got lucky.’ He slides one of the sheets across the desk to me. ‘The address for the number you had was in Leith. Now, we think he left the city for a while because at that point the trail goes cold. But then, he suddenly turns up again. We believe Frank’s most recent accommodation is in Abbeyhill.’

  I scan the typed search information, taking time to absorb it all. I’d recognised the code in the number on the photograph but had no idea when my father had given that to Morag. ‘Do you have any idea how long Frank was living in Edinburgh?’

  ‘Aye, we looked into that, too. With the exception of a few months in Glasgow and almost a year on Shetland, we think he pretty much remained in and around Edinburgh until, as I say, his brief disappearance between his Leith and Abbeyhill residences.’

  The news hits me like a rock. Was Frank close to us when we were in Dumbiedykes all those years? Was he no more than a bus ride away from the family he’d abandoned? Thank heaven Ma never knew. It might have killed her sooner than the drink.

  ‘This new address – in Abbeyhill – how recently was he living there?’

  ‘Well, there was no answer when my colleagues visited, but a neighbour confirmed Frank lived there with a woman. The last time she’d seen him at the house was about six months ago, she reckoned. We placed several calls to the property but none were answered. The line is connected, which suggests someone is living there, but we checked with the council and it’s listed as a rental property – private landlord. So there’s every chance he’s moved on.’ He sits back and takes a slurp of tea. ‘It’s a lot to take in, I know. And I’m sorry we couldn’t find the man himself. But maybe you’ll have better luck if you decide to visit?’

  * * *

  I don’t return immediately to Ailish’s car when I leave the police station. My head is ablaze with questions and I need to walk while I try to untangle them. Had I known my father was in the city would I have tried to find him? When I was a kid, long before I had WiFi or my family had access to a computer, I’m not sure I would have known where to look. And back then all I could see were the effects of Frank’s disappearance on Ma and Cal – the toll on our lives.

  The Dumbiedykes flat wasn’t an easy place to live. The landlord scared the bejeebies out of us kids and Ma was forever complaining to him about the damp and the smattering of black mould rising up the walls from its festering carpets. I’m convinced Ma’s drink problem was hastened by the place we ran to. She blamed herself for trusting Frank, for not being the woman her own mother told her she should have been. She hated her own bones, as our neighbour used to say, a face full of pity over the cigarette slouching from her lips when we met her on the concrete walkway leading to our flats. It’s no wonder she drinks, your poor ma. If you blame your own skin for holding you together, what hope is there?

  * * *

  I walk into Tobermory and skirt the multicoloured houses of the seafront, the smell of salt from the ocean strong and the gulls screeching overhead. Compared to where my mother eked out an existence for us, this place is a dream. How bad must life have been with my grandmother to make her prefer our grim, damp-ridden flat to this?

  I’m about to leave the seafront and climb the road up the hill out of Tobermory when my phone buzzes. I check the screen and double take.

  PHOEBE – VIDEO CALL. ACCEPT?

  I know she’s been working long hours at the villa lately, cataloguing books and restocking the library, so I’d told myself not to expect much contact for a while. But this is the sweetest gift anyone could have offered me today.

  ‘Surprise!’ she grins. My life, she’s beautiful. Her skin has caught the sun even more than in the last photograph she sent me. Gold streaks dance in her hair, which is wavier than I remember. Behind her the sky is a deep blue and she’s shielding her eyes from the sun. In the shadow cast by her hand, they look enormous, slate-green against her skin.

  ‘You look amazing,’ I breathe.

  ‘Sorry, you mig
ht have to speak up. It’s not the best connection.’ There’s a moment’s delay between sound and picture, which makes her look as if she’s talking in a dream. She is a dream – a vision on my phone.

  ‘I said you look amazing,’ I repeat, my heart swelling when I see her laugh.

  ‘Okay, I heard you the first time. I just wanted you to say it again.’

  ‘Shameless!’

  She shrugs. ‘Not sorry, either.’

  ‘It is so good to see you.’

  ‘You too. Amanda and I came into town to get some supplies and I just found a pavement café with WiFi. I thought I’d give this a go.’

  ‘I’m so glad you did.’

  ‘Sam, I just wanted to…’

  ‘I’ve had some news.’ I can’t hold it in any longer. ‘It might mean I have to go to Edinburgh.’

  ‘News about your dad? Oh Sam, is he still alive?’

  I want to tell her everything but she looks so happy and I just can’t hit her with it. I haven’t told her about the police search, or my row with Ailish. She knows nothing except my gigs and the music school. I want to tell her, but all I manage is a nod.

  ‘If you want to talk…’

  ‘It’s okay. It might be nothing. I’ll sort it.’

  It’s too late, her smile is gone. Why did I even mention it?

  ‘I’d like to help.’

  I want her to help. I do. But there’s so much crap in my head – about Frank, about where he was during my lonely childhood years and, worse, about why he ran from us. I haven’t forgotten Ailish’s words about my urge to run like my father did and it scares me. Doug’s revelations and this curveball when I felt I’d found an even keel – it’s a juggernaut thundering towards me. And it’s too much to land on Phoebe. ‘I know. Forget I mentioned it. How’s the library?’

  ‘It’s good.’ She runs a hand through her hair but it isn’t to move it out of her eyes. I see what I didn’t want to: her frustration with me. ‘Sam, tell me to shut up if you like, but just let me say this? If you find your dad, if you have the chance to see him, I think you should go.’