Loving Susie: The Heartlands series

by Harper, Jenny

  ‘I guess it was a reasonable assumption.’ He looks the same, sounds the same. But he can’t be the same. It’s not just the edges of Susie’s reality that have begun to blur, but the very heart of it.

  ‘But I didn’t know. Archie, why didn’t I know?’

  He uncrosses his arms and rubs the back of his hand across his eyes. ‘I found out just a few weeks before our wedding,’ he says. ‘Remember when we were going to go and give the minister the paperwork for the banns?’

  ‘As father of the bride, I would like to take it upon myself to perform this last duty of care for Susan.’ She quotes the words precisely, her voice lowered in imitation of her father’s. Susie has a photographic memory.

  ‘Exactly.’

  The small front room in the Edwardian semi in Helensburgh. Neat as a pin, everything in its place, just as her mother likes it. There are flowers on the inlaid marquetry table in front of the window, their most prized possession. This is a special occasion. The wedding is imminent and her folks are in a spin over ‘losing her’. Her mother fusses and clucks over Archie (‘gaining a son’), her father is proprietorial but always loving.

  ‘He went with you,’ she remembers.

  ‘Did you never think it odd?’

  ‘Did you?’

  Archie’s brow furrows as he considers the question. ‘I did, just a little, but what could I say – to my about-to-be father-in-law? I just went with the flow. But I soon discovered his purpose.’

  ‘The birth certificate,’ Susie says slowly, putting in place pieces of a puzzle she didn’t know existed until a couple of days ago.

  ‘He told me on the way to see the minister the next day. He swore me to secrecy.’

  ‘But why Archie? Why didn’t they want me to know? That’s the bit that doesn’t make any sense to me.’

  ‘Think about it, Susie. You were twenty-five years old. I don’t know whether they’d made up their minds never to tell you or whether it just never happened, but by that time it was far too late. They couldn’t say anything. Especially not just before such a big event as your wedding. There was no way of knowing how you would react.’

  ‘Is that what Dad told you? And you went along with it?’

  Archie sighs. ‘Of course I said they should tell you. It seemed absurd to me that you didn’t know. But he was distraught, Susie, I’d never seen him like that. He said they couldn’t bear for you to know, that it might change everything. He was terrified that you’d stop loving him.’

  ‘How could he think that?’

  ‘You say that, sweetheart, but can you be absolutely sure? How are you feeling now?’

  ‘Terrible, what do you think?’ She takes a large gulp of tea. It’s almost cold.

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘But I don’t love them less, Archie, I’m just—’ she searches for the word that most closely matches her feelings, ‘—bewildered. Shattered. Adrift.’

  ‘And if that had happened then, just weeks before we married, what would you have felt?’

  ‘I don’t know! How could I know that?’

  He purses his lips and sits back.

  She’s irritated with him for being right. ‘So what then?’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Did he have my birth certificate?’ Archie is looking at her as if she has said something stupid. ‘What? He must have, surely, to give to the minister.’

  ‘Darling, what he gave the minister was an abbreviated certificate.’

  Susie feels the blood draining from her face. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘When they adopted you, sweetheart, they were able to apply for a new certificate, which showed the name they gave you, but not the full details of your birth.’

  She says, dazed, ‘It wasn’t my birth certificate?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So that’s ... I’m not good at this, Archie, it’s not something I’ve ever had to deal with. Did they know who I was? I mean, what did they know about my real parents?’

  He shrugs. ‘Your original birth certificate will be lodged somewhere, I imagine. I’m not sure how you go about getting it.’

  ‘My passport—’

  ‘I applied for it, same time as I got mine – remember? The abbreviated certificate was fine for that too. Not sure if it would be these days, but back then, it was perfectly acceptable.’

  ‘So you did,’ Susie says, her voice limp. ‘I never wondered why.’

  Archie manages everything – her tax returns, all the household paperwork, the boring nitty-gritty details of life that she finds too tedious and that he takes in his stride. It occurs to Susie that somewhere in the glittering trail she leaves in her wake is a well-oiled mechanism that makes things happen. She should feel grateful, but right now all she can feel is suspicious. He hid this from her. What else might he be hiding? What other little lies – or huge deceits – has he concealed?

  Robert MacPherson. Bobby. Her father. Not her father. The thought disorientates her so that she has no idea which way is up. She remembers Robert holding his arm out for her to hook hers through. The creamy lace of her wedding dress is like gossamer on the pale pink of her flesh, tiny pearls glisten in the sunlight through the net curtains. It’s her wedding day and her father is so proud of his girl.

  Not his girl. I was never his girl.

  ‘Who else knew?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘The neighbours?’

  ‘One or two, maybe. They must have known. I assume she came back – your mother – I assume she brought you home one day ...’

  ‘Dear God! Brought me home. Like a mail order baby. Early delivery for a small premium. We make every effort to match your specified colour but cannot guarantee size’

  ‘Try to not be bitter, Susie.’

  ‘Bitter? My whole reality has been turned upside down. Nothing in my life is what I believed it to be.’

  Archie says nothing, probably wisely. He allows her to work through her feelings, which she does, until she feels calm enough to speak again.

  ‘So Elsie Proudfoot knew.’

  ‘I guess she must have done. Probably your mother made her friends promise not to say anything. I can only assume she thought you’d have been told at some point.’

  ‘I can’t believe they never did tell me, not right until they died. That they didn’t even leave me a letter.’

  ‘They loved you, Susie. They were just scared, that’s all. They were worried that you’d turn against them.’

  ‘Is that what he told you?’

  ‘Yes. That’s exactly what he told me.’

  Fury fills her and she jumps up. She doesn’t want sympathy, or understanding, or even love. She wants to wallow in her sense of betrayal, grope for its edges and boundaries so that she can begin to understand the extent of the damage.

  ‘I trusted you Archie.’ She starts to stride to the window, then turns abruptly and moves towards the door. ‘I put all my love and faith in you. How could you have concealed this from me?’

  Archie spreads his hands in a gesture of appeal. ‘He made me promise.’

  ‘And your promise to him meant more than your duty to me?’

  ‘I did what I thought was best.’

  ‘And you thought that leaving me in ignorance was best.’

  He shrugs hopelessly. ‘If you didn’t know, it couldn’t hurt you.’

  ‘That’s so facile, Archie.’ She berates him bitterly for calling into play the cliché her mind has already processed. That isn’t fair, but fairness doesn’t seem to be a part of any of this.

  ‘It’s not been easy for me—’

  But she doesn’t want to hear excuses.

  Archie, watching Susie driving off, is struggling with the shock of her discovery. It had been a terrible secret to carry but he’d kept it, as her parents did, to protect her.

  He walks slowly across to the studio, knowing that settling down to work is going to be difficult.

  Anger begins to burn inside him. Susie is being judgeme
ntal – but what about her secret? The one she believes, quite mistakenly, that she managed to conceal from him?

  He smashes his hands down on the piano in a jarring discord and Prince yelps.

  Dammit! He has an album to write, but the mood has gone.

  Chapter Six

  Energy flares off Mannie Wallace like sparks from a Catherine wheel on bonfire night. Restless, impatient, easily bored, she wore her parents out as a toddler and tested their ingenuity to its limits as she grew and demanded entertainment. Where her brother Jonno is introverted but thoughtful, her cleverness takes a different form. She has an unceasing curiosity married to an eagerness to ask questions. She burns to persuade the whole world to her own point of view.

  These are all traits that are marketable and her career – quite naturally – took her into sales. Today, seeing Callum McMaster for the first time since his return from Courcheval, she’s happy to tell him of the successes she chalked up in the week he was away. She ticks them off on her fingers, one by one, her expressive hazel eyes brimming with vivacity.

  ‘Four weddings, Cal, six conferences – six – and three dinners, big corporate ones. Boss man he delighted.’

  ‘No funerals?’ Cal asks, the corners of his mouth twitching as he lifts his pint with anticipatory pleasure.

  ‘You can’t exactly put them in the forward diary,’ Mannie says, her tone lofty, before spotting the teasing glint in Cal’s eyes and shoving at him playfully. ‘Oh, shut up, idiot.’

  Cal grins and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He looks fit but relaxed, serenity itself by contrast to Mannie’s ebullience. Where Mannie is dressed for business in a smart dark suit, pin thin heels and cream blouse – power dressing personified – he’s wearing jeans and trainers and a Scotland sweatshirt. ‘I’m just amazed you haven’t persuaded the entire Royal Scots to divert their march down Princes Street and stomp in for a pint on the way to the Tattoo.’

  ‘Now there’s an idea,’ Mannie laughs, tapping the side of her head thoughtfully. ‘Note to self, call Army in morning.’ She’s only half joking because she will consider all ideas for exceeding her targets. Her bonus depends on it and her bonus is an important element of her salary.

  ‘So it’s been a good week, has it?’

  ‘Didn’t I just say?’

  ‘Missed me, did you?’

  His voice is teasing and she can’t quite gauge his seriousness. This troubles her, not because she doesn’t like Cal, but because she does. She picks up her cocktail and bends her face to the straw. She’s beginning to feel edgy about their relationship. Why is that?Because I’m scared, she answers herself. Scared you’ll get bored? No, not that, strangely, not this time. Be honest. That he’ll get bored.

  Callum McMaster is the latest in a line of nice boys she’s dated, each one of them sexy and smart and fun. Mannie likes men, she loves great company, but till now, at any rate, she has enjoyed the thrill of the chase more than the slog of maintaining a long term relationship. She gets a kick out of new-minted love. She has made a habit of adoring her latest man, delighting in the pure pleasure of discovering what makes him tick, what he likes to read, what music he listens to, whether he loves (as she does), going for long walks along the beach on a winter’s day or climbing Arthur’s Seat as the sun comes up. There’s nothing that gave her more joy than running her hands under his shirt for the first time, feeling the silkiness of the warm skin that lay beneath, or the hardness of the muscles of his chest.

  But there’s always a day when novelty palls and she discovers that the man’s mind is less agile than her own, that he likes olives and custard, which she hates, or drinks only claret and is disparaging about chardonnay. If exercise between the sheets is the only kind he takes, it dulls the edge of desire. Or if he washes his socks in the bath or doesn’t wash them enough, or – worst of all – if he is growing tediously possessive.

  Callum is different. Cal has a life of his own. Cal goes skiing with his mates, is a fanatical cricketer in the summer and footballer in the winter and he puts his sporting commitments above her pleas that she hasn’t seen him for ages. In short, Cal has managed to keep her interest alive for more than two years now, a fact that perplexes her greatly.

  I need to dump him, her built-in alarm system is telling her. Before he dumps me, is the uncharacteristic thought she’s trying to suppress.

  Mannie shares her mother’s need to be loved – her outward appearance of confidence can be misleading. She can be bossy, because she likes to be organised. And she’s ambitious – which, she’s well aware, many people see as pushiness. Underneath all of that, though, it’s important to Mannie that people like her. And Callum does care about her, she knows that, though he’s only casually demonstrative and not particularly vocal in the expression of his affection. She just doesn’t know how much he cares and, right now, she isn’t sure about how to answer him.

  Seeing her uncertainty, Cal answers his own question. ‘Just joking. I know you’ve been too busy to think about me.’

  ‘Wrong,’ she says teasingly, relieved a route has been opened up for her, ‘I thought about you all the time, about how hard it must have been giving up all that boring techie stuff just to ski down those mountains every day.’

  ‘I know,’ Cal nods seriously. ‘It was a difficult decision, but hey, someone has to do it or the ski resorts’ll go out of business.’

  ‘Slimeball.’

  ‘Gasbag.’

  ‘Thunderthighs.’

  ‘Gutso.’

  ‘Shut up!’ She says it with humour, but she means it. Mannie doesn’t have a weight problem – probably because she burns off the calories with her unceasing activity – but she does have a healthy appetite, eating voraciously and quickly. Sometimes she becomes embarrassed about this and Cal, who knows how to press her buttons, is never backward in using the trait to tease her.

  She likes this in him. She likes that he’s not deferential, that he feels comfortable in risking her possible displeasure, but somewhere there’s a niggle that he might actually mean it, that her unquenchable appetite is a turn-off.

  ‘I knew you’d be pleased to see me again.’ Cal drains his pint and gestures to his glass. ‘Another?’

  Mannie nods cautiously. ‘Why not? It’s only Wednesday night and I’ve only got a very important meeting at eight thirty tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Taking over the world?’

  ‘Not the world. Just Scotland.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘Looking forward to that desk of yours?’

  ‘Actually, yes. It was a great week, but the project I’m on right now is quite interesting.’

  She groans. ‘Don’t tell me about it, I wouldn’t understand.’

  Callum grins again, the smile revealing pleasingly white teeth and, even better, reaching his eyes so that they fill with amusement. He gathers their glasses. ‘Back in a tick. You can tell me your plan to take over Scotland when I’ve got another pint.’

  Mannie watches him as he moves across to the bar, the athletic easiness of his movements reminding her of one of the many reasons she is attracted to this guy. He’s sexy, and funny, and knows not to smother her with affection. He lounges against the bar, waiting to be served. He looks relaxed, full of understated confidence, buff. He turns towards her and winks and she feels a surge of desire. Bugger it. He is bloody attractive.

  ‘Mind if we don’t stay together tonight?’ He’s back, handing her a V-shaped cocktail glass, its contents pink and opaque, a wedge of lime balanced on the rim. ‘I haven’t even unpacked and I’m shattered.’

  She feels the heaviness that comes with disappointment. ‘I’m flattered you had time to see me.’ Stop it, Mannie, he’ll hate that. She curses herself and adds quickly, ‘Don’t worry, I was planning on washing my hair.’

  Callum shifts closer to her and lays his hand on her thigh. ‘So long as it’s nice and clean on Friday,’ he murmurs into her ear. ‘And doesn’t need any more attention till Sunday night.
’

  She giggles, relieved. Everything is fine between them. And that, she discovers, matters.

  Later, after they have left the bar and Callum has headed back to his flat, she climbs on a bus to Portobello, where she shares a bright apartment overlooking the sea with her two friends, Jen and Myra.

  As the bus trundles down Leith Walk, she notices that the number of Polish delis seemed to have doubled and that café society has reached even this rather run-down part of town. This is the neighbourhood for Asian stores, grocery shops, greengrocers, jewellers – specialists in 24-carat gold necklaces and huge, elaborate earrings. There are bric-a-brac shops and fabric shops, cheap bed stores and shops whose windows are so begrimed with dirt that it’s unlikely that anyone actually knows what they sell.

  When the bus turns right at the foot of the Walk, things get worse. They’re close to the old port, and it shows. Grubby Victorian warehouses, now empty and forlorn, display signs of such dilapidation that collapse seems imminent. Here and there, efforts are clearly being made to capitalise on brownfield sites by the construction of modern flats – too far from the liveliness and clutter of Leith Walk to be appealing.

  The bus heads on east and the sea comes into view. This is the part of town she loves, where town meets shore. Here she can slough off the strains and pressures of work and relax.

  Portobello, once a thriving small town in its own right, has long since been subsumed into the great city of Edinburgh. It still retains its own character, with its mix of Georgian mansions jumbled higgledy piggeldy alongside smaller period terraced houses, some with pillars, some painted, the paint inevitably peeling in the constant salty winds from the sea. As they near the High Street, Mannie phones Jen.

  ‘You at home?’

  ‘Yup. You on your way?’

  ‘Back in ten. Will I get a bottle?’

  ‘Not unless you’re in for some serious drinking. I’ve only just opened one.’

  ‘Pour me a glass, will you Jen?’

  ‘That bad?’

  Mannie laughs. ‘Just being sociable. See you.’

  She turns into their street exactly eight minutes later, and is in the new block in the ten she promised.