by Julie Corbin
‘You recently moved here?’
‘No, no!’ She laughed. It was deep and throaty and much more grown-up sounding than I expected. ‘My parents came here almost thirty years ago. I was born here. Do I sound like I’m from Pakistan?’
‘No.’ I blushed. ‘You sound like you’re from here. I’m just getting used to the accent.’
‘You’re not Scottish, though, are you?’ She regarded me with interest. ‘Southern or Northern Ireland?’
‘Southern.’
We sat on the roof and talked for the rest of the evening. I told her my first name was Scarlett, but I preferred to be known by my middle name, Olivia.
‘Why?’ Leila asked.
‘Scarlett doesn’t suit me,’ I said, guessing that one day I’d tell her the full story, but for now I wanted to keep the details to myself.
We discovered we had one major thing in common – we both had three older brothers and no sisters – but otherwise we couldn’t have been more different. I was blonde, quiet and serious. I kept my head down, worked hard, and was too shy and lacking in confidence to make waves. Leila was fiery and intense and would speak up in class and challenge anyone to anything. I was bowled over by her and my admiration has grown into a lasting friendship.
‘Mark still isn’t out yet,’ she says, fiddling with the stem of her wine glass, the silver bangles on her wrist catching the sunlight.
‘I expect PC Bullworks is being incredibly thorough.’
‘Do you think either of the boys actually understand the seriousness of it?’
‘I’m not sure. It isn’t cool to be afraid when you’re a teenage boy and I think Robbie, in particular, is in denial.’
‘He’s probably still in shock,’ Archie says. ‘Give him a few days. I’m sure he’ll feel differently.’
‘And there’s the thing.’ I throw out my arms. ‘Who would want to do this to him?’
‘Liv.’ She grabs my hand. ‘It has to have been a mistake. Maybe one of the other boys in their group was messing about. Who could possibly want to hurt Robbie? It’s absurd.’
‘The police think it was deliberate.’
‘And are the police always right?’
‘They have more experience of this than you or I do.’
‘Yes, but they don’t know Robbie. We do. It might turn out to be someone who does this sort of thing.’ She reaches across the table and gives me a hug. ‘Let’s wait and see what the police investigation comes up with.’
It sounds like a good plan but I’m not convinced. ‘Has Mark said anything to either of you about Robbie being picked on?’
‘No. But make no mistake, I’ll be quizzing him,’ Leila says. ‘If there’s anything worth knowing, I’ll find out. I promise.’ She gives me a sympathetic smile. ‘On a lighter note, how was it with Fraser?’
‘Fraser?’
‘Your date. Fraser. You went down to Leith, to that fish restaurant. The one that has all the good write-ups.’
‘Oh God yes!’ I lean back on the seat and feel honeysuckle tickle my cheek. ‘It was okay. But after Mark’s phone call I had to leave in a hurry. Left him standing there, poor man. I’ll ring up and apologise.’
‘So you got on with him?’
‘He seemed nice enough.’
She slumps with disappointment. ‘But no chemistry?’
‘None. And quite honestly, I’m not sure he’s over his wife.’
‘What am I going to do with you?’ she moans. ‘It’s a whole year since you and Phil separated. You spend evening after evening moping at home—’
‘I don’t mope!’
‘—when you could be having the time of your life.’
‘Much as I’m grateful to you for setting me up, Leila, I can manage my own love life.’
‘Or lack of.’ She folds her arms and sighs. ‘How about a younger man? He wouldn’t want to bore you with conversation. You can shop and spend time with your friends while he watches the football. He’d love your cooking. You wouldn’t need to nag him about his health. In fact, because it will never be long term, you wouldn’t need to nag him about anything.’
I shake my head at her. ‘Are you actually my friend? Or has she been taken by aliens?’
‘A younger man is worth considering.’ She gives me a salesman’s you’re-missing-out face. ‘Less baggage.’
‘Always presuming that a younger man would consider me an option,’ I say, playing along. ‘I can’t bring someone back here. I have Robbie and Lauren to think of.’
‘You don’t have to bring him home.’
‘I’ll go to his place, shall I? A flat-share in Tollcross, his mates coming into his bedroom to filch cigarette papers?’
‘It would help to loosen you up! Stop you being so tense around Phil.’
‘My sex life is not my top priority, Leila.’
‘It doesn’t have to be at the top but it does need to be on the list.’
‘There’s just no winning with you.’ I look across at Archie who’s wandered off to the garden shed and is rearranging the ivy on the trellis next to it. ‘There’s just no winning with her, is there, Archie?’
‘When she gets an idea in her head, she’s like a dog with a bone. My advice is to surrender now.’ He flashes his wife a knowing smile. ‘Resistance is futile.’
She smiles back at him and I feel a twinge of jealousy. Instead of time and teenagers wearing their marriage out, the passing years have strengthened their bond and they’re united in their love for each other and for their children.
‘Okay. Fraser wasn’t right,’ Leila acknowledges, fixing her eyes on mine. ‘So we’ll cast the net a tad wider.’
‘I’m not Internet dating,’ I say firmly. ‘I’m happy on my own.’ That’s not exactly true and she sees it in my face. ‘Okay, I’m not happy on my own but I don’t want a new man enough to go on blind dates. They make me nervous and then bored.’
‘Actually . . .’ She looks up at me through lashes that are sleek and full without any need for mascara. ‘What about the policeman in there?’
‘Which one?’
‘Not the weedy ginger one! The one who looks like Sean Connery, minus the moustache. Don’t you think? In his Bond years.’
‘You are impossible!’ I’m laughing again. ‘You would have me flirt with a detective? Will this be before or after he finds the person who spiked Robbie’s drink?’
‘He was looking at you, Liv.’
‘He was looking at everyone. That’s what policemen do – suss people out. Anyway, he’s probably married.’
‘No ring.’
‘Lots of married men don’t wear wedding rings.’ I remember his face when I was having the spat with Phil. I get the feeling he’s divorced or separated but I don’t say that to Leila. I don’t want to give her any encouragement.
The back door opens and immediately Leila’s expression changes from hectoring friend to stern mother as Mark comes out of the house.
‘How did it go?’ she asks him.
‘Fine.’ His hands are in his pockets and he gives a typically teenage shrug.
‘You were completely truthful?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Are they going to want to question you again?’ Archie asks.
‘He said probably not, but if he does he’ll get in touch.’
‘Let’s get you home, then,’ Leila says. She stands up and pushes the chair in under the table. ‘Have you said thank you to Liv?’
‘Thanks for having me, Liv.’ He looks up from his shoes. ‘Sorry about . . . everything.’
‘That’s okay, love.’
‘In the car,’ Leila orders, directing him ahead of her. ‘We need to collect your sisters from Granny and Granddad’s.’ She glances back at me. ‘I’ll ring you this evening.’
I follow them round to the front and see them into the car and as I’m waving them goodbye, Erika, Phil and Lauren are coming along the pavement, Benson several yards behind them. Phil must have gone to meet them when he
realised Robbie wasn’t going to let him sit in on the questioning. Lauren is walking slightly apart from them both, finishing off an ice cream. Erika and Phil are holding hands, not in a casual manner but in a very deliberate way, fingers linked tightly as if they are skin-grafted together. Erika is a couple of inches short of six feet, with dark brown hair and muddy brown eyes. She’s always formally dressed in expensive, pressed trousers and white or black tops. She is German but her accent is slight, her English near perfect. Everything she does and says seems to me to lack spontaneity. Communication is not casual with Erika. She is someone who chooses her words cautiously, each word carefully selected before being doled out on a measuring spoon, and I find myself wanting to finish off her sentences for her. She was a colleague of Phil’s before they became involved with each other but she wasn’t someone who made a lasting impression on me and I certainly never imagined that she would attract Phil enough for him to give up on his marriage and his family life.
I move back against the hawthorn hedge and watch them for a few seconds. The sight of them, so obviously happy together, ties a knot in my stomach and I turn away quickly and run back inside.
4
The next two weeks race by. DI O’Reilly and I speak most days. He tells me that the police have questioned the pub staff and Robbie’s friends who were there that night. Three boys and two girls admit that they too have fake IDs and spent the evening in the pub. There is no evidence that any of them had GHB with them and, although questioned at length, they all consistently deny any knowledge of what might have happened. And anyway, none of them has any motive for harming Robbie. Dave Renwick, the boy whom Robbie fought with at school, is one of the three boys who were there. He is as shocked as everyone else at what happened. He says there’s no animosity between himself and Robbie now, and their friends and teachers back this up. The police show the staff and teenagers CCTV footage of persons leaving and entering the pub, but nobody notices anyone suspicious.
Robbie’s story is covered in the Edinburgh Courier – Dr Olivia Somers, nominated for one of the City Women awards, son in drink spiking incident – with witnesses asked to come forward. Several people get in touch with the police to say they were in the pub at that time, but, when questioned, they have nothing to add to the inquiries. ‘Despite all our efforts we have nothing to go on,’ O’Reilly tells me. ‘It’s a complete dead end.’
The lack of evidence is grist for Phil’s mill as he’s still convinced Robbie and Mark are lying. He uses it as an excuse to badger me for more time with the children, but the terms of our custody agreement are clear and I don’t give in, not least because the children have told me numerous times that they feel uncomfortable in Phil’s new home as everything is too tidy and quiet. As Lauren put it – ‘I don’t feel like I belong there.’
I still believe Robbie and Mark’s version of events but am coming to the conclusion that it must have been a random attack as there is no evidence, or motive, for anything deliberate. Robbie has recovered from his ordeal and his first day back at school I go with him. Although the hockey club members don’t all attend the same school, four of them do and were in the pub that evening. It’s not as bad as Mark feared, none of them are expelled, but the head punishes them by suspending them for a week and banning them from the end-of-term trip down to London. As parents had already paid a non-refundable sum for flights and accommodation, most of them were given further sanctions at home.
‘I wasn’t that keen on going anyway,’ Robbie says.
It’s five thirty and I’ve come home from work to find Robbie, having discarded his uniform, wearing boxers and a T-shirt, sitting in the living room with his bare feet up on the coffee table watching one of the Star Wars films for the umpteenth time. There are four cereal bowls and several cups and glasses at arm’s reach either side of him. He’s been grounded for a month; either Phil, Leila or I drop him at school and bring him home again. He isn’t allowed out in the evenings but I do allow his friends to come here. He’s reluctantly accepted all of this, convinced I’m making a fuss about nothing. I don’t know how I expect the incident to have changed him – Afraid? Preoccupied? Concerned that his underage drinking exposed him to such a potentially dangerous incident? – but what I do know is that he doesn’t look like a boy who takes anything seriously.
‘Nothing from DI O’Reilly today?’
He looks at me blankly. ‘Dunno.’
‘Don’t know, don’t care?’ I bite back.
‘Well, what’s the point in caring?’
‘Robbie!’ I say harshly. ‘Are you ever going to grasp the gravity of what happened to you? You were minutes, probably seconds, away from dying.’
‘Yeah, well I didn’t, did I?’
‘I just need you to understand that it was serious.’
‘I get it, Mum. There’s no need to go on about it. Shit happens.’
‘Don’t swear, please.’ I stand in front of him with my hands on my hips. ‘And not only that. Look at the fallout! Several boys suspended. Parents losing money on the trip.’
‘I’ll pay you back.’
‘With what?’ My voice becomes shrill. ‘You don’t have any money!’
‘I’ll get a job.’ He tips over sideways so that he can see past me to the television. ‘This is a good bit.’ He makes a Yoda voice and says, ‘“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.”’
I sigh loudly and count to ten, knowing there’s no sense in pursuing this now. I’m too tired to find a way to get through to him. I’ll end up shouting and go to bed feeling like a rotten mother. So instead, I roll up my sleeves and gather together the bowls, irritation bubbling back into my speech. ‘Has it ever occurred to you to rinse a bowl out and reuse it?’
He looks at the stack of bowls in my hand, his face confused as if they multiplied on their own. ‘Have I had four lots of cereal?’
‘It would seem so,’ I say, heading towards the kitchen.
‘By the way, Uncle Declan rang,’ he shouts after me. ‘Something about Gran and operations and could you call him.’
Declan is my eldest brother and he runs a farm back in Ireland, close to where my mother still lives. My mother and I do not have an easy relationship, and I’ve been dreading this phone call. She’s been on the waiting list for a hip replacement for some months now and, by the sound of it, the date for the operation has come through. Declan works full time and his wife Aisling has just given birth to their fifth child. They won’t be able to manage my mother’s aftercare on their own and my other two brothers now live in America. It’s my turn to step up. I change out of my work clothes then sit back on my bed with a glass of wine in one hand and my phone in the other. My brother answers and we say our hellos, then he tells me the date of the op and when Mum’s expected to come home. ‘I don’t want to have to ask you, Scarlett,’ he says, calling me by my first name. ‘But with Aisling just having the baby, ’n’ all . . .’
‘You do so much for Mammy as it is. It’s definitely my turn to help.’
‘You can always stay with us if the thought of being cooped up with Mammy is too much to bear.’
‘I might just take you up on that.’ I can’t help but sigh as I anticipate the arguments and long silences ahead. ‘Let’s face it, she’s not going to want me around anyway. If it seems like she can manage without me overnight, I’ll stay with you. But tell me. How’s your new baby girl?’
‘She’s a picture of loveliness.’ His voice softens and I know that he’s smiling. ‘Her brothers and sisters are all doting on her.’
He tells me about the children and, as I listen, I smile too. They’re a perfect family and I’m looking forward to seeing them all again, and to meeting my new niece. We talk for a while about Robbie and the fact that the police still have no idea who did it, but as Declan points out, bearing in mind that two weeks have gone by and nothing else has happened, there’s a good chance it was a random attack after all.
‘And is it tomorro
w you’ll be getting your award?’ he says.
‘Maybe. If I’m chosen. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, but I’ve got a speech at the ready in case I do win.’
‘Keeping it short?”
‘You bet. I’d duck out of the whole thing if I could, but Lauren’s so excited about it and it’s taken her mind off the attack on Robbie.’
‘You can do it, sis,’ he tells me. ‘Nobody deserves an award more than you do.’
We talk for another twenty minutes and then I go back downstairs to make tea. Robbie’s found his trousers and has been joined by Simon, Ashe and Emily – the three friends who came to the hospital on the night of the incident. None of them goes to Robbie’s school and so they aren’t suffering the sanctions Robbie and his school friends are. Lauren has joined them and Emily is making friendship bracelets with her. They’re good kids and I don’t have the heart to ask them to leave, so I end up making jacket potatoes and salad for all of us and we enjoy a relaxed evening together. In my head, I hear Phil’s complaining tone – You’re too soft on the children. They need more structure, firmer handling – but I ignore it because they’re his words, not mine.
Next day at work, I spend the first fifteen minutes catching up with messages. I have a couple of patients in hospital and I’m pleased to hear that they’re both due to be discharged later in the week. There are seven GPs in the practice and Leila is one of them. We have rooms on the same corridor and she pops her head around the door to have a chat, but before we can say anything, she’s called out to the reception and we agree to catch up over lunch. I turn on my computer and begin the morning’s appointments. We have an intercom installed, but I always go through to the waiting room and call my patients through personally. The waiting room is heaving with people, all shapes and sizes, most of them either elderly or under the age of five.
‘Agnes Abercrombie,’ I call out.
Two elderly sisters, leaning into each other like collapsed balloons, look towards me. Although it’s the beginning of June, the Edinburgh wind can be punishing and they’re dressed for it. Their heads are swamped in furry hats and their tweed coats, faded with use, are buttoned up to the neck. Agnes, older by three years, is a frequent patient and one of my favourites. Her sister, who’s not so strong herself, helps her make an attempt to stand up but Agnes’s feet have only a tentative grip on the floor and she falls back into the seat again. I walk across to help and a man to my right coughs, a great guttural roar that sets a couple of others off. This is followed, immediately to my left, by a bout of sustained sneezing.