by Isla Dewar
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘I’m Norman McKenzie. Norman Harry McKenzie. That’s the name my mother gave me. Ella carried me off when I was a baby. She thought my mother had abandoned me and she was saving me from the children’s home. She called me Charlie Gavin.’
Martha stopped. ‘You’re kidding.’
‘No. It’s God’s honest truth. Mrs Florey always thought her sister was the first person I ever found. But she was wrong. The first person I found was me.’
They walked on in silence, till Charlie said, ‘Don’t you believe me?’
‘I’m wrestling with it. I’m finding it hard. Didn’t your mother report you missing to the police? Didn’t anybody look for you?’
‘My mother didn’t want me. At least she didn’t want a baby. I was illegitimate, an inconvenience. Ella wanted me, well, a baby of her own. So she took me. My mother saw an opportunity to start afresh and took it. Everybody has a day when they do something they never thought they’d do when they woke up in the morning.’
‘You think that’s what happened with Evie? You think Jamie saw an opportunity and took it?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why wasn’t my mother there to collect her?’
‘We’ll find out. And we’ll find Evie.’
‘How?’ she snapped. She didn’t believe him and hated his quiet, reassuring tone.
‘I dunno. We’ll follow the trail, that usually does it.’ He said it slowly. The sharpness in her voice, her aggression – face craning towards him, jaw clenched – made him doubt himself.
They reached Martha’s house. Charlie opened the gate and led the way to the front door. ‘First, a cup of tea. Then we’ll find your mother. She has to be somewhere. She hasn’t run off. She’s too happy for that.’
‘How do you know? We argue a lot.’
‘Exactly. Arguing in her safe place, her kitchen. Keeping her end up as a mother. Not the same as fighting or bottling up resentments.’
Inside, Martha sat at the kitchen table. Charlie filled the kettle. Made tea and put a cup in front of her. ‘Drink.’
The phone rang.
Martha said, ‘Who’s that phoning us?’
‘Answer it and find out.’
‘I don’t want to. It might be Jamie again.’
Charlie sighed, went to the small table in the hall and picked up the receiver. ‘Yes.’
He returned, hands in pockets. ‘You’re not to worry. Sophie’s in hospital. She’s fine. She was set upon by a couple of kids trying to steal the cake she was delivering. Banged her head on the pavement.’
‘What do you mean, banged her head on the pavement? What was she doing on the ground? She must have been knocked down.’ Martha stood up. ‘We have to go and see her.’
‘Drink your tea.’
‘It’s got sugar in. I hate it.’ She pulled her coat from where she’d draped it on the back of her chair. ‘C’mon.’
She ran down the path, clambered into the Beetle, turned on the ignition. A feeble whine and a clunk. She tried again. Whine and clunk. She jumped out, slamming the door, and kicked the car. ‘Fucking thing. It’s always doing that. It dies when you need it.’ By now, Charlie had caught up with her.
‘Your car,’ shouted Martha. ‘We’ll need your car.’
She took off down the street. Charlie was several yards behind her, protesting at every step. This hurt. His stomach ached where he’d been punched. His bruised face throbbed. He was sobering up. A hangover was nigh. ‘For God’s sake, wait.’
But slowing down wasn’t for Martha. She hurtled on, reaching the car long before Charlie, and yanking the door, yelling, ‘Keys, keys.’
From his distance away, Charlie shouted that they were inside. He was running and waving his arms, panicking because she was panicking and her condition was catching. Martha burst into the house, shouting, ‘Keys. Keys. I need the keys to Charlie’s car.’ She reached out, making a desperate clasping motion with her hand.
Brenda appeared. She pointed to Charlie’s living room. ‘On a wooden tray on the bookshelves.’
In the car, Martha drove. ‘We need to get there in one piece.’ She gripped the wheel, leaned forward urging the car on.
Charlie said, ‘Your mother was concussed. They’re keeping her in overnight for observation. Apparently they thought she was called Evie. She kept saying it.’
‘She’d have been worried about not picking her up.’
‘So her brain’s functioning.’
‘Her brain constantly functions. Never stops. It keeps busy with recipes, speculations, gossip and the intricacies of the soap operas she watches. My brain isn’t working. It’s overloaded with worry and confusion.’
Charlie stared out of the window, watching people on their way to somewhere or standing in groups chatting, laughing, smoking. He imagined all the people he saw had families, mothers who bought them socks for Christmas and nagged them to eat some breakfast and wear a hat on chilly days. For a long time, he’d longed for a warm, boisterous, close family. Now that he’d seen families who bickered, held long petty grudges, fought over trivialities, insulted one another, he sometimes thought that maybe he was lucky to have nobody. He could live as he liked. He was relieved he wasn’t embroiled in a family. Yet here he was in this car with Martha rushing to see her injured mother, worrying about her missing daughter. He was getting embroiled.
Sophie was sitting up in bed. She waved when she saw Martha and Charlie and looked pained at the effort this had taken. She was pale. Her head was bandaged.
‘Six stitches,’ she said. ‘I’m lucky my nose wasn’t broken. I held on to that cake.’
Martha leant over, kissed Sophie’s cheek. ‘But you’re all right?’
‘I’ll live,’ said Sophie. She shifted, heaved herself up the mattress. ‘Can’t get comfortable. Everything hurts.’ She snorted, ‘I was set upon. Mugged for a cake.’
‘As cakes go, that one was very muggable.’
‘Hoodlums,’ said Sophie, ‘vandals, thugs. I don’t know what the world’s coming to. What kind of parents do they have?’ She stopped, looked round. ‘Where’s Evie?’
‘She’s not here,’ said Martha.
‘I can see that. Where is she?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know? You have to know. She’s your Evie, your daughter, you have to know where she is.’
‘Jamie’s got her,’ said Charlie. ‘I think he must have been watching the school for some time, waiting for his chance.’ He stuck his hands in his pockets, stared at the ceiling. ‘Do you think he knew? Do you think he set Sophie up so he could get a chance to talk to Evie and, you know, take her home with him?’
Martha looked at him. ‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m not saying anything. I’m just thinking out loud, speculating.’
‘Well, stop it. You’re scaring me.’
‘Sorry.’
Sophie was shocked. ‘Do you really think that? Jamie had me mugged so he could get hold of Evie? Bastard. I need to get up. I need to do something.’ She reached out to grab Charlie. ‘I need to go to the record shop. They know where Jamie lives.’ She leaned back, stared at him. ‘What the hell happened to you?’
‘I got beaten up. A bloke took exception to me following him.’
‘Too right. You shouldn’t be following people. It’s rude. Also, if you don’t mind my saying so, you can’t be very good at it if you were spotted.’
‘I admit I’m not good at following people. And as a detective I should be expert at it. I worry about this.’
Sophie said, ‘You think you’re not a very good detective.’
‘It has crossed my mind,’ Charlie said. ‘By the way, which record shop?’
‘The seedy one at the top of Leith Walk.’
‘What the hell were you doing there?’
‘Tracing Jamie. I found out he went there in the mornings before work. I asked if they knew Jamie and they said they di
dn’t. That’s how I know they know Jamie. They were lying. I can tell when people aren’t being truthful. Their faces go shiny and their voices go up. They look shifty.’ Pointing at Martha, ‘She was a dreadful liar when she was little. It was all “It wasn’t me.” And, “I didn’t do that.” And, “I’ve never been in a pub in my life.” Even though she was reeking of booze.’
Martha flushed and looked down at her shoes.
‘Look,’ said Sophie, ‘that’s what she used to do. She couldn’t lie. Even though she did all the time.’
Martha said, ‘Sorry.’
Outside in the car park, grateful for fresh air, Charlie said, ‘I don’t understand. Why did your husband take Evie? Why didn’t he just get in touch and ask to see her?’
‘It’s probably a power thing. He wants to show me he can hurt me. Or maybe he thinks I won’t let him see Evie because he ran away.’
‘So we’re going to that shop?’
‘Yes. It’s all I’ve got. I need to find my daughter.’ Her face crumpled, eyes glazed. Tears soon. ‘I have to do something. I can’t go home and just sit and wait.’ She punched him with the side of her fist. ‘You don’t understand. I have to find Evie.’
Charlie rubbed his shoulder. ‘Don’t attack me. I haven’t done anything. I’ve been punched enough today.’
‘I feel like punching someone. And you’re the only one here. I’m furious and worried sick and I want my little girl.’
He put his arm round her and said, ‘I know. I know.’ And thought, oh God. All this caring. All this love. It could stop you thinking straight.
24
You Were Wonderful
The shop was shut. Charlie and Martha sat in the car staring at its peeling purple paint and the arrangement of LPs, packets of joss sticks and T-shirts in the window.
‘Looks interesting,’ said Charlie.
Seedy, Martha thought.
‘Is it the sort of place Jamie would hang out?’
‘I don’t know. I didn’t know him. I was just married to him. I don’t know what we were thinking. We were young and started to live a cliché. Like he’d go out to work and come home to slippers warmed by the fire and a plate of stew. Only he hated wearing slippers and I couldn’t cook stew. We didn’t discuss any of it.’
‘Don’t you think it’s time to call the police?’
‘I may not really have known Jamie. But I know this much, he won’t harm Evie. Getting the police involved would make things worse. I’m sure he really wants to get to know his daughter. Hurting me is a bonus.’
The street was quiet, almost empty. A few cars and buses trundled past. The air smelled of early evening in the city – petrol, dust and the heavy tempting aroma of Italian food from the restaurant nearby. It was a time Charlie liked, when day was done and night hadn’t arrived. It was a time when, in younger days, he’d be slipping into a clean shirt, slapping on some aftershave anticipating the evening ahead. There would be beer. There would be music, dancing and a woman, perhaps, if he was lucky. Luck didn’t often smile on him, though.
He thought the thing to do now was eat. He liked eating and was of the opinion that food helped with most ailments and problems. He and Martha should have a meal. They could work through a plan and come back in the morning when the shop would be open. This was logical. But he could tell Martha was in no mood for logic. She needed to act.
‘There might be someone in there,’ she said. ‘In the back counting the day’s takings or whatever.’
She got out of the car and ran across the road. He watched as she rattled the door, knocked, thumped it with the side of her fist and, finally, crouching, shouted through the letterbox. She turned and shrugged to him, ‘Nobody in.’ He thought she’d come back to the car. But no, she pointed to the door next to the shop that led to the flat above. ‘I’ll try in here.’
Before he could say anything she disappeared inside. He got out of the car and leaned against it waiting for her to reappear. He breathed the evening air and remembered times when he’d gone out reeking of Old Spice hoping to find someone special and never did. He went to pubs and dancehalls with the men who worked at the same building site as he did. They were dandies. Dudes, he would call them now. After a couple of hours drinking they’d roll into the Palais to survey the talent and continue drinking. They’d stand at the edge of the dance floor eyeing the girls, nudging one another, making critical comments, ‘What d’you think of that?’ or ‘It’s got a good arse.’
What were they thinking? What a way to describe women. Had they been scared of them? Or did they have to assert their superiority by calling them it and that? He wondered what Martha would have said back then if she’d overheard. Quite a lot, he imagined.
Martha emerged from the doorway. ‘I knocked. I shouted through the letterbox but nobody’s answering.’
‘Let’s go home,’ he shouted.
But Martha wasn’t done yet. ‘Trying the pub.’ Pointing to the bar a couple of doors up from the shop.
He leaned on the car and returned to his reverie. There had been one bloke, Frankie, who’d had a way with women. He knew how to look at them – a lingering appreciative twinkling gaze. He’d been the king of chatting up. ‘I work on a building site. The money’s great. One day I’m gonna have my own business and I’ll make a million and buy you a car.’
Girls had giggled. Surely they hadn’t believed him? Christ, they’d only just met. How could they think he’d buy them a car? But Frankie never left the dancehall alone. He’d flag down a cab and disappear into the night with this week’s pick-up and always looked smug on Monday mornings. Charlie always walked home alone. He wondered if Frankie of the dapper suits and shiny shoes ever did make a million and buy a girl a car. Probably not.
He stared across at Martha going into the pub. Came to his senses and shouted, ‘No. Don’t go in there.’ She didn’t hear.
He started to run across the road but had to stop as a bus and two taxis rattled past. By the time he got into the pub Martha was holding court. A space had cleared round her, mostly so drinkers could stand back and get a good look at her.
Charlie surveyed the faces. Expressions were mostly surprise. But there was some puzzlement, amusement and a little anger. Drinkers in here didn’t like distractions or interruptions. There was alcohol to consume, badinage to indulge in and fellow consumers to size up.
‘Jamie Walters,’ Martha shouted. ‘Is Jamie Walters here?’
There were mumblings and a babble of voices as people looked round to see if this Jamie Walters fellow would come forward. He didn’t.
‘Does anybody know Jamie Walters?’ Martha sounded desperate. ‘I need to find him. He’s stolen my daughter.’ She turned to Charlie. Her fists were clenched. ‘Please,’ she shouted.
Martha didn’t notice the faces looking at her. There were men in business suits and shy men looking away from her, shrinking back not wanting to be noticed. There was a couple of bikers leaning back on the bar smirking slightly. All the while Martha stood, red of face, teary-eyed, shouting, ‘Jamie Walters. Jamie Walters.’
Later, and for the rest of his life, Charlie thought this was the moment he truly fell in love with Martha. She was vulnerable and so very fierce. She was that young girl at the bus stop again. The kid in blue jeans clutching an old guitar, glaring at the world, daring anyone to disapprove, that had so intrigued him years ago. But what he was seeing now was love. He hadn’t realised love could take you by storm, whoosh through you, make you weak at the back of the knees and doubt your ability to breathe. Love was chaos.
It occurred to him that his mother hadn’t done this for him. Stepped up and yelled to get him back, ready to wrestle the world to keep him safe. Now he knew he wanted what he was seeing. That passion, that fierceness, that love.
Martha turned to him. She was crying. Her voice was reduced to a rasping croak from the strain of shouting. ‘Somebody here must know Jamie.’ He could see her panic. She was frantic. Nobody was answering her. They
just stared.
He went to her, put his arm round her. Felt her lean into him. That’s right, he thought, lean; you need to lean right now. He saw the barman move to the other side of the counter. He knew the sign. They were about to be asked to leave. They were bothering the customers. People in here didn’t want to be bothered. Many didn’t want to be noticed. They liked to slip in and work at being inconspicuous.
‘Time to go home,’ Charlie said and led Martha to the door. Outside, evening was slipping into night. Streetlights flickering on and people moving towards the restaurants across the road. Martha turned on him. ‘You should’ve let me be.’
‘I don’t think so. It’s not the sort of pub a woman goes into. It’s more of a man’s place.’
‘Someone in there might know Jamie. He goes into men’s pubs.’
‘Not that one.’
‘Why not?’
‘Men go there to meet men. You won’t find any women in there.’
‘I saw two women sitting near the bar.’
Charlie sighed, ‘They weren’t women.’
Martha was silent for a long, long minute and finally said, ‘Oh, you might have said.’
‘You were in there before I could stop you.’ He took her arm and led her to the car.
‘So it’s unlikely Jamie would drink in that pub.’
‘Yes. Mostly the men in there go because it’s safe. Not that they wouldn’t care about you looking for your daughter. They just wouldn’t want to get involved.’
‘I’ve made a fool of myself.’
‘You were wonderful.’
25
Stay With Me
Something inside of him had shifted. He wanted to protect her, keep her safe, make her happy. He wanted to come to her smiling and carrying her lost child. He wanted her to see him punch Jamie on the jaw. He wanted to be her hero. ‘Let’s go home.’
‘I don’t want to go home. Evie’s not there.’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘Find Evie.’
‘How are you going to do that? Knock on every door in the city?’