Paul sank down onto the mud and looked up at Annie, almost pleading. “In prison I came close. So close. I got into fights. I tried to let them kill me, but at the last moment I always ended up fighting back. I tried overdosing, but could never quite take enough. When I got out, I even went to a bridge I’d heard of in Dumbarton. It’s the place where dogs go to commit suicide. Since the sixties, over fifty recorded cases. They get to a certain point on the bridge and they just jump right over, apparently, crashing down to the rocks fifty feet below. I went there and I walked the bridge back and forth, waiting for the moment to come, for the impulse that sends even dogs over the edge. But it never came. Because, like I told you, I’m just an animal. I survive. That’s all I do. I’m lower than a dog. And I don’t care.”
Annie glared at him. She couldn’t listen anymore. “Excuses, Paul. That’s all that is. Excuses because you’re a coward. That’s all you are.”
Paul hung his head, unable to meet her eye.
“You go to him tonight.” Annie jabbed her finger at him. “And while you let him fuck you, I want you to look at him. I want you to look at him while he does it. Knowing what he did to her. What he did to you. And I want you to tell yourself that you don’t care.”
Paul pressed his face into his hands as tears streamed out of him. “I wanted it to be me. I wanted to be the one that died. I wish it had been me.”
“But it wasn’t.” Annie spat at him and walked away.
Epilogue
A week later, Annie was sorting through her things in her living room. Sunlight and fresh air were streaming through her open window. The curtains flapped lazily in the breeze and a cup of tea was growing cold on the table. On the couch beside her was a cardboard box marked Lena. Inside were the few possessions Lena’s landlord had boxed up from her flat after she disappeared: clothes, jewellery, perfume, toiletries. Alongside them Annie placed the cards and notes she’d received from Lena as a child, and the newspaper clippings she’d gathered over the years. All the clues she’d used to help piece together Lena’s history. At the very top of the pile was a painting, done in acrylics, of a face that bore an uncanny resemblance to its subject, a face that until now she hadn’t been able to bring herself to look at. Only now could she see the warmth that the painter had wanted to convey, the tenderness that had gone into every brush stroke. And she understood the love that had been shared. In that, she found comfort.
She hadn’t seen or heard from Paul since she’d left him at the bridge. It surprised and shocked her to realise that she almost longed for his company now. He was the only one who understood what she was going through. Who shared her deep sense of loss. The task of finding out what had happened to Lena had filled her life. Now it was over, there wasn’t much else left. All Annie felt was emptiness.She closed the box because she knew she had to. If she didn’t, then Manny would have claimed her too.
She was going to go away for a while. She had no reason to wait around anymore. Lena wasn’t coming home. In that sense, Annie had been released. She thought she’d start in Europe, then maybe go on to Asia. She’d always wanted to travel. And you couldn’t live your life in fear – Lena would have told her that.
In the background the TV news was on, the noise and voices comforting, though she was paying no attention to what they were saying. But then a familiar name cut through her thoughts. She turned the volume up.
“Notorious Glasgow gangster Manus Munroe has died in unknown circumstances. Police say they are pursuing a person of interest.”
Annie’s thumb pressed the red button on the remote, flicking it off. She sat stunned, unsure whether to laugh or cry.
Her thoughts went to Paul and she knew what he’d done. She wondered where he was now.
In his hand he held a photograph of Lena. Sitting on a bench. Sixteen years old and full of life. Paul looked at it for a long time and smiled.
Finally she was with him again. She walked up behind him and hugged him, like she used to do. As he sat on the side of the iron bridge, his legs dangling over the edge, he knew there were things to be said, significant things. Secrets to be shared. Apologies. Explanations. He felt her warmth, smelled her scent as it all poured out of him. As he told her how much he cared. He could feel her breath in the wind as he leaned over the water.
In his final moment before he jumped, he saw her smiling face.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Lucy Ridout for editing Take a Breath. It is a better novel for all your insightful suggestions and revisions. Also to Jane Hammett for proof-reading the final version and picking up what we had all missed.
Thanks to my mum and dad, Danny and Una, for their continuing love and support and for being nothing like any of the parental figures in the book. To the rest of the Duffy clan, Oona, Fin and Connell, for reading early drafts and not laughing. To Dana for modelling so beautifully for the front cover. Thank you to Mark McGrory for his photograph and to Vanessa No Heart for her wonderful cover and interior designs.
I would also like to thank John Paisley for his advice and fact-checking of the police details. Thank you to Noreen Paisley, John Paisley and Siobhan Lynch for proof-reading and all their helpful feedback. Thank you to William McIlvanney for his kind words.
Finally I would like to thank my husband Jamie. For the countless hours spent reading redraft after redraft. For the endless discussions over every word and detail. For never growing tired or losing enthusiasm even when I did. If I were to list all the ways you helped me towards a final draft of this book it would fill a novel in itself. All my love always, best friend.
About the author
S.K. Paisley was born in Glasgow. She studied Law and English Literature at University of Glasgow before working briefly as a secondary school teacher. Her first draft of Take a Breath was started while living and working in London. She continued working on the novel while travelling around South America and finally completed it in Hamburg. The author currently lives in Amsterdam with her husband Jamie. Take a Breath is her first novel.
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