The Child Garden

by Catriona McPherson

  “Is Duggie in?” I said.

  Her smile didn’t falter, but something behind her eyes clicked from warm to cold and her voice was different when she spoke again. “Who should I say is asking?”

  “Gloria,” I told her. “His wife. His son’s mother.”

  I could tell two things from the flash in her eyes: she was more than just an employee, and she hadn’t heard a peep about Nicky and me. She gave me an incredulous look up and down and then disappeared into the back office.

  Duggie appeared like a jack-in-the-box ten seconds later. He always dealt with me quicker in person than on the phone.

  “Ex-wife, Gloria,” he said. It was true and he was right to point it out, but I could never bring myself to say it. We got married in a church, in the sight of God, and those papers he sent me to sign didn’t have any power to change that.

  “Nicky’s fine,” I told him, “in case you were wondering.” Then I bit my lip. I don’t know why, but dealing with Duggie always turns me into a nag.

  “Nicky’s your son?” said the woman. She was leaning in the office doorway, exploring the side of her mouth with her tongue.

  “Nicky’s our son,” I confirmed. “I’ve got a picture of him if you’d—”

  “Zöe, why don’t you take a quick coffee break?” Duggie said. He put his hand out and actually touched my arm to stop me rummaging in my bag for my purse and flipping it open to the picture of Nicky. “It looks as if I’ve got a bit of family business to take care of.”

  “I’ll bring you back a latte,” she said. She hooked a bag—a soft one with lots of buckles just like April’s—off the back of the reception desk chair and stalked out. She looked less polished in the cold daylight as she got to the front of the shop and plate-glass windows. Her make-up was thick and her hair coarsened with dye. I’ve got the skin you get from never smoking or tanning and the hair you get from not washing it every day and never blow-drying it at all. Not that it was a competition, but if it was, I was winning.

  “What do you want, Gloria?” said Duggie once she was gone.

  “Have you heard the news?” I said. He cocked his head. “A death in Glasgow.”

  “And?” he said.

  “There was a prowler up in the grounds of the house,” I said. “Did you hear about it? He didn’t go inside—he was stalking this woman and she took the back roads to shake him off and he got lost or something. But now a woman’s dead and I think it’s the same one.”

  “And this matters to me why?” said Duggie. He had taken out his phone and was caressing it with his thumb. I bit my lip again. Everyone does that now, I reminded myself. He’s not any ruder than anyone else.

  “Your son lives close by,” I said. “Ask me why I think it’s the same woman.”

  “Go on then,” said Duggie. “Amaze me.”

  “Her name was April Cowan. She went to Eden.”

  He didn’t look up, but he hesitated in his scrolling. “I’m still not with you,” he said. He put his pursed fingers against the screen and opened them, enlarging something, then he gave a huff of laughter.

  “Why did you never tell me you went there?”

  “It didn’t come up,” said Duggie.

  “How?” I said. After twenty years, this man still mystified me. “When I found the perfect place for our son to live and you railed at me and forbade it and told me you would never set foot in the place to visit him, how could it not ‘come up’ that you’d been at school there?”

  “Great summary, Gloria,” said Duggie. “That pretty much covers it.”

  “Stop looking at that ridiculous device and talk to me with some respect,” I said, grabbing at his wrist. He held the phone up out of my reach. “Treat me with some civility, for heaven’s sake,” I said. “You’re forty, not fourteen.” He had done it to me again—turned me into a harpy.

  “You’re the one snatching at my stuff like we’re in the playground,” he said, and I knew from his voice that I had needled him. We were always like this: a disaster. We’d been a train wreck from the time of Nicky’s diagnosis, since I—as my mother put it—turned away from my husband and let the inevitable happen. Only it hadn’t felt like that to me.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “It was nothing to do with Eden that made me against the idea,” said Duggie, putting his phone away. “For one thing, it was expensive.”

  “He’s your son!” I wailed.

  “As long as he’s warm and dry and got a drip and a catheter, he might as well as be in a kennel,” said Duggie. He had said things just as ugly before, but it never stopped hurting. I could feel the tears bulging up and trembling on my lashes. “And there’d have been even more expense if the place folded again and we have to shift him.”

  “But ten years later it’s going strong.”

  “As it turns out,” said Duggie. “But who was to know that? That stupid school the Tarrants tried to start was over before it began.”

  “Exactly!” I said, blinking my tears away. “The school did come up. It should have come—What?” I had only just got what he said. “The Tarrants that had the station-yard thing? They owned Eden?”

  “It’s your pal Helen Keller that owns the site,” said Duggie. “But they owned the business, yes.”

  “Miss Drumm isn’t deaf,” I said. “Duggie, why do you say such things?”

  The door opened and Zöe, balancing two coffees in a cardboard tray, walked back in. “Bad moment?” she said.

  “What was it you wanted, Gloria?” Duggie said, taking one of the cups out of the tray and giving Zöe that smile of his. I remembered that smile.

  “You were at Eden,” I said to Duggie. “You were there when that boy died.”

  “What’s this?” said Zöe. She was hovering at his elbow.

  “Was April Cowan close to him?” I said. “Was she his girlfriend? Do you think it’s connected?”

  “Gloria, love, what are you on about?” said Duggie. “An accident decades ago and another one yesterday? Why would it be connected?” He turned to Zöe and rolled his eyes, but she just frowned at him and then held out her coffee cup to me.

  “Here,” she said. “You need this more than I do.” I was so surprised, I took it. “What’s happened, Dougall?”

  “Nothing,” Duggie said.

  “It’s connected because she was down here before she died,” I said. “Two of them were.” I was looking at Duggie but then switched my gaze to Zöe, taking a sip from the cup. “Thank you. That’s really kind of you. Did you hear the news this morning?”

  “I had it on,” she said, screwing her face up as if trying to remember.

  “April Cowan was at Eden and the guy that was following her down here on the back roads was Stephen Tarrant. They were there together when that kid Moped died.”

  Duggie laughed. “Moped!” he said. “God, I’d forgotten we called him that. Moped—haven’t heard that for years.” He turned to Zöe again to share the joke, but she was looking at him with a kind of look that I recognised, only from the inside. I knew the feeling that made that look. But she wasn’t me. I always started in on him; she just shook her head and then looked away and took a step towards me.

  “It must be worrying for you,” she said. “Is that right? You live up there where that Tarrant guy’s been hanging around?”

  “I—Thank you,” I said. “I’m just—So I thought I should tell Duggie to keep his eyes peeled.”

  “You think I’m next, eh?” said Duggie. “Wishful thinking, Gloria.” He was joking.

  “In case he’s still around and you see him,” I said. “The police would want to know.”

  “You set the cops onto me?” said Duggie, joking again. His jokes started out making me laugh, but over the years they began to exhaust me. I didn’t notice whether Zöe smiled at this one.

  “No, of co
urse not,” I said, in that way of mine that made Duggie think I had no sense of humour. “But if they come round.”

  “Why would they come round?”

  I hadn’t even realised I was dropping a bomb until the silence that followed it.

  “To see where you were on Monday night and then again on Tuesday,” I said. “Since you knew both of them.”

  “He was with me on Tuesday,” said Zöe. “What’s Monday?”

  I couldn’t answer, couldn’t tell anymore what I would know from the cops at the door and the radio news and what I only knew because I had seen it or Stig had told me. The sooner I shut up and got away, the better. I held the cup out to Zöe.

  “Thanks,” I said again. “You can have the rest. I haven’t got cold sores or anything.” Duggie snorted, but Zöe smiled as if I’d said something really funny.

  “Let’s share it,” she said. “I’ll get my mug and nick some and then you take that away with you.” She disappeared through the back again to the little kitchen.

  “Thanks a fucking bunch, Gloria,” whispered Duggie, looking over his shoulder to make sure she was gone. “Cheers for showing me up in front of her.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said, which was true.

  “You’re losing it, love,” he said “You’re seriously losing your marbles with this latest crap.”

  “Duggie, I’m not being funny, I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Barging in here, banging on about shit from years ago. Yes, I was at Eden. Yes, Mope died. Yes, Golden Boy Tarrant was nowhere to be seen and no one ever asked why. If he’s finally gone too far and he gets done for it—great. But it was a long time ago and it’s nothing to do with me or you, so leave it, okay?”

  “Nice mug,” I said to Zöe, who’d just pushed the door open again.

  “Spode,” she said. Duggie was standing as rigid as a totem pole, glaring at me, but Zöe came up beside him and put an arm round his waist and leaned her head against his shoulder.

  “I’m divorced myself,” she said to me. “You wouldn’t believe the way me and my ex talk to each other sometimes. Even after ten years.” She turned and smiled up at Duggie. “Don’t look so worried, you numpty. I’ve heard worse. I’ve said worse. And not when there’s dead bodies and prowlers involved either.”

  He didn’t snarl at her for showing him up. He just shook her off without a word and threw himself down into his desk chair as I turned to go.

  I watched them through the window while I was putting my seat belt on and fitting the coffee cup into the holder under the dashboard. I don’t usually get takeaway coffee and I didn’t think I’d ever had a cup in there before today.

  Duggie was still at the desk and she was sitting on it, like a secretary from a New Yorker cartoon. One of his hands rested on the desktop, gently holding the curve of her round, trousered bottom. He was laughing.

  He had probably had girlfriends before, I told myself. It didn’t mean anything. In fact, he might be playing it up just to make me jealous. I wished I could have told him that I had an old boyfriend staying for a few days and return the favour. Golden Boy Tarrant, he had said, which sounded jealous already. Then suddenly, the rest of his words struck me. Nowhere to be seen and no one ever asked why.

  Finally I knew what had really been troubling me about the bridge and swing and the huttie and the clearing—what I had so nearly grasped last night. I had a firm hold of it now.

  Fourteen

  Incarceration was starting to show on him. His scalp, which had been so gleaming, was dull now, even flaky in places, and the corners of his mouth looked dry and sore too. His eyes were hollow above and puffy below, his glasses magnifying both.

  “You don’t look well,” I said. He was kneeling in the living room laying a fire, with Walter Scott lying on his feet and both cats watching him, one on each arm of the couch.

  “Glad you’re back,” he said. “Can you get some coal? I’ll carry it from the back door.”

  “Stig, you can go outside,” I said. “Honestly, no one ever comes and you can hear them from the top grid anyway.”

  “No one except those cops,” he said.

  “And it’s logs anyway,” I told him. “In the wee shed by the bottom door. Through the scullery, through the old farm office, and out the far end.”

  He blanched, gazing at me. “There’s a third door?” he said. “Is it locked?”

  “Maybe you’d feel less tense if you weren’t keeping so many things quiet,” I said to him. I picked up Dorothy and tried to use her as a muff, hoping she’d stay draped over my hands as long as we were in here—there is nowhere like Rough House for cold—but she wriggled, all four legs splayed and all claws out, then she jumped down, going to sit near Walter and giving me an imperious look.

  “What things?” said Stig.

  “I’ll go first,” I said. “No, don’t turn away; look at me. I want to see your face when you hear this. Duggie Morrison is Nicky’s dad.”

  For a minute it looked as though he couldn’t understand me, as though he couldn’t parse the words to make the meaning. And then his eyes opened so wide that his glasses slipped down his nose.

  “Van the Man was your husband?” he said. He sat right back, trapping Walter’s paw under his leg. Walter struggled free. “You were married to Van?”

  “What’s giving you all the trouble?” I said. “That he snagged me or that he let me go?”

  Stig hung his head then and tried not to laugh. “Sorry, Glo,” he said, rubbing his face. “No offence, but … Van was always a bit of a … flash git. And you’re … with the books and—”

  “So you being here is quite a coincidence,” I said, ignoring him.

  “Hand to God, Gloria, I hadn’t even thought about you for thirty years when I saw you driving the other car. If you’d changed your hair like everyone else, I’d have kept driving.”

  “Twenty-eight years,” I said. “And none taken.” He started to bluster, but I shushed him. “It’s okay. I know how uncool I am. I know what an odd couple we made, Duggie and me.”

  “Don’t say that!” said Stig. “Don’t put yourself down.”

  “Is that what you heard me doing?” I said, and he blushed again.

  “What went wrong?” said Stig. “Was it … you know?”

  “No!” I said. “Was it Nicky? No, of course not. I mean, a new baby’s a strain on any relationship. But no.”

  The truth was I found it hard to remember the end of my marriage. I was clear about the beginning. Duggie swept me off my feet. He brought flowers and little stuffed animals with satin hearts and messages written on them. Be mine and Sweetie-pie and once a white kitten with blue glass eyes and a pink velvet tongue that said Your Purr-fect.

  My purr-fect what? I had asked him, but he didn’t understand.

  He had come for Sunday lunch with my mum and dad. My mum flirted with him and my dad simply stared as if he didn’t believe it. That hurt me more than anything in our five years of marriage: the thought that my own father didn’t get what a tall, good-looking, successful, confident man like Duggie Morrison saw in me. That hurt more than I could say.

  When he proposed, when we were planning the wedding, decorating that first flat above the kitchen and bathroom bit of Morrison’s, I was happier than I had ever expected to be. I gave up my job, like some fool from the fifties, concentrated on the house and the wedding plans. I thought I’d get work in one of the shops after the honeymoon, join the family business, learn all Mrs. Morrison’s family recipes and have her and the old man and the rest of the clan round for supper at our new place, show them how well I’d look after their boy.

  But the job never happened, the Morrisons never visited the flat once, and cooking turned out to be a lot harder than it looked. Now you’re wishing you’d done something sensible at college, aren’t you? my mother
had sneered one day towards the end. Romance literature! I didn’t even try to explain that Romantic Literature was nothing to do with love and marriage and happy endings. I just looked for a job where they wouldn’t mind what degree I had, and then for a job where they wouldn’t mind that I had a degree. Assistant registrar at Dumfries came up, I applied, they accepted, and I fell into my round hole. The third one. The first one was being Nicky’s mum, and the second one was Rough House. In the end, I think I barely noticed Duggie leaving me. My mother probably had a point there.

  “And speaking of lies, Stig,” I said, “one last chance for you to come clean and then I’m going to have to ask you.”

  “I haven’t lied,” he said.

  “And I quote,” I said to him, “‘Golden Boy Tarrant was nowhere to be seen and no one ever asked why.’ That’s word for word what Duggie just said to me about the night Moped died.” Stig had turned to carry on with the fire, and I stared hard at the back of his head. “I wondered what was troubling me about your story. It’s this: you went to sleep in a grassy clearing surrounded by birches and you woke up in the pine trees with dew on the cones and needles.”

  He said nothing and after a minute of watching the way his scalp moved above his ears as he worked his jaw, I turned on my heel and went through to the warm kitchen.

  He followed, but reluctantly. Walter came along the passageway in front of him, that’s how slowly he was moving.

  “Wee J’s the golden boy,” he said, once he was inside the kitchen. He came over to the Rayburn and put his hands down on the closed lid to warm them. Cold as he was, I could still smell a faint sweat on him and I could see the line around his sweatshirt collar where it had soaked in.

  “What?”

  “For the record.”

  “Where were you, Stig?”

  He groaned and put his head in his hands. I could see sweat stains under his arms.

  “You need a bath,” I said. “And different clothes. And you need to go outside and get some fresh air. You look terrible. But first you need to tell me the truth about what happened that night at Eden.”