He grimaces. “To the whisky, and the bourbon, and some rather fine brandy I was keeping for a special occasion . . . so I was somewhat jaded the morning after. I suspect Ali took the brunt of it, though. I don’t think he surfaced till the afternoon.” He runs an assessing eye over me. “Anyway, how are you settling in?”
“Oh, fine,” I say, brightly.
“Do you remember it much?” Ben’s eyes are wandering over the kitchen now.
“Not properly. Bits of it, here and there.” I look around the kitchen myself, as if another look at the walls might suddenly unearth some recollections. Though there may be no recollections to unearth. Perhaps my brain was too amorphous, too young, too new to know how to lay down lifelong memories. “Do you want a tour after your coffee? I mean, if you really are serious about buying the place.”
“That would be great, actually.”
Callum has already finished his allotted two biscuits, and a glass of water also, and is eyeing the hallway with evident curiosity. “Do you want to go off and look around by yourself?” I ask him. Callum looks at Ben, whose expression seems inclined toward no. “I don’t mind,” I assure Ben. “I can’t think that there’s anything dangerous, which probably means there’s nothing especially interesting for him either, but he’s welcome to take a look.”
Ben half nods, half shrugs, and Callum instantly slips off his chair, throwing a quick thank-you over his shoulder as he disappears. I turn back to Ben, a smile still lingering on my face. It seems oddly intimate, now, to be sitting at my own kitchen table having a coffee with a man, practically a stranger. I hear Callum thumping up the stairs, then the sound fades, as if the Manse itself is deliberately cocooning us in the peace of the kitchen. I look for something to say. “He seems a good kid.”
Ben smiles and snags himself a biscuit. “He is. He has his moments, but yeah, he’s a good kid. He’s Fiona’s, in case you didn’t know,” he adds. My eyes snap to him, but he’s stirring milk into his coffee and doesn’t notice my consternation. “Though I suppose there’s no reason why you would know.” I’m putting them side by side—Fiona and Callum—in my mind’s eye, or at least I’m trying to, but I can’t make the image of Fiona stick. She veers nauseatingly in and out of focus, whereas I can see Callum solid and pin sharp. “She’s a single mum. I help out where I can.”
Which means Ben is babysitting so that Fiona can meet with Carrie. I feel a distinct unease at the thought of the trouble she’s gone to—arranging childcare—in order to meet up with Carrie. Unless perhaps she’s working today anyway . . . “Where’s the dad?”
Ben shrugs. “No idea. Nobody knows who he is.” He half smiles at my open mouth. “She won’t say.”
“She won’t say? But surely she’d want child support payments.” I process that for a moment. “Maybe she doesn’t know.”
Ben shakes his head. “Nope, Fiona isn’t like that, and believe me, this place is small enough that every single hookup is big news.” The mild grimace that temporarily crosses his mouth suggests firsthand experience of that. “I didn’t even realize she was pregnant. She was working at a stable up north for a few months and then came back with Callum, but she must have been pregnant with him before she left. As far as I can gather, it’s an immaculate conception.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.” His lips twitch at my cynicism. “I get the impression that you guys are close.”
“We are. We’ve been friends since we were kids. We didn’t hang out so much in our teenage years—she went a bit wayward then, and I’m that wee bit older, so we weren’t quite in the same circles, but after that we got close again, and now she’s one of my best friends. But Callum’s father is her own business, and she hasn’t chosen to say, so . . .” He shrugs, an exercise in coordinated movement: the corners of his mouth curve up exactly in time with his shoulders. “I can see the reporter in you is deeply unsatisfied with that,” he teases.
“Deeply.” In fact, I’m amazed by it. If she hasn’t told anyone, then presumably she hasn’t told Callum, either. I wonder if he’s old enough to ask difficult questions, and if so, how does she respond? My experience of children isn’t vast, but I rather think the sturdy little mite currently roaming through my house is very much capable of demanding answers.
“Fiona seems a little . . . I don’t know how to put it . . .” Even though I’ve been desperate to broach the subject, I don’t quite have the words for it. But Ben is already nodding.
“Yeah, I know, she’s wired a little differently. But she’s a top lass. You just have to get to know her. And make allowances with time.” Make allowances with time? I shake my head blankly. “She has something called dyschronometria,” he explains. “Among other things . . . Anyway, she can’t understand time; she has no concept of how much of it has passed. It makes her memories difficult too—she has no idea how recently or long ago something happened, and she can’t put anything in order.”
Suddenly the watch makes sense. “So that’s why all the beeping.”
“It helps her keep track. She’s actually pretty good at work; there have only been one or two issues as a result of it. Technically I’m her boss—or her boss’s boss, I suppose—but I mostly leave the equestrian stuff to her manager, since he knows what he’s doing.” He shrugs. “Once you know about the dyschronometria, you find a way to work around it.”
“I’ve never heard of it.”
“It’s not common. Sometimes it can happen after a blow to the head.”
“Is that what happened to Fiona?”
He spreads his hands expressively as if to say, Who knows? “Nobody is sure. She remembers blows to the head, more than one in fact, but she doesn’t know when they happened, or even if they’re significant. I mean, if you were anything like me, I bet you bumped your head a ton in childhood . . . She could have been born like this, and it just wasn’t obvious until the age when you’re supposed to be a bit more responsible.”
Dyschronometria. Something to do with not having a grip on time. “How does it impact Callum?”
“Not as much as you might think. He has to be more organized than you’d expect in a kid that age, but she has calendar reminders for just about everything in her phone. Between the two of them, and her dad, not much slips through the cracks.”
“They live with her dad?” Glen McCue. Our nearest neighbors.
He nods. “It’s a good setup. She gets a bit of help with childcare.”
“And Jamie?”
“Yeah, he lives there too.” His tone is decidedly neutral. Despite the banter I’ve heard between them, I wonder how well Ben and Jamie get on. And I wonder if Ben knows about Fiona’s obsession with the Manse—it doesn’t seem my place to tell him, especially if Fiona keeps away from now on. If I thought she was responsible for the missing bin bag, then I wouldn’t have such scruples, but she was barely able to stand at the end of that evening, let alone break into a house—she can’t be responsible for anything more than the ashtrays full of cigarette butts. And in any case, I can’t imagine Ben would take kindly to me saying unflattering things about one of his closest friends. Still, I wonder if Fiona remembers my warning.
The silence stretches out between us as Ben finishes his biscuit. I drop my eyes to my mug, to my fingers wrapped around it. I’m suddenly very conscious of where my gaze alights, of where it is seen to alight. There’s nothing exceptionally flirtatious in Ben’s manner, no change to his usual laid-back demeanor, but still, I know there’s something there, hovering. I know that if I were to reach for it, if I were to deliberately hold his gaze, the very air between us would change, each atom suddenly charged, no longer floating aimlessly but instantly imbued with the sole purpose of creating a conduit between us. We are bound within a cocoon. I am too aware of him, and he of me, and the Manse is aware of us both.
Suddenly Carrie’s words echo in my head: I gather from Ali he’s quite the player
. I wonder whether Ben was hoping to see me or Carrie today. Surely Carrie, from the way his eyes lingered on her the other night. It should be Carrie here now, not me. I would prefer it to be Carrie.
I stand up abruptly, under the pretext of taking my mug to the sink, then lean back against the counter and survey him. He’s sitting back in his chair, his legs sprawled in front of him, one of his hands resting on his thigh and the other on the table, his long, slender fingers playing with the teaspoon, turning it over and over lengthways. He glances at me with irises the blue of a springtime sky, and I know he knows why I moved. “So,” he says, clearing his throat. “Do you own your place in London? House prices there are horrendous, I hear.”
The moment has passed. The air is just air; there’s no conduit and no charge. “It’s my boyfriend’s flat. He’s had it for over twenty years.”
“Ah yes, Carrie mentioned the boyfriend. Jonathan Powell, no less.” His lips twist wryly. “No run-of-the-mill London wanker-banker for Ailsa Calder—no, you had to get yourself a national treasure. How are the poor Scottish menfolk to compete with that?” I find myself giggling at his theatrical chagrin. Ali is right. Ben just can’t help himself being a player. “Did he never marry, or is he divorced?”
“Divorced. It only lasted a couple of years. Though he has a son from that marriage—Anthony. He’s”—I screw up my face, doing the math—“gosh, he must be twenty-nine now.” Kind, unassuming Anthony is twenty-nine. Time flies . . . Over the decade or so in which I’ve known him, I’ve only spotted the slightest hint of resentment toward his largely absentee father. Perhaps it’s just as well. He doesn’t possess the backbone to hold Jonathan to account.
“And do you want kids?” Ben asks. I stare at him, trying, not for the first time, to envisage it: a baby. A baby with Jonathan. I try to imagine him holding it, burping it, giving it a bottle, but nothing comes. My oh-so-fervent imagination is always sadly lacking on this exercise. Ben makes a motion with his hand. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep the mark.”
“No, don’t be silly, I just . . . You know, to be honest, I just don’t know. I can’t quite imagine it.”
“But you must remember Carrie being born.”
“Oh, totally. She was gorgeous, of course.”
“Of course.” He’s smiling, as if we are somehow sharing the joke of Carrie’s evident attractions. I realize that, here, Carrie and I are seen as a unit. A compliment to one is a compliment to the larger whole. The casual assumption that we already are what I hope we might become throws me off-balance. I struggle to bring myself back to the conversation. “So yes, I know what it’s like to have a baby in the house. I just can’t quite imagine the baby being mine.” That’s not quite true—I almost can. I can almost feel the weight and warmth of a small bundle snuggled against my chest. What I can’t quite imagine is Jonathan there too.
Suddenly Callum spills into the kitchen in a whirlwind of noise and movement. “Uncle Jamie is coming up the drive,” he says importantly.
“Goodness, I’m popular today.” Ben looks at me thoughtfully but doesn’t say anything. “Come on, Callum, we’d better invite him in.”
“He doesnae like biscuits,” Callum says as we walk through the hallway to the front door.
“Really? I didn’t think it was possible to not like biscuits.”
“I guess he likes other things instead.”
“Like what?”
Callum pauses, his brow furrowed. “Fruit?” he hazards. “I dinnae ken.”
He slips his hand into mine just as I unlatch the door, so I’m looking down at him in surprise as the door swings open. His hand is warm and sturdy, the skin supple and soft. The trust implicit in that simple action floors me. “Hiya, Uncle Jamie,” he says.
I look up to catch a flash of chagrin on Jamie’s face, which is quickly replaced by a smile. “You’ve got visitors, I see; hiya, Callum. Ailsa, I can come back.”
“Not at all. The more the merrier. Come on in. Tea?”
“Ah, an invitation,” he says, grinning cheekily. He’s just as well put together as the previous occasions: slim-cut jeans and a very smart navy down jacket. “Well, in that case . . .” He makes a big show of stepping over the threshold, and I roll my eyes at him.
A sudden gust of wind slams the front door hard, almost catching Jamie’s heels and making Callum jump, his little hand squeezing mine. “Wow. The back door must be open,” I reassure Callum. “Anyway. Tea, Jamie?”
“I’d love one.”
“Was the back door open, Ben?” I ask as we reach the kitchen. If it was, it’s closed now. “The front one nearly took our heels off.”
“No,” says Ben, pushing his chair back to stand as Jamie leans in to shake his hand. “The draft must have come from somewhere else. How’s it going, Jamie? Not at work today?” He’s perfectly genial, but he’s not warm; the handshake is not the welcome Piotr got. I can’t tell if that’s because Ben resents the interruption or if he resents Jamie in particular.
“No, I’m not doing weekends anymore.”
“What do you do, Jamie?” I ask.
“I’m going to see Toast,” Callum says to me, half a statement and half a question, and I nod my permission as he releases my hand.
“Day trading,” Jamie says. “Equities.” I start making tea for Jamie, only half listening to his reply as I keep an eye on Callum through the window. Somehow the existence of him, in the garden, completely changes the feel of the Manse. It should be a family home, I think. It was once. It should be again. “I used to work weekends at the estate agents’, an extra pair of hands to show the houses, that sort of thing,” Jamie is saying. “But it’s going well enough on the trading that I dropped that.”
Callum has reentered the kitchen. Ben pushes his chair back and stands, stretching briefly. “I’d better get you home, Callum.” His shirt rides up, and I see a flash of lean tanned stomach, with a dusting of golden brown hairs running a trail into his jeans. I look away quickly, feeling like a Peeping Tom, especially conscious of Jamie’s eyes on me. “Can I have a rain check on that tour? Maybe I can take your mobile number and we can sort it out for another time?”
“Sure.” I reel off my number for him to type into his phone. Jamie settles into the same chair that he sat in on his midnight visit, and swaps a thank-you for the tea I hand to him.
“Hey,” Ben says suddenly, pulling my gaze back to him. His attention has been caught by the dinner party photo which is still sitting on the counter. “You know, that’s my father. I should have told you; he knew your mother pretty well. Look, this guy, farthest right. Next to Ali’s folks, actually.”
I move to his side to see whom he’s pointing at, then take the photo from him and tilt it. I can’t see any particular family resemblance between Ben and his father, but Ali’s father is unmistakable. They share the same dark, rumpled features, though his father is a big man, both tall and broad, whereas Ali has inherited the smaller frame of his mother. The photo suddenly has added significance. All those friends, together in the same room, enjoying one another’s company, and only the other night, over a quarter of a century later, their offspring were doing the same in the Quaich. It feels like looking into an infinity mirror: the same image repeating endlessly, getting smaller and smaller, until the end of light and time.
“I can’t see Glen there, or your mum,” Ben is saying to Jamie. Jamie reaches out a hand and I pass him the photo. “Maybe it was taken after she died. Come on, Callum, we’d best get going.”
“It was lovely to meet you, Callum,” I tell him.
“I liked it, too,” he says with an endearing earnestness. Then he pipes up again, in the blunt way of children. “I like the dining room best. It’s how it should be.”
“Me too.” He’s perceptive, this little mite.
“Was the gold writing always there?”
“What?”
“We talked about this,” Ben says gently. “It’s not a bad thing. It’s just different. And they’ll give you extra time in exams if it’s diagnosed.”
Callum looks thoroughly disgusted. “Why would I want exams to take even longer?”
I meet Ben’s eyes over Callum’s head, stifling a laugh. He throws a hand in the air as if exasperated, but it’s belied by the amusement in his face. I’ve opened the back door now, and Toast’s head is just visible above the garden wall as she stands anxiously awaiting her master. “Why wouldn’t Toast come in?” I ask Callum.
“None of the animals will.”
“What?” I scan his expression for some kind of explanation, for the hint of a joke waiting to step out, but his little face is still shiningly, earnestly clear. I think of the cat circling the garden, never actually setting a paw inside, despite the bird . . . “But no, that’s not right; there was a bird in the garden only last night. It was injured, poor thing.”
“Oh, that was from before,” says Callum, unconcerned. “Or later.” I look at Ben again, confused, but he has turned back to say good-bye to Jamie.
“Thank-you-for-having-me,” Callum sing-songs at me, clearly a learned phrase, before I can press the point.
“Thank-you-for-having-me-too,” parodies Ben. He’s through the door now, squinting against the sunshine as he looks back at me. The fine creases that form around his eyes when he smiles are even more evident in the bright light. It reminds me that he’s only a couple of years younger than myself. I wonder if his charm will prevail as he ages. I think of Jonathan, several trips round the sun past fifty. I didn’t know Jonathan when he was Ben’s age, but nonetheless, I can see similarities. The same charisma, the same inability to switch it off.
The Missing Years Page 14