Pine

by Francine Toon

‘Glasgow,’ says the contestant.

  ‘The answer is, in fact, Venice. Sorry about that – you’re going to go home this evening.’

  Lauren leaves the game show on and makes toast. She tries to imagine what her father might be doing, but everything she thinks of seems ridiculous.

  She picks up the heavy Bakelite phone and calls Kirsty, who tells her to come over for dinner, she has made spaghetti.

  ‘I was watching a show about spaghetti,’ says Lauren.

  ‘I saw that,’ says Kirsty. ‘It’s what made me think. So you don’t know where your dad is?’

  ‘No.’

  The garish tartan carpet is stained and gives the Black Horse a certain smell. All year round the windows stay shut. A light-up Santa stands on a shelf behind the bar. It is always there. Scots proverbs hang in teak frames against the bare drystone wall. Phrases like Lang May Yer Lum Reek and Haste Ye Back, by the entrance, written in swishing calligraphy.

  ‘Hi, Hamish,’ says Niall to the landlord as he takes a seat at the bar.

  ‘Niall,’ says Hamish. ‘What’re you havin’?’

  ‘Niall!’ Diane pulls herself up from the bar fridge and leans across. She is only paid to collect glasses but has been known to pull a pint. Hamish sometimes jokes that she is trying to grow up too fast. Diane says it’s because she needs money fast.

  ‘How’s yourself?’ she asks him.

  ‘Usual! How’s tricks?’ He looks over at Hamish. ‘Just a Tennent’s.’

  Niall takes himself to a cushioned corner of the platformed seating area and sips his lager. He wipes the foam from his mouth with a frayed sleeve. The skin over his knuckles is cracked and the backs of his hands are veiny. He is an old thirty-five, with prematurely grey hair. He wonders how much older he is than Diane and if she is still in school.

  ‘How’s your mother keeping?’ he asks her as he plods back up to Hamish for another pint.

  ‘You finished that off quickly,’ says Diane and he grins, in a way he hopes is charming. Can he be charming? Does Catriona ever think he’s charming?

  Diane notices him looking at her and cocks her head. ‘I saw your daughter the other day, when I was at Ann-Marie’s. She’s such a wee character.’

  Niall is caught off guard. ‘Ho, well, you can say that again, aye.’ He coughs. ‘More of the same, please,’ he says, hoisting himself up on a leatherette stool. Hamish pours the drink in silence. The fruit machine flashes electric treasure in the corner.

  ‘Quiet in here, eh?’ he says and drains half his pint. Hamish looks up from a newspaper that is spread out on the countertop and nods.

  ‘Good day?’ It is another man at the bar, whom Niall now realizes is Alan Mackie, wearing a forest-green jumper and tweedy trousers. He stays staring at his drink as he speaks.

  ‘I’ve had better. How’s yourself? I didn’t see you there,’ Niall says. He squints at the ‘Dear Deirdre’ column Hamish is reading.

  ‘Had better days, have you? Have a whisky with me,’ says Alan. ‘On me.’ He lifts up his little water jug. ‘Two more, aye. The man needs it. Doubles.’

  ‘No, I couldn’t …’

  Alan replies with a wheezy chuckle. ‘Aye, you can. Here’ – he directs his voice to Hamish – ‘who’s playing this Friday?’

  ‘Sandy Ross and his pals.’

  ‘I could do without hearing his name for a while,’ Niall mutters.

  ‘What? I thought you were one o’ them,’ says Diane from the corner, spraying Pledge on to a glass tabletop and wiping it.

  ‘Aye. Well.’ He balls his fist and stretches it out absent-mindedly.

  ‘Right then. Here you go, gentlemen.’ Hamish slides two tumblers across to Niall and Alan.

  ‘Cheers.’

  ‘Thanks very much.’ Niall feels queasy at the sight of the whisky, but he has to drink it, to keep going. As he takes a sip he imagines himself here, sitting like Alan, talking to younger men in twenty years’ time. Lauren will nearly be the age he is now. Maybe she will have a family of her own. This seems as real as Niall one day becoming President of the United States.

  ‘I know I ask you this every time,’ Alan says, ‘but how are things going, with Lauren and everything?’ He hesitates. Alan is always trying to get him to talk about his feelings.

  ‘Aye, it’s not about that,’ says Niall. ‘No, it’s fine. Just work.’

  ‘I remember when I lost Moira,’ says Alan. He shakes his head. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you never really … “get over it”, as they say.’

  Niall looks straight at Alan, noticing his gym teacher is old now, with deep-grey hair. He thinks about what Sandy said and the girls he went to school with. ‘I haven’t lost her in that sense,’ Niall says. ‘She might, you know – we might hear something.’

  Alan nods, raising his hand to signal he has crossed a line. ‘Well,’ he says, ‘just thought I’d check, you know.’

  Hamish turns on the music, folk rock, signifying that the evening has started. Niall finishes his pint in silence and remembers when Christine would sing, her voice crystalline over his guitar. The song makes him remember her feathered earrings and the way her hands hovered over bodies, to cleanse them. She was always cleaning and cleansing souls. Purifying. He once asked her to cleanse the kitchen and she made as though to slap him. It was always a joke.

  The music changes to ‘Letter From America’ by The Proclaimers.

  ‘D’you think there’ll ever be another indie ref?’ Alan asks, his whiskered face crumpling at the question.

  ‘Who can say, Alan?’ says Hamish, absent-mindedly turning a page of the newspaper, seemingly unfazed by Scottish politics. ‘Who can say? Anything happens these days.’

  Niall feels a leathery hand grab his as Alan leans over with some effort, reeking of BO and baccy. He has the urge to pull it away.

  ‘I know it sounds awful,’ Alan says, ‘but you have to be happy. There are a lot of ladies out there, you know? I know – it sounds awful and you can tell me to fuck off for saying it.’ He grins.

  Niall smiles uneasily while he checks his wallet for the next round. Nevertheless, his thoughts wind their way back to Catriona and the pattern of her work trousers stretching taut over her backside. He coughs. Diane looks over at him. It’s the end of her shift and she’s pulling on her coat. He tries to give her a cheery smile, while the next girl takes her place at the bar.

  After spaghetti at Billy’s, Lauren watches Sunday-night television with his family. Kirsty and Billy’s father Craig have a glass of white wine. As usual, Craig keeps himself to himself; his pinched mouth has little to say. A couple of times Kirsty and Craig exchange a look. The second time Billy’s father gets up in his seat and says, ‘I’ll go over the way. See where he is.’

  ‘Give Sandy Ross a call first,’ says Kirsty.

  After some time, Craig comes back.

  ‘The drive’s empty,’ he says, ‘and I gave the door a good chap. No answer.’

  ‘You know what those two are like – they’ll probably be out together.’

  16

  Alan Mackie sits on his own now at a corner table, watching a game of darts played by three tourists from out of town. He laughs with one of them about something. The accordion player from Sandy’s band is telling a story to a couple of older men, their heavy bodies wedged on to rickety, Draylon-cushioned bar stools. Niall is never able to make friends in that way.

  People in nearby villages used to probe him about Christine’s vanishing in less sensitive ways than Alan Mackie. He knows people want to ask him about what happened.

  He’s sure there must be rumours too. Because she was always a maddie, always a strange one. Her disappearance was the last strange thing she did. These thoughts hurt more than remembering her as she was, or how he saw her. There is a word that he knows must float behind his back and it creeps to his mind, shamefully. Witch. He once found a book about familiars lying by her bed. He insisted they didn’t have any pets. The dog came after she disappeared. />
  He takes a while to warm up to anyone new in the bar and is used to regulars giving him sad or wary nods, and asking after Lauren, which makes him talk even less. He likes the quiet company of the old boys who never ask questions that are too intrusive, like Alan. He finishes his pint and steadies himself to get out, saying goodbye to no one.

  He carries on down the dark village road to the Spar, with its glowing fir-tree sign. The wind picks up, pushing against his face, wakening him. The shop is too dear, but he uses it when he has to. They are building another supermarket, an Aldi, on the outskirts of the small town on a patch of empty land by the forest. People in the town have been talking about this for months.

  He walks through an aisle of ‘Scottish produce’: oatcakes, shortbread and the chilled cheese counter with its faintly sour smell. The light is too dim for a shop and there is a low hum of white noise that he barely perceives. His reflection wobbles over the glass of the deli counter.

  The primary colours of the cereal aisle stand bright against the grey-tiled ceiling and floor. The cartoon characters – Snap, Crackle and Pop and Tony the Tiger – have changed since he last bought a packet years ago, but he doesn’t notice this either. His sense of time has floated away. He passes Highland Spring and Schweppes, his footsteps heavy, and picks up two glass bottles with red labels. He snaps out of his empty daydream and notices someone else in the aisle.

  ‘Hi, Niall.’

  Christine’s voice.

  He turns, cradling the vodka in his arms. Someone is standing with her back to him in the drinks aisle. He is not sure now that she has spoken. She is slight, short, with a black beanie pulled down to the collar of her ice-blue anorak. Her head is lowered, examining a row of Lambrini.

  He looks down at the waspy yellow sign for a special offer, running his hand over his chin, feeling the greying stubble scrape his palm. He managed to shave this morning but didn’t shower. He puts the bottles back on the shelf and takes two other, discounted brands, with a clink.

  The small person turns around, startled.

  ‘Ann-Marie.’ His voice is croaky with booze.

  ‘Hi, Niall.’ Her eyes dart about, never quite meeting his.

  ‘You old enough to be buying here?’

  She takes her hand away from the shelf, but then reaches out for a bottle of Gordon’s gin.

  ‘My dad’s outside. He asked me to nip in and pick up a few things.’

  The arm furthest from his is down by her side, holding a large white bottle. He remembers she is on a school holiday.

  ‘Your dad’s on the Bacardi these days?’

  She puts the rum back on the shelf and looks down at the vodka in his arms.

  ‘Be careful,’ Niall says as she disappears around the corner.

  When Niall takes the vodka and a pack of Tennent’s to the counter, he sees her again, standing in the cereal aisle, staring at the Special K, her beanie tugged down low. He can see she’s nervous about something.

  Jill is at the counter, as usual, unsmiling and distant. Her hair is short and yellow-blonde. She scans the bottles, then the beer. He gives her his credit card and opens his mouth to say something about Ann-Marie, but thinks better of it. Jill asks if he wants to spend five p on a poly bag. She is not from the area. Niall only knows her name is Jill because it is pinned on her geometric blouse. No one in this town ever comes close to being as beautiful as his wife, not even Catriona. Guilt seeps through him.

  It has been ten years. No one in the town ever looked like her back then either. The other girls from school brushed their hair back into perfect ponytails, the tops of their heads hard with hairspray. Other women cropped their hair, sometimes leaving it long at the back and short at the sides. In lots of small ways, the town has never truly left the nineties.

  Sportswear is popular for men and women: joggers, T-shirts printed with holiday destinations. Other women wear tight jeans and sequinned, off-the-shoulder tops for cigarettes and pints at the pub. He found these girls pretty and exciting at one time – they were the only girls he knew. But they treated Christine like a foreigner.

  The bottles clink in the bag as Niall carries them out of the shop. As he leaves, he passes Alan Mackie in the doorway, still smiling from the pub.

  ‘Whup!’ Alan says. ‘We’ve got to stop meeting like this! I’m getting a few for Duncan’s place.’

  Niall nods, not knowing which Duncan he means. Alan eyes him with mild curiosity.

  Making sure no one can see him, Niall sits in the pickup and takes a yellowing plastic cup, part of an old thermos, from the glove compartment. He unscrews the red cap from the vodka bottle and pours himself a drink, neat. He never learned what Christine really thought of him, even to this day. She was mad but calm. Daydreamy at times, at others anxious. In a good mood, she would act as though she was humouring him and that nothing passed her by, because she had seen more of the world than he had.

  Soon after they met, they went to the big beach near Strath Horne for a walk. There was little wind and families were out on the sands. Dogs were running with driftwood and children were jumping off the rocks Niall had jumped off as a child. He told her a story and used the word ‘jamp’. She corrected him, and he tried to carry her into the water. He picked her up in a fireman’s lift and she kicked her legs and screamed, and he noticed a family he knew staring at them, so he put her down among the sand dunes. She kissed him, and they lay there for a long time.

  The road is dark, and he is not near a streetlamp. He waits, sipping the vodka at first, then taking deep gulps. He sees Ann-Marie walk out with a heavy bag, its contents unclear.

  He turns on the engine and leans out of the open window. ‘Hie!’

  She ignores him.

  ‘Hie! Ann-Marie!’

  She stops and walks over to him.

  ‘Are you wanting a lift home?’ he says.

  ‘No, no,’ she says. ‘I’m fine.’ She looks at the thermos cup in his hand. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Where are you off to?’ he says.

  She starts to walk away, pointing ahead to somewhere vague. ‘I am meeting … Just meeting my dad. Don’t worry.’

  She leaves, her light jacket fading into the ill-lit street.

  He sits in his own thoughts for a while, but these kinds of memories are like rocks rubbing against raw skin. He prefers to believe they happened to another man. Often this seems true. He likes to use his work shed and take trips to the timber yard when the memory of this man feels too much like himself. These days he has been making a cabinet that needs sanding. New chairs he has finished are stacked in the corner of his work shed, waiting for varnish. He will never get tired of the smell of varnish. Much of the furniture in the house he has made himself.

  The previous month, an English shopkeeper at a furniture place in town had asked whether he wanted to supply his work as a ‘local artisan’ and have his photograph taken, to put in the window. But he said no, he wasn’t ‘arty’, not like Christine.

  Niall drinks another cup of warm vodka and begins the drive home, passing some teenagers who are walking to the bus shelter, where Ann-Marie is sitting on its sloping red bench. He stops the truck some feet ahead, and notices the teenagers do not seem to know her. He drinks another cup of vodka and gets out of the pickup.

  ‘Hey.’

  Ann-Marie looks up.

  ‘Hey, hop in. I’ll give you a lift. You don’t want to get the bus.’

  Ann-Marie smiles reluctantly. Her bag clinks as she rises and walks over to the pickup. It is fully dark now.

  ‘Here, take a seat,’ says Niall. He steadies his hand on the passenger window and frost stings his palm.

  ‘Thanks, Niall.’ Ann-Marie opens the passenger side and snowy air blows in. ‘Are you OK driving?’ She is still standing, holding the door.

  Niall takes a minute for her words to sink in. Then he says, ‘Y’all right? I’m all right. We’re fine now. I don’t want you going home on your own.’

  ‘Thanks, Niall.’ She
gets into the pickup, clutching the bag on her knees with one hand, the other gripping the handle in the truck’s door as he starts the drive back to their village.

  ‘So,’ he says. His breath comes out in steam.

  Ann-Marie shifts in her seat. ‘So.’

  Niall turns the radio dial and a chat show fills the pickup, along with the smell of anti-freeze blowing out from the dashboard. The wipers start squeaking. There is a comedian who sounds serious, talking about how Christmas is getting earlier each year. Niall starts off into the empty road, swerving a little and then righting himself.

  ‘You sure you’re OK?’ asks Ann-Marie.

  ‘Aye-I’m-fine-why.’ One word melts into the other.

  ‘You … don’t seem your usual self.’

  ‘I’m fine! Never better. Never. Better. Women, y’know.’

  Ann-Marie smirks. ‘OK.’ The black road merges into the black landscape either side of them, with tiny dots of light in the distance and catseyes glowing up from the tarmac, one after the other.

  ‘It gets so dark now. It feels so much later than it actually is,’ she says.

  Niall stays silent. A lorry charges in the other direction, almost clipping the wing mirror.

  ‘Niall.’

  ‘Aye.’

  They drive on in silence. Niall changes the radio station to the one he prefers at this time of day. They are playing a run-down of the best folk of the seventies. He can feel Ann-Marie relax a little beside him.

  They pass a snowy field outside the village. Christine once took him up to the standing stones there, for a solstice picnic in the sun, by the ancient burial ground. She was always doing these things.

  Before she moved to Strath Horne, Christine had found paganism in the city, becoming one of the performers at the Beltane fire festival. He had never been to the spring event itself, but he knew it was about body paint and nudity and sex. He had heard that there were orgies. She had danced naked with fire. He would ask her for her stories before he went to sleep some nights. He nicknamed her friends from that time, the New Age students, ‘the hobbits’. Fucking Beltane. It had meant nothing to him, before he met her, except running up a hill like a madman and shoving your face in the April dew. And bonfires. He must admit he has a soft spot for them now. She used to call them ‘need-fires’ and make bannocks. She celebrated the sun. She was a child of seventeen when she moved to Edinburgh, but lied about her age. No one could tell her anything. She painted her nails vermilion and made posies from rowan branches. He would tease her later, hearing these stories, and tell her she needed to keep away from the rowans, that the branches would burn her, that someone would dunk her in a river.