The Missing Years Page 10

  He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “All right, all right, hen.” His tone is so clearly patronizing that I feel a sudden desire to punch him. “Chill, lassie, I’m not trying to be arsey.”

  “Aye right, that’ll be a first,” snorts Fiona.

  “Don’t mind Ali,” Ben says. “He’s a softy inside really.”

  “Really?” Carrie laces the word with skepticism.

  “Nope, not in the least,” says Fiona, and the two of them begin to giggle.

  “Thanks, Fi,” says Ali in a surly tone. I can’t tell whether it’s for comic effect. “Fabulous to see I can rely on you for support after all these years.”

  Carrie and Fiona are giggling too much to reply, both sitting on the low stone wall that separates the car park from the pavement, bent over with their heads together. Apparently I’m not the only one who’s had a little too much to drink. I move toward them, hovering indecisively. How to extract Carrie? Perhaps it’s very simple. Perhaps I would be expected to herd Carrie home; maybe that’s what older sisters are supposed to do. Or will she feel that I’m being overbearing? Does she in fact want to take Ben up on his unspoken intentions, despite claiming to have sworn off men?

  “Are you a whisky fan, Carrie? Yes? Good lass.” Ben turns to me. “And I have plenty else to drink besides whisky. My place is only another hundred meters or so; come for one drink, at least.” I can’t see his eyes properly in the dark.

  “Oh shit, I left my coat inside,” exclaims Carrie suddenly.

  “Come on,” says Jamie, leaving his jeep. “I’ll help you look for it.” He puts out a hand and pulls Carrie up to standing.

  “Thanks,” I say, throwing him a grateful smile. I watch them head back into the Quaich. I hear a snatch of a conversation—no more than a word or two, but I think I hear Jonathan’s name and I glance to where Ben, Piotr and Ali have moved off to one side, involved in an animated conversation that is taking all of their attention. As I watch, Ali darts a glance at me with scornful glee, and seconds later his words float across the car park: Jesus, he must be fifty if he’s a day. Daddy issues, much? A crimson wave of vitriol flows through me, almost blinding me. I have to take a few deep breaths before it recedes.

  I turn away deliberately, toward Fiona. She’s holding a cigarette now, an unfocused look on her face. I smell the smoke and it immediately puts me in mind of the Manse, and suddenly I can’t stop myself. I sit on the uncomfortably uneven stone wall next to her. “Fiona.” She turns to look at me, the small movement almost upsetting her balance given the alcohol we’ve all sunk. “I know you like to visit the Manse.” Her eyes are trying and failing to focus on me, but I can see she understands. She knows what I’m talking about and she doesn’t even try to deny it. My next words are hard and low. “I’m warning you. If you ever visit the Manse uninvited, I will have you arrested, do you hear me?”

  She looks back at me, swaying almost imperceptibly. I can’t see the color of her eyes in this light, and it occurs to me that I don’t even know what color I should be seeing. The moment drags out. Then she carefully lifts the hand that isn’t holding the cigarette and deliberately reaches out toward me with it. I try to pull away, aghast, but without standing up I can’t get far enough away; almost in slow motion, I watch her hand get nearer and nearer to my face, unable to escape it. She pats me gently on the cheek. “S’okay,” she says. Her eyes still aren’t focused. “You ’n’ me are going to be great pals.”

  I stare at her, almost shaking, both floored and furious in equal measure. “You’re not listen—”

  “Success!” I hear Carrie call, and I look up. She’s exiting the Quaich, brandishing her coat, with Jamie behind her; there is nothing more I can say. I stand up.

  “Do you want a lift home?” Jamie asks me. “It’s all right, I wasnae drinking.” He looks down at Fiona, still sitting on the wall with her head bent. “Unlike this one.” His expression is a mix of exasperation and something else. I wonder what it’s like, to feel tied to someone like this, someone who walks in your own friendship circles so that you can never quite escape. He becomes aware of the weight of my gaze and gives me a rueful smile and a shrug.

  “Actually, that would be great.” I smile back at him, a proper smile. It may be the first one I’ve bestowed upon him. “Right, Carrie?”

  She sighs theatrically. “Much as I hate to say it, I do have a rehearsal to get up for in the morning.” She turns to call out to Ben. “Can I take a rain check on that rather fine whisky?”

  “Anytime.” Then his gaze is caught by Fiona on the wall, and he leaves Ali and Piotr. “You okay, hon?” he asks, hunkering down.

  She slings an arm round his shoulders. “Happy birthday, Big Ben. Ding-dong. You’re going to have a good year.” That annoying beep comes again from her watch. Nobody reacts.

  “Up you come.” He has her on her feet now, though I doubt there’s much weight on them; it’s all being supported by Ben. “Is that a fact? A Fi fact?”

  “A Fi fact. Incontrovertible.” The last word is slurred almost beyond recognition.

  Jamie has unlocked the jeep. Ben helps Fiona into the passenger seat, then turns to Carrie and me with a rueful smile. “You’re sure I can’t tempt you both with a nightcap?”

  “Another time,” I say.

  “Definitely, there will be plenty more opportunities. Well, I’ll see you both soon.” There’s nothing to be read into his words—he’s not putting any particular emphasis on them—but his eyes rest more heavily on Carrie. It occurs to me that I’ve never been in a social situation such as this with a grown-up Carrie before. It occurs to me that it would be Carrie with whom the bartender would be looking for a knee-trembler in the storeroom, and it’s suddenly clear to me that my place in the world has shifted: I thought I was here, but actually I’m there, only I don’t yet know what there is like.

  “Hop in,” says Jamie, a touch impatiently, and we do. As Jamie pulls out of the car park, my attention is taken by Fiona. From my vantage point behind her, I can see her reflection in the wing mirror. She has wound down the window and has her head turned to the stream of chilly night air, her hair blown back from her face, her eyes closed as the air streams in. She could be asleep, except I can see that her lips are moving, though I can’t hear any sound.

  In a matter of minutes we are back at the Manse, once again lit from within, but this time deliberately—Carrie and I left the hallway light on to welcome us home. Jamie is enough of a gentleman to hop out of his seat and open the car door for us. Carrie thanks him prettily then calls an unacknowledged good-bye to Fiona. Then she heads rather unsteadily for the front door whilst hunting in her bag for her keys. Jamie offers me a hand to help me out of the car.

  “Thank you,” he says quietly. “For not saying anything. She’s doing better . . . I mean, she shouldnae really drink—Ben’s never a great influence for that—but it was his birthday and all . . . Really, she’s doing well.”

  “Don’t mention it.” Instantly there’s a feeling of guilt clawing up inside me. Though I doubt Fiona will remember our confrontation in the morning anyway.

  I want to ask Jamie what he meant before, but as if reading my mind, Jamie says, “I will explain; I promise. But . . .” With a rueful smile he gestures at Carrie, struggling at the front door with her keys, then at Fiona, possibly passed out in the passenger seat. “Can I pop round for coffee sometime?” He smiles gratefully at my nod and touches my arm gently. “Night, then.”

  “Night.” He’s turning away when his words from earlier register with me—She shouldnae really drink. Does he mean she’s on some kind of medication? I’m suddenly appalled at myself. Did I really just threaten a mentally vulnerable individual? Then Carrie manages to open the front door, allowing a slice of yellow light to wash out over the driveway. It’s the only light I can see in the 360 degrees of darkness that surrounds this house, and I feel the impact of tha
t. We are a long way from city-living here, from the kind of living I’m used to, with an untold number of people within a couple of hundred feet who could potentially be called on for help should the situation warrant it. Here I could scream to the heavens and not a soul would come running. Our very closest neighbors are a good mile away. Even in a car, that would mean several minutes at least before help arrived—and that’s supposing you could actually raise the neighbor on the phone in the first place, given the dodgy reception . . .

  Jamie is climbing back into his seat now. “Thanks again for the lift,” I call.

  “Anytime.” I watch his taillights disappear down the drive. The night is still, with only the fading engine sounds disturbing it. There are stars in the sky in a way that you never see in the city, thousands and thousands of them, in sprinkles here and cloudy nebulas there. I can’t reconcile the serene beauty of this nightscape with the roiling, burning furnace of gases that science tells me is the cause of these elegant pinpoints of light. I watch the sky for a few minutes longer. Nothing moves.

  The Manse that I eventually enter is warm; I feel its heat encircle me and instantly I’m yawning. Carrie is already in the kitchen, filling up the kettle. She’s put the radio on low on some kind of channel where there’s a lot of talking. It’s very soporific. “Tea?” she asks. “Or straight to bed?”

  “Tea, please. And a large glass of water, I think.”

  “Me too. I’m not quite sure who was topping up my wineglass but it always seemed to be full.” She yawns, too, covering her mouth delicately with one hand. I think of a cat. “I had fun, though. Did you?”

  “Yes, I did.” Did I? There was plenty that should have been fun, or at least pleasant, but I can’t shake the presence of Fiona from the evening; she is threaded through every scene. But Carrie looks like she’s waiting for more from me, so I add, “Everyone was really nice. Well, maybe not Ali.”

  “Yeah, he seems to be an acquired taste.” I smile at her caustic tone. “He’s funny, though, in that biting kind of way. Hey, do you want to know where I got my Jacobite history from?” There’s a sly grin hovering round her mouth as she looks up at me from pouring out the hot water. I nod obligingly. “I don’t know if you went to the loo while we were at the Quaich, but the Ladies is papered with snippets of Scottish history. I read it just before we all sat down.”

  I can’t help laughing and she grins back broadly, while trying not to spill the tea she’s handing me. I wonder how many cups she drinks a day; she seems to be permanently either drinking or making one. We sip the hot tea in companionable silence, leaning against the kitchen counter rather than sitting down at the table. If I sat down I might go to sleep right there.

  “Jamie seemed quite taken with you.” I look at her in surprise. Jamie? I would have imagined if she had said that about anybody, it would have been Ben; he spoke to me more than Jamie did. As if reading my mind, she says, “Well, Ben too, but I gather from Ali he’s quite the player, so . . .” She shrugs dismissively, and the maroon sweater slips off one shoulder; if Piotr could see her now, he would be even more lost. And Ben, too. “But Jamie was looking at you most intensely.”

  She’s looking at me intensely herself, now, trying to gauge my reaction, with no idea that she’s got the wrong end of the stick. Jamie isn’t the least bit interested in me romantically; he’s simply very interested in making sure that I keep his secrets. Well, Fiona’s secret, really. But regardless, she has obviously picked up on something. There must be some kind of undercurrent of collusion between Jamie and me. I look for a way to dissemble. “I rather thought Ben was more interested in you. And Piotr was thoroughly smitten.”

  She smiles. “He’s sweet. But not really my type.” I note that she didn’t comment on Ben. What is her type? I wonder. Carrie could be a player, too, perhaps even ought to be a player—she has all the wherewithal and no reason not to use it, though I have never really seen her in action, so to speak. But she has put down her empty mug with a clunk. “Right. And so to bed. To sleep, perchance to dream,” she proclaims, though the delivery is marred by another catlike yawn.

  “Hamlet.”

  “Yup.” She runs her tired eyes over me even as a third yawn takes over her mouth. “You know, you look exhausted too. You should sleep in. I’ll try not to wake you in the morning.”

  “I’ll try.” Then, without thinking I add, “Wait.”

  “What?” She pauses in the act of pushing off the counter.

  I say the words before I can consider them properly, before I can paralyze myself by overthinking. “Do you miss Mum?” I shake my head, frustrated. Of course she misses her mum; she didn’t have the complicated relationship with Karen that I had. “I mean, how do you miss Mum?”

  She settles back against the counter and looks at me carefully, or as carefully as her bleary eyes can manage. “It’s not . . . it’s not every minute of every day. I think I would miss Dad that way; he’s the one I’ve always called first. But Mum was . . . well, you know.” She smiles ruefully as if I must know what she means, but I’m not sure I do. “Certain things remind me, I suppose. But really I think I miss the . . . the certainty most.”

  “Certainty?”

  “You know, feeling that everything is going to be all right, that there’s always a safe place, that all will be as it’s meant to be.” You know. But I don’t know that feeling. I never have. “They say you truly grow up when your parents die. I know I’ll be worrying about Dad more now, too.” The rueful smile comes out again. I wonder if that’s why she’s here—here in the Manse—beyond the per diem saving and the benefit of her own room: she’s become acutely aware that one day we might be all each other has. Or am I projecting my own thoughts upon her? She looks at me with her disquieting eyes. “You miss her, too.” Her words are perfectly balanced, halfway between a statement and a question.

  “I wasn’t sure I would,” I admit. “We only spoke a couple of times a month.” Logistical calls. I’m flying out to this place. I’ll be gone for this length of time. That kind of thing. A courtesy, at best, since it was much better to call Pete for anything practical.

  “Do you wish you’d come back?”

  “For the funeral?” I can see Jonathan in the hotel room in Cairo. “But you know it was impossible. I tried everything—”

  She’s shaking her head. “I meant before. For longer than a couple of days every third Christmas.”

  I chose to ignore the bitterness. “It wouldn’t have changed anything.” My throat is tight.

  “Maybe.” It’s not an agreement; there’s a stubbornness to the word. It hangs between us and refuses to budge. I take a sip of tea in silence. “I’m sorry,” she offers, after a moment. “I’m just tired. I know it’s different for you; I know it’s always been different. But I miss her. I know you do too.”

  I nod slowly. “Yes. But I don’t—I don’t have the words for it.” I think for some reason of my mountain of a Scottish lawyer. I’m sorry about your mum, he said in a thick gravelly brogue. You must miss her. It sounded like an order: must I? And then I found that, in fact, I did. How odd that the gap that’s left is larger than the space that was occupied. “I don’t know how to help. You or me.”

  She’s smiling again, but the rueful edge has gone. “I like that you want to.” I like that you want to. It’s a simultaneous warm hug and a cold glass of water to the face. Both steal my breath. But why should she be able to rely on my good intentions? I’ve never been around to be relied upon before. She’s yawning again. I fight to keep my voice even. “You’re done in. Go on up to bed; I’ll lock up.”

  “Yep.” She pauses by the door on her way out. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  “I’m fine. Sleep well.” The radio is still playing, giving the illusion of company, but I’m no longer in a kitchen in Scotland. I can feel the cool of the hotel room in Cairo, the shade inside in contrast to the brightness framed
by the linen curtains, like an old sepia photograph set against a saturated digital image. I can see Jonathan in profile bent over the desk, irritably trying to reach over the back of it to plug in his laptop. We have to go, I tell him urgently. We can’t wait this out; we have to take a car, a boat, whatever. We’ll have to go overland to England. He looks across at me, startled, a lock of his gray hair flopping onto his forehead and his hands still busy with the plug. I can’t go too. I have to be in DC, he says. She wasn’t my mother.

  He apologized. Of course he apologized, and Jonathan’s apologies are works of art; they are three-act plays. He apologized, and I accepted that apology, therefore it must be over and done with. Except that I still feel the ring of those words. I still feel the weight of the abrupt realization of where I stand in the pecking order of Jonathan’s life, the realization that if this, my mother’s sudden death, is not significant enough, then there is nothing I can ever do to move up the order. It can’t be that I didn’t know that before. I moved the goalposts. Was it the news of my mother’s death that did that, or were they already stealthily inching out of their long-held positions? Had I already begun to suspect that if I stopped moving, there might be nothing of substance in my oh-so-busy life?

  The program has moved on to a news update: the Deepwater Horizon search-and-rescue operation has been suspended; the oil rig itself sank yesterday afternoon. It sank, and I didn’t know. Ordinarily it would be inconceivable that something newsworthy would have happened—would have happened almost thirty-six hours ago—and I wouldn’t know. An image pops into my head immediately, of the burning oil rig, its thus-far indefatigable fires finally quenched by the rolling seas as it slowly slips under the water with stately majesty. I could turn on the television and see it for myself, live or recorded, but I’m far too tired. Instead I check all the doors and windows and turn off all the lights on the ground floor, and start to climb the stairs.