One Good Turn

FRIDAY
52

“Jesus. Are you sure? You’re sure he’s dead? Have you called the vet?”

The shop assistant was watching him as if there were a magnet between his face and hers. Her features mirrored his horror, as if she’d entered into the drama of his life. Give the girl an Academy Award.

“Everything all right?” she said when he came off his mobile.

“That was my mum,”Archie said, “our cat’s dead.”

“Oh, no,” she said, her face all crumpled. Her lip actually trembled.

“Ooh, that was a good one,” Hamish whispered as they left the shop. “We should have thought about dead cats before, girls really go for that kind of thing.”

Archie felt bad using the cat like that, although it had helped him draw on some genuine emotion in his performance. He was sorry about the cat. He hadn’t realized he cared until it started yowling, it had been an awful noise, gave him the creeps. Its back legs had gone and it just lay there panting. Sometimes when his mother was out working, especially when she was working at night, he would get this horrid pain clutching at his chest because he thought, What would I do if she died? If she was in a high-speed chase and she crashed? Or if someone shot her or stabbed her? His heart went fluttery and he felt faint if he imagined it.

The way she loved that cat was weird. Her own mother died last week and she’d drunk a toast. “Here’s to the old bitch, may she burn in hell for all eternity.” But the cat died and she’d bawled her eyes out. And his mother, whatever else she was, was tough. He’d hated it when she cried.

He had tried to make it better for her, tried to think what she would have done if she’d been there. Candles and music, almost religious. He wrapped the cat in a sweater that belonged to her and then cradled it. It died in his arms. He’d watched it happen. There was a moment when it was alive and then there was a mo-ment when it was dead and nothing in between. One day that would happen to his mother. His family was too small, just him-self, his mother, and an old cat, that was it, and now the cat had gone. Hamish had two sisters, a father, grandfathers, grandmoth-ers, aunts, uncles, cousins, he had more relatives than anyone could possibly need. Archie had only his mother. If something happened to her, he’d be on his own.

He had cried when the cat died, everything inside him had suddenly felt too big, like it was all going to burst out. His mother came in and hugged him and he’d wanted to be a baby again and they’d cried together, she was crying for the cat and he was crying for the fact that he could never be a baby again. Then he’d made her a cup of tea and gone out and bought chips and they’d watched teatime television and it had been nice despite the cat being dead and his mother being so unhappy about it. She said, “We’ll get him cremated, the vet gave me a leaflet. You can get this little wooden box and have his photograph put on it, a little brass plaque with his name, and we’ll keep it on the mantelpiece.” Her own mother was sitting neglected on a shelf in the garage. There was irony for you. It had all been so close between them at that point that he’d almost admitted everything. About all the thieving, about finding Martin Canning’s wallet in the Cowgate (not stealing, the guy must have lost it), getting the address for his office from the wallet, breaking into his office (for fun, which it had been). Hamish could pick locks like a master thief. His goal in life was to rob his father’s bank. Hamish hated his father in a way that Archie found scary. But then Archie changed his mind about sharing because it seemed mean to do his mother’s head in while she was so upset. Some other time.

His mother put her arm round him and said, “It’s okay.”And it was, briefly. He finished her chips for her and let her stroke his hair, but then her phone rang and she sighed, “Sorry, that was the Force Command Center. I have to go, there’s been an incident,” and she’d left him alone. With the dead cat. Other mothers didn’t do that.

He heard her car pulling out of the garage and looked out the window to watch her drive away. A twenty-pound note floated past slowly, like a small magic carpet.

“Fuck’s sake, Archie, police!” Hamish yelled at him, giving him a shove from behind so his arms windmilled around as he tried to keep his balance and not fall on his face. Hamish was off, running down George Street, abandoning Archie to his fate. He turned and saw two stocky policemen approaching. He didn’t even bother trying to run. He walked toward his fate. It was a moment he’d been walking toward for months, mostly what he felt was relief.