Poisoned Cherries

Chapter 10

I persuaded Susie to help me move in on the Saturday, and to stay over, with the baby, for the weekend. She’s always been very much a Glaswegian, and therefore pretty dismissive of Edinburgh, but when she saw the place, even she was impressed.

‘You’ve got this thing about eyries, haven’t you,’ she said, as she looked out across the Mound. ‘Your old flat in Edinburgh was a loft, then you bought the Glasgow place, which looks over everything, and the villa in Spain. I’ll bet you had a view in California as well. Right?’

I thought of the crashing Pacific waves. ‘True,’ I admitted. ‘It’s the way I was brought up.’

‘Rubbish,’ she laughed. ‘It’s you, Blackstone. You’ve either got a voyeuristic streak, or it’s sheer paranoia. . you’re afraid of the idea of anyone looking in on you.’

I hadn’t thought about it before, but she’d a point. I’ve always liked high places. I broke my arm once falling out of a tree; not even that discouraged me.

‘I don’t think I’m a voyeur. As for being paranoid,’ I said, as I thought about recent events, ‘if I am, it’s been justifiable a few times in my past. You know that well enough.’

A cloud crossed her face, briefly; I guessed who might have been behind it. ‘Do you think about him much?’ I asked her.

She chewed her lip. ‘Mike? I think about him as infrequently as I can possibly manage. . which is still quite a lot. I envy you, in one way; when you think about Jan, you think warm. I can’t do that. Funny, I don’t feel bitter about Jack Gantry, but I do about Michael Dylan.’

‘Then try not to; Mike was weak, but most of us are. He loved you.’

‘No he didn’t,’ she snapped. ‘If he had he’d have stayed with me, and not got involved in all the stuff that got him killed. And when that happened, he was leaving me, remember.’

I couldn’t argue with that one; I’d been there, and I knew she was right. ‘Did you love him?’ I asked her.

‘I thought so at the time, but not now. I really don’t think I’ve ever loved anyone, not till last Saturday morning.’

‘Don’t let him put you off, Susie.’

‘Ah, but he has. I wouldn’t know where to begin loving a man. All I want is to feel safe.’

‘Do you feel safe with me?’

‘Most of the time. When we’re together I do. I like being with you, Oz, but I’ll never trust another man after Mike, and I sure as hell wouldn’t trust you. I know you too well. How many women have you slept with since last January?’

‘One.’

She threw me a quick, guilty grin. ‘I’ve misjudged you, then; sorry.’

‘No, you haven’t. I never touched Prim after what happened in Spain; neither of us wanted to. She never forgot you and I never forgot Barcelona. There was someone else, though, someone in L’Escala, but it was complicated. It shouldn’t have happened, but it did. I’m sorry.’

‘You don’t have to apologise to me, remember? You’re a free man. Anyway, what’s complicated about nooky?’

‘In this case, the lady was married. . to the guy Prim ran off with after she was tipped off about us.’

‘I see. You were all getting even, then.’

‘Vero might have been, but I wasn’t. You had shown me the real Oz Blackstone by that time; you’d taught me about myself. Completely devoid of conscience, remember.’

Susie looked at me, indignantly. ‘Sounds as if I taught you too bloody well!’ The look became a frown; she doesn’t do that too often. ‘But you’ve told me about her. Why?’

‘You asked.’

She snorted. ‘And you told me, just like that! Do you think so little of me?’

‘Far from it; I should have told you before. It was a secret between us.’

‘Why didn’t you let it stay that way? Are you just trying to put me in my place?’

I looked at her. I had come clean without thinking, but I knew why I had done it. ‘I told you because I didn’t want it there any more. It’s a part of my past that I’m not proud of, and I didn’t want it lying between us like a landmine.’ I stepped up to her and put my hands on her waist. ‘You said you felt safe with me, Susie. I want you always to feel that way, and I promise you that you always will be.’

Her eyes softened; so did her voice. ‘What does that mean?’ she whispered.

‘I don’t know. Just that you and the baby are now the two most important people in my life, and it will stay that way. I love wee Janet with all my heart; she turns my insides to mush. And how could I love her without loving her mother as well?’

She pressed her forehead against my chest and I held her to me. ‘Shut up, Blackstone,’ she murmured. ‘Don’t complicate things.’

‘How am I doing that?’

She looked up. ‘I’m afraid of you, man, don’t you understand that? I’m afraid that you’ll be another Dylan; he was a scheming, ambitious bastard, and so are you. . well, ambitious, at least. Mike didn’t have the wit or the balls to achieve his ambitions, but you do. I’m afraid that if I commit myself to you, those ambitions. . not to mention your heretofore extremely promiscuous dick. . will lead you away from me, and I’ll get hurt again, only worse.’

‘You’re wrong about me there,’ I protested. ‘I’ve never had a properly thought-out ambition in my life. Everything that’s happened to me has been by accident, until I’ve got where I am. I like doing what I’m doing now; I don’t plan to do anything else, until I go out of fashion. By then, I’ll have enough dough to enjoy a nice long retirement. Shit, I have now.

‘And as far as my. . sorry. . our pal down there’s concerned, he’s had a right few opportunities over the last few months, in Canada and in California, and he hasn’t risen to a single one.’

She was smiling again; I was happy about that. ‘Are you telling me that from the time you went to the States at the end of January, until last Wednesday night, you were celibate?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘That beggars belief. Why?’

‘I wasn’t sure, until right now. Remember what you said the other night, about me being able to walk back through your door any time I like? Remember I said that might not cut both ways? Well it does. I don’t want anyone but you.’

One of those long silences sprang up between us, like a barrier, until Susie knocked it down.

‘Is that so? Well, do you remember when I said I didn’t care if you did or not? That wasn’t exactly true either. I care all right. You’re not going to make me say I love you, but I care.’

She pushed me away and held me at arms’ length. ‘That doesn’t mean I trust you, mind. When the baby and I go back to Glasgow, you’ll be a boy-about-town again. It’ll be just like it was when you were here before. You’re on probation, Oz. I want to make damn sure you don’t revert to type, before I start believing any promises.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘You will be honest with me, yes?’

Mine widened. ‘Totally.’ I meant it.

‘I’ll believe that much, then. We tell each other everything. When you’re working here we spend as many weekends as we can together. Agreed?’

‘Agreed.’

‘What happens when this picture’s finished?’

‘I’m going to Vancouver. You and Janet coming?’

‘We’ll see about that. . if we get that far.’