The Anvil

TWO

Edinburgh, Scotland. February 1991.

MacLean paused at the railings, his back to the bitter wind. He looked at the dark grey Victorian building and felt his yesterdays return in a slow, numbing nostalgia. All these years ago — he did the calculation in his head. He was thirty-seven so it must have been thirty-two years ago when his mother had brought him here to school as a well-scrubbed, bright-eyed five year old. The fabric of the building did not appear to have changed much at all. Perhaps the stone was darker but maybe even that was because of the leaden sky above.

The minutes ticked by but MacLean was oblivious. He stood motionless with his hands on the cold metal as memories of a time gone by were uncertainly resurrected. They were of children of another age, reduced to faces without names after all these years but still with smiles and personalities.

MacLean’s life had been such a nightmare for so long now that the border between dreams and reality had become indistinct. The surrealist thought that a class of children of thirty-two years ago might still be inside the grey building, lingered longer in his head than it should have done. The saving grace was that he recognised this as sign of the mental stress he had been under. People under great strain often started to believe in something simply because they wanted it so much to be true. They sought subconscious escapism, escape from a reality that had become too much like hell to bear.

Despite his attempts at rationalisation, MacLean found himself walking through the gates and crossing the playground. He climbed the stone steps to the entrance marked ‘BOYS’ and pushed open the door. It was just as he remembered, tiled walls and green paint and a vague smell of disinfectant. The source was a bucket and mop propped up against the wall by the door.

He started to walk along the corridor, following the sounds of an echoing piano and young voices. He remained unchallenged and stopped only when he came to a pair of brass-handled swing doors. On the other side was the assembly hall. His fingers touched the brass uncertainly. The handles were the original ones. He had touched them before.

The piano sounded a long chord and the children in the hall began to sing. MacLean closed his eyes. They were singing it! They were singing the very one. ‘In the bleak mid-winter, frosty wind made moan

…’ Seven year old voices lagged behind an insistent piano. The sound was pathetically thin on the cold air, fragile like happiness. ‘Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone.’

MacLean looked along the rows of scrubbed faces, then, realising what he was doing, he put his hand to his forehead and acknowledged the fact that he was looking for faces he knew. He swallowed hard and got a grip.

The hymn ended and the pianist, a beefy woman in her fifties, began to thump out a Sousa march. Her eyes were fixed on the music in front of her, head held back at an angle so that she could see through the bottom lens of her bifocals. Her ample breasts shivered in time to the insensitive thump of her hands on the keyboard. The music was the signal for the children to troop out the far end of the hall in twos.

As the hall emptied and the music stopped, MacLean entered through the swing doors and paused to look up at the high ceiling. It made him feel small again. At the other end of the hall the pianist returned for something she had forgotten; she caught sight of MacLean and asked, ‘Can I help you?’ The tone of her voice demanded to know what he was doing there. She came towards him, music clutched to her bosom and filled with the confidence of being on her own ground.

MacLean’s expression did not change. His social programming no longer functioned.

‘Did you hear what I said?’ demanded the woman. The fact that she was challenging an intruder, broad and well over six-foot tall did not seem to occur to her.

MacLean looked at her, the cold morning light etching the pain lines round his eyes. ‘I’m taking a last look,’ he said quietly.

‘A last look at what?’ snapped the woman.

MacLean looked at her distantly then he said quietly, ‘My life.’

The woman appeared bemused. MacLean turned on his heel and left without saying any more. He did not look back as he walked up the hill away from the school but he did pause to pull up the collar of his overcoat. He had to bend his head against the wind which seemed determined to deny him progress.

He came to the canal bridge at the top of the hill and stopped again. The Union canal, the canal that had played such an important part in his childhood. Its banks had once been the most exciting place on earth. Here summer days had been longer, hotter and happier than they had ever been since. Despite the sub-zero temperature he could almost feel the sun on his back and the rough grass on his knees as he knelt down long ago to stare down into the still, dark water.

He left the pavement and climbed down the steep muddy path leading from the bridge to the towpath. The mud had frozen to the hardness of concrete. The canal itself was solid and a light dusting of snow lay on its surface. He started walking but suddenly remembered the tree. There had been a tree on the other side of the bridge from which he and his friends had once dangled a rope swing. He retraced his steps and walked under the bridge to find it still there. In February it was stark and bare, a black skeleton against a grey sky, but come spring, it would be reborn and in the summer its full leafy canopy would shelter another generation of ten year old jungle adventurers.

MacLean started out on his walk again. A mile along the towpath and he reached the playing fields of his old high school, netless tennis courts and the shuttered and silent pavilion. The smell of wet earth was carried on the wind and brought back memories of rugby games of long ago. He saw steam rise from the backs of scrimmaging forwards as he stood anxiously in the back line waiting for the ball to emerge from the melee and arc towards him. He recalled the surge of adrenaline as the three-quarters moved forward together like a single delta wing The sense of relief at having moved the ball out towards the wing before the opposing flankers reached you, the pain of being hit if they were too fast or you were too slow. That was when you smelt the earth, when your face was close up against it, being pressed into it by anonymous hands and feet.

MacLean continued walking. He saw that the surface of the canal was strewn with stones where children had tested the strength of the ice. He had to find out for himself. Keeping one foot on the bank he lowered the other to the surface and began a slow transfer of weight. Ten of his thirteen stones were on the ice before it protested with a loud crack and a chorus of ancillary creaks. The question had been answered. He rejoined the towpath.

The canal ceased courting the line of the main road and started to meander off into rural isolation. MacLean continued until it began to forge a level path through steepening ground on either side. There was more shelter from the wind here. There was also a wooden bench seat in an alcove in the hedgerow where he rested for a moment. A robin came to investigate and sat on the ground in front of him as if it instinctively knew that he posed no threat. Its breast seemed spectacularly red against the frost on the grass. MacLean held out his hand invitingly but the robin was not that trusting.

He recalled the last time he had come this far up the canal. He must have been thirteen years old and it had been in the school summer holidays. He and a boy named… the name eluded him for the moment but floated tantalisingly near the tip of his tongue until he had it. Eddie! Eddie Ferguson. He and Eddie had paddled their way up through the reeds in a canoe owned by Eddie’s brother. His brother had not exactly given permission but as he had gone off to Scout camp this was seen as being just as good. At that age the journey had held all the excitement of a search for the source of the Nile. He remembered the sound the fibreglass canoe made when it brushed up against the reeds.

MacLean was startled out of his preoccupation by a woman’s voice.

‘Carol! No! Don’t! Come back!’

There was so much fear in the voice that MacLean could not ignore it. He got up off the seat and rounded the bend of the towpath. He was in time to see a small child of six or seven, dressed in wellingtons and a red, plastic raincoat dash out on to the ice, her face alive with mischief. Her mother who had been chasing after her came to a halt at the edge of the bank. MacLean could tell that she was fighting to control her voice. ‘Carol! Listen to me. I want you to walk towards me… now!’

The child turned and smiled. ‘Look Mummy,’ she said. ‘I’m standing on the water.’

MacLean was thirty yards away. He stood stock still lest he break the spell between mother and daughter.

‘Walk towards me Carol,’ said the woman. There was no mistaking the anxiety in her voice despite her measured calmness. MacLean could almost feel the fear.

The child herself suddenly appeared to sense that something was wrong too. Her smile faded and she showed signs of being afraid as she started towards her mother. She took two steps and the ice sent out singing cracks in all directions like spokes radiating from the hub of a wheel; she stopped moving.

‘Come on Carol,’ said her mother.

The child took one more step and the ice opened up beneath her. She disappeared through the hole in an instant and her mother screamed out loud. MacLean broke into a run. There was no sign of the child, just a black hole in the ice like the jagged mouth of a shark.

‘Do something!’ screamed the woman. ‘For God’s sake do something!’

She was hysterical. She gripped MacLean’s lapels as she implored him to help. MacLean took her hands away and looked around for wood. There was none. For a moment his eyes must have reflected the hopelessness of the situation. The woman saw it and screamed again, ‘Oh God no! Please God no!’

MacLean could not bear the agony of being unable to do anything. He broke free of the woman and jumped down heavily on to the ice at the edge. He went straight through and landed on the ledge that lay half a metre below the surface. The icy water numbed his legs as he threw off his over coat and started to lash out at the ice in front of him with his feet, first with his right and then with his left. There was nothing ungainly about it. He retained perfect balance and put all his weight behind each strike. To the woman, the only thing that mattered was that MacLean was making good progress. He had rekindled hope in her. ‘Go on!’ she urged.

MacLean reached the second shelf of the canal and sank to a metre in the icy water. He could no longer use his feet. Without considering the consequences he started to attack the ice with his fists. The ice continued to give but now it was being splattered with blood from cuts to his hands. MacLean’s concentration was total, his features remained set and he ignored the pain until he had created a big enough opening in the ice. With a brief look back at the woman on the bank he sank down into the dark water beneath the ice.

On the bank, the woman was left feeling more alone that she had ever thought possible. Both her daughter and the stranger had disappeared. It was as if they had never been there. Even the wind had dropped away to nothing. Broken ice and black water was all that there was to see. Earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone…

MacLean’s body erupted from the opening in the ice. In his hands he clutched the body of the little girl in the red raincoat. He couldn’t speak; the agonising cold had all but paralysed him. He waded and stumbled his way to the bank and handed over the bundle before collapsing on to the frosty grass. He could feel the water on him turning to ice.

The woman was in a state of panic. She had the lifeless body of her child on the ground in front of her and was trying to coax the water out of her lungs.

‘No!’ croaked MacLean. ‘She needs air… Breathe into her…Water later… ‘

The woman’s eyes sought reassurance from MacLean.

‘Do it!’ he ordered. He tried to reach the child himself but exhaustion and the numbing cold had robbed him of all energy. The woman started to give the child mouth to mouth resuscitation.

‘Yes,’ said MacLean in a voice that was barely a whisper. ‘Keep on. Don’t stop.’

Icicles were forming on MacLean’s face, stabbing at his eyes and ears. He tried to clear his vision with the back of his hand but only succeeded in adding grit to the problem. He cursed and tried again before crawling towards the pair. At that moment the child spluttered and coughed. Her mother cried out in elation, ‘She’s alive! She’s alive!’

‘Now the water!’ croaked MacLean.

‘The water?’ repeated the woman.

‘Get the water out of her lungs now,’ insisted MacLean, angry at having to repeat himself when every syllable caused him such pain.

The woman rolled the little girl on to her front and put her head to the side, She started to pump the water out of her lungs. There was a lot more spluttering and coughing but it was the most beautiful sound in the world.

The girl was now sitting up. The woman turned her attention to MacLean and said, ‘Are you all right?’

MacLean nodded.

‘We just live up there. Can you make it?’

MacLean nodded again.

The trio made their way up along a mud path to a pretty white bungalow, partly hidden by pine trees and rhododendron bushes. The woman opened the door and carried the child inside. MacLean followed but as soon as the warm air hit him he felt consciousness slip away and slumped to the floor.

When he came round he found he was in bed. Turning over slowly, he looked about him to discover that he was in a small bedroom with pink flowery wallpaper. How long had it been since he’d been in a bedroom with pink, flowery wallpaper? he wondered. A different world. Hotels and motels and rented apartments always went for neutrality, like banks and building societies. The linen sheets were clean and crisp on his bare shoulder and when he looked under the covers, he saw that he was naked. He stretched out his legs and recoiled slightly as his foot came into contact with something warm. He tried again and found that it was a hot-water bottle. A smile found its way to his lips despite his cheek muscles trying to prevent it. ‘Ye gods,’ he thought. ‘I’m in Gingerbread cottage in the heart of the woods.’

Flickering shadows appeared on the wall and drew his attention to the window. It had started to snow outside and large flakes were drifting silently past. For the first time he realised that his hands were bandaged. The thought of frostbite alarmed him into trying to move all of his fingers and toes in turn. They all worked. His feet were free of pain but there was quite a bit of discomfort from his hands. That would be from bruising caused by the ice.

The woman must have dressed his hands, MacLean thought as he examined the white gauze bindings, conceding that she’d done a good job. He tried to attract attention by coughing. The door opened and the woman came in.

‘Hello, how are you?’ The voice was warm and friendly, a controlled, gentle voice now free of the earlier fear.

‘I’m fine,’ replied MacLean. ‘I must apologise for… ‘

MacLean was interrupted by the most beautiful laugh he had ever heard. ‘You must nothing of the sort,’ she said and then more gently she added, ‘I owe you my daughter’s life.’

MacLean did not know what to say. He looked away.

The woman looked behind her and said, ‘You can come in now.’

The little girl entered the room, staring resolutely at her feet and with her left thumb hovering near her mouth. She raised her eyes briefly to meet MacLean’s but then dropped them again.

‘Well, say it,’ whispered her mother.

The child smiled shyly then said, ‘I was a very silly girl. I’m very sorry and thank you very much for getting me out the water.’ She turned to her mother and clung to her skirt.

MacLean said, ‘I’m very glad you’re all right Carol.’

‘Carrie!’ corrected the girl. ‘It’s Carrie!’

‘Carol when I’m angry,’ smiled her mother, ‘I’m Tansy Nielsen by the way.’

‘MacLean. Sean MacLean.’

‘Pleased to meet you Mr MacLean,’ said Tansy. It sounded ridiculous and they both knew it and laughed.

‘How about a nice hot bath?’ asked Tansy. ‘Your clothes should be just about dry by the time you’ve finished.’

‘Sounds good,’ said MacLean.

Tansy went off to run the bath. When she returned she removed the temporary dressing from his hands and screwed up her face. She said, ‘They must be awfully sore.’

MacLean looked at his raw, damaged knuckles. The bruising had not had time to develop fully but a purple tinge was already in evidence. ‘There’s nothing broken,’ he said. ‘They’ll be right as rain in a few days.’

‘Mr MacLean… ‘ Tansy began. She wanted to express her thanks for what he had done but words failed her and she ended up by simply saying, ‘Your bath’s ready.’

The bathroom was ringed with Carrie’s toys. One of them, a bright yellow plastic duck, fell into the water and bobbed about in the suds. MacLean left it where it was and looked up at the window to see that it was still snowing. The grey light suggested that there was still a lot to come. Tansy had the radio on next door or maybe it was a record playing. He could hear the sounds of Fur Elise and he lay back and closed his eyes. When the music ended he would start thinking about returning to the outside world but for the moment his mind was about as active as his yellow plastic companion.

The doorbell rang and startled MacLean out of his reverie. He cursed himself for having relaxed so completely. Who was at the door? Had the woman called the police? God! It must be the police! He sat bolt upright, his pulse racing as he looked about him. He remembered the gun! It must have been the gun that did it! The woman must have found it in his coat pocket when she undressed him! She had called the police!

MacLean looked to the window as a possible means of escape then felt foolish as he remembered he had no clothes. They were being dried. He was trapped. Any moment now the bathroom door would leave its hinges as uniformed bodies crashed through to arrest him. He could do nothing. He lay paralysed as he heard the front door open. A deep male voice was saying something but he could not make out the words. The door closed again and he heard Tansy call out, ‘Carrie! Dr Miller’s here to see you.’

Was it a ruse? he wondered. This was the way he’d learned to think over the past two years. He could not accept that it was really the family doctor calling until he had heard Carrie speak. There hadn’t been time to prime the child for a role in any play. The water had grown cold but MacLean lay back again and let out his breath slowly. He had been wrong but all the same, Tansy Nielsen knew about the gun.

MacLean heard the doctor leave and shortly afterwards Tansy’s voice outside the door said, ‘I’m leaving your clothes outside the door Mr MacLean. All right?’

‘Thank you,’ replied MacLean as matter of factly as he could. He got out of the bath and dried himself quickly before opening the door slightly and snatching his clothes in to search anxiously through the pockets. As he feared, the gun wasn’t there. He supposed there was an outside chance that it could have fallen into the canal when he was under the ice but it was much more likely that Tansy had found and removed it.

Tansy smiled as MacLean entered the room. ‘Feel better?’ she asked.

‘Much.’

‘Our doctor was here to see Carrie. You probably heard him?’

‘Yes,’ agreed MacLean.

‘I considered asking him to have a look at you while he was here but then I changed my mind.’

MacLean read in Tansy’s eyes that she had indeed found the gun. ‘No, I’m fine,’ he said.

‘Will you join us for supper, Mr MacLean?’ asked Tansy.

MacLean shook his head and said, ‘I think I’d better be going.’

‘Where?’

The directness of the question took MacLean aback. ‘Nowhere,’ he confessed.

Carrie defused the embarrassment. She said, ‘Please stay. You can mend my train.’

MacLean looked at her and smiled. ‘I could certainly take a look at it.’ Looking at Tansy he added, ‘Thank you, I’d be happy to stay for supper.’

Tansy went off to the kitchen and Carrie disappeared to fetch her broken train. MacLean felt uneasy; the situation was unreal. The bungalow was warm and cosy and he was surrounded by signs of domesticity and a kind of life he had almost entirely forgotten. He was annoyed at fate for reminding him at a time like this. He looked to the window and the fading light. Outside was where he belonged, in the cold grey reality of a world which was dependably hostile, not here in Tansy and Carrie’s world in a house that was clearly a home. It had a life of its own. It almost seemed to breathe.

MacLean had almost decided to get up to leave quietly when Carrie returned carrying her train.

‘The wheel,’ she said by way of explanation. She held a wooden locomotive in one hand and one of its wheels in the other.

‘I think I see the problem,’ said MacLean. He took the train from her and sat down again. The pin securing the wheel to the hub had been lost. He looked about him and saw a little dish by the hearth, which contained odds and ends. Among the predominant drawing pins he saw a few paper clips and selected one to thread it through the hole in the axle. He broke off the excess by bending the wire backwards and forwards until metal fatigue did it for him. The wheel was now safely retained.

‘There,’ he said to Carrie. ‘Good as new.’

Carrie tried out the train on the rug and seemed well pleased with the result. She grinned and said, ‘Thank-you so much.’

‘You’re very welcome,’ said MacLean.

Carrie stopped playing with the train and said, ‘I like you… you didn’t say girls don’t play with trains.’

Now that Carrie had overcome her shyness, she chirped and chattered her way through the meal. MacLean was grateful because it relieved him of having to make any social contribution other than the occasional exchange of smiles with her mother. He constantly reminded himself that he was an interloper. He had made his decision; he must not let himself be distracted. The sirens of warmth and happiness were there but he would tie himself to the mast. This was all a momentary aberration. It would soon be over.

Despite his resolve MacLean could not help but notice the strong physical resemblance between Carrie and her mother. They had the same auburn hair, the same wide, generous mouth that could change to smiling so easily and the same dark eyes. Where was Carrie’s father? he wondered. He was annoyed at himself for even thinking about it. It was none of his business and it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.

Carrie went up to bed and Tansy accompanied her with an armful of toys, which she had collected from the floor. MacLean sat alone by the fire, looking at the flames and hearing Tansy and Carrie exchange muted bedtime banter. A final giggle from Carrie and a last exhortation from her mother that she get to sleep quickly and Tansy returned. Without asking, she filled two glasses with brandy and brought them over, handing one to MacLean as she sat down to face him. MacLean started to feel uneasy again. Until now, Tansy had been Carrie’s mother but now she was a beautiful woman who was clearly appraising him. He felt her gaze probe his defences and prepared to defend himself with banality.

‘Well, Mr MacLean,’ said Tansy softly. ‘When and how are you planning to do it?’

‘Do what?’ said MacLean but the question had cut him deeply. Tansy knew it.

‘Kill yourself,’ she said without taking her eyes off him.

MacLean took a breath to protest but capitulated immediately. ‘Soon,’ he said quietly. ‘How did you know?’

‘Your eyes,’ said Tansy. ‘I read it in your eyes on the canal bank. I’ve seen that look before. Keith, my husband, Carrie’s father, took his own life.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said MacLean.

Tansy smiled wistfully and said, ‘So am I. He was a lovely man but things just got a bit too much for him. Our son died of leukaemia when he was seven. He was the apple of his father’s eye; he was everything that Keith ever wanted; the pair of them were inseparable. All Keith’s dreams for the future were tied up in Paul and then quite suddenly he wasn’t there any more. Keith was never the same again. I got over it but he didn’t. Then when the business started to fail, Keith started to drift further and further away from me. It was as if he was in a small boat drifting out to sea. I stood on the shore and watched him. He was out of reach before I even realised that… ‘

‘He was drowning not waving.’

Tansy nodded and said, ‘Just before he died his eyes had the look that yours did today. Officially he was overcome by exhaust fumes in the garage while he was working on the car but I know different. That morning he came into the kitchen just after breakfast… He kissed me on the cheek and looked at me with such sadness in his eyes that I remember holding my breath and being totally at a loss to understand. I said something silly about getting something different for lunch at the shops and he said that would be nice. When I got back he was lying dead in the garage. He faked it to look like an accident so that there would be no problem over the insurance.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said MacLean. It seemed inadequate.

Tansy looked at the fire and said, ‘I’ve relived that moment when he kissed me a million times. I should have understood. I should have realised what he intended to do. All the signs had been there for months and yet I failed to see what was going to happen.’

‘You can’t blame yourself,’ said MacLean. ‘If his mind was made up he would have done it anyway. Maybe not on that day but on some other.’

Tansy looked directly at MacLean in a way that made him feel uncomfortable. ‘But you, Mr MacLean are still alive,’ she said. ‘And I am a stranger. Perhaps if you were to talk about it… ‘

MacLean shook his head and said, ‘No. No more talking, no more running, no more hiding, no more anything. I must be going.’ He got up from the chair.

‘Sit down Mr MacLean,’ said Tansy. She said it quietly but something in her voice made MacLean feel compelled to comply. He sank slowly back into the chair.

‘How long have you been running?’

‘Three years,’ he said. He felt himself start to lose the battle to remain detached. The warmth of the fire and exhaustion from his earlier tussle with the ice were conspiring to give the woman the upper hand.

‘Tell me about it,’ she said.