The Day She Died

Three

And how weird is it that I enjoyed the journey? He never said another word for twenty miles and Ruby went into a car trance, thumb in her mouth and eyes glazed, but I like driving and I don’t get to do it much. I hadn’t been out of Dumfries for weeks, hadn’t been west since spring, and I could feel the town lifting off me in big grey flakes, like that kiddy-on microscope film from the washing powder advert, that shows the dirt floating away.

Dumfries and Galloway; there’s a clue in the two separate names. Flat grey plains by the sea, flat grey moors up above them, and wee grey towns from when Scotland had mines, just the spot for a free clothing project. In Dumfriesshire, they’ll put a car park on the banks of the river instead of picnic tables and, if a beautiful old house is falling down, they’ll give it a shove to help.

And it is a beautiful house, even without the magic garden, but it was the garden that swung it. JM Barrie came to visit there-a family with a sister and little brothers and a big smelly dog-and he sat in the garden and wrote Peter Pan. Right here in Dumfries, while the brothers played at pirates. So of course it should be a children’s centre, but it took a shed load of people donating and protesting before the council gave in. And even then someone on the committee took on cowboys to save a quid, and they nicked the lead off the roof or something (Father Tommy knows the story but he won’t tell me) and vanished. Nicking the lead off the roof of a children’s respite centre. That was Dumfriesshire for you.

But Galloway? Out of the world and into Galloway, as my granny used to say. Can’t fling a stick without hitting an artist’s studio, or a cheese-makers’ commune, or a stone barn that’s been turned into a theatre. Cottages painted like ice cream, harbours full of sailing boats, folk eating scallops. In Galloway, if you get more than six miles from a handmade candle, an alarm goes off and a beeswax SWAT team copters one out to you. I’d have moved there from Caul View too. We even had to stop for dairy cows crossing the road. Pain in the neck it must be if you did it every day, but it made me happy.

Only, when we’d got past Castle Douglas, a road sign said Stranraer 45 Miles and I thought I’d better check.

“Uh, how far are we actually going?”

“Gatehouse,” he said. “Sandsea.” Then silence for another ten miles, as we drove into the sea-light, towards the sinking sun, until I heard, “Next turn.”

The “next turn” was onto a farm track between two fields. And not even a good one-grass up the middle and deep ruts from tractors so that the belly of the Skoda scraped along. I winced and clenched myself up off my seat is if that would help us, but the man didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t move in all the time it took to cross the fields in that flat milky light from the water, not until we’d passed under some trees and came to the farmyard itself, the usual dilapidated war zone, with its pallet gates and string hinges, piles of tractor tyres and oil drums. Then he jerked right forward, craning out of the windscreen and either side, gripping the dashboard, holding his breath. I slowed.

“Keep going, keep going,” he said. “There’s no one here.”

“Is this your place?” I asked him, but he motioned me to drive on. The track went right past the yard, through an open gate, and then the trees closed around it again. I fumbled for the lights, got the windscreen wipers first, and then there were two patches of yellow ahead of us. All of a sudden, like always, the dark was darker.

“Stockman’s Cottage,” he said. “Over the fields.” Then he twisted in his seat and looked behind. “Definitely no one there.”

“So… no point asking if someone saw her leave?” I guessed, wondering what was getting to him. He didn’t answer. And between the dark and the woods and the way he was jumping around, I was really starting to wish I was at home in my flat with my juice in a wineglass after all. Then the trees cleared and the land unfolded, and suddenly we were right on the bay-wet sand gleaming in the last of the sunlight, the stink of seaweed, and the line of the far hills looking as sharp as a knife edge against the pink of the sky.

“Bear left,” he said. Right into the blaze of the setting sun, blinding us, filling the car with flames.

“I can’t see a goddamn thing, by the way,” I told him, and I slowed to a crawl. His hair looked like his head was on fire and the stubble on his cheeks was like gold glitter scattered there. Then we drew into the shadow of a rowan tree (like they always have beside houses here, to keep the witches away), and the world was grey again, proper twilight, the last sliver of sun winking out, snuffed for the night.

“Where’s Mummy’s car?” said Ruby. “Where have they gone?”

We were parked at the back of a cottage; not the colour of ice cream this one, it was a farmworker’s place for sure. Grey walls, metal window frames painted dark red like a railway station, pebbled glass in the bathroom window, and a lean-to porch against the back door.

“Can you come in with me?” he said. He hadn’t turned-he was sitting staring straight ahead at the house-but he had to be talking to me. He couldn’t be asking his daughter. His hands were gripping his knees, patches of red and white all up and down his fingers from the pressure.

“Of course,” I said. I hate going into strangers’ houses, people who don’t know about-. Well, usually I’ve got my excuse ready before they even ask, but this was different. The state of him for one thing, plus what else was I going to do miles from anywhere with it nearly dark now? He fumbled the door open and hauled himself out. Ruby was unbuckling herself, scrambling down.

“I’ll get the kettle on and you can call a friend on your landline,” I said as I followed him, making it clear that I’d stick to the kitchen. Kitchens were usually fine. “I’ll even stay till they come if you want me to.” I felt sick and my heart was banging inside my ribs, making me think of my granny with her carpet beater-bam bam bam-but my voice sounded fine. I’m a star turn at sounding like I’m a-okay in much worse states than this one.

He stepped over a low fence into a garden, lifted Ruby over, and kept her riding on his arm as he disappeared round the corner to the front. I followed him. The path was red brick and the edges were bricks sticking up like saw teeth. Two patches of grass and two flower beds against the house. Blue front door and a window on either side, like a drawing. And beyond the garden gate, a few feet of that dead short grass from sheep eating it and then rocks and the beach and the sea-just a ribbon of light in the distance and the slow sound of low tide and the feel of the breeze with a hint of salt in. I looked at him standing there with the kid on his arm, picking over his keys.

This “Becky” must be mad leaving here. Walking away from everyone’s dream life. Stark raving bonkers.

He was struggling with the keys like a drunk, so I took them out of his hands and opened up for him. The wee girl wriggled down and burst into the house shouting.

“Mummy! Mummy?”

From one of the rooms came a sound. I couldn’t have said what it was, but beside me, on the doorstep, he swayed again.

“No way,” he said. “She’d never.” And he took the length of the hallway in three strides, his hair flapping and his heavy boots booming on the thin carpet runner, then he shoved a door open and stood on the threshold. I edged up behind him and peered over his shoulder, standing on my tiptoes.

The blinds were closed, but I could see a double bed-sheets and blankets, flat foam pillows, no cushions, thank God-and beyond it a cot wedged in, in front of a tiled fireplace. And in the cot was a baby. A toddler, a boy by the look of him, standing up in footy pyjamas, holding on to the bars. He lifted his arms and squealed.

“Daddeeee!”

The man sat down hard on the edge of the bed and put a hand through the cot bars. The baby grabbed on, wrapping his whole fat little fist round one finger and tugging. He started bouncing up and down, his nappy-pull-ups, twenty-four months-rustling, saying “Da-ddy, Da-ddy” over and over in time with each bounce.

“She left him,” said the man, looking up at me. “She locked him in and left him. What if something had happened to me? How long… ”

I sat down too then, right down on a stranger’s bed, and I could feel the stale close air of a stranger’s bedroom pressing in, the private smell of sleep and worn clothes.

“It’s okay,” I said. “He’s fine.” He really was too. In fact, the boy was in the best shape out of the three of us, actually, but he’d picked up enough of the feelings in the room to stop bouncing. He was standing still now with the end of the man’s finger in his mouth, looking at him with the same big dark eyes as his sister.

“Are you all right?” The man stretched out his other hand and touched my bare arm where I’d pushed my sleeves up for driving.

“Me?” I said. Yelped, really. “Don’t worry about me! Time like this. God!” And now I put a hand on him. It was a shock to feel him burning through his padded shirt, damp with sweat.

“You need… ” I said. What? He needed his wife back, was what he needed. Nothing that I could give him anyway. “Jeez, you’re roasting.”

“I’m… When she phoned,” he started. He had lowered his head and he was mumbling again. “All I could think was she’d left me. She’d left me. Didn’t even think of trying not to scare Ruby and I forgot-” His throat closed. He cleared it and spoke again. “Until you asked about the nappies. I forgot-” He was trembling.

“You’d had a shock,” I said. “Don’t beat yourself up.”

“I forgot him!” He was whispering. “What kind of dad am I?”

“A brilliant one,” I said. “You remembered the nappies. And you nearly broke the door down getting in here.”

I was trying to help, but what the hell did I know about any of this? Well, truth was, a bit more than I’d want to tell him. Luckily he wasn’t paying attention. He stood, stooped over the cot, and swiped the baby up into his arms. Buried his face into the fat little neck and blew raspberries, just like he had with the girl. The baby kicked against his chest, squealing. I could smell the sour stink of his nappy, overdue for changing.

“A brilliant dad?” he said, but he looked hopeful, like he just needed to hear it maybe one more time.

“For sure.” I tried to sound as definite as could be. “Or she wouldn’t have left them with you, would she?” Which didn’t come out the way I meant it, but he was okay. He nearly smiled.

“Roobs!” he shouted. “What are you doing so quiet through there, you wee monkey?” And he turned and left the room, clomped through the house, still shouting. I could hear her giggling somewhere.

Maybe it was just a fight. Maybe she’d gone round to a friend’s to give him a scare, bring him to his senses, stop him… coming in late or putting his boots on the couch. (Except he’d been wheeling a trolley round M &S, buying figs for the kid.) Or maybe the poor cow was happier in Caul View near her mum or her pals and had just had enough of the cottage-taken off, back by bedtime. (Except she had her own car, so how bad could it be?) Storm in a teacup. Someone needed to get her told about leaving the baby alone, right enough, but there was no harm done, so-

I’d been letting my eyes drift over the cosy mess of the bedroom, being quite brave really, now I knew the big dangers were behind me. The floor was littered with toys and clothes-but boys’ toys, quite safe. The dressing-table top was crowded with bottles and brushes and a row of Playmobil knights in armour ready for battle. I didn’t think much of them and looked away. Something was propped against the mirror. Something that didn’t belong. I stepped closer and read. It wasn’t in an envelope, wasn’t even folded.

I’m sorry, it said. I can’t go through it again. I can’t go on.