A Gingerbread House

by Catriona McPherson

  But the work itself was deathly dull and she could only stand it with a podcast on. So, little by little, between her work podcasts, her treadmill podcasts and the fact that she had no chance of getting to sleep at night unless someone was burbling in her ear, she sometimes felt as if she spent her whole life plugged in to the conversations of strangers who didn’t know she was there. Often, recently, she’d wondered if it was doing something that shouldn’t be done to her brain. She worried she might not be laying down short-term – or did she mean long-term? – memories, since half her mind was always listening instead of sifting her day.

  It was when she started dreaming about the podcasters that she finally joined the Family Forest, coming along to the function room of the Cross Keys the second Tuesday of the month to share her passion, as @QueenofScots1 put it. ‘Share your passion, Martine,’ she’d said, on RoyalBlood. They had moved beyond handles to first names now, histories shared, problems halved. @QueenofScots1 was a surgery receptionist called Myra who truly believed she was descended from the House of Stuart, even though she had traced four lines back to the eighteenth century and found them all petering out into cart makers and bricklayers. Now she was trying a fifth contender.

  Despite the delusions and wishful thinking, Myra and the rest of RoyalBlood were ninjas at the actual process of tracking down records and Martine couldn’t quite drag herself away.

  She couldn’t quite drag herself away from the Family Forest either, even though she thought she’d be more … bedded in? Was that the expression? … by now. She didn’t mind walking in the first time to not much of a welcome, because it stood to reason that this lot were family-minded rather than friend-minded. But she had, after all, lived in this town her whole life, moving from her gran’s house to a studio, then an ex-council with new doors and windows, then a semi-detached, and finally her executive dream home, where pale grey carpet started at the front door and went all the way to the back of her walk-in wardrobe, where the fridge texted her that her milk was near its date, where the automatic garage door was as quiet as her Cherokee tyres on her Monoblock drive.

  Not that Martine was materialistic. Not at all. The carpet, the texts and the driveway had meaning far beyond the price she paid for them. And what they meant was dignity. Because she hadn’t actually lived here her whole life through. Every so often, in her childhood, she’d move back in with her mum in Dumfries, where clean floors, like dinner money and bus fares, were far from a given. She’d lie in bed at night, ignoring the smothered giggles and shushing after closing time, pretending to be asleep until after the bloke had gone in the morning. She threw out spoiled meals and sour milk and never complained until, every time without warning, as though she were a bucket that was strong and sturdy as it filled with hurts, she’d overflow and find herself back at her gran’s, weeping into her pillow without making a sound. The second night she’d sit down to eat at the table with the wrinkled plastic stuck on top. By the third she’d be playing a round of crib after the dishes were dried and put away and meeting the same questions with the same answers.

  ‘Why’d you bother, Marty?’

  ‘Because you don’t know who he is.’

  ‘Well, no. I never met him.’

  ‘And she does.’

  ‘She does, she does. But if she hasn’t told you by now …’

  ‘She might. One day. She will.’

  ‘Aye, she might at that.’ Then her gran would reach over and pull on a pinch of her hair, not so hard it hurt, but hard enough to straighten it out and let Martine see it from the corner of her eye.

  Then, at seventeen, suddenly, a lot of things that had been hidden came into view. For a start, she realized that Alesha Dixon wasn’t just lucky and perfect. She’d had someone to teach her what to do. As soon as Martine went to a decent hairdresser in Glasgow and spent her ice-rink money on products, she stopped looking like a burst mattress – her mum’s words – and had curls instead of kinks for her gran to pull on, curls that would bounce back when she let them go. That was one thing.

  The other was a realization, slow at first, then in a rush that left her shaking: her mum didn’t have a clue who he was. She wouldn’t have been able to name the men from last year never mind eighteen years back and, even though her dad must have been remarkable in whiter-than-white Dumfries – a hippo in their midst, she more than likely never heard his second name and couldn’t dredge up his first after all this time. Martine had never seen her mum on a third date.

  The final thing she saw now was that her gran was protecting her. Every time she explained why she went back to her mum’s flat – to hear his name, because her mum might tell her his name, because her mum knew his name – and her gran agreed and pulled her hair … she was lying. She didn’t want to take away her little granddaughter’s hope, maybe. Or she didn’t want to admit out loud what her daughter was. Or she liked an easy life.

  So, at seventeen, Martine gave him up. She gave up on the student who’d been travelling from the Highlands back to London and broke his journey in the Station Hotel in Dumfries one night when her mum was behind the bar, carrying on back down south the next day, never guessing what he’d left behind him. She gave up every version of his London life too. The one from when she was tiny, where he lived in a garret with a view over rooftops to the dome of St Paul’s. That was from a Disney film, probably. The Richard Curtis one from when she was twelve, where he lived in a tall house with white plaster like the icing on a Christmas cake and two bay trees on the doorstep. The one from when she was fifteen and had him living in Croydon, or Brockley – somewhere real – in bunk beds with a bus pass. She even gave up on him being a student, qualified now and working in a children’s ward, or a sheriff’s court, or a city bank. But she never gave up on the crowd of faces she always saw around him. A mum who stood no nonsense, a dad who took him boxing, two grandmas in church hats and two grandpas with allotments. And brothers and sisters and cousins and aunties and nephews and nieces. White girlfriends and white boyfriends, babies every shade, all the tooth-sucking done with years ago, so that when she arrived, off the train from Lockerbie, golden-skinned and curly-haired, she’d blend right in. The more the merrier. She’d even change her name to his, whatever it was. She’d be Martine … something wonderful.

  Then she turned seventeen and, like a soap bubble with one breath too many blown in, the whole shimmering, billowing dream was suddenly gone, with a spit of cold truth in her face and nothing but plain grey life in front of her eyes. She stopped smiling. Stopped for long enough that her gran started calling her ‘Misery-guts’ and talked about the wind changing.

  ‘That’s better,’ she said, when Martine stretched her lips wide and crinkled her eyes up. ‘Costs nothing.’ But she was wrong. It cost her every day.

  That was all more than ten years back, and Martine told herself it was cold ash now. She never asked herself, certainly never answered, why she stayed round here when she could go anywhere. What she gained from being right here where her mum had been, visible, findable, unmissable. She even told herself this family tree she was researching, all down her mother’s side, was nothing to do with it. With him. Not a reaction, not a corrective, not an attempt to fill up on cousins dangling from a dozen branches, so she’d forget the imagined noisy London house, all that unheard laughter and those unknown names.

  And look! Myra was right. It was a good way to meet people. Someone was standing by her table right now, reading Martine’s name badge. She broadened the smile she had on her face anyway and made a ceremonial little shift to one side, pulling her folder closer so it took up less room.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘I’m not expecting anyone.’

  She was a pale, slight little person, late forties Martine reckoned, neatly dressed in uncomfortable-looking clothes, not that different from Martine’s own – a fitted jacket, a tight skirt – but maybe these clothes had been chosen for different reasons. Martine’s uniform showed off her figure and declared her attitude
. This woman, inside the tailoring, was soft-looking, wispy-haired and downy-cheeked, as though the clothes might be holding her together, as though without them she’d have trouble standing.

  Martine was still holding out a hand in welcome, but the wispy woman looked around herself at the other tables. Martine’s smile stayed just as wide but it took a bit more effort.

  ‘I’m sort of half-looking for someone kind of,’ the little woman said. ‘But maybe she’s not here.’

  ‘She can join us if she turns up,’ Martine said. She knew her voice was starting to sound grim. One more chance, she thought. One more. ‘Plenty space for another one. Another two, actually!’

  ‘Thanks,’ the woman said and she sank down with relief. But Martine had noticed that she wore high-heeled shoes with her trim little pencil skirt so she didn’t let herself believe that it was companionship causing the smile and the relaxing.

  ‘Lovely,’ the woman said, once she was settled. ‘I’m Kate.’ She held out a hand and Martine shook it, trying not to react to how clammy it was. But Kate had noticed her expression changing. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I’m a bit nervous.’

  ‘I was just the same first time I walked in,’ Martine said. ‘But there’s no need to be. Can I get you a drink? The white wine’s usually nice and cold. I’m Martine, by the way.’

  ‘So I see.’ Kate nodded at the badge. ‘Martine …?’

  ‘MacAllister.’

  ‘Oh!’ Kate said, sitting back sharply. ‘You are Martine MacAllister?’ She bent forward again. ‘You’re Martine MacAllister? I don’t—’

  ‘What?’ said Martine.

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘What?’ said Martine.

  ‘Just that, the thing is, if you’re Martine MacAllister, then I’m sort of half-looking for you.’

  SEVEN

  The acoustics in the function room of the Cross Keys would have been perfect in a recording booth, but they were notoriously bad for parties. They didn’t book many bands – Lockerbie wasn’t that kind of town – but even wedding DJs over the years had given up trying to mix a decent sound and settled for the easy womp-womp of a deafening bass line. The thump of the bass was what drunks danced to anyway and the thump of the bass was what tipsy mums felt in their bellies, what got them snuggling up to their husbands, forgiving years of disappointments in hopes that the new love being celebrated would spread out from the happy couple and head their way.

  Some of trouble came from the thick carpet over good honeycomb underlay, everywhere except the tiny dance floor. Some of it was down to the velour seat covers and deep cushioning, the matching velour curtains with deep fringed pelmets. The ceiling was made of fire-retardant polystyrene tiles, which didn’t help, and the walls were papered in flock. All in all, the function room soaked up noise like a sponge. It made the claustrophobes who happened to spend time there check the exits and take frequent breaks outside in the carpark, pretending to cool off, and made gossips forget that they’d better check over their shoulders before they prised the lid off some can or other.

  Tonight, the muffled deadness made Martine feel – as she stared at Kate, in the silence after the statement was made – as if her ears were ringing.

  ‘You’re looking for me?’ she said, at last. ‘“Sort of” anyway?’

  ‘That wasn’t true,’ said Kate. ‘I was just playing it … cool? Down? I’m absolutely looking for you. I think.’

  ‘Absolutely, you think?’ Martine said. And when Kate hesitated again, she went on: ‘I’ll get you that white wine while you work it out, eh?’

  She was trying for a wry tone, an air of worldliness, but inside she was buzzing with curiosity as she made her way through to the bar. Someone was looking for her? Why would anyone be looking for her? Maybe someone online had said she came to this meeting and would help a newbie get started. But in that case surely whoever it was would have e-introduced them. She asked the barmaid for another glass of wine and ignored the look. Even if she had necked the first one, it was no one’s business.

  Or maybe Kate was after a grant-writer and had come to do an impromptu interview. If so, it was the most interesting thing that had happened in twelve years of grant-writing, hands down.

  Martine shared a word with the barmaid, as if to show she wasn’t what she dreaded becoming: the sort of person who would ponder and ponder a tiny moment in an ordinary day, like she was doing with this Kate person, right now.

  Only, if she was looking for a grant-writer, why was she so gobsmacked to find one?

  There was the usual explanation, of course. There was always that. She’d had it only yesterday, with a client from Lancaster, meeting him at some scummy café near the bypass, for his convenience. He’d heard her Scottish accent half a dozen times and he checked and rechecked the café customers looking for the face to match it. When she finally went over and introduced herself he blushed, apologized and practically told her he loved Beyoncé.

  She paid for the wine and squared her shoulders to go and find out what Kate wanted, planning to smile all the way through whatever the explanation might be. Maybe Myra or someone else on RoyalBlood had sent Kate to meet her, as a nice surprise. Only now Kate was worried they wouldn’t be using the same resources; that Martine would be deep in immigrant ship lists and churches in Jamaica. And she was scared to look rude by asking. Martine could put the poor woman out of her misery, go back to the table and say, ‘It’s my mum’s family I’m tracing, and she was as white as snow.’

  ‘Thanks for this,’ Kate said then took a slug and set the glass down firmly. ‘Right. Here goes.’ She hauled in a breath and let it go again. ‘Here goes,’ she repeated, gazing at the table. The silence stretched.

  ‘It’s my mum’s family I’ve been researching,’ said Martine. ‘And she was as—’

  Kate looked up so fast Martine thought she could hear a snap in her neck. Did necks snap, like ankles and knees, if you stressed them?

  ‘Right, right,’ said Kate. ‘Well, yes. It would be.’

  ‘Would it?’ Martine said. She kept the smile, just.

  ‘Because your dad,’ Kate said, ‘never acknowledged you. Never contacted you. But he did know about you.’

  Now the smile sank from her lips as if it had never been. Martine MacAllister, who had been grinning non-stop since she first learned that it was the best way to make people like you or at the very least leave you alone, felt her cheeks drop until they felt heavy, like two saddlebags, on either side of her mouth. She felt her mouth fall open. She stared.

  ‘You were born on the twenty-second of July 1983,’ Kate said. ‘Weren’t you?’

  Martine nodded.

  ‘Your mum phoned him. From the labour ward. She called him to tell him about you. A little girl, seven pounds five ounces, healthy except a bit of dislocation in your right hip, wasn’t it?’

  Martine nodded again, then found her voice. ‘I wore a Y brace, to correct it. Till I was five months old. I can’t remember it of course, but I saw pictures. How do you know all this? Did he tell you? Do you know him?’

  He! Him! The him she had given up on so many years ago. This woman was surely too young to be his wife. If he was a student then, he’d be … And this woman, Kate, couldn’t be more than …

  ‘He didn’t get the call,’ Kate was saying. ‘He was out. She left a message on the answerphone. And he kept the tape.’

  Martine took a sip from her glass and put it down. She thought she was being careful but as she let go, a little splash of wine fell on the table-top, landing in three distinct drops, high and round on the sealed polish. She stared at them, imagining herself taking the napkin from under the glass and wiping them up, but doing nothing.

  ‘He kept the tape his whole life,’ Kate said then her eyes flashed. ‘Sorry! He died. About a month ago. And we were clearing the house and found this little tape. You remember those tiny little cassette tapes like from a doll’s house? No one could work out how to play it. My brother-in-law, Leo, took it to
work and turned it over to the nerds in the end. We’re all so savvy with the new stuff now but the old stuff is beyond us.’

  ‘Speak for yourself,’ said Martine. ‘I’m only OK till it goes wrong. Then I just phone the fixers and hand over my passwords.’

  ‘You do? You don’t worry that they’ll hide in there forever watching what you’re up to?’

  Martine opened her eyes wide. ‘I might now!’ she said. Then she laughed. ‘Nah, better things to worry about than James Bond super-spies.’ She took a drink. ‘So your brother-in-law got the tape working?’

  Kate nodded as she sipped her drink then put it down and went on. ‘Of course, we had no idea what it was going to say. He came back in from work with this look on his face like I’ve never seen and he just put his phone down on the table and pointed to it, then went out. You know? To let us hear it in privacy.’

  ‘Us?’ said Martine.

  ‘My sister and me. Gail. His wife.’

  ‘And what did it say?’

  ‘I’ve listened to it so many times, I know it off by heart. “It’s Karen. I’m at the pay-phone in the hospital. Just letting you know I had a wee girl. She’s fine. She’s perfect. Except for a clicky right hip, but they said that’s easy fixed. Seven pounds five ounces. I’m not asking you to come. In fact, I’m telling you not to come. And I don’t want anything from you. But I thought you’d want to know.”’