The Chessmen l-3

by Peter May

  A great deal of alcohol was being consumed, and by one or two in the morning almost everyone was skinny-dipping in the pool, spilling champagne and shrieking to be heard above the brain-splitting blast of the sound system.

  I was tired and fed up and couldn’t be bothered with any of it. I sat in the main lounge, sprawled on the settee, a can of beer in my hand, watching a video on the biggest TV screen I had ever seen. I say watching, but I don’t think I was, really. I have no recollection now of what was playing. A movie maybe, or music videos. Bubblegum for the eyes. And the brain.

  At first I was barely aware of someone sitting down beside me. Until I felt the warmth of a thigh pressed against mine, and a scent so familiar it was almost comforting. I turned my head to find Mairead smiling at me, a smile that might once have quickened my pulse. But I was used to it by now, and didn’t trust it.

  ‘What you doing in here on your own?’ she said.

  I shrugged. ‘Wishing I was somewhere else.’ But it felt good to be speaking just Gaelic again.

  ‘Snap.’

  I raised an eyebrow. ‘You don’t have to be here. You can get a taxi home any time you like. I’ve got people relying on me for a lift back.’

  Even although I had got over her by this time, I think I was still in awe of her beauty. Her dark hair was cropped, as it had been since the accident on the Road to Nowhere, and she had developed into a striking-looking woman. The soft features of the teenage girl were hardening into something more adult, but no less beautiful. She had lost weight and her eyes seemed larger, even more compelling.

  She was still in her stage gear, a full-length black dress that hugged a pencil-thin figure and plunged from shoulder straps into a deep V between her breasts, an extraordinary contrast with her porcelain-white Celtic skin. It would be fair to say that she looked stunning.

  ‘What if I asked you to take me home?’

  I eyed her suspiciously. ‘Why would you do that?’

  ‘Maybe because I don’t want to go home alone.’

  When I said nothing her smile widened.

  ‘Remember that time you gave me a lift back to Stornoway on your crappy old moped?’

  I was surprised she even remembered it. ‘Yeh, we got soaked.’

  ‘And my bum was bruised for days after in the shape of your luggage rack.’

  I laughed out loud. ‘You’re kidding!’

  ‘I’d have shown you, only you might have got the wrong idea. Roddy always kept a blanket folded on his. Yours was raw metal tubing. It was bloody agony. All the way back.’

  ‘And here was me thinking it was passion that made you hold on to me that tight.’

  There was mischief in her eyes. ‘Maybe it was.’

  ‘Yeh, right.’

  Her arm was draped over the top of the settee behind me now, and her fingers were playing absently with my curls. It made me uncomfortable. She said, ‘You used to fancy me Fin, didn’t you?’

  ‘Used to.’

  ‘But not any more?’

  I just shrugged.

  ‘What happened?’

  I turned to meet her gaze. ‘I got to know you, Mairead.’

  It was like a light went out in her eyes, and all the animation left her face. She took her arm away from the back of the settee and sat forward on the edge of the seat, hands clasped in her lap. I couldn’t see her face now. ‘I think that’s just about the most hurtful thing anyone’s ever said to me.’ There was the slightest tremor in her voice.

  I had a sick, hollow feeling inside me. I hadn’t meant to hurt her, and yet it was a kind of payback for all those years of frustrated teenage fantasy when she had taken pleasure, or so I thought, in exploiting my weakness. And I wondered suddenly if it had all simply been a figment of my own imagination.

  ‘No one knows me,’ she said. ‘Not really.’

  ‘Whistler thought he did. He told me once you were really insecure. And trying to be something you weren’t.’

  She turned surprised eyes on me, then. And I saw the tracks of silent tears shining on her cheeks. But I still didn’t know whether to trust them. ‘Whistler said that?’

  ‘He was in love with you, Mairead. Probably still is. I always figured that’s why he never came to Glasgow. Removing himself from the source of the pain.’

  A distant look washed momentarily across her face, then she focused on me again. ‘Take me home, Fin. Please.’

  I don’t think anyone noticed us leaving. But I saw Mairead’s backward glance through open French windows into the conservatory, where Roddy was frolicking naked in the pool with Caitlin. I didn’t much care about how the others got home. They could all afford to get taxis by now. And I was feeling bad about what I’d said to Mairead. It’s one thing to think it, quite another to say it out loud and carelessly inflict pain.

  We drove in silence through the dark, overhead lights reflecting in wet streets, passing in an endless succession through tenemental south-side suburbia and on to Paisley Road West. Mairead had bought a penthouse flat in a restored Victorian drapery warehouse built into the triangle of a junction between two roads. On the apex of the triangle, at its most easterly point, stood the sculpture of a golden angel that looked back towards the city. The apartment block was called the Angel Building, and I had always thought that Mairead could not have lived anywhere more apposite.

  She didn’t bother turning on any lights in the flat. Windows all along each side of it let in the city nightlight, casting deep shadows around the sitting room. At the opposite end from an open-plan kitchen a door led through to her bedroom.

  ‘I’ll just get changed,’ she said. ‘Help yourself to something to drink.’ Her heels clicked across polished wood floors, and she pushed the door open. Beyond the bed, from a large, arched window facing east, I could see the city spread out below. But I didn’t move. Wasn’t interested in a drink. She turned back, silhouetted against the city behind her, and stood looking at me in the dark for what felt like an inordinate length of time. Then she raised her hand to slip the straps from each of her shoulders, and her black dress fell to the floor in a whisper of silk. She was completely naked.

  I felt a constriction in my throat, and all the pent-up desires of my teenage years returned to flood my senses. Here she was, the object of all those fantasies, standing naked in front of me, offering herself in a way that no woman has offered herself to me before or since. By the time I reached her I had already stripped off my T-shirt. I was out of my jeans in seconds, and sharing her nakedness just moments later. We stood, inches apart, looking at each other, both listening to the other breathing in the dark. I knew that the moment I touched her there would be no going back. It would be like opening a floodgate, and I was destined to drown in her.

  I cupped my hand around the back of her head and felt the soft bristle of her hair, the shape of her skull, and drew her towards me. From the first touch of our lips I was lost. Our bodies came together, and I felt my passion press hard against her belly as we fell backwards in slow motion on to the bed. Her body so white, framed against the black satin sheets stretched tightly across the mattress. At long last she was mine. But, as always, it was on her terms.

  It lasted for more than three months. A relationship based on sex. There were no candlelit dinners or romantic moments. No holding hands or declarations of undying love. Just lust.

  We made love at her place, in my bedsit, in the back of the van. In countless hotel rooms. And I never lost my appetite for her. I never stopped wanting her. Nor she me, apparently.

  I understood that, really, we were just using each other. She as a means of getting back at Roddy, of flaunting me in his face, hoping to make him jealous. Although, in truth, I think she enjoyed our sexual dalliance as much as I did. For my part, I was only interested in the sex. I never really liked her, but in a strange way became addicted to her. When I wasn’t with her, I found myself missing her. We never spoke much, but in a sense I think that’s what I liked the most. She made no emotional deman
ds on me. There were no moods or fits of jealousy, no requirement to say things I didn’t mean. It was, perhaps, the most sexually fulfilling but undemanding relationship I have ever had.

  And so I took it badly when she ended us one night, suddenly and without warning.

  We were supposed to be going to a party and had agreed to meet in the bar of the Cul de Sac in Ashton Lane, in Glasgow’s west end. Mairead had said she would meet me at seven. By 8.30 I was still waiting and was on my third pint. The place was crowded, and I could see people milling about in the lane below. There were several restaurants, bars and a cinema in the old cobbled street, and one of the restaurants on the far side had put out tables so that its patrons could enjoy the fine midsummer weather and take advantage of the light nights.

  At first I wasn’t worried. Mairead was prone to bouts of lateness, when she decided five minutes before going out that she really had to have a shower. At least she didn’t have to spend hours on her hair, but the make-up could take half an hour. She was very conscious of her appearance or, as she liked to say, her image. Mairead had a mobile phone, and I would have called her. But I couldn’t afford one myself, so that wasn’t an option. I was about to leave and drive over to the Angel Building when I saw her pushing her way through the drinkers towards me. As usual she was turning heads.

  ‘Hey,’ I said, ‘what happened?’ I went to kiss her cheek but she averted her head in a strangely abrupt movement. I knew at once what was coming.

  She moved closer, lowering her voice, and her eyes. ‘Fin, I’m sorry. It’s over.’

  I waited until she looked up to meet my eye. ‘Why?’

  There was something like exasperation in her voice. ‘You knew it wasn’t for ever, Fin. We both knew that.’

  I nodded. ‘We did. But I’d still like to know why.’

  She shook her head. ‘There’s no point. Explanations aren’t going to make either of us feel any better about it.’ She suddenly took my face in both of her hands, an intensity in her eyes that I couldn’t remember ever seeing there before, and she kissed me so softly, and with such tenderness, that I might almost have believed she really did feel something for me. ‘I’m so sorry, Fin.’

  And she was gone. In those few moments everything I had been and known these last months came to an end. The dream was over. There was no hiding any more. I turned back to the bar and finished my pint.

  Outside the air was cool, but soft on the skin. I walked in a daze through the west end, heading instinctively for the party that Mairead and I had been going to. It was in a block of red sandstone flats in Hyndland. I knew I didn’t want to go home. It was far easier to be lonely in a crowd. I would never have believed that breaking up with Mairead could be this painful. The thought that I would never kiss her again, or touch her breasts, or feel her legs wrapped around my back was almost more than I could bear. All I wanted to do was get drunk.

  The party was already jumping by the time I got there. I said hi to a few familiar faces, and heard someone ask where Mairead was. I didn’t answer. I found myself a soft seat in a dark corner with a six-pack at my side and sprung open the first can.

  The music was deafening, and people were dancing. The girl nearest me stepped back over someone’s handbag and promptly sat down in my lap. A pretty girl with short black hair.

  She’d been drinking. She giggled. ‘Ooops. Sorry.’

  Maybe there was something about her that reminded me of Mairead. I’m not sure now what it was, but I smiled. ‘Be my guest,’ I said.

  She tipped her head and gave me a curious look. ‘Are you at uni?’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘I thought I’d seen you somewhere. What year?’

  ‘Second.’

  ‘I’m in first.’

  ‘Well,’ I said. ‘We intellectuals ought to stick together. My name’s Fin.’

  She giggled again. ‘So we should. I’m Mona.’

  And that is how I met the girl who would wake me up in the morning to tell me that Roddy was dead. The girl I would marry, and who would bear my son. The girl I would divorce sixteen years later when the one good thing we had made together was no more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  I

  Mairead was still wearing her coat as if, perhaps, Marsaili had hoped she wouldn’t stay and hadn’t offered to take it. It was long and black, and concertinaed on the floor around her chair. Her style had not changed in all these years. Years that had treated her kindly. They had pared away some of the flesh from around her face, leaving her almost hawk-like but still beautiful, with clear white skin and only the hint of crow’s feet appearing around the corners of her eyes. Her lips were full and strikingly dark in contrast with the rest of her face. There was a knowing quality in their smile, and an odd fondness in her eyes.

  ‘Hello, Fin,’ she said, and it was as if that final exchange in the Cul de Sac had happened just the night before.

  Fin’s eyes flickered towards Marsaili and back again. ‘Hello, Mairead. I see you’re still going to the same hairdresser.’

  She grinned, and ran a hand back through her stubble. There was just a little silver appearing in it now, but it hadn’t concerned her enough to dye it. ‘It’s my trademark. They’ll put me in my coffin with my hair like this. Only, I hope it’ll be pure white by then.’

  ‘You want a cup of tea, Fin?’ Marsaili’s voice cut in on the exchange like a child with her nose out of joint seeking attention.

  ‘I’ll have a beer,’ he said, and turned to get a bottle from the fridge.

  ‘Same old Fin.’ Mairead took a sip at her mug. ‘Always with a beer in his hand.’

  Fin twisted the cap off the bottle. ‘What are you doing here, Mairead?’

  ‘She came looking for you,’ Marsaili said.

  ‘They told me in town that you were restoring your parents’ crofthouse. I was amazed to hear that you’d come back. Last I heard you were being a cop in Edinburgh.’ And she chuckled. ‘I laughed out loud when I heard that. Fin Macleod. Policeman! Remember chasing the cops through the streets of that resort town in England?’

  Fin grinned. ‘I guess we were lucky not to end up in a police cell.’

  ‘Who’s this we you talk about, Kemo Sabe?’

  Marsaili glanced, perplexed, from one to the other as they shared their laughter. ‘Someone want to let me in on the joke?’

  Fin waved his hand dismissively. ‘It’s a long story, Marsaili.’ Then paused, as a thought occurred to him. ‘I guess you two know one another from school?’

  ‘We shared some of the same classes,’ Mairead said. ‘But had different friends.’ She smiled at Marsaili. ‘I would never have recognized you. Except I’d been told that you two were an item these days.’

  ‘Of course, I knew you straight away.’ Marsaili was smiling, but there was an edge to her voice. ‘Who wouldn’t?’ She turned towards Fin. ‘I saw her from the window. She was standing up there on the shoulder of the hill looking a bit like a lost soul.’

  Fin quickly refocused the conversation. ‘I suppose you’re here for the funeral?’

  Mairead’s face clouded. ‘Not just for it, Fin. To organize it. There are no relatives that we know of. So it’s up to Roddy’s friends to give him a proper send-off. You’ll both be coming?’

  ‘I won’t.’ Marsaili pushed herself away from the worktop to empty the last of her tea down the sink and rinse the mug. ‘I never really knew Roddy. And I’ve got the baby to look after.’

  Mairead raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘Baby?’

  ‘Our granddaughter,’ Fin said. And then felt compelled to explain. ‘We had a son I never knew about till recently.’

  Mairead took Marsaili’s cue with the mug and stood up. ‘Never could keep it in the breeks, Fin, could you?’ Fin blushed and she smiled. ‘And still blushing, I see. Always wore your heart on your sleeve, you did.’ She held his gaze for a long moment. ‘They were interesting times we lived in.’

  Fin nodded. ‘They were.’ And he took a p
ull on the neck of his bottle to disguise his discomfort. ‘You’ll let me know when the funeral’s to be?’

  ‘I will, now that I know where you are. I’m at the Cabarfeidh, in town.’ She paused, which made it sound almost like an invitation. And then she added, ‘Strings and Skins and Rambo are there, too.’

  It seemed odd to Fin to hear those teenage nicknames again, as if somehow they should have grown out of them. And yet he still called Whistler, Whistler.

  Mairead turned an ersatz smile towards Marsaili. ‘It was lovely to meet you again. Thanks for the tea.’ Fin opened the kitchen door for her and she paused momentarily as she passed him, a strange searching look in her eyes. But all she said was, ‘See you at the funeral,’ and was gone.

  There was a long silence in the kitchen after she had left. It was almost as if Marsaili was waiting to hear the sound of her car starting, to be certain that she was away, before she spoke. ‘You two had a relationship, then?’

  There was no point in denying it. ‘That obvious?’

  ‘Oh, yes.’ A long pause. ‘How come you never told me?’

  Fin shrugged. ‘Nothing to tell. It was another me, in another place and time.’

  ‘Seems to me there are a lot of Fin Macleods I don’t know anything about.’ She lifted Mairead’s mug from the table to rinse it in the sink, and caught her reflection in the kitchen window. Fin saw her raise a hand, almost involuntarily, to sweep the hair back from her face. ‘She’s still very beautiful,’ she said, as if the contrast with her own reflection had prompted the thought.

  ‘She is.’ Fin drank some more of his beer. ‘We had a relationship, yes, Marsaili. But I never liked her very much.’

  Marsaili was surprised. ‘No?’