Stranded

by Val McDermid

  It’s a question so crass I can’t believe she’s uttered it. I feel Senga’s hand gently easing the bread knife from mine. Just as well, really. I stare mutely at Auntie Betty, wishing with my whole heart that it was her burned to ash instead of my dad.

  Senga says, ‘If you don’t mind, Auntie Betty, there’s not really room for three people in here and we need to get the sandwiches done.’

  Auntie Betty edges backwards. ‘Right enough,’ she says. ‘I just thought I’d come and tell you Simon’s going to give us a wee song.’

  Simon is the late baby, born when Morag was twelve. There has never been a child more beautiful, more intelligent, more gifted. Well, that’s what Auntie Betty thinks. Personally, I prefer another set of adjectives – spoilt, arrogant, average. His thin, reedy tenor makes me yearn for Auntie Jean singing ‘The Wedding’.

  ‘Aye,’ Betty continues. ‘He’s going to give us “The Road and the Miles to Dundee”.’

  I feel the blood draining from my face and the room loses focus. I push her out of the way and head for the front door, grabbing my jacket as I run. I tear from the house and jump into the car, not caring that I’ve had more whisky than the law allows drivers. At first, I’m not thinking about where I’m going, but my heart knows what it needs, and it’s not my cousin Simon murdering my father’s favourite song. I drive out of town and up into the hills. These days, you can drive almost all the way up Falkland Hill. But it didn’t use to be like that. The first time I climbed it was the night before my sixth birthday. My mum wanted me out of the way so she could ice the cake, and my dad took me up the hill. It felt like a mountain to my child’s legs; it felt like achievement. We stood on the top, looking down at Fife, my world, spread beneath our feet like a magic carpet.

  Now, twenty-six years later, I’m here again. I want music. I finger the tape of my dad singing that one of his friends from the Bowhill People’s Burns Club’s concert party pressed into my hand as I left the crematorium. ‘I made a wee compilation for you,’ he said, his eyes damp with sorrow.

  But I’m not ready for this. Instead, I slam the Mozart Requiem into the tape player, roll down the windows, turn the volume up full and stand on the hillside, staring out at the blurry view. I know the world is still at my feet.

  The difference is that today, I don’t want it.

  So here’s to the lassie, I ne’er can forget her,

  And ilka young laddie that’s listening to me,

  O never be sweer to convoy a young lassie

  Though it’s only to show her the road to Dundee.

  I’m thirty thousand feet above somewhere. I don’t much care where. I’m flying to a festival to read from my work in a country I can’t point to on a map. I’m flying away from the ending of the relationship I never expected to die. My life feels ragged and wrecked, my heart torn and trampled. It’s as if the last dozen years have been folded up tight like tissue paper, turning into a hard lump that could stick in my throat and choke me.

  I take out the book I’ve brought as a bulwark against the strangling gyre of my thoughts. Ali Smith’s The Whole Story and Other Stories. I chose it deliberately in preference to a novel because I can’t actually concentrate for long enough to manage more than bite-sized chunks.

  A few stories in, I start reading one called ‘Scottish Love Songs’. It’s magical and strange, tragic and funny, but most of all, it’s an affirmation of the power and endurance of love. A bitter irony that I’m far from immune to. I’m bearing up well until the pipers in the story start playing ‘The Road and the Miles to Dundee’. Then I become that person that nobody wants to sit next to on the plane, the one with the fat tears rolling down her cheeks and the trumpeting nose-blowing that shocks even the screaming toddler in the next row into silence.

  Two nights later, I’m lying in a bed in a city in the middle of Europe, limbs entangled with a virtual stranger. We’re in that charmed place between satisfactory sex and the recognition that we probably don’t have much to say to each other. I don’t know why, but I start to tell her about the incident on the plane, and all the other memories associated with ‘The Road and the Miles to Dundee’. I don’t expect much response; I recall once writing that casual lovers are like domestic pets – you can almost believe they understand every word you say.

  But I’m pleasantly surprised. She shifts her long legs so she can more readily face me, pushes her tawny hair out of her eyes and frowns in concentration. At one point, when I pause, searching for the next point in the narrative, her hand moves to my hip and she says, ‘Go on. This is interesting.’

  I come to the end of what I have to say and she traces my mouth with a fingertip. ‘Sad,’ she says. Then shakes her head. ‘No, strike that. Sad’s too small a word. Too simple.’

  But simplification is what I need. I suddenly understand that I want to strip away every association from this damn song except the sweetness of my father’s voice. I don’t know how to express this, but somehow, this woman grasps the essence without being told. ‘It’s a love song,’ she says. ‘You need to remember that. You need to replace the bad connections with good ones.’

  ‘Easier said than done,’ I sigh. I want to change the subject, so I choose something else to occupy our mouths. It’s sweet, this encounter. It doesn’t touch the core of my pain, but it reminds me that sooner or later, there will be mitigation.

  Three days later, we detach from each other in the departure lounge, heading for different provincial airports. We’ve made no plans to meet again, mostly because I’ve headed her off at the pass every time.

  I’m only home an hour when there’s a ring at the doorbell. I’m not expecting anyone, but of all the people I’m not expecting, the florist would come high on the list. But she’s there, presenting me with a dozen yellow roses. Puzzled, I check they’re really for me and not the woman next door. The florist smiles at my distrust. ‘No, they’re really for you,’ she says. ‘There’s a card. I hope I got the spelling right.’

  I close the door and walk slowly through to the kitchen. I wriggle the card free from the cellophane wrapping and tear open the envelope. I read the words, and I can’t keep the big silly smile from my face. ‘O never be sweer to convoy a young lassie, Though it’s only to show her the road to Dundee.’

  The phone’s ringing, and I have a funny feeling it’s going to be a voice asking for directions.