Mistakes We Make

by Jenny Harper

  In the end, the last hadn’t been possible, but so far he had not felt anger. Fear, yes, but even that had been subsumed in the day-to-day effort of keeping going.

  Behind him, someone laughed. He sidestepped her question.

  ‘How’s the job hunt going?’

  She shrugged. ‘I’d like to find something in Hailesbank if I can, but I don’t want to go back to stacking supermarket shelves. There’s been nothing.’

  ‘Well, keep looking. I always believe that when one door closes, another opens,’ said Adam, who did not believe any such thing. His marriage, to the only woman he had ever loved, was all but over, and his relationship with Sunita Ghosh was doomed. All he needed was the courage to tell her so.

  It didn’t take courage, as it turned out. It was more a matter of cowardice.

  When he set the alarm and pulled the front door of the Blair King office shut behind him for the last time, he knew exactly what he wanted to do for the rest of the evening – light a fire in the stove in Lexie Gordon’s studio cottage and crash out in the magical healing space. Alone.

  Forty minutes after he left the office for the last time, he steered his car round the side of the big house and past the windows that had been Molly’s apartment. He didn’t look up. Thinking about Molly still saddened him. He left the gravel drive and pulled on to the grass under the trees. It would be the last time he’d use the car for a while. Now that he was going to have time on his hands, he would cycle everywhere – even to the station in Hailesbank, if he landed an interview in Edinburgh. It was time he got some air into his lungs.

  The cottage was freezing – there was no heating, only the wood-burning stove in the studio room and a couple of portable fan heaters. Adam changed quickly into jeans and a sweater and hung his suit on the back of the bedroom door. Maybe he’d take it to the cleaner’s. Now would be a good time because he had every intention of having a break before he started looking for another job.

  Adam liked the cold. He liked its unforgivingness. You couldn’t argue with cold; it bit into skin and turned blood to ice. The only way to ward it off was with fire, and fire was a life-giving force. There hadn’t been an open fire in the Trinity house, and since he’d moved in to the studio he’d taken a particular pleasure in the ritual of laying the fire and of tending it – scrunching newspaper into tight sausages, laying on kindling, watching it catch light. The stove was old, but efficient. Within minutes, the fire was alight; in less than ten, it was sending its comforting heat out into the room.

  He stood over it until it felt established, then crossed to pull the heavy curtains across the tall French windows. He guessed they were probably cast-offs from the big house, because although they were shabby and worn, they were clearly good quality. He fumbled for the switch in the neck of the table lamp that nestled on the bookshelf by the television (his sole import into the cottage), and soft light flooded the space. He pressed a button on a floor switch and the standard lamp behind the sofa glowed. To his left, the rest of the room – Lexie’s studio – remained in darkness. He hadn’t touched her space. He didn’t need it, and one day soon, she probably would.

  He didn’t want to think about Lexie coming back here, because that would mean he’d have to move out, and he loved this place. He loved being alone in it. So far, he’d successfully defended it against Sunita’s hints.

  ‘It’s too basic,’ he told her, ‘you’d hate it.’ Or, ‘You couldn’t stand the cold. I promise you, it’s Baltic.’

  He didn’t feel like eating. What he felt like was getting grandly drunk.

  There was a bottle of whisky on the bookshelves. Macallan – The Macallan – his favourite. He found a glass and filled a small jug with water, then switched on the television. Some drama was on, dark and confusing, but watchable. He poured himself a glass of whisky, shoved another couple of logs into the stove and stretched out on the sofa.

  What better end to a difficult few months? Dark drama and drunkenness. He smiled at the empty room, and at his thought.

  Some time later, he awoke to the heavy thump of the iron knocker on the front door.

  ‘Wha’? What the—?’

  He sat up abruptly. The half-empty glass of whisky that had been resting on his stomach, cradled in his loose grasp, went flying across the rug and there was the sound of glass shattering.

  ‘Shit!’

  The stove was almost out and the room had grown chilly.

  Again, there was a battering at the front of the cottage.

  Half asleep, he stumbled along the corridor and hauled open the heavy door, which scraped over the flagstones.

  ‘What is it?’ he grunted, peering into the darkness outside.

  ‘That’s not much of a greeting,’ said Sunita, tiptoeing up to kiss his cheek.

  ‘What the—?’

  ‘Can I come in?’

  Adam reached out for the switch and light flooded across Sunita’s face.

  ‘Oh, it’s you.’

  ‘That’s even less welcoming.’ She was smiling. One thing you could say about Sunita was that she always met challenges with courage and grace.

  ‘Sorry.’ He opened the door wider and stood aside to let her in. ‘I’m half asleep. I was asleep when you knocked. The place is freezing, sorry. Straight ahead.’

  She gazed around the half dark space. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘It’s Lexie Gordon’s studio.’

  ‘I know. You told me. Can we get the stove going, do you think? And do stop saying sorry.’

  ‘Sorry. I mean, yes. It’ll only take a minute. Sit down.’

  The fire wasn’t out; it glowed promisingly and he could feel vestiges of heat as he opened the glass door. He pushed a few pieces of dry kindling into the stove and they caught at once.

  ‘Glass of something?’

  She looked at him, amused. ‘I’m driving. Unless you’d like me to stay?’

  It put him on the back foot. ‘I – I was just about to make a pot of coffee,’ he lied.

  Her eyes flickered, but she controlled herself well. Sunita was always about control.

  ‘Coffee would be lovely.’

  ‘To what do I owe this pleasure?’ he called from the kitchen, pulling mugs from the cupboard and setting milk and sugar on a tray.

  ‘I was worried about you.’

  He twisted round at the nearness of her voice. She’d followed him and was at the door, leaning against the frame, her coat buttoned high, a scarlet and purple wool scarf twisted round her neck. She looked lovely. She always did. Why, he wondered, could he not love her?

  ‘I mean, it was your last day—’

  ‘Oh.’ He poured boiling water over the coffee grounds and set the cafetière on the tray. ‘That was good of you. I suppose it’s the talk of the town.’

  She pulled a face. ‘There’s talk, but it’s not spiteful. It’s more a case of, “There but for the grace of God”. Everyone knows it could happen anywhere, no matter how tight the controls.’

  ‘Yes, well, it happened to Blair King.’ He picked up the tray and moved towards the door. ‘The living room should be warming up. Let’s go back there.’

  ‘No sign of Logan Keir?’

  ‘Nothing.’ He set the tray down on Lexie’s lovely cherry wood coffee table, the only piece of furniture in the place that wasn’t battered or upcycled. ‘There’s a European Arrest Warrant out for him, but no-one’s sure where he went. It might not have been Europe. It could have been South America, Brazil, Argentina—’

  ‘He’ll run out of cash, surely?’

  ‘Maybe. But it’s perfectly possible he’d prepared for this. False passport, bank accounts in other names. The police have found three accounts so far and frozen them all, but there may be more they haven’t unearthed yet.’

  ‘What a mess.’

  ‘Yup. A mess.’

  She unbuttoned her coat and slipped it off, then unwound the scarf and draped it across her shoulders. In the dancing light of the fire she looked mysterious and e
xotic.

  ‘You don’t have to live here, Adam.’

  He smiled. A sinking feeling somewhere in his gut heralded the inevitable.

  ‘You could move in with me.’

  He laid his own mug down, took hers and set it on the table. He held her hands in his and studied her face with grave courtesy.

  ‘You’re very kind. Thank you. But I have to do this on my own.’

  ‘Do what?’ Her hands twitched, but she didn’t withdraw them from his grasp. ‘Half starve yourself in some freezing workshop?’

  ‘Salvage my pride. Get a new life.’

  ‘We could work on the new life together. As for pride, it wasn’t your fault. No-one attaches any blame to you.’

  ‘Mud sticks.’

  She was silent for a while. At last she pulled her hands free. Adam made no attempt to stop her.

  ‘We need to book the tickets to India. For the wedding. My family are—’

  ‘I can’t go to India with you, Sunita.’

  Her eyes glittered.

  ‘I’ll buy the tickets. My treat. No—’ She held out a hand to stop him interrupting. ‘It’s not charity, Adam. Take it as a birthday present. It’s a family wedding, my family, and I want you to come. I’d like to do this.’

  He stood up and stepped away from her.

  No, this did not require courage. He knew he could not do this thing. He could not travel with Sunita Ghosh to her uncle’s smart house in Kolkata. He could not face being introduced to her family as ‘Adam Blair, my boyfriend’. For Sunita’s family, such an introduction would be tantamount to the announcement of an engagement, and he could not spend his life with this woman, beautiful though she was.

  She was on her feet in one easy movement, her stare so intense that he almost quailed before it. He closed his eyes to block it out.

  ‘You’re still in love with her, aren’t you?’ she said, the words so soft and low that he thought for a moment that he’d imagined them.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Molly. You’re still in love with her.’

  ‘You’re being ridiculous. This isn’t about Molly.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  She blinked. Adam was horrified to see that her eyes were full of tears.

  ‘Sunita, I—’

  ‘Don’t. I’ve seen it for myself. I saw it at Loch Melfort, and I saw it again at your Uncle Geordie’s funeral. I thought I could fight it. I thought I was clever enough, beautiful enough to win your admiration, and maybe, following that, your love. But I can’t. She has won. Your wife has won.’

  ‘That’s not true! Molly and I are getting divorced. It’s what she wants and—’

  ‘And you, Adam? Is it what you want?’

  ‘No, I—’ he stopped, trapped. ‘I mean to say, yes, the divorce is what I want.’ He tried to salvage the situation. ‘It’s not you, Sunita, and it’s not Molly. I don’t mean it to sound a cliché, but this is all about me. I know it’s selfish, but I’ve had quite a battering and I need time out to reflect and decide what I’m going to do for the rest of my life. That’s all.’

  ‘If you say so.’ She bent to pick up her coat and looked at him again. She stood very straight, her head back, a small, strained smile playing on her lips. ‘I’d say let’s be friends, but that’s not what I want from you, Adam. So I guess this is goodbye.’

  The abruptness of the end took him by surprise. He bent and kissed her forehead, unexpectedly taken aback by the realisation that it would be the last time he would be near her like this, the last time he would inhale that faint smell of her perfume or touch the smooth brown skin. He lifted a hand and stroked her cheek with regret.

  ‘You’re an amazing woman. I don’t deserve you. I never did. You’ll find someone who does, and I’ll be the first to shake his hand and wish him well.’

  She snorted. ‘You’re an idiot, Adam.’

  He heard the front door scrape across the flagstones, then close. A moment later, he heard an engine start and caught the crunch as her wheels spun on to the gravel.

  In the stove, a log fell heavily and a cascade of flame shot up behind the soot-darkened glass.

  Fire is a life-giving force.

  Chapter Four

  ‘Assistant required. Apply within.’

  Caitlyn nearly missed the notice in the solicitor’s window in the High Street. She’d walked past the narrow frontage twice already this morning. Either it hadn’t been there or she just hadn’t spotted it.

  She stopped abruptly. It was handwritten on a piece of paper no bigger than A5. What way was that to advertise a job? She’d do things very differently if she were handling it.

  She glanced up at the lettering above the door. Fraser, Fraser and Mutch. Stupid name for a solicitor if ever there was one. Still, she knew enough about how these things worked to realise that it must be a family firm that had maybe had to take on another partner at some time, maybe as a way of keeping the business going after the father retired. Maybe there was only one Fraser now. Maybe there wasn’t even a Fraser at all.

  She couldn’t help thinking of James Blair. Once, he’d been the ‘big boss’, authoritative and commanding. She hadn’t exactly been afraid of him, but then, she had never had much reason to meet him either. Over the past months, it seemed as though he’d grown smaller. He’d lost weight, that much was obvious, but he’d got shorter too – or did she just imagine that? As the investigations continued and appalling fact after appalling fact began to emerge, he’d grown withdrawn and defeated.

  Caitlyn’s gaze returned to the notice. ‘Assistant required. Apply within.’

  It looked right up her street – but could she face another job in a lawyer’s office? Would they even think of taking her on after the whole Blair King episode? She hesitated, reached her hand out to push the door open, then backed away abruptly and walked on.

  When she got home, an hour or so later, she found a note in Ailsa’s girly handwriting propped against the kettle: Taken Isla May to the park. There were small hearts in pink felt tip dotted round the words. Caitlyn picked it up and smiled. Ailsa might have a boyfriend who looked like Ross Kemp, but she was still quite young in many ways. It was great that they’d gone to the park together – there’d been a time when Ailsa would have flatly refused to do anything more than she had to with her little sister.

  The twins were at after-school club. They’d tumble home in an hour or so, escorted to the end of the road by one of the mums.

  Her mother was working.

  Caitlyn was tempted to brew a cuppa, grab one of the old magazines Joyce had rescued from some resident’s waste basket and put her feet up for a blissful hour – but now that she wasn’t earning, there was no excuse not to pull her weight. She unhooked the rainbow-striped pinafore she’d bought at the pound store last year because its bright colours cheered her up, loaded the big pocket on the front with dusters and polish, then tugged the vacuum cleaner out of the cupboard in the hall and hefted it upstairs. One of these days she’d treat Joyce to a new one – this old thing was not only heavy, it was inefficient too.

  Listen to yourself! A new vacuum cleaner? Hardly a treat! A day at a spa or a voucher for a nice dinner somewhere, now they would be treats.

  She set the machine down at the top of the stairs, fished a tissue out from her sleeve and gave her nose a good blow. It was no use feeling sorry for herself because if, by some miracle, she landed an interview somewhere, her self-pity would show. Confidence was a trick, and one that she’d begun to think she’d mastered before everything had fallen apart again.

  Cleaning Joyce’s room didn’t take long. There was little furniture and only a small floor area. She pulled a duster out of her pocket and started on the bedside chest.

  There was a new photograph, a small picture in an old frame. She didn’t recognise the frame; perhaps her mother had bought it in a charity shop somewhere. She recognised the two people smiling out of the photograph at her though – her mother, looking happier than she’d seen h
er in an age, and Reg West, unmistakeable with his fading ginger hair and round smiling face. Joyce had been ‘seeing’ the cook at the care home, as she obliquely phrased it, in recent weeks.

  ‘His wife died,’ she explained to a curious Caitlyn, ‘and Reggie was shipwrecked.’

  Caitlyn dusted the frame and set it back down. She smiled, a picture in her head of her mother rowing across a choppy sea to hoist Reg into the safety of her little boat. All her life Joyce had supported people in need, usually without so much as a thank you. Maybe this time she’d get her reward.

  Perhaps Joyce would need the bigger bedroom soon. If Caitlyn moved out of Farm Lane, Ailsa could have this one – but she’d need another job if that was going to happen.

  The boys’ room took longer, mostly because she had to spend so long picking up discarded toys, clothing, sweet wrappers – even, under Harris’s bed, a plate smeared with chocolate buttercream. So he had sneaked the last piece from the cupboard, despite his vehement denials the night before! She’d have to have a word with him about telling the truth.

  Isla May’s room was a temple to pink. A year ago, Caitlyn had picked up a roll of pale pink wallpaper with fairies on it for next to nothing in the oddments bin at the local DIY store. It had been her first try at decorating, and she’d enjoyed it. She’d painted the windowsill, doors and skirting in pink paint and done a surprisingly neat job with the wallpaper, following instructions she’d found on the internet. A pink tutu hung on the back of the door – a fairy costume Joyce had picked up in a charity shop in Hailesbank High Street for the princessly sum of fifty pence.

  Caitlyn neatened the bed. As she reached across to tuck the duvet down the far side, next to the wall, her foot struck a hard object with a dull clang. She dropped to her knees and pulled out an old biscuit tin. A neat label on the top read, ‘Summer Camp Fund’. It was unmistakably Ailsa’s writing, down to the pink hearts in felt tip decorating the background. Summer Camp Fund? Where would Isla May find money to save for the camp? They couldn’t even afford new football boots for the boys, who were complaining so vociferously about cramped feet that she’d threatened to cut the toes off the ones they had.