David's Sisters

by Forsyth, Moira;

  She had desired her husband, of course, had longed for him, especially in his absence, and surprised (perhaps dismayed) him on his return with arms flung round his neck, an enthusiasm he did not often see in her. But what had she longed for? Something that was never found, she knew now, in their love-making, however considerate and patient he was. Eventually, she had learned not to trust this vague ache, the warmth spreading through her thighs, the treacherous quickening of lust. It ended in such disappointment.

  I got through it, she told herself now, curling up tighter in the bed, turning her thoughts away from Ian and the dangerous past. She was drifting in half-sleep, losing control of where her imagination travelled. She shuddered a little, but grew warm at last, and slept.

  13

  ‘He’s an interesting sort of man, he’s done lots of different things. He has all these opinions, on subjects I’ve never even thought about.’

  Eleanor was explaining Gavin. She had gone to see Marion after her first chemotherapy treatment. That had been bad, Marion admitted, but not so bad as she had feared. She felt fine.

  ‘If it goes on like this,’ she had said to Fergus, ‘it will be all right.’ But Fergus had squeezed her shoulders, saying only, ‘We’ll see. See how you go.’

  The sisters were in Marion’s living room. The frost had not thawed on the grass all day, and it was beginning to grow dark and icy again outside. Marion got up to draw the curtains.

  ‘So, where did you say his wife had gone?’ She sat down again, and took up Ross’s school shirt, to sew on a button.

  They’re not married. She’s his girlfriend. I don’t really know where she’s gone. Living with a friend, he said, or maybe a cousin. I’m not sure. The cottage is his – she had a flat in Inverness, but it’s rented out just now.’

  ‘Complicated,’ Marion observed, bitting off a thread.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to expect her to come back.’ Eleanor sounded doubtful. Gavin was behaving like someone single and unfettered, but she would have liked to be sure about this.

  ‘So – are you … have you been out with him?’ Marion asked. Being in hospital was like being out of the world altogether; even after an overnight stay you felt a lot must have happened in your absence.

  ‘Well, not out. I mean, he lives practically next door, and he’s onshore till the end of the week, so I see him every day. He comes in for coffee, and he’s asked Claire and me round for a meal.’

  ‘Can he cook?’

  ‘Well, I suppose so. We’ll find out on Friday. After that he’s offshore for a couple of weeks.’

  ‘What does he do, on the rigs?’

  Eleanor was vague about this. ‘Something to do with drilling, and chemicals,’ she said. ‘It’s technical – he doesn’t wear a hard hat and climb about the rig.’ Eleanor assumed this; she had not asked him. They had talked books, politics, hill-walking, not about his job.

  ‘So,’ Marion said, winding thread round the new button and putting in a final securing stitch, ‘you’ve got over your horror of red-headed men?’

  ‘That was Claire!’ Eleanor smiled. ‘Och, no, I don’t fancy him or anything, but it is lovely to have somebody look in and chat for a while. He’s easy to have around, you just get on with the ironing or whatever. He fixed the sash rope in the kitchen window the other day.’

  ‘You’ve been lonely,’ Marion said.

  ‘No, how could I be, with Claire, and all of you so near?’

  ‘Yes, but lonely for – I don’t know. Eleanor, do you not sometimes regret moving here, leaving your friends, the life you had in England?’

  Eleanor looked at her in astonishment. ‘Why, are you sorry I came?’

  ‘Of course not. But I sometimes feel it was selfish of me to want it, that I maybe tried to influence you when I shouldn’t have done.’

  ‘No, never think that. This is my home, and my friends are here now, anyway.’

  Marion, seeing her off, wondered about Eleanor’s solitary life. Friends, but not many of them. She needed something useful to do, or a job. A greater purpose in her life.

  Eilidh’s bag dropped in the hall with a thud and she came into the kitchen. ‘Hi, Mum, you all right?’

  ‘Yes, fine.’

  ‘Sorry I’m late – we went down the street. Ross is playing football, did he tell you?’

  ‘Yes. And Dad’s in evening surgery, so we’ll have a late tea.’

  ‘I’m starving – what can I have now?’

  Kirsty, who had come in earlier from the primary school, slid downstairs by leaning across the banister and skimming her legs over the treads. ‘I get a packet of crisps?’

  This is how I want it to be, Marion thought, as the girls sprawled in front of the television, scattering crisp crumbs, squabbling over what to watch. I want everything to be ordinary, I don’t want to be ill. She hated the interruption to her life and had felt angry and resentful all week. Now nausea rose in her chest, her throat, but she swallowed hard, ignoring it. A cup of tea, she thought, that’s what I need.

  Eleanor had no wish any longer to keep everything the same. Keeping everything steady had been done for Claire’s sake these last few years, and the great changes (Ian’s death, the move back to Scotland) had been enough to sicken her of uncertainty for a long time. Now everything had been the same for too long. She had discovered, too, what she could not easily say to anyone else, that life was simpler with just the two of them. She even preferred it. Other people had observed (after a decent interval) that she would find someone else and marry again, but she had never believed this herself, having been surprised at getting married in the first place. You could not, anyway, expect to be chosen by someone like Ian twice in your life, someone attractive and successful, who always knew the answers. Fergus was the only other sort of husband Eleanor understood. He was not quick or ambitious like Ian, he was dependable and unimaginative, but he was like Ian in this: he was the kind of man who knew what to do, however sudden the crisis, or serious the problem. Marion said Fergus was worried, but Eleanor saw only calm reassurance. He seemed concerned, but not afraid, and that was a relief. If Fergus expected everything to come right in the end, it was bound to be that way.

  This was not the impression Eleanor had of Gavin Soutar, who confessed often to being unreliable, and cheerfully admitted his failures. Yet the cottage seemed to brighten when he came in, and Eleanor had more energy, and a sense that things were happening. She was self-conscious with Claire, though.

  ‘Where’d you get those flowers?’

  ‘Gavin brought them.’

  ‘Ooh, ooh – givin’ you flowers. Watch out, Mum, he fancies you.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. They were reduced in Tesco, so he bought a bunch for himself and one for me.’

  ‘A man, buying himself flowers? Weird.’

  ‘There’s nothing weird about it. His house is so nice, Claire, full of books and CDs and lovely coloured rugs.’ She cleared a space on the kitchen table where Claire had spread her homework. ‘I need a bit of table, sorry.’

  ‘I’m nearly finished.’

  Eleanor began breaking eggs into a bowl. ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘you’ll see his house on Friday.’

  ‘How will I?’

  ‘We’re going there for dinner at night, remember?’

  ‘Oh. Friday. I can’t, Mum – Sarah’s dad’s taking us into Inverness to go to the new cinema and we’re having chips and that at Harry Ramsden’s after. I’ve got to go – I promised Sarah I’d stay over.’

  ‘Oh, Claire.’

  ‘Anyway, what would I do there? You and him just talk about stuff I’m not interested in.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Well, you do. I mean, he’s nice and everything, but –’

  ‘All right.’ Eleanor left the half-beaten eggs, and put on her shoes.

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘To tell Gavin you won’t be there. I don’t suppose you want to do it.’

  ‘Thanks, Mum, you’re brilliant.�
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  ‘We could make it another night,’ Gavin suggested, ‘but it would have to be a couple of weeks away – I’m off on Saturday.’

  ‘I know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘No problem – you’ll still come, won’t you?’

  Eleanor hesitated in the doorway. She had refused to come indoors, and now she hugged her arms round herself in the cold wind. ‘Yes, if that’s … if you’re sure.’

  ‘I imagine Claire would rather be with her pals anyway?’

  She smiled at him, relieved. ‘Yes.’

  ‘See you Friday, then. Seven o’clock?’

  Going home again, Eleanor was conscious that something had shifted between them. She thought of Hogmanay, which they had not spoken about, except to joke that they had both been so drunk they scarcely remembered it. I remember the walk, he had said. She remembered more, heard him saying, I’d like to have sex with you, now. Did he remember that?

  ‘You can have a romantic dinner eh,’ Claire said when Eleanor started cooking again.

  ‘Away you go!’ Eleanor raised the lid of the Rayburn and put the omelette pan down to heat. ‘Get a lettuce out, Claire, and wash it, will you?’

  Together they prepared the meal, not talking about Gavin until Claire said later, ‘He’s not your boyfriend, is he, Mum? I thought Andrew was your boyfriend.’

  ‘I’m too old for a boyfriend.’

  ‘No, you’re not. Amy’s mum’s divorced, and she’s got a boyfriend.’ Claire was lying on the sofa, her feet propped up on the arm at the end. Eleanor had her coffee and the Scotsman.

  ‘Good for her,’ she said, turning a page.

  Claire was gazing at the piece of flat, smooth stomach between her cotton top and the waistband of her hipster trousers. ‘Know what? My belly button’s different from everyone else’s.’

  ‘Is it?’

  ‘Deeper, and a sort of longer shape.’ She poked at it, then pushed it out. ‘See, everybody else’s is like this—’

  Eleanor looked up. ‘Stop doing that – it looks obscene.’

  ‘Do you think I’m fat?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think my bum’s too big. If I stand at the mirror, with my back to it, right, and turn my head round and—’

  ‘Och, don’t be daft. You’ve a lovely figure.’

  Claire abandoned this line of thought, and picked up her magazine. ‘At least Andrew’s quite nice-looking,’ she pointed out. ‘Gavin’s, like, well, he’s ugly, don’t you think? I mean, he’s got freckles all over his arms.’

  Eleanor did not think he was ugly. Perhaps behind the way he was by day, lean but ordinary in a checked shirt and jeans, she still saw the halo of firelight glittering round him, felt his warmth as he came near. She was nervous about Friday night.

  Claire disappeared at four with her friends, and the hours between then and seven yawned vacantly ahead. Had it been light, she could have gone walking down by the firth. In the dark, what was there to do but finish the ironing, read, get changed? She had gone up to Inverness early in the day and wandered round the shops in the town centre, looking for something to wear. She had plenty of clothes; buying something new was what she did when she was bored. Marion bought in conservative department stores and looked neat and well-groomed. Eleanor had become clever at finding things second-hand, or in sales, now that she did not have to dress for anyone but herself. Sometimes even Claire said, ‘that’s really nice,’ though she was firm about never wearing anything from Oxfam herself.

  In the end, Eleanor went into an off-licence and chose a bottle of wine instead. She gazed at the rows of bottles, wondering if paying a lot was a guarantee the wine would be good. The salesman, appealed to, shrugged, and pointed out the special offers. Eleanor chose at last, but regretted it as soon as she left the shop. She should have spent more.

  At six she ran a bath, then lay in it too long, so that she was late, and arrived at Gavin’s door flushed and apologetic.

  ‘You’re dead on time,’ he said. ‘Come in.’

  ‘Oh, something smells good.’ She held out the bottle. ‘I hope this is all right.’

  ‘Great, thanks. Give me your jacket.’

  There were not so many candles this time, but several stood on the mantelpiece and the table, so that the light in the room flickered, throwing shadows on the walls. He does remember. She would not drink much tonight, just one glass of wine, or at the most, two, and keep the resolution made years ago.

  A bottle of red wine, already open, waited by the fire. He poured a glass for her. ‘Food’s nearly ready,’ he said. In the kitchen there seemed to be several pots on the stove, all of them bubbling, and the air was rich with tomato and spices. He tipped rice into the largest uncovered pan.

  ‘Ten minutes or so,’ he said. Eleanor looked round the kitchen, which was the same size as hers, but otherwise quite different: the old Rayburn had been taken out, and there were fitted pine cupboards and marble work surfaces. Everything was cluttered and untidy, and the windowsill crowded with pot plants.

  ‘We’ll eat next door – there’s only this stupid breakfast bar in here.’

  ‘Don’t you like it?’

  ‘Would you design a kitchen like this?’

  ‘I used to have a kitchen like this,’ Eleanor said, smiling, ‘only bigger, and tidier.’

  ‘Tidier wouldn’t be difficult, eh?’

  Later, she would tell Marion, ‘Yes, he can cook, much better than I can.’ But were men supposed to cook as well as this? Eleanor felt awkward, being waited on, exclaiming over how good everything tasted, but the wine did help; she was warmed through.

  She would not have more. ‘No, I’m fine. I don’t usually drink.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just don’t.’

  ‘You’re not Wee Free, you’re not ill, you don’t have to drive home – have some more.’

  Eleanor gave in, meaning to leave most of it. Yet somehow, the glass emptied and was refilled. She told herself she had come to no harm last time.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, when he had cleared the table and brought coffee.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘What is it you’re scared of, if you have a drink? Being out of control?’

  ‘No, no, it’s just something that happened. That wouldn’t have happened if I’d been sober.’

  ‘Guilt,’ he said. ‘That great Scots quality.’

  Eleanor flushed. ‘You don’t know.’

  ‘No,’ he agreed. ‘So tell me.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  He seemed to lose interest. ‘OK. Let’s get down by the lire, eh?’

  ‘Where do you come from?’ Eleanor asked when they were settled. Her glass was full again. Had she drunk some of the third glass? She had not meant to. ‘I can’t place your accent.’

  ‘Oh, I lived in England for years. I was probably in London around the time you were there. I was born in Perth, so I’m almost a Highlander,’ He grinned, raising the bottle. There was quite a lot left; they could not have had very much. But perhaps this was the second bottle – it looked like the one she had brought. They were on the rug by the fire, Gavin cross-legged, Eleanor leaning on an armchair.

  ‘My mother left my father when I was fourteen,’ he said. ‘I was at boarding school then. I came home one summer and was told I could spend the second half of the holiday with my mother in her new house. First I’d heard of it.’

  That’s terrible!’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. We’d moved to Edinburgh by that time, but my mother went to live in the Borders. There was a guy she knew who took me hill-walking with his own sons. They were older than I was. I learned a lot, that year.’

  ‘So, who did you live with?’

  ‘Mostly the old Dad. Felt he needed the company, and it wasn’t a good time to change schools. My mother married the hill-walker eventually. Nice chap. Reliable, unlike my father. He went on having his love affairs, but he didn’t seem to enjoy them so much without the secrecy.’

  ‘You�
��re joking, aren’t you?’

  ‘A bit.’

  ‘And what about you? You said you and Kate weren’t married.’ What about Kate, she wondered, who had vanished such a short time ago. A woman with short dark hair getting into a car. That was all Eleanor knew about her. The rest was what Gavin had said, and so perhaps not to be relied on.

  ‘No,’ he admitted, ‘but I was married once. It didn’t work out, didn’t last long.’

  Eleanor was reminded of David, who had often discovered that things didn’t work out.

  ‘So you didn’t have any children with her either?’ Eleanor said this casually, a question expecting the answer no, as she had once learned in Latin class. But he said, ‘Yes, yes, we did have a kid. A boy. It was difficult to kind of keep up with him after we split, though. She thought it was best if I didn’t see him, less disruptive. He was – what? – about two. I was away a lot, anyway, with the job. But I should have done more, I know that. She was ill, in and out of psychiatric care – her mother brought the boy up, really. And her mother wasn’t so keen on me.’ He smiled at her, shrugging, as if none of this really mattered. ‘He’s grownup, of course. Twenty-four. I do see him occasionally, when I’m in Glasgow.’

  Eleanor, dismayed, felt the weight of someone else’s tragedy, dismissed in a few sentences.

  ‘That’s so sad,’ she said, but her words seemed to hold no sympathy. His story, baldly told, had removed him from her, sealed him apart with his separate past. She did not want to know more, did not want it to matter now. A young man of twenty-four, grown up, not needing a father. He hovered, spectral, reminding her of how impossible it was that she and Gavin could start something new together. She wondered how people could do that, at this stage of their lives, when so much had happened already to harden them into sorrow before they even met.