‘Yes, I do enjoy it. Not the “sniffing”, as you call it, Celia, or even the visits to the pawnshops, which was a first for me, incidentally, or the “mixing” with thieving scum and “irresponsible losers”, whoever exactly they are. What I enjoy is very simple in its way. Corny, even. Putting things right, restoring order . . . helping people out.’
‘Beware of kryptonite, then!’ Celia replied, taking another sip of her wine and laughing into her drink.
Alice felt tired and unwilling to spar any more. It was like fighting with smoke. She got to her feet, taking with her Ian’s empty glass.
‘I’m going to get some food. What about either of you?’ she said, walking out of the room.
‘We’ve arranged to eat with two of our pals from the studio, haven’t we, Ian?’ Celia shouted back. And Alice noted the use of the proprietarily inclusive ‘we’. The use of it twice.
In the kitchen she heard herself slamming shut unit doors and clanging pots on the cooker as if in an unsubtle bid to get Ian’s attention. Picking out a couple of eggs from the fridge, she managed to crack both of them, without breaking the yolks, into the frying pan. How is it, she wondered, that when I feel so disturbed, so uneasy in that woman’s presence, he cannot see it and continues to invite her home? Is he blind? No doubt she is short of friends, and no surprise there, but she is most decidedly not a ‘lame duck’. Too bloody glamorous for that description, more’s the pity. And it’s too bad if she does live in her studio. She does not deserve to be allowed in here, certainly not under the lame duck exception. If she is any kind of bird, it is a bird of prey or, even more apt, a vulture. Whatever she is, Alice wanted to shout, isn’t it obvious that she only deigns to talk to me in order to make me seem like an uncultured Philistine? She views me as some kind of troglodyte, happy to plod about attending to my mundane, distasteful police tasks. Wallowing in the blood and filth of society’s dirty laundry like some kind of perverted washerwoman. Sodding aquarelles!
She pulled out a dictionary from the bookshelf beside the cooker and found the definition: ‘A drawing done in transparent watercolours’. Pretty esoteric stuff. Come to that, did Celia know what ‘plethoric’ meant or ‘adipocere’? Of course not, because she had never read a post-mortem report nor found a decomposing body. Words learnt through life or, more accurately, death.
And, she thought, irritably, I should have told her, unashamedly and confidently, that I don’t like Rothko. He’s just another link in the chain of art history, nothing more. I don’t like huge blurred blocks of colour, and they don’t move me one iota either. They bore me, and had he died fat and happy they would have been viewed quite differently. Intellect is required in art as it is in virtually any other worthwhile human activity except, perhaps, making love. There is a qualitative difference between such simple, childlike daubs and, say, Monet’s La Pie and a place for both. Under a fridge magnet for the first along with the rest of the children’s artwork, and on a gallery wall for the second.
‘Alice?’ Ian ended her heated, silent argument with herself.
‘Yes?’ she said coolly, her resentment with Celia still burning, bleeding into her reaction to him.
‘We’re off to Blanco’s. I didn’t realise you’d get back so early tonight. We all arranged it at lunch. Do you want to come too?’
‘No thanks,’ she answered, spooning hot oil over the eggs, the very idea of spending the evening with Celia, plus others who might be every bit as toxic, making her shudder inwardly.
‘Bye, then,’ Celia said sweetly, peering round the door and then adding, as she wrinkled her nose, ‘Egg and chips! Don’t you get enough of that kind of stuff in your works canteen?’
After she had eaten, Alice sat in the dark on the drawing-room floor, leaning against the front of an armchair and stroking the dog’s soft head. The solitude was blissful. Bach’s Goldberg Variations were playing and she was familiar with the recording, anticipating each note on the piano and Glenn Gould’s strange, dissonant moans.
The phone rang and she picked it up while lowering the volume on her CD player. It was her mother.
‘How did it go, darling?’ she asked, in a tone Alice recognised well. It was one she adopted when she felt the need to disguise an underlying anxiety with a veneer of brightness.
‘Fine, Ma. Just fine. The couple both said that Stevenson was the one to let the cat out of the bag, not me. One or other of them must have changed their mind recently, otherwise we wouldn’t both have been subjected to investigation, charged and so on. But, thank God, they both told the truth today.’
‘That’s terrific. So you’re in the clear now? Completely exonerated?’
‘I am. A clean slate, again. I got a nice text from Alistair and the DCI is delighted, apparently.’
‘I expect you and Ian celebrated tonight?’
An innocent enough inquiry, and one that should have been straightforward enough to answer, but was not. Alice was well aware of her parents’ view of her lover, and it would only be compounded if she told the truth. To them, he appeared overly detached, selfish and unnaturally self-sufficient. Not sufficiently protective of her. So if she said, ‘He’s gone out for a meal with friends,’ she would, to lessen the impact, also immediately have to add, ‘but I was asked out too,’ and then go on to explain why she had declined to go. And that, in turn, would be complex, involve telling more than she might wish. It would be so much easier just to spout a small, white lie.
‘He’s not back yet,’ she said. As the words left her mouth, she realised that even they would be insufficient for her parents. Why had he not thought to return early at the end of such a day? But it would have to do.
‘So late? But you’ll celebrate together later?’
‘Yes.’
At 11.30 Ian Melville opened the bedroom door and found the light still on. He smiled at Alice, got into bed and snuggled up close to her. He was wearing a white tee-shirt with his scarlet boxers and he smelt strongly of beer. From his expression it was clear that he still remained unaware of the significance of the day.
‘Good evening, you,’ he said, slightly tipsily, putting a cold arm around her and looking to see what she was reading with feigned curiosity.
‘Good evening,’ she replied evenly, keeping her eyes fixed on the print.
‘So,’ he said, ‘what did you do with yourself after we left?’
That bloody ‘we’ again, she thought.
‘I ate my supper . . . read for a bit, you know, nothing out of the ordinary.’
‘Sorry about Cici,’ he said, scratching behind one of his ears. ‘I know you don’t find her easy, but she doesn’t mean anything. Honestly. She’s all right with a paintbrush, but not so good with words.’
‘I wouldn’t say that. She seems able to express herself pretty well to me.’
‘You know what I mean,’ he hiccupped. Disagreeing, Alice did not feel the need to answer, and continued trying to read her book.
‘What’s the matter?’ he said, slipping his arm out from under her shoulder and linking it behind his head with the other one. ‘This isn’t about Cici, is it?’
‘No, it’s not. Today was my disciplinary hearing.’
‘Christ! So it was.’ He closed his eyes and then opened them again, looking at her with an expression of remorse. ‘I completely forgot about it. How did it go? I’m sorry I didn’t ask. Why didn’t you say something?’ He leant towards her, exhaling his beer-heavy breath in her face.
‘I couldn’t with bloody Cici about the place.’
‘You could have done something – I don’t know, taken me to one side. Got me into the kitchen with you. You could have got it across somehow!’
‘No. You should have remembered,’ she said hotly, turning her back on him and switching off the light. Something inside her head was thumping and the back of her eyes ached. It was too late, too late at night for this discussion.
‘Alice, I’m sorry. I am so sorry,’ he said, and then, having waited for an a
nswer and received none, he too turned so that she could feel the curve of his warm spine against her. Usually, hearing such an abject apology, she would have replied that it was all right, that it did not really matter and rolled over to face him, to look into his eyes and put her head close to his, touch his forehead with her own. But in her mind’s eye she saw Celia’s feline smile, heard the little laugh he had given to soften his chastisement of her, and so she said nothing.
3
On the pavement, the woman watched disconsolately as the bus rejoined the stream of traffic, realising as she did so that her plans, such as they were, would have to be changed. Fate had intervened and there was no point in struggling against it. As she stood still, pondering what to do next, she felt the sharpness of the January air cutting her cheeks and she realised, belatedly, that she was not dressed for a walk. All she had on was her lightweight yellow anorak, a thin cotton jersey and her jeans. Her footwear, too, was not ideal, as she had chosen it that morning with an eye to fashion rather than practicality. She was wearing her red open-toed sandals, ill-fitting and with narrow cork heels, not the other pair, those comfortable trainers.
Setting off, unsure where to go or what to do, she peered into the faces of the pedestrians she met as if they might know where she was meant to be heading and direct her. After about ten minutes walking along the main thoroughfare, a sign saying ‘Braid Road’ caught her eye. She looked round blearily, taking in the prosperous villas on either side of it, each fronted by a well-kept garden, and at the imposing, red sandstone church near the corner. The name meant nothing to her, and she stood still for a moment, wondering whether to retreat back into Morningside or to carry on up this unknown street.
A passer-by, seeing the woman’s mouth moving as she talked to herself, hurried onwards, afraid that he might be accosted by her. She, unaware of the impression she was making and still having made no conscious decision, began traipsing uphill. Her mind was as blank as a sheet of paper, one foot moving in front of the other as automatically and unthinkingly as her lungs were drawing in the cold air.
Finding herself at the brow of the hill, she surveyed the scene in front of her, uncertain, once more, whether to carry on or turn back into known territory. On her left was a road marked Hermitage Drive and, to her right, another, Braidburn Terrace. Carrying straight on and heading downhill would be the easiest option in these shoes, she decided, so she set off on her descent, carrier bag swinging to and fro against her calf, heedless as to where she would end up. It seemed wise to keep walking in this weather, try and generate some body heat. The exercise might help to dislodge her headache too.
After a further few minutes she noticed a low wall on her left with an opening in it. A line of parked cars led up to it, and some of them looked quite flash, she thought. If it was the entrance to a park she would go in and take a shufti. Her time was her own, and she liked parks. The modest side entrance bore a sign, ‘Hermitage of Braid and Blackford Hill Local Nature Reserve’, and she walked through. As she entered, a flock of about twenty rooks rose upwards, cawing their alarm at the intruder before dispersing into the treetops and regrouping.
Running parallel to the wide path was a swift-flowing burn and, entranced by it, she followed its course as it led her into a more densely wooded area. Struck by the loveliness of the place, she stood still, deliberately breathing in more deeply, as if the air in the park might be healthier, fresher, unpolluted by car fumes. By good luck, she marvelled, she seemed to have wandered into a miniature Highland glen within the Lowland city. As she looked up, the crowns of countless leafless trees appeared silhouetted against a cloud-free blue sky, and light streaming between their branches fell and danced on the undergrowth below them. Where she was standing the terrain was relatively flat, but looking eastwards it began to rise on either side of the path, turning into small hillocks and undulations, and in places the bare rock of cliffsides was exposed, a few stunted ferns or rowan trees clinging to the cracks. Everywhere, the sound of running water could be heard, as if from a living organism, drowning out the usual hum of the traffic.
While she was within the confines of this park, she mused, the bustling metropolis of Edinburgh might as well not exist. A bomb could have fallen on the city, not that she would have cared. In fact, it would be no bad thing.
In the distance she could make out the outline of a grand mansion and, instinctively, she began to move towards it. A cyclist, with a dog trailing behind him on a long lead, passed her, and far off she could hear the excited, high-pitched shouts of children as they played somewhere deep in the hills.
The house, when she reached it, did not disappoint her. Situated in its dell, it seemed ludicrously romantic, with its bay front and corner turrets and, best of all, the walls crowned by battlements. The burn coursed behind the building, twisting and turning, eventually transforming itself into a torrent and powering its way between moss-clad boulders towards a small waterfall.
Still gazing straight ahead as she walked, absorbed by the sights before her, she did not notice a deep puddle on the path and stepped clumsily into it with both feet. The water was icy, and she looked down in despair at her sodden tights and mud-covered sandals. A metal bench had been placed by the waterside, and with a sigh she plumped herself down on it, now feeling almost intimidated by the discordant cries of the rooks as they circled above her in the darkening sky. Maybe they would launch an attack on her eyes, like in that Hitchcock film, The Birds? Fat chance, and anyway, she would give them what for. They would wish they had never hatched. Pluck them.
She put down her carrier bag on the muddy ground and crossed her legs. While she was getting her breath back, listening to the crows, she was entertained by the passing joggers as they forced themselves onwards, lungs pumping out white steam, mud spattering their Lycraclad buttocks. Some seemed to be racing, and innocent pleasure could be derived from watching the discomfort of others.
Fortunately, she had, she laughed to herself, long since dropped out of the human race. Without thinking, she started to turn the wedding band on her finger, and when she became aware of what she was doing she shook her head. All in all, it was just as well those cash people had refused to take it. True, the money would have been useful, it was always useful, but the ring was part of her past. All reminders of it should not be lost. In her mind’s eye she could still see Archie’s trembling hand as he fitted it over her slim finger, looking her in the eye shyly as he did so, unable to stop grinning even though they were in the Kirk. And it was bloody gold all right, not a curtain ring, better stuff than the engagement one, for all its diamond solitaire. More carrots or whatever they were called. That place in Gorgie had not demanded any bills or anything else to take it, they had been only too eager to convert it into cash for her. No questions asked, they did what they said they did. The Leith branch had airs and graces above its station.
Feeling strangely unsteady on her feet, she rose and trudged onwards through the woods until the scenery changed again and she found herself in what seemed to be a tract of open countryside. Through it, the burn flowed onwards, but it was wider now, spreading out on either side of a gravel bank and becoming more sluggish. The place seemed somehow familiar, like a landscape she remembered from childhood. It was a vast area with reeds dotted in amongst the sour grass, and pancake-flat, like the hinterlands of the village she had grown up in. There was nothing ornate or fancy about that childhood place, just like the people who had lived there.
The sun had begun to set and a light drizzle was falling, soaking her head and shoulders. Feeling cold, she pulled the ends of her jacket collar together and kept on walking, putting one sodden foot in front of the other, humming ‘Clementine’ to herself, still in good spirits and enjoying her unexpected rural break. Everyone else seemed to have left this part of the park and she meandered off the main pathway, heading upwards on what looked like a sheep-track, and after a short climb found herself in a wide gully. On either side of the path were low thickets o
f bare, wind-twisted bushes.
When the weather suddenly took a turn for the worse, she hunkered down in front of them, seeking shelter from squalls which seemed to have risen from nowhere and now lashed at her, constantly changing their direction. As she backed into the bushes, trying to keep dry, a thorn pricked her backside and made her squeak like a baby. It was not a comfortable place to be in. The ground was damp and hard as metal, and in her squatting position her close-fitting trousers cut into her flesh.
All the same, taking advantage of the minimal cover, with nowhere better in sight, she decided to eat her crisps there. Tasting one and finding she had no appetite, she sprinkled the rest of the packet on the ground, picturing, as she did so, Saint Francis in his brown robes and sandalled feet as he fed the woodland creatures. The empty Tesco bag blew away, inflated like a balloon and rose into the air, dancing jauntily before impaling itself on an overhanging branch.
As she continued to squat, her belly began to feel uncomfortable, unnaturally distended, and she was aware of a painful pressure on her tight bladder. If she moved, she could actually hear the liquid splashing inside her. Drops of rain coursed down her wet face and her hair clung to her scalp, no longer providing any warmth for her head.
Her mind drifted back to the events of day before, scorched onto her brain and unforgettable. How could he do such a thing to her? Oh, if he could see me now, she thought, and then she shouted it out loud, consumed with an overpowering anger, unable to contain it any longer. Gradually, her voice tailed off into a prolonged moan, expressive only of her despair.
The very sight of me would paralyse him with horror. Kill him stone dead. I thought I was beyond hurting, cauterised, invulnerable, until I met him.
Tears came to her eyes and she tried to wipe them away, but found it difficult because her hands were numb with the cold. It was as if she was wearing thick gloves; her fingers no longer seemed to have any sensation, as if they belonged to someone else. A few minutes earlier, her whole body had started to shiver uncontrollably, and now, worried about herself, she rose unsteadily to her feet, determined to leave the place and return to the warmth of the city.
The Road to Hell Page 4
